Romance Classics (53 page)

Carey took no part in the extensive alterations going on about the place. Now and then she caught her father’s eyes on her, puzzled, a little hurt, questioning. But she couldn’t talk to him; couldn’t answer that bewildered, silent questioning without admitting that Margaret got under her skin and that she couldn’t like her, no matter how hard she tried. She could only attempt to conceal it from her father.

Her father’s recovery was so nearly complete now that he spent long hours out of doors, glad to be away from the sound of hammers and voices that told of the refurbishing of the old house.

Gradually she and her father came to spend a great portion of those hours out of doors together, to Margaret’s scarcely concealed annoyance. Margaret’s manner towards Silas was growing more proprietary and she was taking less pains to hide her jealousy of Carey. But Carey set her teeth hard and made an heroic effort not to mind. After all, she reminded herself on those long, solitary walks, she was practically dependent on Margaret for the very food she ate.

Carey and her father had been putting in long, happy hours in the garden for the past two weeks now, clearing away debris, pruning the rosebushes, trimming the shrubbery and getting beds ready for planting the new seeds already ordered. Carey sat down here on a stile one evening and turned her face toward the meadow that dropped away to the brook beyond. From the orchard back of the barn there came a drift of fragrance that made the night more poignantly beautiful than ever. It was a beauty that made Carey want to cry.

“Oh, here you are, darling,” said her father’s voice.

With a little start she turned to face him as he came toward her down the path.

“What a night!” he exclaimed. “But — do you miss the street lights and the subways, baby?”

Carey was glad of the shadow of the giant live-oak tree above her, knowing that he could not see her face. She made an effort to steady her voice so that she could be brightly untruthful as she answered, “Miss the streetlights — when there’s a moon like that? And with Joel’s jalopy, how could I possibly miss the subway?”

Her father stood beside her, an arm about her, so that she leaned back against him, both of them facing that moon-silvered meadow, their faces caressed by the spring night.

There was a sound from the path behind them and Margaret’s voice spoke from the dusk, “Oh, is that you, Silas? I thought you had gone to bed. I’m afraid this night air is pretty damp for a semi-invalid. Don’t you think so, Carey?”

“Possibly,” said Carey, trying very hard to keep her resentment and dislike out of her voice and not succeeding very well. “Maybe you
had
better run along to bed, Dad. After all, if we’re going to put in six hours tomorrow transplanting those flats of seedlings Joel’s bringing us, you’ll need your beauty sleep.”

“And what about you, baby?” said Silas as he bent and kissed her.

“Oh, I’ll be in soon. I want to bask in this heavenly moonlight a while longer.”

Silas said good-night to her and to Margaret and went on into the house. Margaret watched him until the door had closed behind him. Then she turned to Carey and, with an uneasiness that was new to her, she said hesitantly, “I — I want to thank you, Carey, for not telling your father about my using my own money here.”

“I did it for his sake, Margaret — not for yours,” Carey assured her, her voice shaking a little. “We both know that if he knew the truth, he’d leave here immediately — and take me with him. Spending all this money on the place makes it more yours than his. And Dad isn’t much for accepting charity — especially from a woman.”

“I know,” answered Margaret with a humility that was entirely strange to her. “I’ve been pretty much of a beast to you, Carey — ”

“Oh, why talk about it? You and I are in each other’s hair, Margaret, and we’ll always be, just as long as we try to live under the same roof. But — under the circumstances, I don’t know anything we can do about it, do you?”

“There is, of course, something that can be done about it, if only you’d be sensible.”

“By being sensible you mean, of course, that I could marry Joel.”

“He’s madly in love with you,” Margaret said.

“It just happens that I’m not in love with him, however, and he’s much too fine a guy to be married just as a convenience. No, Margaret, I refuse to be shoved out of my home to make room for you. You came here of your own free will. And before you started spending your own money on this place — at your own free will, let me repeat — the place was mine and Dad’s. It’s my home and I’m staying, whether you like it or not.”

“Of course, Carey. Why are you so silly? I haven’t asked you to leave. I’ve only tried to make things comfortable for you and your father.”

“For my father, yes, and you’ve succeeded. That’s the only reason I’m letting you get away with all you’re doing. I’d fight you to the last ditch, Margaret — I’m warning you.”

“But why should you warn me? I want him to be happy as much as you do!”

“All right. Then what’s the scrapping about? I’ll keep out of your way as much as I can on condition that you offer me the same consideration. And I won’t tell Dad about the money — unless you try to put something over on me!”

“Then it’s a bargain,” Margaret said with relief.

“A bargain I’ll keep as long as you keep your share of it,” Carey assured her.

IT WAS several days later, while Carey was busy in the garden setting out the last of a flat of snapdragons, that she heard the familiar sound of Joel’s car. She looked up to wave a grubby trowel at Joel as he got out of the car and came across the lawn toward her.

She was on her knees on a pad made of oilcloth tacked over squares of an old matting rug. She wore a green smock that had absurd appliqued flowers on the capacious pockets.

Joel greeted her with his usual good humor, but she was conscious that there was a trace of a shadow at the back of his eyes as he sat down on the edge of the wheelbarrow and surveyed her with some amusement.

“Of course,” he observed as she dug a hole, placed a small seedling in it and drew the loose soil firmly about its tiny roots, “expert gardeners will tell you that transplanting should be done in the afternoon so that the seedlings will have the cool of the night to fortify them for the next day’s sun.”

“These fellows are so sturdy they won’t mind an hour or two of sunshine,” she boasted. “Anyway, Ellen Hogan, who gave them to me, showed me how to make an individual sunbonnet for each one of them out of newspaper. Give a look.”

She waved the trowel toward a neat row of covered snapdragons. Then she looked up at him and sank back on her heels. “What’s up, pal? Something resting heavy on the old mind?”

Joel was silent for a moment and then he looked straight at her. “I called on the railroad conductor — the one who is supplied with the metropolitan newspapers,” he said quietly. “There was an item in the most recent one I thought might interest you.”

Carey was very still, her eyes upon him, waiting. And yet, even before he spoke, she knew what he was going to say.

“Ann Paige is divorcing Norris,” Joel said simply.

Carey’s eyes dropped to the trowel that she was holding. Her heart had given a little startled lurch and then begun to beat thickly.

“So it’s like that,” said Joel after a long moment. “I realize now I was a fool to have hoped. But you see, I thought — well, I thought you’d got over him. You’re still in love with him, aren’t you, Carey?”

She set her teeth hard. Memory brought back that moment above the Hudson when for the first time her heart had given itself to a man.

Joel stood up, his face gray and set. “So he is to have you, after all,” he said thickly.

“Don’t be a fool!” Carey cried. “How — how do I know that I’ll ever see him again? He’s probably forgotten what I look like.”

“Don’t talk like a nut!” snapped Joel. “No man who had ever had the colossal good fortune to know your love could ever forget you. He’ll be here before the ink on his divorce is dry!”

Carey flung up her head. “Oh, Joel, do you think so?”

“I think so. I
know
so.”

He looked down at her for a moment and then he said harshly, “Well, Carey — this is where I came in — and it looks like where I go out. Anyway, it’s been swell knowing you. The best of luck. Maybe I’m a no-good for saying it, but I’ve a hunch you’re going to need all the luck you can get.” He stalked across the lawn and to his car without once looking back.

Carey remained where he had left her for a long time. And then she got to her feet, forgetting the last dozen or so of the tiny, ambitious seedlings. In her own room, she locked the door, flung the shades to the ceiling, letting in a flood of bright sunlight. In that merciless glow, she studied herself in the mirror.

Would Ronnie think she had changed? It had been so long since he had seen her. It seemed years — hard to believe that it had been only a matter of months. It was November when she had seen him last — and now it was April!

She studied herself with a sharp intentness. She was sunburned to a clear, pale gold; but it was becoming. Her hair curled naturally and she had shampooed it herself and tucked it into a roll low on her neck. She looked at her hands and winced a little. The nails were shaped but free of polish. There were unmistakable signs of work about her hands and she had gained a little weight, though not enough to endanger her figure really.

She began to change her clothes and when Margaret called her to lunch she was dressed to go into town. Margaret stared at her, puzzled.

“But you didn’t say anything about going into town, Carey,” she protested. “Is Joel taking you?”

“I’ll get the one o’clock bus from Midvale, and be back on the five o’clock. I’ll get a lift in to Midvale and back — ”

“But — why all this sudden interest in a trip to town?” exclaimed Margaret.

“That, I think, is my business, don’t you?”

For a moment the two women glared at each other. It was Margaret who turned away, her face scarlet, her eyes smoldering. But she said nothing more. Carey went out of the house and down the lane to the road. She was trembling with anger and distrust, with a bitter loathing for everything connected with this strange new life. She saw only the ugliness, the drudgery, the monotony. The spring-green country, the soft-scented breeze that hinted of lovely mysteries hidden deep in shadowy places no longer held allure. Ahead of her the road stretched, dark and gray and muddy, winding between new-ploughed fields. She caught her breath on a little wave of nostalgia for her old life.

A car slid up behind her and she turned to face a neighbor whose name she couldn’t recall. But his smile was friendly and his invitation to ride was one that she accepted gratefully. Throughout the short drive to Midvale she struggled heroically to make polite conversation, but the neighbor was a tight-lipped soul and he merely nodded or gave her such brief answers that the last three miles of the journey were made in complete silence.

She was just in time for the bus. As she scrambled aboard with slightly undignified haste, she glanced back to see Joel Hunter watching her from the doorway of Gober’s filling station. The filling station was Midvale’s substitute for a bus station and a place where a small group of loungers could be found at almost any hour of the day. So she had no right, she assured herself as the big bus swung back into the highway, to feel that Joel was spying on her. In the first place, what right had he to spy on her? And was there any reason why she shouldn’t go into town if she liked? Any normal girl has the right to a decent amount of interest in her personal appearance and the fact that she hadn’t had a manicure or a shampoo in a beauty shop since she came to Midvale, and that she was having one now just after learning that Ronnie was freeing himself from Ann Paige, certainly didn’t have to mean anything.

She had to hurry to get the five o’clock bus back to Midvale and when she stepped off it in the soft spring twilight she felt like a different girl from the one who had left the town four hours before. She hadn’t given much thought until now to the difficulty of getting home from Midvale. But as the bus swung away from the station and she turned towards her own road, a voice spoke at her elbow.

“The car is over here,” Joel said curtly.

She turned, startled.

“I knew you’d come home on this bus and not have any way to get to your place, so I waited for you.”

“You needn’t have bothered — ” Carey began loftily.

“It was no bother.” Joel took her arm, guiding her towards the waiting car, his eyes taking her in from the top of her smart, shortened coiffure to the tips of her slippers. “I liked you better before,” he said. “But I suppose Norris prefers the more sophisticated type.”

Carey was so angry that she would not permit herself to answer him until she could be sure of the leash on her self-control. The car was headed toward home and away from Gober’s filling station when she managed to say:

“Has it ever occurred to you that you are being something of an idiot? Is there any reason why I shouldn’t tire of squalor and want to feel human again? After all, you know, I lived before I came to this hole.”

“The only significant thing is that you tired of ‘squalor’ just about the time you found there was a chance of Norris turning up again,” said Joel.

Carey clenched her hands so that she wouldn’t obey that swift, urgent impulse to smack him full in the face. “That, I think, is quite as insulting as anything you’ve ever said to me. I think I hate you.”

“Do you?” Joel sounded polite, but not vitally interested. “And like the poor, dumb fool that I am — I love you. That’s funny, isn’t it?”

“Not very.” Strange that she wanted to weep now, not to smack him in the face.

“You don’t think it’s funny I should love a girl I don’t even like — or approve of?” Joel asked grimly. “I do. I think it’s very funny.”

“You don’t like me, or approve of me?”

“Did you expect me to?”

Carey’s anger flamed high again. “I didn’t expect you to do a darn thing — except let me alone! I never heard such a hullaballoo — all because I grew bored with the simple life and had my hair washed and cut and my nails done. So you don’t approve! Now that
is
funny!”