Romance Classics

by Peggy Gaddis

  Meanwhile Judy had reached her own room and was huddled in a deep wicker chair, looking out with unseeing eyes at the delicate tracery of spring that was showing on the old live-oaks and the garden shrubbery. Here was the day for which she had looked with longing, eager eyes since Bix had awkwardly told her goodbye beneath the yellow willows and had assured her he would never forget her.

  She drew a deep, hard breath and reminded herself that he had forgotten her very existence. Even now he still did not remember her! Beth and Sam had both tried to warn her, and she had derided their warnings! And now Bix was back at Oakhill and already restless to get away!

  She fought hard against the tears that clogged her throat and was very relieved when Beth came in, closing the door behind her and saying with a touch of anxiety, “I just met Bix in the hall, and he wants to take his meals with us. Claims the big dining room scares him.”

  Judy nodded, keeping her face turned away from her mother.

  “Yes, he told me that. Asked that we set an extra place for him, but I didn’t tell him we would. I mean, if Mam’ Chloe wants to feed him in the big dining room, I don’t know how he’s going to avoid it, do you? Mam’ Chloe is a woman who knows her own mind and wants other people never to forget it. I’d hate to disagree with her, wouldn’t you? She can be a bully.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Judy, you’re being childish! Mam’ Chloe is as gentle as a lamb.”

  “As long as she gets her own way!”

  Beth studied her cautiously.

  “You’re in a foul humor, aren’t you?” she asked unexpectedly.

  Color seeped into Judy’s face, which she kept turned away from her mother.

  “Bix didn’t remember, did he?” asked Beth gently.

  Judy’s shoulders quivered, and she put up her hands to shield her face, unable to answer.

  “I tried to warn you, honey,” said Beth.

  Judy nodded. “So did Sam. But you know me. I’m like Mam’ Chloe—set in my ways, stubborn and hard to change.”

  Beth said, “Darling, I’m sorry. But after all, you were only twelve, just a child—”

  Judy rounded on her sharply, head held high, her tear-streaked face set.

  “Now don’t you start trying to make me be sensible and admit I never really loved him or was even old enough to know whether it was love. Because I was old enough, and I did know. And so did he, then.”

  Her voice shook and she turned away, unable to meet Beth’s loving, deeply concerned eyes.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” Judy managed a stricken apology. “I didn’t mean to tell you. But there’s just one thing I can’t stand. And that’s somebody, even you, trying to argue with me that I didn’t know my own mind then or that I don’t know it now. Oh, sure, I’ve grown up enough to know that old saw about ‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ and I’ve just had my nose rubbed in the truth of that. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.”

  Beth said gently, “Of course not, darling. We won’t ever discuss it again.”

  “Thanks,” Judy mumbled as she turned away, her voice a small, husky breath.

  “Well,” said Beth briskly, “I suppose I’d better go tell Mam’ Chloe she won’t need to get the big dining room ready at all. It’s going to save a good bit of work for the kitchen staff if they serve the three of us together.”

  Judy did not answer, and Beth went out of the room and stood for a moment in the corridor. She wished with all her heart that Judy had been able to outgrow that childish romance, as it was obvious Bix had. But then, she reminded herself, Judy hadn’t had the many opportunities to forget that Bix had had. And all she or anybody else could do was to stand by in case of need. But Judy was so stubborn, so self-reliant, so unwilling to appeal for help in any situation, that Beth sighed and knew there would be a long and difficult interval before Judy would consent to listen to any arguments, no matter how persuasive they might be.

  Beth’s and Judy’s dining quarters were in the small breakfast room that opened out from the big dining room. There were wide windows that looked out into, the spring landscape, and there was a coziness about the small room that was, of course, completely lacking in the big dining room where as many as forty guests had often sat down to dinner.

  Bix looked about the small, cheerful room as he took the place Beth indicated for him at the small round table.

  “Hey, now this is something I like!” he enthused. “That big dining room, with old grandfather and me at the table, scared the livin’ daylights out of me. I was certain that the flickering of candles meant that the ghosts of ancestors long gone were lurking and watching. I suppose I was an imaginative brat, but this old place surely seems a happy hunting ground for ghosts.”

  “It’s very old,” said Judy quietly. “It’s seen a lot of living and a lot of loving and a lot of dying, so it’s natural that it would seem to be haunted, isn’t it?”

  Bix admitted uncomfortably, “Well, I suppose so. And I’m not really afraid of ghosts nowadays. The very thought used to terrify me, but now that I’m grown up—” He grinned and made a little gesture that dismissed the thought.

  When dessert was served, and they were lingering over it, the swinging door from the kitchen opened and a dark-skinned woman, ample in her immaculate white uniform, stood there, arms akimbo, eyeing Bix with hostile eyes.

  “So you came back, did you?” she addressed him despite Beth’s and Judy’s startled protest. “After all these years, with him a-yearning to see you but too busy having fun even to think about him down here. Take shame on yourself, you didn’t come back to visit him till he was on his death bed! And the nurse-lady says he didn’t even know you. I don’t blame him. I don’t want to know you, either.”

  And before Bix could manage an answer, before Beth could no more than murmur a sharp protest, the door swung shut behind the woman.

  Bix started from Beth’s flushed face to Judy’s and saw the faintest possible quirk at the corner of Judy’s mouth that told him she was trying hard not to laugh. And the thought added immeasurably to his discomfort.

  “And who, may I ask, was that!” he wanted to know at last.

  Judy’s eyes flashed up, met his and turned swiftly away. It was Beth who answered.

  “Mam’ Chloe, Bix, and you mustn’t be too angry with her. She is devoted heart and soul to the Old Gentleman. She has lived all her life here, and Oakhill and the Old Gentleman are the dearest things in the world to her,” Beth answered him.

  Bix managed a brief and mirthless grin.

  “Well, I suppose I had it coming to me, but I really didn’t expect it from one of the servants,” he admitted frankly. “I rather thought you or Sam might give me a ‘dressing down’ for being so busy I hadn’t a chance to pay a visit, but not one of the servants!”

  Beth’s cheeks colored faintly, and Judy’s eyes on Bix were tinged with hostility.

  “Mam’ Chloe is part of the Oakhill family, Bix. I’m afraid she doesn’t look on herself as a servant. Neither do we, to be honest about it. She’s as deeply concerned about the welfare of the Old Gentleman and the estate itself as any of us; more than most of us, because she was born here and her parents before her. She can’t possibly conceive of ever living anywhere else.”

  Bix said quickly, scowling slightly, “But if the place were sold—” He broke off as both women stared at him as though they could not possibly believe he had really said that.

  “Oakhill sold?” It was Judy who recovered her breath first so that she could speak. “You aren’t really planning to sell Oakhill, Bix? You couldn’t! You wouldn’t!”

  Irritated at their manner, Bix said shortly, “And why not? I certainly wouldn’t ever want to live here, be buried alive here! And it surely couldn’t run itself, as complex a set-up as this.”

  Beth had regained some of her composure and said quietly, “But Sam Gillespie could run it, as he has been doing for years, and at a very nice profit, too. And I’m sure he would be glad to stay on. It’s
his home, too, and has been for three generations.”

  Bix stared from one to the other. Suddenly he crumpled his napkin, threw it down and stood up.

  “Sorry if the idea seems so unpleasant to you,” he told them coldly. “But you may as well know now that when the place comes into my hands, it will be put up for sale. And it should bring a very handsome price. Now if you’ll excuse me? And thank you for a very interesting meal!”

  He stalked out, leaving Judy and Beth to sit silently staring at the door that had closed behind him.

  “He’s pretty sure that the Old Gentleman isn’t going to recover, isn’t he?” said Judy at last in a small, thin voice.

  Beth answered tautly, “So is Dr. Dellinger.”

  Judy drew a long, hard breath, and her hands clenched tightly.

  “You know something, Miz’ Beth?” she asked at last.

  “Such as what, darling?”

  “Such as that I’m not quite so sure, after all, that I’m still in love with him,” Judy admitted frankly.

  Beth studied her for a moment, and then she smiled.

  “I wish I could believe that, Judy!”

  Judy was silent for a moment, and then she nodded solemnly.

  “So do I!” she said.

  Chapter Three

  For the next few days Judy carefully avoided Bix. It wasn’t hard to do, even though they both lived beneath the roof of Oakhill. Bix was restless, wandering about the house, occasionally roaming out of doors. But he spent a considerable portion of the day in the library at the telephone, with the door carefully shut.

  Judy pursued her usual routine. For years she had ridden out with the Old Gentleman on his rounds of the plantation, knowing that he loved having her with him as much as she loved being with him. His attitude toward her was that of a grandfather toward a beloved grandchild. And Judy gave him the love and respect she would have given the grandfather she had never known.

  With his illness, she took over the task of seeing that the horses got their necessary exercise, with especial attention to the Old Gentleman’s favorite mount, Starlight, a handsome, mettlesome mare with whom the stablehands were a bit uneasy. Yet Judy handled her with an ease and affection to which Starlight responded gratefully.

  A few days after Bix arrived, Judy was in her favorite place beneath a giant live-oak at the end of the bridle path farthest from the Manor. Starlight cropped the tender new grass and moved slowly while Judy, perched on a large flat rock, looked off into the distance.

  From the low hill where she sat, the meadow sloped away to the river, which curled a protective arm about Oakhill. The meadow was already starred with wild flowers, and directly below her a giant apple tree leaned crookedly, as though clinging to the ground with all its might against the winds and storms of the winter just past. It’s gnarled, twisted branches were cloaked with the pink-white of blossoms, and about its roots grew beds of dog-tooth violets.

  Along the curve of the river, willows lifted their swaying branches, seeming to bend now and then to regard themselves in the yellow water below them. It was beneath those willows, that had been turning yellow with autumn glory, that Bix told Judy goodbye! Remembering how the willows had stirred above her head in an early fall wind, Judy’s pretty mouth thinned and twisted bitterly.

  She knew now that she had lied to her mother when she had doubted her love for Bix. When she saw him daily at the table, and occasionally the house, her heart gave a small, startled lurch and cried out soundlessly for his love. No matter how hard she tried to hush it, she couldn’t. And no matter how much she despised herself for that whimpering, anguished cry, she had been unable to do anything about quieting it.

  Suddenly startled, she looked up as she heard hoof-beats on the bridle path. She stood up as a chestnut-colored gelding came around the bend in the path, then dropped back on the rock as she saw Sam in the saddle.

  He swung out of the saddle, dropped the reins so the gelding could crop grass beside Starlight and came over to join her.

  “Wipe that scared look off your pretty face, honey,” he ordered. “And move over and let a guy sit down, will you?”

  She made room for him on the big flat rock but still studied him anxiously.

  “You scared me, Sam. When I saw you following me, I was afraid something had happened at the Manor.”

  Sam shook his head.

  “I saw you ride by while I was checking some work the boys were doing, and I didn’t see you ride back toward the Manor. So it seemed a good chance to have a few words with you, private-like. How goes it, Young ’Un?”

  He hadn’t called her that in a long time, and it seemed to take her very briefly back to childhood. But she turned her face away from him and dug absently in the sand at the base of the rock.

  “All right, I suppose,” she admitted. And then, with a little rush of words that she had not meant to speak, she demanded, “Sam, what do you suppose Bix intends to do with Oakhill once he gets his hands on it legally?

  Sam’s brows drew together in a slight scowl and he replied cautiously, “I’m afraid to ask, but tell me anyway.”

  Judy’s voice shook with outrage. “He plans to sell it!”

  Her voice was touched with some of the shock and outrage she had felt the first night Bix had been at the Manor, when he had mentioned such a plan.

  She saw Sam’s face tighten and caught a reflection of her own shock and anger in his eyes. He was obviously searching for words that would answer her and perhaps offer her some slight measure of comfort. But when he finally spoke it was plain he had not been able to find the words.

  “So that’s why he asked so many questions when I showed him over the place,” he said slowly after a long moment, “and why he didn’t want to go over the books until he had an accountant and a lawyer on tap.”

  Judy’s alarm tautened her voice and lit new anxiety in her eyes.

  “But—but—oh, Sam, can he?” she stammered after a moment.

  Sam nodded. “Once the place belongs to him legally, he can do whatever he wants to do with it,” he told her reluctantly. “But that won’t be as long as the Old Gentleman is alive.”

  Judy drew a long, long, hard breath, and her hands clenched into tight sunburned fists.

  “And the Old Gentleman is living on borrowed time,” she whispered desolately. “The end can come, Dr. Dellinger says, at any minute.”

  Sam reached out, took one of the small, clenched fists, opened it and spread the fingers across his palm, in a comforting gesture that made the tears spring to her eyes.

  “Dr. D. also says that he could easily live for years,” he reminded her.

  She nodded soberly and avoided his eyes, her mouth tremulous.

  “The Old Gentleman doesn’t want to live for years the way he is now, a sort of living vegetable!” she burst out. “He’s always been so strong and active, so energetic. Oh, Sam, it just about kills me to see him the way he is now!”

  “I know,” Sam said quietly, his eyes somber, his voice troubled with an unaccustomed heaviness. “I feel the same way when I go in to see him and realize he doesn’t even know me.”

  Judy nodded and set her teeth for a moment in her lower lip, fighting against the tears that threatened to choke her.

  “Do you think he recognized Bix?” Sam asked after a moment.

  “I—think so. So does the nurse. But of course we couldn’t be sure.”

  They sat for a moment in a companionable silence.

  “Sam,” she said at last very softly, “d’you know something?”

  Sam grinned hearteningly and held her hand closer.

  “Not very much about what goes on in that head of yours, Young ’Un, so I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me,” he replied.

  “I think I hate Bix!” The words seemed almost to say themselves, and for a dazed moment Sam was very still, feeling the faintest possible stirring of his heart and yet not quite daring to accept a hope so faint that it scarcely dared call itself hope.

&
nbsp; But before he could risk an answer, or any words at all, she lifted her tearful eyes and said tremulously, “The heck of it is that I think I hate him, and yet I think I still love him! Isn’t that the silliest thing you ever heard?”

  The tiny hope died in Sam’s heart, and it took him a full moment to master himself enough to find words to make an answer. And before he could articulate them, she stumbled on.

  “Is that possible, Sam?” she asked him as she had so often in the past asked him childish questions. “I mean, you can hate somebody and love them, too?”

  Sam drew a deep breath and managed a pleasant grin.

  “I don’t know, honey. I suppose it is possible. I’ve heard that sometimes people who fall in love begin by hating each other and then discover that it wasn’t hate at all; it was love all the time,” he told her slowly.

  Judy grimaced.

  “That doesn’t sound very—well, very comfortable,” she observed.

  Sam set his teeth hard.

  “My dear Young ’Un,” he told her loftily. “Where’d you ever get the cockeyed idea that being in love was comfortable?”

  “Well, they do write songs about it, and now and then stories and movies.” Her voice dropped into a small pit of silence, and she sat very still.

  “Oh, sure, they say so in movies and love songs and stories,” he agreed. “But life isn’t always like that, if I may be permitted the understatement of this or any other century.”

  He looked down at her face and saw that tears were slipping down her cheeks and that she seemed completely unaware of them, and his heart twisted for the pain she was suffering.

  She looked up at him after a long moment and managed a very faint and quite woeful smile.

  “What would I ever do without you, Sam darling?” she said huskily, and leaned closer to him.

  Sam’s arms moved to embrace her, but just in time he managed to hold back and answered grimly, “Oh, you’d manage, I’m sure.”

  She nodded soberly. “I suppose I could if I had to,” she admitted. “But, Sam, I hope I never have to!”