Chapter 12
Luncheon the following day was a family affair with only the Leslies, Gayle, Don, and Clyde. The strain and stress of preparing for the season's most brilliant wedding, Mrs. Leslie's determination that it should make history in the social annals of the town was beginning to show on all of them. For one of the few times in his business life, Mr. Leslie did not go to the office until around noon and lunched at home.
Mrs. Leslie, a little uneasy because the servants were hinting at rebellion at all the extra work, apologized wanly for a "scratch meal" that was a combination of breakfast and lunch. But no one seemed to have very much appetite anyway, and Gayle was too excited, too expectant of Don's promised announcement of their engagement to care that the omelet was not as light and puffy as usual or that the green salad had been carelessly tossed or the dressing lacked something of its usual tang.
Somewhere midway in the meal, conversation lagged and Don looked across the table at Gayle and smiled warmly and said, "Well, I think we might as well tell them, don't you?"
Not until that moment had Gayle been able quite to convince herself that he really was going to make the promised announcement. She had been a little uneasy lest at the last moment he might change his mind. But now color poured into her lovely face and her eyes were twin stars.
Startled, Sue glanced swiftly at Don, who sat beside her, and then across the table at Gayle, and Clyde's jaw tightened a little and his eyes hardened.
Mr. and Mrs. Leslie waited politely, without any spectacular show of interest, until Don grinned and said with mock ceremony, "I want you all to be the first to know that I am the luckiest man in the world-because Gayle has at last promised to marry me."
Gayle let out her caught breath in a little gasp, and relaxed a little. There! It was out! Their intentions had been publicly announced. Don couldn't wriggle out of it now-not after announcing it here to these high-hat snobs that, she knew vaguely, frowned on men who reneged on their published announcements of matrimonial intention.
Gayle was watching Sue and saw the small, stricken look that sped over her face and the way her mouth thinned and hardened and her eyes blazed with savage protest. But she controlled herself and lowered her eyes to her plate.
Clyde sat beside Gayle and so she could only guess at the way he was taking it, though the little gasp that he gave could be anger, shock or surprise.
"Well, well," said Mr. Leslie with false heartiness, obviously not at all sure just how the announcement should be taken. "That's quite interesting. I've always heard that one wedding usually breeds half a dozen."
"Thanks," said Don and his tone was a trifle dry. "There seems no point in our waiting, so Gayle and I will drive across the state line and be married this afternoon-and return in time for the wedding day after tomorrow...."
And then, to the amazement of the others at the table, Mrs. Leslie committed the social breach of making a scene. She was on her feet before any of them could do anything but stare at her. She had thrust back her chair so violently that it caught and turned over backward and the white-coated butler thrust a surprised face through the swinging door, his eyes wide at the sight of his usually calm, controlled, slightly supercilious mistress acting like a rather common human being.
"Oh, no you're not!" She was leaning with her hands spread on the table, her body shaking with uncontrolled anger, her voice high and almost strident. "Oh, no you're not! Drive across the state line and be married-before Sue and Clyde are finished with your services? Over my dead body you take one single beam of the spotlight away from them...."
"Why, Mother!" stammered Sue, shocked, yet delighted at her mother's protest.
Mrs. Leslie was in the grip of hysteria, but her strident voice went on wildly. "After I've worked myself almost to death to guarantee that it will be the most beautiful wedding Claresville has ever seen-do you think for one minute I'm going to allow you two to slide off and get married and create a scandal-and have people watching you, talking about you-when they ought to have nothing on their minds except what a beautiful bride Sue is and what a lucky man Clyde is?"
Mr. Leslie was beside her now, anxious, trying to soothe her, but she flung him off and turned furiously to Don.
"Marry her any damned time you want to-after Sue and Clyde leave on their wedding trip, and it would serve you right if you did," she spat at him furiously, and the butler's eyes grew saucer wide at the unaccustomed-if innocuous-profanity on the writhing lips of a woman who had never been known to say so much as "darn" in public before. "But you're not going to spoil Sue's wedding-I won't allow it, do you hear? I won't allow it!"
Gayle was on her feet now, her eyes blazing.
"Why, you damned old harridan!" she blazed, but the next moment Don was beside her, his arm about her, shaking her, not gentle or tender at all.
"Shut up, you!" he hissed in her ear and she caught her breath at the look in his eyes, before he turned to Mrs. Leslie, shaking now in the violent grip of hysteria, mouthing words, tears raining down her face, while Sue and Clyde and Mr. Leslie tried to soothe her.
Eventually they got her out of the room and, still sobbing, up the stairs. Don watched until the little procession had vanished and then he turned to Gayle, his brows drawn together in a little angry frown.
"One more word out of you and I'd have socked you!" he told her softly, but with menace in his voice.
"But what the hell business is it of hers whether we get married or not? You haven't been fooling around with her, too, have you?" Gayle rounded on him in savage suspicion and jealousy.
Don's eyes blazed with a healthy rage.
"Don't be more of a damned tramp than you have to be," he grated furiously. "The poor old gal has been driving herself like mad to see that Sue has the fanciest wedding in history. Sure, it would take a bit of the excitement out of it, I suppose if you and I did the romantic elopement we had planned-"
"You're not going to get out of it!" she told him hotly.
He studied her almost curiously.
"I have no intention of getting out of it, as you so prettily put it," he told her after a moment. "But let me warn you, my girl-either you behave yourself or I may find it convenient to tell them all the whole thing was a joke."
She caught her breath and a cold hand clutched at her heart and panic spread through her. All the new, bright, exquisite dreams-oh, no, she couldn't let them be smashed.
"I'm-a heel, darling," she told him huskily and melted into his arms and clung to him pressing her warm body against him so that he was sharply conscious of her in every throbbing nerve. She knew the exact moment when the rigidity went out of his body and his desire for her arose. She hid her face against his shoulder to hide the little pleased smile that curled her mouth, the gleam of triumph in her eyes.
"It's-just that I love you so much dearest," she told him softly, her lips nibbling at his ear sliding along his cheek until his mouth closed on hers. "I-just can't bear it not-not to be with you always."
"We will be," said Don almost grimly but the hard demanding pressure of his arms told her that his need for her was thoroughly aroused and she could draw herself free of him, knowing his reluctance to let her go.
"I'm so sorry," said a small polite voice from the doorway and Gayle whirled to see Sue standing there, her head held high, her blue eyes cool, her manner icily polite. "I didn't mean to intrude-"
"Didn't you?" began Gayle hotly, but Don's hand closed hard on hers and she set her teeth in her lower hp to control her anger.
"I came to apologize for Mother," said Sue politely, her eyes brushing Gayle and going on to cling to Don's face with a strained intensity that made Gayle bristle a little.
"That's silly," said Don strongly. "It is Gayle and I who owe your mother our apologies." Sue smiled stiffly.
"That's-sweet of you, Don," she said gently. "But it was outrageous of Mother to-to blow up like that. But the poor darling has been driving herself so hard. She's so determined that mine shall be a wedding that no one in Claresville will ever forget. But she had no right to try to prevent your getting married first if you want to."
There was an urgent, almost a yearning question in the last and Gayle almost spoke out, but Don, as though sensing her intention tightened his hand on hers to a savage painful grip and Gayle gasped a little and looked at him in protest.
"She was quite right, Sue," said Don quietly. "Gayle and I did not stop to think that our elopement might take some of the attention from your wedding. Naturally Gayle and I will postpone our marriage until after you have gone off on your honeymoon."
Sue said sweetly, "Thank you, Don, that's very sweet of you."
She looked coolly at Gayle and in that moment there was no longer any faint pretense of friendship between the two girls. Gayle's heart leaped with malicious delight; for she knew that Sue was now deeply in love with Don and that the thought of his marrying Gayle was a bitter pain to her. And because she hated women born to a life of sheltered ease like Sue, and because they were all her enemies, she was passionately glad that she had been able to snatch away a man one of them wanted.
Sue drew a long breath and smiled once more at Don.
"I do hope you'll be very happy," she said quietly, and added, "And now if we're going to reach the Maysons in time for a few games of tennis before the cocktail party, hadn't we better get dressed? I admit it's a bore but the Maysons have been very sweet and Claire Mayson is my godmother."
Without waiting for either of them to answer she turned and went out of the room and up the stairs.
Gayle turned back to Don gloating a little.
"She's madly in love with you-" she began recklessly.
"Shut up!" said Don grimly, his eyes dark and tormented. "And scat upstairs and get dressed. I'll see you in an hour."
He stalked out and Gayle stared after him, a little startled, a little frightened-because she wasn't married to him yet and unless she watched her step very closely she might not be! That was a thought that shook her badly. Because now that she had had the dazzling prospect of such a marriage spread before her, she could not face the thought of spoiling it. Or, of having it spoiled for her! She went soberly up the stairs, warning herself that she must keep her claws sheathed very carefully, at least until after she had married Don. She could relax then, she promised herself. Only with an odd little unaccustomed uneasiness, she wondered if she could. Or even if she would want to. For she was stark, staring mad about Don-for the first, last and only time in her life she had met a man whom she could love with her mind and her heart, as well as with her body. And so for the first time in her life she was frighteningly vulnerable. Only when you really love somebody an awful lot can you be deeply and desperately hurt in all the ways that matter so terribly. It was a discovery that had come to her rather late in life but it therefore loomed even more frighteningly true.
She was on her best behavior all afternoon at the Mayson's party wearing a very demure and lady-like printed chiffon frock, for she had no taste for lunging around in the hot sunlight banging away at a tennis bah. That stuff was strictly for the birdies, she told herself as she held a sort of court in her ivory colored frock printed with jade colored ivy leaves, the sunlight fingering its way through the ancient oak trees that bordered the court as though anxious to touch the shining flame colored glory of her hair.
Don and Sue were paired against Clyde and a girl who was a member of the wedding party so that Gayle had been stumbling over her ever since her arrival in Claresville. But she could only remember the girl was called Ruth. And nothing seemed of less importance to her at the moment than the girl's last name. Secretly she despised, while she bitterly envied all the women present, but she schooled herself carefully to be friendly and gracious and not to show too much interest in the men.
When the set was over, and Sue and Don and Clyde came back to the group beneath the trees, Gayle eyed them with a faintly amused smile. Sue, in shorts and a halter, hot and flushed and sweating a little, looked about nine years old and more than a little grubby. Yet the way Don looked at her-Gayle's lovely mouth hardened a little at the way Don looked at Sue, who collapsed gaily n the grass and accepted gratefully a tall, frosty glass of iced tea.
Clyde came over to where Gayle sat and dropped own on the grass beside her.
"You don't play tennis?" he asked politely.
"It's not my game at all," she drawled and gave him a brilliant provocative smile.
Clyde met her eyes for a moment and then looked way and very softly so that his voice would not reach beyond her ears, he said, "So you are going to marry Don, after all."
Gayle stiffened just a little but her warm, gentle smile did not relax though there was for a moment a wary gleam in her eyes. "After all what?" she asked softly. Clyde made a little gesture with his glass that made the ice cubes tinkle coolly.
"Oh, after all that-making passes at you and-playing wolf," he said grimly. Gayle hesitated a moment and then she smiled a little. "Didn't one of Henry the Eighth's fiancees tell him that the only entrance to her bedroom was through the church door?" she mocked lightly. "Oh, don't look so astonished-it must have been in the movie that I saw it-or a play. Anyway, I think that Don probably figured it was that way-with me. And it is!"
Clyde studied her for a long moment and she quailed a little, inwardly, at his probing, searching gaze. And then he looked away and his voice was low pitched.
"Well, I can understand his wanting you so much that if marriage is the only way-" he said and his tone -edged. "I admit I'm a little astonished to think of Don getting married; he's always seemed like the perennial bachelor to me."
Gayle tried not to look smug.
"Oh, well, some girl was bound to bring him down sooner or later. I guess I just happened to be lucky," she said quietly, and there was a tone in her voice that made Clyde look up at her sharply.
"You're in love with him!" he accused almost sharply.
"With all my heart-if you'll forgive a corny phrase."
She was trying hard to be flippant about it but she could not keep the star shine out of her eyes, nor could she keep her soft gaze from turning to Don, adoring him with her eyes, her heart pounding a little as though his eyes held a caress that stroked her body to urgent, exquisite desire.
For a moment she and Don looked straight into each other's eyes, while Clyde watched them both, and while Clyde's jaw set a little and his eyes became bleak and cold. Don grinned tenderly at Gale, and lifted his glass to her in a silent toast. And Gayle laughed a little from sheer exuberance of spirit and lifted her own glass to return the salute. And when she again had attention to give to Clyde, he had risen and walked across the grass to join another group.