“Beware! Little Coz is mounting her pulpit! I warn you, Jo, for some ridiculous reason I’m higher than the Mahoganies this morning. You simply can’t spoil it.”
“I don’t want to. I like to see you happy. It’s such a welcome change.”
“Right again. In pursuance whereof, and since New Year’s Day is the time for resolutions, I hereby resolve to restrict my coffin-nail intake, ration my poison-slupping, and consort only with incorruptible virgins, starting with you.”
“How do you know I’m, well, incorruptible?”
“By me you are,” said Christopher. “I ought to know. I’ve tried enough times.”
“And that’s a fact,” said Jo in a rather grim tone. But then she laughed, and he laughed, too.
They skirted the big glasshouse, whose panes cast into the hard bright air a fireworks of sparks, and went on across a carpet of dead grass toward a noble stand of evergreens.
Christopher was happily conscious of Joanne beside him. Her stride was long and free, a no-nonsense sort of locomotion that managed to emphasize her secondary sex characteristics, which were notable. And not even the wool stockings and the thick-soled walking shoes could spoil as captivating a pair of legs as his connoisseur’s eye had ever studied.
“You implied that I’m different when I’m happy,” Christopher said.
“You certainly are.”
“Well, I’ve been feeling different this morning, and I couldn’t figure it. Now I can. I’m not different — I’m the same old rounder I’ve always been. What I am is, I’m responding to a fresh stimulus. You, Cousin. It’s you who spell the difference.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Jo.
“Oh, before this I’ve gone through the battlefield maneuvers with you, but I didn’t actually notice you. You know what I mean?”
“I’m getting a clue,” said Jo warily.
“But now I am. I mean I’m noticing you, Cousin. In the aggregate, as it were, not merely here and there. Am I communicating? What does it mean?”
“It means you’re bored, and you’ve decided to make a little time to while away your boredom.”
“Not at all. Suddenly you’ve turned into a marvelously desirable piece of goods.”
“And you’re the susceptible buyer.”
“Not the way you mean. You forget that I make my way boards-treading. I’m used to desirable women — the theater is lousy with them. So much so that I’ve been in danger of turning monk.”
“Then why are you tickling my hand?”
“Because I’ve decided against celibacy. With your permission I’ll go further. I’ll put my arm around you.”
“Permission denied. I’ve been through that maneuver before with you, and it leads to a major battle. We’ll sit here on this log for a while and rest. Then we’ll go back.”
They sat. It was cold. They sat closer — for warmth, Joanne told herself.
“Gosh, it’s wonderful,” breathed Christopher in little puffs, like smoke.
“What’s wonderful?”
“How things change. When we were kids I thought you were the world’s biggest stinker.”
“I couldn’t stand you, either. There are times when I still can’t. Like last night.”
“Last night? Why, I was a model of deportment!”
“You don’t know your father well, do you?”
“Father? As well as anybody.”
“Your gift to him didn’t show it. Nor Ellen’s — Uncle Godfrey hasn’t smoked in years. And you gave him a cane, for heaven’s sake! Don’t you realize Uncle Godfrey’s too proud to use a cane? He’d never admit dependence that way.”
Christopher Mumford had to admit to himself that her indictment was justified. He had bought the walking stick (on credit) without any real consideration of his father’s needs or wants.
“You’re right,” he sighed. “What with handling father’s correspondence and puttering around after him in the greenhouse, you’ve come to know him better than his own children.”
They went on sitting on the log and holding hands. Jo had to hold his hands very firmly.
January 3
Breakfast was not a ritual at the Mumfords’, but a certain deference was customarily shown to the head of the house. Family and guests, barring illness or improbably late hours the night before, were encouraged to present themselves promptly at 9:00, which was the time Godfrey Mumford invariably appeared.
Christopher, still floating in his euphoria, came downstairs a good 20 minutes ahead of schedule. He was astonished to find his distaff counterpart in the breakfast room before him. Ellen, the one member of the family traditionally AWOL from the morning meal, on this morning was lounging in a spot of sunshine with a cup of Margaret Caswell’s rich coffee in her hand.
“I knew it, I knew it,” Christopher said. “A day for miracles. Imagine finding you on your feet at this proletarian hour.”
Ellen glared at him through the aromatic steam. “What makes you so cheerful of late? It’s disgusting.”
“Something rare has entered my life. As the ecclesiastical arm puts it, I have been uplifted in spirit.”
Ellen sniffed. “You? Confessing to a tardy conversion? It would be too simply dreary.”
“Hell, no, nothing so primitive.” Chris spread himself over a chair and inhaled deeply of the delicious smells from the kitchen. “Although God knows neither of us has much to be cheerful about, I grant you.”
“That’s why I was hoping to catch you alone before breakfast.” Ellen’s tone expressed her resentment of the radical recourse forced upon her. “You may not realize it, Chris, but you’ve been pretty slimy lately. Is the sisterly eye mistaken, or aren’t you being awfully attentive to our little country cousin? You aren’t casting her for a role in some dirty drama you’re working on, are you?”
“Don’t be foul,” said Christopher shortly. “And Jo’s no yokel. Just because she hasn’t had the advantage of living in London and acquiring a vocabulary of British clichés—”
“Bless my soul and whiskers.” The saccharine in Ellen’s smile was chemically combined with acid. “Lord Ironpants has suddenly developed a tender spot.”
“Never mind. Just what did you want to talk about?”
“Father’s performance the other night. What did you think of it?”
“Top hole, pip-pip, stiff upper, and all that.”
“Do you suppose he was telling the whole truth?”
“Father? Of course. You know father isn’t capable of a deliberate deception.”
“I wonder,” said Ellen thoughtfully.
“Don’t be silly. He was giving it to us straight.”
“Aren’t you being terribly indifferent to it all? In my opinion, it’s no trifle having your inheritance reduced from millions to thousands by your father’s stupidity and the venality of some crooked solicitor. There must be something we can do about it.”
“Sure — grin and bear it. It isn’t as if we’ll have to go on relief, Ellen. There ought to be several hundred thou’ at least to be divided between us after taxes. In the parlance of Wrightsville, that ain’t hay.”
“It ‘ain’t’ five million, either. Honestly, I’m so furious with father I could spit!”
Christopher grinned. Ellen’s rage made her almost human. “Chin up, old girl,” he said, not unfondly. “It’s the Empiah tradition, y’know.”
“Oh, go to hell! I don’t know why I bother to discuss anything with you.”
Jo Caswell entered the breakfast room at that moment, looking lusciously slim and young in a heather wool dress, and bringing in with her, Christopher was prepared to swear, a personal escort of sunshine. He immediately quit the natural variety for Jo’s peculiar radiance; and Ellen, finding herself a crowd, withdrew disdainfully to the other end of the table.