The Girl Next Door (Crimson Romance) Read online

  “I’ve been in love with him since I was twelve years old,” Betsy stated flatly, giving her mother a look that was almost hostile. “And I’ll be in love with him until the day I die!” The young voice shook with such a passionate intensity that Edith was taken aback.

  “Has he ever asked you to marry him?” she probed.

  “Oh, no. He doesn’t even know I’m in love with him. And I’m pretty sure he’s not in love with me. But that’s not important.”

  No amount of argument or cajoling could swerve her from that stand. When at last Edith had to admit defeat, she felt as though she had suffered a physical beating. She was sore and bruised and a little frightened.

  Always, to Edith, her garden was a refuge when things got unpleasant. An hour of weeding, of transplanting, of planning, or spraying — anything that she could do in her garden — gave her comfort.

  She went down the steps to the garden at last. But it was a long time before the warmth of the spring sun, the moist dark earth that crumbled between her fingers, and the tiny slips she was transplanting, could lay any sort of soothing peace over her troubled spirit.

  Chapter Three

  Edith called on Marcia Eldon a few days later. To her surprise, when she suggested that Betsy might like to go with her, Betsy agreed, as listlessly as she agreed to anything these days, seeming to find it an effort to keep her thoughts on anything save Peter Marshall.

  Marcia ushered them into the dark old-fashioned living room. A more depressing room, Edith told herself, thinking fondly of her own flowered chintz draperies and light-colored furniture, she had seldom seen. She shuddered a little.

  “I don’t blame you. It is a chamber of honors, isn’t it?” said Marcia Eldon.

  Edith said, “You’ve met Betsy, my daughter?”

  “Oh, Betsy and I have met, haven’t we? Do sit down — if you can stand this ghastly place,” said Marcia, and dropped into a chair.

  She wore yellow flannel slacks, superbly tailored, and a jade-green shirt. Her feet stockingless, were encased in high-heeled, gaily striped, sandals. Her shining black hair was loose about her shoulders, parted low at the side and swept back.

  She drew a cigarette case out of her shirt pocket, offered it to Edith who declined and to Betsy who shook her head.

  Marcia’s eyebrows went up. “You don’t smoke?”

  “Silly, I know,” admitted Edith, abashed. “But I just don’t care for the taste. Betsy tried it and didn’t like it, and — well, I know it makes us sound like something out of a mid-Victorian opus — ”

  Marcia lit a cigarette. “Well,” she said, “what shall we talk about?”

  Edith flushed. “I merely came to tell you that I’m very glad the old house is being opened, and that I hope you’ll be very happy in Centerville.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t expect to be,” Marcia announced coolly. “I expect nothing but to be bored to fits of screaming mi-mi’s. But I’m sentenced to a year here, so — ” She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug.

  Edith stiffened at this affront to her civic pride, which held firmly to the theory that Centerville was the best of all places to live.

  “I’m sorry you feel that a year in Centerville is equal to a prison sentence, Mrs. Eldon,” she said. “I’m surprised you would come here, feeling that way.”

  Marcia’s smile was lazy, but not unfriendly.

  “I had no choice in the matter. I had to find a quiet place where I could live inexpensively. When Lucy Cunningham offered me this old barn, rent free for a year, what else could I do?”

  Edith hid a natural and lively curiosity.

  “How is Lucy, by the way? I haven’t seen her in years,” she said. “I was always fond of Lucy.”

  Marcia’s smile was one of secret amusement.

  “Then it’s obvious you haven’t seen Lucy recently,” she drawled. “She’s making a perfect fool of herself, throwing money away with both hands, sponsoring a lot of cheap little ‘hangers-on’ who profess artistic ambitions but are simply allergic to honest work.”

  Edith’s eyes flashed, but before she could speak Marcia lifted a long, maroon-nailed hand and said, “Sorry. That sounds pretty low of me, when I am one of Lucy’s ‘hangers-on’ and quite glad of a chance to sponge off her, doesn’t it? But then, I really am an artist I can pay back all that Lucy has given me, which is a lot more than any of the others will ever be able to do.”

  “Oh,” said Edith politely. “You paint?”

  “I’m a singer,” returned Marcia. “And a very good one with a great deal of promise. I’m heading for opera — for a little while, anyway, until I can establish a name that will make it possible for me to demand good fees for concerts. I was fool enough to play too hard, and work too hard, and I ran into a bout with pneumonia that left my throat in bad shape. I have to take a year off. If I’m a good girl, eat my spinach, cut out late hours, liquor and fun, get ten hours sleep every night, my voice will be as good as new within a year — or else I’m going to murder my doctor for accepting money under false pretenses.”

  “I see,” said Edith, merely to be polite, because she didn’t see at all. There were depths to this girl she had not suspected; depths she wasn’t at all sure she liked. Marcia Eldon seemed hard, callous, completely self-centered.

  Marcia roused herself a little and remembered to be a hostess.

  “Shall we have tea? Or would you prefer cocktails?” she suggested.

  “Neither, thank you. I’m afraid we must be going.” Edith stood up. “Betsy and I just dropped in to welcome you to Centerville.”

  “Thanks,” said Marcia. She glanced at Betsy and grinned as though they shared a secret that was a bit off-color, and walked with them to the door. As they went down the walk, Edith burst out impulsively:

  “I don’t think I like Mrs. Eldon.”

  Betsy laughed. “You know something? I don’t think she gives a darn whether we like her or not.”

  “I can’t think why Lucy gave her the house.”

  “Who is this Lucy-person?” asked Betsy. “All I ever knew was that this was the Cunningham place and none of the Cunninghams had lived here in years.”

  “Lucy is the daughter of the man who built the textile mills here. The family lived here for several generations,” Edith explained. “Practically all of Centerville is built on what was once the old Cunningham plantation. There were thousands of acres of it — it dated back to a King’s Grant given to one of the Oglethorpe settlers back in the 1700’s.”

  Betsy nodded, pretending an interest she did not feel.

  “Gone-with-the-Wind stuff, huh?” she suggested idly. “Living in a dump like that would sour Pollyanna’s disposition. No wonder the Eldon lady is going sour.”

  “The Cunningham fortune was quite ample,” Edith went on to explain, “and the old man invested it shrewdly. Finally, there was only Lucy to inherit it, when her brother was killed on a hunting trip. Lucy, poor dear, was a homely creature and she had a bad persecution complex. She thought the town made fun of her behind her back; she could never be friendly or at ease with any of the young men who would have been glad to marry her if only for her money. So when she came of age and the estate passed into her hands, she shook the dust of Centerville from her feet and went to New York, London, Paris and Antibes!”

  “Good for Lucy,” said Betsy. She thrust her hand through her mother’s arm and said, ending the subject, “And now, let’s have a soda, maybe do some shopping, and walk the old man home.”

  As she steered her mother toward the town’s favorite drugstore, which was always crowded at this time of the day, Edith protested futilely, “Don’t call your father ‘the old man’! It’s not respectful.”

  Betsy grinned. “He loves it,” she said, and Edith knew it was true. Before she could manage an answer, Molly Prior hailed her from a table near the front of the drugstore.

  “Hello, Edith. The small fry’s clamoring for your child, so come over and be your age. We’re just dishing
up a fresh patch of dirt,” called Molly.

  Betsy went on to a booth at the back of the room, while another chair was crowded into Molly Prior’s table.

  Edith’s eyes followed Betsy, as she joined the “gang.” There were almost a dozen boys and girls Betsy’s age — the “high school set,” they called themselves. Edith’s heart eased a little as she saw the welcome they gave Betsy; the way the boys fell over themselves to make room for her.

  “You’re not listening, Edith! We are tearing the Eldon creature to bits,” said Molly.

  Edith looked around at her friends. “Mrs. Eldon, at the Cunningham place?” she queried. “How could you possibly know enough about her to talk about her? I’ve just come from there. Betsy and I called on her,” Edith explained.

  “What’s she like?” demanded Anne Hutchens, a pretty, plump blonde whose maternity gown proclaimed her, as she proudly boasted, “a lady-in-waiting.”

  “Why, she’s beautiful and very sophisticated looking — ” Edith hesitated.

  Molly interrupted, shaking her dark head so that the absurd earrings she wore shook against her cheek.

  “I don’t like her, either,” she said. “She’s definitely a menace and I, for one, intend to keep my husband under lock and key while she’s in town.”

  The others laughed, knowing Tom Prior’s devotion to his wife and her frank adoration of him.

  “I’m so afraid both you and Tom will get pretty tired of that,” said Edith. “She plans to be here a year. She told me so.”

  The others looked startled.

  Chapter Four

  Betsy awoke that morning and lay still for a long time, as consciousness began to sweep through her. Something important was going to happen today, an event that might change her whole life. And then, as she came fully awake, the realization crashed upon her.

  Pete was coming home today.

  Her body tensed beneath the thin covers and her hands tightened into fists. There was a frightened look in her eyes. The day she had dreamed of, and planned for so long, was here. All the happy, ecstatic dreams of seeing Pete, tall and strong and disturbingly attractive, swinging down the train steps and gathering her into his arms, his eyes devouring her… .

  “His eyes!” she said, half aloud, as she swung out of bed.

  Her breath caught on a sob and, for a moment, she put her hands over her own eyes, almost hating them for their clear sight. If only she could give them to Pete!

  His train was due at ten o’clock. She got under the shower, towelled herself vigorously, and reached into the closet for the cherished frock she had guarded so jealously for Pete’s homecoming. But even as she touched the crisp pink pique, with the white buttons marching down the front, the little white cupcake of a hat, the brown and white sports pumps, she drew back, and once more her heart was twisted with pain.

  She had yearned for the moment when she could stand before Pete, in all the glory of being grown-up, and see the look of delighted surprise in his eyes. His letters had told her that he still thought of her as a long-legged, coltish brat with braces on her teeth and carrot-colored hair. He wouldn’t know that her hair had darkened until now she wore pink and it was vastly becoming. He wouldn’t know that her skin was clear and fresh, faintly tinged with a very becoming tan. Pete wouldn’t know anything about her. And suddenly it seemed to her an unbearable thing that to him she would always be just an awkward, freckle-faced child.

  No, it wouldn’t matter to Pete what she wore. Shorts, slacks, a peasant-dirndl such as she wore for every-day around the house, a party frock all white and silver and buoyant above small silver slippers — whatever she wore, however she looked, she would always be to Pete a kid in a gingham play suit… .

  Her mother’s voice called up to her:

  “Betsy, aren’t you ever coming down for breakfast?”

  “Be right with you,” she called back, trying hard to sound gay and casual.

  She got into a blue and white print dress left over from last summer. It had faded a bit in the wash, and was one of the cotton dresses she kept for work in the garden, or when she was “playing around” with the gang on pursuits that did not require formal dressing. She brushed her hair back carelessly, made a face at herself in the mirror, and went down the stairs.

  George, standing with Edith at the door, was leaving for the office. He grinned at Betsy.

  “Hi, chum,” he greeted her. “You look about ten years old.”

  She tried to smile at him, muttered something, and went into the dining room. Edith and George exchanged anxious glances.

  “Oh, how I’ve dreaded this day!” Edith confessed.

  George nodded. “I know. Thank the Lord it’s only twelve hours long. His train gets in at ten?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Marshall said he’d rather not be met with a reception committee or anything, that he just wanted to come home as though he’d been away for a short trip. I guess his nerves are pretty well banged up,” said Edith.

  “Then the kid won’t be there?” asked George hopefully.

  “Nothing short of a broken neck could keep her home.”

  George sighed; then he kissed the top of Edith’s head and said, trying hard to be gay, “Well, we’ll have to look on this as a sickness. We pulled her through typhoid, remember? And double whooping cough, and a few less serious childhood ailments. I guess we can see her through this.”

  “I hope so,” said Edith, and managed to send him away with a smile.

  She watched until he turned to wave to her, and then, the morning ritual complete, she went back to the dining room. Betsy was pushing one of Edith’s nut-brown waffles about on her plate.

  “What’s the matter with that waffle?” Edith asked.

  “Don’t be a dope. Nothing’s the matter with it. It’s super — same as always,” answered Betsy abstractedly.

  “Then eat it, darling, while I fix you another one.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake — ” Betsy caught her breath and paled a little. Secretly, she had always enjoyed the absurd expression which her world accepted simply as a mild expletive, but which, to her, always held a romantic flavor. She avoided her mother’s eyes, and went on, “I’m getting too fat in all the wrong places. Waffles have calories, or something. I’ve got to diet.”

  “I never heard such a silly statement. You’re as skinny as a rail. Honey, you make me laugh!”

  “Well, go ahead and laugh,” Betsy flared. “But I still don’t have to eat the darned waffle!”

  She pushed back her chair and stood up. She muttered something, and was gone, running up the stairs to her room. Edith still sat at the table, her face white and tired.

  A little later, as Betsy came downstairs, still wearing the faded blue and white cotton dress, Edith said:

  “Aren’t you going to the station to meet Peter?”

  “Of course,” returned Betsy curtly.

  “You haven’t much time to dress.”

  “I am dressed. What difference does it make what I wear or how I look?” Betsy burst out. “Pete won’t know the difference.”

  And then she was gone, hurrying out through the open door and down the walk before Edith could speak… .

  There was always a little group of loafers around the station, as in all small towns where the daily passing of big-city trains is an event Betsy ignored them as she paced the platform, straining her eyes along the track for the first sign of smoke that would herald the approach of the train bringing Peter.

  A few minutes before train-time, a neat dark green sedan stopped at the edge of the station yard. Mrs. Marshall, trim and smart in her suit of printed silk, a hat made mostly of white violets perched becomingly on her carefully waved hair, got out. As she came along the platform, she was pulling on white gloves and there was a cluster of white violets pinned to her jacket.

  Watching her, Betsy suddenly felt frowsy, in her last summer’s cotton dress, her mahogany colored curls guiltless of a hat, socks and scuffed saddle-shoes on her feet. She
flushed as she went to meet Mrs. Marshall, who greeted her affectionately and carefully veiled her look of disapproval.

  “Well, Betsy, our long wait is over. Our boy is coming home. Won’t it be grand to see him again?”

  “It would be even grander if he could see us,” muttered Betsy, and caught her lower lip hard between her teeth.

  “Betsy, you must pull yourself together.” Mrs. Marshall said it quietly, but there was a note of sternness in her voice. “We’ve got to treat Pete exactly as though nothing has happened. We mustn’t break down. He needs our comfort and our cheer — not our tears!”

  Betsy tossed her head and said huskily, “Of course — ” But her words were cut off by the sound of a train whistle.

  Far up the line, where the railroad tracks seemed to run together, there was smoke, and then the train came rushing in. Betsy clenched her hands tightly, and held her breath. Mrs. Marshall gave her a glance that was almost hostile, and then turned as the train slid to a halt.

  Mrs. Marshall walked a few steps away from Betsy, who stood as though rooted to the spot. The conductor swung down and a young man appeared at the top of the steps — a tall young man much thinner than Betsy had been prepared to see. He was still in uniform, with the bars of a lieutenant on his shoulder, and his thin face seemed paler because of the dark glasses that shielded his eyes.

  “Hello, there, son!” Mrs. Marshall called out.

  Her cry seemed to Betsy to be unbearably gay, but the young man’s face brightened. He seemed unaware of the conductor’s gentle touch that guided him as he stepped down to the platform, and caught his mother in his arms.

  “Home at last, Mom. It’s swell to see you!” Peter’s voice rang with such boyish delight that Betsy could scarcely keep back the tears.

  They clung together for a long moment. Mrs. Marshall smiled at Peter, though her face was white and taut.

  Still clinging to his hand, she said — and Betsy marvelled at her poise — ”There’s someone else here to greet you, darling.”