Ralestone Luck
A >> Andre Norton >> Ralestone LuckRupert grinned. "And how do you know that that remark was intended as a
compliment?"
"Naturally I assumed so," his brother retorted with a dignity which
disappeared as the piece of corn-bread in his hand broke in two, the
larger and more liberally buttered portion falling butter side down on
the table. Ricky smiled in a pained sort of way as she attempted to
judge from her side of the table just how much damage Val's awkwardness
had done.
"If you were the graceful hostess," he informed her severely, "you would
now throw your piece in the middle to show that anyone could suffer a
like mishap."
Ricky changed the subject hurriedly by passing beans to Charity.
"So Val looks like the ghost," Charity said a moment later. "Now I will
have to go to town and see that portrait. Just where is it?"
Rupert shook his head. "I don't know. But it's listed in the catalogue
as 'Portrait of Roderick Ralestone, Aged Eighteen.'"
"Just Val's age, then." Ricky spooned some watermelon pickles onto her
plate. "But he was older than that when he left here."
"Let's see. He was born in February, 1788, which would make him fourteen
when his parents died in 1802. Then he disappeared in 1814, twelve years
later. Just twenty-six when he went," computed Rupert.
"A year younger than you are now," observed Ricky.
"And nine years older than yourself at this present date," Val added
pleasantly. "Why this sudden interest in mathematics?"
"Oh, I don't know. Only somehow I always thought Rick was younger when
he went away. I've always felt sorry for him. Wonder what happened to
him afterwards?"
"According to our rival," Rupert pulled his coffee-cup before him as
Letty-Lou took away their plates, "he just went quietly away, married,
lived soberly, and brought up a son, who in turn fathered a son, and so
on to the present day. A tame enough ending for our wild privateersman."
"I'll bet it isn't true. Rick wouldn't end like that. He probably went
off down south and got mixed up in some of the revolutions they were
having at the time," suggested Ricky. "He couldn't just settle down and
die in bed. I could imagine him scuttling a ship but not being a quiet
business man."
"He was one of Lafitte's men, wasn't he?" asked Charity. At their
answering nods, she went on: "Lafitte was a business man, you know. Oh,
I don't mean that forge he ran in town, but his establishment at Grande
Terre. He was more smuggler than pirate, that's why he lasted so long.
Even the most respected tradesmen had dealings with him. Why, he used to
post notices right in town when he held auctions at Barataria, listing
what he had to sell, mostly smuggled Negroes and a few cargoes of
luxuries from Europe. He was a privateer under the rules of war, but he
was never a real pirate. At least, that's the belief held nowadays."
"We can't turn up our noses at pirates," laughed Ricky. "This house was
built by pirate gold. We only wish--"
From the hall came a dull thump. Ricky's napkin dropped from her hand
into her coffee-cup. Rupert laid down his spoon deliberately enough, but
there was a certain tension in his movements. Val felt a sudden chill.
For Letty-Lou was in the kitchen, the family were in the dining-room.
There should be no one in the hall.
Rupert pushed back his chair. But Val was already half-way to the door
when his brother joined him. And Ricky, suddenly sober, was at their
heels.
_Zzzzzrupp!_ The slitting sound was clear as they burst into the hall.
On the fur rug by the couch lay the writing-desk. Its lid was thrown
back and by it crouched Satan industriously ripping the remnants of
lining from its interior. As Rupert came up, the cat drew back, his ears
flattened and his lips a-snarl.
[Illustration: Zzzzzrupp! _Satan was industriously ripping the remnants
of lining from its interior._]
"Cinders! What has he done?" demanded Charity, swooping down upon her
pet. At her coming, he fled under the couch out of reach.
Rupert picked up the desk. "Nothing much," he laughed. "Just torn all
that lining loose, as I had planned to do."
"What is this?" Ricky disentangled a small slip of white from the torn
and musty velvet. "Why, it's a piece of paper," she answered her own
question. "It must have been under the lining and Satan pulled it out
with the cloth."
"Here," Rupert took it from her, "let me see it."
He scanned the faded lines of writing. "Val! Ricky!" He looked up, his
face flushed with excitement. "Listen!"
"Gatty has returned from the city. The raiders calling themselves
the 'Buck Boys' are headed this way. Gatty tells me that Alexander
is with them, having deserted the plantation a week ago. Since his
malice towards us is well known, it is easy to believe that he
means us open harm. I am making my preparations accordingly. The
valuables now under this roof, together with the proceeds from the
last voyage of the blockade runner, _Red Bird_, I am putting in
that safe place discovered by me in childhood, of which I have
sometimes spoken. Remember the hint I once gave you--By Our Luck.
Having written this in haste, I shall intrust it to Gatty--"
"That's the end; the rest is gone." Rupert stared down at the scrap of
paper in his hand as if he simply could not believe in its reality.
"Richard wrote that." Ricky touched the note in awe. "But why didn't
Gatty give it to Miles when he came?"
"Gatty was probably a slave who ran when the raiders appeared,"
suggested Rupert. "He or she must have hidden this in here before
leaving. We'll never know."
"But we've got our clue!" cried Ricky. "We knew that the hiding-place
was in this hall, and now we have the clue."
"'By our Luck.'" Rupert looked about him thoughtfully. "That's not the
most helpful--"
"Rupert!" Ricky seized him by the arm. "There's only one thing in this
room that will answer that. Can't you see? The niche of the Luck!"
Their gaze followed her pointing finger to the mantel above their heads.
"I believe she's right! Wait until I get the step-ladder from the
kitchen." Rupert was gone almost before he had finished speaking.
"Oh, if it's only true!" Ricky stared up like one hypnotized. "Then
we'll be rich and--"
"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched," Val reminded her,
but he didn't think that she heard him.
Then Rupert was back with the ladder. He climbed up, leaving the three
of them clustered about its foot.
"Nothing here but two stone studs to hold the Luck in place," he said a
moment later.
"Why not try pressing those?" suggested Charity.
"All right, here goes." He placed his thumbs in the corners of the niche
and threw his weight upon them.
"Nothing happened." Ricky's voice was deep with disappointment.
"Look!" Val pointed over her shoulder.
To the left of the fireplace were five panels of oak, to balance those
on the other side about the door of the unused drawing-room. The center
one of these now gaped open, showing a dark cavity.
"It worked!" Ricky was already heading for the opening.
There behind the paneling was a shallow closet which ran the full length
of the five panels. It was filled with a collection of bags and small
chests, a collection which appeared much larger when it lay in the gloom
within than when they dragged it out. Then, when they had time to
examine it carefully, they discovered that their booty consisted of two
small wooden boxes or chests, one fancifully carved and evidently
intended for jewels, the other plain but locked; a felt bag and another
of canvas, and a package hurriedly done up in cloth. Rupert spread it
all out on the floor.
"Well," he hesitated, "where shall we begin?"
"Charity thought about how to open it, and it was her cat that found us
the clue--let her choose," Val suggested.
"Good," agreed Rupert. "And what's your choice, m'lady?"
"What woman could resist this?" She laid her hand upon the jewel box.
"Then that it is." He reached for it.
It opened readily enough to show a shallow tray divided into
compartments, all of them empty.
"Sold again," Val commented dryly.
Carefully Rupert lifted out the top tray to disclose another on which
rested three small leather bags. He loosened the draw-string of the
nearest and shook out into his palm a pair of earrings of a quaint
pattern in twisted gold set with dull red stones. Charity pronounced
them garnets. Though they were not of great value, they were precious in
Ricky's eyes, and even Charity exclaimed over them.
The second bag yielded a carnelian seal on a wide chain of gold mesh,
the sort of ornament a dandy wore dangling from his watch pocket in the
days of the Regency. And the third bag contained a cross of silver,
blackened by time, set with amethysts. This was accompanied by a chain
of the same dull metal.
Putting these into the girls' hands, Rupert lifted the second tray to
lay bare the bottom of the chest. Here again were several small bags.
There was another cross, this time of jet inlaid with gold and attached
to a short necklace of jet beads; a wide bracelet of coral and turquoise
which was crudely made and might have been native work of some sort.
Then there was a tiny jewel-set bottle, about which, Ricky declared,
there still lingered some faint trace of the fragrance it had once held.
And most interesting to Charity was a fan, the sticks carved of ivory so
intricately that they resembled lacework stiffened into slender ribs.
The covering between them was fashioned of layers of silk painted with a
scene of the bayou country, with the moss-grown oaks and encroaching
swamp all carefully depicted.
Charity declared that she had never seen its equal and that some great
artist must have decorated the dainty trifle. She closed it carefully
and slipped it back into its covering, and Rupert took out the last of
the bags. From its depths rolled a ring.
It was plain enough, a simple band of gold so deep in shade as to be
almost red. Nearly an inch in width, there was no ornamentation of any
sort on its broad, smooth surface.
"Do you know what this is?" Rupert turned the circlet around in his
fingers.
"No." Ricky was still dangling the earrings before her eyes.
"It is the wedding-ring of the Bride of the Luck."
"What!" Val leaned forward to look down at the plain circle of gold.
Even Ricky gave her brother her full attention now. Rupert turned to
Charity.
"You probably know the story of our Luck?" he asked.
She nodded.
"When the Luck was brought from Palestine, it was decided that it must
be given into the hands of a guardian who would be responsible for it
with his or her life. Because the men of the house were always at war
during those troublesome times, the guardianship went to the eldest
daughter if she were a maiden. By high and solemn ceremony she was
married to the Luck in the chapel of Lorne. And she was the Bride of the
Luck until death or a unanimous consent from the family released her.
Nor could she marry a mortal husband during the time she wore this." He
touched the ring he held.
"This must be very old. It's the red gold which came into Ireland and
England before the Romans conquered the land. Perhaps this was found in
some old barrow on Lorne lands. But it no longer means anything without
the Luck."
He held it out to Ricky. "By tradition this is yours."
She shook her head. "I don't think I want that, Rupert. It's too
old--too strange. Now these," she held up the earrings, "you can
understand. The girls who wore them were like me, and they wore them
because they were pretty. But that--" she looked at the Bride's ring
with distaste--"that must have been a burden to its wearer. Didn't you
tell us once of the Lady Iseult, who killed herself when they would not
release her from her vows to the Luck? I don't want to wear that, ever."
"Very well." He dropped it back into its bag. "We'll send it to LeFleur
for safe-keeping. Any scruples about the rest of this stuff?"
"Of course not! And none of it is worth much. May I keep it?"
"If you wish. Now let's see what is in here." He drew the second box
toward him and forced it open.
"Money!" Charity was staring at it with wide eyes.
Within, in neat bundles, lay packages of paper notes. Even Rupert was
shaken from his calm as he reached for one. Outside of a bank none of
them had ever seen such a display of wealth. But after he studied the
top note, the master of Pirate's Haven laughed thinly.
"This may be worth ten cents to some collector if we're lucky--"
"Rupert! That's real money," began Ricky.
But Val, too, had seen the print. "Confederate money, child. As useless
now as our pretty oil stock. I told you that things always turn out
wrong in this house. If we do find treasure, it's worthless. How much is
there, anyway?"
Rupert picked up a slip of paper tucked under the tape fastening the
first bundle. "This says thirty-five thousand--profit from a blockade
runner's trip."
"Thirty-five thousand! Well, I think that that is just too much," Ricky
said defiantly. "Why didn't they get paid in real money?"
"Being loyal to the South, the Ralestones probably would not take what
you call 'real money,'" replied Charity.
"It's nice to know how wealthy we once were," Val observed. "What are
you going to do with that wall-paper, Rupert?"
"Oh, chuck it in my desk. I'll get someone to look it over; there might
be a collector's item among these bills. Now let's have the joker out of
_this_ bundle." He plucked at the fastenings of the felt bag.
When he had pulled off its wrappings, a silver tray with coffee- and
chocolate-pot, cream pitcher and sugar bowl stood, tarnished and dingy,
on the floor.
"That's more like it." Ricky picked up the chocolate-pot. "Do you
suppose it will ever be possible to get these clean again?"
"With a lot of will power and some good hard rubbing it can be done,"
Val assured her.
"Well, I'll supply the will power and you may do the rubbing," she
announced pleasantly.
Rupert had opened the remaining packages to display a set of twelve
silver goblets, one with a dented edge, and a queerly shaped vessel not
unlike an old-fashioned gravy-boat. Charity picked this up and examined
it gravely.
"I'm afraid that this is pirate loot." She tapped the lip of the piece
she held. The metal gave off a clear ringing sound. "If I'm not
mistaken, this was stolen from a church. Yes, I'm right; see this cross
under the leaves?" She pointed out the bit of engraving.
"Black Dick's work," agreed Ricky complacently. "But after almost three
hundred years I'm afraid we can't return it. Especially since we don't
know where it came from in the first place."
Val looked about at what they had uncovered. "If you are going to take
all of this in to LeFleur, you'll have to get a truck. D'you know, I
think this place might turn out to be a gold-mine if one knew just where
to dig."
"We haven't found the Luck yet," reminded Ricky.
Val got clumsily to his feet and then gave Charity a hand up, beating
Rupert to it by about three seconds. "As we don't even know whether it
is still in existence, there's no use in hunting for it," Val retorted.
Ricky smiled, that set little smile which usually meant that she neither
agreed with nor approved of the speaker. She got up from the floor and
shook out her skirt purposefully.
"I'll remind you of that some day," she promised.
"I suppose," Rupert glanced at the silver, "this ought to be taken to
town as soon as possible. This house is too isolated to harbor both us
and the silverware at the same time. What do you think?" Ignoring both
Ricky and Val, he turned to Charity.
"You are right. But it seems a pity to send it all away before we have a
chance to rub it up and see what it really looks like!"
"By all means, take it at once!" Val urged promptly. "We can always
clean it later."
Rupert grinned. "Now that might be a protest against the suggestion
Ricky made a few minutes ago. But I'll save you some honest labor this
time, Val; I'll take it to town this afternoon."
Ricky laughed softly.
"And why the merriment?" her younger brother inquired suspiciously.
"I was just thinking what a surprise the visitor who dropped his
handkerchief here is going to get when he finds the cupboard bare," she
explained.
Rupert rubbed his palm across his chin. "Of course. I had almost
forgotten that."
"Well, I haven't! And I wonder if we have found what he--or they--were
hunting," Val mused as he helped Rupert wrap up the spoil again.
CHAPTER VIII
GREAT-UNCLE RICK WALKS THE HALL
Sam had produced a horse complete with saddle and a reputed
skittishness. That horse was the pride of Sam's big heart. It had once
won a small purse at some country fair or something of the sort, and
since then it had been kept only to wear the saddle at rare intervals.
Not that Sam ever rode. He drove a spring-board behind a thin, sorrowful
mule called "Suggah." But the saddle horse was rented at times to white
folk of whom Sam approved.
Soon after the arrival of the Ralestones at Pirate's Haven, Sam had
brought this four-footed prodigy to their attention. But claiming that
the family were his "folks," he indignantly refused to accept hire and
was hurt if one of them did not ride at least once a day. Ricky had
developed an interest in the garden and had accepted the loan of Sam's
eldest son, an earth-brown child about as tall as the spade, to help her
mess about. Rupert spent the largest part of his days shut up in
Bluebeard's chamber. Which of course left the horse to Val.
And Val was becoming slightly bored with Louisiana, at least with that
portion of it which immediately surrounded them. Charity was hard at
work on her picture of the swamp hunter, for Jeems had come back without
warning from his mysterious concerns in the swamp. There was no one to
talk to and nowhere to go.
LeFleur had notified them that he believed he was on the track of some
discreditable incident in the past of their rival which would banish him
from their path. And no more handkerchiefs had been found, ownerless, in
their hall. It was a serene morning.
But, Val thought long afterwards, he should have been warned by that
very serenity and remembered the old saying, that it was always calmest
before a storm. On the contrary, he was riding Sam's horse along the
edge of that swamp, wondering what lay hidden back in that dark jungle.
Some day, he determined, he would do a little exploring in that
direction.
A heron arose from the bayou and streaked across the metallic blue of
the sky. Another was wading along, intent upon its fishing. Sam's yellow
dog, which had followed horse and rider, set up a barking, annoyed at
the haughty carriage of the bird. He scrambled down the steep bank,
drove it into flight after its fellow.
Val pulled his shirt away from his sticky skin and wondered if he would
ever feel really cool again. There was something about this damp heat
which seemed to remove all ambition. He marveled how Ricky could even
think of trimming roses that morning.
Sam's dog began to bark deafeningly again, and Val looked around for the
heron which must have aroused his displeasure. There was none. But
across the swamp crawled an ungainly monster.
Four great rubber-tired wheels, ten feet high, as he later learned,
supported a metal framework upon which squatted two men and the driver
of the monstrosity. With the ponderous solemnity of a tank it came on to
the bayou.
Val's mount snorted and his ears pricked back. He began to have very
definite ideas about what he saw. The thing slipped down the marshy bank
and took to the water with ease, turning its square nose downstream and
sending waves shoreward.
"Ride 'em, cowboy!" yelled one of the men derisively as Sam's horse
decided to stand on his hind legs and wave at the strange apparition as
it went by. Val brought him down upon four feet again, and he stood
sweating, his ears still back.
"What do you call that?" the boy shouted back.
"Prospecting engine for swamp use," answered the driver. "Don't you
swampers ever get the news?"
The car, or whatever it was, moved on downstream and so out of sight.
"Now I wonder what that was," Val said aloud as his mount sidled toward
the center of the road. The hound-dog came up and sat down to kick a
patch of flea-invaded territory which lay behind his left ear. Again the
morning was quiet.
But not for long. A mud-spattered car came around the bend in the road
and headed at Val, going a good pace for the dirt surfacing. Before it
quite reached him it stopped and the driver stuck his head out of the
window.
"Hey, you, move over! Whatya tryin' to do--break somebody's neck?"
Val surveyed him with interest. The man was, perhaps, Rupert's age, a
small, thin fellow with thick black hair and the white seam of an old
scar beneath his left eye.
"This is," the boy replied, "a private road."
"Yeah," he snarled, "I know. And I'm the owner. So get your hobby-horse
going and beat it, kid."
Val shifted in the saddle and stared down at him.
"And what might your name be?" he asked softly.
"What d'yuh think it is? Hitler? I'm Ralestone, the owner of this place.
On your way, kid, on your way."
"So? Well, good morning, cousin." Val tightened rein.
The invader eyed him cautiously. "What d'yuh mean--cousin?"
"I happen to be a Ralestone also," the boy answered grimly.
"Huh? You the guy who thinks he owns this?" he asked aggressively.
"My brother is the present master of Pirate's Haven--"
"That's what _he_ thinks," replied the rival with a relish. "Well, he
isn't. That is, not until he pays me for my half. And if he wants to get
tough, I'll take it all," he ended, and withdrew into the car like a
lizard into its rock den.
Val sat by the side of the road and watched the car slide along toward
the plantation. As it passed him he caught a glimpse of a second
passenger in the back seat. It was the red-faced man he had seen with
LeFleur's clerk on the street in New Orleans. Resolutely Val turned back
and started for the house in the wake of the rival.
By making use of a short-cut, he reached the front of the house almost
as soon as the car. Ricky had been working with the morning-glory vines
about the terrace steps, young Sam standing attendance with a rusty
trowel and one of the kitchen forks.
At the sound of the car she stood up and tried to brush a smear of
sticky earth from the front of her checked-gingham dress. When the rival
got out she smiled at him.
"Hello, sister," he smirked.
She stood still for a moment and her smile faded. When she answered, her
voice was chill. "You wished to see Mr. Ralestone?" she asked distantly.
"Sure. But not just yet, sister. You better be pleasant, you know. I'm
the new owner here--"
Val rode out of the bushes and swung out of the saddle, coming up behind
him. Although the boy was one of the smaller "Black" Ralestones, he
topped the invader by a good two inches, and he noted this with delight
as he came up to him.
"Ricky," he said briefly, "go in. And send Sam for Rupert."
She nodded and was gone. The man turned to face Val. "You again, huh?"
he demanded.
"Yes. And Ralestone or no Ralestone, I would advise you to keep a civil
tongue in your head," he began hotly, when Rupert appeared at the door.
"Well, Val," he asked, a frown creasing his forehead, "what is it?"
The rival advanced a short step and looked up. "So this is the guy who's
trying to do me out of my rights?"
Rupert reached behind him and closed the screen before coming to the
head of the terrace steps. "I presume that you are Mr. Ralestone?" he
asked quietly.
"'Course I'm Ralestone," asserted the other. "And I'm part owner of this
place."
"That has not yet been decided," answered Rupert calmly. "But suppose
you tell me to what we owe the honor of this visit?"
Now, however, the passenger took a hand in the game. He crawled out of
the car, taking off his soiled panama to wipe his bald head with a gaudy
silk handkerchief.
"Here, here, Mr. Ralestone," he addressed his companion, "let us have no
unpleasantness. We have merely come here today, sir," he explained to
Rupert, "to see if matters could not be settled amicably without having
to take recourse to a court of law. Your Mr. LeFleur will give us very
little satisfaction, you see. I am a plain and honest man, sir, and I
believe an affair of this kind may be best agreed upon between
principals. My client, Mr. Ralestone, is a reasonable man; he will be
moderate in his demands. It will be to your advantage to listen to our
proposal. After all, you cannot contest his rights--"
"But that is just what I am going to do." Rupert smiled down at them, if
a slight twist of the lips may be called a smile. "Have you ever heard
that old saying that 'possession is nine points of the law'? I am the
Ralestone in residence, and I shall continue to be the Ralestone in
residence until after this case is heard. Now, as I am a busy man and
this is the middle of the morning, I shall have to say good-bye--"
"So that's the way you're going to take it?" The visiting Ralestone
glared at Rupert. "All right. Play it that way and you won't be here a
month from now. Nor," he turned on Val, "this kid brother of yours,
either. You can't pull this lord-of-the-land stuff on me and get away
with it. I'll--" But he did not finish his threat. Instead, his jaws
clamped shut on mid-word. In silence he turned and got into the car to
which his counselor had already withdrawn.