The House without the Door (12 page)

Belden, winking openly at Gamadge, a demonstration which caused Mrs. Smiles to shake her finger at him, said: "Some patterns would be a good deal the better for a good long bath in a vat of dye."

"Now, Paul! Celia has been taken care of, and Mrs. Gregson has been taken care of too. Didn't you think Celia a lovely creature, Mr. Gamadge—spiritually, I mean?"

"If I'm allowed to be impertinent," said Gamadge, "I should like to say that I think it very strange the Gregsons didn't give her a full education and a chance to develop her faculties. She has had good fortune"—he bowed to Mrs. Smiles—"but she might possibly have completed her life pattern as a typist and stenographer. It's ludicrous."

Belden said: "Too be quite fair, Mrs. G. had no money; and a good many people wouldn't think Gregson had any moral reason to spend his on his wife's cousin. But I agree with you, it was a crime to put her into a business college. She only needed a chance—she could have got anywhere. Look what she's done with herself as it is! You ought to have seen her back in Omega when she was eleven or twelve—skinny, freckled, and a voice like a buzz saw."

They all laughed, but Gamadge did not feel like laughing; this last drink was depressing him. He said: "What did she do about it?"

"Her father sent her to a first-class boarding-school, and kept her there till his money gave out. Thank God she hasn't tried to remodel me, though." He drained his glass.

"Be sure you take her to the Cloud Club," Mrs. Smiles adjured him. "I have an account there, you know."

Belden leaned forward to crush her hand in his great knuckly one. Gamadge said: "I really must go."

The major-domo got his hat and coat for him from a little room under a winding stair; Cecilia Warren came down the stair as he left—handsome in her red dress, and very pale. They exchanged no farewells.

Not long afterwards Gamadge lurched into his library, hands rammed into the pockets of his overcoat and his hat over his eyes. Clara, reclining on the chesterfield, was at work with paper and pencil. She looked to him fresh and young in her long, dark-blue dress and her sandals.

"Mr. Schenck told me just how to start at the library tomorrow," she said.

"Forget about tomorrow. Clara—" Gamadge gritted his teeth.

"Yes, what?"

"How would you like to go out dancing somewhere?"

"Tonight?"

"Now."

She leapt from the chesterfield, and flung herself into his arms.

W
HEN GAMADGE ROSE
next morning his natural amiability was in a state of total eclipse. He decided, as he swallowed his coffee, that five hours' sleep were not enough for a man of thirty-five with something on his mind. He showed no interest when Theodore told him that Clara and Harold had gone out, and that Harold had been carrying Gamadge's best bag.

"Tell Mrs. Gamadge I'll be back for dinner." Gamadge hurried to the garage in a neighbouring street, got out his fine new four-seater, and presented himself at the iron gateway in the wall at something less than half-past nine. Mrs. Gregson was waiting for him, a dressing-case and a suitcase on the step beside her. He stowed her luggage away, and settled her in front.

"Mrs. Stoner gone?" he asked, as they drove off.

"Yes, she went early." Mrs. Gregson showed a certain animation this morning, but it was the dubious animation of one who is trying an experiment. "I'm very nervous about this trip, Mr. Gamadge. I haven't been among strangers for so long."

"You won't have to see any of them till you get used to the place."

"It was awfully good of you to arrange it all for me. I didn't half thank you yesterday."

"I was glad to get Tully and Lukes a customer so late in the season."

The first half of the forty-five-mile drive made Gamadge thankful for the first time that Clara had wanted a radio in the new car. Mrs. Gregson evidently liked music, and could tolerate even bad music; she amused herself by fiddling with the knobs until they were in open country, where bright yellow and faded red leaves still hung on the oaks and maples. Then she sat looking out of the window and prattling easily of life in Omega.

"Oh, it was very quiet there," she told Gamadge. "But it's not just a village. It's a nice town, with old families."

"I suppose yours has been there since the early days."

"Yes, a hundred years."

"Have the Warrens been there a hundred years?"

"Oh, no. Mr. Warren settled there after he married my aunt, Nellie Voories. He was from Utica. He was a very brilliant man, but he wasn't steady; he was irresponsible. He fell in love with some girl in his office in Utica, and then Aunt Nellie had a dreadful time. We always thought she died of it; more than twenty years ago, that was!"

"After she died, what did Warren do about the girl in his office?"

"I don't know what happened; she left, or something, and Uncle Cecil took to drink. But he didn't do it in Omega; he used to go off."

"Dear me." Gamadge bore to the right, and Mrs. Gregson asked: "Aren't you going up by the route, past Burford?"

"No, I take this back-country road when I come up; it's very pretty."

"He used to go off for days," continued Mrs. Gregson, "and he would come back a perfect wreck. At last he shut himself up in the Omega house, with just a hired man to look out for him. Before that he used to bring the queerest people home, and of course Cecilia couldn't stay there. She didn't even come home from school in the holidays. She stayed at the school, or she came and stayed with us. That was before my mother and father died. They were killed in that awful train wreck—the Limited from Buffalo. Do you remember it?"

"Dimly. How tragic!"

"Yes, it was. I was married and in Bellfield by that time. Uncle Cecil had spent all his money, and so Cecilia came to Bellfield for good. She insisted on going to a business college— she has so much will power, she always does what she makes up her mind to do."

"And Mr. Warren drank himself to death?"

"No, he finally developed heart trouble, and he died of it in the hospital—in Utica."

"Perhaps it would be better for Miss Warren if she had taken after the Voories side of the family?"

"Oh, have you seen her?"

"Last night."

"I think all that about her father affected her. She was a solitary kind of child, and after she'd been to school a while— at Coverly, you know—"

"Coverly!"

"Yes, it cost a fortune. She did very well there, and she was prominent in the dramatic club, and we thought it rather spoiled her for Omega. And for Bellfield," added Mrs. Gregson, with a rueful look. "She had her own friends out of town and she used to go and stay with them overnight. She had her own life. Mr. Gregson didn't like Celia, and he didn't like Paul Belden; but I did. Do you know, it's the queerest thing, Mr. Gamadge, but girls and women have always fallen in love with Paul Belden. Little girls fell in love with him when he was only twelve or thirteen years old. And he was the homeliest boy, and such a bad boy, too!"

"Did he improve as he grew up?"

"No, he was very dissipated, and he didn't have a good reputation in Omega at all—or in Amsterdam, either. He came of very nice people, too. We used to ask Celia how she could stand being one of the flock—Paul Belden's flock, you know. She never seemed to care. He fascinated her, and I never could understand it; but I couldn't help liking him, he's so funny."

"He exudes vitality and confidence."

"Oh, did you meet him, too?"

"Yes. Is he hard up?"

"I don't really know."

"Why don't they marry, if he's not?"

"Celia thinks—" Mrs. Gregson fell silent. Gamadge did not press the question, and they talked about the war in Europe until they had swooped downhill to Cold Brook village. Gamadge followed the next road to climb out of it again; this meandered through thinly settled countryside for two miles and more, and at last reached a low white house. There was a circular driveway in front of it, but Gamadge turned the car into a lane. It ran past the house and the garage, past outbuildings, and into the country beyond.

He stopped just before they reached the garage, which was on the left of the road. Mrs. Gregson stood beside the car while he got out her luggage, looking with interest at what could be seen of Five Acre Farm above a low garden wall.

"Mrs. Tully thought you might like to come in by the garden entrance," he said. "She knows you don't want to meet people, yet. You won't see them now—they're having their elevenses."

"Their what?"

"They sustain themselves in the middle of the morning with milk and what not. You can have yours in your room, if you want it."

"I feel quite hungry."

"Good for you; you'll eat like a trooper here." They went through a green door in the wall and entered a large enclosure, with a faded garden merging into an orchard, which in turn merged into a forest of evergreens and oaks.

"How pretty," said Mrs. Gregson.

"It is, in summer."

They went along a bricked walk, and mounted two steps of a bricked terrace. Doors ran the length of it along the back of the house.

"Some patients," explained Gamadge "seem to want fresh air and not much else. These rooms are for them and at this time of the year they're mostly unoccupied."

"Nobody's shut up here?" Mrs. Gregson seemed agreeably impressed by Five Acres.

"Oh, no; if people want to go they walk out—all except the ones that are really ill or disabled, and have nurses."

"I've never seen a sanatorium. I was rather dreading it."

"I wish I'd explained before what this one's like."

"You did; I just didn't quite understand."

She looked quite happy as they went into a pleasant hallway and up a flight of stairs. A fat woman in a white uniform waited for them, her sharp blue eyes twinkling at them merrily. She had waved yellow hair and pink cheeks, but there was nothing doll-like about her.

"Right on the dot, guy," she said, after smiling brilliantly at Mrs. Gregson.

"Cut out the slang in front of this lady." Gamadge deposited the bags on the floor of the upper hall. "Mrs. Greer, this is Mrs. Tully; you may not believe me, but you'll like her."

Mrs. Tully shook hands. "Come right along to your room and get settled," she said. "Lucy Lukes is busy with the egg-nogs."

"Don't you call them that, it's blasphemy." Gamadge reassumed his burdens, and carried them into a room at the end of the corridor, on the north-east corner. "Egg-and-milk shakes, Mrs. Greer, and personally I never touch them; they're bad for my liver."

It may have been as well that Mrs. Gregson, looking with some pleasure about her corner room, did not see the vulgar dig in the ribs which Mrs. Tully administered to Gamadge with a strong elbow. Gamadge put the suitcase on the luggage rack and the small bag on a table, and also glanced about him admiringly.

"You and Lucy never gave me anything like this," he said.

"It's the next to the best one we have; Mr. Pole always takes the other corner one. Now, Mis' Greer," said Mrs. Tully, "I want you to feel that you can be as independent and private here as if you were in a hotel. You'll get plain food, though, and there are no movies this side of Cold Brook, and we only have two house cars. Here's your bathroom."

Mrs. Gregson looked into the bathroom, said it was lovely, and crossed to the east window. "What a nice view!" she exclaimed. "I love this kind of rolling country. And the north window looks over the garden."

"Yes. The roofs of the outside terrace rooms are under you."

Mrs. Gregson looked down at the roofs, a long flat ledge. She said: "I should think they'd be cold."

"You won't be. There's your fireplace, if you should feel like a fire when the wind gets up. When you want anything just holler, you know; we don't have bells, because nervous patients ring them just for the fun of it, and we don't exactly encourage them to get us out of bed in the middle of the night; but Miss Lukes and I are right around the corner. Do you want your meals up here for a while?"

"Yes, I'd like to have them here."

"You might take your stroll in the garden and up the lane after an early lunch; all the other guests are resting then. When you want to rest, just hang out your sign—there it is." Mrs. Tully pointed to a neat cardboard sign which said: "Do Not Disturb." She explained: "Hang it on your doorknob, and nobody'll walk through it, not even Lucy Lukes or me." She added sharply, as Mrs. Gregson remained at the north window, looking down: "You're not nervous about that roof, are you?"

"No, not really." Mrs. Gregson turned back into the room.

"You can lock that window, if you are; but you don't need to. There's only one young fellow"—she winked surreptitiously at Gamadge—"nice fellow, name of Thompson, going to be on the terrace, and the house is full of people, and Mr. Pole says he never sleeps a wink, and we're right around the corner."

"Of course."

"There's your own private telephone, direct wire, you can't be overheard in the booth. If you want a radio you can have one, only for gracious sakes play it low; there's one old lady here can't make out what you're saying if you tell her it's a nice day, but she can hear a radio through six walls and a passage. If you get lonesome, Lucy or I will take your walk with you."

"I shan't be lonely." Mrs. Gregson faintly smiled.

"You don't want to see the doctor? He's here now, comes every day."

"No, thanks; there's nothing the matter with me."

"You certainly look fine."

But when Gamadge had shaken hands with Mrs. Gregson and bade her farewell, promising to keep in touch with her by telephone; and when he and Mrs. Tully were in the passage, with the room door closed behind them, Tully faced him, frowning.

"What's the matter with her?"

"Just needs a rest cure."

"She hasn't a nerve in her body. That woman's seen trouble."

"You bet she has."

A dark, stocky girl, also in white, came up the stairs. Gamadge respected her highly. He shook hands.

"Go help the new patient unpack, Lucy," said the other partner. "I don't know what you'll think of her, but I'd say she was a good strong woman worn down. She don't know how to laugh. I don't like not knowing who she is, Gamadge."