“You needn’t look at me so accusingly,” laughed Chatty, once more joyous. “I haven’t a single child called Peter. One of the boys is called Tom, and the other one’s Dick, after Dad—and the next one is going to be Harry. Did you ever hear anything so dreadful? The girls are more exciting. I love Nancy for a name, and the baby’s Hope. Don’t you like Hope? You don’t think they’ll tease her about it the way they did me about Chatty?”
“Did we tease you, Chatty?” asked Trudi, the brusque voice oddly gentle. “I wish we hadn’t teased you.… And I wish that I knew Tom and Dick and Hope and Nancy. They must be rather nice, if they take after their parents.”
“Oh, Trudi, I do wish you did! You seem so awfully far away—farther away in New York than in all those other places. Sometimes I feel as though Hartsdale were twenty thousand miles from Park Avenue instead of twenty.”
“Chatty—Chatty, is it I who have made you feel that?”
“You, darling?” Her eyes widened in candid surprise. “Oh, never. How in the world could you? It’s just that you are so frightfully busy and important in your part of it, and I’m so busy and unimportant in mine, that we never have seemed to find a bridge to run across. I’ve wanted so awfully to have you see the house—and every time I get everything all fixed up so that it’s simply ravishing, with flowers in the window boxes and new green paint on the shutters and I’m absolutely exploding with pride and anxiety to have you and Sherry out for the week end, Dick comes down with German measles, or Nancy has whooping cough, or Bohemia gets temperamental and wants to get married again, or Tom has to stay in to work over Sunday. You know, once I honestly was trying to get you on the telephone when little Tom fell over the banisters right spang under my nose and broke his collar bone. As soon as I got my breath and the doctor, I was perfectly wild—I’d just put up the new glazed chintz curtains and painted the porch furniture jade green, and I wanted you so awfully.” She halted, her eyes round with distressed consternation. “Trudi—Trudi darling, what is it?” She pushed the dishes recklessly aside, catching at Trudi’s arm. “Trudi, did I say something dreadful? I never saw you cry; darling, are you crying?”
“Chatty, I never saw myself. Let’s investigate; perhaps we’re both mistaken.” She produced two inches of cobweb and lace, applied it experimentally to either eye, and inspected it critically. “No—we were entirely correct. I haven’t cried since a black kitten called Bony died when I was nine and three quarters. It had three white whiskers and one white paw, so you can hardly blame me—”
“No, no, you needn’t laugh, Trudi—it was something I said—”
“Something you said, my innocent? It was every last mortal word you said, though I rather think it was the bit about the jade-green furniture that completely demoralized me. Did you paint it yourself?”
“Tom and I did. Over Decoration Day, you know; we always have perfectly divine times on holidays, getting everything cleared up that we’ve been talking about for weeks. Last election day—”
“You and your measles and your chintzes and your perfectly divine times!” said Trudi thickly. “Chatty, come here. I’ve never told you—I’ve never told you how sorry I was when Tom and Sherry broke up. I was horribly sorry, Chatty.”
“I know.” The clear eyes met Trudi’s troubled ones bravely. “I was sorry, too, darling.”
“I started three letters to you—and I tore them all up. It simply came as a thunderbolt to me; I thought they were getting on beautifully. I didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. You see, Sherry never told me what happened.”
“Didn’t he, Trudi?”
“Not a word, except that there had been a misunderstanding about policy that made it advisable for them to separate. Did Tom tell you?”
“No.” The small, sober voice hesitated for a moment, and then said quickly, “Not even that there was a misunderstanding. Not anything. Just that he was going to try to get another job.”
“I wouldn’t have minded so much,” said Trudi, staring down at their clasped hands, “if we hadn’t run into such infernally good luck after that, and you into such infernally bad. I was in Cairo when Tom had pneumonia—”
“It wasn’t luck that made him have a hard time,” said Chatty. Her eyes never wavered, but her lips trembled suddenly, and she caught her teeth in them. “It was me—and the children. It was just when the second baby was coming, you see, and we didn’t have much saved up, and I was sick all the time and an awful drag, with doctors and extra help and everything—and it was summer and all the offices were cutting down—and then he got pneumonia. And so we had rather a dreadful time for a while, and instead of being able to help, I was just a burden. Oh, Trudi, I’d meant to help him so!”
“I don’t believe that any woman in this world ever helped a man more.”
“No, no, I’ve ruined him. Everyone knows what his mind is; he had the best mind in law school—Sherry said so himself. But, Trudi, he doesn’t dare strike out for himself because of us—he doesn’t even dare ask for raises or promotions, because he can’t forget those three months when he hadn’t any job, and those old ghouls down there know it.” She cried suddenly in a voice shaken and transformed by passion: “I’d like to kill them! Giving him more work and more work—and he’s not even a junior partner—after eight years.” And more passionately still, “He ought to be president of the Bar Association! He ought to be President of the United States!”
Trudi suddenly yielded to helpless mirth at the outraged pride of the small flaming face.
“Oh, Chatty, he’s luckier than presidents; he has you.”
“Oh, me, I’m no good at all—I’m worse than no good. And he can’t bear not having us have everything; why, last winter I just said casually that I thought that new tea-wagon that the Elstons’ had was awfully tricky and convenient for wheeling things in and out from the kitchen, and he went without a winter overcoat to give me one for Christmas, because he’d already bought me a fox neckpiece and a bicycle for Tommy, and when I—” She cast a horrified eye over her shoulder in the direction of the voices in the hall, and made a frantic pounce for her tray. “Oh, Trudi, good heavens, they’re back and we haven’t half finished!”
Trudi, tucking the cobweb away thoughtfully in her cuff, gave her one of her rare and radiant smiles as she picked up her tray. “I love you, Chatty; you’re the most absurd creature that ever lived. That’s the reason that I’ve always loved you better than anyone else, I suppose. And if you keep up any more of that ineffable nonsense about what a drag you are on Tom, I shall howl again in front of everyone, and tell them exactly what I think of you.… Lindy, where do we put this stuff—in the butler’s pantry?”
“Yes, right through the far door. It won’t take us a minute to wash them up; we’ll all help. Trudi, here’s your smock—yours, too, darling.”
Ray said, “I never saw so many doors in my born days. Where do they all go?”
“These two on either side of the fireplace are just closets; the one next to the wood closet goes to the service quarters; the one next to the closet with all the old things in it goes to the chapel. That’s all there are except these huge things into the front hall—we never keep them closed.”
“I suppose it’s that long row of French windows opening out on the terrace,” murmured Ray vaguely. “And I forgot that those other two were closets.” She circled the great couch warily, and tucked her slim ankles under her in the corner of the love-seat closest to the fire.
“Still seeing Sidney in the offing, you little nit-wit?” inquired the observant Joel. “What happened to the desk, Lindy?”
“I don’t know, truly. I suppose that even Sidney’s most adoring descendants decided that that was a little sinister as a souvenir. Did you leave the things, Trudi?”
Trudi emerged from the dark doorway, with Chatty beaming at her heels, and ensconced herself virtuously in the other love-seat.
“Are you sluggards doing that murder all over again?” she demanded severely
. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? I’ll bet Gavin started it. I’m certainly thankful to God that people don’t go around sticking knives into anyone that they’re annoyed with nowadays! It would take just about three or four fine, self-indulgent mornings up and down Park Avenue to make the New York death rate catch up with India’s famine district in two leaps and a bound. What I’d do to that Lawrence woman who’s forever cribbing my best hors d’œuvres! And that dumb parlour maid of mine, and that drunk little Olney boy, and—”
“Do you really believe that murder went out with periwigs?” asked Dart, his amused gray eyes fixed on her appraisingly. “Or is it your contention that they are invented by the press to supply headlines?”
“Oh, gunmen.” Trudi dismissed them airily. “And nice, warm-blooded Latins, and psychopathic dopefiends, and the more excitable high-jackers—no, what I meant was that you could count on being reasonably safe with your friends and relations these days. So unlike the home life of the dear Borgias.”
“My dear girl, I’d be willing to wager that no matter how exclusive you may be, you number at least three murderers in your circle of acquaintances.”
“Gavin, you really are the most priceless flatterer. I swear to Heaven that I’ve never met one single murderer in my whole wasted life. Is it like that in Pittsburg? Sherry, let’s live in Pittsburg.”
“I don’t mean avowed or even accused murderers,” said Dart amiably. “I mean the undiscovered ones. The devoted daughter-in-law who has left two windows skilfully open on the old lady who is just recovering nicely from double pneumonia, and is leaving them two million in her will; the wife who goads her husband into the one honourable way out, the river; the husband who detests the notoriety of divorce, and solicitously administers that third headache tablet—”
“Gavin, I think that’s dreadful.” Hanna, her low voice shaken, her colour fled, leaned forward, gravely imperious. “I don’t think that it’s amusing at all—it’s frightful to talk that way. And you’re frightening poor Ray, too. When we get back, I’m going to turn your whole criminal library into a funeral pyre; you’re getting absolutely morbid about it.”
Trudi stared at her with incredulous delight.
“Hanna, I never in my whole mortal life heard you lay down the law to anyone until this minute. It’s no end becoming, too—I’d take it up as a career, if I were you. Mrs. Gavin Dart, the well-known young society matron, in her inimitable transformation scene as The Virago, nightly at 10.30 sharp, and twice on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The line forms to the right—women and children first—”
“No, no, I’m not trying to be funny. I think it’s ghastly.”
“Let’s ignore her, Dart.” The recalcitrant Joel pressed forward undaunted. “Look here, there’s one thing about that tall tale of Lindy’s that rather defeats me. There’s not even a hint about that well-known essential, the weapon. Shouldn’t you say that it would take something rather special in the line of knives to go through a collar and stock and sever the chord all at one fell swoop?”
“Well, you’d need a good sharp knife, and it would certainly require an extremely steady hand; there’s precious little margin for error in that operation! It would be infinitely simpler and surer to strike from the side and get the jugular—granted that you had no objection to blood.”
“But could you do that without being seen?”
“Oh, surely—simply come up behind the person like this—”
“Gavin! Gavin, if you don’t drop this hideous non-sense this minute I’m going to leave the room. You’re making me ill, and Ray and Lindy, too. I mean it. I am simply not going to stand—”
“Sorry, my dear. Evidently we’re the lowest of ruffians, Hardy—we’ll continue our entirely scientific research work with a more sympathetic audience. Hanna, if you’ll stop looking at me like that, I’ll atone by preparing this apple tub with my own unregenerate hands, and you shall have the very first bob. Just how does one go about filling a tub of these Gargantuan proportions?”
“Everyone gets a bucket—that’s the fairest way, isn’t it? If there aren’t enough buckets in the kitchen there ought to be some at the far end of the service quarters, near the cold room.”
Trudi said sternly from the door by the fireplace, “I don’t want to throw a jarring note into this snug and merry gathering, but just as a matter of cold fact there are three or four hundred dishes out there waiting to get their faces washed before we pass lightly on to the pastimes of the evening, such as bucket filling, high jumping, and the like. I’ll thank you all to pass slowly but snappily through this door, single file, so that I can count your noses and make sure there aren’t any low slackers around here. You first, Mr. Hardy. Right after him, Mrs. Hardy; don’t let go his coat-tails or the goblins’ll get you. Next, Sheridan—”
“Ah, Trudi, have a heart. Doggone it, those plates won’t walk off in the night.”
“Not another word out of you, my good man. Rules of the’ouse, and well you knows it. March Hares never, never gambol till the harvest is in. I’m surprised at you, I am. Step lively, Larry. To the sink for you, Doug! Next, Kit. Lindy, you’re the last; don’t hostesses wash dishes?”
Lindy met the friendly, mocking eyes fixed on hers unwaveringly.
“I’m going to fix up the prizes while they’re out, Trudi dear. I’ll never get another chance before we start the games. It won’t take more than a minute; I just have to label them and tie them up.”
“Is—that—so?” drawled Trudi softly. “I’ll say one thing for you; you’re as resourceful a minx as ever I came across, and I’ve come across some. Tying up prizes, is it? Well, you don’t want to catch cold doing it, and this fire’s nearly out. I’ll let someone off long enough to bring back an armful of wood. Who is the fireman ‘round here anyway—Kit Baird?”
Lindy, never moving from the deep chair, bestowed on her the most circumspect and fleeting of smiles.
“Yes, it’s Kit.… Thanks a lot, Trudi darling; you think of everything.”
Trudi said darkly, “I think a whole lot more than you’d believe, you unholy little fraud. You’d better get at those packages of yours before I expose you.”
She vanished abruptly into the darkness of the passage, and Lindy sat staring at the empty doorway thoughtfully. After a long moment she stirred, stretched with all the luxurious grace of a Persian kitten, and rose lightly to her feet. There was a large green box in the corner of the room; she broke the Gord about it, the smile hovering again at sight of the exquisite array of packages that it contained, trim and fragile as butterflies, with their great bows and tiny labels. She lifted them out carefully and stood on tiptoe to place them in a row along the mantel shelf—the dull silver one with the huge gold bow, the bright silver one with coral, the sapphire blue one banded with jade green, and the powder-blue one strewn with little stars; the flaming one with silver tassels and the frosty one knotted with flame. She hovered a moment touching their bows to even airier perfection, and still on tiptoe, turned to the dim mirror, moving a candle to get a better view, one finger on her lip, as though she were adjuring even the shadows to silence. After a critical moment, with tilted head, she frowned slightly and loosened the violet smock at wrist and throat. Still frowning, she slipped it from her with an impatient shrug of her shoulders, tossing it onto the chair behind her without a backward glance, her eyes still on the mirror. The girl in it smiled dimly back at her, the long pearls gleaming at her ears, the tulle scarf falling lightly away from slim arms and white throat—a face all witchery and grace, with a beggar’s eyes and a fairy’s mouth.
A voice suggested amiably from the shadows beyond her shoulder: “The next line is, ‘Oh, how you startled me,’ isn’t it?”
She shook her head, not turning. “No. The next line is, ‘I thought you were never coming.’”
Kit, with that Indian tread of his, passed her silently, depositing his load of wood on the hearth and kneeling beside it.
“I thought I made fairly good
time, but obviously I’m a laggard. Trudi had some tale of how you were alternately tying bundles and freezing to death. Her diagnosis seems incorrect in every detail; obviously even a smock is too heavy!”
The fire flamed suddenly under his hands and on his hair. Lindy turned from the mirror, still smiling at what she saw.
“Not too heavy; too ugly! And I’m not cold at all without it—see!” She laid two hands, feather light, on his, and he swung to his feet as though they had touched some hidden spring.
“I’ll be off then; shall I tell Trudi you’re coming?”
She stood quiet as some small, lost animal, scenting danger on a distant wind.
“Trudi? No. What is it, Kit? I wanted to talk to you. Don’t—don’t you want to talk to me?”
He said, staring down at her with something alien and dangerous in his eyes, “No. I’m not feeling particularly—conversational. Nor, on a wager, are you! And I’m not precisely hell-bent on permitting myself to be made a fool of so soon again either. Still, chivalry is not entirely dead.” He put a casual finger under her chin, tilted the small face to his, and bent his head. “That what you want, little Lindy?”
She said, unmoving, in a voice so low that he could hardly hear, “No. Don’t touch me, please. I’ll not permit you to cheapen yourself by cheapening me.”
He dropped his hand with a careless shrug.
“Sorry—I’m apparently unusually dense to-night.”
Lindy whispered, “What is it? Why do you want to hurt me? You shouldn’t want to hurt me; it’s too easy.”
Kit, flicking a glance at her more casual than his finger, disclaimed lightly, “My dear child, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. Am I dismissed? I’ll send King back to console you for my obvious deficiencies.”
“Doug?” The lashes lifted over blankly incredulous eyes. “Why should you send Doug?”
“Ah, my dear, I’m walking delicately before the Lord to-night, let me tell you. If I irritate Doug again by trespassing on his own private property he may do something to spoil this delightful party, as you suggest.”
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