Romance Classics (77 page)

In the morning, when Scott's car was brought to the door, she and Jane and Tim went out with him to the terrace to say good-bye. The sun was shining brilliantly as though yesterday's lowering clouds and dripping rain had never been. The azaleas, freshly washed faces lifted joyously to the sun were breath-taking in that golden radiance, and the lawn stretched away, dotted with giant live-oaks, to where the ancient bulkhead sought to hold back the deep, narrow black river.

Scott drew a deep delighted breath of appreciation as he looked out over the scene before him.

“If I had ever had the slightest doubt of the wisdom of moving south to a small town, this would erase that doubt. So much beauty and peace and harmony,” he breathed, and flushed a little at the faintly derisive light in Kate's eyes.

“We like it,” said Tim happily, and wrung Scott's hand and said hospitably, “keep in touch with us. You must come to dinner as soon as you get settled. And if there is anything we can do, don't hesitate to call on us.”

“Thanks, I won't. You've been very kind and I'm deeply grateful for your hospitality,” Scott assured him fervently. And to Kate, “I don't know yet just what sort of entertainment Hamilton permits me to offer, but as soon as I find out, I hope you will share it with me.”

“Oh, you'll find the pace is very mad,” she assured him gravely, though her eyes twinkled a little. “Bridge parties, luncheons, dinners, teas, an occasional movie, and once last winter they had a concert, so I am told.”

“Sounds quite a breathless pace,” Scott agreed. “We'll have to plunge into the stream and fight our way against the tide.”

Driving into Hamilton, Scott looked about him with keen appreciation and interest. He liked the cleanness of the downtown section; he liked the residential streets, shaded by giant live-oaks, the old-fashioned, comfortable-looking houses set well back on their neat green lawns, with beds of tulips and daffodils and spring shrubs that were new to him.

He had no trouble finding the hotel. The neat four-story brick on the corner where the cross-country highway bisected the town's Main Street was almost aggressively new and modern.

“Oh, yes, Doctor Etheridge.” The clerk greeted him as though he had been a long-lost friend. “We've been expecting you.”

“Well, thanks, that's very good of you,” said Scott pleasantly, and a few minutes later looked contentedly about a big square room on the third floor. He could be quite comfortable here, he told himself happily, and very contented.

The telephone shrilled imperiously and Scott picked it up.

“Doctor Etheridge?” a jovial masculine voice spoke in his ear. “Stuart Parham here. Delighted to know you've arrived.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Scott. “Nice of you to call.”

“I thought if you had nothing better to do you might have lunch. It's our Kiwanis meeting day, and would give you a chance to begin getting acquainted with the crowd.”

“I'd like that a lot.”

“Good. Then the coffee shop at the hotel at one o'clock. I'll see you there,” said Stuart Parham. “Heard a lot of fine things about you from our mutual friend, Doctor Caine. Looking forward to meeting you.”

Scott had never lived in a small town and was unprepared for the atmosphere that greeted him when he went down to the lobby a few minutes before one and a tall, lean, sun-bronzed man whose graying hair belied the youth in his eyes came to greet him.

“Hello, Etheridge, I'm Parham,” said the man, and gave Scott a firm grip. “Come along and meet the fellows.”

There was a spate of introductions, friendly welcomes to the town, cheerful conversation. Later, when they were settled at a long table down the center of the dining room — formed by pushing a number of smaller tables together — a short, chunky little man with a cherubic pink face and a neat, close-clipped gray moustache seated himself beside Scott.

“You can't be expected to remember names this early in the game, Etheridge,” the little rolypoly pink man said cheerfully. “I'm Blair, a dentist.”

Scott acknowledged the introduction, and while the first course of the luncheon was being served, Blair went on: “Made any arrangements about office space, Etheridge?”

“After all, I only arrived in town an hour ago,” Scott laughed.

Blair nodded.

“What I figured,” he said cheerfully, “and one reason why I changed an appointment so I could come over to lunch, is that I have a setup you might like. I have a three-room suite; reception room with a very good receptionist who could look after your work as well as mine; a good-sized private office you could have. It's a good location, in the Medical Arts Building right downtown. Telephone answering service, and I know a good office nurse who's available if you want one.”

“That sounds wonderful,” said Scott sincerely, “if I can afford it.”

Blair chuckled. “Oh, you can afford it. Cost you one hundred a month, and fifty a week for the receptionist. Okay?”

“Very okay, thanks a lot,” said Scott, impressed.

“Good. I'll take you over and show you around after lunch if you like,” said Blair, and then — “Uh, oh, speeches about to begin. Darned nuisance, but suppose this is one of the reasons we have these weekly get-togethers.”

Scott looked about him. There were twenty men about the table, mostly men of middle-age, though there were a sprinkling of younger men. He was unobtrusively trying to sort them all out, attach the right name to the right face, and congratulating himself on having had the wisdom to accept Doctor Caine's advice and come here to practice, when a name caught his attention.

“I tell you,” Stuart Parham was saying harshly, “Tim Ryan is a fool.”

“Oh, now Stu, I don't know as I'd go that far,” protested someone farther down the table, his voice mild.

“Either he is a fool, or he's a dangerous man,” said Stuart Parham, his voice even more bitter. “Do you know what he has done?”

“Well, perhaps not the latest.” The fat, white-haired, pink-faced man who had protested was still mild and peaceful.

“There are seven tenant houses on the Parham place. Oh, do forgive me. I mean River's Edge,” said Parham, and there was a thinly concealed sneer in his words. “Well, Ryan has remodeled every one of them, painted them outside and in, put in new floors, screened them, and put in plumbing. When I think what those tenants are going to do, with a bathroom and running water in the kitchen — ”

“That must have cost him a pretty penny,” said someone.

“Oh, but that's not all,” said Parham bitterly. “He has also bought refrigerators, ranges, and hot water heaters for every one of those houses, and probably put down linoleum in the kitchens and baths, for all I know.”

“Good grief!” said somebody. “Why, not one of us will ever be able to get another tenant unless we do likewise.”

Parham's flushed face darkened still more. “I understand you met Ryan last night — accident, wasn't it? I believe your car went off the road into a ditch. That's another thing. It's disgraceful that he doesn't keep that road in repair.”

“The accident was my fault, not that of the road,” said Scott quietly. “It was almost dark, it was raining. I had taken the wrong turn at the crossroads, and had no business on the road at all.”

Stuart Parham said grimly, “But you met Ryan. What did you think of him?”

“I liked him a lot,” said Scott swiftly. “He seemed far from a fool and a man of very sound business ability.”

Parham's jaw hardened.

“Well, of course, Etheridge, you are new here and you don't realize how dependent we all are on our colored help. The labor situation is a nightmare. It's bad enough without Ryan coming here, flaunting his money, and paying fantastic wages.”

A white-haired man the others called Bart looked amused. “Well, in view of the fact that Ryan has bought the property outright and it's his own money he's spending, I can't think offhand of anything that anybody is going to do to stop him from developing the property and spending the money to suit himself.”

“Perhaps if a committee approached him and pointed out that the way he treats his colored is making it tough for the rest of us — ” Parham began.

“He'd throw you off the property,” said the thin, graying man promptly.

Stuart's angry eyes flashed around the table, but the men all looked at him quietly, calmly, and after a moment he said gruffly, “Well, at least I've stated my position in the matter. That's all I can do.” But there was an angry, sullen look on his face that made Scott eye him curiously as the luncheon progressed.

Later, as he was about to leave with Blair, Parham stopped him.

“Mrs. Parham and I are expecting you for dinner tonight, Scott. Seven o'clock?”

“Thanks, I'd like that. It's very kind of you,” said Scott sincerely.

“Happy to have you.” He was still in a bad temper and his voice was curt. “Anybody can tell you how to get to our place. See you then.”

When Blair and Scott were in Blair's car driving the four blocks to the Medical Arts Building, Blair cleared his throat and said awkwardly, “I don't want to get out of line, Scott, but I've lived here a good many years, so a word of — shall we call it warning? — wouldn't come amiss. You want to get off on the right foot in Hamilton, I know.”

“I most certainly do.”

“Good. Then watch your step around Parham.” And as though he instantly regretted his frankness, he hurried on, “Oh, he's one of the best, but he's got a pretty rough temper and he never forgives an injury, real or fancied. And he's out to get Ryan. So don't take up for Ryan too much until you learn the situation a little more clearly.”

“But I understand that Ryan bought the property after it had been for sale for a good many years. Surely there was nothing personal in it, no reason why Parham should be so bitter?”

Blair hesitated as he turned the car in through a driveway and parked it in back of the neat red-brick edifice that was the Medical Arts Building.

“Of course there's no reason to it at all. You know, sometimes a thought occurs to me that Parham might hate Ryan a little less if Ryan hadn't leaned over backward in his efforts to be fair.”

“But that's fantastic.”

“There are people with so much pride that they resent a favor or a concession of any kind,” said Blair, sliding his pudgy body out of the car. “Oh, for Pete's sake, let's skip it. After all, it's a matter between Ryan and Parham.”

Blair led the way around to the side of the building and through the lobby to the elevators.

Scott liked the office. The reception room was of fair size, comfortably furnished, and Miss Henderson, Blair's receptionist, was an earnest, bespectacled woman in her middle thirties who looked thoroughly competent and anxious to please.

When the details had been settled, and the office opening to the left of the reception room was officially Scott's, he took leave of Doctor Blair and Miss Henderson and went out for a walk about the town.

It was a pleasant, attractive small city of perhaps fifteen to twenty thousand people. The business section was built around Courthouse Square, an ancient, mellow red brick building, shaded by towering live-oaks.

Residential streets ran left and right from the square and Scott strolled along some of these, delighted to discover a stately porticoed white antebellum home, its walk box-bordered. Here and there were smart, expensive-looking modern homes, and a few mellow old bricks — all prosperous-looking, adding to the attractive appearance of the town.

When at last he found his way back to the hotel he was more than ever delighted that he had followed Doctor Caine's advice and chosen Hamilton as his home. He looked forward to settling down there quite peaceably; to becoming a part of the community; to giving it his best in medical skill, civic consciousness, and devotion.

He bought the afternoon edition of Hamilton's one daily paper and went up to his room. Scanning it, he discovered that a new movie would open at one of the town's three theaters the following evening, and on a sudden impulse he called the Ryan number.

“Yes?” said a voice so curt, so crisp that for an instant he did not realize it was Kate speaking.

“Well, hello, there!” he greeted her happily. “This is the fellow who ran off your road into your ditch and into your home — fellow name of Scott Etheridge. Remember?”

He caught the warmth which surged into Kate's voice as she laughed. “I do seem to have the faintest possible memory.”

“You are as kind as you are beautiful. Want to be even kinder and go to the movies with me tomorrow night?”

“I'd love it, if you'll come here to dinner first.”

“It's a date! And thanks a million.”

There was a moment of hesitation and then Kate asked lightly, “And now that you have seen Hamilton, are you still grateful to your friend for suggesting it?”

“It's quite a nice place, outwardly at any rate,” answered Scott cautiously. “I had lunch with the Kiwanis today as a guest of Stuart Parham, and met a lot of the men I hope to make friends of, eventually.”

“Oh?” Her voice was polite, wary.

“And I've found an office, and as soon as my equipment gets here, I'll be open for business.” He was conscious of hurrying on, almost as though the mere mention of Stuart Parham had been a sort of verbal thin ice. “I'm sharing office space with a Doctor Blair. Know him?”

“The dentist? Oh, yes, he did some work for Jane and she swears by him, whereas she usually swears
at
dentists,” said Kate lightly. “He seems quite nice.”

“Good. I'm glad to know you like him. It's a nice setup and I was in luck to get it,” said Scott happily. “What time shall I come tomorrow?”

“Suppose we go to the second show that begins at nine? And come to dinner at seven. That should give us plenty of time,” said Kate, and a moment later the telephone clicked into place.