by Peggy Gaddis
“You have every reason to be, sir,” said Jonathan. “They are fine girls and very beautiful.”
“More than anything in the world, I want their happiness,” said the Judge slowly. “Even if it takes them away from me to a place where I will see them only rarely, I want them to be happy.”
Jonathan’s eyes dropped to his hands, locked and hanging between his knees.
“Cherry will be in and out of the Lodge every few days,” he pointed out. “And Loyce will be here permanently.”
“I hope not,” said the Judge quietly.
Jonathan looked up at him swiftly.
“I mean I hope Loyce will find a husband and go away to a home of her own some day,” said the Judge, and looked straight at Jonathan.
For a moment the eyes of the two men locked and held. And it was Jonathan who spoke, saying something he had had no intention of saying. “Now that Cherry is getting married and leaving the Lodge, I’m quite sure that Loyce has no intention of marrying.”
“She told you that?” probed the Judge.
“She told me that,” he admitted, and then was appaled at the realization of his betrayal. “I mean sir, that she told me — that is, I’m sure she feels that she and Cherry can’t both desert you.”
The Judge nodded, smiling faintly but with a touch of triumph in his eyes.
“So I was right,” he said. “You are in love with Loyce and she is in love with you. So what’s the problem?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid that’s something you will have to ask Loyce,” Jonathan replied stiffly.
“And don’t think I won’t!” said the Judge. “That’s exactly what I’ll do. You won’t be leaving today, son. As a personal favor to me, stay over until tomorrow, will you? You can get a better train that way — if you insist on going, that is. Cherry has to meet a couple of fellows who didn’t want to drive up; she can take you to the station when she goes to collect them.”
Jonathan hesitated.
“I’ll be glad to wait over another day, Judge,” he said at last.
“Good! Then you’d better run along and get in a final day’s fishing,” suggested the Judge, and lifted his newspaper. “Get Mrs. Mitchell to put up some sandwiches for you and make a day of it. Might be a considerable while before you have another chance.”
Jonathan stood up, grateful to escape.
“That’s a good idea, sir. Thanks. I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Sure, son. At dinner,” the Judge agreed, and watched as Jonathan went across the terrace and into the house.
As he assembled his gear in the back hall, Elsie came out, carrying a plump knapsack.
“Cherry thought you’d be wanting to get in some more fishing before you leave,” said Elsie as she held out the knapsack. “We’re sure going to be sorry to see you go. And you know something? I can’t remember we’ve ever before had a guest here that we could honestly say that about. Usually we’re so glad to see ‘em go we can’t wait to see their cars go down the drive.”
“Well, thanks a lot, Elsie,” Jonathan told her. “I hope I haven’t been a lot of trouble. It’s been a great joy for me to be here.”
“Of course I know you want to get back to your job,” said Elsie. “But maybe you’ll be coming back again.”
“I hope to, Elsie.”
“Good!” Elsie beamed at him happily. “We’ll all be waiting for you and welcoming you.”
Her friendly sincerity was warming, and Jonathan’s spirits lifted slightly as he left the Lodge and took the path down toward his favorite fishing spot. His thoughts were so tied up with Loyce that when he reached the turn in the path that led away from the trail, he glanced automatically at the flat rock that was a favorite spot of hers. But of course she wasn’t there, and his mouth thinned bitterly.
Of course she’s not taking any chances on meeting you, you fool, he told himself savagely. She’s hiding from you! And that ought to give you a pretty good idea of where you stand with her.
It was late afternoon when he gave up the unsuccessful attempt at fishing and returned to the Lodge. He saw none of the family as he went up to his room to clean up for dinner but when he came downstairs they were all waiting for him and went into the dining room in a small, companionable group.
Loyce, in a crisply fresh cotton frock, sat across the table from Jonathan, her eyes on her plate. Cherry sat opposite her grandfather and chattered gaily as Elsie began serving dinner.
The Judge smiled at her flushed, radiant young face and glanced now and then, as dinner progressed, at Loyce’s pallor. Beneath the summer’s sun-tan she looked ashen and much older than her years. But it was not until dessert and coffee had been served that the Judge made his first move.
He looked up as Elsie placed dessert before him and said, “Ask your mother to come in, will you, Elsie? And Eben, too. This is a family matter, so I felt the whole family should have a part in it.”
Elsie looked startled, but disappeared into the kitchen and a moment later returned with Mrs. Mitchell, vast in her crisp cotton frock and the voluminous apron in which she had wrapped her hands.
“Mitch,” said the Judge, “how long have you and Eben been here at the Lodge?”
“Why, ever since you brought the girls here, Judge. Loyce was about five, Cherry about three,” answered Mrs. Mitchell, obviously puzzled by the question. “That would be eighteen, nineteen years, way I figure it. Elsie was just Cherry’s age, and you thought it would be nice for your gals to have somebody to play with.”
The Judge nodded, while those at the table stared at him in bewilderment.
“And you’re not planning to leave, are you, Mitch?” the Judge asked gently.
Mrs. Mitchell stared at him as though she thought he had lost his mind, while Eben stirred restlessly, vaguely alarmed.
“Leave, Judge?” Mrs. Mitchell repeated. “Well, now, where would we go, seein’ that we sold our place ten, twelve year ago to some city folks? This is our home, Judge. Why would we leave?”
The Judge nodded, and now his gaze was on Loyce, who was staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.
“Then in case my two granddaughters found husbands for themselves and went away, I wouldn’t be alone, would I?” asked the Judge, still addresssing himself to Mrs. Mitchell, though his eyes were on the swift rush of color that flooded Loyce’s face and the startled glance she shot Jonathan.
“Alone? Judge, you’ll never be alone as long as one of us Mitchells has breath in his body,” Mrs. Mitchell said sternly.
The Judge gave her a warm, grateful smile which vanished as he turned once more to Loyce.
“You see?” he said quietly. “You were going to marry Weldon Hammett and leave the Lodge and me. So why can’t you marry Jonny and leave with him?”
Loyce gasped, and for a moment her eyes met Jonathan’s and saw there the same angry glint that was in her own.
“I — but then, Cherry and Job weren’t engaged,” Loyce stammered.
“Look, Judge, I see what you’re trying to do,” Jonathan began.
“You love her, don’t you?” demanded the Judge.
“Very much.”
“And you want to marry her, don’t you?”
“Not like this,” said Jonathan, and stood up, thrusting his chair violently backward so that he had to catch it to keep it from falling over. “I once heard you say you didn’t approve of shotgun weddings. Well, neither do I! I don’t want an unwilling wife who’ll keep looking over her shoulder and feeling a guilt complex because she left you and neglected her duty to you. Loyce is subject to complexes, anyway; and I’d rather not start our married life with her laboring under one.”
“Sit down!” thundered the Judge so unexpectedly that they all started and blinked at him. “I’ll have an order or hold you in contempt of court. I’ve had all the nonsense about this that I intend to have.”
He glared around the table as Jonathan reluctantly seated himself.
“If you think,” the Judg
e addressed himself to Loyce, “that I’m going to put up with another year or two of you moping and mewling and whining around because you’ve lost another love, you, my girl, are sadly mistaken. Either you marry Jonathan and go away with him, or I’ll send you down to the ‘flat-lands’ to get a job! And don’t think I don’t mean that. I intend to have some peace and quiet in my declining years if I have to go and live by myself in a cave.”
“But, Gran’sir — ” Loyce whimpered.
“Just a second, sir,” Jonathan said grimly. “If she has to be forced to marry me, I don’t want her.”
The Judge turned a wintry look on him.
“You said you loved her,” he snapped.
“I also said I didn’t approve of shotgun weddings.”
The Judge sighed gustily. “You young people! I often wonder how you can be such utter fools and play fast and loose with all the good things life offers you!”
He looked at Loyce, then at Jonathan and back at Loyce. She was watching him with wide eyes as though she had never seen this somewhat terrifying man before. He was in his old role as a stern Judge sitting on the bench, pronouncing judgment on some hapless criminal who stood looking up at him without hope.
“You’ve had something, my girl, that happens very rarely to anyone,” he pointed out: “a second chance at a happy marriage and a good life. Love isn’t something like the ‘fairy crosses’ that the tourists find by the handfuls; it’s more like some fine ruby that is found just once, or at most, twice in a lifetime. I’m sure you were in love with Hammett; but you were a different girl then. You’ve grown up a bit; that is, if you’ll let yourself.”
“I just wanted to look after you the way you’ve looked after Cherry and me,” Loyce stammered miserably.
Mrs. Mitchell sniffed. “A lot of looking after him you’ve done these last two years, Loyce,” she reminded the girl. “Sneaking out of the house before daybreak; taking your lunch with you; sitting at the dinner table a few minutes every evening because he ordered you to; and then sneaking off to your room for dear-knows what. A mighty fine companion you’ve been to him. You’ve near ‘bout worried him to death. Way I see it, he’d be mighty relieved to know you was off somewhere married and happy.”
Jonathan stood up, and this time his taut scowl and tone of his voice told them that he was not staying for further arguments.
“I’ve never looked on myself as the answer to a maiden’s prayer, exactly,” he said grimly. “But neither have I thought of myself as a man who had to get a girl’s family to force her to marry him. A thing like that could easily give a man an inferiority complex similar to Loyce’s. So if you’ll excuse me, I have some packing to do.”
He turned and strode out of the room, and for a moment after he had gone there was an abashed, uneasy silence behind him. It was the Judge who broke it.
“Go after him, girl,” he ordered softly.
Loyce shrank, eyes wide, and there were stains of tears on her cheeks.
“Oh, Gran’sir, I can’t!” she whispered piteously.
“Because you think it might be humiliating to have to plead with him?” asked her grandfather without mercy.
“Well, of course it would.”
“How do you suppose he felt, sitting here listening to us? To me, rather. You didn’t have much to say, come to think of it.”
“You took me so by surprise I couldn’t think,” she replied.
“Well, if you want him you’d better get out there and convince him,” the Judge reminded her. “If you’re worrying about what’s going to happen here after you and Cherry are gone, I’ll tell you. Eben’s son, Ansel, will take over your work and do a mighty fine job of it. Now that’s settled. And as for Cherry, she’s arranged for Betty Marshall to take over her job. So where is the problem?”
Loyce sat very still for a moment, looking first at her grandfather, then at the Mitchells, and last at Cherry, who gave her a tentative but very warm smile.
“Looks as if we’d been bounced from our jobs, Loyce. Let’s face it and make the best of it,” Cherry suggested.
Loyce stood up at last. There was a lovely pink in her cheeks and her eyes were shining as she went out of the room and up the stairs.
Jonathan looked up as she knocked and opened the door. For a long moment he met her eyes and then went back to his packing.
“Jonny, don’t go,” she whispered faintly.
He apparently did not hear her, and she closed the door and came to stand within arm’s reach of him.
“But if you must go, Jonny,” she whispered, “take me with you.”
For a moment his hands that were stuffing articles into his opened suitcases were still. He did not look up, nor did he speak for a moment. And when he did his voice was curt and sharp. “Sorry! That’s out!”
She cringed as though he had struck her, and some of the soft color left her face. But her eyes clung to his, and though her hands clenched tightly she did not give up.
“You said you loved me,” she whispered.
“I do. But that doesn’t mean I’ll settle for any less from you.”
“You don’t have to, Jonny darling. I love you. Oh, darling, I love you so much.” Her voice was shaken, and her hands reached out to him and were drawn swiftly back as he made no effort to accept them.
He straightened, and for a long moment he looked at her coldly. His eyes were bleak, as was his tone when he answered, “Love me so much that your grandfather had to adopt his courtroom manner and sentence you to marry me or get out?”
“He didn’t really mean that, Jonny”
“It certainly sounded to me as though he meant exactly what he said,” Jonny pointed out grimly. “And who can blame him, after the way you behaved about Hammett? And now when, as he pointed out, you get a second chance at love and you’re still afraid!”
“Afraid?” she stammered, outraged.
“Afraid!” he repeated as though pounding his point home. “Afraid of leaving your snug little dreary nest here and stepping out somewhere to undertake responsibilities and marriage. And there are responsibilities, my girl! Make no mistake about that.”
She drew a long, hard breath and admitted her defeat.
For a long moment she met his eyes, and then she said very softly, “I don’t blame you for being disgusted with me, for doubting that I love you. I do, but I know now I could never make you believe that. So you’ll go away and I’ll probably never see you again. But will you kiss me goodbye, darling?”
He stood very still for a moment, his tall body rigid. And then his arms swept out and cradled her close and hard against him, and his cheek was against hers that was tear-wet beneath a lovely rising flush. Their lips found each other and clung. And all confusion and misunderstanding and bitterness was swallowed up in the breath-taking magic kiss….
Downstairs in the big living room, Cherry perched on the edge of her chair and watched her grandfather, who was apparently completely absorbed in his book. Suddenly there was a twinkle in Cherry’s eyes and she leaned forward, took the book from him, turned it right side up and gave it back to him.
“It’s much easier to read if you hold it right side up, lambie,” she mocked him tenderly.
The Judge looked at her sheepishly.
“I suppose it is,” he agreed, and looked up toward the stairs. “They’ve been gone a long time, haven’t they?”
“Well, they’ve got a lot of things to settle,” Cherry answered reasonably.
“You think she’ll win?” asked the Judge uneasily.
Cherry’s laugh was touched with loving scorn.
“Darling, you’re the smartest man in all the world, but you still don’t know a heck of a lot about women, do you?” she mocked.
“I’m smart enough to admit I never expect to, either,” he said frankly. “You do think they’ll be happy, honey?”
“Well, gollies, lambie, of course they will,” Cherry assured him with such bright confidence that he was relieved. “Jonny’s
a darling and Loyce is a treasure, and why wouldn’t they have themselves a simply super marriage?”
The windows were open to the night. Suddenly she stood up and walked across to one of them and stood leaning there; savoring the sound of the wind through the trees; the faint, faraway barking of a dog; the tinkle of a cow bell from the pasture.
“Listen, Gran’sir,” she whispered as though the sound of her voice might destroy the beloved mountain music. “Wind in the pines! Mountain melody! Oh, Gran’sir, I’m so glad I’m marrying a mountain man and can listen to that melody all the rest of my life! It’s the most beautiful music in the whole world. In the winter when the snow is falling; in spring when the fruit trees are budding and the streams are unlocked from the ice; in summer when the wind tiptoes through the pines like this — oh, Gran’sir, isn’t it beautiful music?”
“It is, my dear, it is,” he answered gently.
She turned swiftly and came back to drop to her knees beside his chair and to lay her arms across his blanketed, lifeless knees.
“Darling, are you going to miss us just terribly?” she asked softly.
“Scarcely a bit,” he answered hardily.
“You’re lying, Gran’sir, and I love you for it,” she told him. “But don’t you worry. I’ll be running in every few days, and there’ll be vacations when Jonny and Loyce will come down. And we’ll bring the children to visit you.”
“Well, you’d better,” said the Judge, and his smile was warm and tender for all that he tried to make his voice stern, “or I’ll get out an injunction against you. Could you just possibly name the first boy Bramblett? Or would Job mind?”
“Phooey for Job! The second one can be named Job, Junior.” Cherry laughed and drew herself up so that she could put her arms about him and hold him close. “Bramblett would be a lovely name! Gavin Bramblett Tallent! I think he’ll like that! And then there’ll always be a Bramblett at the Lodge. And that’s as it should be!”
Upstairs a door opened, and there were footsteps in the hall and on the stairs. Cherry stood up with a lovely, graceful movement, her hand still on the Judge’s shoulder as she watched them come slowly down the stairs. One look at their faces, even without Jonathan’s arm about Loyce, told her that all was well with these two, and her heart swelled until she was breathless with its warm sweetness.