“He just did. Coming home from Murmuring Lake the night of the storm, and again last night on the lawn.”
“He does like you!” Betsy cried. “Isobel was right. Carney, do you like him?”
“I’m terribly offended at him.”
“Why?”
“It isn’t right to just kiss me like that. I’m not a spooner.”
“Of course not.” Betsy went off into hushed laughter. “Excuse me, Carney. I’m not laughing at you but at something I happened to remember. I’ll tell you about it. Maybe it will help you.
“You know, I’m not a spooner, either, but a boy in California kissed me.”
“Was it Herbert?”
“No. A friend of Herbert’s. He didn’t know about Joe. He kissed me, and yet he didn’t say a word about being serious, or getting engaged, or anything. I was offended just as you are.”
“What did you do?”
“I’ll tell you, and you can do the same thing. It worked like a charm.” Betsy’s face shone beneath the crown of Magic Wavers. “I saw him the next night, and broke our engagement.”
“Your engagement! But you hadn’t gotten engaged.”
“Of course not,” said Betsy blithely. “But I pretended we had. I said: ‘I laid awake all night thinking about our engagement, and I decided that it was a mistake. I can’t marry you after all because I don’t love you. Good-by, forever!’” She declaimed the last two words in a tragic voice.
“What did he do?” asked Carney, choking with laughter.
“He was furious. He was a little bewildered, too, but mostly he was furious. He started right in giving me all the reasons why we ought to get engaged. But I turned him down flat. I think I taught him a lesson…not to go around kissing girls. Now you must do the same thing.”
“I couldn’t,” said Carney gloomily. “I’m not made that way.”
“I’d write out what to say and you could memorize it.”
Carney shook her head. “It’s no use; I’m so darn truthful.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what!” cried Betsy. “Listen! Here’s something you can do, something awfully subtle. Tell him that he should have asked you to marry him and that if he had you would have turned him down. Then he’ll propose and you can turn him down.”
Carney looked grim. “I will,” she said. “I’ll do it tomorrow after you all go.”
Betsy jumped up in such elation that even the dragons on her robe seemed to be smiling. She ran to Carney and hugged her. “Will you write and tell me exactly what happens?”
“Exactly,” said Carney. “Thanks for the idea, Betsy. Come on, let’s go back to bed. I think I can sleep now.”
The next morning was cool, with a heavy dew. It suggested fall, although it was barely August. And the talk was all of school, of things that would happen in September.
“It’s the house party ending, not summer,” Carney reminded herself. But she couldn’t shake off that autumnal feeling.
All the travelers were leaving together. They were taking the four forty-five for Minneapolis. In the morning they went to church. Betsy went to her own Episcopal Church with Larry, Tom, and Joe. Isobel went with Bonnie and the Sibleys.
“Do you know,” she said to Carney, “I rather like this family church-going. In my family we don’t go to church much, and when we do we don’t go together. The way you and the boys start off with your father and mother, all of you so neat and shining…I think it’s nice. When I have a family I’d like to do the same.”
Carney remembered her qualms about Isobel and the Sibley Sunday morning. How unnecessary most of her qualms had been!
After church Isobel left Carney and Bonnie. She was going to walk home with Hunter, she said. He was waiting a little way off and Carney saw Isobel slip her hand into his arm, smiling sweetly upward.
They took a long way home. They must, Bonnie remarked, have gone by way of Page Park or even Orono.
“She’s telling him about her engagement,” Carney said soberly. “I hope she makes him feel all right.”
They appeared just as dinner was being put on the table. Hunter looked pale but he had an exalted, not unhappy look. He went to the telephone and when he returned Carney heard him say to Isobel, “I called her. It’s all right.”
So! She had sent him back to little Ellen. Isobel was wonderful, Carney thought, shaking her head.
Shortly after dinner Larry appeared. He, too, suggested a walk. He and Carney left Broad Street at the Episcopal Church and took the road up Cemetery Hill. They passed the watering trough, and the little candy store, and the road began to climb. It was the hill down which they had coasted as children.
“You could certainly steer,” Carney said. “I always wondered how you missed the watering trough.”
They sat down beside the road. The ditches were full of August’s rich tangle of flowers. The trees had August’s lush deep green. The day had turned warm and sunshiny.
“I hope you’ll keep on writing to me,” Larry said. “I wouldn’t feel right without your letters. It would be like the week losing Thursday, almost.”
“I’ll write you. I’d miss your letters, too,” Carney replied. “Maybe,” she added, “we’ll always write each other even when we’re married to other people.”
Larry took off his straw hat and stared at it.
“Carney,” he said, “are you sure we haven’t made a mistake?”
“Positive,” she replied. He looked up, and she looked at him with frank friendly eyes. Then she smiled and jumped to her feet. “I’ll race you back to the watering trough.”
They didn’t race, but they joined hands and ran to the very foot of the hill.
Sam was sitting on the porch with the Crowd when they returned. He was shaved and looked trim in a navy blue suit. He had brought boxes of candy—gigantic, of course—for the girls. Winona and Alice had brought fudge and divinity.
“We’re not going to starve on the four forty-five,” Joe remarked.
It was time to say good-by, and Bonnie kissed Mr. and Mrs. Sibley with almost a daughter’s affection. She kissed Jerry and Bobbie, who grinned sheepishly. Hunter was coming to the train with the Crowd—and Ellen.
“We’ve had the most scrumptious time,” said Betsy.
“You were so good to have us!” Isobel’s tone was like honey. “I hope we haven’t exhausted you?”
“Not a bit,” said Mr. Sibley. “We’ll miss all the phoning, and the giggling on the porch at night.”
“We won’t be making so many doughnuts,” joked Olga, flushed with the praise the girls had heaped upon her.
They piled into the usual three cars; Carney and Larry went with Ellen and Hunter. They drove down Broad Street, and across to Front, and down Front to the station.
Isobel, Bonnie, and Betsy were wearing their suits with fluffy jabots, basket-shaped hats, and gloves. Carney was hatless and gloveless, wearing her pink linen. Sam looked at her more than once.
“It’s just because he likes pink,” she told herself. “Still, I think he’s going to get quite a surprise when I tell him I won’t marry him.”
The boldness of her plan brought on premonitory chills.
They waited on the platform, laughing and joking. Isobel was talking to Tom now. She was making him promise that he would come to Vassar to a dance. She paid no attention to Hunter who walked up and down with Ellen.
Larry stayed close to Carney. They looked at each other with warm liking.
“There’s lots to be said for friendship,” Carney thought.
The train whistled, distantly. It whistled close at hand. It rushed into the station with the bell swinging and clanging. The house party fell upon Carney with kisses.
“Thank you for asking us!…Thank you!…It’s been simply glorious!”
Larry shook hands, holding her hand tightly.
The engine was noisily getting up steam, the whistle sounded again. The conductor called “All aboard!” and the three girls, Larry, and Joe hurried into the parlor car. T
hey came out on the observation platform. Larry and Joe took their stand behind the house party which stood together, arms entwined.
Bonnie was beaming. She looked cute and cozy in spite of the mature dark red suit.
Betsy was smiling, showing her parted teeth.
Isobel was smiling, too, but sadly. Her dark blue eyes were fixed on Hunter. He stood rigidly, holding Ellen’s arm, as the train began to move.
When Carney turned around, she found Sam beside her.
“It was a wonderful house party!” she said, still breathless.
“It certainly was,” he agreed. He took her arm possessively and the other boys, who might have joined her, turned away to the other girls. Carney climbed into the Loco.
“Shall we drop off at Heinz’s for a sundae?” he asked.
“I don’t mind,” she answered. She braced herself with small shivers of fear for what she planned to say.
19
And Carney Follows It
THERE WAS NO CHANCE to bring up the subject at Heinz’s. Over their sundaes, which Sam told the waiter genially to “put on the book,” they talked about college. The house party had left a vacuum, but it began to fill up as Carney told Sam about her plans for getting ready for college. Miss Mix was coming to sew; she and her mother would be shopping…
“Do you ever wish you were going back to college?” she inquired.
“Sometimes. There was one prof I liked a lot, and I enjoyed the Orchestra in Minneapolis. But I like working around the mill, and Dad wants me to learn the business.” He added with unaffected casualness, “Isobel seems to think this Sedgwick guy is going to make a miller.”
Carney tried to sound natural. “What do you think of her plans?”
“Swell. It will be fun to have her around. She’s such a good scout.”
A good scout! Carney was astonished. It was the last term she would have thought of applying to Isobel.
The conversation wasn’t one into which you could throw remarks about engagements. She would have to wait until they got home, Carney thought. But she was resolved to have her say, although it was late when they returned. Slanting sunlight glimmered over the lawn, over the zinnias and marigolds and dahlias which stood up straight in their beds. Jerry and Bobbie were playing with the sprinkler.
Sam swung up the steps behind her, and they sat down on the porch, in a faded, rain-beaten settee behind the curtain of vines.
“Now is the time,” Carney thought, “to make that speech if I’m ever going to make it.” She turned to him desperately. He was telling her how much he would like to take her up to Minneapolis in the Loco to hear a symphony concert before she went back.
“But I’m afraid the season won’t have started,” he was saying when Carney cut in.
“Sam!”
“Yes?” he answered, startled.
“You know how you kissed me at your party and the night before?”
“I remember something about it,” he answered. He reached out and took her hand. “Did you think it was a good idea?”
Carney took her hand away.
“No,” she said, “I didn’t. I don’t believe in people kissing unless they’re serious about one another. You didn’t ask me to marry you, and I just wanted to say…” she stopped and swallowed for it sounded ridiculous. It had sounded all right when Betsy had said it in her persuasive voice. But it didn’t now.
“What do you want to say?” Sam asked.
“I want to say, that if you had asked me to marry you, I’d have said no,” Carney replied.
For a moment Sam sat in stunned silence and Carney’s heart misgave her. First, she was afraid that she had hurt his feelings. Then she was even more afraid that she had told a lie. Looking at him as he sat there in the golden light which filtered through the vines, so warm, so protectively big, with that dimple in his chin—she wasn’t at all sure that she would have said no.
She felt almost weepy and was quite unprepared for what Sam did. He laughed. He laughed uproariously, and it was obviously a spontaneous reaction. He laughed as she had never heard him laugh before. She sat in a hurt, embarrassed silence.
Then he turned and took her in his arms and kissed her. He kept on kissing her so that she couldn’t say a word. And when he stopped and she had a chance to speak, she could think of nothing to say.
It was Sam who spoke. “You’d say no, would you?” he asked. “Are you sure of that? Will you put it in writing so that I won’t get roped in if I ask you? But I’m not going to ask you. I’m going to tell you. If you’re not marrying Lochinvar, you’re going to marry me.”
Carney said what she had said to the girls. “Larry and I are mere friends.”
“That’s what Isobel told me, after the dance. I guess she could see I was jealous,” Sam added. “Why couldn’t you have told me?”
“Why couldn’t you have asked me?”
“Oh, well! I’ll forgive you!” He smiled expansively and drew her back in the settee. “Then we’re engaged,” he said.
“Oh, no!” said Carney. “Not until we ask Dad and Mother. And I think we’d better ask them now because…”
The boys had come nearer. They were glancing curiously in. Carney didn’t want them to see their sister being kissed by a young man to whom she wasn’t engaged.
“Do you mean right now?” Sam asked.
“Right now.” She was delighted because he seemed confused.
“I don’t believe your father likes me too well.”
“You should have made more fuss about his rarebit.”
“I don’t believe your mother likes me either.”
But Carney couldn’t bear to tease him. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “you won their hearts the other night when you were so good to Bobbie.”
“You think they’ll think it’s all right, then?”
“They may not want a real engagement,” Carney answered, “until I’m through college.”
“What’s the difference between an engagement and an understanding that you’re going to have an engagement?” grumbled Sam, but he got up and started inside. Carney followed.
In the library the gas had been lighted, and her father and mother were reading.
“You two looking for some supper?” Mrs. Sibley asked. “I was just going out to see what I could find.”
Olga always had Sunday evening off.
“I don’t want supper,” Sam answered. “I want Carney.”
He took hold of her hand, partly as though he were seeking courage and partly as though he wanted to show her parents that they might as well agree. He smiled his engaging smile.
Mrs. Sibley’s lashes fluttered and she didn’t say a word. Mr. Sibley asked him to sit down. He told Mrs. Sibley and Carney that they had better go out and rustle up that supper. Sam was obliged to let go of Carney’s hand, but he yielded it reluctantly.
Out in the kitchen Mrs. Sibley and Carney felt awkward with each other.
“When did this happen?” Mrs. Sibley asked sternly. “I never heard of such a thing.”
But Carney knew that she wasn’t angry, she was just embarrassed. Carney walked across the room and looked out into the sunset.
“I’m in love with him,” she said.
There was a long pause, such a long pause that Carney turned around at last. She saw that her mother’s eyes were wet. Mrs. Sibley stooped to a drawer and got out an apron, crackly with starch.
“Then,” she said, “I can’t think of any reason in the world why you shouldn’t marry him. I hope your father won’t think of any.”
She began to make white sauce for the creamed potatoes. Carney got out the cold tongue and started slicing. She peeled and quartered tomatoes from the garden. They talked about the house party, but their ears were pricked toward the sound of conversation continuing steadily in the library.
When the creamed potatoes were finished, Mrs. Sibley made tea. Carney filled glass dishes with sliced peaches and arranged cookies on a plate.
“I wish they’d hurry up,” she said. “The boys will be coming in.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” her mother said.
They went to the dining room door, and Mrs. Sibley coughed gently. Mr. Sibley called, “That supper almost ready?”
“It’s all ready,” Mrs. Sibley said.
“Will you two come in here then?”
They went, and Carney could see at once that everything was going to be all right. Her father was standing, and he looked grave, as he did when he presided at the Chapel Sunday School, but he looked good-humored, too.
Sam reached out for her hand. He squeezed it as though to say, “It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.”
Mr. Sibley said almost what Mrs. Sibley had said.
“I don’t see any reason why you two shouldn’t become engaged if you want to. Of course, Sam understands that you would want to finish college.”
“Oh, of course!” Carney cried.
Sam squeezed her hand again. He didn’t let go of it even when her father said, “Well, let’s go in and get some supper.”
After that, August slipped by on wings. The August lilies came and went. In the vacant lots Queen Anne’s lace grew birds-nesty, but goldenrod was burnished yellow, and purple asters bright as paint.
Jerry and Bobbie had forgotten baseball; they played with a football salvaged from the garage. Hunter and Ellen told Carney happily that they planned to “go together” in their senior year. Miss Mix came to sew, and Carney was busy with a hundred errands—shopping, going to the dentist, paying farewell calls. But she went in the big Loco, or else it was parked in front of the Sibley house. To Bobbie’s satisfaction Sam practically lived there.
Every few days Sam drove Carney out to Murmuring Lake. Mr. and Mrs. Hutchinson were delighted with the engagement. They deluged Carney with affection.
“What ails that boy of mine that he hasn’t bought you a ring yet?” Mr. Hutchinson wanted to know.
Carney was happier than she had ever been in her life, and yet she didn’t mind going back to Vassar. That was because Sam was willing for her to go. He would be proud, he said, to have her graduate. And he wanted her to get more lessons from Miss Chittenden.