Enchanted Spring (3 page)

“I’ll just drive the car around to your garage and leave it there,” he told her. “And I’ll give you a ring in the morning — the telephone kind.”

Carey nodded and stood on the steps until the sleek, expensive car had slid into the side street and was swallowed up from sight. Then she turned and went in, her shoulders drooping a little with a reaction that she found it hard to understand or classify.

SHE HAD a dinner date that night, but on a sudden impulse she had Hulda telephone to say that she was ill. She knew that her hostess would probably hate her for life, but she had to face her father tonight and tell him not only about her purchase of the car but about her intention to marry Ronnie. And neither was going to be easy. It was Carey’s way when there was something difficult to do, not to put it off but to go at it immediately. So she dressed herself very carefully in a pink chiffon dress — pink was her father’s favorite color — and tucked gardenias in the soft dark masses of her curls.

Her father was in the library before the open fire. The evening newspaper was unfolded on his knee, but he was not reading. As she came into the room he looked up and, for a moment, there was something in his face that struck terror to her heart. He looked so old, so tired, so worn. Then he moved, spoke her name in pleased surprise, and she told herself that frightening expression had been a trick of the firelight.

“Don’t tell me I’m to be honored by the presence of my very popular debutante daughter at dinner!” he marvelled as she perched on the arm of his chair and bent to drop a light kiss on his cheek.

“Well, since you’ve always been my favorite boyfriend, why wouldn’t I have dinner with you?” she demanded pertly.

“Your favorite boyfriend, eh?” Her father was a trifle derisive. “I learned a long time ago that when you were most affectionate and considerate, it was because you wanted something. So what is it this time?”

Somehow she was stung by that. Stung so that she sprang to her feet, little flags of color in her cheeks, her eyes hot as she stammered, “What a cruel thing to say! I should think you’d be ashamed to say I only love you when I want something from you!”

He was instantly remorseful when he saw that his impulsive remark had hurt her. He reached out and drew her close so that she perched on his knee while he asked for forgiveness.

It was thus that John found them when he came to announce dinner. John and his assistant were constantly in and out of the dining room during the elaborate meal, so Carey and her father talked of surface things until dinner was over and they were back in the library before the replenished fire, afterdinner coffee on a low table in front of Carey.

Mr. Winslow, handing back his empty coffee cup, snipping the end from his cigar, heaved a little sigh of complete happiness.

“This is cozy,” he said. “It’s great having you like this, baby — just the two of us. Though of course I’m a selfish old man wanting to keep you to myself now and then.”

“You’re neither selfish nor an old man,” Carey protested almost mechanically. “You’re a perfectly neat guy that I’m crazy about.”

She sat looking into the fire, her lovely profile turned to him. Something about that profile, relaxed now, made Silas ask quietly, “Anything bothering you, infant?”

Carey started a little and the color flooded her face as she looked up at him swiftly and then turned away.

“I — well — a little,” she stammered.

“Then tell your old man about it — and let him straighten it out for you,” Silas suggested affectionately.

Carey was angry with herself because suddenly it seemed so hard to tell him. And that was pretty crazy because, after all, it was her own life, and all she asked was a chance to live it as she wanted to. Her father was going to be hurt, she knew; and she was sorry about that. He didn’t like Ronnie — but then it was she, not her father, who was going to marry Ronnie.

She drew a long breath and, her hands clasped loosely together about one slender knee, she faced him.

“I want to get married, Dad.”

A spasm of pain sped over her father’s face and was lost. There was a full moment before he could master that pain so that he could answer her. But when he did, his tone was calm, even if a little self-consciously so. “Well, of course, baby, I knew this moment had to come. I was a fool to think it could be postponed. Who’s the lucky man?”

“Ronnie Norris,” Carey answered quietly.

She saw her father age before her very eyes. His face went white; she saw suddenly the muscles of his face, the bones of its structure stand out almost nakedly beneath the force of his effort at self-control. And his gray eyes, so like her own, were sick with pain, as though he had received some cruelly bitter blow.

“You — are serious, of course. I can see that,” he said at last, speaking slowly, like one emerging unwillingly from an anesthetic that has dulled a pain momentarily.

“Of course, Dad,” Carey said swiftly, her voice shaken a little. “Oh, Dad, I’m terribly sorry to hurt you like this. But if you only
knew
Ronnie — you won’t even make an effort to know him, to understand him — ”

“A man who uses his good looks and magnetism to make himself so attractive to impressionable women that they gladly support him scarcely requires a great deal of understanding,” Silas said savagely.

Carey was on her feet, her head lifted proudly, her eyes blazing. “That’s unfair! You have no right to say that. He earns his own living — ”

“By commissions on things he sells at double and triple the price to women impressed with his good looks — ”

His voice caught and he was silent for a moment while Carey fought to stop the tears that threatened to destroy her self-control. They were so alike, these two; Silas, studying her, knew with an agony clutching at his heart that it was a waste of time to argue with her. Her mind was made up. There was nothing he could do.

“I’m sorry you can’t be fair to him, Dad — but it doesn’t make any difference,” Carey said steadily. “I love him and I’m going to marry him, either with your consent or without it. And some day, when you’ll let yourself, you’ll learn to like him.”

She turned blindly toward the door and Silas said, his voice thick, dull with the knowledge of his helplessness, “You love him, baby? You’re sure?”

“I was never so sure of anything in my life, Dad,” she told him steadily.

There was a little moment before he could force the words from his lips. “Then — there isn’t anything left for me to say, is there?” he yielded.

Carey turned. For a moment they looked at each other. And then she was in his arms, clinging to him, halfway between tears and laughter, saying shakily, “Well, there’s always — ‘bless you, my child.’ It would be nice if you’d say that!”

His arms held her very close and his cheek was against her dark curls. He would never again catch the scent of gardenias without a clutch of pain at this memory. But she was very dear to him.

“I do say it, baby,” he said huskily. “Bring that young man around and let’s have a look at him, will you?”

“Oh, Dad — yes — I’ll go call him. He’ll come right over. Dad, I knew you were going to be swell about it all!” she told him joyously, and sped to the telephone.

When she had gone Silas stood still for a long moment, looking up at the painting above the mantel. Carey’s mother, painted the last summer of her life and a portrait so beautifully done that Silas could almost feel that she looked at him and listened when he bowed his head and said: “Forgive me, dearest. I’ve — made a mess of things for her, haven’t I? I didn’t know — ”

His senses swam in a sea of pain, but somehow he managed to feel his way back to his chair and to collapse there, fighting with every shred of strength and courage he possessed. Finally the pain began to recede a little, leaving him spent and gasping. He sat exhausted — and alone.

There was a little glint in Carey’s eyes as she dialed the number of Ann Paige’s luxurious duplex. When a voice spoke in her ear, she said crisply, “Mr. Norris, please. He is dining there.”

“Of course, Madam,” said the voice. “Whom shall I say is calling?”

For just a moment Carey hesitated, then she said, “His fiancee.”

Obviously Ann Paige’s butler believed it was a trick. But his voice was superlatively polite as he insisted, “Yes, Madam — and the name?”

“Miss Carey Winslow,” snapped Carey.

“One moment, Madam,” said the butler and there was a silence.

“Yes? Who is it?” Ronnie’s voice said in her ear.

“Don’t sound so like the great big bear speaking to Goldilocks,” Carey snapped childishly. “Who did you think it was?”

“Oh, Carey,” said Ronnie, and now his tone was a trifle curt. “What the dickens do you mean, calling me here?”

Carey felt as though he had slapped her. She blinked for a moment, steadied her voice and said with an effect of airy nonchalance:

“I just thought you might be pleased to know that Dad has given his consent to our marriage.”

“Swell!” Ronnie said heartily, yet she had the curious feeling that he was being a bit wary for fear someone might be listening at his end of the line.

“He’d like you to come over and have a talk with him,” said Carey.

“Would he, now?” Ronnie answered pleasantly. “Well, that’s very nice indeed, Tomorrow evening, shall we say?”

“Why not now — right away?” demanded Carey, her voice slightly hostile.

“My dear Carey,” said Ronnie, as though she were a small and not very bright child, “I am a dinner guest here and we have just left the table. We haven’t even had coffee. Later, there will be bridge. I couldn’t possibly check out now. But suppose we make it tomorrow evening — for dinner, perhaps?”

Carey put down the receiver and sat for a little, her face hot with color, her eyes blazing. She was furious at Ronnie’s cavalier behavior and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Which only added to her fury.

Silas heard her out and said quietly, “Well, of course, darling, if he’s been invited to complete a table of bridge — naturally, he couldn’t rush away. But if he knew that you were going to tell me about — about your plans, why didn’t he have dinner with us tonight? Surely he wasn’t afraid of me. I don’t bite, you know.”

“He already had this engagement — I mean, he hadn’t planned to ask me to marry him today. I think that was it — ” she floundered, and Silas nodded.

After her father retired, she couldn’t endure her own thoughts or her own company any longer. She went to the telephone and called some of her friends. An hour later, as they were making the rounds of the nightclubs, they happened upon Ann Paige and Ronnie, tucked away in a secluded corner in the smartest and most popular club in town. And Carey set her teeth with fury. A table of bridge, indeed! She all but glared at Ronnie, who gave her a gay wave of the hand and went on devoting himself to Ann.

It was late when Carey’s crowd set her down on the steps of the austere house in East Sixty-third Street. And it was hours later before Carey finally fell into a sleep of complete exhaustion. She slept straight through the day and it was after four when she sat up and rang for her maid.

Hulda came, bringing her breakfast tray and with it the news that Mr. Ronald Norris had been telephoning since shortly after noon. He would like Miss Winslow to call him as soon as she awakened.

“Oh, he would, would he?” Carey said grimly, and dug a spoon into her grapefruit.

“He said so, Miss Carey,” Hulda answered lightly and went to turn on her bath.

Carey sat and glared at the telephone. She wanted to hear Ronnie’s voice. But she was stubbornly determined to hold her own against him. She was a little terrified this morning at the realization of how much she wanted to call him, to be with him; of how difficult it was to assert herself against him.

Hulda came to say that her bath was ready and she pushed aside the breakfast tray, slid out of bed, and accepted the velvet negligee that Hulda wrapped around her, thrusting her feet into the rosy pink slippers with their fluff of feathers across the instep.

She had had her bath and was standing before the dressing table while Hulda fastened the hooks of her rust-colored wool frock when the telephone rang. Her heart rose as she took up the receiver.

“Yes?” she said.

“It’s about time you woke up,” said Ronnie; and his voice was crisp, even a trifle sharp. “I left word that you were to call me when you awoke. I suppose they didn’t give you my message.”

“Oh, yes, I believe Hulda did say something about your calling — ”

“See here, Carey, you’ve got me in a dickens of a mess,” he cut in sharply. “What did you mean by springing the news that we were engaged, without consulting me?”

Carey gasped as though he had flung cold water in her face. A healthy anger seethed within her. “Not that I did anything of the sort,” she snapped hotly, “but are you suggesting that we are not?”

“It’s in Winchell’s column and my telephone has been ringing like mad all morning,” Ronnie said grimly. “I haven’t the slightest objection to an announcement — certainly not. Only I think it would have been a little more dignified if the news had been given to the society editors first, and by your father.”

“Look who’s being dignified,” Carey hooted derisively, but her eyes were not amused.

“That’s all very well for you, Carey. This sort of thing is a joke with you, of course,” snapped Ronnie, “but never mind that for the moment. What I telephoned you for was to remind you that there was to be a check in the mail this morning for the car — and there wasn’t. The showgirl is threatening to get nasty. It wasn’t my car, you know, nor is it my check — but it puts me in rather a spot.”

“Oh,” Carey said remorsefully, “I’m sorry, Ronnie. I forgot. I’ll run down to Dad’s office now and get the check — ”

“And meet me for tea,” said Ronnie. Now his voice was warm, caressing, so that her heart quivered. “And tonight after dinner you must get your father to telephone the society editors so that everything will be in order about our engagement. Then I’ll not feel such a fool when reporters ask me questions. ‘Bye, darling.”

“Goodbye — dearest,” Carey said shakily.