The Wishing Moon

by Louise Elizabeth Dutton

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The two cousins, Mr. Brady shocked into sudden silence, stood withColonel Everard's unconscious body behind them, unregarded, like anyother bulky and motionless shape in the dim room, and stared at the girlwho had come from the locked library.

  "Not you," Neil's voice said dully. "Not here."

  But the girl was Judith.

  Bare-headed, slender in soft-falling white, she stood in the librarydoor with both hands behind her, clasping her big, limp hat by itsflaring brim. Her lightly poised, blond head was fluffy with small,escaping curls, her clear-coloured cheeks were warmly flushed, andbetween her red, slightly parted lips her breath came too quickly, butsoftly, still. A sheer, torn ruffle trailed from her skirt. Onerose-coloured bow hung from her girdle awry and crushed, and looked thesofter for that, like a crumpled flower.

  About her dress and her whole small self there was a drooping andcrumpled look. It was the look of a child that has played too hard.Surely the most incongruous and pathetic little figure that had everappeared from a room where a distressed or designing lady was suspectedof hiding, she stood and returned Neil's look, but there was blank panicin her eyes.

  They turned from Neil to Mr. Brady, wild eyed and pale beside him, tothe disordered room, and back to Neil again, with no change ofexpression at all. They were wide and dilated and dark, intent still onsome picture that they held and could not let go. Judith came anuncertain step or two forward into the room, stiffly, as if she werewalking in her sleep, and stood still.

  "Neil, what did you come here for?" she said. "I'm glad you came."

  Her voice was sweet and expressionless, like her eyes, and though shehad called Neil by name, she looked at him as if she had never seen himbefore. One small hand reached out uncertainly, pulled at his sleeve,and then, as he made no move to take it, dropped again, and began tofinger the big hat that she held, and pluck at the flowers on it, buther eyes did not leave his face.

  "Will they stand for this?" Mr. Brady was demanding incoherently behindthem, "as young as this? Will the town stand it? No. And they won'tblame me now. They can't. It was coming to you--you----"

  He was in the grip of his own troubles again, and breaking into littlemutterings of hysterical speech, which he now addressed directly toColonel Everard, standing over him and not seeming to feel the need ofan answer. It was an uncanny proceeding. The girl and boy did not watchit. They were seeing only each other.

  "Judith," Neil began stumblingly, "what were you doing there? What'sfrightened you so? What you heard out here? That's all that frightenedyou, isn't it? Isn't it? But what made you come here alone like this?Didn't you know---- Oh, Judith----"

  He stopped and looked down at her, saying nothing, but his eyes weretroubled and dark with questions that he did not dare to ask. There wasno answer to them in Judith's eyes, only blank fear. As Neil looked, thefear in Judith's eyes was reflected in his, creeping into them andtaking possession there.

  "Oh, Judith," he whispered miserably. "Oh, Judith."

  Judith seemed to have heard what he said to her from far away, and to beonly faintly puzzled by it, not interested or touched. Her eyes kepttheir secrets under his questioning eyes. They defied him. She was notlike his little lost sweet-heart found again, but a stranger and anenemy, one of the people he hated, people who intrigued and lied, butwere out of his reach and above him, and were all his enemies.

  The boy's world was upsetting. Nothing that had happened to him in thatroom or ever had happened to him before had shaken it like that minuteof doubt that he lived through in silence, with the strain of it showingin his pale face, and Charlie's voice echoing half heard in his ears. Hedrew back from Judith slightly as they stood. He was trembling. Judith'sface was a blur of white before his eyes, then he could not see it--andthen, as suddenly as it had come, his black minute was over.

  "Take me away. I don't want to stay where he is any more. Is he dead?"Judith said, and she slipped her hand into Neil's.

  Judith's voice was as lifeless and strange as before, and the hand inhis was cold, but it was Judith's own little clinging hand, and theboy's hand closed on it tight. He stood still, feeling it in his, andholding it as if the poor little cold hand could give him back all hisstrength again. He looked round him at the dim room and its motionlessowner and Charlie as if he were seeing them clearly for the first time.He was not angry with Charlie any longer. He was not angry at all. Hedrew a deep, sobbing breath of relief, dropped his dark head suddenlyand awkwardly toward Judith's unresponsive hand and kissed it, and thenvery gently let it go.

  "Judith, you're you," he said, "just you, no matter what happens, andnothing else matters; nothing in the world, as long as you are you."

  Judith only smiled her faint half smile at him, as if she guessed thatsome crisis had come and passed, but did not greatly care.

  "Take me away," she repeated patiently. "I thought there'd be otherpeople here. He said so. But I've come here alone before, only he wasdifferent to-day. He was different."

  "Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I won't ever ask you again. Inever ought to have asked you. It's all right, dear. It's all right."

  "I didn't know people were like that--anybody, ever. I just didn'tknow----"

  "Don't, dear," said Neil sharply. The small, bewildered voice that heldmore wonder and pain than her words broke off, but her bewildered eyesstill wondered and grieved. Neil's arms went out to her suddenly anddrew her close, holding her gently, and hiding her small, pathetic faceagainst his shoulder.

  "Don't," he whispered. "I'll take care of you. I'm going to take care ofyou. Nobody's going to hurt you any more."

  "Neil, I just didn't know. I didn't know."

  "It's all right. I'm going to take you away. Just wait, dear. I'm goingto take care of you."

  He spoke to her softly, saying the same thing over and over, as if hewere quieting a frightened child. She was quiet in his arms like afrightened and tired child in any arms held out to it. One arm hadslipped round his neck and clung to him. She drew long choking breathsas if she were too tired to cry. Gradually they stopped, but the armround his neck only clung tighter.

  "Don't leave me," she whispered.

  "No, I'm not going to. I'm going to take care of you. You know that,don't you, Judith?"

  "Yes. Neil?"

  "Yes, dear."

  "Neil." Still in his arms, because she felt safe and protected there,Judith lifted her head and looked at him, and into her sweet, dazedeyes, full of a terror that she could not understand, came a faint flashof anger. This boy who held her so safe and comforted was her enemy,too. Long before the ugly accident of what had happened behind thelibrary doors he had been her enemy, and he was her enemy now, thoughshe needed his protection and took it. Their quarrel was not over."Neil, I don't forgive you. I'm never going to forgive you."

  "All right, dear."

  "And I hate you. You know that, don't you? I hate you."

  "Yes, dear, I know it. We aren't going to talk about that now. Let mego."

  Both arms were round him now. Judith let him draw them gently apart anddown, and drew back from him. The anger was gone from her eyes. Shewatched him wide eyed and still, as children watch the incomprehensibleactivities of grownups, or devoted but jealous dogs watch them.

  "Don't leave me," she said. "You're sweet to me." Then she gave a sharp,startled little cry.

  "Neil," she begged, "don't touch him. I don't want you to touch him.What are you going to do?"

  The light had not had time to dim or shift perceptibly in ColonelEverard's big room while so much was settling itself for Neil andJudith. The Colonel still lay with the pale shaft of afternoon light onhis unconscious face. Now the boy was kneeling beside him. He slipped astrong, careful arm under his shoulders, and bent over him, touching himwith quick, sure hands. He ignored Mr. Brady, who stood crying outincoherent protests beside him, and finally put a shaking hand on hisshoulder.

  Neil shook it off, and rose and stood facing his cousin.
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  "I thought so," he said, with a short laugh. "You had me going at first,Charlie, when I came in here and saw what a pretty picture you made. Ibelieved you. I thought you had killed him. I might have known thingslike that don't happen in Green River."

  Neil put both hands on his cousin's shoulders and looked at him. Mr.Brady was not an attractive sight at that moment. The excitement thathad held and swayed him was leaving him now, and he looked shaken andweak. An unhealthy colour purpled his cheeks, and his sullen eyes glaredvindictively, but could not meet Neil's eyes.

  "Don't laugh at me," he muttered. "Don't you dare to laugh at me."

  "Going to beat me up, too?" his cousin inquired. "Poor old Charlie!Let's hope your friend there will laugh at you when he talks this overwith you. He'll come out of this all right, but he'll be in a bettertemper if he has a doctor here. I'll 'phone for one."

  "What do you mean? I've killed him. I'm glad I killed him."

  His cousin laughed again. "Killed him? The man's no more dead than youare. You've knocked him out, that's all. But you didn't kill him. Isthat the 'phone over there?"

  A desk telephone on a big Louis Quinze table at one end of the room, theinstrument masked by the frilly skirts of a French mannequin, perhapsthe only lady who had ever been permitted to be insipid in that room andto stay there long, answered Neil's question by ringing faintly, onceand again. Neil started toward it, but did not reach it. Mr. Brady hadflung himself suddenly upon him in a last burst of feverish strength,which he dissipated recklessly by shrieking out incoherent things, andstriking misdirected blows.

  Neil parried them easily, caught his thin arms and held them at hissides. Keeping them so, he forced him against the edge of the flimsytable and held him there and looked at him.

  "You shan't answer that 'phone," Mr. Brady cried, in a last futile burstof defiance. "You shan't stop me. You shan't interfere. I'll kill him, Itell you, and you shan't answer that 'phone. You shan't----"

  Mr. Brady's voice died away, and he was silent under his cousin's eyes.

  "Through?" said Neil presently.

  "Yes," he muttered.

  "Do you mean it?"

  Mr. Brady nodded sullenly.

  "You've made a fool of yourself?"

  Mr. Brady nodded again.

  "Neil," he got out presently, "I can make it up to you. I haven't beensquare with you, but I can. I will. You don't know----"

  "You've done talking enough. Will you go now?"

  "Yes."

  "You'll quiet down and go to mother's and stay there till I come?"

  "Yes."

  Neil let him go.

  "Maybe I'll finish up your friend for you myself, Charlie, after youleave here," he offered. "I've thought of it often enough. Now I comehere and fight for him instead of fighting against him. I fight withyou. Poor old Charlie. Murder and sudden death! I tell you, things likethat don't happen in Green River."

  Neil stopped talking suddenly. The telephone at his elbow had rungagain, this time with a sharp, sudden peal, peremptory as an impatientvoice speaking. Neil caught it up, jerked off the simpering lady by heraudacious hat, and answered.

  At once, strangely intimate and near in that room where the three hadbeen shut in for the last half hour alone and away from the rest of theworld while it went on as usual or faster, a man's voice spoke to him.It was almost unrecognizable, so excited and hoarse, but it was LutherWard's.

  "Hello," Neil said. "Hello. Yes, this is Everards'. No, he can't come tothe 'phone. He--what? What's that?"

  Neil stopped and listened breathlessly. Mr. Brady, slinking head downfrom the room, turned curiously to stare at him, and Judith, slippingacross the room like a little white ghost, drew close to him and feltfor his hand. Neil took her hand, this time with no response of heart ornerves. He had put down the telephone, replacing the receivermechanically, but Luther Ward's voice still echoed in his ears.

  It had spoken to an uncanny accompaniment of half-heard voices, rattlingunintelligibly in the room where Ward was, the prosaic, tobacco-scentedroom that Neil knew so well.

  "Tell Everard to come," Ward's voice had said. "He's to come down here,to Saxon's office. I'm there now. Theodore Burr has shot himself. Yes,shot himself. He won't live through the night. Who's this talking to me?Neil Donovan, it's you. What are you doing at Everard's? Never mind.Come down here yourself. Come straight down. Theodore's conscious, andtalking, and he's been asking for you."