Read Online Arrow Pointing Nowhere by Elizabeth Daly - Free Book Online

eternity.
    â€œWe are a little antiquated, I’m afraid,” said Fenway. “Aren’t we, Belle?”
    This seemed to be a family joke. Mrs. Fenway, who had picked up her work again, gave him an affectionate smile. “The awful truth is, Mr. Gamadge,” she said, “that when I was first married I teased my dear husband and upset my father-in-law very much by wanting things changed here and at Fenbrook. I wanted art moderne, and I wanted the dreariest kind of decorator’s colonial. They finally made me understand that a master had done both houses, and that nothing must ever be altered.”
    â€œYou were very good for us, my dear,” said Fenway. “At least your great bathroom crusade was a success.” He asked suddenly: “Are you sure you and Mrs. Grove want that window open? Don’t you feel the draught?”
    The middle window of the bay, as Gamadge had noticed, was raised an inch or so. Mrs. Fenway shook her head. “There’s no draught, even on the coldest days, and Alice and I are used to old, cold Europe. We sometimes feel a little suffocated in all this lovely steam heat, and with the open fire besides.” She added, with a glance at the other, and the faint tone of diffidence that Gamadge had noticed in her voice when she addressed her: “Don’t we, Alice?”
    Mrs. Grove raised her eyes, smiled faintly, and lowered them again to her work. Her needle went methodically down between rows of diagonal stitches, and then its blunt and shining point reappeared from below.
    â€œMy sister-in-law,” said Fenway, “is at last graciously permitted to alter something at Number 24. The drawing-room brocade is in rags, the design can’t be copied, there are no such colors any more; so she and Mrs. Grove have taken on the stupendous task of working demi-point covers for six side chairs, two armchairs, a bench and a settee. Did you ever see more beautiful patterns?”
    Gamadge, leaning forward to pick up a corner of a square, and clumsily pushing a pair of scissors off the table with his cuff, said they were indeed beautiful. Then he apologized, and bent to retrieve the scissors. He also retrieved the paper ball from the wastebasket, palmed it, and rose with it in his left hand and the scissors in his right. He slipped the crumpled paper in his pocket, laid the scissors on the table, and again admired the wreaths and scrolls against their pale-green background.
    A rather low, deep voice, coming from somewhere on his extreme right, interrupted him. “My pencil’s broken.”
    â€œI’ll get you one, old man.” Craddock rose.
    Mrs. Fenway turned her head to look at her son, who sat frowning and regarding his pencil. “Darling,” she said, “you mustn’t let poor Bill get your pencil for you. Go and get one yourself.”
    â€œNo, really, Mrs. Fenway; it won’t take a second. The kind he likes are up in my room.”
    Craddock went out into the hall and ran up the stairs to the top floor. Alden sat patiently waiting, his eyes on his pencil; his mother’s haunted eyes remained on him—they were full of love and anxiety. A silence ensued, during which Miss Fenway lighted another cigarette, and Mott Fenway whistled under his breath; a cheerful tune it was, from another century. Craddock returned. Blake Fenway went back to the subject of needlework:
    â€œMrs. Grove’s young niece Hilda copied the designs for our new covers at the Metropolitan Museum, Mr. Gamadge; they will be unique.”
    â€œThat dear child,” said Mrs. Fenway. “How she worked over it, and how clever she is. Does all this rather impress you as belonging in the well-known ivory tower, Mr. Gamadge?”
    Gamadge said that he liked towers in a landscape.
    â€œHilda shouldn’t be in one, though. I don’t know how you can all keep her marooned up there in that barn of a Fenbrook, I’m sure.” Mrs.