Summer Lightning (27 page)

“No, now, don’t be,” Edith murmured, fiercely ordering herself to remain collected. Vera needed strength, not mere feeble sympathy.

Feeling the other girl sagging, Edith put her arm around Vera’s waist and helped her over to a gravestone in the shade. She pulled her softly scented handkerchief from where it hung over her belt and gave it to Vera. “Sit here. Do you need a drink of water?”

“No . . . no, I’m better now.” Vera pressed the handkerchief to her eyes. Her voice still shook as she said, “It was just such a shock . . . seeing him ... I ...”

She gave herself up to tears, but only for a moment. Straightening, she shook herself as if she were coming out of deep water. Edith could only admire her self-mastery. “There, I’m perfectly all right. It must have been the heat. Thank you for your help, Miss Parker.”

Her smile was as brilliant and false as the purple rhinestones in her brooch. Edith did not want to press her, but she felt very strongly that she ought to. It was a compulsion as strong in its way that which drove her to talk to strangers about the people they loved.

Choosing her words carefully, she said, “If you don’t want to say anything more, that’s all right. However, you know I will be gone from Richey in a few days. If telling me your troubles would help you bear them, I would be happy to listen.”

Vera sank slowly down once again onto the granite stone. “I don’t know what you mean. . . .”

Looking up into the deep blue sky of twilight, Edith said, “You know, the first morning I was here, I woke up twice. The second time was when I heard Sam in the kitchen. It is a strange thing that so pleasant-spoken a man cannot cook without swearing. He uses words I have never heard before, and don’t know what they mean but they sound terrible!”

“Sam . . .” Vera rubbed her forehead and looked miserably at the ground.

“Anyway, the first time I woke ... I don’t know exactly why, but I went to the window. The curtains were moving in the breeze. They looked just like watered silk, so much so that I had to touch them to be sure they were still just cotton. When I looked out the window, the whole sky was silver. I’d never seen a silver sky before but there it was. Then the clouds turned pink, so faintly at first that I couldn’t tell them from the sky. They became brighter and brighter, becoming orange, and the whole sky flushed with pink. And when the sun came up, I was astonished to think that this sun has been rising over the world for so many thousands of years I couldn’t begin to count them all—and I had never seen it before. It makes me wonder what other miracles I have wasted.”

“Miracles . . . ,” Vera said, and gave a little mirthless laugh. “All my miracles have been ominous, like the bears eating the children who laughed at Elijah.”

Edith looked into Vera’s gray eyes, now darkened with misery. “Are you sure
all
your miracles have been so grim?”

“No, you’re right,” Vera admitted. “It isn’t always like that, but sometimes do you ever get the feeling that something . . . maybe just the world ... is out to get you?”

“Out to get you?”

“Yes, you know. A dark menace pursuing you and all you can do is run and run like in a nightmare, never getting away.”

Edith shook her head. “No, even when things go badly for me, I don’t feel that way. Why do you?”

Vera paused, plainly considering how much she should reveal. “All right,” she said, “it’s like this. That man . . . Victor Sullivan ... I knew him, only that wasn’t the name he was using.”

“I knew it!” Edith nodded, far from happy that her intuition had proven itself. “I knew there was something wrong with that man.”

“Wrong is right. To state the facts briefly and baldly, he met me at a party. I was shy, naive and as stupid as any girl could be. My brother was introducing me to society, trying to impress everyone in New York with his culture and gentility.” Vera’s face showed her disgust, as though she were reading a page from a sordid novel aloud. “They came all right, but I could tell they were laughing at him. And at me. Then I met Tate . . . that was what he called himself then. He won my heart at once.”

She laughed bitterly. “I can’t say I made it very difficult for him. Heavens, what a perfect idiot I was! Anyway, he soon convinced me to agree to marry him, but my brother wouldn’t hear of it. He called Tate a fortune hunter. George swore he’d refuse to support me once I was married. I ‘persuaded’ Tate to elope with me, though he kept putting off our marriage. I know now he was expecting George to change his mind and send money. He even wrote George letters, begging letters.”

“Did your brother change his mind?”

“George never changes his mind. Tate left me. I was all alone in this miserable boardinghouse in Boston. He’d even taken the few trinkets I’d brought along. The landlady kicked me out. The only thing to do was to go home.”

“You must have hated that,” Edith said. She could imagine returning, disgraced and despoiled, to a stern, righteous brother.

All she had to do was substitute him for her own aunt. “Did he say ‘I told you so’?”

“Only about every hour on the hour,” Vera laughed again, more warmly. “I couldn’t stay. George was right about that too. If I stayed I might drag him down. They’re very hard on girls who ‘slip’ in that society.”

“What did you do?”

“I wandered around, staying in hotels.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t stand to be in one place for very long. Then, one day, I came here. I was out of money and George wasn’t supposed to send another check for several weeks. The milliner had gotten married and moved West, and I’ve always been good with frills and furbelows. They’ve been nice to me here, but if they knew . . .”

Vera stood up. “I shall probably dislike you very much tomorrow, Edith. But I can’t help being grateful today. I’ve been carrying around this secret like a lead weight. It’s a little lighter now.”

“I’m glad you feel better,” Edith said. “But aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Victor?”

“No, Dulcie.”

Vera blinked and turned back. “Dulcie?”

“You can’t let her marry him. Not knowing what you know.”

“Maybe he’s changed. People do change.”

“Do you believe that he has, so much as to make Dulcie a good and loving husband?”

“I can’t think why else he’d want to marry her. She doesn’t have any money he can take.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What can I do?” Vera demanded with sudden passion. “I’ve built a life here . . . I can’t just throw it away. I’ve done that once and the consequences were terrible. I can’t do it again.”

“What about Dulcie?”

“Dulcie has made her bed ... no, I don’t mean that. Of course she mustn’t marry him. He’s as cruel as ... the letter I found after he left me. . . . But what can I do?”

“Go to Mr. Armstrong. He would never let Dulcie...”

“No, I’d have to explain to him. He might kick Tate down the church steps but he’d also denounce me.”

“He wouldn’t. . . .”

“Yes, he would. He’d pray for me publicly, naming names and announcing exactly how I’ve strayed. I couldn’t stand it. All those people staring and whispering at me.”

“I know how you feel,” Edith said, shuddering. Thinking of how intensely the pastor had exhorted his flock to cast away their sins and make their souls white again, Edith could believe that Mr. Armstrong would act as Vera had said. Also, the outraged father in him would likely overcome whatever assurances of secrecy he might promise Vera.

“We must do something,” she repeated in a determined tone.

Vera shook Edith’s sleeve lightly between her fingers. “It’s not your problem, Edith. It’s mine, and I’ll think of something. If I have to, I’ll go to Mr. Armstrong before Dulcie gets married. Milliners are supposed to be wicked, abandoned women anyway. They’ve been whispering about me since I came, so what’s the difference?”

After a moment, she answered her own question. “The difference between a lie and the truth, that’s all. Well, I can start all over again, but . . . God, I don’t want to!”

“Don’t want to what?” said Sam, coming up to them. They’d been so absorbed in their conversation that they hadn’t heard him until he spoke. Now both girls whirled around as though caught in some petty wickedness.

The instant Vera saw him, she began to back away. One hand went out to him, but with the fingers splayed as if to warn him off. “No,” she said, in a gasping voice, “I really can’t.”

Edith once more put a supporting arm around Vera’s waist. “Don’t fall,” she said, stopping her short of the tombstone.

Again, Vera fought for her self-control. “Thank you.” She turned a trembling smile toward Sam. “I’m not feeling very well. I shouldn’t have tried to come to church today . . . I felt so strange when I woke up.”

“Maybe you should have the doctor come by,” he suggested.

“Yes, yes, I will. Funny, I felt fine yesterday, but I think maybe I overdid things. Got too tired. I was sicker than a dog last Sunday with that head cold that was going around.”

“I know. I missed seeing you in church.”

“You did?” Vera frowned as if his confession annoyed her.

“Let me drive you home,” Sam said.

Vera stepped free of Edith’s restraining arm. Her bright smile once more firmly pinned in place, she said, “No, thanks, Sam. I appreciate it, but no, thanks.”

Twitching her skirt to the side so she could pass Sam without touching him, Vera walked away without a backward glance. Her back was straight as a soldier’s going to face the enemy’s firing squad.

“She’s a funny woman,” Sam mused.

“You like her?” Perhaps her matchmaking fervor showed in her voice for he looked around at her and grinned.

“I like everybody. Always have. That’s why I get along so well. Never argue, never fuss.”

“Yet Jeff tells me . . .”

“You can’t believe a word that boy says. Where he gets such ideas . . . you don’t know the half of it.”

“Are you warning me, Sam?” Not that she intended to listen. The moments she had with Jeff were too precious to let a harsh reality come between them.

“Heck, no. You’re a sensible woman — I saw that as soon as I met you. But that boy of mine ... the stories he tells about me would shame a politician.” He started walking toward the church, and Edith matched her speed to his crooked gait.

“Like what?”

“Like how he tells people he doesn’t know what side I fought on in the late war. Did he tell you that?”

“Well, he mentioned . .  .”

“Now see! See!”

“Which side did you fight on?”

Sam stopped and ran his finger around under his tight collar. “All right, so maybe I did wear gray for a little while . . . but it was sheer force of circumstances that made me do it. I was captured, you see. And a more raggle-taggle bunch of half-wits you never saw in your life. They were all city boys out in the middle of the swamps. Why, only Lucifer himself knew. They sure didn’t have any idea.”

“So you . . .”

“I had to help ‘em out or the lot of ‘em would have died standing up. Though I wasn’t a webfoot myself, my uncle and I spent a lot of time fishing and camping on rivers, so I knew a little bit—which was whole encyclopedias more than they did.” He kept his smile in place, but his eyes sobered. “Not a one of ‘em was older than twenty. I saved them in the swamp, but I couldn’t save them from the madness of a nation at war with itself.”

He blinked and gave her a wide grin. “Now what call does my son have to tell people I couldn’t make up my mind which side I was on? Course, I had to sign up with the Confederate Army, or those boys would be in trouble. And if I was getting pay from both sides, you can’t say I didn’t earn it. Besides which, I paid the North back . . . but I’ll tell you about that some other time.”

“Please do. I can’t wait to hear more.”

“Really?” Sam looked surprised and pleased. “Nice of you to say that, Edith. Awfully nice.”

He quietly led her back into the church, the singing of the congregation covering their entrance. Jeff was the only one to frown at them. She patted his hand reassuringly as she sat down. Maribel immediately wiggled her way back onto Edith’s lap.

By the time the last hymn had been sung, the little girl was a dead weight on Edith’s shoulder. While the rest of the congregation, including Sam and Louise, went out into the cool blue twilight, Jeff and Edith stayed behind. He held out his arms for his daughter.

“I don’t mind,” Edith said, shifting the child higher.

“No, come on. I know she’s got to be heavy on you.”

“A little, but never mind.”

He reached for Maribel and the little girl half-woke up to look around. Then she slumped limply, trusting her father to catch her. She clung to his broad shoulder, settling easily down again into sleep.

“There’s a lot of hay in the wagon,” Jeff said as he moved out into the aisle. “She’ll get a good nap and be full of beans later on.”

Paul Tyler was waiting at the door, two elderly ladies beside him, their mittened hands tucked in the crook of his elbows. There was a strong family resemblance between the two ladies. They were on the short side, but broad in their black silks. Like Paul, they had brown eyes and their hair was still dark.

“I don’t have to ask you,” Jeff said, “I can tell you’re glad to have your boy back again.”

“So happy,” Miss Minta said. “But he’s hardly staying a week, bad boy.” The adoring look she turned up to her nephew’s face belied her querulous words.

“That’s youth for you,” Jeff answered. “Always on the go, these young whippersnappers.”

“Will you listen to Grandpa!” Paul scoffed. “I don’t know, my darlings, maybe we shouldn’t invite him to supper. He looks like he could use a nap instead!”

“Will there be some of Miss Minta’s crullers?” The little lady nodded. “And Miss Hetty’s potato salad? Then get out of my way, whippersnapper, there’s work for men!”

The aunts giggled as Jeff pressed past them. Edith noticed that both ladies looked up to Jeff with affection which, if not as glorified as that showed to their nephew, was still strong. As the three women fell into step behind the men, Miss Hetty said, “Dear Jefferson has been so kind to us, Miss Parker. He fixed our shed roof last spring and . . .”