That Camden Summer Page 9

  She picked her way to the door, complaining nonstop about the construction mess. ‘‘Roberta,’’ she called, ‘‘you in there?’’

  Gabe heard Roberta answer, ‘‘Mother? Is that you?’’ Momentarily she appeared at the door while he looked down on her head through the shorn rafters. Her voice lost all color as she said, ‘‘Hello, Mother, come in.’’

  ‘‘It’s a fine how-do-you-do when a daughter doesn’t even come to visit her own mother. I thought you’d come up to my house yesterday.’’

  ‘‘I thought you’d be at Elfred and Grace’s.’’

  ‘‘That Sophie cooks too rich for me. Bothers my gallbladder.’’ Gabe lost sight of them as they moved into the house. ‘‘Merciful heavens, girl, have you lost your mind buying a place like this?’’

  ‘‘It’s all I could afford.’’

  ‘‘It smells like Sebastian Breckenridge’s slop pail. That old man was crazier than a coot. Why, you can’t keep three girls in conditions like this! What’s it got— three bedrooms?’’

  ‘‘Two.’’

  ‘‘Two bedrooms. Roberta, whatever were you thinking?’’

  ‘‘I was thinking that it might be nice for my children to get to know their grandmother.’’

  ‘‘Well, of course it will be, which is why I waited for you all day yesterday.’’

  ‘‘I had a busy day. After we arrived and had breakfast I had to meet the draymen here and see that our things were unloaded and get beds set up. It was nearly midnight when we got to bed.’’

  Myra gave the place another once-over, grievance written all over her face. ‘‘This is all so unnecessary, Roberta. This is what comes of getting divorced. You had a decent home and a husband and now you’ve got this.’’

  ‘‘How do you know I had a decent home, Mother? You never came to see it.’’

  ‘‘Oh yes, blame me. You’re the one who . . . who moved off the minute you got old enough, as if your family meant nothing to you.’’

  ‘‘I moved off because I had to, to go to college. And I stayed with George because I had to. What else can a wife do? But I’m all done with that now. I can do exactly as I please.’’

  ‘‘But the disgrace, Roberta. It’s all over town that you’ve divorced him.’’

  ‘‘He kept mistresses, Mother.’’

  ‘‘Oh, please!’’ Myra slammed her eyes shut and held up both hands. ‘‘Please, don’t be vulgar.’’

  ‘‘He kept mistresses, one right after the other, women he could live off of, which he did until they finally realized he was nothing but a gigolo. Then they’d throw him out and he’d come crawling back to me, inveigling his way back into my good graces, asking for a new stake. Time and again I took him back, until I simply couldn’t anymore. The last time he came back I locked the door on him and consulted the girls about getting a divorce. They encouraged me to get it, and I refuse to hang my head about doing what I had to to make a better life for me and my girls.’’

  ‘‘But it just isn’t done, Roberta! Not by respectable women. You don’t understand. People whisper the very word.’’

  ‘‘Of course I understand. I’ve already heard it whispered behind my back since I’ve been here.’’

  ‘‘And it’s obvious it doesn’t bother you or you would have kept it quiet to begin with instead of trumpeting the fact.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t trumpet the fact. You and Elfred and Grace seemed to have done that for me, otherwise how would people have known even before I got here?’’

  ‘‘Who knew?’’

  ‘‘Farley, for one. I met him in the steamship office and he already knew. I certainly wasn’t the one who told him.’’

  ‘‘It just goes to show, people will talk, and how’s a mother supposed to hold her head up?’’

  ‘‘You might try telling people that I’ve got three lovely children I intend to support on my own, and that I’ve got a job as a public nurse.’’

  ‘‘Traveling all around the countryside unescorted? Oh, that’ll really impress my friends. And speaking of that, how do you intend to get around?’’

  ‘‘I’m buying a motorcar.’’

  ‘‘A motorcar! Who’s going to drive it?’’

  ‘‘I am.’’

  ‘‘Oh, heavenly days, there’s just no getting through to you, is there? You were always headstrong and you still are. But mark my words, Roberta, you won’t have any friends in this town, not when you flaunt your independence the way you do! Why can’t you just take a job in the mill like the other women do? The girls could get on there, too, and help you out some.’’

  ‘‘The mill again! Mother, we were arguing about the mill when I left here eighteen years ago!’’

  ‘‘You were always toogood for the mill, weren’t you?’’

  ‘‘It isn’t a question of being too good for the mill, it’s a question of what I wanted out of life, and it wasn’t working in some closed room splicing felt ten hours a day for the rest of my life. And that’s certainly not a sentence I’d impose on my daughters, either! They’re bright girls, with imaginations and spirit. Taking them out of high school to work in the mill would crush that spirit and dry up that imagination, don’t you see?’’

  ‘‘All I see is that you defied me years ago and went off to spend money your grandparents had left you to study nursing, of all things. And look what it got you. This house. This . . . pathetic house.’’

  ‘‘Mother, why can’t you be proud of me, for once in your life?’’

  ‘‘Oh, please . . .’’

  ‘‘Everything Grace does is perfect, but nothing I’ve ever done in my whole life has met with your approval.’’

  ‘‘Grace follows the rules.’’

  ‘‘Whose rules? Yours?’’

  ‘‘I didn’t come over here to be insulted, Roberta.’’

  ‘‘Neither did I. I came here thinking that maybe, after all these years, I might be able to get along with my family, but I can see I was wrong. All I get is criticism and admonitions to put my girls to work in the mill. Well, I’m sorry, Mother. I can’t.’’

  Myra touched her forehead. ‘‘You’ve given me a monstrous headache, Roberta.’’

  ‘‘I’d offer you some stone root, but I haven’t had time to unpack my medicines.’’

  ‘‘I don’t need stone root. I need to go home and lie down with a cold compress on my head.’’

  ‘‘Very well, Mother. I’ll tell the girls their grandmother stopped by and would like to meet them soon.’’

  Her tone was acid enough to send Myra toward the door without a good-bye. Watching her go, Roberta thought sadly, why should there be a good-bye when there was no hello? No hug, certainly no kiss, only Myra sailing in on a billow of complaints, just the way it had always been.

  Five

  When Myra stormed out of the house Gabe was sitting under the ash tree with his ankles crossed, finishing up a cheese sandwich. ‘‘That girl has always had the power to exasperate me. I should have known better than to come up here! Now I have to walk all the way back down, and what do I get for my trouble but her disrespect!’’

  Gabe sprang to his feet holding his sandwich tin.

  ‘‘I can give you a ride back down, Mrs. Halburton.’’

  ‘‘I’d be obliged, Mr. Farley. At least some young people know how to treat their elders!’’

  She tramped straight to the truck and he leaped forward to give her a hand up. While he was cranking the engine, Roberta drifted to her living room doorway and stood back, watching. Though her face was hidden in shadow he caught a glimpse of her hands, pressed fast against the dishtowel over her skirts. He’d heard enough to get the gist of their argument and to realize she and her mother got along like a pair of hens tied over a clothesline. He thought of his own mother, a kind woman with loving ways, and felt a twinge of compassion for Roberta, being attacked instead of welcomed after so many years away.

  Myra complained all the way.

  ‘‘Moves back here b
old as brass with her divorce papers in her hand. Says she’s going to get a motorcar. Says she’s going to run all over the mountains in it and leave her children home alone. Says they wanted her to get a divorce. Hmph! Anything I’ve got to say on the subject rolls off her like water off a duck’s back. She always thinks she’s right. Always! Accuses me of playing favorites with Gracie. Well, Gracie never gave me a moment’s worry, Mr. Farley, not one! But that one — from the time she could speak she was defying me.

  Gracie married a good man and had his children and made a good marriage, which is a woman’s job. She didn’t go running off to become a nurse! Why, it’s no wonder Roberta’s husband wasn’t home much. What man would want to be when his wife came and went whenever she pleased?’’

  There was more, so much more that by the time Gabe dropped off Myra at her front gate he was ready to kick her out at ten miles an hour and watch her roll.

  Watching Myra climb into Farley’s truck, Roberta indulged in a rare moment of heavyheartedness. Her mother hadn’t changed. She was still the autocratic oppressor of Roberta’s youth. Part of the reason Roberta had left Camden was to escape her. How misguided she’d been to believe the intervening years might have tempered her mother.

  Grace, Grace, the favorite had always been Grace. Grace, who used to play the songs on the piano that Mama liked; who wore her hair the way Mama said she should; who walked, talked, postured the way Mama told her to; who loved to hide around doorways and listen to Mama gossip; who garnered Mama’s approval by becoming a gossip herself; who brought home a handsome, flirtatious swain able to turn his charms on Myra and blind her to his faults.

  Grace, who stayed in Camden, married Elfred, gave him her inheritance to start his business, bore his children and had turned a blind eye to his extramarital forays ever since.

  Obviously, Elfred still had the wool pulled over Myra’s eyes as well.

  Ten minutes after Farley’s truck rolled away, Roberta was standing on a chair pulling some rotting curtains off a kitchen window when Elfred gripped her waist with both hands and said, ‘‘My, my, my, this is too tempting to resist.’’

  She let out a screech as he doubled his arms around her belly.

  ‘‘Elfred, let me go!’’

  ‘‘What if I don’t? What’ll you do?’’

  ‘‘Elfred, damn you!’’

  ‘‘What if I do? What’ll you do?’’

  She shoved at his arms, but he was surprisingly strong.

  ‘‘Elfred Spear, I’m warning you! I’ll tell Grace what a philandering goat you are!’’

  Elfred only laughed. ‘‘I don’t think so. You wouldn’t do that to your only sister.’’

  ‘‘I will! So help me, I will! Elfred, stop that!’’

  ‘‘Ooo, Birdy, you are packed nicely. How long’s it been since you tussled with a man? I’m volunteering.’’

  ‘‘Get your hands off me, Elfred!’’ She kicked backward. He grunted but hung on.

  ‘‘I’ll tell you something, Birdy. That’s more fire than your sister’s put out in nineteen years. A man spends all those years with a fencepost like Grace, he deserves a few diversions. Now come on, Birdy, why don’t you and me just slide up those stairs and make a few bedsprings twang?’’

  ‘‘Elfred, you’re the most despicable heathen God ever put on this earth. Now, let me go!’’

  Elfred laughed once more and slid his hand up her calf.

  From behind him, Gabe Farley said quietly, ‘‘Hello, Elfred.’’

  Elfred craned around, startled. ‘‘Oh, Gabe, it’s just you! Whoo, you scared me.’’

  ‘‘Did I?’’

  ‘‘Didn’t know who it was.’’ Elfred let his hands trail off Roberta. Gabe stood foursquare in the kitchen doorway feigning nonchalance when, in truth, he was feeling a faint twinge of revulsion.

  ‘‘What brings you over here, Elfred?’’

  ‘‘Just came to see how the work was progressing and tell Birdy I’m footing the bill the way she asked.’’

  ‘‘Work’s progressing just fine. Got the whole porch roof torn off already this morning. Probably start rebuilding it tomorrow.’’ Gabe sauntered into the kitchen.

  ‘‘So I see.’’ Elfred tugged at the waist of his trousers.

  ‘‘Thought I should start with it so people could get to the front door safely. Mrs. Jewett, you need help with that curtain rod?’’

  Roberta scrambled down off the chair. ‘‘No thank you.’’ Her face was burning scarlet.

  ‘‘Something I’d like to show you out here, Elfred. You mind coming outside with me?’’ He turned and Elfred followed.

  There was nothing he wanted to show Elfred, but they stood in the yard pointing at the house and talking about what color to paint it. Eventually Elfred explained, ‘‘I was just having a little fun with her, Gabe. You know how it is.’’

  ‘‘Ayup, I know how it is. You probably ought to watch your step though, Elfred. She’s your wife’s sister, and that’s not going to look so good.’’

  ‘‘But that’s half the fun!’’

  ‘‘You know, Elfred, I don’t think she was having quite as much fun as you were.’’

  Elfred’s eyebrows arched. ‘‘Oh, what’s this? A different song than you were singing yesterday, isn’t it, Gabe?’’

  ‘‘Well, maybe it is, but I happen to know she just had a row with her mother no more than half an hour ago, and the old woman was pretty hard on her.’’

  ‘‘Why, Gabriel Farley, what’s going on here? You wouldn’t be wanting her for yourself now, would you?’’

  ‘‘Oh, come on, Elfred, use your head. You can’t manhandle a woman that way. Why, I could hear her objecting clear across the yard. Supposing it had been Grace coming toward the house instead of me.’’

  ‘‘You staking your claim on her, Gabe?’’

  Gabe dropped his chin and wobbled his head while Elfred continued with a wily grin, leaning close. ‘‘Here you are up here at her house, working every day. It’d be pretty easy, wouldn’t it, Gabe?’’

  ‘‘That’s not why I got you out of her kitchen.’’

  ‘‘Oh no? Then explain it to me again.’’

  Gabe raised his palms and let them drop. ‘‘What’s there to explain? When a woman puts up a fight, you back off, Elfred. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.’’

  ‘‘I told you, Gabe, I was just having a little fun with her.’’

  ‘‘Fine, Elfred! Fine.’’ Gabe presented his palms and let them drop. ‘‘Whatever you say. It just struck me that maybe we were both a little hasty to be making salty remarks behind her back when we didn’t even know the woman. But if you want to make advances toward her, I won’t interfere again. Now I’ve got work to do.’’

  He turned his back on Elfred and bent to pick up his tool belt. When it was strapped on he attacked the porch floor, leaving Elfred to puzzle on his own. Finally Elfred swaggered up behind Gabe and stood like a sea captain watching his decks being swabbed.

  ‘‘Well, Gabe, I tell you what. I won’t horn in on your territory, but I’m going to keep an eye on you. After all, she’s my sister-in-law, and I have to look out for her welfare.’’ Giving a wicked chuckle, Elfred finally departed without bothering Roberta again.

  Gabe eyed his touring car as it pulled away and thought what a real horse’s ass Elfred was. Was it only yesterday he himself had been abetting the man?

  In the kitchen, Roberta found herself grinding a stiffbristled brush into Sebastian Dougal’s filthy kitchen floor as if it were her brother-in-law’s liver.

  Though Roberta and Gabe kept out of each other’s way as the day wore on, the scene in the kitchen remained in their minds. They might have put it aside, but sounds filtered into and out of the house reminding each of them that the other was working nearby, pretending the incident with Elfred had never happened.

  Finally, at three-thirty, Roberta wiped her brow with the back of a wrist and listened. Nothing but silence. She glanced down at her
dirty dishtowel, untied it and whacked at her skirt a time or two—wet at the belly and dirty at the hem. She was too tired to care. What a day. Lord, she hated housework. She hated Elfred. She came close to hating her mother. She wasn’t sure about Gabriel Farley anymore, but it was damned uncomfortable having him working around here thinking whoknew-what about her run-in with Elfred.

  What was he doing out there anyway?

  She stood in the kitchen archway looking across the living room. The entire porch was gone, leaving the room bright and the front doorway hanging four feet above the ground. She tossed the dishtowel onto a kitchen chair and went to the living room door. Farley was standing in the littered yard with his back to her, drinking water from a fruit jar. He had removed one leather glove and held it against his hip while tipping back his head. She watched him for some time, trying to figure him out. He drank again, backhanded his mouth and capped the jar. After tossing it onto the grass he took his time pulling the soiled glove back on before bending to start collecting the discarded shingles. He loaded a bunch of them on his arm, turned and saw her standing in the doorway.

  And stalled as if encountering a bear in the woods.

  She did the same.

  For several seconds they faced off, distrustful and staring. Finally, she spoke.

  ‘‘I suppose you think I encouraged him.’’

  ‘‘No, I don’t.’’ He carried the shingles a few paces and dropped them.

  ‘‘But isn’t that what divorced women do?’’

  ‘‘Elfred is notorious around this town for chasing women. Everybody knows it but his wife.’’

  ‘‘He is pathetic.’’

  Still stinging from Elfred’s taunts, Gabe felt obliged to put up some argument. ‘‘That may be, but when a man runs around, there’s usually some pretty good reason at home.’’

  ‘‘Oh, that’s a typical reaction . . . from a man!’’ she said disdainfully. ‘‘Naturally, you’d blame my sister for Elfred’s peccadilloes.’’

  ‘‘I’m not blaming your sister. I don’t even know her well enough. I was just making a generalization.’’