❧
Ellen steered the Rolls carefully through Daltonville’s few streets and parked in front of the hardware store. The man behind the counter was a stranger, so she didn’t have to endure his appraising comparison of her present position to the circumstances of her childhood.
She bought the dead-bolt locks that Thompson had recommended for the bedrooms and new locks for the main doors of Arrowwood. She hoped they would discourage the intruders, but why was someone so determined to break into the house? Was it a ruse to scare her away? Who could possibly care if she lived at Arrowwood? Some of the Daltonville residents might resent her but surely not to the extent that they would try to drive her out of the house.
Having no reason to stay in town, Ellen turned her car toward Arrowwood. Walking toward her on the country road was a man who seemed familiar, and as she neared him, Ellen realized it was Reverend Truett. He appeared older and more stooped, but the serenity on his face hadn’t disappeared when the wrinkles appeared.
Ellen halted the automobile when she reached him. “Good morning, Reverend Truett. Do you remember me?”
His benevolent brown eyes and the kindness of his expression warmed a part of Ellen’s heart that had been cold for a long time.
“Of course I do, Ellen. I’d heard you’d returned to the area, or I might not have. I’m glad to see you.”
“Get in and sit for awhile. I’ve been wanting to visit with you.”
He looked down at his dusty shoes, but when she waved aside his protests, he circled the car and sat beside her.
“It’s good to rest my feet. I’ve spent the night up in the hollow with a dying man, and it’s been a long walk home this morning.”
“Don’t you ever grow weary of ministering? Have you ever thought of giving up?”
“To my shame, I’ll admit I have. Like so many others in this country, I favored the Great War, believing as President Wilson did that our efforts would ‘make the world safe for democracy.’ But events since the armistice have disillusioned me. Greed is rampant in the country. Racketeers control the nation. Family values and morals have deteriorated. Many times I wonder if my labors have all been in vain.”
“What keeps you going, then?”
“The assurance that, even when it seems that evil is prevailing, God is still the Ruler of the universe. When the way looks dark before you, remember the words of the psalmist, ‘Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.’ Never forgot that God is in control!”
The pastor offered Ellen an encouraging smile, and he touched her well-manicured hand as it lay on the steering wheel. Ellen flinched as she compared her hand that had done little work since her marriage to the gnarled, work-scarred hands of her childhood mentor.
“I don’t know when those words will be fulfilled,” Reverend Truett continued, “but I believe they ultimately will be. I may not live to see it, but it encourages me to know that others will carry on the work I’ve started. Just this week, I talked to one of the church’s former young men who has plans to enter the ministry. It encouraged me mightily.”
He moved to leave the car. “I must go, Ellen, or Mrs. Truett will send out a search party for me. Stop to visit us and come to church.”
“Stay in the car. I’ll drive you into town.”
He protested, but Ellen U-turned her Rolls-Royce, headed down the road toward Daltonville, and soon arrived at the small parsonage where the Truetts had lived for years. She was tempted to give him her car, but she doubted he’d accept the gift.
Just being in the pastor’s presence had lifted Ellen’s spirits, and as she resumed her journey, she experienced a peace and satisfaction she hadn’t known for years. For a moment Ellen forgot the mysterious happenings at Arrowwood and her reason for being there, but when she stopped before the imposing structure, she was reminded again of her purpose in coming to Arrowwood. Any hope she entertained of reviving her relationship with Lane was futile. Romance wasn’t likely to blossom in an atmosphere of suspense and crime. Even with the new locks, she wasn’t sure she would feel safe in the house.
Ellen asked Ercell to help Thompson install the locks since there wasn’t anything else for him to do. Since she’d need a minimum of chauffeuring this summer, she was tempted to send Ercell back to Cleveland. She was uncomfortable around him, for if Timothy had been murdered, Ercell had to know something about it.
The two men had almost finished putting the lock on the front door when a police car pulled to a stop in front of the porch. Ercell gave a sharp exclamation and dropped the screwdriver he held.
“I’ll start on another door,” he muttered and hustled toward the rear of the house. Thompson whistled and favored Ellen with a quizzical look. He started cleaning up the wood shavings they’d dropped on the porch floor and ignored the two officers.
One policeman, a large, burly man with a thick mop of brown hair, swaggered up the steps toward Ellen.
“I’m Clyde Thurman, and this is Deputy Sid Pauley. I’m sheriff of this county.”
Ellen smiled at Pauley, a fair-haired man with greenish eyes and a weather-beaten face, before she answered the sheriff.
“Yes, I remember you, Mr. Thurman. I believe you were otherwise employed when I lived in Daltonville.” Ellen didn’t know that he’d ever been caught, but it was strongly suspected that Thurman had been a moonshiner in his younger days. He’d also made a few obscene passes at her in her youth, and she wouldn’t have trusted him under any circumstance.
The man flushed, and his face took on a bulldog expression. Stroking his bushy mustache, he said, “Well, I’m sheriff now, and I’ve come to investigate the breaking and entering here at Arrowwood.”
Thompson darted a quick look in Ellen’s direction, as if he wondered how the news of the intruders had spread, but Thompson probably hadn’t lived in a small town or been exposed to its grapevine method of communication. It came as no surprise to Ellen that the news was widespread.
“I haven’t asked for an investigation. It’s true we’ve had a prowler, but we’re putting on new locks and taking extra precautions. I don’t see any reason for you to be concerned at this point.”
“We want to look around anyway,” he said belligerently.
Favoring Thompson with a glance, Ellen detected his slight nod, so she motioned Thurman and his deputy into the house. “We think the intruder was in an upstairs room.” She preceded the two officers up the stairs. Thurman looked over everything in the two rooms. Although he didn’t open any drawers, she thought he wanted to, and he stood with his hand on Timothy’s desk for a long time.
“Did you find any clues?” Ellen asked.
“Nothing,” he said shortly. “But the next time you have any trouble, let me know.”
Ellen didn’t answer him, but as they walked downstairs she turned to Sid Pauley. “So you’re Carol’s husband now?”
She hardly recognized this handsome blond as the pest who’d made life miserable for her and Carol when they were children.
Sid smiled shyly at her. “Yes’m. She’s right excited that you’re back in the neighborhood.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing her again. If it’s convenient for her, ask her to come visit tomorrow afternoon.”
“I’ll tell her,” he said, looking pleased as he followed Thurman to the car.
Ellen stood beside Thompson, and as the police car left, she said, “What do you think he was after?”
“Hard to tell. He didn’t look anywhere except the bedroom.”
“As far as I’m concerned, that badge doesn’t change Clyde Thurman in my book. He used to be a scoundrel, and I figure he still is.”
Four
After lunch, while Thompson installed locks on the bedroom doors, Ellen sat on the verandah and watched a tugboat wend its way down the river. The northern end of Indian Island was visible at this point, and she wondered if Lane was working today.
Fannie was taking a na
p in the living room, and Ellen went to the kitchen and told Annie she was going for a walk. She followed a deer trail through the woods to the bank of the river.
The deepwater channel, used by commercial traffic, flowed west of the island. The channel between the island and the eastern shore was shallow and used primarily for smaller watercraft. She and Lane had often fished from his boat in this area, not visible from his home.
The camp on the opposite bank seemed deserted, and Ellen was disappointed until she noticed a man kneeling in some underbrush several feet above the water. When he stood, she knew it was Lane. Even across the fifty-yard channel, it was easy to recognize the graceful movements of his long, lean form.
He seemed alone, and Ellen stepped out of the woods onto a sandbar.
Waving her arms, she yelled, “Hello!”
Her voice must have carried across the water, for he turned quickly.
“Hi! Come on over.”
Ellen pointed to her silk two-piece jumper with pleated skirt. “I’m not dressed for swimming.”
“Wait a second. I’ll come and get you.”
He jerked a rope that tied a skiff to a large maple tree, and in a few minutes had crossed the narrow channel.
“I’d been thinking about you,” Lane said as he nudged the boat against the bank. “When you yelled, I thought you’d stepped out of my thoughts.”
Taking hold of her arm, he helped her to a seat in the boat. He pushed the craft out into the current and picked up the oars. But the boat drifted aimlessly while Lane’s gaze took in each feature of her face, lingering longest on her lips.
With an embarrassed laugh, Ellen asked, “Do I pass inspection?”
“You bet! I can’t find a blemish anywhere.”
“Maybe that’s because you can’t see beneath the surface.”
He dipped the oars in the water. “I’m alone on the island today, so we can explore.”
“I can’t stay long,” Ellen said. “Fannie is napping now, but we had more trouble last night, and she’s jumpy. If I’m not there when she wakens, she’ll have a fit.”
“What kind of trouble?”
While he landed and secured the boat, she explained what had happened. “Three more staff members came yesterday, but I still don’t feel safe. Someone is breaking into the house for some reason, and I don’t believe it has anything to do with me.”
Lane stared across the water to Arrowwood Estate, and Ellen believed that, momentarily, he’d forgotten she was with him. Why had Lane returned to this area? Did he resent the fact that the property no longer belonged to his family? Could he be involved in the attempts to drive her out of his ancestral home?
She looked at his sharp, confident profile, marveling at how few changes there had been in nine years. His handsome face with its fine lines, high cheekbones, and straight prominent nose seemed to have changed very little. A ray of sun peeking through the dense foliage of the island highlighted his unruly dark hair. When he turned to face her, his dark eyes smoldered with a faint light, and Ellen realized that his memories of the past were as vivid as hers.
“I’ll be here to help you this summer, Ellen. I don’t have a phone on the island, but we’ll think of some way to communicate, so you can get in touch with me when you need help. Maybe the old ESP is still working between us.”
She knew what he meant. Unplanned, she’d often been standing on the riverbank when Lane passed in his boat, and they’d spent several hours together on the island.
Reaching out his hand to her, he said, “In the meantime, let’s look around. I found something the other day that I want to show you.” He looked at her clothing and said, “But there’s a lot of underbrush and briars—we can’t ruin that pretty dress.”
Taking his hand, Ellen said, “We’ll risk it. These shoes are good for walking, although I’ll probably sacrifice my silk stockings.”
They walked slowly away from the river and through the trees toward the southern end of the island, mostly in silence, with Lane guiding her into smooth paths or holding back the briars so they wouldn’t tear her clothing.
They came to a sandy spot, overshadowed by a huge beech tree, where they looked across the water to the state of Ohio. She and Lane had often come here to cook their food over a campfire.
“Look!” Lane said, and his hand brushed over a carving on the tree—two hearts intertwined—with the message, LD loves ER.
Ellen’s throat tightened and tears slowly made their way down her cheeks. She smothered a sob and turned away so Lane wouldn’t see her distress.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to be sad about it,” Lane said. “When I came here a few days ago and found the tree, I experienced such anguish that I thought my heart would break, but the sadness is all gone now that we’re together again.”
Ellen blinked back her tears, and without looking at him, she sat on the ground and leaned against the tree. Lane sat beside her. “Where did we go wrong, Ellen?”
She shook her head and pointed to the carving on the tree that Lane had made on one of their happiest days here. “Our hearts were joined together, but too much else separated us. I can understand now why your parents thought I wasn’t the one for you. You were all they had, and I didn’t fit into their plans.”
“We were too young to be making lifetime decisions. I know that now, and I didn’t have the courage to defy my folks. I’ve relived the past hundreds of times and wondered what I could have done to make them accept you. As it was, I didn’t talk to them—just met you in secret.”
“Times were so uncertain then, for my father was a staunch union man and your folks owned the mine. Naturally, after the things that happened, they wouldn’t have wanted me for a daughter-in-law.”
“I know we can’t pick up where we left off, as if nine years hasn’t separated us. But can we start over as friends, and maybe build a relationship on what we are now, rather than what we used to be? We’re not the same people we were when we last met in this spot, and the things that divided us then no longer separate us. Will you be my friend, Ellen?”
She couldn’t be content as nothing more than Lane’s friend, but perhaps that was the best way to start over. They’d never really been friends. From the first day they’d met, their feelings had plunged them into an intense emotional awareness of the other that had precluded friendship. It had been a romance they were too young to handle.
“Sure,” Ellen said, and the lightness of her voice hid the depths of her emotions. “I am your friend. But now I must go back to Arrowwood. If Fannie is awake, she’ll be concerned.” At this point, she didn’t want Marshal Warren to know anything about Lane, and if Thompson knew where she’d spent the afternoon, he’d report to Warren.
They talked over several ways to communicate on their way back to the mainland, but nothing seemed viable. Lane grounded the skiff on a sandbar, took Ellen’s hand, and helped her out of the boat. He looked around the area and picked up a large piece of driftwood.
“This isn’t a very good plan, but it’s all I can think of now. I have binoculars in my gear, so when you need to talk to me, put this driftwood on the northern side of this maple tree. I’ll go into Daltonville and telephone you or come to the house as soon as I can.”
Lane must have noticed her hesitation, for he said, “Do you have a problem with that?”
She didn’t want Lane involved in the murder investigation surrounding her. If Lane recognized that Thompson was more than a gardener, he’d ask questions that she wasn’t prepared to answer.
“Telephone me, then. I don’t think you should come to the house just yet.”
Ellen noted some bitterness in Lane’s laugh. “History repeating itself, huh? Always before, you were the one unwelcome at Arrowwood.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you’ll always be welcome there, but trust me on this—it isn’t wise for us to be seen together right now.”
Ellen was wary of the suspicion and speculation in Lane’s eyes when she lef
t him. But what else could she do?
Whether it was the new locks, or their increased vigilance, they spent a peaceful night at Arrowwood, and when Carol Pauley telephoned the next morning to say she’d be coming for a visit, Ellen faced the day with a lighter heart.
Carol arrived about two o’clock with Charlotte, her three-year-old daughter, and Ellen embraced Carol, holding her for a long moment without saying a word. She was suddenly overwhelmed with thoughts of the past and the tragedy of her childhood. She kept her face hidden from Carol until she regained control of her emotions.
Forcing a smile to her face, Ellen led her friend into the drawing room. “I’m happy to see you. You’re one of the brightest memories of my youth, and you haven’t changed much.”
Carol laughed shyly. “I can’t say the same about you. Imagine Ellen Rayburn dressed like a movie star and living at Arrowwood!”
The physical characteristics of the two friends had always contrasted sharply. Carol was a petite redhead with bright blue eyes, several inches shorter than Ellen’s above-medium height.
“I’ve picked up a few pounds I don’t need,” Carol said, “but you’re still as slender as ever.”
Carol settled into an armchair and Charlotte sat on the floor nearby, where the child played quietly with the doll Carol handed her.
“My life has changed a lot since I cried myself to sleep because I wasn’t welcome in this house. Especially one Valentine’s Day when all of the youth at the church except me were invited to a party at Arrowwood.”
“And you vowed you’d make something of yourself in spite of the Daltons!”
Love Almost Lost Page 4
