A Summer Place

by Sloan Wilson

  “Where are we going?” Molly asked.

  “I thought we might try Maryland,” he said, not at all sure that they were going in the direction of Maryland, but ashamed to admit that he really had no destination, no purpose in driving except to get away from the staring clerk and the faces on the bench. When they got to the top of the hill, the road dipped precipitously downward, a long, steep slope, at the end of which the highway curved under a railroad bridge. John shifted into high gear, and the old car started to pick up speed. He sat stiffly at the wheel, and as the speedometer crept above the fifty mark, he meant to apply the brake, but he didn’t—there was a fascination in letting the acceleration continue. The car swayed. At the bottom of the hill the railroad bridge loomed larger, with white letters on the black iron just too far away to be read. The speedometer passed the sixty mark, and John suddenly remembered Bill Norris. The thought occurred to him that all he would have to do now was nothing, precisely nothing, and all their problems would take care of themselves, for if he just did nothing a few seconds longer, the car would be going seventy when it reached that railroad bridge and it would be impossible to turn or stop in time. John glanced at Molly, and saw that she was glancing hypnotically at the bridge. Her face showed no fear, but her fists were clenched tightly in her lap. The letters on the bridge were clear now: ATLANTIC SEABOARD ROUTE. Just a few more seconds and there would be no more decisions to be made, he thought, but then jerked his head, snapping himself out of the trance, and in panic applied the brakes, bringing the car under control just in time to make the turn. Bending over with her face in her lap, Molly started to cry, the first time he had seen her cry in years. Pulling the car to the side of the road in the shadow of the railroad bridge, he put his arms around her and found that she was trembling violently. For a minute they clung together. Then, in a strangely detached voice, she said, “This is silly, Johnny. We’re going to have to tell Dad and your mother. We can’t do it alone.”

  “How about your mother?”

  “She’ll die,” Molly said simply.

  “I don’t know what my mother will do.”

  “We better go see them and face it out.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “They can’t really do anything but help us. Not with me the way I am.” The words sounded reasonable, but there was no conviction in her voice.

  “I think your father will be all right,” John said, but his words too rang hollow. The image of Ken’s distraught face at the head of the stairs was strong in his mind.

  “We don’t have to hurry, do we?” Molly said. “I’m awfully tired.”

  “No, we don’t have to hurry.” He turned the car around and headed slowly north, toward Connecticut.

  With the decision made, the tension eased a little. It was companionable to go droning along the highway with Molly half asleep on his shoulder. “I wish we could go on like this forever,” she said. “I wish we’d never get there.”

  “Don’t say that,” he said.

  “Superstitious?”

  “Yes. Knock on wood.”

  A big truck roared by, almost crowding the tiny Plymouth off the road. John slowed down. “Do you want to stop at a hotel tonight?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid they’d ask to see our marriage license.”

  “They wouldn’t.”

  “I hate the way they’d look at us,” she said. “Let’s sleep in the car.”

  “All right.”

  At an Army-Navy store in the next town he bought two pillows and two blankets. At dusk he turned off the highway onto a small dirt road in the woods, and parked under a large oak tree. Huddled in the back seat with Molly, he felt cramped but warm. Once he was awakened in the night by the sound of rain on the car’s thin metal roof. Molly’s face was a dim shape at his shoulder, and he realized that her eyes were wide open. He kissed her, pulling her to him, his shoulders twisting awkwardly in the cramped back seat of the car.

  “No, Johnny!” she said. “Not now!” Suddenly she started to cry again. He held her tightly, and it was a long while before she dozed off.

  The next morning they got out and ran in circles around their car to work the knots out of their muscles. A gray cow put her head over a wire fence nearby and watched them solemnly.

  “If we got a Sterno stove, I could cook breakfast,” Molly said. “It would be cheaper than restaurants, and Johnny…”

  “What?”

  “Let’s stay here a little longer. We don’t have to hurry…”

  They bought the stove and some groceries at the next town, and returned to their secret place in the woods. The old Plymouth could be used as a home for weeks, if necessary, they told each other.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  MOLLY WAS MISSED at Briarwood Manor Academy for Girls when she had been gone only a few hours, and Miss Summerfield, the aging headmistress, was notified. She was not particularly surprised: she remembered the rumors about Molly meeting a boy in New York and she had not run a girls’ school for more than thirty years without learning a few of the signs. Since returning from Easter vacation, Molly had been even more pale and withdrawn than she usually was. The child was too pretty for her own good, Miss Summerfield thought, and reflected the tensions of a broken home. Miss Summerfield recognized a candidate for trouble when she saw one, and she had been keeping an eye on Molly.

  Although it wasn’t published in the brochures used to advertise Briarwood Manor, there had been quite a number of “mishaps” over the years, and Miss Summerfield had grown skilled in handling them. Now she started by having the faculty conduct a quiet search of the campus and buildings. An elderly Latin teacher was dispatched to tour the ice-cream shops and the movie theater in the town. She knew her job well, and was able to chat with the men selling tickets at the bus and railroad stations without raising suspicions. After inquiring whether a girl of Molly’s description had been seen, she explained that she was trying to deliver a message from the child’s parents concerning a minor change of traveling plans. She always finished by smiling graciously and saying it really wasn’t important at all.

  When no clue concerning Molly’s whereabouts had been received by nightfall, Miss Summerfield telephoned Helen Carter. Such calls were always painful to make; the mothers often were harder to handle than the girls. Over the years Miss Summerfield had developed a number of techniques for breaking bad news, and when her secretary told her that Mrs. Helen Carter in Buffalo was on the wire, the phrases rolled to her lips with little effort.

  “Mrs. Carter,” she said. “How-do-you-do. This is Miss Summerfield at Briarwood. I have been a headmistress now for a good many years, and I have learned that this sort of thing is very rarely cause for great alarm, but I thought I ought to notify you that Molly apparently has left the school. Youth is a tempestuous time. Our receptionist saw her walk out with a young man this afternoon and…”

  Miss Summerfield held the receiver away from her ear and sighed. She detested hysterics.

  Ken, Sylvia and Carla were just sitting down to dinner in their house in Connecticut when the telephone rang. “I’ll get it,” Ken said, walked to the hall, and picked up the receiver. “Helen!” he said, sounding shocked, and Sylvia stood up slowly, letting the napkin fall from her lap.

  “What’s the matter?” Carla said, but no one answered her.

  For what seemed a very long time, Ken listened silently with the telephone at his ear. “Now, Helen,” he finally said, his deep voice sounding infinitely sad, “you’ve got to get hold of yourself. It doesn’t do any good…”

  “Carla,” Sylvia said, “would you mind waiting in your room for a few minutes? We’ll explain later.”

  “All right,” Carla said bewilderedly, and slowly walked upstairs.

  “No!” Ken said into the telephone.

  There was silence again, and then Ken said loudly and firmly, “Helen, you stop this. Call a doctor and get him to give you a sedative and go to bed. I’ll
handle this. Yes. Yes. Yes. I’ll handle it. Yes. Good night.”

  He hung up and turned toward Sylvia, his big face gone shockingly gray and old. “Molly has run away from school, probably with John,” he said, and picking up the receiver, called Colchester Academy. Sylvia sat down, feeling weak. She heard Ken asking questions over the telephone, and then he put the receiver down again. “John’s been missing for three days,” he said. “The school’s been in touch with Bart. He told them not to search.”

  “They’ve probably eloped,” Sylvia said in a low voice.

  He glanced at her, his face deathlike. “Kids, seventeen and eighteen!” he said. Doubling up his fist then, he brought it down on the telephone table with a crash. “God damn Johnny!” he said. “God damn him!” He drew in his breath sharply. The whirr of the oil burner in the cellar sounded loud.

  “We are all damned,” Sylvia said in a flat voice.

  Shaking his head like a prizefighter who has been hit hard, he sat flexing his fingers. Then he saw that Sylvia was crying. Quickly he went to her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Her sobs erupted then, welling from deep within her, bending her head to her lap, forcing her clenched teeth apart. He picked her up like a child and carrying her over to the sofa, sat cradling her in his arms. “They’re not dead,” he said grimly.

  “How do you know? Maybe…”

  “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “Anyway…” Her sobs interrupted her and he hugged her, rocking back and forth on the couch, repeating, “Hush, hush. They’re not dead. We don’t have to make this too much of a tragedy.”

  “Death isn’t the only tragedy!”

  Impatiently he jumped up, and leaving her on the couch, he began pacing up and down the living room. His heavy tread made the house tremble, and his deep voice rumbled when he said, “I’ve been a fool. I’m not going to despair! I won’t!”

  “Are you going to celebrate?”

  “Somebody’s got to stay sane around here! Helen’s talking about suicide, for God’s sake!”

  “But where are they? What will they do?”

  “They’ll come here! I know those kids! They’ll come here!”

  “And even then what can be done? Are they going to set up housekeeping at seventeen and eighteen?”

  “God damn it!” Ken said, and he brought his fist down in the palm of his hand with a deafening crack. “They’re going to get married if they haven’t already, and they’re going to finish their education!”

  “She may be pregnant. That’s probably why they ran away.”

  “All right!” Ken said, and he brought his fist down in the palm of his hand with a loud crack again. “Are you worrying about what the neighbors will say?”

  “No,” she said, “but God knows what kind of trouble they’re getting into. If they get scared…”

  He wheeled on her. “No!” he said. “Don’t you know them? My Molly isn’t an idiot servant girl! And don’t you know your own son?”

  “It’s our fault,” Sylvia said, her voice toneless. “We don’t even have the right to be indignant.”

  “Let’s have no more accusations!” he retorted. “We’ve had too much of that.” Holding out his big hands with the fingers outstretched in front of him, he said, “It’s not a question of who’s going to throw the first stone, it’s a question of who’s going to start building with it!”

  “What are you going to build?” she asked bitterly.

  “There’s everything to build! They’re going to need our help. Are you going to comfort them by offering to share their guilt? Nonsense! They’re going to need our love, money and advice, in that order, not a group psychoanalysis!”

  Sylvia said nothing.

  “Look!” he added suddenly. “This doesn’t have to be all bad. A youthful marriage isn’t such an ugly thing, it’s not all hideous! If you and I had fought things through and had got married when we were that age, wouldn’t it have been better for us?”

  “Yes.”

  “These aren’t youngsters who don’t know their own minds! They’re no juvenile delinquents, for God’s sake! This at least will get Molly out of Helen’s house, and it will get John away from Bart! Do you think life would have been better for them the other way?”

  “There was no way for them.”

  “They’re finding their way!” he said, bringing his fist down hard into the palm of his hand again. “We gave them a problem and they’re solving it! Why are you crying?”

  “I’ll tell you why I’m crying!” Sylvia said desperately. “Because we’ve destroyed them! You and Bart and I—all of us! We’ve destroyed them. After causing this, how can any of us have any self-respect?”

  “Why are they destroyed?” he retorted. “If we all have courage and common sense, why can’t something good be made of this? What’s so goddamn terrible about two youngsters in love?”

  “Can I come down now?” Carla asked, descending the Stairs.

  “Not yet,” Sylvia replied.

  “Do you mind telling me what’s the matter?”

  “Molly has left her school,” Ken said in a low voice. “We’re a little worried about her.”

  “She’s probably marrying Johnny,” Carla said. “I always knew she would.”

  They ate dinner slowly, and the waiting was hard. All evening Ken paced back and forth, saying, “They’ll come here! I know they will!”

  “How long does it take to get here from Briarwood?” Sylvia asked.

  “Depends on how they’re coming. Maybe twelve hours by train or bus, if they get good connections. You can’t tell. Maybe they’re flying.” He continued to pace, impatiently smashing his fist into the palm of his hand every few minutes.

  “When did they leave?”

  “The girl at the reception desk saw them walk out at about three in the afternoon.”

  “They probably won’t get here till tomorrow morning —maybe not till afternoon,” Sylvia said.

  “Maybe they’re hitchhiking—it could take longer that way,” Ken said.

  At eleven o’clock the telephone rang, and he jumped to answer. “I have a long-distance call for Mr. Kenneth Jorgenson from Buffalo, New York,” the operator said.

  Ken grimaced. “Buffalo,” he said to Sylvia, and to the operator added, “All right. I’m Jorgenson.”

  It was old Bruce Carter, sounding very tired and far away. “Have you heard anything new?” he asked.

  “No. How’s Helen?”

  “All right. She tried to swallow a whole bottle of sleeping pills, but I got them away from her in time.”

  “Good,” Ken said grimly. “Get her to a hospital.”

  “Anyway, she’s knocked herself out for a while,” old Bruce concluded. “Be sure and call me if you hear anything.”

  “All right,” Ken said, and hung up. It seemed entirely logical to him that Helen would finally turn against herself. After telling Sylvia about it, he said, “Anything is better for Molly than living in that house. Anything!”

  At three in the morning Ken said that keeping a night vigil was ridiculous; the children were bound to arrive in the morning. He and Sylvia went to bed, but could not sleep. At dawn he got up, and to occupy his mind, began to spade up the garden energetically, preparing to plant new rose bushes. Sylvia got dressed at dawn and tried to read. Later she got Carla off to school and made the beds, but after that there was nothing to do but wait.

  It was one o’clock before John and Molly reached Stamford, Connecticut, and asked the way to Redding. As they approached it, Molly became more and more strained. “I think you ought to let me out at their driveway, and come back later,” she said to John. “It might be better if I told them alone.”

  “Why?” he asked indignantly.

  “I think I might be able to handle Dad better alone if he gets angry.”

  “I’m not going to leave you,” John said flatly. “If anybody’s going to get angry, I want to be ther
e.” A muscle in his cheek flickered, and he held the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles went white.

  The mailbox outside Ken’s house with the name “Jorgenson” was freshly painted. Neither of them said a word as they turned into the driveway. In a small garden at the front of the house they immediately saw Ken on his knees. At the sound of the car, he stood up, holding his trowel, a big man with the black loam still clinging to his trousers, and when Molly got out of the car, he dropped the trowel. She ran to him, starting to cry as she touched him, and threw both arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder, and he hugged her, saying, “Molly! Molly!” but she couldn’t speak. John came and stood beside them, his body bent, his fists clenched nervously at his sides, and he looked dumbly at Ken. Suddenly, to John’s horror, tears started down his cheeks; he made no sound, but his shoulders shook, and Ken, holding his daughter in one arm, swept out the other and clasped the boy to him, holding the two of them tight against his barrel-like chest, his big head bent over theirs. Then through Molly’s sobs he heard the sentence, almost indistinguishable at first, but repeated, the one sentence, “Daddy, Daddy, baby, baby, I’m going to have a baby, oh Daddy, I’m going to have a baby…”

  “All right!” Ken said, the two words exploding out of him as an affirmation, almost a prayer. Molly looked up and saw him smiling at her. “Come into the house,” he said.

  They followed him meekly and sat in the living room. “Sylvia!” Ken called. “The children are here!”

  Sylvia came down the stairs, pale, with one hand up, smoothing her hair, but when she saw John she ran to him, and for the first time in years, his body was not rigid when she hugged him, and she felt him hug her back. He stood there, taller than she, and she pulled his head down on her shoulder. “Molly and I are going to have…” he said.

  “I know.” They sat on the couch together. “It was my fault,” John began.

  “No,” Molly said. Breaking away from her father, she ran to him, and suddenly the four of them were all hugging each other, saying it was everybody’s fault and no one’s fault, and the crying got mixed up with the laughter of sudden relief.