Rainbow Cottage (15 page)

By the time everything was picked up and they had come into the house again, they could see a man on a bicycle speeding down the beach posthaste.

Jacqueline Lammorelle, attired in flaming orange and black silk pajamas, was standing by the window smoking a cigarette and looking out on the embers of the fire she had lit in the kitchen garden.

There was a smile of amusement on her sharp little features, and her red lips painted vividly to a cupid’s bow showed her small gleaming white teeth in a wicked, elfish grin. She was watching the stranger girl gathering up tenderly the old cotton rags that she had set on fire, even shaking out the funny old-fashioned blue serge, still smoldering, and carrying that in also. Grandmother and Janet had gone in now, and Jacqueline put her head back and opened her red lips in a hearty, soundless laugh that shook her slender young body with a noiseless mirth.

Then suddenly she heard footsteps on the stairs and became alert. There was the sound of a rattling key in her door, and she turned sharp black eyes in that direction and saw her key slowly turn in its hole and descend with a sharp clatter to the floor. Then with catlike quickness, she threw her cigarette out the window and sprang toward the bed, flinging back the covers and diving in with a single noiseless motion that was so smooth and quick it was like the gliding of a beautiful snake.

When Jason Crumb flung back the door and Grandmother entered the room, Jacqueline lay fast asleep in the bed, the covers folded halfway down around her and one lovely sleeveless arm flung back engagingly on the pillow, the most innocent-looking smile upon her lips.

“Jacqueline!” Grandmother’s voice promised swift retribution.

Jacqueline lay sweetly slumbering, not even disturbed by the menace to her rest.

Jason Crumb, after one keen glimpse of the rosy cheeks and lips of the sleeper about whom he had long held his opinion, faded swiftly down the stairs with a shake of his head. Grandmother walked determinedly across the room to the head of the bed and, reaching down, took firm hold of one silk-strapped shoulder and shook her grandniece with all her indignant might.

Jacqueline stirred prettily in her sleep and murmured sweetly without opening her eyes, “Did someone call?” and then settled down into her pillow and went on slumbering as if nothing had happened.

Grandmother gazed at her an instant and then took hold of the covers of the bed and dragged them off to the floor, pulling the pillow out from under the sleek black head and flinging it on the floor also. Then she summarily walked to the bathroom and brought out a dripping wash rag, which she dashed into the slumberer’s face, covering her nose and mouth so completely that the girl gasped for breath.

“Get up, you hussy!” commanded Grandmother.

Jacqueline sprang nimbly to the floor and reproachfully helped her great aunt to undrape the bed.

“But what’s the idea, Aunt Myra?” she asked wistfully. “Didn’t I get the right sheets? They seemed quite all right.”

Grandmother gathered up the bedding in her arms and turned to face the interloper.

“You had no business to come into this room, and you knew it. Janet told you that it was already occupied. You saw another guest’s belongings in the room already.”

“Oh, no I didn’t, Aunt Myra. I truly didn’t!” declared the miscreant, wide eyed. “I was particular to open the bureau drawers and look, and I didn’t find a thing except a pocket flashlight with Angus Galbraith’s card tied to it, and I knew he wasn’t here yet because he told me himself up in the mountains that he wouldn’t be here till tomorrow, and anyhow, I knew he was going to be at his uncle’s. So I looked in the closet, and there was only an old dirty, smelly, woolly skirt and coat that I thought the cleaning woman must have left here because she was done with it, and a funny old leather bag with some coarse rags in it, and a lot of trash, so I took it down and burned it in the backyard. I thought you would be pleased that I had been so helpful!”

Suddenly Sheila appeared in the doorway, carrying the recovered property, her eyes wide and indignant but a steady look about her white lips.

Sheila had been trained in the school of sorrow. She knew how to speak in a low, controlled voice. “They may have seemed like trash to you,” she said with a quiver of her lips, “but they were very precious to me!”

Jacqueline stared for an instant, startled at the vision of a girl fully as good looking as herself and dressed in what she knew to be a smart outfit. Then she drew away toward the window and leaned against the wall, lifting her chin a trifle haughtily yet smiling indulgently.

“Oh?
Really?”
she said sweetly. “I couldn’t imagine it, of course, that anything as forlorn could be at all precious to anyone. I thought I was helping to clean up. I hope you’ll excuse me.”

“I’ll excuse you,” said Sheila gravely, still holding the armful of smoky garments, “if you’ll tell me what you did with the rest of the things. Particularly the little carved box and the things that were in it.”

“Box?” said Jacqueline, drawing her slim, plucked eyebrows in puzzlement. “Why, really, I don’t remember seeing any box. You must have put it somewhere else. Or else perhaps it got burned up. I really didn’t notice.”

“It was not burned up,” said Sheila firmly, “and I
must
have it, please, right away. It had some very valuable papers in it. One quite important!”

“Now, isn’t that too bad,” said Jacqueline sweetly. “I really didn’t see any papers at all that I remember. Perhaps an old letter or two. But people never keep old letters nowadays. And as for valuable papers, those things are always registered, aren’t they? You probably won’t have any trouble getting a duplicate. I have a lawyer friend, and he told me that once. By the way, nobody has introduced us. Who is she, anyway, Aunt Myra?”

“She is my granddaughter, Sheila Ainslee,” snapped out Grandmother, “and I don’t like the way you have treated her in the least.”

The way she said “my granddaughter” made it plain that the relationship was just a little closer and a little finer in Grandmother’s estimation than it was between herself and Jacqueline.

“Oh really!” said Jacqueline, turning around and appraising her rival with a wide, disagreeable stare. “Why, how thrilling! How is it I never heard of her before?”

Grandmother did not deign to answer. She swept the sheets into closer compass and waved her hand toward her grandniece.

“Just move over to the yellow room, Jacqueline; this room has been Sheila’s since she came. Janet, take those dresses out of the closet and bring them to the other room.”

“Oh, but really, Aunt Myra, you always put me in this room when I’m here. Don’t you remember?” Then whirling on Janet. “Don’t you dare touch my things, Janet! I’ll move them myself when I get ready.”

“They’ll be moved at once!” said Grandmother. “What did you do with the sheets that were on this bed?”

“Oh, I threw them down the laundry chute,” said Jacqueline, as if she were greatly enjoying the scene.

“You took a great deal upon yourself!” said Grandmother irately. “However, it was almost time she had clean sheets anyway. Janet, get some of the linen sheets out from the top shelf and make up this bed again. But first, move those clothes out of the closet! I am still mistress in my own house, I hope. Now, Jacqueline, if you have anything in the bureau drawers you may get it out at once. Shelia’s trunk will be here in a few minutes, and she wants to unpack.”

Jacqueline lolled in the window seat and laughed.

“I don’t see why I should move my things. Let Janet move them all if she is going to do any,” she said perversely.

Sheila meantime had put down her bundle of things in the hall on a chair and came now and took the sheets from her grandmother.

“You are tired, Grandmother; let me make the other bed.”

“No,” said Grandmother decidedly. “Jacqueline will make it. She unmade your bed, and now she will make her own bed if it is made.”

“But I made it once,” laughed Jacqueline, giving a pretty little bored yawn. “Why should I have to make it again? If I were at home I wouldn’t have to make my bed at all.”

“Then why aren’t you at home?” asked the old lady, giving her a piercing look. “I was given to understand that you were spending the month in the mountains.”

“So I was till I got bored silly. But you see my boyfriend left and came on here, so I came to be near him. That’s plain, isn’t it?”

“Perfectly!” said Grandmother. “Now tell me what you did with Angus Galbraith’s flashlight and the card attached?”

“Oh, was that Angus’s flashlight? I thought he had thrown it away on the beach somewhere. It didn’t seem to be worth much. I’m sure I don’t know what I did with it. Threw it away with the trash perhaps. How can I be expected to look after other people’s keepsakes?” And she flashed a look of amused contempt at Sheila.

Sheila stooped over Grandmother to hide the flush that came to her sensitive cheeks and took the bundle of sheets. “I can at least carry these into the other room,” she said.

“Very well,” said Grandmother, surrendering the sheets and pulling open a bureau drawer. “Then I’ll move the rest of her things since she won’t do it herself.”

Grandmother drew the drawer entirely out of the bureau and marched out of the room, stopping on her way, however, to set the drawer down on a chair, pick up the key to the room, which lay on the floor, and put it in her pocket. Then she took up the drawer again and carried it briskly down the hall, though she was tired to weakness with all this excitement and anger, and her knees were fairly shaking under her. When she arrived in the yellow room she was puffing and panting like a steam engine, but she marched over to the unmade bed and dumped the contents of the drawer upon it.

“Now, Sheila, see if your box is here!” she commanded.

But Sheila only stood afar and could see at a glance that her property was not there.

Janet carried the drawer back again, Grandmother following, and found Jacqueline calmly sitting in the window seat, working at her nails with a little silver file and humming a popular song, as if she had no interest whatever in what was going on around her.

Janet carried the rest of the drawers in and emptied them on the bed in the yellow room, and Grandmother went back with them and looked over every article, but no sandalwood box appeared. Jacqueline remained indifferent.

But when they returned to the room the third time, Jacqueline was not there, and a moment later they saw her out on the beach running along in her little pink bare feet and nothing on but her orange and black pajamas.

“The hussy!” said Grandmother excitedly. “The
hussy
! I told her the last time she was here that I wouldn’t be disgraced this way by her again, and neither I will. I’ll send for her father. Janet, fetch me the telephone book, or call up the telegraph office for me.”

It was Sheila who protested.

“Don’t do it now, Grandmother. Go lie down for a little while and get rested. She’ll surely be ashamed and come in pretty soon.”

“Not she!
Ashamed?
She doesn’t know the meaning of the word. She’s a spoiled child, and she knows it. Dotes on it! Just see her! The shameless hussy! Dancing all over the beach like a five-year-old! And who is that coming down to meet her? Hugh Galbraith’s son Malcolm as I’m alive! Oh, I shall never be able to lift my head while she’s here.”

Sheila looked out of the window, and there was Jacqueline dancing around on her bare feet, her fingers interlaced around her sleek black head, flinging up first one orange and black–clad leg and then the other, whirling, pirouetting, and then turning a series of somersaults right on the beach, and righting herself on her pink toes again, like a mad sprite.

“Never mind, Grandmother; you can’t help it now, and surely anybody who knows you will know you don’t approve. Don’t feel so badly. Please go lie down, dear. You look all worn out.”

“I’m not worn out!” declared the belligerent old lady. “I’ve strength enough left in me to spank her yet, and I’ll do it when she comes in, see if I don’t!”

“Now, Grandmother! You’ll make yourself sick!” worried Sheila. “She’s only a kid, anyway, isn’t she?”

“No, she’s no kid. She’s twenty-four years old, nearly twenty-five. She’s just a little devil, that’s what she is! Look at her. Running to meet that young man! A married man, too! She knows his wife is dreadfully jealous, and yet she runs and catches his hand. See, they are running now along the beach. Oh, if my poor sister could have known that her daughter’s child would perform that way, she couldn’t have died happy. That girl is just doing all this to torment me!”

“Well then, Grandmother, why let her see that you are tormented? Why be tormented? Come on in the other room and let me help you into your robe. Get your hat off and wash your face in cool water. Janet, can’t you bring her a nice cold drink? Come, Grandmother, why bother about her? Just let—why—just let God manage her. Wouldn’t that be best? She’ll certainly get tired of acting after a while. And if she doesn’t feel she has an audience, it won’t be half so much fun for her, will it?”

“Well, I suppose you’re right, child,” said the old lady, suddenly sitting down as if her strength had given out and fanning herself with a magazine that lay on the hall table. “But it does make me furious to think she dared to touch your things! And that paper, too! Sheila, we
must
find it.”

“We’ll find it,” said Sheila calmly. “I’m sure we will. Or else, I’ve been thinking—perhaps there’s some reason why God wouldn’t want us to find it. I’m sure we’ll find it unless there is.”

“You’re a dear child, Sheila!” She smiled and patted the girl’s hair as she knelt before her to unfasten her shoes.

Janet had hustled off for the cool drink and now came bringing it, the ice cubes clinking musically against the thin glass.

The old lady drank it slowly and then submitted to be led off to her room. At the door she paused. “I’ll lie down on one condition: you two are to look through everything and see if that box is around.”

“I’d rather not, please, Grandmother!” said Sheila, looking distressed. “I don’t feel as if I should. She would never forgive me if she knew I had. If anything was missing of hers, she would always think I had taken it.”