by Peggy Gaddis
“Oh, my time’s not all that valuable,” Wayde assured her, and for the first time there was a faint hint of a twinkle in his eyes. “And it’s always a pleasure to see you any time at all. Do drop in often, won’t you?”
Lynn set her teeth hard against the note of mockery in his voice as he held the door open for her and followed her into the big drearily cold reception hall.
A door down the hall opened, and a girl came out, called his name petulantly, as though she had every right to be annoyed with him.
“Wayde, we’re all waiting for you!”
Lynn turned, saw the girl, and admitted she was devastatingly beautiful, with a fluff of golden hair framing a charming oval face. Her blue eyes were quite cold as they swept over Lynn, dismissing her with a faint flicker of distaste.
Wayde opened the big, oaken front door, and smiled politely down at Lynn as he spoke over his shoulder to the blonde. “Be right with you, Baby.”
Lynn marched down the steps, head high.
Six
A few days later, when they were all at the supper table, Judge Carter grinned impishly at his wife and daughter and said cheerfully, “Steve and I had a caller today.”
“Well, I should hope so,” Lynn said with mock severity. “How are you going to support Mother and me in idle luxury if you don’t have an occasional caller, at least?”
“Anybody we know?” asked Ruth. And though she smiled, there was a touch of anxiety in her eyes.
“Wayde McCullers,” said the Judge, and chuckled at their surprise.
“Well, what in the world did he want?” asked Ruth, astonished.
“Oh, something about having his land posted against hunting,” said the Judge, and Lynn caught her breath on a small, soundless gasp.
“Oh, I am glad. That will protect Bert’s ‘little people,’” Ruth began, pleased.
“Steve and I advised against it,” said the Judge briskly.
Lynn cried, “Oh, Dad, you didn’t!”
The Judge smiled faintly.
“We pointed out that it would only be a sort of challenge. It would bring in more hunters than there have ever been and I’m afraid poor Bert’s ‘little people’ would be wiped out in no time at all.”
Lynn nodded, downcast.
“That’s what he told me it would do,” she admitted, and looked up. “Yes, I went to see him and asked him to put up the signs.”
“Why, Lynn!” protested Ruth, shocked.
“Anyway,” the Judge hurried on, “we are all invited there to dinner tomorrow night. Stella is included in the invitation, too.”
“And of course you told him we wouldn’t come,” Lynn flashed.
Judge Carter eyed her curiously.
“Why, no, honey, I told him we’d be delighted.”
“He’s got a houseful of guests.”
“They all left yesterday,” the Judge answered.
There was a brief moment of silence, and then Lynn said curiously, “There was a very beautiful blonde girl there.”
“I’m sure there was,” said Ruth. “Wherever Wayde McCullers is, there will always be beautiful blondes — also brunettes, redheads and in-betweens!”
“Now, Ruthie,” protested the Judge, “you’ve never even met the man.”
“And I have no wish to,” Ruth flashed hotly.
“Now, Ruthie, you have no right to judge a man before meeting him, getting to know him.” The Judge’s voice held a faint ring of censure.
“I know all I need to know about him,” Ruth insisted. “Coming down here with a train-load of fancy guests who swoop through town on their way to more exciting amusements—” She subsided as she met the Judge’s eyes. “He never shows the slightest interest in Oakville, and it was here that his great-grandfather laid the foundation for all that wealth he now controls.”
“He’s showing an interest in us, and we’re part of Oakville. Maybe if we show him we can be pleasant, friendly, interested in him—” the Judge began.
“Well, I can’t be pleasant or friendly or show any interest in him,” Lynn burst out rashly. “He’s a spoiled, arrogant, self-centered, egotistical creature who thinks all women should swoon at his feet.”
“Stella rather liked him.” Steve spoke for the first time, his tone quiet, his eyes on Lynn. “I’d no idea you knew him so well, Lynn.”
“I don’t,” Lynn answered sulkily. “I only met him twice — at the Junction and then when I went to see him about Bert.”
“But you seem to despise him thoroughly,” Steve pointed out relentlessly.
“I do,” Lynn defended her position with blazing eyes. “I despise any man as rootless, as useless, as much a clutterer of the earth as he is. And he hasn’t even the decency to be ashamed!”
Steve asked curiously, “You think, with all his money, he should work, make himself useful some way?”
“Don’t you?” demanded Lynn sharply.
Steve grinned ruefully.
“Oh, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know enough to be able to judge,” he brushed the question off. “I’ve never had enough money to do more than pay this month’s bills. But I’m like your father and Stella. I rather liked the guy.”
“Oh, he can be very charming when he wants to be,” Lynn answered.
“Well, he wasn’t trying to charm us,” the Judge protested. “He was merely being courteous and friendly and pleasant. He may have exerted a bit of charm on Stella, of course.”
“That I doubt,” Steve insisted. “Stella’s proof against that sort of thing. Stella is a single-minded woman, with her mind centered on the study of law and the determination to ‘be somebody.’ I doubt if she’d give a second glance to a man like McCullers.”
Lynn stared at him, round-eyed. “Oh, Steve, don’t be a fool!” she protested.
“Lynn!” Ruth was shocked.
“Sorry, Steve. I just meant that if you’re in love with Stella—”
Steve’s eyes widened and his brows went up to the edge of his sandy hair.
“In love with Stella?” he gasped, as though he could hardly believe she had really said it. “In the name of Blackstone, who ever said I was?”
“Well, you always speak of her with so much admiration and respect — I suppose I took it for granted that you planned to set up shop together some day,” Lynn defended the remark. “I only meant if you had any such idea, see that she isn’t exposed to a creature like Wayde McCullers. He could be very bad medicine for a girl like Stella.”
“But of course for a sophisticated city gal like you—” There was a tautness in Steve’s tone that made her frown slightly as she looked at him.
“I don’t claim to be sophisticated, Steve, but I’ve met the likes of him before — men who are convinced of their good looks and charm, and who feel they are doing a girl an inestimable favor just by wearing her on their arm when they go out.”
Judge Carter sighed and made a little gesture of weariness, though there was a twinkle in his eyes.
“Seems to me we’re getting a bit away from the subject at hand, aren’t we?” he suggested mildly. “Weren’t we discussing a dinner invitation to Inspiration Hill tomorrow night?”
“I won’t go,” said Lynn firmly.
Ruth said just as firmly, “Oh, yes you will, my girl.”
For a moment Lynn and her mother eyed each other, and suddenly Lynn laughed and spread her hands in a gesture of defeat.
“So all right, I’ll go,” she yielded, “if that’s the way you want it. But I can warn you now, the place will give you the creeps. Spook Hill people call it, and Spook Hill it most certainly is. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear the clanking of chains, the moaning of a ghost, perhaps even see one! It’s a place that ought to be haunted, if it isn’t!”
“I do hope so,” said Ruth cheerfully. “I’ve always wanted to see a ghost. And I’ve always wanted to see the inside of Spook Hill.”
“Better get used to calling it Inspiration Hill, before you make a slip and let McCullers
discover what the people here call it,” warned the Judge.
“Oh, he knows,” said Lynn, and was slightly abashed at the startled looks of the others. “I made the slip when I first met him at the Junction. He seemed rather pleased and said it was most appropriate.”
“That’s too bad,” said Ruth quietly. “After all, it is his home: the only real home he has, I imagine. Too bad he can’t be fond of it.”
“Wait until you see it,” suggested Lynn grimly. “You’ll see why nobody in the world could ever be fond of such a place, and why he’d probably laugh his head off at the suggestion that it is a home.”
“But surely he could change things, redecorate,” protested Ruth.
Lynn chuckled wryly. “I suggested that,” she admitted.
“Oh, Lynn, you didn’t! How could you be so rude?” Ruth gasped.
“Well, he was apologizing for the gloom, and I said he could redecorate, and he said, ‘Just for the length of my sentence? It would scarcely be worth-while. I am here as little as I can manage.’ Now that’s one of the things I dislike about him: that he looks on three months every year at Oakville as a prison sentence; and to me it’s an enchanted spring!”
The other three at the table exchanged glances, and Ruth said mildly, “You two do seem to have become fairly well acquainted, after just two meetings.”
“Oh, I learned all I want to know about him the first meeting, at the Junction,” Lynn said swiftly.
“And apparently when you went to call on him, you learned a bit more,” suggested the Judge dryly.
“Nothing that made me like him any better,” Lynn flashed stubbornly, and met their eyes, feeling warmth in her cheeks and hating herself because she was blushing.
Seven
Stella Mabry was twenty-eight and saw no reason to attempt to deny it. She had been born in Oakville and had grown up here where everybody knew everybody’s age. Also, she was plain, and that, too, was something she saw no reason to try to deny. From her earliest school days, when other little girls were called pretty and dressed daintily and were popular with the little boys, Stella had accepted the fact that she was plain with the same simplicity with which she had accepted the fact that her family was poor. If she wanted ever to be anybody, she would have to manage that alone. She had worked hard at her studies, had been secretly proud that she had made straight A’s, and had tried to console herself for her lack of popularity by dwelling on the fact that even if her teacher wasn’t fond of her, she was proud of her scholastic standing.
The same standards had carried her through business college. And when she had been given the job in Judge Carter’s office, her admiration for him had instilled in her the determination to study law and some day be a fine “lady lawyer.”
Steve’s arrival had given her still another consuming ambition, which was to marry Steve. She assured herself firmly that she was so right for him! He needed a wife exactly like her: a woman who would help him rise in his profession, who would be selflessly devoted to him, who would keep his house and rear his children, but who could also help him by discussing his work with him.
She had been appalled at the thought of Steve being exposed to Lynn’s beauty and charm. And then she had consoled herself with the thought that Lynn was only there on a visit and would be going away soon. Anyway, she wouldn’t even look at Steve; Lynn would be after much more important marriage prospects than Steve would be able to offer her for years to come.
The invitation to Spook Hill for dinner had set her aflutter. She would be in sharp, cruel contrast to Lynn. She needed a new dress, a new hair-do — she needed, she told herself savagely, a new face!
In spite of the sober assurance that she looked “as nice as could be expected” in her practical navy “good” dress, her heart sank a little as she and Steve stood in the living room of the Carter home and Lynn came toward them, smiling, exquisitely lovely in a simple, unpretentious pale green wool that did very flattering things to her chestnut-gold hair and her brown eyes.
“You look lovely, Stella,” Lynn told her, her smile warm and friendly.
“Thanks,” said Stella curtly. “Of course you would put any other girl in the shade. That’s a stunning dress.”
“This?” Lynn looked down at it disdainfully. “I didn’t think there was any point in getting too dressed up! After all, if Wayde McCullers wants to get acquainted with the peasants, we shouldn’t dress above our station!”
“Now that, my girl,” said the Judge, unexpectedly stern, “was a very rude and ungracious thing to say. I’m surprised at you. You’re going to this man’s house, to break bread with him, and he wants to be friends. Remember that.”
“Yes, Dad,” said Lynn. “Well, shall we get going? It would never do to be late for such an invitation.”
“No reason we should take both cars,” said the Judge. “Suppose you drive, Steve. There’s plenty of room for all five of us in my car.”
So it was that when the sedan clambered up the steep hill that was crowned by the big, ugly gray house, Lynn sat demurely between her parents on the back seat and Stella and Steve were together in the front.
The big oaken door of the house swung open as they came up the steps, and Wayde himself stood there to greet them.
They were swept into the house on the warmth of his greeting and into a vast, cheerless living room. The only cheerful note was a log fire blazing away in the huge fireplace in which a tall man could have stood upright.
“It’s really too warm tonight for a fire,” Wayde apologized lightly. “But I had to do something to make the place look a little less like a mausoleum.”
Ruth looked at him swiftly and then about the huge, barnlike room.
“It has great possibilities,” she said impetuously, and blushed.
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Carter.”
“It wasn’t at all,” Ruth made swift apology with a gentle smile. “Finding fault with your home—”
“Well, since I was the one who first found fault with it, I see no reason why you should apologize,” Wayde answered, smiling. “It was kind of you to point out that it could be changed, but I’m afraid that’s a colossal task to which I don’t feel equal.”
Fitch chose that moment to appear with cocktails; a little later, he announced dinner. The dining room was as bleak, as barnlike as the big old drawing room. When they were seated, Lynn looked about her at the dark paneling, the heavy dark green damask draperies, the handsome if gloomy mahogany furniture, and barely managed to repress a shudder. For the first time, she could find it in her heart to feel sorry for Wayde. This must be the most excruciating change from the world and the life to which he was so happily accustomed, she decided, and smiled at him as he bent toward her with a pleasant word.
He looked a trifle startled but quite pleased, and resumed his task of host, making pleasant small talk as the well-prepared and very appetizing dinner was served.
After dinner, back in the big gloomy drawing room, it somehow developed that there was a table of bridge; the Judge and Stella were partners against Ruth and Steve. Lynn wasn’t quite sure how it had been managed, because it had been done so deftly that the four were settled at a table and the cards were being dealt almost before she realized it.
Wayde spoke to her, smiling, eager. “I believe there’s a garden, and I know there’s a moon. Shall we have a look? That is, if we can find the garden.”
Lynn stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Well, of course there’s a garden. A very famous one. Twice a year the Ladies’ Aid from mother’s church holds a silver tea in the garden and people come from miles around to see it.”
“Then you probably know where it is.” Wayde grinned at her, quite undisturbed. “Shall we have a look?”
“Well, of all things — to live here and not even know where the garden is!” Lynn sniffed at him disdainfully and led the way.
“Shall you need a sweater?” suggested Wayde at the front door.
“Of course
not! Why, it’s almost summertime,” she protested.
“It’s early April, my girl — and that can be chilly!”
“Not in Oakville — it wouldn’t dare!”
She led the way out of doors, along the terrace to the left and down a shallow flight of stairs to the garden.
They stood at the foot of the stairs, and she looked up at him in the silvery flood of light from the moon that was high and golden-yellow, and saw his eyes roam over the acreage that spread out, dropping in gentle terraces, each one planted meticulously and beautifully tended.
“Well, what do you know?” he marveled.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, not to have known about it?”
He chuckled wryly. “Frankly, I’m never especially interested in gardens when I get here — just with getting away as fast as I can!”
“That’s something you should be ashamed of, too,” she told him tartly, “hating your own home so much.”
“You call this a home?” He gestured toward the house behind him. “It’s more like a mausoleum.”
“But it doesn’t have to be,” Lynn protested earnestly. “It really does have, as Mother said, great possibilities. It could be made so attractive. Oh, I admit it would take a lot of money, which I’m sure you have, and a lot of time, which you probably wouldn’t want to spend that way.”
Wayde looked down at her in the moonlight, and there was an odd expression on his handsome face.
“You’re wrong there,” he told her quietly. “I’d be more than happy to find some way to pass the time while I’m here. If redecorating would do that, fine, except that I don’t know the first thing about decorating. I wouldn’t know where, or how to start.”
“Oh, that’s no problem. There are interior decorators who would leap with joy at the thought of doing over a place like this.”
“Who’d whip up something that would look either like a wing in a museum — and the place already looks like that—” Wayde objected—”or else something so arty and amusing that people would run screaming from it.”