To love and to honor (13 page)

She stole into the house, successfully dodged Sarah Ann Parker, showered, changed to a sleeveless aqua organdy and fastened a pink Perfection rose to her shoulder. But when she sat down at the glass table in the patio, where a crystal plate piled with rosy balls of iced watermelon awaited her, Sarah swooped like an owl which had been watching for its rabbit prey.

She continued to hover after she served a delicately roasted squab chicken, a flaky baked potato, outsize peas

of a sweet and melting tenderness, a fluffy roll, and currant jelly red as a mammoth pigeon-blood ruby.

"Who was the Judge?" she inquired as she filled a hollow-stem glass with a fruit juice combination sparkling as champagne, cold as a mountain spring.

"Shelton? 1 he Federal Judge? He's a wise man, an' an awful nice one. Want to know somethin'? He was terribly in love with Ally Armstrong when they was young. Suddenly she went off an' married Lord Barclay, folks never knew what happened. He's an old bach, has a fine family place—up Portland way." She added Roquefort cheese dressing to slices of chilled avocado and sections of pink grapefruit on pale green lettuce.

"He told you he played chess with your father? Sure he played with him. I remember him coming to this house.

"You seem surprised he was friendly. Why not? That's the way a Judge should be to folks who bring their troubles to court, not scare 'em to death.

"Did he lambast that Kenniston Stewart for not being here to appear before him?" The question accompanied the serving of an individual baked Alaska, its meringue a delicate brown above vanilla ice cream.

"He didn't? Want to know somethin'? If I'd been that judge I'd have said a scorching thing or two." And on and on until the ring of the telephone called her away.

One thing to plan to start a new life and another to accomplish the feat, Cindy decided later in the old kitchen with the pumpkin-yellow walls she used as a workroom. She drew ledger and account book from the drawer of a flat mahogany desk, the only modem piece of furniture among priceless antiques, and laid them on top.

Hands clasped behind her head she leaned back in the swivel chair. Nice room. The mulberry borders and black centers of the Canova platter, tea and dinner plates on the shelves of the open cupboard were in charming contrast to the walls. They made an effective bit of color.

Allah be praised, Sary wouldn't follow her here. The Woman at Work sign hung on the knob outside the

door and even she, whom nothing fazed, would StopI Look! Listen 1 when she saw that.

The sight of the books she had laid on the desk in preparation for the evening's work induced a slight attack of nausea. Was it possible that after the final tax return was finished she would be out of the oil business forever? Out of work, too. Then what would she do?

Something definite. Something worth while. I will decide what I want most, plan for it and go after it with all there is in me. Bill Damon has the right idea. I want to be an honored citizen who counts in the welfare of the nation. I harangued Hal Harding as to the responsibility of wealth. Now it is up to me to prove I can practice what I preach.

She glanced at the six silver tennis trophy cups on the high shelf above the old oven. She had worked to win those. She had been up against amateurs who later had ranked among the best players in the country. The dated, autographed golf balls in the glass case on the wall she had won putting.

Yesterday she had invited Mrs. Drew to use The Castle green. The more she had thought of the woman since the call the less she liked her. Something artificial about her, might be her hair, undoubtedly it had been bleached, perhaps once it had been the color of her almost black eyes. She was pretty—in a way—but prissy. The word described her manner perfectly.

Was she really the silent partner in a big cosmetic company? Did that explain her need of a "secretary"? Or was the man Laurence Lloyd there for a different reason? In spite of her snap at him she was a little afraid of him.

Why had Alida Barclay pressed her fingers against the wall in the Rockledge living room? She jumped when I entered as if she had been caught stealing sheep. Her explanation that she was considering having a wall in her New York apartment done in bleached maple was a phony. Mrs. Drew was so sure she had seen or met her before, uneasily sure. Why? Ally had planned a dinner for her. Would she entertain the woman if she thought she was an undesirable person in the community?

TO LOVE AND TO HONOR lOQ

I'd better stop speculating about my neighbors and tackle the accounting, but the neighbors are a heap more interesting, she admitted. As she reached for the ledger she saw the large envelope which contained the blown-up film she had dropped to the desk when she came home. She drew out the print. Tipped back in the swivel chair and studied it.

Nice composition for an amateur. "Gal, you're good," she congratulated herself. The enlargement had been well done. The faces were recognizable, the girl was the maid who had served tea yesterday at Rockledge, her swim costume had come out a brilliant red. The green tie worn by the man and each black and white check of his suit stood out against the turquoise of the sky and the ultramarine ocean. A successful example of color photography even if she said it who shouldn't.

She held the print under the desk light. In spite of the low drawn hat brim each feature of his face was clear cut. Tough, as she had expected. He looked like a person who would ogle a strange girl at the beach. The bad-man tilt of his hat reminded her of someone, not Bogart—

Her heart took off to her throat and as suddenly grounded. It was like the hat of the person who had slipped out the rear door of the hall at The Castle the day she had met the bracelet man at Ella Crane's shop. She had thought him a product of imagination then, now she knew he had been real. Why had he been in her house? Why had he sneaked—

What was that? The print she held fell to the floor as she sprang to her feet. Something was scratching at the outside of the priceless old painted shade she had drawn over the open window so the light of the room would not disclose the fact that she was within. A signal? Who was it? Tom Slade wouldn't intrude after she had told him she wanted to be alone. The sound again. "You'll have company." Hal Harding's threat echoed through her memory. He was as unpredictable as he was persistent.

"I'll show him—and how," she declared under her

breath and snapped up the shade with a force that sent it quivering on its roller.

"Sarah Ann Parker wouldn't let me in," explained a low voice from the gloom outside. "I had to see you." A leg slid over the window sill. A man swung into the room. He reached to the tassel, pulled down the shade, and turned.

"I have an important message to deliver," declared Bill Damon.

I

FIFTEEN

A MESSAGE? From whom? What did he mean? Apprehensive of a crisis she backed away.

"Of what are you afraid?" He was smiling as he laid a large round white paper-covered box on the desk. "I'm off to Washington tomorrow. Before I go I have a commission to carry out for Ken Stewart. I am considering the most tactful approach to the subject."

The desk stopped her retreat. A wave of color swept over her neck and face to her hair.

"He didn't dare tell you to—to—" Fury choked her voice.

"To kiss you good-by? What an imagination you have. Certainly not. Besides, when I kiss a girl I don't post a notice." The laughter in his eyes set even her ears burning.

"Sit down, please. How can I talk to you when you appear to be figuring the distance to the door? What's this on the floor?" He picked up the enlarged print.

She explained, added:

''Remember the morning we sat on the beach and I told you the tilt of the man's hat was familiar? You laughed and declared it was the Humphrey Bogart tilt to the fraction of an inch. I am sure now where I saw it."

"Where?"

She told of entering the hall the afternoon after she had met him in Ella Crane's shop, of seeing the silhouette of a man at the other end, of his quick exit.

"Sure you saw someone?"

"I am now, then I thought it was an imagination hangover from last summer when this place swarmed with motion-picture smugglers and their hidden treasure."

He studied the print.

"Sure this is the same guy?"

"I wouldn't go into court and swear it was he, with only the tilt of his hat as evidence, but the girl in the red swim suit who was with him at the beach was the maid who opened the door at Rockledge yesterday."

"That's interesting. She dropped in while I was talking to Sary in the kitchen the day we signed the oil property deeds. Came to borrow eggs, she said. May I take this for twenty-four hours?"

"Keep it. I don't want it."

"We have detoured from the assignment which brought me here," he reminded as he slipped the print into the pocket of his bluish-gray coat. "Is it all over but the shouting?"

"If you mean the annulment, it is," she succumbed to an impelling need to confide in someone, "but, curiously enough, I don't feel like shouting. I thought when I was free my spirit would soar on silver wings, instead of that, I can't seem to get it off the ground. Believe it or not, I feel as if I had lost something."

"It seems to me you had everything to gain. What had you to lose?"

"Perhaps it is the name. I always loved 'Mrs. Kennis-ton Stewart.' "

"Cindy-"

"I don't need your shocked voice to remind me that I'm a mass of contradiction. I don't understand myself."

"Cindy—" He cleared his voice. "Please sit down," As she sat on the very edge of the swivel chair he perched on a corner of the flat desk. He drew an oblong violet velvet case from an inside pocket of his coat.

"Ken hopes you will accept this as a slight token of appreciation of all you have done for him. Don't draw back and stare as if you thought the thing would explode. Open it. O.K., if you won't, I will." He pressed a

spring. The cover of the case flew up. She clasped her hands tight in thrilled surprise.

"Oo-o-oh. How exquisitel How lustrousl The center pearls in the string are as big as the peas Sary served for dinner. The diamond clasp is superb. Are they—they can't be real?'*

"Sure they are real. Matched Orientals. You don't think Stewart would offer you costume stuff after the way you have slaved for him, do you?"

"Mister, don't sneer at costume stuff, it costs money." She pushed away the hand that held the violet case. "Put them back in your pocket. I can't accept them. Have you forgotten that the marriage contract was annulled today?"

"Not for a minute. I waited till I was sure that had gone through before bringing the pearls so you wouldn't look upon them as a bribe."

"A bribe? For what? That's the funniest thing I ever heard. I repeat, I can't accept the gift."

"I don't get you. Why? First you sacrificed yourself in that marriage that the property might be held together; you have kept Stewart's accounts; collected and deposited his income; sent him monthly statements; fought with the potential buyers of the oil holdings. What do you think the bill of a lawyer or a trust company would amount to for that service for three years plus? He considered sending you a check, then felt he had sized you up well enough to be sure you would return it in shreds; he thought of a ring—"

"I don't want a ring from him. I have one which I intend to return. He doesn't owe me anything. He advanced the money from a fortune he had inherited from his mother that his father and mine might acquire the property. Dad had only his inventions to put into the deal. Thank goodness every cent of our share of the loan has been paid. Everything I did I considered payment for his financial help in the beginning."

"Even the marriage?"

"That too. Now he is getting all his principal back plus his freedom."

"He doesn't take that view of what you have done for

him. Accept the pearls and wear them. They are not a gift. They are inadequate payment for value received."

"Did Ken Stewart select them?"

"Sorry, he couldn't leave his job. He asked me to buy pearls in New York. Hope the fact that he didn't make the selection won't detract from your pleasure in wearing them. Put them on. If they are hideously unbecoming he wouldn't want you to accept them."

"Unbecoming! Did you ever know pearls to be unbecoming? Hate those beautiful things? Mon brave, you have missed your calling. You're subtle. You should have been an advocate. I'll wager you would win any case you argued. Hear that little crash? It was my resistance crumbling." She snapped on an overhead light. "Hold the case while I try them on."

Before a gilt-framed oval mirror between the windows she fastened the necklace. He laid the case on the desk before he came to stand behind her. She could see his reflection as he looked over her shoulder.

"They glow on you. I wonder if the Prince gave the first Cinderella a gift so enormously becoming."

"Undoubtedly. Doesn't the fairy story end 'and they lived happily ever after'? What woman could remain unhappy with pearls like these?"

"If only those pearls could insure your happiness forever," he said gruffly.

"Then I wouldn't be much of a person. I'd be a restless, spineless creature with my soul and heart and thinking processes underdeveloped, if there were any, something tells me."

She moved her head from side to side and watched the effect. Her face flushed under the tan as she met his eyes in the mirror.

"Like me—in them?"

"Love you—in them. You're terrific, lifted from your admirer Slade's vocabulary."

"Where would I wear a superb necklace like this? Certainly not here."

"You don't expect to live here always, do you?"

"I don't know where I will live. That's one of my problems."

"Why not diift for a while? You've had your nose to the grindstone so long, make a play at being a free agent. The necklace is fully insured. Wear it. Don't worry about the value."

"Deep in your heart do you think I should accept such a fabulous gift?"

"Deep in my heart I think you will be cruel if you don't. Stewart is trying to show appreciation of an incalculable help you have been to him for which a money payment would be totally inadequate. I think you will be most ungracious if you don't accept the gift in the spirit in which it is offered."