Elizabeth gathered up her gloves and parasol. ‘‘I leave you with a gesture which to some of you may seem excessive, but which I see as essential to my self-respect. At this time I formally resign my position as treasurer of the Greater Camden Ladies’ Tea, Quilting and Benevolent Society and submit my resignation from the club. I find I cannot be affiliated with an institution that would put its time and efforts—and probably some of its treasury funds as well—into bringing undeserved emotional duress upon a woman like Mrs. Jewett. In doing this, I follow the dictates not only of my own heart, but of my foremothers as well, one of whom was a founder and charter member of this society. On her behalf, and my own, I bid you good-bye.’’
Elizabeth DuMoss, having said her piece—and said it with magnificent mastery—snapped up her parasol and left the gathering. Before she reached the garden gate, she heard the furor burst forth behind her.
She went straight to the shop of Gabriel Farley on Bayview Street. Finding him out on a job, she repaired to his home where, receiving no response to her knock on his screen door, she opened it and dropped a note onto his rag rug.
Mr. Farley, it said, I must speak to you immediately. The Benevolent Society is going to try to undermine the reputation of Roberta Jewett and get her children taken away from her. We cannot let that happen. Please call me at 84 or come by my house this evening as soon as you possibly can. Elizabeth DuMoss.
Elizabeth DuMoss was a pretty woman with soft brown eyes, gentle manners and an exceedingly rich husband who owned one of the largest houses in Camden, on Pearl Street, as well as the limestone quarries in Rockport. Elizabeth was one year younger than Gabriel Farley and had been infatuated with him from the time she was in fourth grade. She loved her husband in countless ways and had established a faithful, workable marriage. But he was thick through the middle and tight-fisted with his money, and though she wouldn’t have traded her life with anyone’s, there were several levels on which she nevertheless envied Roberta Jewett.
Her unrequited first love was one of them.
When he rang her bell at six-fifteen that evening she rose from the dinner table and told the maid, ‘‘I’ll get it, Rosetta. Please, go on serving dinner.’’ She trod through her home with the grace of a hostess accustomed to handling callers, and approached the front door with the assurance of one who understands her unassailable place at the head of a small-town society.
‘‘Hello, Gabriel,’’ she said, opening the screen door and admitting him into her richly papered foyer.
‘‘Hello, Elizabeth.’’ He extended his hand and she gave hers. ‘‘How are you?’’
‘‘Oh, I’m fine. At least I was until the Benevolent Society meeting this afternoon.’’
Their handclasp held, and their mutual knowledge of her longtime regard for him lent the moment an intimacy that was present whenever they met. But along with it came a mutual respect for her married state and the fact that she was the mother of four children.
He dropped her hand and said, ‘‘I got your note.’’
She held up a finger and said, ‘‘One moment, Gabriel.’’ He watched her move down the hall to the dining room archway and speak to her family. ‘‘Excuse me, Aloysius, Gabriel is here now. Children, continue with your supper. We won’t be long.’’
A chair scraped back and Aloysius DuMoss brought his considerable girth and walrus moustache into the hall. He was extending a hand as he approached Gabriel and said, ‘‘Let’s step into the morning room where we can talk in private.’’
What was said among the three of them in the DuMoss’s morning room drove Gabriel Farley straight to Roberta’s front door within five minutes of his meeting with them.
The girls were on the front porch when he arrived, slung into hammocks and canvas chairs, reading and whisking away mosquitoes with wilted lilac branches. Ethan Ogier was there, too, sitting with his back against a railing spindle, playing catch with himself by throwing a hard rubber ball against the wall beneath the living room window where it left a smudge in Gabriel’s white paint job, which no longer looked as immaculate as it had last April.
They all said, ‘‘Hi, Mr. Farley,’’ too steeped in laziness to pay him much mind.
‘‘Your mother home?’’ he asked as he mounted the stairs in two giant steps.
‘‘She’s in the kitchen.’’
‘‘Okay if I go right in?’’
‘‘Mom!’’ Susan yelled over her shoulder. ‘‘Mr. Farley’s coming in!’’
He opened the screen door as she returned to her reading.
Roberta met him in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a dishtowel that looked as gray as the shop rags Gabe used on his tools.
‘‘Well . . . back so soon?’’ she said. ‘‘You come acourtin’?’’
He turned her by an arm and whisked her into the kitchen where they could not be seen through the doorway.
‘‘If it’s courting you demand, you’re going to get it, Roberta, because I want to marry you.’’
‘‘Goodness, that’s quite a change from this afternoon when you indicated you really didn’t want to marry me, but would if you had to, to save me from disgrace. Now, which one is it, Gabriel?’’
‘‘I swear to God, I never saw such a saucy woman in my life. Would you shut up and listen to me?’’
‘‘Shut up . . . oh, now that’s really poetic. Whoo!’’ She fanned her face with the dishtowel. ‘‘Makes a woman’s heart race about forty miles an hour to hear sweet talk like that. Who taught you to—’’
Gabe shut her up with a kiss.
He plastered his very impatient mouth over her very impertinent one and flattened her up against the pantry door. When he had her effectively silenced, he put his arms to use as well. Those long muscular carpenter’s arms slid around her and scooped her away from the door against him, and as their bodies aligned, all of her sassiness and all of his exhorting melted into oblivion. She went up on tiptoe and he adjusted his head, and they meshed together splendidly, like some perfect mortise and tenon he might have fashioned to last two hundred years. With an arm at her waist and an open hand in her tumbledown hair, he kept her there where both of them had often imagined her being, kissing the bejesus out of her.
It was fiery and insistent and tinged with the awareness that a porchful of young people could come slamming into the house at any moment.
And deuced if they didn’t.
Right in the middle of that important first willing resignation, when Roberta was bent back over Gabe’s arm and his dusty carpenter’s trousers were nestled into the gathers of her wrinkled white nurse’s apron, two girls showed up in the doorway. There they were, going at it like long-lost lovers when they heard Susan whisper, ‘‘My mom is kissing your dad,’’ then two giggles that brought Gabe’s head swinging around as he ordered over his shoulder, ‘‘Out, you two!’’ and belatedly, ‘‘Hello, Isobel.’’
Roberta peeked around Gabe and seconded the order. ‘‘Yes, out. And don’t come back till we tell you to.’’
Gabe resumed his stance and said, ‘‘Kids . . . sheesh,’’ before Roberta brazenly pulled his head down for more.
Their kisses got better then—the children knew, and would stay away, and the hurdle was jumped at last. They took each other . . . and plenty of time . . . and explored some while a mosquito came buzzing and was ignored. She sampled his mouth and he sampled hers, and they used their hands on what was allowable. When primal urges became adamant, he pulled his midsection back, flattened his forearms against the door and stood that way, breathing hard against the bridge of her nose. His eyes were closed. So were hers. Their heartbeats were still doing a quickstep and there was a mosquito bite on Roberta’s cheek.
‘‘He got me,’’ she said, smiling.
‘‘Who?’’
‘‘The mosquito.’’
‘‘Where? I’ll kiss it.’’
‘‘Right here.’’ She tapped her cheek and he kissed it, bending to reach, leaving his forearms
on the wall.
‘‘Thank you,’’ she murmured.
‘‘Any more?’’ he queried. ‘‘Here?’’ He grazed her eyebrow. ‘‘Here?’’ And her nose. ‘‘Here?’’ And her lips.
‘‘Mmm . . . yes, there.’’
While he kissed her mouth as if it were a slice of watermelon, she scratched the bite on her cheek. Still preoccupied with his amorous attentions, he pulled her hand away.
‘‘Here, don’t do that. It only makes it worse.’’
‘‘Quit talking when you’re kissing me. I’ve been without kissing for too long to put up with that.’’
‘‘Boy, you’re bossy,’’ he said, and followed orders.
Some time later they came up for air, and she looped her arms loosely over his shoulders. ‘‘Oh, Gabriel,’’ she said, gazing into his eyes, ‘‘what took you so long?’’
‘‘What do you mean, what took me so long? Do you remember the first time I kissed you? You didn’t even kiss me back, just sat there like a lump of dough. It takes a man a while to get up his courage after getting treated like that.’’
‘‘I did not sit there like a lump of dough.’’
‘‘Yes, you did, Mrs. Jewett, as if you were analyzing it. And then you excused me from your house as if to say, ‘Duty done, good-bye.’ ’’
‘‘I don’t remember it that way at all. I just thought it was a bad idea.’’
He grinned. ‘‘Obviously you don’t anymore.’’
‘‘No, Mr. Farley, I don’t anymore.’’
‘‘Good, because you’ve got to listen to me. You’ve got to marry me because the—’’
She pushed his arm aside as if it were a turnstile.
‘‘No. Listen . . .’’ He caught her and kept her between him and the wall. ‘‘You’ve got to because the Ladies’ Benevolent Society is talking about raising issues with the law over your mothering, and they’re making noises about trying to force your kids away from you somehow. And it’s my fault, don’t you see? Because I bashed in Elfred’s face, and they figured we were fighting over you so you were probably carrying on with both of us, and somebody saw your car at my house afterwards, and if they go to the authorities you’ll have to tell them what Elfred did to you, and I don’t think you want to do that.’’
She stared at him with her hands pressed to the wall behind her.
‘‘Who told you all this?’’
‘‘Elizabeth DuMoss.’’
‘‘Shelby’s mother?’’
‘‘Yes. She belongs to that society. Belonged— actually, she quit today when they started raising these preposterous issues. Gave ’em a piece of her mind, too. Then she came to see me and warned me what they were planning to do.’’
She stared at him again and said, ‘‘My mother is a member of the Benevolent Society.’’
He closed his eyes and breathed, ‘‘Oh, God.’’ She pushed on his arm and he let his hands slip from the wall, releasing her. ‘‘I’m sorry, Roberta.’’
She walked toward the dry sink, turning her back on him. ‘‘Why would Elizabeth DuMoss stand up for me?’’
‘‘Because she knows what kind of a snake Elfred is.’’
She snapped him a look. ‘‘You told her what he did to me?’’
It took him a beat to answer. ‘‘No, not exactly.’’
‘‘Then what? . . . Exactly.’’
‘‘I didn’t tell her. I think she just guessed from what she heard about me beating him up. Roberta, look’’— he moved up close behind her and tried to make her turn around—‘‘this is all my fault. If I’d have used my head and cornered Elfred out in the country someplace where nobody would have known I was the one to beat him up, this wouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry. It was stupid and selfish of me, because all I was thinking about was myself and how angry I was. I never stopped to think about how it would implicate you. Please, Roberta . . .’’ She had been resisting his effort to turn her around so he slipped an arm across her collarbone and pulled her back against him. ‘‘Please don’t get that way with me again. Don’t throw me out and get all independent and uppity. Let us fight this thing together.’’
‘‘Why would you want to, Gabriel?’’ she asked, gripping his arm with both her hands. ‘‘Why? I’ve got to know. If it’s true, go ahead and say it so we can both know where we stand.’’
The right side of his mouth was pressed against her hair. His heart was pounding against her back. But he took the plunge and whispered, ‘‘Because I love you, Roberta.’’
The grip of her hands on his arm tightened, as if she were afraid he might slip away and change his mind.
‘‘I love you too, Gabriel, I hope you’ll believe that. But if I don’t run off and marry you in a week or two or three, you mustn’t be discouraged. I’ve only kissed you for the second time today, and half the time I’ve known you we haven’t been on amicable terms. Besides that, you know me. You know that I have to fight my own battles and win my own way, whether it’s getting rid of an unfaithful husband or keeping my beloved daughters. So I have to fight this my way.’’
‘‘And marrying me wouldn’t be your way.’’
‘‘No.’’
He turned her to face him and held her by her upper arms. ‘‘Roberta, please . . .’’
‘‘No, because if I did that, anything they’d say about me would go unchallenged, and I’m a good mother. A good one! I won’t let anybody say different!’’
‘‘But if you’d marry me they wouldn’t challenge you at all, so why put yourself through that?’’
‘‘We don’t know that I’ll have to. So far it’s just a rumor.’’
He could see he wasn’t going to convince her tonight, so he pulled her loosely into his arms and they stood in an easy embrace.
‘‘Gabriel?’’ she said quietly after a while.
‘‘What, love?’’
‘‘Thank you for asking me, and for telling me you love me, and for being here to bolster me. You’ve been doing that ever since I moved to Camden, and I’ve never told you how much I appreciate it.’’
‘‘You’re welcome. You bolstered me too.’’
‘‘I riled you up.’’
‘‘That, too. But somehow I always came back for more, so I must have enjoyed it.’’
She rested against his sturdy bulk and it felt good to be there. In Roberta’s life there had been too few times when she’d rested against a man’s sturdy bulk.
‘‘Do you know what you just called me?’’ she said after a while.
‘‘What did I just call you?’’
‘‘Love. You said, ‘What, love?’ ’’
‘‘Did I?’’
She smiled against his neck and said, ‘‘There might be hope for us yet. Also, because you’re a very good kisser.’’
He smiled. ‘‘ ’Course I am. And you’re not so bad yourself, once you decide to get started.’’
She let herself stay in his arms a bit before getting back to a sterner reality.
‘‘I’ve made a decision,’’ she said.
‘‘Which is?’’
‘‘To talk to my mother and see what she knows about this Benevolent Society.’’ Roberta drew back and looked into Gabriel’s eyes. ‘‘Because if she’s a party to this . . . if she’s one of the women who wants my children taken away from me, I can’t remain in this town, Gabe. Surely you must understand that.’’
It hadn’t entered his mind.
He gripped her arms again. ‘‘Don’t scare me that way. Now that I’ve finally overcome my fear of loving you, don’t scare me, Roberta.’’
‘‘It’s how I am, Gabriel. I see things very clearly— which path I should take, which one I should avoid. Then I chart my course and follow it. Is that the kind of woman you’d want to marry?’’
‘‘Here . . . yes. Not in Boston or Philadelphia or some other town I’ve never been to. Camden is my home. This is where I want to stay.’’
She pulled back slowly until she was st
anding free. ‘‘Then we’d better wait and see, hadn’t we, Gabe?’’
He sighed and felt heavy with foreboding. Though he was reluctant to agree, he knew at that moment she was thinking much more clearly than he.
‘‘Yes, I suppose,’’ he finally agreed. ‘‘We’d better wait and see.’’
And on that forlorn note they went out to face the glowing eyes of their children for whom they had no answers yet.
Fifteen
Going home should have been more inviting, Roberta thought as she approached Myra’s house. Stepping into a mother’s kitchen should feel like a welcome respite, a lush sinking into loving security that ought to have outlasted growing up and becoming independent oneself, and moving away and having babies of one’s own. Instead, approaching Myra’s back door brought only dread.
Roberta knocked, which brought a regret of its own: She’d never felt comfortable simply opening the door and walking in like Isobel did at her house.
Instead of Roberta dear, come in, are you all right, let’s talk, she heard, ‘‘Oh, it’s you.’’
She entered uninvited.
Myra’s kitchen was painted a dull moss green and smelled of drying chamomile and tansy, for the teas she brewed all winter. The same painted wooden table dominated the center of the room, and the same wooden bowls and crockery canisters lined the open shelves. The same displeasure corrugated Myra’s face.
‘‘Hello, Mother,’’ Roberta said resignedly. ‘‘May I sit down?’’
‘‘Have you been to Grace’s?’’
‘‘No, Mother. Why would I have been to Grace’s?’’
‘‘Well, I don’t know. To set things right, I hoped.’’
Roberta studied her mother a long time, silent, oppressed, thinking, I will never treat my children this way. Never. No matter what they’ve done. Finally she sat, taking the chair she had not been invited to take while Myra remained standing with the table between them.