Romance Classics (55 page)

Carey listened, a wave of revulsion sweeping over her. Once she had thought Ronnie terribly good-looking and attractive. But now that he was so frankly showing her his clay feet, and without the slightest idea that his feet were of clay, she wondered how she could ever have thought him even pleasant, let alone disturbing. Suddenly she knew that she wanted nothing in the world so much as to be rid of him.

But as she huddled there beside him, the car racing through the spring darkness, panic grew on her. Every turn of the wheels was taking her farther away, binding her closer to him. She couldn’t — she couldn’t. She must have been insane, she told herself frantically, to think that she could go away with him. Nothing, not even the accumulated anger against Margaret, the ugliness, the drabness, and monotony of Midvale, could possibly make life with Ronnie tolerable. She loathed him. And that was pretty crazy, she told herself with mounting hysteria, because for months she had grieved for him and felt that if she couldn’t have him life wouldn’t be worth living.

She became suddenly conscious that Ronnie was waiting for her to answer something he had said. And she hadn’t the faintest idea what that had been.

“I’m sorry, Ronnie,” she stammered wildly. “I’m afraid I wasn’t listening.”

“Sorry to have disturbed your thoughts, angel. I only suggested that it would be nice if you could force yourself to be a little sociable. After all, you haven’t even said you were glad to see me.”

“Oh, but I am, Ronnie — of course. It’s just that — just that — well, frankly, Ronnie, I haven’t been fed in ages and ages and I’m afraid I’m hungry.”

Ronnie laughed. “Oh, is that all? Well, there’s a hotel somewhere hereabouts. It’s not too good, though it’s about the best in these parts. I spent the night there last night. Shall we see what the dining room can do toward giving us a decent meal?”

“By all means, let’s,” agreed Carey, relieved at the thought that for a little while she could stay that mad flight with him.

She must get back to Midvale. She must get away from Ronnie. And she quailed at the thought of telling him. Maybe she needed a sanity test, she told herself with a forlorn attempt at humor.

Ronnie put on what Carey privately characterized as an unholy show of himself in ordering their dinner in the hotel dining room. The middle-aged waiter listened to him with a politely attentive manner, receiving his outrageous bullying with a bland servility that was belied by the look in his eyes. People about the dining room glanced curiously at Ronnie as he ordered in a voice that, while not loud, had a peculiarly carrying quality. Ronnie, in the old days, had been well-mannered and quiet-spoken; but that Ronnie had been all but penniless, dependent on his beautiful manners for the luxurious living that he felt was his due. Now that he was a man of means, rich according to his own standards, he demanded nothing short of the best and wanted people to know of his cultivated taste, his discriminating palate, and the like.

The waiter went away at last and Ronnie bent toward Carey. “Darling, that awful hat,” he said. “You poor lamb, tucked away in this god-forsaken hole! But never mind, there are still good shops, and you and I will go places and do things. We’re going to have fun. I’m pretty crazy about you, you know.”

Carey tried hard to smile, but she was painfully aware of the slightly contemptuous eyes of the people in the room who had witnessed Ronnie’s bullying of the soft-voiced waiter.

“It’s the darnedest thing,” said Ronnie and laughed a little. “I thought I could get you out of my mind. I meant to marry Ann, stick long enough to get a decent settlement and then go on to someone more attractive and with more money. I meant to make it a career — and I wouldn’t be the first, you know! But somehow — everywhere I turned, your funny little face looked squarely at me. And I found that nothing was any fun without you. When I was bullying and threatening Ann into her diet and her exercises and fighting with her over her impossible taste in clothes, I kept seeing you, so slim and cool and lovely, and always looking like — oh, I don’t know, like a gardenia-blossom just opening into perfection. Well, I knew then that there wasn’t enough money in the world to make up for losing you.”

“Oh, Ronnie — if only you had felt like that before.”

Ronnie’s mouth hardened a little. “And if I had, my angel, we’d have starved to death long before now. Or could the three of us — your father, yourself, and your husband — have made a living out of that awful place where I just found you?”

“But if you loved me — ” Carey pointed out.

“Sweet, I
do
love you. But — forgive me, angel — I love the Carey I used to know, who was always smartly groomed and lovely and well-dressed; not a Carey with tumbled hair and mud on her nose and on her slacks. Carey, if you could have seen yourself, angel — ” His voice was cool, amused, and yet it brought the color to Carey’s face in a little shamed flood.

She was saved from the necessity of answering by the arrival of the waiter with their soup. When he had served it and gone, Carey raised her spoon, but before she could more than dip it into her soup there was a slight commotion at the doorway of the dining room and she looked up to see Joel Hunter standing there, his eyes swinging over the well-filled room in search of someone. His eyes met Carey’s and he came toward her with a purposeful step that somehow made Carey want to run away and hide. At the same time it made her want to hurl herself into his arms and beg him to take her away from here.

He was beside the table before Ronnie was aware of his presence. Joel looked down at Ronnie and then at Carey.

“Your father has had a stroke, Carey,” he told her without the slightest attempt to mince words. “Margaret thought you should know.”

Carey was on her feet, trembling, clinging to Joel’s arm with both hands. Dimly she heard Ronnie protesting. Dimly she heard Joel saying, “Keep your shirt on, Norris. She doesn’t have to go back if she doesn’t want to. But she seemed pretty fond of her father at one time. I thought she should know that he may not live out the night.”

“Did I — Joel, was I — to blame?” Carey said, her voice a piteous whisper.

“The scene that you staged for his benefit this afternoon didn’t help any, if that’s what you mean. Would you care to go back and see him? Or do you prefer to go on? It’s up to you.”

“Don’t be a fool — she’s going on with me, of course,” snapped Ronnie.

Carey didn’t even look towards him. “Oh, Joel — Joel — take me to him — ” she stammered.

“Of course,” said Joel and turned toward the doorway, his arm supporting her.

Ronnie caught her arm, whirling her about. “Carey, don’t be a fool,” he cried. “I won’t let you make a fool of yourself by going back.”

“Take your hand off her,” Joel said roughly. The next moment his fist planted itself solidly against Ronnie’s chin and Ronnie went down across the table, which promptly collapsed beneath him, showering him with soup and assorted breads.

Carey didn’t remember anything that happened after that until she was outside in the car with Joel. She sat huddled beside him, her eyes on the road ahead, her body leaning a little forward as though by the sheer exertion of her will she would speed the little car.

When they had travelled a few miles, Joel said, “You can relax, Carey. Your father’s all right.”

She stared at him, dazed, feeling as though she had received a staggering blow. “My father’s — ” She couldn’t finish.

“I lied,” Joel said simply. “Margaret called me. Your father was badly shaken, of course, and he insisted that Margaret call me and tell me what had happened. Your father felt that — well, that you had lost your head and were doing something you’d always regret. But there hadn’t been anything short of actual physical violence that he could do to stop you, and — well, I did the only thing I could think of to shock you into a realization of what you were doing.”

Carey slumped against the seat; she put shaking hands over her white face, unable to credit her senses; unable to believe that Joel was speaking the truth.

And then she was shaken with a little gust of fury at the memory of that moment of terror and despair when she had thought she had lost her father. She looked up at Joel and her voice shook as she cried:

“How dared you? I hate you! To — to frighten me like that!”

“Sorry,” said Joel, and his voice told her that he wasn’t anything of the sort. “But your father and I thought we were justified in taking almost any means to keep you from wrecking your whole life just because of a momentary fit of anger.”

Carey had endured too much that day. The wave of hysteria she had fought so valiantly overcame her, and she burst into tears. Laughing, sobbing, stammering her fury and helplessness, her shame, her complete lack of self-control.

Joel heard her out in silence and when the first fury had abated and she was mastering herself, sobbing a little and trembling, he asked dispassionately, “How long has it been since you’ve had anything to eat?”

The question was so coolly put, so matter of fact, that Carey stared at him, unable to answer.

Joel nodded. “I thought so,” he said and turned the nose of the little car away from the road into a barbecue stand. Leaving her in the car, he went into the small hut and a little later came back with two hamburgers, a bottle of milk for her and a bottled soft drink for himself.

“If you th-think — ”

“Shut up — and eat that hamburger!” Joel cut in sharply. “You can go on fighting afterwards. It’ll give you strength to make more of a fool of yourself than ever — if that’s possible.”

Carey gasped as though he had flung cold water in her face. But the fragrance of the hot hamburger reached her and she grew faint with the realization that she had eaten nothing since noon, and now it was almost ten o’clock. They ate in silence and when they had finished and were driving toward home, she said in a meek voice:

“Thanks for the food, Joel. I was pretty hungry.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She wanted to tell him of the jumbled emotions that had surged through her when she realized that she was running away with Ronnie; wanted to tell him that she had awakened from the bad dream of believing herself in love with Ronnie; wanted to tell him that she knew she had been a silly little fool and to beg him to forgive her. But she was so exhausted mentally and physically, and Joel was being so coldly formal and polite, that she couldn’t quite force herself to speak. She was so achingly tired; and there would be another time when she could explain to him. She was a little afraid of him now, anyway. That was funny, too — only she couldn’t seem to laugh about it.

When he stopped the car at the house there was a light downstairs and the door swung open. In its amber oblong she saw Silas and went stumbling toward him, sobbing a little as his arms closed about her.

“Oh, Pops — I’m such a fool,” she wailed.

“Never mind, baby. It’s all right.”

Neither of them heard the sound of Joel’s car as it went swiftly down the drive.

Silas went up with her to her room, kissed her good-night and wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say.

“Tomorrow’s another day, baby — and we’ll both feel a lot more like talking things over,” he soothed. “You hop into bed now and get a good night’s sleep. We’ll have a general pow-wow tomorrow.”

And, like an exhausted child, she obeyed him, grateful for the blessed miracle of being back here in her own room instead of flying over the road somewhere with Ronnie on her way to a life that terrified her even in thought.

SHE WAS WAKENED the next morning by the gay slash of sunlight across her face and by the pleasant fragrance of coffee and sizzling bacon. She slid out of bed and was half dressed in the white cotton slacks and striped shirt that formed her customary garb before she remembered last night. The sight of her soiled slacks and shirt, kicked into a corner beside her scuffed canvas slippers, brought it all back to her. She sat down on the edge of the bed, with a little sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach. What a fool she’d been, all these months, grieving for Ronnie Norris! When just the first sight of him last night had shaken her belief that she loved him; and her first few moments of listening to him had revealed to her that he was cheap and common.

She had gone careening off with him, ready to seal her life to his — and before she had left the outskirts of Midvale, she had known that she was making a terrific mistake. And hadn’t known how to go about saving herself. Joel’s appearance in the hotel dining room had been the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her — even though Joel now thoroughly despised her as a mental and moral lightweight. He had made it plain that he thought very little of her behavior. She was hot with shame and confusion. She wanted desperately to tell Joel how ashamed she was and how she had known within the first ten minutes of leaving the house that she was making a mistake. But she knew Joel was completely uninterested in anything that remotely concerned her. And that was a thought that brought the tears to her eyes.

“Carey!” It was Margaret’s voice from downstairs, and it was friendly and gracious. “Breakfast is ready.”

“Coming,” Carey called down, trying hard to make her own voice sound casual.

But when she reached the sun-filled kitchen, where Margaret and Silas were waiting for her, she was flushed and uncomfortable and not quite able to meet their eyes. Silas and Margaret were elaborately unconcerned, doing everything possible to make the morning seem as other mornings.

“I — I’m sorry I’ve been such a fool,” she told them both. “I’ve been going around with a chip on my shoulder ever since you came here, Margaret, and — well, I’m terribly ashamed — ”

“Don’t, Carey. I’m the one who should apologize,” said Margaret. “I didn’t realize what a shrew I’d become until — well, until I thought I’d driven you to do something that would ruin your life — and your father’s. But if you’ll forgive me, I’ll try like the dickens to be a little less like a prickly porcupine!”

“Forgive you?” Carey said unsteadily. “I’ve — been worse than you — ”

“Looks as though this might be a right pleasant place to live in from now on,” Silas said quickly, vastly relieved.