Читать книгу Son of a Hundred Kings - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 13

The reception was at its height when Twiller approached his master with the information that Miss Adelicia Craven desired to see him. He had shown her into the dining room as it was the only apartment in the house not occupied.

In the process of enlarging the property it had been found impossible to do anything about the dining room, and it had remained as it was before, too small for comfort and with an ugly fireplace which ruined one wall without accomplishing anything by way of compensation (the chimney refused to draw) and with a single window. The result was that when the Cravens entertained at the evening meal they had to give buffet suppers. A boiled ham would be placed on the refectory table in the drawing room, and the butler, in white tie and tails, would carve it there.

Miss Adelicia Craven was standing in front of the useless fireplace and surveying the room when her brother joined her.

“A poky little hole, Tan,” she remarked. “I’ll never understand why you let yourself get balled up this way. This house is just like everything you do. Fine on the whole, but with one great flaw.”

She was the eldest of the three children of Joseph Norman Craven, who had been so completely the financial and social mogul of the town, and everyone said she was her father all over again. The comparison, however, had no reference to size. She was quite small. She liked to dress in the brightest colors and with plenty of bows and ruffles and spangles and, as her face was broad and rather plain, she looked exactly like a large specimen of pansy. As usual she was wearing her father’s watch in her belt and carrying a swagger stick.

“So you’ve come to one of our receptions at last,” said Craven, passing over the uncomplimentary implication in her speech.

“Good heavens, no!” answered his sister in a hearty voice. “Do you think, Tan, that I’d eat your soggy sandwiches and your chicken salad, which is always more celery than chicken, when I can stay at home, or go anywhere else, and have a sound meal and an honest drink or two—or three? You and Effie get all the social climbers on New Year’s, and all the little shrinking souls who work for you, or hope to work for you, or owe you money. No, you’ll never see me at one of them.”

Her brother showed his annoyance. “You must have had a drink already, Lish, or you wouldn’t talk this way,” he said stiffly.

“Certainly I’ve had a drink.” The little spinster’s voice had achieved its heartiest note. “I had a scotch and soda before lunch. By the time I’m through this afternoon I’ll be quite comfortably lit up, as our father always was on New Year’s Day. I’m not like you, little Tan Craven. I don’t have to sneak away into a side room and close the door tight before I hoist one. I do my drinking in the open.”

Craven was thoroughly angry by this time and was twirling the ends of his mustache with unsteady fingers. “Did you come here to insult me?” he demanded.

She became slightly contrite. “No, Tan. I know you have a tough time of it. Effie puts it on well enough to fool a lot of people. But not me—not for one split second. She looks gentle and easy, but I know she’s as hard as a beetle’s back inside. I feel sorry for you, living in this big house, and the richest man in Balfour to boot, and yet getting so little out of life. Come to think of it, I’ve always been a little sorry for you, ever since you were born. You were such an ornery little coot, not strong and handsome and gifted like Langley.... Well, I didn’t come to talk this way.” Her manner changed abruptly, becoming direct and businesslike. “I came about this meeting you’ve called for tomorrow. I had just heard about the scrap between the two boys when that flunky of yours got me on the telephone. I knew right away there was some connection between the two. I came to give you a piece of advice, Tan. Whatever it is you’re planning to do, don’t do it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said her brother in a sulky tone.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. This feud with Langley. I feel that I’m standing in my father’s shoes and that I must do what he would have done. He would have stepped in right away, but I felt my hands were tied. Still, better late than never.”

“Are you putting all the blame on me?”

“No, Tan, not all the blame. Langley paid no attention to the business and made a pretty hash of things. I had enough pride in my father’s achievements to want what he had started carried on. So I stood aside and let you boot Langley out of the presidency, and I don’t suppose he’ll ever forgive me. I say hard things about Effie, but I can see her side of it too. It was tough on her, coming to this town as your wife and finding Pauline so lovely and popular. She must have discovered right away that you had been in love with Pauline and that everyone said you had married her for her money. It was natural enough for her to start hating Pauline.” There was a pause, and then she raised her swagger stick and leveled it at him. “But you’ve carried the feud too far. Look what you’ve done to poor Langley. What kind of life do you think he lives on the profits of his little furniture repair shop? He hasn’t one share left in any of the businesses Father started. You took them all! Do you suppose I don’t know all the shoddy schemes you thought up, or your wife did for you, to get his shares away from him?”

Tanner Craven’s face had gone white. “That’s all I’ll hear from you. Get out of my house. It will suit me if you never come back!”

“I won’t go!” she said. “Not until I’ve had my say. I’m here to deliver an ultimatum. The past shapes the future, as we’ve seen today. Here we have the two boys taking up the feud. I love both my nephews, and in a way I was glad they had the gumption to fight. It shows they have something of their grandfather in them. But just the same, it mustn’t go on. Do you hear me, Tan? This fighting must stop right here.”

Craven indulged in a laugh. “Go on, Lish. I’m curious to hear how you propose to put an end to it.”

“I’m sure you’re planning ways of getting at them because Langley’s boy seems to have had the better of it. Just you try it, Tan Craven! Just you make another move against that unfortunate family and I’ll take a hand in the fight myself. People say I’m like my father. Well, I am, and I’m proud of it. When I get angry I can fight as well as he could. And let me tell you this, Tanner Craven, my father could have taken you apart like the works of a watch!”

“Has it occurred to you that I take after Father also? What do you propose to fight me with?”

“With the brains I inherited from him!” she answered fiercely. “And I have resources of my own. Oh, I’m not in a class with you when it comes to money, but I’ve done rather well in a small way. I’d be rich if I didn’t get interested in so many damn charities.”

Without giving him a chance to say anything more, she turned and walked into the hall. On a table near the door there was, among other garish objects, a large glass globe filled with all the colors of the rainbow. She paused beside the table, lifted her swagger stick, and sighted it at the globe. The stroke which followed was more accurate than she had intended. The point of the stick struck the glass squarely and shattered it to pieces with a loud crash.

She turned around with a look of dismay, then made for the door without waiting for the butler to show her out.