Mrs. Whitney was trembling and very angry.
“Nathan, do you realize to whom you are speaking? Ordering me around as if I were a servant, or a slave! Indeed I shall do nothing of the kind. Do you want the whole town talking about us any worse than they are now on account of your precious son? Don’t you have sense enough to see that if we call of an affair that has been expected the neighbors will think there is something to all this? What we’ve got to do is to pay no attention to the whole thing, just go right ahead as if nothing was the matter. Tell people Jason has gone away to get another job. Tell them he didn’t feel there was enough prospect for the future in this little bank, and then they’ll see what we care for all their hints and silly gossip. Joyce, pick up that sugar and dust it off. No, don’t throw it away. The floor is perfectly clean and what they don’t know won’t hurt them when it’s in tea. I can’t waste all that sugar! Aunt Libby! Bring the dustpan and brush and take up this broken cup. Joyce, you’ll have to take that linen cover off and iron it again. It’s got all rumpled! And, Mr. Whitney, I wish you’d go back to the village or somewhere. I didn’t expect you to be around under foot and I’ve got all I can do to get ready for that club. Do you realize there will be thirty-two ladies here in a little while, Mr. Whitney?”
Nathan Whitney, realizing that his wife was probably right, as she usually made it appear, and in a panic at the thought of such an influx of women, seized his hat and went off again, slamming the door behind him loud enough to be heard across the meadows over at Parsons’. And Joyce, feeling sick at heart, gathered up the sugar and made things as right as could be, but could not forget the anger and the panic and the actual fear in her father’s eyes. Was her father really worrying about Jason at last, or was he just angry? Or—were things really worse than she had heard? Was it possible that they had some proof that would incriminate Jason? Oh, God! How mixed life was! What was the meaning of it all? Jason gone and Rowan gone, and no word from either! Father in heaven, give grace! Give strength! Strength not to sink down. Murder and robbery and perplexity, and only a dim memory of strong arms around her, like a dream, and tender lips on hers!
And with her brother under scorn and distrust, she had to go on fixing silly bridge tables and prizes!
He head ached in wild throbs, and she felt as great weakness upon her, but she must march on through the hours. She must dress up and smile when the guests came, for so her stepmother ordered, and it was the way to meet the criticism of course. She could recognize that herself, even though she was dazed with sorrow and apprehension.
Excitement and hurry brought the color to her white cheeks at the crucial moment when the members began to arrive, and though they stared at her unmercifully, she met their gaze with a smile, behind which her tortured eyes tried to look out cheerfully. But she was not doing it because her stepmother had ordered her to take off that woebegone look and act as if nothing was the matter. She was doing it for her brother’s sake. People must not think such awful things of Jason. Jason never would have been a party to robbery. He never would have helped to shoot anybody, or beat or gag poor old Sam Paisley whom everybody honored.
What she really feared was that poor foolish Jason had compromised himself by going to Rowley’s road house to play pool, and perhaps to dance with a lot of wild young girls. She didn’t know that, she just feared it. And she feared that because of that they would be unable to clear him from other suspicion.
Oh, Father! she prayed, constantly, in her heart, take Jason’s cause and plead it for him. For our dear dead mother’s sake who loved You, don’t let my brother be thought guilty! Clear his name, and make him want to do right. For the Lord Jesus’ sake who died for him, meet him now wherever he is and make him do the right thing!
And between times she was showing the ladies up to the guest rooms to take off their hats and wraps, listening to their exclamations over the new curtains her stepmother was so proud of, escorting them downstairs again, watching their prying glances backward into other rooms whose doors stood open.
“And is that your brother’s room?” one bolder than the rest asked. Oh, they were not all cats, just curious, but Joyce was stabbed with every breath and look that showed they were thinking about Jason. She saw it as each one entered the house, that quick, searching look around, and then into her face, as if they would read more than was written behind her heartbreaking smile.
The afternoon dragged its interminable length along, and Joyce watched the intent faces over the game, glad at last for release from merciless inspection. And then came the refreshments with endless cups of tea and coffee, passing of sandwiches and cake and bonbons. Would they never get enough? What were they waiting for anyway? It was getting dusk. She couldn’t remember that they ever stayed so late before.
Her father came in while the last ones were lingering. He did not enter by the front door. She heard him stumbling unaccustomedly up the back stairs to his room. She heard a dull jar as she flung himself upon his bed. Poor Father! If she only dared go up and try to comfort him! But that would make her stepmother very angry. She never allowed them to be alone together anymore without suffering for it.
If she only dared tell her father that Rowan had gone to find Jason. But that wouldn’t do any good, for her father had no use for Rowan. He chose to say that Rowan had led Jason astray. Although he knew absolutely nothing against Rowan. Rowan had been away at college for the past four years and had been at home now only a few months. It was just because Rowan had graduated, and Jason had been sent home from college in disgrace at the end of his sophomore year that her father resented Rowan. He had been bitter about it ever since Jason came home and was put to work in the bank.
When the last guest had gone, Mrs. Whitney turned to Joyce complacently. She wanted to drain the last drop of satisfaction out of Joyce in a bit of reminiscing.
“Well, I thought it went off very well, didn’t you, Joyce?” she said, eyeing the weary girl.
“I thought it was ghastly!” said Joyce with a tremble in her voice, too tired and disheartened to dissemble any longer.
“You thought it was what?” said her stepmother instantly infuriated. “Just what about it was so ghastly, I ask you? I demand to know!”
Mrs. Whitney’s voice was rising and her face showed excited red blotches on her cheeks. She too was tired, and Joyce was instantly sorry she had spoken. Why did she have to make more trouble? Hadn’t they enough?
“Oh, all of it!” she answered wearily, just on the verge of tears. “All their prying eyes, their catty questions, and the way they asked when Jason was coming back!”
“Well, of course I expected that, after the way Jason had acted. But Mrs. Bartlett told me she thought I was a very brave woman to go right on and do my duty.” Mrs. Whitney’s voice was regaining its complacency. “I thought we carried it off very well indeed. If you could just have roused yourself a little more from that lackadaisical attitude.”
“Mother, did you know Father was upstairs?” said Joyce suddenly. “Do you think we’d better talk it over now?”
Mrs. Whitney was startled.
“What makes you think he is?” she asked sharply. “When did he come in?”
“He came in about five minutes ago. I heard him. He went up the back stairs as if he was very tired. I think from the sound that he lay down on his bed. I shouldn’t wonder if he had one of his headaches!”
“Oh, you shouldn’t wonder if he had a headache? Strange how your imagination always works for some of your own. You never wonder whether I have a headache, do you? Well, I have, a violent one! But no one thinks about me. I must go right on making allowances for everybody else! I must stop talking and—!”
But Joyce could bear no more and she had fled to her own room. A few minutes later when she heard her stepmother come upstairs to her father, she slipped downstairs again and out through the kitchen.
“Aunt Libby,” she said as she paused in the doorway, “I’m going out for a little while to get
some air. I can’t stand it in the house any longer. You tell them if they ask about me that I don’t want any more to eat tonight, please, and I’ll be in pretty soon.”
So she stole away into the darkness and sat awhile as before, looking at the dying colors in the sky and watching the light in Hannah Parsons’s window, letting her eyes linger wistfully on the dark place where Rowan’s window would be, watching the road for a possible car that might come. This was about the time that Rowan came home last night. Oh, that he would come now and bring Jason with him! How all her cares would roll away and her heart would grow light!
And if he should come, would he ever put his arms around her and kiss her lips again, or was that only to comfort her in her trouble? It wasn’t like Rowan to kiss her unmeaningly, but probably it was just to comfort her! She must not let herself thrill that swept over her with such ineffable joy when she thought of his arms around her. He was just being nice and comforting and it was out of all proportion for her to feel so happy about it. “God help me to be right about it!” she breathed softly.
But the night grew dark around her. It was eight o’clock. She could hear the absurd little cuckoo clock that Mrs. Whitney had insisted upon buying, coo out the hour from the parlor mantel. In a short time now they would begin to cry after her, and she would have to go in and account for herself. But she could not spend another night like last night without a word of comfort somewhere. Besides, she was worrying about Hannah! Had Hannah been hearing the rumors, and did she know that they included Rowan too in their ruthless hints? If she did Joyce knew how she would suffer. She had known and loved Hannah for years, ever since she was left a little motherless girl, with no other woman to go to for help and comfort and guidance. Hannah had been as much of a mother to her as any but one’s own mother could ever be. And since the advent of the second Mrs. Whitney, she had been a tower of strength to help and advise when things got unbearable. Always she gave sweet gentle advice, urging to patience, to forgiveness, to bearing all things!
Joyce could not bear to think that perhaps this dear woman was enduring the same torture as herself. She must slip over there and look into her face at least, discover whether Rowan had told her where he was going, ask advice what to do in this trying situation.
So, like a shadow she flitted across the meadows again and came to stand where she had stood last night waiting for Rowan. But though she waited for almost an hour no Rowan came. There was the bleating of a young lamb, the bawling of a troubled cow, the stirring of the hens in the chicken house. Perhaps they dreamed of rats. She could hear the dogs howling over across the valley, and the neighing of the farmer’s horse over at their own barn. The light gleamed sharply from the Widow Lamb’s cottage down the hillside, and once the door opened widely and let out a flood of light, the Widow herself sharply defined against it as she stood looking up the hill. Joyce was glad that it was dark and she could not be seen. She withdrew hastily behind the garage, lest the eyes of Widow Lamb’s prying little soul should search her out even in the darkness. Then over from behind the hill beyond the Widow’s cottage a little piece of a ragged silver moon left over from the month came tottering up agedly and climbed the heaven. Joyce knew that her seclusion would soon be interrupted and that it was time for her to do something. So she crept stealthily to Hannah’s door, tapped softly, lifted the latch, and stole in.
“Dear child!” said Hannah, softly looking with keen eyes at the white-faced girl. “I wondered where you were, and what was happening to you.”
“We had a bridge party!” said Joyce, making a wry face and venturing a tiny laugh that ended in a choking sob.
Instantly Hannah Parsons’s arms were folded around her, and Joyce laid down her tired head on the motherly shoulder and thought how like her son’s arms were the mother’s. She wondered, too, what Hannah would say if she knew that Rowan had held her close and kissed her before he left.
A long moment they stood in close embrace and then Joyce lifted her face showing wet lashes.
“Do you think my brother did that awful thing?” she asked softly, looking into the kindly old eyes that were yearning over her.
“Why, of course not, child!” said Hannah. “Not any more than you think my boy did it!” She watched the dear young face in her arms and was satisfied as she saw the sweet color flood the whiteness of her cheeks.
Then they both laughed and kissed each other’s cheeks tenderly.
“Of course!” lilted Joyce happily.
“Now, sit down, child, and let me get you something to eat. I don’t believe you’ve eaten a thing all day.”
“I can’t remember,” gurgled Joyce between laughter and tears.
“Well, what have you been doing with yourself all day? Don’t you know when you go through hard things you have to eat to keep up your strength? Come, now, what have you been doing?”
“Having a bridge party, I tell you!” And now Joyce was laughing indeed. It was such a relief to be with somebody who understood, and who believed in Rowan and Jason.
“Land-a-massy!” said Hannah, reverting to an ancient phrase that her own grandmother had used. “Now you don’t mean to tell me!”
Hannah Parsons stood back amazed.
“Yes!” Joyce assured her solemnly. “Wasn’t it awful?”
Hannah looked at the girl thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure but it was a good thing!” she said. “It certainly was a courageous thing for your stepmother to do. But then, of course, she wouldn’t feel it the way you and I do. They weren’t her sons or brothers. But I admire her courage. I certainly do. All I could think of to do was to make yellow tomato preserve, and I’ve been giving it all around the neighborhood all day. I think everyone in the immediate neighborhood has been here on some pretext or other, and gone away with a bottle. I’ll have to buy a new supply of jars. Everyone except Miss Perkins. I’m expecting her in every minute if she can get her nephew to drive her over. If she comes you creep into the ironing board cupboard and hide.”
“Oh, she was at our party!” said Joyce. “She’ll be too tired to come tonight.”
“All right, then eat your supper in peace. I’ll expect her the first thing in the morning. I suppose she thought a bridge party was the best chance to find out things and she knew I wouldn’t disappear in the night. Now, draw up to the table, child, and eat. Charles hasn’t come home yet. He’s been down there all day at the bank, working. It seems they’ve discovered some crooked work, too, in the books. But you needn’t start and look white. Jason wasn’t a bookkeeper.”
“No, he wasn’t a bookkeeper,” said Joyce with relief, “but you can’t tell what they’ll try to hang onto him. Everybody always had it in for my poor naughty little brother, and he seemed to think he had to live up to their idea of him. It made him so mad to be suspected of things that he just went and did other things to make them think he was awful! I don’t understand it in him, but I guess maybe that’s like Father. Father always says he doesn’t care what people think, but I can see he does.”
“Yes, everybody cares,” said Hannah wisely. “How is your father feeling about it?”
“Awful!” said Joyce. “He blames everybody, and blames Jason most of all for being what he is, and then if anybody blames Jason he turns right around and defends him.”
“Of course he would,” brooded Hannah. “He’s his own son! It must be awfully hard for him.”
“Thank you for saying that,” said Joyce. “Everybody else is so hard on Father! Of course Father is hard on everybody, but then, I can’t help feeling sorry for him.”
“Yes,” said Hannah, and then they were both still, knowing that they were both thinking of reasons why they were sorry for him, but reasons they would never mention to one another.
Suddenly the girl looked up. “You haven’t—heard—from—Rowan yet?”
“No,” said Hannah with a confident sigh, “but it’s going to be all right! I’m sure. I’ve been praying all day, and I’m quite satisfied ab
out it.”
“Yes?” said Joyce wistfully, as if she wished she had such an assurance. “But—there’s something I must tell you. I’ve been worrying all day whether I ought to let you know or not.”
Hannah looked up with quick apprehension. “Certainly tell, dear! You know there must be nothing between us two. Anything you say to me will be perfectly safe, you know.”
“Of course,” said Joyce with a flash of trust in her eyes. “It’s not that. It’s that—I am to blame—for Rowan being in this at all, I guess. Oh, I shouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t know what to do or whom to ask, and nobody was caring, not even Father! He was only angry at Jason.”
A flicker of understanding came into the woman’s eyes.
“Tell me everything, Joyce. I’ll understand,” she said quietly.
The girl drew a deep breath and looked up.
“Rowan didn’t know Jason had gone off till I told him,” she said. “I slipped over here last night just at dusk and waited by the fence for Rowan to drive in, and then I called to him and asked him if he had seen Jason. That’s all I meant to do. I never asked him to go after him. I had hoped that Jason went with him.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought it was,” said Hannah with a sigh of relief. “I knew it was something good and right.”
“Of course it would be!” said Joyce loyally. “But you act as if you knew all the time. Did Rowan tell you when he went into the house?”
“No, he didn’t have time. He tried to get up to his room and down again without my seeing him. I expect he was afraid he’d have to take too much time to explain. Of course I heard him. I haven’t been listening for his step for twenty-one years without recognizing it, even when he takes his shoes off and goes upstairs in his stocking feet. But there I stood. So he just smiled and said he had to go out in a hurry and he couldn’t tell me about it but I might trust him. So I’ve been trusting him. I gave him a couple of thrown-together sandwiches in a bag and he went. Just told me to explain to his father that it was something he would do if he were in his place, and went. I’m glad it was for you he went, Joyce. I’m glad he has gone after Jason. But—where do you suppose he has gone? How would he know where to find him?”