Read Online Jane by Robin Maxwell - Free Book Online

Mother’s idea of a fine suitor at a riverside picnic and had rounded on her at the front door of the manor. Could she have chosen anyone more perfect to annoy me? I’d demanded. Mother’s lips quivered in outrage at having been spoken to so rudely by her ungrateful spawn, and for a moment I thought I might receive the first slap of my life. But at that very moment the sound of an automobile puttering up the drive froze us both in our places.
    And there came Father, striding out past us to meet the black Ford Model A and the solitary figure at the wheel—Ral Conrath, his hair tousled by the wind, his face weathered and tawny, and his presence a very breath of fresh air to sweep away the poison swirling around Mother and me.
    Ral did not use the door. With a hand on the frame, he vaulted athletically over the side and came down gracefully on the gravel drive.
    I could hear my mother’s sharp intake of breath and her chuckle to see Father greet this hale fellow with an ardent handshake.
    “Is that Mr. Conrath?” Mother asked me, as though all the recent unpleasantness between us had never occurred.
    “It is. A very late Mr. Conrath.”
    He and Father were walking toward us, already sharing a laugh.
    “Mrs. Porter,” Father said, “may I present…”
    “Mr. Conrath,” my mother finished for Father, putting out her hand, which, to my utter astonishment, the man kissed with all the gallantry of a high nobleman.
    More surprising was the girlish giggle that escaped from Mother’s lips. She had never, in all of my memory, come out with more than a cultured chortle.
    “Madam,” Conrath said, gazing into her eyes, “I do believe the beauty of the mother surpasses that of the daughter.” Then he turned and winked at me as if to say there was no slight to me at all. It was only praise for an older lady so much more in need of compliments than a beautiful young women like myself.
    “You have my sincerest apologies for the tardiness. A milk truck—what do you call them here, ‘lorries’? Well, one of them crashed smack into a telephone pole, knocking down the lines to Cambridge, so I couldn’t call to say I’d been tied up with some outfitters in London.” He turned to Father. “What they showed me today will hold great interest for you, Professor Porter.”
    “‘Archie,’” my father ordered. “None of this Professor Porter business. What is it these outfitters are selling?”
    “Metal canoes. Fantastic, I tell you. Perfect for the tropical climes. No mildew. No rot. Nothing gets to the hulls. Barnacle won’t stick. Three or four of these boats and we’re home free up the Ogowe. But look here, I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t even have the job yet.”
    I watched astonished as Mother slipped her hand through Ral Conrath’s arm and led him inside. I had just seen her being charmed, as an Indian fakir with a flute does a hooded cobra.
    I took my father’s arm, and without a word we followed Ral and Mother into the manor.
    It was going to be a very interesting evening indeed.
    *   *   *
    My amazement extended through dinner, during which Ral regaled us with stories that he promised would “curl Mrs. Porter’s hair.” He spoke of living for months at a time with a tribe of cannibals; of a pride of lions and pack of hyenas who were at war with each other and into whose path Ral had unintentionally stepped; of ruthless Arab slave traders on the Barbary Coast who did not stop at stealing Negro tribesmen but had a going concern in kidnapping and delivering beautiful white women to the harems of Persian sheikhs. His adventures were something out of H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quartermain or King Solomon’s Mines, and when he took the great liberty of teasingly calling his hostess “She Who Must Be Obeyed,” I had a brief but sinking sensation that if I were to reread the fictions of that famous author, I might discover among the chapters the very tales being told at our dinner table.
    But