by Peggy Gaddis
Later, when they were having supper, Cathy made herself ask the question she knew Maggie was waiting to hear. Mentally she braced herself, and her tone was elaborately cool and casual when she spoke.
“Has Bill come home?”
“Not so far as I know,” answered Maggie, and her own tone was more casual than usual. “Way I heard it, the Dowager Queen has gone up to Richmond to meet him and drive home with him. Taking along her house guest, of course.”
Cathy was a little puzzled by Maggie’s tone.
“Oh, has Mrs. Kendall a house guest?”
“Sure—I’d say she was the Dowager Queen’s selection for a wife for Bill—a suitable wife.” Maggie waited for Cathy’s answering grin as she emphasized the word.
For a moment Cathy sat very still and felt every drop of color drain out of her face. Maggie looked at her and then away and went on hurriedly.
“One of those ‘society gals’ with a capital S that the Dowager Queen dotes on so much. A blonde, with blue eyes and hair hanging down on her shoulders—and a disposition that would cut glass—so gossip has it. Several of the business people in town have felt the edge of it. Seems she put up quite a fuss in the drug store because Allen didn’t carry the kind of perfume she wanted—at fifty dollars an ounce.”
Cathy had herself under control now, and Maggie breathed a little more easily.
“She sounds—quite a person,” said Cathy.
“Oh, she’s a looker. Knock your eye out, and all that,” admitted Maggie. “But I’d feel a mite sorry for any fellow that married her—especially Bill.”
Cathy made herself laugh and said, “Oh, well—that’s Bill’s business. You and I don’t have to worry about it.”
“I don’t want to pry, chick,” said Maggie after a moment. “But—well, have you and Bill quarreled?”
Cathy was still for a moment and then she looked up at Maggie and said honestly, “Bill and I are through, Maggie. All washed up—finished.”
Maggie studied the girl’s white, set face for a moment and then she said gently, “Well, knowing how crazy you’ve always been about him, chick, I’m sorry. But I can’t help feeling like maybe you’re better off in the long run. With Edith Kendall dominating Bill’s life, and not liking you—being married to Bill would be a dog’s life.”
“So let’s just forget it, shall we?” said Cathy huskily. “I’d rather not talk about it any more.”
“Well, of course not. It’s forgotten,” agreed Maggie, and as she rose to clear the table, she put her arm about Cathy and gave her a little hug.
It was inevitable that Bill and Cathy should meet in a town the size of Cypressville. Neither of them could have avoided it for long. It came about quite naturally on a Monday afternoon when Cathy and Maggie had finished grocery shopping and had stopped at the post office on their way home.
On the post office steps, Cathy came face to face with Bill. For a moment they were both still, silent, looking at each other; secretly each was searching for a sign of relenting, of weakening, in the other. But Cathy was on guard and Bill equally so. It was Bill who spoke first.
“Well, hello,” he said. “You’re looking very fit.”
“Hello, Bill,” said Cathy quietly.
There was a moment in which Bill looked embarrassed, uneasy, a little guilty. But the next moment the horn of his car was blown peremptorily, and Cathy glanced beyond Bill to see the girl who sat beside the wheel, where Cathy had sat so often.
“Aunt Edith’s house guest, Elaine Stovall,” Bill explained.
“Yes, I’ve heard she’s—lovely,” said Cathy, and added before she could stop herself, “and a bit impatient, I fear.”
“Look, Cathy—” said Bill swiftly, impulsively, but Cathy set her teeth and went past him down to where Maggie sat behind the wheel of the faithful little Betsy-Bug.
Knowing that Bill was back, and that the Stovall girl was in the house with him, with the approval and encouragement of Mrs. Kendall, hurt Cathy deeply. She knew she was jealous, and she tried to scold herself for it. But after all, she was Bill’s wife, and wasn’t Bill treating her shamefully in not acknowledging it? Wouldn’t he ever apologize? Cathy had known in her heart from the very first that she and Bill had been wrong in keeping their marriage secret. They should have faced Mrs. Kendall, announced their marriage, and dared her to do her worst. But even now, when she admitted that it had been a mistake, she tried to find excuses for Bill. The money meant such a lot to him: first, he felt that it was rightfully his; second, he had known years of the most grueling poverty, which had given him a false conception of the importance of money. At least, to Cathy, his conception was false; but humbly she admitted that she had never known the sort of poverty he had experienced during the formative years of his boyhood. Perhaps if she had—
Her thoughts went round and round, and she was worn out with them. She went for a long walk into the country one afternoon, with no other idea than to walk until she was tired enough to sleep, instead of lying awake and thinking half the night as she had been doing.
It was dusk when she came back, very tired and very unhappy.
As she opened the gate in the white picket fence, she saw that Maggie was not alone on the porch, and suddenly her tired heart leaped up—and the next moment fell flat. For it wasn’t Bill who rose to greet her; it was a man, tall, lean, rangy, burned brown by tropic suns, and in the well-tailored uniform of an officer in the United States Army.
For a moment she stood rooted to the top step, staring with incredulous eyes as the man laughed down at her and said over his shoulder to Maggie, “See? I told you she’d be glad to see me—but I didn’t think she’d be struck dumb!”
“Captain Graham!” she gasped faintly, and put a shaking hand in the one he extended.
“Kindly stop demoting me, madam,” he said sternly, his eyes laughing at her, a warm, eager light in their dark depths. “It’s Major Graham, if you please!”
“So they finally realized how important you were and gave you proper credit?” Cathy rallied herself to answer. “But what in the world are you doing here in Cypressville?”
“Looking for you, of course—what else?” answered Mark Graham promptly. “You sold me on the charms of Cypressville—remember that afternoon at the Officers’ Club in Honolulu when you could talk of nothing else? You gave me the impression that it was a sort of combination paradise and Utopia. Well, naturally, when I found myself with a thirty-day leave on my hands and no place I cared much to see, I remembered Cypressville and it sounded like a right nice little place to see. I said to myself, ‘Darling will be bored stiff by now, among a lot of civilians, so I’ll give her a break—I’ll go see her.’ And here I am.”
Maggie was looking a little alarmed, and Mark grinned at her and said explanatorily, “You see, Darling was her nickname. The patients never had time to find out her real name, and they just called her Darling.”
“Nine tenths of the flight nurses are called Darling or Angel,” answered Cathy, still shaken with the unexpectedness of his appearance, and all that his being here in Cypressville would mean.
Maggie excused herself. Mark sat down in the old porch swing and patted the seat beside him invitingly. But Cathy dropped into the wicker chair Maggie had been occupying, and drew a deep breath. Mark’s eyes did not leave her face and there was a disturbing light in them. Somehow, crazy as it was, Cathy’s heart beat a little faster and she felt a tremor of uneasiness.
“What’s wrong, Cathy?” asked Mark quietly.
Cathy looked at him, surprised.
“Wrong? Why, nothing. It’s just that—well, I’m so surprised at seeing you.”
“You don’t mind my coming to Cypressville?”
“Mind? Why should I? I’m awfully glad to see you—truly.”
Mark nodded. “I’m glad of that. Funny, but after we got back from that little jungle episode, I felt I never wanted to see you again. Funny how sick we got of each other during that time, remember? We stu
mbled into camp, our clothes in ribbons, our bodies swollen and bruised and pocked by insect bites; and we were screaming at each other.”
“The people at camp thought we’d gone mad from the experience,” she remembered with a little wince.
“They weren’t far wrong, Darling. Another twenty-four hours—” He shrugged and went on after a moment, “Well, back at the hospital, I kept not liking you very much; but gradually I began to be able to look on it with more sanity. I realized that you had more courage than any two men I’d ever known. I began to remember—and you sort of crept into my thoughts—and my heart.”
“Don’t!” Cathy cried sharply.
Mark looked at her curiously through the gathering dark.
“Don’t be frightened, Darling,” he said gently. “I’ve no intention of making love to you. I remember, Cathy, that there was a fellow back here in Cypressville who had a sort of priority on your heart and your mind. You talked about him a lot. Well, when the urge to see you hit me so hard that there was no resisting it, I stood myself in a corner and said sternly, ‘Now, see here, you! Cathy’s already married to her beloved, and they’ll probably invite you to dinner—maybe not. So why don’t you use what few brains you have and stay away?’ But—well, there I was on the plane, and there I was taking a train in Atlanta. And the first thing I asked Mrs. Westbrook, when I’d tracked you down, was, Tell me, is she married?’ And when Mrs. Westbrook said, ‘No’—well, remember that morning when we stumbled into camp? That’s a little the way I felt—only better!”
“Mark—you mustn’t!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Darling,” said Mark. “I must—because the more I try to fight loving you, the more I fall in! But I thought if I came and saw you, I’d find you weren’t half as pretty as I remembered you; and maybe you really had a mean, spiteful disposition. I see now I was just kidding myself in thinking that I could knock myself out of being in love with you by exposing myself to your presence.”
“Mark—please!” she said huskily. “You mustn’t, because I’m not—not free to listen.”
“But Mrs. Westbrook said you weren’t married,” he protested, and then added quickly, in a different tone, “Sorry—I’ve no right to ask questions. Forget it. Only maybe it would help if I told you that I’m here to try to convince myself that I’m not in love with you. When I point out that while I’m attracted to you, you’re going to have a job on your hands landing me in a matrimonial net—well, that’s a challenge—and what woman can refuse to pick up a challenge?”
“Sounds like good thinking,” Cathy admitted.
“Sure—I’ve devoted a long and busy life to thoughts about the not so gentle and often very unfair sex,” he told her cheerfully.
Maggie came to announce that supper was ready, and as they settled at the table, she looked swiftly at Cathy’s face and then at Mark’s and smothered a little sigh of relief. Cathy didn’t look so haggard or so heartsick, Maggie told herself; Mark was going to be good for her. And with that thought, Mark stepped straight into Maggie’s affections.
He looked about at the bright, neat dining room with its crisply fresh curtains and its low bowl of roses in the center of the table.
“Boy, this must be what a home looks like,” he said contentedly. “I’ve always wondered. Some fellows seemed to set such store by what they called home; but never having had one, I always wondered a little.”
Maggie stared at him.
“You haven’t any folks?” she asked.
“None,” said Mark, and added with a little gesture of dismissal, “oh, I’ve got a father or two and a couple of mothers scattered about, but I had them so briefly and I was always such a nuisance to them that I never had time to get very well acquainted with them.”
He looked at Maggie’s and Cathy’s face and grinned.
“Oh, it wasn’t so bad.” He hastily disclaimed any attempt at arousing their sympathy. “I was three when my mother decided she couldn’t bear the sight of my father any longer, and the feeling mutual, she hared off to Reno and had the usual. Her second choice was waiting for her, and they were married before the ink was dry on the decree. And Father wasn’t wasting any time, either. He took unto himself a bride within twenty-four hours. Neither of the new ‘steps’ was exactly thrilled at the prospect of being burdened with a youngster, so they took turns and—well, I was popped into boarding school the minute I was old enough to be acceptable. Almost before I got my breath, they’d both got tired again—and presto! I had a new set of ‘steps.’ “
“Well, you poor child!” gasped Maggie, saucer-eyed, as though he were still that bewildered three-year-old.
Mark said, “Thanks—you’re great.”
He looked at Cathy and said quietly, “See what I mean about matrimonial nets and such?”
Maggie said quickly and earnestly, “But you mustn’t think just because your parents didn’t get along that all marriages are like that.”
“I was married,” stated Maggie quietly, “for twenty-six years, to the best man that ever lived. There just wasn’t ever anybody else for me, and when he went, I knew the best part of my life was over.”
Mark nodded, his eyes warm and friendly.
“I’ve heard of such marriages,” he admitted.
Cathy said unsteadily, “Here—here! You’re letting your dinner get cold, Major. And Maggie’s hot biscuits are something to write home about!”
“And you’re at home, Major—just as long as you care to stay. Cathy and I’ll be proud to have you, won’t we, Cathy?” said Maggie vigorously.
“Of course,” said Cathy instantly.
Mark beamed at them.
“I like that,” he said happily. “I like it a lot. I’d rather have that than any medal ever turned out. I’ll try not to be a nuisance. Maybe I can make myself useful—odd-jobs man, or something?”
Maggie laughed. “How are you at staking beans?” she asked.
“I’m a fast man at staking beans,” he assured her. “My old grandfather used to say to me, ‘Son,’ he used to say, ‘you’re the best bean-staker—’ “ He broke off and looked at Cathy, puzzled. “How the dickens do you stake beans?” he confessed his bewilderment, and she and Maggie laughed at him delightedly.
Chapter Seven
Cypressville had a country club. It was a small and unpretentious place, but the self-elected elite of Cypressville was inordinately proud of the long, low-storied white frame house that had once been the farmhouse of a prosperous hundred-acre farm. That same elite had bought the house and thirty acres of land; a fairly good golf course had been laid out, and there were two tennis courts and a swimming pool, and a membership list over which the board fought fiercely and constantly. The fact that the dues were, in the eyes of the members, rather heavy, made it politic for them to accept many members not of the old order in Cypressville, but whose generosity in making up a sizable annual deficit could be counted on.
Friday night was Gala Night at the club. A hard-working local orchestra that made up in noise and vigor for some lack of musical skill slaved from eight until well after midnight providing music for dancing. The kitchens were presided over by a chef of more than local renown, and there was a large room set aside for those who wished to play bridge or gin rummy. So on Friday night there were many cars parked in the lot beside the clubhouse, and the sound of revelry filled the air.
Maggie and Cathy were not members of the country club. But Mark had been officially welcomed to Cypressville by an invitation to lunch at the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club and had received, as a high mark of honor, a guest membership to the club for the length of his stay.
Anxious to return some measure of the hospitality meted out to him so generously by Cathy and Maggie, Mark insisted that he take them to dinner at the club. Maggie was secretly excited, though outwardly composed and a little disdainful of “Edith Kendall’s gang,” as she called the country club set.
And so on Friday night Mark ushered his two guests in
to the the club dining room, looking very handsome and well groomed in his dress uniform. Cathy, lovely in daffodil yellow with Mark’s gardenias in a little shower at her shoulder, and Maggie looking distinguished in black lace and more gardenias, made Mark very proud.
After they were seated, there was a slight commotion at the entrance to the dining room, caused by the arrival of half a dozen people in whom the others in the room seemed greatly interested.
Cathy glanced that way and her heart turned over.
For Edith Kendall was leading the group, resplendent in violet lace and diamonds, followed by Elaine Stovall, her hand slipped possessively through Bill’s arm, her blond head tilted back, her lovely, laughing face toward his down-bent one as though they shared some exquisite, intimate joke. Behind them were two other couples, of the town’s most elect.
Maggie said dryly, “Let the trumpets blow and the festivities begin. The Dowager Queen has arrived with her court!”
“So that,” said Mark thoughtfully, “is the Dowager Queen!”
“No one else but,” said Maggie.
“Impressive, no end,” Mark agreed, but there was a hint of a twinkle in his eyes. “Who’s the gorgeous blond babe—not the Crown Princess?”
“Prospective,” said Maggie. “The tall guy with her is the Crown Prince.”
Mark’s eyes went swiftly to Cathy and back to Bill, who was not yet aware of their presence. He was still bending, absorbed, above Elaine, who was using her hands in little fluttering gestures, to illustrate some story she was telling.
“So that,” observed Mark thoughtfully, “is the guy.”
Cathy looked swiftly at him and their eyes tangled. The color surged upward in her face and she said breathlessly, “I—I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
Mark struck a match, watched it burn, and deposited the end in an ash tray, his eyes apparently absorbed in the tiny, brief-lived flame. “You’d be surprised how much I know about him—his name, for one thing, is Bill—”