Read Online The Girl Next Door (Crimson Romance) by Peggy Gaddis - Free Book Online Page B

drew a deep breath and pricked herself with her forgotten needle, and realized that she was shaking. “Well, this is one thing you’re not going to do, Betsy. I won’t permit it!”
    Betsy said nothing, but with eyes cool and almost inimical, she gave her mother a look that said more plainly than words, “Oh. And how are you going to stop me?”
    “You just make one play for poor Bo and, so help me, I’ll tell him the truth.”
    Betsy regarded her for a moment, and then she said coolly, “Okay, then. I guess that’s out. I’ll have to think of something else.”
    She went back to her book as calmly as though nothing had happened. Edith, trying to go back to her sewing, found her eyes blurred by tears and her hands shaking so that she dared not continue.
    She was appalled at the revelation Betsy had made — Betsy, her beloved child, on whose kindliness and generosity she had always banked. Here was Betsy callously proposing to get herself engaged to one man simply to convince another man that she was old enough for marriage! Suddenly Edith had the unhappy conviction that this girl who sat across from her was a stranger — and a stranger of whom she was a little frightened. She was secretly glad when, a little later, Betsy yawned and said good night.
    Edith sat on alone, until she heard the door close at the top of the stairs. Then she put her face in her hands and burst into tears.
    She was startled when she heard George’s footsteps and looked up at the clock to see that it was eleven-thirty. George came in, looking pleased and relaxed.

Chapter Nine
    Several days after Betsy’s suggestion that she become engaged to Bo Norris, Edith, Molly Prior and Anne Hutchens were sitting in Edith’s garden. It was a pleasant place, with the shade of the friendly old trees, and with the white-painted garden furniture.
    “How about calling Marcia and having a game?” suggested Molly.
    “Maybe she’s getting too young in her ideas to want to play about with us,” said Anne, her eyes malicious.
    “I’m not so sure I like that,” Molly said frankly.
    “Just what part of my innocent remark upsets you most, darling?” cooed Anne.
    “None of it, pet,” answered Molly. “I meant that I’m not too crazy about our kids gathering at the feet of Marcia Eldon. Bobbie’s been going around mooning lately, and I’ve got my fingers crossed. For a while I was sure he was going to marry Anne Gray, and I was glad. She’s exactly the sort of girl I’d select for a daughter-in-law. But all of a sudden, Bobbie stopped seeing her, and he hangs around Marcia Eldon until I could scream.”
    “I’d say she is pretty potent stuff for unsophisticated kids like yours,” announced Anne. “But the thing that throws me is that Peter Marshall seems to be practically living there these days.”
    “Anne!” Edith cried sharply.
    “What have I said
now?”
asked Anne.
    Molly answered. “Since you’ve become a lady-in-waiting darling, your tongue has grown much too sharp, don’t you think?”
    Anne pulled herself almost erect in the long garden chair, and her blue eyes were wide, her expression much too innocent to be convincing.
    “Don’t be absurd, Molly! All I said was that Peter is at Marcia Eldon’s from dawn until midnight. It’s quite true, and I don’t see why anybody should get excited about it! After all, Peter’s free and twenty-one; and Marcia is free — supposedly — and more than twenty-one. So what if they do see a lot of each other?”
    Molly eyed her sternly. “What do you mean — Marcia’s
supposedly
free?” she demanded.
    Anne shrugged. “Oh, all I know is that we were playing bridge at Stacy Allen’s house last week — Marcia and I were partners. And while Jennie Stewart was dealing, she asked, with that poison sweetness of hers, ‘Will Mr. Eldon be joining you here this summer, Mrs. Eldon?’ Of course there was a silence in which you could have heard a pin-feather drop. But Marcia only smiled and