Chapter 6
Lena fell in love with the yellow house on sight. "It looks like a real house," she said, adding that most California houses looked as if a good puff of wind would blow them away.
They sat for a few minutes studying the house before leaving the car. Although they were no more than eight or ten miles from Hollywood, they might have been in another world. Tucked back among the foothills, the house itself clung to a sloping hillside which faced the valley. Today the hills were misted with streamers of fog which lifted and then swooped low. It was a lovely picture.
Built on a fieldstone foundation, the upper part of the house and the wide front porch were painted a soft yellow. Lena wondered why. Then she said she was glad it was painted that color. "It has a friendly look," she said.
That, Dan informed her on the spot, was the wrong way to handle a man. Scowling, he told her: "Never say you can walk on your own ankles even if you can. Never announce that you dislike being babied, even if you detest it. Big, strong, rip snorting males like myself dote on babying pretty helpless blondes. It makes us feel important. Didn't you know that?"
They smiled at each other, standing near a wide window in the perfectly enormous living room of the old house. Lena wore a yellow dress, rather sheer, with a full skirt and a wide belt. Her pale-gold hair was tied back with a yellow ribbon. She was as simply dressed as a schoolgirl, and the effect was sensational.
"Please let me baby you," Dan begged, as if this were one of the most solemn, critical moments of his life. "You're the prettiest thing I ever saw. Am I to blame if I yearn and hunger to pick you up in my arms and tote you all over southern California?"
"You're a perfect idiot," Lena retorted, laughing. "Now stop your ridiculous talk. We came all these miles and miles to look at this house, remember? So go ahead and show it to me."
They walked from room to room on the first floor. Lena was enchanted with everything: the size of the rooms, every single one flooded with sunshine; the views from the windows; the beautiful woodwork. At the back was a screened and glassed porch intended as a breakfast nook. From there she could look up to the top of one of the higher mountains in the distance. In the winter that mountain would be capped with snow. You would be able to see the snow clearly from where she stood. And after you had looked at the snow, you could move your eyes and see the oranges that were ripening in the grove beside the house.
"I just love this house," she said wistfully, wishing that she could say it was exactly what she was looking for.
But of course it wasn't. For Molly and Jim it would be out of the question. It would be ridiculous to consider having two elderly people in this huge place. "I don't think there's any use to look at the upstairs," she told Dan. It would just be a waste of time."
"What in the world do you mean, a waste of time! Wait until you see the views from the upstairs windows. Heaven on earth, nothing less. You can take my word for that. Never in all my eighty years has anyone accused Nell Morton of being a liar."
The voice, a little breathless, husky, curiously attractive, came from the small, spry woman who had materialized in the doorway. She had rosy cheeks, and she wore a small hat fashioned of violets on her softly waved white hair. She looked like a darling.
"Greetings, beautiful!" Dan put his arm around her, told her she looked prettier every time he saw her, then introduced her to Lena as the owner of the house.
"She spies on me," Dan explained. There were some little green men from outer space who ran and told her whenever he was showing her house to a prospective customer. Instantly Nell would take to her Cadillac to come have a look at the customer.
"I wouldn't be caught dead in a Cadillac," Nell announced firmly. But as for her wanting to look over any prospective buyer, that was certainly true.
She smiled at Lena. "I won't sell my house to just anybody," she explained. For this was not just any old house.
It had been a house where people had loved and mated and brought life into the world. Three generations had been born in this house. She had been born in it, all of her ten children, and three of her fifteen grandchildren. "It is a house that is used to love," she said.
She touched Lena's hand, studying her face with thoughtful, gentle eyes that were still a vivid blue, in spite of her age. "You understand what I mean, don't you, my dear."
Lena said gently: "Yes. I think I do understand."
The older woman nodded. "Yes, You would understand. I get vibrations which tell me you are an understanding person."
"Now, sweetie pie," Dan chided her, grinning, "let's keep your vibrations out of this."
Ignoring that remark, Nell looked from one to the other thoughtfully before she announced: "You two are sweethearts. Am I right? Of course I am. You will buy this house and live in it yourselves. Perfect! I can't tell you how pleased I am. If you will allow me the honor, I should like to be godmother to your first child, and stop looking at me, young man, as if you took me for a senile lunatic. I know what I'm talking about. I know two people who belong together when I see them."
Cheeks flushed with embarrassment, Lena hastened to explain that she was looking around for a home for her parents. "Mr. O'Connor and I are merely casual acquaintances. We met for the first time yesterday."
What earthly difference did that make? Nell Morton wanted to know. She had known Mr. Morton less than two weeks when they were married. To tell the truth, Mor Morton had been all for marrying her within forty-eight hours after they met. She had been considered an extremely beautiful girl at the time, and he was very much afraid some other fellow would get her away from him if he didn't work fast.
"But I thought it best to wait two weeks." And she had. And after that they had lived happily together to the day he died, fifty years later. "And I'm in love with him to this day," she declared, brushing tears from her eyes.
Love lived on, she said gently. A man's body might die, his physical presence vanish. But her love for him lived on in a woman's heart. No one could take that away from her.
Her brisk perkiness returned. "If you two don't have sense enough to get married and live in this house, you're a pair of idiots. You were meant for each other. There are the most remarkable vibrations all around you, drawing you together. Don't you sense them?" she asked, seeming as puzzled as if they were unable to see the sunshine glimmering through the fog.
Her parting admonition was that they remember what she had said about being godmother. Then she was gone, and Lena turned her back to Dan, strangely embarrassed, not quite sure what to say to him. It was as if Nell Morton had released some indefinable but very compelling chemical in the atmosphere between them. The very air seemed charged with it.
The woman is an old darling, but a little cracked, Lena told .herself. Then she felt Dan's hands on her shoulders.
He turned her around and made her look at him. For once no easy, humorous grin was on his lips. He looked serious and thoughtful; he was staring deep into her eyes.
"Maybe the old gal had something," he said softly. "What do you think, Lena?"
She tried to laugh. "I think she's a little touched."
No, he said, she was wrong. Nell Morton was as intelligent a woman as she was ever-likely to meet. She was one of the ones who stopped time in its tracks. She had a keen, alert mind. And the old gal really did get things.
"What do you mean, she gets things?"
Dan said flatly that he meant precisely what he said. Nell Morton saw and heard things that other people did not hear or see. He knew for a fact that she had foretold a certain accidental death a week before it happened.
"Well, so what?" Lena felt giddy. She wished that he wouldn't stare into her eyes the way he was doing, and that he'd let go of her shoulders.
"So maybe she 'got something' about us." His words were a mere breath against her cheek. Then he didn't bother with any more words. He took her in his arms, and his lips took her lips and held them for what might have been seconds, or might have been a little eternity, according to how you reckoned time. For the first time in all the long months she had loved him, Dana Hall might have been a million light years away from Lena's consciousness. Dana simply did not exist for her. Meanwhile, Dan O'Connor kissed her and held her close to his heart. It was not a thing she had wanted to happen. But oh, it gave her such a lovely feeling, almost as if she were dying a little, yet coming wildly, gloriously alive at the same time. No other man's arms and kisses had ever made her feel so much in a few tiny seconds of time.
Lena walked out of his arms, unwilling to admit the giddying sensations which had her in a daze. She walked slowly back to the front of the house, avoiding Dan's eyes, unheeding when he spoke to her. She had to frame words to get their relationship back on an even keel, a casual, strictly-business basis. I'm ashamed of myself, she thought, suddenly a little sick with self-disgust.
Pausing near the wide front door, she turned and took a look at Dan O'Connor; a good, hard, thoughtful look which told her he was a man who would be attractive to almost any woman. He was not handsome, as Dana Hall was handsome. But he didn't need to be. He had a masculine, vital quality which made a deeper, more urgent appeal than a well-formed profile or a nicely shaped mouth.
She thought, her own sense of shame deepening, No doubt he tries to make love to every pretty woman he takes out to look at a house.
"Take me home, please," she said.
"We haven't seen the upstairs," he reminded her.
"I don't want to see it." She was curt, withdrawn. A glance at her wristwatch reminded her that it was after four o'clock. It was getting late, she said. She'd have to hurry. This was Tuesday. She'd planned to attend a class in conversational French which met at seven on Tuesday evenings. "I've seen enough of the house. It wouldn't do for my parents. I'm sorry I've put you to so much bother."
"See here, Lena, are you sore at me?"
His big hands took her arms, pulled her toward him, and for a second she wondered if he was going to kiss her again. He did not. But his voice was not quite steady as he told her: "I kissed you because you're a very lovely gal, and I'm crazy about you. I kissed you because I wanted to, and I think you wanted it too. So I'm not going to apologize. But I don't want you to be sore at me."
"I'm not sore, Dan. I just want to go home right away. Please take me."