Читать книгу Son of a Hundred Kings - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 14

Adelicia Craven’s next call was at the Homestead. This was a square house of whitewashed brick, of such a solidity of line that everyone who remembered Joseph Norman Craven said it was a complete reflection of him. Another respect in which it suggested the founder of the Craven fortunes was that it stood in a corner of the factory; enclosed by an ornamental iron fence, it is true, and shaded graciously by tall maples and oaks, but with the smoke-stained walls of the foundry looking down on it from the rear, and the offices, which were lower but equally dingy, encroaching on the fence from the south. The all-powerful Mr. Craven had been one of the old-fashioned school and liked to have his work under his eyes all the time. This arrangement, however, had never seemed strange to the people of the town; for Balfour had been growing rapidly, and the business and manufacturing sections had intruded into the residential streets, so that some of the best houses were chockablock with stores and lodges and undertaking parlors, and the smokestacks of foundries shared the same patches of sky with church spires.

Her ring was not answered until she gave the bell another pull, and it was not a maid who responded finally but a gentleman of middle years, wearing a rather shabby velvet smoking jacket and carrying under his arm a blue-bound quarterly. He was handsome in a courtly and dignified way, with a fine forehead, a long and straight nose, and a set of well-tended brown whiskers.

“Are you all alone today, Langley?” asked the visitor, stepping into the hall.

“For the moment,” answered Langley Craven.

“Good!” said Lish. “We have a lot of things to talk over.”

He led the way down the hall, which was high and wide and quite dark, running a hand lovingly, as he passed, over the satiny finish of a maple Queen Anne lowboy. There was the kind of silence about the house which bespeaks affluence, a compound of carpets so deep that feet make no sound, and of the roominess which keeps all domestic activities at a far distance. The library, into which they turned, was an imposing room. There was a stone fireplace facing the entrance, and all four walls were covered with books behind glass doors. In front of the fireplace was a large English drum table covered with brown leather which was magnificently old and worn. Ivory chessmen had been set up on an oriental taboret with blue-tiled panels, and scattered about the room were bronze figurines and bibelots of many kinds. Dominating everything was a painting over the mantel. It showed the inner courtyard of an ancient Norman castle (Langley Craven, who was a student of the past, said it was more correct to speak of it as the inner bailey), done with great boldness of execution and a rich profusion of color.

Miss Craven walked over to the fireplace and spent several moments in silent contemplation of the painting. “As usual,” she remarked, “I pay my respects to the Barbudo-Sanchez as soon as I come into the house. It still gives me as much of a thrill as when I first saw it.”

“You haven’t paid your respects to it lately, Lish,” said her brother. He, too, was studying the picture. “It is magnificent. Father was not happy in all his purchases—I’ve relegated a few of the paintings to the attic, where they belong—but the Barbudo-Sanchez is one of the very finest examples of this particular Spanish school.”

After another lingering look at the rich medieval blue of the chatelaine’s cloak, the russet tones of the tunics, and the warmth of the sun pouring in around the barbican, Adelicia turned about and faced her brother.

“Langley, where’s Amelia?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment. “We had to let her go.” It was apparent to the visitor now that he was in a subdued mood. Usually he was able to maintain his high spirits through all ups and downs (there had been many more downs than ups), but he was making no effort at the moment to conceal the fact that he was depressed.

“When did this happen?”

“Oh, ten, perhaps twelve, days ago.”

“And Pauline is doing all the work? She’ll wear herself out, Langley. The Homestead isn’t a one-woman house.”

He gave vent to a deep sigh. “The truth of the matter is—well, we can’t afford a maid any longer. Everything has been falling out of the sky for me. I had a deal on, the biggest chance I’ve had since I ceased to be head of the Craven interests. A new factory was to be located here and I was to be president. Household articles, washing machines, brooms, clothespins. A few local men were coming in to bolster up the outside capital. Then something happened. All the local men, for one reason or another, backed out. Big-Ears had gotten wind of it, and he had gone to each one of my men and laid down the law.” Langley Craven’s face became red with the intensity of his feelings. “A tooth for a tooth isn’t good enough for my beloved brother. Because I knocked out one of his, he intends to ruin me, body and soul.... The worst of it was that I had financed the preliminary stages out of my last bit of liquid capital. Pauline and I talked it over and, among other things, Amelia was given her notice. Poor, devoted Amelia! Actually we lacked the money to pay her wages.”

There was a long silence. Adelicia seated herself in front of the fireplace—which had not been lighted, although there was a chill in the air of the house—and seemed to be studying the Barbudo-Sanchez. Her mind, however, was on the problem of the family feud, and it was habit which drew her eyes to the vivid canvas.

“You’ve never forgiven me, Langley,” she stated.

“Because you didn’t stand back of me when Tanner made his attack?”

Adelicia nodded.

Langley, after finishing his explanation, had begun to pace about. He stopped now beside the taboret, picked up the white queen, considered it intently for a moment, and then set it down again.

“I don’t bear you any grudge now,” he said. “I confess that I was bitter for a time. Then I began to understand that you had acted out of loyalty to Father’s memory. Always your first loyalty, Lish, and I—I like you for it.” He drew a small meerschaum pipe from the pocket of his smoking jacket and made a pretense of filling it: an instinctive movement, because he abandoned it immediately and returned the pipe to his pocket. “Perhaps it will relieve your mind if I make a confession. I had become lax. There’s no doubt of that. Easy office hours. Two months in Europe each summer. More interest in books and music and art than in dividends. But”—the red flush deepened in his cheeks—“it wasn’t necessary to throw me out bag and baggage. I would have stepped aside for Tanner. I could have been made chairman of the board or even an inactive director. But nothing would suit him but to have me discarded publicly like an old shoe——”

“That,” said his sister, “was not Tanner’s doing—not to begin with, I mean. You can thank someone else for that.”

Langley nodded. “How that woman hates us!” He was silent for several moments while his mind went back over the events which had led to his downfall. “If it hadn’t been so unexpected, so—so piratical! That was what caused me to explode. And because I did explode, the feud has gone on and on and will never end. I’ve fought back wildly——”

“Langley,” interrupted his sister, “do you mean you have forgiven me? That we can talk once more as we used to—freely and openly and lovingly?”

Langley Craven’s manner relaxed. He seated himself in a modern red leather chair and smiled at her. “That,” he said, “is the impression I intended to convey before I let my feelings get the better of me. I hope that from now on we’ll be able to speak freely and openly and, most certainly, lovingly.”

“Then I’ve something to say,” declared Adelicia briskly. “I’m convinced that Tanner’s cup of iniquity is just about ready to overflow. You aren’t the only one he’s treated badly. He has victims all over the place. And yet he has had a continuous success. As sure as there’s a God in heaven—and a law of averages—this brother of ours is due to meet some setbacks. I’m so sure of it that I’m worried because I have so much of the stock still. I haven’t breathed this to a soul, but I—I’m going to unload! In fact, I disposed of a small block last week.” She nodded her head several times, a habit of her father’s when talking business which she had sedulously cultivated. “As a result I have some loose capital. This is what I’d like to do with it. I’d like to form a little partnership, just you and me—and perhaps we should cut Pauline in for a slice—and then begin to buy into a few small businesses in town where the owners need extra capital and some assistance as well. The kind of thing where you can keep an eye on what’s happening to your money and sort of give it a push when necessary. Candy stores, men’s clothing, a bicycle business.

“That,” she went on, “was what Father did, and he was so shrewd about it that he nearly always made money. What’s more, he made friends of the people he went in with. That was when the factory was just beginning to make money. You weren’t born yet and I was a very small girl. But,” proudly, “he used to talk to me about it, and I remember everything that happened.”

“May I interrupt to say,” asked Langley, “that the idea pleases me beyond measure?”

“Some of the money, of course, should be put into your furniture repair shop. I’ve a slight suspicion that it’s as wobbly on its pins as a newborn calf.”

“It keeps going.” Langley felt he had not been completely frank and so hastened to add, “I must tell you, however, that I don’t seem able to get to the point where a dollar in profits can be taken out.”

“We’ll see to that the first thing,” said Adelicia firmly. “You won’t mind if I start to take an interest in it, will you?”

Langley indulged in a hearty laugh. He had a way of throwing back his handsome head and giving full vent to his mirth, one of the few physical traits he had inherited from Joseph Norman Craven. “Did Wellington complain when Blücher arrived at Waterloo and began to take an interest in things?” He got to his feet again. His mood had changed to one verging on exuberance. “Lish, the thought of having you as a partner has changed the whole face of life. I feel—well, I should like to walk out to the front door and shout, ‘Watch out, Balfour, the failure is going to have another chance! Now see how hard he’ll work and what prodigies of industry and wisdom he’ll perform!’ ”

Having thus blown off steam in a manner completely characteristic, he left the room and returned in a few minutes with a bottle of sherry and some glasses on a tray. “We should drink to this, Lish. The burying of the hatchet. The formation of a new Craven partnership. The first step in the making of new business history. Here’s to us, my dear sister, and may we not only do justice to the memory of a great businessman, but may our cup of iniquity be as empty always as is humanly possible.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Lish took a sip of the sherry and could not keep the muscles of her face from wrinkling up in a grimace of dislike. “Damn it, Langley, I just can’t get myself to like this sweetish pap. Don’t you remember that Father always used to call these wines ‘wind and belly wash’? Why not a small slug of whisky?”

Langley looked horrified. “Whisky in the afternoon? Great Scott, Lish, that’s a habit for—for barbarians.”

“Very well,” said his sister resignedly. “Here she goes then. To us, Langley.” She put the slender sherry glass, with its elaborately encrusted brim on the table beside her with an air of haste. “I’m making one stipulation, Langley. You get Amelia back at once before anyone else snaps her up.”

A few minutes later they heard the front door open, and Langley started for the hall eagerly. “That’s Pauline,” he said. Then he paused and a look of disappointment crossed his face as he noted the brief space of time between the opening and closing of the door. “She’s alone. I wonder what she’s done with the children?”

The French clock on the mantel struck four as Pauline Craven came into the room. The chimes were melodious and high and brittle, like the age of the Sun King which had produced them, and they seemed intended as a welcoming salute. She was a beautiful woman in her early thirties, with fluffy blond hair clustering on her forehead under an impudent toque of gray velvet. Her whole personality matched in vividness her eyes, which were an electric blue. She was tall and wore her clothes smartly, and there was about her manner and carriage, and even in her gait, a suggestion of impulsiveness.

She had already stripped off her coat with its very fashionable small cape and she dropped it on her husband’s arm as she swept into the room. Then she paused, patted him on the cheek with one gloved hand, and said, “Hello, Langley dear, and did you miss me?”

“I’ve been miserable without you.” He smiled and indulged in a favorite quotation from Nicholas Nickleby. “ ‘Horrid miserable—demnition miserable.’ ”

Now that she had taken off the coat it could be seen that her dress was of Niagara blue, a rich shade between peacock and turquoise. It was draped in front and arranged in fan pleats behind, with sleeves and epaulets of silk, and the skirt swept the carpet and swayed and rustled as she walked. She still carried her muff, attached to her right wrist with a silken cord.

Langley thrust a glass of sherry into her hand and said: “Drink a toast, my love. Drink every drop because it’s an important one. We’ll explain all about it when you’ve settled down in comfort.”

His wife drained the glass. “Thanks, Langley dear,” she said. “I hope the toast has to do with Lish being here after such a very long time.”

“It has. It has indeed.”

Mrs. Craven sighed and relinquished the glass. “I needed it.” She walked to a small round mirror of Spanish-American make and took off her hat in front of it, being careful to wind the veil of spotted chiffon about it. The removal of the toque revealed that she had a great deal of hair and wore it in a Psyche knot on the top of her head. “It was necessary, Lish,” she said, “to take my little Joe to Mr. Saunders, the barber at the Cameo House. He’s closed for the day, of course, but he very kindly agreed to cut my small son’s hair if it could be done at his own house. Ah, how terribly I felt as I watched those lovely curls being clipped off so casually and unfeelingly! It was like having a knife driven into my heart.”

“He’ll look a lot better, Pauline,” declared Lish, who believed in speaking out. “Joe is a manly little fellow, but you were making him look like a mollycoddle by keeping his hair long. I suppose this painful operation had to do with the fracas at the minister’s house today.”

Langley nodded in response. “I agree with you, Lish,” he said. “Joe will look a lot better without them. But, Pauline, where is our man-child? And where is little Meg?”

“I stopped in at the Ludyards’ on the way back. The Ludyard tribe were having such a good time that I left our two with them. Basil will bring them back himself in a little while.”

She seated herself in a not-too-substantial-looking fauteuil at one side of the dark and empty fireplace, spreading out her full skirts fanwise to save them from wrinkling. Her cheeks were pink with the cold and her lips were a healthy red. She made, in fact, a picture of triumphant young wifehood. Her mood seemed to change, however, as soon as she seated herself. She ceased to smile; she became pensive and paid small attention to what was being said.

“Pauline!” said her husband, who had not taken his eyes from her. “Something’s gone wrong. I know your moods inside out, my dear. You’ve been offended or hurt or disappointed. What is it? You know I can’t bear it when you’re not ‘blooming like a demnition flower-pot.’ ”

Mrs. Craven sighed. “Oh, it’s nothing much, really; I suppose I’m silly to think anything about it. It’s the annual drive for the hospital. Last year I was a vice-president, Lish. There were seven of us, it’s true, and so it wasn’t such a very great honor. Still, I was proud and I worked very hard. I certainly expected to be one of the officers again this year. Today I found out that I’m not. Langley”—she seemed suddenly on the point of tears—“I’m not even on any of the committees. I’m not going to be asked to have any hand in it at all.”

Langley raised his hands in the air and expelled his breath in an angry puff. “Isn’t there to be any end? It’s easy to see in this the hand, neither fine nor Italian, which has so often wielded the stiletto.”

“Yes, quite easy,” affirmed his wife, dabbing at her nose with a handkerchief. “It was expected that Mrs. Alvin Power would be president this year, but the nominating committee brought in the name instead of—of our kind and ever-loving sister-in-law. That’s why I’m not to have any part.”

The telephone rang in some far-distant part of the house. Without making any move to answer it Langley wrinkled his nose in an expression of disgust. “What now? What creditor is starting off the new year with a vigorous personal dunning of Langley Craven?” He rose slowly with a deep frown. “My dislike of that thing is so great that I take it as a personal insult whenever it rings. That buzzing, strident, gossip-spreading instrument is going to usher in a new kind of life. One, moreover, which will be neither fine nor gracious.” The telephone rang again, more insistent and shrill, it seemed, than before. “I won’t hurry. If they really want me, they may keep right on ringing.”

As soon as he left the room his wife leaned forward eagerly toward her sister-in-law. “Lish,” she said, “I can’t tell you what it means to see you again. In the house, I mean, and talking to Langley in such a friendly way. I’ve missed you so much!”

“I was afraid Langley didn’t want me. That he still held a grudge.”

“He gave it up long ago. But he thought you should take the first step.”

Lish nodded. “He was right. And so, as you see, I have taken the first step.”

Pauline began to speak in a low tone. “I did something today that Langley may not approve. I was going through some of my things and I found an album of old photographs. There was one of Tanner and me taken on a picnic at Tuscarora Park. He had on one of those collars which reached his ears.” She shuddered. “He looked cheap and sly. Even if he is your brother, I can’t understand why I ever encouraged him. Of course it did lead to my meeting Langley. And there was one of his wedding. We were in it, although I’m sure the bride didn’t want us. To see it again, and to think of all the dreadful things which started there!” She had been speaking with deep feeling, but at this point she allowed a sense of amusement to temper her descriptions. “There was one of her in a bathing suit! Lish, will you think me catty because I can’t refrain from remarking that her lower limbs are somewhat spidery?”

Although no one of good breeding would be guilty of using the word openly, the interest in the subject of the feminine leg was immense and all-pervading. There was a general belief throughout the town that Mrs. Langley Craven herself was quite fortunate in this respect. At any rate, there was the testimony of Sloppy Bates. The old Star reporter had been standing at the corner of Holbrook and Bourse streets one damp day when she came pedaling along on a new bicycle and looking very chic in an epangline skirt, with a straw sailor perched on the top of her head. The front wheel had become stuck in the mud and the rider had taken a fall, and for a brief second her elastic-sided riding shoes had been turned straight up to the skies. A few moments later a dazed Sloppy Bates had made his way into the nearest bar and had addressed the company excitedly. “Great gods and unhappy mortals!” he exclaimed. “What a privilege has been vouchsafed me this day!”

The heroine of this episode went on speaking of the various family pictures she had found. Finally she looked at the guest and, with eyes snapping angrily, she added: “I’ve destroyed them all! Everything that contains as much as an elbow of one of them or their scrawny little beast of a son, I tore into a thousand pieces. Then I took the pieces down-cellar and threw them into the furnace.”

Now that she had started on the subject, Pauline continued to speak with the utmost frankness of her feeling for the other branch of the family. “Langley says we must be philosophic,” she declared. “I don’t agree with him. He let himself go the time he punched Tanner in the face, and I was never so proud of him in my life. I don’t try to be philosophic. I hate them!”

The sound of a footstep on a bare part of the hall caused her to stop abruptly and place a forefinger on her lips. “You’re the only person I’ve ever said this to, Lish. Please don’t repeat it, not even to Langley.”

She fumbled hurriedly in her muff and produced a tiny piece of looking glass, set with seed pearls, and a small book of paper sheets. Tearing one of the sheets out, she began to rub her eyes with it while watching the operation carefully in the mirror. Lish had heard of rice paper which took the place of powder (no self-respecting woman would confess to the use of powder or rouge), but she had never seen it applied. Her round eyes, set wide apart in her large plain face, watched with the most intense interest.

“I’m—I’m quite flabbergasted to see you using cosmetics, Pauline,” she said. “You’ve got such a fine, high complexion. Surely you don’t need those paper things.”

“Well,” said Pauline, finishing the operation and replacing the toilet articles in her muff, “there’s always the tip of the nose. Haven’t you noticed how shiny it can get on even the best-regulated faces? And when you’ve been foolish enough to indulge in your feelings—as I’ve just done—your eyes require a little attention.”

Langley was frowning when he returned. He stood in the doorway and fumbled again with his pipe. “A man named Alfred Hull was on the telephone,” he said. “He’s at the Balfour Realty Company, which Tanner owns, of course. You both must have seen him around. He has a long black beard and he fixes you with his eye like the Ancient Mariner and asks if you’re prepared for the end of the world. Everyone calls him Calamity Hull.”

“I heard him preach once,” said Pauline. “I was just a young girl and I went with some others to a tent on a vacant lot in the East Ward. He talked so long that we got up and left. And what did Mr. Calamity Hull want?”

“An appointment. He’s coming here to see me at twelve o’clock tomorrow. He was very mysterious about his errand, but I knew what it was without being told. He’s another of Tanner’s emissaries. He’ll try to bribe me into leaving town and going out west.”

His sister sat up straight at this. “Well,” she said, “this is something new.”

Langley went on in a half-amused, half-angry tone. “Persuading me to leave town with all my worldly goods and chattels, my wife and children, my manservants and maidservants, seems to have been Tanner’s favorite occupation for the past year or so. His intermediaries have offered as high as five thousand dollars. My answer has always been that I was born in Balfour and intend to die here, even if I have to fill a pauper’s grave. I cut them off sharply, and so we never get down to terms. Except that I know I would be expected to sell everything in the house to Tanner at a figure to be agreed upon.”

“Well!” said Lish, her cheeks coloring indignantly. “I must say that was very considerate and generous of Tanner. What about me? Was I to be brushed aside?”

“Oh, he’d have offered you some small sum by way of compensation.” Langley seemed to be able now to regard the situation as amusing. “The last one to approach me was old Shearstone. He spoke to me in the most fatherly way, combing his beard into two neat and equal parts while he talked. Have you ever noticed what a fruity voice he has? He talks as though he has his mouth full of plum pudding. He called me ‘my boy’ and fairly oozed advice. The old hypocrite and liar!”

Langley seated himself beside his wife. Her face had assumed a worried look, and he patted her hand reassuringly. “You mustn’t take things so much to heart. Now that Lish is on our side, we’ll show Big-Ears and his gentle little adder of a wife something they won’t like.” He turned toward his sister. “Now that we’ve mentioned the furnishings, Lish, what was your understanding of what Father said?”

His sister did not find it necessary to pause. Her memory needed no refreshing on the point in question. “He called us in, the three of us, and said he hadn’t mentioned the contents of the house in his will because he was sure we would all agree to what he wanted. I’ve always felt, Langley, that what he meant was that a will becomes a public matter, and he felt that what was to be done with his collection was a family concern and should be settled privately between us.” Her voice sank to a low pitch, and she found it necessary now to dab at her eyes with a large red silk handkerchief. “He was so far gone that he couldn’t say much. Just that he had great pride in the collection and he wanted it kept together. He wanted you, as the elder son, to keep the things here, and he stipulated that you were to make it up to Tanner and me by a financial settlement. We were to arrange it among ourselves. I’m sure he had spoken to the lawyers because he used a legal phrase, and that wasn’t his usual way. He was so outspoken and forthright, Father, in everything. He said, ‘in lieu of their reasonable expectations of participation.’ And that was all he had the strength left to say.”

Langley nodded his head. “That’s exactly as I remember it. At first, as you’ll recall, I made repeated efforts to reach an understanding with Tanner as to the amount of the compensation. Father said reasonable expectations. Was Tanner ever reasonable?”

Lish considered the point. “About as reasonable as a street robber who demands your money or your life.”

“It became my belief that Tanner was deliberately standing in the way of a settlement because he didn’t want Father’s wish carried out about keeping everything together. He wanted some of the things for himself. The best things, of course.”

“That same suspicion has been in my mind.”

“And then,” went on Langley, “the feud started and I became unable to meet the most moderate terms. It has drifted such a long time that I’ve no expectation of ever getting the situation straightened out. If Father had only said what I was to pay you and Tanner, I would have made the settlement at once.”

Lish took fire instantly at this hint of criticism. “He preferred to leave it to our common sense and fairness.” She indulged in a rueful laugh. “How was he to know we would cease to be a happy family so soon after he died? He was certain the three of us could get together and come to an agreement without any difficulty. We flew at each other’s throats instead. Then you went and lost your money. One thing never entered Father’s head, I’m sure—that you would find yourself in a position where you couldn’t carry out the terms of the will.”

Langley rose to his feet and walked to the fireplace. Leaning an arm on the marble top of the mantel, he stared down into the empty grate. “What a mess I’ve made of things. How blind and stupid I’ve been! Here I am, surrounded by all the beautiful things Father collected with such care. And I can’t afford a fire in the library on New Year’s Day!”