by Peggy Gaddis
“Then where did you get this crazy idea that maybe he wasn’t on the plane?”
She drew a deep, hard breath, and he could see her face lift.
“I just have to know, Jonathan. I’ve got to be certain beyond any faint possibility of a doubt that he didn’t just walk out on me,” she told him.
Jonathan said sharply, “You’ve been torturing yourself with this crazy idea ever since the plane crash, haven’t you?”
“How could I help it?” she whispered.
“Loyce, don’t you know that you can’t really love anybody unless you have faith in him? How could you doubt Weldon if you really loved him?” Jonathan demanded sharply.
“I knew how unworthy I was,” she whispered faintly.
“He didn’t think so or he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him.”
“Well, I just wondered if maybe after he got back to Washington and had time to think things over, he might not have decided that maybe a wife like me would hold him back in his career,” she said huskily. “I’ve read books about men in the diplomatic service, and in organizations, whose wives have been ‘unsuitable’ and who have held them back.”
“So when the plane crashed and there were no survivors, you began to wonder if maybe he hadn’t been on the plane and had used the crash as a means of ending things between you,” said Jonathan, and had difficulty keeping the scorn out of his voice. “I must say you didn’t give him much faith or much benefit of the doubt. I can’t understand how you could think such a thing.”
“I did and I still do,” she told him stubbornly. “That’s why I have to know. There are ways to find out if he was on the plane, aren’t there?”
“Well, I suppose so. His name was undoubtedly on the Alight list.”
“And if he wasn’t and has been transferred to another post, the embassy in Washington would know, wouldn’t they? He’d have to use his own name.”
“This whole thing is so crazy that I find it hard to believe you really mean it,” Jonathan told her.
“But I do mean it, Jonathan. I never meant anything more,” she insisted stubbornly. “Now do you see why I have to have a private detective, one who can get me proof so that I’ll know?”
“For your own peace of mind, I can see that,” Jonathan agreed.
“And you’ll help me, Jonathan?” she pleaded.
“Of course,” he assured her, and added curiously, “This is the reason you have crawled off into a hole and tried to resign from the human race, isn’t it? I’ve wondered why you found it so hard to make the adjustment.”
“I suppose I’ve been a fool, Jonathan,” she said with a humility he found very touching. “I think I was a little afraid when Weldon asked me to marry him. Oh, I adored him and I was sure he loved me. But when I thought of all the problems we’d face, of myself as the wife of a rising young diplomat — oh, Jonathan, I was scared! I tried to tell him, and he only laughed at me. He didn’t seem to mind that I was ignorant of all the things a diplomat’s wife would be expected to know. He just said, Oh, you’re smart, darling. You can learn.’ And I would have, too.”
“Of course you would, Loyce,” Jonathan comforted her. “And I think you should give up this idea that Weldon escaped the crash and ran out on you. I don’t believe he’d be capable of a thing like that.”
“I don’t want to believe it, Jonathan,” she confessed. “But, Jonathan, I have to know! Else I’ll go out of my mind.”
Jonathan tensed at the words and instantly realized that they were meaningless, a cliché she had spoken without thought.
“Jonathan, will you help me?” she asked.
“Of course, Loyce,” he told her quickly, his voice warm and touched with tenderness. “I’ll telephone a friend in Washington tomorrow and have him make inquiries. I’d better go to town and call from the telephone exchange to be sure the call will be private. A party line like this one up here is no good for confidential messages.”
“No, of course not.” She stood up and swayed for a moment before she could steady herself. Jonathan’s hands shot out to steady her, and for a long moment she leaned against him as though completely exhausted. Then she straightened and lifted her head, and he could see, now that she was within reach of the yellow lamplight from inside the Lodge, that she had managed a faint shy smile.
“I’m so very grateful, Jonathan,” she told him, her voice shaking. “I don’t know how to thank you. I couldn’t think of anybody else I could ask; and I didn’t know how to start to do it for myself.”
“It will be a privilege, Loyce, to convince you once and for all that any man who had the faintest chance of marrying you would never run out on that chance.”
There was more emotion in his voice than he had wanted there. But apparently she was too overwrought to realize it. She only smiled and walked to the door beside him, seeming scarcely conscious that his arm was about her, steadying her.
“You’ll go down and telephone tomorrow, Jonathan?” she asked at the foot of the stairs.
“The first thing in the morning,” he promised her gently.
“I seem to be rushing you, don’t I?” she apologized humbly. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s been so long, and I’ve been so bewildered and miserable.”
“I’ll telephone my friend in the morning,” Jonathan promised. “But it may take a few days or even longer to find out what you want to know, so you mustn’t be impatient.”
“I’ve waited so long, Jonathan,” she told him, and there was a touch of radiance in her voice. “I can wait awhile longer without getting impatient. Just knowing that something is being done will make the waiting easy.”
“Would you like to know what I think we’re going to find?” Jonathan asked her. “That Weldon was aboard the plane when it crashed, on his way here to marry you and more in love with you than ever.”
She stood very still for a long moment, and he heard the deep breath she drew as though a great weight had slipped from her shoulders. Now there was more color in her face, and her eyes were shining.
“Thank you, Jonathan, for saying that,” she said unsteadily.
She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, smiling at him. Then suddenly, impulsively she leaned forward, brushed her lips against his cheek and, scarlet with confusion, turned and hurried up the stairs.
Chapter Ten.
It was close to ten o’clock the following morning when Sandra trailed downstairs. Every hair was in place; every eyelash curled; her tight Capri pants a blazing orange, her shirt a pink that screamed at the pants. It was a combination of colors that caused Cherry’s eyes to widen and that made Elsie, bringing Sandra’s breakfast tray into the dining room, choke on a smothered laugh.
‘“Hi,” said Sandra, and eyed the breakfast tray hungrily. “I really shouldn’t, but I’m starved. Where’s Jonny?”
“He’s gone into town,” Cherry answered.
“Town?” Sandra’s brow wrinkled with disgust. “You mean that horrible little crossroads halfway down the mountain? What could he possibly want down there?”
“I didn’t ask him and he didn’t tell me,” Cherry answered briefly.
For an instant there was a look of alarm in Sandra’s eyes.
“He’ll be coming back, won’t he?” she demanded.
Cherry’s brows went up slightly.
“I imagine so. He didn’t take any of his luggage, and he’s using Loyce’s car,” she replied.
Sandra relaxed slightly and dug an appreciative fork into the golden mound of scrambled eggs on her plate.
“I’m hoping to get my business with him attended to so I can get away from here in a hurry,” she said cheerfully.
“I don’t want to be nosy,” said Cherry, “but aside from your expressed intention of marrying him, and his insistence that you’re going to do nothing of the kind, I can’t help wondering just what your business with him is. If I’m not speaking out of turn, of course?”
Sandra laughed, bright-eyed. “Oh, I don�
��t mind telling you. I’m here to collect some money Jonny owes me; rather a lot of money.”
Cherry stared at her.
“You mean you worked for him and he didn’t pay you?” she wondered aloud.
Sandra shrugged a shoulder.
“You might put it that way,” she said mockingly. “He took up practically all of my free time for more than six months. I lost several good modeling jobs because of dates with him. So I feel he owes me for those missed jobs, don’t you?”
Cherry stared at her incredulously.
“I was supposed to go to Jamaica for a fashion show and some posing,” Sandra explained sweetly. “The other girls who went made a thousand dollars apiece. I would have been the best model there, of course, so I would have made even more. But I had a date with Jonny and so I didn’t go. That’s only one of several jobs I missed because I had dinner dates with him. So I feel it’s only fair for him to reimburse me for what I would have made if I hadn’t been going out with him. Don’t you?”
Cherry was silent for a long moment, and then she said with an air of relief, “You’re joking! You’ve got to be joking!”
“Why?” demanded Sandra, who quite obviously was doing nothing of the kind. “If Jonny likes to be seen in public wearing on his arm a beautiful gal, all done up in the very latest fashion, then he should be willing to pay for the privilege, especially as he is so stinkin’ rich he can easily afford twice what I feel he owes me.”
Cherry asked, “Jonny is rich?”
Sandra elevated her eyebrows in amused disdain.
“Oh, come now, you must have known that all along. Jonny doesn’t even count his money any more; he just weighs it. Some aged relative is always shuffling off and leaving Jonny more money. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that!” she sneered.
“I didn’t,” Cherry answered sturdily. “And it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had. I like Jonny because he’s Jonny; not because he is, as you say, stinkin’ rich!”
Sandra’s smile was thin-lipped and touched with acid.
“That’s a nice line and I’m sure Jonny is simple enough to fall for it,” she drawled. “For all I care, you can hog-tie and rope him and get your Gran’sir to marry you. I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man in the world; all I want is the money he owes me for the jobs he’s made me lose.”
“Well, thanks a heap,” said Cherry hotly. “I don’t happen to want to marry Jonny, but if I did, I doubt if I’d ask your permission.”
“You’d better,” Sandra warned. “I can make things pretty unpleasant for any woman who marries Jonny; that is, unless he gives me the fifty grand I want and intend to have.”
Cherry sat down, because her knees refused to support her. She could only stare at the incredible creature across the table from her.
“You want Jonny to give you fifty thousand dollars?” Cherry asked at last when she had regained her breath.
“It’s little enough, from his standpoint,” Sandra said coolly. “He can just write a check. He has that much, at least, just lying around in banks idle. He might as well put it to work making me comfortable and get me out of his hair for the rest of his life — and mine.”
Cherry stared at her, shocked and incredulous.
“You expect Jonny to give you fifty thousand dollars just because you missed a few modeling dates to go with him?” she marveled.
“Oh, of course not.” Sandra shrugged. “I expect him to give me fifty thousand dollars so I’ll go away and not bother him any more.”
She looked across the table at Cherry’s shocked face and chuckled as she poured herself another cup of coffee.
“I rate it as my nuisance value to him,” she drawled. “He knows if he doesn’t pay me, I’ll turn up wherever he goes and make things embarrassing for him. So-o-o, he gives me a check and I go away. It’s as simple as that.”
“Simple!” Cherry exploded furiously. “It’s the most disgusting, the most completely shameless thing I ever heard of in all my life.”
“Really?” Sandra’s eyes brimmed with derision. “Oh, well, that’s because you’ve been buried down here in this awful wilderness all your life and don’t know anything about what goes on in the outside world.”
“Well, if you’re an example of what goes on in the outside world, I’ll spend the rest of my life at Crossways Lodge and be very glad to do it,” Cherry told her hotly.
Sandra studied her deliberately through the thin blue smoke of the cigarette she had lighted to go with her final cup of coffee.
“And in all probability you’ll do just that,” she drawled, eyes narrowed slightly against the cigarette smoke. “You’ll marry that gorgeous hunk of male, and you’ll settle down here and raise a family and be quite contented.”
“And is that bad?” demanded Cherry.
“Oh, not for you,” Sandra admitted with a slight shrug. “For me it would be death.”
“Then isn’t it nice it’s not likely to happen to you?” Cherry flashed.
“Isn’t it?” Sandra agreed with high good humor. “Oh, that man of yours is quite attractive in a primitive Tarzan way, I admit. But he’s not my type. And a name like Job! Ugh!”
Cherry set her teeth hard against an angry retort, and Sandra eyed her with a grin.
“Come to think of it, you people here in this backwoods place go in for crazy names, don’t you?” Sandra said thoughtfully. “Cherry, for instance! What is that — a mongrelization of the French Chérie?”
Sparks were flaring in Cherry’s eyes and she was trying hard to control her temper.
“I’m afraid, I wouldn’t know,” she said through her teeth. “I suppose it could have been Chérie, in the beginning. But by the time I knew about my name it had become Cherry. And what’s wrong with Cherry, anyway?”
“Nothing, if you’re satisfied,” Sandra said dryly.
“Well, I am! And Job’s satisfied with his name. It’s a Biblical name, but then you wouldn’t know about Bible names, would you?”
Sandra, who had been deliberately needling Cherry, was delighted with the results of her malicious comments.
“Oh, I’ve heard of a few,” she drawled. “But about Job, all I can remember is the crack about somebody ‘having the patience of Job.’ Does your boy friend, by the way?”
Cherry sputtered, and Sandra went on, “I adore your grandfather, even if he did object to marrying Jonny and me. He’s a sweetie-pie and a darling fluffy old lamb.”
“He’s a fine, brave and famous man,” Cherry replied.
“Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure,” Sandra brushed that aside. “I just wish Jonny had found some other place to hide out from me. He should have known I’d find him. But here, with the Judge acting so stiff-necked about shotgun weddings, it wasn’t quite the way I’d planned it.”
“You planned to marry Jonny even if he didn’t want you?” asked Cherry, awed by such shamelessness.
Sandra said coolly, “Oh, no man really wants to marry anybody. A girl who is smart and knowledgeable just sneaks up on him, and before he knows what’s happened to him, he’s all roped and tied.”
Cherry blinked as Sandra put out her cigarette and thrust her chair back from the table.
“Of course I’ll marry Jonny like a shot if he prefers that to giving me fifty grand,” she drawled. “But I have a hunch he’d rather buy me off. And as soon as I get my paws on him, I’ll see that he writes me a check and I’ll be a long time gone.”
She stood up, grinning wickedly at the dazed look on Cherry’s face.
“Get smart Chérie,” she drawled, “or you will spend your life in this gosh-awful place with that primitive male! You’re not a bad-looking chick if you’d just make the most of yourself. But of course, as long as you are satisfied with the Job guy and he’s satisfied with you, what diffence does it make? I’ll see you around.”
She strolled out of the room, past the huge fireplace that on this warm morning did not hold a fire. The Judge was on the side terrace in the sun,
and for a moment Sandra hesitated at the big glass doors as though tempted to join him. Then she shrugged and went back upstairs.
The moment she was gone the swinging door into the kitchen burst open and Elsie stood there, wide-eyed and incredulous.
“Cherry, she wasn’t joking!” she burst out. “That gal meant every word she said.”
“She did indeed,” Cherry agreed, and the two girls looked at each other with wide, shocked eyes.
“Cherry, do you suppose Mr. Gayle will pay her off?” asked Elsie after a moment.
“I imagine he’ll be glad to,” Cherry answered grimly. “Only will she really let him alone if he does?”
“You think if he gives her a check she’ll come back later on for more?” Elsie was appalled at the thought.
“Well, what would there be to stop her?” asked Cherry, and made a little impatient gesture of dismissal. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Elsie, we’re a couple of dopes even to give it a thought. Jonny knows his way around; he’ll be able to handle her.”
“Gee, I sure hope so,” said Elsie. “He’s a right nice man, and I’d sure hate to see him all tied up with that witch! You know something, Cherry? If she’s typical of women in the outside world, as she calls it, I guess I’ll just settle down here in the mountains and be satisfied. My Jeff’s a pretty decent guy, and we can make ourselves a good life here.”
Cherry said earnestly, “If listening to Sandra has made you believe that, then I can almost forgive her for being a female leech!”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to run into many like her, believe you me,” Elsie admitted wryly. “I don’t believe there are many like her outside. But I’d as soon not take any chances.”
“That makes two of us,” Cherry answered firmly, and helped Elsie clear the table.
Jonathan had not returned by lunch time. Cherry was startled when Loyce came down to the table to join the family.
The Judge and Cherry hid their surprise and delight at her appearance, and she plunged immediately into a discussion with the Judge about some plans she had for the home fields.