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Read Ebook: The Queen of Farrandale: A Novel by Burnham Clara Louise
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Ebook has 2177 lines and 62320 words, and 44 pages
Ogden slapped him on the back and he moved off with long, deliberate strides. The older man looked after him. The boy's splendid build and the grace with which his head was set on those firm shoulders attracted many a glance wherever he appeared.
The man sighed. He was familiar with the type of disillusioned returned members of the A.E.F., who went out surrounded by the incense of hero-worship, and came back to the shock of finding themselves negligible.
FOR CAROL
At the appointed hour Hugh came. He had made the concession of blacking his shoes, and shaving, and the unkempt hair of the noon hour, though obviously still in need of the barber, had been brushed until its dark auburn waves lay thickly in place.
John Ogden had secured a table for two in a retired corner and ordered a dinner, the first couple of courses of which seemed to cheer the gloom of his guest.
"I suppose I ought to call you Major," said the boy.
"Not if it does violence to your feelings. I am plain John Ogden again, you know. I would like to forget the war."
"Same here," returned Hugh, swallowing a mighty mouthful of red snapper.
When the meat course was well under way, Ogden began his investigation again.
"You haven't told me much about yourself," he said. "It seems as if you must have relatives in town. Why should you be living in a boarding-house? It's too bad. I thought I remembered connections of your father's."
"There were some odd cousins of his about when I was a kid," said Hugh, "but they have disappeared. I wouldn't live with 'em on a bet, anyway."
"Then there was some one else," persisted the host. "Your father had a very wealthy aunt, I remember."
The filet was so extremely good that under its influence Hugh smiled at this reminiscence. "Oh, that old dame," he remarked. "Yes, she's still in the ring. You couldn't kill her with an axe. She must be a hundred and fifty by this time; but she doesn't live here, you know."
"I thought she did."
"No, old Sukey lives in Farrandale"--naming a rural city some hundred miles distant from the metropolis.
John Ogden admired beauty in man, woman, or child, and the light of contemptuous amusement which now played over the face of his guest so relieved its habitual sullenness that the host allowed himself the pleasure of staring for a silent space. He was very conscious of the glances bent upon Hugh from other tables, but the boy himself was entirely engrossed in the best dinner he had enjoyed for many a moon.
"There was some quarrel, I remember," said Ogden; "some trouble between her and your father."
"So she let him die without forgiving him."
"Let him die! She'd have made him die if she could."
"And she ignores the existence of you and Carol."
"Well, rather."
"It is all very vague in my remembrance because I didn't notice anything much but Carol in those days. So"--the speaker paused again--"you are very much alone in the world, Hugh."
"Yes," said the boy carelessly. "What's the difference? I don't want any relatives bothering."
When the meat course was finished, he took out a package of cigarettes. "Have a tack on me?" he said, and his host accepted one, but offered his guest a cigar which the boy refused with a curt shake of the head.
"Of course, if I could have Carol, I'd like it," he went on. "Carol's never a nuisance. It would be good for me, too. I know that. If the Volstead Act hadn't been sneaked in on us, I know perfectly well I wouldn't last long. I haven't any way of making hootch and no money to buy it, so I still cumber the ground."
"I don't like to hear a young fellow talk like that," said John Ogden, and he was not so unconscious of the servant class as to feel easy under the waiter's entertainment.
"A young fellow doesn't like to talk that way either," retorted Hugh, "but what is there in it? What's the use of anything? Of course, I've thought of the movies."
"What?"
"Thought of going into the movies." Hugh did not lower his voice, and the waiter was indefatigable in his attentions.
"I'm a looker," went on the boy impersonally, as he attacked the salad. "Wallie Reid and Valentino--any of those guys wouldn't have anything on me if I chose to go in for it."
"Why don't you, then?" John Ogden thought he might as well share the waiter's entertainment.
"Oh, it's too much bother, and the director yells at you, and they put that yellow stuff all over you when you know you're yellow enough already."
The boy laughed, and sending out a cloud of smoke from his Grecian nose again attacked his crab-meat.
After they had finished the ices and while they were drinking their coffee, Ogden succeeded in driving off the reluctant waiter.
"I'm interested in that inexorable grand-aunt of yours," he said. "What is her name?"
"Susanna Frink," returned Hugh, "affectionately known in the bosom of the family as 'Old Sukey the Freak.'"
His host sat up and leaned forward. "Not possible! Susanna Frink your aunt?"
"'Tisn't my fault," said Hugh, raising the smooth dark eyebrows his host had been admiring.
"But I know her," said Ogden. "There's a masterful old lady for you!"
"You bet your life," agreed Hugh. "I've always believed she must be a descendant of that old galoot--I mean Canute, that commanded the proud wave--thus far and no farther!"
"Well, I never knew that Susanna Frink was Mr. Sinclair's aunt. He never said much about her to me, but Carol used to laugh about a family fortune that was so near and yet so far. Miss Frink is a personage, Hugh. I've had business dealings with her, and she prides herself on being a lady of the old school. She told me so herself. All alone in the world, and feels it, I know, for all her proud front."
"False front probably," put in Hugh.
"Perhaps." Ogden smiled. "Anyway, it is dark--"
"What did I tell you!"
"And faultlessly waved, and she is straight as an arrow and slender, and she drives about in her victoria with the bay horses in the fashion of fifty years ago, scorning automobiles with her whole soul. Her bonnet ties under her chin, and her eyeglasses are attached to a black ribbon. She has personality plus. You ought to meet her."
"Meet her!" Hugh leaned forward with a scowl of incredulous disgust. "Wrinkled old harridan in a black wig! What should I want to meet her for?"
Ogden studied him thoughtfully--"You don't resemble your father. Neither did Carol. You must have had a beautiful mother."
"We did." Hugh felt in an inside pocket and took out a small rubbed morocco photograph case. Opening it, he handed it to his friend.
Color came into the latter's face as he looked at it. "Carol!" he exclaimed.
"No. Mother. What do you think of old Sukey for trying to lay father off that peach?"
"I'd give a thousand dollars for this picture," said Ogden, upon which Hugh took it from him without ceremony and returned it to his inside pocket.
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