by Peggy Gaddis
“I know that you’d never marry Bix.”
“Who said anything about marrying him?” Marise was still in a fury. “He’s fun to have around, and he never bores me, and I had some plans for him. And now he throws himself away on that little snippet.”
Alison clenched her fists hard in the pockets of her jacket and waited. She had long ago learned it was folly to try to argue with Marise at any time, especially at a time like this when she was obviously in a high rage. She had learned to sit quietly, bracing herself to ride out the storm.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” Marise flung at her furiously. “Start packing. I’m going down to the telephone to call Captain Stuart and have him get the yacht ready for us immediately. It’s at Charleston, and that’s not a very long drive. We should be there by dinner time.”
As always, she did not wait for an answer but flung herself out of the room and down the stairs, leaving Alison to stand wide-eyed in the center of the room for a long moment before she moved to start the task of assembling Marise’s belongings.
She had packed for Marise for so many years that now she did it automatically, her thoughts occupied elsewhere.
So now she was to leave Oakhill forever. There would never be a return. But it was not Oakhill that she would remember most of all; it was Sam Gillespie she would never forget, Sam Gillespie she would never see again. And at the thought something twisted in her heart so savagely that she all but cried out beneath the pain.
Suddenly she dropped the garments she was tenderly sheathing in tissue paper and went swiftly out of the house. She hurried along the path to Sam’s cottage, but without much hope that he would be there this time of day, although it must be close to lunch time. She wasn’t quite sure why she had to see him; she only knew that she could not leave Oakhill without seeing him once more, if only to say goodbye.
She was at the gate, just pushing it open, when she heard the sound of hoof-beats and turned to see Sam riding up. Startled at the sight of her, he swung out of the saddle, leaving the reins dangling, and came swiftly toward her.
“Why, Alison, is anything wrong? No more wiggling sticks, I hope.” He was searching her white, convulsed face anxiously even as he tried to speak lightly.
“I wanted to say goodbye, Sam,” she told him huskily. “We’re leaving as soon as we can pack—all of us.”
“What happened?”
Alison’s white face was touched very briefly with a faint smile.
“Bix and Judy discovered they were in love with each other and got engaged,” she answered. And as Marise had not noticed Roger’s shock at the news, Alison was too caught up in her own problems to be aware that she had delivered a blow to Sam.
There was a moment of tense silence, while Sam’s jaws tightened until a small ridge of muscle stood out along one side. But Alison, unaware of his shock, went on hurriedly, “So you see, Marise wants to check out as fast as she can. And I wanted to say goodbye to you before I left.”
Sam said levelly, “You’re going, too?”
Startled, she asked, “What else can I do?”
“Nothing else, if that’s what you want to do.”
“But it isn’t what I want,” she all but pleaded for his understanding. “It’s just that there isn’t anything else I can do.” She added painfully, “Is there?”
“I would think so, after the training you’ve had with the Marise girl,” he pointed out quietly. “You’re a well-trained companion, and I’m sure there are many elderly or otherwise handicapped women able to pay well for the services of a trained companion.”
She was staring at him, wide-eyed, scarcely daring to hope yet wanting desperately to do just that.
“You really think I could earn my living that way?” she asked tremulously.
“Why not? And it should be much more pleasant than putting up with Marise’s whims and tempers.”
“Oh, Sam, if only I could stay here in this lovely, lovely place,” she said, and added quickly, “Oh, I don’t mean at Oakhill. I just mean somewhere near here.”
“I’m sure Miz’ Beth and Judy would be delighted to have you stay on at Oakhill until we can find you a permanent post with some pleasant person who would be glad to pay you an excellent salary for doing just what you’ve been doing, for free, for Marise,” Sam told her firmly.
Alison was radiant with hope now, and Sam studied her compassionately.
“Oh, Sam, do I dare?” she whispered at last. “I told you I’m a coward. It frightens me a little. And yet—oh, Sam, it would be so wonderful to be free! I’ve never been ever since I can remember.”
“Well, now’s your chance,” Sam told her with a heartening smile. “I don’t think you’ll ever regret it. There’s a great big wonderful world outside Marise Parker’s orbit. And it’s high time you found it.”
“Oh, Sam, maybe it is! Maybe it is!” she whispered.
“It’s true if you want it to be.”
She looked up at him, and there were tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Sam, you’re such a good friend! I don’t know what I would have done without you these past weeks!” she burst out impulsively.
Sam’s mouth twisted bitterly.
“Oh, that’s me all over—the good friend to whom you gals bring your problems for a solution—Judy as well as you. But you won’t either of you need me as soon as you get yourselves settled, and I’m sure you, as well as Judy, will do just that soon!”
Alison discounted the faint bitterness in his voice, too radiantly happy to be aware of it as she stammered, “Then this isn’t goodbye after all, is it?”
“Of course not,” Sam assured her. And now his smile was the familiar friendly one that had done things to her heart when first she had seen it. “Matter of fact, it’s sort of hello, isn’t it?”
“I like that!” she answered him radiantly.
“Hi, I just thought of something,” Sam said swiftly. “Remember that Andy Abbott we met at lunch in town the other day? He’s been trying to find someone to live with his mother, and I have a hunch he’d lunge at the chance to get you. She’s really a very nice person, but stubborn as a mule. Firmly refuses to leave her home and move into an apartment; and Andy worries about her being alone at night after the house servants are gone. Oh, they live on the place, but at the back, and Andy is fearful that his mother might need help and be unable to call them. Also, she is a woman who gets very lonely unless she has someone to talk to! I’m afraid she talks rather a lot, but she is kind and gentle and I think you’d like her. And I know she’d like you.”
“Oh, Sam, you really are a miracle worker! Suddenly I feel very brave, as if a whole new life were starting for me,” she breathed.
“It is, Alison, if you want it,” Sam assured her, his compassion growing as he saw the depth of her delight at the thought of escape from Marise. “I’ll telephone Andy, and if he hasn’t found somebody, I’ll drive you into town to meet his mother. I know Andy will jump at the chance to get you; he was quite taken with you at lunch the other day, remember?”
“I didn’t notice,” Alison answered quite honestly, and Sam’s brows went up ever so slightly.
“Well, I did.” He grinned warmly at her. “Now you scoot along and have lunch, unless you’d care to have it with me?”
“Thanks, I’d love to, but I have to finish packing for Marise, so they can get started. She’s alerting her yacht captain to have the yacht ready to sail at a moment’s notice, practically,” Alison answered. “But I’ll be ready to drive in with you if you think Mrs. Abbott would be interested in having me.”
“I’m sure she would, unless they have already found somebody, which I don’t think likely,” Sam told her, and watched as she went swiftly up the path and back to the Manor.
She moved lightly, as though there were wings on her heels, and he knew that those wings were provided by the knowledge that she was about to be free of Marise. And the thought was one that made him go into the house at last, with an angry
scowl drawing his brows together.
Amanda, watching him as he approached the table, said pleasantly, “I see that Miss Parker lady at the gate, so I set a place for her. Where is she?”
“Oh, she’s gone back to lunch at the Manor,” Sam answered. “She only came down to tell me something. The guests are leaving the Manor, and she wanted to say goodbye.”
“She’s leaving? I’m sorry to hear that. She seems like a real nice lady,” said Amanda.
“Oh, she’s not leaving. The others are,” Sam told her briefly.
Amanda’s chocolate-brown eyes widened, and she asked, “What’s she gonna do?”
“Oh, she’s going to find a job as a companion to some elderly woman who needs one,” Sam answered.
Amanda studied him curiously, and then she said, only half under her breath, “Hm!”
Sam looked up at her sharply.
“Now what’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“Just ‘Hm,’ Mist’ Sam, that’s all,” Amanda told him innocently. And as she went back to the kitchen, Sam heard her chuckling softly to herself.
Alison opened the door of Marise’s room and found Marise wreathed in cigarette smoke, a cocktail glass in her hand, her feet up on a big puff. Nothing had been done to complete the packing that Alison had abandoned. As she came in, Marise greeted her angrily, demanding to know where she had been. And without even waiting for her to answer, she went on to announce that the yacht would be ready to sail at noon the following day.
“So you’d better get busy and finish this packing, and you’ll have to hurry with yours,” Marise reminded her sourly.
Alison was folding a delicate wisp of peach-colored chiffon into its protective tissue. Without looking up, she said quietly, “Oh, I’m not going, Marise.”
Marise swallowed the last of the cocktail and stubbed out her cigarette in the tray beside her.
“Don’t be a fool, Alison. Of course you’re going,” she snapped. “We are all here because Bix invited us. That is, he invited me, and I was to bring my friends. So now that I’m leaving, all my friends are leaving, too. Now get on with it.”
“I’m not leaving,” Alison insisted. “Oh, I’ll be leaving Oakhill, of course. But I’m going to find a job in town and stay on here in the neighborhood.”
Marise stared at her in utter stupefaction.
“A job?” she repeated as though she could not believe the statement. “Now what kind of a job could you get, with no training whatever?”
Alison straightened and faced her.
“Oh, but I have been trained, Marise. And I suppose I should be very grateful to you for the kind of training I’ve had, that will make it easy for me to get a job, with a salary and certain privileges.”
“You should be grateful to me for a lot of things, but you have certainly never been, as far as I can see,” snapped Marise. “And what’s all this about a job with a salary and privileges? Where did you ever get that idea?”
“Sam knows somebody—”
“Sam? Sam Gillespie? That overseer?”
“He’s an estate manager, Marise, and even if he were only a plowman, he’s good and kind and I like him very much!”
“And a heck of a lot of good it will do you to like him! Why, he’s a confirmed bachelor. If he hadn’t been, he’d have tried to marry Judy!”
“But now that Judy is going to marry Bix—” Alison pointed out and saw the rush of angry color that stained Marise’s cheeks at the reminder.
“Oh, now that Judy is going to marry Bix, you think you’ve got a chance with the Gillespie person,” Marise sneered.
“I don’t think that for a moment, Marise,” Alison protested warmly. But Marise saw that she had flushed and her eyes were not quite clear. “Sam would never be interested in a girl like me. He’s a man who would expect his wife to be a good housekeeper and cook and—” Her voice trailed off into silence beneath Marise’s malicious eyes, and she turned away and resumed the packing.
Marise studied her for a long moment, and then she made a genuine effort to be pleasant and friendly.
“Alison, dear, you’ve gone overboard about this rural living,” she said gently. “And believe me, dear, you won’t like it. Oakhill will bore you stiff in a day or so, after we leave. It’s been fun and a novelty and amusing, as a novelty usually is. But believe me, the novelty will wear off the minute we leave you here alone. It’d be much better for you to come with us.”
“Thanks, Marise,” Alison said over her shoulder, busily packing. “But I don’t intend to stay at Oakhill. If Sam’s friend wants me as a companion for his mother—”
“A companion for his mother? Heavenly days, Alison, you’re not planning to be a companion to some old dodo; read aloud to her, take her pug dog walking, order the groceries, manage the house—Alison, dear, you’d go out of your mind!” Marise protested sharply.
Alison did not answer, and after a moment Marise’s effort to be pleasant vanished.
“And after all, Alison, I need you! You know I couldn’t manage without you.” But Alison turned her head, and the look in her eyes stopped the words on Marise’s lips and turned her sullen and sulky, as she finished, “Well, if you’ve your mind made up, I suppose there’s nothing more I can say, and it wouldn’t do any good anyway.”
“I have, Marise, and it wouldn’t,” Alison told her briefly.
Marise jumped to her feet and snapped, “Well, we’re leaving right after lunch, so if you change your mind, you can still come with us.”
She went out and banged the door violently behind her. Once she had gone, Alison dropped into a chair and put her hands over her face and sat very still.
It had been an unpleasant scene, for all its brevity; and she was momentarily uneasy because she was cutting herself adrift from all that she had previously known.
Finally she drew a long, shuddering breath, pulled herself to her feet and returned to the packing, just as there was a light tap at the door and it opened to admit Judy, carrying a laden tray.
“You didn’t come down for lunch, Alison, so I brought you some,” she announced as she put the tray down. “I’m sorry you’re all leaving, Alison.”
Alison smiled warmly at her as she tucked another bit of fragile lingerie into its place in the big suitcase.
“I’m not leaving, Judy. The others are, but I’m staying,” she announced. She added hastily, “Oh, I don’t mean here at Oakhill. Sam thinks he can help me find a job, so I’ll go in town and get a room somewhere.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Judy protested. “You’ll stay right here at Oakhill. We’ll love having you. And Oakhill is very nice in the summer, Alison. You know what a besotted critter I am about Oakhill, so to me it’s always nice. But I think you’d enjoy it in the summer especially.”
“I’m sure I would, and you’re a sweetie-pie to be willing for me to stay—”
“Willing? Who’s willing? I’d be tickled pink if you’d stay. We could have a lot of fun, you and Sam and Bix and I. Please do, Alison!”
“Thanks, Judy. But Sam thinks he may be able to find me a job.”
“Well, gosh, yes, of course. But you’ll stay here until he does,” Judy said in a tone that suggested there was no point in arguing the matter. “I’m sorry Marise worked up such a lather. But when she found she couldn’t have Bix after all, there was no further point in her staying. For she’s been bored stiff ever since she got here.”
She laughed softly. As she managed to coax Alison to settle down to the waiting lunch, she went on, “It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“Funny? You mean that she can’t have Bix?”
“Golly, no. And I don’t mean ‘funny, ha, ha.’ I mean funny, peculiar’ that Bix finally remembered me and the fact that we used to be in love with each other. And now that he’s remembered, he loves me. I think that’s pretty wonderful, don’t you?”
“The most wonderful thing in the world, Judy dear. I couldn’t be happier for you both. Bix is quit
e a lad. I worried about him a bit, because I was afraid he was getting all misty-eyed about Marise,” Alison admitted frankly. “But then he’d never been with her for as long as he has been down here, and he’d never really gotten to know her before.”
Judy nodded soberly.
“When she first arrived, I was blindly furious,” she answered slowly. “I thought I’d never seen such an unattractive set of people in my life, all except you and Roger. The others, including Marise, I couldn’t abide. But now I’m glad she came, so that Bix could see what she was really like.”
“She’s not the easiest person in the world to understand or to get along with,” Alison admitted ruefully.
Judy laughed. “Now that’s the understatement of this or any other year,” she mocked. “What kind of a job do you want, Alison?”
Alison grimaced. “I’m afraid, with my lack of business training, I don’t have much choice. Sam thinks that a Mrs. Abbott would be glad to have me come and live with her as a companion.”
“Andy’s mother? Oh, you’ll like her, Alison. She’s a lamb, a real old-fashioned Southern gentlewoman. Much as I hate to admit it, those are in rather short supply these days.”
“I just hope she will like me and that the job is still open,” Alison said.
“Oh, she’ll like you. How could she help it? And Andy took a shine to you that day in town, remember? He wanted to come calling that very night,” Judy reminded her.
“I liked him, too, as much as you can like a man you’ve barely met,” Alison agreed. “Sam is telephoning to see if Mrs. Abbott will see me this afternoon. If she will, then maybe—oh, just maybe—”
“She’ll like you, and you’ll adore her,” Judy insisted. “And anyway, you’ll stay here until Sam and I find a job we think is suitable for you.”
She turned toward the door and paused to say lightly, “And it may be very difficult for us to decide that a job is suitable for you, because until we do, you’re going to stay right here with us!”
Alison tried to thank her, but Judy said gaily, “Oh, shush, and eat your lunch. Mam’ Chloe is fit to be tied, because she wasn’t warned in advance that the guests weren’t staying on. I’d hate to think what her reaction would be if I took that tray back down to her and you hadn’t eaten every single bite.”