Читать книгу Her Reputation - Talbot Mundy - Страница 10

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Don Andres Miro, inheritor of self-command as well as too much pride, never cared to show his hand until he judged the proper moment had arrived. The drawers of his desk, and the safe in the closet, were always locked. He kept his own keys and counsel.

So Donna Isabella did not even know that a letter came from the Mother Superior, although she carried in the mail-bag and sat down facing her brother. She had had no further word with Consuelo about Jack Calhoun's love letter, being minded to let the nurse bear the full weight of responsibility in case of accident. The Sister Superior would certainly write to Don Andres. Donna Isabella was determined to be on hand and informed of that move of events in order to snatch the advantage and tell her own version of Jacqueline's intrigue with Jack Calhoun at the moment when it would have most weight.

"I am expecting one or two important letters, Andres. Won't you please open the bag?"

His eyes met hers incuriously. His voice was exactly as usual.

"Important letters? Certainly, Isabella. I will send them to you as usual in the drawing-room."

"They are letters I don't wish the servants to see. Open the bag and give them to me, Andres."

But he did not yield an inch of ground, or fail of a moment's courtesy.

"In that case I will bring them to you with my own hand, Isabella."

She mastered her exasperation and contrived to smile. "Why trouble, Andres? With your heart so weak you should spare yourself. Give me the letters now."

"When my health is too far gone to permit me to cross the patio it will be time for me to change all my old habits," he answered suavely. "For the present I am aware that habits cling to me."

"God aids him who changes!" she retorted, quoting the old Spanish proverb. Then she rose and left the room with all the air of indifference she could master—which was rather less than she could wish. Don Andres' eyes smiled as the door shut with a snap behind her, and he inserted the key in the mail-bag lock.

The Sister Superior's letter emerged first. He sat turning it over and over without opening it. He scented danger—nodded—put the letter in his pocket and began to sort over the rest of the contents of the bag. Two minutes later he crossed the patio and opened the drawing-room door.

"No letters for you, Isabella."

She felt obliged to look surprised, and he looked sorry to have brought her disappointing news, but that was all. She decided she had hoped too soon. The next day's mail, or the next, would bring it.

But Don Andres returned to the library and sat for a whole hour reading and rereading—first the Sister Superior's fine script—and then the bold impulsive hand of Jack Calhoun, that began its sentences so downrightly and ended them in a scrawl and a dash toward the next.

It hurt. For a while his face grew ashen-gray as the weakening heart- valves failed under the mental pressure. He leaned his head back on the chair.

Slowly at first, and then with a wave of energy, Don Andres seemed almost to renew his youth. His face grew hard—the mask was off. He returned the letters to his pocket. No need to read them again, for he had them by heart and could see them, paragraph by paragraph, as if projected on a screen before his eyes.

"—a good girl, and always truthful. What I do not understand is the young man's reference to previous letters, which he complains of her not answering. She denies all knowledge of them."

"No 'and' about it! Jacqueline denies. That ends the argument."

He knew who the enemy was, although characteristically even then he named no names—not even to himself unheard and unseen in a room regarded as his sanctuary. He rose, surprised at his own weakness and, summoning physical strength by an effort of will, walked over to the door and locked it. Then he sat down again to review the situation in all its bearings.

"Poison," he muttered to himself. "A pen dipped in poison brewed in mine own house!"

He recalled Consuelo's impassioned outburst, word by word, and the orders he had given her.

"Good, faithful woman!" he said, nodding. "She shall be trusted further."

He smiled as he recalled his sister's anxiety about the mail-bag— naming no names—merely smiling. He understood that some one was in league with young Calhoun. Sufficient that he understood it.

Jack Calhoun. Forbid him the house? Perhaps, after all, not necessary. Cuba. Very fortunate for all concerned, including Jack Calhoun, whose absence would preserve him from indignity. There were rumors of financial trouble in connection with that Cuban plantation; and he rather thought, Don Andres did, that before Mr. Jack Calhoun could return from Cuba circumstances would have changed surprisingly—whereafter he at least hoped Jack Calhoun would know enough to keep his hands off.

"There is no other way—at any rate no better way," he muttered.

It annoyed him that he had been so long in making up his mind, but he knew that it was only his anxiety on Jacqueline's account that had made him over-cautious. Now he threw, not caution, but procrastination to the winds. He went first of all to the desk and answered the Sister Superior's letter, lest Jacqueline should suffer an unnecessary moment's anguish.

"—grateful to you for your vigilance, and, if that were possible, more sure than ever of your judgment since you confirm my own conviction that she is always truthful.

"For the rest, I will immediately take steps to prevent a recurrence of such unsolicited attentions to Jacqueline and their consequent annoyance to yourself. I will write to you again, in confidence, about this at the proper time.

"May I suggest to you, meanwhile, if that may be done without presumption, that nothing would be lost by permitting Jacqueline to forget the incident, since I can well believe she has already suffered as much as if she were really guilty of grave indiscretion. I feel quite sure of her innocence.

"With renewed expression of my confidence—"

When he had sealed that letter he wrote a telegram—short, definite and urgent—then rang the bell and unlocked the door.

"Send Consuelo!"

No suggestion of conspiracy—no hint to Consuelo of a secret held between them—not a question concerning how or when that letter from Jack Calhoun had reached the convent.

"Take the limousine, Consuelo, and deliver this letter into the Sister Superior's hand. On your way send this telegram."

She understood. Her eyes shone. Don Andres already knew then—knew her part in it—and she was being trusted!

But she had to cross the patio to reach the servants' quarters and give orders for the limousine; and as the Holy Virgin was her witness, she was not invisible! She could not make herself unseen by Donna Isabella, although she would have sunk into the ground for choice.

"Where are you going in such a hurry, Consuelo? What did Don Andres want with you?"

Well—Mother of God have pity on her!—she had lied a hundred times to save Miss Jacqueline, and had always done the penances imposed by Father Doutreleau, exacting though he was! She could lie again—and pay for it again—

"To the drug-store, Donna Isabella."

"Why?"

"For medicine."

"Where is the prescriptions"

It is loyalty that is the mother of invention.

"Doctor Beal promised he would leave it at the drugstore."

"Why didn't you tell Don Andres that I have given you other tasks? Go about your own business, I will send one of the footmen."

But a library window overlooked the patio, and Don Andres appeared in the doorway to the rescue, saying nothing, merely observant, shutting the door with a slam behind him to call attention to himself.

"Andres, why do you send Consuelo on an errand! She's forever finding some excuse for laziness. I'll send one of the footmen for your medicine."

"The footmen have bad memories," he answered.

"Nonsense! Write it down for him."

"I have—given—Consuelo—my instructions— Isabella!"

Brother and sister faced each other, and Consuelo fled; it was none of her business to witness a family quarrel. Don Andres smiled faintly as he watched her go, assured that he was right, she could be trusted.

"Your illness is no excuse, Andres, for putting me to gross indignity before a servant!"

"No," he said, "no illness could excuse that, could it!"

From her window, fifteen minutes later, she could see the limousine away in the distance, driving in the opposite direction to the village where the drug-store was that Andres usually patronized. It was headed straight for the convent.

So! That settled that! The news was out, and Consuelo must have turned the trick against her! What an idiot she had been to trust that woman—to endure her in the house!

It was too much already to have had to endure Jacqueline. Perhaps Andres thought that by insisting on keeping Jacqueline he could irritate her into leaving his roof and taking up quarters elsewhere. If so, he fooled himself! She had her rights—the legal right, not only to an income out of the estate, but to reside in the Miro mansion. No more than any Miro would she ever relinquish one privilege!

Well—so it was war, was it, between Andres and herself? She might as well look the fact in the face.

The bone of contention was Jacqueline. The only ally whom she could think of for the moment was Jack Calhoun. What had the young fool gone to Cuba for? Why couldn't he have waited?

Andres knew now about Calhoun's attentions to Jacqueline; that much was obvious. Give him enough scandal, and he would force Jacqueline into a marriage with Jack Calhoun or any other man!

Why in the name of ninety saints had the young fool gone away to Cuba?

Well—he could come back, couldn't he? He looked impetuous enough for anything!

Donna Isabella sat down at her escritoire and wrote to Jack Calhoun one of those guarded communications that stir the recipient's imagination by suggestion of what they leave unsaid.

"—Don Andres Miro has heard of your attentions to Miss Lanier and is taking steps to prevent a recurrence.

"I am quite ignorant of his plans. He has not consulted me. I have no actual proof that he has in mind some other individual of his own choosing, who perhaps he thinks will make a better husband for Miss Lanier—"

Donna Isabella smiled over that sentence. If anything could bring Jack Calhoun hurrying back from Cuba, that would. She sealed up the letter and took exquisite delight in dropping it into the mail-bag in her brother's presence and watching him turn the key, insuring trouble for himself. It made her sunny-tempered for an hour.

However, at the end of the hour she was on the horns of anxiety again; for it was she in person who received over the telephone a telegram from New Orleans. Curtis Radcliffe would arrive in time for dinner.

What was Andres up to now? Curtis Radcliffe had the reputation of being the cleverest lawyer in Louisiana, and that was synonymous in Donna Isabella's mind with treachery and underhanded cunning.

Andres might be thinking of changing his will, but he would hardly send for such an expensive man as Radcliffe in a hurry about that, because the estates and investments were practically all included in the Miro trust deed, and there was not a great deal else that Andres had to bequeath. Was he proposing to try to change the trust deed? Then she need not worry! He had tried that once before. Radcliffe had advised him it would need his sister's signature as well as that of the cousin who manufactured gum shoes. Andres would be too proud even to approach the gum shoe-maker, and as for herself, wild horses should not make her sign anything!

Summoning all her self-control she went to the library and announced the telegram.

"Curtis Radcliffe is on his way."

"I supposed so. I have just written notes to Doutreleau and Beal, inviting them to dinner too, to meet him."

"Really, Andres! Do you call that fair to me? How can I arrange a dinner for three guests at a moment's notice? Couldn't you have spoken sooner?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I do not like to speak before I have decided, Isabella."

How could anybody be affectionate to such a man! It was all she could do to avoid precipitating an open quarrel—more than she could do to retire without firing a Parthian shot.*

[* Parthian shot—a tactic employed by ancient Persian horse archers. The horsemen would feign retreat at full gallop, then suddenly turn their bodies around and fire arrows at the pursuing enemy. Wikipedia. Used metaphorically in this context.]

"I'm evidently nothing more than your housekeeper!"

"Not evidently, Isabella!"

Now what in the name of all the martyrs did he mean by that? Something sly undoubtedly. She slammed the door, and made up her mind that the dinner- party should not go down in the Miro annals as a joy to be recalled and lingered over.

Nevertheless, not even her sardonic humor spoiled the feast, for Andres was at his best and gave his own instructions to the butler about wine. And Curtis Radcliffe was a man whose conversation flourished on Chateau Margeaux '84—who knew good jokes about the priesthood that made François Doutreleau chuckle and hold his sides—who was far too discerning to annoy Beal with equally good digs at the doctors—and whose stories about lawyers were as merciless as they were funny.

"You appear to glory in the baseness of your own profession!" snorted Donna Isabella.

"As the good sun glories in the darkness it dispels!" said Doutreleau.

"As courtesy delights in opportunity—or a surgeon likes—what is it that a surgeon aspires to, Beal?" asked Andres.

"Partnership, with Radcliffe and myself!" said Doutreleau. Beal never had an answer ready.

It was an old-fashioned house, with the old time-honored ways unchanged. The men sat over the nuts and wine when the hostess had withdrawn, and Donna Isabella wandered about the patio moodily, listening to laughter that annoyed her all the more because she knew it masked seriousness. They would not talk business in the dining room, she knew that; Andres was a man who did everything at the appointed time and in the proper place. Whatever secret scheme had brought these four together would be discussed in the library and probably behind a locked door.

But the night was warm, and three of the library windows faced the lawn. Donna Isabella had a perfect right to enjoy the flowers and the moonlight shimmering on undulating landscape—perfect right to summon a footman and have a chair set for herself beneath an open window. She had a perfect right to sit still and nearly choke herself with a handkerchief trying to suppress a cough (for the night was a trifle chilly after all) when she heard the four men enter the library and felt, rather than saw the lights turned on.

She could hear Radcliffe making the circuit of the bookshelves. Doutreleau, she knew was already in an armchair. She heard Beal clear his throat, and heard his chair creak as he turned it toward Andres. Then her brother's calm voice; she could imagine him, with his back to the fireplace, smiling;

"Now, Beal, out with it! How long am I likely to live?"

Ten thousand devils take the man! Beal never answered promptly— hummed and ha-a-ed like a nincompoop, as if afraid of his own voice. And Donna Isabella—whether she was startled or felt chilled because she had not brought her shawl—coughed, and smothered a second cough into a handkerchief.

A moment later she heard Andres stride to the window. He closed it and pulled the shade down without deigning to glance out to see who might be sitting underneath it. He could guess too easily—preferred too magnificently not to know.