Romance Classics (108 page)

“I’m doing what I want to do,” Loyce told her curtly. “Who has the right to ask anything more out of life?”

“Oh, darling, don’t grieve so!” The words burst from Cherry against her will, and Loyce gave her a cold, frosty glance.

“That man you brought back from town — ” she ignored Cherry’s words and changed the subject so abruptly that it was like a slap in the face — “I suppose he’s staying?”

“I’m afraid so, Loyce,” Cherry answered. “He and Gran’sir are hitting it off like two kittens in a basket on a cold night. Gran’sir’s calling him ‘son’ and they’re sitting with their heads together and talking up a storm.”

Loyce stood for a moment above the feed she was carefully mixing for the afternoon feeding of the poultry. She seemed to have forgotten what she was doing, and for a moment there was a lost look on her thin face.

“Like Weldon and Gran’sir?” she murmured barely above her breath.

Before Cherry could answer, she had jerked herself back to the present and once more was absorbed in mixing the feed.

“Well, of course if Gran’sir wants him here, there’s really nothing you and I can do about it, is there?” she said over her shoulder.

“I’m afraid not,” Cherry answered, and added in a little rush, “Loyce, he’s really very nice. I think you’d like him if you gave yourself the chance.”

Loyce flung her a bitterly derisive glance.

“Really?” she mocked.

Cherry shrugged slightly and made a little gesture that admitted defeat.

“You will come in to lunch and meet him, won’t you, Loyce?” There was a plea in her voice.

“Afraid not,” Loyce said coolly. “I have to get those turkey poults settled down, and I’m going down to the south field to plan the garden there.”

“Then you can meet him at dinner,” said Cherry.

Loyce grimaced. “Oh, I’ve already met him. But I’ll be at dinner. You should know Gran’sir wouldn’t permit us not to appear at the dinner table, all ‘gussied up’ in pretty dresses and with our hair in curls.”

“It’s only because he loves us and is proud of us,” Cherry protested.

“Of course, of course,” drawled Joyce. “Run along now. I’ve got work to do. I’ll see your handsome new guest at dinner.”

“He
is
handsome, isn’t he?” Cherry asked eagerly.

“Very,” Loyce drawled. “Personally, I’ve always disliked handsome men. They are so arrogantly sure of their devastating effect on gullible females.”

She lifted the huge pan of feed, placed it on a wheelbarrow and trundled it down the length of the barn toward a door that opened out into the chicken yard.

Cherry stood where she was and drew a deep breath. What had happened to Loyce in the fourteen months since her fiancé, Weldon Hammett, had died in a plane crash from which there had been no survivors? The plane had crashed in a fog on a lonely mountain and all aboard had died in the flaming wreckage.

Weldon had been a minor attaché in the British embassy in Washington and had come to Atlanta to take part in the wedding of a former college friend. After the wedding festivities were over, Weldon and two of the other ushers had come up to Crossways Lodge for a Thanksgiving week-end of hunting before Weldon’s return to Washington.

Weldon and Loyce had clicked from their first meeting. Weldon had come back several times for week-ends, and then he had asked Loyce to marry him. And Loyce had been transformed from a shy, retiring girl to a radiant, sparkling one.

The two girls had gone to Atlanta to trousseau-shop. The Lodge had been in a furor of excited preparations for the wedding. And then the plane bringing Weldon south had crashed and burned just a few days before the date set for the wedding.

Loyce had collapsed from shock and stunned grief. She had finally rallied, more withdrawn, more aloof, more locked up within herself than ever before.

Cherry heaved a deep sigh and pushed the memories away from her as she turned to go back to the house.

The Judge and Jonathan were still deep in conversation, and she did not disturb them. She had work waiting for her in the small library off the main living room, where she settled herself and put the thought of everything else out of her mind.

It was not until lunch time that she returned to the living room. Jonathan sprang to his feet at sight of her, and the Judge smiled at her.

“This is quite a lad you’ve brought me, Chick,” said the Judge. “We’ve been having quite a chin-wagging session.”

“I know, darling.” Cherry smiled at him fondly. “Now let’s have lunch, and then you must take your nap, and I’ll take Mr. Gayle fishing. That is, if he’d care to go.”

“Oh, you mustn’t feel responsible for entertaining me, Miss Bramblett,” Jonathan told her. “The Judge says I may stay at least a month, and I don’t want you to feel I’m a nuisance.”

“That wouldn’t be permitted,” Cherry told him firmly. “As long as you don’t tire Gran’sir — ”

The Judge snorted. “Nonsense! I’ve seldom had a more rejuvenating morning. I feel ten years younger.”

“Then hooray for Mr. Gayle,” said Cherry.

“Couldn’t it be Jonathan?” he asked hopefully.

“Why not?” Cherry agreed lightly. “After all, informality is the law around here. And now Muv has lunch ready, so come along, both of you.”

She placed her hands on the back of the Judge’s chair and wheeled it across and into the dining area at the farther end of the huge living room. The fire on that side of the fireplace had not been lit, but the sun was high now and spilled its warmth through the wide glass panels that framed the magnificent view. A table had been laid for three. As they settled themselves, the Judge glanced around the table and at Cherry.

“Loyce isn’t joining us for lunch?” he asked wistfully.

“Afraid not, darling,” Cherry answered. “She’s getting some baby turkeys settled down and planting the south field with Joe and Mart. But she’ll be in for dinner.”

“My other granddaughter,” said the Judge to Jonathan.

“They met when Jonathan first arrived,” said Cherry briefly, and looked up as a stout, middle-aged woman in a neat calico dress and a voluminous checked gingham apron shouldered her way through the swinging door from the kitchen. “Muv, this is Mr. Gayle. Jonathan, this is the core and heart of the Lodge’s domestic arrangements: Mrs. Mitchell.”

“Howdy, Mr. Gayle,” said Mrs. Mitchell, and began serving the contents of the large, heavily laden tray she was carrying. “I’m right sorry, Cherry, that I have to give you fried chicken, but there wasn’t time for anything fancy. I’ll give you something special for supper, though.”

“Blasphemy!” Cherry protested as she eyed the laden platter of golden-brown, deliciously crisp fried chicken and the platters of vegetables with which it was surrounded. “As if your fried chicken weren’t just about the most special thing in the world.”

Mrs. Mitchell’s broad, ruddy face was touched with a pleased smile.

“I hope you like fried chicken, Mr. Gayle?” she asked anxiously.

“I’ve never eaten any like this, but I don’t see how anybody in his right mind wouldn’t be crazy about it, Mrs. Mitchell,” Jonathan assured her earnestly.

“Well, now, that’s right kind of you, Mr. Gayle. Soon as you catch a nice mess of rainbow trout, I’ll show you what I can do with them,” Mrs. Mitchell promised him, and went out of the room, the door swinging smartly behind her.

“Salt of the earth and a treasure beyond compare,” Cherry assured Jonathan as she dug into the food before her with the unashamedly hearty appetite of the young. “Muv and her family just about make the Lodge possible, don’t they, Gran’sir? Her two daughters are the maids; her two nieces come twice a week to do the laundry; her son supervises the dairy and her husband is head guide.”

Jonathan said, awed, “Seems you’ve got the servant problem licked!”

“Servant problem?” Cherry seemed surprised. “Oh, the Mitchells aren’t servants. They’re sort of partners in running the Lodge. Loyce and I went to school with the two Mitchell girls and the Mitchell son. We could never have started the Lodge without them, could we, Gran’sir?”

“Well, I’d hate to try,” admitted the Judge with a twinkle.

“The more I see of the Lodge the luckier I feel to be here,” said Jonathan.

After lunch, when the Judge had been settled for his nap and Jonathan had gone up to his room to unpack and change into something less citified than the garb in which he had traveled, Cherry went back to the small library and the job of settling reservations for the following week-end.

It was not until dinner time that they all met again. Loyce, neat and trim in a simple printed silk frock, her chestnut-brown hair brushed smoothly into a knot at the back of her head and her thin face guiltless of make-up, took her place.

Jonathan tried to be as entertaining as possible, and Loyce was polite if distant in her responses. However, Cherry and the Judge were delighted with Jonathan’s efforts, and there was a good deal of laughter that seemed merely to brush past Loyce and make no impression at all on her.

Jonathan was recounting an adventure in Washington when the name “Weldon Hammett” crept into the story. Suddenly Loyce went rigid and stared at him.

“What did you say?”
she asked huskily, and the tone of her voice was such that Jonathan turned to her, startled.

“Oh, I was probably being a bore,” he apologized awkwardly. “I was just telling a story about a cocktail party.”

“You said Weldon Hammett.” Loyce’s husky tone was touched with accusation.

“Yes, a very decent fellow I met at the party, who mentioned the Lodge,” Jonathan answered.

“You knew Weldon?” Loyce’s voice was thick, barely above a whisper.

Jonathan looked swiftly from Cherry to the Judge and back to Loyce, scowling in bewilderment.

“Why, yes. I met him a couple of times,” he answered.

Abruptly Loyce thrust back her chair and went at a stumbling run out of the room and up the stairs.

Jonathan stared after her and then looked at the others.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked, bewildered.

“Loyce was engaged to be married to Hammett, and three days before the wedding date the plane that was bringing him south crashed and burned in a fog. There were no survivors,” said the Judge quietly.

Jonathan was appalled.

“I didn’t know,” he stammered miserably.

“Well, of course you didn’t.” Cherry gave him a comforting smile. “How could you, if you only met him a couple of times?”

“I barely knew him, of course,” Jonathan mumbled. “He had just come back from attending a wedding in Atlanta and was making quite a story out of his experience here: the rainbow trout that were so hungry in the spring that you had to hide, in order to tie your fly; the hunting that was out of this world. Naturally he said nothing about being engaged to a girl here.”

“He probably wasn’t when you met him, if he’d just come back. He was here for the Thanksgiving week-end to hunt; that was when he and Loyce met. But they didn’t get engaged until the following spring,” Cherry told him. “You mustn’t feel so badly, Jonathan, really. You couldn’t possibly have known.”

There was the sound of a car in the drive, and she jumped up.

“Oh, that’s probably Job,” she announced. “I invited him to dinner but I suppose he had to run down a camper’s fire somewhere and got delayed. He can have coffee and dessert, anyway.”

As she passed Jonathan she patted his shoulder lightly, as if comforting a grieving child, and ran out to the front door.

There was a murmur of voices and then she came back, her hand tucked through the arm of the man Jonathan had met at the station that morning.

“Well, well, Job, nice to see you.” The Judge shook hands. “I believe Cherry said you and Mr. Gayle met at the station this morning.”

The two men exchanged greetings and Cherry said, as she cleared Loyce’s place for Job, “You’ve missed dinner, my friend, but you can have coffee and hot apple pie with ‘rat-trap’ cheese and make-do with that!”

From the doorway Mrs. Mitchell said firmly, “He can have his dinner. Man works hard like Job Tallent’s got to be fed. I’ll fix you a plate, Job.”

“Muv, I thank you,” said Job warmly. “Nice to be appreciated.”

Mrs. Mitchell said, “You’re appreciated, Job, boy. Not a man ner woman on the mountain ain’t grateful to you for keeping us from being burned in our beds by these crazy campers and picnickers.”

She gave Jonathan a severe look.

“And fellows up here fishin’ ain’t got a mite o’ sense about where they throw their cigarettes,” she finished sternly.

Jonathan winced even as he offered a pleading smile,

“I promise to be very careful, Mrs. Mitchell.”

“Well, you’d better be,” she sniffed, and went out. “Her bark is much worse than her bite,” Cherry comforted Jonathan.

“Well, she is right,” Job insisted. “Not that I think you’d be careless with a lighted cigarette, Mr. Gayle. City folks just don’t understand.”

“Thanks,” said Jonathan humbly. “I do know how very dangerous a forest fire can be, and how easily one can be started by even a faint spark.”

“Swell.” Job grinned at him with a friendly warmth that did not quite remove the faint wariness from his eyes. “Here just for the week-end?”

“Well, no. The Judge has said I may stay a month, if I behave myself,” Jonathan answered.

“Oh, a vacation, eh? Well, I must say you’ve chosen a fine place for it, if you really are a dedicated fisherman. There’s not much else to entertain a city man, I’m afraid,” Job told him.

“Oh, I don’t expect to be a bit bored,” Jonathan assured him, and for a moment the two men looked at each other and each seemed to take the other’s measure.

When Cherry and Job were ready to leave, Cherry said, “Why don’t you come with us, Jonathan? It’s usually a pretty good movie on ‘romance nights.’”

Job shot her a resentful glance and Jonathan, perfectly aware of Job’s resentment, smothered a grin.

“He probably saw it months ago in Chicago, Cherry,” Job spoke up.

“I doubt that,” said Jonathan smoothly, and saw the spark that loomed for a moment in Job’s eyes. “I’m not a movie-goer. But thanks for the invitation. Some other time, if I may take a rain check.”