Lucy Montgomery - A Tangled Web

Convention fell away from Joscelyn. She felt as if she and Mrs Conrad were alone in some strange world where nothing but realities mattered.

"Mrs Dark," she said slowly, "why have you always hated me... not just since... since I married Hugh... but before it?"

"Because I knew you didn't love Hugh enough," answered Mrs Conrad fiercely. "I hated you on your wedding-night because you didn't deserve your happiness. I knew you would play fast and loose with him in some way. Do you know there hasn't been a night since your wedding that I haven't prayed for evil to come on you. And yet... if you'd go back to him and make him happy... I'd... I'd forgive you. Even you."

"Go back to him. But does he want me back? Doesn't he... doesn't he love Pauline?"

"Pauline! I wish he did. SHE wouldn't have broken his heart... she wouldn't have made him a laughing-stock. I used to pray he would love her. But she wasn't pretty enough. Men have such a cursed hankering for good looks. YOU had him fast... snared in the gold of your hair. Even yet... even yet. When he was fainting on the road down there, after the accident that might have killed him... he called for you... you who had left him and shamed him... it was you he wanted when he thought he was dying."

A fierce pang of joy stabbed through Joscelyn. But she would not let Mrs Conrad suspect it.

"Isn't he going to sell Treewoofe?"

"Sell Treewoofe! Sometimes I'm afraid he will... and go God knows where... my dearest son."

Something gave way in Mrs Conrad. Joscelyn's apparent immobility maddened her. She let loose all the suppressed hatred of years. She shouted... she cried... she raved... she leaned across the gate and tried to shake Joscelyn. In short she made such a show of herself that all the rest of her life she went meekly and humbly before Joscelyn, remembering it. Uncle Pippin, ambling along the side road from a neighbourly call, heard her and paused in dismay. Two women fighting... two women of the clan... they must be of the clan, for nobody but Darks and Penhallows lived just around there. It must be Mrs Sim Dark and Mrs Junius Penhallow. They were always bickering, though he could not recollect that they had ever made such a violent scene as this in public before. What if Stanton Grundy should hear of it? It must be put a stop to. Little Uncle Pippin valiantly trotted up to the gate and attempted to put a stop to it.

"Now, now," he said. "This is most unseemly!"

Just then he discovered that it was Joscelyn Dark and her mother- in-law. Uncle Pippin felt that he had rushed in where both angels and fools might fear to tread.

"I... I beg your pardon," he said feebly, "I just thought it was some one fighting over Aunt Becky's jug again."

It was quite unthinkable that Joscelyn and Mrs Conrad could be rowing over the jug. Since it couldn't be the jug it must be Hugh, and Uncle Pippin, who was not lacking in sense of a kind... as he put it himself, he knew how many beans made five... understood that this was no place for a nice man.

"Pippin," said Mrs Conrad, rather breathlessly but still very tragically, "go home and thank the good Lord He made you a fool. Only fools are happy in this world."

Uncle Pippin went. And if he did not thank the Lord for being a fool he did at least thank Him devoutly that he still had the use of his legs. He paused when he got to the main road to wipe the perspiration from his brow.

"A reckless woman that... a very reckless woman," said Uncle Pippin sadly.

III

Nan was in the room before Gay had heard any sound. She had never been to Maywood since the night of the dance at the Silver Slipper... Gay had never met her alone since then. Occasionally they met at clan affairs, where Nan had always greeted Gay affectionately and mockingly and Gay had been cool and aloof. The clan thought Gay handled the situation very well. They were proud of her.

Gay looked up in amazement and anger from her seat by the window. What was Nan doing here? How dared she walk into one's room like that, unannounced, uninvited? Nan, smiling and insolent, in a yellow frock with a string of amber beads on her neck and long dangling amber earrings, with her blood-red mouth and her perfumed hair and her sly green eyes. What business had Nan here?

"Has she come," thought Gay, "to ask me to be her bridesmaid? She would be quite capable of it."

"You don't look overjoyed to see me, honey," said Nan, coolly depositing herself on Gay's bed and proceeding to light a cigarette. Gay reflected rather absently that Nan was wearing that ring she was so fond of... a ring that Gay always hated... with a pale- pink stone cabachon, looking exactly as if a lump of flesh were sticking through the ring. The next moment Gay felt an odd sensation tingling over her. Where was Noel's diamond? And what was Nan saying?

"And yet I've come to tell you something you'll be glad to hear. I've broken my engagement with Noel. Sent him packing, in short. You can have him after all, Gay."

Long after she had spoken, the words seemed to Gay to be vibrating in the atmosphere. It seemed to Gay a long, long time before she heard herself saying coolly,

"Do you think I want him now?"

"Yes, I think you do," said Nan insolently. She could make any tone... any movement... insolent. "Yes, in spite of that big diamond of Roger's"... ah, Gay knew very well Nan had been jealous of that diamond... "and in spite of the new bungalow going up at Bay Silver, I think you want Noel as badly as you ever did. Well, you're quite welcome to him, dear. I just wanted to show you I could get him. Do you remember telling me I couldn't?"

Yes, Gay remembered. She sat very still because she was afraid if she moved an eyelash she would cry. Cry, before Nan! This girl who had flung Noel Gibson aside like a worn-out toy.

"Of course it will give the clan the tummy-ache," said Nan. "Their ideas about engagements date back to the Neolithic. Even Mother! Although in her heart she's glad, too. She wants me to marry Fred Margoldsby at home, you know. I daresay I will. The Margoldsby dollars will last longer than love. I really was a little bit in love with Noel. But he's getting fat, Gay... he really is. He's got the beginnings of a corporation. Fancy him at forty. And he had got into such a habit of telling me his troubles."

Gay suddenly realized that this was true. It struck her that Noel had always had a good many troubles to tell. And she remembered as suddenly that he had never seemed much interested in HER troubles. But she wished Nan would stop talking and go away. She wanted to be alone.

Nan was talking airily on.

"So I'm going to Halifax for a visit. Mother, of course, won't leave till she knows who is to get that potty old jug. Do you ever think, Gay, that if Aunt Becky... God rest her soul... hadn't left that jug as she did, you'd probably have been married to Noel by now?"

Gay HAD thought of it often... thought of it bitterly, rebelliously, passionately. She was thinking it again now, but with a curious feeling of detachment, as if the Gay who might have been married to Noel were some other person altogether. If only Nan would go!

Nan was going. She got up and flung another gratuitous piece of advice insolently to Gay.

"So, Gay dear, just tell your middle-aged beau that you don't want a consolation prize after all and warm up the cold soup with Noel."

Really, Nan could be very odious when she liked. Yet somehow she didn't hate her as before. She felt very indifferent to her. She found herself looking at her with cool, appraising eyes, seeing her as she had never seen her before. An empty, selfish little creature, who had always to be amused like a child. A girl who said "hell" because she thought it would shock her poor old decent clan. A girl who thought she was doing something very clever when she publicly powdered her nose with the unconcern of a cat washing its face in the gaze of thousands. A girl who posed as a sophisticate before her country cousins but who was really more provincial than they were, knowing nothing of real life or real love or real emotion of any kind. Gay wondered, as she looked, how she could ever have hated this girl... ever been jealous of her. She was not worth hating. Gay spoke at last. She stood up and looked levelly at Nan. There was contempt in her quiet voice.