Blue Ruin (29 page)

As for Amelia, she frankly told Dana that he ought to have stayed and looked up some other church while he was there. That it was high time he was settled if he expected to get to work in the fall, and he ought to have something definite to tell people. It didn’t look well to see him hanging around home and going out with a girl like that every day.

But Dana loftily told her that the church at which he was to preach in August was the church of his choice, and that it was as good as his now. He had practically been called, and everything would be settled in good time when the people got home from their vacations. Then he put on his knickers and sweater and told Jessie Belle to come along for a ride, and out he went into temptation again, although this time he knew he was going there. He was insane enough to think that the fact that he knew it would protect him.

That was the beginning of a very trying summer for all the Whipples. Dana had taken the bit in his teeth and did just as he pleased, and only Justine beamed. Amelia was raw with anguish. She went around in the kitchen like a cyclone and came downstairs every morning with red eyes and quivering, flabby lips. They were not becoming to her large, tired face. The neighbors were beginning to ask her, who was Jessie Belle, and where did Lynette come in? Was she satisfied?

“Well,” said Grandma sagely one morning when they were alone and without the usual cackle, “now that mortification has set in I suppose you’ll try to do something about it, Amelia, but it’s too late. You’ll find it is too late. I suppose you’ll blame it all on me, but I didn’t bring your child up, and I didn’t know a Jezebel was coming either when I let Justine ask her. I’d have sent her away soon after she got here, only I thought Dana was safer with her here under our eyes. She’s a little snake, and she’d have managed to have him come and find her, where nobody was around to bother them. But it seems Dana had to be tried out somehow or he wouldn’t be fit to stand in his grandfather’s pulpit. You brought him up, Amelia, and if you did it right he’ll come through. I guess we can’t do anything more. Dana’s of age, and he’s got good sense if he’s a mind to use it. It’s up to him. But I’m sorry for you, I really am, even if you never would take my advice and make him mind.”

“It was you who brought her here!” broke forth Amelia with a great sob. “A mother never would put temptation in her boy’s way like that.”

“Yes, I let her come, and I’m sorry for it, Amelia. I don’t mind saying that. I made a mistake. Still, if I hadn’t, the devil would have worked her in somehow. The Bible says everybody’s got to have his try out or something like that.”

“Yes, but it says, ‘Woe unto him, through whom they come!’” volleyed Amelia. “It wasn’t up to you to plan his testing.”

“Well, I guess I’ll get my share of the woe all right,” said Grandma grimly. “The boy isn’t exactly a stranger to me, you know. He’s my grandson, and I’ve been proud of him.”

“Been?” shrieked Amelia. “Oh, my soul!” and breaking out in a great heartrending sob, she fled up to her room.

Neither was Ella Smith without her troubles.

She cried slow, sad tears every night in bed, for an hour or two after she had concluded her nightly plea to her wayward daughter.

“Jessie—I mean Jessie Belle—you wasn’t brought up this way! You know your father would have told you you were doing wrong. You are just leading that young man on, and he doesn’t mean a thing. He’s engaged and he means to marry his other girl. He wouldn’t ever turn her down. His family thinks she’s the top notch. His mother spent all yesterday morning telling me how wonderful she was and what a high-up family she belonged to, and how the families on both sides had always been preachers’ folks, tradition she called it, whatever that is, and what a great help she was going to be to Dana in his chosen profession. That’s the way she said it, ‘chosen profession.’ It sounded real solemn and kind of frightened me. I think she was kind of hinting that the family wouldn’t stand for Dana’s making up to you. And Grandma, she talks, too. I shouldn’t wonder if she would send us off someday. She asked me when I had to go back to New York. And Jessie Belle, I don’t know what we’ll do. There won’t be any more money coming in from Papa’s lawyer till the last of October. Jessie Belle, I wish you’d be more careful and not go off with that young man all the time and make his folks mad at you so we can’t stay here. Why’n’t you get some fancy work for yourself? Make some of that bead work you’re always admiring so much, or a sofa pillow to give to Mrs. Whipple when we leave, or get some goods and cut out a dress for yourself. I’ll give you enough money for the goods if you won’t go over a dollar and a half a yard. Justine will go with you to buy it. Or if you don’t want to do that, set around and read a little. My soul! I don’t see what you and Dana have to talk about so much off alone together! It don’t seem decent, it really don’t Jessie—I mean Jessie Belle!”

Said Jessie Belle, “Oh, rats! Ella, shut up! I wantta go to sleep. I wasn’t asking your advice!”

Variations of this were played night after night no matter what time Jessie Belle and Dana came in from a movie or a ride, and afterward Ella Smith lay in the bed beside her child and wept. Grandma felt sorry for her, too, in a way, though she was worse than Amelia she felt, in her lack of “git-up-and-git.”

“Spoiled her child; that’s what’s the matter with all of ‘em,” she told herself grimly. “I guess it’s better to have ‘em dead!” and she sighed this time instead of cackling. It had been long years since her son was laid in the grave, but he had not been spoiled. Grandma had never lacked “git-up-and-git.”

Matters were drawing quickly to a crisis with Dana and Jessie Belle as the summer began to wane.

The day before Dana went down to New York to preach in that coveted pulpit, the last Saturday in August, Jessie Belle climbed into the car and settled back in satisfaction, a gleam of triumph in her eyes. They had spent the day in the woods and she felt mighty sure of her ground.

“Well, Dana, I s’pose we better get married right away, hadn’t we?” she said nonchalantly.

Dana was silent a long time. She almost thought he was not going to answer. His face had a haggard, hunted look, like one who had thrown away his birthright and had just found it out.

“I suppose we’ll have to,” he said miserably, with white lips that struggled for their old dignity and found it lacking. He had faced this thing for days and nights and tried to fling it from him and now it had him by the throat. Something inherent in his weak soul, or something about his conventional upbringing, would not let him be a scoundrel and run away. He had flirted with Jessie Belle. He had been a fool! And now there was just no way out of the consequences. He never meant to be a fool. He had thought he was a perfectly cool, calculating man, strong and self-controlled, and Jessie Belle had shown him that he was not. Therefore he almost hated her. And yet so strong was her hold upon him that he could not fling it off.

But now that she had brought the subject out in the open and he had said the words that acknowledged her right to do so, his soul reacted suddenly. Why, why did he have to do this awful thing and spoil his whole life? Yes, he saw in a flash that it would spoil his life. It would affect his reputation, too. How could he ever take a girl like Jessie Belle into a congregation as the minister’s wife? Besides, he did not really want to marry Jessie Belle. He was getting deadly tired of her vapid little chatter. It was only when she tempted him with her white arms and her red lips that he crushed her fiercely to him and was ready to sell his soul for the privilege of holding her in his arms.

They were driving toward home now, and the way reminded him suddenly of Lynette and the things she used to say about the flowers by the roadside. Such a little thing as a clump of maidenhair ferns that he had scarcely ever noticed before conjured her vision among the trees and wrung his heart with sudden recollection.

He stopped the car and turned in desperation to the girl who sat beside him.

“Jessie Belle, I’ve been a fool!” he said almost humbly.

“You would,” said Jessie Belle sweetly. “I saw that from the beginning, Dana, but that doesn’t make any difference. I don’t mind.”

“But listen, Jessie Belle. I can’t marry you. Why, I’m practically engaged to Lynette Brooke. We’ve been as good as engaged for years. I can’t go back on her! I really can’t marry you, Jessie Belle. I shouldn’t really have gone around with you. I didn’t realize; I felt you were just a child—at first it never entered my head.”

“I know,” said Jessie Belle with a hard tone in her voice. “You were an awful fool, of course. But that’s neither here nor there. You did go around with me, and you’ve gone too far, Dana Whipple. You’re mine now, and I’m going to keep you. I don’t care if you were engaged to a dozen other girls. That’s nothing in my young life. I want you and that’s that. You’ve gone too far to go back now and you know it. And what’s more, if you don’t, I’ll take means to have you know it. If you don’t turn right around now and take me off somewhere where we can get married before we go back to the house, why then I’m going to walk right in and tell Grandma and your mother and Ella and Justine exactly how you’ve acted from the start. I’ll tell everything! And I’ll go out to the neighbors. I’ll go and tell Mrs. Brooke, and I’ll write to your silly baby doll of a Lynette and tell her a few things she never heard before. And I’ll write to your old New York church and tell them you aren’t by any means the saint you set up to be. I’ll spoil your wonderful career you’re talking about all the time. I’ll knock it all to smithereens. But you can’t put anything over on me. I’m no infant! Now, will you turn around and go somewhere and get married?”

“Are you threatening to blackmail me?” Dana asked with some of his old-time spirit, “because no man will stand for that!”

“Well, I’m not so sure you are a man!” snapped Jessie Belle. “We’ll see! But it isn’t blackmail, it’s the truth, and you know it!”

Dana looked at her with miserable eyes and was speechless.

In the end she had her way.

They turned around. She would not risk passing the Brooke house till she had him hard and fast. She knew the very sight of it would make him falter again.

Silently, with set white lips and eyes that were hard and haunted, he drove the car at high speed out across the county line and on across the state line to a place where marriages were made easy and no questions asked, and Jessie Belle was well content to cease her chatter and let him drive. For once she knew ‘twas best to keep her mouth shut.

They drove back a little before midnight, having eaten a wedding supper at a miserable little roadhouse by the way. At least the bride ate heartily. The bridegroom gulped a cup of coffee and sat with shut lips watching her. It seemed to him incredible that he had come to this. He could not believe the thing was done and he was married to Jessie Belle! How had he ever allowed himself to get into such a plight? He saw his reputation ruined and his high hopes tottering. He saw the vision of Lynette as she stood on the porch that last night in the sunset. The last time he had seen her. Perhaps the last time he would ever see her in this life. His Lynette! Gone forever from him. And by his own act!

He was so miserable that he would have liked to put his head down on the cheap wooden table before him and cry like a little boy. And somehow the hardest thing about it all was that he despised himself. Himself! Had he himself done a thing like this? No! Surely it was not his fault. It was Lynette’s fault for crossing his will and refusing to stick by him. For running off to Europe because she was peeved. It was Jessie Belle’s fault for tempting him! “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me!” The old, old story of the Garden of Eden and the shut gate with the flaming swords. He was seeing himself shut off from the Eden that had been his. And yet there was no sorrow in his heart for what he had done, only for the things he had lost!

One proviso he had made, and Jessie Belle had acceded easily enough because it suited her plans, and besides, she did not have to keep her promise if she did not wish to do so. Dana wanted the marriage kept secret! For the present anyway. She was not to tell a soul until he gave her permission. Well, it would serve as a good hold over him when she wanted anything. She would threaten to tell.

Dana was not sure what gain was to come from keeping his marriage secret. In the end it would have to come out perhaps, but he could not go home and face his grandmother, his grandmother who held the money in trust for him, just how powerfully he had never known, and have her know what he had done.

They drove home silently. Jessie Belle was sleepy and yawned a good deal. It had been a strenuous occasion, this getting married, but it was done and she had the marriage certificate. Dana had wanted to keep it but she had insisted and it had been handed to her. She hugged it to her now, with a gleam of triumph in her eyes. What would that smug, religious Lynette say when she found she was cut out? And she, Jessie Belle, meant to take pains that news of it traveled abroad soon, in one way or another.

They stole into the sleeping house and to their rooms, Dana creeping up the back stairs like a scoundrel, his shoes in his hand, Jessie Belle happily humming a light little tune and flashing on the light regardless of her mother waking and weeping and waiting for her.

She shut the door and locked it and then turned to her mother her head up, her eyes shining.

“Well, you can say what you please now, Ella; I’m married and on my own!” she announced triumphantly.

“Jessie! Whatever can you mean?”

“I mean what I say. Dana and I were married tonight. Oh, it’s all right. I got a certificate good and fast. He can’t get away!”

“Oh, Jessie! My b–b–ba–by!” sobbed the mother, burying her face in the pillow lest she should be heard.

“Oh, shut up!” cried the girl impatiently. “What’s the sense of bellowing like that? Didn’t you expect I’d ever get married? I should think you’d be pleased that I got a good-looking rich fella like Dana. There ain’t so many of them.”

“But Jessie! He don’t belong to you. He was engaged! It wasn’t honorable!” protested her mother, sitting up in bed and getting tragic.