When he came back with them empty he encouraged: “The snooty Hilda made no crack at that.”
“Thank heaven, she has liked something. Clear the table. Put on the dessert plates and come back for the pies.”
“Boy! Those smell good!” Terrence sniffed upon his return. He munched a flaky bit of crust. “A’s getting colder and colder. That B has taken the fun out of his party. He was jolly and talkative when he came. She makes me think of the second Mrs. Leigh.”
Pamela stood on one foot and then the other, to relieve the tired ache in them, as she poured steaming, dark amber coffee into a squat silver pot.
“That’s the type which catches the big strong men. They like ’em little and grafting.”
She prepared a tray for her father. Slipped a pan of oysters into the oven. Terrence came out with the pie-plates.
“B wouldn’t touch hers. A’s white with fury. He was saying something when I went in about intending to see this dinner through. He stopped short. And she said hateful like — wanted me to hear, I’ll bet — ‘See it through then! I shan’t.’ How I hate rows. Just as if life in this house wasn’t enough of a trail of conflict with Father upstairs seeing things battle-ship gray, without having ’em brought in by our customers.”
“Clientele, Terry. Clientele, it is less commercial,” Pamela corrected with an attempt at gaiety. “Bring out the pies. Then put the nuts and raisins on the table. Let the snappy Hilda pour the coffee. I will get Father’s dinner ready.”
As she removed the oysters from the oven she struck her hand against the door. The contact left an angry red burn across her fingers.
“Ooch! That smarts!”
She covered the turkey and vegetables with a hot plate, added crisp celery and cranberry jelly to the tray.
Harold Leigh, in a deep chair by the sunny window, frowned as his daughter entered his room. A table in front of him was strewn with postage stamps and a loose-leaf book. Sunshine accentuated the whiteness of his hair, turned his skin to the color of old wax. How old he looked, yet he was only fifty-five, Pamela reminded herself. His nose seemed about to hook into his upper lip. His resemblance to the portrait in the dining room was startling. He tapped the arm of his chair impatiently.
“Always the last one to be thought of. It’s an hour past my usual dinner time.”
“Sorry, but I couldn’t bring it before.” She pushed the stamp-laden table aside and pulled up another for the tray. Eagerly he lifted the top of one of the shells. Plump, juicy, the oyster yielded an appetizing aroma. He frowned, picked up a strip of bacon.
“I hope what you served downstairs was crisper than this. I suppose anything will do for me.”
Pamela opened her lips, closed them. Why retort? She would say something for which she would be sorry later and this was Thanksgiving Day. Why take away his grievance? He would have nothing to talk about. She swallowed the lump which always rose in her throat at his irritation with her. With the assurance that she would bring the dessert later she left the room.
Curious that her father still had power to hurt her, she thought, as she went slowly down the stairs. As a child she had adored him; he had been gallant and gay, her Prince Charming. One look of affection, one tender word from him, would set little wings on her feet as she ran about to serve him. As the years passed he had grown more and more indifferent to his children; she had been rebuffed whenever her love for him had bubbled to the surface — she had been such a buoyant, bubbly sort of person in those days. His indifference had hardened her toward all men. If she hadn’t laughed, she had shrugged at protestations of love. A mental hygienist, doubtless, could explain in scientific terms just what had happened to her heart; she knew only that her father’s indifference had smothered something beautiful within her which had glowed.
As she entered the kitchen Terrence burst in from the dining room. His eyes, so like his sister’s snapped with excitement; his red hair was rampant; his hoarse voice choked:
“Your plot germs have skipped!”
“Skipped! Terry! Not without —”
“You’ve said it! Without paying. That girl, Hilda, was opening up, high, wide and handsome because Scott Mallory wouldn’t take her home at once. I guess I went goggle-eyed — I’m not used to women who row — for he told me to bring more coffee. Had to heat it a little. When I went back they had gone.”
Chapter II
Pamela crushed down the memory of the amused eyes which had met hers in the mirror. She laughed, a bitter little laugh.
“Managing the Silver Moon is just one disillusioning experience after another, isn’t it? Dash after them in the fliv, Terry. If you catch them hang on until you get our money. If —”
Terrence was out of the room before she could finish the sentence. As she collected the plates, wherever she looked the clear, darkly gray eyes with the light of laughter in their depths seemed to meet hers. Never before had she met a man whose eyes had plunged into her heart and warmed it. And now he had run away! Of course, a person such as she had thought him wouldn’t chance into the threatening, terrifying world of debt and disillusionment in which she was living.
A resounding knock shook the old door of the kitchen. Pamela glanced at the clock. Too early for Mehitable. Creditors? Their shadows were ever at the heels of her imagination. They couldn’t be so inhuman as to come collecting on Thanksgiving! A yellow Ford station wagon had stopped outside. She opened the door. One of the men who had bored into her maple furniture with his gimlet eyes the other day confronted her. He touched his hat as if grudging the courtesy, scowled, demanded truculently:
“Does Harold Leigh live here?”
“Yes. But you can’t see him. He is ill.”
He called over his shoulder: “All right! This is the house!”
He pushed by Pamela into the kitchen. His hat on the back of his head revealed a forehead which appeared to have no terminal.
“What do you want?”
With cocky condescension he thrust one hand deep into his trousers pocket, waved a sheaf of bills in the other.
“I’ve come to collect on these.”
“Don’t shout. You will disturb Mr. Leigh.”
“Oh, I will! Well, take it from me, that’s what I’m here for. He hasn’t answered letters, I’ll see if I can get action this way.”
He sniffed. His eyes dilated, his nostrils quivered like a rabbit’s as he sighted the tempting remains of the turkey, one appetizingly browned side uncut. He stretched out a not too clean hand, seized a piece of white meat with a dangling strip of crisp skin. He had the succulent morsel half way to his mouth when Pamela rapped his knuckles smartly with the silver serving spoon.
“Drop it!”
He dropped it. Her eyes were brilliantly, angrily black, her face colorless as she picked up the scrap between thumb and forefinger, lifted a range lid, flung the white meat into the heart of the red-hot wood embers. The intolerable smart of her burned fingers added fuel to the flame of her fury. The man blustered:
“Treat me like that, will you? Now you’ll get what’s coming to you. The county sheriff is on the truck outside. I have orders to seize all the antique furniture in this house on account of these bills. See this?”
He threw back the lapel of his coat and revealed a badge of sorts. Pamela looked from it to the man at the wheel of the yellow truck. He was a stranger. She remembered now that the new sheriff was from a town at the other end of the county. No help from him. The collector laughed. Pamela restrained a furious desire to crack his knuckles again. As he took a purposeful step toward the dining room she backed against the swing door.
“You can’t go in there.”
He stuck his repulsive face close to hers. Shouted, “Can’t I?”
The door behind her was jerked open. She fell back against someone, caught a coat lapel, steadied herself.
“He has come to seize the antiques for the creditors. Don’t let him take them, Terry! Don’t let him take them!”
“
Not a chance of his taking them,” assured a strange voice.
With a gasp of amazement Pamela looked up into the fine, lean face of a man, into the eyes she had met in the mirror, not amused now, but keen, determined. A! The advertiser! He had returned. Had Terry dragged him back? She didn’t care. He had come. He stood behind her like a rock, broad of shoulders, bronzed of face. The rich green of his tie accented the soft grayness of his suit. He was a man one could take on trust, a man one could like immensely, she decided. Doubtless, by the same token, a man about whom many girls and women had thought the same. He stepped into the kitchen. The door swung shut behind him.
“What’s going on here?”
The collector swept his finger along the sheaf of papers, thrust out an aggressive chin. “Got a sheriff outside to attach the antique furniture here on these bills. I know it’s genuine, brought an expert here for chowder last week and he gave it the onceover. You can take it from me I’m going to get it.”
“What’s your name?”
“S. Linsky.”
“Where’s your writ, Slinsky?”
“S. Linsky! S. Linsky!”
“Well, S. Linsky, where is your writ?”
“Here. Think I’d come without it? Take me for a boob?”
“I wouldn’t take you on any terms.” A — Terrence had said that his name was Scott Mallory, Pamela remembered — examined the writ. “You are attaching the furniture in this house on account of bills owed by Harold Leigh and his wife, Cecile?”
The door behind him swung. Framed in the opening stood almost the prettiest blonde Pamela ever had seen in quite the most stunning fur coat. The girl was gowned with exceeding smartness in blue with a matching hat. With her came a faint scent. Nuit de Noel. Parfums Caron. Paris. Pamela recognized it. In the dear dead on-her-own days, she had plunged recklessly to the extent of an ounce of the perfume. The “snappy Hilda” of course, who else? Curling ends of fair hair gleamed from beneath the brim of her hat. Her lips were a brilliant bow, an undertone of angry red flushed her rose-leaf skin, her violet eyes were set in delicately blackened lashes, her arched brows met in a deep line of annoyance. She demanded petulantly:
“Scott! What are you doing? Surely it hasn’t taken all this time to pay your bill. You dragged me back when you remembered it although I told you that a mailed check would do just as well.” She frowned at Pamela, drawled with acid innuendo: “Perhaps you really came back to say ‘au revoir’ to the cook. I understand now why you brought me to Cape Cod. It wasn’t entirely because of Thanksgiving dinners you had had here as a boy, as you so carefully explained. Cut the farewell short. I want to go home.”
Pamela marvelled at Scott Mallory’s self-control. Only his darkening eyes and loss of color betrayed his emotions as he apologized:
“Don’t mind Miss Crane. She is apt to forget her manners when she loses her temper.” He pulled open the swing door. “Wait in the dining room until I come, Hilda.”
The girl flushed furiously at his reproof, set her head at a supercilious angle.
“I won’t wait a moment. You are to come at once or I go — at once.”
Pamela caught Scott Mallory’s arm. “Please go. Don’t bother about my affairs. I’m not afraid of Slinsky, really I’m not.”
“S. Linsky!” The collector growled correction.
Mallory looked down at the angry burn which streaked the fingers on his sleeve, at the bald-headed man smirking satisfaction at the situation. His face was a mask as he demanded:
“Let me get this right, S. Linsky. You are attaching the furniture in this house on account of bills owed by Harold Leigh and his wife?”
Hilda Crane stood like a girl of stone. There was an instant of prickling tension before Mallory repeated his question. Was he as unaware as he seemed of the vicious bang of the swing door behind her as she dashed from the room? Linsky swelled with gratified importance, like a puff pig when its stomach is scratched.
“That’s the stuff.”
“You are sure that it is his furniture?”
“Sure. Didn’t she say he was upstairs too sick to come down?”
Mallory looked at the papers in his hand. Demanded of Pamela:
“Are you Cecile Leigh? Wife of Harold?”
“No! I am his daughter.”
“Does the furniture in this house belong to Harold Leigh or his wife?”
The side door opened. Pamela’s heart thumped madly. The sheriff? Come for her old maple and the Lowestoft bowl? She sighed relief. It was Mehitable Betts looking more like a gaunt gray wolf than ever. Darn! She would spread the news of the sheriff’s visit all over town before night. Mallory reminded:
“You haven’t answered my question. To whom does the furniture belong?”
“To me. Every piece of it.”
He held out the writ. “That settles that, S. Linsky.”
The collector bristled like a hedgehog charging. “Settles it! How do you get that way! Of course she’d say it belonged to her. That girl wasn’t born yesterday.” He rubbed one hand over the reddened knuckles of the other.
“Well, then, I say it’s hers!” Mehitable Betts, skin and thin hair as drab as her skimpy dress, jerked her steel bowed spectacles back to the bridge of her nose before she folded her arms across her flat breast. Bony hands gripping her elbows, she belligerently confronted the doubter. “I lived with old M’s Leigh goin’ on twenty years, on and off. I signed my name at the bottom of her will a few days before she died. And when lawyer Carr carried it away she says to me, ‘Hitty,’ she says, ‘I’m leavin’ this house and everything in it to Pamela,’ she says. ‘That hoity-toity stage woman Hal’s married is not our kind of folks, she wouldn’t know old maple from pine kindlin’,’ she says, ‘she’d sell it. Pamela’ll hold on to it for her children and her children’s children.’”
Scott Mallory suggested: “That’s all, S. Linsky. There isn’t any more.”
The collector’s already high color took on a purplish tinge. “Ain’t there? Perhaps not just now but I’ll be back for that fake sick man upstairs.”
“Better get after his attorney.”
“Do you think we haven’t tried? He hasn’t one and his wife’s skipped. I knew the girl wasn’t her. He couldn’t pay the price of an attorney.”
Mallory presented a business card. “I am his attorney. I am acting for Miss Leigh, too. You will find me at that address.”
Linsky scowled at the bit of pasteboard. There was more than a hint of awe in his voice as he inquired:
“Are you the Mallory who’s trying that big case against those South American fellas?”
“The same Mallory.”
With an inarticulate growl S. Linsky slouched out. Pamela watched him climb aboard the Ford truck. He was gesticulating angrily as it turned down the road. She looked up at the man beside her.
“I can’t begin to thank you for saving my lovely old maple. Knowing absolutely nothing of legal procedure, I might have bitten and scratched to keep it and in the end let it go to pay my father’s debts.”
“Don’t let anything go. I owe you an apology for tearing off without paying my bill. I was so boiling mad that not until I reached the village did I remember. Then, in spite of — well, I came back.”
“You didn’t meet Terry?”
“Terry? Is that your brother’s name? No, I didn’t meet him. Was he after me to collect?”
His smile lighted even the closed garden of her heart into which she had locked her ambition to make good in her profession. He suggested:
“Come into the dining room. I am sure that I can help. You will let me, won’t you?” The impatient tinkle of a bell came from the floor above. “Good grief, I’ve forgotten Father’s dessert.” Pamela seized a plate. Mehitable Betts grabbed it.
“Give me that! Had any dinner?” The girl shook her head. “Hmp! Thought not. Go right into the dining room and set. You’re beat out doing the cooking. Ought to have put vinegar on your burned fingers. I’ll bring you somethin
g to eat and then I’ll tend to your Pa. I’m not afraid of any man living. Folks is sayin’ he’d be a sight better if you didn’t coddle him, if he got out and found a job’stead of hivin’ up in his room licking his wounds. You and your beau go into the dining room.”
Pamela snatched off her white cap, slipped out of the voluminous apron. She pulled down the sleeves of her yellow frock as Mallory pushed open the swing door. As they entered the sunny room she put a hand to her flushed cheek.
“Don’t mind Hitty’s conclusions. To her, every man is a potential beau; that is her word, not mine. Why — where is Miss Crane? S. Linsky was so upsetting, I forgot about her. She must be waiting in the living room. Please, please don’t bother about me any more.”
Hands in his gray coat pockets Mallory stood at the window. “I suspect that Miss Crane is now speeding toward home in my roadster. It’s gone.”
“Gone to C!”
He swung round to face her. “Gone to sea in a roadster?”
“C, the letter, not s-e-a. It is part of a plot diagram Terry and I imagined. You, the advertiser, were A. Your friend was B. C was your objective when you left the Silver Moon. My affairs dotted your lifelines and sent each of you off at a tangent. I’m sorry. Miss Crane hated everything about the place, didn’t she?”
Mallory shook his head, explained slowly as if he were thinking the situation through: “It was not the place, it was the man. Curious how a person can change. Perhaps it isn’t the person, perhaps it is one’s point of view. Hilda Crane was on the boat coming up from B. A. She was the first American girl I had played round with in two years. She was good fun. Gradually she suffered a land-change. I wouldn’t believe that I could be so mistaken in a person, have always thought I was a wonder at reading character. I hoped that if we had an old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner together — I hadn’t told her that we were not going to a gay place, my mistake — shows what an incurable nineteenth century romantic I am — the girl I had imagined her to be might return. She didn’t, so, that’s that.”
Fair Tomorrow Page 2