Fair Tomorrow

by Emilie Loring

  “Mortgage Grandmother Leigh’s home to pay Cecile’s expenses? Have you forgotten that all my jewels went to settle the hotel and doctor’s bills which you two contracted? Mortgage this house? How do you think we would meet the interest? All Terry and I can do now is to squeeze out taxes and insurance.” She rose in perturbation. Her father looked up at her with shrewd eyes.

  “You’ve always been jealous of Cecile. She knew it. Used to say that you would separate us if you could.”

  “Be fair, Father. I’ve not been so jealous of her as she has been of me. You know that she was speechless with rage when she discovered that Grandmother’s jewels came to me, not to you, for your wife.”

  “You’re right, Pamela. I — I would have done more for you and Terry if — what’s the use looking back! The money must be procured for Cecile somehow.”

  “How much?”

  He looked at the letter. “She says that she ought to have a thousand dollars, but she will try to get along with eight hundred if she can come here to convalesce. She will be unable to walk for two months.”

  “Eight hundred!” Pamela giggled. Caught her breath in a sob. Good grief, was she cracking up? She set her teeth in her lips to steady them.

  “What price operations! It is time for your supper. Better not think of the money any more tonight or you won’t sleep.”

  She patted his hand, smoothed his hair before she turned on the light on the table beside him. She ran down the stairs. Hands clenched, she stood in the middle of the fire-lighted living room. Eight hundred dollars! Mortgage the place! Never. Of course, Cecile would have to come to the Silver Moon until she could use her foot. That would save a few hundreds. The Ancient Mariner with the albatross hung round his neck had nothing on Pamela Leigh. Would any man want to marry her? “Marry me, marry my family.” She was not enchanting enough to swing that.

  “Hi! Pam! I’m sunk!” Terrence dashed into the room. “What do you think’s happened now? The duck eggs in the incubator have exploded! Laugh that off!” He patted the head of the dog, who sensing excitement, sprang to his feet. “Keep your breast-strap on, Babe. This isn’t your funeral.”

  “Terry! Those expensive eggs! What have you done wrong?”

  “Starting in the poultry business, I guess.”

  Pamela sank to the couch, dropped her head in her two hands. Her laughter was punctuated with tearing gulps of emotion. Terrence shook her shoulder.

  “Cut that out! You’ll be having hysterics. Everything’s going to be all right! What’s so funny about the duck eggs?”

  “It isn’t the eggs, Terry. It’s — it’s — life — so tangled, so confused — and Cecile. Her foot is to be operated on, and — and you and I must produce the money for it!”

  Terrence went beet-red. “Honest, Pam?”

  His sister nodded. “Father just told me. Cecile wants a thousand dollars. She will try to get along with eight hundred if she can come here until she can walk again.”

  Terrence dropped to the corner of the table desk. “Eight hundred dollars for an operation on her foot! They ought to take off a leg for that. Sure it’s only eight hundred? Might just as well have asked for eight thousand. Someone’s knocking!”

  “Answer, Terry. If it is a patron for the Silver Moon, say that it is closed for the evening. I just couldn’t serve anyone tonight.”

  She listened as Terrence opened the door.

  “I wasn’t expected until tomorrow, but I have won my case! Couldn’t stay in the city another minute. The Cape road tempted me — and — here I am. Where is your sister?”

  Scott Mallory! Almost before he had finished speaking he was in the room. He looked from her to Terrence.

  “What is the matter? Something gone wrong with the Silver Moon?”

  Pamela shook her head. Terrence answered.

  “Nothing — much. A prospective addition to the family, that’s all.”

  Mallory’s face went white. He caught the girl’s hands in a grip which hurt. “Does that mean that you are to be married, Pam?”

  She wrenched herself free. All the bitterness of the last months welled to the surface, the futility of plans for herself, the sense of a crushing load to carry, her father’s self-absorption, and lately — the deep and insistent demand of her heart for love.

  “I married! I hate men! I wouldn’t marry an angel from heaven were he to lay his halo at my feet.” With which pronunciamento she departed for the kitchen.

  Chapter V

  Pamela’s anger cooled as she commenced preparations for supper in the green and white kitchen. Why had she allowed her temper to blow-up? Her cheeks burned. Xanthippe! Scott Mallory’s assumption that she was engaged had been unbearable when she knew that a husband was the last thing on earth she was likely to acquire — or want. She had not said a congratulatory word about his legal victory. After that outburst he would put her in the class with Hilda Crane. So much the better. He would stop coming.

  She turned the faucet with a force which sprayed hot water over the front of her green jersey frock. What a mess! Served her right for letting her temper get the better of her. She fastened an enveloping apron about her neck. If she didn’t watch her step she would get as drab and crabbed as Hitty Betts. That thought didn’t help either. Scott Mallory pushed open the swing door.

  “Terry has told me about it, Pam. He will look after your father while you come out for supper with me.”

  Pamela’s spirits soared like a captive balloon let loose. She had not realized before how deadly tired she was of preparing meals. Nevertheless, she hugged her chains.

  “Can’t. Too much to do.”

  “That’s bunk and you know it. Everything is ready for tomorrow, isn’t it? Be honest.”

  “Yes — but —”

  His fingers against the back of her neck as he unbuttoned the apron sent a quiver feathering along her veins. He had charm, he had tact, he had distinction, but she sensed steel under his easy friendliness. He would be a difficult person to combat.

  “No ‘but’ in this party. Get your coat and hat. You said that you wouldn’t have a minute to celebrate on your birthday, we’ll break loose tonight.” As she hesitated, he added, “You and I ought to talk over this demand of young Mrs. Leigh’s before I discuss it with your father. We are likely to be interrupted here.”

  She shed the apron. “You are right. I begin to suspect that you are always right. I’ll go. Don’t think that I am not thrilled by your legal victory, I am. Read of it in the paper just before you came. Thought of telephoning you, then Father’s news crashed in. Congratulations — Governor Mallory!”

  Color stole under his bronzed skin. “Now I know what paper you read. The man who wrote that stuff will get fired, if I’m not mistaken. No politics in mine, thank you.”

  “I had supposed that the practice of law was the world’s best stepping-stone to politics.”

  “It is, but my ambition doesn’t point that way. I’ll put all there is in me into my profession and then, ‘Beyond the Alps lies Italy!’ Ever hear of the Supreme Court of the United States?”

  “You mean that you want to be —”

  He reddened darkly. “I don’t mean anything. Forget it! The decision of that case in favor of my client has gone straight to my head. Just because I know how Christian felt in Pilgrim’s Progress when the burden loosed from his shoulders, I’m talking like a wild man. I’ve got to celebrate — with you. Come on!” He caught her by the shoulders.

  “Just a minute! You wouldn’t have me go hatless, would you? I —” She answered the ring of the telephone.

  “The Silver Moon … Here … Yes, I know you did, Mr. Carr, but you mustn’t lose that client … Next week Sunday? Supper with your mother? I should love it … The farmer’s cottage? … Move it to the shore! I suggested the idea! I never have thought of it … An income from it! Four thousand dollars will remodel it? Sounds as visionary as a rocket to the moon … Sunday week at six? … Thanks lots. Goodbye.”

 
Pamela hung up the receiver. Her eyes felt like over-developed stars.

  “That was Philip Carr.”

  “So I gathered. Who is he and where did you meet him?”

  “He and I refereed a dog-fight this afternoon. He had said he would call tonight. He phoned that he had to get back to New York. In the excitement of Father’s news and your victory I had forgotten him. What do you think he suggested?”

  “Something stupendous. You look as if you were ready to hit the ceiling. What was it?”

  “He proposed that we move the farmer’s cottage to the shore. I had told him that it was being consumed by repairs. That gave him the idea, he says, to make a few additions and rent it. It would be a marvelous location. He will draw the plans. Hitty says that he’s a born architect.” The light of enthusiasm waned in her voice and eyes. “It sounds wonderful, but as bristling with impossibilities as a trip to Mars. Up bobs the same old Jack-in-the-Box. Money! Money! Money! He is sure that it can be done for four thousand dollars. I wonder what Philip’s father will say when he discovers that his son is advising a Leigh.”

  “What’s wrong with advising the Leighs? I’m doing it.”

  Pamela paid an instant’s tribute to his smile. “Nothing generally. Only his father, Phineas Carr, was Grandmother Leigh’s —”

  “Phineas Carr! Carnation Carr! Always wears a white pink. His florist had orders to forward them to him wherever he was trying a case. If the flower was late in arriving he would fidget and wait until it came. He’s a colossus in his profession. He the Leigh attorney! Did I butt in on him when I offered to straighten out your father’s affairs?”

  “No! No! Don’t look so aghast. Father had quarreled with him. He has not seen him since the estate was settled.”

  “I feel better. Do you like this Carr boy?” The curt question sent the color to Pamela’s hair. Indignant with herself, inexplicably angry with Scott Mallory, she answered flippantly.

  “Mad about him. I know now what Hitty Betts meant when she said he was a born lady-killer. What a profile lost to the cinema! What an answer to a director’s prayer! Speaking of irresistible males, reminds me, a girl called on the phone this afternoon, inquired if you were expected here over the week-end. Someone to congratulate you on your success, doubtless.”

  “Doubtless. What did you tell her?”

  “Don’t scowl. I didn’t talk with her. Hitty, who keeps a keen, if glum, watch over the love-life of our patrons, told her that she didn’t know and wouldn’t tell her if she did, and sourly reminded me, ‘I wasn’t born yesterday!’”

  “I owe Miss Betts a season’s talkie money for that. I will let that ‘love-life’ thrust pass — for the present. Let’s go. We’ll celebrate first. Not a word about business until we start for home. Then we will talk things over. Your outlook will be different after a change of scene and something to eat.”

  He had been right, Pamela admitted, as tucked into the roadster beside him she looked up at the stars which spread like an intricate pattern of gold lace over the dusky blueness of the heavens. The air was cool and clear, soft as transparent velvet against her face. They had driven miles for a delicious supper. Now they were homeward bound. She nestled back with a contented sigh. If only she could go on and on. Dreading to go home was getting to be a habit. It wasn’t the work which mattered, it was the conflict.

  She shook herself mentally. If this was the effect of breaking loose from care she would better keep everlastingly on the treadmill. Better get back to realities at once by tackling the Cecile proposition. If she had learned nothing else in these last perplexing months she had learned that the sooner one faced a problem the sooner one got it behind one. She sat straight. Her determination was reflected in her tone.

  “Mr. Mallory.”

  “My friends call me Scott.”

  “In spite of the fact that it dates my bringing-up, I wouldn’t dare be that familiar with so august a personage as my legal adviser.” She could see his eyes narrow, the muscles of his jaw tighten.

  “Glad you are properly impressed with my authority. You will get a lot of it from now on. Just what did your father tell you about his wife, this afternoon?”

  Pamela repeated the conversation. He listened without comment. That was one of Scott Mallory’s comfortable traits, he never interrupted. As she talked, the roadster slid smoothly forward over the shining black asphalt bordered on one side by shrubs and scrub-oaks, on the other by sea-drenched sand over which a white scalloped tide advanced and retreated for all the world like a dainty lady trailing her laces back and forward in the measures of a dance. The car swerved sharply to avoid a pair of emeralds in the road.

  “Lights must have mesmerized that cat.” Mallory slowed the pace to a crawl. “When did Mrs. Leigh leave your father?”

  “The first of June. The date is seared into my memory, as well as the picture of the Silver Moon roses which were rioting all over the old house the day we brought Father down.”

  “And this is the middle of February. How long has he known that she had serious trouble with her foot?”

  “If he knew before he received that letter, the stage has lost a star; he seemed stunned by surprise. When she left us stranded in New York she went directly to Hollywood. We haven’t seen her since. She was in musical comedy when Father met her. I suppose she thought him a millionaire, though to be just, he can be charming when he likes, and he really didn’t look more than forty. Mother left him a fair fortune and he inherited from his father. Grandmother Leigh had the income from a trust fund which passed to him unconditionally at her death. She told me before she died that she had tried to save a little for me, with which to carry on this place, but, she loved beautiful things and traveling — she and I were abroad together for a year — so there were only a few hundred dollars.

  “Mother, who was an F.F. of Virginia, died when Terry was a little boy. We made our home with Grandmother Leigh, summers. She gave us an emotional, an intellectual outlook, a sense of confidence and stability, which we never would have acquired at the schools we attended. As a little girl, I adored my father. One tender word or look from him now and I fling my heart at his feet. He must have had a sizable income. He never took his children into his confidence as to the amount. Mother left Terrence and me each fifty thousand dollars, the income to be used for our education, the principal to be paid when we were twenty-five. It was in Father’s hands, was swept away in the financial cloudburst. Hope you enjoy biography.”

  “I do. Yours. And you will be twenty-five tomorrow. Tough luck. If your father had no business what was his interest? He must have had something.”

  “He traveled a lot. He had only one hobby — that I know of — collecting stamps.”

  “Stamps!”

  “Why so explosive?”

  “Nothing. I was interested because like every other boy in the world I collected stamps for a while; it’s the healthy, normal interest of the human male to collect something. My book is kicking round somewhere now. Did his wife know of his hobby?”

  “I can’t believe that she didn’t know everything about him before she married him although when he told Terry and me that he was to be married — we had one day’s notice of the coming event — he asked us not to mention his stamp complex to Cecile. He said:

  “‘She thinks collecting — anything but jewels — a symptom of senility. I shall sell the few specimens I have at once, anyway.’

  “I supposed that he had done so and was surprised when he produced a book of them after we came here. Terry and I hailed it with delight. It has kept him more or less interested. I suspect that he amuses himself trading duplicates. He sends and receives letters from a stamp concern.”

  “He does! Interesting but it doesn’t get us anywhere. To return to a subject of more importance — he suggested that you mortgage your property to pay his wife’s bills?”

  “Yes. Scott, do you think I ought to do it?” Not until his eyes met hers did she realize that she had scrapped forma
lity.

  “No. Make no move without talking it over with me first, promise.”

  “I promise, though it makes me feel that I’m a spineless leaner.”

  “If women would lean a little more before they walk blindly into a fool complication, they wouldn’t have to be derricked out.”

  “Haven’t an overwhelming respect for the female of the species, have you?”

  “Not for the average when it comes to her judgment on legal matters. Men aren’t so much better. Remember, my job is to untangle complications which need not have been tied into a hard knot if advice had been asked before, instead of after the blunder. It is like pulling teeth to get the whole truth out of people. That client is a menace who, before trial, wilfully or in ignorance withholds facts from his lawyer which are brought out in cross-examination. It is like advancing through sharpshooters’ sector. You never know where the next crack will come from. Tell me something of Mrs. Leigh. Try to be impartial. I know that you don’t like her, but, has she any qualities which you do admire?”

  “One. Her ability to think quickly. She is a sophisticate. I would be willing to wager the Lowestoft bowl that two minutes after Father had come to her rescue in the road, she had determined to marry him. Within twenty-four hours after she learned of his financial crash, realized his physical collapse, she was off on her own with every bit of cash available. Now she demands money within forty-eight hours. She has a hair-trigger mind and she dislikes and distrusts me. Our spirits buckled on their armor the first time our eyes met.”

  “She is in New York?”

  “Yes. Her mother and sister live there.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Beautiful. Blonde, with provocative eyes — when animated. When in repose they are sullen, broody, always made me think of a darkening sky before a tempest. Her frocks are ultra chic, but she herself isn’t, if you get what I mean. Rather mussy. She never looks quite smart.”

  “Does she use her married name on the stage?”