Chapter 5: Their Tenant Discovers the Ralestones

Val stood on the small ornamental bridge pitching twigs down into the tiny garden brook. A moody frown creased his forehead. Under his feet lay a pair of pruning-shears he had borrowed from Sam with the intention of doing something about the jungle which surrounded Pirate’s Haven on three sides. That is, he had intended doing something, but now--

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“Lady,” he answered dismally without turning around, “you can have a bushel of them for less than that.”

“There is a neat expression which describes you beautifully at this moment,” commented Ricky as she came up beside her brother. “Have you ever heard of a ‘sour puss?”

“Several times. Oh, what’s the use!” Val kicked at a long twig. A warm wind brought in its hold the heavy scent of flowering bushes and trees. His shirt clung to his shoulders damply. It was hot even in the shade of the oaks. Rupert had gone to town to see LeFleur and hear the worst, so that Pirate’s Haven, save for themselves and Letty-Lou, was deserted.

“Come on,” Ricky’s arm slid through his, “let’s explore. Think of it--we’ve been here two whole days and we don’t know yet what our back yard looks like. Rupert says that our land runs clear down into the swamp. Let’s go see.”

“But I was going to--” He made a feeble beginning toward stooping for the pruning-shears.

“Val Ralestone, nobody can work outdoors in this heat, and you know it. Now come on. Bring those with you and we’ll leave them in the carriage house as we pass it. You know,” she continued as they went along the path, “the trouble with us is that we haven’t enough to do. What we need is a good old-fashioned job.”

“I thought we were going to be treasure hunters,” he protested laughingly.

“That’s merely a side-line. I’m talking about the real thing, something which will pay us cash money on Saturday nights or thereabout.”

“Well, we can both use a typewriter fairly satisfactorily,” Val offered. “But as you are the world’s worst speller and I am apt to become entangled in my commas, I can’t see us the shining lights of any efficient office. And while we’ve had expensive educations, we haven’t had practical ones. So what do we do now?”

“We sit down and think of one thing we’re really good at doing and then--Val, what is that?” She pointed dramatically at a mound of brick overgrown with vines. To their right and left stretched a row of tumble-down cabins, some with the roofs totally gone and the doors fallen from the hinges.

“The old plantation bake oven, I should say. This must be what’s left of the slave quarters. But where’s the carriage house?”

“It must be around the other side of the big house. Let’s try that direction anyway. But I think you’d better go first and do some chopping. This dress may be a poor thing but it’s my own and likely to be for some time to come. And short of doing a sort of snake act, I don’t see how we’re going to get through there.”

Val applied the shears ruthlessly to vine and bush alike, glad to find something to attack. The weight of his depression was still upon him. It was all very well for Ricky to talk so lightly of getting a job, but talk would never put butter on their bread--if they could afford bread.

“You certainly have done a fine job of ruining that!”

Val surpassed Ricky’s jump by a good inch. By the old bake oven stood a woman. A disreputable straw hat with a raveled brim was pulled down over her untidy honey-colored hair and she was rolling up the sleeves of a stained smock to bare round brown arms.

“It’s very plain to the eye that you’re no gardener,” she continued pleasantly. “And may I ask who you are and what you are doing here? This place is not open to trespassers, you know.”

“We did think we would explore,” answered Ricky meekly. “You see, this all belongs to my brother.” She swept her hand about in a wide circle.

“And just who is he?”

“Rupert Ralestone of Pirate’s Haven.”

“Good--!” Their questioner’s hand flew to cover her mouth, and at the comic look of dismay which appeared on her face, Ricky’s laugh sounded. A moment later the stranger joined in her mirth.

“And here I thought that I was being oh so helpful to an absent landlord,” she chuckled. “And this brother of yours is my landlord!”

“How--? Why, we didn’t know that.”

“I’ve rented your old overseer’s house and am using it for my studio. By the way, introductions are in order, I believe. I am Charity Biglow, from Boston as you might guess. Only beans and the Bunker Hill Monument are more Boston than the Biglows.”

“I’m Richanda Ralestone and this is my brother Valerius.”

Miss Biglow grinned cheerfully at Val. “That won’t do, you know; too romantic by far. I once read a sword-and-cloak romance in which the hero answered to the name of Valerius.”

“I haven’t a cloak nor a sword and my friends generally call me Val, so I hope I’m acceptable,” he grinned back at her.

“Indeed you are--both of you. And what are you doing now?”

“Trying to find a building known as the carriage house. I’m beginning to believe that its existence is wholly mythical,” Val replied.

“It’s over there, simply yards from the direction in which you’re heading. But suppose you come and visit me instead. Really, as part landlords, you should be looking into the condition of your rentable property.”

She turned briskly to the left down the lane on which were located the slave cabins and guided the Ralestones along a brick-paved path into a clearing where stood a small house of typical plantation style. The lower story was of stone with steep steps leading to a balcony which ran completely around the second floor of the house.

As they reached the balcony she pulled off her hat and threw it in the general direction of a cane settee. Without that wreck of a hat, with the curls of her long bob flowing free, she looked years younger.

“Make yourselves thoroughly at home. After all, this is your house, you know.”

“But we didn’t,” protested Ricky. “Mr. LeFleur didn’t tell us a thing about you.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know.” Charity Biglow was pinning back her curls. “I rented from Harrison.”

“Like the bathroom,” Val murmured and looked up to find them staring at him. “Oh, I just meant that you were another improvement that he had installed,” he stammered. Miss Biglow nodded in a satisfied sort of way. “Spoken like a true southern gentleman, though I don’t think in the old days that bathrooms would have crept into a compliment paid to a lady. Now I did have some lemonade--if you will excuse me,” and she was gone into the house.

Ricky smiled. “I like our tenant,” she said softly.

“You don’t expect me to disagree with that, do you?” her brother had just time enough to ask before their hostess appeared again complete with tray, glasses, and a filled pitcher which gave forth the refreshing sound of clinking ice. And after her paraded an old friend of theirs, tail proudly erect. “There’s our cat!” cried Ricky.

Val snapped his fingers. “Here, Satan.”

After staring round-eyed at both of them, the cat crossed casually to the settee and proceeded to sharpen his claws.

“Well, I like that! After I shared my bed with the brute, even though I didn’t know it until the next morning,” Val exploded.

“Why, where did you meet Cinders?” asked Miss Biglow as she put down the tray.

“He came to us the first night we were at Pirate’s Haven,” explained Ricky. “I thought he was a ghost or something when he scratched at the back door.”

“So that’s where he was. He used to go over to the Harrisons’ for meals a lot. When I’m working I don’t keep very regular hours and he doesn’t like to be neglected. Come here, Cinders, and make your manners.”

Replying to her invitation with an insolent flirt of his tail, Cinders, whom Val continued obstinately to regard as “Satan,” disappeared around the corner of the balcony. Charity Biglow looked at them solemnly. “So obedient,” she observed; “just like a child.”

“Are you an artist, too?” Ricky asked as she put down her glass.

Miss Biglow’s face wrinkled into a grimace. “My critics say not. I manage to provide daily bread and sometimes a slice of cake by doing illustrations for action stories. And then once in a while I labor for the good of my soul and try to produce something my more charitable friends advise me to send to a show.”

“May--may we see some of them--the pictures, I mean?” inquired Ricky timidly.

“If you can bear it. I use the side balcony for a workshop in this kind of weather. I’m working on a picture now, something more ambitious than I usually attempt in heat of this sort. But my model didn’t show up this morning so I’m at a loose end.”

She led them around the corner where Satan had disappeared and pointed to a table with a sketching board at one end, several canvases leaning face against the house, and an easel covered with a clean strip of linen. “My workshop. A trifle untidy, but then I am an untidy person. I’m expecting an order so I’m just whiling away my time working on an idea of my own until it comes.”

Ricky touched the strip of covering across the canvas on the easel. “May I?” she asked.

“Yes. It might be a help, getting some other person’s reaction to the thing. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do when I started but I don’t think it’s turning out to be what I planned.”

Ricky lifted off the cover. Val stared at the canvas.

[Illustration: Ricky lifted off the cover. Val stared at the canvas.]

“But that is he!” he exclaimed.

Charity Biglow turned to the boy. “And what do you mean--”

“That’s the boy I found in the garden, Ricky!”

“Is it?” She stared, fascinated, at the lean brown face, the untidy black hair, the bitter mouth, which their hostess had so skilfully caught in her unfinished drawing.

“So you’ve met Jeems.” Miss Biglow looked at Val thoughtfully. “And what did you think of him?”