‘‘I been watching the frogs . . .’’ he said.
‘‘Mm . . .’’
‘‘. . . eating flies.’’
‘‘Mm . . .’’ She smiled at their feet as they ambled along, she stretching her strides, he shortening his, so they’d match.
‘‘A few turtles in the pond, too.’’
‘‘We’ll have to tell the girls. They’ll be right out here to get one.’’
‘‘When I was a boy we used to eat turtle. My mother made soup out of it.’’
They reached the cool, welcome shade beside his truck and she turned to face him.
‘‘That what you brought me out here to talk about, Gabriel? The frogs and the turtles?’’
From beneath the brim of his straw hat he studied her, unsmiling. His white shirt collar was open, soiled inside from his morning’s work, and bits of sawdust clung to his shoulders. His throat was the reddish brown of a man who rarely closes his collar button. His eyes were the gray-blue of new smoke, and serious.
‘‘No, it’s not. Did you eat dinner in town?’’
‘‘No, I didn’t.’’
‘‘Oh, of course not. It’s not noon yet. ’Course, I know you don’t set much store by noon, but I went ahead and brought us a couple of sandwiches, and I thought we could just sit here on the running board and eat them if you were hungry.’’
Gabriel, who never wasted words, was jabbering. She wondered why.
‘‘What kind of sandwich? Turtle?’’
‘‘Nope. Beef.’’ He opened his truck door to get them. ‘‘Matter of fact, you aren’t going to believe this, but I went over and asked my mother to make them this morning.’’
‘‘Your mother—well, she must not have known you were going to share them with me.’’
‘‘Ayup, she did. I told her.’’ From the tool caddy in the back of the truck he found a steel brush and swept off the running board.
‘‘Sit down, Roberta.’’
She sat, and he sat, putting a sandwich tin between them. He took out a fruit jar full of iced tea and uncapped it, and set it in the weeds between their outstretched feet. Opening the tin, he offered it to her.
‘‘Thank you.’’
They began eating, companionably quiet for a spell before Gabriel said his piece, looking off sort of easterly across the meadow at the green rim of woods. ‘‘What happened to you yesterday—that bothers me something terrible. I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about it and worrying about you.’’
‘‘But I’m not your worry, Gabriel.’’
‘‘May not be, but I worry just the same. What if . . . well, what if what you did afterwards didn’t do the trick? I figured it out, Roberta, and close as I can guess, it was almost an hour from the time Elfred pulled his dirty work and when you took that basin of water into my bedroom. Let’s just say that the timing turned out to be just right and what you did in there you did too late, and you still were pregnant. If that happened, I’d marry you, Roberta. That’s what I came here to tell you.’’
Her cheekful of sandwich nearly dropped out of her mouth. She closed her lips and swallowed, staring at Gabriel’s profile while he continued studying the sunny field of mowed clover.
‘‘You would?’’
Turning his face to her, he nodded.
‘‘If I were pregnant.’’
‘‘That’s right.’’
‘‘To protect me from gossip.’’
‘‘Something like that.’’ He took another bite of beef sandwich.
‘‘What about the things you said we needed to talk about? I thought that’s why you were meeting me out here.’’
‘‘In a case like this—I mean, supposing—we’d just have to overlook our differences.’’
‘‘Overlook my messiness and your fear of showing your emotions, is that what you mean?’’
She watched him carefully, and sure enough, he finally found the wherewithal to blush. He finished his sandwich and took a long drink of iced tea from the fruit jar, studying the opposite woods again. He set the jar down and wiped his mouth with the edge of a hand.
‘‘I figured it was a way out of a fix for you.’’
She was quiet for so long he finally looked over and found her packing away the uneaten portion of her sandwich in the tin.
‘‘What’s the matter?’’
‘‘You really think I’d make a second disastrous marriage after the first one ended that way?’’
‘‘Disastrous?’’
She put her feet flat on the ground and covered her knees as if they were baseballs she’d just caught. ‘‘A marriage of convenience isn’t exactly my style, Gabriel. I should think you’d know that by now. I may not be dainty and perfect and feminine like Caroline, but I have feelings, the same as she did. And if a man wanted me, I’d expect him to show it by doing some serious courting—unless the way you’ve been acting is what you consider serious courting. But by my standards it’s not. The thing is, Gabriel, I think you’re scared. I think you love me and you’re scared to death to say so, so instead you use this trumped-up excuse for suggesting we should get married, only I’m not about to fall for it and live with another man who doesn’t have the faintest notion of how to be a husband. I’d rather give birth to a bastard and raise it myself than tie myself up to a man who’s still in love with his first wife. So, I appreciate the thought, and underneath, it’s probably very selfless of you to offer, but no thank you, Gabriel. Not unless you love me.’’ She pushed off her knees and rose, adding without a touch of rancor, ‘‘Thank you for the sandwich. Sorry I didn’t feel like finishing it, but maybe next time.’’ She strode toward her car while he leaped to his feet.
‘‘Roberta, wait!’’
‘‘I’ve got to drive clear up to Bangor this afternoon. Sorry.’’
‘‘That’s a fine way to fling a man’s offer back in his face!’’ he shouted at her back.
‘‘I thanked you, Gabe, didn’t I?’’ She tossed a halfglance over her shoulder, and he grew angrier, watching her proceed to her car and get set to start it. He stomped across twenty feet of mixed weeds and caught up with her, forcing the crank handle from her hand.
He, angry, and she, stone calm, faced each other in the dappled shade of noon with a herd of cows looking on.
‘‘What do you want me to do?’’ he said, exasperated as only this woman could make him.
‘‘I’ve already told you.’’
‘‘Roberta, we’re middle-aged people, for cryin’ out loud!’’
‘‘Which precludes courtship? Emotion? Spooning? Gabriel, if that’s what you think, then you’re worse off than I thought you were.’’
‘‘I thought I was doing you a favor by offering you a way out.’’
‘‘Yes, I know that’s what you thought. I’m sorry I can’t accept, and I thank you again for your largess. But on those terms . . .’’ She shook her head, letting the thought trail. ‘‘I’ve spent enough loveless years with a man. I’m the kind of woman who needs the real thing, in all its’’—she gestured wide—‘‘its flamboyant outrageousness, and I don’t think you’re ready for that yet. I really do think you’re not over Caroline yet. Don’t get me wrong, Gabriel. I’d never ask you to give up your memories of her. But you’d have to love me as much as you did her, otherwise it would never work. I would forever be walking in her shadow, and the shade would be too cool for me to tolerate.’’
She wrested the crank from his hand and applied it. Momentarily they stood surrounded by the noise of the sputtering engine.
‘‘Roberta!’’ he yelled above it. ‘‘All of our children want us to marry, can’t you see that?’’
She yelled back, ‘‘Of course I can! Examine your motives, Gabriel, and when they’re the right ones, ask me again!’’
As she headed for the car door, he wanted to haul her back and manhandle her into submission. But that’s what Elfred had done yesterday, and gentlemen didn’t do such things.
So he
let her get in, and shift what needed shifting, and back away and turn around and leave him standing in the shade wondering what he’d done wrong.
Fourteen
Myra Halburton belonged to an organization called the Greater Camden Ladies’ Tea, Quilting and Benevolent Society. One of its members was Tabitha Ogier, the grandmother of Ethan Ogier. Another was Maude Boynton, whose husband owned the motorcar company. And Jocelyn Duerr, a neighbor of Gabriel’s, and Ellen Barloski, who was a great-aunt of the Spears’ housekeeper, Sophie. Hannah Mary Gold was a first cousin to Seth Farley’s wife, and Niella Wince lived kitty-corner across the street from the Spears. Sandra Yance’s daughter was a nurse for young Dr. Fortier III. . . . And the roster twined on and on.
Two days after Elfred Spear’s beating, the Benevolent Society gathered for its biggest event of the year, a garden luncheon beneath the elms in the backyard of its president, Wanda Libardi. Wanda also belonged to a musical trio called the Sweethearts of Song, who opened the luncheon by singing ‘‘Beautiful Dreamer’’ while standing beneath the rose arbor against a backdrop of seven-foot hollyhocks in Wanda’s bountiful garden.
The real entertainment began, however, once Wanda and her cohorts ceased warbling and the group at large got down to some of its benevolence.
Maude Boynton brought up what everybody there was wondering about. ‘‘Myra, is it true what we’ve all been hearing about Elfred?’’
‘‘I don’t know, Maude. What have you been hearing?’’
‘‘That he was beaten within an inch of his life by Gabriel Farley.’’
‘‘I guess there’s no sense in trying to hide it. But Gabriel Farley will pay for what he’s done! Mark my words!’’
Sandra Yance said, ‘‘My Susan saw Elfred when he came into Dr. Fortier’s office. She said he looked like somebody used him for an anvil.’’
Ellen Barloski looked bereaved. ‘‘Oh . . . that handsome face of his, all bashed up . . . what a shame. Poor Grace must be mortified.’’
Jocelyn Duerr asked, ‘‘Your divorced daughter has been seeing a lot of Gabriel, hasn’t she?’’
Myra prickled up. ‘‘I don’t actually keep tabs on what Roberta does. Running all over the country in that motorcar of hers—how could a mother possibly keep track of a daughter like that?’’
While Myra fended off the leading question, the other women exchanged pointed glances that said, Later.
The group spent a pleasant two hours milling around the yard, admiring the gardens, filling their plates at a buffet table and eating petite tarts and crustless sandwiches. Whenever Myra was out of earshot, covert whispers filled her wake, as insistent as the smell of coffee wafting out of the house. Sensing that the undercurrent was caused by the turmoil in her family, Myra made her excuses and left early.
To a woman, the other members of the Camden Benevolent Society stayed under the elms until they had seen Myra’s skirts rustle off through the garden gate. The hostess opened the gossip herself.
‘‘Well, now that she’s gone I must say . . . I’m surprised she didn’t say more. She’s always got so much to brag about—Elfred and his money, Grace and her fine things. But now that the gossip’s going the other direction, she’s certainly clammed up, hasn’t she?’’
‘‘Whatever Myra Halburton says, that younger daughter of hers is behind this rivalry between Gabriel and Elfred. Why else would two grown men who’ve been friends for years get into a fistfight that way?’’
‘‘And right out on the front yard where everyone could see it!’’
Tabitha Ogier said, ‘‘My grandson has been spending quite a bit of time at that Jewett house this summer. Seems he’s got an eye for the oldest girl. Some of the things he’s heard over there . . . well, let me tell you, it would make your hair curl.’’
‘‘I saw that Jewett woman over at Gabriel Farley’s house the night they say he beat up Elfred. Parked her car there just as bold as brass, and I happen to know his daughter wasn’t home at the time.’’
‘‘Well, I haven’t spoken up till now—out of respect for Myra—but I actually saw the fight.’’ Niella Wince’s lips were pursed up with self-importance.
‘‘You didn’t!’’
‘‘Most of it. Out my bedroom window. Goodness gracious, a person couldn’t help but look with all that yelling going on. What Gabe was yelling a lady wouldn’t repeat, but let me tell you, it didn’t leave any question that that divorced woman thinks every man is fair game, whether he’s married or not.’’
They all chewed on that for a while, then someone said, ‘‘Poor Grace.’’
‘‘Oh my, yes, poor Grace.’’
‘‘And poor Caroline. What would she think if she were still alive?’’
‘‘And those children. For heaven’s sake, imagine what they’ve been exposed to with a mother like that.’’
‘‘Myra Halburton wouldn’t hear it from my lips, but I said it years ago when Roberta left Camden because it wasn’t good enough for her—I said, ‘Mark my words, that girl’s going to fall into no good, moving off to the city that way.’ And sure enough, doesn’t she come back eighteen years later divorced and footloose, thinking she can carry on her indiscretions on our doorsteps as if we were blind and stupid.’’
‘‘Gabriel Farley’s been at her place plenty, let me tell you. They say it started the first day she got into town. He and Elfred both went running up there to her house like a pair of regular tomcats. And they’ve been there plenty since.’’
‘‘What about those Jewett children? Shouldn’t somebody look into it and see that they’re removed from their home if it’s being run like a bordello?’’
‘‘Who?’’
‘‘Well, I don’t know, but somebody should do it.’’
‘‘Well, it’s not going to be me.’’
‘‘But aren’t we the Benevolent Society? Doesn’t that make it our duty?’’
‘‘Now, just a minute. I don’t know that being the Benevolent Society gives us the right to intrude on someone’s personal affairs.’’
‘‘Oh, doesn’t it? Then who should look after the welfare of those children? After all, they’re the grandchildren of one of our members.’’
‘‘Then let Myra Halburton look after their welfare.’’
‘‘Can’t you see that poor Myra is too mortified by these activities of her younger daughter to admit what’s going on? And you’ve got to feel sorry for her, too. After all, what mother would want to face her own child with an accusation of being an unfit parent?’’
‘‘I may have said she’s been seen at Gabriel Farley’s house, but that doesn’t make her an unfit parent.’’
‘‘Then what does? She’s a hussy, through and through. Married, divorced, twitching her tail before the nicest single man this town has to offer, spoiling him in the process, then trying to break up the marriage of her very own sister. I’d say that’s a hussy. Furthermore, she leaves her children untended at all hours of the day and night, and they say her house looks like a pigsty. I say we speak to someone in authority and have them go over there and see what’s what. Those children might be better off living somewhere else.’’
‘‘But who’s going to do it?’’
‘‘You’re the president, Wanda. I think you should do it.’’
One single Benevolent member had remained silent throughout all this holier-than-thou exchange. Elizabeth DuMoss, normally genteel, spoke up with a ferocity that startled her peers.
‘‘Now just a minute, all of you! I’ve been sitting here listening while you planned your little war against a woman who is not here to defend herself, so I’m going to do it for her. First of all, let me say I’m ashamed of every single one of you for your unbridled gossip the minute Myra’s back is turned. You call yourselves a benevolent society, but I’m afraid today you’ve made mockery of the very word, and I can’t sit silent any longer and let you continue this charade.
‘‘I’m a fourth-generation member of this group, and
I’m sure my great-grandmother would be appalled if she knew how its once-charitable intention has turned to such high-handed matters as deciding people’s fates. I know I’m just one voice against many, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t say something, and what I have to say is primarily about Elfred Spear, not Roberta Jewett.
‘‘Every woman in this yard has conveniently overlooked the fact that Elfred Spear is a shameless debaucher who has pinched bottoms and ogled breasts and fondled women he has no right to touch whenever the opportunity arose. He’s embarrassed us at public and private gatherings by touching many of us, though few of you will admit it. He mocks his wife while her back is turned, and makes a joke of his marriage with his countless adulteries. He hasn’t enough respect for his own children to hold his lechery at bay when they are present, but conducts it right under their noses as if it is his God-given right to insult any female in the universe. We all know he does it—sidles up to women anywhere he pleases and makes sly innuendoes about what’s under their skirts. And any of you who’ll deny it are outright liars.
‘‘So I ask you, why have you all placed blame on Roberta Jewett when the real villain here is probably Elfred Spear? I’ve sat quiet while you crucified her simply because she’s a woman and divorced, and not one word about Elfred’s fornicating has been mentioned. Well, I’m mentioning it because he’s gotten away with it long enough. This is our chance to stop Elfred Spear. All we have to do is stand behind Mrs. Jewett, and stop the rumors rather than spread them. Is that so difficult to do? To give the woman the benefit of the doubt? And what is her greatest crime? Is it that she’s divorced, or that she’s living her life the way many of us wish we could live ours—living where she pleases, driving her own motorcar, supporting her three children as she sees fit, carrying out a job that brings her the satisfaction of earning a salary she can use as she wants without having to ask a man for pocket money?
‘‘I ask every woman here—are you disdainful of Roberta Jewett or jealous of her?’’
As Elizabeth DuMoss stopped speaking the women beneath the elms held so still the buzz of the bees in the hollyhocks could have been cataloged into individual notes. Some faces were red with embarrassment, others white with rage, but none were impassive. Some women stared beratingly at Elizabeth, others gazed sheepishly at their laps. Some hid behind their coffee cups, others hid behind their silent self-righteousness.