Romance Classics (78 page)

Scott was just thinking that it was time to begin preparing for his dinner engagement when the telephone shrilled and he picked it up.

“Doctor Etheridge?” said a pleasant baritone voice. “This is Searcy, over at the hospital. Just had a letter from my friend Caine in New York saying you were locating here, and called to welcome you.”

“Thanks, Doctor Searcy, that's mighty decent.”

“Not at all, young fellow! We badly need another good doctor here, and from what Caine tells me, I feel sure you are going to fit right in,” said Doctor Searcy bluffly. “I look forward to showing you over the hospital any time you care to drop in. We're pretty proud of our hospital; maybe because we worked so hard for ten years to get it. Maybe it's not the biggest in the country, but you'd have a time convincing us it isn't one of the best.”

Scott thanked him warmly, and Doctor Searcy invited him to be his guest at the monthly meeting of the County Medical Society a week hence.

“Though of course I hope to see you in person before then,” Doctor Searcy assured him, and hung up.

So Scott went to dress for his dinner engagement with a happy feeling that he had made no mistake in choosing Hamilton for his home and the practice of his profession.

The hotel clerk had given him the most meticulous directions for reaching the Parham place, and so, on the dot of seven, Scott parked his car in front of a pleasant-looking white frame house set in the midst of a spacious lawn.

Scott whistled as he went up the walk between a border of vari-colored phlox and rang the door bell. There was a wait, and then from inside the house a girl's voice called, “I'll get it. It's Scott, I imagine.”

Then the door jerked open and a honey-haired, fragile-looking blonde, in a filmy cornflower-blue dress that was exactly the color of her eyes, stood there laughing at him.

“Hi, Scott, come on in,” she greeted him gaily. “I'm Chloe. Mother and Dad will be down soon. Did you have any trouble finding us?”

Scott was moved by her warm friendliness and her complete lack of even the slightest pretense of formality. “If I had, it would have been worth it,” he assured her firmly. Her laughing eyes widened a little and she made a tiny, charming grimace.

“Well, bless his little heart,” she marveled aloud. “I knew I was going to like you from the first moment I saw you.”

She was drawing him with her along the wide, almost square hall and into a long, high-ceiled room filled with beautiful old mahogany and cherry-wood, with floor-length draperies of soft-patterned chintz at the windows and bowls of fresh spring blossoms scattered about the place.

Scott laughed and colored but answered heartily, “There's something you should know. I'd rather tell you myself than have you discover it. I'm a Yankee!” he told her solemnly.

Chloe looked puzzled.

“Well, of course. Anybody would know that five seconds after you opened your mouth. I simply adore your accent.”

Scott looked a trifle dazed. “Accent?” he repeated, dumbfounded.

“Of course. Didn't you know you had one? It's Yankee as anything.”

“And you don't mind?”

She studied him curiously, her head on one side.

“Mind that you're a Yankee? Why should I? I simply adore Yankees.”

Scott grinned at her warmly. “I guess I've been seeing the wrong movies, or else reading the wrong books.”

Chloe gave him an odd, almost secretive glance. “Or perhaps meeting the wrong people,” she said silkily.

“What does that mean?” Scott demanded warily.

Chloe shrugged. “Oh, Kate Ryan just simply won't have anything to do with the likes of us. I guess maybe we're too — well, too provincial for her.”

“She's a lovely person, and I'm quite sure that if you called on her you'd receive the warmest possible welcome,” said Scott quickly.

Chloe studied him for a moment, the slightest possible tautness about her soft, pretty mouth. And then she opened her eyes very wide and smiled sweetly and said earnestly, “Do you really think so? I'll certainly get Mother to go with me to call on her right away.”

Stuart Parham came in then, very brisk, very hospitable, making him welcome, and then Mrs. Parham, blond, pretty, a slightly older and plumper edition of Chloe. They were followed by a white-coated houseman bearing a tray of cocktails, and a neat little maid with a tray of canapés.

Dinner was delicious and beautifully served. The whole atmosphere of the house was one of quiet, well-bred elegance. If the Parhams had suffered a loss when Tim Ryan had bought the old plantation, there was no evidence of it here in this comfortable, mellow old place.

After dinner, coffee was served in the living room, and almost before it was finished, Chloe was on her feet, saying gaily, “Come along, Scott; time's a-wastin'. We've got places to go and things to do.”

Parham smiled at Scott.

“You're going to find yourself a very busy young man, Scott. It's been a long time since an eligible young man arrived in Hamilton to live.”

Outside, in the crisp white moonlight of the spring night, Chloe snuggled down beside him in the car and said gaily, “Straight ahead two blocks, one block north and I'll show you the house.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You're going to love Hamilton, Scotty. Know why? Because Hamilton's going to love you! And you couldn't be cad enough not to return such affection, could you?”

“Of course not. I'd be very glad of such esteem.”

“How'd you ever manage to stay single so long, Scotty?”

Scott laughed. “Well, maybe I've been waiting for you,” he tried to cap her raillery.

But to his surprise Chloe didn't join in his laughter. She studied him gravely and nodded. “That sort of remark could be dangerous.”

At her direction, he stopped the car in front of a fine old white columned mansion, its walks bordered with closely clipped ball-like boxwood, and as he locked the car Chloe laughed.

“That proves you're a Yank,” she assured him gaily. “Down here we never lock a door, and never a car.”

She led the way up the walk, moving so lightly that she seemed almost to float. As they mounted the wide shallow steps, the front door burst open, spilling a flood of amber light over them, and in the light a stunning brunette, tall, slender, exquisitely put together, her American Beauty pink dress setting off her dark beauty to perfection, stood there.

“Well, it's about time,” she said in a warm, throaty, faintly husky voice. “We were about to send out the state patrol to hunt you.”

“Well, here he is — right side up, and feeling no pain. Scott, this is Liss Hanover. Liss, this is Scott.”

“Hello, Scott,” said the lovely brunette. “Do come in. The gang is here.”

There was an enormous living room that filled one whole side of the big old house. After the cheerful hubbub of being introduced to half a dozen attractive girls and as many young men, Scott found himself with a mint julep in his hand, and saw that everybody else was similarly equipped. He tasted the drink and blinked at its potency. After that he merely nursed it, trying to listen, to join in the conversation, and meanwhile trying to fit people's names to their faces. It was impossible to remember last names; he'd be lucky if he could remember first ones, he told himself.

The floor was fairly smooth and so they danced a while. But within an hour they were back in the cars, going on somewhere else.

Sometime long after midnight they were in a roadside place called, fittingly, Scott had to admit, the Buzzard's Roost. The place was large, low-ceilinged, the smoke so thick it seemed in layers. There were booths along the dance floor; there was a bar behind which a gigantic man in a soiled white coat dispensed drinks; there were a couple of men, their faces battered, their eyes tired and disgusted, who served the tables in the booths.

Scott looked about him and asked flatly, “Would I be listed as a spoil-sport if I admitted that I can't see any glamour about this place?”

Chloe laughed. “Glamour? Who wants glamour? It's raw realism we are looking for.”

“Oh, then I can understand.”

Suddenly one of the men who had been serving the tables came over to them, and under pretense of mopping the table spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

“You kids get on your hobby-horses and take it on the lam. The Law's on the way out here.”

“Sure, we get it. Thanks, Jed,” said Bill Elliott, and dropped a bill on the table.

They sauntered outside. Scott felt it was a shame that the others, too, should not be warned, but after all, he was a stranger there, just learning the rules of the game. It behooved him to keep his mouth shut and just look on, he reminded himself as he helped Chloe into his car and the other two cars shot off toward town.

Halfway back to town the road ahead of Scott blossomed suddenly with three pairs of headlights, coming toward him quickly. As he pulled to the side of the road, to give the cars ample clearance, he caught the gleam of white-painted cars and Chloe chuckled.

“State patrol cars,” she laughed. “Golly, what wouldn't Jim Ellis give to catch our crowd hanging out at the Buzzard's Roost? He hates us all, because when we happen to park too long, or maybe drive a little too fast, or have a little ole accident, he can't ever do anything to us; there's always a dad or a brother or an uncle who has ‘pull' where it matters most and he has to let us go.”

She was so complacent that Scott looked at her curiously.

“Ever occur to you that the crowd of you are heading for one awful jam, getting off scot-free when you break laws that are made for your own protection?” he asked her mildly.

She shrugged her shoulders carelessly.

“Oh, Jim Ellis is county police chief and he can't ever forget that he came from the wrong side of the tracks and he's envious of us because we didn't have to work our heads off to keep from starving when we were kids. Lots of people think that's why he very carefully looks the other way every time the Ku Klux breaks out in a new spot,” said Chloe coolly.

“Is the Ku Klux really active around here?” asked Scott frankly.

Chloe hesitated, a slightly wary look in her eyes, and then she brushed the subject aside and said with a change of voice, “Oh, Scott, the crowd likes you a lot. We're going to have grand times. Tomorrow night Liss is giving a dinner party for all of us at her place. She got her alimony check today and wants to splurge. And Liss really knows how to splurge, even if she does have to cut down to the bone for the last two weeks of the month.”

Scott was startled. Liss couldn't be much more than twenty-two or -three. And already divorced? He put the question, too startled to phrase it politely.

Chloe was amused.

“Oh, this is her second divorce,” she drawled coolly. “She was married at sixteen, and a year later, her mother made her get a divorce. It couldn't be an annulment, you see, because they had eloped and it was three months before her mother could find them. Fortunately the baby died.”

Scott's hands clenched on the wheel and his voice was thin when he repeated, “Fortunately?”

Chloe shot him a swift glance and veiled her eyes behind creamy lids.

“Well, I mean I think children are so pathetic when there is a divorce. Of course, Liss and her mother haven't a penny except a tiny income from Liss's grandfather's estate. And Liss couldn't earn a nickel if her life depended on it. And the boy she married was just a no-'count somebody who had never earned a penny in his life. That's why I say it was fortunate for the poor little baby that it died.”

“You're probably quite right,” said Scott grimly.

“But anyway, Liss learned a very valuable lesson,” Chloe went on composedly. “The next time she married, she saw to it that it was a man who had an awful lot of money. She was crazy about him and he was mad about her and it would have worked out all right, I expect, except that the idiot expected her to live up North. So finally Liss came home and wouldn't go back; and her husband dug in his heels and refused to come here to live. And after a while, Liss's mother simply dragged her off to Florida and got her a divorce and the husband gave her alimony.”

By now they were once more at the gate in front of the handsome house that was the new Parham home. Chloe said, “It's been fun, Scott. I've had a grand time. And we'll have fun tomorrow, too.”

“I'm sorry about tomorrow night,” said Scott. “But you see, I have a date with Kate Ryan.”

Chloe sat very still for a moment, and suddenly her lovely face looked almost vicious. Or was that the effect of the moonlight?

“Oh, of course, bread-and-butter date,” she said. And before he could protest she went gaily on, “Oh, well, bring her along. Liss always has a buffet meal so it doesn't make any difference if there are extra people, and I'd like to meet Kate Ryan.”

“I'll tell her,” said Scott quietly. “But, frankly, I don't believe she will come. Since she knows none of you she would probably feel out of place and uncomfortable, don't you think?”

Chloe said reluctantly, “I suppose so. But she needn't. We're the most informal people on earth. Oh, well, go ahead and pay back your obligation to the Ryans.”

Scott wanted to shake her hard. But he got out, went around the car, swung the door open and held out his hand to help her out. He walked with her up to the door, and paused there.

“Come in for a night-cap,” suggested Chloe softly, and there was a thread of invitation in her voice that made Scott tell himself he was a fool to imagine things.

“Thanks, not tonight. It's pretty late,” he said, and held out his hand.

But Chloe slid into his arms with a smooth, practiced deftness and lifted her soft mouth for his kiss. And Scott, meaning to kiss her lightly, was shaken by the sudden tumult, the exquisite tenderness of the embrace. While he was still dazed by it, Chloe had slipped from his arms and the door had closed behind her, leaving Scott to make his slightly bemused way back to the car, his blood pulsing.