Ralestone Luck by Andre Norton (best ereader under 100 txt) 📖

a dim white blur. As he watched, it moved forward. There was something uncanny about that almost noiseless movement.

The blur became a thin figure clad in baggy white breeches and loose shirt. Below the knees the legs seemed to fade into the darkness of the hall and there was something strange about the outlines of the head.

Again the thing resumed its padding and Val saw now that it was pacing the hall in a regular pattern. Which suggested that it was human and was there with a very definite purpose.

He edged farther down the stairs.

"And just what are you doing?"

If his voice quavered upon the last word, it was hardly his fault. For when the thing turned, Val saw—

It had no face!

With a startled cry he lunged forward, clutching at the banister to steady his blundering descent. The thing backed away; already it was fading into the darkness beside the stairs. As Val's feet touched the floor of the hall he caught his last glimpse of it, a thin white patch against the solid paneling of the stairway's broad side. Then it was gone. When Rupert and Ricky came in a few minutes later and turned on the lights, Val was still staring at that blank wall, with Satan rubbing against his ankles.

CHAPTER IX PORTRAIT OF A LADY AND A GENTLEMAN

Rupert had dismissed Val's story of what he had seen in the hall in a very lofty manner. When his brother had persisted in it, Rupert suggested that Val had better keep out of the sun in the morning. For no trace of the thing which had troubled the house remained.

Ricky hesitated between believing wholly in Val's tale or just in his powers of imagination. And between them his family drove him sulky to bed. He was still frowning, or maybe it was a new frown, when he looked into the bathroom mirror the next morning as he dressed. For Val knew that he had seen something in the hall, something monstrous which had no right to be there.

What had their rival said before he left? "Play it that way and you won't be here a month from now." It was just possible—Val paused, half in, half out of, his shirt. Could last night's adventure have had anything to do with that threat? Two or three episodes of that sort might unsettle the strongest nerves and drive the occupants from a house where such a shadow walked.

Something else nagged at the boy's memory. Slowly he traced back over the events of the day before, from the moment when he had watched that queer swamp car crawl downstream. After the visit of the rival, Lucy had come to stay. And then Ricky had started for Charity's while he had gone down to the bayou where he met Jeems. That was it. Jeems!

When Ricky had hinted that he knew more of the swamp than the Ralestones did, why had he been so quick to resent that remark? Could it be because he understood her to mean that he knew more of Pirate's Haven than they did?

And the thing in the Long Hall last night had known of some exit in the wall that the Ralestones did not know of. It had faded into the base of the staircase. And yet, when Val had gone over the paneling there inch by inch, he had gained nothing but sore finger tips.

He tucked his shirt under his belt and looked down to see if Sam Junior had polished his boots as Lucy had ordered her son to do. Save for a trace of mud by the right heel, they had the proper mirror-like surface.

"Mistuh Val," Lucy's penetrating voice made him start guiltily, "is yo' or is yo' not comin' to brekfas'?"

"I am," he answered and started downstairs at his swiftest pace.

The new ruler of their household was standing at the foot of the stairs, her knuckles resting on her broad hips. She eyed the boy sternly. Lucy eyed one, Val thought, much as a Scotch nurse Ricky and he had once had. They had never dared question any of Annie's decrees, and one look from her had been enough to reduce them to instant order. Lucy's eye had the same power. And now as she herded Val into the dining-room he felt like a six-year-old with an uneasy conscience.

Rupert and Ricky were already seated and eating. That is, Ricky was eating, but Rupert was reading his morning mail.

"Yo'all sits down," said Lucy firmly, "an' yo'all eats what's on youah plate. Yo'all ain' much fattah nor a jay-bird."

"I don't see why she keeps comparing me to a living skeleton all the time," Val complained as she departed kitchenward.

"She told Letty-Lou yesterday," supplied Ricky through a mouthful of popover, "that you are 'peaked lookin'."

"Why doesn't she start in on Rupert? He needs another ten pounds or so." Val reached for the butter. "And he hasn't got a very good color, either." Val surveyed his brother professionally. "Doesn't get outdoors enough."

"No," Ricky's voice sounded aggrieved, "he's too busy having secrets—"

"Hmm," Rupert murmured, more interested in his letter than in the conversation.

"The trouble is that we are not Chinese bandits, Malay pirates, or Arab freebooters. We don't possess color, life, enough—enough—"

"Sugar," Rupert interrupted Val, pushing his coffee-cup in the general direction of Ricky without raising his eyes from the page in his hand. She giggled.

"So that's what we lack. Well, now we know. How much sugar should we have, Rupert? Rupert—Mr. Rupert Ralestone—Mr. Rupert Ralestone of Pirate's Haven!" Her voice grew louder and shriller until he did lay down his reading matter and really looked at them for the first time.

"What do you want?"

"A little attention," answered Ricky sweetly. "We aren't Chinese, Arabs, or Malays, but we are kind of nice to know, aren't we, Val? If you'd only come out of your subconscious, or wherever you are most of the time, you'd find that out without being told."

Rupert laughed and pushed away his letters. "Sorry. I picked up the bad habit of reading at breakfast when I didn't have my table brightened by your presence. I know," he became serious, "that I haven't been much of a family man. But there are reasons—"

"Which, of course, you can not tell us," flashed Ricky.

His face lengthened ruefully. He pulled at his tie with an embarrassed frown. "Not yet, anyway. I—" He fumbled with his napkin. "Oh, well, let me see how it comes out first."

Ricky opened her eyes to their widest extent and leaned forward, every inch of her expressing awe. "Rupert, don't tell me that you are an inventor!" she cried.

"Now I know that we'll end in the poorhouse," Val observed.

Rupert had recovered his composure. "'I yam what I yam,'" he quoted.

"Very well. Keep it to yourself then," pouted Ricky. "We can have secrets too."

"I don't doubt it." He glanced at Val. "Unfortunately you always tell them. See any more bogies last night, Val? Did a big, black, formless something reach out from under the bed and clutch at you?"

But his brother refused to be drawn. "No, but when it does I'll sic it onto you. A big, black, formless something is just what you need. And I'll—"

"Am I interrupting?" Charity stood in the door. "Goodness! Haven't you finished breakfast yet? Do you people know that it is almost ten?"

"Madam, we have banished time." Rupert drew out the chair at his left. "Will you favor us with your company?"

"I thought you were going to be busy today," said Ricky as she rang for Letty-Lou and a fresh cup of coffee for their guest.

"So did I," sighed Charity. "And I should be. I've got this order, you know, and now I can't get any models. Why there should be a sudden dearth of them right now, I can't imagine. I thought I could use Jeems again, but somehow he isn't the type." She raised her cup to her lips.

"Are you doing story illustrations?" asked Rupert, more alive now than he had been all morning.

"Yes. A historical thriller for a magazine. They want a full-page cut for the first chapter and a half-page to illustrate the most exciting scene. Then there're innumerable smaller ones. But the two large ones are what I'm worrying about. I like to get the important stuff finished first, and now I simply can't get models who are the right types."

"What's the story about?" demanded Ricky.

"It's laid in Haiti during the French invasion led by Napoleon's brother-in-law, the one who married Pauline. All voodoo and aristocratic young hero and beautiful maiden pursued by an officer of the black rebels. And," she almost wailed, "here I am with the clothes spread all over my bed—the right costumes, you know—with no one to wear them. I went over to the Corners this morning and called Johnson—he runs a registration office for models—but he couldn't promise me anyone." She bit absent-mindedly into a round spiced roll Ricky had placed before her.

"Wait!" She laid down the roll in a preoccupied fashion and stared across the table. "Val, stand up."

Wondering, he pushed back his chair and arose obediently.

"Turn your head a little more to the right," Charity ordered. "There, that's it! Now try to look as if there were something all ready to spring at you from that corner over there."

For one angry moment he thought that she had been told of what had happened the night before and was baiting him, as the others had done. But a sidewise glance showed him that her interest lay elsewhere. So he screwed up his features into what he fondly hoped was a grim and deadly smile.

"For goodness sake, don't look as if you had eaten green apples," Ricky shot at him. "Just put on that face you wear when I show you a new hat. No, not that sneering one; the other."

Rupert threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Better let him alone, Ricky. After all, it's his face."

"I'm glad that someone has pointed out that fact," Val said stiffly, "because—"

"Oh, be quiet!" Charity leaned forward across the table. "Yes," she nodded, "you'll do."

"For what?" Val asked, slightly apprehensive.

"For my hero. Of course your hair is too short and you are rather too youthful, but I can disguise those points. And," she turned upon Ricky, "you can be the lady in distress. Which gives me another idea. Do you suppose that I might use your terrace for a background and have that big chair, the one with the high back?" she asked Rupert.

"You may have anything you want within these walls," he answered lightly enough, but it was clear that he really meant it.

"What am I supposed to do?" Val asked.

Charity considered. "I think I'll try the action one first," she said half to herself. "That's going to be the most difficult. Ricky, will you send one of Lucy's children over with me to help carry back the costumes and my material—" She was already at the door.

"Val and I will go instead," Ricky replied.

Some twenty minutes later Val was handed a suitcase and told to use the contents to cover his back. Having doubts of the wisdom of the whole affair, he went reluctantly upstairs to obey. But the result was not so bad. The broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted coat did not fit him ill, though the shiny boots were at least a size too large. Timidly he went down. Ricky was the first to see him.

"Val! You look like something out of Lloyds of London. Rupert, look at Val. Doesn't he look wonderful?"

Having thus made public his embarrassment, she ran to the mirror to finish her own prinking. The high-waisted Empire gown of soft green voile made her appear taller than usual. But she walked with a little shuffle which suggested that her ribbon-strapped slippers fitted her no better than Val's boots did him. Charity was coaxing Ricky's tight fashionable curls into a looser arrangement and tying a green ribbon about them. This done, she turned to survey Val.

"I thought so," she said with satisfaction. "You are just what I want. But," the tiny lines about her eyes crinkled in amusement, "at present you are just a little too perfect. Do you realize that you have just fought off an attack, led by a witch doctor, in which you were wounded; that you have struggled through a jungle for seven hours in order to reach your betrothed; and that you are now facing death by torture? I hardly think that you should look as if you had just stepped out of the tailor's—"

"I've done all that?" Val demanded, somewhat staggered.

"Well, the author says you have, so you've got to look it. We'd better muss you up a bit. Let's see." She tapped her fingernail against her teeth as she looked him up and