Jerry wasn’t at his usual teller’s cage. He wasn’t anywhere on the floor, and she couldn’t see him at the back, either. A swift terror gripped her that he had already left Burnham Falls. For a moment she faced the closed door of George Keston’s private office, and wondered what she would do. Then her eye fell on Tubby Beck, who cleaned the bank, and kept the heavy, old-fashioned writing-tables supplied with the deposit and withdrawal forms.
‘Tubby!’ She called him by the familiar name that everyone in Burnham Falls used; he was about her father’s age.
‘Hi, Jeannie! Glad to see you about.’ He seemed embarrassed.
‘Where’s Jerry?’ she said. Her words came louder than she meant, and several people at the teller’s cages looked around. Tubby glanced uncomfortably at George Keston’s closed door.
‘I dunno, Jeannie,’ he said.
‘Well, did he come into the bank this morning?’
He shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen him here. Guess he wouldn’t be here, this bein’ the last day …’ He stopped, and his jaw dropped a little. He shifted his feet uncertainly, and scratched his head.
‘Thanks, Tubby. I’ll try somewhere else.’ She turned on her heel, and went quickly, out into the noise of Main Street.
The Keston house was at the far end of Main Street, past all the shops and past the crowd of teenagers on the library steps. Jeannie took no notice of them. There was nothing left of her any more that responded to the youth and curiosity in them; she forgot that most of them were only two years younger than she. She kept up her determined, quick walk until she was within sight of the Keston house, and then she faltered a little. It was big and prosperous, and its mown green lawns and shining paint were strangely unreal that morning, too calm and safe looking. In a fashion, the calmness and sobriety shook her own determination, but she couldn’t allow herself to stop there, to admit fear and turn around. As she marched up the prim walk, she wondered how many people had noted her coming from porches and upstairs windows of the houses around. She had never before been conscious that there were unfriendly eyes to watch her in Burnham Falls.
Mrs. Keston opened the door. She was a thin, frail-looking woman, with soft, curly hair, and a delicate pink mouth. It rounded now a little in surprise as she saw Jeannie, and then straightened out quickly.
‘Well, Jeannie …’ she said quietly. ‘How are you?’
The Keston porch was deep, and the door recessed still farther, but even within its shadow, Jeannie felt that everyone in Burnham Falls must see the two of them now. The colour came to her face as it hadn’t done during that long walk up Main Street. Jeannie had met Mrs. Keston only a few times before. Beside the other’s graceful fragility she felt crude and overblown.
But she spoke firmly. ‘Mrs. Keston ‒ could I come in?’
The other woman’s eyes wandered to the houses opposite, and then she nodded. ‘Yes ‒ come in.’
As soon as the door was closed, Jeannie faced her again. ‘I’d like to see Jerry, please.’
A look of hostility came at once into Grace Keston’s face. It had been present, but controlled before; now it was open. ‘Jerry isn’t here. What do you want him for?’
‘When are you expecting him back?’
‘Back?’ Grace Keston’s voice became acid. ‘How should I know when Jerry will be back? Jerry does what he likes.’
‘Well…’ Jeannie said quietly, ‘I would like to wait. May I wait for him here, Mrs. Keston?’
‘No!’ The word came strong and loud from that small frame. ‘No ‒ you can’t wait! I don’t want you here.’
‘I know you don’t want me here.’ Jeannie’s own voice was rising. ‘But I must see Jerry, and if I can’t wait here, I’ll wait outside. I don’t think you’d like that ‒ to have me wait outside on the pavement.’
‘He may be hours. He may not be back before to-night.’
‘I’ll wait.’
The other woman gestured angrily. ‘He doesn’t want to see you. Don’t you know that?’
‘After these last weeks, I’d be a fool if I didn’t know it.’
‘Then why do you persist? You’re not Jerry’s sort ‒ you’ve proved that. Why can’t you leave him alone. You have your own kind of friends.’
Jeannie said slowly. ‘I had only one friend, and that was Jerry. I have to see him before he goes.’
‘You know he’s going? … Well, all the town must know it now! He’s going because of you, Jeannie, and I’ll never forgive you for that.’
‘I’m not sending him away. I don’t want him to go.’
‘It’s a pity you didn’t think of that before ‒ of what you were doing to Jerry. He imagined he was in love with you, and you’ve made yourself and him the talk of the whole district. You played around with people like that Patrino and Reitch, and made a fool of Jerry.’
‘Jerry knows that isn’t true! There’s no truth in any of that talk!’
‘You don’t have to bother to lie to me. I know what sort of person you are ‒ but Jerry’s just got his eyes open. Of course, it’s too late …’ she added bitterly. ‘He’s rushing off into the Army to get away from you ‒ and everything else. He’ll never finish college now. He says he will, but I know different. After he’s been away two years, he’ll never come back to Burnham Falls. It’ll break his father’s heart. I hope you know that ‒ I just hope you know the damage you’ve done.’
Jeannie stepped back from her in distaste.
‘The damage was done to me, Mrs. Keston. Perhaps sometime you will remember that.’
‘I have no need to remember ‒ except what concerns my son. You invited what happened to you, and you got what you deserved.’
She turned to walk away, and then paused and glanced back, her eyes bright and harsh.
‘Wait, if you must ‒ but it won’t do you any good. Jerry won’t change, not now. You think all you need is your pretty face, but it doesn’t look so pretty to Jerry now. You’re going to need a lot more than that.’ She gazed at Jeannie solidly for a moment, then she added: ‘I don’t think you’ve got it.’
Jeannie waited alone in the Keston’s living-room. Grace Keston hadn’t indicated that that was where she was to wait; she had simply turned and left her, and her straight, thin back retreating down the hall had been indicative of all the contempt she had never openly expressed before. Uncertainly, Jeannie had wandered into the living-room, and taken a chair by the bay window which gave her a view of the street and the side entrance. The silence of the house was absolutely undisturbed. It could have been no more quiet if Grace Keston had not been there, but she was there, immovably hostile and accusing, and there was no escaping or ignoring her. Through the walls Jeannie could sense her, hating and fearful at the same time, hoping that Jerry would reject her, and yet afraid that he would not. Jeannie’s hands, resting on the cool chintz slip-cover, began to sweat; she also was afraid.
It was more than three hours before Jerry came. Jeannie’s eyes ached from staring at the street; the sun had moved around, and was now streaming directly through the window. Jeannie guessed that it would have been Grace Keston’s habit to close the blinds at this time each day, but she made no appearance, as if Jeannie’s presence held some kind of contagion; there was still no sound from the back of the house. Jeannie had grown numb and dazed by the time she saw Jerry walk quickly in from the street to the side door.
She hoped that Grace Keston would not be cruel enough to make her go and look for him in this strange house. She rose from her chair and walked half-way to the door. From the back of the house she heard voices, and then Jerry’s footsteps in the hall. He came to the door of the living-room, and stood looking at her, as silent as his mother had been.
They faced each other, each inquiring of the other, and not knowing what kind of answer they wanted.
‘I heard you were leaving on Monday,’ Jeannie said. ‘I had to see you …’
‘Yes … I’m leaving.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘Why not? The Army will grab me as soon as I’m through college. I prefer to go now, and finish college later.’
Abruptly she flung her arm out. ‘Oh, Jerry ‒ don’t play with me! I’m not a fool.’
‘I didn’t think you were,’ he said slowly.
‘Then don’t treat me like one! Is it right what your mother says ‒ that you’re leaving because of me?’
‘Is that what she says?’ He shrugged again. ‘She ought to know that the Army takes a man some time or other. I might as well get it over with.’
She gestured impatiently, wrinkling her brow. ‘I don’t understand you! What ‒ what is it you’re supposed to be saying by all this? Jerry, please! Please just tell me what it all means, and I’ll do anything for you. I’ll do anything at all!’
He shook his head; a stubborn look of deliberate non-understanding came into his face. ‘You’re making a big thing of this, Jeannie. There’s nothing to it. I’m going into the Army. That’s all.’
‘That can’t be all!’ she burst out. ‘There’s much more ‒ only you won’t tell me any of it. Don’t go away from me like this, Jerry, because I’ll do anything you say, if only you won’t go away from me! I’ll marry you ‒ right away!’
Again he shook his head. ‘I’m not asking you to marry me.’
She acted as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘We could get married right away. I could move around with you, Jerry. I’d get a job in whatever town was near your camp. If you didn’t want it, we need never come back to Burnham Falls.’
He leaned against the door jamb, staring up at the ceiling for a second, as if he were trying to collect his patience. ‘Jeannie ‒’ he began, ‘let’s stop all this. I’m not asking you to marry, me. I don’t want you to marry me.’
‘You don’t want me to marry you …’ She repeated it, saying the words over again slowly. ‘You don’t want me to marry you.’
It was said in a husky whisper, which barely reached him across the room. Suddenly she sat down, placing herself on the edge of a chair and gazing down at the carpet. Her hands were folded in her lap and her whole body assumed a frozen appearance, as if she were hardly breathing.
‘Jeannie …’ He took a tentative step towards her, then abruptly retreated, back to the door.
She turned her head very slowly and looked at him. ‘Then you have never believed me ‒ you have never believed me at all.’
She took several deep breaths, long sounds that seemed to echo in the room. In her lap her hands clenched and unclenched, as if life and warmth were slowly returning. With it came her anger.
‘You think what every dirty-minded gossip in this town thinks ‒ you think it’s possible that I might have gone willingly with Patrino and Reitch. Admit it, Jerry! That’s what you think, isn’t it? You’ve let yourself listen to the lies and the rumours, and now you believe them. You’ve got to run away from them ‒ from me and from the town.’
‘It’s got nothing at all to do with you …’
She gestured irritably, contemptuously. ‘I told you not to treat me like a fool. I know why you’re going. You’re afraid to stay because something might overcome your better judgment, and you might actually marry me in a weak moment. You’ve got a banker’s cool head, Jerry. You’re afraid you’d be stuck with me … and there’d always be someone to rake up the old story, and make that dirty remark about Jerry Keston’s wife. The town could forgive me for getting pregnant, but not for getting raped. Rape is too dirty, and too violent. You know all this, and you’re getting out while there’s still time.’
‘I’m not “getting out” ‒ as you put it. I’ve wanted you to marry me since we left school, and you’ve always told me to wait. I just got tired of waiting …’
She broke in, ‘That was my mistake ‒ that was my big mistake! I won’t make it again. I thought you loved me enough to make the waiting worth something. I even went on believing that even after the time you came to the hospital, and I guessed what people were saying about me. I believed it even through these weeks when you didn’t call me, and I was nearly going crazy because I needed you so much. I knew you were upset ‒ and worried ‒ but I didn’t doubt that you’d argue it out with yourself, finally, because I thought you’ve always known that I couldn’t have gone with anyone but you.’
Then her head jerked up harder as a new thought came to her. ‘Or were you waiting for Patrino and Reitch to be arrested and go on trial ‒ so that I could be publicly whitewashed?’
‘Jeannie! That’s not fair! That isn’t true!’
‘Isn’t it?’ Her anger and hurt was growing; she lashed out viciously. ‘I wonder if you decided to go into the Army when you began to realise that they might never be caught? I began to realise it, too, Jerry, and I have to live with it. But you don’t. You’re free to make that choice. And you’ve made it …’
She stood up. ‘Well, that’s it, isn’t it? That’s all there is. I came here prepared to plead with you, to convince you somehow that you mustn’t leave here without me. Now it doesn’t seem worth while even trying ‒ I don’t think I want to.’
She was careful not to touch him as she passed him in the doorway. In the hall she stood back from him a little, and measured him up and down with her eyes.
‘I intend to stick it out here, Jerry. I won’t run away from Burnham Falls. If you come back, you’ll never be quite free of me, because I intend to make a splash in this town. I’m going to run a business the way no one in this town ever ran one before. Everyone’s going to know that I’m around. I’m not going to hide any more. I’m going to be all the things that I was meant to be ‒ and when I get a husband, he’s going to be the kind of man who’ll let me be those things. Some day, when you’re President of the First National, I’m going to walk into that bank and make a fat deposit, and you’ll wish the floor would open up and swallow you. That’s how it’s going to be, Jerry.’
‘You little bitch!’ was all he said.
She pulled the front door of the Kestons’ house behind her with a resounding bang that echoed across the street. Her footsteps on the flagstone path were loud. She could have taken a short-cut to the Talbot house through a side street, but she walked straight along Main Street, and she greeted every familiar face in the Saturday crowd.
Eleven
The empty streets of Elmbury looked desolate in the summer rain. It had rained on and off since morning; the gardens were sodden and the flowers hung limp and heavy with the moisture. Monday was never a busy day in Elmbury, and the rain sweeping the deserted streets accentuated the fact. There were only two other cars moving on Chester Street besides Harriet’s Rolls. She slumped a little wearily at the wheel as she waited for the light to change at the intersection; the lunch she had just had with Martha Torrens had been long and too full of talk. They had met to discuss plans for a joint meeting of the Elmbury and Burnham P.T.A. Laura Peters should have been with them, but that morning she had begged off on the excuse of a sudden, urgent trip to New York. It had become obvious to Harriet that Laura hated the chores thrust on her as Ed Peters’ wife, and she knew that Laura was finding it more and more difficult to hide the fact from Burnham Falls as a whole. Frequently now she asked Harriet to take over for her, and it was an understood thing that she could not refuse, no more than Steve could refuse a request from Ed. So Harriet had sat through a heavy lunch with Martha, listening to the rain falling monotonously outside, and had stifled her yawns. Now as she waited for the light she yawned openly.
She took no particular notice of anything along Chester Street, but past the bus stop she became suddenly aware of the familiarity of a solitary figure standing there. She braked sharply and looked back over her shoulder. It was Jeannie Talbot, wearing a plastic raincoat, with a plastic rain bonnet tied over her hair. There was something strangely untypical about the hunch of her shoulders, and her stolid indifference to the rain. Harriet put the Rolls into reverse; Jeannie looked at her without animation when she stopped.
‘Hello
, Jeannie! Going back to Burnham Falls?’ She leaned over and unlatched the door.
‘Hello, Mrs. Dexter.’ Jeannie responded unsmilingly, and Harriet thought she moved towards the car with a certain reluctance. But she got in and pulled the door behind her. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Terrible day, isn’t it?’ Harriet remarked as the Rolls moved off along Chester Street. She sensed that Jeannie was in no mood for small talk, but she also guessed that if she didn’t start some talk, Jeannie would let the drive back to Burnham Falls pass in silence. Harriet knew that the only bus of the afternoon wasn’t due for more than an hour and a half, and Jeannie must have known it too. And yet she had stood in the rain with deliberate uncaring patience, and had not even bothered to retreat to the shelter of the stationer’s doorway directly behind her. Harriet was touched and dismayed by the stark unhidden loneliness in the girl’s attitude. She wanted to reach over and grasp one of those limp hands lying in the other’s lap, to offer comfort as she might have done to Tim and Gene. It was difficult to remember that Jeannie was no longer a schoolgirl ‒ difficult until she glanced over and realised the maturity and sad poise of the face that was turned unseeingly on the wet road ahead. The expression was a withdrawn one, asking nothing, seeking nothing.
Jeannie didn’t answer, and Harriet knew the remark had gone unheard ‒ or Jeannie had treated it as it deserved.
She waited then, until they were clear of the town, on the new highway running straight and broad through the glistening wet fields of the dairy farms.
‘Can you talk to me, Jeannie?’ She said it diffidently, because it seemed such an enormous intrusion. ‘Is there some way I can help you?’
Only silence answered her. But she had seen Jeannie’s lips quiver briefly before she regained a kind of savage control again.
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