Spring Always Comes, page 9
“Whether they are competent or not? A lot you care for justice!” Oh, when, Connie wondered in dismay, will I learn to curb my tongue? Nevertheless, carried away by her conviction, she went on, “If people like you really cared about justice you wouldn’t get excused from jury duty and leave it to incompetents to decide the course of American justice. If that’s all you can do for it, then God save America from her own irresponsible citizens.”
“You’ve changed,” Jeff said quietly.
“Stephen Emery says that the men who think they can’t afford to spend time sitting on a jury are the very men who can’t afford not to. Stephen Emery says —”
“You seem to have a high opinion of this guy,” Jeff said, stung into anger.
“I have.”
“Miss Wyndham, will you dance with me?”
Connie turned to see Stephen Emery standing beside the table. “With pleasure,” she said, and introduced him to her friends.
Emery danced as precisely, efficiently, and impersonally as he did everything else. He spoke with an edge of amusement on his voice. “I must thank you for that glowing testimonial you gave me.”
Connie laughed. “Well,” she admitted, “they were talking about getting off jury duty and it annoyed me and —”
To her amazement the austere Emery chuckled. “I don’t imagine Kent is accustomed to being lectured.”
Connie smothered a laugh. “He isn’t. It was awful of me. Especially —”
“Your friend is his daughter?”
“Sandra? Yes.”
“Sandra?”
“Well, Alexandra, really. But no one except her father ever calls her that.”
“Alexandra. A regal name for a regal person. One doesn’t often see a young woman with such a splendid carriage, such poise and dignity.”
Connie gave him a quick, surprised look. He sounded, she thought, as though he had been completely bowled over by Sandra Kent.
“She’s an unusual person.” Connie added impulsively, “Why don’t you ask her to dance, Mr. Emery, and find out for yourself?”
Emery looked somewhat taken aback but he did not seem to be annoyed. Indeed, when they finished the dance, Connie watched as he led Sandra out onto the floor. To her amazement she saw that the unapproachable senior partner was unbending, was talking, was listening intently to Sandra, his face alight with interest.
“Sandra seems to have made a conquest,” she said with a laugh.
“The great Mr. Emery appears to be irresistible,” Jeff remarked tartly. “Dance, Connie?”
There was, after all, no possible excuse for not dancing. She moved away in his arms. After the first moment she was aware that dancing had never been like this before. They moved as one person.
“This is the first time I’ve ever danced with you,” Jeff said abruptly, breaking the silence.
“And probably the last.” Connie was aware of the hardness, the hostility in her own voice but she dared not, for so much as a second, let down the barrier or she would melt into his arms as she longed to do.
“Why?” When she made no comment Jeff held her away, searching her face. “Why?”
“Because I don’t belong in this world any more, Jeff. I’m a working girl now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were in New York?”
She made herself smile at him while she evaded a direct answer. “Where else would I be?” she asked challengingly.
“Of course. You love New York.”
“Of course.”
His eyes held hers. She looked at the face she so dearly loved, tried to look away, but his eyes refused to release her, still searching for the answer to some question.
“Are you happy, Connie?”
“Are you?” she countered.
“Let’s not quibble,” he said impatiently. “You’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t you?”
“I?” In her astonishment she stood stock-still and a couple behind bumped into her. Jeff’s arm tightened as he swept her out of the way.
“Sandra told me. She said that you needed money; that was the reason you came tonight.”
For a moment Connie was so shaken by anger that she could not speak. She had left Jeff free for Sandra and now Sandra had deliberately humiliated her. How could she have done it?
She laughed. “Sandra is mistaken. I’m doing very well.”
“But surely you know that if you need anything — anything at all — any time at all —”
The band had stopped and there was one of those momentary and unpredictable hushes in which his voice rose clearly. They had come to a halt beside Kent’s table. The older man got to his feet as Jeff pulled out Connie’s chair and his expression frightened her. Then he turned with frowning eyes to watch his daughter and Emery who had paused across the room. Connie realized that the two girls whom she had met the morning she arrived in New York had been right in saying that Kent’s heart was set on Sandra marrying Jefferson Gray. Kent was in a bad temper because both Connie and Emery were daring to interfere with his plans. He turned to Connie.
“By the way, Constance, let’s arrange an appointment so that we can discuss the disposal of Stony Brook.”
Connie forgot even Nick and his need for money, Nick and his danger. She remembered only, with a stab of pain, the last time she had discussed Stony Brook with Jeff, when he had wanted to live there with her. From his quick look she knew that he, too, remembered.
“According to Alexandra, you are in urgent need of money,” Kent said, and color stung her face and then drained out of it. Never before had he spoken to her like that. “And since Stony Brook is the only source on which you have to draw, you would be wise to sell it at the earliest possible time.”
He was making clear that she could expect no help from him. It was fair enough, of course, as he owed her nothing. She thought a little grimly that Nick had defeated his own ends by whatever he had said to Sandra.
“I’d like to sell it as soon as I can,” she said lightly. “It’s better to forget the past and start fresh.”
“Good. Good.” Kent moved restlessly. “It’s getting late. As a working girl you’ll have to be up early. Why did Alexandra consent to dance a second time with that fellow?”
Sandra and Emery were returning to the table, laughing and animated. Sandra held out her hand. “On the seventeenth, then, at seven-thirty. Good night, Mr. Emery.”
He bowed to them and returned to his own party.
“What’s that about the seventeenth?” Kent demanded.
“Mr. Emery is taking me to see the Royal Ballet.”
“Really, Alexandra, what got into you? You know nothing about the man except that he is Constance’s employer. And he is old enough to be your father.”
“But he’s not at all like a father, is he?” she said sweetly. “Or would you know about that — Father?”
Ten
At the Park Avenue address the long car slid in to the curb. Kent helped Sandra out, though Jeff remained with Connie.
“By the way,” Kent said casually before the car moved away to take her home, “I suppose you’ll send me the stamps Bill wrote me about?”
“I’ll see that you get them,” Connie promised.
His cold eyes studied her. “Good. I’ll be expecting them.”
“Good night, Connie,” Sandra said. “It was nice to see you again. Remember, you can always call on me if you need anything. Give me a ring sometime.”
Sometime. The polite word that means no time. That means never.
Connie wanted to cry out, “Sandra, doesn’t all our past friendship and affection and trust mean anything? Is it all over?” But she knew the answer.
While the car moved smoothly and silently through the city streets with their sordid display of blackened snow, Jeff and Connie sat staring out wordlessly. Even Jeff’s nearness could not abolish the consternation in her mind. The stamps! Kent had virtually demanded them, and his implication that she had come to dinner only to ask for money made it evident that she could not borrow money from him. There was nothing left except Stony Brook and months might pass before a buyer could be found. And Nick had so little time left by the ultimatum of the man with whom he had become involved. What on earth was she going to do? What would happen to Nick? And the men who had threatened her? Surely they would not really harm her.
“Winter is ugly in New York,” Jeff said, breaking the uneasy silence between them. “Maine must be magnificent now, clean and white, unsmirched by man and all his machinery and his noise and dirt.”
She managed a laugh. “It would be wonderful if you didn’t mind traveling on snowshoes.”
“Snowshoes are fun.” Jeff helped her out at Lil’s apartment, looked quickly at the building but made no comment.
“Good night, Jeff. Nice to see you again.”
“Connie is everything all right?”
“Of course,” she said promptly, smiling as brightly as she could.
There was no answering smile on his face. “Something is wrong,” he said doggedly.
She chanted softly from Gilbert & Sullivan:
And I’m all right
And you’re all right
And everything is quite all right.
“Good night, Jeff,” she repeated, and left him standing beside the car.
She went swiftly down the ill-lighted hall to Lil’s apartment, put the key in the lock, and the door swung open on darkness. She reached for the light switch and removed her key, frowning. That was odd. She was positive she had closed the door firmly behind her when she left. Oh, of course, Lil had a date, too, and she had left the apartment after Connie had gone. Still, it wasn’t like Lil to be careless, and Connie was sure the door had been ajar when she started to unlock it.
She stood hesitating, not frightened, but uneasy. Then she went swiftly through the apartment: living room, the two bedrooms, bath, kitchenette. Feeling rather absurd, she went back to open the closet doors cautiously and to peek under the beds.
Of course, there was no intruder, but perhaps someone had come and gone. There had, after all, been a whole evening in which the apartment had been unoccupied. Someone watching outside would have known that both girls had left. Suppose a burglar had robbed the place. This time she looked not for a person who might be hiding there but for objects that might be missing.
The first indication she had that someone had really been in the apartment was a cigarette in an ashtray. Neither she nor Lil smoked and Lil’s date for the evening had given up cigarettes weeks ago.
In her tiny bedroom Connie picked up the big handbag she carried to work. That noon she had cashed a check for thirty dollars. There was no money in the billfold now. So far as she could determine, nothing else was missing.
Slowly she undressed, pulled on a warm quilted robe, slid her feet into lined slippers, and went back to the living room to wait for Lil, to tell her what had happened, to learn whether Lil, too, had been robbed.
At first she lay on the couch, but realizing that this made her sleepy, she sat erect, kicking her heels idly. There was something — different. She kicked again. She had hastily shoved the stamp album under the edge of the couch until she could send it to Mr. Kent — it would be as safe there as anywhere for a day or two. She had noticed then that when she sat her heels struck against the package. Now, her slippers swung back under the slipcover with nothing to stop them.
Frantically she jumped off the couch, lifted the slipcover. The stamp album was gone. She sat back on her heels, staring incredulously at the empty space under the couch. The stamps! It was all her fault. She should have taken them with her this evening, seen that Mr. Kent got them at once. But the package had been cumbersome and, anyhow, expecting to borrow money it would have been too embarrassing to precede her request by presenting the stamps. She had been so sure they would be safe for a day or two. No one had ever before stolen anything from her. Unless she had rented a safety-deposit box — but that had seemed extravagant for so few hours.
At first she was too stunned to think. Then, little by little, she became aware of the extent of the disaster. John Kent would never believe the stamps had been stolen. He would assume that she had sold them for her own profit.
She was still crouching on the floor, tearless, white-faced, when Lil came home.
“Connie! What’s wrong, honey?”
With an effort Connie tried to control her shaking. Lil put her on the couch, drew a quilt over her, heated milk in the kitchen and made Connie take the glass. Until she had drunk all of it, Lil refused to let her speak.
Then she said, “What happened to you, Connie? Did something go wrong on your date?”
“We’ve had a burglar. The door was ajar when I came home.” She described her search, finding the cigarette in the ashtray, discovering that the money she had withdrawn from the bank that day was gone, and her realization that the stamps had been stolen.
Lil, with her sturdy common sense, was aware that there was nothing in all this to have such a shattering effect on her roommate, who was not inclined to be hysterical. To gain time she made a search of her own room and returned to say cheerfully that nothing of hers was missing.
She sat in the chair facing the couch, her legs curled up under her, making her usual complaint about the broken springs.
“Stamps,” she said thoughtfully. “Now who would bother with anything like that? If it had been jewelry or something valuable, that would make sense.”
“But they were valuable, Lil. They were supposed to be worth a lot. I don’t know how much.”
Lil gaped at her. There was something here she didn’t understand, but she wasn’t the kind of person to force confidences. The most pressing need at the moment was to help Connie, to take away the look of horror that had widened her eyes.
“What did the police have to say?” she asked casually.
“Police! Why — I didn’t call them.”
This time Lil sat bolt upright. “Connie! You should have reported this the minute you found out you’d been robbed. That’s what the police are for. Working in a law office you ought to know that better than I do.”
Connie made no reply, but she had begun to shake again. She started to throw off the quilt, to get up.
“Never mind,” Lil said quickly, “you stay there and keep warm; you’ve had a shock. I’ll call them myself.” She forced herself to laugh cheerfully. “I’ve always wanted to do that; wanted to say, ‘Get me a policeman.’ ”
“No!” Connie cried out in sharp protest as Lil lifted the telephone.
For an endless moment the two girls looked at each other and then Lil replaced the telephone.
“So that’s the way it is,” she said slowly.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Connie was desperate.
Lil’s big warm smile was missing. She looked gravely at Connie. “Let’s not fool each other, honey. Did your half brother know you had the stamps and how much they were worth?”
Connie could not make herself lie to Lil. Instead, she burst into heartbroken, racking sobs. With the deep human understanding that characterized her, Lil remained quiet until the relief of tears had left Connie exhausted. Then, gently, she helped her off the couch and persuaded her to go to bed.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it,” she said after she had opened the window a bare inch against the bitter night and had switched out Connie’s light. In the dark it was easier to speak. “I won’t ever mention it again, but I have to say this now. You are a fine and honest person, Connie, but what you are doing now is wrong.”
“Nick is my half brother.”
“And you are helping to convince him, if he still needs any convincing, that the law doesn’t apply to him. I saw the kind of person he was as soon as I laid eyes on him. He wasn’t your kind of person at all. Good night, Connie.” The door closed behind her.
It was nearly daylight when Connie finally fell into an exhausted sleep. All that long night she stared into the darkness. The day that had begun long hours ago had been the most disastrous of her life. She had lost Sandra’s friendship; Kent had made clear that he had withdrawn all support and assistance from her because, she realized, he suspected her — how unfairly! — of attempting to take Jeff from Sandra. She had seen Jeff changed, different, cynical, the past forgotten. By agreeing to its sale, she had lost Stony Brook. Now she could not keep her promise to send the stamps to Kent and she knew he would brand her with the stigma of dishonesty.
Worst of all, Nick was a thief. He had taken advantage of that evening when the apartment was empty to steal the stamps. Never, from the moment when she had realized that they were missing, had she had a moment’s hope that Nick was not guilty. She remembered finding him on his knees outside the door where he had lost the flashlight, which he had said was a fountain pen. He must have been tampering with the lock in some way.
When she finally fell asleep she dreamed of that shadowy figure at the airport, the man who had been waiting, gun in hand, for Nick to appear. He had been afraid at the time; he had been more afraid when he had come to the apartment, asking for help.
Then she remembered that he had promised, if she would help him once more, that he would go straight, he would become the sort of person his father had wanted him to be. Surely, surely, he had not been lying then. Perhaps, after all, she was wrong. Perhaps Lil had been right and she should have reported the theft to the police.
Next morning Connie sat late over a leisurely breakfast, alone in the apartment, because Lil was working that Saturday. In spite of herself she was relieved by Lil’s absence, though she knew that her roommate would be true to her word, that she would never again make the slightest reference to the robbery unless Connie herself introduced the subject.
When the knock came at the door about noon, Connie’s heart leaped. It was Nick! Now everything would be all right. He would restore the stamps. She ran to fling open the door, stood staring.
“Hello, there,” Jeff said pleasantly. “I hoped I might find you at home.”
Her hand crept to her throat. “Jeff!” she whispered.
