He did, of course, on his visits to the Daweses’ home during the days which followed. But seeing Wilma there wasn’t what either of them meant. She was just the maid who worked there, except for serving Don at the table, she ignored him. Gradually, Don made himself forget her promise to see him again. He put her threats about Glory out of his mind and stopped thinking about the possibility of Wilma repeating the act she’d performed that day beside the pond.
But Wilma didn’t forget. For reasons of her own, reasons having to do with her vague plans to serve her father’s interests, she was determined to pursue the relationship with Don. She went about this indirectly -- by setting out to become friends with Glory.
This wasn’t hard. For all her wealth and cultured background, Glory wasn’t a snob. During her childhood, with her mother, she’d been held back from fraternizing with servants. But now, left to her own devices, she saw no reason to act that way. Actually, she welcomed Wilma’s friendship. With Don and her father kept busy all day and the meals and house taken care of by the Henshaws, time hung heavy on her hands. She was bored and lonely. Wilma’s companionship brightened her days considerably.
It began with them exchanging casual chitchat while Wilma cleaned Glory’s room in the mornings. On Wilma’s part, it was calculated girl-talk. A pretense of being the small-town girl who was overawed by her mistress’s travels and expensive clothes. Glory thought her sweet and innocent.
After a while, Glory was following Wilma from room to room as she cleaned, in order to carry on their conversation. When Wilma left at one o’clock for the four hours off she got every afternoon, Glory began to feel lost. She didn’t know what to do with herself and she couldn’t wait for Wilma to return so that they might chat some more while Wilma set the dining-room table for dinner.
The Henshaws watched the growing friendship with forebodings. But they neither said anything, nor did anything about it. They were too afraid of Wilma to chance interfering with any plans she might have had concerning Glory.
“It’s not our business,” Johanna told Harvey. “If we just stay out of her way, maybe she’ll leave us alone. If we don’t interfere and do like she wants, maybe she’ll give us back that picture she took.”
“But s’pose Mr. Dawes finds out about her?” Harvey worried. “S’pose he finds out she’s really Ben Malden’s daughter?”
“No reason he should. He never even asked her last name. An’ if he had, I s’pect she’da give him a false one.”
“But s’pose someone in town finds out she’s workin’ here an’ tells 'him? He’s liable to fire us. What’ll we do then?”
“We’ll jus’ have to face that when it happens. Maybe it won’t never.” Johanna sighed. “Meantime, what she does ain’t none of our affair.”
While they were discussing her, Wilma was in the upstairs part of the house, making the beds and talking with Glory. Actually, she was doing more listening than talking. Glory was pouring out all the loneliness and boredom which marked her days since coming to Glenville.
“If I didn’t have you to talk to, Wilma, I swear I think I’d flip my lid,” she was saying. “With Daddy and Don so busy all the time, I just don’t know what to do with myself. When you go away in the afternoons and I’m left all alone, the hours drag by like days.”
“Why don’t you come with me?” Wilma said warmly.
“Oh, I don’t want to intrude. I know you have your own life. But thanks awfully for asking me.”
“I didn’t ask to be polite. Really, why don’t you come along.”
“Where do you go?”
“Oh, no place special. Sometimes to a movie. Sometimes to town to window-shop. Sometimes down to the pond for a swim. I guess, with the weather getting warm, the pond’s the place I go most.” Wilma was lying. In reality, she spent her afternoons at the farm visiting with her father.
“But don’t you go with friends?” Glory asked. “Don’t you spend your spare time with the other people your age?”
“Mostly not. They’re usually all working in the afternoon. To tell the truth, I’ve got about the only job in town with afternoons off. So mostly I go alone. And always when I go swimming.”
“Why always alone then?”
Wilma giggled and didn’t answer.
“Come on, Wilma, why?”
“Oh, you know.” Wilma even managed a blush.
“No, I don’t. Tell me.”
“Well, ’cause I like to swim in the raw.” Wilma looked down at the floor. “I suppose you think that’s just awful,” she added.
“Not at all. It sounds like fun. But aren’t you afraid someone will see you?”
“No. Where I go, nobody else ever comes. At least, not during the week,” Wilma explained.
“It sounds lovely.”
“Well, would you like to come with me then?”
“Yes, I would. Very much. When? Today?”
“No. Not today.” Behind her girlish smile Wilma’s mind was racing. “I have some chores I have to attend to today. Let’s make it tomorrow. All right?”
“Tomorrow it is then,” Glory agreed.
“Tomorrow” dawned bright and clear. By afternoon there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Glory found herself waiting impatiently for Wilma to get through with the housework so they could leave for their swim. At one o’clock promptly the two girls left the house.
Twenty minutes later they were at the pond. To Glory it looked like a bright jewel nestling deep in the woods, surrounded by thick shrubbery which would surely conceal them from prying eyes. “Oh, this is lovely,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands like a little girl.
“Isn’t it?” Wilma agreed. “This is my own special, private place. You’re the first one I’ve ever brought here.” Speaking the words, Wilma smiled to herself, remembering the interlude with Don which had taken place, practically on the very spot they were standing. She reached down for the bottom of the simple dress she was wearing and pulled it over her head.
“Why, you’re not wearing any underwear,” Glory observed, surprised.
“I never do when I’m coming here. Sometimes even when I’m not going swimming. Do you always wear undies?”
“Sometimes I go without a bra,” Glory admitted. “But I always wear panties,” she added primly.
Not always, Wilma thought, remembering Glory’s bare buttocks that night in the parlor that she’d spied on her and Don. Aloud she said, “Come on. Get out of your clothes and we’ll take a dip.”
Glory took off the blouse and slacks she was wearing. She hung her lingerie beside it on a tree branch and turned to Wilma.
“You sure do have a beautiful body,” Wilma said with honest admiration.
Glory blushed. “Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say.
Wilma was staring at her bust. “What do you wear, a thirty-six bra?” she asked.
“Thirty-eight.”
“C-cup?”
“Yes. Wilma, stop looking at me that way. You’re embarrassing me.” Glory wondered at the sudden hot flush which swept over her at Wilma’s scrutiny. “Come on, let’s go in the water.”
She dived into the pond and Wilma followed. They both came up sputtering. “It’s so cold!” Glory exclaimed.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Yes. I already am. Oh, it feels delicious.”
They frolicked in the water for about twenty minutes and then came out and dried themselves with the towels they’d brought. Wilma stretched out in a pool of sunlight and motioned for Glory to lie down beside her.
“I have to be careful. I haven’t gotten much sun yet this year,” Glory told her. “I have a tendency to burn instead of tan.”
“I brought some suntan lotion. Stretch out and I’ll put it on you.”
“Oh, good.” Glory lay down on her stomach.
Wilma got on her knees and began applying the lotion to Glory’s back. She kneaded it into the flesh, smiling to herself at Glory’s purr of contentment. She worked her way down Glory’s back and then began massaging the oil into the younger girl’s hindquarters.