Ralestone Luck

CHAPTER XVIII RUPERT BRINGS HOME HIS MARCHIONESS

"Such a nice domestic scene," Val observed.

Ricky looked up from the bowl into which she was shelling peas. "Now just what do you mean by that?" she asked suspiciously.

"Nothing, nothing at all. It's getting so I can't say a word around here without you suspecting some sort of a catch in it," her brother complained. He shifted the drawing-board Rod had fixed up for him an inch or two. Although Val's arm was at last out of the sling, he was not supposed to use it unless absolutely necessary.

"Well, after that afternoon when you made the missing heir appear like a rabbit out of a hat—" began his sister.

"Rod," Val called down to where their cousin was busied over the stretching of the new badminton net, "did you hear that? She referred to you as a rabbit—deliberately."

"Hm-m," Rod answered in absent-minded fashion. "That cat of Miss Charity's just walked away with one of those feathered things yo' bat 'round."

"Let us hope that he returns it in time," Val said; "otherwise I can prophesy that you are going to spend the rest of the morning crawling around under hedges and things hunting for him and it. Ricky will not be balked. If she says that we are going to play badminton—well, we are going to play badminton."

"I think that you might help too." Ricky attacked a fresh pod viciously as their cousin came up on the terrace. He stopped for a moment by Ricky's chair, long enough to gather the pods together on the paper she had put down for them, piling them up in a more orderly fashion than she was capable of.

"Doing what?" Val inquired. "You know that Lucy has chased everyone out of the house. And now that Rod has finished setting out the lawn sports, what is there left to do? By the way, did Sam mend that croquet mallet, the one with the loose head?"

"The one that you broke hitting the stone with when you aimed at your ball yesterday?" she asked sweetly. "Yes, I saw to that this morning."

"Then what more is there to worry about? Let the party begin." Val reached for his box of pencils.

That afternoon promptly at three-thirty the Ralestones of Pirate's Haven were going to give their first party. They had lived, eaten, and slept with the idea of a party for the past week until Rupert rebelled and disappeared for the morning, taking Charity with him. He declared before he left that the house was no longer habitable for anyone above the mental level of a party-mad monomaniac, a statement with which Val privately agreed. But Ricky did trap him before he got the roadster out and made him promise to bring home two pounds of salted nuts and some more ice, because she simply knew that they wouldn't have enough.

Ricky dropped the last of the peas into the bowl and leaned back in her canvas deck-chair. "I'm going to wear green," she murmured dreamily, "with that leaf thing in my hair. And Charity's going to wear her rose, the one that swishes when she walks."

"I think I'll appear in saffron," Val announced firmly. "Somehow I feel like saffron. How about you, Rod?"

The thin, efficient, brown-faced person who was Roderick St. Jean de Roche Ralestone, to grant him his full name, stretched lazily and transferred a fistful of Ricky's peas to his mouth, a mouth which was no longer sullen. At Val's question he raised his shoulders in one of his French shrugs and considered.

"Yellow, with lilies behind mah ears," he grinned at Ricky. "Bettah give them somethin' to stare at; they'll all be powerful interested, anyway."

"Yes, the lost viscount," Val agreed. "Of course, you're really only a Lord like me, but it sounds better to say 'the lost viscount.' You'll share the limelight with Rupert and the Luck, so you'd better take that pair of my flannels which haven't turned quite yellow yet."

Rod shook his head. "This time Ah have mah own. Ah went in town shoppin' yesterday. It's mah turn to share clothes. Youah brothah told me to get yo' some shirts. So Ah did. Lucy put them in the top drawer."

"Don't tell me," Val begged, aroused by this news, "that we are actually able to afford some new clothes again?"

Rod nodded and Ricky sat up. "Don't be silly," she said, "we're comfortably well off. With Rupert writing books, and a lot of oil or something in the swamp, why, what have we got to worry about? And next fall Rod's going to college and I'm taking that course in dress designing and Rupert's going to write another book and—and—" Her inventive powers failed as Holmes came out on the terrace.

"Hello there." Val glanced at his watch. "I don't want to seem inhospitable, but you're about four hours too early. We haven't even crawled into our party duds."

"So I see. But this isn't a social call. By the way, where's Charity?"

"Oh, she went off with Rupert this morning," answered Ricky. "And I think it was mean of them, running out on us that way, when there was so much to do."

It seemed to Val that there was a faint shadow of irritation across the open good nature of Holmes' smile when he heard her answer. "That damsel is becoming very elusive nowadays," he observed as he sat down. "But now for business."

"More business? Not another oil-well!" Ricky expressed her surprise vividly with upflung hands.

"Not an oil-well, no. Just this—" He pulled Val's black note-book from his pocket. "Now I am not going to tell you that I have shown them to a publisher and that he wants fifty thousand or so at five dollars apiece. But I did show them to that friend I spoke of. He isn't very well known at present but he will be some day. His name is Fenly Moss and he is interested in animated cartoons. He has some ideas that sound rather big to me.

"Fen says that these animal drawings of yours show promise and he wants to know whether you ever thought of trying something along his line?"

Val shook his head, impatient to hear the rest.

"Well, he's in town right now on his vacation and he's coming out to see you tomorrow. I advise you, Ralestone, that if Fen makes you the proposition I think he's going to, to grab it. It'll mean hard work for you and plenty of it, but there is a future to it."

"I don't know how to thank you," the boy began when Holmes frowned at him half-seriously. "None of that. I was really doing Fen a favor, but you needn't tell him that. Do you know how long Charity and your brother are going to be gone?"

"No. But they'll be back for lunch," Ricky said. "If they remember lunch—they're getting so vague lately. Val went out to call them to dinner last night and it took him a good five minutes to get them out of the garden."

"Five? Nearer ten," scoffed her brother.

Holmes got up abruptly. "Well, I'll be drifting. When is this binge of yours?"

"Three-thirty, which really means four," answered Ricky. "Aren't you going to stay to lunch?"

The New Yorker shook his head. "Sorry, I've another engagement. Thanks just the same."

"Thank you!" Val waved the note-book as he vanished. "Wonder why he hurried off that way?"

"Mad to think that Miss Charity was gone," answered Rod shrewdly. "Yo've had that board long enough." He calmly possessed himself of Val's drawing equipment. "Time to rest."

"Yes, grandfather," his cousin assented meekly.

Ricky slapped at a fly. "It seems to get hotter and hotter," she said. From the breast pocket of her sport dress she produced a handkerchief and mopped her face. Then she looked at the handkerchief in surprise.

"What's the matter? Some face come off along with the paint?" asked Val.

"No. But I just remembered what this is—our clue!"

"You mean the handkerchief we found in the hall? I wonder who—"

Rod reached up and took it out of her hand.

"Mine. Miss Charity gave me a dozen last Christmas."

"Then you left it there," Ricky laughed. "Well, that solves the last of our mysteries."

"All present or accounted for," Val agreed as around the house came Rupert and their tenant.

"So there you are," began Ricky. "And I'd like to know what you've been doing all morning—"

"Would you really?" asked Rupert.

Ricky stared at him for a long moment and then she arose before transferring her gaze to Charity. It might have been sunburn or the heat Ricky had complained of which colored the cheeks of the Boston Biglow.

"Rod! Val!" cried Ricky. "Where are your manners?" As she sank forward in a deep and graceful curtsy she added, "Can't you see that Rupert has brought home his Marchioness?"

"Now that," said Val, as he held out his hand to the new mistress of Pirate's Haven, "is what I call 'Ralestone Luck.'"