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About Vernonia eagle. (Vernonia, Or.) 1922-1974 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 1936)
VERNONIA EAGLE, VERNONIA, OREGON with a rueful smile, “to have had— to have had all the difficulties in one’s life that I had to meet and to have felt, as I did feel, that if I ever were free I could make my own destiny so wonderful, so hap WNU Service. py, and then to have had my chance and Instantly thrown it away.” “Were you terribly young when clothes—men—’’ he said. There was you married Ruth, Larry?” a pause. “Twenty-one." “Oh, yes! Did Caroline get her “A boy.” chinchilla coat?” Tony asked cheer “That was all.” fully, ending It The man looked up “And did you love her?” In surprise. “I admired her tremendously. She “How do you mean?” was a great horse-woman, you know, “Caroline used to say that If ever and she had a splendid stable. 1 she married again the first thing remember thinking her glorious, she'd make her husband buy her galloping along those lanes in the would be a chinchilla coat." autumn, and telling her men In the “Our marriage was a mistake— stables what to do with this fine we both see it now," Larry said, horse and that. Yes," he said, with paying no attention. "It's all like a the thoughtful expression she liked dream—a bad dream.” best of all on his handsome face, “I . "But you don’t mean, Larry, that always loved Ruth. Not—but then you and Caroline—already are think ing of a break?” “I’ve come back here to work,” he said doggedly. “She says she despises San Francisco society and hates the West. Her heart Is set now on going to Rio with Joe—you heard her just now. I can’t go; I don't want to go. I want to stay here and dig into my job.” He looked up, and his dark face bright ened with the smile she remembered so well, Larry’s masterful, slow smile. “And now and then take you to lunch.” he said. Instead of smiling In return she slowly shook her head, her face very sober. “No, no more of that! That’s what I paid for so dearly, Larry, knowing that yot. belonged to her— to Ruth, and pretending that I had any right.” "Isn’t caring for each other a right?” “I thought so then. I'm older now. I see things differently now.” “You’re changed,” he said. “In all the lovely ways lovelier, and In so many other ways changed. You're —outstanding, Tony. I don’t ask you to forgive me. I was confused with the suddenness of everything —I was changed, too—from my ill “And Yet You Can’t Love Him.” ness. Everything at home seemed far away and dreamy; the only real there are different ways of loving. ities were the villa, and the hot I think she never bad any misgiv sunshine, and Caroline all in white ings, I think she was never anxious, being tremendously helpful and until you came along, and every kind—the one lovely living thing in thing got out of hand.” all our lives! Can’t you under “That’s the thing I find It hard to stand?” forgive myself." “I do understand,” Tony said, “One can’t always help those “And I think,” she added almost things, Tony. We didn’t—after all, timidly, "I think you admire Caro we didn’t—what shall I say?—be line more than you think you do, tray her.” Larry. It seems to me, now, since “Not In actual fact, no, I didn’t,” you are married—since you did Tony said in a lighter tone, as she marry so—so soon—” rose to carry her salad dressing to “So soon after Ruth’s death. Yes, the icebox, “I didn’t surrender. we both feel that; we both feel There were times—" She smiled at that for that very reason we have him over her shoulder. “But we didn’t,” she said. “I re no right to separate," he conceded, as she hesitated. “But it was one member praying about it, hanging of those marriages that could only on to my code until my fingernails have taken place in exactly that were almost torn out But I'm glad way. If we had waited a year, If we now—every woman Is glad after bad waited until even three or four ward when she remembers.” Coming back, she sat down at months after Ruth’s death, it never the table with Idle hands, looking would have happened.” Tony dipped her llttlest fingertip at him frankly. “For that part—fire and flame and into the salad dressing, tasted It, breathlessness and not eating your narrowed her eyes. “But you are not always un dinner and lying aw-ake all night— that part isn’t the Important part, happy, Larry?” “Not always. At base there’s is it? It never has lasted. It never something that holds us together. will.” “Couldn’t it?" the man asked, a Only she’s quarrelsome, Tony, and dark flush on his face, his voice jealous.” low. “I see the jealousy." “No, for It isn’t the right, the “She’s Intensely jealous of you,” wise and true part,”’ Tony an the man said. "Of me? It seems to me the shoe swered. “And, for the rest, Larry, seriously, seriously, haven't you and ought to be on the other foot” “But she knows, of course, how Caroline a great deal In common? Haven’t you two more in common I felt—how I feel for you.” “I wonder how Caroline would than you and I ever could have have felt if all Ruth’s money hadn't had? You like dinners—chinchilla coats—” been Involved?” Tony asked Idly. “I despise dinners. I despise “It wasn’t all Ruth's money,” Larry reminded her quickly. “She chinchilla coats!" “If you two had a handsome wrote Joe of the legacies.” “And Joe got a splendid slice, and apartment in San Francisco, enter Joe’s the one that ought to have tained a good deal, were In on it too," Tony said. “He helps so opera nights and polo meets—” “What are you talking about?” many people. There's no end to Joe's goodness!” the man asked almost roughly. “And yet you can't love him? “You’re not—you’re surely not try Tony, Tony, Tony, how blind I’ve ing to—trying to persuade me that been! It’s sickening,” Larry said. Caroline and I are rightly mar- MAIDEN V O Y A G E Copyright, Kathleen Norria. KATHLEEN NORRIS CHAPTER XXV—Continued —23— “And when’d you come down, Tony?” asked Caroline. “Joe picked me up at Bendy’s this morning. There was a big Red Cross thing yesterday, and I had to do It.” “And how’s the old office?" “Just the same. The same old story. Typewriters clicking, and the boys washing themselves and dripping all over their collars, and Betsy Ross mooning about some murderer’s little gray wlstful-eyed mother.” “You doing signed stuff?” Three or four times a week. And I run a woman’s page; we have two new girls In the office now, both Stanford graduates.” “I’m going ’round there tomor row.” “Are you going to have your office again upstairs?* "It all depends, Caroline hates San Francisco.” "Yes, but Caroline doesn't nec essarily have to stay there. I think Joe and I could have a very nice time in Rio,” Caroline said for her self. “You can see us off!” "You've only been married five months 1” Joe observed innocently. “Five months or five minutes,” Caroline said, “Larry can’t expect me to sit up there alone In the Fairmont while he runs his old newspaper." “She likes to pretend she’s jeal ous,” Larry said, with a little laugh that was not quite easy. "I don’t like to pretend anything of the kind,” Caroline retorted warmly. Tony perceived, with a sense of shock, that there was more In this than met the eyes. Some earlier quarrel was lending depth to this one. “I say seriously that I’d like to go to South America with Joe, if he’ll take me,” Caroline said, adding with a coquettish laugh, “Phil Polhemus Is down there 1” “Well, we’ll discuss it later,” Lar ry put In, temporizing, as she Began the Familiar Inspection of Ice Box and Cupboards. paused, looking evenly at her broth er. And Tony saw the dark angry red come up under bls skin. She went out into the kitchen, when Caroline went upstairs, and began the familiar Inspection of ice box and cupboards. Wood crackled in the stove, and Tony, dodging the green thick smoke as she put back the Iron plate, found Larry beside her. “This Is a lot of fuss, our stay ing.” “Oh, no, it’s not, truly 1 We thought Cliff and Mary Rose might come. All I’m doing—” Tony said, bringing forth a half-consumed ham, and hunting In a table drawer for her longest knife. “All I’m doing Is to reheat the enchiladas and cut the ham, and—let’s see, heat up bis cuits, and open plum jam, and make a salad.” Larry was not listening, and she knew he was not He said in a low tone, “Tony, how are you?” “Perfect 1” she told him, smiling. "No, but I mean—how are you?” The little Intimate significance did not escape her, but there was no hint of fluctuation In her steady wide-open blue eyes. “Happy!” she told him, with a nervous shred of laughter. “I’m glad,” he said in a low tone, with his narrowed gaze keenly fixed on her. “Do you realize that it is more than two years since we have seen each other?" “Two and a half, almost," Tony agreed. "It was spring.” “You know I was very ill?" “Joe told me. Caroline wrote him, you know. And when I would come down week-ends, he’d tell me.” "You and he have become great friends, haven't you?” “Joe and I? There’s nobody like him,” Tony said, smiling. Her brown hands went on steadily slicing the flrm pink ham; she lifted each slice on her knife and laid It evenly on the blue dolphin platter. “How well do you like him, Tony?” “Oh, tremendously!” “And are you going to marry him?” Larry asked. Her eyes clouded, and she gave him a dubious look, slowly shak ing her head. “No,” she said. “Then may I say something to you, Tony?—because I have an op portunity now and may not have another. May I say that I’m terri bly—terribly sorry?” “I know what you mean,” Tony said, her bright eyes fixed steadily on his, the color coming up quickly under her clear brown skin. “Of course you know what I mean. Of course you know, and I know, what we meant to each other. I had been ill, I was badly shaken by Ruth’s death, Caroline was right there—’’ Larry said. And as her eyes narrowed uncomfortably and she made a gesture of restraint he went on, “My dear Tony, this is no disloyalty. Caroline and I hadn’t been married six weeks; hadn’t been married six days before we both knew that it was a mistake. We’d been drawn into it—lulled Into it; you know what the circumstances were. There in that little place, with Ruth’s mother dying, nurses there, the doctor coming every day, we lived as much alone as If we'd been on an island. I thought—she’d told me that she cared for Phil Pol hemus; we’d seen him out in China. I never thought of myself at all— "And then only a few days after Ruth's death she told me—told me that I had been the one always— even in the early days of Ruth’s first knowing me, when Caroline was a child. She said we would go to Paris, entertain, she said that was why she had refused Phil.” “I rather thought that it was something like that,” Tony said, in the pause. The man followed her, a little awkwardly, to the table, and sat down facing her across its end. Tony had a soup plate before her; she began the concoction of a sal ad dressing, pouring oil, measuring vinegar, occasionally tasting the mixture on the tip of her finger. “Tony,” Larry said, “if I had come straight back, after Ruth's death, would you have been wait ing for me?” "You know I would,” Tony an swered. with a full, steady look. “I failed yoa.” Larry muttered, looking away. “Caroline's Interest ia rled? I tell you It was one of those impulsive, stupid things that men and women only do when they have lost their bearings, when they’ve been under a heavy strain. A week later—we were in Paris then—we both seemed suddenly to wake up, to come back to our old point of view. We said then, ’We must make a go of this, we’ve drawn the attention of all our world to our marriage, we can’t confess failure I' But from that moment to this we’ve never thought alike, we have noth ing In common, we are only mak ing each other miserable 1" Tony looked at him speculatively "I noticed the gray hair, Larry.” “That began when I was 111. Oh, Tony, If I could only go back the last eight months and have It all to live over again I It was so sim ple—so easy, just to bring Ruth’s mother home and to come out here to you! But it seemed to be a time when I had to plunge madly ahead — dizzy with freedom, per haps, feeling that now I could do anything, travel, buy a country place, have horses, do all the things that of late years hadn’t Interested her— “And within a few weeks Caro line and I were somehow engaged, and even then I wasn’t taking it all seriously; even then I didn’t real ize that she was in earnest. We had said at first that of course we would wait the whole year—then sne began to—well, and I did, too. I’m not blaming anyone but myself. We were there at the villa, with everything to settle, discuss, de cide, and since we were going to be married some day, why not at once, and quietly, and not tell any one for six or eight months?" “Larry,” Tony said seriously, “you don’t have to tell me. Nobody knows better than I how easily one can do a thing In one mood and wonder about It tn another.” It was the first touch of anything like sympathy, like tenderness she had shown him, and be grasped at it eagerly. "Tony, only promise me this: that whatever the complications of the next year are, whatever Caro line and I decide to do, you'll be my friend. I may have your friendship, mayn’t I, Tony? You and I may see each other, and talk things over, and go back to the old days when we used to go to lunch at one and talk until half past three?” “I don’t like to remember those days!” Tony said, smiling. And In the silence Joe put his head in at the door and asked: "Do we eat In here?” and her talk with Larry was over. The door between the Hiving room and the kitchen was opened, and Caroline and Joe be gan to set a table In by the fire. ‘ Any more talk of your going to New York, Tony?” Caroline asked. “Not now, no.” "I got my coat there,” Caroline said. “The dlvinest chinchilla you ever saw. I’ll show It to you to morrow." Tony did not look at Larry. “I remember you wanted one.” “Ready, Joe," Tony said. The salad was green and crisp in its bowl; the enchiladas smoking hot Joe brought a great stack of brown toast to the table. “Does anyone want coffee now? Nobody wants coffee until later, Joe," Tony said. “Are you going to town tonight, Tony?” “No. Not tonight” "Staying with Brenda?” “No." Tony, her face suddenly paling, but her eyes like sparkling b!ue stars, burst into joyous laugh ter and caught Joe around the neck as she passed bls chair at the table. “Oh, Joe, darling, we’ll have to Jell them 1” she said. Larry shoved his chair back a little, facing them with a faintly knitted brow. Caroline’s face was a study in hurt incredulity. “You two are engaged," she said quickly, as one not to he surprised. (TO BE CONTINUED) Called Fort* “Cattie»” The Spaniards called large forts "castles.”
