Hide in the Dark Page 14

  “Ow, murder! He’s d-drowning me!” “Look out for my hair, you great galoot! Look a-out!” “That for you, my fine ger-rill!” “Kit! Kit! H-help!”

  In that riot of tossing heads and heels, Hanna’s rippled gold and Lindy’s bronze velvet, Sherry’s sleek darkness and Jill’s bright waves, shifted and changed and vanished in a gay kaleidoscope—and in their stead little pigtails sprouted, round curls danced, ribbon bows flashed, and soft bangs were pushed recklessly aside—for these flying minutes they felt descend on them once more the lost delight of pinafore and sock, of knickerbocker and overall.

  “It’s mine! It’s mine!” “To the side lines, you!” “Paws down, Trudi, down, I say!” “Sherry, stop snapping! Make him stop, he’s driving me mad!” “Side lines, Larry!” “Help, help—that’s not fair! Help!”

  On the side lines the victorious survivors brandished their apples, howling and dancing like so many Red Indians, lifting intolerable voices in intolerable taunts.

  “Yah, yah, Gavin couldn’t get an apple! Trudi couldn’t get an apple! Jill couldn’t get uh apple!” “Over here, ole sport! This way to the conquering heroes.” “Look alive there, Jill. One of you girls is in for a forfeit.” “Ye-ay, Trudi! Atta girl, easy does it! Ye-e-ay, Trudi!” “Jill’s forfeit! Oh, poor Jill!” “Get a towel for Trudi someone; that girl dived three feet for it!” “Oh, Larry, I’m drenched to the bone. Do make it a nice, quiet little forfeit; look, I’m absolutely drowned.…”

  They circled about her, condoling and exhorting; the air filled with their flying laughter and winged taunts.

  “How about the coal hole on four paws, Jill?”

  “How about a couple of sonnets on the Democratic Platform?”

  “How about the snow scene from ‘East Lynne’?”

  “Kit, help me get these tubs out of the way—in about two minutes someone’s going to fall spang into one!”

  “How about the sextette from ‘Lucia’?”

  “Sherry, are you shaking that thing again? Move over, I want to fix this up for the ring and the flour.”

  “Hey, wait a minute, there’s an idea for you! Instead of each having to cut for it, let’s make Jill burrow for the ring! How about that for a forfeit!”

  “Doug, you’re simply a genius!” Hanna sank back in the largest chair with a beatific sigh of relief. “I had a perfectly hideous picture of me turning all this water into dough.”

  “Me, too.” Trudi was scrubbing vigorously with the resurrected handkerchief at a still dripping countenance, but the vigour of her tone was unimpaired. “The first time I did it I choked down the whole darn thing, ring and all. Thank God for Jill, sez I.”

  “It begins to sound as though you were elected, darling.” Lindy hovered solicitously over the neat mound on the blue platter. “I’ll just carve a little more away before I drop the ring—don’t even breathe on it, Sherry.”

  “Lindy.…” Lindy, intent on her delicate task, smiled fleetingly in the direction of the low voice, too fleetingly to catch the piteous shadow in the blue eyes. “Lindy, couldn’t you make it something else? Couldn’t you, please? I’m so dreadfully clumsy at it…. If you’d let me try the sextette—or the snow scene—”

  “Oh, Jill, shame!” The clamour swept relentlessly about her. “Begging off a forfeit!”

  “You scandalous little coward!”

  She parried desperately, “No, no, it isn’t that I mind the flour—truly, it isn’t that. Look, I’ll do the coal-hole one. Wait till I pin my skirts back.”

  “But nobody wants you to do the coal-hole, duckie.” Trudi’s tone was both soothing and relentless. “All anyone wants you to do is to trot right up to the pretty table and pick up the nice gold ring on the nice clean little white heap with your nice clean little white teeth. Now what could be fairer than that? Lindy, lend me that chiffon handkerchief of yours; it’ll be perfectly elegant to tie her cunning little paws behind her back.”

  Lindy surrendered it without a backward glance, flicking a slice of the flour cake away with elfin precision.

  “There, that’s perfect! If she gives it one little touch with even the tip of her nose, it’s going to be an absolute landslide!”

  Trudi gave a final professional tweak, and stood clear, her hands outstretched.

  “Circle, everyone! Circle, Larry! Make it wider—the child’s likely to need air. Watch that clock, Sherry; don’t forget that every minute gone means another year of single misery. Circle, children—she’s off!”

  The joyous faces swung by dizzily, the voices lifted to an exultant chant:

  “‘Swift, swift spins the magic ring

  As one more year to the gods you fling …’”

  “Jill! Jill, for the love of Pete, snap out of it!” “The girl’s bewitched.” “What in—”

  The circle wavered, checked, broke, as Larry Redmond swung across the interval between it and the girl at the table.

  “Jill, what is it? Don’t, darling—don’t… here, untie her hands, will you, some of you bright idiots? Jill!”

  She wept, through those racking and dissolving sobs, “Oh, Larry, I’ve spoiled it again! It was such a beautiful party, and I’ve spoiled it again. Lindy, I did try—I did truly—I thought everything was so perfect, and I meant not to; I thought if I just gritted my teeth and bent my head I could, but I kept seeing the ring—I kept seeing—”

  She clung to Larry’s sheltering arm, fast about her, trying to keep what she had seen far from her—trying in vain. There it stood on tiptoe in the candlelight, that mischievous truant from Eternity, all pearl and gold and starry laughter, with a wisp of drifting mist across its dancing eyes, and a wisp of drifting flour across its tilted nose … so young, so sweet, so terribly, terribly alive … someone in the broken circle sobbed suddenly, and Sunny and her ring were gone.

  Chatty cried, “Oh Jill, we forgot; darling, we forgot that it was Sunny’s ring…. It was my fault; I found it in with all those charms for the cake, and I gave it to Lindy without stopping to think at all—Jill, please, please forgive us.”

  Lindy said, “We’ve been trying so hard to forget how much we loved her all evening, Jill.… We won’t try to pretend any more, darling, darling—we’ll put the foolish things away.”

  Jill, stilling the quivering face, cried, “No, no, don’t punish me for being such a little fool. Please let’s go on with the games; I love the games, Lindy—I love your party. Don’t punish me by spoiling it.”

  Trudi, brushing ring and flour together into the blue bowl, commented with grim determination,

  “Well, here’s one game we don’t go on with. And personally, now that I’m no longer whooping like a Pawnee Indian, I feel as though a good rubber of contract and a hot-water bag are about my speed for the rest of the evening. I can recapture that first fine careless rapture for just so long and no longer; after that I begin to feel like Methuselah’s great-aunt. Stick this in the corner, Sherry, and haul out a couple of card tables. Grandma’s ready to settle down for the night.”

  “Oh, Trudi, please—”

  Lindy, pale and gracious, threw the desolate Jill her loveliest smile.

  “But, darling, I do think Trudi’s right. Let’s all have a good game of cards—not bridge, that’s much too stern and silent, but why don’t we try poker?” She drew a long breath and said, still smiling, “Sunny never played that, so it won’t have any unhappy memories at all.… There are enough for two tables, aren’t there?”

  Hanna murmured apologetically, “Oh, children, I’m dreadfully sorry, but I’d simply wreck any poker game in the world. I never can remember whether flushes are all the same number or all the same colour.”

  “Oh, but Hanna, neither can I!” cried Ray, enraptured. “And I’m always wanting to bet my immortal soul on three pair—”

  Joel groaned fervently, “Three pair, great gods! Take her away from here before I do her violence—give her some marbles and a kite.”

  “Well, I can shoot craps better than almost
anyone,” proffered Ray, flushed but dauntless. “Couldn’t we—”

  Trudi swooped on the suggestion like a hawk. “Craps! Lead me to ’em! I’ve been wanting to shoot craps for six months. Wha dem bones? Chatty, you talk to ’em powerful pretty, too. Come on, Sheridan, find me a couple of bones. How about you and Larry, Jill?”

  Jill asked in a small voice of desolation, “Lindy, aren’t we going to have any more of the old games? I won’t be such a little fool again, I promise. Aren’t we going to have even Hide in the Dark? It won’t be the March Hares unless we have one game of Hide in the Dark.”

  “Of course we’ll play it, if you want, darling. We’ll just fill in with this till twelve, and the minute the clock strikes we’ll forget everything in the world except that we’re the only real March Hares in captivity. Trudi, you take your crap-shooters off in the corner, and all the children who are poker players gather round here. Doug, Joel, Kit, Gavin, and me—you, too, Tom? That’s six, isn’t it? Heavens, am I the only lady? Now where in the world did I put those cards the last time we were here?”

  Chatty, burrowing industriously in the closet by the fireplace, announced in muffled tones:

  “Here are the dice and some poker chips and a lot of score pads, all in a red lacquer box, but there isn’t a single card. Didn’t we take them back to town for bridge, Lindy? Or maybe we—”

  Kit Baird said casually from the corner, “I think I stuck a pack or so into my bag last week. Shall I dash upstairs and see whether they’re still there?”

  “Oh, Kit, do! We’ll be counting chips while you’re gone.”

  Doug King, something dark moving across his blond, handsome face, lifted the highball glass to his lips, his eyes, curiously eager, following the red head until it disappeared in the shadows of the hall. When he put the glass down it was empty, and he was smiling.

  Across the room Trudi’s voice rose clear and fervent above the violent chatter of the kneeling circle, “Ah, babies, many’s the day since we three got together! I’m askin’ you sof’ an’ low, babies, be good to momma. Come you seven! Seven! Oh, what in—”

  Gavin Dart, stacking the tri-coloured counters in neat piles, raised his voice over the waning lamentations.

  “What’s this famous game that we’re to play at midnight, Lindy? A variation of Blindman’s Buff?”

  “Hide in the Dark?” The deft fingers hovered for a moment over the chips. “Oh, no, it’s just what it says—we hide in the dark. At least one of us does, and the rest of us hunt.”

  “It’s a grand game,” commented Joel with a reminiscent grin that broadened to a chuckle. “Wait till the little helpmate hears about it; she’ll fall flat on her face in a faint when she finds out how she’s going to wind up the evening. Trudi—hey, Trudi, tell Ray what she has to do when she plays Hide in the Dark, will you?”

  “And just what does she have to do?” Gavin Dart’s voice was patience itself, enthroned on a monument.

  “Oh, Gavin, I’m so sorry—it’s this hideous way we all have of talking at once! Well, it couldn’t be simpler. When the clock strikes twelve, we all race like mad to the hall at the top of the house—all but the Hider, that is—turning out the lights behind us as we go—so that the house will be pitch black, you see. Then the time-keeper counts noses, to see we’re all there, and strikes a gong on the landing. He allows three minutes for the Hider to find cover, and when time’s up he strikes the gong again as a warning that we’re coming—and we’re off. Every man for himself—and every lady, too! No one’s allowed to say a word to anyone else, and as soon as each one discovers the Hider, he crawls into the same hiding place, and keeps perfectly still. The last one to unearth the quarry is Hider the next time, and so on, da capo, till we drop in our tracks.

  “And, boy, wait till you see the places they take to!” adjured Joel fervently. “Remember the time Trudi popped into the bathtub and pulled a sheet over her, and not one human being found her for two hours and thirty-five minutes?”

  “It took longer than that to dig Hanna out of that dumbwaiter at the Randalls’,” Doug reminded him, tilting back in his chair with a broad grin. “She couldn’t stand up straight for a week afterward and she had ten blisters working the ropes up and down five stories.”

  Gavin, smiling appreciatively, said, “It sounds a most admirable game. Hanna in a dumbwaiter! I can hardly wait to get at it. If Baird doesn’t find those cards perhaps we could just run through a practice game—”

  Kit’s voice said from the shadows in the hall, “Sorry to disappoint you; they were there all right. Better count ’em, Joel, while I join Mr. King in destroying this bottle of whiskey. Or have you staked out an indefinite claim on it, Doug?”

  Doug, his teeth glittering under the narrow line of blond moustache, pushed the bottle toward him, saying genially, “I’ll count ’em; Joel’s stacking chips. Still keen on the cards, Kit?”

  “Oh, not as keen as all that!” Kit detached the appraising eye that he was casting on the whiskey and permitted it to linger on the flushed countenance thrust jovially toward him.

  Doug ran the cards from one hand to the other in a long, expert ripple of crimson, the smile deepening.

  “But you still keep ’em handy on the train, just in case a game turns up?”

  Kit put down the whiskey very gently, and said more gently still, “I’m going in for solitaire these days; I’m absolutely hell on solitaire.”

  Under the casual voices there rang suddenly a cold and ominous sound—the distant ring of rapier on rapier.… Lindy lifted startled eyes, and dropped them more swiftly still. The gentle voice added, “Nothing like learning to play your own hand; I’ll give you a lesson one of these days.”

  “Thanks.” The crimson ripple broke abruptly, and Doug King reached for the whiskey. “And while you’re giving lessons, why not show me just how you worked that hand in Panama—”

  Joel cut sharply across the words, “When you get through playing with those cards, Doug, let the rest of us in on the game, will you? If you’re done, we’re ready to begin. Are they all there?”

  Doug said blandly, “Fifty-two to a pack—entirely correct. Sorry to be such a bore with these ancient reminiscences; cut for the deal, will you?”

  “Oh, Doug, before we start, do us some of the old tricks, won’t you? It’s been such ages since I’ve seen them! Do the butterfly one or the Queen of Hearts—”

  Doug, shuffling with lightning dexterity, shook his head, laughing.

  “After that crack from Joel about holding up the game? Not even for the Queen of Hearts herself, thanks! After everything’s over, though, I’ll stage a private exhibition for your special benefit, while we’re having that little talk you promised me—”

  Kit Baird raised a pair of indolently interested eyes; they lingered for a moment on the small frozen face across the table, and then returned, serenely inscrutable, to the cards before him.

  “What stakes are we playing?”

  “Well, let’s make ’em high enough so that any goop with a pair of knaves can’t call,” suggested Joel, bitterly reminiscent. “I got into a ten-cent game last week—”

  “How about table stakes, and a round of roodles after full house or better?” suggested Doug briskly. “Jacks to open—dollar ante. That agreeable to every one?”

  Tom Ross pushed his chair back, remarking cheerfully, “It lets me out nicely; I’ll shoot craps for a living. Five’s a better game for straight poker, anyway.”

  Doug, shoving a group of stacks toward him, said genially, “Stick along—I’ll stake you.”

  Tom pushed the chips carefully back, but the knuckles on his hand stood out starkly. He said quietly:

  “Thanks; I’m not particularly keen about poker—nor charity either. See you later, Lindy.…”

  Lindy, her eyes on the retreating figure, whispered incredulously, “Oh, but, Doug—Doug, how could you? You know how frightfully sensitive he is.”

  Doug, flicking the cards around the table in an o
rdered shower, said amiably, “I seem to be getting more popular around here every minute. Sorry, Lindy—I was doing my best, but obviously it’s not good enough. I was under the impression that it was Joel who suggested high stakes.”

  “I didn’t suggest the sky for the limit,” said Joel. “However, no one here’s kicking about your stakes, Doug; if they suit you, they suit us.… I’m taking one, and if anyone wants to know what I’m collecting, it’s one-eyed Jacks.”

  “Three,” said Kit, and added persuasively, “All pink.”

  Lindy, once more demurely wide-eyed, shook her head.

  “I like these. They’re the nicest cards I ever had in my life.”

  “One,” said Gavin Dart.

  Doug King announced, “Two to the dealer,” shuddered violently at the result, and bent an inquiring eye on the ingenuous countenances turned to his.

  “Open for five,” Joel’s voice sounded as though a great tragedy had come into his life.

  “And up you five.”

  “See your ten, and up you ten.”

  “Gentlemen, hush!” Joel’s voice was reverent. “You are now about to witness the battle of the giants. Mere mortals, including this one, will withdraw.”

  “I’ll see those, Doug.”

  Doug spread a fan complacently before him—eight, nine, ten, jack, queen—and made a proprietary gesture toward the pot.

  “Just a moment … just a moment, Doug, while I tender thanks and thanksgiving. All pink, old boy—ask, and you shall be given. Whose deal?”

  Doug King shoved the pot in the direction of the smiling young man with a gesture curiously violent.

  “Do they call you ‘Lucky’ Baird in the States, too? What was it that time—three to fill a flush?”

  “Even so, Douglas; even so. Only one this time, though, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Drop.”

  “Two here.”

  “Open for twenty.”

  “And twenty more.”

  “Holy mackerel, have a heart, will you? What’s a boy with a pair of treys doing in this outfit?”