by Peggy Gaddis
A gay young voice behind her said, “Let’s see the bruises.”
Startled, she turned to face a very pretty girl, hatless, blonde and blue-eyed and laughing.
“I beg your pardon?” Hilary said.
The girl thrust a hand through Hilary’s arm and drew her down the corridor to the club room, where the waitresses were serving tea.
“I saw you come out of Stu’s office, and you looked as if you’d like to slug somebody, so I knew Stu had been up to his old tricks—bullying new nurses,” said the girl cheerfully, and led the way to a deep sofa in a far corner. “Here, sit down while I wangle us some tea and sandwiches.”
Hilary sat down, wondering about the girl, who was obviously well-known and quite popular. She was greeted with smiles on all sides as she made her way to the buffet, selected a tray, a tea-pot, cups and saucers, and a plate of sandwiches and one of little cakes. She came back to Hilary, placed the tray carefully on the glass-topped coffee-table in front of them, and leaned back, shrugging out of her cashmere coat as she did so.
“There, now we’re all cozy, and you can tell me what made Stu mad at you. I can’t imagine; you’re-so very pretty. But since I have my eye on Stu for myself, I’m glad you’re mad at him,” she rattled on cheerfully, as she poured tea, added lemon, selected a sandwich and leaned back. “Oh, I almost forgot; I’m Angela Ramsey. And you’re Hilary Westbrook. Ethel at the switchboard told me.”
Hilary accepted the tea, selected a sandwich and smiled at the girl, who was as friendly, as lighthearted and as uninhibited as a cocker-spaniel.
“Ramsey?” she repeated, and Angela nodded, her shoulder length blonde curls swaying with the movement.
“That big handsome brute who is at the moment charming all the twittering old gals is my pop,” she said. And together they watched Drew as he moved about the room, pausing to chat, to laugh, to exert his considerable charm on the old women, who were obviously delighted at his attention.
“Isn’t he something?” mused Angela, half-way between amusement and affection. “Nobody in the world could ever convince Pop that any woman between sixteen and ninety wouldn’t grovel at his feet if he smiled prettily at them. But at that, he’s not a bad egg; and about ninety per cent of the time, he’s right. He’s the only livin’ soul that can get a giggle out of the Duchess—and if you know the Duchess.”
Hilary, vastly entertained and liking the girl better every moment, laughed.
“We’ve met, the Duchess and I,” she admitted cautiously.
Angela gave her a commiserating smile.
“And did you tell her who your mother and father, and their mother and father, and their mother and father were? I mean to say, did you go ancestor chasing with her? It’s her favorite sport.”
Hilary laughed.
“I’m afraid we didn’t get to that,” she admitted. “She was too angry about her breakfast. She did tell me, though, that I’d better make up my mind to get along with her, because she just about ran things here, and she added darkly that she wasn’t easy to get along with.”
Angela chuckled.
“The understatement of this or any other century,” she confided. “I’m convinced the only reason Pop lets her stay here is that she owns a piece of the joint.”
Hilary looked her bewilderment, and Angela’s blue eyes danced.
“Meaning, in words of one syllable, that she has money invested here,” she explained kindly. “Oh, Pop never told me. But I know he had the dickens of a time raising the money to build the place up to its present stage of perfection. And nobody would put up with the Duchess if they didn’t have to. Besides, being such a haughty old gal, with all sorts of fancy ‘connections’, she gives the place tone. And Pop sets a high evaluation on tone.”
There had been the pleasant clatter of tea-cups, cheerful voices and the tinkling laughter of old people; now suddenly there was a hush. All heads turned toward the door, and Angela grinned wryly.
“Speak of the devil and there’s always a whiff of brimstone,” she murmured, and Hilary followed the direction of the blue eyes.
In the centre of the doorway, for all the world like a stage star making her entrance, stood a regally haughty figure: a woman whose thinning white hair had been elaborately coiffed, and who wore an expensive-looking black satin frock, with wisps of exquisite creamy lace at wrists and throat. A wide black velvet band about her throat sought to disguise and uplift sagging lines, and her sharp old eyes scanned the room sternly.
“I always miss the fanfare of trumpets when she appears,” Angela murmured. “And I’m never quite sure whether we lowly peasants should rise and curtsy, or fall flat on our faces and hide our eyes until she reaches her own table.”
Drew Ramsey, caught by the momentary hush that had fallen on the room, straightened from his conversation with a group of two old ladies and two old men, looked toward the door and hurried forward, smiling, offering his arm. The Duchess laid her claw-like hand, glittering with jewels, on it and was escorted with ceremony to a well-placed table.
“Out of the draft, of course,” murmured Angela wickedly, “provided there were a draft presumptuous enough to enter these hallowed precincts; a place where she can survey the whole room and everybody in it, yet have a view of the terrace. Only the best is good enough for Madam and even that, from her standpoint, isn’t too good.”
“You really do dislike her, don’t you?” Hilary was puzzled by the girl’s hostility.
Angela’s lovely face hardened as she glanced at the door. Once more Hilary’s eyes followed Angela’s, and she saw a tall, spectacularly handsome young man standing there, searching the room with his eyes, finding the Duchess and moving toward her.
“Well, so there you are at last,” barked the Duchess, her voice carrying to the far corners of the big room. “I wonder you can tear yourself away from your own amusements long enough to drive out here. Well, don’t just stand there. Sit down, sit down.”
The young man murmured something, and took the chair Drew offered.
The young man smiled tentatively at the old woman and said something, to which she barked sharply, “Stop mumbling! Speak up! You sound as if you had a mouthful of mush.”
“I said,” the young man’s voice was quite distinct now, “that I was sorry I was late, but I had to stop and pick up the papers you wanted at the bank. It was after hours, and I had some small delay in getting them.”
“After hours? I telephoned this morning and told that fool of a Latham I’d want the papers,” snapped the old woman. “Why couldn’t you have gone to the bank earlier?”
“I was in court—” the young man began.
“In court!” The old woman’s contemptuous retort was like a slap. “Don’t try to tell me Latham and Shepton would trust you to try a case! They only let you stay there because I demanded it—and you’re to look after my business and no one else’s. Is that clear?”
The young man lifted ashamed, unhappy eyes, glanced about him, and even from where she and Angela sat she could see the dark red that burned in his face.
“I’m sure it’s clear to everybody in the room, Aunt Kate,” he answered, and now he, too, made no effort to lower his voice. “I don’t suppose you’d care to discuss the matter in a little more privacy?”
“Why?” snapped the old woman. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Hilary looked at Angela as the young man drew a large envelope out of his pocket, handed it to his aunt and waited.
“Reid Keenan, her nephew,” said Angela briefly.
“And heir, I suppose,” Hilary commented dryly.
“No!” Angela spoke softly, but there was force and anger in her voice. “She boasts that she isn’t leaving him a cent!”
“Then why does he put up with her foul temper and her abuse?”
“Because he’s sorry for her.”
“Oh, come now, Angela.”
“It’s true,” Angela insisted. “I could kill her with my bare hands for the way she
bullies and humiliates him; I’ve tried to persuade him to kick her in the teeth. But he says he is sorry for her; that she is bitterly lonely, and even that she is scared.”
“Scared? Of what, for heaven’s sake?” marveled Hilary.
“Of dying,” answered Angela with a rather terrible simplicity.
“Oh,” said Hilary, and watched the old woman scanning the papers she had drawn from the envelope, while the young man waited to explain or to point out whatever she wanted to know.
“Reid says that he is her favorite football, that nobody else will stand for her bad temper and her abuse. He claims it makes her feel better if she can bully somebody who can’t talk back; and he insists that it rolls off him like water off a duck’s back,” Angela explained huskily, very carefully not looking at the two across the room. “But he’s—well, he’s really a grand guy, and it just kills me to watch her stage these scenes.”
“Oh, this isn’t unusual then?” asked Hilary.
“Ha—I wish it was! It happens once a week, sometimes more often,” Angela admitted grimly. “Her lawyers took Reid in because they didn’t have anybody who could get along with her, and she insisted they give Reid a job, and she has never let him forget it. It’s a darn shame, for Reid is a very capable attorney in his own right, even if he is only a year out of law school. He could set up shop for himself and get established in a few years. But no, old Aunt Kate insists he stay under her thumb.”
“I can’t imagine any man of spirit putting up with it.”
“Oh, she’s all the family he has, just as he is all the family she has,” Angela admitted unwillingly. “She took him in hand when his mother and father died, and he was only five years old. She has brought him up, educated him, and now she demands her pound of flesh—right over the heart. She would, being the Duchess.”
The old woman’s angry voice rose again as she glared at Reid.
“What does that firm of shysters think they are doing to me? Do they think I’m such a fool I don’t know when I’m being robbed deaf, dumb and blind?” she cried furiously. “I’d like you to remind them that I know a little something about business myself; I made my money myself, by shrewd investments and taking a chance here and there that I knew would pay off. They can’t get away with cheating and swindling me. I’ll sue—I’ll have them disbarred. And you’re working hand in glove with them.”
On and on and on went the ugly, ranting old voice, and Angela stood up suddenly, her face quite white.
“I can’t take any more of this,” she said huskily. “I’ll do something drastic if I have to listen. Let’s get out of here, fast!”
Hilary was equally anxious to escape the unpleasant scene, and all over the room people were rising and slipping away, as anxious to avoid the unpleasantness as Hilary and Angela.
Outside, in the corridor, Angela drew a deep breath, put her shoulders back, and said huskily, “Can you think of a better candidate for a murder than that—that—” She bit back the word, but Hilary understood what she meant.
Angela smiled suddenly.
“You’re nice, Hilary. I like you,” she said with a rather endearing childlike simplicity. “I hope you’ll stay a long time. You must come and have dinner with me on your night off. We’re halfway down the drive to the left in a grove of pines.”
“Thanks, I’d like to,” Hilary answered, and smiled as the girl swung her cashmere coat about her shoulders and started across the lobby.
Dr. Marsden, hat in hand and overcoat over his arm, was just leaving his office and paused to wait for Angela, his smile a warm and welcoming one. Angela greeted him eagerly, thrust a possessive hand through his arm, and they went out into the cold gray twilight together.
Chapter Seven
Hilary had thought, when she got out of uniform and showered and donned a beige wool frock that was new and very becoming, that she might run in town and spend an hour or two with her mother. But when she came downstairs just before dinner time, a cold sleety rain driven by a strong north wind was lashing against the many-windowed building, and she thought of the fifteen or more miles to town along the Expressway, and decided not to risk it. Driving was perilous enough on the Expressway in good weather; on a night like this the danger was doubled.
She had dinner in the big dining room, watching and listening to the “guests” and gradually sorting them out in her mind so that she could attach names to their faces.
There was one man whom she did not remember having met. He sat not far from her, alone at a small table: an erect, rather gaunt man with a lean, intelligent face and bushy white brows above eyes that were shrewd and knowing. His hair was thick and only slightly sprinkled with gray, and he was immaculately tailored and groomed. And yet Hilary had the feeling that he was not at ease here. He looked oddly forlorn and alone, and when the waitress brought her dessert, she asked about him.
“That’s Mr. Hodding, Mr. Jason Hodding,” answered the waitress softly. “He’s a mighty fine man. But he don’t mingle with the others much. Stays in his room most of the time. Annie—that’s the ward maid that cleans his room—says she has to ask him sometimes will he go sit in the club room so’s she can get her work done.”
Hilary smiled her thanks, and the waitress went away. Suddenly, on an impulse, Hilary rose and crossed to the table where the man sat alone, above his coffee, savoring an expensive cigar. He looked at her, startled out of his thoughts as she spoke, and stood up, looking puzzled.
“Mr. Hodding, I don’t think we’ve met,” she said pleasantly. “I’m the new nurse, Hilary Westbrook.”
“I’m very happy to meet you, Miss Westbrook,” said Jason, bowing with old-fashioned gallantry. “Won’t you join me? Perhaps more coffee?”
“You’re sure I’m not disturbing you?”
“My dear young lady, how could any man be disturbed by the presence of such a charming companion?” The words were gracious, but they came with something of an effort. Hilary accepted the chair he offered. “I hope you won’t find my cigar objectionable?”
“Of course not,” Hilary assured him. “And if it were, I’d have only myself to blame. You were lighting it when I suddenly decided to come over and talk to you. I hope you don’t mind?”
“I’m delighted, my dear, delighted,” said Jason, and sounded as though he meant it.
“Have you been here long, Mr. Hodding?” asked Hilary.
“A few months,” he answered. “Hotels can be very dreary places when one has reached my age. And there is, of course, always the Nightmare.”
His tone capitalized the word.
“Nightmare?” Hilary repeated, puzzled.
His smile was faint, his eyes grave.
“Oh, I imagine it’s one I share with all elderly people who have no family,” he told her quietly. “Becoming ill alone in the night, with no one to turn to. I find the Club a very nice substitute for a hotel.”
“I should think it would be,” Hilary assured him gently.
“You didn’t laugh,” he said so softly that at first she couldn’t be quite sure she had actually heard him say that.
“But why should I laugh, Mr. Hodding?”
He made a little deprecating gesture with the hand that held the cigar.
“Oh, I suppose the vagaries of the old do seem amusing to young people.” He seemed abashed.
“Mr. Hodding, I’m a nurse,” she told him quietly. “And we sometimes have nightmares, too.”
He looked vaguely surprised.
“Do you really? About what, I wonder?”
“Oh, so many things—that we may not live up to all the responsibilities we’ve acquired, that we may not be adequate to the needs of a patient, that we may say, or do, the wrong thing.”
His smile was comforting.
“I’m sure if you did, Miss Westbrook, it would be a mistake of the head, never of the heart,” he told her quietly. “And I feel that a heart is always the surest guide, don’t you? Instinct seems to lead us to the right thing—I�
��m talking like a fool, I’m sorry. Old people are so garrulous, don’t you think?”
“I don’t at all,” Hilary told him. “I envy people your age.”
He was completely astounded.
“You envy us? Now you are making fun,” he protested.
“I’m not. I’m being quite honest,” Hilary answered him. “Looking back over your lifetime, you must have seen some pretty wonderful things. The past fifty years have been filled to the brim with discoveries, inventions—”
His good-humored smile checked her.
“Not half as many exciting things as the next fifty years,” he reminded her. “I envy you the thought that you will be here to experience them, to share in them, to watch them happen.”
“I suppose so.” Hilary rested her elbow on the table’s edge, her chin in her palm, and studied him so thoughtfully that Jason was both amused and touched. “Please tell me about your fifty years, Mr. Hodding! I’d love to listen to someone who was around during those years.”
“Well, the first time I came to Atlanta, I was five years old, and my family traveled down in a covered wagon, camping out on the way, and taking five days for the trip that you make nowadays in a car in a couple of hours,” he told her. He added quietly, “They were not really my family. They were people who had taken me in when my own family was wiped out in a cyclone that hit our place in Pennsylvania when I was three.”
“But—how awful!”
Mr. Hodding said quietly, “I was too young to realize, of course. And the Christens were so kind and so good that I grew up without feeling too much lack of my own family. That came years later when I realized how alone I was in the world.”
“You didn’t marry?” asked Hilary.
He looked down at his hand, strong and gnarled and work-worn, and shook his head.
“I was too busy,” he answered, and smiled a brief, unmirthful smile, “trying to get ahead, to make something of myself, to be important, to justify my existence, I suppose.”
He looked up at her, again with that brief, mirthless smile.