| Show GWEN BRISTOW W 0 r 0 aea T R SS THE STORY THUS FAR spratt herlong had become a successful major producer of motion pictures when things were not going just right at the office he would call his wife elizabeth and have her join him at lunch he liked to talk matters over with her not to secure her advice but for or the sympathetic interest she displayed after one such meeting the talk turned to their oldest son dick now 17 who would soon be entering service they both decided that when the time came they would face it bravely spratt said that giving their son to their country was little compared to what they would lose in case we were defeated in the war CHAPTER 11 II tine fine kennedy said spratt hows the baby mo JAU jall 1 right again agaid just a cold nothing t hing to worry about you all right mrs herlong never better answered elizabeth and started the car again she drove into the lot turned to the left and went along a street of bungalows each occupied by a suite of offices until she came to the one with R spratt herlong printed on the door spratt got out and standing on the gravel drive he turned back to look at her as she sat behind the wheel she saw his eyes going over her appreciatively spratt had gray eyes cold as fog until they looked at something that stirred a luminous warmth within them when they had the gentle grayness of olive leaves spratt looked over the glistening car and over elizabeth trim and alert behind the wheel in her dark green autumn dress and mink jacket he looked at her well brushed hair her face lean and clean cut with its healthy skin her still excellent figure her hands in brown leather gloves resting competently on the wheel spratt smiled taking her in with the same comprehensive grasp of detail that enabled him to spot one incongruous cigarette box in in a studio set containing a hundred items he nodded with satisfied appraisal not bad he observed for a little girl from tulsa oklahoma elizabeth laughed at him are you coming home tor for dinner 1 I certainly am why the query it may be pretty noisy dick and cherry are having a couple of youngsters oung in VJ what on earth are you feeding them with 1 I was very lucky I 1 got some short ribs of beef and shrimps scrimps to start with better than anything I 1 could get at the commissary ill be there if kessler turns up with an idea worth talking about I 1 may be a bit late AU all right but ill have to feed the children well start at seven thirty whether youre there or not hows that okay ill have to go in now he waved her goodby good by elizabeth watched him until he went into his bungalow then turning the car around she went back through the gate and started toward the canyon pass that would lead her home to beverly hills elizabeth had a high opinion of marriage because it was an institution in which she had found a great deal of happiness she had been married twice the first marriage joyous but brief for it had been ended in 1918 by a sheu shell at chateau thierry strange to remember now that she had thought her life was over for she was only twenty when it happened and nobody could have told her she was going to meet spratt she had had no children by her first husband and there was nothing concrete in her present life to remind her of him but it was her memory of chateau thierry that made her more frightened than spratt whim when they spoke of their sons approaching military age spratt loved dick as much as she did but he had not had a personal experience of the price of war though spratt was an eminently practical man his mind simply did not accept the possibility that dick could be killed her mind did accept it because she had been through it once and knew it could happen but she tried sincerely not to think about it and for the most part she succeeded dick would inevitably be eighteen what took place after that was up to him and his country horrible as it was this war was nevertheless a battle against evil that must be stopped or it would make the world unfit for dick to live in there was no use letting herself get useless and shaky with dread 1 I wont have to face it for nearly a year elizabeth said to herself for the thousandth time anything can happen before then so she let it go dick was still seventeen and she had everything she had ever wanted a congenial marriage three children and days full of worthwhile occupation its a good life she thought as she turned into the canyon road and the fragrance of sage blew up to her from the glens A very good life I 1 like it in the driveway she paused to give some directions to the gardener her youngest brian aged eleven appeared with his bicycle she called to him where are you going brian scout meeting he looked up and down the street peters peters supposed to come by and go w with 1 th me I 1 said id wait in front for h him i m he ought to be here now all right she nearly added be careful of the traffic but stopped herself brian was as expert with ei a bicycle as she with a car he had never got himself hurt riding and there was no sense in iii being overly fussy with him from scanning the street he turned to look up at her mother can I 1 stay for dinner with peter has he asked you not yet but im going home with him after scout meeting to see his brian bria n got out the word importantly I 1 and he might I 1 mean it if he does can I 1 stay not unless his mother asks you ou she answered gravely you ever go to dinner with any of the boys unless their mothers ask you brian it if mrs stern invites you to stay tell her you arent sure and ask her to call me up it if mrs stern calls you up can I 1 stay you wont say anything about wanting to stay unless she suggests it first no I 1 wont honest I 1 promise all right then if she calls me okay said brian with confident satisfaction oh there he is IU hi he swung to his bicycle and was off how busy they are elizabeth thought as she looked after the two little boys whisking down the street everything they do is so important I 1 wish life was always like that oh fiddlesticks and fury I 1 dont either getting wistful about childhood is a temptation but how dreadful if childhood lasted sixty years living always on the top of things with no idea what goes on underneath laughing at herself she started the car again and drove toward the garaged garage at the back the children did not notice her at once so elizabeth pressed the brake and paused a moment to watch them her two older children dick and cherry were there by the pool with their two friends one of the latter was a leggy freckled girl named julia rayford whom dick for some obscure reason considered beautiful elizabeth could not see that the child had any beauty except what went with health and high spirits but she was glad dick admired her for julia was a nice girl and as she was cherrys chernys Cher rys best friend they all got along amiably together cherry now was a really adorable creature all curves and a cascade of dark hair and her two piece bathing suit clinging wetly to her luscious person did more to emphasize her hips and her round young breasts AIM coo how Z but ashes really lovely than to conceal them elizabeth suddenly thought good heavens how fast id have been arrested tt if id gone swimming as nearly naked as that when I 1 was her age but ashes really lovely since cherry was his sister dick rarely paid much attention to how she looked but it was quite evident that the fourth member of their party was aware of hev hc charms he was a classmate til of dicks who since his name was herbert clarendon whittier was known to his intimates as pudge at the moment pudge was shaking the lemon tree while cherry scrambled around gathering the lemons as they fell dick stood poised on the diving board evidently about to perform some marvelous feat for the admiration of his girl friend who sat with her legs dangling into the water at the shallow end watching him what a healthy looking creature he was elizabeth thought and how he was growing up he really looked more like a man than a boy now and she suddenly thought of dick as he had bad been when he was so tiny she could carry him on one arm and he was soft and warm and smelt like talcum powder how it goes she thought strange and of course it strange at all its been happening like this for ten thousand years but it still seems strange when it happens to yourself now before many years more hell marry some immature little girl like that julia rayford and shell have a baby d hell come in and bend over it with that same expression that spratt Sprat thad had the first time he saw dick if its a boy name him richard spratt herlong III and if its a girl argue about every name from amaryllis to zillah and compromise on some prosaic family name like mine and ill get a smug matriarchal air about me and well all have a grand time and be just as excited about it as if it happened to anybody else of course before that well have to get through the war oh why should any group of power mad scoundrels have the power to send the world into a holocaust boys like dick I 1 will not think about it now he think about it or I 1 wonder if he does she recalled dick at the radio the day of pearl harbor she came into the living room as stun nedas everyone else was that day to find him listening his bis lips drawn back from his teeth in an expression of horror almost grotesque on so young a face As she entered he looked up at her and said deliberately the yellow bellied bums she gave an exclamation cla mation shocked to discover he had such an expression in his vocabulary but all he did bid was grin mirthlessly and reply 1 I know some worse words than that and if you dont want to hear them better go out and listen to the portable in the garden with the boss lie because cause I 1 feel like saying them elizabeth was astonished not only at his words but at his vehemence it was the first time dick had ever seemed to her like anything but a fun loving little boy the news from pearl harbor had shocked him into a strange and sudden maturity she went out to the garden and told spratt what he had said spratt answered tersely 1 I know just how he feels so do I 1 said elizabeth 1 I have scolded him with any conviction they listened awhile to the enraging radio voices and suddenly she exclaimed spratt were in the war that means that before long it means dick spratt said yes I 1 wish it meant me elizabeth got chilly all over but she told herself that day for the first time 1 I dont have to face it yet she wondered how dick felt about it now she was not sure dick spoke of the war sometimes with the matter of fact assumption that when he came of age he would get into it but right now it seemed less important to him than campus affairs probably because by the reckoning of seventeen anything a year ahead was too remote to be of pressing concern good heavens above she broke off her thoughts for dick rase rose up from the board turned over twice in the air and cut like a knife into the water reappearing just in time to hear julia exclaim dick wonderful do you think I 1 could learn to do it pudge saw elizabeth first he called how do you do mrs herlong and the others turned to wave at her elizabeth waved back as she drove the car into the garage when she had put it up she walked across the grass toward the pool hello all of you cherry what on earth are you going to do with all those lemons make lemonade said cherry and pudge added you dont mind do you of course not but youve e shaken down enough to make about four gallons pick up the rest of them in a towel or something cherry and bring them in we can use them ill get the ice dick offered scrambling out of the pool julia you and pudge wait for us here you dont know where things are he took up a towel from the grass gras and began scrubbing his lean brown legs the trunks are drippy but I 1 wont go in the kitchen he promised before elizabeth could give him any orders AU all right she agreed and started for the house crossing a balcony that ran along the back she entered the den which the children were allowed to use as their own and paused to glance with curiosity at some disreputably dusty old magazines stacked up against the wall they looked like the accumulation ot of years from an attic what the children meant to do with them she could not imagine unless one of the schools was having a drive tor for the salvation army the door leading to the kitchen burst open and dick put his head in mother do you want a glass of lemonade why yes rd id love one have to come and get it unless im allowed on the rug ill come get it she said hastily and went into the kitchen before he could bring his dripping trunks into the den dick and cherry were making a great racket with ice cubes and glasses their suits leaving puddles on the linoleum and bringing unhappy glances from the cook what are all those old papers doing in the den elizabeth asked a as she accepted a glass from dick ours cherry answered julias and mine I 1 mean weve got to write an essay for costume design about the evolution of awen bieth century clothes julia found those old magazines up in the attic at her house and were going to get some ideas from them 1 I see dont bring them into the living room unless you dust them off it okay said cherry she disappeared with the pitcher of lemonade and dick held up a box of cookies he had found on a cupboard shelf can we have these mother such appetites very well take them thanks he followed cherry out to the pool when she had conferred with the cook about dinner elizabeth went upstairs she glanced into room everything there was in order cigarettes in the boxes matches and ashtrays beside them time and newsweek on the table along with a couple of novels from an agency and a notebook in which spratt could scribble ideas about their picture possibilities she made sure his pencils were sharpened drew a curtain across one window through which the sun was pouring in to fade the rug and went through the communicating muni cating doorway into her own room this was her favorite spot in the whole house much as she loved her family there were times when she was glad to be alone and this was the only place that was entirely hers here everything was arranged to please herself the bed with its monogrammed blue cover TO BE CONTINUED A |
