Girl to Come Home To (4 page)

“Rod had to go out,” he said quite casually, as if it were a thing to be expected and not at all as if he were apologizing for his absence. And he noted that their mother did not look astonished at his words, and not even Kathleen seemed surprised. Strange. Even his father, after a quick sharp look at Jeremy, went right ahead with his eating and kept his genial family atmosphere intact. He had a great family, Jeremy reflected. And oh, but they must surely know that something was wrong. Didn’t they know that Jessica had married somebody else? Or hadn’t she married him yet? Maybe she didn’t get married. Maybe she had got over that and had come out after Rod again. Well, if she had, he personally would devote himself to seeing that she did not get him. After what she had done to Rod, she was less worthy than he had thought her long ago, not fit for such a prince as his brother. He would keep out of this as far as he could, but if it came to a showdown he would go out for Rod in a big way and save him, even from himself, if she should prove canny enough to lead him so far afield as that.

So Jeremy devoted himself to the other girls, asking them questions about their families and what they had been doing for the war during the years of his own absence overseas.

But presently, as Rodney did not appear and time went on while Jessica watched the younger brother, she became quite intrigued with him and broke into his conversation with vivacity. “Do you know, Jerry, you’ve quite developed,” she said patronizingly. “You’re really a man now, aren’t you?” And she lifted her eyes with that long appeal from under golden lashes that he used to watch her give to his older brother and wonder at so long ago. It fairly sickened him now, the memory of it.

He grinned his slow, indifferent grin. “Well, I guess that’s what was intended I should be, wasn’t it?” he said. And then he turned to his sister and said, “By the way, Kath, we met an old crush of yours in New York as we came through, Richard Macloud. He asked after you and wanted to be remembered. He’s going back in a few days now and is slated for some big job, the powers-that-be aren’t saying what just yet.”

Jessica gave full attention to Jeremy during this brief conversation and took a hand at once.

“Do you know, Jerry, you look very much like Rod. I hadn’t noticed before, but of course now that you’re older, the resemblance is very marked. You’re even taller than he is, aren’t you?”

“Oh no, he’s an inch and a half taller,” the younger brother answered with a gleam of amusement. But he did not further pursue the subject. Instead he turned to his mother and began to ask questions about her old neighbors, women his mother’s age who used to give him cookies when he was a child. He told one or two amusing stories of things that happened long ago.

Jessica was watching him and deciding that when his brother was not present there would at least be Jerry, and he really seemed to be worthwhile. In fact anybody in uniform was interesting to Jessica.

Meanwhile Jeremy kept wondering what Rod was doing, or going to do, and was Hetty giving him more chicken out in kitchen, and would she give him coffee? Rod hadn’t had his coffee yet, and he knew he was hungry and anxious for a cup of real home coffee. And what would Rod do if these tormenting callers continued to stay far into the night? Could he possibly steal up to bed without being heard and lock his door and go to sleep? Or was it thinkable that he himself could help out somehow by making an excuse to get Rod’s coat and hat out of the front hall and throw it down the back stairs? There were complications any way he saw it. And it certainly wouldn’t be a good thing for these callers to go out the front door again and pass those two identical overcoats and caps hanging there together. They would know in an instant that Rod hadn’t gone out of the house, that he had merely been hiding somewhere. Well, perhaps that was what Rod wanted, to let Jessica know definitely that he did not wish to see her.

However, as he talked, he continued to work away at the problem in his mind and wonder if this was possibly where his own helpfulness and initiative should work in.

So presently he brought the conversation around to talk of people he had met overseas, and he spoke of one he was sure was known to them all. “Just wait!” he said springing up. “I think I have a snapshot of him upstairs. I’ll get it. It was taken just after he came back from his most dramatic mission and won a lot of honor.”

He went hurrying out, snatching the two overcoats and caps from the hall rack as he passed them and bore them upstairs, striding to his room, and dropping them on a convenient bed out of sight. Then he plunged his hand even in the dark into the collection of hand luggage, located his own bag, which he knew carried some photographs, and hurried back downstairs, producing the picture, with a few others but taking care he did not show them any in which his brother figured. Let that highflier girl forget Rod if she could. Rod definitely wanted none of her; or if Rod only
thought
he didn’t, and there was a doubt, there was no doubt in Jeremy’s mind about whether
he
wanted that girl for a sister-in-law.

Now, Jessica was accustomed to getting all the attention there was from every man within her charmed circle, and she didn’t like it that Jeremy divided his attentions so thoroughly, so she set herself to achieve interest in this new man who had only been a kid before he went away and had turned man overnight as it were. But Jerry wasn’t interested. Perhaps if he let her know he wasn’t she would get tired and go home.

At last Jessica looked straight at Jeremy. “When is Rod coming back?” she asked directly, and her eyes demanded the truth.

Jeremy laughed lightly. “That’s hard to say,” he answered. “Men don’t usually confide little matters like that.”

Without really repeating her own words, Jessica turned to the quiet mother and managed to shift both her glance and her question to her, as if she were the one she had meant to interrogate in the first place.

Mrs. Graeme met the shifted glance with an odd quietness and answered promptly, calmly. “He didn’t say when he would be back.”

Jessica seemed a bit perplexed at the answer and the calm demeanor. She shifted her sparkling nervous fingers so their load of glittering diamonds would shine directly into the lady’s eyes, and asked impertinently, “Where did he go, Mrs. Graeme?” in the tone of one who has an undeniable right to ask.

“He didn’t tell me,” said the mother quietly.

There followed a deadly moment of silence in which it was evident that the visitor was a trifle disconcerted. Then Mrs. Graeme lifted a sweet smile and asked quite casually, “Is your husband in Riverton with you, Jessie?”

Jessica’s cheeks flamed into crimson above the lovely makeup, and her eyes went down to her glittering fingers nervously. “Why, no, Mrs. Graeme,” she answered indifferently. “He’s too busy. His business engrosses all his time. He seldom goes anywhere away from home.”

“Oh,” said Mother Graeme, “then I suppose you’re not remaining here long.”

“Well, I don’t know just what I shall do,” flashed Jessica angrily. “I’m quite free to stay as long as I please if it suits me. Depends upon how interesting you folks can make it for me. But I certainly do want to see Rod.”

“Yes?” said the calm mother voice. Then after another instant’s silence, she said, “What a pity Mr. De Groot couldn’t have come with you, just for once. Your old friends would certainly like to meet him.”

What a mother!
commented Jeremy in his heart.
She certainly is tops. Then of course she has known about the break between Rod and Jessica, perhaps for a long time, and never breathed a word of it to Rod! Even called her husband by his name! Rod needn’t have worried lest there would be a scene. Mother never would permit a scene. She isn’t a day older than when we were little kids, and she always kept her hand on everything! Bless her! And Dad follows right along with her!

He cast a quick look toward his father, and saw him eating quietly along, enjoying the festive dinner, not seeming to question what had become of Rod. Not being upset nor allowing any tenseness in the pleasant home atmosphere since these old-time friends suddenly dropped in upon them so unexpectedly. Just taking it as if it were an everyday happening.

“Jeremy,” said his mother pleasantly, “take this coffeepot out to Hetty and ask her to make a little more coffee. These friends will have a cup of coffee with us surely, even if they have had their dinner.”

Jeremy arose promptly, smilingly, took the coffeepot, and vanished kitchenward.

Then arose Jessica, scowling. “I think we should be going,” she said sharply. “I want to find Rod.”

“Oh,” said Marcella Ashby, whose car they had come in, “but how will you find him? You don’t know where he’s gone.”

“Oh,” said Jessica scornfully, “we’ll just scout around until we find him. I imagine he’ll not be hard to find. Will he, Mr. Graeme?”

Father Graeme looked up with an inscrutable smile. “I wouldn’t know, Jessie,” he said. “Rodney has always been a bit unpredictable, and there’s no telling now, since he’s been off to war on his own.”

Jessica turned angrily and marched toward the hall door looking back to say, as Jeremy came in with the coffeepot, “No coffee for me, thank you. I’m going out to find Rod.”

But suddenly Marcella spoke up. “Speak for yourself, Jess. I’m staying for coffee. I haven’t had any of the Graeme coffee in ages, and there’s nobody else in Riverton can make coffee like old Hetty.”

Jessica paused angrily. “Oh well, then give me your keys to the car. I haven’t any time to waste. I can pick you up later when I’m ready to go back to your house.” It was spoken quite haughtily, as if Marcella might be a sort of hired servant.

“No, you don’t get my car keys,” said Marcella, reaching out to accept the cup of coffee Mother Graeme made haste to pour for her. “I’m not running any risks like that. You always do make a car act all haywire. And besides, I know the hours you keep. I’m not going to wait around here and make everybody stay up entertaining me nor walk home without the car.”

“Oh, very well,” said Jessica disagreeably. “Next time I’ll
hire
a car of my own or get a gentleman to accompany me.”

So Jessica stood pettishly in the doorway, staring down the hall, wondering what had become of the coats and caps she had seen on the hat rack when she came in. And there she stubbornly stood while the rest of the party lingered drinking their coffee in a leisurely manner, reluctant to leave the pleasant old home and the charming family circle that had once been so dear to them all.

O
ut in the pantry, Rodney, boiling with rage, slammed his plate down on the pantry shelf and scowled. What right did those girls have to come here the first night he was at home and barge into the dining room? Yes, they were old friends, most of them, but they ought to have better sense. And
that
girl! What was her idea in coming? He and she had nothing in common anymore, and he didn’t want to see her ever again. Rotten little double-crosser! And then presume to think she could smile and smooth it all over and be just as good friends as ever. Not on your life he wouldn’t.

He didn’t know what the family would think of his having run away, when perhaps Mom didn’t know anything about it all and wouldn’t understand. Though he could usually depend on his family to stand back of him whatever he did. And of course those others. He didn’t know what they would think about him, and he didn’t much care. Had any of them seen him go? He thought not, for the hall wasn’t exactly in line with where he had been sitting. But he was most troubled about Mom. Of course she might have heard some gossip and might have got on to the fact that there was a break between him and Jessica. Still, he hadn’t meant to have it come to her knowledge in such a way as this. But since it had come, it had, and he would have to take it and get it over with, no matter what. Of course, if Jessica had carried out her threat and got married, Mom would certainly have heard some gossip, but he was definitely not going to be friends with Jessica, not even acquaintances if he could help it. He thought of the hours of peril and danger through which he had lived, and of how he had all this time also battled with the thought of her disloyalty to him, disloyalty to the tender vows of everlasting love she had uttered before he went away, and how many times he had writhed in their memory as he went forth to fight the enemy! He had thought over all the precious times of their youthful association, her professed overwhelming love for him, which she had so utterly repudiated afterward, all those treasured looks and touches of her hands and lips! No, he had torn them from his consciousness, flung them away to some foreign breeze in a strange land, renounced them forever, erased them from his memory. And now that he had come back to a pleasant homeland, did she think that he could smooth them all over and be
friends
? Could she think that for a smile from her he would take her back into his friendship? No! A thousand times no! He was done with her forever. If she forced him ever to have to see her again or speak to her, he would certainly make her understand clearly that he had no faith in her whatever. Not even if she should repent and say she was sorry and want him back would he ever love her again. For, strange to say, the separation and the peril and her own disloyalty had utterly killed all the love he used to think he had for her. And suddenly, sitting there in the pantry, he saw that it never had been real love but only imagination. He had taken her lovely image, beautiful features, a flawless complexion, gorgeous hair that seemed so like the crowning of a young saint, and upon those outward forms he had built up a character for her that was not really hers.

And now, was it possible that he could ever be
glad
that all this happened and that her action would, in a way, set him free from what—if it had gone on as he had planned—would have been a galling life of torture for him? Disillusionment had come early and in a hard way at a hard time. But how much better that it had come now instead of after they were married and he was doomed to a life that would have been worse than imprisonment or death. Come back to her and be good friends? Well, she could guess again. He was done with her forever. He didn’t ever want to see her again, and
wouldn’t
if he could help it. But if he had to see her again under circumstances where he couldn’t help it, he would make her understand once and for all that he was finished.