Partners (26 page)

With lips set, and almost a prayer in his heart, he followed her into the church again.

"So absurd that they won't allow one to smoke inside the church," she murmured. "I could easily borrow a cigarette from Bobby and get a whiff or two before we start! It isn't a sacred service tonight, just a wedding rehearsal. They have an awful fanatic of a rector here. Well, so long, Reuben. See you at the altar." She slid away to whisper to the said Bobby, whispered to him, and presently disappeared for a few seconds. Then she reappeared with a look upon her of having had her life saved.

Reuben took his place at the head of the aisle and watched the lively procession come hippity-hopping up the aisle in slow and measured tread. But his eyes were upon Agnes, studying the changes the years had made in her. Changes that he had not been able to discern in the dimness of twilight outside the church, and he was shocked again. Not so much because she was like a hundred other fashionable girls, but that she who had been set upon a pedestal for his young worship should be discovered on a level with girls to whom he was either utterly indifferent or else heartily despised.

Well, he had not come to fall in love with her and marry her. He could exist if all his idols fell. There was still a girl now and then like Gillian Guthrie, or--well, at least there was Gillian.

Up to this present moment he had not thought of Gillian as someone to love, to marry perhaps, only as someone very frail entrusted to his care. But now he remembered her with a kind of relief. Not everybody had to be a fashion plate, nor ape-men's vices. He thought of Anise huddled among those pillows in the leafy shadows, drunk. And then his eyes sought the sparkling loveliness of little Rose Elizabeth, the bride, as she came demurely up the aisle. Well, she made a lovely bride. Perhaps she wore makeup, too, and had crimson fingertips, but it did not shine out so glaringly to him because he had only known her as a child. Agnes he had thought almost an angel, and she didn't look in the least like an angel now. A very pretty sparkling girl full of pep and cheer, smart and bright and hard, but not the kind of girl you fell in love with.

Strange that he had to go to Glindenwold and then come away out here to this wedding to find out it was really Gillian he loved. And then his heart gave a wild sweet throb so in tune with the "Wedding March" that the joy came right out and stood in his eyes for anybody to see who had time to notice. Only they weren't noticing, for Agnes was taking her steps up the aisle in the eyes of the world, and she thought Reuben was watching her, so she was being very careful about them.

But never a step did Reuben see, for he was thinking about Gillian and wondering if he could ever persuade her to love him.

So far as Reuben was concerned, he had finished the work he came to Carrington, Illinois, for. Though there was the rest of the evening--standing around and talking to them all, saying a lot of nothings that everybody expected him to say. There would probably be a lot more talking to do with Agnes; he would probably get it rubbed into him thoroughly that his mother had been right and he had been wrong. And there would be tomorrow in which he would likely be asked to go on various errands, probably in Agnes's company, more talk, more covert sneers and laughter, in spite of which he somehow felt that Agnes still liked him as much as she used to. The trouble was she wanted to make him over according to her own pattern. And then there would be the wedding itself and the wedding supper, and then afterward seeing the bride and groom off, tying ribbons and old shoes on a car they were not going to use, and flinging rice and confetti. Oh, it was all to go through, but thanks be that it was the end. Agnes wouldn't want it to be the end, but he knew now definitely that he did. That never, never, would he want to see more of Agnes, nor fall in love with her, nor marry her, not even if he stayed till doomsday to find out. He had found out now he loved Gillian Guthrie, and he meant to marry her if he could get her.

 

 

 

Early on the morning after the wedding day, a policeman of Sandy Haven district walked down the street to the little white cottage where Aunt Ettie presided, and knocked at the door.

Gillian was in her room making her bed with her door open a crack to hear when Noel would call that he had his small spelling lesson learned. He was sitting on a little chair that Aunt Ettie had salvaged from the days when Reuben was a little boy and she was his nurse. She had brought it along with Noel in mind, and he loved it. Gillian heard Aunt Ettie hurry in from the kitchen to open the door, so she went on making her bed, but she could quite well hear all that the policeman said.

"Mornin', ma'am," he said. "I represent the police in this district an' I wantta ask you a few questions. You the one they call Aunt Ettie?" He eyed her severely.

"I am!" said Aunt Ettie. "But what's that ta you?"

"Not a thing, my good woman, not a thing. I'm merely identifying ya. Listen, did a man come here to call this mornin' ur even last evenin', name of Albee? Mason Albee? Sort of elderly, wearin' a wide-brimmed soft felt hat and fairly longish hair?"

Aunt Ettie pricked up her ears, but her eyes remained steady. Even a policeman couldn't tell what was going on behind her firm shut lips and her steady glance.

"Never seed the man!" she declared.

"Well, he's likely ta cum, so they tell me, and when he does, ef I don't ketch him on his way, give me a call, won'tcha? Ask for Sam, an' ef the man can hear ya, then don't say nothing only 'okay.' Ya understand?"

"Sure I understand. I begun ta learn English as soon as I was born," said Aunt Ettie competently, "and I been studyin' it mostly ever since."

They faced each other for one grim instant, these old warhorses, with maybe a twitching of the lips and eyelids, but never a smile did they crack. Just measured each other and turned away content.

"Well, s'long!" said the policeman. "I'll be seein' ya." He opened the screen door.

"What--" said Aunt Ettie with her expression timed just right, "is the little old idea, any ways, comin' here? What's me and my household got to do with the old bird's business? I guess I rate that much knowledge ef I'm ta be ordered ta call you up on the telephone."

The policeman turned back with a grim smile, showing he could appreciate a joke if it was pressed upon him.

"Well, ya see, lady, I'm not supposed ta tell all the outs an' ins of the law, but bein' as you've inquired an' showed yerself fairly willin' ta cooperate in the roundup, I can jest give ya a hint that this here man is wanted by the law fer somethin' on the order of crooked, I infer, an' bein' as they found out where he was a-goin' ta be around this time, they give me the high sign ta watch out fer him."

"That's all well enough fer you o' course, but what I wantta know is how they picked me house ta search fer the old rascal, in place of some other cottages. I never heard tell of him."

"Well, that's as it may be!" said the policeman. "I'm jest tellin' ya what I'm supposed ta give out. You see, this here information was sent down from the N'Yark office, in a kinda code I guess you'd call it, an' it implied the man was searchin' fer some relative ur other who was livin' with you."

"Well, I ain't got a relative by thet name, not on neither side, an' that's the truth."

"Well, now you jest keep yer shir--beg pardon, ma'am--that is, jest keep nice an' cool an' don't get het up about it. Likely the man'll find out he's made a mistake, ur they didn't ask the right address, ur else he's just kiddin' 'em. You see, he's wanted fer questionin' and he's likely stallin' fer time. So, jest you call me up when an'
ef
he comes, an' I'll see ya don't get inta no trouble personally. Good mornin'! I'll see ya later."

The policeman passed out of the door and walked slowly down to the street, pausing every step or two to jot down something in his very important-looking little notebook. Aunt Ettie watched him out of sight and then went outside and removed a dead leaf or two from her rose geranium, paused to look up and down the street, and gave a quick searching of the ocean as if perchance the vagabond might come tripping over the waves. At last she went into the house.

"Gillian," she called, but there came no answer.

She opened Gillian's door, which was standing ajar, but Gillian was not there. She went outside and called again, but still no answer.

Then she called louder: "N-o-o-el!" and then listened, but there came no quick answering young voice. Several times she called, and called again from different points. She went to the door and looked down the street. Then she went to the back door and looked off down on the sand dunes, but there wasn't even a speck there to show where they were sitting. Usually Gillian went down to the beach with Noel in the morning but not till after they had been to the store for the marketing. Well, perhaps they had gone while the policeman was there. Gillian would know pretty well what, if anything, was needed for that special day. Gillian was all for saving when Reuben was not at home, showing her economical training during her hard days. But surely--well, she would wait a little. If they had gone downtown, they would be back in a few minutes and come to tell her what they had done.

So she went back to the pudding she was making for dinner that night, hoping against hope that Reuben would be home for dinner. Yet he couldn't, of course, because the wedding was not till seven o'clock and he couldn't get away before that when he was best man.

How she wished Reuben were back! If that uncle of Gillian's really came, what was she going to do? Gillian had told her just a few words about the trouble they had had with the uncle, and she had an uncanny insight into things that nobody exactly
told
her. She was shrewd enough to guess most of what went on about her. This that the policeman had said fitted together with what the girl had told her. Gillian's uncle was coming to find her. He had done something crooked about Gillian's money. That was plain enough from the few facts she had gathered. Well, she certainly wished that Reuben were here now. He would know what to do. He had given her a telephone number to call if anything happened, and she could call him up, but likely Gillian would come back pretty soon and she could talk it over with her. True, Gillian hadn't said much about this uncle, only that he was unkind and wanted to put Noel in an orphanage. That would likely be enough to make her afraid of him. Enough to make her run away from him. And likely he had got to a place where he couldn't be crooked with the money unless he got hold of the girl again. Aunt Ettie hadn't lived in this world so long for nothing. If she came on a situation she didn't understand, she could always "shut her mouth and saw wood" as Reubie used to say she did. So Aunt Ettie proceeded to shut her mouth and saw wood. That was what she would do when that old uncle arrived, if he ever really did. Likely it was only a false alarm, and there was no point in worrying Reuben while he was away having a good time at a wedding. Better wait until she had something real to tell him,
if
she ever did.

So although she had been hovering near the telephone and looking up that long-distance number that Reuben had given her, she decided to wait awhile. She had gained much of her reputation of being able to handle difficult situations by that very means.

Meanwhile she kept a weather eye out both beachward and townward for Gillian and the boy, but neither of them came. Also for a second visit from the policeman. But the street was empty save for the folks who had taken the next cottage and were now getting settled and going back and forth to the village for this and that. Of course, if she needed anybody in a hurry and couldn't get the policeman right away, there were always those people. She could easily scream loud enough to make them hear her. Although Aunt Ettie had never yet descended to the undignified situation of having to scream for help.

The thing that worried her the most was a thought that had been suggested by her highly excitable imagination. Suppose those two had gone to the beach and had been caught by the unprincipled uncle, or had been met in the street and he had found a way to spirit them out of town without anybody suspecting. And she, Aunt Ettie, not knowing anything about it wouldn't know whether to report such a thing to the police or to let things drift until Reuben came home. And then suppose Reuben should blame her. He never did blame her yet for anything she'd ever done, but in a case like this he would have a perfect right to blame her. And yet, what could she do?

So she went to work to make an extra-fine lunch--cold tongue, rice fritters, and lemon soufflé. And she watched the clock anxiously as she watched the road from the village and both ways up and down the beach. But still they did not come.

She even went out down the dune a little way to look toward the beach at their favorite place, but no one was there. Rare, old-fashioned tears came streaming down her cheeks, and what to do about it she did not know. Should she call up Reuben and tell him about it? But Reuben was nearly two days' journey away, and what help could he bring?

'Twas then she heard a knocking at the door, and in fair fright she flew back in at her kitchen door and ran the water to let on she had not heard the knock and give herself more time to get her breath and her habitual "snap," or poise as others would have called it.

The knock came again, imperiously, importantly, and Aunt Ettie came and stood in the kitchen doorway where she could look through the living room, the mistress of her mansion.

"Well?" she demanded, her chin held high, one hand firmly gripping the door frame, the other clinched beneath her apron.

"Good morning, ma'am," said the debonair stranger. "I am wondering if you could tell me where to find my niece Gillie?"

"Gillie?" said the canny Aunt Ettie. "No, I don't know anybody called by that name."

"But I was told by the neighbors that you had a young woman here helping you. Wouldn't that be my niece? Won't you call her? I have come a long way in search of her."

"Oh! That girl!" said Aunt Ettie loftily. "Yes, I did have a girl, but she's gone now."