Jericho's Daughters

Paul I. Wellman

Description

Jericho is a Kansas stockyard town. The “daughters” are various residents of the town, from the rich and cruel Mrs. Butford, to the aspiring social arbiter, Mrs. Mary Agnes Wedge, and to the young widow Grey Rutledge, who is having a love affair with Wistart Wedge, Mary Agnes’ disdained husband who is a newspaper publisher. The story revolves around this love triangle. Wellman has a flare for telling a tale, including a subplot relating to a double murder - a nightclub striptease artist with a religious maniac for a husband, and a police officer.

Sujets

• Romance historique
• Historical
• Romance
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 11 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774644676
• Langue: English

Extrait

Jericho's Daughters
by Paul I. Wellman

First published in 1956
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
JERICHO’S DAUGHTERS



by PAUL I. WELLMAN

To that wee, winsome sprite

WENDY

who, on arriving in this vale of woe and worry fiveshort winters ago, brought a new wealth of gaiety,charms, and graces into it, and (as a very unimportantside incident) conferred upon me, for the firsttime, the honorable and happy (though I fear somewhatancient) title: Grandfather.
One
1
❧ When Mrs. Mary Agnes Wedge entered the flower-boweredlobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel, she created quite alittle stir, even in that place which is accustomed to and somewhatblasé about the visitations of rajahs from India, oil millionairesfrom Texas, and world-publicized nymphomaniacsfrom Hollywood. This was perhaps natural, since she was arather important and regular guest, who expected, received,and paid for the very best the house afforded in accommodationsand services.
The desk clerk, a polished young man with a well-groomedthin mustache, advertised his recognition of her with a smileand almost a flourish.
“Good morning, Mrs. Wedge,” he said in his best brisk-cordialmanner. “Delighted that you’re to be with us again.Pleasant flight across, I trust?”
“Dull,” she replied wearily, signing the registration card.
The clerk clucked sympathetically. “Monotonous, of course—allthat water. You’ll be wishing to rest, no doubt. Theluggage you shipped ahead arrived in due time and we tookthe liberty of depositing your things in the suite we set asidefor you. I hope you’ll find everything in order. Is there anythingspecial you desire?”
“You might send up a gin-and-tonic. And a breakfastmenu.”
“Thank you. At once, ma’am.” The clerk was unsurprised.It was not yet nine o’clock in the morning, but this guest wasjust off a transpacific plane from Hawaii, and perhaps a gin-and-tonicbefore breakfast was indicated in her case.
A girl at the switchboard behind the desk spoke to him.
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Wedge,” said the clerk as Mary Agnesturned away from the desk. “Long-distance has been trying toreach you.”
“From where?” she asked.
“Your home, I believe, ma’am. Jericho, Kansas.”
“Oh.” Flat, uninterested voice.
“They’ve been calling the past hour,” volunteered the clerk.
“I suppose so. The plane was late.”
“Will you take it in your suite?”
“Yes. I’m going up now.”
“Thank you. The operator will get your connection.”
Preceded by the bellboy, she passed toward the elevator,slender in an angularly graceful way, her dark traveling suit,the mink stole on her arm, her jewelry, hose, and slippers alladvertising expensive good taste. Nobody could call MaryAgnes Wedge beautiful, yet she caught every eye in theflower-filled lobby in that brief parade.
The suite into which she was ushered overlooked the hotel’sgardens, which are famous. She glanced from an open window,inspected the closets to see that her dresses and coatshad been hung in them carefully, directed the bellboy whereto place the two bags she had brought on the plane, tippedhim and dismissed him. Then, with a woman’s immediate instinct,she went to a full-length mirror and gave herself aquick survey, with a particularly searching scrutiny of herface.
The face was not without its charm, although it was toothin, almost emaciated from continual dieting. Cheekbonesand chin were prominent, the greenish eyes deep set with alight etching of lines disguised with make-up at the corners,the nose delicately aquiline, and the mouth firm and straight—toofirm and thin, perhaps, so that she found it necessary tosoften it by widening and curving the lips with the red smearof her lipstick. Her crisp hair, cut in a fashionably shortmode, was brown, almost black, with a stylized streak ofgray, and her skin was darkly tanned—she was fortunate inalways taking a good color under the sun, and she had devotedsome weeks of idleness to this end in Honolulu.
All in all, she saw in the mirror a rather haughty face, aface faintly hinting discontent, a face men sometimes foundattractive, but women, with healthy feminine hatred, oftendescribed as “hard as nails.”
“I’m looking a little scrawny around the neck,” MaryAgnes said to herself, half aloud.
She had passed her fortieth birthday; and she was becomingincreasingly conscious of fading youth, and dreading theappearance of what women call a “crepe throat.” Indeed, shehad begun to arrive unconsciously at an age when she dressednot so much to attract men as to annoy other women.
Leaving the mirror, she sat down beside a table on which atelephone rested. This morning she felt tired and debilitated.Habitually she traveled by air, because habitually she was in ahurry to get places. Yet, though she always assured herselfthat air travel is the safest mode of transportation and quotedto herself those figures about millions of passenger miles peraccident, she was never quite at ease during a flight; and theone from the Islands had been a long one. She had takenDramamine to counteract her tendency to air sickness, and itwas supposed to make one sleepy. But while it numbed hersenses, the drug did not induce slumber, and she spent thehours in a sort of dulled wakefulness, unable to dismiss fromher mind the inevitable little gnawing worry that always waswith her when she was flying over all those interminable milesof menacing gray ocean. Now she confessed to an inner sagof weariness, and it made her impatient with herself, and withlife in general.
The telephone on the table suddenly jingled. She lifted thereceiver.
“Mrs. Wedge?” inquired an operator’s tinny voice.
“Yes. This is she.”
“Ready with your call from Jericho.”
“All right.”
“Go ahead, Jer-r-r-richo,” the voice trilled.
Over the wire came a tentative questioning. “Hello?Hello?”
She knew the voice. It was her husband.
“Hello,” she said. “Hello, Wistart.”
“Mary Agnes? Is that you, honey?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you——”
“Yes, I know. The plane was late. Head winds.”
“Bet you’re tired, poor girl.”
“I’m fine. I can never sleep on a flight, but otherwise fine.”
“How’s good old Honolulu?”
“Oh, all right. About as usual. Nothing out of theordinary.”
“Anyone interesting at the Royal Hawaiian?”
“Some movie people. Making a picture in the Islands. I meta few of the cast—John Wayne, Lana Turner, John Qualen.Danced with admirals and sugar millionaires and all that sortof thing. Oh, just about what you’d expect at that hotel.”
“Get a good suntan?” he next said.
“Yes. I simply lived on the beach.”
This senseless preliminary of banalities annoyed her. Whywas Wistart calling her so soon and so insistently and thenspending all this time talking about minor, unimportantthings?
“Listen, Wistart,” she said impatiently, “this call is costingmoney, isn’t it? What did you want to say to me?”
A moment’s hesitation at the other end of the wire. Then,“When will you be coming home?”
“I don’t know. A month or so. You know I plan to godown to Balboa with the Kerstings. And there are a lot ofother things I want to get done—shopping and so on——”She grew vague.
“Well——” He hesitated again. She could hear him breathingover the phone. At last he said, “I wish you could arrangesomehow to come on now, honey.”
It grated on her to have him call her “honey.” The wordwas commonplace, and besides neither of them, really, felt inthe least that way about each other.
“In heaven’s name, why?” she demanded sharply.
“Oh—just wish you could.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No—not exactly.”
“Wistart, is it the Clarion again?”
She could almost see the sullen, defensive look come intohis face at her tone. He said, “It’s a pretty long story over thephone.”
“There’s no reason to be mysterious!”
Now he grew dogged. “You know I hate discussing mattersover the long-distance.”
She knew that stubbornness of his, which was his substitutefor strength, and it exasperated her.
“Listen, Wistart,” she said icily, “if it isn’t importantenough to discuss over the phone, it certainly isn’t importantenough to bring me back to Kansas in January weather.”
He seemed to consider that, but for some obscure reasonhe evidently had made up his mind. “Well, then, when willyou be coming?” he asked.
“I’ve already told you I’m not sure yet. I can’t stand Jerichoin midwinter!”
“Well—if that’s the way it is—I suppose that’s that——”
“Is this all you wanted to say?”
“Yes, I guess it’s all.”
“I think we’d better hang up then.”
“If you change your plans will you wire me?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Then good-by. Give my regards to the Kerstings and—andanyone else you see out there that I know. And take careof yourself, honey.” His voice seemed to drag.
“Good-by, Wistart.”
The receiver clicked.
2
Almost at once there was a knock on the door: it wasthe waiter with the gin-and-tonic. Mary Agnes took a sip ofthe bittersweet drink while she glanced over the menu and ordereda slender breakfast. Then, after the waiter departed,she sipped again at the gin-and-tonic, found that she did notwant it, left it on the table, and went over to the openwindow.
This was midwinter, and she reflected that it probably wasbitter-cold and snowy at home. Yet in the gardens below herwindow the trees were in full rich leaf and the flower bedsrioting with bloom. Linnets warbled their twittering songs inthe vines and the soft California air touched her cheek likefairy fingers.
Such a contrast should have given her pleasure. Yet, gazingout at the semi-tropical luxuriance, she knew a feeling of discontentakin to bitterness.
When a woman has not seen her husband for more thanthree months, a