Fair Tomorrow

by Emilie Loring

“Why didn’t you tell me your suspicions?”

  “Don’t bite, Mallory. Who knew that you were interested in the case? Each time I met you in this tidepool you were zealously preferring a blonde. Thought that was why you came to the village.”

  From under her lashes Pamela observed the tightening of Scott’s lips. Why didn’t he deny that implication about Hilda Crane? Only one answer to that, — he couldn’t, and tell the truth.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You knew I was counsel for the defense.”

  Philip Carr abandoned boyishness as he might an outgrown garment. His face was colorless, his eyes were hotly indignant as he answered his father.

  “Can you see me coming to you with any confidence? Honestly now, can you? You would have made me feel that I was a fool. You may be a demon at law with an uncanny nose for scenting out the truth in a case, but you go blooey when it comes to knowing your own son.”

  “Phil!” Mrs. Carr protested faintly.

  He pressed her hand against his cheek. “It’s all right, Mother. He’s had it coming to him for some time.”

  He smiled at his father; Phineas Carr’s fingers clinched on his coat lapel. “Now that is off my chest I will proceed with the saga of the kidnapping of the fair Milly, if you can call it kidnapping when the victim is rarin’ to go. When Hale said at the close of court yesterday that he would present one more witness in the morning, Terrence and I were sure he meant Milly Pike. I had seen him scowl at her when she came into the courtroom. Hitty Betts had reported that the girl had been talking to Mr. Leigh. That didn’t look good to us. We didn’t know to what she was prepared to swear, but we determined to put her where she couldn’t swear to anything — unless at me.”

  “Do you know the penalty for tampering with a witness?”

  Philip shrugged. “Don’t roar, Judge. Of course I do. You understand, don’t you, Mother? I wanted to help Pamela, the girl I am going to marry.”

  Pamela’s senses whirled like a merry-go-round gone mad, steadied. Her eyes flashed to Scott Mallory. Had he exclaimed before he turned to stare down into the fire, or had she imagined it? With a joyous croon, Mrs. Carr flung her arm about her.

  “My dear! My dear! Is it true? I am the happiest woman in the world. Now I have someone to whom to leave my pearls!”

  Pamela’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, her throat dried, her eyes were drawn to Phineas Carr as by a magnet. His seemed to bore into her soul before he looked at his son. He understood, thank heaven! He knew that Phil was taking her love for granted.

  “This is joyous news, Philip — but, don’t misunderstand me, my boy, when I ask you to finish the saga of the fair Milly, before we — we — offer our sincere congratulations — if — they are in order.”

  His voice was affectionately friendly. His wife regarded him with wistful radiance, his son, incredulously.

  “I can’t believe it is you, sir, speaking as one gentleman to another. There isn’t much more to it. Terry and I had sniffed smoke where there was no fire. When I pinned the girl down to confession she admitted brassily:

  “‘I’ve got a crush on Terry Leigh. All the girls in the village got their Academy boyfriend. They bet me I couldn’t get him. I bet I could. Only excuse I had to go up to the Leigh place was to get eggs. I talked to his father when I couldn’t see him.’ Her tone was nasty as she added, ‘I’m off him for life. He set the rooster on me. Anyway, there’s someone else I like much better.’ So there you are! I’m a flat tire. I spent my day kidnapping a witness who wasn’t a witness after all. If you had needed more proof that I was not cut out for the legal profession, Father, you’ve got it in the way I dug for evidence where there wasn’t any. Now, we’ll talk about Pam and me — and the stage settings.”

  Scott Mallory abruptly flung his cigarette into the smoldering wood-coals. His face was white, his smile twisted.

  “Then this is where a mere outlander makes his exit. I’m off to New York tonight for a few weeks, Mr. Carr. Upon my return we will settle up the details of this cause celebrer

  “Just a moment, Mallory. I’ve been unjust so many times to Philip that I’m afraid he’ll misunderstand me now.” Phineas Carr steadied his voice. “Happy as I would be if it were true, Miss Pamela has not yet corroborated Philip’s statement. For a recently engaged girl she seems singularly disturbed.”

  Pamela was only dimly conscious of Mrs. Carr’s shocked, “Phin!” She looked at Scott Mallory. His expression was cold as the Arctic pole and about as remote. A lot he cared if she were engaged to Philip Carr. Hadn’t Phil said that he had been preferring Hilda? She could change the pattern of her life by accepting Philip — his mother’s pearls — but, she didn’t want a man, any man, in her life. Fifty thousand dollars of her own! She had forgotten that, forgotten that there need be no more cooking or catering or serving for her. She smiled at Philip Carr as she shook her head.

  “I am sorry. I —”

  “Hi, Pam!”

  Terrence hailed her from the threshold. “I told Mr. Carr at the court-house I’d come for you at five. Phil, I nearly laughed my head off when I found you’d lit out with a witness what wasn’t a witness. We were some little detectives, been over-feeding on mystery stories, what? I hear the second Mrs. Leigh’s counsel walked out on her. Been hanging round the post-office to get the dope on what people were saying. They are strong for you, Pam.”

  Pamela linked her arm in his. She blinked furiously to keep back tears as she looked up at him, he was such a dear.

  “Terry — Terry!” She swallowed a sob of sheer excitement. “You may practise your curve! You may fire every egg through the barn window! Father has deposited fifty thousand dollars with Mr. Carr for you.”

  Her brother flung a protecting arm about her shoulders, his eyes were terrified, his face colorless.

  “Pull yourself together, Pam! I knew this strain would get you if you didn’t have a change of scene. Father’s crack-up, Cecile’s get-away, creditors hounding, patrons fussing. Cooking! Cooking! Cooking! Keeping the old frog kicking! Round and round. It’s the treadmill that gets the farmers’ wives. Cheer up, Pam, everything’s going to be all right. Mr. Scott, you tell her!”

  Scott Mallory put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, his eyes were unashamedly full of tears, his voice husky.

  “Steady, Terrence. Your sister is stating facts. Evidence at the trial brought out the fact that your father has been hoarding a fortune in rare stamps. Today his agent, Brown, bought enough of them to enable him to repay you and Pamela the money your mother left you.”

  Terrence went limp. “Do you mean it? Do you mean that Father will go on his own again?”

  No thought of what the money would mean to him, merely an overwhelming sense of freedom from his father’s incessant fault-finding. Pamela herself knew that sense as of a spirit uncaged.

  “Milly Pike, who be you, to tell me whether I can come into this house or not? Get out of my way, an’ stay there.”

  With the last word Mehitable Betts appeared on the threshold. Her pansy bonnet was awry, a gray shawl dragged from one shoulder, she gripped a straw suitcase. Mrs. Carr nodded dismissal to the angry-eyed, pink-frocked maid, who hovered behind her. Phineas Carr pushed forward a chair.

  “Come in, Miss Betts. We must have been waiting tea for you.”

  The gaunt woman straightened like a martinet. Sniffed.

  “I won’t take tea. I came to give notice to Pamela.”

  Again! Pamela sighed, remembered that it didn’t matter. Every reservation had been cancelled. The “Closed” sign would remain out until one-time patrons forgot the Silver Moon. She was sorry in a way, making good had been thrillingly interesting. Quite from force of habit, not because she thought it of importance, she inquired:

  “What is the matter now, Hitty?”

  “Matter!” Miss Betts dropped her suitcase with a thud, the better to hitch her spectacles into place. “Matter! Your father’s second wife’s up at the house with him!”

 
“What!” Pamela and Terrence united in the exclamation.

  Miss Betts’ lips puckered satisfaction. “Land’s sake, I thought you’d be surprised. They’re up there on the porch. That smart parrot knows something irregular’s going on. When he isn’t tooting like an auto horn, he’s shivering and ruffling his feathers and croaking ‘Goo’ bye! Goo’ bye!’”

  “Are — are they talking together — like friends?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call her conversation friendly, Pamela, I’d call it mushy. He didn’t look’s though he was considering poisoning her, either. She’s trying to get him again, I guess. I heard her say, ‘Motoring in England would set you on your feet, Harold. Let’s go.’ You ought to see that dog of yours, Terry. Lying on the grass, head on his paws, dejected like, as though he couldn’t bear life another minute.”

  Terrence chuckled. “It sounds domestic enough, Hitty. What sent you flying off the handle?”

  The glare of outraged Miss Betts should have withered him.

  “Domestic! Your Pa comes to me and he says, lordlike,

  “‘Mrs. Leigh will be here for supper, Hitty. Serve it on the porch.’ I looked at him an’ I says. ‘I was working for Pamela. I’m leaving this minute.’ He just raised his brows in that way he has and walked out. As I was reaching for my hat I heard him say,

  “‘Pamela’ll be here soon and she’ll get supper for us, Cecile.’”

  For one terrifying instant Pamela thought her mind would snap from fury. Every ship in the room seemed to be flying along under bellying sails. She struggled to piece her voice together, it came raggedly.

  “I get supper for them! With a cheque for fifty thousand dollars in my pocket! I won’t go back to Grandmother Leigh’s house while Cecile is there. She can cook. I’m through! Terrence, go to the Inn and stay until you hear from me. I’m going away by myself to — New York — I’ll stay with Madge Jarvis! No, Phil, don’t touch me! I haven’t gone crazy, though I may sound so. Your father understands. Ask him. Don’t be afraid of him. Tell him at once what a hit your settings have made. He will be so proud of you. I don’t love you. I’m sorry. I don’t love anyone except — except Terry.” She stopped at the door.

  “Thank you all for what you have done for me. I — I’ve just got to get away!”

  Her heart was pounding, her breath came as if she had been running as she jumped into the sedan. She threw it into gear and sent it roaring along the drive.

  Chapter XXIII

  The road stretched ahead, silken smooth, between spreading fields already slumbering in the rosy afterglow. On the crest of a miniature hill Pamela stopped the car. Over the tops of a clump of scrub oaks she could see the dunes, humped like papier mâché shapes against a darkening sky, with foaming shallows at their bases. Houses, which looked for all the world like gigantic marshmallows scattered in a genie’s flight, dotted the foreground. A lovely village, a village to return to, not one in which to spend one’s youth.

  She drove on. A rim of burnished copper hung on the far horizon for an instant before it dropped out of sight. With its passing, familiar objects and sounds took on an unexpected strangeness. She passed the courthouse. How gray and stolid! What stories it could tell of the meting of justice, perhaps the defeat of justice. Lengthening shadows, unearthly flickers where gold-washed leaves stirred restlessly under a caressing breeze. Murmur of little night-prowlers awakening in wood and field. Carpets of moss. Maze of willows. Paths through lush meadows worn by plodding feet. Darting birds. Munching cows gazing with ruminative eyes. Old horses going coltish in their hind legs. A church bell summoning the faithful. Happy-go-lucky cedar fences neither knowing nor caring whither they straggled, unmotivated as she was now.

  The road proved not so straight as she remembered. Was it because she was alone? Now that the tumult and the shouting within her had died down she would better check-up emotionally, her life seemed all loose ends. Where was she going? To New York, she had said. A frenzied determination to escape had shaken her when Hitty had reported Cecile’s presence at the Silver Moon with her husband. Had it been caused by jealousy? No. She still loved her father but she would rather not see him again until the memory of these last months had dimmed.

  A quick thinker, Cecile. Doubtless she had figured that as she had been discredited in the trial her best move was to be reinstated as Harold Leigh’s wife — now that she knew that he had money. They were waiting for Pamela to return to get supper for them, were they? If they waited for that they would starve! Oh, but they wouldn’t starve. Cecile could cook. And then — and then her husband could turn a postage stamp or two into a magic carpet to transport her to England. Steady! Why boil up over something which had passed?

  What had the Carrs thought of her outburst? With the question came a picture of the room she had left. Against a background of ships of every conceivable type and material, she visualized Mrs. Carr’s wistful face; Philip tugging at his small mustache, his expression crestfallen; Phineas Carr with fingers clutching his flower-bedecked lapel, watching his son with sympathetically understanding eyes; Terrence crimson with indignation; Mehitable Betts, her grim mouth clamped with satisfaction at the reaction to her announcement; Scott —

  At the imminent risk of ditching the car Pamela closed her lids tight. Even that didn’t shut out his eyes, they burned into her soul. Where had she taken the turning which had smashed their friendship? When Hilda Crane’s sister had dotted her life-line with an offer for the cottage? The plot-complex again!

  She forced her attention to her surroundings, glanced at the speedometer. She had driven fifty miles! She would stop for the night at the first attractive inn. She could make New York tomorrow. She had twenty dollars, some change in her purse and a cheque for fifty thousand. She must spend the cash carefully. Fifty thousand! Unbelievable! No more catering at the Silver Moon. In retrospect, even that didn’t seem so hard; hadn’t the Chowder House brought Scott into her life? She had liked her patrons, most of them. Nothing now between her and her chosen work. Life, liberty and the pursuit of plot-germs! At present her mind was as empty of ideas for stories and articles as a squeezed orange was of juice; but once she touched her typewriter they would come trooping along, she knew from experience. She was approaching a village. She looked at the gas-gauge. She would better stop and have the tank filled.

  A pleasant street. Gardens bordered and starred with spring flowers colorless in the twilight, filched of their fragrance by a moist breeze which scattered it prodigally. Nice old houses, their ancient glories mellowed by time and the absence of fresh paint. A little white church with presumably a dove-gray parsonage beside it. Its familiarity had a dreamlike quality. A garage!

  A man in greasy overalls hurried from the dark interior before she stopped the sedan. He touched a lock of rough hair, sunbursts of fine lines crinkled about his eyes as he smiled.

  “How much, Miss?”

  “All the tank will hold.”

  He disappeared behind the car. As she waited, she watched a brilliant star prick through an indigo sky, impale itself on the church spire where it hung like a bit of glittering tinsel on the top of a Christmas tree. Lovely night! Freakishly unreal, though; were it not for the odor of gasoline she would think she was living a dream, nothing unreal about the smell.

  The garage keeper’s concerned face appeared at the car window.

  “Say, Miss, yer tank’s leaking something terrible.”

  Existence shed its dreamlike quality to bump into facts.

  “How can it leak?”

  The man’s smile revealed teeth startlingly white in contrast to their begrimed setting.

  “I don’t know how it can, Miss, but it does.”

  “How quickly can you repair it?”

  He scratched his head contemplatively. “Run her into the shop. I’ll take a look.”

  Pamela regarded him thoughtfully. If she were a judge of human nature — she flattered herself that she was — the man was honest and respectable. He hadn’t dis
covered the leak merely to give himself work. She drove into the garage.

  From the top of a packing-box she watched him as, flat on his back, he poked around under the car with his flashlight. It was evident from his absorption that he was an engine addict.

  Her glance traveled round the dusky shop. One shelved wall was entirely given over to what might be generically termed “parts.” There were bunches of waste by the oily dozen; a gas-tank on wheels; grease and tire-rim machines; a battery-charger in the act of transfusion; new tires, a squad of them in a corner; boxes of tubes; a wrecked flivver, a complete and perfect thing of its kind. On a bench near the window reposed a pile of thick sandwiches and a steaming cup. Pamela’s eyes came back to the prostrate figure on the floor. Tank conditions must be serious to keep the mechanic there all this time. Lucky he had discovered the leak; else she might have been hung up between towns without food for man or beast, figuratively speaking.

  The thought set hunger gnawing. She had been unable to so much as taste the luncheon Hitty had provided. With the thought came the remembrance of Terrence’s laughter. What wonder he had “laughed his head off” when he visualized Philip Carr speeding away with a witness who wasn’t a witness? Later, Eddie Pike’s melodramatic accusation had entirely submerged the tea-party. She had been driving at supper time. She was hollow to her toes. She was entitled to be low in her mind; hunger set Terrence and his father prowling for someone to bite, it reduced her spirit to its lowest denominator.

  She slid from the box, circled a puddle of gasoline, jumped a water-hazard. She gently nudged the mechanic’s boot, shouted to make herself heard above his pounding and tapping.

  “How long will it take?”

  The man wriggled out, sat up. He wiped his hot face with a hand which left a sardonic streak from eye to nose. Not so good. After all, he didn’t look so dependable as she had thought.

  “Can’t tell yet, Miss. You’d better sit down an’ take it easy.”

  “But, I am starving. Any place near where I can get something to eat?”