The Heart Remembers by Peggy Gaddis Page B

a lurid tale born of over-imagination. Shall we go in to dinner?” Selena cut her short brusquely.
    She turned and swept away, her head held high, and subdued, angry, the others followed her meekly.
    Jim, drawing Shelley’s hand through his arm, said softly, “Sorry, honey. That was rotten of her. I apologize for her.”
    â€œDon’t bother,” said Shelley stiffly. “It was thoughtless of me. And we may as well face it! Miss Selena doesn’t like me.”
    â€œLeave us all face it, pally,” said Sue-Ellen cheerfully, giving Shelley a comforting little pat. “Miss Selena doesn’t like anybody—not even Miss Selena. How could she, being a poor, frustrated old maid?”
    â€œSue-Ellen!” Jim said sternly. “Mind your manners.”
    â€œSure, sure, sure,” agreed Sue-Ellen, quite undisturbed as they all reached the dining room and found Selena waiting for them, her gray head held high, her manner more regal and forbidding than ever.
    As they settled to their places, Sue-Ellen turned to Jim and said gaily, “Jamesy, darling—”
    Jim glared at her.
    â€œIf you don’t stop calling me that—”
    â€œIsn’t he cute? He hates being called Jamesy. It was his nickname when he was a broth of a boy. I think it suits him.”
    â€œI think we all loathe our childish nicknames,” Marian tried to make light conversation. “I remember it used to make me furious when people called me ‘Mary Ann.’ ”
    â€œYou should talk,” said Billie Stone, aiding her cheerfully. “I was called Slats, on account of I was tall and skinny.”
    â€œCarrot-top was mine,” Ann admitted. “Thank Heaven it darkened as I grew older.”
    â€œMy father always called me Patsy-Jane, but I loved it,” said Shelley—and caught her breath, her hands gripped tightly beneath the table’s edge.
    Across the candle-lit, beautifully appointed table, she saw the look in Selena’s eyes and the sudden ugly pallor that touched her face. For a moment Shelley and Selena looked straight into each other’s eyes and there was a tiny tremor in Shelley’s heart as she realized how completely she had given herself away to her enemy.
    â€œNow she
knows
,” Shelley told herself, and could have bitten out her own tongue for the little careless slip. “Before she has been merely suspicious, alarmed; but now she knows.”
    There was an instant of tension of which only Shelley and Selena were conscious, for the others were still chattering gaily, and the white-coated Negro man was deftly serving them, unobtrusive, yet watchful of their needs.
    Jim said quietly, “Patsy-Jane, eh? Funny how he could get such a nickname out of Shelley. Or did you grow up and select a name for yourself that you liked better?”
    Through the whirling of her senses, Shelley realized that Jim, sitting beside her, had gone a little still, and she wondered desperately if he, too, had noticed that momentary rigidity of his aunt, or the malevolence in her eyes.
    â€œNo,” said Shelley quietly. “It was given me by the woman who adopted me after my mother died.”
    She was still looking straight at Selena, though sharply aware of Jim beside her. But after a moment Selena turned to the young man, Don Benton, who sat on her left and made some remark to which he responded over-eagerly. And eventually dinner was over.
    Later, in the living room, Marian found a moment to say anxiously to Shelley, “Look, Shelley, I don’t want to be a nuisance, and I know Jim was speaking way out of turn. But if you do decide you’d ever like somebody to share your house and help you fight the ‘ghoses,’ put my name at the head of the list, will you?”
    â€œI think it would be fun to have you there, Marian. Come over one afternoon and we’ll look the situation over, and if you think you’d be