Partners (25 page)

The morning he left, Noel asked, after looking at him with a long mournful wistfulness: "Do ya
hafta
go to this wedding?"

"Yes," said Reuben. "I promised, you know, and I'm not just a guest. I'm the best man, and it's altogether too late now to back out and tell them they must get another best man. It would be very rude."

"Oh!" said Noel mournfully. "I didn't know."

But the mournfulness stayed with him all day, until Reuben was ready to start. And Gillian withdrew behind the distant smile she used to use when she first came to the shore. Reuben was going away. Would he ever come back? He was going among his old friends who had the claim of years upon him. He had been good and kind, but she must let him see that she did not expect this great friendliness to be the same always. It was just a lovely interval, and now she was well and did not need close attention anymore.

They went through the motions of having a good time. But the coolness and stiffness were there in spite of them.

And when Reuben was about to drive away, Gillian stood on the porch beside Aunt Ettie and smiled a demure good-bye. Somehow Reuben didn't know what was the matter, nor why he felt so reluctant to go.

"I wish," he said, pausing with his hand on the wheel and leaning from the window to speak to her, "I wish that I had taught you to drive. I could just as well have left the car with you and gone on the train. Only I would have worried lest you might get hurt in a smashup or something."

"Me? Drive?" said Gillian with sudden pink in her cheeks. "Oh, I wouldn't dare take the responsibility of your lovely car even if I could drive!" she said aghast. "But thank you just the same."

"Someday I will be old enough, and then I will drive your car for you, Reuben," announced Noel.

"Yes," said Reuben with a tender light in his eyes. "Of course you will, Noel."

And then amid the merry laughter of them all Reuben drove away wishing with all his heart that he hadn't promised to go to this nuisance of a wedding.

 

 

 

The hometown looked much the same as ever when Reuben arrived there early the next afternoon. He had had a pleasant, uneventful trip, during which he had been doing a lot of thinking, more particularly about Gillian and the winter that was before her. He had arrived at the conclusion that she ought to have a longer rest than just another few days before she went back to the office. Yet he was almost certain it would be difficult to convince her of that. He tried to work out some plan by which Aunt Ettie could be made to help in a scheme of things, to combine a home for Gillian and the boy and provide someone for Noel to stay with while his sister was working, but somehow the whole thing was perplexing. If only that inheritance of hers would materialize, even if it were only a few hundred dollars, perhaps she could be reasoned into seeing that it would be real economy to use some of the money right away. But the more he thought about it, the more he was sure she would not do it. He had had the utmost difficulty in convincing her that she must stay with Aunt Ettie till the end of the month anyway. But of course he couldn't hope to do anything more till he got back. Why think about it? It only served to make him restless. Why hadn't he come out in the open and talked to her about it before he left? Was it just that he was lazy and didn't want to spoil the good times they were having?

He drove down the old street where he used to live as a boy. The house looked much the same as always, only it had been newly painted and looked nice and fresh. Some children were playing in the yard, and he found himself resenting their presence. It seemed as if he should see his mother sitting in the bay window with her sewing and keeping a watch out for him. It made his heart beat faster, and the tears stung in his eyes. He drove on by and made his way toward the Meredith home. That had been another familiar place to him in the old days, but there was nothing about it to bring tears. He had lived through happy days at the Merediths', and he was eager to see his old friend.

And there, suddenly, at the corner before he reached Meredith's house, he saw Agnes hurrying down the street in the opposite direction. She hadn't seen him, for he had but just turned into the street, and he couldn't see her face; she was too far away. But he was glad to have this glimpse of her before having to talk with her, just to get himself adjusted to the thought of her. Of course, he ought to have been doing that exclusively for the last two days, but his thoughts had been so occupied with Gillian's troubles that Agnes had hardly been in his mind at all.

But this was Agnes; she was unmistakable. He would know her anywhere. Her walk, her carriage, the little tripping motion of her twinkling feet as if she were just about to dance, the way she held her head.

He studied her in the distance before she turned another corner toward her home. He distinctly remembered how the sight of her in the distance this way used to stir him. How he used to quicken his step and catch up with her. And now he was decidedly slowing his car. He didn't want to see her yet. It had not quickened his pulse at all to see her. But then, of course, he was older now. And so would she be when he saw her face-to-face. Yet the allure of her smile would likely be the same, the glances in her big dark eyes. He turned into the Meredith drive and swung around to the garage, as though it had been yesterday that he had been accustomed to drive in there and to burst into the house by the kitchen door, along with Frank.

Then a voice from an upper window called:

"Rube! Old man! Hi there! Good work, got here on time all right! Come on up, the same old place!"

That was Frank; good old Frank, he didn't sound a day older. Reuben swung from his car, slammed the door, and went up the back steps eagerly. He didn't dread to meet Frank. They had been through high school together, roomed together in college. Fellows were different. But you couldn't tell how a girl would turn out after a long time of separation.

And so he hurried up the stairs, meeting none of the family yet and glad that it was so.

It was good getting back; they had a great talk, while Frank went on packing his suitcase over and over because he got so interested in talking that he put the wrong things in the wrong places.

All of the news of the crowd he heard, and yet Agnes hadn't been mentioned. And then, just as they were dashing about getting ready to answer the dinner summons, Frank remarked quite casually: "Seen Agnes yet? She promised to write you seconding my invitation. I didn't know whether she would or not. You never can tell just what she'll do since she broke her last engagement."

"Oh, was she engaged? I hadn't heard that," said Reuben with studied indifference.

"Yes, engaged to Shaft Howard for almost a year, and then they had a falling out, and in a month she was engaged to Ned Stewart. I guess she was pretty daffy about him for a while, but when Nellie Darnell came to town, he went with her too often to please milady, and she broke that off so hard it snapped. Now she seems peppier than ever. Who knows but she'll take you on the rebound?"

"Oh, no," said Reuben. "I'm not interested. Don't worry."

"But I thought you used to be pretty well gone on her," said his friend.

"Well, it may have seemed that way. We were children in school then. But I imagine Rose Elizabeth must be a beauty now; I congratulate you."

"Thanks. She is. Wait till you see her. But you'll find that Agnes isn't far behind. Maybe you'll change your mind when you see her. It would be awfully interesting to me to have you for a brother-in-law."

"That would be a consideration, of course," laughed Reuben. "I'll bear that in mind if I ever get interested." And laughing, they went down to dinner together.

Reuben had always been fond of Mr. and Mrs. Meredith, and they of him, and they had a pleasant time at dinner. Then the young men went out together to the wedding rehearsal, and on the way to church they talked more.

"But really, Rube, I'm interested to know about your life, you know, you closemouthed fish, you! You're not married yet, are you? I assume you would have at least let us know that."

Reuben grinned in the dark.

"No, I'm not married yet," he said, after consideration.

"Well, are you engaged yet, you sly old fox?"

"No, not to the best of my knowledge. I really haven't had time yet, if you must know."

"Time, you idiot. You've had all the time there is. What's the matter? Haven't there been any girls?"

"Oh, yes, there've been girls. Too many girls sometimes."

"Heavens! Man! Have you got more than one?"

"Yes," said Reuben solemnly, "there have been three I've been considering."

There came a resounding slap on Reuben's broad shoulder.

"Quit your kidding, man! You were always too closemouthed. And a wedding is a joyous time, and if you've got any joy of your own, you should announce it!"

"Well, that's a thought. I'll do that little thing if I can find anything to announce before I leave."

"That's the talk! I'll hold you to that, fella!" And then they went up the church steps together, and there was Agnes right inside the door! Her face was turned vivaciously up with a saucy answer for one of the ushers, for all the world as if she were just standing at the door of the high school telling some young man of the senior class what she thought of him.

She was becomingly dressed. Agnes was always becomingly dressed, in rather dashing, notable clothes, but they were suited to her rather impudent prettiness.

She flashed a quick smile at Reuben and grasped his hand in both of hers. She had little hands. He had always admired her hands. But when he looked for the seashell tips that had always been little pearls to his eyes, he was startled to see instead elongated pointed objects of a deep bright crimson color, and as they touched each other, or anything in fact, they gave forth a metal sound. Oh, he had seen the nails of fashionable women, girls like Anise Glinden who followed the very latest of fashion's dictates, but he had not expected it of Agnes. He had been looking for those pale pink petal-like nails and was shocked to see these others instead. For an instant it went through him unpleasantly. As a boy he had held those hands in his own, shyly, with almost a reverence, but he would not like to hold these. It gave him a sense of shivering to think of it.

He lifted his eyes to her laughing lips as she greeted him, and found they were bright and too red and almost thick in their contour, like other fashionable women. He had not expected to find her so. Her cheeks were bright with rouge, well applied, he supposed women would say. She was a brilliant picture of a woman, but somehow all the outward adornments seemed to have erased her heart. Or was it that there could be no heart where lips were as bright as that? Only flesh, and raw flesh at that.

He was not a fool, nor blind. He had seen such highly painted women every day for years and never looked sharply at them, nor even paused to dislike. But to see it on Agnes, whom he had always idealized, ah, that was a different thing! It was a distinct shock.

A few minutes later while they were waiting for a member of the wedding party who was to come in on a train presently, Agnes put her hand possessively on his arm, and the little bits of crimson shells clattered softly as they brushed his sleeve.

"Come, Reuben, let's walk outside the church for a few minutes and start knitting up the raveled fabric of our friendship, as it were."

She laughed unconcernedly yet kept that enameled little hand in place on his arm, and he had no choice but to obey, feeling almost a reluctance lest he would meet with other shocks. Yet this was what he had come to find out. He must know what she was. Had he or his mother been right?

They stepped down to the paving stones that led around the beautiful edifice. Grass and shrubs were cut trimly around the paving. A step brought them around the corner into the soft darkness of the summer evening.

She put her other hand across and touched his hand.

"For the love of heaven," she implored, "give me a cigarette, Reuben. I'm simply dying for a smoke, and I must have forgotten to put my case in my handbag. I came away in such a hurry."

He looked down at her astonished, thinking at first she was joking, for there had been no cigarette smoking among the girls he knew in the old days. Surely Agnes had not taken that up, too. But he saw by the earnestness of her face that she meant it, and he felt a cold disappointment. Other girls smoked, yes, he saw it constantly; but Agnes never had. It wouldn't have been considered refined when he went to high school for a girl to smoke.

A second it took to adjust himself to this change.

"Sorry, I can't help you out," he said almost coldly. "I still don't smoke."

"Reuben!" she said, perhaps almost as shocked as he. "Surely you haven't kept that up in these days! You are not tied to your mother's apron strings yet, are you?"

"Apron strings?" he said a bit haughtily. "I don't remember that she wore apron strings. My mother has been in heaven a number of years. Perhaps you didn't know. But I don't smoke."

"Aren't you something, Reuben! But of course I know your mother is gone. Sorry and all that, darling, but I supposed you would have grown up by this time."

Then Reuben remembered suddenly that their final quarrel had been about whether a young man need follow his mother's advice. He hadn't liked the sneer on her pretty lips when she had said, "We young people owe nothing to our parents. When we are old enough to be in high school, we have a right to use our own judgement about what we should do." Somehow Agnes's voice brought back some of the things she had said that made him feel his mother must be right about her.

On the whole he was rather glad when one of the ushers came running after them to say that the absent one had arrived and the rehearsal was about to begin. Just how Agnes was going to get on through the rehearsal without a smoke he didn't stop to think. He was disturbed enough about her already, just to have his ideal fade. She had said she was dying for a smoke. Would she fall on the way up the aisle?