“Does that mean you couldn’t love a girl who had made that sort of marriage, Tom?”
“I do love a girl who made that sort of marriage — but it wasn’t to me.”
Ken Stewart in white summer formals appeared suddenly from out the shadows.
“Beat it will you, Slade? Give me a chance to talk with her.”
“You’ve had your chance, my God, what a chance it was. I —”
“Don’t beat it, Tom.” Cindy interrupted his bitter accusation. “I won’t talk with him. I’ll never speak to you again, Bill — Kenniston Stewart. You’ve made me ridiculous before —” She stopped to recover her voice. “I’m going —”
She deftly avoided the hands outstretched to stop her, raced along the porch, outdistancing pursuing feet, flew down the steps and along the broad drive banked solidly with automobiles on each side. Cinderella fleeing from the ball, she thought.
“Red shoes run faster,” she remembered having read somewhere. Hers were fast as the wind.
She backed into the shadow of a black limousine and held her breath to listen. No sound save the ebb and flow of the tide on the beach in front of the Inn and the faint strains of “Old Man River” drifting through an open window. No footsteps approaching. The person who had followed her along the porch had given up the chase.
Now what? Time to think, she answered her own question. Shivered. The weather had put on a lightning-change act from the day's heat to cold so characteristic of the region. The white fur jacket was hanging in the stage dressing room with her raglan. Were her teeth chattering from cold or fury? The latter ought to make her hot, not cold.
If she could get inside the car against which she was huddling she could cover herself with a robe — if there were a robe — and watch for Tom from the window. Although the license plate wasn’t visible the Town and Country convertible parked across the drive looked like his. No use to try to get into it, he had said it was locked. He would know she would be near and come looking for her. Better not dash over yet, she might be seen by Bill — Ken Stewart, he had said he wanted to talk with her and from past experience she had learned he was not to be diverted from what he set out to accomplish. Hadn't he persuaded her to accept the pearls from — himself? Just let her get home and they would go back to him so quick it would make his brain whirl.
She tried the handle of the rear door of the limousine. It turned. She reconnoitered. No one coming along the drive either way. She cautiously opened the door. A folded robe on the back seat. Br-r-r, that puff of icy breeze was straight from the ocean. Why stand here and freeze? Someone coming.
She stepped into the car with her right foot, drew up the other. The red satin slipper dropped. At the risk of pitching out on her head she leaned over to retrieve it. Someone coming down the porch steps. She flung herself back into the car. The red slipper was in the shadow. She would take a chance and leave it for the present.
Cautiously she closed the door, opened the window back of the driver's seat a crack, then pulled the soft dark blue plush robe across her shoulders. Heavenly warm. She knelt before the side window, raised it a bare inch, no danger now of being knocked out by carbon monoxide, no matter what else happened, and she could see and hail Tom when he came looking for her.
A stout figure plodded along the drive, the skirt of his black robe blowing in the breeze. The college president with whom she had danced twice had been Counselor Armstrong and she hadn't suspected it. She had seen him several times with the Marquise in the ravishing pink costume whom she had thought was Alida Barclay. The aging bellhop had flung his surprise grenade so soon after the unmasking that her mind had been in too great a tumult for her to check on the impression.
Tumult? Typhoon was the word. She had thought a century of thoughts from the moment Bill Damon had held out his hand for the telegram, his cool, “I’ll take it,” and her whispered, “Are you Ken Stewart?”
His “Yes, can you take it, Cinderella?” had been like a slim, shining knife blade thrust in her heart.
Why, why had he come to this village? Tom Slade’s sympathetic explanation was phony. Why deceive her as to his identity? Stupid question. Only one answer. He was afraid that if he appeared as himself he might block the annulment. Block it? Ye gods! Had he thought for a minute she wanted to hold him to it?
I should have let him talk on the porch, she reflected. Then furiously, caustically told him what I thought of Kenniston Stewart, what I had been thinking through the years he sidestepped his responsibility. I wager that by the time I was through any idea he had that I wanted that written contract to stand would have been smashed and smashed hard. I missed the chance of my —
Who was opening the front door of the wheel side of this car? She tensed to watchfulness. It closed softly. She raised herself to her knees. Someone was on the front seat, someone with a peaked white cap — her heart flopped and righted — it was the clown who had cut in on her dance. He still wore the black satin mask on his chalked face. She must get out. A quick move of his head knocked off the peaked white cap and revealed black hair with one deep wave smooth as if it had been marcelled and lacquered.
The swoop of the car sent her back to the floor. Too late to escape. The driver was preparing to burn up the road. From what was he running away? Tom had said there had been many automobile thefts along the coast. Was this one?
Now what? Cautiously she raised her head till she could look from the side window. They were no longer on the Inn drive. The car was speeding. If she jumped she would break her neck or back. If she stayed here — that was the $64.00 question. A flash on the back window. A car following? Was another driver suspicious of the madly speeding limousine, which was giving an excellent imitation of a jet bomber on high? Whether it was or not the man at the wheel of this one feared it.
She drew the soft robe closer about her shoulders. She could pull it over her head if there were a crash and could a crash be avoided at this speed unless the thief or madman reached the safety of his hide-out first? a result which offered a more terrifying possibility than a broken neck. I'll settle for the latter, she told herself.
Another flash on the rear window. A warning siren. Were they being followed by a cruising car so early in the morning? She threw the robe from her shoulders and applied eyes and ears to the narrow opening of the side window. If another car approached she would scream her head off. The faint far whistle of a train. She looked at the illuminated dial of her wrist watch. A sense of impending tragedy set her heart pounding, blocked her breath. A freight train steamed through at this hour, she had heard it when she had a wakeful night.
Past a red light. The clown at the wheel must be desperate — or drunk. A car behind was getting closer. Crash! Had the pursuer gone off the road? A sob rose in her throat. That hope of rescue was gone. On they went. Past another stop light. The warning whistle echoed through the still morning air. Nearer this time. They were perilously close to the railroad. Had the driver heard? Should she warn him? Would he try to cross before the gates fell?
A shout! The gate keeper? The limousine bumped and swayed across the rails. The bell clanged furiously. They had made it. The gates fell. A train lumbered by. They were saved, but, also, the closing gates had stopped the automobiles behind them if one had been a police patrol as she had hoped.
The driver increased speed. A sharp turn on two wheels. Brakes screamed. Tires slid. Instinctively she pulled the robe over her head. It might save her neck — Was the car going over? She clutched at the seat, at the door handle to hold herself steady. It settled back with a mighty lurch that left her dazed.
Minutes passed before her mind came back from the threshold of unconsciousness. Voices outside. Loud voices. Rescue at last. She cautiously flexed her muscles. Nothing broken. The heavy robe had saved her. She pushed it back to get her breath. The door beside her was yanked open. Through a glare of light she caught the glitter of brass buttons. The police. She was safe.
The officer with an electric to
rch wobbling in his hand stood for several throbbing seconds, leaning forward, his eyes fixed on her. His gloating smile sent her heart to her throat. Who did he think she was?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I’LL CATCH HER. It’s my job now,” Slade flung over his shoulder as he started in pursuit of the girl racing along the porch.
Kenniston Stewart took an impetuous step forward. Stopped. Wiser for Slade to follow and take her to The Castle. For me to try to talk to her now would be about as safe as deactivating a contact mine, he told himself. She is too furious with Kenniston Stewart to listen to him.
He drew a long breath. It was a huge relief to throw off the Bill Damon alias. Voices and laughter drifted from the front of the Inn. The party was breaking up to the tune of “Good Night, Ladies.” He glanced at his watch. Two o’clock.
Back and forth he paced like a bear in the confinement of a cage. Cinderella and he had provided plenty of food, a veritable banquet, of conversation for the masqueraders on their homeward way, he reflected, she with the superb exhibition of skating and he with the theatric disclosure of his identity. He’d hand it to the Fane girl and Harding for working up a clever denouement. When the boy appeared with the yellow envelope he had wondered who was slated for congratulations or bad news. Of course he need not have accepted it — but, for a split second he had thought it was a telegram from the War Department, he couldn’t ignore it and deny his name.
He swore under his breath. If I could get my hands on Harding — Cindy thought I started to hit the heel in the ballroom. Not there. The lift of my arm at his insinuating voice was an instinctive reflex action of the muscles.
“Ken? Ken, are you here?”
A woman materialized from the shadow, a woman in an enveloping black satin cape. The light from a passing automobile in the road below set three diamond stars sparkling in her white hair. She caught his arm.
“Ken, what happened?” she whispered.
“Haven’t you heard, Ally? If not, you’re the only person here tonight who hasn’t.”
“Ken, come over where I can sit on the railing. I’m suffering the tortures of the damned from narrow shoes.” He steadied her as she mounted the rail. She kicked off two high-heeled silver slippers.
“The relief, the blessed relief.” She flexed her toes in their sheer nylons. “Now, tell me what happened. First what was your costume? I didn’t recognize you, though I had been sure I would.”
“I borrowed an outfit from one of the chefs. Wore it over these clothes and shed it before I came out here.”
“In the supper room I sensed an undercurrent of excitement, but no one would tell me what it was about. A group would stop buzzing when I joined it. What happened?”
“Sure you are warm enough? It has turned cold.”
“Plenty warm.” She drew the satin cape closer about her shoulders. “Go on.”
“Weren’t you in the ballroom when we unmasked?” Even in the dim light he could see the added brilliance of her eyes, her heightened color.
“No. If you must know the awful truth, Ken, at that climactic moment I was on the ocean side of the porch where you and I sat the other evening, listening to a proposal — of marriage, if you can believe it.”
“I won’t ask the question quivering on the tip of my tongue.” How could he laugh when his life appeared to be torn up by the roots? “Does it mean that you are ready to give up adventure and, I quote, settle down to the tame life of a socialite?”
“Give up adventure? I would say I heard it calling. Isn’t marriage the greatest adventure extant? I will confide the romantic details to you later — after I have given my answer, which something tells me will be ‘Yes.’ I have always admired the profession of the law, and a Federal Judge … Now, to return to the buzz-buzz. What happened?”
He leaned against a porch post facing her, feeling without seeing the beauty of the star-sprinkled sky, the riding lights on boats large and small as they swayed with the tide while he told of the entrance of the bellhop with the telegram.
“I have been waiting for just the right moment to tell all to Cinderella,” he concluded. “I knew that her first reaction would be furious anger at the deception — I was sure I could meet that, we have become good friends, but to have the revelation break as it did before that crowd in the ballroom —”
“You didn’t have to accept that telegram.”
“I did. It might have been an order from the War Office. It was a blank sheet. Harding and the Fane girl were clever to address it to Colonel Kenniston Stewart. I could break their necks.”
“I knew Lydia would resent your indifference to her lure. At our dinner for Mrs. Drew she had her charm running on all cylinders. You remained courteous but unimpressed. She’s a ‘Come hither-How dare you!’ temptress, and bitterly resents defeat. How did Cindy take the revelation?”
“Like the sport she is. For an instant I thought she had turned to stone. Then she pulled herself out of stunned surprise and declared she had been party to the deception from the day of my arrival with such savoir-faire, such gay contempt aimed at Lydia Fane and Harding, that she almost convinced me she had shared my secret. I’m sure they felt their sensation bomb had proved a dud. If they didn’t, their expressions belied them. They looked as if they couldn’t believe their ears.”
“It won't help for me to declare that the tent you pitched has collapsed on you, Ken.”
“I refuse to admit that, Ally. I’ll make Cindy listen to me if I have to kidnap her. I told you before that I am sure I decided wisely when I came here incognito. This mix-up tonight hasn’t changed that conviction.”
“I hope you are right, but, women don’t reason, they feel. It must have been a crushing blow to her pride to have the truth proclaimed where and when it was. Of course you are in love with your ex-wife.”
“Don’t call her that. Harding referred to her as the ex-Mrs. Stewart. I was horribly tempted to knock his teeth in, however convention held. Of course I am in love with her. I told you I came to this town because of a belated nudge from old man Responsibility. When I saw her that day in Ella Crane’s shop and discovered who she was, I loved her tender mouth, her mischievous brown eyes. She was unbearably sweet, I felt as a man would who had suddenly discovered hidden treasure of untold beauty and value — which he knew was his — marked HANDS OFF. I determined that one day she would be my wife in reality.” He tamped out his cigarette against the rail. “Think you can take more of this, Ally?”
“Go on, Ken. I want to hear all you will tell me. I am happy that you are willing to confide in me.”
“My father used to write at length as to the fineness of Cinderella Clinton’s character — he never mentioned her beauty or charm — of her devotion to her father. As I read those letters I would grin and think, ‘Pop is remorseful that he has tied up my life in this zany marriage and is building up the girl to me.’ When I saw Cinderella all he had written fused and fell behind her like a wonderful, colorful backdrop. I loved her. She was the woman I wanted.”
“And you let that annulment go through. How could you?”
“When I was tempted to stop it I reminded myself that I had made a decision by the process of cold reason, that at present I was in too much of an emotional upheaval to trust my judgment. The day she went to court I played off my tennis finals, then faked a business appointment in Portland for fear my resolution would crack. However, I held fast to my determination to start with a clear slate with her.”
“That same slate is slightly smooched, I’d say. Did Slade take her home?”
“I’m sure he did. She hadn’t much of a start when he raced after her along the porch. He loves her. She is furiously angry with me. It is his chance to score. That isn’t fair. Slade is a plus guy. I’ve bored you enough with my problems. Did you enjoy the ball?”
“Yes. Who was the girl or woman flitting from dancer to dancer, whispering news, on whom the chef cut in so often? I wasn’t in the hall when the dancers unmasked.�
��
“That was what the chef was trying to find out. Unfortunately at the moment of unmasking the onetime chef had been forced to reveal the fact that he had been leading a double life.”
“Did you pick up any clues at our dinner last night?”
“Several, I think. I haven’t fitted them into the pattern yet. I’ll report to you when I have it worked out.”
“I had a feeling that the news-carrier might be a person in whom we are interested. I noticed that a clown also was cutting in often on her dances.”
“A clown!” Cindy had whispered. “Quick, let’s dodge that clown coming this way. He has cut in twice before. I — I don’t like him.”
Had the man trailed her knowing she was from The Castle? Did he know of the jewels cached in the turret room? Had he followed her when she left the Inn? Suppose he had? So had Slade immediately.
“The clown also was shadowing Cindy,” he explained. Perhaps Slade hadn’t reached her first, perhaps — why stand here wondering? “I’m uneasy about her. I’m going to The Castle, Ally. Hang it, my car is in the shop.”
“Take mine, Ken. Seth came with me but decided to walk to White Pillars, said he would sleep better. Drive me home, then use my roadster. Stop pacing like a prowling tiger. Undoubtedly by this time she is safe under Sarah Ann’s watchful wing. Did you get your man installed at The Castle?”
“Yes. Let’s get going. I’ll snatch a topcoat on the way.”
Seth Armstrong in a hectic plaicl wool lounge robe which did not quite reach the bottom of the legs of his red and white striped pajamas, appeared on the porch as the roadster stopped in the drive in front of the white-columned yellow colonial house.
“That you, Ally?”
“Yes, Seth.”
Ken Stewart held her long cape of black satin and bouffant pink skirt away from the wheel as she stepped from the car.
To Love and to Honour Page 17