Rainbow Cottage (18 page)

There came a cry from outside—Jacqueline hailing the Galbraiths merrily, flinging her cigarette to the feet of the lilies, and rushing forward with a flash of silver.

The little party moved to the door again, Grandmother in the background wondering what to do—what
could
she do?

Angus and Sheila moved together, smiling, speaking quietly, drawing near the door because that was the thing to do, yet reluctantly.

“Did you find my card?”

“Indeed I did. You dropped it under the lily where the hummingbird flew. And the little light burned brightly all the way down and showed me where it was.”

“Did the flashlight break?”

“No, it works beautifully.”

Then she remembered that she did not know what had become of the flashlight, and
suppose
he should want it back?

“I kept it for you—” she hesitated.

“Suppose you keep it in memory of our first meeting,” he said, looking deep into her eyes and thinking how like they were to those of the boy in blue hanging high in McCleeve Castle.

Suddenly Sheila felt other eyes upon her and, unwillingly looking out the door, saw Jacqueline’s dark look smoldering upon her with fury in its depths. Saw Betty’s eyes, too, with exactly the same smoldering look of fury in them as she looked at Jacqueline. It came to her that these two were struggling under the same feelings. Eyes could not have spoken plainer than Jacqueline’s did to her, than Betty’s eyes were speaking toward Jacqueline. And with a quick glance, she saw Malcolm standing there beside Jacqueline, idly smoothing the velvet on Jacqueline’s shoulder. Then looking up, he caught Sheila’s quick surprise and put out his hand to greet her, as ready to turn his attention to any other bit of cloth, or flesh.

But Jacqueline had been quick to seize an advantage. She turned to Angus eagerly. “Oh Angus, darling! Is it you? How simply precious! Do come out here and speak to me. Grandmother doesn’t approve of my outfit and won’t let me come in.”

She put her hand in and clasped Angus’s hand and drew him laughingly outside. Then shamelessly she slid her arm within his and walked off down to the wicket gate.

“Good-bye, folks,” she called cheerily. “Me and my boyfriend are going walking on the beach. Better all come along. The evening’s fine!”

Angus yielded to her compulsion reluctantly but laughed back wistfully, “Better come along, friends. I can’t help myself, you see!” he called.

Grandmother actually snorted, but nobody heard her. Each was too much engaged with his own feelings to notice the other. And Grandmother was very angry indeed. She was casting about in her mind to know just what she should do about Jacqueline. Would it be better to send for her father, or just to telephone Maxwell to come down and lay her out? Maxwell could do it if he would. He had a way with him that made people obey, and he never had liked Jacqueline.

But Malcolm Galbraith was not waiting for Grandmother to decide what to do. He seized Sheila’s hand and drew it within his arm.

“Come!” he said. “That’s a challenge! Let’s follow. You coming, too, Betts?”

“I’m walking with Madam Ainslee!” said Betty coldly, casting a smoldering look upon Sheila that startled her again. But she was being walked away so fast she had much ado to keep her step for the first few yards. Looking back in deep distress, Sheila saw Grandmother coming slowly down the path and out the wicket gate onto the sand with Betty Galbraith.

Where were they all going anyway, headed into the twilight along the alabaster beach beside an opal sea that was momentarily growing deeper azure, with here and there a star caught in its depths?

Sheila and her escort were well away from each of the other couples now, shut around by gathering shadows in a lovely misty intimacy. There was an exhilaration in walking in step with a strong man. Sheila had never done it before, but almost instantly her pleasure was at an end, for the hand that had pulled hers within his arm now slid along the fabric of her delicate sleeve, slipping over the smoothness of her arm, down to her wrist, folding her hand warmly in a close intimate clasp, and holding it, palm to palm.

Sheila drew back quickly, sharply, pulled at her hand with a sickening feeling of repulsion, and when he would not release her, said earnestly, “Don’t, please; I want to respect you and myself, too.”

“But what is there wrong about that, my dear? Why shouldn’t you respect me and yourself, too?”

“Would your wife like to see you holding my hand?” asked Sheila and gave her hand a final wrench from his clasp.

“What? Betts? Oh, she’s so used to that kind of thing that she wouldn’t think a thing of it. Does it every day herself. Nobody thinks a thing of that nowadays, child. Where have you been hidden? You’re delicious!” And he reached to capture her hand again.

But Sheila drew entirely away from him. “There are men where I have been that do those things,” she said gravely, “but I did not know that gentlemen did. I am sorry!” And she walked quite away from him.

“Oh, come now; if you feel that way about it I won’t touch you. Don’t go shy on me. Honestly I admire you a lot. Come, walk with me and tell me how you got this way. I never saw a girl like you before. You act as if I had insulted you.”

“I am accustomed to thinking of things like that as insults,” said Sheila sadly. “I did not expect to find them among nice people.”

“I’m hit! Forgive me, won’t you? I promise you I won’t offend that way again.”

“All right,” said Sheila soberly, “I’ll forgive you. But let us wait, please, for Grandmother and your wife. It is nice to walk all together, don’t you think?”

He laughed it off and waited with good grace. When they came up, he gracefully took Grandmother, walking beside her, and left Sheila to walk with Betty.

Betty’s smoldering eyes turned questioningly upon her as she fell into step with her and studied her in the moonlight.

“You’re not like other girls, are you?” she said suddenly. “I almost thought you were, but you’re not.”

“I don’t know much about other girls,” said Sheila sadly. “My mother was the only girl I knew well. Of course I went to school with other girls, but that was away out in the West near the desert. Some of them were nice enough, only we never saw much of each other except during school hours. We all lived very far apart, and I—never went anywhere much.”

“Weren’t you bored to death?” asked Betty wonderingly.

“No,” said Sheila gravely. “I had my work, and I had my mother. I’d gladly go back to it for the rest of my life if I could have my mother again.”

“Where is she?” asked Betty. “Divorced?”

“Oh, no!” said Sheila in a shocked voice. “She’s gone to heaven.”

“Oh! Heaven!” sneered Betty out of a great gloom. “What makes you think there is such a place?”

“Because the Bible says there is,” answered Sheila with conviction.

“The Bible? I didn’t know anybody believed in the Bible nowadays. It’s just a collection of mythical literature, isn’t it? That’s what they taught us in college.”

“I never went to college,” said Sheila, “but if they teach that, I wouldn’t want to go because I wouldn’t give up the Bible for all the learning in the world. I never knew much about it till recently, but I know enough now to realize that I want to know a lot more.”

“You’re stranger than I thought you were,” remarked the young woman of the world. “What makes you care so much for the Bible?”

“Because it has answered some of the questions of my heart. Because it has given me the truth about being saved.”

“Saved?” echoed Betty and laughed.

“Yes, saved. A chance to be at home with God someday!”

“Mercy! I never thought God had a home!” remarked Betty bitterly. “I thought all God did was punish people for wanting to have good times.”

“Oh, it isn’t like that at all! He loves us and is getting ready a home for us, a mansion. Didn’t you ever learn about the many mansions? ‘Let not your heart be troubled’ and the rest of it?”

“Goodness no! I never even had a Bible!”

“My mother read it to me and made me learn a lot of chapters when I was a child.”

“Well, perhaps that’s what makes you so different from everybody else. But I’m not sure I’d like to be like you. I’m terribly sick of being like myself. I’m coming to see you sometime when you are all alone, and you can tell me more about it. Maybe I’ll read the Bible, too, if it could only make me happy.”

“I’d love to have you come. I’ve got a little book Grandmother gave to me to read that helps me understand things. We might read it together.”

“Does that other girl, Miss Lammorelle—she’s your cousin, isn’t she?—does she read the Bible, too?” There was a sneer in Betty’s voice that brought quick sympathy from Sheila.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I don’t really know her very well. I never saw her till this afternoon. Yes, I guess she’s a cousin but very distant.”

“Well, let me know if you find out. If she reads the Bible, I don’t want to. I’ve been watching her and I’ve been watching you. Here come the others. Now we can’t talk anymore. But I’m coming down to see you soon. I’ll call up and see if you are free.”

The others came up just then and there was no more opportunity for talk between them, but for the moment Sheila found herself free to think her own thoughts.

Were men all like that as Betty’s husband had said? Did they think nothing of fondling any girl’s hand? Was Angus Galbraith like that, too?

Even with her little experience, Sheila could see that Jacqueline would have no scruples against such things. Well, probably it was all true. Nobody thought anything of intimacies nowadays. But if that was true she would like to stay in a world where there was no social order. She would stay at home with Grandmother. She hated such things. Malcolm Galbraith had linked himself in her mind with Buck and his kind when he tried to caress her arm and hold her hand. She was disappointed in him. She told herself she was disappointed in all men.

But really in her heart she was thinking of Angus. Did he do things of that sort? Very likely he did. He went off with Jacqueline, didn’t he?

Well, she was glad she had found it out before she knew him very well. It wouldn’t matter so much now that the little flashlight with his card attached was gone. How foolish she had been to attach any special interest to a man whom she had met for only a very few minutes. He had done those few stunts in his plane just to be amusing and kindly. What a little silly she was to keep thinking of him continually. Well she would stop it at once!

And then Angus Galbraith deliberately turned away from Jacqueline and came over to her. He was carrying a lovely shell in his hand, and he brought it and laid it in her hand.

She caught a dart of anger from Jacqueline’s hard black eyes as she turned to take the shell, but Angus was facing her so that he stood between them, and she promptly forgot Jacqueline and her own resolves and became absorbed in the story he had to tell about the shell. There was something in the way he came that seemed to try to say to her that it was not his wish to go away at all. But probably that was the way every man who tried to be a gentleman treated every girl with whom he spent a few minutes. It was perhaps just a way of flattering them.

Nevertheless, her heart grew warm and pleasantly happy while she talked with him, and the rest of the evening sped away on charmed wings.

It was after they were all gone that the time of reckoning came.

Jacqueline had been blithe with banter toward both men as they stood in the doorway for farewells, but when they were out of hearing, she turned around, retribution in her eyes.

Grandmother had disappeared into the kitchen to give some directions for tomorrow to Janet, and for the moment the two girls were alone.

“So that’s your game!” said Jacqueline with a hard line in her lips and a hard glitter in her black eyes. “Well, you can just lay off, understand? Angus Galbraith is
mine
, and I’ll take pains to make it too hot for you to stay here if you have anything more to do with him.”

Sheila looked at the angry girl in amazement.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said coldly. “I’m not playing any game, and I have no desire to take Angus Galbraith or anybody else away from you. I met him before I went away to Boston, and we naturally talked together, but not any more than I would talk with anyone who called.”

“I don’t care to discuss it with you,” said Jacqueline in the tone of a person in authority speaking to a menial. “I’m just telling you that you’re to lay off Angus Galbraith. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry, that’s all.”

“I don’t like your expression,” said Sheila with a steady look, “and since I haven’t done anything that is wrong, your warning doesn’t seem to mean anything to me. If I happen to meet Mr. Galbraith again, I shall probably treat him just as I have been doing. I don’t see that my conduct was any different from yours. You walked down the beach with his cousin, and he is
married
. Why should I not walk back with the other cousin? I didn’t ask him to walk with me.”

“Oh, shut up!” said Jacqueline angrily. “You needn’t try to pretend to me that you’re not hipped on him. I know the signs. Girls don’t hide away calling cards with cheap flashlights tied to them if they haven’t got some scheme up their sleeves. And I’m just telling you that it won’t be very pleasant for you if you go poaching in my preserves. Try it and see!”

Sheila’s cheeks flamed, but she kept her steady look. “So you know where the rest of my things are, do you?” she said quietly. “Very well. I know what to expect.”

Jacqueline made an elfish grimace and suddenly turned and fled up the front stairs as lightly as a bird. Sheila could hear her close her door and lock it.

Sheila went over to a chair in a dark corner by the fireplace and sat down with her burning face in her hands. She felt as if she had been dragged lower in the last few minutes than she had ever been in her life before. And there wasn’t a thing she could say unless she gave vent to her primitive feelings and challenged her hateful cousin to a fistfight. She was fairly frightened at the feelings that surged in her angry heart, and bright tears of fury stung in her eyes. How was she ever to get along here with this awful girl? She felt so degraded by what had been said to her that it seemed as if she just must run away and hide somewhere. Then she heard Grandmother calling to her from the head of the stairs, and she quickly brushed the tears away and went up.