by Peggy Gaddis
“Cherry’s young,” said Loyce earnestly. “Oh, I know she’s only four years younger than I am; but in many ways I’m many years older. To Cherry everything has to be black, very black, or snowy white; there are no in-betweens. But she likes you very much.”
Jonathan nodded. “And I like her. She’s a wonderful person. If living here in the mountains creates people like the Brambletts, then it’s too bad the whole world isn’t mountain-reared.”
Loyce laughed. “Oh, there are villains in the mountains as frequently as in other places,” she assured him. “But I don’t think there are any Sandra Elliotts. Of course, that might just be because there aren’t any Jonathan Gayles to attract them!”
Jonathan studied her for a moment and then laughed.
“I’ve a strong suspicion that if I took that statement apart and analyzed it very carefully, I could find a sarcastic jibe in it,” he told her.
Loyce laughed, too, and it was a sound so unaccustomed that it startled Jonathan.
“If there’s a sarcastic jibe it sneaked in,” she said. “I didn’t put it there.”
“That’s nice to know.” Jonathan grinned at her and turned to walk with her up the path toward the Lodge. At the kitchen steps he asked with a touch of anxiety, “I’ll see you at dinner?”
“Oh, yes,” she answered.
Emboldened, he asked quickly, “I suppose I couldn’t persuade you to go in to town to dinner with me, and maybe a movie afterwards, or whatever wild excitement the town affords?”
Loyce looked up at him, bright-eyed and smiling.
“You might try,” she suggested gently.
Jonathan’s eyes warmed.
“Then will you?” he asked.
“Thanks, I’d love to,” she answered, and turned toward the steps.
Jonathan laid a swift restraining hand on her arm, his eyes anxious.
“You promise not to stand me up again?” he demanded.
“Oh, Jonny, no. Of course I won’t.”
For a moment their eyes met and clung, and Jonathan said huskily, “Please don’t, Loyce.”
There was the faintest possible mist in her eyes, and her smile was tremulous, her voice very low when she said, “I won’t, Jonny, ever again.”
He stood back then and let her go up the steps and into the house.
In the kitchen, as Loyce flashed through without a word, Elsie and her mother stood staring at each other.
“I reckon you saw what I saw, Muv?” asked Elsie.
“I reckon I did.”
“What does it mean, do you reckon?”
“I reckon it means that maybe Loyce has got over that Hammett feller and is getting more than a mite interested in this feller Gayle. And I’m right glad to see it. He seems a likely kind of a feller, even if he does have some right queer lady friends,” said Muv. “It’s way past time for Loyce to be getting out of them ‘down-yonders’ she’s had since that feller Hammett got killed. Time she was taking a mite of interest in some other man. I’m right surprised, though, that it ain’t Hutch.”
Elsie shrugged disdainfully. “Oh, who’d bother with Hutch Mayfield when Jonathan Gayle is around? Honest, Muv, he’s the most!”
Her mother’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t you let Jeff hear you saying that,” she ordered.
Upstairs, Cherry had just emerged from the shower, a toweling robe tied snugly about her, when Loyce came in, flushed and eager.
“Cherry, Jonny had asked me to have dinner with him, and I don’t have anything pretty to wear. Lend me something?” she asked.
Cherry’s eyes flew wide with surprised pleasure.
“Well, be my guest, honey-lamb,” she ordered as she swung open the door of her closet. “Anything you want. Isn’t it swell to wear the same size? I’m tickled pink, honey, that you’re interested in clothes again. It’s been so long — ” She cut herself off and felt color pour into her face as she realized how close she had come to mentioning Weldon and the tragedy that had so nearly finished Loyce, too.
Loyce was engrossed in the contents of the closet. When she turned she held a copper-colored linen sheath in her hands.
“Would this be all right on me?” she asked hesitantly. “It looks gorgeous on you, but I don’t have your vivid coloring.”
“Stop low-rating yourself or I’ll smack you,” Cherry ordered her sternly. “That will be wonderful on you. Let me fix your hair. You just brush it back and wind it in a knot so tight you can hardly blink, and it’s a shame. It’s such a beautiful color, like the inside of a chestnut burr.”
“You’re the one with the lovely hair, Cherry,” said Loyce humbly.
“Phooey!” Cherry protested inelegantly. “I’m the one that was called Carrot-top when we were growing up, remember?”
Later, when Loyce was dressed in the copper-colored linen sheath, which did marvelous things for her tanned skin and her burnished chestnut-brown hair, and she and Jonathan had departed, Cherry stared for a long moment at the door that had closed behind them. The Judge watched Cherry and waited.
“Well,” she said at last, and turned to face him. “What do you think, Gran’sir?”
“That they make a very handsome couple,” he answered.
“Oh, they do that, they do indeed,” Cherry agreed, but it was obvious she was thinking of something else.
“Do you mind, honey?” asked the Judge after a long silent moment.
Cherry looked sharply at him, frowning.
“Mind? I’m tickled pink; aren’t you? I mean I’m tickled to see Loyce interested in pretty clothes and men again,” she answered.
“I wondered if you minded that the man is Jonathan.” The Judge’s tone was grave.
“Oh, well, I think she could do a lot better for herself,” Cherry admitted. “Jonny seems to me a pretty weak character. Any man who’d let himself be hounded by a dame like that Elliott creature — ”
“That’s something you don’t understand, honey.”
“Well, I don’t suppose I do. And, frankly, Gran’sir, I couldn’t care less,” Cherry stated flatly. “It’s just that if Loyce is coming back to life again, I can’t help wishing it could be with somebody with a little more moxy than to step into a woman-trap baited by a gal like Sandra Elliott.”
“It’s not that you want Jonny for yourself?” asked the Judge.
He had his answer in the astounded glance she gave him.
“Good grief, no!” she exploded. “Gran’sir, you surely don’t think I’d pass up Job for a spineless creature like Jonny? My sainted aunt!”
The Judge eyed her shrewdly for a long moment and then chuckled.
“ ’Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” he quoted dryly.
“For Pete’s sake, I do not,” Cherry protested warmly. “Oh, he’s nice and a novelty; Loyce and I have never known a man like him before. And somehow I feel maybe that’s just as well. We’ve got Hutch and Job, and any sane women ought to be tickled to death with a couple of stalwarts like those. Can you imagine Job letting a woman crowd him into a corner and try to marry him against his wishes and finally demand to be paid off?”
The Judge hesitated for a moment and then said frankly, “Look, honey, you know my attitude toward gossip. But there is something I feel that you should know. That is, if you have decided to marry Job.”
Puzzled, Cherry answered, “Well, he wants me to, and I’m very fond of him. What’s up, Gran’sir?”
“It’s just that a very persistent rumor is going around that the Widow Marshall is tired of being a widow and that she and Job are seeing quite a bit of each other,” the Judge told her.
“You mean Betty Marshall’s after Job?” demanded Cherry hotly.
“So rumor has it.”
“Well, well, well,” murmured Cherry softly, and her eyes narrowed.
The Judge watched her for a moment, and when she seemed disinclined to speak, he said quietly, “A woman like Betty Marshall can be very dangerous, honey.”
“Dangerous?”
Cherry repeated in a tone of amused disdain. “Why, she’s just a kid, Gran’sir.”
“She’s a young and very attractive widow, and she’s obviously tired of living at home with her family and would like a home of her own, and a husband.”
“And Job would give her a nice home and be a very good husband,” Cherry admitted slowly. “Is that what you’re telling me, Gran’sir?”
“I don’t usually interfere in your affairs or Loyce’s,” the Judge reminded her. “But I don’t like just sitting here helpless and watching you throw away something you may one day wake up and find that you really wanted very much.”
Cherry was alarmed and unable to conceal it.
“What do you think I should do, Gran’sir?” she asked as humbly as she had asked the same question when she had been a child.
“I think you should make up your mind once and for all whether or not you are in love with Job,” he told her firmly. “If you are not, then set him free to make a life of his own. If you are, then make up your mind if you want to marry him. It’s as simple as that, honey.”
“Well, yes, I suppose it is,” Cherry said unhappily.
“But you must be very sure, honey. Marriage is a long-term contract, and there are no options. And I strongly disapprove of divorce,” the Judge told her firmly. “I just thought you ought to know about Betty’s pursuit of Job. In fact, it could easily be, since she is young and very pretty and a fine little housekeeper, that Job is pursuing her.”
“It could be, at that,” Cherry said ruefully.
The Judge watched her and waited, and at last she said uncomfortably, “Honestly, Gran’sir, I’m not quite sure whether I want to marry Job or not. Oh, I’m very fond of him and we have fun together and all that. But is that being in love, enough love to get married on?”
The Judge grinned at her like an impish small boy.
“It’s been a great many years since I was qualified to answer that, honey,” he pointed out. “You’ll have to ask somebody a lot younger than I am if you hope to get an answer you can bank on. Maybe you’d better just ask your heart, honey, and follow whatever it tells you to do.”
“But the stupid thing won’t talk,” Cherry burst out childishly. “It purrs like a cream-fed kitten when I’m with Job, and goes all warm and melting when I hear his voice on the telephone; and then it just goes back to sleep again.”
“And that’s not much help in making up your mind?” asked the Judge. “How does it react to the thought of Job married to Betty Marshall?”
“It stands up on its hind legs and growls,” Cherry admitted. “That makes me a sort of dog in the manger, doesn’t it? That’s not a pretty picture either. I don’t like to behave like that.”
The Judge waited and watched her as she scowled thoughtfully.
“I’ll give it some thought,” she said at last.
“You do that, honey,” said the Judge.
Cherry nodded and bent to kiss him good night. But instead of going up to her room she went out on the wide verandah to the big swing that hung behind the curtain of vines at the end of the porch. She curled up in the swing and looked out over the sweep of mountains, and her thoughts were busy with Job and Betty Marshall.
She was still in the swing when Jonathan and Loyce came back. She stayed where she was, unwilling to intrude on their good nights. They paused on the steps, and Loyce turned and looked out over the starlit scene and drew a deep, unsteady breath.
“Oh, it’s been such a lovely evening.” She sighed. “I feel as if I’d just started living again. If only we find out-”
“We’ll find out that Weldon was on that plane and that you’ve been torturing yourself for nothing,” Jonathan told her, sharpness in his voice. “You are the loveliest girl he could ever have hoped to meet, and he would never have run out on you. That’s something you have to get into your mind here and now, because it’s what we will learn when my friends have been able to answer the wires I’ve sent.”
“I hope so, Jonny. Oh, I do hope so,” said Loyce softly, her voice slightly shaken.
“Well, we will,” said Jonathan, and held open the door for her. “I’m just as sure of it as if I had seen him board the plane myself.”
The door closed behind them, and Cherry sat on for a moment, puzzled and uneasy. Jonathan had said, “Weldon would never have run out on you.” Well, for Pete’s sake, Cherry asked herself, why should Loyce have thought that? How could she have? Weldon had been completely besotted about her. He’d hardly wanted to let her out of his sight.
Jonathan, Cherry recalled uneasily, had warned her that there was something behind Loyce’s deep grief that was pushing her toward the edge of mental illness. Could it be her doubt that Weldon had really died in that crash? Could she have believed that Weldon would use that crash and the fact there were no survivors, to run out on her? If Loyce had believed that, then Loyce was a doubled-starred chump.
Cherry got up at last, chilled by the crisp night air and her long vigil in the swing, and crept into the house. But it was a long time before she was finally able to fall asleep.
Chapter Twelve
It was two days later that Jonathan asked to ride into town with Cherry when she went in for the mail and the marketing. She was glad of his company and chattered gaily as they drove the few miles to town. In fact, her chatter was so gay that Jonathan studied her curiously and broke in to say, amused, “I’m not quite sure if all this light chit-chat is because you despise me and would like me to get going.”
Cherry stared at him in surprise.
“How could I possibly despise you after all you’ve done for Loyce?” she protested.
Jonathan scowled at her. “What have I done for Loyce?” he wanted to know.
Cherry flushed but gave her attention to driving. After a moment she confessed, “I’m a stinker, Jonny. I was on the verandah when you brought her home from dinner in town night before last. And I heard enough to make me believe that you’d found out what was worrying her so terribly and were clearing it up for her. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, Jonny, truly, but I may as well admit I’m glad I did. I’ve been so worried about her.”
Jonathan scowled straight ahead for a long moment, and they were just entering the limits of the small town when he said quietly, “I can’t tell you anything about it, Cherry, except that she had been terribly depressed about this Hammett fellow.”
“She believes he wasn’t on the plane and just used the crash as a means of running out on her,” Cherry interrupted. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“And you don’t believe it?”
“Good golly grief — no!” Cherry exploded. “Nobody could who had ever seen them together. Why, he was completely insane about her. If she so much as left the room, he wandered around like a lost soul until she came back. How could she possibly believe that he wasn’t deeply in love with her?”
“She has a very deep-rooted inferiority complex, and it’s been giving her a very bad time ever since the plane crash,” Jonathan said quietly.
“But aren’t there ways of proving whether or not he was on the plane?” demanded Cherry. “And if he wasn’t, then where is he? He couldn’t just vanish into thin air; he was a fairly important member of the British Embassy staff.”
“I’m having private detectives and a friend who is in the newspaper business check all angles,” Jonathan told her. “That’s why I was eager to get in town today; not to pick up mail but to make a few long distance telephone calls. If you’ll drop me off at the telephone exchange and pick me up there when you’re ready to go back to the Lodge, I’ll see what my friend and the detectives have found out.”
Cherry said, as she slowed the car for a traffic light, “So Loyce got the idea about private detectives from Sandra.”
“It would seem so.”
Cherry nodded thoughtfully. “Then I’m glad you gave Sandra a check. I’d send her one if I knew where she was.”
“Oh, Sandra will be all right,” said Jonathan,
and now his tone was grim. “There’s the exchange just ahead. I’ll be ready to go back when you are. And thanks for the lift.”
“Thanks for the lift you’ve given Loyce!” said Cherry, and beamed warmly at him as he got out of the car and crossed the sidewalk.
She turned and drove back to the town’s proudest possession, a big supermarket. There was an enormous parking lot, and as she parked her car and locked it, a group came out of the market and walked toward a battered but dependable-looking car.
Cherry was so absorbed in her thoughts that she all but ran into the girl who had suddenly stopped directly in her path.
“Hello, Cherry,” said Betty Marshall.
Betty’s golden head was bare, and the sunlight glinted lovingly on its golden waves, held in place by a narrow blue ribbon. Her gingham dress was blue and white-checked and had been washed until it had faded and was shrunken. On her feet she wore canvas sneakers and no hose. And yet Cherry had to admit that Betty was lovely.
In spite of herself, Cherry felt her spirits droop slightly as she chatted for a moment with the girl and fought hard to keep Job’s name from her lips. Betty’s father, a tall, lean, raw-boned man, hailed the girl sharply, and she smiled wistfully at Cherry and ran to crowd herself into the old car among the half-dozen children ranging in ages from five or six up to ten or twelve. There was scarcely room in the car for all of them and as Cherry watched Betty force her way into the back of the car and heard the children screaming at her and pushing her, Cherry was deeply sorry for Betty. No wonder Betty wanted to marry Job or anybody who would take her out of the overcrowded home in which she was no longer welcome.
She forced a chuckle as she selected a marketing cart and started filling the list Muv had given her.
Us Brambletts, she mocked herself ruefully, surely take a heap of convincing from our men folks.
She hoped vainly for a glimpse of Job as she finished her errands and drove back to the telephone exchange to pick up Jonathan, who was waiting for her with a smile that lifted her heart. For it told her that his friends had been able to give him news that would banish Loyce’s grief and depression.