Rest and Be Thankful (22 page)

“I don’t know. I think so. Anyway”—he took a deep breath—“I’ll slip away after lunch. Don’t mention it to anyone. I hate conscious conversations when everyone feels he has to be polite at the last minute. So I’ll say goodbye to you now. It has been a very—a very pleasant stay. So kind of you to ask me and all that. Give my love to Sally when you break the news to her. And do it gently. I’d hate to cause her any heart failure. Don’t let her be too upset about my departure.” He smiled, and left.

Outside in the hall Esther Park’s voice said, “Oh, Dewey! I’ve been looking everywhere!”

It was all so simple after all, Mrs. Peel thought. We’ve been worrying how to ask him to leave, and he simply came in here of his own free will and said (with an honest compliment included) that he was going to leave. She shook her head incredulously and then laughed. She crossed over to the bookcase to find the right place for the book Dewey had returned: he had just jammed it in anywhere. But before she reached it Carla Brightjoy came running into the room.

Carla’s eyes were gay and excited, and her smile was happy. Would Mrs. Peel think her rude if she were to miss lunch? She was invited to a picnic down in the hayfield where Ned and Robb were working today. Mrs. Gunn had put sandwiches so quickly together, and added a blueberry-pie to cheer Ned up, and really wouldn’t it be fun, she hadn’t ever seen haymaking except in movies, of course. Jackson had saddled her horse, and she was going to ride to the field. Alone? Why, of course; it wasn’t so far.

By the time Carla’s breath ran out Mrs. Peel had forgotten the misplaced book. She was too delighted with Carla’s shining eyes. No glasses now, either. And the shirt-tail was tucked into the blue jeans. Her hat, with its brim rolled in the very best bullrider’s crush, was set on her head exactly as Drene wore hers. And, as she turned to run out of the library, Mrs. Peel noticed that her straight loose hair was now neatly braided into two short pigtails, with bright blue bows to match the plaid in her tight shirt. The stores in Sweetwater must be pleased with all the shopping that was being done. Mrs. Peel wished that Sally too could watch the confident little figure, hurrying to take the blueberry-pie which Mrs. Gunn had baked for all the boys to see. It would make Sally’s trips down to Sweetwater seem well worth-while.

* * *

Robert O’Farlan came downstairs. He was whistling. Here’s another who likes Rest and be Thankful, Mrs. Peel thought happily.

“Any mail for me?” he asked someone in the hall.

“A postcard,” Koffing’s voice answered.

They said nothing more. Mrs. Peel moved, as a possible peacemaker, to the library door.

O’Farlan was reading the postcard with a frown. He could see it coming already: next winter it would be “Robert went off by himself to Wyoming and had the most wonderful time. Wives? Oh, they weren’t wanted. Were they, Robert?” Gay brave laughter. Everyone else looking at him, laughing as Jenny was, but still looking. He might protest that she had been invited, as soon as Mrs. Peel had found out he was married. But their friends would then be told,
“How
could I leave the children?” Yes, it was coming. Now that she wouldn’t be able to make remarks about his unfinished book there would have to be others to take their place. That was Jenny’s idea of marriage: a husband was the natural vent for all your frustrations. Once you unload your bad temper over the housework or the children on to him you can face the rest of the world with a kind word and a sweet smile. Jenny’s such a brave darling, her friends always said. When the children reached the age of eighteen and he packed his bag and left they all would shake their heads and talk of the best years of Jenny’s life and men, that’s men for you. That a man might resent the best years of
his
life being turned into a desert, like fertile soil soured and eroded through careless misuses would not be included among Jenny’s unhappy thoughts. She might even resent that he hadn’t left sooner, when the children were younger, so she could have had
that
to complain about too. He jammed the postcard into his pocket and walked into the garden.

“Had a good ride?” Mrs. Peel asked Karl Koffing.

“Fine.” He sorted through the pile of envelopes and magazines which lay on the hall table. “Came back from Flashing Smile in an hour flat.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Peel wondered what the cowboys were going to say about that. Of course, neither Karl nor Earl knew very much about horses. They weren’t trying to be cruel; they just didn’t know. They’d be worried if they had heard Bert’s comments on them. “What’s their idea? Gallop their horses off their feet right into the canning factory?” It made Mrs. Peel feel sick even to think of that word. Yet how could she tell the young men that horses could be ruined, could end up in that terrible place as dog food because they wouldn’t be able to get through a winter on the hills? They were both quite convinced they had mastered the job of knowing about horses, and they might even think that Bert, who had been handling horses since he was five, just resented the idea that it only took them a couple of weeks to learn his trade.

“Not bad,” Koffing was saying, “considering our horses.” “Oh?”

“They’re old, of course. Brent didn’t give us any of the five-year-olds, I notice. Do you know how old my horse is? Sixteen, if it’s a day.”

“That isn’t too old, Karl. Why, Mimi’s horse is nearly twenty, and he looks about ten. Horses last well out here. That is, if they aren’t run to death.”

“If Brent had given us decent horses they wouldn’t be run to death.”

“But they
are
good horses, Karl.” Even Prender Atherton Jones had nothing to say against them.

“You don’t catch the cowpunchers riding them. Their ponies are only four or five years old.”

“And their ponies are still being trained. Horses aren’t even broken until they are about three years old, Karl! And don’t blame Jim Brent: I asked him for reliable horses that were calmed down enough so that we wouldn’t have accidents.”

“They’re certainly calmed down.” Karl smiled. “Each time I ride into the corral I can see Chuck standing at his cookhouse door, counting back to 1886, when he first taught my horse to carry a saddle.”

There was a short silence. Karl looked down at the table. No mail, he thought. And no sense of humour, either: she wasn’t even smiling. She didn’t like him because of his politics, so whatever he said would be wrong.

“Karl,” she said suddenly, “would it prove anything to you if I asked Jim Brent to let you pick out your own horse for a day or so?”

“I’d like that,” he admitted. He had a very pleasant smile when things were going his way.

“Risks and all?” she asked.

“Sure. The more risks the better.”

“I’ll speak to Jim Brent,” she said.

“And he’ll refuse,” Karl said, moving towards the door.

“If he does it will be for a good reason, Karl.”

Yes, a political one, Karl thought grimly. You should learn to keep your mouth shut, he told himself, and just listen to all these hideous Republicans and moralising Democrats. Reactionary bastards.

Mrs. Peel watched him leave. The more risks the better... Was that how he felt about everything? He was so aggressive, always proving something. But to whom?

Mrs. Peel was still puzzling over that as she went into the dining-room to tell Norah that there would be no Carla for lunch.

* * *

“Then that will be two places less today,” Norah said. “Miss Bassinbrook went into Sweetwater with Jim.”

“Did she?” Mrs. Peel was a little amazed, for Mimi could have gone with Sally if she had wanted to. If...

Norah’s pleasant voice went on talking about the weather, about the storm that seemed to be gathering; but perhaps it would wait until everyone got safely home from Sweetwater.

“Where’s Drene?” Mrs. Peel asked suddenly, noticing that Norah was working by herself in the dining-room.

“She likes to change before she helps serve lunch,” Norah said, tossing one of her neat braids back over her shoulder. And she seemed different in other ways too. She was prettier, somehow; thinner perhaps.

“Norah, are you getting too much work to do? I mean, you are supposed to be having a summer holiday as well, you know.” Really, I must speak seriously to Drene after all, Mrs. Peel thought angrily.

“I’m having a fine time,” Norah said, with her quick smile. The pink cheeks deepened in colour, and the brown eyes widened. Then she hesitated, looking down now at the bowl of petunias on the table. “The only trouble is my aunt,” she said slowly. “Mrs. Peel, would you ask her to stop worrying about me?”

“Worrying about what?”

“About the way I do my hair, and the way I wear my hat, and”—Norah raised her eyes—“about going in to the dance in Sweetwater on Saturday.”

“Well, I suppose we all worry about people we feel responsible for,” Mrs. Peel answered. “And if we didn’t we wouldn’t care. That would be a heartless kind of world to live in, wouldn’t it?”

“And she worries about Earl Grubbock,” Norah went on, making her main point at last. “Why, he is only a friend! He teases me about the West and about college and the things I learn there. It makes me feel so—so ridiculous when Aunt Gunn worries about it. There’s no harm in it.” The pink cheeks were now bright carmine. She was, Mrs. Peel reflected, a very pretty girl, all the prettier for being natural.

“Perhaps your aunt is only worried about Drene, and that makes her cross with—”

“No,” Norah said quickly. “At least, not altogether. It’s all the fault of these war novels. She likes to read in the evenings, you know.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Peel said, “I know.” She pulled out a dining room chair and sat down. “I told her to borrow any book from our library whenever she wanted one. And she’s been reading war novels?”

Norah nodded gloomily.

“And Earl Grubbock was a soldier? But so were all the cowboys except old Chuck, weren’t they?”

“But my aunt
knows
them. She doesn’t know anything about Earl except that he was a sergeant. And there is nothing good written about them in any war novel, is there? It’s a wonder to me how we ever did win the War, if all the sergeants were so awful and all the officers were such fools.”

Mrs. Peel could find nothing to say. She would like to have smiled, but Norah was too serious. And so would I be if I were Norah, she thought.

Norah said, “I wonder why writers want to make things more difficult for men? Why, in a few years, there won’t be a woman left who’ll trust a man when he is away from her. And to think it is the men who do that to each other! Why, if it were a woman writer being bitter, you might say, ‘Well, she’s taking it out on the men, whatever they did to her.’ But this isn’t a war between the sexes. Often it stops being a war between nations. It’s a war of men on men. They really hate each other subconsciously, don’t they? I said all this to Earl when we were arguing, and he couldn’t find any answer. I was hoping he could, too.”

Mrs. Peel rested her folded arms on the table. She looked at the girl with new interest. Never underestimate the silent people, she told herself once more. Had that been Earl’s thought too?

“Tell me, Norah, you’re at college, majoring in what?” “Modern history.”

“Are you going to teach?”

“I’m thinking of journalism.”

“Ah, the big city, Chicago? New York?”

“No.” The girl smiled faintly. “Three Springs.”

“Why didn’t you work on a paper this summer? Experience, you know.”

“I worked on a paper last summer. But this year my aunt told me that a lot of writers were coming here. That’s quite an experience too, seeing them when they aren’t up on a platform making a speech or signing their novels at a bookstore.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Peel said, in dismay. Then she looked at Norah’s laughing, sympathetic eyes. “I expect you’ve found them very much like any other human beings.”

“Yes,” Norah agreed. “They’re as muddled up as the rest of us. Only some of them
think
they aren’t... Like Mr. Koffing, for instance.”

Mrs. Peel let herself smile this time. “Did you tell that to Earl Grubbock too?”

“Well,” Norah said politely, “he
did
ask me.”

“Did he listen?”

“Why, of course!” Norah was startled. “He’s—he’s very— well—”

“Not at all like the sergeants your aunt reads about?”

“Not one bit,” Norah said, laughing now. “But you will tell my aunt not to worry about me?”

Mrs. Peel nodded. She watched Norah leave the dining room. Then she rose, putting the chair back neatly in place so that Norah’s capable job of arranging the table should not be spoiled. A movement from outside the window caught her eye. It was Earl Grubbock, pretending to be studying the scenery. And probably cursing me, Mrs. Peel thought. She went out to join him. He couldn’t see Norah just now, anyway.

* * *

“I was watching the creek,” Earl Grubbock said. “Come over here and see this. Look, from this point you’d think the water was running uphill. A neat delusion, isn’t it?”

“Like most delusions.” Mrs. Peel followed him and looked. “Why, so it is! A most original creek...”

He wondered if this would be a good moment to try to find out how Mrs. Peel would react to fear. (That story of the decaying gentlewoman with a lynched corpse on her doorstep hadn’t worked out so far.) But Mrs. Peel turned to him with such a delighted smile, a smile that made her young and very much alive, that he couldn’t find the right question to ask her. Instead he blurted out, “It’s an original place in every way.” He looked round at the placid hills. “But I just don’t seem to be able to write here. O’Farlan is scribbling away; Carla’s full of new ideas; even Mimi has reached the stage of deciding she isn’t a short story writer and is talking about a novel.” Talk, of course, didn’t mean you’d get a book written: he’d found that out.

Mrs. Peel had a way of expressing sympathy and interest even without saying a word.

He said suddenly, “I may as well admit it. I’m stuck. Perhaps I’m not a writer after all. Perhaps I’d better find me a permanent job and try to make something out of that.” He stared moodily at the creek. But he felt better, somehow, for having put his thoughts into words at last.