Romance Classics (109 page)

“Of course,” said Job with false heartiness. “Any time at all. We’ll find you a date and make it a foursome. Ready, Cherry?”

“I’ll just run up and say good night to Loyce,” Cherry suggested.

“Hutch won’t be here?” asked Job.

“He’s working on that murder case and is pretty well tied up,” Cherry said over her shoulder as she went running lightly up the stairs.

The door to Loyce’s room stood open, and it was dark save for panels of cool moonlight that spilled through the windows. Cherry switched on the light, saw the room was empty and stood for a moment looking about her. Loyce had gone for a walk in the moonlight. After a moment she put out the lights and went back down to the others.

“See you soon, Gran’sir,” she told him as she dropped a light kiss on his cheek, smiled at Jonathan and accepted the coat Job dropped about her shoulders.

The Judge watched them as they went out of the house.

“Fine boy, Job,” commented the Judge. “He and Cherry have known each other since they were children. I liked Weldon Hammett, but I couldn’t help wishing he and Loyce had known each other a little longer. Love should have time to mature and ripen, I feel; but that’s probably an old-fogey notion that is no longer valid.”

“I can’t feel that it is, sir,” Jonathan told him earnestly. “Most of the divorce cases our firm handles seem to bear out your theory.”

The Judge studied him for a moment, then sighed and dropped his hands to the chair in which he sat.

“I’m supposed to keep early hours, Jonathan, so I hope you will excuse me if I say good night.” He turned the chair with a deft, expert twist and motioned away Jonathan’s offer of assistance. “Thanks, no. I can manage. You’ll find books in the library. Make yourself at home with the law books. I’ve been fifty years assembling them, and it’s supposed to be a very adequate collection.”

“I’m sure it’s far more than that, sir,” Jonathan answered as he walked beside the chair to the door beyond the stairs that opened into the Judge’s own quarters.

As they reached the door it swung open to reveal Eben, tall and lean and whipcord strong, waiting to assist the Judge to bed.

“I’ll see you in the morning, my boy.” The Judge wheeled his chair inside the room, and the door closed.

The Judge and Cherry were already at breakfast when Jonathan came down the stairs, and they greeted him with pleasant cordiality. Eben, gaunt-looking and wearing an immaculate white coat that seemed oddly out of keeping with his rugged appearance, brought Jonathan a glass of frosted apple juice, and Cherry poured his coffee.

“Eggs and toast and ham be all right for you, Mist’ Gayle?” asked Eben.

“Sounds perfect, thanks,” Jonathan assured him, and Eben nodded and went back to the kitchen.

“Isn’t this a perfectly frabjous day?” Cherry asked gaily, and waved towards the flood of sunlight that was spilling through the windows. “A few days of this and we’ll be caught with spring on our hands. It’s already spring down in the valley, but it takes a little longer for it to get up here. A perfect day for your first fishing expedition, Jonathan.”

Jonathan tasted the fruit juice and looked pleasantly startled.

“Apple juice!” he marveled.

“Don’t you like it? You can have orange juice if you prefer,” Cherry told him.

“Goodness, no, this is perfect,” Jonathan assured her, and drank deeply.

“We make it ourselves from our own apples,” Cherry boasted.

“Do you want a guide, Jonathan?” asked the Judge.

“A guide?” Jonathan repeated.

“For your first day of fishing,” the Judge explained.

“Oh, you don’t think I’d better go and get packed?” asked Jonathan.

Cherry and the Judge exchanged swift, puzzled glances.

“You’ve changed your mind about staying?” Cherry asked him.

“I had the feeling that maybe your sister would prefer to have me go,” Jonathan admitted frankly.

Cherry’s brow cleared and she smiled at him.

“Oh, you mean because you knew Weldon?”

“I didn’t really know him. I remember meeting him only once, and I am surprised I even remembered his name,” Jonathan answered. “But the mention of his name seemed to upset your sister, and I thought maybe my being here might be unpleasant for her.”

Cherry shook her head soberly. “It won’t. You’ll see very little of her, anyway. She has dinner with the family and the guests. The rest of her meals she has alone. She is up and out of the house at the crack of dawn and as often as not either takes lunch with her or stops for the mid-day meal with some of the people who work on the place. They all like her and are glad to see her stop by.”

“She’s a very fine girl, Jonathan, and I could wish that she was a bit more outgoing in her attitude toward our guests,” said the Judge quietly. “She was until Hammett’s death. Since then we have made no effort to interfere with the way she wants to live. I can’t help feeling that — ” He broke off and heaved a deep sigh and smiled faintly. “But after all, I’m an old man and it’s been a long, long time since I knew the storm and fury of being madly in love, so I have no right even to think of interfering.”

“She would hate our sitting here discussing her like this,” said Cherry firmly. “She would consider it an unwarranted invasion of her privacy. So let’s talk about somethng else, shall we? And you are free to stay, Jonathan, until you get bored. Aside from fishing, there isn’t really much entertainment up here.”

“I wouldn’t ask any better entertainment than to be allowed to listen to the Judge when he has time to talk to me,” said Jonathan with a humility that made Cherry’s eyes widen slightly. “But of course I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself. You must tell me to get out, Judge, when I start being a pest.”

The Judge’s faded blue-gray eyes twinkled.

“It’s a deal, my boy,” he said lightly.

“Thanks, sir,” Jonathan told him gratefully.

Eben had brought Jonathan’s breakfast. Cherry poured him more coffee, and they were pleasantly relaxed and informal. After breakfast Jonathan said, “I’ll go for a walk. That’s more breakfast than I’m accustomed to, and some exercise is really indicated.”

Cherry laughed as she began clearing the table. “Just don’t get lost, will you, or fall off a cliff or into a cave? There’s a lot of them around, between here and the creek.”

“I’ll be very careful.” Jonathan chuckled. “Least a dumb city man can do is watch his step and not put mountain folks to a lot of trouble getting him out of jams.”

“That’s a kindly thought.” Cherry laughed and started toward the kitchen with a tray laden with breakfast things, as Jonathan let himself out of the house.

He went around the Lodge and followed a well-worn path toward the out-buildings. The path skirted the out-buildings, and because it wound so steeply down the side of the mountain Jonathan knew that it would lead to the creek, whose brawling sound he could hear as he approached.

He came out on a ledge above the creek and looked down at it. His eyes glistened at the sight. A perfect trout stream.

He was so absorbed in studying the scene before him that he did not hear the breaking twigs that told him someone was climbing the path beyond him until Loyce stood a few feet away from him.

“Good morning, Mr. Gayle,” she said quietly, and Jonathan turned, startled.

“Oh, good morning, Miss Bramblett,” he greeted her awkwardly. “I didn’t hear you approach.”

Loyce, in well-worn blue jeans, a thin shirt and a faded blue sweater, stout boots on her feet, eyed him for a moment, her hands jammed into the pockets of her sweater.

“You were too busy making up your mind just which of the trout you’d go after?” she mocked him dryly.

“Not exactly,” he told her. “I’m not what you might call a truly dedicated fisherman. There are other things in life that interest me. This morning I was reveling in the quiet and the beauty of the mountains. The world I left three days ago must have been on another planet.”

Loyce nodded, dropped down on a fallen tree trunk and studied him.

“I’m sorry if I was rude last night,” she said quietly.

“You were not. I’m sorry that I blurted out a name that upset you.”

“Did you know him well?”

“I didn’t know him at all. We met once, that’s all, at a cocktail party. It was only his mention of the Lodge and the Judge that stuck in my memory,” Jonathan explained quietly.

Loyce sat very still, her hands sunk in her sweater pockets, her eyes on the tips of her scuffed, well-worn boots that were stretched straight out in front of her.

“I suppose there were a lot of beautiful women in lovely clothes at this party?” she asked at last.

Jonathan made a little gesture.

“Oh, you know how cocktail parties are,” he answered.

“But I don’t,” she said quietly. “That’s the trouble. I don’t know anything at all about what Weldon’s life was like. I’m just sure he knew a great many lovely women who were sophisticated and glamorous and all that. That was what worried me.”

“It shouldn’t have,” Jonathan told her gently.

Her smile was so faint that it was little more than a grimace.

“Oh, yes, it should and it did,” she insisted. “You see, Weldon was ambitious. He wanted to get ahead as a diplomat. And for a man who wants such a career, a wife is very important; a knowledgeable wife who knows all about important dinner parties and protocol and who sits next to whom at what party, and how to dress and look smart and, most of all, how to talk entertainingly.”

“But those are all things you could have learned,” Jonathan pointed out.

Loyce nodded, her eyes now on the creek below them.

“Oh, yes, I could have learned. I would have learned all of them, if only I’d been given time.” Her voice shook on the last words and she turned her face away as it was convulsed by a threat of tears.

She stood up with swift, fluid grace and, still without looking at Jonathan, bade him a husky goodbye and went swiftly back up the path toward the house.

Jonathan and the Judge had a very interesting afternoon, and at dinner, when Loyce and Cherry appeared at the table, the Judge looked so flushed and bright-eyed that Cherry eyed him severely.

“Now see here, Gran’sir, you’re not supposed to go getting all excited and wrought up,” she reminded him.

“It’s bad for you, Dr. Williams says.”

“Oh, Dr. Williams!” the Judge snorted disdainfully. “That old fuddy-duddy! He’d like me just to sit and wither on the vine and blow away. Jonathan and I have had a very stimulating afternoon. Did you know that Jonathan plays a very fine game of chess? He’s almost championship caliber.”

Jonathan laughed and made a disarming gesture.

“Oh, come now, sir,” he protested.

“Did you beat him, Gran’sir?” asked Cherry with interest.

“Well, yes,” the Judge said reluctantly.

“And did you deliberately let him?” Cherry demanded of Jonathan.

“Certainly not.”

“Then I guess maybe he
is
pretty good at that, Gran’sir,” Cherry agreed impishly.

Loyce took no part in the conversation. She was wearing a simple dark dress that was vastly becoming to her sun-tanned arms and throat and to the chestnut-brown hair that was swept high on her proudly poised head. Her lipstick was geranium-pink, and she wore only powder on her unrouged face. Cherry, in a beige shirt-waist dress, green buttons marching down the front to match the green ribbon that held her red-gold hair back from her face, looked gay and blithe and carefree. Yet it was Loyce at whom Jonathan looked most often. However, she seemed entirely unaware of his attention. The moment dinner was over she excused herself and vanished upstairs.

Cherry and Jonathan walked out on the verandah after dinner, and Jonathan told her of his meeting with Loyce that morning.

“I welcomed the chance to tell her how sorry I was that I upset her by mentioning Hammett’s name,” he said.

Cherry nodded but did not answer.

“She’s so lovely that it’s a shame she is so unhappy,” said Jonathan softly.

Cherry looked up at him in the moonlight as though startled.

“You really think Loyce is pretty?” she asked eagerly.

Jonathan scowled in puzzlement. “No, not pretty; I think she’s lovely. Don’t you?”

“Of course I do; I’ve always thought so. But she doesn’t,” Cherry answered, and added impulsively, “Will you tell her
you
think so?”

Still more puzzled, Jonathan looked down at her.

“You think she would allow me to?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, of course she would,” Cherry said. “I think it would be a wonderful boost for her morale, because she doesn’t think she is even good-looking. I think that’s the reason she fell so hard for Hammett; he ignored me and made a terrific fuss over her.”

She looked up at Jonathan with an expression of guilt that he could sense though he could not see it in the cool white moonlight.

“That slipped out,” she confessed humbly. “It’s something I’ve never told anybody. I’ve felt for a long time that Loyce sort of resents me. Oh, I know that sounds silly, but now that I’ve started, please let me finish. When we were just babies, people fussed over me and ignored her. I think it was because I was the baby, four years younger than Loyce. I had long red curls; Loyce had chestnut-colored hair that didn’t curl. Oh, it all sounds so silly! I couldn’t even believe it until we came here to the Lodge. I didn’t accept it as the truth after Weldon came. From the very first he made a play for Loyce; and I watched her flower. Now and then she showed signs of being jealous of me; but so far as Weldon was concerned, I didn’t even exist. And I rejoiced with all my heart. Everything was wonderful — until three days before the date set for the wedding. And then the world just sort of fell apart for her.”

There were tears in her eyes, but she seemed completely unaware of them. She was looking out over the moon-drenched scene before them and she seemed almost to have forgotten that Jonathan was there.

“Since then there’s been nobody but Hutchens Mayfield, who has been in love with her since they were in grade school. So of course a compliment from Hutch wouldn’t mean anything to her,” Cherry went on after a moment. “But if a good-looking stranger, sophisticated, a big city fellow like you, told her she’d believe it.”