carried the portfolio into his bedroom and locked it in one of his mysterious brief-cases which had somehow found its way upstairs.
The two chests they moved out farther into the hall and the trunk was placed back against the wall, ready for further investigation.
“Mistuh Ralestone, suh,” Letty-Lou, standing half-way up the back stairs, addressed Rupert, “lunch am on de table. Effen yo’all doan come now, de eatments will be spiled.”
“All right,” he answered.
“Letty-Lou,” called Ricky, “put on another plate. Miss Charity is staying to lunch.”
“Dat’s all ri’, Miss ‘Chanda. I’se done done dat. Yo’all comin’ now?”
“You see how we are bullied,” Ricky appealed to Charity. “Of course you’re going to stay,” she swept aside the other’s protests. “What’s food for, if not to feed your friends? Val, go wash up; your hands are frightful. I don’t care if you did wash once; go and—”
“This is her little-mother-of-the-family mood,” her younger brother explained to Charity. “It wears off after a while if you just don’t notice it. But I will wash though,” he looked at his hands, “I seem to need it.”
“And don’t use the guest towels,” Ricky called after him. “You know that they’re only to look at.”
When Val emerged from the bathroom he found the hall deserted. Sounds from below suggested that his family had basely left him for food. He started along the passage. Not far from the stairs was the writing-desk where Rupert had left it. Val picked it up, thinking that he might as well take it along down with him.
By Our Luck!
Depositing the desk on the seat of one of the hall chairs, Val started toward the dining-room, a grim hole which Lucy had calmly forced the family to use but which they all cordially disliked. Its paneled walls, crystal-hung chandelier, marble-fronted fireplace, and inlaid floor gave it the appearance of one of the less cozy rooms in a small palace. There were also two tasteful portraits of dead ducks which had been added as a finishing touch by some tenant during the eighties and which still remained upon the walls to Ricky’s unholy joy.
But the long table, the high-backed chairs, the side serving-table, and the two tall cabinets of china were fine enough pieces if one cared for the massive. Ricky’s table-cloth of violent-hued peasant linen was not in keeping with the china and glassware Letty-Lou had set out upon it. Charity was commenting upon this ensemble as Val entered.
“Doesn’t this red and green plaid seem a bit—well, bright?” The corners of her mouth twitched betrayingly.
“No,” Ricky returned firmly. “This cloth matches the ducks.”
“Oh, yes, the ducks,” Charity eyed them. “So you consider that the ducks are the note you wish to emphasize?”
“Certainly.” Ricky surveyed the picture hanging opposite her. “I consider them unique. Not everyone can have ducks in the dining-room nowadays.”
“For which they should be eternally thankful,” observed Rupert. “They are rather gaudy, aren’t they?”
“Oh, but I like the expression in this one’s glassy eye,” Ricky pointed out. “You might call this study ‘Gone But Not Forgotten.’”
“Corn-bread, please,” Val asked, thus attempting to put an end to the art-appreciation class.
“I think,” continued Ricky, undisturbed as she passed him the plate heaped with golden squares, “that they are slightly surrealist. They distinctly resemble the sort of things one is often pursued by in one’s brighter nightmares.”
“Do you have any really good pictures?” asked Charity, resolutely averting her gaze from the ducks.
“Three, but they’ve been loaned to the museum,” answered Rupert. “Not by well-known painters, but they’re historically interesting. There’s one of the first Lady Richanda, and one of the missing Rick. That’s the best of the lot, according to LeFleur. I saw a photograph of it once. Come to think about it, Val looks a lot like the boy in the picture. He might have sat for it.”
They all turned to eye Val. He arose and bowed. “I find these compliments too overwhelming,” he murmured.
Rupert 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
