Leave Her to Heaven by Ben Ames Williams Read Free Book Online

seemed to stoop close to peer at them, till Robie said presently: ‘We’ll start early in the morning, breakfast at seven. It’s a long day’s ride, so some of you may want to turn in.’
    Mrs. Berent asked in quick protest: ‘Ride? Horses?’
    â€˜There’s no road to the fishing camp,’ Robie admitted. ‘The trail’s rough even for a horse.’
    Ellen said in quiet triumph: ‘I told you, Mother, there was no need for you to come. You can never ride so far. You’ll have to stay here. You might quite as well have stayed in Bar Harbor.’
    â€˜I came this far and I’m going the rest of the way,’ Mrs. Berent retorted. ‘So you might as well make up your mind to it! You did your level best to shut me out of your father’s life; but I intend to see the last of him in spite of you! Horses or no horses! I’m going through with it, even if they have to tie me on top of one of the creatures.’
    Robie laughed reassuringly. ‘You’ll have no trouble, no more than if you sat all day in a rocking chair,’ he assured her. Harland smiled, suspecting that Robie had overstated the case for mountain riding.
    When the others departed, Robie and Harland stayed to drink a highball together; and Harland, making his tone casual, led his host to speak of these other guests. Robie recalled the years when he and Professor Berent were together in Texas; but it was not of Ellen’s father Harland wished to hear, and at last he asked directly: ‘How old is Ellen?’
    Robie looked at him, momentarily hesitant. ‘She’s twenty-two,’ he said briefly. ‘Ruth’s twenty. She’s a fine girl.’ It was as though he compared them, and to Ellen’s disadvantage, and Harland wondered what it was he did not say; but then Robie returned to Professor Berent. ‘After the wells came in, I didn’t see him for years,’ he said. ‘Then I sold out.’ He chuckled in an agreeable fashion. ‘You know, Harland, I like money. It makes it possible to do so many of the things we all want to do. I gave Professor Berent a million dollars — it was his knowledge and his advice on which I’d cashed in — and we were such good friends that he took it.’

    Harland hid his astonishment, smiling. ‘Most of us, at an offer like that, would be torn between pride and avarice; but you’d better not try it on me. I’m not proud!’
    Robie laughed. ‘Find me a new oil field and I’ll do it,’ he retorted, and he went on: ‘Then when I built this place, I asked him out for a visit; and Ellen came with him.’
    He hesitated again, said: ‘You asked about Ellen.’ Harland had only asked her age, but there were many questions in him. ‘She’s a strange girl. They spent two months here; took a couple of the boys and some pack horses and kept on the move. Before they left I came to see behind Ellen’s beauty, see the iron in her. She has an absolutely immovable will. It seemed to me her father was a mass of small bruises, beaten numb by his constant exposure to the impact of that will of hers. She never let the men do him any personal service at all. They saddled the horses, made camp, did the routine things; but she spread his bedroll, prepared his meals, almost fed him by hand. Of course, she was crazy about him; but he couldn’t call his soul his own.’
    â€˜I suspected her of a — father fixation, something of the sort.’
    Robie nodded. ‘I’ve heard of men and women in medieval times being “pressed to death,” whatever that means. It was as though he were being pressed to death by the weight of her devotion.’
    Harland smiled. ‘Looks bad for the man she marries.’
    â€˜I notice she’s wearing an engagement ring.’
    â€˜I saw that. I suppose after her father’s death her life was empty and she snatched at a