“Tomorrow? We have to play off the finals early in the morning.”
“My case is called for the afternoon. Just wait till I’m a free woman. Watch me put on a running interference with Lyd, just watch me.”
“What do you mean, ‘running interference’? Cut out the Fane menace with Bill Damon? I’ve been foaming at the mouth fearing you might go off your head about him.”
“I’m not going off my head about anyone. No romantic entanglement for yours truly, Thomas.”
“Oh, yeah? I’ll drive you to the Courthouse tomorrow.”
“No, thank you. Counselor Armstrong invited me to go with him but I prefer to arrive under my own power, my jalopy to you, if it will hold together.”
“Then I’ll be outside waiting when you exit a free woman. We’ll dine and dance somewhere to celebrate. It’s a date.”
“It’s not a date, Tom. Don’t meet me at the Courthouse. I shall stay at home tomorrow evening.”
“For crying out loudl What’s the idea? A period of mourning for Kenniston Stewart? At least you’ll let me come to The Castle and hold your hand?”
“I’m disappointed in you, Thomas. I thought you would understand. You don’t. You are as uncomprehending as Hal Harding.”
“Did that playboy suggest whoopee?”
“He did. If you really want to help take me to call on Mrs. Sally Drew this afternoon in your snappy Town and Country convertible. My car is not only shabby, it is unreliable, and I’m saving what is left of its performance for the trip to the Courthouse tomorrow.”
“Hang it, Cindy, I can’t. They told me as we left the court that I am scheduled to play off my semi-finals in the men’s doubles this afternoon. Terribly sorry. Here comes Ken Stewart’s stand-in. He’ll take you. Hi, Damon!”
The man with the crimson cardigan thrown across the shoulders of his short-sleeved, open-neck white shirt waved his racquet in response to the hail and joined them.
“Did I hear my name? You and Slade played a corking game, Cindy.”
“Thank the gentleman like a little lady, then speak your piece and say ‘Please’ prettily, Cinderella.”
“She doesn’t have to say ‘Please’ prettily. What can I do for you, Cindy?” Bill Damon’s voice sounded grave in contrast to Slade’s light banter.
“I have planned to call on Mrs. Sally Drew at Rockledge this afternoon, gloves, visiting card and all the social frills. My jalopy is unreliable, of course I could go across the cove in my Evinrude, The Mighty Mo, but I’m trying to engage a chauffeur with a snappy car. Will you take me?”
“That’s what I’m here for. What time shall I come for you?”
“Will four be convenient?”
“Four it is, on the minute. I’ll be there.”
Two hours later he stopped his car in front of the low spreading contemporary California-type house with its huge windows clear as crystal.
“The ocean view from here is tops,” he approved.
“Not any better than from The Castle,” Cindy reminded jealously.
“Righto. Would it be in poor taste for your chauffeur to tell you that you are a knockout in that white frock, matching gloves, and big velvet hat? What’s the color?”
“Coral orange.”
“It’s perfect on you. Did you have the corsage of sweet peas dyed to match? What does it say on those cards in the silver case?”
“I’m making it formal today.” She was annoyingly aware that her color deepened. “I can’t have myself announced as Miss Clinton when that isn’t my name yet. Counselor Armstrong phoned me that the annulment case will be called and settled tomorrow afternoon.”
“He notified me also. What do we do next? Are we to sit here admiring the view — and you — or are you going in?”
She laughed.
“In, Colonel Damon.”
He stood beside the car as she stepped to the porch.
“I’ll wait till we find out if the lady is at home. If she is, I’ll drive around and come back.”
“Return in twenty minutes — please. Don’t make it a second longer than that.”
He touched his soft hat.
“In twenty minutes, Mrs. Stewart.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“MRS. STEWART,” Bill Damon had called her by that name before, but for some unexplained reason this time Cindy’s heartbeat quickened. She lifted the shining brass knocker and let it drop. The sound echoed inside the house like the knell of doom. She straightened the coral orange velvet hat to the fashion-proper angle and looked up as the door was opened.
“Is Mrs. Drew at home?” At the moment she asked the question she recognized the maid in smart white uniform and scrap of cap as the girl in the red swim outfit who had been returning the glances of the man in the black and white checked suit with interest. She must be Rena Foster, whom Sarah Ann Parker had declared was a “flighty piece.” Now her eyes were coldly defiant. Did she recognize the caller as the person who had snapped her picture?
“She is, Madam. Won’t you come in?'”
“Tell her that Mrs. Stewart from The Castle is calling.”
She entered the house and followed the maid through a hall to the threshold of a room that blazed with color. With a murmured word the girl departed.
I’ve read that color and bright light kindle the flame of the human spirit, the spirit of the occupant of this house ought to glow like a thousand-watt incandescent bulb, she thought as she crossed the rugless floor polished to a mirror gloss. Her heels clicked sharply.
A woman in white from head to feet, standing close to the bleached maple wall with one hand touching it as if experimentally, turned quickly.
“Cindy Clinton! You gave me the start of my life.” Alida Barclay’s voice was gay if a trifle breathless. “Aren’t the walls of this room beautiful? So sensible not to clutter them with pictures, mirrors or hangings. I was wondering if this maple would be practicable to use in my living room in New York.”
“I like the spaciousness and color,” Cindy approved. “It must be the last word in mid-twentieth-century decoration to harmonize with the architecture of the house.”
A low couch was cushioned in the soft pink of the blossoms of a huge geranium in an Oriental lacquer stand in a corner; its pillows were the lightest shade of the green of the leaves. A flat dark blue bowl on a broad desk of natural mahogany held one mammoth pale yellow dahlia. A bamboo chaise longue was cushioned in aqua; a mass of auratum lilies topped a low black and gold cabinet. Tables at the arm of inviting chairs holding choice figurines or bronzes were reflected in the polished floor like colorful islands in a still pool. A Ming vase lamp at each end of the couch threw a soft pink light. Through the windows of the glassed-in extension of the living room was visible a vast expanse of sky and ocean.
Alida Barclay laughed softly.
“You appear to be considering a place to sit, Cindy. It must take a person with the spring of a gazelle to get out of the low chairs gracefully. These furnishings are as contemporary as flying saucers and the reduction of excise taxes.” She glanced at her wrist watch.
“I’ve been waiting ten minutes. My hostess left me to answer a long-distance call. I can’t wait any longer. I’m giving a little dinner for Mrs. Drew. The only date on which we could agree is next Thursday, the evening before the Bal Masqué. Plan to come in your best bib and tucker — I understand the lady thinks we ‘natives’, quote, are provincial — and bring that good-looking Slade slave of yours. I’ll phone details. Explain to Mrs. Drew for me, will you?”
Alone in the vast room, Cindy felt like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island with no man Friday in sight. But — here he comes, she thought, as a yellow-haired, dark-eyed woman in a smart beige frock entered followed by a tall fair-haired man. The secretary, “blond as a Viking,” Cindy decided and disciplined the smile the echo of Lyd Fane’s words had started.
“Mrs. Stewart, how sweet of you to come.”
Thirty? Forty? The figures flashed through Cindy’s
mind as she laid hers in the hand blazing with rings outheld in welcome. Better settle for early thirty. The man behind her hostess stood as if waiting to be included in the group. His fair skin didn’t look as if he spent much time on the water; his blue coat and white trousers were well cut.
“I’m in luck to find you at home, Mrs. Drew.”
“I’m the person who is in luck, Mrs. Stewart.” She glanced around the room. “What became of that sweet Mrs. Barclay? I had to leave to answer a long-distance call.”
Cindy explained.
“I am consumed with mortification that it happened. Do sit down, Laurie, I had completely forgotten you. Mrs. Stewart, may I present Laurence Lloyd?”
“You’ve heard of the forgotten man, Mrs. Stewart. Behold him.” His blue eyes smiled into hers. Now I know what Lyd meant by his where-have-you-been-all-my-life manner, she thought before he added, “Your fame and your romantic story have preceded you. I have been hoping that we might meet. Sally, are we supposed to stand the rest of the afternoon?”
“Remember, Laurie, you are employed here. You are not the host,” Mrs. Drew reminded sharply.
That starts off the party with a snap, Cindy thought. He looks too big and husky to take that lying down. Is he afraid of her? He laughed. Apparently he wasn’t.
“That puts me in my place and how.”
“Stop your nonsense, Laurie. Do sit down, Mrs. Stewart. I have ordered tea.”
Cindy selected the geranium-pink couch as the seat least likely to force her knees under her chin. I’ll never be able to rise. Here’s hoping I won’t have occasion to spring lightly to my feet. I couldn’t make it, she told herself as she settled deeper into the cushions. Mrs. Drew sank down gracefully beside her. The secretary selected a low chair. His long legs bent sharply at the knees reminded Cindy of a grasshopper’s.
“As to being lucky to find me here,” the hostess had returned to Cindy’s greeting, “I’m rarely anywhere but at home.” Her mouth took on a sorry-for-myself droop at the corners, her voice sagged. The person who said that color and bright light kindled the flame of the human spirit hasn’t polled this spirit, Cindy concluded.
“The wilting weather of the past few days has made home seem the best,” she contributed aloud and thought, Is that the top gem of conversation I can produce? She tried again.
“I can’t feel sorry for you, Mrs. Drew, with that beautiful yacht in which to escape.” I hope rumor is reliable in this case and that it is hers, she added to herself.
“Escape? What do you mean, escape?”
So what? You’re frightened, lady. Was Sary right when she hinted there was a mystery connected with the coming and going of that boat? Had the woman a spotty past or a smudged present? Was she so shrewd as to be dangerous or so dull as to be dumb?
“Mrs. Stewart meant to escape the heat, of course, Sally.”
Her master’s voice, Cindy thought, as the woman’s hands which had been fluttering steadied at Lloyd’s reminder.
“Here comes our tea, at last,” she announced.
He moved a low table in front of her and the maid placed on it a mammoth black lacquer tray with Oriental eggshell cups and saucers, and gleaming silver. Mrs. Drew made the usual inquiries about her guest’s preference as to strength and trimmings. The maid passed hot mushroom canapés and one-bite frosted cakes which Cindy recognized as carbon copies of Sarah Ann Parker’s master creations.
“So sorry about that sweet Mrs. Barclay.” The hostess had returned to the subject of her recent caller. “She’s charming. Do tell me a little about her. Just what is her position in this town?”
“Do you mean her family? It’s tops. She was born here, makes her home in New York, I believe. At present she is visiting her brother who is one of the most distinguished lawyers to come out of the State of Maine.”
“Her face worries me. I’m sure I have met her before. She —”
“That is because she looked like a fashion model, Sally,” Lloyd interrupted. He had a curious habit of pinching the lobe of his left ear as he talked. Had he been afraid of what she might say? “You’ve seen her in duplicate in your favorite fashion magazines.”
“It’s more than that. I have a feeling I have run across her somewhere. I’ve been almost everywhere abroad except the Orient. Has Mrs. Barclay ever lived in Europe, Mrs. Stewart?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Drew. I haven’t seen or heard of her for years before this summer.” That didn’t tell much. Cindy had a quick close-up of Alida Barclay’s outstretched hand feeling the wall of this room.
Mrs. Drew recalled her attention with a rapid-fire series of questions about guests at the Inn; summer residents; was there a putting green? she adored putting; on and on. Trifles that meant nothing to her, Cindy answered, desperately making small talk. At the first break in the Information Please quiz, she picked up her long gloves, rose, she hoped gracefully, from the geranium-pink couch.
“The tea was delicious,” she declared to her hostess, who had extricated herself from the deep cushions with feline ease and grace. “You said you loved to putt. I’ll plan soon for you to try the green at The Castle. Good afternoon, Mr. Lloyd.”
“Not yet. I’ll speed the parting guest.”
Bill Damon, hatless, was standing beside the convertible when they stepped to the porch. He looked up. There was an instant of what seemed to Cindy an electrically charged silence. Were the two men enemies? She hastened to break the spell.
“Mr. Lloyd, Colonel Damon.” They bowed formally.
“I hope you’ll come again and often — Mrs. Stewart,” Lloyd said as he came down the one step as if to assist her into the car. Damon stepped between them.
“Do come and putt at The Castle sometime, Mr. Lloyd,” she invited from her seat beside the wheel. “Bring Mrs. Drew. Good —” The car shot ahead and left the rest of the word floating in thin air.
“You didn’t give me a chance to finish my pretty speech,” Cindy reminded. “What was the matter? Didn’t you like the blond Viking?”
“Like him? Who is he?”
“He is Mrs. Drew’s secretary and lives on the yacht. Ella Crane announcing. I suspected by the way you two glared at one another that in a previous incarnation you had been mortal enemies.”
“What did you say his name was? I didn’t get it.”
“Laurence Lloyd. His employer calls him ‘Laurie.’”
“Never heard the name before, that explodes your previous-incarnation theory.”
Cindy looked back at the spreading house.
“Rockledge is full of beautiful Oriental pieces. I wonder if they belong to the owner or the present tenant. I would hate to have the responsibility of them if they were not mine.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Drew has lived in the Orient?”
“During the conversation she volunteered the information that she had been almost everywhere abroad except there.”
“What led up to that statement?”
“Alida Barclay was calling when I arrived. After she left Mrs. Drew confided that Mrs. Barclay’s face worried her, she was sure she had met her before.”
“Was — did you say the name was Lloyd — present when she said that?”
“Yes. He suggested that Mrs. Drew probably had seen her in duplicate in fashion magazines, as she was the perfect model of a smartly dressed woman.”
“An orchid for Alida Barclay, I’d say. Too bad she didn’t hear it.” He glanced at her hand. “What’s the ring on your left third finger?”
“What would it be?”
“I thought you didn’t wear a wedding ring.”
“I wore it today to back up my name. I felt like a cheat each time Mrs. Drew called me Mrs. Stewart. I was horribly tempted to add, until tomorrow. If I hadn’t worn the ring what would she have thought? That was a rhetorical question. You needn’t answer.” She moved the diamond circlet up and down, then added:
“It is beautiful, but a plain gold band, not too wide, is my idea of a wedding ring. Perhaps be
cause for years I saw one like that on Mother’s finger.”
“You don’t like anything that is in any way connected with Kenniston Stewart, do you?”
“Let me think. I like his name.”
“You’re terribly unfair to him, Cindy. He couldn’t come —”
“If I am my feelings about him won’t make any difference after today. I know I am unfair to him, and I burn with shame after I’ve criticized him, but you can’t understand, I don’t myself, the restless, contradictory emotions fighting for control of my mind. The constant awareness and menace of world conditions does its part toward the tumult, I suppose.”
“Does that mean you doubt the wisdom of the annulment, Cinderella?”
“No. No. How can I doubt it? Kenniston Stewart is as keen for his freedom as I am, isn’t he? How did we get switched to my problems. Let’s tune in on another station. I was thinking the other day — you know my life story from the cradle on, I don’t know who you are, where you came from, except that you are a pal of Ken Stewart’s. You may be married. Your past is a blank to me.”
“It isn’t a blank to me, Cinderella. It has been redly and indelibly recorded on the screen of memory. When I’m through with Ken Stewart’s commission, I’ll give you a decade-by-decade account of my life, starting back with the career of my maternal great-grandfather, who made it possible for me to carry on my education without having to figure funds. I’ll confide my ambition to be an honored citizen who counts in the welfare of this nation while I climb to the top of my profession.” He laughed. “Think you can take it?”
“Yes. I like the word ‘honored’.”
To love and to honor, the phrase which Hal had criticized, flashed through her mind. Bill Damon would have understood.
“Did — did Counselor Armstrong notify you that the annulment case was set for tomorrow afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be there?”
“I? Certainly not. As soon as I’ve played off my doubles I have a business appointment in Portland.”
Conversation lagged after that. Cindy was afraid to speak for fear her voice would show her disappointment. She had had the foolish hope that he would see her through the hearing. At the door of The Castle, he said, “Good luck tomorrow. Good-by, ‘Mrs. Stewart-for-the-last-time.’”
To Love and to Honour Page 10
