To Love and to Honour Read online

  She drew a pan from the oven, turned it over on a wire cooler, pulled off the buttery waxed paper which lined it and began to cut the nut-enriched chocolate sheet into squares. She rapped the fingers reaching for a piece.

  “Don’t touch it now, Cindy. ’Twill crumble ’fore it’s cool.”

  The girl wrinkled a charmingly modeled nose at her.

  “You’re a tyrant, Sarah Ann Parker.”

  The woman’s face crinkled in as near a grin as her tightly drawn skin permitted.

  “I’ve been housekeeper here years enough to watch the cookie jar and cakebox when you’re around, child.” The smile faded. “There was days, though, when you was off in the West when I would have baked from sun up to sun down if I could have had you back and known you were safe and happy. Your Pa had queer ideas ’bout bringing up a daughter, thought she ought to learn to look out for herself.”

  “The experience didn’t hurt me, Sarah. As the days went on I learned that the ideas and ideals which Mother instilled for eighteen years made a sound foundation on which to build a design for living.”

  “Want to know somethin’? I think your Pa must have been crazy as a coot when he cooked up that marriage between his daughter and Kenniston Stewart, a man neither of you had seen.”

  “He hadn’t seen him, but he knew he came from fine families on both sides, and you know father was a stickler for family, Sary.”

  “You’re telling me, but I still can’t understand why you did it, Cindy.”

  “I did it because at the time it seemed the right thing to do, and also, I’ll confess to you, Sary, I had the silly idea it was romantic. His father sold me on him, told of his son’s tenderness and devotion to his mother; of the boy’s habit of bringing home lost dogs and cats to care for; of his success in athletics while he kept his scholarship high until he became my dream man. I was starting my sophomore year at college. My imagination, apt to work overtime, visualized Ken Stewart’s return — in appearance a combination of Gary Cooper and Walter Pidgeon, at that time my favorite movie actors — saw him fall desperately for me, I for him, and we’d live happily ever after.”

  “Hmp. Things don’t often work out that way, Cinderella.”

  “You’re telling me. Long before the contract went through, the girl grew older and wiser, and wished she’d never heard of Kenniston Stewart. There were documents to be mailed back and forth, license regulations to be checked and followed; doctor’s certificates O.K’ing blood tests, it was made as difficult as possible and everything had to be kept hush-hush because our hero was on secret business.”

  “Didn’t you know what he was doin’?”

  “Yes, but I was sworn to secrecy. Every move was checked by Father’s lawyer to be sure the contract of marriage conformed to the law of the state, that it couldn’t be declared illegal. Dad and his partner suspected there would be financial wolves lying in wait to pounce if they saw the smidgin of a chance.”

  “An’ after all that you’re settin’ out to break it. Ain’t that human nature. What’s that fella Stewart say about it?”

  “He wants the annulment as much as I. He consented to the marriage to help his father, wrote that it was ten to one he wouldn’t live through the work ahead. He was a major in command of a tough situation — he didn’t say at the time what. His father told me. He wrote he thought me a grand person to help out, that if he lived he would aid in every way to annul the marriage — Dad’s lawyer made me burn that, said it might invalidate the contract, that attorney was the original sharp-eye — added, ‘If you’re in love with someone don’t do it, let the business go to’ — you wouldn’t approve of the word he used, Sary.”

  “Your pa and his have been gone more’n a year. Seems if he might have come home and straightened out that business mess. Want to know somethin’? Perhaps he’s got a girl where he is he’s plannin’ to marry.”

  “I hope he has. All right with me. We have exchanged letters during the years. I did all the bookkeeping for the business from the time it was organized, I settled the estate of my father and his and submitted verbatim reports to him. Deposited his share of the income, kept records and forwarded monthly statements. The lawyer wrote him that he ought to be here to attend to the sale of the property. He long-distanced that he couldn’t come, that whatever I decided would be all right with him. Atlas upheld the heavens on his shoulders, I’ve been holding up an oil property on mine. If we ever get rid of it I’ll sleep for a week.”

  “Who’s Atlas?”

  “A mythological Greek. I suspect that the outfit which wanted to acquire our holdings when Dad was alive is behind this offer. I’m holding off, I scent a crooked deal I wrote Ken Stewart months ago. It’s too big a responsibility for me to handle alone. He has to sign the deed of sale, the would-be purchasers are not satisfied with my signature, although he gave me power of attorney. No answer.”

  “Want to know somethin’? Perhaps the poor boy is dead. He wrote he thought he’d never come back, didn’t he? Perhaps you don’t need no divorce.”

  “I might have to wait seven years to be sure before I was free. I would be practically an old lady, Sary.”

  “Sure ’tain’t because you want to marry one of the lawyers, the Western fella, Slade, or that Hal Harding who’s been on your trail ever since you’ve come back? I’d die, Cindy, if you took up with him, a twice-divorced man — besides that, folks is saying he’s what they call ‘pink.’”

  “Relax, Sary. I don’t intend to take up with anyone at present. I’m getting an annulment for separation in the state where I’ve kept my residence for years. I intend it to be the most legal release a woman ever had. That’s the story, incredible as it sounds.” She slipped off the stool.

  “I’d better get a move on and dress to receive Counselor Armstrong. I’ve corresponded with him, but never met him.”She visualized the man in the shop. “Is he tall and tanned and devastatingly good-looking?”

  “You talking ’bout Trader Armstrong? That hands me a laugh. Sakes alive, child, don’t you remember him? His family’s lived here most as long as yours.”

  “I haven’t lived here for years except for a short time in the summer, remember.”

  “You’re right. Trader — that’s what he was called when he was growin’ up in this village, ’cause one time he owned the marbles of every kid in town — is bald and short and broad and bouncy, if you get what I mean. Powerful smart, though. He was born here, keeps up the family place fine, went to college, then to New York. Married young, she died when her baby come, so’d the baby. He never took another wife. He’s made a big name and a lot of money, folks say. His sister Alida married Lord Barclay — a real lord with a fortune he’d made in this country. She was a beauty, still is, she arrived with him. I hear she’s brought a cook and two maids, looks like she’s figurin’ on doing some entertaining.”

  “Did she bring the fabulously rich and titled husband?”

  “Sakes no. He died long before the war. He’d just been made a citizen when Burke’s Peerage began advertising for him in this country. He wouldn’t go back, let the title and estate go to a cousin. Lucky, that kept his fortune here. Trader always was terrible proud and fond of Ally. During the war and long after she worked with our army in hospitals abroad. Folks call her Lady Bar-day, though she insists she’s plain Mrs. Neil Barclay.”

  “Sounds as if I had a good man to work for me.”

  “He’s good, has a license or whatever he has to have to practice here, and an office. Town talk is, he's got the Congressional bee in his bonnet. Run along and get dressed. Get off them pants. ’Tain’t fittin’ for a girl your age to be runnin’ round in them.”

  “There’s something in what you say, Sary.” Cindy swallowed a gurgle of laughter as the ice-cream soda invitation flashed through her memory. “I hasten to make myself beautiful.”

  “Guess you won’t have to work too hard at it. I’ve got the table set with the Lowestoft and the best silver in what you’ve called th
e pat-i-o, since you come back from the West.”

  “You’re a dear to take so much trouble.” She paused in the doorway. “Know a gal among the cottagers named Sally? Blondish?”

  “Sally? Only Sally I know is Mrs. Drew, the woman who last May leased the newfangled house on the point matches this across the cove. You can see it plain from that seat on our point. I sit there a lot to watch what goes on. She’s a sort of blond and claims she’s a widow. Town talk is she’s lookin’ for number two. Want to know somethin’? Every little while a big boat drops anchor off Rockledge shore an’ signals. I guess she goes off in it So kind of mysterious it gives me the hibby-jibbies.”

  “This is a mysterious neighborhood Sary, if you believe the smugglers’ legend. That reminds me, did a man call just before I came — to sell something?”

  “I didn’t see one.”

  “Have you been here all day?”

  “Except for a few minutes after lunch when I run across the inlet in the dory — that Evinrude motor sure makes it easy — to Mis’ Drew’s. Hal Harding came through the garden looking for you just as I was leavin’. When I told him I expected you any minute, he said he’d hang around till you came. Guess he got tired of waiting. He was gone when I got back. Who do you think is parlormaid at Mis’ Drew’s — Rena Foster.”

  “Wasn’t she a waitress at the Inn? Didn’t she leave under a cloud?”

  “That’s her. Nothing was ever proved against her, though. She was always a flighty piece.”

  “Apparently you don’t approve of her. Why did you go to see her?”

  “She phoned and asked if I’d come over and tell her how to make hot mushroom canapés, said she’d heard mine were out of this world. Poor thing, she’s tryin’ to earn a living. I’m glad to help her. Why’d you ask if I’d been here all day?”

  Cindy disciplined a laugh. Praise of her cooking is Sary’s Achilles heel, she thought before she answered.

  “I saw a man — near the house. Had an idea he might have been here. I’m so used to having men, sometimes women, want to talk business with me that I see them in my dreams.”

  “I hope when you get this law case settled folks’ll let you alone.” Sarah glanced at the banjo clock. “’Most four-thirty. New York lawyers won’t put up-with bein’ kept waitin’, Cindy.”

  “You’re telling me about lawyers. Believe me, I’ve met a grist of them during the last three years. I’m on my way.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHE RAN up the stairs to the accompaniment of a raucous voice:

  “The wind-up, the pitch! Two balls!”

  Sarah listening to the game again. This part of the country had gone baseball mad.

  She showered, then dressed in her room with its cool ivory walls and sea-green hangings and cushions, where sunlight glinted between Venetian slats. Her mind was busy lining up questions to ask Counselor Armstrong. “Trader” Sarah had called him. The nickname grated. Reminded her too much of the gang which her father and his partner had suspected was out to acquire their oil holdings. She had been assured by the broker who was handling the sale that the present buyers had no connection with the former outfit, but, suspicion that they had made her hesitate about selling. Ken Stewart had given her power of attorney. It was too big a responsibility to shoulder. Why didn’t he come home and share it?

  Allah be praised, the sale couldn’t affect the annulment. Hal Harding, about whom Sarah Ann Parker was having a brain storm, had recommended Armstrong when she had asked him the name of a Maine lawyer. He had advised her to have the divorce put through in her home state, he should be an authority, he had had two. If she were in a rush, he would suggest Reno.

  Not in that much of a rush, she told herself as she fastened her hair at the neck with a long silver arrow. Neither was Ken Stewart, apparently. Months ago she had written him she had been advised that an annulment of the marriage now would in no way threaten their inheritance, would he co-operate?

  He not only would but with bells on, he had cabled. Go to it. He wasn’t even interested to see what the girl he had married was like. Not too bad, she decided as she critically inspected her reflection in the long mirror. The leaf-green cotton taffeta frock, with the soft yellow velvet ribbon belt into which she had tucked a few calendulas, brought out the sheen of her hair and the brown of her eyes, the golden tan of her skin.

  “He’ll never know what a charmer he lost, will he, gal?” she queried aloud and wrinkled her nose in selfderision at the looking-glass girl. “Hal Harding appreciates you, lady.”

  Her eyes shadowed, her smile vanished. Hal was terribly likable, but he was making life difficult. He had waylaid her in the village this morning to tell her that he was planning a gala outdoor roast at his place, on the day her annulment was granted, to celebrate her freedom. Darn. Everyone in town had known of what they called “the proxy marriage,” now talk of the annulment was crowding the air waves.

  “I don’t want a celebration,” she protested under her breath as she went slowly down the stairs. “It’s a poisonous idea to make whoopee over a broken marriage, even if it’s only a written contract like mine. I won’t stand for it.”

  Seth Armstrong rose and came forward with pudgy hand outstretched in greeting when she entered the patio. He was neither so short, bald nor stout as she had imagined him from Sary’s description. A little bouncy, but nice manners. A boutonniere of deep blue bachelor buttons adorned the lapel of his expertly tailored gray sports coat, his white trousers were immaculate and creased to perfection, his eyes were pale, but keen, his voice was a trifle unctuous, the waxen whiteness of his plump hands was accentuated by a huge sardonyx ring. The big seal on the bracelet man’s finger had seemed to belong; for some remote reason that on Armstrong’s seemed out of character. Not especially attractive, but trustworthy, she decided.

  “At last we meet, Mrs. Stewart. It is a pleasure I have long anticipated. I haven’t seen you since you were little Cindy Clinton.”

  Mrs. Stewart. It was a shock to hear the name again. Since her return to The Castle two months ago she had been Cindy Clinton to neighbors and friends.

  “Thank you, Mr. Armstrong. I am afraid I have given you a lot of trouble by asking you to come here, but I am eager to get this annulment business behind me. I hope you drink tea?”

  She seated herself at the glass-top table which held the antique Sheffield tray with its equipment of silver and Lowestoft and the hot-water kettle spouting pearly steam. He drew a chair beside her. She wondered if his thoughts were as large and smooth as his white hands.

  “Certainly I drink tea.” He had a curious habit of inflating and deflating his cheeks before speaking. “My secretary serves it for me in my New York office each afternoon at four. Lovely place you have made of this spot between the two slanting ells.”

  Cindy’s eyes followed his as they traveled round the enclosure, open on the fourth side to a superb view of the ocean. A velvety lawn was broken in the center by a small pool carpeted by green pads and pink and white lilies between which flashed an occasional streak of gold. The spray from a small fountain shot up into the sunshine, glittered like yellow diamonds before it dropped back. Beyond that a putting green extended almost to the shore.

  Against the gray stone walls of the house, perennials put on a flower show of gorgeous color; humming birds poised above red and pink hollyhocks; a bee reeled drunkenly from out the depths of a mammoth regal lily; a great yellow moth fanned black-streaked wings on the tall, light-blue spike of a second-blossoming larkspur beside a rosy clump of phlox; a cloud of small yellow butterflies hovered above the orange king and lemon queen calendulas. On a window ledge a cat, black as the wings of a dragonfly hovering above a clump of tawny zinnias below her, regarded with blank topaz eyes a robin cautiously bathing in the shallows of the pool. Green chintz on white wicker chairs matched the lawn in shade. A light salty breeze shook fragrance from the flowers and spicy scent from a windbreak of balsams. Cindy’s attention returned to the man besid
e her.

  “It is nice here. Sarah Ann Parker has been a wonderful housekeeper and friend. She kept up my garden while I was away. Is your tea the right strength?”

  “Perfect. This toasted canapé is tops. What’s the spread?”

  “Mushrooms. Try one of the lobster salad rolls. They are something to write home about. I can say that as I didn’t make them.”

  “No, thanks. I am reserving space for the brownies. I’m a chocolate addict.”

  Gourmand, I’ll bet. He actually licked his chops when he looked at that plate, Cindy thought.

  They chatted about local matters till, after asking permission, he lighted a cigar.

  “Now, may we talk business?” Cindy inquired eagerly. “I am anxious to hear a report of what you have accomplished.”

  “No more anxious than I am to get ahead with the matter.” He drew a sheaf of papers from an inside pocket of his gray coat. “At long last I have succeeded in getting an answer from your husband.”

  “My husband! Glory be, I had almost forgotten I had one. I haven’t, really. We’ll have the table cleared, you may want me to sign something. Signing papers has been the major occupation of my life these last years.”

  She tinkled a small silver bell. Sarah Ann Parker emerged with a promptness that suggested she had been watching from the windows of the kitchen in the east ell.

  “How’s tricks, Trader?” The familiarity of the woman’s greeting deepened the red of Armstrong’s already sufficiently ruddy face. “I hear Ally’s come for a visit with you. How is she?”

  “Fine. Still young and smart for your age, I see, Sarah Ann.” His unctuous voice had sharpened to razor edge.

  Holding the laden tray Sarah paused halfway to the door which opened into the kitchen.

  “Smart? Why not, Trader? I’m only sixty, five years younger than you. Wearin’ bach buttons in your coat-bachelor buttons an’ you a widower. Kinder got the signals mixed, haven’t you, Trader?” She winked broadly at Cindy. A moment later the door to the kitchen dosed with a bang.