Francie Comes Home (23 page)

“It's for you, Francie,” Mrs. Ryan said, coming out of the office in the back. “A colonel, no less.” She made a wry face.

“A colonel?” Francie was puzzled. “Are you joking?” She went back and shut the door, quite unconscious of Mrs. Ryan's indulgent smile at this.

A few minutes later she sailed out, her eyes wide.

“That was Colonel Adams.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Colonel Adams, of the veterans' hospital.”

“Yes, I know.” Mrs. Ryan was vastly amused with Francie's dreamy attitude. “What did he say?”

Francie took a deep, deep breath. “He wants to know if we'll' put on
Charley's Aunt
at the hospital. He saw it. He liked it.” She hugged herself. “He asked if we had other things we'd done that we could do for the men in the hospital. Imagine. He loved us. He'd like us to come as often as we are willing to, and they have this creamy recreation room at the hospital. And he'd like us to work with 16 millimeter film, too, with the soldiers. Oh, Mrs. Ryan. Imagine!”

“That's wonderful, my dear. Wonderful! How did he happen to call you?”

“He called Bruce first, as the director. Bruce said to call me.”

Francie saw Mrs. Ryan frown, and she remembered the desk. In spite of Lucky's assurances that it was all right, she still thought there might have been something queer about that purchase. But she put the whole thing off, to think about later. A performance a week! As much of an audience as they could possibly want, plays, skits, songs—she forgot about Bruce and the desk. Entirely.

CHAPTER 16

Later she wondered how she could ever have been able to put this matter out of mind. But there were committee meetings, and reading for material to put on at the hospital, and auditions and rehearsals. Francie studied stage design more seriously than she ever had to learn sets and props and costume. She was in a whirl of fun and work—and new people came flocking to the dramatic group.

And there was another good reason. She and Bruce became engaged.

It was hardly unexpected to her, but the way it came about was a surprise just the same. She had been left alone in the Birthday Box. Florence had gone to the dentist or somewhere in the lunch hour and left her to lock up and hang the sign “Closed until 2” on the door. Then Bruce came along on the sidewalk from Fredericks & Worpels. He looked through the plate glass as he always did nowadays, saw she was alone, and suddenly veered round and through the door.

“Francie,” he said. She looked up and saw him; he stood there at the door, wearing a beatific smile, in the most charming, matter-of-fact way, “I'm not taking things too much for granted, am I? It
is
understood, isn't it, that you and I are going to be married?”

“I wasn't sure,” said Francie, smiling. There was a tray of costume jewelry in her hands, and she put it down on the show case with exaggerated caution.

Lucky said, “Well, you're sure now, see?” and crossed the floor quickly, and leaned over the case and kissed her. “Okay then,” he said, and strode out, bent on some urgent errand, no doubt for Mrs. Fredericks.

For a day or so Francie waited, but no more word came from him. She wasn't at all well posted on such matters: what did she do now? In books the girl went and shyly confided her secret to her parents, unless the young man had already asked their permission. But she had only one parent and he wasn't the kind you shyly told secrets to. Besides, Pop didn't like Bruce much, Francie felt. Altogether, though, she felt excited and happy. Theirs was hardly a secure kind of engagement, hemmed in as they already were with secrecy: she didn't dare mention it to anybody, let alone Pop or Aunt Norah. At last, after waiting a couple of days and not seeing her newly betrothed, she called him up when she was alone in the house and couldn't be overheard.

“Lucky,” she said, “about our being married. Remember? Well, do we announce?”

“Good Lord no, honey!” He sounded scandalized, as if such a thing had never been heard of before. “Of course we don't; whatever are you thinking of? You know how I'm fixed. Just wait a little until I give you the go-ahead, and then we can hire a hall if you like.”

So there it was; she was engaged, but it didn't seem to make any difference at all. She still had to behave like a free, unspoken-for woman. Bruce still acted like an eligible bachelor. It was impossible not to resent this. For instance, there was that matter of the J.D.S. party. Bruce was giving it in his apartment to celebrate the gratifying and unusual fact that the society hadn't come out of their production in debt. Of course, they hadn't made a fortune either, but they'd managed rather nicely. Mrs. Fredericks had been generous and so had a lot of other people who contributed the props and the costumes. Even if you discounted public bias on the ground of town spirit, they'd had good reviews, so all in all a celebration was certainly indicated. And as Francie admitted, even when she felt most cross about it, Chadbourne had worked terribly hard and so it was only right that she should be asked to receive guests at the party, as hostess. Yet if Francie really had what was coming to her as Lucky Munson's intended,
she
would have presided, and the consciousness of this was boung to nag her.

Now that the party had been announced, Cousin Biddy was already speculating wildly on the probable announcement soon of Brace's and Chadbourne's engagement, still insisting, moreover, that Lottie Fredericks was mad to permit such a thing. It was irritating: even Marty had stopped worrying about Francie's welfare regarding the tricky Lucky Munson: she and Jinx often dropped in to the shop and talked and joked happily as if matters were back to the old norm. And this too failed to please. Francie, though she had been distressed by the youngsters' temporary estrangement. All in all, a secret engagement was not really fun; definitely not. Not when your fiancé still ran like a hare whenever a Fredericks cracked a whip.

Oh, for the innocent high-school days when an engagement was really an engagement (even though it seldom came to anything) and a girl could wear a fraternity pin proudly over her heart where everybody could see it!

However, there was the party to get through. Francie determined to be good-natured and nonpossessive that evening.

When she got there, she couldn't make out what the trouble was at first. Something had been in the back of her mind when she went up the steps to the apartment. She had expected to see somebody, or something, there, and she didn't. What with all the greetings and laughter and congratulations and general happy atmosphere of get-together, she didn't have time to think it out until late in the evening when the buffet supper, had been eaten, the dishes washed and put away, and everybody was ready to dance. The boys tried to roll up the carpet, but it was discovered that heavy pieces of furniture were holding it down. They set to work shoving them back, off into the corners. Lucky supervised the work but didn't actually do any of it. He said he was too busy, picking out and stacking records for the record player. Then at last Francie realized what was missing. She peered around looking for it: she went to the bedroom and looked there. No, it wasn't anywhere. So she went back to Bruce where he stood at the record player.

“Where's the Mystery Desk?” she asked.

Bruce grunted absently and stooped down to search the lowest shelf in his cabinet for a special record.

“Where
is
it, Bruce?” she asked again.

“Huh? What's on your mind?” asked Bruce, standing up again. “Want something, honey?”

“I don't want it,” said Francie. “I just wondered where it was.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your desk,” said Francie a little querulously. “Are you deaf or something? The William and Mary desk you bought in Chicago, for goodness' sake. I don't see why you should look so blank. Where is it?”

“Ohhh, now I know. The desk. Sure. Well, it isn't here at the moment.”

“So I see,” said Francie. She didn't know why, but she was beginning to feel worried. It was because of a strange look in Lucky's eyes, a shifty look. “Where
is
it, then?” she asked.

“What's the matter with you, keed? What's the idea, cross-examining me?” he said. “Since you're so interested, I don't mind telling you I've lent it to a friend.”

“Why, Lucky,” said Francie. “That just doesn't make sense. People don't go around lending great big desks. It's crazy!”

Bruce took this badly: his handsome face flushed. “So I'm crazy. And what if I am? What if I feel like doing what everybody doesn't?”

“You don't have to be nasty about it.” Francie's voice rose slightly and Bruce became alarmed.

“Shhh,” he said. “I'll tell you all later. Be a good kid now and hand around the Cokes or something.” He smiled charmingly, his flash of ill temper evidently forgotten. She went off obediently, but it was disturbing: there would have to be a showdown soon. And Bruce was oddly evasive during the next few days. He didn't come into the Birthday Box even when he must have known Francie was on duty alone; every time she made an excuse to go to Fredericks & Worpels in the hope of finding him, Chadbourne was there too, and Francie didn't want to bring up the question of the desk in front of a third party. As for telephoning, Lucky just never was at home when she tried. Admittedly she didn't try very often because she seldom had a chance without Aunt Norah's being able to overhear.

Pop was getting a shower of letters from New York, and sometimes he put through long-distance telephone calls. Francie had long since stopped paying attention to these developments: she was concentrated on her own affairs, but one day at breakfast when the morning mail arrived, she realized something important had happened.

“Good!” said Pop, reading a letter. He looked so cheerful that she asked what was up.

“It's the case,” he said. “My office case; we're getting ready for the final hearing and it's going well.”

“That's nice,” said Francie, and Aunt Norah added with more enthusiasm, “Oh Fred, how wonderful!”

“It can't be long now before we're cleared up and ready to start with a clean slate,” said Pop. “Well, Francie, you'd better try out your wings and make sure they still work. Is there time for you to clinch that deal with Penny about her new apartment?” He was referring to vague plans Francie had made with her friend for the next term in New York, if it was at all possible for her to come back. “I think I can swing it, if so,” said Pop. He was beaming.

Francie thought hard. She had forgotten all about New York and this possibility, and of course she wasn't interested now. But how could she explain to Pop about her sudden change of heart? What was it based on anyway? Bruce? Or the sparkle of her life these days? She said vaguely, “I shouldn't think she's waited for me; I told her not to, last time I wrote. We'd better wait, don't you think?”

“That would be wiser,” said Pop. “There's many a slip, after all, and I can't guarantee my affairs will start going like clockwork from the very start. Still, I'd like to make sure you have what you want.”

Francie said, “Don't you worry. I'm perfectly happy where I am; I'm getting used to Jefferson.”

Aunt Norah looked gratified, and Francie felt like smiling. She felt that she had got the idea across very delicately that she had no intention of hanging on indefinitely to Pop, getting in the way of his private plans. It was queer, but since her own life had become so interesting, the thought of her father's possible marriage had ceased to disturb her. She only wondered sometimes when they might see fit to let her know officially what everyone in town was now taking as settled. It wasn't anything she could bring up herself, she felt, with Aunt Norah.

At last one Saturday Bruce ceased to be evasive: he telephoned and asked Francie out to dinner, naming a restaurant out in the country where they had once been. She had a momentary twinge of irritation because he never, never, never took her anywhere in town, but she suppressed it. It was nice that he should ask her to go out, and it
may
not have had anything to do with the fact that both Fredericks women were away for the weekend. She got ready happily, and was waiting practically on the doorstep when he arrived. Bruce looked delighted to see her, too. As soon as they had reached a wooded spot on the road he stopped the car and kissed her until she complained that he'd taken off all her lipstick.

“Well, it's been a long time,” he said, “and that's worth a little lipstick. I'll buy you a whole new one if you insist.” He started the car again. Francie could not resist saying, “It hasn't been
my
fault it was such a long time.”

“Don't be that way, Baby.”

“All right, I won't,” she said amiably.

They had such a good time that evening that she even forgot about the Mystery Desk until they were on the way home. “Oh, Lucky, what was all that nonsense about the desk?” she asked. “Remember?”

This time he didn't fence; he answered readily enough. “Oh, that,” he said. “Well, I'll tell you, but I didn't want to blab about it in front of everybody at the party. I think I've managed to do a good turn of business over that little article. I sold it for more than it cost me.”

She was a few minutes taking it in. She was puzzled. “But Lucky, darling, I thought you weren't allowed to sell things you bought at a discount that way.”

“What do you mean,
not allowed?”
he asked. “It was mine, wasn't it? I paid for it. There's no law that compels a man to keep—”

Francie said, “Of course I shouldn't have used that word. I meant you aren't
supposed
to do it. Are you? If you get a discount because you're in the trade? I thought it was on the understanding that it was for your personal use that you got it so cheap; you told me that yourself, Bruce.”