Blue Ruin Read online

  “But I should love to do that work, Dana. Don’t talk that way. I’ve always said if I had been a man I would have been a minister.”

  “Well, you’re not a man, thank fortune, Lynn, and I don’t approve of women ministers, so you’ll have to be content to minister to my wants. Come, don’t let’s quarrel. Is that a cup custard that I see? Mother Brooke’s cup custard as I live! What a feast! Lynn, was there ever a day so good as this one?”

  Lynette tried to smile, handed out the wonders of the lunch basket bit by bit, ate scarcely anything herself, and wondered what had gone wrong with her day. What did this vague uneasiness in her heart mean? Of course Dana was more or less joking, as he always did, and all this talk meant nothing at all. Didn’t she know him of old? He was earnestness itself, and this was only a glorified way of trying to show her he was going to take special care of her.

  Yet after all when they had packed up the basket and picked up the bits of waxed paper to leave the woods tidy as they had found it, she had a vague feeling of hurry, as if Dana’s mind was not on the day. He had said nothing about the ring either. How often she had pictured the time to herself when he would bring it out of his pocket in its little velvet case and place it upon her finger! He had told her it was to be the best diamond he could find, and though she had hushed his talk about it then, she had pondered much in her heart all that he had spoken.

  Yet the day was bright, and it was to be longer. Doubtless he would wait till evening. There would be a moon. Perhaps he would wait till the shadows hid them out in the garden somewhere, although she had always thought of the ring in connection with this spot, their trysting place, where he as a boy of nineteen had spoken his first eager tempestuous words of love. How they had grown in her heart with her life through the years, till now she was waiting for their confirmation with a heart so full of answering love and exultation that it almost choked her to think about it as he talked on.

  She was very quiet during the rest of the time that they stayed on the mountain, but he was so full of eager speech himself that he did not notice it. And when he looked at his watch and said impatiently that it was time to go, she got up with a smile, in a kind of daze of joy, for somehow the trouble had gone from her heart and she had got to the place where she could look up and wait and smile for the joy that was coming to her. Oh, he was wonderful! She looked at him with all her soul in her eyes as they stood up ready to go and the late afternoon sun touched the crest of his dark hair and gave his face a statuesque look. What a wonderful minister he was going to make! How stunning he would look in the pulpit! But of course she must not think of that. It was his great spirit that she almost adored, his consecrated young spirit that was joyously giving up all the fine prospects he might have had in the world to devote his life to the ministry.

  And then he took her in his arms, almost hungrily, she thought, and then fiercely, as if he could not get enough of her sweetness. He laid his lips on her hair, on her forehead, and she closed her eyes and dropped her face against his breast, feeling it was so good to be there at last in his strong arms. Yes, it was good as all her dreams had been. And at last his lips found hers, and it seemed as if all the promises of all the years of her young life had come to consummation now, in that one strong, tender kiss.

  And yet, when he finally freed her and they started down the mountain hand in hand, her cheeks rosy, her eyes downcast, there was something almost frightening in the thought of his embrace; it had been so strong and fierce, as if her whole being were submerged and changed into his. As if she might not be allowed to be her own self anymore. What did it mean? Was it just life? Was life always like that? So startling?

  She was pondering these things when they came to Round Hill, a lovely eminence that rose in perfect symmetry between two higher hills and burst upon one unexpectedly at a turn in the road.

  Lynette remembered a time in her little girlhood when the hill had been covered with waving grain, green and velvety in spring, or golden like waves rippling in the autumn sunshine. But this day it was radiant with blue and white flowers and fairly took her breath away as it burst upon her sight.

  “Oh, look!” she said, interrupting him in one of his seminary tales. “Did you ever see such a sight!”

  They passed and stood before the miracle of bloom, half in awe.

  The daisies had crept thickly over the lovely roundness of the hill which rose straight up before their vision. They covered it completely as with a fine, white linen cloth, their golden centers making a shimmer like lights falling from above; and all through the daisies, in serried ranks, tall spikes of blue ruin had shot up in luxurious bloom, every little gray-green, rolled-up, leafy spike fluting out in the deep weird blue of its tubular corolla. They seemed like tall candles burning above the white cloth and lifting their blue flame to the blue sky above. It was a sight to take the breath away with beauty.

  Dana took off his hat and stood, looking up.

  “It is like a sacrament!” he said in the voice he used when he practiced pronouncing the benediction.

  “It is like—” Lynette’s voice had something hard and terrified in it. “It is like Satan!” she finished.

  “What on earth do you mean, Lynette?” said Dana in a voice of reproof. He never called her by her full name unless he was displeased with her.

  But she did not notice his displeasure. She was looking at the gorgeous display of beauty with sad eyes.

  “Lucifer, son of the morning!” she quoted. “It is terrible in its beauty to me. That blue ruin is a nettle, you know, viper’s weed. It chokes everything else out when it comes in. And daisies have the same nature, too! Come, I can’t bear it. It is too beautiful! It makes me think of sin getting into the world and spoiling all the good things of life! I can remember now how proud Grandfather was of his waving grain on Round Hill. And now blue ruin has spoiled all his work of the years!”

  “What nonsense!” said Dana, speaking haughtily, harshly. “What utter bosh! That’s some more of that ignorant little college, teaching you fanciful things like that! I really shall have to take you in hand I see. That belongs to the phraseology of a notorious class of ignorant literalists who think they know it all and are making themselves ridiculous. Really, Lynette, I supposed you had more sense. We’ll take a week off and sit down while I give you a little of the exegesis we had in class. A good dose of notes out of my class notebooks will get that folly out of you. Meantime, oblige me by leaving his majesty the devil out of the conversation.” He finished half lightly, for glancing down he saw that her eyes were full of tears.

  “There, Lynn, don’t take things too seriously,” he coaxed, snatching her hand and drawing it within his arm. “You are tired. I let you walk too far. We’ll have the car tomorrow. Come forget it. Everything will come all right and you’ll get adjusted to things. You are not to blame; it’s just the old-fashioned ideas you have been taught, but I’ll change all that. I’ll tell you all the modern ways. You’re an unusually bright woman, Lynn, and must understand before you can follow. Most women don’t bother themselves at all about theology, but you have a mind that is worthy of being taught. It is a great pity that you couldn’t have had a worthwhile college. I’d have liked to have had you study theology with some of my professors in the seminary. You certainly would have enjoyed it. They were keen men, broad-minded, with a vision of the future. They lost no time in sweeping the cobwebs of the ages out of my brain. I declare, I believe you could even have enjoyed Greek and Hebrew! Come, Lynn, be yourself and smile. It isn’t like you to be in the sulks.”

  Lynette looked up almost sadly. She wondered what he would think if she were to tell him? But this was no time to disclose a secret she had been keeping for four years to surprise him.

  “I’m not sulky,” she said gravely. “I’m just astonished. Startled perhaps. You talk so strangely. You do not seem like yourself. It hurts to have you talk that way.”

  “That’s natural,” sympathized Dana somewhat loftily. �
��Everything changes as we grow older. We can’t be children always, you know. I confess I was somewhat startled myself when I first went to college and found out how many wrong notions I had acquired. But it will all seem perfectly harmonious when you get adjusted to the new order, my dear, and it’s really much more beautiful and free. It gives one a chance for individual thinking along broad lines without being hampered by so many ‘thou-shalt-nots’.”

  “I don’t quite think I understand you,” said Lynette in a voice that was cool, almost stern with apprehension.

  “Don’t try,” said Dana lightly. “Let’s put it aside for today. We’ve just a few minutes left before we get home. Let’s enjoy every minute of it. Hasn’t this been a perfect day? Look at the valley now with that broad band of low sunlight across it. That brings out your metal embroidery in fine shape, doesn’t it?”

  Lynette lifted unseeing eyes to the gorgeous valley, but she was not thinking about the landscape. There were things that Dana had said that did not seem to ring true to his old convictions. Had Dana changed? She was weighing his words carefully to see if she might have misunderstood him.

  Dana talked on volubly, but Lynette walked the rest of the way home almost in silence with downcast, troubled eyes. There seemed somehow to have been a great many things said that day that were disturbing. Or was it purely her imagination? Yet he had been critical, of her college, herself, and her way of thinking. Was she perhaps growing conceited that it hurt her to be criticized?

  The long afternoon shadows were beginning to lay gray fingers over the bright meadows and draw shy veils of mystery across the more distant mountains as they came in sight of town. In the end they had to hurry. Dana left her a block from her home and started on a run, for it was getting near train time and he had to go to the garage for the car before he could go to the station.

  Lynette, lingering, walking slowly with troubled demeanor, tried to shake off the feeling of depression that hung upon her like a weight. How foolish of her to let such thoughts take possession of her! It was just because she was so wrought up about getting home and being with Dana again. Tonight they would have a good talk and clear all the trouble up. Dana was all right. Of course he had not changed! Hadn’t she known him for years? Dana couldn’t change!

  But her mother was waiting on the porch! She must have seen Dana go by and would be wondering what was the matter and where she was. She hastened her steps and summoned a smile. Her mother must not see that she was upset. Mother was always so keen to read right through her and pick out what was in her heart, sometimes when she didn’t even know it was there herself.

  “Dana had to go to the station to meet some tiresome visitors for his Aunt Justine,” she explained as she came up the walk. “Oh, yes, he’s coming back to supper. I’m glad I got home so soon. Now I’ll have time to make the biscuits for you. No, I’m not a bit tired. I’ll love to make them! You lie down in the hammock and rest. I just know you’ve been on your feet all day. You always do on birthdays. Oh, yes, I’ve had a wonderful time, you dear little mother! And where is Grandmother? I haven’t had my birthday kiss from her yet. And Elim! Did he go fishing? I’m afraid he was disappointed. I promised him a long time ago and didn’t realize.”

  She passed lightly in at the porch door and her mother looked after her yearningly. Was there a shadow in her girl’s eyes?

  Well, but there was no ring on her girl’s finger—not yet!

  Chapter 4

  Justine Whipple stood fuming at the east window of the big old sitting room, anxiously staring up at the street, her old-fashioned hunter’s case watch open in her hand. She seemed like a coffee pot about to boil over. In fact she had boiled over several times in the last five minutes. Grandma Whipple was enjoying it in her corner, her eyes twinkling, as she set a patch neatly by the thread under a thin place in one of the everyday tablecloths.

  “There is just five minutes left!” declared Justine. “No, I’m mistaken, only four and a half. If he doesn’t come then I shall call up a taxi and go for them myself! It seems outrageous that I can’t depend on my own nephew for a little thing like that, and all because of a silly girl.”

  “He isn’t your own nephew!” broke in Amelia furiously, arriving at that moment from upstairs where she had been powdering her red face and shiny nose with some powder she had bought a few days ago after prolonged study of the advertisements in her fashion magazine. She was a little nervous about appearing downstairs with it on, for Grandma Whipple’s eyes were sharp and her tongue was sharper, but Justine’s words lashed away her shyness, and she rushed to the fray in defense of her son.

  “He isn’t even your own cousin!” she added viciously. “It’s a pity you wouldn’t remember that! He has no obligation whatever to come home from anything he wishes to do, silly or not, to take his own car, which he had washed and had to pay for, at your request, to go after your company! But he said he would do it, and he will! He never failed to keep his word, did he? Answer me that! Did you ever know him to fail to be on time when he promised? You know that’s one of his almost failings, to be exactly on time and no more. He says it’s a sin to waste time unnecessarily!”

  “H’m!” sniffed Justine. “A sin! When he’s been wasting a whole day dawdling after a girl in the woods!”

  “And you want him to go dawdling after another!” said his mother with a pin between her lips while she energetically reached behind her ample waist for the belt of her clean apron which she was preparing to pin over her best black and white voile dress. “Oh, you’re the most consistent person I know! And he ought to be late just to punish you for not trusting him. Did you ever find him untrustworthy? Answer me that!”

  “Well, yes, I did!” declared Justine angrily facing about toward Amelia with fire in her eye. “Yes, I certainly did!”

  “You did?” roared Dana’s mother turning almost white with rage.

  “I did!“

  “When?”

  “Once when I gave him a letter to mail. He carried it in his sweater pocket for a whole week and wore it all out so I had to rewrite it. It was an important letter, too!”

  “Humph!” sniffed Amelia with a flirt of her head turning toward the dining table and flinging the clean cloth deftly over the table pad as if the conversation had become too trivial to be worthy of her further attention.

  “Ten years ago! Dana was nothing but a child then. You never will forget that. You do hold grudges a long time, don’t you? Holding a grudge against a child! And I remember that letter. I found it myself in his pocket when I went to mend the sweater. It was some ridiculous answer to a fake ad, something about removing wrinkles and making you look young again. Important! Fool nonsense! There comes Dana now! I knew he would be here on time!”

  “Well, he’s a half a minute behind,” said Justine severely, consulting the watch, “and he isn’t here yet! Besides he’s got to walk down to the garage after the car. I doubt if he can make it. He better phone for a cab.”

  “Justine, you certainly are the most aggravating person alive! What’s half a minute? Your watch is probably fast anyway. You always keep it that way.”

  “A half a minute is a long time when one has to wait on a strange platform in a strange city,” whined Justine petulantly. “And just look at Dana! He’ll have to change his clothes. He can’t wear a sweater and a soft collar to meet my friends from New York! And the creases are all out of his trousers! I don’t see how he is going to make that train in time! And he’ll have to wash! He looks a mess!”

  “For pity’s sake do shut up!” said Amelia, riled beyond further endurance. “If he hears you he won’t go at all, and then where will you be?”

  “You don’t seem to realize that it is almost time for the train to be coming in now, Amelia!”

  But Amelia had slammed out into the kitchen and was slatting pots and pans around in a manner that showed she would stand no more nonsense.

  The old lady in her armchair cackled. She knew that Justine would not dar
e resent that cackle, for was not Justine expecting company who would perhaps stay the whole summer? And the small sum they were to pay for presence in the house. The old lady wondered under her grim smile why she had told Justine she might bring them there anyway? Had it been mere pity for her lonely dependent, or a desire to stir up her daughter-in-law to further good works? She was not sure. At any rate, the visit ought to be good for a little amusement for herself, and there had been precious little of that coming her way for many a long year, especially since she had been crippled.

  Deep down in her heart perhaps the old lady had longed for the voice of a child in the house. “Her little girl,” had been the vague way that Justine had spoken of the offspring of her old friend. But what was this that Amelia had said about Justine wanting Dana to dawdle around after another girl? Was the child grown up? Had Amelia been finding out things?

  “Justine, how old is that child that’s coming?” she suddenly asked, so crisply that Justine started and almost dropped her watch.

  She carefully snapped it shut after a final squint at the second hand that she might give Dana the benefit of the last quarter of a second, and then looked up.

  “Why, I’m not just sure,” she answered nervously. “Excuse me, Grandma, I must let Dana know the time. He can’t realize—”

  “Nonsense!” said the old lady with annoyance. “Dana has a watch and you may be sure he thinks it’s right. Come back here and tell me about that child! I ought to have asked you before!”

  But Justine was off down the flower-bordered flagging to meet Dana.

  “Oh, Dana, deah,” she called eagerly, in the ingratiating tone she affected when she wished to show her superior culture.