by Rex Stout
Canby replied that Miss Somi was very well, and thoughtlessly added that she was at the moment uptown shopping.
“No! Is she really?” Young Linwood’s face brightened. “You don’t happen to know just where she is, do you? Perhaps she’d take luncheon with me.”
“I’m on my way to take her to lunch now,” replied the guileless Canby.
“Yes? By Jove, that’s fine! You don’t mind if I come along?”
And almost before Canby knew how it happened they were seated side by side in the roadster on their way uptown.
They were at Sherry’s a few minutes before one, and a little later Nella entered. Her face was flushed and her eyes were beaming with the unprecedented joy of the morning’s experience; in three hours she had bought a thousand dollars’ worth of clothes. Ineffable delight!
She came forward to greet Canby with so pervasive an air of happiness that for a moment he feared one of her demonstrations of fond gratitude there in the restaurant lobby. Then she caught sight of his companion.
“Oh! Mr. Linwood!” she said prettily.
The luncheon that Canby had looked forward to with so much pleasure proved rather an uncomfortable affair for him. In the first place, they had barely finished the clams when he began to reflect that Tom Linwood was an uncommonly handsome young man, and the trouble was that Nella seemed to have noticed it too; the Lord knows, she kept her eyes on him enough. And Tom, with incredible cunning, having discovered that Nella was under the spell of her first shopping orgy, began to describe in detail the frocks he had seen at Newport that summer. Fine masculine subject for conversation! But what really caused Canby discomfort was the sight of the youth in the brown eyes calling to that in the blue.
They had nearly finished when Canby, hearing a woman’s voice pronounce his name, turned to find Mrs. Ponsonby-Atkins approaching with her daughter Marie. She stopped to talk and inquire about his sister, while Marie chatted with Tom Linwood; there was absolutely no help for it, and he finally introduced “Miss Somi, my ward.” Good breeding held fast; Mrs. Ponsonby-Atkins never blinked an eyelash; but, as she moved away, her back seemed somehow to be saying in her own picturesque manner: “Fred Canby with a beautiful Latin princess for a ward! Where the devil did he get her?” Not that he was ashamed of Nella—far from it—but the encounter was inopportune and undesired.
And finally, out on the sidewalk, young Linwood calmly invited himself to Greenhedge for the coming week-end. He would arrive early Saturday afternoon, he declared, if it would be no inconvenience; and Canby, perforce, assured him it would not.
Alone again with Nella, bad humor was out of the question. He suggested a matinée. She clapped her hands in delight; so he telephoned to Greenhedge that they would not be home for dinner, and got tickets to something on Broadway. Her first visit to a theater other than movies. Nella was entranced; and Canby, with his eyes on her rather than on the stage, was entranced also. In the third act, when the heroine defied her wicked father, the brutal detective and the world in general, Canby felt Nella’s little hand creeping into his; his fingers closed over the trembling captive and held it fast till the curtain fell. For that twenty minutes he scarcely breathed.
After it was over they started for home, stopping at a roadhouse not far beyond Yonkers for dinner. The night was cool and pleasant when they resumed their journey two hours later; a crescent moon hung in the clear sky with its attendant twinkling stars, and the smell of the harvest was in the air. Nella, tired out from her unusual day, let Canby have the wheel; she seemed thoughtful and talked scarcely at all.
Whey they arrived at Greenhedge, a little after ten, everything was quiet. The gardener had waited up to put the car away, and in the house they found Mrs. Wheeler, who replied to Canby’s inquiry with the information that Mr. Linwood had gone to bed half an hour before. She added, turning to the girl:
“Your things came, Miss Nella.”
“No! Really? So soon? Where are they?”
“Upstairs, in your room.”
“Oh! Come, I must show you!”
She took Canby by the hand and half dragged him to the stairs. He protested that it was late, that she was tired and should rest, that it could wait till morning, but she wouldn’t listen to him. At the door of her room, however, she suddenly halted.
“You stay here a minute,” she commanded, and went in alone, leaving him there in the dark hall. He kicked his heels while the minute lengthened into five, ten; and finally he rapped on the door.
“All right, you may come,” her voice sounded from within; and he turned the knob and entered.
The room was flooded with light, so that the contrast with the hall blinded him for a moment. Then he looked at Nella. She stood in the middle of the room with Circe’s smile on her lips and a laughing light in her blue eyes. That was as far as Canby got in detail; he had an impression of a smart blue frock, entrancing little slippers and a drooping, lacy hat that framed her piquant face with loveliness. He looked, and caught his breath.
“Do you like me?” she demanded.
The poor man could only nod.
She pretended to pout. “I don’t believe you at all. I’ll try again. There’s lots more.” She turned to the bed, near which lay a great heap of boxes and bundles of all sizes and shapes. “I know what I’ll do! Go out in the hall again.”
He felt that he was making rather an ass of himself, but what could he do but obey? So out he went again into the dark hall, and re-entered at her call a few minutes later.
The blue frock and hat lay on the bed, discarded; and before him stood a vision in creamy white. She was bareheaded; her throat gleamed whiter than the filmy stuff that enveloped her, and her arms too as she swept him an old-fashioned curtsey and the flowing sleeves opened. Around the waist a heavy silken girdle drew in the folds to her slender form.
“Mon peignoir,” she announced, observing the effect on him. “Comment le trouvez-vous, monsieur? Isn’t it just lovely? Tell me, isn’t it?”
“It—it’s pretty nice,” Canby stammered.
“But yes! And oh, everything is so nice! I never dreamed I would have a single one of these beautiful things, and now I have them all, and all because you are so kind to me—and I just have to kiss you!”
And once more he felt her arms about his neck and her lips on his cheek—both his cheeks. He stiffened and held himself rigid; when she drew away he remained so, holding himself together by a great effort. And he succeeded in mastering the impulse of desire, but as he stood there motionless, devouring her with his eyes, the thought that his abstinence was folly, his spartan control senseless and purposeless, seized him and overwhelmed him. Still he remained without moving, his muscles tense.
“Oh, now you’re angry!” Nella was saying in pretty girlish despair. “I do want you to like me, you are so kind, and—See!” Her manner changed in a flash. “That’s the way it ought to be, isn’t it?” Up went her hands to her head, there was a quick movement, another, and the mass of dark brown hair tumbled about her shoulders and down her back, reaching to the waist; one thick wavy strand hung in front, in startling contrast to the white gown.
“There! Isn’t it nice and long?”
Canby, mad with the beauty of her, took a step forward.
“Nella!” His tone was dry—he had to make it so; his face was pale. “Nella, do you love me?”
“Of course I do,” she said simply.
“No, not like that.” He moved forward quite close to her, his eyes on hers. There was a pause.
“I really believe you don’t understand,” he said abruptly. “I’ve got to explain. If it goes on like this you’ll drive me crazy. You remember a long time ago I said I was fond of you? I am. I am fonder of you than I have even been of anyone in my life. So you see why I can’t stand this sort of thing.”
“But I’m fond of you too, and I like it!”
/> He groaned. “Yes, I know you are, but in a different way; at least, I think it’s in a different way, and that’s what I want to find out. You thought, Nella, that when I asked you to come and live with me—you thought that was what I wanted; but what I really wanted—though I wouldn’t admit it to myself at the time—was to ask you to marry me.”
“Oh! Why didn’t you?”
“Yes, that was what I wanted,” he went on, ignoring her question, “though I tried to deceive myself. This is what I get for trying to shut my eyes to the facts. But, good heavens—the thing was impossible! It is still impossible. I’m more than twice as old as you. You are not yet twenty; I am past forty. It would be unfair to you, terribly unfair. When you are thirty-eight I will be sixty. Oh, I’ve made all the combinations. But now—I don’t know. Perhaps I owe myself a chance. I couldn’t bear to take advantage of you, your innocence and youth, but after all, if I could make you happy, and the Lord knows I’d try—”
“But you are making me happy!”
“I know. I mean, if you could love me. Not as a grandfather, my dear child. Garry Linwood told me I was a fool, and I begin to respect his judgment. For, I suppose, you could never have the feeling for me that I want you to have, that I have for you. If you did, it couldn’t last. I’m too old—hopelessly old.”
“You are not!” cried the girl. “And I do love you!”
He was suddenly silent. He stood and looked at her, and all at once his face changed. All the determination of it, all the lines of resistance, were swept away by a fierce wave of emotion. He made a quick step forward and took her in his arms, but still holding her a little away from him. He was trembling from head to foot.
“Nella!” he said. His voice was husky. “Does this—do I frighten you?”
She shook her head, smiling at him as she declared calmly:
“Of course not!”
The next instant he crushed her in his arms, the last vestige of control vanished. Her own arms remained by her side, but for that matter she could not have moved them had she wished, so closely did he hold her. He kissed her hair, her cheeks, her throat, and then he found her lips. Her soft supple body next to his filled him with an indescribable warmth; his senses floated away in a whirl of tumultuous passion. Her lips were firm, yet yielding; there was no response in them, yet somehow they seemed to withhold nothing. He drew her closer, and felt the pressure against him in her effort to breathe.
The sweetness of her lips! Given or taken, the whole world was in them. He was drinking at the only fount that could quench his thirst, and he would not relinquish the draught. He neither knew nor cared how long he remained thus, straining her to him, for the force of all the weeks of repression surged into his arms and kept them round her. He could not even tell if she resisted, though that would not have mattered, for it was not tenderness that inspired this embrace.
“You are mine!” His tone was fiercely, savagely triumphant. “Mine, Nella!” Again he had her lips.
Then all at once the wave subsided as suddenly as it had come. He released her, almost pushing her from him in his revulsion. He turned his back and covered his face with his hands.
The girl’s voice came:
“Oh, how tight you squeezed me! I could scarcely breathe!”
“Good heavens!” cried Canby, wheeling about. “And that’s all you felt—” He checked himself and gathered his scattered senses. When he spoke again his voice was bitterly ironic. “And I wanted to be your guardian! Nella, I’m an old fool. Don’t misunderstand me; I wouldn’t insist on your love. My desire is to have you for my wife, on any terms; but I won’t ask you, and that’s all there is to it. Later, we’ll see. Forget everything I’ve said. If I asked you now to marry me, you would?”
She seemed to hesitate.
“Yes, I would,” she said at last.
“Very well. All the more reason why I shouldn’t ask it—now. I’ve got to think the thing out. I see I haven’t really thought about it; I’ve merely tried to make myself believe lies. It’s all a question of your chance for happiness, and I swear I won’t rob you of it. I’m tempted unspeakably. If we—if you find you can love me, we’ll see. Good night, and forgive me.”
He had reached the door when her voice came:
“Don’t you want me to kiss you good night?”
“I do not!” he replied grimly; and the next instant the door closed after him.
V
If only Canby had possessed a sufficiently active sense of humor to see the comedy in the thing it would have saved him many a bad hour. Or, if he had been a reader of modern fiction he would have known that in the past ten years hundreds of wealthy, middle-aged bachelors have suffered untold miseries through their unhappy passion for their beautiful young wards, and he would have been much less disturbed by the appearance of youth upon the scene in the person of Tom Linwood; for he would have known beforehand that it was inevitable, and the very triteness of the situation would have soothed his pain a little.
But he possessed neither of these desirable advantages, and thus, when Tom Linwood came on Saturday for the weekend and began to appropriate Nella’s waking hours with the calm assurance of arrogant youth, Canby felt the turning of the screw in no small degree. He reproached himself, was unutterably disgusted with himself, but all to no effect. He deliberately made opportunities for the two young people to be alone together and then berated himself for an ass. But he was determined to seize no unfair advantage on account of the position he held with regard to Nella; youth should have its chance with her.
At dinner Sunday evening he said to young Linwood:
“Why don’t you stay up with us a while, Tom? You could go down of mornings on the seven-thirty-five and get back in the evening in time for dinner. It’s only a two-hour run.”
The alacrity with which this invitation was accepted was equalled by that with which Canby immediately regretted having extended it. He told himself that it was more than fairness demanded; but the thing was done.
He had the days with Nella, however, and they were full of joy for him. If young Linwood was making any impression on her heart it was not evidenced by any change in her attitude toward Canby or any lessening of her pleasure in his company. They played tennis and walked and rode together as formerly, and he read to her a good deal—this last to improve her mind, and she did not refrain from expressing her gratitude. They were in September now, and the countryside lay in peaceful exhaustion after the summer’s heat.
The elder Linwood played golf, hanging on with grim tenacity to his resolution and purpose; but his reports from the links, though invariably optimistic, showed small progress. Canby was amused. Linwood had come up for the month of July, and here autumn was fast approaching without any sign of an intention to depart from Greenhedge. His own magnificent country estate on Long Island, not to mention a bungalow in the Adirondacks and a cottage at Bar Harbor, remained closed that he might pursue an elusive dream on the Wanakahnda golf links. Still he appeared to be growing a little discouraged, for his pilgrimages were becoming less frequent; he spent some of his days at Greenhedge now.
One evening Canby and Linwood sat on the lawn of the northern terrace smoking and talking; three of the Irish wolf-dogs lay at their feet, and a wooden table between their chairs held glasses and a bottle and a pail of cracked ice. Nella and Tom had gone off somewhere an hour before in Linwood’s new Binot racer, which he had allowed his nephew to bring up from New York. The night was cloudless and cool, with the stars gleaming intermittently through the foliage of the trees as the breeze stirred the leaves above them.
“I’ll probably run down Tuesday,” Canby was replying to a question from the other. “Andrews has written me that it will be necessary to appear in court that day in regard to my appointment as Nella’s guardian. I’ll attend to the other matter then too. Much obliged for that tip on Copper United, Linwood; I’ve cl
eared thirty thousand.”
The elder man waved the thanks aside. “Don’t mention it. Didn’t cost me anything, you know.” After a moment’s silence he added: “So you’re going through with the guardian business?”
Canby, filling the glasses, nodded. “I am.”
“Well,” Linwood chuckled, “it’ll probably be a short job. You may have your hands full for a while, but it won’t last long. Why don’t you marry her yourself, Canby, instead of flopping around like a sick fish?”
“Would it be fair to her?”
“Why not?”
“Don’t be a donkey, Linwood; you know why not as well as I do. She’s a mere girl, and I—well, I’m no unfledged nestling. As a matter of fact, she’s consented to marry me. I refused. There’s twenty-two years between us; it wouldn’t be fair to her.”
Linwood snorted. “What do you think a girl wants a husband for, anyway?” he demanded. “Do you still believe in the moonish ecstasy, the connubial coo-coo? Bah! Of course it’s not surprising; you’re a bachelor. I’ve had the advantage of experience. The call of youth is well enough as a pre-election platform, but it’s an issue that soon dies. Fair to her! Her eyes are open, aren’t they? You merely put it up to her, yes or no, and she can decide what she wants. And you refused!”
“But you don’t understand,” Canby protested. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t hesitate, but you see I’ve done things for her, and merely out of gratitude—”
“Don’t fool yourself,” the other interrupted. “No woman worthwhile ever yet married any man out of gratitude. I may add that this little lady is distinctly worthwhile. If she takes you it’s because she wants you, no matter what her reason.”
Canby seemed to be impressed. He picked up his glass and drained it before replying.
“But isn’t it true,” he asked then, “that Nella would certainly be happier with—well, with Tom, for instance?”
