The Heart Remembers (21 page)

“I'm afraid I don't care to discuss Jim, Miss Durand.”

“I can understand that, of course. His mother's name was Durand. But he loves you very deeply.”

“That I don't admit for a moment.”

“Of course you won't, especially to me. But you must know in your heart, Shelley, how much you mean to him. And I can't quite believe that you are entirely indifferent to him. Haven't you ever heard that the most bitter hatred in the world is toward someone you have wronged? I've hated you, Shelley, because I've wronged you. But Jim has had no part in anything I've done.

“From the very first Jim was attracted to you,” she brushed aside Shelley's attempted words. “I've brought Jim up since he was a baby when my sister died. He couldn't be dearer to me if he were my own son. There was a while when I hoped he'd marry Sue-Ellen, but this last visit convinced me Sue-Ellen was too silly and frivolous for Jim, and I was heartily glad when she went back to marry that man she'd been pursuing so shamelessly.”

“I'm glad you have come to that conclusion. Sue-Ellen
and Jim—” Shelley's hand made a little gesture that pointed out the folly of such a marriage.

“I suppose so. Then I found out that Jim was falling in love with you, I hated and resented—yes, and
feared
you—so much.”

“Miss Durand, this is all very painful to both of us and can't possibly accomplish anything.”

“Oh, but it must, Shelley, it must! You and Jim love each other. Don't be too proud to admit it. Pride can be the most cruel thing in the world. Don't throw away your own and Jim's happiness through false, stupid pride. Don't let me wreck you, as I wrecked your mother and father.” Selena's voice broke and slow, painful tears coursed her face and she said huskily. “Shelley, I've been a blight and a curse to everyone whose life has crossed mine. Just once, let me be a blessing, instead.”

Shelley was frightened, for now that Selena's control had given away she was almost grovelling, and it was a sickening, frightful thing to see.

“Miss Durand, please pull yourself together. You'll make yourself ill.”

Selena set her teeth so hard in her lower lip that the mark of them stayed there whitely. After a moment she said quietly, “I'm sorry, Shelley. I frightened you, didn't I? That was unkind of me and stupid. I thought I could go through with what I've come to tell you without making a fool of myself. What I wanted to say was that there's no need of your leaving Harbour Pines. I know you wouldn't stay here, with me here; and that you wouldn't marry Jim, knowing that I was here. So it's my place to go.”

“Oh, no!”

“But it's what I want to do, Shelley.”

“I couldn't stay here, knowing I'd driven you from your home.”

“Not even if you knew I've come to hate every
inch of it, every stick and stone?”

“I can't believe that.”

“I'm an old woman, Shelley. Oh, not in years, perhaps, but in the things that matter: heart and spirit. I'm at least a hundred years old, that way. I want to go away somewhere I've never been before. I want to meet people I've never seen before; do things I've never done; find again the zest for life I once knew; prove that after all, age is of the mind and the spirit and that I'm barely fifty.”

Shelley waited, too startled for speech.

“I have some money of my own, rather a lot of it. My mother left it to me, and it's been carefully invested and drawing interest all these years, and now there's plenty to take care of me in comfort for the rest of my life,” Selena went on after a moment. “A part of the income from the naval stores here is mine and I'm not going to be stupid and stubborn about it. I'm going to accept it, because I know Jim will take pleasure in sending it to me. I want to go to California and see the flowers and the palm trees; and maybe Mexico. I want to make new friends who do not whisper behind my back and look at me crosseyed and murmur behind their hands about what ‘
really
happened fifteen years ago.' My mind is firmly made up, Shelley, whether you stay in Harbour Pines, or go away; I am leaving. I simply wanted you to know before you made up your mind about going.”

There was such earnestness in her voice that Shelley could not doubt she was telling the truth about her desire to go away.

“I've taken good care of the income from the naval stores while Jim was away.” said Selena with a faint new briskness. “There's enough to do some of the many things the old house needs to make it a handsome home once more. You could be happy there, Shelley, once you've exorcised the ghosts by redecorating
and new furnishings. And you could make Jim happy. You alone can do that.”

She stood up, and as she swayed, Shelley's hand steadied her and she smiled faintly.

“Thank you, Shelley. You are kind. Please be kind to Jim—and yourself,” said Selena, and walked out.

Shelley sat down in her chair, her body shaking so that she gripped her hands tightly in an effort at control. It was an incredible scene, one she could scarcely believe had really happened. That Selena could so humble herself to an enemy; that even conscience could drive her to grovelling as she had grovelled—no, Shelly told herself shakily, she must have dreamed it!

But the events of the next few days proved that the scene had really happened and that Selena had been quite in earnest concerning her decision to go away. The New York Department Store, dazed and rocked to its toes, supplied her with a neatly cut gray suit, blouses, all the essentials for travel. For Selena Durand, they marvelled, who in the memory of the town hadn't travelled farther than the county seat in fifteen years or more.

News that Selena was leaving Harbour Pines ran through the town like wildfire, but still people could scarcely believe it, until an afternoon when Jim drove the station wagon through town, luggage heaped in the back, Selena in the neat gray suit and trim black hat sat erect beside him. They were en route to the county seat, where Selena would take a train for Atlanta, whence, rumor had it, she would take a
plane!
She was going to fly to California! If she hadn't travelled in many years, said rumor, she was certainly going to make up for lost time now.

Shelley had not seen Selena since that afternoon in the office. Now and then she had caught glimpses of Jim, but only as he drove through town, or went in or out of one of the town business places. As the station
wagon swung up to the platform of the county seat's modern railway station, Jim helped Selena out, saw to unloading her luggage and turned—to face Shelley who was standing a few feet away.

For a moment there was a silence that held all three of them as in a
tableau
. And then Shelley said quietly, “Goodbye, Miss Selena. Have fun—and don't stay away too long.”

The train was approaching now, and above its increasing clamor, Shelley heard Selena's small choked
“Shelley!”
But Jim had not spoken. He simply stood riveted to the platform, looking at Shelley as though he had never seen her before.

The train slid in, paused, and above its brisk noise, Jim looked from Shelley to Selena and asked swiftly, “Quite sure you want to go, Aunt Selena?”

“Of course, Jim. I'm going to have a marvelous time, now,” said Selena joyously. She turned to Shelley and said timidly, “Thank you for coming to say good-bye, Shelley.”

“All a-a-a-ab-b-b-o-o-o-a-a-r-r-d!” came the trainman's cry. Jim helped Selena up the steps, turned her baggage over to a porter and jumped back down to the platform as the train began to move.

A moment later, from inside the car, Selena looked out at them, a neatly gloved hand lifted to wave at them, smiling though her mouth was tremulous. And then the train picked up speed and she was gone, and Jim and Shelley stood quite still until the train had gone from sight around a curve in the track.

Suddenly, as she peeped out of the corner of her eye at Jim, Shelley had the craziest, most absurd feeling of shyness and murmured something about having to hurry and turned. But Jim's hand shot out and closed on her arm.

“Oh, no, you don't. You're not going anywhere. What's all this rush, anyway?”

“I have to catch the bus.”

“Since when have you been using the bus?”

“Well, Marian had to have Jessamine this afternoon, and the bus was convenient.”

“The station wagon's right over here,” said Jim firmly. And still gripping her arm he marched her along to it, put her into the front seat, slid beneath the wheel and set the car in motion. Outside the small, bustling, cheerful county seat, he turned from the highway to where a little gap in the woods made a pleasant parking space, and there he turned and faced her.

“And now,” he said, his voice not quite steady, “let's have it. You came to see Aunt Selena off; you told her good-bye, and you told her not to stay away too long. Shelley, does that mean what I hope, with all my heart, it means? That you've forgiven her?”

Shelley hesitated a moment, her face grave.

“Forgive? I can't seem to feel it's my place to
forgive
anybody anything,” she confessed at last. “I think you'd have to feel—well, terribly smug and self-righteous to go around saying to people, ‘I forgive you.' I think it's just that I've made up my mind that the past is dead and gone and that nothing can be gained by trying to revive it. I want to stop living in the past and hugging old wrongs to me and feeding on their bitterness. I want to live
now
and plan for the future, not for the past. Does that sound confused and pretty silly? Because I suppose that's the way my thinking has been.”

Jim was very still for a long moment, and when he spoke at last his voice was husky and unsteady.

“Maybe that means you don't hate the name of Hargroves quite so much, after all?”

“Of course not. I could never hate
you
no matter what your name.” The words tumbled out breathlessly, impulsively, before she could stop them; and instantly she was scarlet with confusion and absurdly shy, realizing how completely she had revealed her
quivering heart to him.

Jim said something under his breath. It was only her name, breathed in awe and wonder and a dawning, incredulous delight, but with such ardent intensity that it was like a prayer.

“Darling,” he said at last when he could speak more clearly. “Darling, dearest, I love you with all my heart.”

Shelley lifted her glowing face to him and came into his eager arms as naturally, as unself-consciously as a bird to its nest.

 “Do you, dearest? I love you, too, with all my heart.”

She said it so simply, so quietly, that for a moment he held her loosely in his arms, his eyes searching her lifted face. And then his arms tightened and she lay close, like a sweet white flame against his heart, and her radiant mouth was lifted for the hard eager down-drive of his kiss. Yet his touch was gentle, almost afraid. He held her close, yet with a tenderness that sent a breathless ecstasy coursing through her.

“Daarling, darling,” he said very low, between kisses, his voice touched with wonder. …

A long, long time afterwards—or perhaps it was only moments; who was to count such a mundane thing as time?—he held her just a little away from him, so that he could look down into the starry loveliness of her eyes, the glowing radiance of her face.

“Shelley, you'll marry me, won't you? Even if my name is Hargroves and you'll have to live in the Hargroves house? We'll do it all over and make it fresh and new-looking and you can have your own way with everything.”

Her hand covered his lips, silencing him.

“I'll love marrying you, dearest, and living with you anywhere in the world. Oh, Jim, Jim, we are going to be the happiest two people that ever lived,
aren't we?” Her voice was soft, yet there was a note in it like a shout of triumph.

And when he had savored that moment to the full, he said uneasily, “But the paper? The
Journal?
You've already transferred it to Philip, though I suppose he'd transfer it back.”

Shelley's laugh was soft, loving.

“Darling, do you just insist on having a wife a newspaper publisher?” she asked teasingly.

“I just insist on having a wife named Shelley,” he told her happily, and looking startled. “Do you mean you'd be willing to live in Harbour Pines and not publish the paper? You wouldn't be bored, with no outside interests?”

Shelley looked up at him teasingly.

“Oh, just being Mrs. Jim Hargroves and managing a home and looking after the children should keep me occupied, don't you think?” she asked, a twinkle in her eyes.

Jim said reverently, “Children! You're fond of children, Shelley?”

“Of course—aren't you?”

“Crazy about 'em. A little girl with hair and eyes like yours.”

“And a little boy who looks like you and grows up to be deputy sheriff of Harbour Pines.”

“And another girl to play dolls with her sister.”

Shelley laughed and came back into his arms.

“Judging from the size of the family we are going to have, it begins to look as though being Mrs. Jim Hargroves would be a life as full and complete as even the most ambitious could ask, don't you think?” she asked him, and once more lifted her mouth for his kiss.

This edition published by

Crimson Romance

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

www.crimsonromance.com

Copyright © 1948 by Peggy Gaddis

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 10: 1-4405-8100-2

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8100-7