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RALESTONE LUCK
By ANDRÉ NORTON
_Author of_ The Prince Commands
ILLUSTRATED BY JAMES REID
D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY
INCORPORATED
NEW YORK 1938 LONDON
Copyright, 1938, by
D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced
in any form without permission of the publisher.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
D. B. N.
_In return for many miles of proof so diligently read_
[Illustration: _"How hold ye Lorne?" Rupert's softly spoken question
brought the well-remembered answer to Val's lips: "By the oak leaf, by
the sea wave, by the broadsword blade, thus hold we Lorne!"_]
CONTENTS
I. THE RALESTONES COME HOME
II. THE LUCK OF THE LORDS OF LORNE
III. THE RALESTONES ENTERTAIN AN UNOBTRUSIVE VISITOR
IV. PISTOLS FOR TWO--COFFEE FOR ONE
V. THEIR TENANT DISCOVERS THE RALESTONES
VI. SATAN GOES A-HUNTING AND FINDS WORK FOR IDLE HANDS
VII. BY OUR LUCK!
VIII. GREAT-UNCLE RICK WALKS THE HALL
IX. PORTRAIT OF A LADY AND A GENTLEMAN
X. INTO THE SWAMP
XI. RALESTONES TO THE RESCUE!
XII. THE RALESTONES BRING HOME A RELUCTANT GUEST
XIII. ON SUCH A NIGHT AS THIS--
XIV. PIRATE WAYS ARE HIDDEN WAYS
XV. PIECES OF EIGHT--RALESTONES' FATE!
XVI. RALESTONES STAND TOGETHER
XVII. THE RETURN OF RICK RALESTONE
XVIII. RUPERT BRINGS HOME HIS MARCHIONESS
ILLUSTRATIONS
"How hold ye Lorne?" Rupert's softly spoken question brought the
well-remembered answer to Val's lips: "By the oak leaf, by the sea wave,
by the broadsword blade, thus hold we Lorne!"
"I'se Lucy," she stated, thoroughly at her ease. "An' dis is Letty-Lou"
Ricky lifted off the cover. Val stared at the canvas
"It's a genuine Audubon," Charity said
_Zzzzzrupp_! Satan was industriously ripping the remnants of lining from
its interior
The canoe floated almost of its own volition into a dead and distorted
strip of country
At the bayou at last, they wriggled Jeems awkwardly into the boat
Then came a tree burdened with a small 'coon which stared at the boy
piteously, its eyes green in the light
Ricky held aloft a great war sword. There could be no doubt in any of
them--the Luck of Lorne had returned
RALESTONE LUCK
_How hold ye Lorne?_
By the oak leaf,
By the sea wave,
By the broadsword blade,
Thus hold we Lorne!
_The oak leaf is dust,
The sea wave is gone,
The broadsword is rust,
How now hold ye Lorne?_
By our Luck, thus hold we Lorne!
CHAPTER I
THE RALESTONES COME HOME
"Once upon a time two brave princes and a beautiful princess set out to
make their fortunes--" began the dark-haired, dark-eyed boy by the
roadster.
"Royalty is out of fashion," corrected Ricky Ralestone somewhat
indifferently. "Can't you do better than that?" She gave her small, pert
hat an exasperated tweak which brought the unoffending bowl-shaped bit
of white felt into its proper position over her right eyebrow. "How long
does it take Rupert to ask a single simple question?"
Her brother Val watched the gas gage on the instrument board of the
roadster fluctuate wildly as the attendant of the station shook the hose
to speed the flow of the last few drops. Five gallons--a dollar ten. Did
he have that much? He began to assemble various small hoards of change
from different pockets.
"Do you think we're going to like this?" Ricky waved her hand vaguely in
a gesture which included a dilapidated hot-dog stand and a stretch of
road white-hot under the steady baking of the sun.
"Well, I think that Pirate's Haven is slightly different from our
present surroundings. Where's your proper pride? Not everyone can be
classed among the New Poor," Val observed judiciously.
"Nobility in the bread line." His sister sniffed with what she fondly
believed was the air of a Van Astor dowager.
"Nobility?"
"We never relinquished the title, did we? Rupert's still the Marquess of
Lorne."
"After some two hundred years in America I am afraid that we would find
ourselves strangers in England. And Lorne crumbled to dust long ago."
"But he's still Marquess of Lorne," she persisted.
"All right. And what does that make you?"
"Lady Richanda, of course, silly. Can't you remember the wording of the
old charter? And you're Viscount--"
"Wrong there," Val corrected her. "I'm only a lord, by courtesy, unless
we can bash Rupert on the head some dark night and chuck him into the
bayou."
"Lord Valerius." She rolled it upon her tongue. "Marquess, Lady, and
Lord Val, out to seek their fortunes. Pity we can't do it in the
traditional family way."
"But we can't, you know," he protested laughingly. "I believe that
piracy is no longer looked upon with favor by the more solid members of
any community. Though plank-walking is an idea to keep in mind when the
bill collectors start to draw in upon us."
"Here comes Rupert at last. Rupert," she raised her voice as their elder
brother opened the door by the driver's seat, "shall we all go and be
pirates? Val has some lovely gory ideas."
"Not just yet anyway--we still have a roof over our heads," he answered
as he slid in behind the wheel. "We should have taken the right turn a
mile back."
"Bother!" Ricky surveyed as much of her face as she could see in the
postage-stamp mirror of her compact. "I don't think I'm going to like
Louisiana."
"Maybe Louisiana won't care for you either," Val offered slyly. "After
all, we dyed-in-the-wool Yanks coming to live in the deep South--"
"Speak for yourself, Val Ralestone." She applied a puff carefully to the
tip of her upturned nose. "Since we've got this barn of a place on our
hands, we might as well live in it. Too bad you couldn't have persuaded
our artist tenant to sign another lease, Rupert."
"He's gone to spend a year in Italy. The place is in fairly good
condition though. LeFleur said that as long as we don't use the left
wing and close off the state bedrooms, we can manage nicely."
"State bedrooms--" Val drew a deep breath which was meant to be one of
reverence but which turned into a sneeze as the roadster's wheels raised
the dust. "How does it feel to own such magnificence, Rupert?"
"Not so good," he replied honestly. "A house as big as Pirate's Haven is
a burden if you don't have the cash to keep it up properly. Though this
artist chap did make a lot of improvements on his own."
"But think of the Long Hall--" began Ricky, rolling her eyes heavenward.
"And just what do you know about the Long Hall?" demanded Rupert.
"Why, that's where dear Great-great-uncle Rick's ghost is supposed to
walk, isn't it?" she asked innocently. "I hope that our late tenant
didn't scare him away. It gives one such a blue-blooded feeling to think
of having an active ghost on the premises. A member of one's own family,
too!"
"Sure. Teach him--or it--some parlor tricks and we'll show it--or
him--off every afternoon between three and four. We might even be able
to charge admission and recoup the family fortune," Val suggested
brightly.
"Have you no reverence?" demanded his sister. "And besides, ghosts only
walk at night."
"Now that's something we'll have to investigate," Val interrupted her.
"Do ghosts have union rules? I mean, I wouldn't want Great-great-uncle
Rick to march up and down the carriage drive with a sign reading, 'The
Ralestones are unfair to ghosts,' or anything like that."
"We'll have to use the Long Hall, of course," cut in Rupert, as usual
ignoring their nonsense. "And the old summer drawing-room. But we can
shut up the dining-room and the ball-room. We'll eat in the kitchen, and
that and a bedroom apiece--"
"I suppose there are bathrooms, or at least a bathroom," his brother
interrupted. "Because I don't care to rush down to the bayou for a good
brisk plunge every time I get my face dirty."
"Harrison put in a bathroom at his own expense last fall."
"For which blessed be the name of Harrison. If he hadn't gone to Italy,
he would have rebuilt the house. How soon do we get there? This touring
is not what I thought it might be--"
The crease which had appeared so recently between Rupert's eyes
deepened.
"Leg hurt, Val?" he asked quietly, glancing at the slim figure sharing
his seat.
"No. I'm expressing curiosity this time, old man, not just a whine. But
if we're going to be this far off the main highway--"
"Oh, it's not far from the city road. We ought to be seeing the
gate-posts any moment now."
"Prophet!" Ricky leaned forward between them. "See there!"
Two gray stone posts, as firmly planted by time as the avenue of
live-oaks they headed, showed clearly in the afternoon light. And from
the nearest, deep carven in the stone, a jagged-toothed skull, crowned
and grinning, stared blankly at the three in the shabby car. Beneath it
ran the insolent motto of an ancient and disreputable clan, "What I
want--I take!"
"This is the place all right--I recognize Joe there." Val pointed to the
crest. "Good old Joe, always laughing."
Ricky made a face. "Horrid old thing. I don't see why we couldn't have
had a swan or something nice to swank about."
"But then the Lords of Lorne were hardly a nice lot in their prime," Val
reminded her. "Well, Rupert, let's see the rest."
The car followed a graveled drive between tall bushes which would have
been the better for a pruning. Then the road made a sudden curve and
they came out upon a crescent of lawn bordering upon a stone-paved
terrace three steps above. And on the terrace stood the home a Ralestone
had not set foot in for over fifty years--Pirate's Haven.
"It looks--" Ricky stared up, "why, it looks just like the picture Mr.
Harrison painted!"
"Which proves why he is now in Italy," Val returned. "But he did capture
it on canvas."
"Gray stone--and those diamond-paned windows--and that squatty tower.
But it isn't like a Southern home at all! It's some old, old place out
of England."
"Because it was built by an exile," said Rupert softly. "An exile who
loved his home so well that he labored five years in the wilderness to
build its duplicate. Those little diamond-paned windows were once
protected with shutters an inch thick, and the place was a fort in
Indian times. But it is strange to this country. That's why it's one of
the show places. LeFleur asked me if we would be willing to keep up the
custom of throwing the state rooms open to the public one day a month."
"And shall we?" asked Ricky.
"We'll see. Well, don't you want to see the inside as well as the out?"
"Of course! Val, you lazy thing, get out!"
"Certainly, m'lady." He swung open the door and climbed out stiffly.
Although he wouldn't have confessed it for any reason, his leg had been
aching dully for hours.
"Do you know," Ricky hesitated on the first terrace step, bending down
to put aside a trail of morning-glory vine which clutched at her ankle,
"I've just remembered!"
"What?" Rupert looked up from the grid where he was unstrapping their
luggage.
"That we are the very first Ralestones to--to come home since
Grandfather Miles rode away in 1867."
"And why the sudden dip into ancient history?" Val inquired as he limped
around to help Rupert.
"I don't know," her eyes were fast upon moss-greened wall and ponderous
door hewn of a single slab of oak, "except--well, we are coming home at
last. I wonder if--if they know. All those others. Rick and Miles, the
first Rupert and Richard and--"
"That spitfire, the Lady Richanda?" Rupert smiled. "Perhaps they do. No,
leave the bags here, Val. Let's see the house first."
Together the Ralestones crossed the terrace and came to stand by the
front door which still bore faint scars left by Indian hatchets. But
Rupert stooped to insert a very modern key into a very modern lock.
There was a click and the door swung inward before his push.
"The Long Hall!" They stood in something of a hesitant huddle at the end
of a long stone-floored room. Half-way down its length a wooden
staircase led up to the second floor, and directly opposite that a great
fireplace yawned mightily, black and bare.
A leather-covered lounge was directly before this, flanked by two square
chairs. And by the stairs was an oaken marriage chest. Save for two skin
rugs, these were all the furnishings.
But Ricky had crossed hesitatingly to that cavernous fireplace and was
standing there looking up as her brothers joined her.
"There's where it was," she said softly and pointed to a deep niche cut
into the surface of the stone overmantel. That niche was empty and had
been so for more than a hundred years--to their hurt. "That was where
the Luck--"
"How hold ye Lorne?" Rupert's softly spoken question brought the
well-remembered answer to Val's lips:
"By the oak leaf, by the sea wave, by the broadsword blade, thus hold we
Lorne!"
"The oak leaf is dust," murmured Ricky, "the sea wave is gone, the
broadsword is rust, how now hold ye Lorne?"
Her brothers answered her together:
"By our Luck, thus hold we Lorne!"
"And we've got to get it back," she said. "We've just got to! When the
Luck hangs there again, we--"
"Won't have anything left to worry about," Val finished for her. "But
that's a very big order, m'lady. Short of catching Rick's ghost and
forcing him to disclose the place where he hid it, I don't see how we're
going to do it."
"But we are going to," she answered confidently. "I know we are!"
"A good thing," Rupert broke in, a hint of soberness beneath the
lightness of his tone as he looked about the almost bare room and then
at the strained pallor of Val's thin face. "The Ralestones have been
luckless too long. And now suppose we take possession of this commodious
mansion. I suggest that we get settled as soon as possible. I don't like
the looks of the western sky. We're probably going to have a storm."
"What about the car?" Val asked as his brother turned to go.
"Harrison used the old carriage house as a garage. I'll run it in there.
You and Ricky better do a spot of exploring and see about beds and food.
I don't know how you feel," he went on grimly, "but after last night I
want something softer than a dozen rocks to sleep on."
"I told you not to stop at that tourist place," began Ricky smugly. "I
said--"
"You said that a house painted that shade of green made you slightly
ill. But you didn't say anything about beds," Val reminded her as he
shed his coat and hung it on the newel-post. "And since the Ralestone
family have definitely gone off the gold or any other monetary standard,
it's tourist rests or the poorhouse for us."
"Probably the poorhouse." Rupert sounded resigned. "Now upstairs with
you and get out some bedding. LeFleur said in his letter that the place
was all ready for occupancy. And he stocked up with canned stuff."
"I know--beans! Just too, too divine. Well, let's know the worst." Ricky
started up the stairs. "I suppose there are electric lights?"
"Got to throw the main switch first, and I haven't time to do that now.
Here, Val." Rupert tossed him his tiny pocket torch as he turned to go.
The door closed behind him and Ricky looked over her shoulder.
"This--this is rather a darkish place, isn't it?"
"Not so bad." Val considered the hall below, which seemed suddenly
peopled by an overabundance of oddly shaped shadows.
"No," her voice grew stronger, "not so bad. We're together anyway, Val.
Last year I thought I'd die, shut up in that awful school, and then
coming home to hear--"
"About me making my first and last flight. Yes, not exactly a rest cure
for any of us, was it? But it's all over now. The Ralestones may be down
but they're not out, yet, in spite of Mosile Oil and those coal-mines.
D'you know, we might use some of that nice gilt-edged stock for
wall-paper. There's enough to cover a closet at least. Here we are,
Rupert from beating about the globe trying to be a newspaper man, you
straight from N'York's finest finishing-school, and me--well, out of the
plainest hospital bed I ever saw. We've got this house and what Rupert
managed to clear from the wreck. Something will turn up. In the
meantime--"
"Yes?" she prompted.
"In the meantime," he went on, leaning against the banister for a
moment's rest, "we can be looking for the Luck. As Rupert says, we need
it badly enough. Here's the upper hall. Which way now?"
"Over to the left wing. These in front are what Rupert refers to as
'state bedrooms.'"
"Yes?" He opened the nearest door and whistled softly. "Not so bad.
About the size of a small union station and provided with all the
comforts of a tomb. Decidedly not what we want."
"Wait, here's a plaque set in the wall. Look!" She ran her finger over a
glass-covered square.
"Regulations for guests, or a floor plan to show how to reach the
dining-room in the quickest way," her brother suggested.
"No." She read aloud slowly:
"'This Room Was Occupied by General Andrew Jackson, the Victor
of the Battle of New Orleans, upon the Tenth Day after the
Battle.'"
"Whew! 'Old Hickory' here! But I thought that the Ralestones were more
or less under a cloud at that time," commented Val.
"History--"
"In the making. Quite so. Now may I suggest that we find some slumber
rooms slightly more modern? Rupert is apt to become annoyed at undue
delay in such matters."
They went down the hall and turned into a short cross corridor. From a
round window at the far end a ray of sun still swept in, but it was a
sickly, faded ray. The storm Rupert had spoken of could not be far off.
"This is the right way. Mr. Harrison had these little numbers put on the
doors for his guests," Ricky pointed out. "I'll take 'three'; that was
marked on the plan he sent us as a lady's room. You take that one across
the hall and let Rupert have the one next to you."
The rooms they explored were not as imposing as the one which had
sheltered Andrew Jackson for a night. Furnished with chintz-covered
chairs, solid mahogany bedsteads and highboys, they were pleasant enough
even if they weren't chambers to make an antique dealer "Oh!" and "Ah!"
Val discovered with approval some stiff prints of mathematically correct
clippers hung in exact patterns on his walls, while Ricky's room held
one treasure, a dainty dressing-table.
A small door near the end of the hall gave upon a linen closet. And
Ricky, throwing her short white jacket and hat upon the chair in her
room, set about making beds, having given Val strict orders to return to
the lower hall and sort out the luggage before bringing it up.
As he reached the wide landing he stopped a moment. Since that winter
night, almost a year in the past, when a passenger plane had decided--in
spite of its pilot--to make a landing on a mountainside, he had learned
to hobble where he had once run. The accident having made his right leg
a rather accurate barometer, that crooked bone was announcing the
arrival of the coming storm with a sharp pain or two which shot
unexpectedly from knee to ankle. One such caught him as he was about to
take a step and threw him suddenly off balance.
He clutched at a dim tapestry which hung across the wall and tumbled
through a slit in the fabric--which smelled of dust and moth balls--into
a tiny alcove flanking a broad, well-cushioned window-seat under tall
windows. Below him in a riot of bushes and hedges run wild, lay the
garden. Somewhere beyond must lie Bayou Mercier leading directly to Lake
Borgne and so to the sea, the thoroughfare used by their pirate
ancestors when they brought home their spoil.
The green of the rank growth below, thought Val, seemed intensified by
the strange yellowish light. A moss-grown path led straight into the
heart of a jungle where sweet olive, banana trees, and palms grew in a
matted mass. Harrison might have done wonders for the house but he had
allowed the garden to lapse into a wilderness.
"Val!"
"Coming!" he shouted and pushed back through the curtain. He could hear
Rupert moving about the lower hall.
"Just made it in time," he said as the younger Ralestone limped down to
join him. "Hear that?"
A steady pattering outside was growing into a wild dash of wind-driven
rain. It was dark and Rupert himself was but a blur moving across the
hall.
"Do you still have the flash? Might as well descend into the lower
regions and put on the lights."
They crossed the Long Hall, passing through another large chamber where
furniture huddled under dust covers, and then into a small
cupboard-lined passage. This gave upon a dark cavern where Val's hand
scraped a table top only too painfully as he went. Then Rupert found the
door leading to the cellar, and they went down and down into inky
blackness upon which their thread of torch-light made little impression.
The damp, unpleasant scent of mold and wet grew stronger as they
descended, and their fingers brushed slime-touched walls.
"Phew! Not very comfy down here," Val protested as Rupert threw the
torch beam along the nearest wall. With a grunt of relief he stepped
forward to pull open the door of a small black box. "That does it," he
said as he threw the switch. "Now for the topside again and some
supper."
They negotiated the steps and found the button which controlled the
kitchen lights. The glare showed them a room on the mammoth scale
suggested by the Long Hall. A giant fireplace still equipped with
three-legged pots, toasting irons, and spits was at one side, its brick
oven beside it. But a very modern range and sink faced it.
In the center of the room was a large table, while along the far wall
were closed cupboards. Save for its size and the novelty of the
fireplace, it was an ordinary kitchen, complete to red-checked curtains
at the windows. Pleasant and homey, Val thought rather wistfully. But
that was before the coming of that night when Ricky walked in the garden
and he heard something stir in the Long Hall--which should have been
empty--
"Val! Rupert!" A cry which started valiantly became a wail as it echoed
through empty rooms. "Where are yo-o-ou!"
"Here, in the kitchen," Val shouted back.
A moment later Ricky stood in the doorway, her face flushed and her
usually correct curls all on end.
"Mean, selfish, utterly selfish pigs!" she burst out. "Leaving me all
alone in the dark! And it's so dark!"
"We just went down to turn on the lights," Val began.
"So I see." With a sniff she looked about her. "It took two of you to do
that. But it only required one of me to make three beds. Well, this is a
warning to me. Next time--" she did not finish her threat. "I suppose
you want some supper?"
Rupert was already at the cupboards. "That," he agreed, "is the general
idea."
"Beans or--" Ricky's hand closed upon Val's arm with a nipper-like grip.
"What," her voice was a thin thread of sound, "was that?"
Above the steady beat of the rain they heard a noise which was half
scratch, half thud. Under Rupert's hand the latch of the cupboard
clicked.
"Back door," he said laconically.
"Well, why don't you open it?" Ricky's fingers bit tighter so that Val
longed to twist out of her grip.
The key grated in the lock and then Rupert shot back the accompanying
bolt.
"Something's there," breathed Ricky.
"Probably nothing but a branch blown against the door by the wind," Val
assured her, remembering the tangled state of the garden.
The door came back, letting in a douche of cold rain and a black shadow
which leaped for the security of the center of the room.
"Look!" Ricky laughed unsteadily and released Val's arm.
In the center of the neat kitchen, spitting angrily at the wet, stood a
ruffled and oversized black tom-cat.