"EdwardSalisburyField-CupidsUnderstudy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Field Edward Salisbury)

CUPID'S UNDERSTUDY

by Edward Salisbury Field




Chapter One


If Dad had been a coal baron, like Mr. Tudor Carstairs, or a stock-
watering captain of industry, like Mrs. Sanderson-Spear's husband,
or descended from a long line of whisky distillers, like Mrs.
Carmichael Porter, why, then his little Elizabeth would have been
allowed the to sit in seat of the scornful with the rest of the Four
Hundred, and this story would never have been written. But Dad
wasn't any of these things; he was just an old love who had made
seven million dollars by the luckiest fluke in the world.

Everybody in southern California knew it was a fluke, too, so the
seven millions came in for all the respect that would otherwise have
fallen to Dad. Of course we were celebrities, in a way, but in a
very horrid way. Dad was Old Tom Middleton, who used to keep a
livery-stable in San Bernardino, and I was Old Tom Middleton's girl,
"who actually used to live over a livery-stable, my dear!" It sounds
fearfully sordid, doesn't it?

But it wasn't sordid, really, for I never actually lived over a
stable. Indeed, we had the sweetest cottage in all San Bernardino. I
remember it so well: the long, cool porch, the wonderful gold-of-
Ophir roses, the honeysuckle where the linnets nested, the mocking
birds that sang all night long; the perfume of the jasmine, of the
orange-blossoms, the pink flame of the peach trees in April, the
ever-changing color of the mountains. And I remember Ninette, my
little Creole mother, gay as a butterfly, carefree as a meadow-lark.
'Twas she who planted the jasmine.

My little mother died when I was seven years old. Dad and I and my
old black mammy, Rachel, stayed on in the cottage. The mocking-birds
still sang, and the linnets still nested in the honeysuckle, but
nothing was ever quite the same again. It was like a different
world; it was a different world. There were gold-of-Ophir roses,
and, peach blossoms in April, but there was no more jasmine; Dad had
it all dug up. To this day he turns pale at the sight of it--poor
Dad!

When I was twelve years old, Dad sold out his hardware business,
intending to put his money in an orange grove at Riverside, but the
nicest livery-stable in San Bernardino happened to be for sale just
then, so he bought that instead, for he was always crazy about