“Oh, she couldn’t? Well, now she won’t have to be! Come on, all of you; let’s pack. Where’s Alison? She’s never around when I need her.” Marise turned toward the door without waiting for an answer and went swiftly out and up the stairs.
Mimi looked woefully at Tony and whimpered, “Oh, Tony, I don’t want to leave. This is such a lovely place, and it’s so peaceful.”
Tony looked down at her round, childish face and scowled.
“Neither do I, Baby. But when Madam cracks the whip, we all move, don’t we, Rog?” he answered.
Roger said briefly, “Seems as if.” He clapped Jerry on the shoulder and said briskly, “On your feet, old boy. We’re moving out.”
Jerry looked up at him with a foolish smile, already at that hour of the morning foggy with several drinks. He heaved himself to his feet, staggering slightly, as Roger steadied him and escorted him toward the door.
“A man who can’t handle it any better than Jerry is a fool to try,” Tony commented sourly as he and Mimi went up the stairs behind Roger and Jerry.
Alison was on the window seat, looking out into the glory of the morning, when Marise burst into the room and slammed the door hard behind her. One look at her contorted face told Alison there was trouble in the wind, and she stood up, waiting.
“We’re leaving, Alison, as soon as you can pack,” Marise told her sharply.
“Leaving?” Alison repeated as though she could not quite believe her ears. “But why so suddenly? The Old Gentleman isn’t—” She could not quite bring out the word.
“No, he’s not dead! If he was, we wouldn’t be able to leave until after all the dreary, morbid details of the funeral and the reading of the will were attended to,” snapped Marise. “We’re leaving because Bix and that little snip, Judy, have gotten themselves engaged!”
“Oh, but that’s wonderful! I’m so glad for them,” Alison said with an impulsive sincerity that added quite unnecessary fuel to the fire of Manse’s fury.
“Oh, you are, are you? That’s just dandy! Thanks a lot for being so concerned about me!”
Alison’s eyes widened. “About you? Oh, come now, Marise; you know darned well you’re not in love with Bix.”
Marise’s head went up and her eyes blazed.
“You’d know about that, of course, since you always know more about me than I know about myself,” she snapped.
“I know that you’d never marry Bix.”
“Who said anything about marrying him?” Marise was still in a fury. “He’s fun to have around, and he never bores me, and I had some plans for him. And now he throws himself away on that little snippet.”
Alison clenched her fists hard in the pockets of her jacket and waited. She had long ago learned it was folly to try to argue with Marise at any time, especially at a time like this when she was obviously in a high rage. She had learned to sit quietly, bracing herself to ride out the storm.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” Marise flung at her furiously. “Start packing. I’m going down to the telephone to call Captain Stuart and have him get the yacht ready for us immediately. It’s at Charleston, and that’s not a very long drive. We should be there by dinner time.”
As always, she did not wait for an answer but flung herself out of the room and down the stairs, leaving Alison to stand wide-eyed in the center of the room for a long moment before she moved to start the task of assembling Marise’s belongings.
She had packed for Marise for so many years that now she did it automatically, her thoughts occupied elsewhere.
So now she was to leave Oakhill forever. There would never be a return. But it was not Oakhill that she would remember most of all; it was Sam Gillespie she would never forget, Sam Gillespie she would never see again. And at the thought something twisted in her heart so savagely that she all but cried out beneath the pain.
Suddenly she dropped the garments she was tenderly sheathing in tissue paper and went swiftly out of the house. She hurried along the path to Sam’s cottage, but without much hope that he would be there this time of day, although it must be close to lunch time. She wasn’t quite sure why she had to see him; she only knew that she could not leave Oakhill without seeing him once more, if only to say goodbye.
She was at the gate, just pushing it open, when she heard the sound of hoof-beats and turned to see Sam riding up. Startled at the sight of her, he swung out of the saddle, leaving the reins dangling, and came swiftly toward her.
“Why, Alison, is anything wrong? No more wiggling sticks, I hope.” He was searching her white, convulsed face anxiously even as he tried to speak lightly.
“I wanted to say goodbye, Sam,” she told him huskily. “We’re leaving as soon as we can pack—all of us.”
“What happened?”
Alison’s white face was touched very briefly with a faint smile.
“Bix and Judy discovered they were in love with each other and got engaged,” she answered. And as Marise had not noticed Roger’s shock at the news, Alison was too caught up in her own problems to be aware that she had delivered a blow to Sam.
There was a moment of tense silence, while Sam’s jaws tightened until a small ridge of muscle stood out along one side. But Alison, unaware of his shock, went on hurriedly, “So you see, Marise wants to check out as fast as she can. And I wanted to say goodbye to you before I left.”
Sam said levelly, “You’re going, too?”
Startled, she asked, “What else can I do?”
“Nothing else, if that’s what you want to do.”
“But it isn’t what I want,” she all but pleaded for his understanding. “It’s just that there isn’t anything else I can do.” She added painfully, “Is there?”
“I would think so, after the training you’ve had with the Marise girl,” he pointed out quietly. “You’re a well-trained companion, and I’m sure there are many elderly or otherwise handicapped women able to pay well for the services of a trained companion.”
She was staring at him, wide-eyed, scarcely daring to hope yet wanting desperately to do just that.
“You really think I could earn my living that way?” she asked tremulously.
“Why not? And it should be much more pleasant than putting up with Marise’s whims and tempers.”
“Oh, Sam, if only I could stay here in this lovely, lovely place,” she said, and added quickly, “Oh, I don’t mean at Oakhill. I just mean somewhere near here.”
“I’m sure Miz’ Beth and Judy would be delighted to have you stay on at Oakhill until we can find you a permanent post with some pleasant person who would be glad to pay you an excellent salary for doing just what you’ve been doing, for free, for Marise,” Sam told her firmly.
Alison was radiant with hope now, and Sam studied her compassionately.
“Oh, Sam, do I dare?” she whispered at last. “I told you I’m a coward. It frightens me a little. And yet—oh, Sam, it would be so wonderful to be free! I’ve never been ever since I can remember.”
“Well, now’s your chance,” Sam told her with a heartening smile. “I don’t think you’ll ever regret it. There’s a great big wonderful world outside Marise Parker’s orbit. And it’s high time you found it.”
“Oh, Sam, maybe it is! Maybe it is!” she whispered.
“It’s true if you want it to be.”
She looked up at him, and there were tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Sam, you’re such a good friend! I don’t know what I would have done without you these past weeks!” she burst out impulsively.
Sam’s mouth twisted bitterly.
“Oh, that’s me all over—the good friend to whom you gals bring your problems for a solution—Judy as well as you. But you won’t either of you need me as soon as you get yourselves settled, and I’m sure you, as well as Judy, will do just that soon!”
Alison discounted the faint bitterness in his voice, too radiantly happy to be aware of it as she stammered, “Then this isn’t goodbye after all, is it?”
“Of course not,” Sam assured her. And now his smile was the familiar friendly one that had done things to her heart when first she had seen it. “Matter of fact, it’s sort of hello, isn’t it?”
“I like that!” she answered him radiantly.
“Hi, I just thought of something,” Sam said swiftly. “Remember that Andy Abbott we met at lunch in town the other day? He’s been trying to find someone to live with his mother, and I have a hunch he’d lunge at the chance to get you. She’s really a very nice person, but stubborn as a mule. Firmly refuses to leave her home and move into an apartment; and Andy worries about her being alone at night after the house servants are gone. Oh, they live on the place, but at the back, and Andy is fearful that his mother might need help and be unable to call them. Also, she is a woman who gets very lonely unless she has someone to talk to! I’m afraid she talks rather a lot, but she is kind and gentle and I think you’d like her. And I know she’d like you.”
“Oh, Sam, you really are a miracle worker! Suddenly I feel very brave, as if a whole new life were starting for me,” she breathed.
“It is, Alison, if you want it,” Sam assured her, his compassion growing as he saw the depth of her delight at the thought of escape from Marise. “I’ll telephone Andy, and if he hasn’t found somebody, I’ll drive you into town to meet his mother. I know Andy will jump at the chance to get you; he was quite taken with you at lunch the other day, remember?”
“I didn’t notice,” Alison answered quite honestly, and Sam’s brows went up ever so slightly.
“Well, I did.” He grinned warmly at her. “Now you scoot along and have lunch, unless you’d care to have it with me?”
“Thanks, I’d love to, but I have to finish packing for Marise, so they can get started. She’s alerting her yacht captain to have the yacht ready to sail at a moment’s notice, practically,” Alison answered. “But I’ll be ready to drive in with you if you think Mrs. Abbott would be interested in having me.”
“I’m sure she would, unless they have already found somebody, which I don’t think likely,” Sam told her, and watched as she went swiftly up the path and back to the Manor.
She moved lightly, as though there were wings on her heels, and he knew that those wings were provided by the knowledge that she was about to be free of Marise. And the thought was one that made him go into the house at last, with an angry scowl drawing his brows together.
Amanda, watching him as he approached the table, said pleasantly, “I see that Miss Parker lady at the gate, so I set a place for her. Where is she?”
“Oh, she’s gone back to lunch at the Manor,” Sam answered. “She only came down to tell me something. The guests are leaving the Manor, and she wanted to say goodbye.”
“She’s leaving? I’m sorry to hear that. She seems like a real nice lady,” said Amanda.
“Oh, she’s not leaving. The others are,” Sam told her briefly.
Amanda’s chocolate-brown eyes widened, and she asked, “What’s she gonna do?”
“Oh, she’s going to find a job as a companion to some elderly woman who needs one,” Sam answered.
Amanda studied him curiously, and then she said, only half under her breath, “Hm!”
Sam looked up at her sharply.
“Now what’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“Just ‘Hm,’ Mist’ Sam, that’s all,” Amanda told him innocently. And as she went back to the kitchen, Sam heard her chuckling softly to herself.
Alison opened the door of Marise’s room and found Marise wreathed in cigarette smoke, a cocktail glass in her hand, her feet up on a big puff. Nothing had been done to complete the packing that Alison had abandoned. As she came in, Marise greeted her angrily, demanding to know where she had been. And without even waiting for her to answer, she went on to announce that the yacht would be ready to sail at noon the following day.
“So you’d better get busy and finish this packing, and you’ll have to hurry with yours,” Marise reminded her sourly.
Alison was folding a delicate wisp of peach-colored chiffon into its protective tissue. Without looking up, she said quietly, “Oh, I’m not going, Marise.”
Marise swallowed the last of the cocktail and stubbed out her cigarette in the tray beside her.
“Don’t be a fool, Alison. Of course you’re going,” she snapped. “We are all here because Bix invited us. That is, he invited
me
, and I was to bring my friends. So now that I’m leaving, all my friends are leaving, too. Now get on with it.”
“I’m not leaving,” Alison insisted. “Oh, I’ll be leaving Oakhill, of course. But I’m going to find a job in town and stay on here in the neighborhood.”
Marise stared at her in utter stupefaction.
“A job?” she repeated as though she could not believe the statement. “Now what kind of a job could
you
get, with no training whatever?”
Alison straightened and faced her.
“Oh, but I have been trained, Marise. And I suppose I should be very grateful to you for the kind of training I’ve had, that will make it easy for me to get a job, with a salary and certain privileges.”
“You should be grateful to me for a lot of things, but you have certainly never been, as far as I can see,” snapped Marise. “And what’s all this about a job with a salary and privileges? Where did you ever get that idea?”
“Sam knows somebody—”
“Sam? Sam Gillespie? That overseer?”
“He’s an estate manager, Marise, and even if he were only a plowman, he’s good and kind and I like him very much!”
“And a heck of a lot of good it will do you to like him! Why, he’s a confirmed bachelor. If he hadn’t been, he’d have tried to marry Judy!”
“But now that Judy is going to marry Bix—” Alison pointed out and saw the rush of angry color that stained Marise’s cheeks at the reminder.
“Oh, now that Judy is going to marry Bix, you think you’ve got a chance with the Gillespie person,” Marise sneered.
“I don’t think that for a moment, Marise,” Alison protested warmly. But Marise saw that she had flushed and her eyes were not quite clear. “Sam would never be interested in a girl like me. He’s a man who would expect his wife to be a good housekeeper and cook and—” Her voice trailed off into silence beneath Marise’s malicious eyes, and she turned away and resumed the packing.
Marise studied her for a long moment, and then she made a genuine effort to be pleasant and friendly.
“Alison, dear, you’ve gone overboard about this rural living,” she said gently. “And believe me, dear, you won’t like it. Oakhill will bore you stiff in a day or so, after we leave. It’s been fun and a novelty and amusing, as a novelty usually is. But believe me, the novelty will wear off the minute we leave you here alone. It’d be much better for you to come with us.”