“What’s that?” screamed Solly, bouncing out of his chair. “Marry? The Jardin girl?”
“You heard me!”
Val went over to the top step of the terrace and sat down limply in the rain. She felt like crying and laughing at the same time. The darling, darling idiot—proposing like that…
“Oh, no, you’re not,” panted Solly, shaking his finger in Walter’s face. “Oh, no, you’re not!”
Tell him, Walter, thought Val, hugging her knees ecstatically. Tell the old boa-constrictor!
“You’re damned right I’m not!” shouted Walter. “Not after what you’ve done to her! What do you think I am?”
Val sat open-mouthed. Surprise! Oh, God, you second-hand Don Quixote. She might have known. He’d never do anything the sane and normal way. Val felt like crawling off the terrace into the rock garden and taking refuge under a stone.
In the study there was a curious silence as Solomon Spaeth scurried around his desk again and opened a drawer. He flung a handful of newspaper clippings on the desk. “Ever since the stocks began to fall,” yelled Solly, “you’ve been drawing these filthy cartoons in that Red rag you work for. Oh, I’ve been saving ’em! You’ve drawn me as—”
“Not you—the stinking system you stand for!”
“A rat, a vulture, a wolf, a shark, an octopus!”
“If the shoe pinches—”
Solly hurled the clippings into the fire. “I’ve given you your way too much! I let you pick your own vocation, childish as it is, let you brand me publicly as a damned menagerie. … I warn you, Walter! If you don’t stop this nonsense right now—”
Walter said in a strained voice: “Put that money back into the plants.”
“If you don’t forget this ridiculous idea of marrying a pauper—”
“Next week
East Lynne
”
“You’ll marry money!”
“Now you’re thinking in terms of dynasties. Have you got the royal sow picked out yet, your Majesty?”
“By God, Walter,” shrieked Solly, “if—you—don’t—!” He stopped. Their eyes locked. Val held her breath. Solly snatched the telephone and shouted a number. Walter waited grimly. “Ruhig! Give me Ruhig, you fool!” Spaeth glared at his son. “I’ll show
you
. I’ve had a bellyful of— Ruhig?… No, no, stop babbling! Ruhig, you come right over here with a couple of witnesses. … For what? To draw up a new will, that’s for what!” He hung up, panting, and adjusted his glasses with shaking fingers.
“I suppose,” laughed Walter, “you think you’ve dealt me the mortal blow.”
“You’ll never get your hands on my money, damn you!”
Walter walked over to the glass doors in silence. Val got up, holding her throat. But then he went back, passed his father’s desk, and opened the study door. Winni Moon almost fell into his arms; there was a silly smile on her face. Walter brushed by her without a glance, and she disappeared. Spaeth sat down, breathing heavily through his mouth. Val, on the terrace, felt completely numb.
A few moments later she heard Walter returning. She looked, and saw a valise in one hand and a drawing board in the other. “I’ll call for the rest of my stuff tomorrow,” said Walter coldly. His father did not reply.
“And this isn’t the end of it, either,” continued Walter in the same bleak way. “That money goes back to the people you took it from, do you understand? I don’t know how I’ll do it”—he opened the glass doors—“but by God, I’ll
do
it.”
Solly Spaeth sat still, only his head bobbing a little. Walter went out onto the terrace. He nudged Val’s soaked shoulders with the edge of the drawing board. “Could you put me up tonight, Val? I can’t start looking for a place until tomorrow.”
Val looped her arms around his neck and clung. “Walter. Darling. Marry me.”
She felt him stiffen. Then he said lightly: “I’d rather live with you in sin.”
“Walter—dearest. I’m mad about you. I don’t care what your father’s done. We’ll manage somehow. Don’t keep hauling the burdens of the world around on your shoulders. Forget what’s happened—”
Walter said in a gay voice: “Come on, let’s run for it. You’ve just about ruined that precious croquignole bob of yours as it is.”
Val’s arms fell. “But, Walter. I asked you to
marry
me.”
“No, Val,” he said gently.
“But, Walter!”
“Not yet,” said Walter; and there was something in the way he said it that turned the rain down her back to ice-water.
A G
REAT
flood rushed down upon
Sans Souci
in the middle of the night, and Walter and Val and Winni Moon and Jo-Jo and Pink and Rhys Jardin clung shivering to the highest gable of the roof in the darkness, hearing the water gurgle hungrily as it rose. Suddenly there was a moon, and the man in it bore the ruddy features of Solomon Spaeth. Then the moon went down into the black waters and was drowned, still leering, and the gray day began to dawn; and Val saw nothing but water, water everywhere, and she felt terribly thirsty, and she awoke with her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.
A pseudopod of sunlight tried to climb into her bed, but it was too weak; and soon it vanished altogether under the cold swollen clouds of the real day. Val shivered again and crept out of bed, by habit looking around for Roxie. But Roxie was gone—Roxie and Mrs. Thomson the housekeeper and all the rest; and, as in the dream, Val felt that the end of the world had come.
She was sitting helplessly before her dressing table in the bathroom, looking at the eight-ounce crystal bottle of
Indiscret
, when Rhys knocked, and came in, and said: “What’s the exact moment, puss, that bacon becomes cinders?”
Val jumped up. “Pop! You haven’t been trying to make breakfast? Don’t do another thing. I’ll be down in a jiffy.”
Rhys held her at arm’s length. “I’m glad you’re taking it this way, puss.”
“
Will
you go downstairs?”
“If Pink goes, we’ll have to get a cook.”
“Don’t need one. I can cook like a fiend.”
“You’re not going to be slave to a stove, Val. We’ll be able to afford it.”
Val sniffed. “Yes, until the money’s eaten up. How did you make out with the real estate?”
He shrugged. “I got a fair price for the Santa Monica and Malibu places, but this one represents a considerable loss.”
“Did that movie man take the yacht?”
“Literally—the pirate!”
Val kissed his brown chin. “Please don’t worry, darling;
I
’
ll
show you how to economize! Now get out.”
But when she was alone again Val looked a little ill. To give up all these lovely, precious things was like facing the amputation of an arm. Val thought of the auction sale to come, mobs of curious people trampling over everything, handling their most intimate possessions, and stopped thinking.
She burned the toast and charred the bacon and over-fried the eggs and underboiled the coffee, and Rhys gobbled it all and maintained with a plausibility that almost fooled her that he had never eaten such a delicious breakfast in his life. The only thing that really tasted good was the orange juice, and Pink had prepared that before he left. Walter was right—she
was
useless! And that made her think of Walter, and thinking of Walter made her lips quiver, and after she pushed Rhys out of the departed Mrs. Thomson’s no longer spotless kitchen Val sat down and wept into the dish-washing machine. It was a sort of requiem, for Val was positive it was the last time they would ever be able to afford such a wonderful thing.
It was even worse later. The auction people turned up and completed the details of the task begun a week before—cataloguing the furniture and art-objects. They ran all over the house like oblivious ants. The telephones rang incessantly—the purchaser of the yacht with a complaint, a multitude of lawyers with questions about this piece of property and that, insistent reporters; Rhys kept dashing from one telephone to another, almost cheerful, followed everywhere by Pink, who looked like a house-dog which has just been kicked.
Valerie was left to her own devices in the midst of this hurly-burly; she had nothing to do but get out of the way of hurrying strangers. A man practically dumped her on the floor retrieving the antique Cape Cod rocker in which her mother had sung her to sleep; Val felt like giving him the one-two Pink had taught her, but the man was away with his loot before she could get her hands on him. She drifted about, fingering the things she had grown up with—the heavy old silver, those precious little vessels made of old porcelain backed with pewter which Rhys had picked up on his honeymoon in Shanghai, the laces and velvets and lamps, the lovely old hunting prints. She fingered the books and stared at the pictures and spent a difficult moment before the grand old piano on which she had learned to play—never very well!—Chopin and Beethoven and Bach.
And Walter, darn him, didn’t even call up
once!
Val used up two handkerchiefs, artfully, by crying in corners. But whenever her father bustled into view she said something gay about their new furnished apartment at the
La Salle
which Walter, who had taken rooms there, had recommended. How thrilling it was going to be living there! Yes, agreed Rhys, and different, too. Yes, said Val—that ducky little five-room place—hotel service—built-in radio—even a really fair print or two on the walls. … And all the while little frozen fingers crawled down her back.
She found Pink in the dismantled gymnasium, sweating powerfully over a litter of golf-bags, skis, Indian clubs, and other sporting paraphernalia. “Oh, Pink,” she wailed, “is the
La Salle
really so awful?”
“It’s all right,” said Pink. “Anything you want, you ask Mibs.”
“Who’s Mibs?”
“Mibs Austin. Girl-friend of mine.”
“Why, Pincus!”
Pink blushed. “She’s the telephone operator there. She’ll take care of you. … Just
one
of ’em,” he said.
“I’m sure she’s sweet. … After all,” said Val absently, “Walter does live there.”
“And me,” said Pink, wrapping a pair of skis. “I sort of rented me a ’phone booth there, too.”
“Pink, you didn’t!”
“I got to live somewhere, don’t I?”
“You
darling!
”
“Anyway, who’s going to cook?
You
can’t. And all Rhys can make is Spanish omelet.”
“But, Pink—”
“Besides, he needs his exercises. You can’t give him his rubdown, either.”
“But, Pink,” said Val, troubled, “you know that now—we weren’t figuring on extra expenses—”
“Who said anything about pay?” growled Pink. “Get out of here, squirt, and let me work.”
“But how are you going to—I mean, have you any plans?”
Pink sighed. “Once I was going to start a health farm and make me some real dough out of these smart guys that run to rubber tires around the middle, but now—”
“Oh, Pink, I’m so sorry about your losing all your money!”
“I got my connections, don’t worry. I can always go back to being an expert in the movies—double for some punk with a pretty pan who don’t know how to hold a club but’s supposed to be champ golfer of the world—that kind of hooey.”
“Pink,” said Val, “do you mind if I kiss you?”
Pink said gruffly: “Keep ’em for Little Boy Blue; he has ’em with cream. Val, scram!” But his nutbrown face reddened.
Val smiled a little mistily. “You’re such a fraud, Pincus darling.” And she kissed him without further opposition.
The auctioneer cleared his throat. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, a few announcements before the sale commences. As you know, this is not a forced sale. So the owner, Mr. Rhys Jardin, has exercised his privilege of making last-minute withdrawals. If you will kindly note these changes in your catalogue…”
Val, sitting beside her father in the front row of chairs, felt him tremble; she did not dare look at his face. She tried to preserve an air of “Who cares?”, but she knew the attempt was a miserable failure.
“… the sixty-foot yacht
Valerie
has been withdrawn from the auction, having been disposed of in a private sale yesterday. …”
Walter was here—sitting in the rear, the coward! The least he might have done was say hello—or isn’t it a lovely day for an execution—or something like that. But Walter was acting very strangely. He hadn’t even glanced at her before the people took seats, and he was so pale—
“… your number one-two-six, a collection of four hundred and twenty-two assorted sporting prints. Also your number one-five-two, a collection of small arms. Also your number one-five-three, a collection of medieval arrowheads. Due to the great interest in the sporting-print collection, Mr. Jardin wishes me to announce that it has been donated to the Los Angeles public library association.”
There was a little splatter of applause, which quickly died when some one hissed. Val felt like hiding her head. A man’s voice behind them whispered: “I understand he’s given the arrowheads to the Museum.”
“He must be stony broke,” whispered a female voice.
“Yeah? Maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shh! Isn’t that him in front of us?”
Val’s hands were tight in her lap. She heard her father expel a long, labored breath. People were such pigs. Vultures! Wheeling over the carrion! Even that Ruhig person had had the unadulterated gall to attend the auction. He was sitting well down front, beaming at all the hostile glances converging on his pudgy cheeks.
“Also withdrawn is number seven-three, a miscellaneous lot of sporting equipment—golf clubs, bags, fencing foils, tennis rackets,
et cetera.
”
She felt Rhys stir with surprise. “No, pop,” she whispered. “It’s not a mistake.”
“But I included them—”
“I withdrew them. You’re
not
going to be stripped bare!” He groped for her hand and found it.
“Everything else will be sold on this floor regardless of bid. Everything is in superb condition. The art-objects and antiques have all been expertized and found genuine. Each lot is fully described in your catalogue. …”
Come
on
. Get
started. …
It was worse, far worse, than Val had imagined it would be. Oh, Walter, why don’t you move down here and sit by me and hold my hand, too!