Blue Ruin Read online

  “Yes,” sighed the mother, “it’s hard to see it. They were always so close to each other—I wonder—” But she did not say what she wondered.

  Chapter 2

  There were other eyes watching the two as they started out for their holiday.

  Down at the Whipple house with its wide east window looking toward the mountains, sat old Mrs. Whipple, Dana’s grandmother, in her padded chair with her crutch by her side, her sharp little black eyes losing nothing that went on up the road. She had been cripple for three or four years, the result of a broken hip and rheumatism, but she was nonetheless the head of the house which she owned and bossed as much as when she was on her feet and about.

  In the background, behind the old lady’s chair, watching furtively while she dried a handful of silver hot from its rinsing bath after being rubbed in silver suds, stood Amelia Whipple, Dana’s mother. There was a belligerent pride in her heavy, handsome face as she watched her boy swing along by the girl’s side, grace in every line of his body, every movement he made. They were a handsome couple, nobody could deny that, Amelia told herself. Back in her heart was a latent grudge against Lynette’s mother and aristocratic old grandmother, with her cameo face framed in fine old laces and her soft old-fashioned gray silk gowns. She was almost sure that they looked down just the least bit on Dana. Dana who had gone to the most expensive schools and the finest college in the country, while Lynette had had to be content with a little inconspicuous denominational institution in an out-of-the-way place presumably because they couldn’t afford to send her to a larger college. Lynette who lived in a house that had long needed paint! Oh—Amelia liked Lynette well enough, knew she was good looking and sweet and even stylish in her way, though she hadn’t bobbed her hair when everybody else did—but perhaps it was just as well for a minister’s wife to be conservative, and of course everybody said that bobbing was going to go out pretty soon. But then, land sakes alive, Lynette’s folks had no call to look down on her Dana! She watched them swing away into the blue of the day with a growing flush of pride while she wiped and wiped over and over again an old Whipple fork that had been in the family for a century or more.

  But it was Justine Whipple in a prim, high-necked sweeping apron and cap, her hair in old-fashioned crimpers beneath, who stood in the foreground by Grandmother Whipple’s armchair, feather duster in hand, and regarded the revelers with open disapproval. The excursion was to her a personal offense.

  Miss Whipple was called “Aunt Justine” by courtesy, but she was really only a cousin distantly removed, being the daughter of a cousin of old Grandfather Whipple. Grandmother Whipple had taken pity on her and given her a home when she was left alone in the world at the age of thirty-five, with only a mere pittance upon which to live. She had accepted the home as her natural right and referred to the pittance as “my property,” but she had been a fixture now so long in the family that no one realized that she had not been born into it. Old Madame Whipple goaded her with sarcasm and scornful smiles, but bore with her from a grim sense of duty. The rest of the family tolerated her and quarreled with her, but she maintained her own calm attitude of superiority and continued to try to set them all right.

  Aunt Justine was the first one to speak.

  “It seems a pity that those two can’t grow up! I should think Lynette would have a little sense by this time, if that was any kind of college at all that she went to. To think that she would take a whole perfectly good day right out of the week to go off like a child on a picnic! Her first day home, too! Of course Dana felt he had to do what she asked him. She leads him around by the nose. I should think Dana would rebel, now he’s grown up and finished his education. It’s time he was warned that that is no way to manage women, letting them have their own way in everything! I told him this morning that there was no earthly reason why he should not tell her that it wasn’t convenient for him to go today. They could have put it off until another time just as well as not, and when I’m having guests come and there is so much extra to be done. But no! He didn’t think he could tell her to change it. He didn’t think it would be gallant, he said. Well, I say gallantry begins at home. I declare that girl just flings herself at Dana’s head, and I should think it would disgust him. Why don’t you speak to him, Amelia, and open his eyes? It’s your place as his mother to help him to understand women.”

  Justine turned her cold gray eyes on her cousin-in-law and looked at her reprovingly from under the long, straight black fringes of her blunt eyelashes that were so straight and blunt they seemed to have been cut off with the scissors and a ruler.

  “Well, I should say it wasn’t your place, at least, Justine!” replied Amelia witheringly. “Dana has a mind of his own, and I’m sure he has more education than all of us put together. Besides, you’re talking in a very strange way about the girl he is engaged to. Why shouldn’t he want to do what she wants, I should like to know?”

  “Oh! So they’re engaged, are they? That’s the first time you ever admitted that! You’ve always said it was only a boy and girl friendship. I thought you’d find out someday to your bitter sorrow! So he’s confided in you at last has he? Well, I’m glad we know where we stand, at least.”

  “Really!” said Amelia, flashing angry by this time. “No, he hasn’t confided in me! But I’ve got eyes in my head if you haven’t. But what business is it of yours I should like to know? What difference does it make where you stand? You’re standing right here in Mother Whipple’s kitchen, where you’ve been standing for the last fifteen years if I haven’t missed count, and it doesn’t behoove you to stick your nose into the business of any other members of the family that I see. I didn’t know you had any doubts about where you’ve stood, all these years, or I’d have tried to enlighten you. Besides, I don’t quite understand what you mean by bitter sorrow. You didn’t suppose I had any objection to Lynette Brooke did you? I’d have made it manifest long ago if I had. There isn’t a finer family in this country than the Brookes, and as for the Rutherfords, they belong to the cream of the land! Old Mrs. Rutherford was one of the first members of the DAR in this state, and I’ve heard say that her husband owned—”

  But Justine had turned away from the window with a disinterested finality and a sigh of amazing proportions.

  “Oh, well,” she dismissed the subject, “if you’re satisfied, of course there’s nothing more to say. But she isn’t the girl I’d choose for a daughter-in-law!”

  “It isn’t in the least likely you’ll ever have a chance to choose one,” fired forth Amelia with a flame in her cheek and battle in her eye. “I scarcely think she’d choose your son—if you had one,” she ended with withering scorn.

  Grandmother Whipple sat back and took up her knitting, laughing out a dry cackle from her grim old lips. She dearly loved a fight between these two. It was the only amusement she had since she was a prisoner in her chair.

  Justine sniffed in token that she felt Amelia had been cruel in her insinuations and started back to her work of arranging the guest room for the expected arrivals that afternoon.

  “Well, you can say what you please,” she said, putting her head back in the door from the back stairway for a parting shot. “I think Dana would have shown a far better spirit if he had remained at home, this morning at least, and helped me put up the clean curtains and tack up the pictures instead of philandering off with a girl when there was work to be done. If he is going to be a minister of the Gospel he ought to begin to remember that charity begins at home.”

  “I don’t see that he has any call to put up curtains and pictures for your guests,” answered his mother furiously. “They’re your guests, aren’t they, not mine? Not his? Not even Mother Whipple’s? There wasn’t any call to take down those curtains and launder them anyway. They’ve only been up three weeks. They were plenty good enough, and if you had to be silly about them you don’t need to make Dana pay for your foolishness. As for pictures, what’s the matter with the pictures that belong in that room? We ne
ver had to put up pictures when the Whipples came to visit. We don’t change the decorations for the delegates to the Missionary Conference do we? We didn’t even have to houseclean when the minister delegates came to presbytery. You can’t get anybody much better! If the house isn’t good enough for them I wonder you had them come!”

  “They’re used to having things nice,” said Justine severely.

  “Well, so are we. So are all our guests! You don’t seem to realize what you imply. If these friends of yours are so grand they’d better pick out some other summer resort to spend their summer in and not come bothering around here. I wonder you didn’t entertain them at the grand new hotel. You’ve got property, you know, and could afford it.”

  “I was told my friends would be quite welcome,” said Justine with a premonitory sniff. “I was led to suppose that they would be made comfortable and welcome. If they’re going to be such a burden I’d better go and telegraph to them not to come!”

  Justine’s eyes were like cold chisels behind her straight lashes. Her mouth was hard and straight with fury.

  “There’s welcomes and welcomes,” said Amelia Whipple with a snap. “I have to do the most of the work. I understand your friends were hard up for a home this summer like some of the rest of us around here, but if they have to be so everlasting particular about their decorations even, why don’t they hunt for other accommodations? Nobody’ll be hurt if they do.”

  “Very well!” said Justine in cold fury. “I’ll go right down and telegraph the train for them not to get off.” She flung off her sweeping cap and began to take down her crimping pins, tears of displeasure and disappointment beginning to roll down her cheeks.

  The old lady had been knitting fast, her lips in their grim smile. Now she put in sharply.

  “Don’t be a fool, Justine! Your hair’ll get all out of place and you’ll be as cross as two sticks over it. Go on upstairs and finish your decorating. It can’t hurt anybody. You two wouldn’t be happy if you couldn’t scratch out each other’s eyes every few minutes. It strikes me you’re all in the same box. The pot shouldn’t call the kettle black.”

  Justine surveyed the old lady thoughtfully then answered with dignity, “You may be right, Cousin Hephsibah, but I wonder just what you meant by that last remark? Am I to suppose—?”

  “You’re to suppose nothing, Justine. I just called you a fool, that’s all. Now go upstairs and finish your work. You haven’t all the time in the world, you know. Primp up your room any way you please, and for pity’s sake let Amelia alone. She’s got all the cooking to do, remember!”

  Justine slowly refastened the loosened crimping pin, replaced her sweeping cap after wiping her eyes on its border, and, turning reproachfully with a martyr-like sigh, went upstairs.

  When her footsteps had died away in the guest room above, Amelia lifted an offended chin and swept the old lady a reproachful glance.

  “I should suppose,” she began with hurt dignity, “that I had a little closer claim on you, Mother, than just a distant cousin. Of course, I know we’re all indebted to you in a way, for house and board, but I try to do my part. But your own son’s wife, and your own grandson—If you feel that way about it I’d better try to get a position.”

  “Amelia!” said the old lady severely, “the difference is this: You weren’t born a fool! For pity’s sake live up to your birthright! Of course you got a claim, but remember this: Justine never has much pleasure. Can’t you let her enjoy what’s she got? She’s worked hard enough to bring this about; now if she can get any happiness out of it I guess we can stand it for a couple of months anyhow. Say, don’t I smell those apple pies burning? It beats all how you can make so much out of a few fool words!”

  “But Mother, she’ll go and tell around now that Dana’s engaged, and he’ll be angry at me.”

  “Well, isn’t he?” snapped the old lady anxiously. “He’s a fool if he isn’t, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

  “Well, I suppose he is. I hope he is, but he hasn’t said anything to me about it,” said the mother with a troubled sigh. “You know Dana isn’t much for telling what’s going on in his life.”

  “There’s some things you don’t need to tell,” said Grandma significantly. “However, I’ll speak to Justine. She’s no call to talk about Dana’s business even if he is a fool. Amelia, that pot is boiling over! My soul, I wish I had my good legs again!”

  Chapter 3

  Out on the road, the two who had been the cause of all this disturbance were walking joyously along. The first day home, the first day together after long separation, all their childhood waiting to greet them out of doors, and a summer day that was perfect. One of those “what-is-so-rare” days described by the poet.

  The sky was that warm, clear blue that makes you wonder if you have ever really noticed a sky before. The sunlight fairly seemed a part of the sky, blue all through with the fine lacings of gold. One or two lazy fluffs of cloud were drifting almost imperceptibly across the highest blue like tufts of down urged by an unseen draft.

  The road they took skirted a hill and wound gently up with pleasant homes on the right at intervals growing fewer and farther between as they went on.

  Off to the left the mountains were clear and sharp with touches of gold shimmering over the new green of the young trees that mingled with the darker pines. And one spot they knew, where the blue grew deeper with a purple depth, marked the beginning of the Mohawk trail. They could pick out the landmarks without any trouble in the clear, bright atmosphere.

  And now they came to fields on the left drifting down to a valley where, like a thread of hurrying silver strung with jewels all aquiver, a river went. And all the fields were embroidered with flowers, copper and silver and gold like a princess’s garment spread to dry, heavy with gorgeous needlework of buttercups, daisies, and devil’s paintbrush. Amazing sight to come upon! Embroidery of heaven loaned for display.

  Beyond the river, a dull hill rose, rocky and barren, almost a mountain, dreary except for a drift of blue flowers that rose in waves and seemed to spread and quiver like blue flame, or lovely, curling, smoke-like incense rising against the gray mass of the barren rock behind.

  “Oh look!” cried Lynette, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks aglow. “I never remember it to have been so beautiful! How large the daisies are this year! How yellow the buttercups! And see how deep a red the tassels of the devil’s paintbrush are! This must be a wonderful year for flowers!”

  Dana lifted indifferent eyes.

  “Oh, you’ve just forgotten, Lynn. I don’t see but it looks about as usual.”

  “No, Dana! It’s bigger, brighter, much more wonderful. I never got that effect of copper and silver threads before, with the gold of the buttercups making a background. It’s perfectly gorgeous needlework, Dana, woven with pearls.”

  “Oh, you’re fanciful as usual, Lynn!”

  “And look at that blue ruin off on the mountain! Why you can fairly see the smoke rise and the flames pulsate.”

  “It’s not half as good to look at as you are, Lynn,” said the young man turning his glance upon her glowing cheeks, the light in her lovely eyes, and the tendrils of hair blowing around her face. “I say, where are we going today? Have you thought of a plan? It’s a shame that car had to go to the garage. You’ll be tired before the day is half over.”

  “No indeed; I’ll not be tired,” said Lynette. “I haven’t been cooped up in the house all these four years, laddie. I’ve played hockey and skated and hiked over the hills, and worked in the gym. I’m fit as ever I was, and I can walk as far as ever I did and farther.”

  “Well, I can’t,” said Dana lazily, stifling a yawn. “Theological seminaries are no places for physical training. Oh, of course they had some athletics, but I couldn’t see going out for anything with all I had to do. Besides, it was time to stop that child’s play if I ever meant to amount to anything. One can’t play football all one’s life.”

  “Still one must have health,”
said Lynette. “I hope you haven’t allowed yourself to get inactive. It’s awfully hard on you to study hard if you don’t keep up some sort of exercise. They made us do it out at college.”

  “Oh, girls, yes, I suppose it’s a good thing for them. But a man has got to begin to think of more serious things. Besides, it’s an awful chore to get cleaned up and get to work again when you’re all messed up after sports. I’ve really done awfully well, Lynn. Even better than I told you in my last letter. Let’s see, when did I write? I got so busy in those last weeks. But you got the papers I sent, and the commencement stuff? You really ought to have been there Lynn to hear me preach my first sermon. I can’t see why it mattered whether you stayed for your own commencement exercises or not, that little stuffy college! It’s ridiculous to dignify it by the name of college! But there, don’t get excited!” he laughed indulgently. “It’s all right of course, and you were a star student naturally. I only wish it had been Vassar or Wellesley or some big college. You could have made your mark there, and it would have been worthwhile—”

  A shade came over the girl’s face and a flash into her eyes.

  “Dana! Stop!” she cried. “You shan’t say such things about my college! It isn’t like you, and you don’t know, and I won’t have my beautiful day spoiled! Tell me about your commencement. Someday I’ll tell you all about my college, and you will see that it was great! Someday I’ll take you there and introduce you to my wonderful professors, every one of them masters and scholars, and every one of them men who are putting their whole soul into their work. But nevermind now. You just don’t know! You will understand when you know, and you will be glad there is such a place. But now forget it and go on. I want to hear everything you have done from the time you left here last year. No little thing is too small to be told. Don’t leave anything out. Did they tell you they thought it would be hard to get a church? Or have you decided to go as a missionary? You used to talk that way, you know.”