Fair Tomorrow , livre ebook

Fair Tomorrow
by Emilie Loring

First published in 1931
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
Trava2909@gmail.com

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Fair Tomorrow
by
Emilie Loring










To LOUISE GORDON HALLET WHOSE FRIENDSHIP HAS GLOWED WITH A LOVELY LIGHT DOWN THROUGH THE YEARS SINCE WE MET ON CAPE COD

Chapter I
Coatless, immaculate white shirt sleeves rolled above his elbows,red-headed Terrence Leigh scowled thoughtfully at the gate-legged tableset for two in the sunny window, ceased his muted whistling to shout:
"Hi! Pam! Which side of the plate shall I put the cranberry jell?"
In answer a door swung into the room with an agonized squeak. The soundstartled the green and red parrot dozing on a gilded perch. He lost hisbalance, righted himself with a strident:
"Gosh!"
With the opening door came a potpourri of savory scent: roasting turkey,sage, oyster stuffing, crisping sausage, onions, spicy mincemeat. Camealso a girl's head with a suggestion of black hair edging a white Dutchcap, a hint of anxiety in brilliant dark eyes, a flush from kitchen heaton satin-soft skin.
"Jelly at the right, Terry." Slender, graceful, [Pg 8] her yellow linen frockalmost obscured by a snowy apron cloud, Pamela Leigh followed her voiceinto the dining room. The door swung shut behind her.
"Ooch! That squeak sets my teeth on edge. Wait a minute!" She dashedinto the kitchen, returned with a cake of soap. "Rub that on the hinges.The jelly stands up well, doesn't it?"
"Like soldiers."
Terrence soaped the hinges. His boyish smile was humorously one-sided ashe swung the door experimentally. "That's all right. Table looks like amillion dollars, what?"
His sister's eyes followed his to the maple gate-legged table in frontof the long French window which framed a view of a russet-tinged lawnenclosed by a picket fence, guarded by an iron dog whose black and whitenose sniffed the salty air. Beyond it blue water stretched to the purplehaze of the horizon like a sea of sparkling sapphires streaked withmalachite, above it thin filaments of fleecy cloud striped a turquoisesky. Pamela appraisingly regarded the glossy damask, Chinese medallionplates, crystal goblets, molds of cranberry jelly like huge cabochonrubies. Her glance traveled on to the lowboy with its load of crackednuts, figs, board of cheeses, jug of cider, came back to the table. Sherearranged the russet Beau Belle pears, Banana apples, gold andsunburned to a dusky pink, purple and white grapes, in the choice oldcomport as she agreed thoughtfully:
[Pg 9] "It does look well, Terry. I hope that we have provided the rightsetting. The ad distinctly stated:
"'Wanted: by two persons, old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner.Anywhere on Cape Cod.'
Nature has obligingly furnished the Cape. The dinner is as much like theone Grandmother Leigh used to serve as I could make it."
"Except the price. Five per! You have the nerve of a robber chieftain."
Pamela's lovely eyes, her ardent mobile mouth widened in a laugh. "Myinstincts are kind but my necessities are urgent. Perhaps the price is ahold-up, Terry, but when Madge Jarvis sent the ad she had clipped from anewspaper, she wrote:
"'Don't give away the dinner, Pam. That advertiser is out for sentiment.Sentiment is the most expensive luxury in which one may indulge, itought to be taxed. Charge five dollars a cover at least. That might behigh for shredded wheat and milk, but it isn't high for a cooked toorder meal.'"
Terrence whistled and pulled down his sleeves. "Dinner for two in thewilds of Cape Cod. In the language of Hitty Betts, 'I guess themadvertisers like privacy.'" He hummed and cut adolescent antics as heset chairs at the gateleg table. The green and red parrot blinkedlidless yellow eyes, jabbered:
"Look who's here!"
Terrence shouted with boyish laughter. "Atta-boy! Old Mephisto will addthe modern touch. [Pg 10] Cabaret stuff. Hope he doesn't croak, 'Goo'-bye!Goo'-bye!' in the middle of the dinner. The advertisers might leavewithout settling. Five dollars per! Zowie! For a hard-boiled female leadme to a college grad and an ex-reporter."
Lightning slashed Pamela's eyes, eyes as dark as eyes may be. "I wasnever a reporter, Terry Leigh. I did features. That is why I get such athrill out of the Silver Moon Chowder House. Grandmother called thisplace The Cottage. Too prosaic. A business like ours needs somethingwith a lift. Silver Moon somehow sets my imagination a-tiptoe. To meeach patron means a story. In our English course at college we madediagrams of plots. Mr. A starts for B at the other end of a straightline. Half way he meets C. That contact sidetracks him to D. Contactsrepresented by dots. Sometimes my Mr. A never reached B."
"You can put that over in a story but it doesn't click in real life."
"Doesn't it? What happened when Father, A, started to visit you, B, atschool? Half way he met an actress, C, whose car had broken down. Tookher to her home, D. Married her the next month. Never reached you atschool, B. What did that meeting with C do to our lives? Tangled theminto a snarl, messed them tragically, didn't it?"
"I guess you're right. We'll be in a great old jumble if every personwho orders chowder dots our lifelines."
[Pg 11] "Let's make a plot diagram for today, Terry. We will call the advertiserwho is coming, A, and his friend, B. C is their objective, the house towhich they return from here. Perhaps I'll get a story germ. As for mybeing hard-boiled—somebody must be with Father sick, and thosecreditors of his sending threatening letters and calling on thetelephone—and you having to leave prep school your last year and go tothis country academy when you were leading your class in studies andwere being groomed for a pitcher,—. Life is just a hideous nightmare."
Terrence cleared his throat. "Brace up, Pam. We'll get out of the woodsyet. Remember that poem of Holman Day's I came across the other dayabout the two frogs in the pail of milk? One gave up and was drowned,the other kicked till he churned an island of butter and hopped out." Hepatted her shoulder. "Kick, frog, kick! Don't you worry about me. I likethe Academy, honest. If you lose courage, 'twill be a cockeyed world."He swallowed hard, brushed his hand over his eyes. "Make that advertiserplank down the cash. Remember the last cheque we took in payment forfive chowder dinners?"
Pamela laughed. Not too steadily, not too convincingly, but it passed.Terrence's eyes cleared.
"Remember it? If ever my heart is X-rayed, seared into its jacket willbe found the two words written on that returned cheque, 'No Funds.'Hitty [Pg 12] Betts is coming to help clear up. We don't even know the genderof our plot germs. Perhaps A and B are men. If they are, I hope theywon't be like the two who dropped in for chowder last week. Their eyeswere like gimlets boring into our lovely old pieces of furniture and theSandwich glass, till I expected to find the maple full of holes and theglass cracked after their departure."
"Perhaps they were antique dealers and knew the real thing when they sawit. A guy wouldn't need a Rhodes scholarship mind to realize that oldJohn Leigh isn't of 20th century vintage."
Terrence and his sister looked up at the portrait above the maplelowboy. A long-gone Leigh as Thomas Sully had seen him. Black coat,white stock, snowy hair, sparse on top, thick and waving over the ears.Speculative blue eyes under bushy gray brows, florid complexion, a hawknose, which almost met the thin line of clamped lips. A fine handholding an open letter.
"Goo'-bye! Goo'-bye!" croaked the parrot irritably as he swung headdown.
Pamela started for the door. "Thanks for the reminder, Mephisto. Onewould think I had nothing to do. I hope, Terry dear, that they give youa good tip. If the plot germs, A and B, are men, they will. I'm not sosure about women."
"No two of a kind in it if it's a matter of sentiment, I'll bet my hat."
"I can stand this mess we are in but it seems as if [Pg 13] I couldn't bear itfor Terry," Pamela told herself as she entered the big sunny kitchen.The floor was covered with a gray and white linoleum, patterned liketiles. Chairs and tables repeated the color of the pale green walls. Thegirl flinched mentally even as she approved the charming effect. She hadbought the paint and floor covering before she had known of the flock ofbills which came flying home to roost soon after the family had movedinto the old Leigh homestead.
She shook off the depression which thought of the indebtedness wrappedround her spirit like a smothering cloak and tried to be just. Whyshouldn't the creditors clamor for their money? They had supplied thegoods. If only she could pay them.
She beat potatoes to swansdown delicacy, added rich cream and seasoningand fluffed again. She struggled valiantly against bitterness as sheremembered her last Thanksgiving. Terry had come from school to join herin the city. They had had a grand and glorious time. Twice to thetheatre. Lunch and dinner at gay restaurants. She mashed copper-goldensquash to delectable lightness as her thoughts trooped on. The financialcrash had swept away not only her father's fortune but the money theirmother had left to her children. He had gone to pieces physically—socharacteristic of him not to brace with all his force to see a difficultsituation through. Young Mrs. Leigh had sent for her, had [Pg 14] furiouslycondemned her husband for his lack of judgment; had declared that it wasthe duty of his two children whom he had expensively brought up—just asif all parents didn't spend money on their children when they could—tolook after him now th