Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (63 page)

There was a glimpse of the woman’s eyes in the glass. They were suddenly terrified. She was really afraid of losing Constant, Kelly thought. She was afraid to move for fear of being discovered a party to this lurid scene. If they should see her there …

And then Dolores sagged. She stopped struggling and ground passionately up against her husband. The fight had left her. She was totally submissive now.

The sound of Constant Comstock’s hard breathing was upsetting … and disgusting, somehow. As quietly as she could manage, Kelly tiptoed down the carpeted corridor and found the stairs.

So that’s what it was. Love and hate and rivalry. God knew what went on in this bizarre household.

Turn over a rock and all sorts of things crawled out.

“Well, you were gone long enough,” Steve said. “What did you do, take a bath?”

He must have seen her discomfiture and her attempt to hide it. He lit her cigarette and, in her ear, asked what was wrong. She shook her head in the direction of Richard, and he got the message.

After a quarter of an hour or so Constant came in, apologizing for leaving them. “So sorry,” he said. “I had a business call.”

He picked up Steve’s empty glass and refilled it, then insisted on pouring a little more into Kelly’s still half-filled glass, and opened another coke for Richard. “Where’s Dolores?” the boy asked. “Aren’t we going to eat soon?”

“Dolores has a slight headache,” his uncle said, and turned to the others. “Men get ulcers, women headaches.” His smile was the usual charming one. “I’m sure she’ll join us in a second or two and yes, Richard, we are going to have dinner soon.”

Shortly afterwards Dolores came, tidied up, and they went into the dining room. The meal was excellent, beautifully served. Kelly was urged to tell about her adventures in flight; she related an anecdote or two.

“You must meet many interesting people,” Dolores said.

Yes, she did, Kelly agreed. “For example, I met a very interesting young man on my last flight.”

“Really?” Dolores leaned forward breathlessly.

“Richard.”

There was laughter.

Richard laughed too, rather sheepishly. “I imagine I was kind of a pain in the neck for a while. But Kelly put up with me. And of course the Senor and Senora kind of took me off her hands.”

“About whom are you talking?” Constant asked.

Steve said, “A very nice Spanish couple who took Richie under their wing.”

“I sat very still,” Richard said. “So that the Senora could wind the wool around my hands. She was knitting.”

Long afterwards, Kelly remembered that it was Steve who said, “And then he broke her pearls.”

“How come?” Constant asked, looking at his nephew.

“I never did know,” Richard said, “but they broke, and then everyone was looking under their seats. It was okay, they were all found. And she was very nice about it.”

“It turned out to be a cause celebre,” Steve said.

“How was that?” Constant asked interestedly, and Steve looked at Kelly. “Ask her,” he said. “She was the one who had to straighten things out.”

“What happened?” Comstock asked.

“Oh, they called me,” she said. “The husband phoned my hotel, very distressed. What happened was that when the pearls broke the Senora stuffed them in the bottom of her knitting bag and asked Richard to carry it for her. Then apparently they were held up at Customs and your driver spirited Richard away, still with the knitting bag.”

“You don’t say!”

“I’m sure they didn’t expect anything like that. I have a feeling they were bringing in expensive goods and that they exploited Richard to get past Customs.”

“Richard, you didn’t tell me any of this!”

“I didn’t think it was pertinent, Uncle Constant.”

“How is it you didn’t give back the bag?”

“It was Jose. I told him, but he only laughed at me and made me get in the car.” Richard took a last bite of his
entrecote
and then neatly laid his knife and fork across the plate. “But anyway, I fixed it up. When I got here I was put to bed and then I called the hotels and found out where Kelly was staying. Then I went around there and gave her the bag.”

His uncle looked stunned. “The devil you did!”

“I had to,” Richard insisted.

“It’s really all right,” Kelly said. “I had a taxi take him home here again.”

“But this is fascinating,” Dolores said. “Tell me, Senorita, have you been, at some time, in a plane that was … how you call it?” She smiled helplessly and lifted her shoulders. “
You
know … where it should go to a place and then someone makes it go somewhere else?”

“Hi-jacked?” Steve suggested.

“Yes, yes.”

“Not yet,” Kelly said.

“It happens often,
si?
To Cuba?”

“Do you mind?” their host said peremptorily. “I’m concerned with Richard’s foray into unfamiliar territory.” He eyed his nephew. “So you left your bed and went traipsing around through the city,” he said testily. “I don’t know what to think about that, Richard.”

“I had to get the bag back,” Richard said stubbornly.

“He’s here safe, can’t you see?” Dolores said, gesturing. “So in the end everything came out all right.”

“Not quite,” Steve said, and Kelly was quite displeased with him. It would have been better to leave it where it had ended.

“What do you mean by that?” Comstock asked.

“Ask Kelly,” Steve said.

Comstock shifted his attention. “What does he mean?”

“Oh, just that I had another call. Senor Nascimento thanked me for the return of the bag, but he claimed that the pearls weren’t in it.”

“And?” Dolores asked, her eyes bright and curious.

“I said I was sorry, but that I didn’t know anything about it. I never looked inside the bag. There were more pressing matters.”

“She had a date with me,” Steve said.

Dolores clapped her hands. “Adventure!” she cried. “What fun you have, Senorita Kelly. My life is so dull. I should do something like that. Yes, Constant?”

“Um hum. We must talk about it some more. But right now I know someone whose bedtime it is.”

“Not yet,” Richard pleaded.

“It’s way past time.” Constant tinkled a little bell and the pretty little girl came in. “Joia, please,” he said, and a few minutes later the deformed woman came into the room.

“Say good-night,” Richard’s uncle said.

The boy stood up reluctantly.

“Good night, everyone.”

“Kiss your aunt.”

Richard went dutifully over and put his mouth against Dolores’ cheek. Then he shook his uncle’s hand and, passing Kelly and Steve, said gruffly, “Thanks for everything.”

“See you subsequently, all right?” Steve said.

“I hope so.”

And then Joia took him up to bed.

• • •

It was later, in the library, that a few things became clear. Steve and Dolores were deep in a conversation of their own; Kelly thought, she’s a born man-eater. Please, God, don’t let her swallow Steve whole.

“I want to show you a rare edition of GIL BLAS,” Constant said, guiding her into the book-lined library. “Elzevier … I picked them up in Paris. That is, three of the volumes. I had to hunt six years for the fourth.”

He pulled out four tiny, leather-bound books, scarcely larger than the miniature address book she carried in her purse. “I found the final volume in Vienna,” he said. “Of course I advertised, and at last my efforts bore fruit.” He laughed. “I paid three times as much for the fourth book as I paid for the other three combined. Five thousand schillings. The law of supply and demand, of course. But it gave me this complete set, and some day it will be worth its weight in gold.” He stroked the tiny books. “Aren’t they pretty,” he murmured, as if he were talking about a woman.

“Very pretty.”

“I love
things
,” he said. “Beautiful things. It’s a curse, possibly. I can’t help myself.”

There was a brief silence and then he put the books aside. “Well,” he said, “you’ve been very good to my nephew. You and your friend.”

“It was easy. He’s a nice child. We both like him a great deal.”

“So do I. He’s a very lost little boy.”

“Do you think so?”

“I know so. And I’m not at all happy about his future.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she murmured, “I understand your brother is in Afghanistan.”

“In …” He stared at her. “My brother?”

She looked up quickly. “Oh, did I misunderstand? I naturally assumed that you were Richard’s father’s brother.”

“I am.”

“Then — ”

“But my brother, Richard’s father, died over a year ago.”

It was like a punch in the stomach.
Richard’s father died a year ago?
Mr. Comstock saw her consternation and sat her down. “Tell me,” he said, kind and steady and reassuring. “Just tell me what this is all about.”

She told him. “Richard said his father was off somewhere … in Afghanistan and that he was a financier.”

“He
was
a financier,” Comstock said. “When he was alive. But he died about fourteen months ago, of a coronary. Lawrence was four years older than I, and I’m fifty-nine. His wife — ”

His face hardened. “His wife is barely thirty. And a reprehensible, worthless person.”

He recovered himself at once. “Never mind. About my brother … he was a brilliant man. He was early on involved with the idea of a European Common Market. Of course he worked too hard. I daresay he was a rotten husband; that’s the only apologia I can make for Lisa, Richard’s mother. At any rate, last April Larry suffered a coronary, a serious infarction. He died early in the morning, on the sixteenth. I got the call — ”

He fell silent.

Kelly, stunned, tried to absorb this incredible bit of information. Did Richard believe his father was still alive? Or did he only want to pretend, to others, that he wasn’t an orphan? Was it pride or fantasy?

“Is his mother Italian?” she asked. “Richard said something about a cousin, Gisela.”

“Oh, that,” Comstock said impatiently. “One of those ridiculous things. Yes, Lisa is Roman-born. And I believe there’s some nonsense about an arranged marriage. If he talked about that, it’s more or less true. But still a lot of hogwash. These paternalistic Italian families. I have no patience with it.”

He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “You really mean to say that Richard told you his father was — ”

“He said his father was in Afghanistan. His mother, he told me, was in Rome. Although he didn’t seem to be quite sure.”

“
I’m
sure,” Constant said. “She
is
in Rome. Which is why I sent for my nephew. You see …”

He hesitated, looked tentatively at her and then, apparently making up his mind, rose. “Do you mind waiting for a few minutes?” he asked. “There’s something I’d like you to see.”

“Yes, all right.”

He was back shortly, with a newspaper clipping.

It was from a Rome newspaper, an item circled in red ink. “You don’t speak or read Italian, by any chance?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then let me read this release to you.”

She sat back and listened. “It’s a rather free translation,” he admitted. “But you’ll get the gist.” He cleared his throat and then read aloud.

An American woman, Mrs. Lawrence Comstock of New York City, was asked to leave the Hotel Excelsior this A.M. when two men fought with knives in the suite occupied by Mrs. Comstock. One man was severely injured and hospitalized at the Ospadele Miseracordia. The American Consulate drew a curtain over the incident, and Mrs. Comstock apparently took up residence in other quarters.

He stopped reading, and looked up. “There’s more,” he said. “But that’s the meat of it. Not a very pretty picture, is it?”

“No.” She was sickened. Oh, poor little Richard.

“Lisa, my sister-in-law, is still a stunning woman,” Comstock said. “When I first saw her, I almost fell in love with her myself. But if she keeps on the way she’s going, she will be a wreck by the time she’s forty.”

His face took on an almost fanatical look. “I don’t really like women,” he admitted. “Most of them are vile … and disgracefully selfish … uncaring …”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, and then he laughed rather sheepishly, his face clearing again. “That’s an outrageous thing to say to someone who’s a captive audience,” he apologized. “Please forgive me. Perhaps I’ve known the wrong women in my life. At any rate, I ask your pardon. But to get to the heart of the matter. This article …” he crackled the newspaper clipping, “was instrumental in my arranging for Richard to spend some time here with us. My wife is not the most domestic woman in the world, but she has a certain earthy stability. We live a fairly normal life here at the Casa Bondadosa, and I — ”

He looked at her. “What would you do?” he asked. “Wouldn’t you want to intervene?”

“I don’t know. I do think it’s … sad.”

“It’s disgraceful.” His face grew hard and stern again. “I can’t allow it. Lawrence wouldn’t have wanted me to countenance it. These are Richard’s formative years, and I owe my brother something. I can’t simply close my eyes and let that … that dissolute, irresponsible woman wreck the boy’s life.”

He folded up the clipping and put it down on a table top. “I don’t know what’s going to become of the child, but I’ve decided to take some kind of stand.” He gave her a long look. “But this is family business, and I shouldn’t bother you with it. It’s just that you’ve been so good to my nephew, and I know that you have some inkling of his needs and lacks … and problems. But let’s get off the subject of that child. Are you going back home right away?”

“No, as a matter of fact I’ve arranged it so that I’m taking some time off. My plans are to fly to Malaga and then rent a car. Drive through the Andalusian countryside, ending at Seville, where I’ll hop to Lisbon and resume work on a 747.”

“That sounds fine. I was seventeen when I first saw Andalusia. Just before starting college. I’ll never forget its fascination. Do you know Da Falla? ‘Nights in the Gardens of Spain?’ That composer caught the cadence of it, the perfumed beauty and the ancient decadence. Oh yes, I envy you your first Andalusian trip. It will bring you joy.”