Silver Wings (3 page)

Just then there came a knock at the door!

I
t was only the maid with a tray, but Amory was trembling as if she were about to be brought to trial in a court of law. What on earth was the matter with her, she wondered, acting silly like this! Just because she had been caught looking out the window. She had a right to look out the window, didn’t she, even if she was only a hired servant?

She scrambled to her feet and met the question in the maid’s eye.

“I was watching an airplane land,” she explained confusedly.

“Oh, that’s Mr. Theodore,” explained the maid. “He’s just back from his Canada hop. They said he was coming, but his aunt didn’t seem to expect him very much. Now he’s come, things will happen fast. He keeps things always on the go.”

“Oh,” said Amory, striving for some of her vanished dignity. “Does he live here? It must be exciting to know someone who flies.”

“Well, no, he doesn’t live here, but he comes often. His aunt always sends for him whenever she has a house party. But since he’s been flying, she can’t always get him. That’s why she let them make an airstrip over there on her property, so he could come just any time and not have to travel far after he landed. Do you like your tea strong, Miss Lorrimer? And will you have cream or lemon?”

“Oh, lemon, please,” said Amory, “but don’t trouble about me. I’ll look after myself. I’m used to doing it.”

“You’re very kind,” said the maid, “but I have my orders, of course. The cook sent you a bit of salad and a chicken sandwich. She thought you might be hungry after your journey, and dinner’s not till half past eight.”

“Oh, that was kind,” said Amory. “Thank her for me, please. And I hope I can do something for both of you sometime.”

The maid melted a little from her settled apathy. “You can call me Christine,” she volunteered, “and I’ll be back later for the tray.”

The tray proved to be most tempting. Delicate little chicken sandwiches, a delectable salad of which Amory had difficulty in identifying the ingredients, fragrant tea, cinnamon toast, and delightful little delicate cakes.

She settled down in an unobtrusive chair, quite out of range from any curious eyes below, and arranged the curtain so that she could watch the pretty panorama and bright costumes on the terrace and listen to the cheerful banter as it rose to her window while she ate.

Several young men had appeared below, and there was a subdued clatter of tea things as the well-trained servants moved about serving everybody. Amory could see Christine waiting with her serving tray, and that would likely be Mrs. Whitney in the violet frock pouring the tea. Amory felt she was wearing far too startling makeup to be pleasant, for the contrast of her whitened skin, carmine lips, and dead black, severely cut hair did not make a pleasing ensemble. Yet she could see that there was a certain style and character about her that made her attractive. She noticed that all listened when she spoke, as if they liked her and wanted to please her.

The Whitney girls were probably those two with dark hair and blue eyes. They looked like their mother, and presently she heard someone say, “Caroline Whitney, where on earth have you been all afternoon? You don’t mean you went off and played tennis again with that kid brother of yours! I say, that isn’t fair. None of the rest of us are practicing for the tournament.”

“Oh,” said the girl called Caroline, “you all have the same opportunity to practice. There are plenty of courts, and Ned will play with anybody that asks him at any hour of the day.”

“I’ll say he will,” said the other dark-haired girl. “He’s nagged me all day long, but I couldn’t see it. It was too hot.”

So, she had identified three of the household. Now who was the striking girl with the gold hair? Beautiful, even in spite of the dangling earrings and the too-high color, which to Amory seemed in bad taste. Wait! Wasn’t she the one who had caught the fluttering paper from the airplane as if it were her right? She must be Diana, then.

And now came the young aviator, with marvelous promptness, considering that he seemed to have changed his garments and looked as fresh as if he had not just arrived from a long flight.

It was interesting to watch them as they sat chattering and sipping their tea, calling little nothings back and forth to one another, gossiping about others who were to arrive that evening or on the morrow. Amory, from her sheltered chair behind the curtain, could see them all quite well and hear what they were saying. She hoped it wasn’t eavesdropping, this watching in on a group of beings who were as much out of her world as a bird is out of a human’s. It was just as well, she thought, for her to get a line on the people she was to be among. It would help her to adjust her life to her surroundings more quickly.

She sat there after she had finished her tray and put it aside, trying to think how it would seem if she were one of the guests in that house, instead of a paid secretary. How would she feel if she were sitting, for instance, down in that great chair with the high fan-shaped back, where the golden Diana sat, and the young aviator near with his teacup in his hand looking down and smiling at her? Would she be able to hold her own in a group of young people like that? It was not her world, but could she make a good showing in it if she had to, or would she be shy and awkward and be thinking of herself all the time?

But what a silly idea. It was not her world, and why should she imagine such things?

She was half impatiently turning away from the window when Mrs. Whitney spoke, and she lingered to listen to the pleasant, cultured voice, curious to know just what her employer would be like.

“I have just had a most annoying letter from Mr. Whitney’s nephew,” she said in a voice touched just the least shade with plaintiveness, as if appealing to her young guests to somehow make right whatever was troubling her. “He writes that he is coming to visit us if we will have him, and of course Mr. Whitney will think he’ll have to be made welcome. The worst of it is, Mr. Whitney adores him. He’s the son of his youngest sister who died years ago, and he idealized her. I shall have to have him, there are no two ways about it.”

Groans ensued from the two young Whitney girls. “What a plague!” said Caroline, tossing her curly black mane.

“It’s perfectly poisonous!” said Doris. “I mean to reason with Dad about it.”

“Well, it won’t do a particle of good!” said the mother sweetly. “Besides, he’s on the way. He’ll be here tomorrow morning, more is the pity, and your father won’t be home till tomorrow night. If I should tell him we had no room for his only nephew, he would never forgive me.”

“What’s the matter with him? Why worry so much? Isn’t he young?” called out a young woman who was stretched out, with a good length of silk stocking in evidence, on a long steamer chair. “Let him come! We can get away with several more men in the crowd and not know it.”

“Oh, but Susanne, he’s quite impossible!” said the hostess wearily. “He’s religious, you know, and he won’t be in the least congenial. In fact, he’s a regular preacher, has taken some kind of orders, you know. Besides all that, he has some awfully strange ideas. Thinks the end of the world is coming soon or something like that. Oh, he’s quite impossible! And to have him arrive just at this time, too, when I wanted everything to be perfect!”

“Holy cats!” exclaimed an impudent, pink-cheeked girl whose body resembled an animated pole. “I should say! Mother Whitney, what’ll you give us if we get rid of him without bothering Papa Whitney at all? I’ll bet we could do it. Leave it to us, and we’ll send him flying, without letting him know what it’s all about.”

“That’s an idea!” said one of the young men. “Send him flying! Get Teddy to carry him off and lose him, somewhere so far away he can’t get back till the party’s over.”

“Oh, but Mr. Whitney would never forgive Ted if he did that. Besides, I doubt if John would go. He’s quite too devoted to his work to take a day off for anything he considers worldly. I don’t know how he is now, but he was bad enough as a child. He’s bound to be worse from all I’ve heard.”

“Well, it will be dead easy to get rid of him,” declared Susanne. “We’ll just whoop it up and make it too hot for him to stay! He’ll pick up his belongings and run, if he’s that kind. I personally will see to that.”

“But Susanne, dear,” pleaded the hostess, “I couldn’t really let you do that, for the man will simply have to stay until his engagement to preach is over. It seems he’s supplying the village church for three weeks, and Mr. Whitney will insist on our being courteous to him. I’m not sure but he will think we ought to even go to church to hear him.”

Groans ensued from the entire party, and then Diana spoke up.

“What’s the use in making such a fuss about something we can’t help? Leave him to me! I’ll make him forget he’s ever seen a pulpit! Let’s make the best of it and get a good time out of it. What do you say to my getting the poor sap to fall for me and reducing him to common sense? I think it would be rather fun myself. I’m tired to death of all the old excitements and would just enjoy a new thrill.”

“Mercy, Diana, he wouldn’t look at you, with all that makeup on you!” declared his cousin Caroline with a sneer. “Why, he’d simply run from the sight of those worldly earrings, and you’d have to let down your skirts and wear stockings! I’m sure if he would ever see you in your new bathing suit, he’d faint completely away, and you wouldn’t have a chance with him unless you cut all cocktails and stopped smoking!”

“It couldn’t be done!” chanted Doris. “Even Diana couldn’t do that!”

“Oh, yes, I could, if I chose,” said Diana lazily, looking up at the clouds. “I’m not sure but I’d enjoy it. I could get converted, you know. It would be a new line. Naive, you know. I could telephone in town for some simple white frocks. If I couldn’t get rid of him, I could at least keep him busy so he wouldn’t bother the rest of you.”

“Oh, but really, Diana, I couldn’t let a guest sacrifice herself to that extent. I really couldn’t,” protested the hostess.

“But it wouldn’t be a sacrifice,” said Diana, showing her pretty white teeth in a fiendish little grin. “I tell you, it would be a new thrill, and I’ll do it so perfectly that Papa Whitney will never suspect.”

“But Diana, I wouldn’t like to have you carry it too far! You know Mr. Whitney was very fond of his youngest sister—and the young man is really a fine fellow, only he just doesn’t fit here—”

“I understand, Mama Whitney, and I won’t be anything but a means of grace to the dear fellow—isn’t that what you call it? I’ll just let him see how much he’s missing, being like that. That’s all.”

Mrs. Whitney smiled indulgently at the pretty girl and shook her head reprovingly.

“Oh, Di, Di, I’m afraid you are incorrigible. You’re just like your mother when she was your age! Well, I’ll have to leave you to your fun, of course, only I do hope you’ll be discreet. You know you can carry even a joke too far, and I shouldn’t like my nephew to think we were rude to him. After all, he is a relative.”

“Do you really mean it, Diana?” asked Caroline, sitting up from her recumbent position on the terrace. “What will you do if Barry Blaine gets here? You can’t play two parts at once.”

“Well, you may have him, darling Caroline, just for the occasion, you know. I know you’ll be fair about it, and I’d rather you had him than any of the other girls, because you won’t take too much advantage of me.”

This remark was answered with screams of laughter from the rest of the group.

“Well, you’d better go in, Diana, and get your makeup off, if you really mean it,” called Caroline, who had been looking over her mother’s shoulder and reading her cousin’s letter, “for he’ll never look at you like that. I imagine it’ll take you some time to practice for your new part. I doubt if you can do it first off.”

“Thanks!” said Diana lazily. “Leave my part to me. I don’t intend to take off anything for the first act, please. He’s got to take an interest in me, see, and try to convert me, because I’m so worldly. Don’t worry, I’ve got it all thought out.”

“And where do I come in?” asked the aviator, hanging over Diana’s chair and laughing down into her eyes.

“Oh, you come in for the first dance tomorrow night, old Teddy. We’ll do the latest for him and let him see how worldly I am right at the start, see?”

“My eye, you will!” said Caroline. “He’ll not be there. John never was known to go to a dance, and he’ll run from the house the minute it’s mentioned. You see!”

“He’ll be there!” said Diana, prettily confident. “And he’ll see me! You wait and watch, infant! There are more ways than one of catching a fly, and you don’t know them all yet. Come on, Susanne, I’m going up and take a nap, so I’m bright and fresh for the evening, unless”—and she lingered, looking up at the young aviator—“unless Teddy’s game for a set of tennis before he dresses.”

“Sold!” said the aviator, and catching her hand, he ran off to the tennis court.

Laughing, the rest of the company broke up and scattered into the house.

The two Whitney girls lingered to speak annoyedly to their mother.

“Well, I don’t think Diana will do anything really rude, dear,” said the mother. “You know she can always get around Daddy! Yes, I understand that this is quite a crowd to handle, but I don’t really think any of them will overstep the mark. And anyhow, I had to explain him somehow before he came. Now, girls, run and get a little rest before dinner. You both have dark circles under your eyes, and it isn’t becoming. Your father’ll notice it pretty soon, and that’ll not be so good.”

The terrace grew quiet, and Amory came out from her hiding and peered down below. The sun was dropping low toward a mountain in the distance and casting long shadows of the trees on the lawn. There was rosy light over everything, and the world looked very beautiful and good. Yet the girl, as she stood there looking down at the deserted chairs pushed back and the littered tea table, suddenly shivered as she thought over what she had just heard.

Was it possible they all meant that cruel joke? Were they really going to play a farce on a poor young fellow who was probably from the country somewhere and would not understand what was being done to him? Would they really carry it out, or were they just joking among themselves? She could not think that anybody would be so mean.