Uncharted Seas

by Emilie Loring

She was uncomfortably aware of him as she sat beside him at dinner. The table decorations were blue and red, tall blue tapers in silver sticks, bachelor buttons and red roses in a massive bowl.

  “Are the red and blue flowers to celebrate the victories?” Nicholas Hoyt inquired of his hostess.

  There was a quiver of excitement in Mrs. Pat’s coarse, hearty laugh. She was evidently bubbling with happiness. Had his return contributed to her joy over winning the ribbons, or was it entirely the change in husband? Curtis Newsome was in one of his gay moods; there was a hint of you’re-the-only-woman-in-my-life in his voice when he spoke to his wife, a devil-may-care challenge in his blue eyes. Sandra caught herself hoping that he would draw her within the circle of his charm. Ridiculous, of course; just the same, her eyes were attracted to him as to a magnet. It was with difficulty that she dragged her attention back to Mrs. Pat’s answer to Nicholas Hoyt’s question.

  “That was Sandra’s idea, Nick. To use the colors of the ribbons we won. I wanted to have yellow also, but she thought it would spoil the effect. Ben Damon certainly handed me something when he found her. She is sure she will like it here in the winter.”

  “The winter! I can’t see you spending a winter here, Pat. Week-ends as usual to keep an eye on the stables, but not the winter. You’ll blow out with the first snow flake.”

  “Wait and see, Nick. You’ll be surprised. Except for National Horse Show week, we’ll be here, won’t we, Curt?”

  Curtis Newsome’s gaiety went out like a candle-flame in a puff of wind. Estelle Carter bent eagerly toward him. Sandra never before had seen her so forgetful of an audience.

  “We? Not a chance. If you stay you’ll stay alone.”

  His wife opened her lips in an angry retort, closed them tight, before she snapped at the waitress who had filled the water glass too full.

  “Clumsy! Huckins, where’d you get this, greenhorn?” she demanded of the butler who was preparing to serve champignons sous cloche. “Where’s the new girl Emma? She knew her business. Has she left?”

  “No, Madame. It is Emma’s day off,” Huckins explained in a low voice, and proceeded about his business with a face of Oriental impassivity.

  “Caught in the act,” Nicholas Hoyt accused Sandra.

  She confided in a whisper. “I don’t like little-neck clams. I always hide them in the ice.”

  “Why not leave them in their shells?”

  “Why advertise my plebeian lack of taste?”

  “That’s a characteristic of yours, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Burying things you don’t like in ice? That’s what you have been doing to me tonight.”

  Sandra’s eyes were on the roll she was crumbling. Was her avoidance of him so evident? He must think her ungrateful after his kindness at the time of her accident. Her father would be amazed at her attitude. He had counted ingratitude, disloyalty, and unreliability the three cardinal sins. She looked up and smiled.

  “What an imagination! Are you a fictioneer as well as a banker and a horse-trainer? Do you think I have forgotten how kind you were to me at Stone House?”

  “I hope so. I don’t want gratitude—from you. Shoulder all right?”

  “You should know. I have answered that question either in person or over the phone every day during the last two weeks.”

  “Answer it again.”

  “It is quite all right, thank you. You are rather a persistent person, aren’t you?”

  “I mean to be in a certain matter. I couldn’t get here, I had to hear your voice, so—”

  “Oh, Nick!” Jed Langdon interrupted. “Persuade Miss Duval to enter the Ladies’ Race which is scheduled for the charity events. Her shoulder is okay, they tell me. You’re a stout-hearted lad. Tackle her. Curtis says that he has talked himself hoarse arguing.”

  “Useless,” Sandra declared gaily. “The last Ladies’ Race I entered was a mess. One horse fell down; a girl lost her stirrups and fell off; three cut a flag; one bolted into the parked cars; and one cried when she stuck at the water jump. Woman’s place may not be in the home, but from that exhibition I am convinced that it isn’t on the race-course. I’m off Ladies’ Races for life, thank you.”

  Nicholas Hoyt laughed. “It would take a stouter-hearted lad than I to combat that decision, Jed, even if I wanted to. I don’t. Miss Duval is right not to attempt it after her fall. We took great care of her at Stone House, even got a wireless through to the ghost not to moan in the underground passage while she was there. You didn’t hear any strange sounds, did you, Miss Duval?”

  Sandra shook her head. Her voice wouldn’t come. A vivid flashback of the thing she had seen at the pool had paralyzed it. Something drew her eyes to the butler. He was rigid, staring at Nicholas Hoyt. As if suddenly aware of her glance, he straightened like a marionette which has been jerked into action and began to move about the table.

  Philippe Rousseau drained his glass. “I hate that rotten supernatural stuff. When I take possession of Stone House, I’ll make a clean sweep of it, fill in the underground passage, and burn that portrait with the peep-hole eyes.” There was a suggestion of hoarseness in his angry declaration.

  Curtis Newsome rose half-way from his chair. “Say listen, Rousseau! Counting your chickens before they hatch, aren’t you?”

  “ ‘Happy days are here again,’ ” trilled Estelle Carter. Her light snatch of song cleared the air to a degree. Unable to refrain from tormenting, she asked:

  “What else will you do when you become lord of this vast estate, Philippe? Tell us; we are all agog.”

  Rousseau’s eyes flamed dangerously, but he smiled; he had himself in hand again. “What else? I’m all set to retain my cousin Nicholas as manager of the estate—if he will stay.”

  Crimson with anger, Nicholas started to reply, but remained silent as Huckins murmured:

  “Excuse me, sir,” and tenderly removed the glass bell from the plate of delectable mushrooms before him.

  CHAPTER XV

  A few hours later Sandra slipped into vivid green pyjamas. As she pulled on the lavishly embroidered coat, she smiled at the picture of her father.

  “Your daughter is getting thrifty, Jimmy Duval; she is saving her evening frock. She knows that there won’t be more French gowns until she makes a fortune. Oh, come on Fortune! Come on!” The two dogs dozing before the low fire sprang to their feet.

  “I’m not talking to you, darlings. Your foolish Sandy is getting caught in the American gold-rush, that’s all. She was appealing to the little god who spins the money wheel. Go to sleep.”

  “I wonder if I ever will have even a small fortune again?” she reflected, as she deposited a cushioned stool on the balcony on which the long French window opened. “It gives one a ticklish feeling to realize that there is little money, no near relatives behind one.”

  She rested her elbows on top of the intricate iron railing, the ends of which were crowned with boxes packed with blossoming plants. She propped her chin in one pink palm and looked up at the starry sky. Worlds upon worlds above her. Would the riddle of the meaning of their existence ever be solved; would rocket ships ever shoot their way through airless and heatless space to the moon or to red Mars? If only she could live to see it. Scientists had made some progress. They claimed to have heard the hum of a planet. Gorgeous night! The air was freighted with the scent of heliotrope and petunias. It was so still that the beat and rhythm of the earth seemed to shake her body; the movement of unseen creeping, hopping, fluttering things purred a faint accompaniment.

  What a balcony! What a balcony on which to sit and dream! She could see the dim outline of hills, the ebony gleam of the river; could look down upon the garden which the lighted windows of the music room at the end of the loggia were patching with gold. Never in her travels over the world had her heart snuggled down as it had here. She adored the house and its surroundings. She loved the mellow old church in the village with its candles, which the Protestant clergyman was not afraid t
o use. She felt there, as she had felt in rich, hushed, incense-steeped churches abroad, the surety of the Everlasting Arms. How did people live through terror and sorrow without a belief in a Divine Power to which to cling? She had her father to thank for that comfort. He had asserted that it was as much her right to know the treasures of the spiritual world as of the intellectual and material worlds. All he could do was to show her the way to them; the choice as to what they would mean in her life was hers.

  Would she love this place as much when snow covered hills and fields and the river was drab ice? Would Mrs. Pat spend the winter here, or would her husband’s protest change her plans? Protest! It had been an ultimatum. How out of character for Estelle Carter to show her triumph so plainly. Curtis Newsome had pointedly avoided her during the remainder of the evening and had been noticeably tender to his wife. Nicholas Hoyt had taken Estelle on at backgammon. Had he, after seeing them together but an hour, perceived the battle of wills being waged between the two? Pity he hadn’t taken a hand in the game before. Why had he not come to Seven Chimneys during the last two weeks? Too busy socially? “Gladys,” “Blanche,”—how many more girls had phoned him for a date?

  He had been furious at Philippe Rousseau’s proposition that he remain as manager of the estate. Had he been about to hurl a refusal when Huckins had obsequiously removed the glass bell from the plate before him? Had she not seen the butler stiffen at the word “shock”—he had reacted to Nicholas’ intimation about the ghost in the underground passage; she had not imagined it—she would have suspected that he had been trying to avert a crisis.

  Why did Estelle take such delight in tormenting Philippe? He had deserved it tonight. What a breach of good taste to tell what he intended to do with an estate not yet his, and then to pile Ossa on Pelion by offering to retain Nicholas Hoyt as manager. How had he dared? At times she was passionately sorry for him. If he were Mark Hoyt’s son—hadn’t Nicholas proof that he was, in his possession—it must hurt intolerably to have to fight to establish his claim, must be maddening to be doubted. She should be more friendly to him—he had told her once that she was the only person upon whose loyalty he could count—but could she be? The doubt of him she had felt the day he had brought her from Stone House persisted in pricking at her consciousness like a splinter in a finger.

  Lucky that her fall had not been more serious. Her shoulder was as good as new; the accident had left no trace. Hadn’t it? Estelle’s feline suggestion that it had been staged to happen on Nicholas Hoyt’s property irritated like a bunch of nettles whenever she thought of the man. The fall would be a lesson to her not to dream while riding.

  The crisp air throbbed and quivered with music. Was Curtis Newsome playing? Sandra leaned over the railing. The shadow of a figure crossed one of the oblongs of golden light cast by the windows of the music room. Was he pacing the floor as he played? Another shadow! A woman’s! Who was with him? The room was his castle and no one entered unless invited. Even Mrs. Pat respected his orders much as she resented them. No matter who it was, it was none of her business. If she didn’t watch out, she would go small-town minded.

  He was playing Puccini’s Cavaradossi. The lachrymose aria sobbed through the scented stillness. Poor boy. There was no doubt but he was quite mad about Estelle; it was incredible that she could be seriously interested in a one-time professional jockey. How would it end? End! The complication would go on and on, gathering electricity like a thunder cloud, till finally it exploded and blew another marriage to smithereens.

  Someone would be horribly hurt—Mrs. Pat, of course; neither Curtis nor Estelle was of the stuff of which martyrs are made. That reminded her—she must ask again for the list of guests to be invited to high tea after the race. A late invitation, but the hostess knew that her friends—most of them—would come without one. The caterer had been given his orders weeks ago. The servants were to have the afternoon off; they would be back only in time to serve. It would not do to wait until morning; Mrs. Pat would be furiously irritable; she was always on the rampage until noon. She would be at her desk now. The croon of the violin still drifted from the music room; Curtis Newsome had not yet come upstairs.

  The dogs stretched, yawned, and languidly pulled themselves to their feet as Sandra returned to the boudoir. She dropped to her knees to hug their sleek heads.

  “Darlings! I’m never lonely when I have you! Love Sandy, Bud and Buddy?”

  They raised expectant eyes as they snuggled their cold noses into her neck. She shook her head at them.

  “Greedy things! You don’t love me for myself alone. I know what you want.” She took two pieces of candy from a silver box. “Here you are. When you are stout and bulging with the middle-age spread, don’t reproach me for having helped ruin your youthful figures.”

  She threw a kiss to them before she closed the door of the boudoir behind her. No sound of the violin. She had better hurry or Curtis Newsome would be coming upstairs.

  Her wide pyjama trousers flapped about her feet as she raced along the hall. She rapped at her employer’s door.

  “Come in!”

  She had closed it behind her before she realized that Mrs. Pat was not at her desk in the stiffly modernistic room. She was on the chaise longue, which was a false note among the cones and tubings of the black and silver furnishings. Its mass of lacy pillows made a background for her yellow hair and the pale blue lace of the negligee which left her beautiful shoulders and arms bare. In that feminine garb the woman’s tremendous and inflexible energy seemed in abeyance. A smile stiffened on her lips; her eyes darkened.

  “You! I thought it was …” Bitter disappointment choked off the sentence.

  It was evident whom she had expected. As if she were oblivious of the electricity in the atmosphere, Sandra explained:

  “Sorry to disturb you, but I came for the list of extra guests for Race-Day tea; I must phone the invitations early tomorrow. I knew that with the buyer coming to look at Rovin’ Reddy’s filly, superintending the moving of Iron Man and his entourage to the racetrack in the morning—I can’t see you letting some one else do it even if the gray is only your stable guest—you wouldn’t have a moment in which to think of such an unexciting thing as a party.” Not too bad, she congratulated herself.

  “The list is on the desk.” As a hint to her secretary that she was dismissed, Mrs. Newsome turned the pages of the Breeders’ Magazine. Even Sandra’s ears burned with resentment. She was being slapped because she was not some one else. Mrs. Pat had been snippy before but never like this.

  As she crossed the room with the slip of paper in her hand, she tried to think of something casual to say, something which would give the impression that she was departing with all sails set. She owed that to herself, but her mind wouldn’t work.

  Mrs. Newsome swung her feet from the chaise longue and stood up.

  “Run down to the music room, Miss Duval, and tell my husband that I want to see him at once.”

  Miss Duval! She hadn’t called her secretary that since her return from Stone House.

  “And if that Carter woman is with him, tell her—tell her …” Her voice grated in a sob. “Don’t tell her anything!” Fury burned away tears. “I suppose my friends are whispering, ‘Why does Pat keep her here?,’ that they’re laughing in their sleeves.” She stalked toward Sandra like a tigress approaching her kill.

  “Do you think I’ll admit I’m licked by sending her off? They’d laugh more then, wouldn’t they? That’s what they’d all think, isn’t it, that I was licked? Well, I’m not—yet. Go tell Mr. Newsome I’m waiting for him.”

  Her lips were drawn in a bitter line, her eyes had contracted till they looked like beads. Sandra’s heart ached for her. Wasn’t it hard enough to be intolerably hurt without having the effect so unbecoming?

  She made an inconsequential reply before she left the room and pelted down the stairs. Poor Mrs. Pat. Of course her job was to do what her employer asked, but, sorry as she was for her, she wasn’t keen
to round up a reluctant husband.

  She crossed the terrace, ran along the loggia. By supreme effort of will she kept her eyes from the hedge at the end of the garden. Even had the “thing” she had seen been a combination of mist and imagination, she didn’t intend to see it again.

  The music had stopped. Perhaps she would butt in upon an impassioned tête-à-tête. Why couldn’t Mrs. Pat send some one else on this sort of errand? Absurd to send her when the house was honeycombed with telephones; but she remembered now, there wasn’t one in the music room. She could hear a voice as she approached the door which was partly open. Was Curtis Newsome talking to the other shadow?

  “Say listen, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again,—nix on the divorce stuff. What cause have I to ask it? No one doped me into marriage. I may have been only a jock, but I’ve got self-respect. Don’t! Keep away! I’ve had all of that I can bear and—”

  Sandra rapped smartly. It was none of her business, but she could not endure that tortured voice another second. Perhaps she should go and allow the two to fight it out—but …

  She swallowed her heart as she looked up into the haggard face of Curtis Newsome who had pulled open the door.

  “You, Miss Duvall Come in!”

  There was relief in his voice, a lessening of the strain in his eyes. He was glad that she had come. Very well then, her cue was to enter.

  As she stepped into the softly lighted room, Estelle Carter, leaning against the grand piano, laughed.

  “See who’s here! Another secretary gone blooey about you, Curt. You certainly are the great lover.”

  “Estelle!” There was hurt amazement in the man’s protest.

  Sandra silenced him with an imperative motion of her hand. Her heart still stung and smarted with the memory of Mrs. Pat’s passionate outburst.

  “Are you suggesting that I want another woman’s husband, Mrs. Carter?” she asked lightly. “Not good enough for me, thank you. I have an old-fashioned mind. Never have been able to convince myself that a man who would be untrue to his first wife would be true to his second.”