Lighted Windows, page 19
“Did—did you wish to see me?”
She resisted the temptation to answer impudently, “No. I came to gather ferns.” Instead she explained. “I have an afternoon off. I’ve been craving a tea-party for weeks. I’ll be ready in an hour. Will you come?”
Mrs. Hale touched her black frock. “You are inviting me to a party?”
Her pained surprise made Janice feel like a worm. “I didn’t mean a real party. Merely a cup of tea. I thought coming to the H house for a while might shorten the day for you. It must seem horribly long.”
Millicent Hale’s shudder was slight, quickly under control.
“This day is neither longer nor harder than many other days have been in this horrible country. Has Bruce been heard from? Poor boy, he so hated to leave me, but the hateful Commissioner dragged him away.”
“They radioed that they would leave the northern camp early tomorrow. Would reach headquarters in the afternoon.”
“Have they found Jimmy?” Mrs. Hale’s voice was hoarse, she clenched the back of her chair with a fragile, white-knuckled hand.
“Nothing was said about Mr. Chester. At least Mr. Grant told me nothing.”
With a sob, relief perhaps, Millicent Hale laid her face on arms outflung on the desk. The little dog clawed at her skirts. She put out a hand and pulled him up into her lap. Janice tried to comfort her.
“I wish that I might help you.”
“Help!” The woman rose with a haste which catapulted the somnolent Pekinese to the rug. Her voice shook with anger. “Help! You! You’ve snatched all the good in life there was left for me. You knew Bruce years ago, I hear. Met him again, ran away from the man you were to marry, disguised yourself as a boy, brought a trunkload of seductive clothes and came hotfoot after him, didn’t you?”
“And got him!”
XVIII
Janice banged the door behind her. Humiliation succeeded fury. If moments of crisis revealed one’s true self, she and Millicent Hale had not shown up well under the late passage-at-arms. Two tenement-house women fighting over a man would have stripped down to the same basic frenzy.
“And got him!” The words chased one another round and round in her mind, like a cat in pursuit of its tail, as she hurried to the H house. Raw, terribly raw. What would Bruce think if he heard what she had claimed? The question which haunted Janice’s waking hours, intruded on her dreams, bobbed up again: “Was Bruce in love with Millicent before I came?”
As she opened the H house door she heard a thud. Pasca, his plaid shirt of a blinding brilliance, was laying a log on the fire. The red coals thrust out orange tongues to lick it greedily. Tong, on his haunches in front of the couch, yawned prodigiously. She laughed as she patted his head.
“Bad boy! I heard you jump down.” She plumped up the pillows. A sudden inexplicable ache of loneliness seized her, the bat-like wings of depression brushed against her spirit. Was the fog creeping into her heart? Her voice reflected her mood.
“Don’t put any more wood on, Pasca.”
“Aw right.” His usually stolid face crinkled in concern. “You trouble? Much sunshine not in your speech, no sirree.”
Janice smiled. “It’s the fog. It is my proud boast that my spirits are never affected by the weather, but this day got me. It won’t last. I’m having a tea-party. Set up the card table. Lay the cloth and arrange the Chinese pewter tray the way I showed you. Be sure that the water for the tea has been freshly boiled. Grate cheese on crackers and brown them, put others together sandwich fashion with guava jelly and chopped nuts.”
The man’s stolid face brightened in a childish smile. “How many tea? One? Two? Tree?”
“Four cups. Put on your white coat.” As she removed a faded flower from the bowl on the table desk which had been full of red roses the first time she entered the cabin, she asked casually, “You like the white coat, don’t you? What do you wear when you go to dances? Feathers and blankets or just ordinary clothes? Perhaps you don’t dance? Perhaps you weren’t at the squaw-dance the night the Samp sisters had the party for me?”
He stiffened into immobility long before she had finished speaking. Why? Had she spoken too rapidly for him to understand? Or had something she said put him on guard? Before he answered he shuffled across the room, removed the embroidered tea-cloth from the dresser drawer.
“I not go to dance, no sirree. Work all time at Waffle Shop. Tell Kadyama, ‘You help. Then I get through much quick, then we two go squaw-dance.’ He say no. He plenty lazy all time.” He spread the cloth carefully and pattered into the kitchen.
Later, seated on the spavin-legged stool before the crooked dressing-table, Janice thoughtfully buffed her already polished nails. In spite of a refreshing shower, the gayest print frock of her colorful wardrobe, that curious sense of depression, almost of impending danger, persisted. She patted her ruddy hair which already lay in smooth, glossy waves close to her head, appraised the effect of the lace collar and cuffs of her blue-and-jade gown in the mirror. They were becoming, took several years from her age. Her eyes were deep and clear as pools.
She nodded approval. Not too bad. She couldn’t justly hold her ensemble responsible for her gloom. It must be the fine black dust which settled on everything. Neither was the outside world responsible now, for in spots the sun was wearing through the clouds, revealing blue, scintillant patches of sky. The wind had changed. Elbows on the unsteady table, she sank her chin into her pink palms. Eyes on the gleaming circlet on her finger, softly advised the mirrored girl.
“Face it, my dear. Get it off your mind.”
What had Bruce meant when he had crushed her in his arms, had kissed her and kissed her as though never would he let her go? “It’s like tearing my heart out to leave you, Beautiful!” The recurrence of the husky words set her heart beating suffocatingly. Had his leave-taking been merely good theatre, just good theatre to impress Ned Paxton?
“Ooch!” The sound escaped from between clenched teeth. She sprang to her feet. She burned up with shame when she thought of the manner in which she had flung herself on his protection. What could he have done but ask her to marry him after her silly lie? Fool performance, that hasty ceremony. Instead she should have taken the first boat back to the States. She might have found a position as secretary somewhere on the coast. She didn’t wonder that he had scoffed that night in New York:
“Girls! What would we do with a girl in our outfit!”
No one knew how much Tatima, possibly Mrs. Hale, had been indirectly responsible for the late tragedy. If Millicent hadn’t been at headquarters, who would have suspected nice Jimmy Chester of shooting Joe Hale? Probably he wouldn’t have been shot.
She prowled restlessly about the living-room, straightened the white cloth on the small table, brushed a fleck of soot from it. How little she had realized the sort of life into which she was adventuring when she had packed that delicate thing! She wasn’t sorry that she had brought it any more than she regretted bringing her smart clothes. Frills kept one from going savage. Dear Miss Mary had learned that. Who would suspect her of becoming clothes-conscious? She would get her fill of luxury if she returned to the States in Ned Paxton’s yacht. How crude this room must have seemed to him.
Hands clasped lightly behind her, she viewed it with his fastidious eyes. Home-made chairs, most of them with swollen knee-joints. A couch which sagged from Tong’s occupation, pillows with dingy covers. The pelts on the floor were above criticism, the Russian samovar was an exhibition piece, the fan-back chair a gem, and the old Chinese pewter tea-service probably couldn’t be duplicated in any antique shop in the country. She crossed to the shelves, filled not merely with books, but with literature as well. Bruce must read French and Spanish; there were numberless volumes in those two languages. She moved on to the window. The fog had lifted. The ceaseless din of machinery, men’s rough voices drifted from the plateau. Someone called “Pick up!” and the sounds stopped instantly. The faint stroke of a ship’s bell drifted across the water from the long, white boat lying at anchor off shore. The Stars and Stripes floated from its stern, a yacht club pennant fluttered from a masthead. Seaworthy for outside requirements, with draft shallow enough for inside waters, Ned Paxton had planned to take her around the world in it. He had had the spacious interior re-decorated as a surprise, and she never had seen it. What had attracted her to him? Had she been flattered by the attention of a man whom mothers with marriageable daughters were pursuing? For how much had the magic glamour of millions been responsible?
Why think of that? Terrible waste of gray matter to keep dragging up the past. She could see the red blooms of the invincible geraniums in front of the Waffle Shop, could make out the line of the far horizon. What worlds lay beyond it? What secrets did those mountains, rearing sharp and black against a mass of blood-red clouds, hold? Her problems which seemed of immense importance dwindled to midget proportions in the immensity of her surroundings. Restlessly she looked at the clock. Ten minutes before the party would arrive. She turned the dial of the radio.
“Ich ha—be muth.” An enchanting soprano rendered the phrase of Leonora’s hymn of heroic daring from Fidelio. Immediately followed a guttural translation.
“Fear have I none.” The words were as clear as though spoken in the room.
A German-English lesson coming across the Pole from Berlin. Janice hummed “Fear have I none,” as she twisted the dial. A crisp American voice announced:
“This program is coming to you from the New York studio of the National Broadcasting Company. The orchestra will render selections from Verdi’s Aïda.”
New York! The words were a magic carpet which transported her thousands of miles in the sob of a violin. To the martial blare of trumpets, the melody of strings, she slipped back into the world she had known all her life. It was evening there. Summer though it was, some members of the smart world, girls whom she knew, would be in the city for the première of a play—it was the season for try-outs—for dancing on a floor like glass, for Contract, perhaps for a prizefight. They would wear lovely, floating frocks, jewels even on their incredibly high-heeled slippers, gorgeous wraps. Doubtless they had made a day of it motoring in, after a tray breakfast in bed, for an hour of gymnastics at the latest fashionable studio. They would have lunched at Pierre’s or Sherry’s or the Colony Club. She could smell the exotic scent of gardenias, the spiraling cigarette smoke. After that they would have made the round of the important galleries, making smart, more or less—generally less—intelligent criticisms of the paintings exhibited. Then tea with the man of the moment to the accompaniment of music, challenging, seductive, jazzy, as the mood dictated. Dressing at the town house or the Club for evening. Back to the country at midnight or early star-spangled morning, for sleep, golf, tennis, swimming, cards and still more cards. She knew the program. She had been round and round the treadmill half a thousand times.
She snapped off the radio. If she lingered another moment in the past, she would begin to be sorry for herself. Sorry! Why? Had she been urged to come to Alaska? She laughed. Urged! Good grief! Hadn’t she fairly stuffed herself down the throat of the outfit? Wasn’t every moment of her life here interesting? Perhaps she had a small-town mind, perhaps that was the explanation of her contentment in this wilderness. “It’s like tearing my heart out to leave you, Beautiful!” She put her hand to her throat. Her heart seemed to be beating there. Was Bruce the explanation? Of what had she been thinking when his voice crashed into her thoughts? About New York. Would she go back if she had the chance? She would not. Would she have the chance?
She curled up in the fan-back chair, eyes on the leaping, crouching flames, visualized Ned Paxton’s expression as he had invited Mary Samp to return to the States in his yacht. He had meant it. He would give her the time of her life. He was unbelievably thoughtful of older persons and children. Would Millicent Hale sail on the Modern Mariner? Would she be allowed to until the mystery of her husband’s death was cleared?
Had the party come? Janice flung open the door in response to a knock. Her smiling lips stiffened. Ned Paxton. Alone. She feigned enthusiasm.
“Come in. Where are the others?”
“Coming. I’m the vanguard. As the relations between the Samp sisters seemed a little strained, I left them to fight it out.” Back to the fire, he lighted a cigarette. He might have been the Well Dressed Man stepped from the pages of Vanity Fair. The engineers would pale with envy could they see his blue coat, gray flannel trousers and accessories. One of their favorite indoor sports was to plan outfits for their return to civilization. Janice was conscious of his critical scrutiny of the room as he inhaled and exhaled a long breath of smoke. His cynical eyes came back to her in the fan-back chair.
“So you chose this in preference to what I could give you?”
His amused incredulity stung her. She struggled to keep her voice as lightly contemptuous as his.
“But, you see, I didn’t have to take you with it.”
“Touche! Score one for you.”
Janice asked with honest curiosity:
“Why did you want to marry me, Ned? I am different in all my tastes from the girls with whom you play round.”
He frowned as he regarded her with appraising eyes. “You’d be surprised if you knew how many times I have asked myself that question. I went out of my way to meet you. I was curious. I had heard that in spite of the fact that you neither smoked, drank, gambled nor petted, men hung round you in smitten swarms, that you had more friends than any girl in your set. I didn’t believe it, but I fell for you like all the rest.”
“Smoking for some inexplicable reason makes me dizzy and cutting out the whoopee stuff was no virtue in me. I tried it all. I don’t like the ugly and sordid, and more particularly the cheap things of life. They leave tarnished memories. My inhibitions ought to prove to you that I wouldn’t fit into your scheme of living.”
“What do you know of my scheme of living? I want a woman at the head of my house, for the mother of my children, who has an infallible instinct for the fine and beautiful things of life and the courage to go after them. And I’m going to get her. You must have thought me an easy mark when we met at the hotel. I was dazed by the news of your marriage. As the day wore on I grew suspicious. Asked a few questions. Discovered that you married Harcourt after you met me that morning. Why did you do it?”
She had almost liked him again, trusted him as he confided his ideal of family life. The savage contempt of his question hardened her heart.
“Continue sleuthing. Find out.”
She looked at him with steady, cool eyes. He might have been a stranger for any power he had to quicken her pulses either to fear or love. She couldn’t even stay angry with him.
“I have it on rather good authority that Harcourt was not in love with you—he is as popular as a talkie head-liner with the ladies of Alaska—I suspect it was a clear case of knight-errantry on his part. Girl announces that she is married to him. What could he do but come across with the ring?”
He might not have power to inspire fear or love but he had power to hurt unbearably. Every word was true, that was why it cut. And he said it after witnessing Bruce’s impassioned leave-taking on the day he had started off to bring back Jimmy Chester. He had recognized it for what it was, a touch of drama for his benefit. Anger burned out the hurt as caustic burns out poison. She shrugged.
“You will have to answer that question yourself, Ned. But, after all, how can you? What do you know of the ambitions, struggles, sacrifices, self-discipline which lie behind what you call knight-errantry? You see. You want. You buy.”
His face was dark with anger. “You said that once before. I don’t like it. I’ll prove to you that I can earn one thing I want—that’s you. Think I don’t know that this marriage stuff is a bluff to save your face? Harcourt’s theatric farewell the other day was more bluff—though it was too mighty well done to suit me—he would make a fortune in the talkies—you are no more his wife than you are mine. Acknowledge it.” He drew her close. She protested sharply:
“Ned! Let me go!”
The kitchen door banged open. Tong dashed into the room. Head lowered, brush drooping, one corner of his lip snarled to reveal a fang, baleful eyes watchful, he stood as motionless as a creature in bronze.
Paxton released Janice. His laugh showed a tinge of strain.
“My mistake.” His hand was not quite steady as he lighted a cigarette. The dog crouched back on his haunches, alert as a sentinel on guard.
Pasca shuffled into the charged silence. Balanced on one hand, high above his head, with the grand manner of a Pullman waiter, he carried the Chinese pewter tray. The flame from the small alcohol lamp streamed out behind like an orange pennant in a brisk breeze. Janice visualized the perfection of tea-service on Paxton’s yacht and suppressed a nervous giggle.
“You ring? Yes sirree?”
Pasca looked at her as he set the tray on the card table. She had not rung and he knew it. Had her protest been loud enough to reach the kitchen? She glanced at Paxton. He was frankly contemptuous of the man’s clumsy effort at service. Pasca was childishly oblivious to criticism.
“Look good. Like million dollars, yes sirree. Tatima in kitchen with deesh. Mees Samp seesters send her.”
“Aren’t they coming?” Janice’s voice dripped disappointment. “Tell Tatima to come in, Pasca.” Grant entered by the front door. “Tubby, I’m glad you have arrived to swell the list of those present, it looks as though my party might be a frost.”
“Says you. How are you, Paxton? Where’s Mrs. Hale? Well, what d’you know! See who’s here!”
Tatima had come in from the kitchen. Her bronze face showed lines of suffering, but her eyes sparkled, a self-conscious smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. Her sleeveless red georgette dress, designed by a mail-order house for a perfect thirty-six, accentuated the supple curves of her ample thirty-eight figure. Exquisitely carved silver earrings touched her shoulders, two broad bracelets of incredibily wrought links adorned one arm, her blue beads still served as a necklace, her fingers were laden with rings. She set a doily-covered plate on the table, removed the cover and revealed flaky scones, indented with wells of ruby strawberry jam.
