Romance Classics

by Peggy Gaddis

  The plane was already in when they reached the airport, and the passengers were alighting. Judy stood close against the wire-screen, her eyes eagerly searching, until at last she cried out eagerly, “There he is! There’s Bix!”

  He came striding toward them, tall, young, very good-looking, well-tailored, debonair—all the words that Judy liked to apply to him, and that she had never felt fitted any of the young men she had known since Bix had gone away.

  Sam watched him as he came striding along and murmured to himself, “The conquering hero to the life. And who in blazes is he planning to conquer? Not Judy, I’d bet a pretty penny on that!”

  As he came through the gate, his eyes searching the crowd, Bix saw Sam and came swiftly forward, his handsome face beaming as he thrust out a hand.

  “Sam, you old son of a gun!” he laughed. “It’s good to see you. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  His eyes swung to Judy even as Sam managed an answer, and there was admiration in them but no hint of recognition.

  “Hey, Sam, aren’t you going to introduce me?” Bix demanded, and smiled warmly at Judy.

  Judy’s eyes widened, and she stammered, “Why, Bix, I’m Judy!”

  Bix caught her hand and squeezed it and said gaily, “Well, hello, Judy,” He added, “Judy who?”

  Sam watched their faces and saw humiliation dawn in Judy’s eyes at the shame of seeing that Bix not only did not recognize her but had obviously forgotten her.

  “I’m Judy Ramsey, Bix,” she managed huskily. “You and I have known each other since we were infants. You used to baby-sit for me.”

  “Did I, now? I was lucky even then, wasn’t I?” Bix laughed, and there was still not the faintest hint of recognition in his eyes.

  Still holding her hand he turned to Sam and asked with a hint of anxiety, “How is my grandfather?”

  “About the same. No change,” Sam said briefly as he supervised the porter stowing Bix’s not inconsiderable luggage in the car trunk.

  “Does he know that I’m coming home?” asked Bix as the three of them walked toward the car.

  “I told him before I left,” Judy said evenly. “But I’m not sure he realized what I was saying.”

  Bix looked down at her. “You live at Oakhill?” he asked.

  “Of course. My mother is the housekeeper, and I’m one of the stable boys that exercises the six thoroughbreds,” she mocked him, her eyes bitter.

  “Hey! This isn’t going to be a dull visit at all, not with you around,” Bix assured her as he helped her into the car and slid into the seat beside her, with Sam behind the wheel.

  And as though he suddenly realized what he had said, he added hastily, “Of course I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m very glad to be here when the Old Gentleman needs me. That is, if he does. I know he must have wanted me to come or you wouldn’t have sent for me.”

  “Oh, we felt you would want to be here. When he had the stroke Dr. Dellinger said that he might linger for months, yet he might go out like a light at any moment,” Sam told him brusquely.

  Bix looked startled, his brows coming together in a faint scowl.

  “Oh, is his illness that serious?” he asked.

  “A stroke, when you’re eighty, is never something to be taken lightly,” Sam drawled. Judy glanced at him swiftly, completely aware of the faint touch of contempt in Sam’s voice.

  “I’m sorry,” Bix mumbled, abashed. “I didn’t realize it was that serious.”

  The rest of the drive was made in silence, save for Bix making a polite remark now and then about the countryside through which they were driving and Sam’s equally polite answers.

  When they came up the wide, circular drive and the house stood before them, stately pillars shining in the midday sunshine, the barns and stables well behind it, the sloping garden ablaze with spring bulbs and new grass, the trees shaking out their new green leaves, Bix said, “I’d forgotten how beautiful it is.”

  Beth stood on the steps, greeting him pleasantly, her eyes going anxiously beyond him to Sam and Judy, while one of the house servants removed Bix’s luggage and carried it in the house.

  Beth and the servant turned toward the house, and Bix paused to say to Judy, “I do hope I’ll see something of you while I’m here.”

  Judy eyed him, her chin tilted, her eyes bleak.

  “You could hardly avoid it, I’m afraid,” she told him evenly. “I live here.”

  “Hi, that’s wonderful! I’ll be looking forward to getting much better acquainted with you,” he told her happily, and followed Beth and the servant into the house.

  Judy sat very still for a long moment, and Sam waited, his eyes yearning to offer her comfort and yet not quite daring to do so.

  Judy spoke at last, her voice low and husky, thick with the tears she was fighting so hard.

  “He didn’t even remember me!” she whispered shakily.

  “It’s been a long time, honey.”

  “But I remembered him!”

  “Yes, but you have been right here at Oakhill where everywhere you turned you were reminded of him,” Sam pointed out. “He’s been here, there and just about everywhere and has met a vast number of women and girls in all the places he’s been.”

  Judy nodded forlornly. Two tears slid from beneath her lids and down her cheeks, but she was completely unaware of them, though Sam was not.

  “And of course he’s met a lot of beautiful, sophisticated girls and couldn’t be expected to remember a long-legged girl in pigtails with braces on her teeth, could he?” she managed at last.

  “Well, even then you were cute as a button and a girl who was sure to grow into what you have become, a lovely and devastating creature, whether he remembers you or not,” Sam told her with a sort of restrained violence.

  She smiled at him dimly, her mouth a thin bitter twist.

  “Well, you’ve been here a long time, too, Sammy my boy, and you haven’t had much chance to meet any really glamorous gals,” she reminded him, trying desperately for a flippancy she did not feel.

  “Who’d want to, when I’ve known you since you were a squalling brat!” he pointed out, and could not keep back the words: “I’ve been waiting for you to grow up.”

  It wasn’t at all what he had meant to say.

  Her smile broadened a little, and she said huskily, “You’re sweet, Sam!”

  And impulsively she lifted her face and brushed her lips across his weathered cheek. Sam started as though he had been slapped and thrust her away from him, saying sharply, “Don’t do that!”

  Startled by his vehemence, Judy stared up at him.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to upset you,” she stammered bewilderedly.

  Sam’s eyes glinted, and his jaw was set and hard as he glared down at her.

  “Well, you should be old enough to realize that no man, however much he is your friend, likes to be used to compensate for an unrequited love,” he told her sharply. “Sorry if I sound like a Victorian valentine, but it’s time you realized that.”

  She was still staring at him, and he turned his eyes away and said brusquely, “You’d better run on in the house. Miz’ Beth may need you, and I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Chapter Two

  Halfway up the stairs, Judy heard the Old Gentleman’s door close softly. She stood still for a moment before she set her teeth and went on up toward her own room.

  Bix was outside the Old Gentleman’s door, scowling in the sun-drenched corridor. But as Judy came to the top of the stairs, he saw her, and his scowl vanished beneath a friendly, admiring smile as he came to meet her.

  “Did he recognize you?” Judy asked evenly.

  “You mean Grandfather? No, I don’t think so. But the lady in white said she was sure that he knew I was there. I hope he did,” said Bix, and added, “He’s changed a lot since I saw him last.”

  “It’s been a longtime, Bix,” she reminded him.

  A tinge of color crept into his face, that was
almost as brown as Sam’s.

  “I guess I’ve been a pretty rotten grandson not to have come home before this.”

  “I suppose you’ve been very busy.” Her tone was completely noncommittal, with no hint of censure in it, but his eyes sharpened a little as he studied her.

  “Well, yes, I have,” he admitted. “I wanted him to be proud of me, to make something of myself.”

  Judy said evenly, “There was only one thing he really wanted of you. That was that you learn to manage Oakhill as the Bullards have done since they first came here.”

  Bix’s eyes cooled.

  “That’s too bad, because the one thing I don’t plan to do is settle down here and rusticate! Or is it just rust?” he asked her flatly.

  She stared at him for a long moment, and then she asked, her voice uneasy, as though she knew the answer to her question even before she put it, “But the place will be yours. You are the Old Gentleman’s heir.”

  “Oh, I haven’t decided what I’ll do with the place when it falls into my hands,” he admitted frankly. “I hope that the doctors are wrong and that my grandfather will live many more years. And to plan now what I will do with the place when it falls into my hands seems like planning his death. That I would never be willing to do.”

  Judy drew a deep breath and said quietly, “It’s a very profitable place. Sam manages it, and I’m sure he’d be happy to show you the books. The place not only pays its own way but turns up a handsome profit every year.”

  Bix smiled a thin-lipped, not too pleasant smile.

  “By which you are saying that the money for my shenanigans over the years was earned by Oakhill, and I’m a so-and-so if I’m not willing to bury myself here and keep on spending the profits?”

  “I’m not saying anything of the kind!”

  “Well, that’s the way it sounded.”

  “I’m sorry,” she answered stiffly. “I only meant that a great many people depend on Oakhill for their very existence: the house servants, the field hands, the tenant farmers, the dairy men, the stable hands—”

  “You make it sound very much like big business,” he cut in dryly.

  “And so it is,” Judy told him hotly, “as you’ll find out as soon as Sam takes you over the place and shows you the way things tick.”

  “I’ll bet!” Bix drawled, obviously quite unimpressed. He added, his tone changing, “I believe you said something about six thoroughbreds that you exercise from time to time? Are they race horses? I know there are some famous racing stables in the vicinity.”

  “No, these are very fine saddle horses,” Judy answered. “One of them, Starlight, is the Old Gentleman’s favorite. They understand each other so well that he swears she talks to him when they are out riding alone.”

  “Do tell!” he drawled. “Why can’t you and I go for a ride in the morning so you can show me some of Oakhill? I think I’d prefer you as a guide to the peerless Sam! How about it?”

  For just a moment Judy’s heart gave a small, startled leap before she managed to hush it and order it to behave itself.

  “Of course,” she told him coolly. “I’ll arrange it.”

  “Thanks,” he said quietly. “I was wondering how you’d feel about driving in to town for dinner with me? That looked like a nice town we came through, and I’m sure there is an excellent eating place there.”

  Judy shook her head.

  “Mam’ Chloe has been planning dinner for you ever since she first knew they had sent for you. She’s having all the things you used to like best, and she’d be heartbroken if you were not here to eat what she’s worked so hard to prepare for you.”

  Bix leaned against the wall and grinned wryly.

  “So Oakhill is that kind of a place, is it? Faithful old family retainers who were born on the place; whose ancestors were slaves and helped build it? Like that, eh? Then where are your crinoline and hoop skirts and darkies singing in the moonlight under the magnolia trees?”

  She resented his tone and the words and the glint in his eyes, but she kept her temper under control as well as she could and said evenly, “I’m afraid Oakhill is very much that kind of place. Not only the Negroes, but also most of the farm hands and the other workers were born here; descended from the half-dozen able-bodied men the first Bullard brought to this country when it was just a wilderness. They have lived here all their lives as Miz’ Beth and I have done, as Sam has, and not one of us would ever want to live anywhere else.”

  “Well, well.” He was laughing at her, and the laughter brought angry tears to her eyes. “It seems to me that you should be the heir to the place, not I, since you seem to have such a warm tenderness for it.”

  “I’m not a Bullard,” she reminded him stiffly. “And a woman could not inherit it, even if I was the Old Gentleman’s daughter instead of his housekeeper’s daughter.”

  He was studying her curiously, and now some of the warm admiration had gone out of his eyes.

  “You’ve always lived here?” he asked after a moment.

  “Of course.”

  “Then how can you be so sure you wouldn’t like to live somewhere else?”

  “Because I could never love any place the way I love Oakhill and because no other place could ever seem more like home, or more beautiful.”

  “Or more deadly dull,” he said with unexpected harshness.

  Before Judy could manage an answer to that, the door of the Old Gentleman’s room opened, and the nurse stood there, beckoning to them.

  “The patient is awake,” she told them softly. “I think perhaps, Mr. Bix, he might just possibly recognize you. And if he does, it will do him good. Please come in. You, too, Judy.”

  She held the door open, and Judy could not help seeing that Bix seemed almost reluctant to enter the room. She followed him, went to the side of the bed and stood looking down at the carved-stone face on the pillow. Suddenly, with a little rush of tenderness, she bent, touched her lips to his forehead and set her hand on the one that lay flaccid on the covers.

  “Somebody’s come to see you, darling,” she said gently, and motioned to Bix to take the old man’s hand in his and hold it.

  Judy watched closely, and her heart leaped a little as she saw the Old Gentleman’s eyelids flicker, and his fingers stir ever so slightly in Bix’s grasp.

  “Speak to him, Bix,” she whispered softly. “Your voice might get through to him. He’s missed you so much.”

  Bix bent his head, put his lips almost against the Old Gentleman’s ear and said very quietly, “Hello, Grandfather. How do you feel?”

  Judy watched intently. Did the Old Gentleman’s hand tighten very slightly on Bix’s fingers? Did the eyelids flicker just a trifle? Or was it just that she so devoutly hoped that the arrival of Bix might help the Old Gentleman to emerge from the stroke that she imagined these things?

  Bix straightened, and the flaccid hand slid from his fingers. Judy thought (and hated herself for the thought) that Bix seemed relieved to be freed of that touch. When the nurse shooed them out, they paused outside the door, and she saw active distaste in Bix’s eyes.

  “He’s changed so much I can hardly believe that’s really my grandfather,” he burst out. “When I remember him striding around the place, an autocrat, a strict disciplinarian, yet such a wonderful guy, always off on some business connected with Oakhill, and now I see him like that—it makes me a little sick.”

  “It makes us all a little sick to see him like that,” Judy answered with more than a trace of spirit. “And what makes us sickest of all is that the doctor says it’s very unlikely that he will ever recover.”

  Bix looked down at her curiously.

  “You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?” he asked unexpectedly.

  “Of course. I adore him! We all do here at Oakhill. And all the people he knows think he’s just about the finest fellow who ever set foot in the road!”

  “Then why do you speak of him so disrespectfully?” he demanded. And she could only stare at hi
m, wide-eyed, thunderstruck. “I mean, you call him the ‘Old Gentleman.’”

  “Well for goodness sake!” Judy practically exploded. “It’s because we love him. It’s a term of affection and respect and everything else. He knows about it and likes it.”

  “I see,” said Bix grimly. “Just another of these ancient Southern customs that I can never hope to understand.”

  “I’m sorry you can’t. There may be quite a few more that you will discover while you are here that you won’t understand or like,” she told him.

  “No doubt,” he agreed unwillingly. Then, as she turned away, “I’ll see you at dinner, won’t I?”

  “I’m afraid not,” she answered coolly. “Miz’ Beth and I have our meals in our own quarters.”

  “Then set an extra place for me,” he said sharply. “I will not eat alone in that big old dining room. Even as a child I felt sure it was haunted!”

  She paused and studied him, and suddenly a tiny, impish grin touched her soft mouth, and she nodded.

  “Very good, young Marster,” she drawled. “We’ll get out the best china, the ones that have the fewest cracks, and scare up another jelly glass for you. Dinner’s early here. At six-thirty. I’ll see you then.”

  She walked away from him, and Bix stood staring after her, angry, yet amused, too. His admiration had grown. She was a lovely creature, and might easily make his stay a little more endurable, provided he didn’t have to stay too long.