There is always love (7 page)

"You pulled a fast one, lady, when you reported to your boss the family conversation you heard while you were my guest."

"Business!" Hester daintily shrugged dismay and linked her arm in Merton's. "I'm g^ad you don't have to work so late, Greg. We would have missed that gorgeous revue. You really must see it, Lindy."

"I will. Who's calling at this ungodly hour?*' she wondered aloud as she opened the outer door of the apartment. "It's Skiddy," she announced breathlessly to the room behind her.

"Looks like old-home week," Grant exclaimed as he entered. He was a man in his late twenties, of medium height, with ruddy skin and sandy hair. His pug nose was freckled. His short-sighted eyes, framed in bone-rimmed spectacles, were brown, large and extraordinarily expressive. His wide smile was infectious, he fairly sparkled with vitality. Hi^ tweeds were smartly tailored.

"You're a cute trick, Lindy."

"It's aU done with mirrors. Skid."

He laughed and patted her shoulder; greeted Ruth, who had sprung to her feet and dropped her knitting at his entrance, with a resounding kiss. He struck an attitude of stunned admiration as he looked at Hester.

"By the great horn spoon, the dame is beautifull" He caught her hand. "Got a kiss for me. Sugar?"

Hester's face flushed an annoyed pink. She shrank back and tightened her grip on Merton's arm.

"Don't be ridiculous. Skid. Greg, this is my Cousin, Skid-more Grant."

"Cousin several times removed," Grant corrected indignantly. "Everybody is a cousin to everybody else in our town."

"My name is Merton." Gregory freed his arm from Hester's and offered his hand. "Glad to meet you, Grant."

"That goes double." He glanced around the room and grinned. "Pretty swell layout you have here, Ruthetta, what? Modem and then some. Seems queer not to see you against a background of period pieces. You're different, too. My gosh, you've cut your hair! I'll have to get acquainted all over again."

"Begin by calling me Ruth, Ruthetta is out, Skid. Sit down, everybody, sit down, please." Ruth picked up her knitting. "You've been a long time finding this 'swell layout,' Skid. We heard some time ago that you were in New York." 36

Grant slumped into a deep chair and with elbows on its arms fitted the fingers of his two hands together.

"Always come at this time of year to have a look-see at the theaters before my doting parents drag me South. I've stuck. This time I stay. Mrs. Grant's little boy is going to work."

"Work!" Ruth, Linda and Hester exclaimed in amazed unison.

"That's what I said. What's so surprising in that? I knew you wouldn't believe me so decided not to look you up till I had landed something. Finally sold my gigantic intellect for forty bucks a week. Not too bad for a guy who's never worked before."

"I'd say it was sensational," Greg Merton approved. "What's the business?"

"Investments. It's about time I grew up and learned to handle the property I'll inherit someday. I'm sick of traveling roxmd for golf tournaments, living up to my stubby nose by being conciliatory and amiable. From now on I'm a smart fella, whose 'No' is no, and no kidding."

"And a working man. Somehow I can't picture you in overalls with a dinner pail, Skiddy," Linda teased. "But you are right. You should know how to take care of the property which will come to you. Speaking of property, has your mother ever traced her stolen jewelry?"

"Not even a sparkle of it. Hung around waiting for you to come out of that restaurant tonight, Lindy, but you and Sanders put on a disappearing act. Where'd you go? It made me so homesick to see you that soon as I could shake off the guy who was entertaining me I looked up your address and beat it over here."

Linda was uncomfortably aware of the three pairs of eyes that flashed to her face.

"Dining with her boss and she called it business!" Hester's exclamation was drenched with jealousy. "Do you hear that, Greg?"

"Why not? Many big deals have been discussed and put across over a dinner. I presume it was an important deal, Miss Bourne?"

"Very important." Linda hotly resented the tinge of sarcasm in Gregory Merton's question. Was he implying that the sale of the Steele estate was the "deal"? "Why didn't you come to the table and speak to me. Skid? Ashamed of your country cousin?"

"You, country! You knocked the spots out of every female in that room for looks, Lindy." His voice was rough with affection. "I didn't want to meet Sanders. I've never forgiven

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him for cutting-in and making a play for you, last summer. You wouldn't expect me to give him the glad hand, would you? He was a guest at the house and I had to treat him decently, but in little old New York, that's another thing again. He's a four-flusher."

"I'm working for him. And what's more I like and admire him very, very much."

"Well, I'll be—"

"Linda, ring for Libby. She's preparing a snack for us." Ruth Brewster's calm voice interrupted Grant's explosive protest. "I don't know why, but here we feel that we must eat at midnight. I never in my life did it at home."

"One of Libby's snacks makes the perfect ending to a perfect day." Linda touched a button in the wall.

"Has this been a perfect day for you. Miss Bourne?" Gregory Merton spoke directly to her for the first time since she had entered the room.

Her sturdy chin went up a trifle.

"Super-perfect. I borrowed that 'super* from Hollywood. There hasn't been an unoccupied moment since I entered the office at nine-thirty A.M. The batteries of one comer of the real-estate market appear to have been recharged. Ours, in case you care. The World and his Wife are either buying, building or selling houses. It's the war in Europe, I presume. I understand that during the last one prices rocketed. Apparently people do not intend to be caught again. 'Buy now* has become a slogan. I hope the boom has hit the Merton office, also," she added with exaggerated concern.

"Is dickering in houses and land your business, Merton?" Skidmore Grant inquired.

"Dickering has been the word for it during the last few years, though, as Miss Bourne says, there is a decided upswing. The bulk of my business is the management of buildings and apartment houses for our clients."

"Then I'll bet you're the man I'm looking for. Tve just inherited a city block from an uncle. I don't like the agent and—"

"Skiddy—"

"No, you don't get it for your boss Sanders, Lindy. I won't give it to you."

"Nobody asked you to, 'smart fella.' I was about to say that I hoped it wasn't your granduncle Paul who had died."

"Nope. It was another you never met." Liberty Hull entered carrying a laden tray. "Lib, if you open your mouth like that something's bound to fly down your throat and then—^here give me that tray before you drop it."

"Well, of all things, if it am't Skid Grant!" The woman's 55

face, usually austere, broke into a wide smile. "Jest pull out that table, Mr. Merton, and open them leaves."

"Do you call this a snack, Ruth? I'd call it a gorge," Gregory Merton observed as Grant set down the laden tray.

"Land's sake, Mr. Merton, I've got to have somethin' to do to keep me busy. What with one thing an' another, it don't take no time 'tall to slick up this apartment an' Ruth an' Lindy are so 'fraid they'll get fat I don't have much real cookin*. That's fine. I always say, it takes men to do things right. Now you an' Ruth go an' set down, Lindy—never have to tell Hester not to help—Skid an* Mr. Merton an' me'll do the passin'."

Ruth smiled at Linda who nodded understandingly in response. Libby Hull liked men. Not in any sentimental way, just thought them as a whole grand persons. She was never happier than when feeding them. If it is true that a man's heart is in his stomach, she must have won scores of male hearts. She was a wonderful cook. She didn't care much for women except for Ruth and Linda whom she loved devotedly —didn't trust the rank and file.

"My stars. Skid," she exclaimed, "must have felt in my bones that you were coming, when I trekked out to market just after lunch to get mushrooms for these sandwiches. You were always wheedling me to make 'em when you an' Linda dropped in to Ruth's for tea an* the Lord knows that was often. And that makes me think—^why haven't you been to see us before? Folks at home said they knew when Lindy left town you'd be a-following."

"Oh, come now, Libby, don't be so modest. You know it's you and your mushroom sandwiches I'd follow to the ends of the earth," Grant wheedled, though her words had set a deeper shade of color in his already sufficiently ruddy face.

Linda, looking up suddenly, met Gregory Merton's eyes. Was there a question in them or had she imagined it?

"Looks as if Cinderella had another Prince to take her out, Miss Bourne," he observed. "Grant, added to the one you have, makes two, doesn't it?"

What had he meant by the one she had? Himself or Keith Sanders?

"The more the merrier," she responded lightly. "Libby, the sandwiches are wonderful. I must bring my boss home someday for tea. He would love them.**

"SO YOU think I was rough with Linda Boume, JanetT' Gregory Merton inquired, looking down at his sister as she curled up in a chair in front of the fire in the huge living room in her home. "Think I was unjust when I accused her of being an informer, of telling Keith Sanders that Madam Jane Steele was about to sell her estate?"

"I do. I think you were crazy. Did I mention Aunt Jane's surname that afternoon? If I did, I don't remember it and if I didn't how could Miss Bourne know of whom we were speaking? You're off on the wrong foot, Greg. You're a dear until you get your back up about something and then you're unbearable. Heaven help your wife."

"Heaven won't have to get busy at present." A laugh cleared his eyes of moodiness. "And I'll never have one if a girl comes to you for a recommendation."

"You have your points. Fd be willing to stake my soul that if you once loved and married a woman you would be true as steel."

Her wistful dark eyes, the unsteadiness of her voice, hurt him unbearably. How much did she know of her husband's philandering? As if she sensed his troubled regard she said quickly:

"We're off the track; let's get back to your lovely Lindy."

"She isn't mine. She's Sanders'."

"Don't growl over a mere figure of speech, Greg. I thought she was charming, natural, with a special quality of sincerity. What did she do? She must have done something before you met her in Aunt Jane's garden to shake your confidence in her or you wouldn't have been suspicious of her all in a minute. You say you saw her there a week after she had tea with you. Was she unfriendly at the Inn?"

"No. We had a grand drive back to the city. She's a lot of fun. We had discussed the European war whUe at tea so we pushed that horror into the background. Talked of books, the plays that were coming and discovered that surrealism in its rawest state induced in us both a slight stirring of nausea. We were in the midst of an animated argument as to politics when we stopped in front of the apartment house. She had worked on a getting-out-votes committee in her home town and had views, but emphatically."

"Did she say anything about her family, her life before she came to New York?" 40

"Not a word. I tried once or twice to steer the conversation in that direction but she as steadUy switched it back. It was ahnost as if she were determined to talk only of impersonal affairs."

"I can't believe that she passed our conversation on to Keith Sanders. I thought her one of the most attractive girls I had met in years and I fell hard for her speaking voice, it is so beautiful, so alive. Sure you've told me everything?"

"Not quite." He kicked a log in the fire behind him, watched the shower of sparks fly up the chimney before he turned again to his sister.

"Not by a long shot. The moment we entered the entresol of the apartment where she lives, she turned frigid—perhaps you can explain that—^murmured something about telephoning and darted down the hall. Apparently she couldn't wait to get word to Sanders that the Steele estate was in the market. Left me standing there with her sister staring after her as if I'd been struck dumb."

"A sister! You haven't told me of her before." Janet Colton came out of her curl and sat erect. "The plot thickens. When did you meet her?'* _

"At Plattsburg. I was on my way to dine at her home when I saw Linda on the village street, mistook her for Hester and hailed her."

"Was she at dmner that night?"

"No. She had a previous date."

"Is the sister pretty?"

"They look a lot alike but Hester hasn't Linda's zing. Ruth says that Mrs. Bourne has spoiled her elder daughter. She doesn't work, isn't interested in much that I can discover but clothes and good times. She indulges in a high-frequency pout that is amusing at present, but which, I suspect, won't age well."

"I get it. Clinging-vine type?"

"That's the general idea."

"Who's Ruth? Another sister?"

"No. Ruth Brewster is their friend. Lost both parents in an automobile accident; left comfortably fixed financially, I judge. She decided to pull herself out of a rut, came to New York, subleased an apartment on Fifth Avenue opposite the Park—it's the last word in modern decor—and brought Linda along with her. She has taken up portrait painting. She's a grand person."

"Sounds like an interesting setup. Take me to call sometime, then I'll invite them here for a week end. Something tells me that the lovely Hester would intrigue Bill. He likes them beautiful but dumb. He has been away two days. I

wonder where a man like Bill stays when he isn't at home." She blinked long lashes. Gregory Merton ached to get his hands on his brother-in-law and beat sense into him.

"Stays at his Club, of course. Don't get ideas, Janet. Bill loves you and the boy; nothing can touch that love, it*s unshakable. It's a sort of devil in him that takes possession at times and makes him run around with other women to reassure himself that he still has what it takes. Don't think I'm approving of it; I'm trying to explain the make-up of some men, that's all."

"You never would be like that, Greg."