Leave Her to Heaven

by Ben Ames Williams

  When he was done and court recessed, Mr. Pettingill told Ruth:

  ‘Well, ma’am, you’re all right. The jury’ll eat lunch — they won’t want to miss a free lunch on the State — and then they’ll take a ballot. You’ll be free by three o’clock. Take my word for it.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I’d forgotten myself, thinking of Dick.’

  ‘You heard what the judge said,’ the lawyer reminded her.

  ‘Mr. Harland’s not on trial. Quinton knows he’s lost his case against you. He as good as admitted it. He was just letting off his spleen.’

  She met Harland’s eyes; but then at Mrs. Sayward’s touch upon her arm she turned away. Over their lunch — Deputy Hatch eating with his usual silent intensity, as though he were a half-starved dog — Mrs. Sayward said cheerfully: ‘Well, ma’am, the Sheriff’s lost a good boarder, and I’m out of a job again.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘No question about it,’ the other assured her. ‘If Russ Quinton wa’n’t a darned fool, you’d never been brought to trial. Anyone’d know to look at you you wouldn’t kill a chicken-stealing dog.’

  ‘You’ve been very nice to me.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ The other laughed. ‘Only I’m sorry the trial didn’t last longer. I get paid by the day!’ Then, in a sharp exasperation, to the deputy: ‘For Heaven’s sake, Joe, stop shovelling in the food. A body’d think you never had a square meal in your life before!’ The fat man grunted comfortably, his mouth full; and Mrs. Sayward said to Ruth: ‘It was real hard on your husband, wa’n’t it? I could see he hated telling that about her. Men are that way about their wives. They hate to admit they’ve been fooled. But I sh’d judge he’s a real good man.’

  ‘Oh, he is, he is,’ Ruth whispered. ‘I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to him.’

  At twenty minutes past two, word was brought to them that the jury was ready to report. Ruth as she walked back into the courtroom felt her knees weak and trembling; but when the time came for her to stand and hear the verdict, she faced the jury with a high head. A moment later she was free.

  She had not known her own fears till she was released from them; and she sat down weakly, and her senses swam, and the world revolved before her blurred, uncertain eyes. Then court was dismissed and many strangers crowded around her, spectators eager with congratulations and beaming with good will, and reporters and camera men begging for a chance to take her picture. In this confusion Harland and Mr. Pettingill somehow disappeared. When she missed them and asked where they were, Roger Pryde said evasively:

  ‘They’ll join us at the hotel. They’re having a conference with Mr. Quinton.’

  She looked at him in deep alarm. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Fine,’ he assured her, and he took her arm. ‘Come along. We’ll go back to the hotel, wait for them there.’

  She submitted; but when they reached the sanctuary of Mr. Pettingill’s room she insisted on the truth, and Roger told her as much as he knew and guessed. ‘Quinton asked Mr. Pettingill to bring Mr. Harland to his office,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid Mr. Harland has been indicted as an accessory to Danny’s death, and they’re arranging bail.’

  Her hand pressed her lips to hold back her cry of pain, and she asked questions; but he could tell her no more than this. Yet while they waited, she recaptured her mastery of herself; so when Harland, with Mr. Pettingill, presently appeared, without a word she went into his arms.

  – II –

  They had agreed, Mr. Pettingill explained, that Harland tomorrow morning would face Judge Andrus; and he would plead guilty, offer no defense. When in loyal tenderness she protested against this easy surrender, the lawyer answered her, and in the end she submitted, accepting his decision.

  ‘But they’ll let you go, Dick,’ she said confidently.

  He looked at Mr. Pettingill, and the big man said: ‘I’ll put up the best argument I can, ma’am; and Judge Andrus is fair, but he’s not one to go too easy. Look at it any way you like, Mr. Harland did what they claim. If he was let go, others could do the same and hope to get away with it.’ He shook his head. ‘No, ma’am, I sh’d judge he’d have to go to jail.’

  She thought of Mrs. Sayward. ‘Here?’ she asked.

  ‘Thomaston.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think it would be long.’ Her heart lifted, but he added: ‘Maybe one to two years; maybe a hair more.’

  One year? Two? More? The blood drained out of her lips and she stared at him with blind eyes, cold with terror; and then her knees sagged and she might have fallen, but Harland took her in his arms.

  He held her till she was strong again, and when she was able to look for them, the others were gone and she and Harland were alone. Since not till tomorrow need they part, they had these rich hours together. She gave way for a while to helpless grief, sobbing against his breast. ‘I don’t mean to make it hard for you like this. I just can’t help it, darling.’ But he comforted her and as they talked together the time came when she could smile. ‘Thomaston’s a lovely old town,’ she reminded him. ‘I shall find a nice house and live there and see you every day.’

  He chuckled. ‘They’ll hardly stand for that,’ he predicted.

  ‘Well, as often as they’ll let me, then.’

  But he shook his head, spoke earnestly. ‘No, my darling. I don’t want that. I don’t want you to see me in prison. Leick can come, sometimes, and bring messages from you. But to see you there would just make my days so much the harder.’

  ‘I want us always to be together.’

  ‘So do I,’ he agreed. ‘And we always will be, after this. We’ll be together even when I’m there, if thoughts mean anything.’ And he said. ‘I’ve had time to think — last night and today — of just what we must do. You remember that spot by the river, where we planned to go together, this summer?’

  ‘Where I first loved you?’ She clung to him. ‘Of course I remember!’

  ‘I want you to go there,’ he told her. ‘Take Leick. I’ll be with you in my thoughts, knowing everything you do; and when I can, I’ll come to you there. I want to find you waiting there, with a place made ready that will be our home.’

  She would not at first agree to go so far away, and it was not till after long discussion, he urging and persuading, her instinctive resistance slowly giving way, that she came to full assent. Once she had agreed, they turned to detailed plans, discussing how much land she should buy, and where the house should stand, and what its plan and fashion should be, and what trees and what other growing things when the land was cleared she should plant, and how that waterfall which they had found together should be harnessed. They found happiness together in these dreams they made. She had urged in her first reluctance that the burnt land all around them there would be ugly and depressing; but he said:

  ‘In one way, yes, of course. But — forests aren’t all beauty, you know. Remember we saw the rotting corpses of dead trees, and tangled thickets, and lightning-blasted trunks. The forest there was all surface greenness, but its roots were in corruption and decay. But the fire wiped away the scars and the decay and the death and made the land ready for a new birth.’ And he said quietly: ‘You and I’ve been through a fire, Ruth, just like that land. There were a lot of things in my life, some of them my fault and some not, that needed to be seared away. They’re gone now. I went down on my knees this morning — I don’t remember ever doing that before — and I felt a lot better afterward.’ She pressed near him, and he kissed her lips and said, half-smiling: ‘This that’s coming will leave me burned clean, just like the forest floor, ready to begin a new growth, to grow straight and tall.’ He kissed her eyelids, gently. ‘You didn’t need any dross burned out of you, my dear; but I did. I’m only sorry you had to share this with me.’

  ‘I wish I could share everything, always, with you,’ she whispered, and so they passed from words to silence, and were one.


  16

  JEM VERITY dominated the little village of Hazelgrove, and this was by virtue of a certain force that dwelt in him of which other men, even though they might rebel at his dictation, were conscious. He had the gift of being wisely thrifty and the knack of management and the capacity to recognize opportunity and to seize it; but these qualities in themselves were not enough. There was something more. Sime Verity, who had paddled Ruth’s canoe on that trip down the river when the fire caught them, and who was one of the crew Jem mustered to carry through the enterprise which during the long months of Harland’s imprisonment she undertook to accomplish, once tried to frame for her an answer. She had spoken admiringly of Jem’s ability to lead men and to command them, and she asked:

  ‘What is it in him which makes the rest of you so ready to follow him?’

  Sime packed a thoughtful pipe before he replied. ‘Well, ma’am, I don’t know as I can tell you,’ he confessed. “Course, Jem’s smart, and he’s able; but that ain’t the whole of it. Most things, I can do as well as he can, and so can a lot of others. It’s kind of hard to say; but the thing is, when he wants you to do a thing, you can most generally see that it’s a good thing to do. And I don’t mean just clever, or that it’ll earn you some money. I mean — well; I mean good.’ He grinned. ‘I hate to admit it, ma’am, and I wouldn’t say so to his face; but I wouldn’t wonder but what Jem’s a real good man.’

  She remembered Sime had said this long ago, but certainly there was nothing offensively virtuous about Jem. He was not, for instance, in any sense an altruist; and if he did or proposed what was on the surface a friendly and a helpful — a good — deed, he was usually able to demonstrate that it promised to be profitable too. Jem served himself; but to do so is perhaps the highest form of altruism. Certainly he had thus — as often happens — made Hazelgrove a better place in which to live. Because his house and his store and his garage were kept painted and in good repair — and because when after a job of painting or of building he was apt to give the leftover materials to any man who would use them — most of the buildings in the village were as well-kept as his. Because his lawn was mowed once a week, and because he had some well-tended beds of flowers, other lawns were mowed and other flowers planted. Because of his many business interests, men in Hazelgrove found it easy to earn what cash money they needed. Because he kept a registered bull, and a good draft stallion, the quality of the livestock on the farms within reach of his improved. His crops were an example and an education to his neighbors; and his traits to a surprising degree were reflected in the men about him.

  That first fall when Harland in Thomaston began to serve his sentence, Leick and Ruth came to Hazelgrove and to Jem to discuss what they proposed to do; and it was he who found the necessary crew of men and it was his wise counsel which solved for them the many problems which during that winter and the first summer arose. When early in the second summer the time of Harland’s release approached, Leick, in order to have his canoe for the trip down river, shipped it to Hazelgrove; and he wrote Jem to tell him the day they would arrive, and asked him to have Wes Barrell and the motorboat ready to set them down the lake.

  The post office was in the store, and the night that letter arrived half a dozen men had gathered to receive their mail. Wes Barrell was there, and Sime Verity, and others — all of them had worked on the project down river, and all of them knew Ruth and liked her — and Jem told them the news.

  ‘It’s going to make a lot of business for us right along, having them down there,’ he suggested. ‘We’ll be freighting in their supplies, and doing any job of work they want done; so I figure we want to keep on their good side.’ Seeing their assent he went on: ‘I wouldn’t wonder if Mr. Harland’d kind of hate to face people, right at first. It strikes me he did a pretty good job, owning up to all that and taking his medicine; but like as not he thinks everybody is ready to yell bad names at him.’ The men facing him nodded in sober agreement, and Jem said: ‘I liked him all right when he was here before, the year of the fire; and Sime, you and Tom liked him on the trip down river; and we all know she’s a grand woman, so he’s bound to be all right. Or if he ain’t, he will be, married to her. A woman mostly makes a man the way she wants him, ’fore she gets through, if she’s in love with him.

  ‘But he won’t want to have to see people first off. My idea would be that when he comes through here nobody’d bother him at all, only them he has to talk to.’ He looked at Wes. ‘You’ll be the one to set him down the lake,‘ he said. ‘And your old woman will want to know all about it when you come home. There’s no harm in that; but if I was you I wouldn’t say a word to him, only if he starts to talk to you. You can come home and tell her anything you’ve a mind to, to satisfy her.’

  ‘I’ll keep my mouth shut,’ Wes agreed. ‘The way I look at it, he’s had a hard time enough.’ He added’loyally, ‘The old woman don’t mean no harm. She’s just curious to know everything that goes on. But I’ll tell her to keep out of his way, and she’ll do it, too. She don’t ever go to bother anybody, or hurt their feelings; and she likes Mis’ Harland fine.’

  ‘I’d kind of like to say hello to him,’ Sime said doubtfully. ‘Look queer if I didn’t.’

  ‘You could keep out of sight,’ Jem suggested. ‘He’ll be real glad to see you later on, I wouldn’t wonder; but in his place, I wouldn’t want to have to talk to folks right away.’

  Mrs. Verity, perched tremendous on her stool, added her word. ‘He won’t want a look at your horseface, Sime,’ she said in friendly derision. ‘He won’t want to see anyone. He’ll think we’re all watching him and talking about him behind his back as it is.’

  Leick had said in his letter that Harland would want a license and a forest permit, so Jem spoke to Ed Sullivan, and to Will Parish, the supervisor. ‘I’ll fetch him to your house for his license, Ed,’ he said. ‘You keep them young ones of yours from pestering him, and then you can take him on to Will’s.’

  ‘Well, my Mamie’s crazy to see him,’ Ed objected. ‘She and Mis’ Harland got to be real friendly. Mis’ Harland wants me to bring her and the young ones down river some time to see the place, pay ’em a visit; and I said I would.’

  ‘I’d wait till she asked me again, if I was you,’ Jem advised. ‘I sh’d doubt he’d want anybody down there for a spell; but she’ll know best. And you can well as not make out his license ahead of time; and you can do the same with his permit, Will. Save him as much talk as you can.’

  ‘I’ll tell Maw to stay in the house,’ Will promised. ‘She read all the newspaper stories about the trial, and she thinks he’s all right. She’ll want to make over him, but I sh’d judge he wouldn’t want her to.’

  ‘I judge not,’ Jem agreed. He added: ‘Why don’t you and Ed fetch him right down t’ the wharf after you get him fixed up? I’ll have Wes there ready. Best thing everybody else can do is keep out of sight.’ And he reminded them again: ‘If we can let him see nobody here’s going to stand around gawking at him, him and her’ll be more likely to do their trading here than if they felt like they was freaks in a sideshow. Or anyway, that’s the way I’d feel if it was me. And they’ll do a good trade in the town.’

  There were no skeptics to suggest that the trading would be done at Jem’s store, that he would reap the major advantage. It had long been recognized — even though it was not openly admitted that what profited Jem also profited the town.

  So when Harland and Leick came to Hazelgrove, they were wrapped in a protective isolation. Only once was this threatened. When Jem drove to the station to meet their train, in turning his car around, he backed too far — his own sense of the importance of the occasion made him careless — and mired in the ditch beside the road. Since the train was a few minutes late, Jem had time to summon Chet Morrow and his two sons from their near-by farm; but they did not succeed in freeing the car till the train was just pulling in. They too had worked in the crew that went down river to bring Ruth’s plans there to fruition; and th
ey could not resist lingering a moment on the platform. The train stopped, and Harland and Leick alighted; and when Leick and Jem went to see to their gear Harland was left alone. Chet and his sons, uncertain whether to go or stay, stood together looking at Harland secretly, till when Jem and Leick returned from the baggage car Jem stopped to speak to them.

  ‘Git along,’ he urged. ‘Don’t stand there gawking.’

  ‘He looks real peaked,’ Chet said in interested sympathy.

  ‘So would you,’ Jem reminded him. ‘Give him a chance, Chet. Go along.’ And they obeyed.

  In the village, Jem dropped Harland and Leick at the game warden’s house and then went to get his truck and with Wes Barrell drove to the station to fetch their gear; but back at the wharf he was uneasy till with Ed and Will escorting them, Leick and Harland appeared. Jem and Ed and Will sat by the gas pumps watching Leick and Wes load the motorboat, and Jem kept a vigilant eye toward the store to be sure no one came this way. Ed — he was the youngest of the three — said in a low tone:

  ‘He takes it hard. You can see to look at him.’

  ‘He’ll come out of it,’ Will predicted. ‘He’s got good courage, or he couldn’t have gone through that business the way he did.’

  ‘If it’d been me,’ Ed strongly declared, ‘I’d have knocked that first wife of his over the head the day she let the kid drown. I never could stand to see anyone harm a young one.’

  ‘Nobody’d blame him if he had,’ Will agreed.

  Jem said thoughtfully: ‘He’ll be all right, give him time.’ He added: ‘He hasn’t said a word to me. Have anything to say to you boys?’

  ‘Leick did the talking,’ Ed explained.