The Heart Remembers (19 page)

Philip drew a deep breath.

“Good girl!”

She smiled at him mistily and made a little grimace.

“I suppose that seems silly, after all the work and worry and thought I've put into getting my hands on something like that. But when it came down to it, I couldn't push her over the edge. I hope Mother and Dad will understand.”

“Of course they would, you foolish chick. They'd have wanted you to do exactly that.”

Shelley lifted her shoulders in a tired shrug.

“And now that the
Journal
has served my purpose, I have no further use for it. Would you and Marian like to have it?” she asked.

“You mean you're checking out?”

“Of course. Would you like to go on with the paper? It's getting established. It'll never make anybody a fortune, of course, but what would anybody want with a fortune in Harbour Pines, anyway? It would make a nice living for you and Marian.”

Philip's eyebrows had gone up and his eyes were startled.

“What's with this Marian stuff? Where does she come in?”

“With you, of course, silly,” Shelley told him promptly. “Do you think I'm completely blind as well as stupid?”

Philip stood up, and now the look in his eyes was wary.

“Oh, come off it, Boss Lady,” he protested uneasily. “Look here, I'm an old Kipling grad. You know that line about: ‘He travels fastest who travels alone'? And anyway, a girl like Marian would never take a second look
at
a battered old hulk like me.”

“Don't be frightened.” Shelley was amused at his uneasiness. “She won't run you down and stick a gun in your ribs and march you off to a minister. But since you're mad about her and she goes all soft-voiced and dewy-eyed at the mere mention of your name, it seems pretty silly to me if you two don't make a go of things.”

“You're a nice child, Boss Lady,” Philip's voice shook a little, “but you're going off half cocked. Why, good grief, child, Marian wouldn't marry me if I was soaked in gold and draped in diamonds.”

“Want to bet on it?”

“And even if what you say is true, though I don't for a moment admit it, I couldn't ask her to marry me. Not—”

“If you say once more ‘a battered old hulk like me' I'll probably smack you! You're a perfectly swell person, Philip, and so is Marian, and the two of you would make a wonderful team. You both like Harbour Pines and the
Journal
will give you a modest income, and there's the house for you to live in.”

“You're a sweet child, but you're only a child, so leave us say no more about it.” Philip's voice was taut. “I'll be glad to buy the
Journal.
”

“It's not for sale. But it and the house will be a wedding present to you and Marian.”

Philip's eyes blazed and his face was white.

“Do I have to keep telling you there isn't going to
be any wedding—”

“That I doubt! Marian's a determined person and she's in love with you,” Shelley assured him imperturbably. “Cad that I am for betraying a gal's secrets. But after all, I knew it would take something pretty drastic to make you wake up and realize that there's a brand-new world right under your nose, yours for the taking.”

“If I knew that, and there were no dark spots in my past life that I couldn't risk having her find out—” Philip's voice was shaking.

“Philip, listen to me. Marian's twenty-seven years old. She's grown up, adult, a woman—not a silly child. Give her a chance, Philip. If she doesn't want to risk marrying a man with ‘dark spots' in his past, then let her be the one to say so. I love you both, Philip. And I'd like to see something good and beautiful and
happy
come out of my journey to Harbour Pines.”

“I'll buy the house and the
Journal
, too,” said Philip grimly. “I can scare up a thousand bucks for a down payment and pay the other on mortgage. But the rest of it is definitely out.”

“You
are
a stubborn guy, aren't you?” Shelley admitted her defeat. But she comforted herself with the knowledge that if Marian really wanted to marry Philip, as Shelley was convinced she did, then she would marry him, “dark spots” or no “dark spots.” They had both known suffering and tragedy and heartache. Together they could know deep joy and happiness “forever after.”

She waited until after she and Marian had finished supper before she mentioned her own plans.

“Two more weeks,” Marian said wearily, “and I'll be a free woman. School will be out.”

“I'll be a free woman too, in a little more than two weeks.” Shelley took advantage of the moment. “I'm leaving Harbour Pines.”

Marian stared at her, incredulous.

“For goodness' sake, what are you talking about?”

“I've found I don't like being a newspaper publisher, so I'm off for larger fields and more fun!” said Shelley lightly.

Marian stared at her for a long moment and then she nodded.

“So you and Jim have quarrelled and you're taking it on the lam,” she said quietly. “Aren't you being a bit drastic, though?”

“Jim has nothing to do with it.”

“Horse-feathers,” Marian snorted elegantly. “Look, child, don't you suppose I have eyes in my head and can tell when two people are completely batty about each other?”

“That's what I was telling Philip this afternoon.”

Marian stared at her, startled.

“You were telling Philip what?”

“That I'd give you two the
Journal
and this house for a wedding present.”

Marian gasped and hot color stung her cheeks.

“Thanks. I trust he was overcome with delight! Especially in view of the fact that marriage has never been mentioned between us!”

“Don't be angry, Marian. He's crazy about you, and you're in love with him. I knew he needed a jolt to wake him up.”

“So? And you jolted him with—what?”

“The statement that you returned his love.”

“Why, you dirty traitor! But thanks. I'd give a pretty penny to have seen his face! The poor man's probably miles out of town by now and running fast to evade a predatory female with designs on his precious freedom!” Marian's tone was dry and there was anger in her eyes.

“He was tickled silly. Only then of course he pointed out that he could never hope to aspire to your hand on account of he's been a bad boy and
you were an angel, just barely this side of acquiring wings, and he couldn't ask you to shed those wings and marry a guy who's being fitted for a red union suit, horns and hooves.”

Shelley kept her tone determinedly gay and light, but her eyes were anxious.

“Oh, he did, did he?” Marian's reaction was the one she had hoped for. “Well, he needn't think that excuse is going to help him escape. I can be hard to lose when I make up my mind.”

“Oh, Marian, I hoped you'd say that.”

“‘Dark spots,' my eye. Why, he hasn't had so much as a snifter for over a month. The poor lamb's lonely and bored and now that he's got an interest in life—me—the cure is permanent.”

She thrust back her chair and marched out into the soft twilight. From the back of the
Journal
building, a light glowed in the small shed-room that she and Marian had helped Philip make into a surprisingly comfortable living place.

Shelley waited; and while she waited, she cleared the table and did the dishes, and returned to the living room to find Marian beaming joyously. Philip, beside her, seemed to have grown inches taller, and his eyes were so filled with an incredulous radiance that Shelley's eyes stung.

“It was a breeze!” said Marian exultantly. “I let him know right at the beginning that he didn't have the smallest hope of escaping me, and finally he quit fighting and it all wound up with a social note for the
Harbour Pines Journal
: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Harper announce with relief the engagement of their problem-daughter, Marian, to Philip Foster, a darned swell guy.' ”

“Oh, I'm so terribly glad.” Shelley was shaky of voice and misty of eye in her delight.

“Thanks for bringing it about. If you hadn't given him a jolt, it would have taken me longer, though of
course I'd have landed him eventually,” said Marian simply.

“If it doesn't work out,” said Philip happily, “we can always sue Shelley!”

“Shelley, you'll stay for the wedding?” asked Marian.

“Of course. When's the date?”

“Twenty minutes after school's out!”

“My plans aren't urgent.”

“Anything we could do to help?”

“Thanks, no! It's sweet of you. But I'm going to New York for a while and then—who knows? But I'll see you two married first!” Shelley promised, and left them alone together.

Marian bore Philip off with her on Saturday morning to spend the week-end with her family, and Shelley was alone and very lonely. The little house seemed dreary and empty without Marian's gay chatter.

In the afternoon she finally set out for a walk. Anywhere away from town, so that she could try to think things out in the lovely peace of the pines she loved so well.

As soon as she was outside the little town she took the first winding lane that led away from the highway, to avoid passing cars and the traffic to Harbour Pines that was a part of Saturday afternoon.

Above her the sky was a deep, intense blue without the smallest vestige of a cloud. It was the last week of May, and farther north, it would still be spring. But here it was mid-summer and the sun was hot, making the shade of the big trees very welcome.

She was so lost in her unhappy thoughts that she
did not hear the car behind her until it stopped, and then she whirled about, frightened, only to have her silly heart climb up into her throat and hang there as Jim came striding toward her, his face gray and set.

“Did I startle you? Sorry. I followed you out from town, and when you came down this lane, I hesitated. But I have to talk to you, and I could scarcely expect you to permit a Hargroves inside the Newton home, could I?”

For an instant she was silent, and then her heart fell out of her throat and into her heels and she drew a deep breath.

“So your aunt has told you,” she said at last. “Now you know.”

“I know a lot of things I should have known a long time ago. Will you get into the car and sit down? This may take some time, and since it is undoubtedly the last time you and I will be together, we might as well have it all out.”

“I can't quite see why it should take a long time.”

But he only motioned her toward the station wagon, and as her knees were shaking so that she could barely stand, she accepted the inevitable. Once she was in the car, she sat drawn away from him as far as he could, her hands laced tightly together in her lap.

“I didn't intend for you to know,” she said huskily.

“No, I suppose not. But Aunt Selena's conscience, at what I must admit is an extremely tardy date, to put it mildly, is giving her fits. She's anxious to make amends, though that must sound pretty funny to you under the circumstances.”

Shelley could not manage an answer. He didn't seem to expect it.

“She told me all about it,” Jim went on. “Once she got started, she seemed pathetically anxious to leave nothing untold. I no longer have the slightest
difficulty in understanding that crack you made to be about your feeling for the name of Hargroves, nor why you would be so anxious to leave Harbour Pines.”

And still Shelley could not speak.

Jim did not look at her. He sat with his strong-looking, brown hands gripped tightly about the steering-wheel, leaning slightly forward, his eyes on the close-growing ranks of young pines.

“Aunt Selena feels that she owes you restitution,” he went on grimly after a moment. “She and I both realize, of course, that no amount of money could possibly repay you for what you and your parents suffered. But it would ease her mind a lot if you would let her pay damages.”

“No!” it came out savagely, brutally.

Jim nodded. “I tried to make her understand you would feel that way. But she insisted I make the offer. She feels that since her being here has made it impossible for you to stay on in Harbour Pines, or to want to, she can do one of two things: either go away herself and swear never to return, or to offer you cash restitution that will make it easy for you to establish yourself somewhere else.”

“There's no reason why she should go away. This has always been her home.” Shelley's voice was thin, shaken. “I haven't been particularly happy here. The place means nothing to me; I
want
to go away.”

“I tried to tell her you'd feel that way, and that the chances were excellent you were going away to marry some lucky guy.”

“That's not true. I haven't the slightest intention of marrying anybody—ever!”

“Which, of course, is about as silly a thing as you ever said in your life,” Jim told her grimly. “I'd laugh at you if it weren't for the fact that I've seldom been farther from a laughing humor, after finding out that Aunt Selena could be capable of such a
thing. I've always been fond of her, proud of her; thought being a Hargroves, with her for my aunt, was a pretty fine thing to be. But right this minute, I'd like to be Sam Smith or Jones, or any place else but Harbour Pines. But I'm stuck here and I've got to stay.”

“Of course you have.” Shelley could speak now, and her voice was soft and eager. “After all, Jim, you don't have to feel ashamed of what she did. You were a child; you were in no smallest tiny measure implicated. She wasn't quite sane. She couldn't have been. None of it was your fault.”

“I'm a Hargroves.”

“So what? She's a Durand. You are related simply because of the marriage of her sister to your father; the Hargroves' name is yours to do whatever you like with—and, Jim, you have a responsibility toward Harbour Pines. You can't run away.”