Читать книгу Wallflowers - Temple Bailey - Страница 7

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Mrs. Claybourne and Theodora started out together the next morning. The older woman had to be at her office at nine, and Theodora wanted to be first to answer the advertisement.

It was hot and close, and Mrs. Claybourne felt herself unequal to the long day. But she did not tell her girls. She was glad Theodora was so hopeful of getting a position. It would be dreadful to have her disappointed. But then, of course, such things happened.

She sighed a little as she pulled her plain, black hat down over her graying locks. Temperamentally she was placid, but this morning she had a sense of deep depression. Here she was at forty-five without having got ahead. Perhaps Doady was right: she and Sandra dreamed too much; they did not seize the moment and make it their own.

One might have thought, however, seeing Sandra at her morning’s work, that she was making the most of the moments which were hers after the others had gone. She washed the dishes, straightened the rooms, changed her dress, and a little after eleven went out on the balcony with her book and a basket of sewing. With the awning down, she had some effect of privacy and a delightful sense of coolness, for the sun did not shine in the court until later in the day, and there was a soft breeze blowing.

Once or twice she peeped through the rails of the balcony to that other balcony below and across, where last night she had seen the man and the cat. But neither of them appeared this morning, and she told herself it was perhaps as well. Nothing would seem as it had seemed under the moon. And one did not play Juliet in broad daylight. She found her mind running on it, however ... “How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues ...”

Sandra had a way of dressing up her thoughts with verse. Mrs. Claybourne adored lovely, singing sounds and had rocked her babies to sleep with rich, murmured cadences: “The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung”; or “This maid she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me”; or “She was a phantom of delight, When first she gleamed upon my sight.”

Later they had learned by heart pages and pages of poetry. Theodora had cared less for it than Sandra. Theodora fed her eyes upon Beauty; Sandra fed her heart. There had been times at Windytop when Sandra had run with the wind, chanting ecstatically to the trees, the skies, the flowering fields, some passionate, perfect thing: “And o’er the hills and far away, Beyond the utmost purple rim, Beyond the night, across the day, Through all the world she follow’d him.” Or “She is coming, my own, my sweet, were it ever so airy a tread ... My heart would hear her and beat, had it lain for a century dead!”

It came to her now, as she sat under the awning on the cramped little balcony, what Windytop would be on a morning like this, with a flutter of young leaves, the warm smell of the pines, a thousand roses in the garden, and Doady and herself with their fancy-work on the wide porch, and their mother reading aloud to them.

She had a little catch of her breath at that vision. It was dreadful to think that her mother, who loved the out-of-doors, should be caged in an office. With her fingers busy, Sandra’s brain worked to find some way out for all of them.

She was roused from her thoughts by a commotion in the court. She looked through the bars of the balcony, then jumped to her feet and hung over the rail. The other little balconies were crowded with people. Everybody was looking down, there were excited cries of “Let her alone ... ,” “Gee, he’s got her ... ,” “Can’t somebody call him off ... ?”

On the opposite side of the court a cat had been cornered by a dog. The cat was a silver-furred thing with a tail like a fox. The dog was a hard-muscled brute with a brass-studded collar—a police dog, mad for his quarry, kept back only by the indomitable courage of the high-bred little creature who faced him.

Her right paw was busy. She struck at his nose again and again. He yelped, but did not give way. He had the better of it. Her back was to the wall; her blazing eyes saw no avenue of escape.

Sandra heard herself saying, breathlessly, “Oh, oh!” She wrung her hands helplessly ... she couldn’t stand it if anything happened to that pretty creature ... why didn’t somebody ... why didn’t somebody ...

Then the heart-stirring thing happened. Out from between the curtains where the night before Sandra had seen a man writing came the man himself. He vaulted the rail of the balcony, climbed lightly down from one iron support to another, reached the ground, and crossed the court yard on a run.

The cat saw him and gave a frantic yowl. The dog did not see him, and plunged and bayed as his collar was caught by a strong hand. The man spoke to him in a foreign tongue. At once the excited brute ceased plunging and cocked his ear. The cat streaked away to safety. The man, without a glance at the crowded balconies, continued talking in a low voice to the dog.

There was great applause from the watching audience. It was like a scene in a play, with all the people looking down at the man and the dog in the court. Sandra’s blood was pounding in her veins. What a picture he made, smiling quietly and without self-consciousness while the people clapped! He was without a coat, and his soft, white shirt was open at the neck. His hair, brushed straight back from his forehead, was dark and shining. His eyes, too, were dark and were lighted when the continued applause compelled him to look up and acknowledge it with a gleam of sardonic mirth. Where had she seen a face like that? Whose portrait? Booth, perhaps. Or was it Barrymore? Both of them—dark, vivid, with that sardonic touch.

Some one called from a balcony: “That dog needs a beating. He almost caught your cat.”

The tall man laughed. “He won’t get it from me. It is as natural for him to fight a cat as for the Germans to fight the French. I must keep my cat at home.”

The voice from the balcony persisted, “You spoke to him in German?”

“Yes.” No more than that. Crisp. Decisive.

The cat appeared on her own balcony. The tall man looked up at her. “Shall I let him go, Griselda?”

Griselda. What an adorable name for a cat! Sandra was enchanted. The cat, moon-eyed, glanced down at her master, then began calmly to smooth her ruffled fur with her little pink tongue. Everybody laughed. Tragedy had been succeeded by comedy.

The tall man released the dog, and the big brute leaped away. The people on the balconies began to go in. The tall man entered the house by the regular route, and presently Sandra saw him again at his table, writing.

She had a thrilled sense of adventure. She settled herself in her chair, but found it hard to get her mind on her book. She was young, and she had never had a lover. Boys had liked her and had told her so. But what they said had meant nothing to her. None of them had appealed in the least to her imagination. But here was one who appealed to it. As she lay with her eyes half-closed, her mind seemed to sweep back over the wide range of the heroes in the books she had read. Not one of them but could be matched in beauty and in prowess by the man across the way. Ivanhoe, Alan Breck, D’Artagnan, Rudolf Rassendyll—he had them all beaten. And the wonder of it was that every day she could watch him from her balcony, see him at night under the moon! It was characteristic of Sandra that the question of meeting him did not enter her mind. He was like an actor to be looked at, dreamed about, fitted into those dramas played on the stage of her illusions, but which had no physical presentment. That was enough for her. The rest might come later. She was content at the moment with the shadow, not the substance.

She was roused from her meditations by a question asked by a woman on the balcony of the adjoining apartment. She was leaning over the rail, bridging thus a part of the distance, so that her voice carried clearly.

“Did you see that man down there?” she demanded.

Sandra sat up. “Yes.”

“His name is Rufus Fiske,” the woman informed her. “I saw it on the house directory. He’s good-looking, ain’t he?”

Sandra hesitated. Then said with some stiffness. “Yes, he is.”

“He got the cat from me,” the woman said. “My husband don’t like cats, and I had to get rid of her. I don’t like them much myself. But we paid a lot for her, and we wanted to get our price. He paid it. He seems to have plenty of money. I should think he’d live somewhere else. I bet I wouldn’t stay in this stifling place if I had the price of the rent anywhere else. I should think you’d hate it. A young girl like you. Shut up.”

“It isn’t bad,” Sandra said. She wished the woman would stop talking and go away. She seemed somehow to spoil the morning. She had short, blond hair and round, blue eyes and wore a soiled, pink bungalow apron. “Your name is Claybourne, ain’t it?” she asked. “Mine is Morton. Ione Morton. I’ve watched you a lot since you came. You don’t seem to have much to do. You’re always sitting out on the balcony reading books.”

Sandra laughed. “Oh, no, I’m not. I’m the housekeeper. I’ve got to go in now and get lunch for my sister.”

“What you goin’ to have? I want to get some ideas. I buy a lot of things round the corner at the delicatessen. I wasn’t brought up to cook. I hate it.”

“I like it.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I am going to have an omelette for dinner. With mushrooms. I adore making omelettes. And for lunch Doady and I will have bread and butter and berries and a pot of tea.”

Sandra wondered why she was saying all this. She didn’t in the least like the young person in the soiled bungalow apron. She didn’t care to know her or to hold further conversation with her, yet it seemed inhospitable to run away. And a Claybourne was never inhospitable.

“Well, no berries and tea for my man. He likes meat.” Ione leaned farther over the rail. “He likes meat—steaks and roasts and boiled dinners. He has to have strength for his work.”

“What is his work,” Sandra asked idly.

The gaze of the round, blue eyes shifted. “Oh, he drives a car over into Virginia every day. Sort of ... express. He’s out nights sometimes ...” She stopped and stood looking down. “There’s that Mr. Fiske again,” she said suddenly. “He’s got the best-looking clothes. My husband says they are too good-looking. He says he thinks that when a man lives in a place like this and wears clothes like that he needs watching.”

Sandra was possessed by a cold and furious indignation. “Why should he say such things,” she demanded.

“Well, where does he get his money? He don’t work any but a little writing. We asked him a hundred dollars for the cat. And he paid it. And my husband says, where does he get the money?”

Sandra’s voice was level. “I really don’t know anything about him.” Then, “I must go in and get lunch for my sister.”

She withdrew at once, leaving Ione Morton high and dry. Which served her right, Sandra told herself, as she set things forth on a tray. Ione Morton deserved it. Saying things like that of a man who looked like Barrymore and called his cat “Griselda.” One might as well throw mud at the Apollo Belvedere, or smirch the reputation of a Galahad!