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

down. "Off with that coat first."

He wriggled out of the coat and stood with the glories of his ruffled shirt fully displayed. "Now what?" he asked.

"This," she reached forward and ripped his left sleeve to the shoulder. "Untie that cravat and take it off. Roll up your other sleeve above the elbow. That's right. Ricky, you muss up his hair. Let a lock of it fall across his forehead. No, not there—there. Good. Now he's ready for the final touches." She went to the table where her paints had been left. "Let's see—carmine, that ought to be right. This is water-color, Val, it'll all wash off in a minute."

Across his smooth tanned cheek she dribbled a jagged line of scarlet. Then instructing Ricky to bind the torn edge of his sleeve above his elbow, she also stained the bandage. "Well?" she turned to Rupert.

"He looks as though he had been through the wars all right," he agreed. "But what about the costume?"

"Oh, we needn't worry about that. They knew I'd have to do this, so they duplicated everything. Now for you, Ricky. Pull your sleeve down off your shoulder and see if you can tear the skirt up from the hem on that side—about as far as your knee. Yes, that's fine. You're ready now."

Rupert picked up from the table a sword and a long-barrelled dueling pistol and led the way out onto the terrace. Charity pointed to the big chair in the sunlight.

"This will probably be hard for you two," she warned them frankly. "If you get tired, don't hesitate to tell me. I'll give you a rest every ten minutes. Val, you sit down in the chair. Slump over toward that arm as if you were about finished. No, more limp than that. Now look straight ahead. You are on the terrace of Beauvallet. Beside you is the girl you love. You are all that stands between her and the black rebels. Now take this sword in your right hand and the pistol in your left. Lean forward a little. There! Now don't move; you've got just the pose I want. Ricky, crouch down by the side of his chair with your arm up so that you can touch his hand. You're terrified. There's death, horrible death, before you!"

Val could feel Ricky's hand quiver against his. Charity had made them both see and feel what she wanted them to. They weren't in the peaceful sunlight on the terrace of Pirate's Haven; they were miles farther south in the dark land of Haiti, the Haiti of more than a hundred years ago. Before them was a semitropical forest from which at any moment might crawl—death. Val's hand tightened on the sword hilt; the pistol butt was clammy in his grip.

Rupert had put up the easel and laid out the paints. And now, taking up her charcoal, Charity began to sketch with clear, clean strokes.

Her models' unaccustomed muscles cramped so that when they shifted during their rest periods they grimaced with pain. Ricky whispered that she did not wonder models were hard to get. After a while Rupert went away without Charity noticing his leaving. The sun burned Val's cheek where the paint had dried and he felt a trickle of moisture edge down his spine. But Charity worked on, thoroughly intent upon what was growing under her brushes.

It must have been close to noon when she was at last interrupted.

"Hello there, Miss Biglow!"

Two men stood below the terrace on a garden path. One of them waved his hat as Charity looked around. And behind them stood Jeems.

"Go away," said the worker, "go away, Judson Holmes. I haven't any time for you today."

"Not after I've come all the way from New York to see you?" he asked reproachfully. "Why, Charity!" He had the reddest hair Val had ever seen—and the homeliest face—but his small-boy grin was friendliness itself.

"Go away," she repeated stubbornly.

"Nope!" He shook his head firmly. "I'm staying right here until you forget that for at least a minute." He motioned toward the picture.

With a sigh she put down her brush. "I suppose I'll have to humor you."

"Miss Charity," Jeems had not taken his eyes from the two models since he had arrived and he did not move them now, "what're they all fixed up like that fur?"

"It's a picture for a story," she explained. "A story about Haiti in the old days—"

"Ah reckon Ah know," he nodded eagerly, his face suddenly alight. "That's wheah th' blacks kilt th' French back in history times. Ah got me a book 'bout it. A book in handwritin', not printin'. Père Armand larned me to read it."

Judson Holmes' companion moved forward. "A book in handwriting," he said slowly. "Could that possibly mean a diary?"

Charity was wiping her hands on a paint rag. "It might. New Orleans was a port of refuge for a great many of the French who fled the island during the slave uprising. It is not impossible."

"I've got to see it! Here, boy, what's your name?" He pounced upon Jeems. "Can you get that book here this afternoon?"

Jeems drew back. "Ah ain't gonna bring no book heah. That's mine an' you ain't gonna set eye on it!" With that parting shot he was gone.

"But—but—" protested the other, "I've got to see it. Why, such a find might be priceless."

Mr. Holmes laughed. "Curb your hunting instincts for once, Creighton. You can't handle a swamper that way. Let's go and see Charity's masterpiece instead."

"I don't remember having asked you to," she observed.

"Oh, see here now, wasn't I the one who got you this commission? And Creighton here is that strange animal known as a publisher's scout. And publishers sometimes desire the services of illustrators, so you had better impress Creighton as soon as possible. Well," he looked at the picture, "you have done it!"

Even Creighton, who had been inclined to stare back over his shoulder at the point where Jeems disappeared, now gave it more than half his attention.

"Is that for Drums of Doom?" he asked becoming suddenly crisp and professional.

"Yes."

"Might do for the jacket of the book. Have Mr. Richards see this. Marvelous types, where did you get them?" he continued, looking from the canvas to Ricky and Val.

"Oh, I am sorry. Miss Ralestone, may I present Mr. Creighton, and Mr. Holmes, both of New York. And this," she smiled at Val, "is Mr. Valerius Ralestone, the brother of the owner of this plantation. The family, I believe, has lived here for about two hundred and fifty years."

Creighton's manner became a shade less brusque as he took the hand Ricky held out to him. "I might have known that no professional could get that look," he said.

"Then this isn't your place?" Mr. Holmes said to Charity after he had greeted the Ralestones.

"Mine? Goodness no! I rent the old overseer's house. Pirate's Haven is Ralestone property."

"Pirate's Haven." Judson Holmes' infectious grin reappeared. "A rather suggestive name."

"The builder intended to name it 'King's Acres' because it was a royal grant," Val informed him. "But he was a pirate, so the other name was given it by the country folk and he adopted it. And he was right in doing so because there were other freebooters in the family after his time."

"Yes, we are even equipped with a pirate ghost," contributed Ricky with a mischievous glance in her brother's direction.

Holmes fanned himself with his hat. "So romance isn't dead after all. Well, Charity, shall we stay—in town I mean?"

"Why?" a thin line appeared between her eyes as if she had little liking for such a plan.

"Well, Creighton is here on the track of a mysterious new writer who is threatening to produce a second Gone with the Wind. And I—well, I like the climate."

"We'll see," muttered Charity.

CHAPTER X INTO THE SWAMP

In spite of the fact that they received but lukewarm encouragement from Charity, both Holmes and Creighton lingered on in New Orleans. Mr. Creighton made several attempts to get in touch with Jeems, whom he seemed to suspect of concealing vast literary treasures. And he spent one hot morning going through the trunk of papers which the Ralestones had found in the storage-room. Ricky commented upon the fact that being a publisher's scout was almost like being an antique buyer.

Holmes was a perfect foil for his laboring friend. He lounged away his days draped across the settee on Charity's gallery or sitting down on the bayou levee—after she had chased him away—pitching pebbles into the water. He told all of them that it was his vacation, the first one he had had in five years, and that he was going to make the most of it. Companioned by Creighton, he usually enlarged the family circle in the evenings. And the tales he could tell about the far corners of the earth were as wildly romantic as Rupert's—though he did assure his listeners that even Tibet was very tame and well behaved nowadays.

Charity had finished the first illustration and had started another. This time Ricky and Val appeared polished and combed as if they had just stepped out of a ball-room of a governor's palace—which they had, according to the story. It was during her second morning's work upon this that she threw down her brush with a snort of disgust.

"It's no use," she told her models, "I simply can't work on this now. All I can see is that scene where the hero's mulatto half-brother watches the ball from the underbrush. I've got to do that one first."

"Why don't you then?" Ricky stretched to relieve cramped muscles.

"I would if I could get Jeems. He's my model for the brother. He's enough like you, Val, for the resemblance, and his darker tan is just right for color. But he won't come back while Creighton's here. I could wring that man's neck!"

"But Creighton left for Milneburg this morning," Val reminded her. "Rupert told him about the old voodoo rites which used to be celebrated there on June 24th, St. John's Eve, and he wanted to see if there were any records—"

"Yes. But Jeems doesn't know he's gone. If we could only get in touch with him—Jeems, I mean."

"Miss 'Chanda!"

Sam Two, as they had come to call Sam's eldest son and heir, was standing on the lowest step of the terrace, holding a small covered basket in his hands.

"Yes?"

"Letty-Lou done say dis am fo' yo'all, Miss 'Chanda."

"For me?" Ricky looked at the offering in surprise. "But what in the world—Bring it here, Sam."

"Yas'm."

He laid the basket in Ricky's outstretched hands.

"I've never seen anything like this before." She turned it around. "It seems to be woven of some awfully fine grass—"

"That's swamp work." Charity was peering over Ricky's shoulder. "Open it."

Inside on a nest of raw wild cotton lay a bracelet of polished wood carved with an odd design of curling lines which reminded Val of Spanish moss. And with the circlet was a small purse of scaled hide.

"Swamp oak and baby alligator," burst out Charity. "Aren't they beauties?"

"But who—" began Ricky.

Val picked up a scrap of paper which had fluttered to the floor. It was cheap stuff, ruled with faint blue lines, but the writing was bold and clear: "Miss Richanda Ralestone."

"It's yours all right." He handed her the paper.

"I know." She tucked the note away with the gifts. "It was Jeems."

"Jeems? But why?" her brother protested.

"Well, yesterday when I was down by the levee he was coming in and I knew that Mr. Creighton was here and I told him. So," she colored faintly, "then he took me across the bayou and I got some of those big swamp lilies that I've always wanted. And we had a long talk. Val, Jeems knows the most wonderful things about the swamps. Do you know that they still have voodoo meetings sometimes—way back in there," she swept her hand southward. "And the fur trappers live on house-boats, renting their hunting rights. But Jeems owns his own land. Now some northerners are prospecting for oil. They have a queer sort of car which can travel either on land or water. And Père Armand has church records that date back to the middle of the eighteenth century. And—"

"So that's where you were from four until almost six," Val laughed. "I don't know that I approve of this riotous living. Will Jeems take me to pick the lilies too?"

"Maybe. He wanted to know why you always moved so carefully. And I told him about the accident. Then he said the oddest thing—" She was staring past Val at the oaks. "He said that to fly was worth being smashed up for and that he envied you."

"Then he's a fool!" her brother said promptly. "Nothing is worth—" Val stopped abruptly. Five months before he had made a bargain with himself; he was not going to