Читать книгу Wallflowers - Temple Bailey - Страница 3

Table of Contents

Rufus Fiske had always loved the view from that corner. He remembered a bleak March day when he had come with his parents to Roosevelt’s inauguration. He and his mother had walked from their hotel to St. John’s church for an early service, and afterward had stood looking out across Lafayette Square to the squat White House, simple yet heart-thrilling with its bright flag flying.

“A thing to remember, Rufus.”

“It is more wonderful than palaces, isn’t it, mother?”

The flag was flying now for another president, and the Square was gay with June bloom and beauty. But St. John’s had been spoiled by a new coat of paint and a sky-scraping building back of it. There were hundreds of motor cars in place of the high-stepping horses and leisurely carriages.

Washington had been to the boy a place of enchantment. The man had returned to find much of the glamour gone, a thing to be blamed not, perhaps, on the city, but on himself. The lad who had come to Roosevelt’s inauguration had lost many of his illusions.

He sauntered on, seeing on each side of him the shops which had replaced the fine old residences. At one of the shops he stopped and stood looking in. There was a wide window, with a display which caught the eye. A frail beaker of green glass, like water at great depths, was backed by a length of silver-embroidered satin which trailed from a chair with carved knees and claw-and-ball feet. The window was set into what had been, apparently, the brick front of a house with an English basement. One went in by a door on the ground floor and turned to the right.

Rufus, entering, was met by a young woman in horn spectacles.

He asked: “May I see Mr. Maulsby? I have an appointment with him.”

She seemed flurried. “Mr. Maulsby will see you in a moment. We’ve just had an accident.”

“No one badly hurt, I hope?”

“Oh,” she clasped her hands together in a gesture of great distress. “Worse than that. It was one of a set of Chelsea figures. Mr. Maulsby’s almost out of his head.”

A nervous voice sounded from the other room. “I could forgive you, if you seemed to care.”

Another voice, impudently: “I don’t want your forgiveness. I want my check.”

There appeared then in an archway a man and a boy, their flushed faces and heated air proclaiming their agitation.

“I beg your pardon,” the man said as he saw Fiske, “I didn’t know there was a customer.”

“I am not a customer,” Rufus told him. “I talked with you over the telephone about some ivories you might want to buy.”

“I remember. I’ll be with you in a second.” He turned to the boy. “Go over to the Stocks Building, and Miss Deakin will give you your check. I’d rather pay you than argue about it. But nothing can ever pay for what you’ve done.”

The boy flung himself out of the front door, and Maulsby, with a murmured apology to Fiske, picked up the receiver of the telephone and got a number. “He’s a cold-blooded little beast, Miss Deakin. You might have thought he had broken a china cup, instead of a priceless piece. And will you put an advertisement in the paper? I’ve got to have some one here at once. I can’t be tied to the shop.”

He rang off and came forward. “Sorry,” he said to Rufus. “Will you follow me out to the garden? It is cooler there, and we can talk.”

He led the way through the rooms. Lighted by low lamps they glimmered and glowed—old silver, satin-wood, tapestries, prints and portraits. Beyond the rooms was a garden—a green, quiet space which might have been a thousand miles away from the city. The brick walls which enclosed it were hung with ancient ivy, and some old rose bushes were blooming. A group of pointed cedars made a background for a stone bench and threw their black shadows across the smooth sward. The garden chairs of Chinese cane had linen cushions. The whole effect was cool and charming.

Maulsby had a keen face and a nervous manner which matched his voice. He wore glasses on a black ribbon and swung them as he talked. His gray hair was thick and fine and stood up on his head.

“It is too bad you were let in for such a scene,” he said, as he sat down, “but I find it very hard to get any one who fits into this sort of thing. That boy, when I took him, had had some experience in shops like mine, but he is utterly without love for the work. He handled registered Worcester as if it were earthenware.”

As he voiced his grievances, Maulsby smoked nervously, one cigarette after another. At last he came to the matter in hand. “Did you bring the ivories?”

“Yes.” Rufus opened a leather case and set forth on the marble bench five small figures, magnolia-tinted, touched with magic. They represented, he explained, the five senses.

The older man, bending over them, was at once aware of their perfection. Charming nymphs, exquisitely carved, one with a shell to her ear, another dangling a bunch of grapes above her lips, a third sniffing a rose, a fourth surveying herself in a mirror, and the loveliest of all fingering the soft fur of the leopard’s skin thrown about her thighs, they were treasures to make any collector avid for possession.

“Seventeenth century?”

Rufus nodded.

“What do you know of their history?”

“Not much. But you can see that they’re authentic.”

“Where’d you pick them up?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then young Fiske said succinctly, “Heirlooms.”

Maulsby dangled his glasses. “You’ve got something. I can’t be fooled in such matters.”

“I’m not trying to fool you.”

“What’s your price?”

“Two thousand.”

“Too much.”

Rufus smiled. “You know it isn’t. You’re saying that automatically.”

Their eyes met. “They’re worth it,” Maulsby agreed, “but I don’t believe you’re going to get it.”

“I must get it. I’ve got to have the money.”

Maulsby’s keen glance weighed him. Fiske did not look like a man in need. He was exceedingly well-dressed. His manners were those of a gentleman. And he was good-looking. Tall and thin, but with the grace of youth in his strong body.

“I’m going to get my price,” he repeated with a smile, “and I think you are going to give it to me. I hate to seem mercenary, but my wares are worth it.”

“There’s no hurry, is there?”

“Yes. I’ve got to have it off my mind. And Griselda’s.” Little sparks of amusement shone in Rufus’ eyes.

“Griselda? Your wife?”

“My cat ... !”

Maulsby stared at him. “Your cat?”

“Yes. I live in what is called an ‘efficiency apartment.’ A few weeks ago I was foolish enough to take unto myself a Persian pussy who was being ill-treated by her owners. The court which is bounded by our apartment house is Griselda’s only place for exercise and refreshment. And it is really no place for a lady of her rank and attainments. Besides, she is always being chased by dogs. So I’ll get her out into the country, where her mind will be at ease.”

He laughed and Maulsby said, “You’re not serious, of course.”

“I think I am. But, there’s more than Griselda’s comfort in it. I feel penned-up in an apartment—I’ve always known wide spaces ...” His voice trailed off into silence.

He went on presently. “I’m writing a book. I tried to rent a cottage, but there seems to be none available. So I’ll buy and sell when I’m tired of it. Your two thousand will help finance it, and I’ll make a payment on a car. The rest is on the knees of the gods.”

“You seem very sure of my—two thousand.”

“Why not? You know a good thing when you see it, don’t you?”

It was a challenge, and Maulsby met it with, “Give me until tomorrow morning.”

“Why put it off?”

“Great guns—I can’t make up my mind in a minute.”

“If you don’t want them, I can try Tidman.”

“Tidman is purely commercial. I should hate to see them wasted.”

Rufus reached for the little figures and put them in their case. “I’ll come in early and have it off my mind.”

“Good.”

They rose and went into the shop together. Just inside the door a customer claimed Maulsby, so Rufus wandered through the rooms alone, stopping now and then to bend above some object of breathless beauty, to study a trademark, to start the chime of a bit of choice glass with a fillip of his finger.

He came presently to a small alcove where were hung a half-dozen framed prints. Only one light was on, and illumined the top picture so that it stood out from among the others, its color clear and bright.

Rufus had often seen the picture. He had, indeed, seen the original when he had visited the famous gallery in which it hung. He remembered that in the gallery there had been several others by Vigée LeBrun, and he had gone back again and again to look upon the sparkling countenance of The Boy in Red—the parted lips, the eyes with the merry, sidelong glance, the quick turn of the head, caught by the painter and immortalized. There was something in it that had always held him. Some vivid, arresting quality. Youth, he felt, should be like that, with laughter on its lips, light in its eyes.

His own youth had not been like that. As he stood looking up at the print, he thought of the boy who had been himself, a bit hardened, disillusioned, fighting blindly against forces which threatened to overwhelm him. When the boy who had been himself had laughed, it had not been with the sparkling gaiety of the Boy in Red, but with a touch of cynicism, because of his lack of faith in the things a boy should believe.

With the memory of the things which had hardened him darkening the sunlight, Rufus walked the streets for an hour before going home; so that when at last he reached his apartment, his watch showed a late dinner hour. As his exchequer was low, he decided to dine with Griselda. Bread and milk would do for both of them, and tomorrow, with Maulsby’s check in his pocket, he would feast like a king in a delectable inn some miles out in Maryland, and Griselda should have a pot of cream to console her.

He found the white cat waiting for him on the little balcony which overlooked the court. As he entered the rooms, the air felt close and hot. He turned on the electric fan, took off his coat, and set forth his simple fare on the blotter of his big table. Griselda had her saucer on the floor beside him. So they dined, each with apparent zest. If Rufus thought of the time when he had had silver candlesticks in front of him and a butler at his back, he gave no sign. The war had taught him many things. And not the least of his lessons had been to learn that accessories do not make an appetite.

When the meal was over, Rufus smoked a cigarette, sitting in the long window which opened out of the balcony. The white cat stretched herself on his knee. He could feel the steady throb of her contented song.

All about him were other balconies. Most of them were empty at this hour, when everybody went to ride or to the moving picture palaces, or at least to show themselves in the reception rooms downstairs. The few people who remained were mothers putting young children to bed, busy wives washing up late dishes, or tired men content to get the air at the back of the house and listen to the jazz dinner-music broadcast over the radio.

Across the court, and on the floor just above him, Fiske saw a woman come out and stand with her hand on the railing of her balcony, looking up at the square of the sky which the court bounded and which was reddened now by the sunset. She was not a young woman. She had a stout, matronly figure and gray hair, but there was something in her attitude which held his attention. Her face was lifted to the sky, and her right hand was on her throat. She had the air of straining upward as a bird who tries to fly on wings which are too weak.

The woman stood there for a long time, until the sky changed and darkened. She was not beautiful, but she had fine, strongly marked features. Her gray hair was simply parted. Her clothes were old-fashioned. Presently the dusk blurred her features, but she still stood looking up, and all at once the window behind her opened and a girl came out. Rufus could not see the girl’s face. She was only a silhouette against the lighted space behind her.

Again the window opened. A second girl emerged. Fiske heard the murmur of their voices. Light laughter. Then the girls went in, and the older woman stood leaning on the rail. He thought that this time she was looking down, but he could not be sure.

There was a lantern hanging in an archway which led out of the court. This archway was a short cut to the street and in good weather was used by many of the occupants. Motor cars stopped, too, at this entrance, since there was more parking space than in the front of the house. The light from the lantern illuminated the stone walk for some distance, and it was along this lighted walk that Fiske presently discerned two slender figures coming on with hurried feet.

The woman of the balcony called down to them, “Have a good time, darlings.”

One of the girls went on, but the other stopped and called back, “Oh, Mumsie, I know it will be gorgeous.”

She was under the lantern now, and as she turned to wave to the woman on the balcony, Rufus saw her face...

Where had he seen a face like that? The sparkling glance? The parted lips? The vividness? The gay and arresting beauty?

In a moment he had it. The Boy in Red! Queer how things like that happened! In one day. Seeing the picture, and then this girl. But life was like that. Coincidences were not all in books.

The two girls swept on. Their little feet seemed to dance along the walk. They danced into the darkness and were gone.