The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton

Author:Jetta Carleton
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins

13

Matthew was just past thirty that spring. The girl was seventeen and seemed far older. Her poised manner managed to obscure the fact that she was very young at love and gave her a touch of worldliness which to Matthew seemed the sum of sophistication. He felt unworthy of her, overcome with gratitude that she did not spurn him.

On her part, she was grateful to him. For she had been lonely. She had also felt sorry for herself, as she had been in love with her mother’s suitor and all he had done was laugh and chuck her under the chin. She needed urgently to exert her personality upon someone who would pay attention. The tall young schoolteacher with the muscular body and nice brown eyes paid attention very nicely.

Matthew hurried to school each morning with a dry throat, in such haste to get there that he galloped his sorrel mare all the way, urging her on with apologies and the promise of rewards. At nights he rode home reluctantly, impatient for morning. Weekends were an abomination. He fled the house all day Saturday and chopped down trees, pulled up hedge, and uprooted stumps. He wore himself out trying to pass the endless time till Monday arrived again.

At school he was afraid to be seen within ten paces of Charlotte. All day he scarcely looked at her, yet he reddened with pride when in a quick glance her eyes spoke to him. In the afternoons, waiting for her uncle, they kissed in haste, greedily, in a corner of the room behind the heating stove. After that, they took their customary places, she on the front desk, he safely behind his. Sitting so circumspectly apart, they made love with words across the space between them. The things she thought of to say to him! Roses and jewels fell out of her mouth, kissed words and astonishing passion! Their voices, low and yearning, stroked and caressed each other until Matthew was in anguish.

He was not, however, so abandoned that he forgot the dangers. He cringed each time one of the students called Charlotte “teacher’s pet.” Since Charlotte turned it off neatly, they did it very seldom. But he wondered what whispers ran among them and what tales they carried home. At times his fear of discovery so unsettled him that he wished they had never met. What a relief if she were to go away and he could forget about her. Then he recalled that soon she would in reality leave him, and he was devastated. He looked forward to the end of school as if it were the end of the world.

Despite Charlotte’s sighs and occasional tears, Matthew realized that she accepted the end more easily than he. She chatted happily of going home, of seeing her mother again and her new stepfather. All this added to his despair. He was angry with her and in turn more possessive. The thought of marrying her crossed and recrossed his mind, followed regularly by its shadow, the thought of divorcing Callie.

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