I Hear Adventure Calling, page 2
“No, but I hope you won’t cash the bonds, Franny.”
“Why should I, unless the new trustee goes berserk and refuses to give me money when I want it?” She shook her head to clear her eyes of the tears that suddenly blurred them. “I—I hate to leave you, Judge. I—I always feel that in a way I belong to you.”
“You are not leaving me, child, I’ll be right here whenever you need me. I am glad you are breaking away from old associations. You are right, you have lived a tight little life these last years in spite of war activities and college. Rebecca was a fine woman, but a born dictator. She had a yen to run the lives of others. Now she is trying to keep her dead hand on you, as shown in her will. Forget the past and make the present something vital and inspiring. Be sure and keep me posted.”
“I will, you dear, I will.” She kissed his cheek with impulsive tenderness, laughed and blinked away tears. “Exit the career woman.”
“It’s you, Miss,” the operator greeted as she stepped into the passengerless car. “Remember the guy in gray who went up when you did, said he wanted to go to the roof?”
“I remember him. Good heavens, he didn’t fall off, did he?”
“Naw, but he acted awful queer. Stopped at seventh twice, then came back. Perhaps he heard Judge Grimes shoutin’. When the old fella tries to talk above the rivetin’ you could hear him at the State House. Anyhow he didn’t seem certain where he wanted to go.”
Fran thought of the deep authoritative voice.
“He seemed to me like a person who knew exactly where he wanted to go and would get there.”
“Yeah, you said something. I guess he knows where he wants to go, all right. You can’t tell nothin’ about guys like him, though. He was so queer I reported him to the superintendent. He’s going to have him watched if he’s still in the building. There’s been a lot of safebreaking in this neighborhood lately. Looks to me an’ the superintendent as if this gent might be a finger man of a gang—they dress snappy like him.” The operator’s voice went flat.
“Street, Miss.”
II
A breeze lightly scented with the salty tang of kelp, murmurous with the lazy lap of the tide against rocks, stirred the palm-designed chintz hangings at the long open windows of the dining room in the Sargent home, Rocky Point. It set a-flicker the tall tapers in the two four-branch candelabra on the lace-covered table.
Delicate pink and violet tulips filled a pale green Limoges bowl in the center; flat silver gleamed, crystal goblets and wineglasses sparkled. The frock of the hostess was the shade of dark purple pansies, a color which accentuated the silvery whiteness of her modishly high coiffure; her brunette daughter, Gene, wore the filmy pink of the tulips. The dinner coats of the host and the men made a design of white between the pastel frocks of the women guests.
Bare shoulders are in again for better or worse, largely worse at this table, Fran Phillips decided. “Lucky I wore my pale amber, more in harmony with the ensemble than the lettuce green taffeta I was tempted to wear. If—”
“I take it you don’t care for littleneck clams, Miss Phillips,” the man at her left commented in the hushed voice of a conspirator. “That’s the fourth you’ve sneaked under the ice on which they are served.”
Fran laughed as she met his amused dark eyes.
“Don’t betray my guilty secret. I just can’t swallow them. It would be a social blunder to leave the six poor little things untouched, so I give them decent burial. A method distinctly my own. Rather original, what?”
“Do you apply the same deep-freeze method to persons you don’t like?” Before she could answer he turned to reply to a question of the hostess, at whose right he sat.
Who is he, Fran asked herself, she must have been in the throes of a mental blackout when they were introduced before dinner; perhaps they hadn’t been introduced—he wasn’t the sort of person one forgot. Perhaps they hadn’t met—the apéritifs were being served when she entered the library, she had been detained at the Gallery.
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” accused the man at her right. “I don’t believe you know my name.”
“It is Morrison Grove, ‘Morrie’ to your hostess. When I refused a cocktail you brought me a glass of tomato juice with the lugubrious air of one offering a poison cup. We came in to dinner together and you asked if I had begun to feel at home in the State of Maine, an astonishing cliché coming from ‘one of our rising men politically,’ Mrs. Sargent speaking.”
“One hundred per cent correct, even to that quote, if I say it who shouldn’t.” The slightly bald, slightly rubicund, slightly overweight old-young man beamed at her. “How do you do it? Apparently in spirit you were miles away from this room. What cataclysm of events landed you as assistant in the Sargent Gallery here?”
“Mr. Sargent needed an attractive, up-to-the-minute young woman to help—that’s me, if I say it who shouldn’t—I needed desperately an entire change of environment, Gene and I were classmates at college, she suggested that I come here for the summer. Here I am. Does that answer your question? It should. You now have the story of my life in tabloid.”
“I’ll bet I haven’t. I’ll bet a man was involved in that change of environment you needed so desperately. Cherchez l’homme. Take my bet?”
He turned to answer the question of a woman in pale blue at his right. The man at Fran’s left, who had detected the hideaway of the clams, was listening intently to his hostess, who, Fran had discovered at their first meeting years ago, was a nonstop conversationalist.
“I’ll bet a man was involved in that change of environment.” The repetition of Morrison Grove’s words in her memory sent her thoughts backtracking to the day in Judge Grimes’s office three weeks ago. Since then he had written that the change of the trustee for Rebecca Harding’s estate had been allowed by the court. In closing he added:
“I’ve had four conferences with Jaffray re your affairs. Your brother showed good judgment in the selection of his successor. Glad to hear you like your job.”
He had not mentioned Myles Jaffray’s reaction to her refusal to meet him. Apparently it hadn’t made the slightest dent in the life of the new trustee. She had expected he would write to her and demand a hearing, had mentally composed a courteous but frigid reply. It had been good. It would be a pity if she never had a chance to use the literary masterpiece.
“Did you mutter ‘darn,’ or was the sound something the breeze brought in?” Morrison Grove inquired. “What goes? Your cheeks are flaming, your eyes which I thought were the brown that goes with bronzy-gold hair are shooting sparks, and speaking of hair, I like it short like yours. Natural or permanent wave?”
“The fairy who attended my entrance into this world, it wasn’t such a grim planet then, endowed me with a permanent.”
“Hooray for the fairy. To return to those shooting sparks. Mad because I deserted you? Couldn’t help it. The lady at my right is a political power—known as the Terrible Tassie—Miss Trent to you—originally an F.F.V.—she can influence a lot of votes in my direction—we both keep our legal residence in this county—I’m out for re-election to Congress. I had to listen to her, much as I prefer to look at and talk to you.”
“Of course you had to listen and just to keep the record straight, my cheeks are not flaming, my eyes are not shooting sparks because of your neglect.”
“Maybe not, but you are disturbed about something, can’t fool your uncle Morrie. To proceed with my diagnosis, could it be that you have quarreled with the blond, screen-lover-good-looks lad directly across the table? His hair is as shining and smooth as the gold dome of your State House, his mustache resembles nothing so much as a third eyebrow. His gloomy gaze has been fixed on you in the intervals between turning his deadly charm on the gals each side of him.”
The lad directly across the table was Blake Sinclair. She had felt his eyes on her and had carefully avoided meeting them. She had been amazed, then angry when he had spoken to her in the library before dinner. She had told him before she left home that she wanted neither to see nor to hear from him until September. She had left unanswered his indignant, incredulous “Why?” She couldn’t explain that she needed time and distance to get a perspective on that “deadly charm” to which she had not been unresponsive, while she kept him determinedly on the plane of friendship.
“Your expression gives you away. You have been thinking over my guess, haven’t you? Right the first time, wasn’t I?” Grove chuckled complacence.
“Is it part of your campaign program to probe for the secrets of a maiden’s heart? Shame on you.”
“Say, you know you’ve got what it takes. I didn’t realize that girls would have your sparkle, charm and warm friendliness who were raised in the shadow of the Sacred Cod.”
“Speak softly when you say that name, stranger. We can’t until we meet a responsive spirit like you, then ‘From the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, she is all mirth.’ Adapted from Much Ado about Nothing. I hope you know your immortal William? It’s a must when you play with one of us Sacred Cod girls.” His shout of laughter drew startled eyes in their direction.
“Hold it. Having settled that question to our mutual satisfaction, what are you and gloomy Gus across the table fighting about? Confide. Me, I’m that congenial spirit, remember? I—” He turned to the woman at his right.
“Certainly I’m interested in what the women in the organization of which you are the head think of the Russian situation, Miss Tassie. It is of vital importance. The Bear is growling and—” Fran lost the rest of the sentence.
As the man at her left still was held on the conversational leash by his hostess her thoughts trekked back to Blake Sinclair and his presence at this table. She had introduced him to Gene when she was at college, the estate of his family adjoined Rebecca Harding’s. Could she make him understand that it was useless to follow her? That she would not see him?
“Our hostess serves the most delectable salads in the state.” Morrison Grove had broken away from his constituent. “I know. I get around. None of the jellied stuff I hate. This combination of chilled avocado, grapefruit and a fig bursting with cheese mixture is the berries. I’m something of a chef myself. Keep bachelor hall in ye old homestead. Like to pick up ideas. White wine in the dressing, what?”
“Could be. Ask Mrs. Sargent after dinner. She’ll tell you.”
“Not I. She would immediately embark on a lecture as to how and where the fruit is grown, whence the wine, and so forth. I admire the lady for her good looks, good works and expert housekeeping, but, I side-step her educational monologues.”
Fran disciplined a smile. Criticizing one’s hosts or their hospitality was a breach of courtesy she abhorred, but Morrison Grove was right, one couldn’t comment on bird, beast or flower to Mrs. Sargent without precipitating a discourse on the subject.
“I see by your not too well controlled smirk that you get what I mean.” She ignored his comment.
“While I was left high and dry like a boat on a beach at low tide with no one to talk to, did the lady at your right assure you that your re-election is in the bag?”
“No, quite the reverse.” The question she had intended for a light touch clouded his face. “She says that her organization has been examining my records to see how I voted on foreign policy matters, it is not satisfied, and what the Terrible Tassie says, goes.”
“Loud cheers for those women. Right on the job, aren’t they? They know that the entire nation has foreign policy on the brain. Does it mean that you didn’t go all out to help establish a lasting peace?” Her question added another layer of color to his face, she sensed his instant of defiance before he said smoothly:
“Perhaps I disagree with the plan to bring it about.”
“You mean you think that our enormous productive capacity should not be used to overcome the chaos and suffering following this last tragic war?”
“What do you know about the plan being put before the country?”
“Not much, I am ashamed to admit, but from now on I’ll be listening to the campaign speeches from the candidates themselves, if they are near, from radio if they are not. I’ll form a policy of my own.”
“You won’t have to travel far to hear some of them. Miss Trent gave me the jolt of my life when she told me that a returned serviceman was being proposed by the Good Government Association of this district as a candidate for my seat in the House.”
“Being proposed doesn’t necessarily mean he will be nominated, does it? Haven’t you accomplishment enough on your record to offset your foreign policy bad mark?”
“I hope so, but there is more to it than that. His family has loads of the moolah, have been citizens here since the beginning of time—mine goes back only two generations—it produced a Colonial Governor. The house built on the land he acquired was the largest in the town, it’s a knockout in architecture and grounds, is opened when a charity stages one of those Historic Landmarks shows. It was called Shore Acres then and the name has stuck. He’s my friend, he’s a grand guy, but he’s had all the breaks.”
“Ours is a democracy. A man doesn’t need wealth and a social background even to become President. You’d better take a refresher course in American history.”
“I get what you mean, but six years in the service added to what he had before will fire the imagination of the voting public.”
“What were you doing through those same years?”
“Slaving at a desk in Washington for three of them. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t get into the fight. Had fifteen pounds sweated off me the day before I went up for examination, and say, is that something to do for one’s country? But they wouldn’t pass me.”
“I’m sorry you were disappointed. You won’t quit the Congressional fight because another candidate may be or has been proposed? You won’t give up, will you? The easiest thing to do in the world is to give up.”
“Not a chance. I’m right back in there pitching. Miss Trent’s news knocked me out for a minute, that’s all.”
“Perhaps she is mistaken. Is she an authority on the political situation?”
“Authority! That woman is a law unto herself. She is the political arbiter of this county.”
“Is your potential rival interesting? Having met you I would like to see him. Maybe I’m psychic, maybe I can see the winner in my crystal ball.”
“Hey, soft-pedal. He’s the man at your left. This dinner is a sort of Hail to the Hero welcome home to him.”
Fran thought of the man’s laughing eyes, of the richness of his voice even when hushed when he said, “I take it you don’t care for littleneck clams, Miss Phillips.” How had he known who she was? They hadn’t met before dinner.
“What is our hero’s name?” she whispered. “I’d like to know, I can’t very well say ‘you, there,’ when I speak to him.”
“Jeepers, do you have to ask? His service record has been front page stuff in the local news for two days. Airborne division. Made some spectacular jumps. He’s been decorated and redecorated. He’s Myles Jaffray, Major Myles Jaffray.”
“Myles Jaffray!” Fran was unaware of her shocked repetition.
“Did I hear my name?” the man at her left inquired. He turned his back on his hostess as squarely as etiquette permitted. Not Ken’s Myles Jaffray, she reassured herself while her eyes clung to his as if hypnotized. “If you don’t like clams you do like raspberry mousse with marrons, don’t you?”
His voice broke the spell of unbelief. Was he warning her that she was attracting attention?
“Mad about it.” Would he notice the hint of vibrato in her voice? “I am a person of very strong likes and equally strong aversions.”
“And loves and hates. You’re telling me. You have stepped into the glacial age. You were gay, responsive and charming the first time I spoke to you. Didn’t know who I was? Since then you have discovered?”
“I have. You know I didn’t want to meet you. Why did you follow me?”
“Follow you.” His low incredulous voice, his brows raised in surprise, sent a wave of color to her hair. Stupid, why had she given him that lead? “My dear Fran.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Dear or Fran?”
“Neither.”
“Sorry, being with Ken so much I got the habit of thinking of his kid sister as Fran. It won’t happen again. Get this. Personally you went out of my life when you refused to meet me at Judge Grimes’s office; nevertheless, I shall carry on my trustee duties in every detail. Mrs. Sargent has given the high sign to her husband.” As she rose he drew out her chair and added close to her ear:
“And I mean in every detail. That’s a warning to watch your step.”
III
A voice singing, “You’re So Sweet to Remember” drifted from a concealed radio as hostess and women guests entered the book-walled library where soft green hangings were pushed back from the long open windows. I’ll wager Myles Jaffray never will think that of me, Fran decided as she dropped to a deep rose-color pouf. I stepped off on the wrong foot with him.
“How come the shiver, Fran?” Gene Sargent’s pale pink skirt billowed as she seated herself behind the coffee table. She dropped a cube of sugar on the saucer of a Sèvres cup. “You can’t be cold so near that gay little fire behind you. Didn’t pick up a bug today, did you?”
“No, must be a reaction from the excitement of the dinner party. I’m a temperamental person.”
“I’ll say you are, if you call this boring evening exciting.” Her mouth, which nature had intended to be lovely, had acquired a discontented droop at the corners. “You are wearing yourself to shreds at the Gallery. You go into everything you do up to your elbows. That suits Dad to a T. He’s a slave driver. The New York Galleries are a business, this summer project is an avocation, his pet and pride.”
“It is fast getting to be mine. I’m thrilled over it. I was late getting home tonight because I wanted to make sure we were ready to receive the paintings tomorrow for our—notice that our—one-man show the day after.”
