Читать книгу Wallflowers - Temple Bailey - Страница 5

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Dancing feet!

“Sandra, stop laughing. There isn’t anything funny about it.”

“There is! Oh, we thought we knew how to dance, Doady!”

“Nobody will ask us again. I had to stop three times. If I hadn’t had a polite partner!”

“Mine wasn’t polite.”

“Well, mine was. I stepped all over his feet, and he said: ‘A bit hot, don’t you think? Shall we sit it out?’ ”

“Doady, he deserved a crown! Mine said, ‘Gosh, is that how they do it down your way?’ And I said, ‘What way?’ And he said, ‘Aren’t you from Virginia or something?’ ”

Sandra’s eyes had gay lights in them, but Theodora saw no humor in the situation. “What must they think of us?”

“I don’t care what they think.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“Oh, well ... we’re wallflowers.... Not a soul has come near us for hours ... !”

“It hasn’t been ten minutes.”

Some one was approaching. Stephanie! All in yellow! Like a daffodil in the spring!

“My dears? Sitting off here alone?”

Alone? Well, why not? It’s your fault. To get us here ... and then play sheep and goats with your guests! And Sandra and I are the goats! All this not on Theodora’s lips, but beating in her brain.

It was Sandra who answered Stephanie. “We’re not so far off, really. It’s a mental rather than a physical distance.”

Stephanie stared, “My dear?”

“I mean,” Sandra was blunt, “we’ve never danced the Charleston, and all the men are fighting shy of us. We each had a partner. Theodora’s was polite, but mine wasn’t. And it was all the same in the end ... neither of them came back.”

Stephanie bridged the dreadfulness of the moment with, “I’m sure it isn’t as bad as it sounds.”

“It’s worse,” Sandra’s smile softened the words. “You see we’ve always been fairly popular down home, and our pride is hurt.”

Sandra’s smile was magnetic, and Stephanie found herself smiling back. The child’s frock was frumpy and old-fashioned, yet in spite of it she had an air of distinction. The other sister was better looking and better dressed. But both of them lacked the things that belonged to Stephanie’s crowd. She hadn’t dreamed they would be like this! A pair of white elephants.

Thinking quickly, she asked, “Have you met Gale Markham?”

They had not.

“Oh, well,” eagerly, “he doesn’t dance. And it is such a gorgeous night. He’d be keen to rush you around the Speedway in his roadster and get you back in time for supper. Would you like it?”

“Adore it,” Sandra said.

Stephanie rushed off, and Sandra, looking after her, said: “She’s turned the pumpkins into a fairy coach.”

Theodora blazed: “I wish you wouldn’t talk like a book. It’s terribly middle-class.”

Theodora didn’t want a fairy coach. She wanted a partner. She wanted to stay in the snug little ballroom of the apartment hotel where Stephanie made her home. It was a charming place with its spring flowers, its silken hangings, its great round lights like gold balloons. She didn’t want to be bundled out into the night with a man who couldn’t dance.

She voiced her exasperation: “She’s probably telling him we can’t dance. He’ll know we’re wallflowers. He’ll know we couldn’t get any partners.”

Sandra was serene. A moonlight night—and all the glory of the out-of-doors! “I don’t care what he knows about us, Doady, if only he can drive a car.”

The place to which the sisters had retreated was between one of the big windows. There was a gilt-legged bench done up in gold brocade. Theodora sat on the bench, and Sandra stood beside her, so that it was Sandra whom Gale Markham saw first as he approached with Stephanie. He was not aware that she made more than a slight impression on his mind, yet years after, when he thought of her, it was as she had appeared to him then, a slender, smiling child clothed in a pink frock as became her youth.

As for himself, he was stockily built and walked with the swing of a sailor. He had a thick-curled thatch of sandy hair and the clearest blue eyes that Theodora had ever seen. It was his eyes that Theodora noticed, and it was typical of the two sisters that Sandra should observe the sailor-like swing and wonder about it, without thinking of his eyes. Gale Markham was not handsome, he was not graceful, and he lacked the air of sartorial perfection which marked the two young men who had danced with the sisters and deserted them.

Theodora, weighing him critically, decided that he was one of the goats. His dress-clothes were shabby, and when they went out to his car they found it a rackety roadster.

The girls and Gale were crowded into the rather narrow seat. Theodora resented the whole thing. It is utterly provincial ... we might be two farmer’s daughters riding on the driver’s seat.

She made a stab at the proprieties. “Down our way this would be an adventure. Without a chaperon.”

“They’re extinct, aren’t they? Since the war? And I’m old enough to make it proper. Stephanie knows that, or she wouldn’t have trusted me with such a pair of—pretty things.”

The way he said it was delightful. Flinging it off. Pretty things! Theodora found herself smiling, unexpectedly.

The rackety little car went sailing down Sixteenth Street, with the great houses ghostly under the moon. A twist and a turn around a circle or two, then the Avenue, the White House and the fragrance of blossoming plants, other white buildings as they reached the Mall, the towering shaft of the light-tipped Monument, the Speedway, the river, silver masses of marble, the Lincoln Memorial—beauty, breezes, the Virginia hills beyond.

“I kiss my hands to them,” Sandra said when she saw the hills. “They are bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.”

There she was again, Theodora reflected, talking like a book. And people didn’t do it. The light touch was the thing. Stephanie would never have quoted the Bible, nor would those two young men who had tried to dance with them.

Out of her thoughts she found herself asking, “Mr. Markham, why don’t you dance?”

“A stiff bone or two in my foot. The war, you know.”

“Oh, are you as old as that?”

“As what?”

“The war.”

“I had four years of it. I’m thirty.”

They had not guessed it. He did not look it, with his boy’s face and the youthful swing of his figure.

“We are eighteen,” Sandra vouchsafed.

“Twins?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not in the least alike.”

“I’m darker than Doady, and smaller.”

“When we get back to the light, I’ll have another squint at the two of you. Stephanie says your mother knew her mother. How do you like Washington?”

Theodora let Sandra answer him. As for herself she was still flaming at having been bundled from the ballroom. It is just because we haven’t the right clothes. Or the new dancing steps. If I had on a dress like Stephanie’s. And gold slippers ... and the newest hair cut ... with a little duck’s tail on each cheek ... well, the world would look ... ?

Sandra’s voice imposed itself on her twin’s tense train of thought. “Windytop is in a backwater. That’s why we came to Washington. We wanted to sail the high seas.”

She laughed, and Gale Markham laughed with her. Sandra resumed: “Our voyage ended—in a mill pond. Nothing has happened. Our sails flap in a calm.”

“And you wish you had stayed at Windytop?”

“Oh, we couldn’t. We had to have an income. And everything at Windytop leaks and rattles. There are bats and rats and things so we can’t rent it. But there are pines and oaks and roses in the garden, and if the house falls down, well, there are still the pines and roses.”

“It sounds attractive.”

“Mother says she’s going back when Doady and I are married. You see there’s no such word as matrimonial failure in Mother’s lexicon! No woman in the Dabney family ever passed her twentieth year without having a husband. So mother counts on that. And in the interim Doady is to get something to do, and I am to keep house for the two of ’em.”

Markham chuckled, “ ‘In the interim’ is priceless.”

Sandra went on recklessly: “Mother’s dreams lead straight to wedding cakes. She isn’t in the least a matchmaker, but she can’t see any other future for a woman.”

“Can you?”

“For myself, yes. But not for Doady.”

Theodora, in an agony of self-consciousness, interrupted flamingly, “Don’t be silly, Sandra.”

“I’m not. It’s the truth, Doady. You always need some one to jack you up. And I don’t. Mother says I am the cat that walks by itself. I like people, but I can get along without them.”

Gale Markham drove slowly. He was enjoying himself hugely. It was delightful. To listen to the confidences of this naïve child, and now and then to that other voice which came so engagingly out of the dark.

He was sorry when it was time to turn back. “They’ll be having supper before we know it.”

Theodora hoped that when they reached the ballroom, Stephanie would introduce them to some one besides Gale. She liked him, but she didn’t want to be set apart. Gale was shabby, his car was shabby, and she and Sandra were shabby. She wanted something shining and snug to offset the effect of isolation.

Stephanie saw them as they entered, and at once came forward. “Where’s Gale?”

“He had to find a parking space for his car.”

“Have a good time?”

“Marvellous.”

“We’re just going in to supper.”

She moved with them toward the dining-room which was on the same floor.

On the way she annexed two young men, presented them, then left Sandra and Theodora at the mercy, as it were, of their imperturbable escorts, who did the proper things like automatons, without an apparent spark of interest. Having rushed away as soon as they got the girls seated, they came back with plates on which were dabs of salad, infinitesimal sandwiches, flanked by infinitesimal cakes. Then, their duty done, they talked conscientiously while they, too, ate and drank. They had an air of wanting to get away, but not knowing how to do it. Theodora told herself bitterly that it was worse than being alone. She had an hysterical feeling that if she could say “scat” it would relieve the tension and send the bored young men flying.

And even as she thought it, Sandra’s plate was being handed to the young man who had brought it. He grabbed it as if it were a life-preserver, flapped his wings and flew away, and it was plain as the nose on your face that he would never come back.

But Sandra was not stranded for more than a second. Gale Markham swung up to her and said:

“Look here, can’t I take the two of you home? Stephanie tells me you came in her car. I’d like it no end if you’d give me the pleasure.”

Theodora, with one ear cocked to hear what Gale was saying, wished he hadn’t asked them. She didn’t want to ride again in the rackety roadster. She wanted to lean back luxuriously in Stephanie’s limousine with the uniformed chauffeur. It had given her a great sense of affluence and of importance as she rolled along the golden-lighted streets.

Sandra was, however, accepting eagerly. “We’d love it.”

Sandra, too, had liked the limousine. But she wanted to go home with Gale. She felt as if she had known him for a long time, and was absolutely at ease with him.

The bored young man at Theodora’s side said, with an accession of interest, “Are you friends of Gale Markham?”

“Never met him before tonight.”

“Must like you a lot or he wouldn’t ask you to ride in his car.”

Theodora’s brain rapped explosively. Well, who wants to ride in his—rattletrap ... !

He went on, “Stephanie Moore is mad about him.”

Theodora stared. “Stephanie? Why?”

“War record. Wonderful. Decorations all over him. And he’s one of the Georgetown Markhams.”

Theodora’s subconscious registered: Well, what if he is? I never heard of them ... and we’re Claybournes of Virginia ... !

But—Stephanie! She found herself leaning forward, speaking to Gale with warmth in her voice.

“Do you really mean we are to ride home with you?”

Gale turned his smiling eyes on her. “If you will ...”

“We’d love it ...” she was repeating parrot-like Sandra’s phrase. She couldn’t think of anything else. Deceitful, that was the way it sounded.... But it wasn’t. She really liked him. Only it had been hateful to be classed with the goats.

Sandra was saying to Gale. “Do you know what you looked like to me when I saw you coming?”

“No.”

“Like a ship to a castaway.”

He laughed. “Great stuff. Ships. Don’t you think?”

“I’ve never seen the ocean, but I love it just the same.”

“By jinks ... think of never seeing it! I’ve had years on it. Annapolis first. Then submarines.”

She caught her breath. “Really?”

“Yes. Some people didn’t like it. But I did. Darned interesting.”

“I should think so.”

“Can’t get my mind on anything else. Have a berth in the Navy Department, but I hate desks. If I had my way I’d charter a tramp steamer and sail round the world.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Anchored. Mother and kid brother to take care of.” He ran his fingers through his curled thatch. “Look here, have you been down to the water front? Not much, of course—but the boats come up from the Bay—oyster boats and all that. I can’t keep away from it. I’d like to take you and your sister sometime.”

“How splendid!”

“We’ll have lunch ... there’s a restaurant ... over a commission house beyond the market. It is on the second floor, and there’s a porch which looks across the river. Best seafood in town. Plain, but spick and span. We’ll eat there and go down to the War College.”

Theodora, with her ear still cocked, was registering commendation on Sandra’s acceptance. Lunch with Gale Markham of the Georgetown Markhams, whoever they might be!

Dancing had begun. Theodora’s young man deserted her. “Sorry,” he murmured, and flapped his wings and flew away!

Gale had the two of them on his hands and was quite content. He demanded of Sandra presently.

“How did you get your name?”

“From Alexandra of England. Mother is a hero-worshipper. She has always thought of Alexandra as the perfect lady, and of Theodore Roosevelt as the perfect gentleman. So she named us after them. Doady is Theodora.”

Gale made a little gesture of salute. “Theodore Roosevelt is the captain of my soul.”

Sandra was illumined. “Oh, I am so glad. I have his picture, autographed. He knew my father.”

Theodora breaking in, informed them: “All the people have gone back to the ballroom. Sandra, I think we’d better not stay.”

The sound of music came to them, the whine of the saxophone, the dull boom of the drums.

Sandra agreed. “Only we oughtn’t to drag Mr. Markham away so soon.”

Stephanie appeared in the arched entrance to the dining-room. Her quick eye appraised the situation. Gale making a martyr of himself for the white elephants!

“Everybody’s dancing,” she said. “Why can’t we find a quiet corner and talk.” She had an air, Theodora thought, of throwing a life-line.

Gale said easily, “I am going to take these pretty things home.”

“Krebs will do it,” Stephanie said. “When they are ready, I’ll have him called.”

“They prefer my roadster to your limousine,” Gale was smiling.

“But—you’ll come back?” there was about Stephanie a slight effect of breathlessness.

“It will be late enough for me to turn in. And I’m a bit of a figurehead at a dance, Stephanie.”

“Nonsense! I’m not going to let any of you go as early as this. I haven’t had a moment to talk to these—pretty things,” Stephanie used Gale’s phrase with charming effect, her hands thrown out in a little gesture of invitation. “Oh, come on, all of you. Nobody’s in the reception-room; we’ll go there.”

In the reception-room was a sofa of green brocade. Stephanie sat on it, making a picture of herself, more than ever like a daffodil in the spring. Theodora decided that Stephanie was fully aware of the effectiveness of the green background. “She does things like that deliberately ... to make herself attractive. And why shouldn’t she? I shall ... some day ...”

Other people drifting in joined Stephanie’s group. There were at least a dozen of them. Yet in spite of the fact that Stephanie sat on the green sofa, enthroned, as it were, it was Gale who was the center of things. Thinking it over afterward, Theodora told herself that it was another of Stephanie’s deliberate effects to thrust Gale into the limelight. She had effaced herself that he might shine. Yet she had shone, too, in a sort of reflected light, like the moon and the sun. There seemed to be a trick about it, to efface oneself yet not be overlooked. Theodora wondered if ever, in the years to come, she would be able thus adroitly to play up to a man’s popularity and lose nothing in the process.

Sandra, having a less analytical mind, was not aware of Stephanie’s subtleties. She was aware only that Gale Markham was the most interesting man she had ever met. And she thought Stephanie beautiful, sitting on the green sofa in her daffodil dress. She thought it would be wonderful to look like that—delicately-fashioned, exquisite in every detail.

Before he left, Stephanie got Gale alone for a few moments. “I hope you haven’t been bored to tears.”

“Bored?”

“With my white elephants?”

“Is that what you call them?”

She nodded. “I shouldn’t have asked them. They are out of place, poor things.”

“My dear child, don’t pity them. They’re getting more out of life than you and I. I wish you could have heard them a while ago. Out in the moonlight. They are simply eating up life. They don’t know it, but they are.”

She gave a little shrug. “They struck me as a bit gauche.”

He shook his head. “They’re not that. I fancy there’s as good blood in them as in you or me.”

“Oh, of course—but they’ve been poor so long.”

He gave a shout of amusement. “If I am poor long enough, shall I be—gauche?”

The blood went up in her face. “Gale!”

He was repentant. “I shouldn’t have said that. But you mustn’t be so high-hat.”

“I’m not.”

“You are, my dear. But I’ll forgive you—because you’re too charming for any man to hold a grudge against.”

“Do you really think that?”

“Of course. And now, I must be going.”

She touched his coat sleeve with the tip of her pointed finger. “Shall we take a walk on Sunday morning?”

“Same time?”

“Yes.”

“Love to.” He caught at the pointed finger, kissed it. “Good-night.”

She went out with the twins, when Gale had brought his car around. She waved to them when they drove off. The light shone down on her. Her daffodil draperies blew in the breeze. She watched the car until it was out of sight, her breath coming quickly, her eyes shadowed.