Blue Ruin (34 page)

And he had thrown that girl away! Oh, God, what a fool he had been!

Through all the service he was watching her from behind his slim white hand. There was the same sweet, serious brow; the lovely, thoughtful eyes; the same gold glint of hair and upward curl of lashes; the delicate complexion, an apple-blossom pink—or was it wild rose, or something still more delicate? How had he been forgetting her all these months? How could he ever had been attracted by Jessie Belle’s rough skin, coarsened by powder and makeup, startling in its dead white and carmine, when he had been used to this delicate, lovely flower of a girl? Oh, well, he had been crazy, that was all. He had been crazy! And now he was sane again. A man ought not to have to suffer forever for a thing he had done when he was crazy.

The funeral service was long and deeply affecting, for old Madame Whipple was well known and honored, and came of a family who had been active in the church and community; and tyrant though she had been, they loved her in a way and respected the things that she always stood for, even though they thought her hard and strange.

So there was much talk about her family and her husband and the long and useful life she had lived. But Dana heard little of it because he was watching Lynette. He scarcely noticed that no one mentioned him, save in the prayer when the officiating clergyman prayed for the bereaved friends and mentioned the daughter-in-law and grandson by name. That was all. No mention of the brilliant descendant who was to carry on and follow in the footsteps of his noted grandfather, no mention of his prospects and attainments. Dana would have figured largely in such a service as this a year ago, for the town had been proud of him and was looking to him in a way to make the town more famous, put it upon the theological map as it were. But now Dana was wiped out. His reputation was in question, his future a blank. He sat in the shadow with his mother and Justine and watched the girl he might have married. He was nothing more than a figure, one of the mourners. How strange that such a thing could happen to him in such a short time! And back up there in Canada was Jessie Belle, his wife! And here was Lynette, his Lynette, who was his no longer!

People spoke afterward of how sad Dana looked.

“He must have loved his grandmother a lot,” they said to one another as they walked away from the house in the late afternoon sunlight. “I suppose it was hard on him to have his grandmother send him off.” For somehow they had surmised that Dana had been sent away or he never would have gone. And they looked at Lynette as she walked sweetly by her mother up the hill ahead of them, and wondered. Had Lynette done this or had Dana, or who? And what had been done anyway? The town was not even sure yet whether the story of Dana’s marriage was false or true.

But there was a thundershock the next day when the news went forth that old Madame Whipple had left the bulk of her estate to Lynette Brooke!

Amelia had the house and a comfortable income, enough to keep her quietly, but not enough to support Dana. Justine was given a small competency, with the proviso that she live elsewhere. The remainder was all Lynette’s.

To Dana there had been handed an envelope containing one hundred dollar bill and a Bible verse written in Grandma Whipple’s cramped old hand. When Dana opened it, he read

“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”

Dana’s fury was beyond all expression. He simply froze.

He spent a thunderous half hour alone with the lawyer trying to find some way of breaking the will, proving that his grandmother was out of her mind or that there was another later will, or something of the sort; but when he became convinced that he had no chance, he seemed to congeal like cold metal. He did not talk the matter over with his mother, he brushed Justine aside contemptuously when she attempted a word of sympathy that he had been cut off penniless, and he did not go near Lynette. He packed his bag and took the next train back to Canada. It was up to Lynette now, and of course she would come across and hand him back his own. He could not think of Lynette as keeping the heritage which she had always known was his. Lynette was honest even if she had been exceedingly narrow. Lynette would hand it back, of course. It was only one of Grandma Whipple’s crude old jokes. They would both understand that, and as such he could receive it back without feeling any qualms. But he would receive it proudly, as if he had not expected it, of course. He could not go and talk to Lynette about it, for there was Jessie Belle! He would have to tell her about Jessie Belle. It was an awkward situation, take it any way you would. And Grandma had known it would be. That was why she had selected Lynette, of course, instead of his mother. Now if it had been left to Mother, why of course it would have been the same as his, a little awkward perhaps to arrange the transfer, but he could have told his mother what to do and she would have done it. No, his grandmother had meant to mortify him, or else she was trying to make him break with Jessie Belle and go back to Lynette. Could it be possible that Grandma had some such subtle suggestion behind her act? That she was trying to let him know that she would be willing for such a thing? The thought was interesting. He put it away for a time of need and went on with his other line of reasoning. Yes, of course, Lynette would give back the property. But it was going to be most awkward. He almost hated his grandmother to have given him that last ugly thrust in her death. To think a woman about to do such a solemn thing as to die should be willing to hurt her cherished grandson of whom she had seemed to be so proud. He wouldn’t have believed it of his grandmother. And that ugly Bible verse, too. He could almost hear her voice cackling with the old-time mirth, see her twinkling little eyes watching his face as he read it. Grandma had to have her joke even in her death! The old tyrant! The old, wicked tyrant!

He said it under his breath and felt better. Back in Canada, he would wait for Lynette to do her part. It would not be many days. Lynette always did her duty promptly.

But two long weeks went by in which he haunted the post office at all hours and was so unbearably cross at home that Jessie Belle took herself away to the hotel to visit her mother. And still no word came from Lynette. He had not told Jessie Belle that the inheritance was not his after all, for she had been counting on it. Unknown to him she had spent a lot of money on clothes and even a few cheap jewels. He knew the bills would be coming in pretty soon, and she was just as glad to be away when they arrived. Dana was not pleasant to live with when he was in that mood. She would stay away until the bills were well out of the way and Dana had forgotten them. There was no need for him to be so tight anymore, now that he had plenty of money. She would let him understand that right away. She wasn’t going to skimp any longer.

In due time the bills arrived, and in a towering rage Dana went in search of Jessie Belle. The altercation that ensued made plain to both of them how utterly of separate worlds they were.

Jessie Belle flung her small contempt at him for being tight and said she wouldn’t stand for it now that he had plenty of money. Dana told her a good many kinds of things she was and was not, and when she only laughed, in cold hate he told her that the money had not been left to him. He did not tell her where it had been diverted. That would have been too deep a humiliation, but afterward Jessie Belle wrote to Justine and of course got the whole story.

Dana stood haughtily in his mother-in-law’s tiny fourth-story back bedroom and delivered his last thrust to the girl who had married him because he was rich.

“Oh hen!” said Jessie Belle with a sudden pause in her teasing contempt. “What an old devil she was!”

Then after a moment’s thought, “Well, that settles it! You’ve gotta quit this religious stuff. It’ll never pay! You and I gotta start for Hollywood this week and get a real job, or I’m done. You’re losing all your good looks mooning around like this, and it’s time I did something about it. You go back and sell the furniture. That’ll pay our way out. The bills! Oh, heck! Ferget the bills.”

Dana went out from that interview humiliated, furious, and convinced that he and Jessie Belle could never make it go. He was done with Jessie Belle!

He told himself that several times on the way back to his desolate house, where soiled dishes and Jessie Belle’s possessions held high sway. He sat down amid the debris and groaned aloud. He was tired and sick, and he was hungry. He was actually hungry. The story of the prodigal son came vividly to him. Even husks might have tasted good. He realized with a wave of horror that he had come to a place like that. He, the great Dana Whipple, with all his pleasant prospects and sturdy ancestors! He was down and out! He hadn’t but a dollar and seventeen cents in his pocket, and there were all those bills! It would be two months before his next quarter’s meagre salary was due, and how was he to live? Put Jessie Belle out of the question. How was he to live? Through his fevered brain ran a phrase from the parable, “And when he had spent all!” And when he had spent all! He flung the change from his pocket out upon the table and said it aloud and laughed a hard, dry cackle, startlingly reminding him of his Grandmother Whipple, and then he dropped his face upon his arms on the table among the fluttering bills and groaned aloud. But he did not remember what the prodigal did in like situation. “I will arise and go to my Father.” Repentance was one of the things that did not belong in his new creed. It was unnecessary, because he no longer considered the possibility of sin. It belonged in the portions of the Bible that had been cut out and relegated to the dead past.

The next morning brought a letter from his mother. It enclosed a check for five hundred dollars.

“Lynette has insisted on giving all the property to me,” she wrote casually as if it were not the most momentous business in the world. As if his very life did not hang on the words. He breathed a sigh of deep relief as he saw the check and read the opening sentence over again. But why to his mother? Why not to him? But still, perhaps that was Lynette’s revenge. She knew, too, that he would get it all if it went to his mother, of course, only there would be the nuisance of the transfer, and Mother perhaps arguing a little about what he ought to do with it now and then. Still, it was good that Lynette had acted at last. He had known she would, of course. Why had she been so long? He went back to the letter for further information.

“She went right to the lawyer the minute she knew it and had the papers made out, never even waited to tell her folks at home, never said a word to me till it was all done and registered and everything, and the lawyer came to me and gave me the papers.

“I went right over there, of course, as soon as I knew and told her I wouldn’t have it. I told her Grandma loved her, and so do I—and that I was sure from things she had said that she was terribly disappointed that something seemed to have come between her and you, Dana.”

Dana winced and drew down his brows at that, but went on reading—“and I said I couldn’t think of taking the money when Grandma wanted her to have it. But Lynette just put her foot down and said she wouldn’t touch a cent of it, that it belonged in the family and must stay there. And she was so sweet and nice about it that she made me feel it was all right. So I’ve taken it. I think you ought to write her a letter and thank her. You didn’t treat her right, Dana, you know.

“I’m sending you five hundred dollars, because I feel you should have something just now when you are having a hard time. Of course, I know Grandma put the money out of my hands because she felt you needed to go through some discipline. She used to talk to me about it. I never dreamed she was going to divert the property, but now I can see she was trying to make me understand. She said if you ever got prosperous and had a lot of money, it would ruin you. She was afraid you would lose your soul. Then, too, she hated Jessie Belle, and I know she didn’t want her to get any of the money. And I wouldn’t feel right about giving you much, on account of what Grandma said. It was hers and she had a right to leave it as she did. Of course I shall leave it to you when I die, but perhaps you’ll be a stronger man by that time. And anyhow I think Grandma knew that Lynette would do the right thing. Now, Dana, do try to get along plainly and simply, and get Jessie Belle to settle down. Things will come out better for you someday if you work hard in your present parish and try to do right. God takes care of His own children, and you were dedicated to God, you know.”

Dana cast his mother’s letter aside with a contemptuous exclamation, the last few lines still unread, and snatching up the check, went out to put it in the bank and pay some of those awful bills.

So his mother was going to try to cut him out of the money, too! His own mother! Well, she couldn’t get away with that. He would pay the bills and sell the things and pack up Jessie Belle’s clothes and send them to her, and then he was going home to settle Mother. That was only a little reaction from her long years of servitude under a tyrant. But he would soon make her see that he must have his rights.

So Dana paid his bills, sold his furniture, packed his things, resigned his charge, sent Jessie Belle’s trunk to her the last thing, and started home again. He thought he was the prodigal going home for the fatted calf, but he still had not the talismanic words upon his lips. He had no idea in his soul of saying, “I have sinned against heaven in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” He almost felt that he was conferring a favor upon the Almighty by this coming back and being willing to straighten everything else out and begin over again. He even cherished hopes yet of that New York church, after they were done following around hearing dumb Englishmen and realized that Dana Whipple was the only brilliant pulpit star still available in the universe. Let Jessie Belle go to her Hollywood if she wanted to. Nobody outside the family knew that he was married, only those people up in Canada. The world was too big to keep track of one man’s deeds, and anyhow New York wasn’t narrow. He could pose as a young, unmarried preacher without telling any lies whatever, and if Jessie Belle made any trouble later, everybody would pity the sad, handsome preacher whose wife had left him, who was so faithful to his work—so eloquent—and who had walked so circumspectly in their midst. Then, sometime, surely, something would happen, things would straighten out—