by Peggy Gaddis
“No, not just because of Minnie-Ola. Because of a deep-seated race loyalty that is a part of the race itself. There’s an unwritten law that a Negro must never betray another to any member of the white race. That’s a sin that could never be forgiven. At least, here in this part of the country where these Negroes have lived several generations, since slavery times. Mam’ Lissie and Mam’ Cleo were born in slavery; many of their descendants have never been more than forty miles away from here. It’s like a little close-knit world in which they live and die and bring up their families to follow out the same pattern.”
“And there isn’t anything that can be done?”
He hesitated a moment and then he said grimly, “We whites have robbed them of so much, have pushed them around so brutally, that I feel the least we can do is leave them some of their legends, their traditions, their superstitions, their ‘strange gods.’ Most of them go to church and are simple and devout; if in their minds, that people like us can’t possibly hope to understand, there is some dark thread by which that religion and their ancient beliefs can be entwined, who are we to say it mustn’t be so? Live and let live, it seems to me, is the very least we can allow them.”
“Even if that means allowing them to follow voodoo?”
Jim grinned down at her.
“It’s not quite voodoo, which, as you undoubtedly know, is also called ‘worship of the great green serpent.’ I’ve watched too many of them cheerfully slaughter snakes to believe that a snake means anything to them except an evil to be destroyed. And as for the orgies that are supposed to be a very real part of voodoo, the only orgies indulged in by these people are ‘cat-fish fries,’ ‘peanut bi’lins’ and ‘syrup-grindin’s,’ at all of which their white friends and neighbors are welcome and honored guests,” he assured her. “If they get comfort from Minnie-Ola’s ministrations, and if they get a kick out of having her ‘cross de fingers’ at an enemy, and it doesn’t lead to a disturbance the law has to note officially, I, for one, am inclined to let them alone. They have a good school where their children are taught by carefully selected teachers; if they want to cling to their ancient superstitions, towards which, I might add, their younger generation maintains an air of exasperation and scorn, why not? It’s the older generation that clings, and why shouldn’t they, if they want to?”
Shelley nodded soberly. But somehow the warm golden day seemed a little chilly now. The dark rows of trees stretching away on either side of the road, where the workers were once more busy with their long gleaming knives, or their rubber-tired “dip-carts,” seemed mysterious, a little eerie. And then the soft murmur of the wind caressed her senses and she laughed and dismissed such morbid thoughts.
The whole day had been an experience she would never forget. And if that moment when she had closed her eyes and tilted her face to catch the music in the pines, and Jim had kissed her—if that memory stood out above all others, and always would, who was to know save herself?
They drove in a companionable silence back to the curb in front of her house, and as Jim let her out and walked with her up to the door, she turned to him impulsively.
“It’s been a glorious day, Jim. I can’t thank you enough for it.”
He nodded, his eyes meeting hers with a warmth that brought deep color into her face.
“I’ve enjoyed it, too,” he said quietly. “There were one or two moments, of course, that will always stand out as special highlights. Shall I give you three guesses as to the most important one of all?”
“It must have been Mam’ Lissie’s pilau—it was superb!”
“Could be, though I’ve eaten Mam’ Lissie’s pilau before and never felt like this afterward. I’ve never kissed you before, though; don’t you imagine that would make the highlight a little higher?”
“Oh, that!” She made a little airy gesture but would not meet his eyes.
Jim’s eyes glinted. “Yes, that! And if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re in sight of half of Harbour Pines, I’d find out just how much of the thrill could be recaptured without the wind in the pines and all the rest of it,” he told her, and strode away to the station wagon before she could think of a convincing answer.
She stood for a moment watching the car as it vanished, and then she drew a deep breath and, crazily enough her hand was shaking as she slipped the key in the lock and opened the door.
Chapter Ten
Marian Harper came over the next afternoon, driving an old but still sturdy-looking coupé that denied its age gaily because it had been newly painted and was neat and shining.
“A birthday present from my family.” She waved a gay hand at the car as she smiled down at Shelley, seated behind the battered desk. “To celebrate my twenty-first birthday; privately, I think it was Jessamine’s twenty-first birthday, too. But she runs, and who am I to look down on a gal because she isn’t young any more?”
They made a tour of the little house, and Marian’s eyes were wide with eager delight as they came back to the small living room and settled down with a pot of tea and “commissary cakes.”
“It was outrageous of Jim to thrust me on you, and even more so for me to let him,” said Marian frankly. “Taking a strange gal into your home is a serious business that demands the most utter and devastating frankness on both sides. So if you’d rather not clutter up your house with a ‘roomer,’ for Pete’s sake say so and I swear I won’t take offense.”
“I did think, right at first, when Jim sprang the idea on us simultaneously, that I would prefer to go on living alone.” Shelley felt impelled by Marian’s frankness to speak quite honestly. “But the more I’ve thought of it the better I’ve liked the idea. I hadn’t realized that I was lonely until then. But I have been, and if you think you could be comfortable in that tiny alleged ‘guest room’ I’d love having you.”
“Comfortable!” Marian’s voice threw aside the inadequacy of the word. “Honey-chile, if you could see where I’m living now! The people are lambs and I love ’em to pieces for taking me in when nobody else could, or would. But there are nine in the family, and it’s a six-room house. It’s only because they have seven children in the school, and were terrified a teacher would leave, that they crowded up and let me share the room of the two oldest girls. They’ll be tickled to pieces when they find I’m moving out.”
“Splendid! It’ll be fun, Marian. I’m so glad you’re coming here.”
Marian’s eyes sparkled, and then she looked uneasy.
“There’s one thing I must tell you, Shelley. I have a gentleman friend,” she said uneasily.
Shelley laughed. “Well, lucky you.”
“And he rooms with me.”
Shelley caught her breath and her eyes went wide.
“I wouldn’t want us both to move in here without your knowing about him. I wouldn’t want to do anything you wouldn’t approve of, and maybe you disapprove of a girl living with her boyfriend.” She burst into a little gurgling laugh at Shelley’s expression, and went on, eyes brimming with amusement, “He’s four years old, black as the ace of spades except for a very smart, well-tended white ‘weskit’ and four white paws and a scrap of a mustache that makes him look as though he were sneering, but he isn’t. He’s beautifully behaved and a perfect gentleman and his name is Rufus.”
“A dog?”
“A cat.” Marian watched her anxiously. “I do hope you don’t mind?”
Shelley laughed. “I should smack your sassy face for such a build-up, but of course I don’t mind. Bring Rufus by all means. I adore cats. I’ve been meaning to get one.”
“Well, praise be! You’ve got one!” said Marian joyously. “I know there’s no halfway ground about cats; people are either besotted about them, as I am, or they can’t abide the sight of ’em. I’ve even met people who were terrified of them, the poor simpletons. I knew a girl in college who told me that she felt if one so much as touched her, she’d die. I felt terribly sorry for her. Think of all the fun she’s missing.”
“Well, I’m one of the besotted ones. I’ll love Rufus, and I do hope he’ll like me.”
“He will. Funny, cats seem to know instinctively whether people like them or not; and if not, they just pay ’em no mind. When may Rufus and I move in?”
“Any time you like.”
Marian’s eyes sparkled. “Would you think I was rushing things if I made it tomorrow afternoon, the minute school’s out? That will give me the week-end to get settled.”
“Then tomorrow, by all means.”
“I wouldn’t be in such a rush, but poor Rufe is not happy, not happy at all. The Coopers’ latest baby—an enfant terrible if one ever lived—thinks the grandest sport in the world is to pull Rufe’s tail. And poor Rufe, being a gent, and knowing it’s bad manners to claw a baby, even one that’s spoiling for it, just takes it and goes out to the barn and howls. I could weep for him, when I’m not busy prying the Cooper brat’s hands off him.”
She hesitated a moment and then she said quietly, “Maybe I’d better explain that Rufus is not just another cat, to me. He’s something pretty special. My fiancé gave him to me when Rufus was just six months old. Terry had had Rufus since he was a baby, and when he enlisted, he brought Rufus to me to keep for him until he came back. He said Rufus would be our start toward a family.”
She sat very still for a moment, her teeth sunk hard in her lower lip, and there was the silver shimmer of tears in her eyes. But when she went on, she had her voice under control.
“Only Terry won’t be coming back. He’s staying in Belgium, because neither his family nor I want his last sleep disturbed by bringing home a casket. The Belgian family that cares for his grave writes me often and they’ve sent me pictures. Well, now you know why Rufe means a lot to me.”
Shelley, her own eyes filled with tears, her voice unmanageable, put out her hand and pressed Marian’s warmly, and for a moment they were silent, each with her own thoughts. …
With Marian and the big black cat installed in the tiny guest-room, the little house was gay and alive. Shelley’s fondness for Marian grew as the days unfolded, and they began to know each other better.
Marian left the house each morning a little before eight, and Rufus walked with Shelley, having accepted her graciously as part of this new life, so blessedly relieved of the torment of the Cooper infant. Sometimes he would lie in the sunny window of the print shop, a soft-looking, furry, almost boneless-appearing lump of satiny black and white, with his nose between his paws; sometimes, as though forgetting that kittenhood was far in the past, he would race like mad about the lawn, flinging himself like a black dagger up the trees; occasionally he brought a field rat or a mouse and laid it tidily on the back steps as though to say, “See? I’m working at my job. I’m earning my keep.” And Shelley grew almost as fond of him as Marian was.
March melted into April and life was quiet, tranquil. Marian and Rufus had been in the house almost a month and there were times when Shelley found it hard to realize they had not been there from the first.
Shelley was alone in the office late one afternoon the last of April, when she heard an odd sound outside and looked out of the window to see a beautiful chestnut mare trotting down the street and stopping in front of the shop. The rider was a woman clad in worn riding breeches and a beige sweater and with a brown scarf tied carelessly about her head.
As she dismounted stiffly, Shelley was startled to recognize Selena Durand coming striding up the walk, a riding crop held in one ungloved hand. Shelley had not seen her since the night of the dinner-party and she stood up now, her heart beating thickly, as Selena came in, the screen door banging shut behind her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Durand,” Shelley greeted her quietly. “Please come in.”
“Are you alone?” Selena demanded, curtly dispensing with formalities.
“Quite,” answered Shelley. “Would you rather come up to the house? We could have a cup of tea.”
“No!” the word came so sharply, so furiously that it was an insult. “This is not a social call. It’s business.”
“Oh, then won’t you sit here? I think you’ll find that chair comfortable.”
Selena sat down and without preamble said curtly, “I’m prepared to buy your ridiculous little paper for whatever it has cost you, on condition that you will go away and guarantee never to return to Harbour Pines.”
Shelley was wide-eyed with anger and amazement.
“The paper is not for sale, Miss Durand. I like it here and I have every intention of making Harbour Pines my permanent home.”
Selena’s face was flushed with dark, angry color.
“That’s nonsense. Accustomed to cities, to living in civilized comfort—”
“I’m quite comfortable in Harbour Pines, Miss Durand.”
“You’re willing to stay here when you know you are not wanted?”
“I’m sorry if you don’t want me here, Miss Durand, but there is no reason why my being here should bother you. We seldom come in contact with each other.”
“This is my town and I don’t want you here!”
“It’s a nice little town and no one else seems to mind.”
“I don’t want a newspaper here. It upsets the people.”
“That’s rather a silly statement, Miss Durand.”
“I’m prepared to pay you well.”
“The paper is not for sale.”
For a moment Selena was very still; and now the angry color had faded and her face was pale, tired, almost haggard.
“Why did you come here?” she rapped out sharply.
Shelley met her eyes steadily.
“I think you and I are the only two people in the world who know the answer to that, Miss Durand.”
Selena stiffened.
“Why should I know?”
“You know that I am Hastings Newton’s daughter, Miss Durand. And so you know that there could only be one reason for my being here.”
“Under an assumed name!”
“It’s a name to which I have every legal right. I was legally adopted and my name changed to that of the woman who adopted me. It is the name under which I served in the WAC. But that does not alter the fact that I am Hastings Newton’s daughter.”
Selena’s breathing was harsh and ragged.
“The daughter of a convict,” she sneered.
Shelley winced, but her head was high and her eyes met Selena’s straightly.
“Who went to prison rather than tell the truth he knew he could not prove, because you had been so very careful.”
For a long moment there was silence in the dusty, dingy little office.
“I?” asked Selena at last, her voice thin and shaken. “You are daring to suggest that I had some knowledge of what happened?”
“Miss Durand, I wasn’t quite old enough to understand what happened at the time. My mother died when I was not quite ten years old. But she had told me enough for me to understand, as I grew older. Miss Durand, you were in love with my father.”
“How do you dare—” It was scarcely more than a breath.
“And because you would not accept the plain fact that no other woman except my mother existed for him and that he looked upon you merely as a nuisance, you had to make him suffer. You had then, as you have still, an arrogant pride that never forgives. And to know that you Selena Durand, had been rejected by a man so poor your family could have bought and sold him a hundred times was an unbearable thing. You had to avenge what seemed to you an unforgivable insult: that he was not willing to desert his wife and child and accept you. So you planned and plotted. You wrote him a note ordering him to meet you at a certain place late at night; threatening, if he did not, to create a scandal that would rock the town, disgrace his wife and child.”
Selena was scarlet, half frantic with helpless fury and a growing terror that looked nakedly out of her staring eyes. She could not manage speech, and after a moment, Shelley went on slowly, remorselessly.
“My mother knew, of course, of
your wicked and shameless pursuit of my father. But because she was so sure of my father’s love, and her faith in him was so perfect, she felt only pity for you.”
“Pity! She dared pity me!”
The thin, harsh sound of Selena’s voice was like tearing cloth. Shelley could not possibly have used a word that would have cut more deeply. The knowledge that a woman as poor and as unimportant as Selena considered Callie Newton should feel pity for her, Selena Durand, was like scalding acid to Selena’s arrogant self-esteem.
“My father was annoyed and angry when the note came. He didn’t in the least fear for himself the effect of any scandal you could stir up, but he had to think of Mother and of me. He knew that if you carried out your threat to accuse him publicly of being your lover—that was your threat, wasn’t it?—the scandal would boomerang against you and you, too, would be ruined. But he knew how stubborn and self-willed you were and that you might easily slip over the edge of self-restraint in your reasonless fury against him and against Mother.”
“I have never heard anything so completely wild, so fantastic, so insulting,” panted Selena, shaking as with a chill, looking somehow shrunken and older. Her eyes were blazing with the light of battle, but back of the wild anger a thing that could have been fear peeped out, too.
“It’s no use, Miss Durand; I know the whole story,” said Shelley quietly. “It’s quite true that I can’t prove it—at least not yet. It would be just as hard today, or even harder, to make people believe that you could do so evil a thing: let a man go to prison for something he did not do, simply because you wanted him and couldn’t have him.”
She could see Selena pull herself together, as though she wrapped Shelley’s admission of a lack of proof like a warm cloak about her shivering body. Color came slowly back to her face and she drew a deep, hard breath.
“No, of course. That’s quite true. It couldn’t have been proved then, or Hastings or Callie would have offered the proof. Nor can it be proved now, because it is the most arrant nonsense. If there had been a shred of proof, Hastings would have saved himself.”
