by David Garth
It seemed but a short moment since she had been gazing down at the blue waters of the Sound that the Clipper had banked in graceful circle, effortlessly skimmed to a landing, and taxied to its base.
America again! As she walked along the pontoon runway she could see the crowd on the observation deck of the airport.
In the customs room she watched her inspector go through her luggage and then looked over to where Luce was completing his baggage examination. In just a few minutes he would vanish out that door to the rotunda and be gone.
Even as she looked at him she could hear his crisp, cool voice in the little park in Horta. “You were terribly close to something in which you would have been as helpless as a babe in the woods. There is more afoot, my dear, than you could possibly understand.”
Well, that could mean little or nothing. He might have been speaking about the war in general. She had been close to that, heaven knew. And he had gone on to add, “Be glad you never knew what passed so close to you.”
She stiffened suddenly. Yes, there were any number of things that had been close to her—but she also had been close to a little ivory tiger!
The Ivory Tiger! What could Luce know about that strange threat? A man who might have known how she had heard about it, who had arrived in Valleron just before Tresh died of an overdose of sleeping draught, who had nothing but brutality for the plight of a refugee, who had hard dark eyes that could glint with danger—he was starting for the door to the waiting room now, followed by his porter. He was going out of her life! He might know nothing and he might know everything, but it was worth the chance to find out which for the sake of a homeland that she loved. Hold on to him!
A hair-trigger impulse uncoiled in her mind with a snap that sent her into instant action. In five seconds she had kicked her private life and preferences out of the picture and headed swiftly for that door to the waiting room. Seeing her haste, Luce stepped back to let her precede him. She burst on through and looked hurriedly about her for her father.
She saw him immediately. He was waiting with her mother and sister and as he saw her a smile instantly appeared on his face. He said something to them and took a step toward her.
She seized his hand and swung around just as Robert Luce came through the door behind her.
“Dad,” she said clearly, “I want you to meet my husband.”
CHAPTER 9
The New York airport hummed with confusion. There was a press around the doors of the immigration and customs offices as people waited for the English movie actress to appear, and families and friends of the flight passengers kept crowding forward to have a clearer view of the doors.
But through the babble of voices Berkeley heard her father’s astounded “What!” as clearly as a pair of cymbals against a background of muted drums.
He was a finely featured man with clipped gray mustache and the same level set to his eyes as his daughter.
“Berkeley,” he said, “your—what?”
Robert Luce just looked at her. The swift, surprising action of this girl must have brought him up short also, but he did not betray his feelings beyond that long intent look. As she drew her father out of the immediate press around the doors he signed to his porter and pushed through with them.
“Now!” said Richard Britton firmly, as they won clear. “Let’s have that again.”
“This is Robert Luce,” Berkeley told him. “We were married in Spain.” She glanced at Luce. “My father.”
Then she turned away to greet her mother and sister.
“I’m just introducing a new husband,” she said, as she kissed her mother. “You’d better get in on it, Mother.”
“You’re married!” Guilford’s voice sounded like the upward lilt of a flute. “Berkeley!”
“I’m sorry to spring this on you so suddenly,” said Berkeley contritely. “Please believe me. It just wasn’t possible before.”
She linked arms with them and faced Luce. He had shaken hands with her father and now stood there waiting for further presentation, trim and composed in a well-cut cheviot and wine-colored cravat, topcoat over one arm and his hat in hand.
He inclined his dark head as she introduced him. They all regarded each other for a long and mutually inspecting moment. They were distinctive, the three women, each of them tall and slender and striking in their own individual way. Guilford was dark, with gray eyes, like her youthful appearing mother whose expression as she regarded Luce continued to be incredulous.
He smiled at her. “I know how you feel,” he said easily.
Virginia Britton smiled, then, and extended a hand. “You are none the less welcome, for all that,” she said warmly.
“A good bargain, sight unseen,” supplemented Guilford.
It was almost too much for Berkeley. Their effort to stifle their amazement and carry on in a welcome of genuine good faith made her feel as though she was practicing a confidence game. Luce was looking at her again with a faint amused smile, as though this was her party and he was simply a spectator along with her family.
“This is a difficult place to get acquainted,” interposed her father. “Let’s get out where we can breathe.”
They started to walk through the rotunda toward the exit and then Berkeley noticed Linda Baker just emerging from the customs room. She was folding an opened telegram. Berkeley murmured a word of excuse and dropped behind.
“Goodbye again, Linda,” she said. “Or rather au revoir.”
“It’s been great fun traveling together, Berkeley,” Linda said cordially.
Berkeley could remember that first friendly moment in the bar of the little hotel in Valleron when this attractive person had exchanged a few words with her. That seemed a long time ago.
“Philip Courtney was looking for you,” went on Linda, nodding her head back toward the customs room. “He asked me to flag you if I saw you.”
“He knows where to find me,” said Berkeley with a quick laugh. “I hope you do, too. Won’t you be coming up my way?”
“I’d love to,” said Linda. She flirted her telegram. “I find my family is in Boston for my brother’s musical debut. I might stop by on the way up or back.”
She squeezed Berkeley’s hand and then the girl hurried on to rejoin Luce and her family. The car was waiting for them with Cardon, the long-time Britton houseman, who had driven it in from the country, beaming behind the wheel.
Guilford was not accompanying them. She had come separately to welcome Berkeley home.
“Wait until Bill hears about this,” she announced, “he’ll wish he had given up a chance to appear before the Supreme Court. I’ll bring him up to the farm as soon as he’s through with his case. ’Bye, everybody. I have to be off.”
With a last wave of her hand she walked to a waiting taxi. Richard Britton rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know about any plans you might have,” he said tentatively. “Perhaps you had not planned on going up to the farm. If you had something else in view—”
“Good heavens, no!” said Berkeley hastily. “I mean,” she amended, “anything else is out of the question.”
She sat in the back between her mother and Luce, as the car moved off. Her father insisted on riding in front with Cardon. It was surprising to find Luce actually driving up to her home with them. Although, as she thought about it, she might have known he would take it in the same composed stride as with that marriage ceremony in Valleron. Whatever his immediate plans might have been he had shelved them for the moment to let her have a clear track.
Her father had turned in his seat to look at her.
“Well,” he said humorously, “would you like to start telling us about it, or would you prefer to wait until we have the whole evening ahead of us?”
“Let’s talk about you first,” she countered. “All the news.” She managed to steer them off into generalities for a while. She heard Luce talking of the conditions abroad in a concise, conversational way.
There seemed something
lulling about the motion of the big car as it sped along the parkway. Once she found that she had not seemed to hear her mother speak to her and actually had to rouse herself. To her surprise she discovered that she seemed to be becoming drowsy.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and sat up straighter. This was ridiculous. At a time like this, needing to be alert in order to feel out every inch of her ground as she went along, and she acted as though she had lacked sleep for a week.
“Where do you plan to live, Robert?” she heard her father ask Luce.
“I don’t know whether your daughter has made up her mind yet,” said Luce. He laughed.
His voice sounded far oft. The queer sleepy feeling seemed almost overpowering. They were near home now and that was just as well because it was a struggle to keep her eyes open.
Her mother was asking about her wedding. She wanted details and she was set on getting them.
“A judge of the municipal court in Valleron,” said Berkeley. “For fourteen pesetas. I made an affidavit that I was single and produced my passport for identification—”
She stopped and brushed a hand across her eyes.
“What is the matter, Berkeley?” Her father’s voice was indistinct.
“I feel terribly fagged,” said the girl. “As though I had been on my feet for days—and days—”
“There was nothing fagged about you at the airport,” said Luce. “Perhaps,” he commented, “I’m beginning to bore you.”
“Perhaps it is a sense of reaction,” suggested her father. “You’ve had a lot of excitement and a long plane hop.”
No, that wasn’t it. She had flown countless times and never experienced anything even approaching this. She just could not seem to stay awake. If she kept talking—
She fought to snap herself out of it. While they watched her, somewhat perplexed, she talked about her home, as if for Luce’s benefit, but really because it was the longest consecutive thought she could search out in her mind.
She spoke of how they had bought the old place originally as a place to spend the summer and then, as the spell of the hills and the countryside had deepened, they had enlarged and remodeled and landscaped and planted, dredged a swimming pool out of the river, built up the old stone walls, transformed it into the lovely comfortable place that had become their permanent home.
The car had turned off the New England parkway. It was just a few miles now, only a few miles, but they seemed forever. She had an impulse to rest her head back and relax, and fought that impulse off because if she once surrendered to the leaden drowsiness assailing her she felt that she would be asleep. That would be a perfect way to arrive home—asleep, like somebody who had passed out at a country club dance.
The car turned in at the driveway of their property, a drive that wound along amid thick woodland interspersed with clumps of silvery white birch. And then they emerged into the cultivated greenness of the lawns, the big white farmhouse, with its chimneys and green shutters and terraced rose gardens, looking out upon the verdant rolling hills.
“I’ve been waiting a long time to see you back here,” said her mother. “Well, here we are. Journey’s end.”
Luce glanced about him appreciatively and then stood in the drive, watching Berkeley follow her mother out of the car.
She paused a moment, resting one hand on the door as if to steady herself. Then, as she took a step, she seemed to sway suddenly and in the next instant pitched toward the ground without a word.
Luce acted with hair-trigger instinct. Even as she stumbled, he had reached out and caught her quickly.
“Has she fainted?” cried her mother. There was a jet of distress in her voice. “Berkeley!”
Luce supported her as she lay limply in his arms, her long supple form pliant, relaxed, and her thick lashes curling above her pale smooth cheeks.
“She hasn’t fainted,” said Luce tersely. “Call some help for her.” He swept her up in his arms and bore her swiftly to the house.
Cardon raced ahead to open the door for him. He strode into a spacious, beamed living room and set the girl down on a wide divan. Her father was already heading for the phone. Virginia Britton sank down on the floor beside the divan, her face white.
“She hasn’t fainted?” she repeated shakily. “What is it then?”
The tall man said nothing. He stood beside the unconscious girl, his fingers on her pulse.
“What is it?” implored her mother.
He shook his head slightly.
“I don’t know, he said slowly. “She acts as though she were doped.”
* * * *
The doctor had come downstairs once to report that Berkeley, although still unconscious, was holding her own. He said encouragingly that he was sure she would pull out of it soon and then returned to her room.
But that had been a long time ago and Richard Britton had taken to pacing the living room floor while Luce stood before the fireplace, hands jammed in the pockets of his coat, and watched him silently. Berkeley’s mother had insisted on staying by her side.
“She went out as though she had been sandbagged,” said Mr. Britton in a low troubled voice. “What on earth could have hit her like that?”
Luce glanced at his wrist watch and quickly, fleetingly, his lean face became taut with impatience.
“There’s an answer, sir,” he said evenly. “And, in the meantime, it’s just a question of time before she’s herself again.”
“I know, I know—” The distinguished lawyer paused, his eyes traveling to the loose-knit young man standing before the great rough-hewn fireplace.
“I don’t see how you can be so calm,” he commented.
“Calm?” said Luce. His mouth flickered in a smile. “You misjudge me, sir. I don’t feel a bit calm. It’s just watchful waiting.”
That may have been, but he was certainly to be congratulated on his qualities of restraint.
“By God!” exclaimed Richard Britton. “You are the strangest bridegroom! Here you are, practically at the beginning of your honeymoon, and you don’t seem a bit disturbed about that lovely girl stricken down right before your eyes.”
Luce bit his lip. When he spoke, his voice was sharp. “I’m sorry you think that of me, sir.”
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Britton, “I might be wrong.” He shook his head. “What a home coming! Tell me something about all this, Robert. She had not given us an inkling that she even considered getting married. Where did you meet?”
“In Spain,” said Luce. “In the plaza of the town of Valleron.” The great lawyer’s eyes were on him in a studied, keen glance. “Valleron! She went there to see a man named Tresh. But she—how long had you known each other?”
Luce contemplated the glowing end of his cigarette. “Mr. Britton,” he said, “Berkeley wants to tell you all the details, herself. Let’s,” he suggested in an easy offhand manner, “have the whole story for her—the way she would like it to be.”
Richard Britton hesitated. “Very well,” he said reluctantly, and sank down in a corner of the divan, bringing out his cigarette case. The lamplight emphasized the silvering quality in his hair, softened the lines of anxiety in his face.
“At least, you can tell me something about yourself.”
Again, that quick darkening look of impatience swept across Luce’s face.
“I’ll be glad to. What would you like to know?”
Mr. Britton laughed slightly. “I don’t mean to put this on a cross-examination basis. But what do you do, for example?”
“I’ve been attached to a press bureau abroad. I’ve returned to enter public relations work. There is,” he added casually, “a great future in that field.”
“Yes, I imagine there is. And where is your home, Robert?”
“I was born in Maryland,” said Luce. He fell silent for a moment, his hands locked behind his back. “I have no immediate family, Mr. Britton—that is, my parents are dead and I was the only child.”
Mr. Britton’s eyes co
ntinued to rest upon him. Outside of the fact that he was inclined to be rather terse about himself, the tall man standing erect before the fireplace with his face somewhat shadowed appeared poised and self-contained.
The Terry clock over the mantel ticked on with measured swing of the pendulum. Slowly, softly—like the breathing of a girl upstairs who had been struck down so mysteriously just on her homecoming. It was a pitiless, shattering thing to happen to anybody. Her father seemed again to feel that sense of strain.
“You think you know her, Robert. Naturally. But you don’t. You couldn’t possibly. She has deep hidden springs of the mind that sometimes surprise and startle even me.”
“I can believe it,” commented Robert Luce.
Mr. Britton nodded pensively. “One of her grandfathers was a horse-swapping country editor out West who often wrote his editorials with a pistol sticking out of a pigeonhole in his desk. He had his office wrecked twice and his life threatened half a dozen times and he never stopped writing the truth as he saw it. Berkeley has that bedrock honesty and stubborn self-reliance, too. Plenty of it.”
Luce rested an elbow on the mantel. “I’m sure of it, sir,” he said dutifully.
“One of her grandmothers was a Charleston blueblood,” went on Richard Britton. “Plantations and carriages, and hereditary pew in St. John’s and one of those haughty town houses with walled gardens. When they lost nearly everything she settled down on the one possession they had left, a small plantation, and she helped to work it—broke her fingernails and knew the sting of sweat in her eyes.”
He stared reflectively at his clasped fingers. “You have a girl like that, Mr. Luce.”
Luce folded his arms and took a brief restive stride up and down before the fireplace. “I’m sure that any man who loved your daughter would be well aware of it,” he said succinctly.
The lawyer gave a short laugh. “I always had a queer idea that her heart would be won through fire, flood, and high adventure—but she evidently convinced herself in other ways and that convinces me, too.” He stood up and walked over to Robert Luce. “And so we wait together down here, just a couple of men who only want her well and happy.”