by Peggy Gaddis
“I think Carey’s right,” Mrs. Burns said vigorously. “It sounds a marvellous idea. Shall I put it to a vote?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Mrs. Morgan, her kind brown eyes eager. “I’m sure we all remember how terrible we felt last spring when poor old Mr. Henderson hung himself because he didn’t want to be a burden on his son, after his son lost his job.”
“I move we adopt Carey’s suggestion,” said Louella Towne, a middle-aged school-teacher who sat beside Carey. “And I further move that we appoint Carey permanent chairman and place her in complete charge of the whole thing.”
“I second that!” chorused half a dozen women.
Carey blinked to check the tears. “Oh, you’re all perfectly swell! Only I don’t think I’m clever enough or wise enough — ”
“Nor old enough?” Mrs. Burns’ eyes were warm with affection. “I think, Carey, that your youth and your lack of what you call wisdom is going to be the very thing that will help most with this project. People who would resent being helped by older people to whom their troubles would be more or less routine, are going to be grateful and happy at your interest. You’ve the understanding heart, Carey, and the warm, loving sympathy that is going to break down every barrier of false pride.”
“You’re exactly the person we need, Carey,” said Mrs. Morgan. “And tomorrow I’m going to bring you a couple of quilts and some jelly and eggs and things — whatever I think somebody might be able to use.”
The others chorused an eager agreement and the meeting adjourned amid a flutter of plans and discussions and friendly chatter.
Driving back to town Margaret said suddenly, “You are the most amazing creature! A month ago I wanted nothing quite so much as to break your haughty young neck. I’ve thoroughly despised you for years — but now, darn it, I’m afraid I’m going to be fond of you!”
Carey grinned. “I’m growing up, maybe? I never was fond of you, either, Margaret. There have been many times since Christmas when I’d have thoroughly enjoyed mixing you a nice cyanide cocktail. But now, somehow, I can face the thought of your marrying my father — and like it. You — well, you’re a pretty swell person, Margaret.”
“I’m nothing of the sort, my lamb! And don’t you believe it. I’m the leopard that doesn’t change her spots. I’m just as mean and cantankerous as I ever was — and you are still a spoiled brat. A month from now, we’ll probably be clawing at each other’s eyes just as vigorously as ever.”
But Carey wasn’t listening. They had entered Midvale’s one main street and were passing Cofer’s on the left. Opposite Cofer’s an old-fashioned white house set back from the street and, swinging from a white gate set in the picket fence, there was a sign that read: Joel Hunter, M.D. Parked in front of the gate was a familiar and sturdy little car.
Margaret caught the look on Carey’s face, revealed in that moment of Carey’s unawareness, and she said casually, “I have to stop at Cofer’s a minute, dear.”
She parked the car and went in. Carey sat still for a long moment. And then, impelled by some emotion that she did not stop to check or analyze, she slid out of the car and went swiftly across the street. She swung open the gate beneath the sign and went briskly up the walk that led to a small room opening off the main house, with an office sign above it. She turned the knob, pushed open the door and a bell jangled somewhere in the depths of the house.
Her knees shook a little and she sat down in an old black leather chair to wait. She heard footsteps and then Joel stood in the doorway, looking at her.
“Well, if it isn’t Miss Winslow of Park Avenue!”
“Smile when you say that!” Carey commanded sternly. “I stopped in, Joel, to tell you that I’ve been taking your name in vain with the Ladies’ Aid this afternoon,” she told him hurriedly, not quite able to meet his eyes, clutching wildly for something to say that would sound casual.
“The Ladies Aid? They’re pals of mine.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Carey assured him swiftly, and for a moment forgot her uneasiness as she launched into an account of the Community Assistance League that had been formed this afternoon and of which she was to be the permanent head.
Joel heard her through without a word and when she had finished, she added hesitantly, “I know it was — well, pretty bold of me to offer them the use of that little shed-room at the back, for a collection depot and office. But I — I know how you feel about the people around here — and I won’t bother you a bit, being there practically all day — ”
“So you won’t bother me, eh?” Joel said at last. “Surely, Carey, you’re not fool enough to think that I could stand having you about my place all day — unless you were going to be here permanently?”
She caught her breath, and he took a swift step toward her. “Carey, for the love of Pete — put me out of my misery! Don’t hang around here if — if you’re still carrying the torch for that Norris-bird.”
Carey caught her breath again and there was a mist of tears in her eyes as she stammered, “Norris? Who — who’s Norris?”
Joel ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair with a little gesture of desperation. “If you stand there looking at me like that — in just about a minute, Carey, I’m going to kiss you. And once I’ve kissed you, you’re never going to get away from me again as long as you live. I’m warning you.”
Carey’s smile was a mingling of tears and laughter as she put out a shaking hand to him, and her voice was little more than a thread of sound when she whispered:
“It’s — not a warning, darling — it’s — it’s a promise.”
“Oh, my Lord!” Joel said huskily, and then his arms were about her, gathering her close against him, his cheek touching hers. “Carey — Carey — I’ve loved you so long, and thought there wasn’t a chance for me. I’m not much, Carey — but if you’ll only marry me, darling, I’ll make you proud of me — I swear it!”
“Proud of you? Oh, Joel, darling — I couldn’t be prouder of you than I am now!” she told him shakily. “You’ll have to be very patient with me — so I can live up to what people are going to expect Joel Hunter’s wife to be.”
It was then that Joel kissed her.
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 1968 by Peggy Gaddis
ISBN 10: 1-4405-7418-9
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7418-4
eISBN 10: 1-4405-7417-0
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7417-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123rf.com
Carolina Love Song
Peggy Gaddis
Avon, Massachusetts
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Copyright
Chapter One
Judy Ramsey sat up suddenly at the sound of beating hooves on the old bridle path and saw the horse and rider coming hard. A young Negro bent low in the saddle, showing his expertise exercising fine horses, and the horse was galloping with all the enthusiasm of a workout after being shut up in the stable for the past two days.
Judy ran to meet the boy, who leaned down from the saddle and said breathlessly, “Miss Judy, Mi’z Beth sent me to tell you to com
e home fast.”
Judy’s heart stumbled in her breast, and she gasped, “Oh, Bandy, is the Old Gentleman—” She could not finish the words, and the Negro boy shook his head violently.
“Oh, no, Miss Judy. Nurse-lady says the Old Gentleman’s doing fine. Well, she didn’t rightly say fine. She just say he’s doing as well as could be expected,” he assured her hastily. “No, Miss Judy, Miz’ Beth says she got some good news for you, and she’s anxious to give it to you.”
“Thanks, Bandy.” Judy ran to Starlight, swung herself up in the saddle and, as Bandy drew his horse out of the way, gave the mare her head and went galloping off down the bridle path toward the Manor that had been home for her all her life.
As she reached the stables, she slid out of the saddle, flung the reins toward a stable boy and went running up the back walk to the house. As she burst into the back entry, Mam’ Chloe, in the huge old-fashioned kitchen, looked at her in surprise. But Judy did not wait to be questioned. She hurried through the green baize doors that separated the kitchen quarters from the rest of the house and saw her mother coming toward her.
“What’s wrong, Miz’ Beth?” she demanded anxiously.
Elizabeth Ramsey smiled at her and asked, “Did Bandy-Legs scare you, honey? I’m sorry. I told him to tell you that I had some good news for you, so you wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the Old Gentleman had taken a turn for the worse. He hasn’t, darling. All I wanted was for you to get here in time to make yourself all fresh and pretty in case you wanted to ride to the airport with Sam.”
Puzzled, Judy asked, “What’s Sam going to the airport for?”
Beth smiled tenderly. “To meet Bix, of course.”
Judy caught her breath and flung out a hand to catch the balustrade to support herself.
“Bix?” she repeated as though afraid to believe the news. “He’s coming home?”
“Well, of course, darling, now that he knows how ill his grandfather is,” Beth answered. “Didn’t you know that he would be?”
“I—well, I guess I just didn’t think,” Judy stammered, not quite meeting her mother’s eyes, her heart pounding so that she felt sure her mother must hear it, feeling as if her whole slender body were shaken by it “He’s been gone such a long time.”
Beth was watching her, her eyes tender yet holding the faintest possible touch of anxiety.
“It’s been eight years, darling,” she said quietly. “And that can be a very long time to a man of twenty-five—or to a girl who was only twelve eight years ago.”
Judy drew a long, hard breath and lifted her pretty chin, her shoulders back, meeting her mother’s gaze.
“What you’re trying to tell me is that Bix could very well have changed in eight years, aren’t you?” she said evenly.
“And so could you!” Beth pointed out. “After all, a child of twelve—”
Judy shook her head, silencing her mother.
“I could never change,” she said softly, her voice so determined that Beth could not escape its complete conviction. “I think I fell in love with Bix when I was in my cradle and he used to baby-sit for me. And I guess I won’t ever change, because I don’t want to change.”
Beth came close and put her arm about the girl.
“But, darling, you have had very little chance to meet other young men living here at the Manor. Oh, you’ve gone to parties and all that, but you haven’t dated very much. You really haven’t given yourself a chance to change!” she pointed out.
Judy shook off the arm and turned toward the stairs.
“I haven’t wanted to change,” she said over her shoulder. “The boys I met around here are such dopes, all except Sam, of course. And Sam’s like my big brother. No, Miz’ Beth, I’m waiting for Bix. And now that he is coming home, you’ll see. He hasn’t forgotten, either! I’m sure of that.”
She went lightly and swiftly up the stairs, and Beth sighed as she watched her. She had always felt that it was unfair to bring the girl up at the Manor House, where she had almost no chance to have young companions. Yet she had to admit that when there were chances, when her friends of school days brought young men to call, Judy was so plainly uninterested that she would not date them. Always, from the time they were children, it had been Bix and Judy, to the vast delight of Jason Bullard, whose ancestors had literally carved the beautiful plantation, Oakhill, out of the Carolina wilderness in Cavalier days and who now lay helpless after a stroke. The small world of people who lived at Oakhill and ran the place for him all called him affectionately the Old Gentleman.
In her own room, Judy leaned her slim back for a moment against the panels of the closed door, waiting for her heart to cease its mad racing. All these years she had waited for Bix to return, holding her cherished dreams close; refusing to consider that she had been only twelve the last time she had seen him, when he was leaving for college.
Down near the lake, its fringe of willows touched by the first hint of autumn, they had said goodbye. And he, a lordly young adult, barely seventeen, had told her gravely, “You wait for me, Judy honey. I’ll be back, and we’ll do all the things we’ve planned. Don’t you go forgetting me, you hear?”
And she had lifted tear-wet eyes, yearning to be folded in his arms, to know the magic of his kiss. Yet both of them had been too shy, too awkward, to make that possible.
“I’ll wait, Bix dear,” she told him huskily. “I’ll keep a candle lit in the window for you.”
Bix had grinned at her and said, “Just keep it burning in your heart, honey-chile. Let’s not run the risk of burning down the old Manor House. The Old Gentleman wouldn’t be pleased at all!”
She had managed a laugh at that, and they had gone back up to the drive, where Sam Gillespie, who had been the manager of the estate since the death of his father, was waiting to drive Bix to the station in the town eighteen miles away down the river.
Judy had stood in the drive watching until the car had vanished from sight. Then she had turned, feeling a vast black cloud of desolation descend upon her; a desolation she told herself firmly would never be lifted until Bix came home.
But he hadn’t come home. After college he had gone abroad for a couple of years to study architecture at the Sorbonne; then he had wandered around England and Italy, and on his return to New York had accepted a job with a famous firm of architects. Meanwhile, Judy had assured and reassured herself until she was tired of trying to make herself believe it, he hadn’t been able to take time to get home for a visit.
She and the Old Gentleman had talked about him a lot. They had shared his infrequent letters. After the first spurt of writing to Judy, Bix had dropped that and wrote only once a month, duty letters to his grandfather. But through the letters to his grandfather, Judy had managed to keep up to date on some of Bix’s activities, and to hold long, worried thoughts about the ones she couldn’t imagine!
Deciding that she had chosen her prettiest dress and that, since it was warm, she didn’t need a coat, she ran down the wide corridor to the Old Gentleman’s room and tapped lightly. The door swung open to reveal a middle-aged, very competent-looking nurse in a crisp white uniform.
“May I speak to him for a minute, Miss Blanding?” Judy asked.
The nurse opened the door wide and glanced toward the bed where the Old Gentleman lay, breathing stertorously, looking like nothing so much as a figure carved from gray granite.
Judy’s heart contracted as though an iron fist had closed over it, as it always did when she saw him like this and remembered him strong, alert, very much the master of Oakhill! But she set her teeth, and went to the bedside and stood looking down at him.
“I don’t think he will hear you, Judy!” said Miss Blanding gently.
Judy bent and put her lips against the Old Gentleman’s ear and said very softly, “He’s coming home, darling. Isn’t that wonderful? Bix will be here in just a little while.”
She watched the gray, expressionless face and saw no faint flicker that would indicate
that he had heard her. After a moment she turned away, tears smarting her eyelids as she all but ran out of the room, leaving the nurse to look after her pityingly.
Downstairs, Sam was waiting for Judy. As she came out of the house, he walked beside her to the waiting car and swung open the door for her. But he did not speak until the car was rolling down the drive, with its double border of rosy azaleas in full and triumphant bloom.
“Look, Judy, there’s something I think you should face up to,” he began.
Judy said instantly, “You mean that Bix may have forgotten me. But he hasn’t, any more than I could forget him! I’ve been waiting for him, Sam. He won’t have forgotten. He asked me to wait!”
“A long time ago, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, Judy.”
“Not enough to wash me out of Bix’s mind or his heart!” Judy insisted stubbornly.
Sam looked down at her, his lean, rugged, sun-bronzed and weatherbeaten face touched with a sadness that she could neither see nor understand. For, of course, she had never guessed that Sam Gillespie, direct descendant of one of the early adventurers who had accompanied the Bullard family when they first came to this new country, had been in love with her for years. But, since he was ten years older than she, he had not dared to make his love known. He told himself now and then that he was waiting for her to grow up. He’d never taken her interest in Bix seriously, especially during the years when Bix had stayed away, not even returning for vacations! But now that Bix was coming home, not because he wanted to but because he was called home by his grandfather’s illness, he could plainly see that Judy was still enveloped in her old dreams of Bix.
She had accepted Sam as a big brother, which was the last thing in the world that Sam wanted. But since they were both living at Oakhill, seeing each other daily, going to parties together, going to town for the movies, he had accepted the half-loaf of her liking and had not dared aspire to the full loaf of her love. He had kidded himself that some day she would discover he was there and waiting. And being the fool he was, he had kept hoping. But now that Bix was coming home, the hope had faded into nothingness. Not, he told himself, that there was any hope that Bix would stay on after the Old Gentleman died. For of course that was the only end to the illness that had striken him down as lightning strikes down a sturdy, stalwart oak. Bix would go back to New York, to London, Paris, and he would sell Oakhill. Which was a prospect so ugly to Sam that he pushed it out of his mind as he had done any time it thrust itself up from his subconsciousness.