Blue Ruin

by Grace Livingston Hill

  The grandmother smiled her rare smile, but she did not ask questions, although she knew that something unusual was disturbing Elim. She was one of those wise ones who had learned to keep her mouth shut on trying occasions. She had her own reservations, and she respected other people’s. That was why Elim trusted her and chummed with her, and why he often told her things he wouldn’t even tell “the fellas.”

  But this was one of the occasions when he did not tell Grandmother. What had happened that afternoon would worry Grandmother Rutherford beyond words to describe. Grandmother Rutherford was aristocratic, and Grandmother Rutherford was religious. She would have thought that Dana had lowered himself to companion with that little cheap, painted girl, and she would have thought that he had let down very far in his principles to have done what Elim had seen him do. She would have felt the humiliation intently for the family, too, as well as on her granddaughter’s account, and Elim did not mean she should find it out, at least not while she was under his charge; so he whistled instead of telling her, though he was bursting to explain his particular new grudge against the young man. New York was too near yet, and Lynnie not on board the ship. Who knew but Dana was already on his way to bring Lynnie back? He was perfectly capable of it, and of doing it with a high hand. And Lynnie might be just fool enough to give in and come. Girls were that way. They liked to be ordered around. Caveman stuff!

  Well, if his sister did anything like that he would tell her. He would tell her everything!

  He wasn’t sure but he ought to tell her anyway!

  He contemplated the idea of calling her up on the telephone, now, before Dana could possibly get to New York, and telling her everything. Only there were so many prying females on the line he was positive it would be all over the neighborhood before morning. Perhaps it might be a good thing for Dana if it would get around, but the trouble was, Lynette was so mixed up with Dana that one couldn’t suffer without the other being dragged in. Good night! What was he to do? If only Muth was home. He’d tell her quick enough! Yes, Muth had better know at once.

  But Elim, in spite of his worries and responsibilities, managed a good-sized supper of delicate trout and fried potatoes, and many flannel cakes swimming in syrup and washed down by plenty of creamy milk.

  After supper he helped wash up the dishes, but he took each dish with him to the dining room china closet as he wiped it and managed to keep a weather eye out toward the Whipple house and a keen ear for the sound of Dana’s car.

  They carried out their program as Grandmother Rutherford had announced it. They played checkers until eight o’clock, and then they read aloud. At least Grandmother read aloud, and Elim sat where he could see the Whipple driveway through the window and listened. Listened both to the story that was being read and for the car that did not come.

  At nine o’clock they went to bed, Elim on the couch, which he insisted on having so arranged that he could see out the window.

  Grandmother went to bed and to sleep.

  Elim went to bed and lay with his eyes wide open looking out the window and getting madder and madder.

  Snipe went to sleep in the kitchen.

  The mouse in the tin closet came out and peaceably nibbled away at the crumbs Snipe had left on his supper plate, without disturbing him, and then he went back to his work of gnawing a hole from the tin closet into the pantry where the bread box was kept, but Elim lay and thought.

  The clock struck ten. It struck eleven. It struck twelve. It struck one! Still Dana’s car had not come back. Could it be possible that Elim had missed it? He had been on the alert every minute since he had seen the car go away.

  Had the flapper gone away with Dana? Gone to some party or show or something? No, for he had watched the lights in the house go out. Grandmother Whipple’s room on the first floor, Dana’s mother’s room, Justine Whipple, he knew them all, and the very last to go out was the guestroom in the second story front. He could see two figures distinctly moving about for some minutes before they pulled down the shade. No, the flapper had not gone with Dana. Dana must have gone to New York! Dana must have driven to New York!

  Gee! What should he do?

  Gee! He believed he’d slip out into the hall and get the telephone in the closet and call Muth. Gramma was asleep, she wouldn’t hear him. Muth oughtta know what Dana Whipple was. The old cats were all asleep now, nobody would be listening in. He believed he would call Muth.

  And then, just as he was raised softly up on one elbow and had begun to move one bare foot out to the carpet, carefully, so the old couch wouldn’t creak, he heard the quick throbbing of an oncoming car, saw a long shaft of light come piercing up the road, and in a moment more, Dana’s car shot into the Whipple drive and up to the garage. He heard the stopping of the engine, saw the lights of the car go out, and in a few minutes more got the twinkle of a light in Dana’s room. Then he crept back under the covers and lay down with a sigh. Dana hadn’t gone to New York after all. But what had Dana done? And what would Dana do next?

  What Dana did next was to come downstairs in the morning wearing his pleasantest manner and making himself most agreeable to everybody.

  Justine looked at him suspiciously. Was he planning to go off with Lynette again today and desert Jessie Belle? If he did, most likely Jessie Belle would carry out her threat, which Ella Smith had confided to her during the gloomy evening while Dana was off scouring around the country with his ill temper, and leave for New York. Ella Smith was most anxious that Jessie Belle should be appeased. She went around with her eyebrows drawn up in anxiety, so nervous that she jumped if anybody spoke to her, and cast furtive, frightened glances at her offspring. Grandma Whipple told Amelia she reminded her of a wet hen crossing the road in front of an automobile.

  Justine also had her own reasons for wishing Jessie Belle to remain. She wanted to take down Lynette and show her that she didn’t own Dana.

  But Dana showed no signs of going off with Lynette. He didn’t go out, he didn’t call up, he didn’t even look up the road toward the Brooke house.

  The reason for it came out when Grandma Whipple reminded Amelia that she ought to call up and give the invitation if she expected Lynette to come to dinner that night. That was Grandma Whipple’s way of giving a command.

  Amelia opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again. She hadn’t intended to ask Lynette to dinner. She had trouble enough without making any more, she thought. Besides, she wasn’t altogether sure she wanted to bring Lynette into things yet.

  But Dana looked up sharply as she rose to obey her orders.

  “It isn’t worthwhile to call,” he said briefly, “Lynn’s away just now,” and he went on talking with Jessie Belle about a restaurant in New York which she said was positively the best in the city, barring none. Jessie Belle dearly loved to show off her knowledge of New York, which she considered the center of the universe. So, in fact, did Dana.

  Justine pricked up her ears and tried to get in a question about Lynette’s absence, but Dana managed to evade it and hurried out to get the car. He had invited Ella Smith and her daughter to take a ride and told Justine quite casually as he went out the door that she might come along too if she wished. He knew he would have to take her for a ride sometime and it might as well be over with. He whistled cheerfully as he went across the grass to the garage. Not that he felt lighthearted, just that he wanted to appear so. Besides, a whistle is penetrating. His had been known to reach as far as Lynette’s open window in times past. And it just might happen that Lynette had come home on the midnight train, after all. If she had, he wanted her to see that he was happy and paying no attention whatever to her whimsies. He had thoroughly convinced himself during the watches of the night that Lynette would return to her home not later than that evening, and he meant to give her three or four good long lonely days to recover from her escapade before he condescended to visit and forgive her. In the meantime he would play around with Jessie Belle. Not that he cared for any more of Jessie Belle’s socie
ty. She was a vapid little devil! But one had to do something, and meantime why not gain experience? Jessie Belle was in the line of education and experience. One had to have experience to preach well.

  He had been strongly tempted to run down to New York last night in spite of all his common sense and indignation and do the caveman act, pick up Lynette bodily and carry her off back home. In fact, he had actually gone nearly sixty miles on the way, but had finally been able to control his foolishness and turn back. It would only have meant an endless giving in to Lynette all the days of his life, and that was not to be thought of.

  But now that morning was here, his sentiment or foolishness or whatever it was had fled. He was positive Lynette would be home during the day, and he went about as cheerfully as possible, filling in the time until he could with reasonable dignity go to her.

  It was a radiant morning, and Jessie Belle looked more than ever like a blue flower.

  In the house Ella Smith was fearfully protesting. She was afraid of automobiles, but more than that she was afraid of Jessie Belle. She wanted to stay quietly in her room and read and try to forget what that wild child of hers might do next. She wanted to shut her eyes and hide her head and be comfortable a little longer before some kind of cataclysm arose that should destroy them all.

  But Justine would not have it so. For one thing, she knew Dana would never allow her to go along unless Ella went, too, so she nagged her upstairs for her hat and coat, and nagged her quickly out to the car, and they started off, Ella Smith huddled miserably in a corner of the backseat, watching an approaching truck with eyes that fairly bulged with apprehension.

  In her window in the dining room, her trusty crutch at her side, sat Grandmother Whipple cackling out her rusty laughter at their expense.

  “It only needs you, Amelia, to complete the party,” she chuckled. “The wet hen is all in a flutter. She’d rather cross the street and get run over by one than ride in one and get scared to death. Why don’t you go, Amelia, and let ‘em have a little common sense aboard?”

  Amelia cast a withering glance at her tormentor and stalked silently out to the kitchen with a pile of plates to be washed.

  When she came back Grandmother Whipple chuckled out another sentence.

  “You ought to have taken my advice last night and got in your invite to Lynette before she ran away. I must say she shows more sense than I thought she had, and she’s got a good deal. Maybe she thinks ‘give a man rope enough and he’ll hang himself.’ Anyhow she’s gone! Know how long she’s going to be away, Amelia? Just for the day, or longer? If I was you I’d go over and leave the invite for her. Maybe her mother’ll telephone it to her and she’ll come home. It would be a good scheme to have her here when they get back. I’d like to see that little devil’s face when she sees her.”

  Amelia’s lips set in a hard, thin line, and she walked heavily around the table clattering the dishes together in stacks.

  “No, I don’t know anything about her plans,” she said crossly, “and what’s more I don’t intend to invite her—ever—maybe! You’ve invited that hussy here, now you can take the consequences. If that’s the kind of a girl you want Dana to get mixed up with, with his prospects and all, why I suppose you’ll have your way. You’re financing him. I’m only his mother, not fit to wipe his shoes on, and poor at that! My hands are tied. I can’t do a thing! But I won’t be a party to bringing Lynette Brooke here on top of it. She wouldn’t ever come again, I’m sure of that, with that made-up brat making eyes at Dana and smirking around and snubbing everybody else. Ella-ing her own mother, too! I declare it makes me sick! I don’t know as I’ll be able to get dinner, I’m so disgusted!”

  Grandma chuckled.

  “Oh, Jezebel’s all right in her place,” she cackled. “A place for everything and everything in its place. She’ll serve a purpose for a while. We’ll see how it turns out.”

  “Well, her place isn’t here, I’m sure of that!” snapped Amelia. “I wouldn’t like to state where I think it is.”

  Grandma chuckled more than ever at that.

  “You mean New York, I suppose. Amelia, I hope you don’t mean anything worse than New York.”

  Amelia stalked offendedly to the kitchen and from that shelter retorted, “I don’t make a practice of swearing, though you do try to turn everything against me.”

  Grandma cackled to herself a great many times that morning, and along toward noon when Amelia came in to set the lunch table she said, “Amelia, you’re a good old soul, and I do torment you a lot, but haven’t you ever figured out that there’s sometimes sense behind what I do? Ever hear how they find out whether gold is real or not? They put it in the fire. That boy of yours needs a good hot test or two to take the dross out of him before he gets to be a great preacher and gets his head turned, or his Grandfather Whipple will turn over in his grave and send down some kind of a curse on him. I’ve seen it coming. I didn’t go to get this Jezebel in the house; I wasn’t just sure what she might be. But since she wanted to come it kinda seemed providential. Now she’s here, let Dana take his test. If he ain’t fit for the great work you an’ I and his grandfather been tryin’ for years to push him into, if he ain’t strong enough to stand the test, he ain’t fit for a preacher. There’s more’n one Jezebel in the world, and he’s bound to meet ‘em. I guess you don’t need to worry.”

  Amelia stood with her large, capable hands resting on her hips, a desperate look on her face, while this speech was being delivered. Now she considered, with set resigned lips.

  “All right,” she said at last, “gimme that old Whipple breast pin of yours! I wantta put it in the fire and see if it’s real!”

  Grandma chuckled heartily, her eyes twinkling with appreciation.

  “You’re smart, Amelia!” she said. “Do you know that? You have times when you’re real cute and amusing. Don’t I smell those beets burning? You better look after ‘em. I think I’ll take a nap.”

  Chapter 15

  The train drew into Grand Central Station, and Dorothy Reamer rushed at her aunt and cousin and fairly overwhelmed them in her delight.

  “Oh, you precious dears!” she screamed, regardless of bystanders and curious passengers. “I knew you’d come! I knew it! I knew it! If you hadn’t I was ready to jump overboard tomorrow with despondency. Come on, hurry up! Mother is in the car, and Daddy’s waiting to get my telephone that it’s all right before he has the passports changed. He’s got it all fixed up so that Lynn can take Cousin Marta’s. Now come on quick, for there’s heaps and heaps to do before the stores close. Mother wants you to help her select some last things. Will you have to go up to the house first, Aunt Mary? Are you tired? Sure? Well, the house is all swathed in covers, of course, and it looks like a ghost. We were planning to take lunch downtown and not go back till the shopping is all done. Are there any more bags? Here, porter! Take these out to the car!”

  She overwhelmed them with her plans and swept all thought of home and problems out of their minds. It was as if they had suddenly landed on another planet where the laws under which they had been living before did not obtain.

  The handsome car awaited them, and Aunt Hilda greeted them with joyful affection. Something cold and tremulous suddenly swept out of Lynette’s heart, and life seemed to pulse on again. After all, there was a whole day before the ship sailed, and lots of things can happen in a day.

  Who could help being interested in such a heaven-sent trip and such a day of delightful shopping? There was an evening dress to be purchased, and a coat. Mother Brooke insisted on that. Lynette needed a new hat, too, and since the fiat had gone forth that there was not much baggage to be taken across, she could indulge her taste a little more leniently in the things she had to purchase.

  The morning became suddenly glad.

  The day in the woods, theological differences, and little made-up flappers became as a dream. Even her birthday was forgotten. What was one birthday more or less anyway? She was going out to see the world! Her hear
t grew suddenly light.

  Lynette stepped off with Dorothy to get fitted for shoes and her mother looked after her with a sigh of relief. The smile she wore was Lynette’s own dear happy one. Perhaps the hurt had not gone so deep yet. Or was the child counting too much on Dana’s coming down tonight?

  They separated for a while to expedite their shopping and met at two o’clock for lunch.

  “I just telephoned Dad’s office and he says everything is fixed,” announced Dorothy. “They didn’t kick at anything, even the change in staterooms. Wasn’t it lucky the corner one on the other side of you was vacant, Mother? Funny why Cousin Marta insisted on the other one away off at the other end of the boat. But I thought it was fun. I hate to be treated like a child, and now I suppose Mother will watch up every night to see what time you and I turn in, Lynn.”

  She made a comical wry face and pounced on the menu card.

  “I’m going to have lobster salad and café parfait,” she announced defiantly, looking at her mother.

  “Oh, Dorothy!” protested her mother, “I’m just sure you are going to get sick before we leave and hold up the whole expedition.”

  “Oh, rot!” said Dorothy inelegantly. “I never get sick. Lynette what are you going to have?”

  Lynette came back from a glance around the big, beautiful tearoom and gave attention to the menu, the happy smile still on her lips.