The Girl Next Door (Crimson Romance) Read online

  She reached the professor’s place with the feeling of having come to a sanctuary. She ran along the drive and to the garden where she knew her old friend would be at this time of the day.

  Peter and Professor Hartley, sitting in companionable silence, turned at the sound of her footsteps. The professor was on his feet before she reached him.

  “Betsy” he cried. “Betsy, what’s wrong?”

  “Oh, Pete!” She swayed a little and clung to the back of the chair from which Pete had risen. “Oh, Pete — Professor — I’ve killed her. And I’m not sorry! I’m glad — ”

  “Betsy!” exclaimed Peter. “What are you trying to say to us?” He put an arm around her and began patting her shoulder. “Betsy, get hold of yourself. Pull yourself together. What do you mean — you’ve killed her?”

  “Betsy, sit down,” said the professor after a moment, and poured a glass of water from the thermos bottle on the table. “Drink this, child.”

  Betsy’s shaking hands grasped the glass, but it rattled against her teeth as she tried to drink. She looked up at the anxious, sightless faces above her and made a terrific effort to get herself under control.

  “I know I shouldn’t. I suppose I should be terribly sorry,” she stammered at last. “But I’m not. It was high time somebody did it. She wasn’t fit to live — because of what she did to you, Pete!”

  Peter knelt beside her chair and took her trembling hands in his. “Listen, kid,” he said, “you’re talking crazy. Now draw a deep breath, count ten, and start all over again. You never killed anybody — or anything — in your life.”

  “Yes, I did, Pete. Maybe I didn’t really mean to. But she was saying such awful things, and there was a heavy glass bowl of flowers on the table. It weighed a ton, just about — and before I knew what I was doing, I threw it at her!”

  “Good Lord!” said Peter, under his breath.

  “The bowl didn’t hit her,” Betsy went on miserably. “She sort of ducked. She was standing on one of those little rugs beside the bed, packing her suitcase. The floors are always waxed like glass. She ducked, and her foot slipped. She fell against the foot of the bed.”

  She hid her face against Peter’s shoulder. Professor Hartley stood up, with a little murmur, and moved toward the house.

  “Here, here, Betsy,” Peter said gently, “stop drowning me! You’re crying all over my nice clean shirt — and you know how easily white shirts get dirty. Snap out of it, youngster. This whole thing is a mistake. You’re imagining things.”

  “No, Pete.” She sat up and mopped her eyes with a sodden scrap of a handkerchief. “Marcia told Mom she was leaving for New York. I went over to see. Marcia was getting packed, and — well, I guess I said some pretty hateful things. But they were the truth, Pete. She’s lower than anything that crawls, for walking out on you.”

  “Betsy,” said Peter a trifle wryly, “if only I could convince you that I am old enough to manage my own affairs — ”

  “You never seem to realize that I’m old enough to manage mine.”

  Peter grinned. “Well, this fantastic tale you are telling me, my pet, certainly doesn’t make you seem very grown up, if I may say so.”

  “You may say anything to me you like, any time, anywhere, and I’ll love it,” said Betsy. “Because I love you.”

  “Betsy, you’re forgetting something.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You were just giving Marcia a nice going-over for breaking her engagement to me because it suited her convenience. Aren’t you forgetting that you are engaged to Bo?” Peter pointed out.

  “Oh, but that’s different.”

  “Why is it? Just because I’m blind?”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Peter said, “Don’t you see, Betsy! I don’t want any special favors just because I’m blind. If Marcia wanted to break her engagement to me, I am grateful that she did it exactly as she would have done it if I’d had two good eyes. Nothing could be more gruelling to any man than to know that a woman married him out of pity. If a woman really loves a man, the fact that he is handicapped isn’t too important. But to marry him just because she is sorry for him — Betsy that’s the unforgivable thing. Marcia was completely honest with me, and I’m grateful to her.”

  “But if you were in love with her — ”

  “That’s just the point,” said Peter quietly. “If I had been in love with Marcia, my heart would be — well, maybe not broken, but at least permanently damaged. I acknowledged a little while ago that my first feeling was one of relief. I think I was just grateful to her because she treated me exactly as she treated the other fellows. I guess I let myself be fooled into thinking it was love. The first time I kissed her and held her in my arms, there was a queer, let-down feeling. And I dreaded the thought of leaving Centerville, of living in a New York apartment, among strangers, who would inevitably be Marcia’s friends, not mine. Finally I had the uneasy suspicion that I had deluded myself, but I couldn’t see any way out. Now do you begin to see why I wasn’t upset when Marcia broke the engagement?”

  “And I killed her, because I thought she’d hurt you terribly! And I was glad.”

  “Betsy, you lawless little idiot!” said Peter helplessly.

  Professor Hartley was coming back from the house, moving surely, swiftly, his face alight.

  “It’s all right, Betsy. She’s not seriously injured,” he said. “She has a bad bruise on her temple, and she was knocked out for a few minutes. But the doctor has just left, and he said she would be able to travel by tomorrow, at the latest.”

  “Thank heaven!” said Peter.

  Betsy stared at Professor Hartley, afraid to believe. “But — ” she stammered.

  “I talked to your mother,” said the professor. “I called Marcia’s and your mother came to the telephone. I told her you were here and that you were worried about Mrs. Eldon. She sounded quite upset, but she told me that the doctor is sure Mrs. Eldon is going to be all right.”

  Betsy drew a deep, hard breath. “I guess I was mistaken. I didn’t think I minded injuring her — even killing her. But now — oh, I’m so ashamed of myself!”

  “I should think you would be,” announced Peter. “Betsy, I had no idea you were so explosive.”

  “Neither did I,” admitted Betsy humbly. “I didn’t intend to throw things. I just, well, she was grinning and making fun of me, saying I was making a fool of myself — and of you. Then, suddenly, the vase was sailing through the air.”

  Peter made no comment, and presently Professor Hartley said, “I think we’d all relish something cold to drink. Sit still, Betsy. I can get it.”

  After he had gone back to the house, Betsy and Peter sat for a moment in a silence that neither seemed to know how to break. At last Betsy spoke, saying in her usual forthright fashion, “Peter, have I embarrassed you by letting people know I love you?”

  “Don’t be a little chump, Betsy. How could any man be embarrassed by such a thing? Any man would be proud to know you thought you cared for him,” said Peter.

  “Will you please stop saying ‘thought’! I don’t think anything about it I know!”

  “And what about Bo?” Peter asked.

  Color burned in her face but she still looked straight at him. “I’m sorry about Bo. Only I wasn’t ever in love with him.”

  “Yet you wanted to hurt Marcia for being engaged to me without being in love with me.”

  She hesitated. Then: “I know. I called Marcia a worm. I’m even lower,” she admitted. “I lost my head, I guess, when you told me you were in love with Marcia. I rushed off in all directions — and there was Bo. He thought I was pretty wonderful. I guess that soothed my hurt pride. But maybe I really haven’t got much pride, or I’d stop hounding you, wouldn’t I?”

  “You’re not hounding me, Betsy. It’s only that — well, during the years when you and I would normally have been falling in love with each other, I was halfway around the world, and you were here. Your love for me g
rew out of your memories of me. Since I’ve been home, you’ve been all steamed up over my being blind, and your burning desire to make it up to me. You see, Betsy, how well I understand you.”

  And Betsy, listening to him, knew that she could do nothing, knew that she could not make him change his mind. He would never understand that her love did not spring from pity, or mere hero worship. There was nothing she could do about it.

  “I’d better go. Tell Professor Hartley I’ll see him again soon.”

  Brushing Peter’s restraining hand aside, she went running across the lawn and down the drive. She was walking slowly along the street toward home when a car slid to the curb, and she looked up to see Edith behind the wheel. Edith was obviously angry, but her voice was quite steady as she said, “Get in, Betsy.”

  “You needn’t have come for me, Mother.”

  “I was a little afraid of what you might do if you were left to get home alone,” said Edith, and sent the car rushing up the street.

  She did not speak again until they were in Betsy’s room upstairs, and then she said, “Betsy, I can’t tell you how shocked I am, or how disappointed I am in you. You’ve done a terrible thing, a disgraceful thing. Do you realize that you might easily have killed Marcia?”

  Betsy shivered, but she answered with her usual devastating honesty, “I think maybe I wanted to kill her.”

  “Betsy!” Edith gasped. “Oh, what am I going to do with you?”

  Betsy tried to grin, but it wasn’t a success. “I guess maybe you’d better give me back to the stork that brought me.” She struggled hard for a flippancy far removed from her real feelings.

  Chapter Sixteen

  George had finished breakfast and gone. Edith, lingering at the table over her second cup of coffee, tensed a little as she heard Betsy’s footsteps in the hall. But she looked up, smiling, as the girl came in. Betsy was looking very young and very lovely in blue linen shorts and halter, the beloved saddle shoes and socks on her sunburned feet.

  She greeted Edith with what tried hard to be a gay grin.

  Edith pretended to be absorbed in the morning paper, after she had brought Betsy’s breakfast. Then she stole a glance at her daughter’s face and asked lightly, “Well, what is it now?”

  Betsy frowned. “Mother, could I go away for a while?” she asked.

  “Running away, dear?”

  “I guess so,” answered Betsy honestly. “I — well, I told Bo I couldn’t marry him. He was sweet about it, and I felt like a worm.”

  “So now you’d like to run out and let him bear the unpleasantness alone.”

  Betsy flung up her head and, though the color flamed in her cheeks, she cried out defensively, “Mother, you and Dad have been perfectly swell, but aren’t you two just a little bit to blame? I never had much of a chance to grow up. You never let me make many decisions — important ones. You were anxious to protect me, and I love you for it, and I’m grateful. Only — well, I thought maybe you’d let me go to Atlanta and get a job and make my own living for a while and learn to stand on my own feet. After all, how else can I ever be grown up?”

  Edith was appalled, yet she was honest enough to admit there was truth in what Betsy said. She and George had, to the best of their ability, wrapped the child in protecting layers of cotton wool; they had shielded her, perhaps too much.

  “But, darling, you haven’t any business training,” she pointed out.

  “I can be a salesgirl in a department store, or a five-and-ten. They train girls for that. And I’d be earning my own living and sort of coming to grips with real life.” Betsy’s voice was so eager, her sincerity so obvious, that the absurd little phrase did not sound at all funny. “I’d stay with Aunt Sally. She could tuck me away somewhere in a corner. I’ll sleep on a shelf in the linen closet, if necessary. I’ll pay her board, and live on what was left. I don’t want any allowance from home. I want to support myself and find out what it’s really like to be on my own. Mother, please!”

  In the end, when even George had to give in to her pleading and planning, Betsy departed for Atlanta. While Centerville gossiped, and some people condemned her for the treatment of Bo, others defended her because, they argued, everybody had known all along that Peter Marshall was the man Betsy loved. Bo should have expected nothing better.

  Edith, her mouth a thin line, her eyes harassed, returned wedding presents and apologized to friends who had given parties for Betsy — and wished heartily that she, too, could slip out of Centerville and hide somewhere until people had forgotten.

  The pretty little house that Bo had prepared for his bride was sold at an excellent profit to a home-hungry family; Anne Gray took up where she had left off with Bo, when Betsy came along, and people nodded and decided that Bo was consoling himself very nicely.

  Peter spent many hours with Professor Hartley and, as their friendship grew, it came to mean a great deal to both men. Gradually, Peter became more reconciled to his physical handicap — and more independent, as his and Gus’ understanding deepened.

  September passed, with Edith watching eagerly for Betsy’s letters. Betsy had found work in one of the big department stores. She wrote excitedly about her days “in training school” until at last she was allowed “on the floor, to sell.” She loved the city with its crowds and its noise and its color. She had made friends in the store, as well as among Aunt Sally’s boarders, and she was happier than she had dreamed she could be.

  Edith tried hard to read between the lines things that might be there: little signs of homesickness; traces of loneliness; of regret. But Betsy’s letters were unfailingly gay, and the brief notes Edith recieved from Aunt Sally reassured her of her daughter’s well-being. Besides, Betsy would surely come home for Thanksgiving — and it was October, now.

  The calendar said there were only thirty-one days in October. Frankly, Edith doubted it. She was quite sure that it was twice as long as any month had a right to be. The house seemed terribly big, and it echoed with a silence, ached with emptiness. Where once she had sighed a little with irritation at the incessant sound of footsteps and laughter and youthful voices, where she had sometimes wished that a radio had never been invented, she sat now in a silence that was almost unbearable.

  “What wouldn’t I give,” she told herself, “to have Betsy and her crowd back, running through the house, raiding the icebox, kicking back the rugs to dance, the telephone ringing like mad… .”

  At such times, when the loneliness seemed almost more than she could bear, she would get out Betsy’s letters and read them again. Then she would tell herself that it was best for Betsy to be away just now, even though it was terribly lonely for her parents.

  It was a great disappointment to Edith when Betsy wrote that she could not come home for Thanksgiving. The store would be closed for only one day, Betsy explained; she would spend more of her time on the road than she would be able to spend at home. But she had been promised an extra two days at Christmas, she would come home then. With that, Edith and George had to be content… .

  Christmas came at last, just when Edith was convinced it never would. Since Christmas fell on Tuesday, Betsy had managed to get the Monday before as well as the Wednesday after. And so she left Atlanta Sunday morning and was in Centerville shortly after noon.

  George and Edith had been pacing the platform for half an hour before the first plume of smoke, announcing the train’s approach, was visible down the line. When the train slid to a halt, and a girl in a smart blue suit, a topcoat swung jauntily about her shoulders, her hair in a very sophisticated upswept arrangement, appeared at the top of the steps, Edith burst into tears.

  “Hello, you two! Is this any way to greet the return of the prodigal daughter?” protested Betsy. But she wept a little herself as she clasped her mother close and reached out a hand to her father.

  “Oh, Betsy, I’m so glad to see you,” said Edith, smiling through her tears.

  “Maybe you think I’m not happy to see you!” Betsy grinned at b
oth of them. “I never realized before what a handsome pair of parents I have!”

  They got into the car and drove home, with Betsy chattering like mad; regaling them with gay little tales of her adventures, of her friends, of her work. The house was bright with holly and mistletoe and the lovely greens that are at their best in this mild winter climate. There was also the rich, spicy odor of Edith’s good cooking.

  Edith and George smiled at each other as Betsy’s flying feet raced up the stairs. The telephone, as though it had just been waiting for her arrival, burst into clamorous demands for attention. And by dinner time on Sunday night, it was almost as though Betsy hadn’t been gone at all. The house was echoing with laughter and young voices; the radio was going full blast, and somebody was yelling that there was a new Sinatra record — and why didn’t they turn the television off so they could play it on the phonograph.

  Once George and Edith might have retired before the clamor, but tonight they loved it George displayed an unexpected ability to jitterbug, and the whole evening was as merry as a traditional Christmas season should be.

  They were laughing so hard that nobody heard the doorbell ring. Then the door was opened, letting in a breath of cold air, and a man stood on the threshold — directly beneath a huge spray of mistletoe whose pearl-like berries shimmered in the yellow light.

  “Sounds like a swell party,” he called. There was a moment of confusion, followed by a brief silence. Then:

  “Pete!” cried Betsy. She ran to him, flung herself in his arms and kissed him joyously.

  “Welcome home,” said Peter, and laughed.

  Betsy’s face flamed. “Oh, well, if you just will stand beneath the mistletoe, you should know what to expect,” she told him. “Up and at him, girls!”

  The girls clustered about Peter and the boys complained loudly that they hadn’t been smart enough to take advantage of the mistletoe.

  “Is that starting all over again?” George whispered to Edith.

  “What ever gave you the impression it had stopped?” murmured Edith.

  It was an hour or more before Edith, moving among the guests, assuring herself of their comfort and well-being, discovered that Peter and Betsy were missing. And when she did, she only drew a deep breath and sighed… .