Blue Ruin (11 page)

Justine looked anxiously toward Jessie Belle, and Jessie Belle showed the gleam of her little pointed teeth behind her carmine lips and gave a twisted toss of her chin, with an almost imperceptible lifting of eyebrows and shoulders. Was Jessie Belle trying to let Justine know that she would be equal to any Lynette on the calendar? That she would show Lynette “where to get off?” Was that the phrase they used? Justine was tremendously flattered and delighted.

“Oh, Jessie Belle, you are delicious,” she gurgled into her napkin, and Jessie Belle half closed one eye and stuck out her lips in a little face toward Dana again, till Justine almost choked laughing at her.

“Perfectly delicious,” she gurgled.

Dana turned and dealt her an extinguishing look which quieted her for the moment, but her spirit rose joyously with the sense that there had been a camaraderie established between this girl and herself. Jessie Belle understood just how she felt about Lynette and Dana, and Jessie Belle would take a hand at things from now on.

But Dana’s mother could not let things go so loosely. She gathered up her courage to protest.

“But Dana, I thought you didn’t care for movies. I thought you felt it was not fitting for a—”

But Dana interrupted her hurriedly with a frown.

“You certainly misunderstood me, Mother. I merely said a student had no time for such amusement. I see no harm—of course it depends on the movie—but I see no harm in a little relaxation now and then. Mother, could we have our dessert now? It is getting late and we really ought to be on our way in ten minutes at the latest.”

Amelia arose with a pained look on her face and began to remove the plates. She did this with quietness and a skilled technique that made it seem as if the dishes were moving off of themselves without the exertion of anyone. Amelia knew how to do it with the least possible effort. She never made an unnecessary move and accomplished the maximum with each motion.

Amelia served the dessert in silence. It was strawberry shortcake, the old-fashioned kind made of flaky biscuit dough, split, buttered, and filled with the great luscious strawberries that grow in New York state, with the tang of the long, cold winters in their spicy flavor. There were more berries on the top, with powdered sugar, and a big bowl of whipped cream to put over it. Jessie Belle exclaimed with pleasure, “Oh, boy! Lead me to it! Say, Ella, I’m glad I came. How about you?”

Amelia set her plate down grimly without a word. How she was going to stand this girl for a whole long summer she didn’t see. There was a choking sensation of tears in her throat as she turned to give Dana his shortcake. Why didn’t her boy, descendant of the great Whipple grandfather, see that girl was not his equal? How could Dana be so blind?

But then, of course Dana had to be polite to guests in the house, or at least of course he thought he had to, though he needn’t have gone quite so far with it. He might have made her understand that he had an engagement. She herself would see by tomorrow at least that the girl knew that Dana was as good as engaged. It must have been the girl’s fault of course. Girls were that way in these days—all but Lynette. And Dana was so attractive of course. She couldn’t be blamed for wanting him to show her attention. Probably it wasn’t Dana’s fault at all. Probably by tomorrow he would fix things up so that she wouldn’t bother him. Probably Lynette would regulate it all when she got to see how things were. Of course, Dana wasn’t to blame. So she tried to explain to her tired heart while she minced at a bit of shortcake and pretended to be finishing her supper.

Then she had to see her boy go off into the evening glow with that girl! It made her furious!

Just as they had watched Dana in the morning go off with Lynette, so they watched these two now, Grandma and Amelia and Justine, Amelia hovering back in the shadows with a pile of dessert plates in one hand and a bunch of forks in the other, her eyes full of smoldering fires and unshed tears. Ella Smith had run down to the gate to give Jessie Belle a gauzy scarf shot through with rainbow spangles which her daughter had demanded to be found for her, and the three were alone for the moment.

Small and slim with her sleek little dark head almost up to Dana’s shoulder; her bare arm linked in Dana’s intimately; her curly lashed eyes turned up to his confidingly; her red lips pouted out teasingly with elusive dimple flickering in and out; with her short, blue skirts and her long, slim legs in nude-colored stockings; her shining patent leather heels twinkling, Jessie Belle looked like an abnormal child hanging on Dana’s arm as they walked away in the sunset glow up the hill toward Lynette’s house.

“Jez-e-bel!” murmured Grandma Whipple half under her breath as if she were chanting a line of an imprecatory psalm.

“Oh, Grandma! How quaint you are!” burbled Justine from behind her chair in the shadow of the room. “But isn’t she a darling? Doesn’t she look just like a lovely flower? I think she’s like a flower!”

“Yes,” said Grandma, “blue ruin!” And her keen old eyes sought the smokey blue of the distant hill across the valley.

Chapter 8

1920s
New England

T
he Brooke telephone was on a little table in the front hall close to the coat closet. The cord of the telephone was long enough to reach into the closet, and when anyone wished to carry on a private conversation or shut out the noises of the house, it was easy to step inside this coat closet and secure a private booth. Mrs. Brooke had stepped into the closet with the telephone almost as soon as she began talking, so that the three who waited at the dining room table could get no clue to whom she was talking.

Lynette made no further pretense eating. She sat with tense expression, her hands clasping each other tightly in her lap. Could that be Dana? And what was her mother saying to him? Surely she could be trusted not to tell Dana anything about this being her birthday! Lynette’s proud, sensitive nature shrank unutterably from having Dana know, now that he had stayed away and forgotten. Her mother must not beg him to come. She simply must not. Almost Lynette started up again to go and warn her mother and then thought better of it and forced herself to relax. But the thought was beating itself over and over again in her brain, Dana had forgotten the birthday which he had known and kept scrupulously for years. He had forgotten their unspoken tryst to which she had invited him two years before. He could stay away just to be polite to a stranger. Even if his Aunt Justine had insisted, Dana well knew how to have his own way and Dana would never have been persuaded to stay if he had wanted to come, if he had felt that this was more important. It followed then that Dana had not been impressed with the importance of the day, had not cared more than anything else to come to her. He could not have been looking forward to it through the years as she had been. There was tragedy written in Lynette’s face though she did not know it.

Grandmother Rutherford sat pretending to eat the last bit of her ice cream, which she had decided before her daughter went to the telephone was a little more than would be good for her. But she could not bear to have Lynnie think she was sitting there watching her.

Elim, boy-like, was devouring his third piece of cake and a second ice cream mold in the shape of a great pink peach with a green leaf. His brows were drawn in a heavy frown, but he seemed to be wholly intent on his ice cream.

Suddenly with keener hearing than the rest, or perhaps just boy instinct, he felt that someone was coming in the gate. He lifted his eyes and glanced out the window.

“Oh, gee,” he said angrily, “there comes Dana! Now I suppose he’ll order you off somewhere, or else stay here and all the good times will be over. Gee, I think we might have you a little while, Lynn. You’ve been away for ages, and we’re your
own folks
. I don’t see what that guy has to be around here all the time for anyway. Who’s he got with him? That blue-eyed baby doll! Now they’ll come walking right in here. Dana never did have any manners, and they’ll eat up all the rest of the cake and ice cream. Gee. I’m going to beat it while the going is good.”

He shoved his chair back sharply, but Lynette laid a detaining hand quickly on his arm, a glint like steel suddenly coming into her sweet eyes, her delicate lips set in a kind of frozen beauty.

“No, Elim, sit still,” she said imperatively. “Nobody is coming here and I’m not going away anywhere. I’ll go out and send them off. I told Dana I couldn’t go out tonight. He had no right to come over after what I said. Wait, I’ll go out and tell him! Don’t you go off! I’ll be back in just a minute.”

Lynette went out of the dining room quickly, closing the door behind her with a decisive click. They could hear her cross the hall and step out the front door.

Elim looked up with a troubled frown and met an answering look of understanding from his grandmother’s eyes. He made a bitter grimace.

“Gee, Gramma, I hate that guy!”

“I don’t know as that will do any good, Elim,” she twinkled.

“Well, she’s too fine a girl! She’s—! She—! He—!” he stumbled incoherently.

“Yes, I know,” sighed his grandmother looking suddenly very tired and feeble. “But I don’t know that hating will do any good. I think praying would be more effective, don’t you?”

“Go to it, Gramma, I’m with you,” he responded heartily. “Say, is there another piece of that cake cut? Gee, it’s good! I been hungry all the afternoon.”

The front patio was flooded with rosy light from the sunset, and Lynette looked like some delicate vision as she came out in her little blue frock. The light touched her soft hair and brought out the gold, and the blue of the dress brought out the pink in her cheeks. She was exquisite as she stood there awaiting them. Jessie Belle looked up and stared rudely. She had not counted on anything as chic and lovely as this. Justine Whipple had written about Lynette, “She’s just a sweet little country girl, you know,” and Jessie Belle had whetted her weapons accordingly. But this girl was different, unusual, sophisticated in a way that Jessie Belle neither understood nor admired, but secretly feared.

Dana looked up as Lynette came out, with an exclamation of admiration, and the frown he had been wearing since his telephone conversation smoothed away. Ah, here was his own Lynn, lovelier than he had ever seen her!

“Oh, you’re all ready, aren’t you?” he exclaimed with relief in his tone. “That’s good, we haven’t any too much time to spare. We’re going to walk. It would be practically impossible to find a place to park the car near the theater, you know, and Miss Smith wanted to see the town. Lynn, this is Miss Smith. You two girls ought to be good friends this summer.”

Jessie Belle glanced up with abrupt insolence in the sweep of her lashes. She merely tilted her chin disagreeably and lifted her plucked eyebrows a trifle, without smiling.

Lynette acknowledged the introduction gravely, almost casually, and turned back to Dana.

“I’m sorry you wasted your time coming after me, Dana,” she said almost haughtily. “I thought I made it quite plain to you that I was not going.”

“Nonsense, Lynn. Why aren’t you? We aren’t going to take no for an answer. I want you to go. Isn’t that enough?”

Dana flashed her one of his imperious, compelling smiles that she was accustomed to answer with a yielding one, but her eyes were still grave as she replied, “Not tonight. It’s of no use to discuss it, Dana. I wouldn’t leave Mother and Grandmother tonight for—anything!” she finished.

Dana gave her a vexed look, and was about to present other arguments, when Jessie Belle slid her hand into his arm and began to pull him.

“Come on, Dana. We can’t stand here all night. If she won’t go there’s no use in our losing our seats. I want to see that picture!”

“Yes, go,” said Lynette with dignity.

“Well, I certainly don’t understand you, Lynn,” said the young man haughtily, “but if you’re in that mood it would be unpleasant to have further words about it, of course. I’ll see you tomorrow sometime, and meantime I don’t in the least like the way you’ve acted!”

Then he suffered himself to be led away, arm in arm with that giddy, painted child! It was incredible! Dana Whipple! Her Dana! And never a word that he was sorry not to have been at her birthday party. He didn’t know it was her birthday! Dana had forgotten!

She had not let herself believe it before, but now she let the sorrowful truth roll over her as she stood in the golden light in her forget-me-not robes watching her loved one walk away into the sunset. One arm was lifted, her hand shading her eyes, the evening breeze fluttering the sheer ruffle at her wrist and billowing the transparent sleeve and showing the round, firm arm with its pretty curves. She was a vision to make one glad. Dana looked back furtively and saw her, secretly rejoicing in her beauty, fiercely angry in his heart that she had not shown herself his slave before this other girl. She had humiliated him by not obeying his wish, and she must be made to suffer for it. He could not let her get in the habit of taking the upper hand. Women were that way when they got started. He must make it very plain to her that his word was law. Strange what had got into Lynn! She never acted that way before. Was she jealous? Well, perhaps a little jealousy might do her good. She had had his devotion so many years that she was getting to take it for granted, and really a man, especially a minister, must be the head of his own household.

So he walked away with the painted child upon his arm, into the sunset, planning how he would humiliate Lynette, planning not to go over the first thing in the morning as he had intended. He would take Jessie Belle out for a ride, perhaps, and drive past the door where Lynn could see him. Then late in the afternoon, when she had given up expecting him, he would run over and have it out with her. By that time she would be sorry and ashamed, and after a salutary lecture and due repentance on her part, he would forgive her. It would be delicious comforting her. Perhaps there would be tears in her eyes. Though Lynn was not given to tears. But he would kiss her eyelids. If there were tears he would kiss them away—and—