by Peggy Gaddis
Sue-Ellen grinned, unabashed.
“I believe in the direct approach,” she said cheerfully.
“I can well believe it!”
“Oh, well, if the world has advanced at all in the last few hundred years, surely it’s advanced far enough for women to stop being coy and fighting with concealed weapons. After all, if a woman’s after a guy, why handicap herself by pretending she isn’t? Nobody ever shot a deer by pretending he was out rabbit-hunting. And I might as well stake my claim on Jamesy publicly, so there won’t be any misunderstanding later on.”
“What does he think? But forgive me for asking—he’s enchanted, of course.” There was the faintest possible edge of sarcasm in Shelley’s voice, and Sue-Ellen’s eyes brimmed with laughter.
“Thanks,” she said cheerfully. “I’m afraid the truth of the matter is that he thinks I’m just joking and having fun. Maybe that’s just as well, though. While he’s feeling safe and kidding himself, I can get in some pretty deadly work. I have no intention of being like Aunt Selena in my declining years. Poor old thing.”
Shelley sat very still, her hands tightly clenched in her lap, and sincerely hoped her expression remained merely politely interested.
“Of course,” Sue-Ellen went on, as though following a train of thought that must be as clear to Shelley as to herself, “when poor Aunt Selena was my age, it was considered very bad manners to run around armed to the teeth with all your wiles and charms, publicly stalking a husband. You were supposed to sit modestly aside and hope like crazy that he’d notice you. Well, Aunt Selena’s man didn’t, and Aunt Selena is frustrated, neurotic and about half nuts, at forty-nine.”
Shelley caught her breath and Sue-Ellen looked at her with raised brows.
“You thought she was a whole lot older, didn’t you?”
“Well, really, I hadn’t thought much about it.”
“Phooey! You’ve met her. Jamesy said you stayed in that old barn of a place a few days so you couldn’t escape meeting her. She and Mam’ Cleo give me the creeps. I’m not sure I could stick it out for even a month, except to get my brand on Jamesy,” Sue-Ellen admitted frankly.
“Oh, you’re going to be here a month? That’s nice.”
Sue-Ellen eyed her with sharp suspicion.
“What’s nice about it? I’m doing time, that’s all. Thirty days in practically solitary confinement, except for darling Jamesy, of course. I’m being ‘disciplined’ by my ever-lovin’ family, if you must know. I’ve been having too much fun, and that they won’t allow.”
Shelley laughed. “That sounds ominous.”
“And well you may say it! You see, I ‘came out’ at the Hallowe’en Ball in Atlanta. Incidentally, that’s a pretty silly expression, isn’t it? And a darned silly social custom. Here poor old Dad had to shell out a staggering number of dollars to buy me more clothes than any girl could really need in a whole life time, just to ‘present’ me to people who’ve known me since I was in my cradle! Of course, the whole thing boils down to practical stuff; like standing a girl up on the auction block and announcing, with suitable fanfares, of course, ’My daughter is now old enough to brave the stormy seas of matrimony. Anybody interested in sharing her voyage?”
Shelley laughed and Sue-Ellen grinned and lifted her shoulders in a little shrug.
“Oh, well, it was fun this year. There were more debbies than in all the war years put together, and more men, and everybody was fighting to see who could give the biggest and fanciest and splashiest party. We gals were simply racketing around, getting home an hour after the milkman, up in time for a ‘rub-down’ and massage and out to battle again, with a luncheon or something. Of course it got a bit stuffy toward the end. If I never see another chicken patty as long as I live, it’ll be just dandy with me. And as for yards of orchids trailing over satin hoop-skirts and such-like, I’ll sleep much better o’ nights for not having to be the gal inside said orchids and satin. But it was fun, for a while.”
“I can imagine,” said Shelley a trifle wistfully.
“And then, like the dope I am, I had to go and get myself a cold germ and the little devil developed into pneumonia and there was penicillin and sulfa and what-have-you? And the medicine-man that runs our family put down his number ten shoe and said, ‘No more parties, and at least a month, preferably two, in the country. Early to bed, early to rise, mild exercise, a lot of simple food.’ And before you could say ‘sulfanilamide’ here I am at Harbour Pines.”
“Well, it will probably do you good,” suggested Shelley without too much sympathy.
“Give me time, give me time. I only got here last night,” said Sue-Ellen, and heaved a gusty sigh. “I’m already fit to be tied. Still, the best of the parties at home are over and I won’t miss an awful lot of the fun. And maybe I can snaffle Jamesy while I’m here, so some good will come of my penal servitude.”
“But if you ‘snaffle’ Jim, as you express it, won’t that mean Harbour Pines for life?”
“Ye gods, what a prospect!” Sue-Ellen shivered. “A more gruesome thought I’ve never heard. No, I’ll make Jamesy sell this dump and we’ll live in Atlanta, like civilized people.”
Shelley studied her curiously. She had never met anyone so completely uninhibited. Sue-Ellen seemed to have no reservations whatever. She simply chattered along as though she had known Shelley for years; as though they had been close and devoted friends all their lives.
Shelley found herself liking the girl but reminding herself she must always be on her guard with Sue-Ellen; that she must never, never reveal one tiny thing to the girl that she would not be willing to publish in the Journal. For Sue-Ellen probably couldn’t even spell the word “secret,” let alone keep one.
“You think it would be easy to persuade Jim to sell the family holdings here? He seems to feel rather a heavy responsibility toward the place and all it’s people,” she said after a moment.
Sue-Ellen grinned. The gay, gamine grin that bespoke a confidence in her own charms so complete that it was inoffensive.
“Oh, he’ll do it if I ask him,” she said coolly. “I never have any trouble getting my own way, when I really want it.”
Before Shelley could manage an answer, to that there was the sound of a cheerful whistle outside and Jim came in, saw Sue-Ellen and stepped backward as though to avoid a blow.
“Oho, tough luck for you, Shelley,” he apologized. “I thought I’d get here before she did and warn you about her. Sort of prepare you. She’s a bit of a handful, if you don’t mind the understatement of the century. Sort of the black lamb of the family; we always like to prepare people for her before she bursts upon them.”
Sue-Ellen, her pretty legs draped nonchalantly across one arm of the chair, her head tilted as she looked up at him with limpid blue eyes, said gently, “All I did was warn her that she mustn’t fall in love with you on account of you were mine and I don’t ever give up what’s mine to anybody else.”
The outrageous words gained in shockingness from the very mildness of her tone, and Jim’s eyes flashed and he drew a hard breath.
“Sue-Ellen, you—” He strangled over the epithet and Sue-Ellen grinned at him warmly. “Shelley, pay her no mind.”
“She better had,” said Sue-Ellen coolly, “because I’m not fooling.”
“You’re going to get yourself spanked within an inch of your life, and sent home in chains, if you don’t button up that pretty mouth of yours and behave like a lady,” Jim threatened her darkly.
“If you’re going to do the spanking, I won’t mind a bit,” Sue-Ellen offered generously. “Of course, I haven’t seen you in ages; I may find out I was wrong. And if I do, and decide I don’t want you after all, Shelley can have you. She’s nice. I like her. And she ought to have some reward for allowing herself to be buried in this deadly little hole.”
Jim gripped her arm forcefully and practically lifted her out of the chair, his jaw set and hard.
“Come on, let’s get out of here before I smack
you down,” he said grimly. And then to Shelley, “Don’t let this keep you from coming to dinner tomorrow night, will you, Shelley?”
And at Shelley’s puzzled look he groaned.
“I can see the little dim-wit didn’t even ask you—and that was the reason I let her come here to wait for you. She was to extend Aunt Selena’s invitation to a small dinner that she is giving for Sue-Ellen to meet some of the ‘young set’ in Harbour Pines—though to be honest with you, I can’t imagine why any of them would want to meet her, can you?”
Shelley laughed. “I certainly can. I think she’s delightful.”
Sue-Ellen eyed her sharply.
“I’m not sure, but it seems to me that there may be just the faintest possible hint of a dirty crack hidden somewhere in that!”
“Nothing of the kind,” Shelley protested. “I’m just being honest and quite sincere.”
Sue-Ellen nodded. “’S nice,” she said guardedly.
Jim turned her toward the door.
“Tomorrow evening, then. About seven. I’ll pick you up.”
Shelley nodded, and he marched Sue-Ellen out of the office and down the walk, and Shelley heard the girl’s pretty voice floating back to her in some outrageous comment before Jim managed to thrust her into the smart convertible and get beneath the wheel.
Shelley watched the car drive away and then she laughed. Sue-Ellen was stimulating, gay. It must be fun, Shelley told herself wistfully, to be a girl like Sue-Ellen Hargroves. Always wrapped in the soft cotton-wool cocoon of plenty of money, surrounded by an adoring family who could deny her nothing. Shielded, sheltered, loved. Knowing nothing of the harsh winds of fate that can blast one’s very heart and leave it shrivelled and aching.
She drew a deep hard breath and shook her bronze-brown head.
“You wouldn’t like it, pet,” she told herself firmly. “Fun, maybe; but who says it wasn’t fun to stand on your own feet and make your own way, with Granny Kimbrough’s love and wisdom to guide, but not to shield? Granny knew that too much shielding robbed you of self-sufficiency and you know now Granny was right!”
She found that she was a little excited about the dinner party the next night. She hadn’t realized until then that she had been secretly just a little bored these last few weeks. The first weeks of her stay here had been crowded and busy and hectic; but once the paper had published its first issue, and things began to clear up, she had not had to work so hard and so there had been time to get lonely and a little bored. So the dinner party tomorrow night, simple as it would he, loomed ahead as an exciting break in her routine.
Chapter Eight
It was natural that she should give considerable thought to what she would wear for the party. Her wardrobe contained only simple party clothes, which she seldom wore. Two evening dresses, both of which had done service before. There was a dress of her favorite soft jade-green, a frilly crisp organdie, simple but beautifully cut; and the inevitable black chiffon that is almost standard equipment for the “career girl.” Her choice fell on the green organdie, as more suitable to an early summer evening in the country. She pressed it carefully and donned it in the early dusk. In her hair and beneath the curve of her breast at the snugly fitted waist-line she tucked gardenias from the big old bush at the corner of the house, and decided, pleased, that she looked very nice indeed.
She was ready and waiting when Jim came, and as he surveyed her, he whistled a little.
“Hi, I had a date with an ex-G.I. Jane, who runs a newspaper. Introduce me to this lovely lady who surely never got ink on her fingers in her life,” he pleaded.
“Silly,” laughed Shelley, pleased at the warmth in his eyes and in his voice. “I do dress up occasionally, and wash my face and hands, even when I’m putting the paper ‘to bed.’ ”
“This goes far beyond mere washing of a pretty mug and paws,” he told her firmly. “Gosh, I never realized before that you are a raving beauty.”
“I’m not, of course. You’re just being nice—and silly. Wait until you see me standing beside Sue-Ellen—she really is a beauty!”
“Oh, sure, Sue-Ellen knocks your eye out. But she’s a brat, just the same. There are times when it would give me genuine pleasure to wring her swan-like neck!”
He was walking down the brick walk with her to the expensive convertible, and as he helped her into it, he hesitated a moment and said impulsively, “Look here, Shelley, I should never have let her come to the office. She’s afflicted with a sort of disease—she talks too much and thinks too little—if ever! I’m afraid she may have told you a lot of fool stuff.”
Shelley’s eyes brimmed with impish laugher.
“Well, she broadcast her intention of marrying you and warned me that she had her brand on you and that if I was under any delusions about your being free—”
Jim swore under his breath.
“I was afraid she’d break out like that,” he confessed unhappily. “I hope you paid her no mind.”
Shelley’s eyes widened in innocent astonishment that did not quite conceal the twinkle.
“But I didn’t, of course. Why should I? After all, if you want to marry her, it’s really none of my business, one way or another.”
“Marry her? The thought gives me cold chills of horror.”
“That I can’t understand. She’s so lovely.”
“And a brat! If I had the faintest intention of getting married, which, incidentally, I haven’t and have never had, it would be to a woman, not to a silly, unspanked brat who has been spoiled and pampered from the very day of her birth. Any man who married Sue-Ellen would deserve just what he got—and that would be plenty, believe me!”
Shelley hid a smile and said gently, “Well, why argue with me about it? After all, it’s no concern of mine—I’m merely an innocent bystander.”
And then absurdly, crazily, there was a momentary tension that gripped them both. She sat quite still in the car, while Jim stood beside it, looking down at her, and in the dimness of the twilight she could little more than guess at his expression. But a tiny shock sped through Shelley as though she had touched an exposed electric wire.
And then Jim nodded and said quietly, “That should hold me if nothing else ever did! No, of course not; you are not even remotely concerned with anything that concerns me, so why should I burden you with my tales of woe? By all means let the charming Sue-Ellen have her fun, since nobody minds a bit. Shall we get going?”
“Why not?” said Shelley, and for want of something to say, added hurriedly, “I suppose I locked the house.”
“You did, indeed. I’ve never seen a house more thoroughly locked, and I must admit it puzzles me. Nobody ever bothers to lock up in Harbour Pines—is that your big city training?” asked Jim as he slid beneath the wheel and stepped on the starter.
“Partly, I suppose,” she admitted, and added impulsively, “and partly because I don’t seem to care a lot for odd shimmery, misty white things that press close against my lighted windows in the darkness and look in at me with cat-like eyes.”
Jim turned sharply, even as he put the car in gear.
“What the devil are you talking about?” he demanded, his voice harsh and sharp.
Shelley said swiftly, “Oh, it was just a trick of the light, I suppose, or my imagination working overtime. I was tired and nervous and the storm was very noisy.”
“But what happened? Or what do you think happened? I want to know all about it!” His tone refused to dismiss the subject.
She was puzzled by his attitude.
“Oh, really, there’s nothing to tell. It happened a few nights after I moved into the house and I was still tired. And there was a nor’easter blowing and the wind in the pines sounded eery and mournful. The whole thing is silly. It was just a trick.”
His hand closed over her arm and gave her a little shake.
“Tell me!” he ordered sharply. “If there are any shenanigans going on around here, I want to know about it. After all, I do represent such law
and order as we have in these parts and I don’t propose to allow you to be worried or frightened by some trick. What happened?”
And because he had switched off the motor and brought the car to a halt, and made it perfectly plain he had no intention of driving on until he knew, she told him of her experience of the night, and felt pretty silly by the time she had finished.
Jim listened without comment. And when at last she had finished, he sat very still for a long moment, before he started the car once more. They had driven perhaps a mile before he asked curtly, “You haven’t mentioned this to anyone else?”
“Only to Aunt Hettie.”
“Oh? And why to Aunt Hettie?”
“I suppose because she was telling me some weird tale passed on by an old kunjur-woman.”
“Old Minnie-Ola, of course.”
“Yes, I think that was the name. And Aunt Hettie’s tale about the mare that had been ridden by ’the devil hisself amused me, and I capped it by relating my own imagined experience. I said something about it having been a busy night in Harbour Pines. You know what silly things you say when your mind is sort of idling.”
“So you heard the story going the rounds by Negro grapevine, of Aunt Selena’s abused mare? I wondered if you would, though of course it was a foregone conclusion that you would. It was very simple, of course.” Jim’s tone was dry. “Jason is ‘sparking a gal’ who lives a couple of miles from Pinelands. It was an evil night and he didn’t want to walk, but had a date with his ‘gal’ and knew she’d never forgive him if he broke it. He sneaked Blue Belle out, rode her in the storm and invented that yarn, passed on by his aunt, Old Minnie-Ola, to account for the mare’s condition in the morning. It deceived no one, of course, but the more credulous Negroes and a few ‘po’ whites.’ ”
“Naturally not,” Shelley agreed eagerly, “Just as I saw nothing against my window but a trick of light, a fault in the glass pane, perhaps. But because I was tired and nervous I let myself get into a tizzy. The only result is that I very carefully lock my doors and windows at nights, and that’s not a bad idea for a gal living alone, do you think, Mr. Hargroves?”