“Hello, there,” Leslie called. “Isn’t this a miracle of a day, Mr. Shaw?”
He turned to face her. It seemed to Leslie that she had forgotten how strikingly good-looking he was. He smiled and took her outstretched hand. “A miracle,” he agreed. “But does it have to be Mr. Shaw? Donald sounds more friendly. And Don is even better.”
She lifted her eyes to his, saw his look, and was furious to realize that she was blushing.
“Donald to start with,” she said with a laugh, “and I am—”
“Leslie. Yes, I know. According to Doris and Logan, you have practically gone into seclusion. We’ve been sent with firm orders to storm the citadel and rescue the princess.”
Leslie laughed and drew a long breath of the scented air. “I’m so glad you did! Think of missing all this. How do you like our barge? According to family decree, it is a permanent part of the scenery. It was Douglas Clayton’s playhouse when he was a boy and Dad is faithful to his trust.”
Donald’s smile faded. He turned back to his study of the barge. “So this was Douglas Clayton’s sanctuary.”
“Perhaps it still is,” Leslie said.
He looked at her, a startled expression in the gray eyes that were usually so cool, so amused, so detached.
“Aunt Agatha,” she explained, “said not long ago that Douglas Clayton seems to haunt this house, that he is more alive now than he ever was. So if he is haunting any place, it’s bound to be the barge.”
“Aren’t you afraid of ghosts?” he said lightly.
“Not of his. Sure you won’t change your mind and swim?”
He looked wistfully at the water. “I’d like to. It’s a temptation. Perhaps another time?”
“Doctor’s orders?”
“Something like that.” He turned to look out at the river as some movement caught his eye. Jim Mason was going by in his canoe. The sun sparkled on the water, shone on his bare head with its sandy hair. Suddenly Donald’s expression changed. His eyes narrowed, he watched the accountant intently.
“Now I wonder,” he said.
Leslie laughed. “That’s Jim Mason from the Company. Canoeing is his hobby. He practically patrols this part of the river, up as far as our house and down under the covered bridge below the Company.”
“Does he indeed?” There was something odd in Donald’s voice and in his manner. “Has he been with the Company for a long time?”
“No, you and he are the only newcomers to join us in months and months. The last one was Oliver Harrison, who has been here over ten months now. The rest have worked for the Claytons much longer; with some of them, their fathers and grandfathers and even great-grandfathers were part of the organization in one capacity or another.”
“So,” Donald said thoughtfully.
Paul ran down on the lawn, waved to them, jeered, “Sissies!” Then he climbed out on the barge and dived. Leslie followed him with a perfect swan dive. While they swam, calling to each other and laughing, Donald sat on the edge of the barge, watching. How beautiful Leslie was, her lovely body seen through the clear blue water like a mermaid’s, arms that had been browned by the sun flashing now and then as she swam. Her face lit up with her smile like the sun coming from behind a cloud. He prayed that there would be no clouds for her, and yet, if Blake were to be proved guilty of taking a bribe, the storm would have to come and he would not, if he could, raise a hand to stop it.
He took a long breath. He’d rather lose an arm than hurt this lovely girl, cast a shadow on her life, but he could not turn back now. Anyhow, there was courage in her face, strength in her chin in spite of the softening effect of that bewitching dimple.
When Leslie and Paul had changed, all three crowded into the front seat of Paul’s car and they drove to the Country Club. Under a big umbrella on the lawn a table for six had been reserved for them. Jane and Doris were already seated, with young Dr. Fletcher in attendance.
As they reached the table, Jane looked up and her face stiffened. She spoke to Leslie and Paul, but she did not even look at Donald Shaw as she greeted him with a minimum of enthusiasm.
“Hi, there,” Doris called eagerly to Leslie. “I told Paul to bring you if he had to drag you by the hair and you screamed every step of the way.”
“That’s just what I did,” Paul declared. “Didn’t you hear the outcries? People in the village thought it was air raid sirens.” He pulled out Leslie’s chair.
“What on earth have you been doing to yourself?” Jane asked in surprise.
“Nothing special,” Leslie said. “Working.”
“A new hairdo?”
Leslie shook her head.
“Well, you’re like another creature. Maybe it’s that white dress. You’re simply blossoming, whatever it is. And such a wonderful color you have.”
Leslie felt her betraying color deepen. She looked up, saw Doris’s swift look of understanding, looked down again. This is ridiculous, she thought. I’m wearing love like a flag for all to see, and he isn’t even interested in me.
Doris, quick to protect Leslie, said, “Talking about being another creature, what’s happened to your stepmother? Paul and I were at the Randalls’ last night when she dropped in with your father. She was—I don’t know—but not a single word about ‘my own money.’ She didn’t try to—well, I mean she’d say things like ‘What do you think, Corliss?’ Or she’d say, ‘It depends on what Corliss wants to do’ or ‘My husband makes decisions like that better than I do.’ So—well, she was just different. Not helpless, exactly, but sort of gentle, as though she needed your father’s protection.”
“She has always been that way inside,” Leslie said. “It has taken me a long time to understand her, much too long a time. She loves us, Dad especially, but she didn’t know how to show it.”
Jane, her serene beauty emphasized by the deep blue of her dress and a tiny blue hat perched far back on the smooth blond hair, was careful not to look at Donald Shaw. She was devoting herself to Dr. Fletcher, much to his satisfaction.
“This is too nice a party to break up,” the doctor suggested. “Can’t we all get in some tennis this afternoon and dine and dance here tonight? I’m a free man for the day and I want my holiday to be perfect. There’s a new orchestra coming up from New York.”
Jane gave him a languorous smile. “I’d love it.”
Paul turned a stern look on Doris. “Speak your piece, wench.”
“Yes, sir. At your beck and call, sir,” she said meekly, while her black eyes sparkled.
Donald Shaw raised questioning brows. “Leslie? Will you?”
“That would be fun.” She smiled at him.
* * *
That afternoon, on a bench beside the club court, Leslie, in white from bandeau to shoes, reveled in the beauty around her. Lovely world! Mauve, pink, jade and gold. Summer caught at one’s breath like the faraway music of the bands of an approaching regiment and made one’s heart jumpy.
Paul and Doris had beaten Donald and her at three sets of tennis. Warm, slightly tired, piqued by defeat, she was in a mood to steer her always temperamental ship straight for the rocks.
When Jane and Dr. Fletcher had replaced her and Donald on the court, she sat watching, with Donald curled up at her feet.
“Corking serve Jane has,” he commented after a long silence, when he had watched Jane with brooding eyes.
“They’re just letting her win,” Leslie said, and gasped. What had made her say anything as contemptible as that? She was not only a bad sport; she was jealous, green-eyed with jealousy.
Unexpectedly, Donald looked up at her. “Don’t be a little idiot.” He smiled into her stormy eyes. He went on deliberately, “Jane is a superb tennis player, though she is getting a bit old for so strenuous a game. She is extremely beautiful.” He added with cool detachment, “But that’s all. Under that beauty—nothing, nothing whatever. No heart, no compassion, no understanding, no imagination. Any man who loved her would be very lonely, find his life very cold, unless he could be satisfied
with an unrealized dream.”
His hand reached up, touched hers. It was like an electric shock that ran through her veins. There was a tenderness under the laughter in his voice that shook her heart. “You’re not really beautiful, you know, but you’re like a hearth in winter, glowing and warm. You’ve got a temper, but you’ve also got a heart. You’re—bewitching and enchanting and your moods change so no man will ever know what to expect next, and he’s going to love every minute of it.”
He stopped short. Leslie was staring down at him, at the short-cropped hair on which the sun beat relentlessly, and the scars, dozens of them, on his scalp. He looked up into the brown eyes that had widened. Then he got to his feet with a quick, lithe gesture.
“Let’s forget it,” he said harshly. “I’ll be seeing you around, I suppose.” He turned away.
She caught at his arm. “You’ll be seeing me tonight,” she said evenly. She knew now what had made Jane run away from him, knew the extent of the wound she had inflicted. “Remember? You asked me to dine and dance with you.”
He lifted her hand to his lips. “It’s still a date?”
“Still a date,” she promised. She smiled impishly. “Just try to break it!”
It was a date that turned her eyes to stars while she dressed in orchid linen, as delicate as a handkerchief. Donald was waiting in the hall, talking with her father, when she came down the stairs. The older man looked from his new chemist to his radiant daughter with a troubled expression.
While she pinned on the orchids Donald had brought her, she laughed. “You must be a mind reader.”
“Perhaps you ought to be, too,” he said, with a glint of laughter in his eyes.
Blake put his hand on her shoulder. “Have fun, Puss. Good night, Shaw. Look after her.”
“I will, sir.”
They went to the dance in the village taxi, for which Donald apologized. He’d be able to do better next week.
“A white Chrysler?” Leslie asked mischievously.
“Well, no; a Volkswagen. But at least you won’t have to ride in a sidecar.”
“I like sidecars,” she assured him blithely.
“I believe you do.” He laughed as though at a hidden joke.
“What’s wrong with that?” she demanded.
“Not a thing. I was just trying to imagine Jane in a sidecar.”
“Oh.”
The same three couples dined at a choice table on the edge of the dance floor. Tonight Doris seemed like a flame in the cranberry-red dress that had so intrigued her in New York. Though she had little share of Jane’s beauty, she almost eclipsed her older sister by her sheer radiance. Happiness sparkled in her, made people turn to smile with sheer pleasure in her pleasure.
Doris herself was unaware of anyone but Paul Logan, who looked slightly dazed but enormously pleased with himself. Dr. Fletcher, plainly dazzled, devoted himself to Jane, seating her at the table as carefully as though she were made of crystal. Recalling Jane’s strenuous tennis, Leslie smothered a laugh.
Crabmeat cocktail was followed by a clear soup, filet mignon with mushrooms, asparagus hollandaise, hot rolls and a tossed salad.
Jane groaned. “Heavens, I’ll have to reduce for a week after this. I have no character when it comes to asparagus hollandaise.”
“It’s against nature to fight this sort of thing,” Doris declared. “I may end as plump as a cantaloupe but it’s going to be worth every pound. Paul, do you think they’d bring any more hot rolls?”
“Not for you,” he said firmly. “I like my women slender.”
She sighed, hesitated, and after a bitter struggle of all of one second, reached for the roll on his plate. She buttered it lavishly. “On mature consideration, I’ve decided that you’ll have to take me as I am.”
“I never thought I’d end by marrying a fat wife,” he groaned.
“Fat! One hundred and twelve pounds,” Doris protested.
“Marry!” Jane exclaimed.
Doris nodded. She nudged Paul. “Say something, you dope! Prove that you are the master of the occasion.”
Paul stood up, grinning. “Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to announce my approaching marriage—”
“Doris,” Leslie cried excitedly, “I’m so happy for you.”
Paul frowned at her. “Now see what you’ve done, woman. You interrupted my speech. It was going to be terrific.”
“When did this happen?” Jane demanded.
“This afternoon,” Paul said. “I hit her over the head with a tennis racket and when she came to she wasn’t able to fight back. She’s mine now.” He eyed Doris appraisingly. “A poor thing, but mine own.”
The manager came up, beaming. In a bucket of ice there was a bottle of champagne. “We would like to extend our congratulations, Mr. Logan.”
Adding to the spirit of the occasion, the new orchestra swung into the strains of “Here Comes the Bride,” to the general laughter and applause of the guests, most of whom knew both Doris and Paul well.
Then the regular program of dance music began and Paul led a glowing Doris out on the floor, where again they were greeted with applause and laughter. Donald held out his hand to Leslie and swept her away among the dancing couples.
“Surprised?” he asked.
“I hoped it was going to happen. They’re just right for each other. If any couple could be perfectly happy, except my father and mother, I think they’d be the ones. They want the same things out of life.”
“Your parents are so happy?”
“Were,” she corrected him. “Aunt Agatha is my stepmother. Dad told me my mother was like—like the sun shining on the Garden of Eden.” They circled the floor in silence. “Sometimes I feel so sorry for Aunt Agatha. No woman can ever compete with a love like that, a whole, all-encompassing love, even when it is in the past.”
Donald made no comment. Leslie was aware of Doris and Paul laughing together as they whirled past in one of the complicated new dances they liked to try out; of Jane looking up at the infatuated young doctor; of Felice Allen’s red hair and husky laugh as she danced with Arthur Wilcox, one of Leslie’s favorite people among the Company’s employees. But they were all dreamlike. The important thing was the man who led her firmly, her steps following his as though they had always danced together. She looked up to see him watching her expression intently, with a somberness she had never before observed on the stern, handsome face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, missing a step as she was tumbled out of her dream.
He steadied her, moved on. “At least,” he said, “you didn’t run away.”
She did not pretend to misunderstand him. At the moment his need mattered more than her own sickness of heart, her awareness that Jane was always there, always between them.
“You mean the scars on your scalp,” she said steadily. “That’s what Jane saw; that’s what made her run away. You mustn’t mind too much. She’s—she can’t help it, you know. She,” Leslie added valiantly, “she is bound to get over it. Why, what difference do they make, after all? They are so tiny, practically invisible. They don’t show except under a strong light. And, anyhow, there’s nothing—disturbing about them. Nothing at all.”
“Dr. Forsyth warned me, but I like sunlight and I keep forgetting.”
“I’m glad you do.” She looked up at him. “Something terrible happened to you, Donald. I don’t know what. But you ought to forget it. Forever. After all, there’s nothing left but scars.”
He moved through the open doors onto the big screened porch that encircled the Country Club. “There’s one other thing left. The sunlight. I won’t be afraid of it any more.”
He lifted her chin and kissed her lightly on the lips.
There was a sudden hush. The music had ended, and the scattering of applause. A woman stood in the doorway, a slender blond woman in white. Jane Williams. Then with a muffled exclamation—“No!”—she was gone and the porch began to fill up with couples, laughing and talking.
&nbs
p; “Please take me home,” Leslie said.
12
Next morning Donald Shaw settled down at his desk in the Fox and Rabbit with a stack of paper in front of him. At an early hour he had had breakfast served in his room. By mid-morning he had filled pages with figures and formulas. The ringing of the telephone startled him.
“Shaw? This is Paul Logan.”
“Oh, Logan. I didn’t have a chance to congratulate you adequately last night. She’s a delightful girl. You’re a lucky man.”
“You’re telling me,” Paul said exuberantly. “I can hardly believe my luck. How about joining me downstairs for brunch so I can let off steam by gloating for a while?”
“Thanks a lot, but I got an early start this morning. I’m a working man today. Give me a rain check, will you? We’ll catch up on your gloating later.”
Paul laughed, with the carelessness of a man who had never worked for his living and never expects to. “I hope they are giving you overtime. Dinner some night soon, then.” He rang off and Donald went back to the paper before him, frowning at it. There was something he had missed.
Early in the afternoon the phone rang a second time. “Mr. Shaw, this is Agatha Blake. My husband and I hope you’ll join us tonight for our buffet supper.”
Again Donald excused himself. Most unfortunately, he had just made an engagement that he could not break.
“Next Sunday, then,” she suggested and he accepted, wondering a little. Mrs. Blake had not impressed him as a woman who would issue a second invitation as soon as a first was refused.
When he had set down the telephone he stared at it, half tempted to call her back. Fool, he told himself, you could have seen her, talked to her. Leslie had been very quiet on the way home, had thanked him, said good night, and gone inside so quickly that he had been unprepared.
Leslie. He said the name aloud, thinking of the charming face with its warm brown eyes, small nose and resolute chin. He had not seen the dimple when she left him last night. That flashed only when she smiled and she had not smiled after Jane had turned away from the door, where she had witnessed the brief, fleeting kiss, when she had said “No” as though the word had been wrenched from her.
A Candle in Her Heart Page 11