"Phyllis A. Whitney - Thunder Heights" - читать интересную книгу автора (Whitney Phyllis A)

He considered her admission soberly, as if it further bolstered his conclusions about her, and she wished she had not blurted out the truth so impulsively.
"In that case," he said, "it should be possible for you to take the boat tomorrow afternoon. I have gone to the liberty of procuring your passage to Westcliffin order to make your way easy."
"Easy for what ?" she asked, completely at a loss.
He leaned toward her earnestly, dropping all evasion. "I have been Orrin Judd's
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attorney for many years, I have come here to ask you to go to your grandfather's sickbed at Thunder Heights. He is seriously ill - he may be dying.53
She was silent for a moment, startled and dismayed. "But - he disowned my mother long ago. Even when she was alive he would have nothing to do with us."
"That is not quite true,55 Mr. Pompton corrected her. "Mr. Judd kept good account of every move his daughter Althea made over the years. Had she been in need, he would have stepped in at once, even though he and your father had little liking for each other.55
"My father detested him,55 Camilla said. "He didn't want my mother to return to Thunder Heights when Orrin Judd finally sent for her.55
Mr. Pompton sighed and ran a hand over his pink scalp as if he smoothed thick hair. This errand was clearly not to his taste. "What happened was unfortunate, indeed a great tragedy. But your father was mistaken in blaming Orrin Judd.55
Camilla's fingers twisted together in her lap. "They sent for Papa after she died. He went to Thunder Heights for her funeral,
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and he came home ill with grief. He said her family was wholly to blame for the accident, whatever it was. He would never talk about it at all. He wanted me to remember my mother the way she was, and I've never known how she died. He said I was never under any circumstances to have anything to do with my grandfather or the others at Thunder Heights."
"Your father has been dead for several years,33 Mr. Pompton reminded her. "You are a grown woman. It is up to you to make your own decisions. When a man is dying there may be things he regrets. Your mother was Orrin Judd's favorite daughter, and he wishes to see his only grandchild.33
Camilla sat very still, her fingers twisted tightly. A queer, unexpected surge of excitement had leaped within her for an instant. The name of Judd was a magic one to be spoken almost in the same breath with such names as Vanderbilt, Astor, or Morgan. Though in later years old Orrin Judd had pulled in his horns and, with the eccentricity in which only the very rich can indulge, has abandoned the lavish mode of living that had once been his custom. The world had nearly forgotten him, as it was
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never allowed to forget those others who bore great names and increased their progeny.
In none of her positions as a governess had Camilla ever breathed a word of her grandfather's identity. But she remembered once when she had been very young and her mother had pointed out a tall structure that towered over Broadway. "Your grandfather created that building," her mother said with pride in her voice. The small Camilla had envisioned a very old man with a long white beard like the pictures of Moses in the Bible, setting one brick upon another as she herself piled blocks. For a long time it had been a puzzle to her what he had done once the pile rose higher than his head. But the building had always remained for her, "my grandfather's house".
A faint smile curled her lips, and Mr. Pompton did not miss it. "You would need to stay only a day or two at this time," he said hurriedly, pressing what he took to be an advantage. "The boat trip need not interfere with your obtaining a new position in New York, if that is what you wish. I believe it would be wise not to remain longer. You would at least make your
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grandfather's acquaintance, perhaps bring him a last happiness. I met your mother only once, but I have seen pictures of her. Your resemblance to her is striking."
Yes, she knew that. The way she looked had always brought her father both pain and joy. But why did Mr. Pompton stipulate that Orrin's granddaughter should visit him for only a day or two ? If her grandfather wanted her enough to send for her...
"I must warn you," Mr. Pompton continued in his solemn tone, "that you may not be altogether welcome at Thunder Heights.5'
Her mother's tales of the family sprang from the past into Camilla's mind. "You mean because of my Aunt Hortense ? But if my grandfather wants me - "
"He may not be well enough to prevail. I'm afraid that your aunt never forgave your mother for running away with John King. But no matter - you must go and not let anything she says disturb you."
"Who else lives at Thunder Heights now ?" Camilla asked. "I believe Mama said that Letitia was the middle sister. Has she married ?"
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"No, Miss Letty still lives there. She is a gentle soul, and I'm sure she will welcome your coming. Then of course there is Booth Hendricks, whom your Aunt Hortense adopted many years ago when he was ten. He must be about thirty-six now and he too has never married. There is another young man, as well - an engineer who has been a close and trusted associate of your grandfather for many years. A Mr. Ross Granger. He is now in New York on business. I expect to see him while I am here. Miss Camilla - will you give your grandfather this last pleasure? Believe me, the matter is urgent. He was ill before this heart attack - there may be little time remaining."
For a moment Camilla could not answer. The emptiness of all the years when she had longed for a family crowded back upon her. How many times she had dreamed of such a family in her young girl loneliness, and now one had been presented to her. A family whom she would not have to approach as a beggar because Orrin Judd himself had summoned her. Perhaps there were matters her father had never fully understood. Besides, she had her mother's
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own actions to guide her. When Orrin Judd had sent for her, Althea had gone, even over the objections of her husband. Could her daughter do less ?
She smiled at her visitor in sudden bright acceptance. "There's no reason why I can't catch tomorrow's boat as you suggest."
Mr. Pompton looked more relieved than pleased. He rose at once and put an envelope into Camilla's hands.
"You will find everything in order, I believe. The boat reaches Westcliff in the late afternoon. I will send a wire ahead so that you will be met and driven to Thunder Heights. I plan to return by a later boat when my business in New York is finished."
She saw him to the door and watched him go down the steps and out to his waiting hack. The day was still gray and gusty, but now there seemed an excitement in the blustering wind. She ran upstairs breathlessly to announce the news to Nettie.
"I have a family!" she cried. "I have a family after all \" And she wrapped her arms about herself, as if she hugged the very fact to her. "Perhaps if my grandfather likes
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me I can stay a while, in spite of my Aunt Hortense."
Nettie had to sit right down and listen to the whole story, and she didn't leave until the Hodges were heard coming home. It wasn't necessary for Camilla to see her erstwhile employers again until she left. She had her supper in her room that night, and she could hardly sleep for thinking about Thunder Heights, trying to remember all the stories her mother had told her about the days when Althea Judd was a little girl in the great house up the river.
As a child, Camilla had pictured in her mind a great castle of a house, built on a high eminence. A house with shining turrets and windows that caught the tints of sunrise across the Hudson. She knew, as though she had stepped into it, the square antehall with marble hands that reached eerily out of the walls, and the great parlor filled with curios. Orrin Judd and his wife had liked to travel, and they had brought home treasures from all over the world. Camilla's grandmother had died while Althea was a little girl, but there had still been days of wonderful travel for her daughters.
There was an octagon staircase, too Camilla had always loved the sound of that. It ran up two flights, and its panels of carved teakwood had come from Burma. Up on the third floor was the huge nursery, where Althea had played with her two older sisters. Camilla could imagine its cheerful fire and worn, loved furnishings.
Now that she thought of it, Camilla realized that her mother had talked more of the house than of its occupants. There had always been a soreness in Althea King that had turned away from stories of her father or her sisters. But now Camilla could go to Thunder Heights and see the bright turrets, the marble hands, the staircase, for herself.
It was not, however, the house that interested her most. A warm current of eagerness flowed in her veins, an eagerness to please her aunts and her grandfather, to love them and be loved by them. Whatever had happened in the past must be buried by the years that were gone. She was not responsible for any of it, so how could she be blamed for what was none of her doing ? She would be as sweet and agreeable as it was in her to be, so that the family would
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delight in having her there - even Aunt Hortense who held some unaccountable grudge against her own dead sister.
She went to sleep with a smile in her lips and all her dreams were loving.
THE following afternoon she bade Mrs. Hodges a polite good-by, kissed the weeping children with the pang she always felt on leaving charges she had grown to love, and went out to her cab, carrying her suitcase. The trunk would follow her in a day or two. She had to stay at Thunder Heights for a little while at least. She had never taken a trip up the Hudson River before, yet the river had always been a part of her memory of her mother. Sometimes the two of them had gone by horse car to the lower tip of Manhattan, where the river emptied into the harbor, and stood watching the busy water life. The Hudson had meant home to Althea King, and she had told her small daughter tales of the dreamer, Hendrik Hudson, and his ship the Half Moon. Stories too of the Dunderbergs and the Catskills, of Storm King, and Breakneck Ridge, and Anthony's Nose. All history, it seemed, was part of the Hudson, from Indian days to the present.
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Commerce had followed the vital artery and made a great nation even greater.