He said, “No. How did you know all this, Lindy?”
“She wrote me a letter to Richmond the day before. She always told me everything—she didn’t want Jill to know, because she was afraid that Mrs. Leighton would be angry with Jill if she thought that she’d helped her. Mrs. Leighton didn’t like the man, Sunny said. She didn’t like you, either, did she, Kit?”
In spite of the concentration that was carving lines between his eyes he permitted himself a grim little smile.
“Mrs. Leighton didn’t like anyone who preferred her charming daughters to her charming self. You’re quite right, she didn’t like me a bit…. Didn’t Sunny tell you the man’s name, Lindy?”
“No; she wanted it to be a surprise. She said that he was the most wonderful man in the world.”
“So you thought that it must be I?” The grim smile deepened. “Very, very flattering, but the description happens to be misleading.”
“Kit, that letter—afterward I used to cry until morning remembering it. So wild with joy and life and adventure—it wasn’t like a letter, it was like a bird singing..…”
He said, suddenly and strongly, “Don’t.” After a moment he added equably, “Sorry—don’t mind me. I’m more kinds of a fool than even I realized…. You see, I did see Sunny in Baltimore that Saturday, Lindy. I’d come up from Quantico to usher at a wedding in Wilmington—you remember, Kim Farrell from the State Department?”
“The funny little one with the freckles and the slanty eyebrows?”
“Yes, shot to pieces near Soissons. Well, Larry had come up from Mead to be an usher, too, and after it was over the two of us ducked out and headed back for Washington in his roadster. Just outside of Baltimore we heard that the road was torn up, so we decided to stop at the hotel and pick up some information about detours. Larry went to the desk to find out, and I stepped out to the bar to get a drink. When I got back he wasn’t there, and I thought that he was probably telephoning Joel in Washington that we’d be late for dinner. I started off toward the telephone booths; there was a long string of them and outside the last one I saw Sunny—” He put one hand over his eyes and said despairingly, “Lindy, I can see her now!”
“Kit, don’t talk about it if it makes you so wretched—don’t!”
“Lindy, she had on that little gray squirrel cap, the one that made her hair look like gold bubbles, and the big gray fur cape, and a muff no bigger than my hands. She was standing there turned away a little with the muff up against her face, and I started over across to her. I was halfway there before she saw me, and when she did she put out both hands as though she were trying to push me away—and—I saw her face.”
The girl beside him whispered, “Kit, don’t mind so much—don’t mind so much. She never wanted anyone to mind.”
“Lindy, her face was drowned with crying, it was ruined by it, destroyed—it wasn’t Sunny’s face at all—it belonged to some beaten, starved, tortured child.… She stood there with the tears running down over it, washing out all its loveliness, shaking her head at me—shaking it and pushing me away.… Someone in the telephone booth must have spoken to her, because she moved closer to it and said something, still shaking her head with the muff up to her face.… I swung around and went back to the bar and had two more drinks. Larry picked me up there and we went on to Washington.… I never saw her again.”
“I did,” said Lindy Marsden.
“You? I thought you said that you were in Richmond?”
“Jill telephoned me the next day that they were all dreadfully upset about Sunny; that apparently she’d had a shock of some kind, and that they couldn’t find out what it was. I knew then that something had gone wrong in Baltimore, and I took the next train. I didn’t even wait to pack a bag. Sunny was up in her bedroom; she was sitting all huddled up in a blue quilted wrapper in a big chair by the window. Her eyes were wide open, but she looked—she looked as though she were asleep. When she saw me, she said, ‘Oh, it’s you! … You’re the one that knows, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Darling, anything that you don’t want me to know is forgotten.’ She stared at me with the strangest, hardest little smile and said, ‘Oh, but you can’t forget. Didn’t you know that? You can’t ever forget. That’s it.’ And suddenly I was dreadfully frightened. I came over and took hold of her and said, ‘Sunny, it’s me. It’s Lindy, who loves you.’ And she put both hands over her ears, and screamed out like a child in a nightmare, ‘Lindy, he didn’t want me—Lindy, Lindy, don’t tell them—he didn’t want me!’ I stayed with her all that night; she never stopped shivering for one minute, but I didn’t find out much more. Apparently she’d met him as they arranged, and everything was beautiful until he remarked that he had hesitated to ask her to marry him before because he hadn’t wanted her money to be a barrier between them. And of course she joyfully told him that there wasn’t any money to be a barrier, that it all belonged to Jill.… Kit, he didn’t even bring her back. He telephoned the garage for her roadster, and told her that if she hurried she could make it by dark …”
“I’ve never killed a man yet—with any particular pleasure,” said Kit Baird evenly. “But I’m beginning to see now that it might be as agreeable a way to spend an evening as you could think of.”
“She was absolutely quiet when I left her,” Lindy said. “So little, and gentle—she wasn’t crying a bit. She promised that if I’d go to Richmond and pack up some things and come back to her for two or three weeks, she’d stay in bed and rest for a day or so, and even try to go to the Randalls’ party Tuesday night if she felt up to it.… Just before I got to the door she called me back. She was lying all curled up in a little ball in the middle of the bed, with her hair fluffed out around her face, and her eyes so bright—you can’t think. She said, ‘Wouldn’t you say that I was quite pretty, Lindy?’ I wanted to cry dreadfully, but I laughed and said, ‘The prettiest thing that ever breathed, darling.’ She said, with her face twisted into that darling smile of hers, like a good baby, ‘Funny, that’s what I thought, too.… I’ve been so afraid of all those mirrors, Lindy.’ I said, ‘They’ll never show you how lovely you are, Loveliness,’ and kissed her, and went out.… That was Sunday night; I was to come back Wednesday. On Tuesday they telephoned me that they’d—found her…. Do you think—Kit, do you think that I could have stopped her if I hadn’t gone?”
“No,” said the man. “She was dead the day that I saw her in Baltimore. What did it matter if they waited five days or fifty years to bury her? … Want another log, Lindy? Your hands are cold.”
“Two logs,” she whispered. “Oh, Kit, when they played ‘Underneath the Stars’ to-night, it was as though she were here again. I could see her in that dress she wore that last night—remember, all silver, with her hair like daffodils in the candlelight, dancing, dancing—”
“Lindy,” said the man beside her gently, “let’s not talk about her, do you mind? I know that I’m a fool, but I honestly can’t stand much more. There, that’s what I call a real conflagration. Stand closer to it; you want to get really warm before you negotiate the north passage upstairs.”
“I’m cold inside. We shouldn’t have come back—we shouldn’t have, truly. These were her parties; she loved them more than anyone—it was wicked and cruel to come back without her. You know it, too.”
“I know nothing of the kind. She’d want us to come—she’d want us to have a beautiful time. Now drop it, will you, little Lindy? Here, give me those ridiculous hands, and I’ll get them warm for you. And while I’m doing it you can tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself all these years. Still breaking hearts right and left?”
“And north and south,” she assented lightly, her teeth in her lip.
“Half a dozen violent affairs a year?”
“Oh, half a hundred!”
Kit, looking down at her with eyes suddenly gentle, said:
“I was so sorry about Marsden, Lindy dear. He must have been the finest kind of a fellow. I hoped that you two were going to live happy
ever after.”
Lindy said very simply, “I do think he was awfully happy for those few days. Only five days—just think, Kit. And now all that I can remember is how brown his hands were, and the way his eyes crinkled up when he laughed; he had the youngest laugh. He wasn’t twenty-four—he wouldn’t have been twenty-four until November—but now I can’t even remember what day.… I wish—oh, I wish that I could remember what day.”
Kit said:
“It’s better to remember how he laughed. And five days is rather a lot to be happy, isn’t it?”
“Quite, quite a lot.” She stood staring down at the red caverns in the fire, her hands quiet in his. After a moment she said, “No one thought that I loved him, but he thought so. The others all believed it was his money.…”
“Not I,” said the red-headed young man.
“Didn’t you, Kit? You were right: it wasn’t his money. I never cared a great deal about money; it’s nice, but not very interesting.… And they were right, too. I never loved him; never, never at all.…”
And Kit, who knew when to say nothing, said nothing.
“But I did make him think I did, truly,” she whispered, “and I don’t think that it was wicked to marry him when he wanted me so. It was so heavenly to have someone want you like that—to have someone need you like that.… I’m glad I married him, Kit.”
“I’m glad, too, little Lindy.”
For a moment silence hung about them, dark and kind and friendly. It was Lindy who broke it, freeing her hands very gently and speaking more gently still.
“Kit, do you know why I got up this party?”
“Because you are a good child and wanted even the bad ones to have one more good time to remember.”
“No. I got it up because there was something I had to ask you, and something I had to tell you. I’ve waited ten years for a chance.”
He said, “You wanted to ask me whether I were responsible for Sunny Leighton’s death?”
“Yes. But even if you had told me that you were, I still had something to tell you. That’s why I came back to Lady Court—why I came back for the gloves—”
“Lindy, Lindy, can it be that you’re leading me on?”
“Kit, don’t laugh. I came back to tell you that I love you. I’ve always loved you. I love you so that I can’t stand it any more.… Are you laughing?”
He said, “Lindy, you darling little fool!”
His arms were about her; he could feel her tears on his hand.
“Want the truth, Lindy?”
The small, terrified voice whispered, “No!”
“You’ll have to take it, darling; it’s all I have to give you. I’ve never loved anyone in my life but Sunny Leighton. I never will.… Lindy, don’t pull away—stay this way just a minute longer, will you?” He laid his cheek against the little velvet darkness that was her hair, and said in a voice that broke abruptly and amazingly, “It’s so damned sweet to know you care a little.”
The small voice against his heart said fiercely, “I don’t care a little. I love you so that it kills me.”
“When you say that,” he whispered, his arms holding her closer, “I should let you go. It ought to show you what kind of a rotter I am that I don’t let you go.”
“I don’t care what kind of a rotter you are. I don’t care—I don’t care. Don’t ever let me go.”
“Lindy,” he said, “you don’t know how lonely I’ve been—lonelier than hell, every day and every night since I was born. Just to hold gentleness in your arms.… I’ll put that down in the empty credit column that I’m keeping to show God one of these days.”
“I’m lonely, too. Don’t—don’t let me go.”
He brushed her hair with his lips, loosed the hands about his neck, and stood away from her, his eyes on the fire.
“My blessed child, I let you go before I ever touched you. Lindy, I don’t go in much for talking about myself, do I?”
“Not ever,” said the desolate small voice.
“Well, this time I’m going to, for a good three minutes. And I’ll preface the life history that I’m about to present to you with the statement that I don’t lie. I steal a little, and I cheat a good deal, and I’m not above a neat forgery or a tidy bit of blackmail, but I don’t lie. Not since I was seven. Not once. So you can consider this as authentic as though it came straight from George Washington’s father’s little boy. Did you listen to me when I was telling you that I’m a rotter?”
Lindy’s face, pearl-white in the shadows, twisted to a forlorn smile.
“Not much.”
“Well, listen now. I’m a rotter. Not the nice, romantic kind that you think I mean—the kind that lives in books, and drinks just a little too much champagne just a little too often, and loves pretty married ladies wisely and not too well, and loses gallantly on the horses, and wins gallantly on the wheel—not that kind at all. I’ve served three terms in three different jails, and I ought to have served fifty. I’m a card sharp, and a dead beat, and when I’m run into a corner I do a little light blackmailing. Are you listening?”
She said tonelessly, “Yes.”
“That’s right; listen hard, because I’m not likely to get as expansive as this again in this incarnation. The closest that I’ve come to an honourable profession since I severed connections somewhat abruptly with the Polish army is my present job. Want to know what that is?”
She said in that same toneless voice:
“Yes.”
“I’m a rum runner,” he informed her amiably, his hands in his pockets. “The best rum runner in the world, if you ask me. I’ve got as good a little ship as ever you saw waiting for me off the Jersey Coast this minute; we’re overdue at Las Cayas in the Bahamas now, because I thought I’d like one more tune with Joel Hardy. I’ve got a gang on her of thirty men that think that Beelzebub’s my understudy—and they’re the boys that ought to know! This is what I do when I’m respectable.… Heard enough, Lindy?”
The girl beside him said softly, “Quite enough. I don’t care whether you make your living robbing graves. Will you ask me to marry you, or shall I ask you?”
“Lindy, you’re the loveliest little fool.” He sank his hands deeper in his pockets and added pleasantly, “I’ve lived on too many women’s money to take yours. Get your gloves, and go upstairs.”
At the word “women” she flinched for the first time, but when she moved it was only to come a step closer.
“They were luckier than I, those other women,” she said clearly, lifting her face to his. “What did they have that I lack?”
And at the terrified gallantry of the small face, he put his arms about her again. “Oh, Spartan child,” he mocked softly, “begging the wolf to gnaw a little harder! What shall I do with you, Lindy?”
“Hold me, don’t let me go. I’ll give you all the money; you can throw it in the Atlantic if you want to. Didn’t you say you were a good rum runner?”
“The best. Incorrigible child, are you proposing to join us?”
“Las Cayas in the Bahamas,” murmured the incorrigible child. “Oh, that has a magic sound! … Las Cayas. Sunlight on golden sands—palms like green feathers against dark blue skies. Starlight, starlight … all the stars in the world to wish on. Would you kiss me then, Kit?”
“I’ll kiss you now. Darling, darling, I don’t love you, but I love your eyes and that absurd little curly mouth.… Lindy.…”
After a long silence he said slowly, “Larry Redmond has a job for me; rather an important piece of investigating in Poland. Shall I take it, and let the ship sail?”
“Can I come, too?”
“No, you small maniac, you cannot come, too. I’d love to drag you all over Poland in little fur boots with silver sleigh bells in your ears, but I’m afraid that it wouldn’t work out. Lindy, don’t you mind that Sunny’s the one I loved?”
“I mind … frightfully. I loved her, too. I’d bring her back for you if I could, Kit. Truly, truly—only since I can’t do that, w
ouldn’t I be better than nothing?”
“If it weren’t so late,” he said unsteadily, “if there wasn’t someone on the stairs out there, I’d go down on my knees and kiss your feet. As it is, I’ll just bend over and put another log on the fire, very casual and detached like—Hello there, Larry Redmond. Give us a hand with this log, will you?”
Larry, hurling his cigarette in a wide arc into the fire, took hold nobly, remarking over his shoulder:
“I suppose you two magpies know that the rest of this crew will be down in a minute or so, howling like banshees for refreshments?”
“Oh, heavens,” wailed Lindy, all soft contrition. “Is it so late, honestly? Larry, I ought to be destroyed; it’s all my fault. I absolutely hung on to Kit, because it was such—such fun talking over old times. I’ll hurry like mad—Kit, you must, too!” She was gone in a flurry of skirts and laughter, and the men by the fire smiled companionably at the sound of her light feet racing up the steps, her light voice echoing along the empty halls.
“Jill—Jill Leighton! Hurry up and get at those hampers, will you, darling? Nobody’s done anything at all and it’s getting frightfully late—” A door slammed sharply across her invocations and Larry, bending his head over another cigarette, said with conviction:
“There’s a beguiling creature! All Marsden’s millions don’t seem to affect her more than a very thin dime. Looks younger than she did ten years ago, doesn’t she?”
“She does,” agreed Kit absently. “It’s a trick they seem to acquire these days. Still think I could handle that Polish job, Larry?”
“None better. You’re absolutely familiar with the terrain, and your knowledge of Polish would be invaluable, leaving aside the French and German. You can keep your mouth shut and your eyes open—if you’re asking me, you’re our man.”
“I’m no good, you know,” said Kit Baird.
“I never knew a man that was to admit it,” remarked Larry pensively. “You’ll do, my lad. The job’s yours if you want it.”
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