by Peggy Gaddis
His voice was shaking, and his hands, gripped tightly on the wheel, were none too steady.
“I’ll tell you nothing at all until I’ve seen her,” said Shelley swiftly. “If she wants to see me badly enough to ask for me at a time like this, I’ll see her first. Whatever she wants you to know, she’ll tell you!”
Jim drove in silence to the house and parked.
“You’re still a stubborn, cocky little piece, aren’t you?” was all he said then, as he hustled her out of the car and into the house.
Mam’ Cleo was coming down the stairs as they entered, and her haggard old face lit with hate as she saw Shelley.
“Whut yo’ be’n doin’ to mah Miss S’lena? How come yo’ werry heh ’twel she try to kill hehse’f? Git outen dis house.” Mam’ Cleo’s old, shaking voice had risen almost to a scream.
From the top of the steps a man’s sharp voice said sternly. “Stop that noise, Mam’ Cleo. Come on, Miss Kimbrough. She needs a sedative badly, but won’t let me give it to her until she’s seen you. Don’t excite her and don’t let her talk much. She’s pretty weak from shock and loss of blood.”
Shelley went up the stairs and hesitated at the door and asked unsteadily, “Is she—is she—”
“Going to die? Of course not. Her wounds are not that serious. If she hadn’t been found very soon after she did it, there’d be a different story, of course. There’s something on her mind and you’re mixed up in it, so let’s get it over with so I can get her settled with a stout sedative,” said the doctor, and all but pushed Shelley into the room.
Chapter Fourteen
For a moment Shelley stood still just inside the door, until her eyes were accustomed to the gloom broken only by a small shaded lamp on the bedside table.
Selena lay in the huge four-poster bed and it seemed to Shelley that the woman had shrunk, grown smaller. There were bandages on the wrists that lay outside the covers, and her eyes were closed. Shelley stood still, wishing herself anywhere in the world but there.
Selena’s eyes opened and she saw Shelley and for a moment she lay almost rigid. And then she made a tiny feeble movement with a hand whose bandaged wrist looked strange and frightening.
“Come closer,” said the little motion. And Shelley unwillingly approached the bed, until she stood against it, bracing herself with a hand on the back of the chair that was drawn up there, perhaps by the doctor.
“You’re terribly disappointed, I know,” said Selena, her voice a faint, husky whisper. “So am I. I’ll never have the courage to attempt it again. I’ve been a failure at living. I’m also a failure at dying.”
“Hush,” said Shelley, her voice shaking, though she tried to make it soothing. “You mustn’t talk like that.”
“You found the note, of course.”
Shelley caught her breath. She couldn’t go through with the thing she and Philip had discussed.
“No, Miss Durand. I didn’t find the note. And I’ve given up looking. I’m convinced it no longer exists. So you are quite safe. No one will ever know the truth now, except you and me. And I’ll never tell.” Her voice was quiet, steady.
Selena’s eyes widened a little.
“Oh, not that note. I meant the confession I left addressed to you. You were right: I was guilty. And I knew that sooner or later you’d find something that could prove it. I suddenly grew tired of living in suspense and fear and all the torture I’ve endured for fifteen years. I knew I couldn’t go on, now that you’d come; so I wrote out the confession. You’ll find it in an envelope there in that glove box on the dressing-table. Use it any way you like.”
Shelley stood very still until, under the compulsion of Selena’s will, she finally moved stiffly toward the hand-painted satin glove box and lifted the lid. She took out the envelope addressed to her, and stood for a long moment holding it in her shaking hands.
“Do whatever you like with it,” came Selena’s faint voice. “I’m beyond caring. It doesn’t seem to matter any more.”
Shelley stood quite still with the envelope in her hand for a long moment, and then she walked to the old-fashioned fireplace, knelt down, shredded the envelope into small pieces, arranged them neatly in a little heap and applied a lighted match. While Selena’s wide, unbelieving eyes watched, the tiny fire burned itself to a puff of ashes and Shelley bent low and blew her breath upon the little heap, scattering the ashes.
And then Shelley stood up and went to stand beside the bed, looking down at her enemy who was, somehow, strangely enough no longer her enemy but a tired, frightened old woman who had suffered torment for fifteen years because of an ugly secret buried deep in her heart.
“I’m sorry for all the fear and worry I’ve caused you, Miss Durand,” she said quietly. “I suppose it seems pretty silly to you that I’d try so hard to find the proof I needed to clear my father’s name, and then when I had it in my hands, destroy it. But I guess, after all, vengeance isn’t such a pleasant business. I’ve no right to exact it of you. What you’ve suffered in these long, long years is far more cruel than anything I could have the heart to demand of you. I think my father and mother would prefer it like this.”
Selena lay wide-eyed, incredulous, unable to speak. And Shelley turned and went out of the room, passing the doctor in the doorway.
She hurried out of the house and back to the station wagon; Jim followed her.
“How is she? What did she want with you?” he demanded sharply.
“She’s going to be all right,” said Shelley thickly. “And what she wanted with me is something that only she and I will ever know.”
He looked at her, but in the darkness her face was no more than a pale glimmer the expression of which he could not guess. Then suddenly, in spite of her efforts, she made the sound of a sob, and Jim said sharply, “Why, you’re crying!”
He caught her in his arms and held her despite her struggle to escape.
“Here, here, this won’t do. You’ve got to tell me,” he pleaded, and kissed her tear-wet cheek.
“I won’t tell you.”
“You’ve got to.”
“Ask your aunt.”
“I’m asking you.”
“And I won’t tell you—ever!”
She tried to free herself from his arms, but he only held her the more closely.
“Stop fighting me—and yourself,” he ordered so sharply that she caught her breath and was suddenly still. “You and I are in love and you know it. Stop struggling, or so help me, I’ll smack you!”
“Don’t be a fool!”
“I am one, about you, and have been ever since the first time I saw you, so why try to stop now? I’m in love with you and I intend to marry you and there isn’t one single solitary thing you can do about it—except say ‘yes, thank you.’ I don’t know what the shenanigans are between you and my aunt, but you’re going to tell me.”
“I’m going to tell you nothing, except that I wouldn’t marry you—or anybody else named Hargroves or Durand—for all the rice that used to be in China. Now let me go.”
“And what’s wrong with the name of Hargroves, if I may ask? And I do.” Jim’s voice was harsh and his arms had loosened.
“What’s wrong? From my point of view, plenty! I loathe and despise the name and anybody that wears it. And now I want to go home.”
He stood beside the station wagon for a long moment and then he went around and got in behind the wheel, and in a silence so thick she felt it could have been cut with a knife, he drove her home. At the gate in front of her little house, he let her get out alone and go running up the walk, not so much as lifting a finger to help her, or to stop her.
Marian had waited up for her anxiously and when Shelley came in, Marian came to meet her.
“Why, honey-chile, what’s up? You’re crying. Miss Durand isn’t dead, is she?”
“No, she’s going to recover,” stammered Shelley, anxious for only one thing and that the privacy of her own room. “But I can’t talk about it.”
/> “And you don’t have to. Tuck yourself in bed, honey, and I’ll bring you some hot milk and an aspirin,” Marian soothed her gently.
There was no warding off Marian’s affectionate ministrations, but when she had gone at last, and Shelley was alone in the blessed dark, she turned her face until it was hidden against her pillow and cried until she was limp and exhausted. …
She awoke in the fresh summer morning, to the song of the birds, the cheerful cackling of a hen, the pleasant, homely sounds of a small country town. She lay quiet for a moment in the blessed peace, and then memory came back and she winced with it, and slid out of bed.
As she finished dressing, she paused for a moment, startled. For the first time in fifteen years, she was at peace within herself. The old, hurtful anger and hatred that had been lit in her heart by her mother’s anguished confidences, the old desire to see Selena Durand suffer, was gone. She felt tired and spent and oddly empty. She also felt deeply at peace.
The house was quiet. Obviously Marian had already gone off to school, moving quietly, leaving Shelley asleep. In the kitchen Shelley found the table laid for one. Freshly squeezed orange juice in the icebox; bread ready for the toaster. Coffee already measured in the percolator, needing only to be placed on the stove to come to a boil.
She ate with a healthy appetite, the feeling of deep peace staying with her. At the office, she found Philip perched on a corner of the desk, a cigarette between his fingers, a little heap of stubs beside him.
“Morning, Boss Lady,” he greeted her cheerfully, but with a wary look in his eyes. “You look fresh as a daisy, by the way.”
“I feel as fresh.”
“Do we get out an ‘extra’?” he suggested mildly. “All same like big city papers? Or do we just follow Harbour Pines precedent and make like nothing has happened?”
Shelley caught her breath and stared at him, wide-eyed.
“How did you—” She silenced herself so swiftly she bit her tongue.
“Oh, the good old grapevine is working overtime,” he assured her mildly. “The yarns range all the way from one that someone brought a voodoo against ‘the great lady’ and high time, too; right through the completely incredible one that she blew her top and tried to do herself in. I suppose the truth lies somewhere between the two. Question is, what’s the Journal’s attitude toward the most sensational news story of the year?”
“We ignore it,” said Shelley swiftly.
“I had an idea we would,” Philip answered, and she could not guess at his secret thoughts. “Let sleeping dogs continue to snore, eh?”
There was a little taut silence which Philip broke.
“Just how much did you have to do with the old girl trying to do herself in, Shelley?”
It was as unexpected, as brutal as a blow. Yet Shelley steadied herself against it and met his eyes straightly.
“A lot, I suppose,” she admitted. “But I didn’t give her the final push. I didn’t tell her we’d found the note. I haven’t been near her or spoken to her since the day I accused her of trafficking with Minnie-Ola. I meant to, I admit it. But I couldn’t quite do it.”
Philip smiled, a strange, sweet smile of great gentleness.
“Of course you couldn’t, Shelley. I knew you couldn’t.”
“Thanks, Phil,” she said shakingly, and then went on. “She was frightened and she finally wrote out a complete confession and sealed it in an envelope addressed to me, and went out into the swamp. Mam’ Cleo followed her—that’s how they got her in time.”
Philip was suddenly intent.
“What happened to the confession, Shelley?”
“She sent for me and gave it to me, and I burned it.”
Philip drew a deep breath.
“Good girl!”
She smiled at him mistily and made a little grimace.
“I suppose that seems silly, after all the work and worry and thought I’ve put into getting my hands on something like that. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t push her over the edge. I hope Mother and Dad will understand.”
“Of course they would, you foolish chick. They’d have wanted you to do exactly that.”
Shelley lifted her shoulders in a tired shrug.
“And now that the Journal has served my purpose, I have no further use for it. Would you and Marian like to have it?” she asked.
“You mean you’re checking out?”
“Of course. Would you like to go on with the paper? It’s getting established. It’ll never make anybody a fortune, of course, but what would anybody want with a fortune in Harbour Pines, anyway? It would make a nice living for you and Marian.”
Philip’s eyebrows had gone up and his eyes were startled.
“What’s with this Marian stuff? Where does she come in?”
“With you, of course, silly,” Shelley told him promptly. “Do you think I’m completely blind as well as stupid?”
Philip stood up, and now the look in his eyes was wary.
“Oh, come off it, Boss Lady,” he protested uneasily. “Look here, I’m an old Kipling grad. You know that line about: ‘He travels fastest who travels alone’? And anyway, a girl like Marian would never take a second look at a battered old hulk like me.”
“Don’t be frightened.” Shelley was amused at his uneasiness. “She won’t run you down and stick a gun in your ribs and march you off to a minister. But since you’re mad about her and she goes all soft-voiced and dewy-eyed at the mere mention of your name, it seems pretty silly to me if you two don’t make a go of things.”
“You’re a nice child, Boss Lady,” Philip’s voice shook a little, “but you’re going off half cocked. Why, good grief, child, Marian wouldn’t marry me if I was soaked in gold and draped in diamonds.”
“Want to bet on it?”
“And even if what you say is true, though I don’t for a moment admit it, I couldn’t ask her to marry me. Not—”
“If you say once more ‘a battered old hulk like me’ I’ll probably smack you! You’re a perfectly swell person, Philip, and so is Marian, and the two of you would make a wonderful team. You both like Harbour Pines and the Journal will give you a modest income, and there’s the house for you to live in.”
“You’re a sweet child, but you’re only a child, so leave us say no more about it.” Philip’s voice was taut. “I’ll be glad to buy the Journal.”
“It’s not for sale. But it and the house will be a wedding present to you and Marian.”
Philip’s eyes blazed and his face was white.
“Do I have to keep telling you there isn’t going to be any wedding—”
“That I doubt! Marian’s a determined person and she’s in love with you,” Shelley assured him imperturbably. “Cad that I am for betraying a gal’s secrets. But after all, I knew it would take something pretty drastic to make you wake up and realize that there’s a brand-new world right under your nose, yours for the taking.”
“If I knew that, and there were no dark spots in my past life that I couldn’t risk having her find out—” Philip’s voice was shaking.
“Philip, listen to me. Marian’s twenty-seven years old. She’s grown up, adult, a woman—not a silly child. Give her a chance, Philip. If she doesn’t want to risk marrying a man with ‘dark spots’ in his past, then let her be the one to say so. I love you both, Philip. And I’d like to see something good and beautiful and happy come out of my journey to Harbour Pines.”
“I’ll buy the house and the Journal, too,” said Philip grimly. “I can scare up a thousand bucks for a down payment and pay the other on mortgage. But the rest of it is definitely out.”
“You are a stubborn guy, aren’t you?” Shelley admitted her defeat. But she comforted herself with the knowledge that if Marian really wanted to marry Philip, as Shelley was convinced she did, then she would marry him, “dark spots” or no “dark spots.” They had both known suffering and tragedy and heartache. Together they could know deep joy and happiness “forever after.”
She waited until after she and Marian had finished supper before she mentioned her own plans.
“Two more weeks,” Marian said wearily, “and I’ll be a free woman. School will be out.”
“I’ll be a free woman too, in a little more than two weeks.” Shelley took advantage of the moment. “I’m leaving Harbour Pines.”
Marian stared at her, incredulous.
“For goodness’ sake, what are you talking about?”
“I’ve found I don’t like being a newspaper publisher, so I’m off for larger fields and more fun!” said Shelley lightly.
Marian stared at her for a long moment and then she nodded.
“So you and Jim have quarrelled and you’re taking it on the lam,” she said quietly. “Aren’t you being a bit drastic, though?”
“Jim has nothing to do with it.”
“Horse-feathers,” Marian snorted elegantly. “Look, child, don’t you suppose I have eyes in my head and can tell when two people are completely batty about each other?”
“That’s what I was telling Philip this afternoon.”
Marian stared at her, startled.
“You were telling Philip what?”
“That I’d give you two the Journal and this house for a wedding present.”
Marian gasped and hot color stung her cheeks.
“Thanks. I trust he was overcome with delight! Especially in view of the fact that marriage has never been mentioned between us!”
“Don’t be angry, Marian. He’s crazy about you, and you’re in love with him. I knew he needed a jolt to wake him up.”
“So? And you jolted him with—what?”
“The statement that you returned his love.”
“Why, you dirty traitor! But thanks. I’d give a pretty penny to have seen his face! The poor man’s probably miles out of town by now and running fast to evade a predatory female with designs on his precious freedom!” Marian’s tone was dry and there was anger in her eyes.
“He was tickled silly. Only then of course he pointed out that he could never hope to aspire to your hand on account of he’s been a bad boy and you were an angel, just barely this side of acquiring wings, and he couldn’t ask you to shed those wings and marry a guy who’s being fitted for a red union suit, horns and hooves.”