by Peggy Gaddis
Shelley kept her tone determinedly gay and light, but her eyes were anxious.
“Oh, he did, did he?” Marian’s reaction was the one she had hoped for. “Well, he needn’t think that excuse is going to help him escape. I can be hard to lose when I make up my mind.”
“Oh, Marian, I hoped you’d say that.”
“‘Dark spots,’ my eye. Why, he hasn’t had so much as a snifter for over a month. The poor lamb’s lonely and bored and now that he’s got an interest in life—me—the cure is permanent.”
She thrust back her chair and marched out into the soft twilight. From the back of the Journal building, a light glowed in the small shed-room that she and Marian had helped Philip make into a surprisingly comfortable living place.
Shelley waited; and while she waited, she cleared the table and did the dishes, and returned to the living room to find Marian beaming joyously. Philip, beside her, seemed to have grown inches taller, and his eyes were so filled with an incredulous radiance that Shelley’s eyes stung.
“It was a breeze!” said Marian exultantly. “I let him know right at the beginning that he didn’t have the smallest hope of escaping me, and finally he quit fighting and it all wound up with a social note for the Harbour Pines Journal: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Harper announce with relief the engagement of their problem-daughter, Marian, to Philip Foster, a darned swell guy.’ ”
“Oh, I’m so terribly glad.” Shelley was shaky of voice and misty of eye in her delight.
“Thanks for bringing it about. If you hadn’t given him a jolt, it would have taken me longer, though of course I’d have landed him eventually,” said Marian simply.
“If it doesn’t work out,” said Philip happily, “we can always sue Shelley!”
“Shelley, you’ll stay for the wedding?” asked Marian.
“Of course. When’s the date?”
“Twenty minutes after school’s out!”
“My plans aren’t urgent.”
“Anything we could do to help?”
“Thanks, no! It’s sweet of you. But I’m going to New York for a while and then—who knows? But I’ll see you two married first!” Shelley promised, and left them alone together.
Chapter Fifteen
Marian bore Philip off with her on Saturday morning to spend the week-end with her family, and Shelley was alone and very lonely. The little house seemed dreary and empty without Marian’s gay chatter.
In the afternoon she finally set out for a walk. Anywhere away from town, so that she could try to think things out in the lovely peace of the pines she loved so well.
As soon as she was outside the little town she took the first winding lane that led away from the highway, to avoid passing cars and the traffic to Harbour Pines that was a part of Saturday afternoon.
Above her the sky was a deep, intense blue without the smallest vestige of a cloud. It was the last week of May, and farther north, it would still be spring. But here it was mid-summer and the sun was hot, making the shade of the big trees very welcome.
She was so lost in her unhappy thoughts that she did not hear the car behind her until it stopped, and then she whirled about, frightened, only to have her silly heart climb up into her throat and hang there as Jim came striding toward her, his face gray and set.
“Did I startle you? Sorry. I followed you out from town, and when you came down this lane, I hesitated. But I have to talk to you, and I could scarcely expect you to permit a Hargroves inside the Newton home, could I?”
For an instant she was silent, and then her heart fell out of her throat and into her heels and she drew a deep breath.
“So your aunt has told you,” she said at last. “Now you know.”
“I know a lot of things I should have known a long time ago. Will you get into the car and sit down? This may take some time, and since it is undoubtedly the last time you and I will be together, we might as well have it all out.”
“I can’t quite see why it should take a long time.”
But he only motioned her toward the station wagon, and as her knees were shaking so that she could barely stand, she accepted the inevitable. Once she was in the car, she sat drawn away from him as far as he could, her hands laced tightly together in her lap.
“I didn’t intend for you to know,” she said huskily.
“No, I suppose not. But Aunt Selena’s conscience, at what I must admit is an extremely tardy date, to put it mildly, is giving her fits. She’s anxious to make amends, though that must sound pretty funny to you under the circumstances.”
Shelley could not manage an answer. He didn’t seem to expect it.
“She told me all about it,” Jim went on. “Once she got started, she seemed pathetically anxious to leave nothing untold. I no longer have the slightest difficulty in understanding that crack you made to be about your feeling for the name of Hargroves, nor why you would be so anxious to leave Harbour Pines.”
And still Shelley could not speak.
Jim did not look at her. He sat with his strong-looking, brown hands gripped tightly about the steering-wheel, leaning slightly forward, his eyes on the close-growing ranks of young pines.
“Aunt Selena feels that she owes you restitution,” he went on grimly after a moment. “She and I both realize, of course, that no amount of money could possibly repay you for what you and your parents suffered. But it would ease her mind a lot if you would let her pay damages.”
“No!” it came out savagely, brutally.
Jim nodded. “I tried to make her understand you would feel that way. But she insisted I make the offer. She feels that since her being here has made it impossible for you to stay on in Harbour Pines, or to want to, she can do one of two things: either go away herself and swear never to return, or to offer you cash restitution that will make it easy for you to establish yourself somewhere else.”
“There’s no reason why she should go away. This has always been her home.” Shelley’s voice was thin, shaken. “I haven’t been particularly happy here. The place means nothing to me; I want to go away.”
“I tried to tell her you’d feel that way, and that the chances were excellent you were going away to marry some lucky guy.”
“That’s not true. I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying anybody—ever!”
“Which, of course, is about as silly a thing as you ever said in your life,” Jim told her grimly. “I’d laugh at you if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve seldom been farther from a laughing humor, after finding out that Aunt Selena could be capable of such a thing. I’ve always been fond of her, proud of her; thought being a Hargroves, with her for my aunt, was a pretty fine thing to be. But right this minute, I’d like to be Sam Smith or Jones, or any place else but Harbour Pines. But I’m stuck here and I’ve got to stay.”
“Of course you have.” Shelley could speak now, and her voice was soft and eager. “After all, Jim, you don’t have to feel ashamed of what she did. You were a child; you were in no smallest tiny measure implicated. She wasn’t quite sane. She couldn’t have been. None of it was your fault.”
“I’m a Hargroves.”
“So what? She’s a Durand. You are related simply because of the marriage of her sister to your father; the Hargroves’ name is yours to do whatever you like with—and, Jim, you have a responsibility toward Harbour Pines. You can’t run away.”
He nodded. “Don’t think I don’t know that! It’s one of the things that’s getting me down. I’ve roots here and I’ll stay on and grow into a mean-tempered old bachelor, while you’re off marrying some fine, upstanding young gent who won’t be worthy of you. But then, who could be?”
“Don’t be an idiot. Just because Miss Selena must have been not quite sane, Jim, is no reason for you to go off the deep end. There’s no reason at all why you and I can’t be friends, if you’d like it that way.”
“Thanks,” Jim’s tone was dry. “I wouldn’t like it that way at all.”
She winced at the curtness but said n
othing. There was a silence between them. The wind was soft and warm and murmured above their heads through the taller pines beyond the small grove. A cardinal flashed across the road and perched, ruby-hued and exquisite, on a tree-branch and spilled his brisk, staccato tribute to the glory of the day.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” said Jim at last, and stepped on the starter. “I’ll drive you home.”
“Thanks, no. I’m walking for exercise.”
“I can’t leave you like this, this far from the highway, on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday in and around Harbour Pines comes drink and ructions. You’d much better take your exercise closer to town,” he told her curtly. And reluctantly, she had to admit he was right.
They drove in silence until they were in front of the newspaper office, where he stopped and said quietly, “I probably won’t be seeing you again. I understand you’re leaving shortly. Naturally, you’re anxious to get away from a place you loathe as you must Harbour Pines.”
“I don’t at all. I love it. It’s a darling little place and people have been kind and I’ve made friends.” She broke off, on the verge of tears.
“And you loved having the paper and had all sorts of ambitions for it, didn’t you? You hate giving it up, don’t you?”
“Well, no, I never cared a lot for the newspaper end of it. It was just a means to an end. Of course I do think the Journal could help Harbour Pines to grow, and that it could develop into something very worthwhile. Philip is a really good newspaper man, and he and Marian can accomplish a great deal more with the Journal than I could.”
“I’m glad of that. It’s bad enough for you to be driven out of a town you like and a house you like, without also having to give up a job you’re fond of.”
“I’ll find something I like even better.”
“I hope you do, Shelley, something worthwhile. You’re a pretty swell person, you know. It’s been a privilege knowing you. I’d give my right arm if things could have been different, if my name hadn’t been Hargroves, nephew of a woman named Selena Durand.”
And before she could say anything to that, he had sent the station wagon hurtling down the street at a pace considered very dangerous by Harbour Pines leisurely standards.
She stood watching for a moment, and was shaken to the depths of her lost and lonely heart.
She looked back at the little house, and knew she could not stay there alone tonight. She went and made the necessary arrangements for Rufus’s pleasure and comfort during the night and set out for Aunt Hettie’s.
Her heart grew warm at the thought of Aunt Hettie and the friendship and understanding that she would find there. Before she was out of town, a friendly farmer, his wife and five children packed into the pick-up truck with him, stopped and invited her to ride, and dropped her a little later at the lane leading to Aunt Hettie’s shabby old house.
There was no sign of Aunt Hettie as she approached the house, but when she raised her voice in a call, Aunt Hettie came around from behind the old barn, carrying a fishing pole in one hand, a battered tin can in the other.
“Well, bless my buttons, Shelley, if I ain’t right down glad to see you!” Aunt Hettie greeted her heartily. “It was such a grand afternoon that I was playing hooky from all the weedin’ and hoein’ and sprayin’ I ought to be doing, and was goin’ fishin’.”
“Oh, wonderful. Can I go, too?”
“Well, now, that’s a right silly question. I’ve got a couple of extra poles and a nice mess of worms in this can. We’ll get us a nice mess o’ perch for supper. You’ll stay to supper, won’t you?”
Shelley laughed. “I’ll even stay the night, if you’ll ask me. Marian’s gone home for the week-end and I’m lonely. I hoped you wouldn’t mind, so here I am.”
Aunt Hettie beamed at her joyously. “Well, now, you couldn’t have thought of anybody that would have been gladder to see you. I declare, seems like I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age. What with the garden and the chickens and me fool enough to raise me a bunch of turkey poults, when anybody with a lick of sense knows turkeys are the craziest, silliest, most aggravating birds that ever grew a pin-feather. Why, the fool things will stand right out in a downpour of rain and lift their silly heads and open their beaks and drown right in front of your very eyes, because they ain’t got sense enough to get to shelter. Since I’ve been worryin’ with those fetch-taked things, I’ve been wondering how anybody could mind chopping their heads off. Me, I’m just purely going to enjoy slaughtering ’em come Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
Shelley laughed, and somehow the sun seemed warmer, the air more fragrant, and her heart lighter than it had been in a long time.
Armed with a fishing pole, line, hooks, weights and all the rest of the paraphernalia necessary, she and Aunt Hettie sat a little later on a mossy bank above the narrow brackish-looking river for two hours or more, not daring to speak lest the sound of their voices alarm the fish and keep them from biting. It was a blessed interval of quiet and peace for Shelley, and she felt her chaotic thoughts begin to achieve some small measure of coherence. Aunt Hettie’s friendly, companionable presence gave the silence a quality that seemingly soothed and healed.
When Aunt Hettie decided their catch was “a nice mess” sufficient for their supper, they went back to the house, cleaned and dressed the fish and cooked the meal. As they drew up their chairs to the table, Aunt Hettie folded her hands and said grace, simply and reverently. And Shelley knew that she would never cease to miss the pleasant little back water of Harbour Pines and wished that she need never leave it. But even as the thought crept into her mind, she knew that she could not live in Harbour Pines as long as Selena stayed.
“What’s this I hear about Marian Harper and that nice Mr. Foster that works for you?” asked Aunt Hettie sociably.
“They’re engaged. They’re going to be married as soon as the school year is out.”
“Well, now, I heard something like that.” Aunt Hettie was warmly interested. “Folks say that he drinks a right smart.”
“He did, but I think he’s changed. Marian says he drank because he was lonely and bored and had no roots, but now that he and Marian are engaged, he’s like a different person,” said Shelley, and added quietly, “He knew my mother and father.”
“Well, now, you don’t say,” marvelled Aunt Hettie.
“He and Marian are going to take over the paper when I leave.”
Aunt Hettie put down her knife and fork.
“You’re going away? Well, now, Shelley, I’m right sorry to hear that. I hoped you’d stay. Of course I know Harbour Pines ain’t much of a town for a girl with your training and education and all. But seems to me like Harbour Pines needs more folks like you. And your paper’s getting so popular and all.”
“Philip and Marian will do a better job than I with the paper. Philip has more experience and training. I’m just an amateur.”
Aunt Hettie was silent for a moment and then she said quietly, “I don’t want you to think me a meddlesome old busybody, poking my nose in where it ain’t wanted. But you had some kind of idea when you first came about finding out the truth about what happened to your Paw. I reckon you gave that up?”
“Yes,” Shelley said quietly, “I gave that up.”
“I’m really glad,” said Aunt Hettie in frank relief. “I was right worried about it at the time. Afraid you might find out more than was good for you or step on some right important toes and get yourself in a mess of trouble. And it ain’t like you could do your Paw no real good by digging it all up again. Most folks feels like he was unjustly accused and punished; shucks, there’s folks here in Harbour Pines that knows it, even if they can’t prove it. And there’s somebody that knows the truth, and I reckon it ain’t very comfortable knowing, either.”
Shelley drew a long hard breath, but before she could manage an answer, Aunt Hettie said something that all but knocked the breath out of her.
“Sure was funny how Miss Selena, ‘the great lady’ herself,
would take a notion to kill herself, ain’t it? Makes a body wonder what could a been worrying her, don’t it?” said Aunt Hettie dryly, and carefully did not look at Shelley, who was staring, at her, wide-eyed.
There was a tiny, tense silence which Shelley broke.
“I suppose she was ‘temporarily of unsound mind,’ don’t you suppose? I think people must be who attempt that.”
“I reckon likely as not,” admitted Aunt Hettie, still in that dryly matter of fact voice behind which Shelley could dimly sense an entirely different meaning. “Still, I’ve knowed Selena Durand all her life, and I’ve never knowed her to let herself get really stirred up before. She’s a heap more likely to try to do the other fellow in, seems to me. It’s always seemed kinda funny to me that Jim is so little like her. Seems like she takes after the Durand branch, and Jim the Hargroves; and they was as different as day and night.”
Shelley said nothing, for her throat was closed tight and her hands were clenched. Aunt Hettie got up, poured fresh tea and sat down again, before she went on.
“I kind of hoped you and Jim might make a match, until I knew who you really was. And then o’ course I knew there’d never be a chance of a Newton and a Hargroves gettin’ together, not while Selena Durand lived.”
Shelley drew a long hard breath and said huskily, “Suppose we talk about something else. I can’t seem to feel very deeply interested in the Durands and the Hargroves.”
“And a mighty good thing you can’t; that woman’s pure poison if ever I seen it,” said Aunt Hettie, and added impulsively, laying a warm, work-rough hand on Shelley’s. “Much as I like Jim, I’m kinda glad you’re not going to marry him, because I’d hate to see you where Selena could crack the whip over you!”
And she immediately launched into another subject, to Shelley’s taut, sick relief.