A Tangled Web (22 page)

4

The quarrel and separation of the Sams had caused considerable sensation in the clan and for a time ousted Aunt Becky's jug, Gay Penhallow's engagement and Drowned John's tantrums over Peter and Donna as a topic of conversation in clan groups. Few thought it would last long. But the summer had passed without a reconciliation and folks gave up expecting it. That family of Darks had always been a stubborn gang. Neither of the Sams made any pretense of dignified reserve regarding their mutual wrongs. When they met, as they occasionally did, they glared at each other and passed on in silence. But each was forever waylaying neighbors and clansmen to tell his side of the story.

“I hear he's going about telling I kicked the dog in the abdomen,” Little Sam would snort. “What's abdomen, anyhow?”

“Belly,” said Stanton Grundy bluntly.

“Look at that now. I knew he was lying. I never kicked no dog in the belly. Touched his ribs with the toe of my boot once, that's all—for good and sufficient cause. Says I lured his cat back. What do I want of his old Persian Lamb cat? Always bringing dead rats in and leaving them lying around. And determined to sleep on
my
abdomen at nights. If he'd fed his cat properly she wouldn't have left him. But I ain't going to turn no broken-hearted, ill-used beast out of
my
door. I hear he's raving round about moons and contented cows. The only use that man has for moons is to predict the weather and as for contented cows or discontented cows, it's all one to him. But I'm glad he's happy. So am I. I can sing all I want to now without having someone sarcastically saying, 'A good voice for chawing turnips' or, ‘Hark from the tombs a doleful sound,' or maddening things like that. I had to endure that for years. But did I make a fuss about it? Or about his yelping that old epic of his half the night—cackling and chortling and guffawing and gurgling and yapping and yammering. You never heard such ungodly caterwauling as that poor creature could make. ‘Chanting,'
he
called it. Till I felt as if I'd been run through a meat-chopper? Did I mind his always conterdicting me? No; it kept life from being too tejus. Did I mind his being a fundamentalist? No; I respected his principles. Did I mind his getting up at unearthly hours Sunday mornings to pray? I did not. Some people might have said his method of praying was irreverent—talking to God same as he would to me or you. I didn't mind irreverence, but what I didn't like was his habit of swinging round right in the middle of a prayer and giving the devil a licking. Still, did I make a fuss over it? No; I overlooked all them things, and yet when I brings home a beautiful statooette like Aurorer there Big Sam up and throws three different kinds. Well, I'd rather have Aurorer than him any day and you can tell him so. She's easier to look at, for one thing, and she don't sneak into the pantry unbeknownst to me and eat up my private snacks for another. I ain't said much about the affair—I've let Big Sam do the talking—but some day when I git time I'm going to talk an awful lot, Grundy.”

“I'm told that poor ass of a Little Sam spends most of his spare time imagining he's strewin' flowers on my grave,” Big Sam told Mr. Trackley. “And I hear he's been making fun of my prayers. Will you believe it, he had the impidence to tell me once I had to make my prayers shorter 'cause they interfered with his mornin' nap? Did I shorten 'em? Not by a jugful. Spun 'em out twice as long. What I put up with from that man! His dog nigh about chewed up my Victory bond, but did
I
complain? God knows I didn't. But when my cat had kittens on his sheet he tore up the turf. Talking of the cat, I hear she has kittens again. You'd think Little Sam might have sent me one. I hear there's three. And I haven't a thing except them two ducks I bought of Peter Gautier. They're company—but knowing you have to eat 'em up some day spoils things. Look a' here, Mr. Trackley. Why did Jacob let out a howl and weep when he kissed Rachel?”

Mr. Trackley didn't know, or if he did he kept it to himself. Some Rose Riverites thought Mr. Trackley was too fond of drawing the Sams out.

“Because he found it wasn't what it was cracked up to be,” chuckled Big Sam. He was happy all day because he had put one over on the minister.

But Big Sam was soon in no mood for joking about kisses, ancient or modern. He nearly had an apoplectic fit when he heard that some of the summer boarders up the river had gone to Little Sam under the mistaken impression that
he
was the poet, and asked him to recite his epic. The awful thing was that Little Sam
did.
Went through it from start to finish and never let on he wasn't the true author.

“From worshiping imidges to stealing poetry is only what you'd expect. You can see how that man's character's degen'rating,” said Big Sam passionately.

5

Peter Penhallow was growing so lean and haggard that Nancy began to feel frightened about him. She tried to induce him to take some iron pills and got sworn at for her pains. A serious symptom, for Peter was not addicted to profanity. Nancy excused him, for she thought he was not getting a square deal, either from Drowned John or Providence. The very day Donna Dark was to be permitted to come downstairs she took tonsilitis. This meant three more weeks of seclusion. Peter sounded his horn at the enchanted portal every night or, in modern language, Drowned John's east land gate—but that was all he could do. Drowned John, so it was reported, had sworn he would shoot Peter at sight and the clan waited daily in horrified expectancy, not knowing that Thekla had hidden Drowned John's gun under the spare-room bed. Drowned John, not being able to find it, ignored Peter and his caterwauling and took it out on poor sick Donna, who was by this time almost ready to die of misery. Sick in bed for weeks and weeks, staring at that horrible wallpaper Drowned John had selected and which she hated. Horrible greenish-blue paper with gilt stars on it, which Drowned John thought the last word in elegance.

She had lost all her good looks, she told herself. She cried and said she didn't want to get better. Peter couldn't love her any more—this pallid, washed-out skeleton she saw in her mirror when she got up after tonsillitis. The doctor said she must have her tonsils out as soon as she was strong enough for the ordeal. This was reported to Peter and drove him still further on what all his friends now believed was the road to madness. He didn't believe in operations. He wasn't going to have pieces of his darling Donna cut out. They were all trying to murder her, that was what they were doing—the whole darn tribe of them. He cursed Mrs. Toynbee Dark a dozen times a day. Had it not been for her, Drowned John wouldn't have known of Donna's engagement, he wouldn't have kept such watch and ward—Peter would have been able to snatch her away, measles and tonsillitis to the contrary notwithstanding—and then a fig for your germs. But now—

“What am I to do?” groaned Peter to Nancy. “Nancy, tell a fellow what to do. I'm dying by inches—and they're going to carve Donna up.”

Nancy could only reply soothingly that lots of people had had their tonsils out and there was nothing to do but wait patiently. Drowned John couldn't keep Donna shut up forever.

“You don't know him,” said Peter darkly. “There's a plot. I believe Virginia Powell deliberately carried the tonsillitis germ to Donna. That woman would do anything to keep me and Donna apart. Next time it will be inflammatory rheumatism. They'll stick at nothing.”

“Oh, Peter, don't be silly.”

“Silly! Is it any wonder if I'm silly? The wonder is I'm not a blithering idiot.”

“Some people think you are,” said Nancy candidly.

“Nancy, it's eight weeks since I've see Donna—eight hellish weeks.”

“Well, you lived a good many years without seeing her at all.”

“No—I merely existed.”

“Cheer up—‘It may be for years but it can't be forever'” quoted Nancy flippantly. “I did hear Donna was going to be out in Rose River Church next Sunday.”

“Church! What can I do in church? Drowned John will be on one side of her and Thekla on the other. Virginia Powell will bring up the rear and Mrs. Toynbee will watch everything. The only thing to do will be to sail in, hit Drowned John a wallop on the point of the jaw, snatch up Donna and rush out with her.”

“Oh, Peter, don't make a scene in church—not in church,” implored Nancy, wishing she hadn't told him.

She lived in misery until Sunday. Peter did make a bit of a scene but not so bad as she feared. He was sitting in a pew under the gallery when the Drowned John's party came in—Drowned John first, Donna next, then Thekla—“I knew it would be like that,” groaned Peter—then old Jonas Swan, the hired man—who had family privileges, being really a distant relative—then two visiting cousins. Peter ate Donna up with his eyes all through the service. They had nearly killed her, his poor darling. But she was more beautiful, more alluring than ever, with those great mauve shadows under her eyes and her thick creamy lids still heavy with the languor of illness. Peter thought the service would never end. Did Trackley preach as long as this every Sunday and if so, why didn't they lynch him. Did that idiot who was yowling a solo in the choir imagine she could sing? People like that ought to be drowned young, like kittens. Would they never be done taking up the collection? There were
six
verses in the last hymn!

Peter shot up the aisle before the rest of the congregation had lifted their heads from the benediction. Drowned John had stepped out of his pew to speak to Elder MacPhee across the aisle. Thekla was talking unsuspiciously to Mrs. Howard Penhallow in the pew ahead. Nobody was watching Donna just then, not dreaming that Peter would be in Rose River Church. None of his clique had ever darkened the door of Rose River Church since the sheep-fight. They went to Bay Silver.

Donna had turned and her large mournful eyes were roving listlessly over the rising assemblage. Then she saw Peter. He was in the pew behind her, having put his hands on either side of little Mrs. Denby's plump waist and lifted her bodily out into the aisle to make way for him.

Mrs. Denby got the scare of her life. She talked about it breathlessly for years.

Peter and Donna had only a moment but it sufficed. He had planned exactly what to do and say. First he kissed Donna—kissed her before the whole churchful, under the minister's very eyes. Then he whispered:

“Be at your west lane gate at eleven o'clock tomorrow night. I'll come with a car. Can you?”

Donna hated the thought of eloping, but she knew there was nothing else to be done. If she shook her head Peter might simply vanish out of her life. Dear knows what he already thought of her for never sending him word or line. He couldn't know just how they watched her. It was now or never. So she nodded just as Drowned John turned to see what MacPhee was staring at. He saw Peter kiss Donna for a second time, vault airily over the central division of the pews and vanish through the side door by the pulpit. Drowned John started to say “damn” but caught himself in time. Dandy Dark's pew was next to his and Dandy had taken to attending church very regularly since the affair of the jug. People knew he went to keep tabs on them. Dandy had a pew in both Rose River and Bay Silver Churches and said shamelessly that he kept them because when he wasn't in one church he would get the credit of being in the other. The attendance at both churches had gone up with a rush since Aunt Becky's levee. Mr. Trackley believed his sermons were making an impression at last and took heart of grace anew.

Dandy gave Donna a little facetious poke in the ribs as he went past her and whispered:

“Don't go and do anything silly, Donna.”

By which Donna understood that it really would injure her chances for the jug if she ran away with Peter. Even Uncle Pippin shook his head disapprovingly at her. As he said, when he left the church, their love-making was entirely too public.

Donna heard something from her father when she got home. It was a wonder they
did
get home, for Drowned John drove so recklessly that he almost ran over a few foolish pedestrians and just missed two collisions. Thekla had her say, too. The visiting cousins giggled, but old Jonas went out stolidly to feed the pigs. Donna listened like a woman in a trance. Drowned John wasn't sure she even heard him. Then she went to her room to think things over.

She was committed to eloping the next night. It was not exactly a nice idea to a girl who had been brought up in the true Dark tradition—darker than the very Darkest. She thought of all the things the clan would say—of all the significant nods and winks. When Frank Penhallow and Lily Dark had eloped Aunt Becky had said to them on their return, “You were in a big hurry.” Donna would hate to have any one say anything like that to her. But she and Peter would not be returning. That was the beauty of it. One thrust and the Gordian knot of their difficulties would be forever cut. Then freedom—and love—and escape from dull routine and stodginess—Thekla's jealousy and Drowned John's continual hectoring—and Virginia. Donna felt a pang of shame and self-reproach that there should be such relief in the thought of escaping from poor Virginia. But there it was. She couldn't unfeel it. Thirty-six hours and she must meet Peter at the west lane gate and the old scandal-mongers could go hang, jug and all. Luckily Thekla had gone back to her own room. Drowned John slept below. It would be easy to slip out. Had Peter thought she had gone off very terribly? Virginia said the tonsillitis had made her look ten years older. It was dreadful to have Peter kiss her before the whole congregation like that—dreadful but splendid. Poor Virginia's face!

Somehow or other, Sunday passed—and Monday morning—and Monday afternoon—though Donna had never spent such interminable hours in her life. She was glad that she was in such disgrace with her father and Thekla that they wouldn't speak to her. But that had begun to wear off by supper-time, Thekla looked at her curiously. Donna couldn't help an air of excitement that hung about her like an aura, and under the mauve shadows her cheeks were faintly hued with rose. A bit of amusement flickered in her sapphire eyes. She was wondering just what Thekla and Drowned John would say if they knew she was going to run away with Peter Penhallow that very night. Of course she couldn't eat—who could, under the circumstances?