A Tangled Web

  There was that dreadful afternoon when she had heard Nan and Noel exchanging airy persiflage over the phone. Gay hadn’t meant to listen. She had taken down the receiver to see if the line were free and she had heard Noel’s voice. Who was he talking to? Nan! Gay stood and listened—Gay who had been brought up to think listening on the phone the meanest form of eavesdropping. She didn’t realize she was listening—all she realized was that Nan and Noel were carrying on a gay, semi-confidential conversation. Well, what of it? After all, what was really in it? They didn’t say a word the whole world mightn’t have heard. But it was the suggestion of intimacy in it—of something from which everyone else was excluded. Why, Noel was talking to Nan as he should talk only to her.

  When Gay hung up the receiver, after Nan had sent an impertinent kiss over the phone, she felt chilly and lost. For the first time she felt the sting of a bitter jealousy. And for the first time it occurred to her that she might not be happy all her life. But when Noel came that evening he was as dear and tender as ever and Gay went to bed laughing at herself. She was just a little fool to get worked up over nothing. It was only Nan’s way. Even the kiss! Very likely Nan would have liked to make trouble between her and Noel. That was Nan’s way, too. But she couldn’t.

  Gay was not so sure one evening two weeks later. Noel was to come that evening. Gay woke up in the morning expecting him. Her head lay in a warm pool of sunshine that spread itself over the pillow. She lay and stretched herself in it like a little lazy golden cat, sniffing delicately at the whiffs of heliotrope that blew in from the garden below. Noel would be out tonight. He had said so in his letter of the previous day. She had that to look forward to for a whole beautiful day. Perhaps they would go for a spin along the winding drive. Or perhaps they would go for a walk down to the shore? Or perhaps they would just linger at the side gate under the spruces and talk about themselves. There would be no Nan—Nan was away visiting friends in Summerside—she was sure of having Noel all to herself. She hadn’t had him much to herself of late. Nan would be at Maywood or Noel would suggest that they go somewhere and pick her up—the poor kid was lonesome. Indian Spring was pretty quiet for a girl used to city life.

  Gay lived the whole day in a mood of expectant happiness. A few weeks ago she had lived every day like that and she did not quite realize yet how different it had been lately. She dressed in the twilight especially for Noel. She had a new dress and she would wear it for him. Such a pretty dress. Powder-blue voile over a little slip of ivory silk. She wondered if Noel would like it and notice how the blue brought out the topaz tints of her hair and eyes and the creaminess of her slim throat. It was such delight to make herself beautiful for Noel. It seemed like a sacrament. To brush her hair till it shone—to touch the shadowy hollow of her throat with a drop of perfume—to make her nails shine softly like pink pearls—to fasten about her neck the little string of tiny golden beads—Noel’s last gift.

  “Every bead on it is a kiss,” he had whispered. “It’s a rosary of our love, darling.”

  Then to look at herself and know he must find her fair and sweet. To know that she would see that little spark leap into his eyes as he looked at her.

  Oh, Gay felt sorry for homely girls. How could they please their lovers? And she felt sorry for Donna Dark, who wasn’t allowed to see her lover at all—though how could anybody care for that queer wild rover of a Peter Penhallow? And she felt sorry for Joscelyn, who had been so outrageously treated by her bridegroom—and she felt sorry for William Y.’ s Sally, who was engaged to such an ugly, insignificant little man—and she felt sorry for Mercy Penhallow who had never had a beau at all—and she felt sorry for poor Pauline Dark, who was hopelessly in love with Hugh—and for Naomi Dark, who was worse than widowed—even for poor silly Virginia Powell, who was so true and tiresome. In short, Gay felt sorry for almost every feminine creature she knew. Until late in the evening, when she was sorry only for herself.

  Noel had not come. She had waited for him in the little green corner by the side gate, where Venus was shining over the dark trees, until ten o’clock and he had not come. Once she had got long-distance and called up his stepmother’s house in town. But Noel was not there and his stepmother did not know where he was—or greatly care, her tone seemed to imply. Gay went back to her vigil by the gate. What had happened? Had his car acted up? But he could telephone. Suppose there had been an accident—a bad accident—suppose Noel had been hurt—killed? Or suppose he had just changed his mind? Had his good-bye kiss, three nights before, been just a little absent? And even his letter which had told her he was coming had begun with “dear” instead of “dearest” or “darling.”

  Once she thought she saw him coming through the garden. By the sudden uplift of heart and spirit she knew how terrible had been her dread that he would not come. Then she saw that it was only Roger. Roger must not see her. She knew she was going to cry and he must not see her. Blindly she plunged into the green spruce copse beyond the gate—ran through it sobbing—the boughs caught and tore her dress—it didn’t matter—nothing mattered except that Noel had not come. She gained her room and locked her door and huddled herself into bed. Oh, what a long night was before her to live through. She remembered a pet phrase of Roger’s—he was always saying, “Don’t worry—there’s always tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want tomorrow,” sobbed Gay. “I’m afraid of it.”

  It was the first night in her life she had cried herself chokingly to sleep.

  In the morning Noel telephoned his excuses. He had a-plenty. Nan had called him on the long-distance from Summerside early in the evening and wanted him to run up and bring her home. He had thought he had plenty of time for it. But when he got to Summerside Nan’s friends were having an impromptu party and she wanted to wait for it. He had tried to get Gay on long-distance but couldn’t. It was late when he had brought Nan home—too late to go on to Maywood. He was frightfully sorry and he’d be up the very first evening he was free. They were confoundedly busy in the bank just now. He had to work till midnight, etc., etc., etc.

  Gay believed him because she had to. And when her mother said to her that folks were beginning to talk about Nan and Noel, Gay was scornful and indifferent.

  “They have to talk about something, Mumsy. I suppose they’ve got tired gossiping about poor Donna and Peter and have to begin on Noel and me. Never mind them.”

  “I don’t mind them. But the Gibsons—they’ve always had a name for being fickle—”

  “I won’t hear a word against Noel,” flashed Gay. “Am I to keep him in my pocket? Is he never to speak to a girl but me? A nice life for him. I know Noel. But you always hated him—you’re glad to believe anything against him—”

  “Oh, Gay, child—no—no. I don’t hate him—it’s your happiness I’m thinking of—”

  “Then don’t worry me with malicious gossip,” cried Gay so stormily that Mrs. Howard dared not say another word on the subject. She switched to something safer.

  “Have you written those chain letters yet, Gay?”

  “No. And I’m not going to. Mumsy, you’re really absurd.”

  “But, Gay—I don’t know—no, I’m not superstitious—but you know it said if you broke the chain some misfortune would befall you—and it doesn’t cost much—only six cents—”

  “Mother, it is superstition. And I’m not going to be so foolish. Write the letters yourself, if you like—if it’s worrying you.”

  “That wouldn’t do any good. The letter was to you. It wouldn’t take you long—”

  “I’m not going to do it and that’s all there is to it,” said Gay, stubbornly. “You heard Roger on the subject, Mother.”

  “Oh, Roger—he’s a good doctor but he doesn’t know everything. There are things nobody understands—your father always laughed just as you do—but he was one of thirteen at a table just before he died. And say what you will, I knew a woman who wouldn’t write
the chain letters and she broke her kneecap two weeks after she burned the one she got.”

  “Mrs. Sim Dark broke her arm last week, but I haven’t heard she burned any chain letters.” Gay tried to laugh but she found it rather hard—she to whom laughter had always come so readily. There was such a strange, dreadful ache in her heart which she must hide from everyone. And she would not be jealous and hateful and suspicious. Nan was trying to weave her cobweb spells around Noel of course. But she had faith in Noel—oh, she must have faith in him.

  Noel did come up four evenings later. And Nan came, too. The three of them sat on the veranda steps and laughed and chattered. At least Noel and Nan did. Gay was a little bit silent. Nobody noticed it. At last she got up and strolled away to the twilight garden, through the gay ranks of the hollyhocks and the old orchard full of mysterious moonlit delights—the place of places for lovers—to the side gate. She expected Noel would follow her. He had always done so—yet. She listened for his following footsteps. When she reached the side gate she turned and peeped back through the spruce boughs. Noel was still sitting on the steps beside Nan. She could not see them but she could hear them. She knew quite well that Nan was looking up at Noel with those slanting green eyes of hers—eyes that did something to men that Gay’s laughing, gold-flecked ones could never do. And no doubt—Gay’s lip curled in contempt—she was implying that he was the most wonderful fellow in the world. Gay had heard her do that before. Well—he was! But Nan had no right to think him so—or make him think she thought so. Gay clenched her hands.

  She waited there for what seemed a very long time. There was a pale green sunset sky, and idle, merry laughter came from far across the fields on the crystal clear air. Somewhere there was a faint fragrance on the air, as of something hidden—unseen—sweet.

  Gay remembered a great many things that she had almost forgotten. Little things that Nan had done in their childhood vacations when she had come over to the Island every summer. There was that day Gay had been quite broken-hearted at the Sunday-school picnic because she hadn’t a cent to pay for the peep-show Hicksy Dark was running. And then she had found a cent on the road—and was going to see the peep-show—and Nan took the cent away from her and gave it to Hicksy and saw the show. Gay remembered how she had cried about that and how Nan had laughed.

  The day when Nan had come in with a lovely big chocolate bar Uncle Pippin had given her. Chocolate bars were new things then.

  “Oh, please give me a bite—just one bite,” Gay had implored. She loved chocolate bars.

  Nan had laughed and said,

  “Maybe I’ll give you the last one.”

  She sat down before Gay and ate the bar, slowly, deliberately, bite by bite. At last there was just one good bite left—a juicy, succulent bite, the lovely snowy filling oozing around a big Brazil-nut. And then Nan had laughed—and popped the bite into her own mouth—and laughed again at the tears that filled Gay’s eyes.

  “You cry so easy, Gay, that it’s hardly any fun to make you cry,” she said.

  The day when Nan had snatched off Gay’s new hair-bow, because it was bigger and crisper than her own, and slashed it to bits with the scissors. Mrs. Alpheus had whipped Nan for it, but that didn’t restore the hair-bow and Gay had to wear her old shabby one.

  The time when Gay was to sing at the missionary concert in the church and Nan had broken up the song and reduced Gay to the verge of hysterics by suddenly pointing her finger at Gay’s slippered feet and calling out, “Mouse!”

  Oh, there were dozens of memories like that. Nan had always been the same—as sleek and self-indulgent and cruel as a little tiger. Taking whatever she had a whim for without caring who suffered. But Gay had never believed she could take Noel.

  Gay was not Dark and Penhallow for nothing. She did not go back to the steps. She went into the house by the sun-porch door and up to her room, though it seemed as if at every step she trod on her own heart. In her room she looked at herself in the mirror. It was as if her young face had grown old in an hour. Her cheeks were a stormy red, but her eyes were strange to her. Surely such eyes had never looked out of her face before. She shuddered with cold—with anger—with sick longing—with incredulity. Then she blew out the lamp passionately and flung herself face downwards on her bed. The shadow had pounced at last. That other night she had cried herself to sleep—but she had slept. This was to be the first night of her life she could not sleep at all for pain.

  4

  The quarrel and separation of the Sams had caused considerable sensation in the clan and for a time ousted Aunt Becky’s jug, Gay Penhallow’s engagement and Drowned John’s tantrums over Peter and Donna as a topic of conversation in clan groups. Few thought it would last long. But the summer had passed without a reconciliation and folks gave up expecting it. That family of Darks had always been a stubborn gang. Neither of the Sams made any pretense of dignified reserve regarding their mutual wrongs. When they met, as they occasionally did, they glared at each other and passed on in silence. But each was forever waylaying neighbors and clansmen to tell his side of the story.

  “I hear he’s going about telling I kicked the dog in the abdomen,” Little Sam would snort. “What’s abdomen, anyhow?”

  “Belly,” said Stanton Grundy bluntly.

  “Look at that now. I knew he was lying. I never kicked no dog in the belly. Touched his ribs with the toe of my boot once, that’s all—for good and sufficient cause. Says I lured his cat back. What do I want of his old Persian Lamb cat? Always bringing dead rats in and leaving them lying around. And determined to sleep on my abdomen at nights. If he’d fed his cat properly she wouldn’t have left him. But I ain’t going to turn no broken-hearted, ill-used beast out of my door. I hear he’s raving round about moons and contented cows. The only use that man has for moons is to predict the weather and as for contented cows or discontented cows, it’s all one to him. But I’m glad he’s happy. So am I. I can sing all I want to now without having someone sarcastically saying, ’A good voice for chawing turnips’ or, ‘Hark from the tombs a doleful sound,’ or maddening things like that. I had to endure that for years. But did I make a fuss about it? Or about his yelping that old epic of his half the night—cackling and chortling and guffawing and gurgling and yapping and yammering. You never heard such ungodly caterwauling as that poor creature could make. ‘Chanting,’ he called it. Till I felt as if I’d been run through a meat-chopper? Did I mind his always conterdicting me? No; it kept life from being too tejus. Did I mind his being a fundamentalist? No; I respected his principles. Did I mind his getting up at unearthly hours Sunday mornings to pray? I did not. Some people might have said his method of praying was irreverent—talking to God same as he would to me or you. I didn’t mind irreverence, but what I didn’t like was his habit of swinging round right in the middle of a prayer and giving the devil a licking. Still, did I make a fuss over it? No; I overlooked all them things, and yet when I brings home a beautiful statooette like Aurorer there Big Sam up and throws three different kinds. Well, I’d rather have Aurorer than him any day and you can tell him so. She’s easier to look at, for one thing, and she don’t sneak into the pantry unbeknownst to me and eat up my private snacks for another. I ain’t said much about the affair—I’ve let Big Sam do the talking—but some day when I git time I’m going to talk an awful lot, Grundy.”

  “I’m told that poor ass of a Little Sam spends most of his spare time imagining he’s strewin’ flowers on my grave,” Big Sam told Mr. Trackley. “And I hear he’s been making fun of my prayers. Will you believe it, he had the impidence to tell me once I had to make my prayers shorter ’cause they interfered with his mornin’ nap? Did I shorten ’em? Not by a jugful. Spun ’em out twice as long. What I put up with from that man! His dog nigh about chewed up my Victory bond, but did I complain? God knows I didn’t. But when my cat had kittens on his sheet he tore up the turf. Talking of the cat, I hear she has kittens again. You?
??d think Little Sam might have sent me one. I hear there’s three. And I haven’t a thing except them two ducks I bought of Peter Gautier. They’re company—but knowing you have to eat ’em up some day spoils things. Look a’ here, Mr. Trackley. Why did Jacob let out a howl and weep when he kissed Rachel?”

  Mr. Trackley didn’t know, or if he did he kept it to himself. Some Rose Riverites thought Mr. Trackley was too fond of drawing the Sams out.

  “Because he found it wasn’t what it was cracked up to be,” chuckled Big Sam. He was happy all day because he had put one over on the minister.

  But Big Sam was soon in no mood for joking about kisses, ancient or modern. He nearly had an apoplectic fit when he heard that some of the summer boarders up the river had gone to Little Sam under the mistaken impression that he was the poet, and asked him to recite his epic. The awful thing was that Little Sam did. Went through it from start to finish and never let on he wasn’t the true author.

  “From worshiping imidges to stealing poetry is only what you’d expect. You can see how that man’s character’s degen’rating,” said Big Sam passionately.

  5

  Peter Penhallow was growing so lean and haggard that Nancy began to feel frightened about him. She tried to induce him to take some iron pills and got sworn at for her pains. A serious symptom, for Peter was not addicted to profanity. Nancy excused him, for she thought he was not getting a square deal, either from Drowned John or Providence. The very day Donna Dark was to be permitted to come downstairs she took tonsilitis. This meant three more weeks of seclusion. Peter sounded his horn at the enchanted portal every night or, in modern language, Drowned John’s east land gate—but that was all he could do. Drowned John, so it was reported, had sworn he would shoot Peter at sight and the clan waited daily in horrified expectancy, not knowing that Thekla had hidden Drowned John’s gun under the spare-room bed. Drowned John, not being able to find it, ignored Peter and his caterwauling and took it out on poor sick Donna, who was by this time almost ready to die of misery. Sick in bed for weeks and weeks, staring at that horrible wallpaper Drowned John had selected and which she hated. Horrible greenish-blue paper with gilt stars on it, which Drowned John thought the last word in elegance.