by Peggy Gaddis
Ronnie.
She had known that the telegram was from Ronnie even before she opened it and her heart had raced like mad. But with the actual words before her, his name signed to it — she drew a long, shaking breath and clenched her hands on the message, and realized that Silas was watching her intently, an odd look in his tired eyes.
“Good news, baby?”
Carey looked swiftly at Margaret and saw the smile on Margaret’s lips. And before she could control the impulse for plain speech she asked, “Didn’t Margaret tell you?”
Silas frowned. “Didn’t Margaret tell me what, baby?”
“What was in the telegram, of course. She read it first.”
“That’s not true,” blazed Margaret.
“You know it is true. The telegram has been steamed open and re-sealed. Only the glue you used hasn’t had time to dry,” Carey told her. “But you could have saved yourself the bother. I don’t in the least mind your knowing that the telegram is from Ronnie Norris. Here, would you care to read it again?”
Margaret drew back, flinging Silas a swift, frightened glance.
“Margaret,” Silas said sharply, “is this true? But surely it can’t be. You wouldn’t dare meddle in Carey’s private affairs.”
“What’s private about them?” Margaret demanded recklessly. “Everybody knows what a fool she made of herself over Ronnie Norris. I think she’s lucky Ann Paige isn’t naming her as co-respondent in her divorce suit.”
Silas’s face was quite gray. “That will do, Margaret. I’ve heard enough.”
“Let her alone, Dad, I know what she thinks of me, and it’s not important. I dislike her quite as much as she dislikes me. And so that makes us even.”
Before Margaret could speak, Silas said quickly, “This sort of thing is outrageous. I can’t have you two quarrelling and bickering like this. There’s only one solution… . I’m terribly sorry, Margaret — but you must see what an impossible situation it is.”
Margaret smiled faintly. “Of course, I understand perfectly. I shall arrange to leave immediately. Carey, of course, understands the terms on which I shall go, however.”
Silas was puzzled. “That’s queer talk, Margaret. What do you mean?”
“It’s all right, Dad. Margaret and I understand each other,” Carey cut in swiftly and saw the look of relief that touched Margaret’s face. “And I’m going upstairs to bed. We’ll settle this in the morning, Margaret.”
“But you haven’t had your supper darling,” protested Silas.
“I had supper in town, Dad.” Carey kissed him as she passed his chair. “Good night, darling.”
Upstairs in her own room she dropped the crumpled telegram on the dresser and stood for a long moment looking at herself in the mirror. Had she changed? Would Ronnie still think her beautiful? Would he take her away from this awful place? She saw him as an escape from a situation already grown intolerable, as she had feared it would from the first moment Margaret had forced herself on them. Margaret resented her; Margaret wanted her out of the place. Well, Margaret adored Silas and, with Carey out of the place, she would be good to Silas and they would be happy. Silas was fond of Margaret and liked being with her. He liked this old place, too, and was happy pottering about with his “farming” and the livestock. He would miss Carey, of course — but he would adjust himself to life with Margaret. And, Margaret could take much better care of him than Carey could.
When she fell asleep at last it was with her decision reached. If Ronnie came for her, she would go with him. Free of Ann and with the training in poverty that Carey had had these last months, they would manage somehow. And no matter how difficult life would be, it couldn’t be worse than this! Of that she was certain.
Fourteen
FOR A DAY or two things were strained and unpleasant between Margaret and Carey. They were coldly polite to each other in Silas’s presence, but openly hostile when he was out of the room.
Carey and her father spent as much time out of the house and away from Margaret as they could manage. And this was a fact that the older woman did not overlook. Her eyes glinted and there was a new and ugly twist about her mouth, though she said nothing.
On a balmy spring afternoon when Silas and Carey had gone for a walk in the woods beyond the Hogan place, they returned at milking time, after an absence of three hours or more. Carey’s arms were laden with spoils from the woods — dogwood blossoms, crabapple, honeysuckle and violets. She and her father had had a happy time.
Her slacks were stained and dirty, torn by the briars through which she had forced her way this afternoon in search of wild flowers. Her hair was tumbled about her face. And it was in this condition that she faced Ronnie Norris.
Ronnie’s car had just stopped in the drive and he was getting out of it as Carey came up the garden path. He called to her, “Is this the Winslow place? I’ve had the devil’s own time finding it.”
Carey flung up her head and through the spring twilight they stared at each other. Carey was not at all sure that he wasn’t a ghost and obviously Ronnie had difficulty recognizing her.
“Good heavens,” he exploded. “Carey! But it can’t be! Child, what have they done to you? You look like something out of Tobacco Road.”
But even that supreme insult couldn’t shake Carey out of her stunned contemplation of him, which left her speechless and wide-eyed.
A look of concern swept over Ronnie’s face and he caught her by the shoulders, giving her a little shake as he said roughly, “Carey! What’s the matter? Have you lost your mind?”
She clung to him helplessly. “Oh, Ronnie — Ronnie — is it really you? I can’t believe it!”
“You poor infant!” said Ronnie. “I never dreamed it was as bad as all this.”
Carey sobbed and then he held her away from him with a look of slight distaste. “Look here, Carey, you run along and wash your face. And — er — surely you’ve got something a little more faintly resembling decent clothes? Those slacks, my angel, are really unforgivable.”
Carey was scarlet with shame and confusion. Ronnie had never been more handsome, more perfectly groomed. The car he was driving was an expensive one. And she had never been so painfully aware of her own shabbiness.
“I know I look terrible, Ronnie,” she stammered humbly. “But I was just about to help Dad with the milking.”
Ronnie was laughing at her. “I simply can’t believe it! Carey Winslow, in the most outrageous get-up ever conceived. It’s too fantastic for words. I can see I got here just in time. I’m taking you away from here, Carey — now, this minute. I’ve got tickets for South America! We’re taking the Clipper out of Miami on Thursday for Buenos Aires. Scamper along, sweet, and get yourself into something decent for travelling. Never mind packing a bag. I’m afraid you’ve nothing worth carrying away from this place.”
Before Carey could answer him she heard Silas calling her name and he came around the corner of the house, saying in sharp relief as he saw her, “Oh, there you are, baby!” Then he saw Ronnie and his face stiffened. “It’s Norris, isn’t it?”
Carey saw Ronnie’s derisive eyes going over Silas’s corduroy breeches and scuffed boots, and for a moment she hated Ronnie — and burned with shame for her father that Ronnie should see him like this.
“Well, Mr. Winslow,” said Ronnie in a tone that he would never have dared use to Silas in the old days, “you’re looking — er — very fit.”
“What are you doing here, Norris?” Silas said curtly.
Ronnie’s smile was a taunt “What else would I be doing here, except calling for Carey? I’m taking her away with me.”
“Carey’s not going anywhere with you, Norris, now or ever.”
“I think she is, Winslow.” Ronnie’s tone was deliberately insolent. “After all, you can’t expect her to spend the rest of her life in a place like this. I came for her just as soon as I was assured of enough money to take care of her and give her a few of the decencies of civilization.”
/> His tone made Carey burn with fury now toward him; for herself and her father. In another instant she would probably have turned on him and driven him away. But before she could master her jumbled emotions to speak her rage Margaret came around the corner of the house in search of Silas. Instantly Carey’s anger was replaced by her hatred for Margaret. The way Margaret put her hand on Silas’s arm, the tone of her voice as she spoke his name, the impudent look that she gave Carey, made the girl set her teeth hard and say:
“I’ll only be a couple of minutes, Ronnie.”
She knew that Margaret’s eyes gleamed and that there was a little satisfied smile about her mouth, but she tried not to see her father’s hurt, pleading eyes.
“Of course, darling,” said Ronnie, and grinned.
“Carey!” Silas said sharply.
Over her shoulder without looking at him Carey said,“ — sorry, Dad.”
As she ran up the steps she heard Margaret’s voice, but could not distinguish the words above the pounding of her heart.
She got out of her rumpled clothing with fingers that shook. A cold shower helped. As she dressed swiftly in a dark travelling dress she tried to straighten out the jumble of her thoughts. Her feeling toward her father was somehow all mixed up with her emotions toward Margaret. She knew that it would never be possible for her to share a house with Margaret; yet she and her father, together, had no place to go. The house was more Margaret’s now than theirs, because of the money Margaret had spent. For the first time since she had come to this hated place Carey saw a chance for escape. And nothing, she promised herself as she drew her silly little hat well down over her face, was going to keep her from taking it.
When she came downstairs she found Silas and Margaret withdrawn a little from Ronnie, who was lounging at the wheel of his car, so perfectly the master of the situation that Carey hesitated. But as Ronnie saw her, he sprang out of the car and came toward her, his hand outstretched.
“Come along, darling,” he said and tucked her hand through his arm, drawing her toward the car.
For just a moment she hesitated, her steps dragging as she looked toward her father. But even as she did so, Margaret put out her hand and laid it on Silas’s arm in a little comforting touch that, to Carey, had an unbearable intimacy about it. Carey’s face hardened. She tilted her chin defiantly.
“Sorry to look like the third act of East Lynne, Dad,” she said, “but I can’t stand this place any longer.”
“You’re of age, baby — it’s your life, after all,” Silas answered.
“Good bye,” Carey said stiffly, and was grateful when Ronnie all but lifted her into the car.
Ronnie set the big car in motion and Carey dared not look back. She was tense, breathless, her hands clenched hard in her lap. When the car swung into the highway, Ronnie took a hand from the wheel and laid it on hers.
“Poor kid, it must have been pretty terrible. But never mind, we’ll make up for it. We’re hitting the high spots from here on out, darling. And I’ll see to it that you forget all this before we’ve finished.”
Carey tried to steady her voice after awhile, saying with a touch of flippancy that was not too convincing, “Tell me about the people I used to know, Ronnie. How are they?”
“The usual putrid mess,” Ronnie assured her with a touch of grimness, so that she knew they had not been overly kind to him. “But let’s not waste time talking about other people. Let’s talk about us. I’ve never stopped loving you, Carey — not for a moment.”
“Not even just after our — set-back — when you were so busy marrying Ann?”
“Were you jealous?”
“Well, after all, there was some small talk between us at the time, if you remember — something about our getting engaged, wasn’t it?” Carey reminded him.
“And then your father’s business went a cropper and neither you nor I had a penny to bless ourselves with,” Ronnie returned. “And there was Ann Paige simply begging to come to our rescue. Like a drowning man, I did the one thing I thought might possibly save the two of us. I married Ann.”
Carey studied him, a little startled to discover that he no longer seemed good-looking or attractive and that he no longer disturbed her in the least. He was like a good-looking stranger whom she might meet and never see again and never remember again.
“I may be a trifle dumb, Ronnie,” she said at last, “but I’m afraid I can’t see just what good your marrying Ann did me.”
“Can’t you, angel?” Ronnie laughed softly. “Well, precious, after being married to me a few months, Ann was only too relieved to be able to divorce me — with, of course, the usual very nice settlement. Now I am a man of comparative wealth, so I rush promptly to you to beg you to marry me, and you and I will live in modest luxury from now on.”
“On — Ann’s money?”
Ronnie’s handsome face darkened. “Don’t you think it,” he said grimly. “If ever a laborer earned his wages, I’ve earned my half-million from Ann. No day laborer ever worked harder. You wouldn’t know the woman. She’s nothing short of a raving beauty, and maybe you think she doesn’t know it. To give her credit, she admits that she owes it all to me. But now that she is a raving beauty and has full control of the Paige millions, she is aiming much higher in the social scheme of things than my humble self. She is about to knock herself off a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool title. So she felt half a million was not too large a sum to pay for her freedom.”
Carey listened, a wave of revulsion sweeping over her. Once she had thought Ronnie terribly good-looking and attractive. But now that he was so frankly showing her his clay feet, and without the slightest idea that his feet were of clay, she wondered how she could ever have thought him even pleasant, let alone disturbing. Suddenly she knew that she wanted nothing in the world so much as to be rid of him.
But as she huddled there beside him, the car racing through the spring darkness, panic grew on her. Every turn of the wheels was taking her farther away, binding her closer to him. She couldn’t — she couldn’t. She must have been insane, she told herself frantically, to think that she could go away with him. Nothing, not even the accumulated anger against Margaret, the ugliness, the drabness, and monotony of Midvale, could possibly make life with Ronnie tolerable. She loathed him. And that was pretty crazy, she told herself with mounting hysteria, because for months she had grieved for him and felt that if she couldn’t have him life wouldn’t be worth living.
She became suddenly conscious that Ronnie was waiting for her to answer something he had said. And she hadn’t the faintest idea what that had been.
“I’m sorry, Ronnie,” she stammered wildly. “I’m afraid I wasn’t listening.”
“Sorry to have disturbed your thoughts, angel. I only suggested that it would be nice if you could force yourself to be a little sociable. After all, you haven’t even said you were glad to see me.”
“Oh, but I am, Ronnie — of course. It’s just that — just that — well, frankly, Ronnie, I haven’t been fed in ages and ages and I’m afraid I’m hungry.”
Ronnie laughed. “Oh, is that all? Well, there’s a hotel somewhere hereabouts. It’s not too good, though it’s about the best in these parts. I spent the night there last night. Shall we see what the dining room can do toward giving us a decent meal?”
“By all means, let’s,” agreed Carey, relieved at the thought that for a little while she could stay that mad flight with him.
She must get back to Midvale. She must get away from Ronnie. And she quailed at the thought of telling him. Maybe she needed a sanity test, she told herself with a forlorn attempt at humor.
Ronnie put on what Carey privately characterized as an unholy show of himself in ordering their dinner in the hotel dining room. The middle-aged waiter listened to him with a politely attentive manner, receiving his outrageous bullying with a bland servility that was belied by the look in his eyes. People about the dining room glanced curiously at Ronnie as he ordered in a voice that, while no
t loud, had a peculiarly carrying quality. Ronnie, in the old days, had been well-mannered and quiet-spoken; but that Ronnie had been all but penniless, dependent on his beautiful manners for the luxurious living that he felt was his due. Now that he was a man of means, rich according to his own standards, he demanded nothing short of the best and wanted people to know of his cultivated taste, his discriminating palate, and the like.
The waiter went away at last and Ronnie bent toward Carey. “Darling, that awful hat,” he said. “You poor lamb, tucked away in this god-forsaken hole! But never mind, there are still good shops, and you and I will go places and do things. We’re going to have fun. I’m pretty crazy about you, you know.”
Carey tried hard to smile, but she was painfully aware of the slightly contemptuous eyes of the people in the room who had witnessed Ronnie’s bullying of the soft-voiced waiter.
“It’s the darnedest thing,” said Ronnie and laughed a little. “I thought I could get you out of my mind. I meant to marry Ann, stick long enough to get a decent settlement and then go on to someone more attractive and with more money. I meant to make it a career — and I wouldn’t be the first, you know! But somehow — everywhere I turned, your funny little face looked squarely at me. And I found that nothing was any fun without you. When I was bullying and threatening Ann into her diet and her exercises and fighting with her over her impossible taste in clothes, I kept seeing you, so slim and cool and lovely, and always looking like — oh, I don’t know, like a gardenia-blossom just opening into perfection. Well, I knew then that there wasn’t enough money in the world to make up for losing you.”
“Oh, Ronnie — if only you had felt like that before.”
Ronnie’s mouth hardened a little. “And if I had, my angel, we’d have starved to death long before now. Or could the three of us — your father, yourself, and your husband — have made a living out of that awful place where I just found you?”
“But if you loved me — ” Carey pointed out.
“Sweet, I do love you. But — forgive me, angel — I love the Carey I used to know, who was always smartly groomed and lovely and well-dressed; not a Carey with tumbled hair and mud on her nose and on her slacks. Carey, if you could have seen yourself, angel — ” His voice was cool, amused, and yet it brought the color to Carey’s face in a little shamed flood.