A Tangled Web Read Free

he had any amount of patience. In time he would attain his heart’s desire—though sometimes he wondered a little uneasily how long that devil of a Chris would hang on. That family of Darks had such damn’ good constitutions. They could live after a fashion that would kill any ordinary man in five years, and flourish for twenty. Chris had been dying by inches for ten years, and there was no knowing how many inches were left of him yet.
    â€œDo get some hair tonic,” Aunt Becky was advising William Y. Penhallow, who even as a baby had looked deadly serious and who had never been called Bill in his life. He had hated Aunt Becky ever since she had been the first person to tell him he was beginning to get bald.
    â€œMy dear”—to Mrs. Percy Dark—“it’s such a pity you haven’t taken more care of your complexion. You had a fairly nice skin when you came to Indian Spring. Why, you here?”—this to Mrs. Jim Trent, who had been Helen Dark.
    â€œOf course I’m here,” retorted Mrs. Jim. “Am I so transparent that there’s any doubt?”
    â€œIt’s a long time since you remembered my existence,” snapped Aunt Becky. “But the jug is bringing more things in than the cat.”
    â€œOh, I don’t want your jug, I’m sure,” lied Mrs. Jim. Everybody knew she was lying. Only a very foolish person would lie to Aunt Becky, to whom nobody had ever as yet told a lie successfully. But then Mrs. Jim Trent lived at Three Hills, and nobody who lived at Three Hills was supposed to have much sense.
    â€œGot your history finished yet, Miller?” asked Aunt Becky.
    Old Miller Dark looked foolish. He had been talking for years of writing a history of the clan but had never got started. It didn’t do to hurry these things. The longer he waited the more history there would be. These women were always in such a confounded hurry. He thankfully made way for Palmer Dark, who was known as the man who was proud of his wife.
    â€œLooks as young as ever, doesn’t she?” he demanded beamingly of Aunt Becky.
    â€œYes—if it’s any good to look young when you’re not—” conceded Aunt Becky, adding by way of a grace note, “Got the beginnings of a dowager’s cushion, I see. It’s a long time since I saw you, Palmer. But you’re just the same, only more so. Well, well, and here’s Mrs. Denzil Penhallow. Looking fine and dandy, too. I’ve always heard a fruit diet was healthy. I’m told you ate all the fruit folks sent in for Denzil when he was sick last winter.”
    â€œWell, what of it? He couldn’t eat it. Was it to be wasted?” retorted Mrs. Denzil. Jug or no jug, she wasn’t going to be insulted by Aunt Becky.
    Two widows came in together—Mrs. Toynbee Dark, who had had her mourning all ready when her third and last husband had died, and Virginia Powell, whose husband had been dead eight years and who was young and tolerably beautiful but who still wore her black and had vowed, it was well known, never to marry again. Not, as Uncle Pippin remarked, that any one was known to have asked her.
    Aunt Becky let Mrs. Toynbee off with a coldly civil greeting. Mrs. Toynbee had been known to go into hysterics when snubbed or crossed, and Aunt Becky did not intend to let anyone else usurp the limelight at her last levee. But she gave poor Virginia a jab.
    â€œIs your heart dug up yet?”
    Virginia had once said sentimentally, “My heart is buried in Rose River churchyard,” and Aunt Becky never let her forget it.
    â€œAny of that jam left yet?” asked Aunt Becky slyly of Mrs. Titus Dark, who had once gathered blueberries that grew in the graveyard and preserved them. Lawyer Tom Penhallow, who had been found guilty of appropriating his clients’ money, was counted less of a clan disgrace. Mrs. Titus always considered herself an ill-used woman. Fruit had been scarce