The Heart Remembers Read Online Free Page B

its faded slipcovers of flowery chintz, the bowls of fresh flowers and the small, cheerful apple-wood fire leaping companionably beneath the old-fashioned stone mantel.
    â€œMiss Durand said you didn’t have any servants. Do you suppose she’d like me to help with supper?” Shelley suggested uneasily.
    Jim grinned as he offered her a chair.
    â€œMam’ Cleo would have a fit and fall into it,” he assured her. “Mam’ Cleo has been here ever since she was a pickaninny two years old and her mother was cook. She must be close to seventy now, but she’s most definitely not a servant. She, Aunt Selena and I are a family, and it’s a toss-up who’s the boss—but I think Mam’ Cleo has a faint edge on the job.”
    â€œShe sounds like quite a person,” Shelley answered. “I didn’t know that ‘old family retainers’ still existed.”
    â€œThe race is fast dying out. That’s one reason Aunt Selena and I treasure Mam’ Cleo so fondly.”
    â€œI don’t suppose it would be possible for me to find a Mam’ Cleo to help get my place cleaned up, but what about a reasonable facsimile?” asked Shelley.
    Jim looked down at his cigarette for a moment and she saw a curious expression touch his mouth, before he looked up and straight at her. And now that curious expression was in his eyes.
    â€œI hardly think it’s likely,” he said quietly, “since the colored folk hereabouts are very superstitious. They always detour widely around any place that’s reputed to be ha’nted.”
    Shelley stared at him, startled, momentarily offended; and then suddenly she laughed with honest mirth.
    â€œOh, for Heaven’s
sake!
” she protested derisively. “You’ve tried every other way to make me leave Harbour Pines, surely you don’t think me childish enough to be frightened away by ghost stories!”
    â€œYou, being a Yankee, wouldn’t understand.” Jim was unimpressed by her mirth and his eyes were still grave and steady. “But in these parts where livable quarters are so hard to find, a house that has been unoccupied, deserted for many years, where ruin and desolation have had their way, gets itself a lot of legendsand rumors as time goes on. ‘Ghos’es trailing long white garments and wailing in the dark o’ the moon; and strange sounds as one passes on a midnight.’ ”
    Shelley couldn’t be quite sure whether there was a slightly mocking note in his voice; whether there was a bit of special significance there. She stared at him for a moment, and Jim stared back at her and his expression did not alter.
    â€œOh, but that’s perfectly ridiculous,” she burst out.
    â€œSure.” And now, to her secret, intense relief, Jim grinned, and suddenly looked startlingly younger, more boyish. “It’s impossible to convince the colored brethren that since the
Journal
plant and the cottage are on the edge of low, swampy ground, there’s ground-mist that the slightest breath of air twists into odd, floating shapes; or that even on a still night there is a certain amount of air stirring in the pines to make sad, sighing sounds; or that a whippoorwill or an owl sending forth his midnight call has a weirdly human sound.”
    Shelley laughed at him in swift relief.
    â€œWell, thanks a lot! Of course I don’t believe that there are such things as ghosts. But I do appreciate such a logical explanation just the same!”
    Jim chuckled.
    â€œOh, I’ve never for a moment thought you stood in any danger from anything as unreal as ghosts, goblins and the like. What worries me is that you’ll go into bankruptcy and break your heart trying to educate Harbour Pines up to its need for a paper.”
    â€œYou needn’t worry about that,” Shelley assured him gaily. “Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to run a small-town paper; and while I