Romance Classics (51 page)

“Sorry. No one meant to bother you, I’m sure.”

“Then why don’t they let me alone? My father and I haven’t asked a darned thing of them — except for them to keep their long, snoopy noses to themselves.” She struggled again with tears.

“None of us realized — ”

“Now, don’t
you
go all high and mighty on me,” Carey snapped childishly. “Because you know very well I didn’t mean you — nor Mrs. Hogan, either. She’s a lamb and I love her.”

“And what am I? And how do you feel about me?” Joel said unexpectedly.

“That you’re a tower of strength and a rock in a raging sea. If ever I lost my grip on you, I’d be completely sunk,” Carey told him impulsively. “I can’t ever repay you for what you’ve done for — for us — ”

“Can’t you? I think we both know you can make me so happy that I’ll be delirious — ”

Startled, Carey saw the look in his eyes, the look that was as though tiny flames leaped there. She felt herself drawn toward him, but he made no move to touch her. She was frightened and uneasy. “Don’t — don’t talk nonsense. You’ve been more than just a family physician. You’ve been our best friend.”

There was a slight emphasis on that last word and Joel said, “Oh, yes, of course — a friend. Well, let it go at that. And Mrs. Hogan sent you word that she would be here for your Christmas party.”

“Oh — is that possible?” Carey cried joyously.

“No — but then Ellen Hogan was always one to do the impossible,” said Joel. “I’ll have a look-see at your father if he’s awake.”

He went out of the kitchen and Carey stood for a moment quite still beside the stove where a glowing fire burned cheerily. She had hurt Joel. He had seen her uneasiness and discomfort when he had, for a moment, lowered his guard. She didn’t want to believe that he was in love with her. The thought distressed her, because she owed him so much; she was intensely grateful to him; but — she didn’t love him. She couldn’t love anybody. There wasn’t room in her jumbled, harassed thoughts for love. When she thought of love, she thought of Ronnie. And hated herself for the weakness of tears stinging her eyelids, the lump in her throat that the memory of Ronnie always brought.

When she heard Joel’s footsteps along the hall she was busy preparing her father’s supper tray. She looked up at Joel suddenly, her face touched with a soft rose color as she said impulsively, “Please stay and have supper with me. That is — if you’re sure you haven’t any patients who will be walking the floor and tearing out handfuls of hair because you’re late getting back to your office.”

“May I stay? I’m lonely as the devil — ”

“So am I. It may not be much of a meal. The meals I cook these days are always a surprise to me. But maybe you won’t mind being surprised — sometimes they are so good I’m surprised; and sometimes they are so bad I am surprised that food can be so unattractive. But I’m always surprised one way or another.”

Joel laughed appreciatively and Carey was a little startled to discover how pleasant it was having him there. She had been lonely. That was the reason she liked sharing the big, clean kitchen with him and why the meal that the two of them evolved tasted so good, she went on telling herself hours later when he had gone and she was in bed. But she wasn’t in love with him — that was ridiculous! She, Carey Winslow, in love with a country doctor whom she scarcely knew! But just the same she fell asleep and dreamed of him.

CHRISTMAS EVE was a glorious day. Not at all the sort of Christmas to which Carey was accustomed. Usually Christmas for her meant snow and parties and winter sports, which she adored. But Christmas in Midvale was a mild, pleasant day with a blue sky overhead, sunshine so thick and bright that it might have been spread on with a brush. It was still wet and muddy underfoot, but the sunshine seemed to creep into one’s very bones and chase away the dispiriting dampness that Carey had hated so much when they first arrived.

Today for the first time Silas was allowed to get up and dress himself and to sit in the warm kitchen while Carey went briskly about her tasks, beneath her father’s surprised eyes.

“Carey, my angel,” he burst out suddenly, “may a fond and indulgent father ask what the blazes you think you’re doing?”

Carey turned to him a flushed face that had a smudge of flour across one cheek and her eyes were shining. “I don’t expect you to believe it, Pops,” she informed him airily, “but I’m just making a couple of mincemeat pies! Maybe they won’t be fit to eat — but I always say, what’s Christmas without a mincepie or two? What do you always say?”

“I always say my daughter’s a thoroughbred,” Silas said promptly. “And if she says she’s baking mincemeat pies — then she’s
baking
mincemeat pies, and I’m just the guy that can eat ‘em.”

While her father was resting that afternoon, having the nap that Joel insisted he must have every day for a while yet, Joel came and took her out into the country in quest of a Christmas tree.

“On account of it really isn’t Christmas without a tree,” he assured her gravely.

They found it. A very small tree, because she didn’t dare spend a lot on decorations. On their way back home, they stopped in Midvale and Carey fought her way through the press of people gathered about the counter covered with Christmas tree ornaments in the general store. She and Joel reached home just at dusk and Joel carried the tree into the warm, darkened living room while Carey went busily about the task of preparing supper. Joel was going to stay and help her decorate the tree.

The three of them were having supper in the kitchen when they heard the sound of a car in the drive and a little later there was a knock at the front door. That door used so seldom here that for a moment Carey stared at her father and Joel before she realized what that knock meant.

She carried a lighted lamp with her along the dark, cold hall and put it down on a table before she unbolted the front door and pushed it open. Then she caught her breath and stared. Margaret Hendrix stood on the steps, smiling at her, calm and sure of her welcome.

“Margaret!” Carey gasped, quite sure she was seeing things that weren’t real.

“Hello, Carey — how are you? Heavens, what a barn of a place. I had the dickens of a time finding you — driver, just stow that luggage here in the hall. Here I am.”

Carey stood aside while the taxi-driver brought in stacks of baggage, oddly wrapped parcels and packages, and laid them down as Margaret directed. Margaret paid him, tipping him ostentatiously before she dismissed him.

“And now where’s your father?” demanded Margaret, stepping into the hall, eager for a sight of the man she loved. “And how is he?”

“Do I hear a strangely familiar voice out of the past?” demanded Silas from the doorway of the lighted kitchen. “Margaret! My dear, it just can’t be! Where in the world — why I was never so glad to see anybody.”

For a moment Carey thought her father was going to kiss Margaret, but he didn’t. He drew her into the warm kitchen and Carey stood still for a moment, her teeth set hard, fighting for composure before she realized that Joel stood before her, looking down at her gravely.

“You’re not happy about the lady’s arrival. Who is she?” he asked gently.

“My father’s secretary. She’s been in love with him for seventeen years, and he seems quite happy about her arrival.”

Joel looked at the heap of luggage and said sharply, “Good grief, what’s that? Miss Santa Claus, eh?”

“Undoubtedly,” Carey agreed, and her heart sank a little even though she told herself she was being silly and childish. But she had worked hard on her own and her father’s Christmas, devising little dainties, small gifts, and the carefully planned and painstakingly produced Christmas feast. Only to have her modest plans knocked skyhigh by Margaret’s arrival.

When Joel and Carey reached the kitchen, Margaret was chattering away, refusing food, saying airily that she had dined on the train and, Carey told herself inwardly, looking down her nose at the kitchen table with its cheap crockery and its red and white checked tablecloth.

“Wait until you see what I’ve brought,” babbled Margaret. “I went into the shops in town before I left and simply let myself go. I’ve got the biggest turkey you ever saw, and we’ll begin cooking him first thing in the morning, Carey. I’m a good cook, if I do have to say it myself. We’ll have mincemeat pies and pumpkin — oh, it’ll be quite a feast, I assure you. And wait until you see the swarms of gadgets I got to decorate the tree. We’ll set it up after you’ve finished supper, Carey, and then you can decorate it in the morning while I’m cooking.”

“Carey’s quite a cook herself,” Silas said loyally.

Margaret’s eyebrows went up in a surprise so deep as to be not at all flattering. “Carey is?” she demanded in frank disbelief. “How come, Carey? Don’t they have any hired cooks in this neck of the woods at all?”

Carey forced herself to answer pleasantly. “I wouldn’t know. But it’s rained ever since we got here and I had to do something to kill time,” she added coolly.

Margaret studied her curiously as she said lightly, “And of course, they
do
make the most amazing can-openers and things nowadays, don’t they?”

Later, when Joel took himself off, Carey went with him to the backdoor and closed it behind her, standing on the veranda in the cool white moonlight.

“Want me to go back and take a sock at her? It would be no trouble at all — matter of fact, I’d enjoy it,” said Joel.

Carey shrugged. “Just forget it. She didn’t mean to be unpleasant — at least, I don’t think she did.”

“Which, of course, is an outrageous understatement. The lady has her claws out for you for some reason I wouldn’t know about,” said Joel. “And if you say the word, I’ll smack her down.”

Carey felt a little warm tingle about her heart. It was good to know he was on her side. “Never mind — I’ll smack her myself. Aren’t you staying for the party, by the way?”

“Oh, I have to go away and come back again so that you can look properly surprised,” Joel assured her. “If the neighbors arrive and find me here they’ll suspect that you aren’t really surprised, and that would spoil their fun.”

When Carey went back into the warm kitchen Margaret and her father still sat at the cluttered table, talking, and Carey’s heart was touched by the eager aliveness of her father’s face. Poor Pops, she told herself as she began to clear the table. He had been as lonely here as she. She promised herself sternly to learn to like Margaret if it killed her.

Not much later, laughter sounded in the drive.

“Now, what on earth would that be — at eight o’clock in the evening?” Silas wondered.

Carey wiped her hands on a towel and said lightly, “Unless I’ve been misinformed, we are about to have a party dropped smack into our laps. But we’re all supposed to be surprised right to our back teeth.”

“A surprise party? Good Heavens, how quaint!” gasped Margaret.

Carey didn’t bother to answer as she went along the hall and opened the front door. It seemed to her that a veritable wave of people swept in and over and around her, shouting “Merry Christmas! Surprise, surprise!” They were flushed with the cold, their arms filled with bright-colored packages, and the hubbub they made brought Silas and Margaret out into the hall.

It was a gay, friendly party, and Carey’s heart was warm with the knowledge that these people liked her and her father. But once or twice during the evening she caught Margaret’s eyes fixed on her, and in those eyes there was a hint of derision that made Carey set her teeth hard and clench her fists.

Later when the party was over and Silas, with the help of Joel, had been put to bed and comfortably settled for the night and Joel had gone, Carey found Margaret sitting before the open fire, a cigarette between her fingers.

“So that’s the wild hilarity and excitement of nightlife in Midvale!” Margaret commented dryly. “I don’t wonder that you’ve aged ten years, my lamb, and that your hands are like sandpaper! Heavens, child, how
could
you let yourself go like this?”

Carey drew a long, hard breath. She faced Margaret with her chin up, her eyes cold. “I don’t know why you came, Margaret,” she began, but Margaret, flicking her cigarette into the fire, cut in swiftly:

“Then you’re pretty stupid, Carey. I came to see Silas, of course. And the trip was worth everything. I — only live when I’m somewhere around him. That’s why I’ve come to stay.”

“You’ve — come to stay?” Carey stammered, so taken by surprise that she could not control the sharp protest in her voice.

“Exactly,” answered Margaret. “Look here, Carey, we might as well have this out here and now. There isn’t a cent left of your father’s estate. There will be, maybe, six hundred dollars a year from some stocks we thought were worthless. That’s all. I have no job now, but I’ve got an annuity — it pays me eighty dollars a month. I can’t live on that alone; you and your father can’t live here on approximately fifty dollars a month. But if we combine the two incomes, the three of us can get by on one-hundred and thirty dollars — that is, of course, until you marry.”

Carey ignored that and said thickly, “You are capable of earning a good salary, Margaret. Why should you want to bury yourself here?”

“Because Silas is here, of course. And I’d rather starve where Silas is than be fed on plover’s eggs and caviar where he isn’t,” Margaret said swiftly. “See here, Carey, we can make a go of it. He likes me. I amuse him and keep him interested. And I can do my share — more than my share — of the housework and cooking. Then you can get out and around and have some fun. You’ll want to marry — I saw the way Dr. Hunter looked at you — and when you do, your father will be completely alone. Unless you let me stay.”

“It’s — something we can’t decide — all of a sudden like this,” Carey said after a moment. “We’ll have to talk things over with Dad. Meanwhile — we’d better get some sleep, don’t you think?”

“Yes, of course, Carey — and we won’t say anything more about things until after Christmas. Shall we just sort of keep it in mind?”

In bed that night, Carey thought of what a thorn in her side Margaret would be. But Margaret had given up a good deal to be in this barren spot with the man she loved.