Calico Palace (14 page)

Again Marny jerked herself out of his grasp. She did not like to be rudely handled. Now she was no longer amused, she was mad. Being mad, she had an inspiration of her own.

She began to talk.

“Amo, amas, amat!” she retorted angrily. “Amamus, amatis, amant!”

“Huh?” said Joe.

J
OE AND BILL STARED
at each other.

Marny stamped her foot. “Gallia est omnis,” she flung at them, “divisa in partes tres.”

“Hey, what’s that?” asked Bill.

Though Kendra had barely heard what Marny was saying, she did realize thankfully that Marny had hit upon a language the men had not heard before. Through the willows she saw Ted. The voices had roused his attention and he had moved to a spot where he could see the sailors, but though he held his gun he was not firing. For heaven’s sake, wondered Kendra, why not? He might not want to kill anybody but he could at least have fired into the air so those men would know Marny was not alone. Marny was vigorously talking back to them.

“Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patentia nostra?”

The sailors stood with their mouths open, but saying nothing because they could not think of anything to say. Marny rattled on.

“O temporal O mores! Senatus haec intellegit, consul videt, hic tamen vivit!”

On and on she went, to the greater and greater bewilderment of her hearers. Without listening any longer Kendra ran to Ted. As she reached him she stopped short, seeing with amazement why he had not fired.

He could not. He was choking with laughter. His gun shook so that he dared not pull the trigger.

“Ted!” she exclaimed. “What on earth—aren’t you going to help her?”

For a moment Ted’s laughter smothered his words. When he could speak he said, “That girl doesn’t need any help.”

Marny’s voice came to them. “Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris—”

Ted turned to Kendra. “Do you know what she’s saying?”

Kendra shook her head.

“She is speaking,” said Ted, “Latin.”

“Latin!” Kendra echoed. “But where did she learn—”

“How would I know?” he retorted, with wonder equal to hers. “A stray flossy who deals cards in gambling houses out at the end of the world—”

“Italiam fugo profugus,” continued Marny, “Lavinaque venit—”

Ted went on, “The most beautiful classical Latin I ever heard. She has quoted Caesar and Cicero, and right now she’s giving them the opening lines of Virgil’s
Aeneid.
Kendra, where do you suppose she—”

A shot cracked from the creekside. Bill’s hat fell out of his hand and Bill himself flung up his hand with a yell. But there was no mark on his hand. The bullet had hit nothing but the hat. It was a splendid piece of marksmanship, and now Pocket was following the bullet from the bank of the creek.

Joe grabbed at his knife, but it was too late, for now at last Ted fired too, aiming high, for while he was a fair marksman he had not Pocket’s consummate skill. As he fired he sprang to his feet and went toward the sailors from one side as Pocket approached from the other. Bill and Joe were cornered, and even more so when Marny produced her own little gun, and Pocket, now at her side, ordered, “You fellows get away from here. Get a long way from here.”

The sailors blinked. “We didn’t mean any harm!” said Joe.

“You didn’t do any harm, either,” said Ted, “and you’re not going to. Back!”

They backed, Ted and Pocket prodding them with the guns. Leaving the shelter of the wagon Kendra went over to Marny, who was now sitting on the grass, mirthfully watching the sailors’ retreat. “Marny,” Kendra said with awe, “you’re marvelous!”

Marny looked around and gave her a broad wink. Together they watched till the sailors had run out of sight among the trees. Ted and Pocket came back.

“Thanks, boys,” said Marny.

“Don’t thank us,” said Ted, “you did the job.”

Marny picked up Bill’s hat from the grass beside her, and ran her finger along the tear the bullet had made in the brim. “Pocket,” she said with admiration, “you do know how to use that cannon.” She threw the hat away and held out her hand. “Help me up.”

He took her hand in his. “Say, Miss Marny,” he exclaimed as she stood up, “Ted told me—you’re educated, aren’t you?”

Marny pushed back a lock of shining red hair. “Right now, I’m kind of limp. I’d like some refreshment. Among all those pockets of yours, Pocket, have you got a flask?”

He smiled regretfully. “Sorry, Miss Marny, I don’t drink.”

She gave him the same look of tolerant amusement she had given him in the store when he told her he did not gamble. “Do you smoke, Pocket?” she asked.

“No ma’am,” he said gently.

“What do you do for fun?”

He gave her a smile of disarming candor. “Well ma’am, I sure do like women.”

Marny burst out laughing. “And I like men,” she said. “You’re all right, Pocket.”

Ted was laughing too. Like the other men of their group, Ted had not shaved since they left San Francisco and now his face looked like a good-humored cockleburr. “I have a flask in the wagon, Marny,” he said. “Come along. And where did you learn Latin?”

Marny gave them all a merry green glance. “Darlings, anybody who’s been thrown out of as many schools as I have, couldn’t help learning a little something on the way.” She put a freckled hand on Ted’s arm. “Now where’s that flask? Bis dat qui cito dat—that means if you hurry up, one drink will seem like two.”

She and Ted walked toward the wagon. Ted climbed in, and a moment later reappeared with the “flask,” a canteen bought from the army stores, as no glass container was likely to withstand the bumps of the journey. Pocket returned to the horses. But Kendra stood where she was. All of a sudden she had had an idea about Marny.

Loren had told her, “The Miss Randolph who came on board that day looked like a perfect lady and talked like one.” She herself, before those two white houses on the cliff, had reflected that nice girls did get into trouble sometimes and she did not believe they all pined away like the girls in story books. She remembered the drawings that illustrated those stories—a girl slinking off as a grim-faced father pointed the way into a snowy night. In those illustrations, it was always snowing.

But absurd though they were, the stories and drawings must have been built around a core of truth. Otherwise there would not be so many of them.

And now here was Marny. Had somebody—an implacable father, a whole self-righteous family—turned her out of doors like that?

Marny and Ted were walking back toward her, both of them sipping drinks Ted had poured into their tin cups. Pocket came back too, pausing a moment to scan the horizon and make sure the sailors were staying out of sight. Reaching Kendra, Marny gave her a quizzical smile. “You’re mighty quiet,” she observed.

Kendra started, “Oh—I was just thinking how beautiful these wild flowers are. I wish I knew some beautiful words to say it.” Smiling, Marny suggested,

“When daisies pied and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight…”

“Say,” Pocket exclaimed as she paused, “that’s
pretty
!”

Marny laughed softly. “Do you like poetry, Pocket?”

“I guess I do, ma’am. Only I don’t know much. Who made up that one?”

“Shakespeare.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Pocket said gravely.

Marny sat on the grass again, while Pocket watched her with interest. “Miss Marny,” he asked, “where did you come from?”

“Philadelphia.”

“Why’d you leave?” asked Pocket.

Kendra, standing to one side, inwardly winced. He should not be asking! Couldn’t he realize that a girl like Marny might not want to discuss her past? Kendra glanced at Ted, but he too was waiting for what Marny would say. Marny herself merely gave Pocket a roguish look as she asked,

“Pocket, were you ever in Philadelphia on Sunday?”

Ted began to laugh.

But Pocket soberly shook his head. “No ma’am. What happens in Philadelphia on Sunday?”

“Nothing,” said Marny. “I mean
nothing.
People stay home and read good books.”

Ted sat down on the grass beside her. “Is that how you learned so much?” he asked.

“Why don’t you let her alone?” demanded Kendra.

The two men turned to her in astonishment. Kendra hurried on.

“Can’t you understand?—it’s none of our business! Maybe Marny doesn’t want to tell you about herself. Marny—Marny was well brought up!”

She stopped abruptly. Ted and Pocket had heard her with faces suddenly grave, even a little guilty, as if agreeing that maybe they did have too much curiosity about Marny’s affairs. But Marny herself had begun to laugh, with a silvery merriment that made the brandy tremble in her cup. Reaching out her free hand she took Kendra’s hand and squeezed it.

“Kendra, you are a darling, you are adorable, and you are as artless as the flowers. Sit down.” She drew Kendra to the grass beside her, and Pocket sat down too. Marny went on,

“Kendra, back in Baltimore, you must have known people to shake their heads regretfully and say, ‘There’s one in every family.’”

Kendra frowned. “One—?”

“The one who’s never mentioned.”

Kendra did remember that she had heard this phrase, or others like it, spoken in hushed voices that she was not supposed to hear. (“And the younger brother, what is he doing now?”—“Sh! Don’t ask about him. Around the family, he’s never mentioned.”) So Kendra nodded, and Marny looked humorously from her to the men.

“Dear people,” said Marny, “around my family, the one who’s never mentioned by tactful visitors is me.”

They were all listening. A mischievous glint in her green eyes, Marny asked,

“Shall I tell you the story of my misspent life?”

“Yes ma’am!” Pocket exclaimed. “Please do, Miss Marny.”

Marny laughed gently. She said,

“Darlings, on the outskirts of Philadelphia is an institution called Landreth University. A noble place. Towers of ivied gray stone, fine old trees, walks winding among lawns and shrubbery. My father was Dr. Virgil Randolph, professor of Latin and Greek at Landreth. My mother was the daughter of another man of learning who had also studied in those hallowed halls. Their marriage pleased everybody. Their home was a brick house on a tree-shaded street. They had aunts and uncles and cousins and ancestors and they were all fine people. Every one of them.

“In fifteen years Dr. and Mrs. Randolph had three sons and two daughters. The children were bright and handsome and well behaved, and their parents and all the relatives were proud of them. There was not a family in Philadelphia more respected than the Randolphs. They were a credit to the community and a credit to the human race. And believe me, they knew it.

“Everything was going well with the Randolphs. And then, when her youngest child was ten years old, Mrs. Randolph was dismayed to find herself again having delicate symptoms.”

Marny paused. Kendra and Ted and Pocket began to laugh. Pocket said,

“That was you?”

“That was me, Pocket,” said Marny. “I started making trouble before anybody even saw me.”

Taking a sip of her brandy, Marny continued,

“My mother was deep in her forties. She was not only dismayed, she was embarrassed. So was the family. No nice woman should be having a baby at that age. But I was born, and they tried to make the best of it. But then, before I was very old, they found that I was like a bee buzzing around in their well-ordered life.”

Marny gave a sigh.

“I wasn’t sickly, I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t bad-tempered. But I was
different.

“It wasn’t merely that nobody else in the family had red hair and green eyes. Whether or not they liked the way I looked, they could understand that I was made that way. But nobody in the family was bubble-headed and gigglesome and frivolous like me. This they could
not
understand. Shall I go on?”

“I’m fascinated,” said Ted.

Kendra and Pocket were fascinated too. Marny laughed as she remembered. What beautiful laughter she had, Kendra thought. You could see a flower and smell it; if you could also
hear
a flower, it would sound the way Marny laughed.

“One day when I was a tiny child,” said Marny, “I ran in with muddy hands and smeared a book of etiquette lying on the table. It was a book that belonged to my grown-up sister Claudia, who was going to be married and wanted her wedding to be just right. I didn’t know what a book of etiquette was, but they said I had an instinct for attacking such things. It was as if I’d been possessed by a naughty little demon.

“Another day I found a tray of glasses filled with red wine, ready to be passed to guests. The wine looked lovely and it smelled delicious and I tasted it and I liked it. I thought it was much nicer than jam. I still think so. When my grown-up brother Ovid came in to get the tray he found half the glasses empty and he found me dancing around and trying to sing, gloriously fizzled at the age of four. I thought it was great fun but he didn’t.”

Marny sighed.

“Not long after this I came across a pack of cards somebody had left lying on a table. The cards enchanted me. I loved to lay them out in patterns, long before I knew what they were for. But after a while I made friends with a boy whose father was a janitor at the university. He taught me some card games. My sister Doris found us gambling for pennies on the back steps. The family decided I needed a governess to keep me in order.

“I had several governesses, one after another. The poor dear things wouldn’t stay. They tried to change me but I couldn’t be changed. The family sent me away to a boarding school. I did well in my lessons. I’m quite bright and I like to study, I really do, but one night I was discovered on a back balcony being kissed by the gardener’s boy. They sent me home.

“More schools, more disgraces. I couldn’t stay away from cards and handsome men. My parents were killed in a boating accident, but my brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins all kept trying to uplift me. It was no use. I didn’t want to be uplifted.

“Still, I didn’t want to bring any more trouble on them. I had a little legacy from my father and I took it and got out of Philadelphia.”