The dark fantastic (15 page)

threat of rain thrilled and exhilarated him. But the business of selling the crop was anticlimactic. He was glad that his younger brother seemed to enjoy it.

The second week in August brought a lull which seemed an admirable opportunity for his trip to the city. He announced his intention one evening at supper, then waited for repercussions, for seldom did a farmer journey twenty miles from home in summer. But his mother only said, "I'm afraid you'll find it pretty warm this time of year." His brother gave him an oblique look which, oddly, Richard felt called upon to answer.

"I'm going for the purpose of giving the children an outing. I've always promised to take them to Terre Haute, and summer's the time to do it, when the roads are good. You won't mind the heat, will you, boys?"

Ricky and Rodgie were immediately incoherent with excitement.

Ann Tomlinson said warningly that Richard didn't know what he was letting himself in for. "Those two are a handful anywhere. They'll get themselves killed and you too. You'd better wait till one of your sisters can go with you."

"Thorne will go with me. She's all the help I need."

"Thorne's nothing but a child herself."

"But I'm used to cities," Thorne interrupted eagerly. "I've gone about on city streets since I was smaller than Rodgie. I'll keep tight hold of each boy, Miss Ann, so Richard will be free to attend to his business."

Richard said hastily that he had no business to attend to. Young Will and Jesse Moffat exchanged glances.

Nancy Turner happened to be present, and suddenly, to Richard's chagrin, she proposed that she go with them. There was nothing, under the circumstances, with which he could have more readily dispensed than Nancy's company, but he could not refuse in the face of his mother's approval.

"That's a splendid idea, Nancy," said Miss Ann. "You can help with the children. I won't have a minute's peace if they're turned loose with Richard. They're sure to be run over by those fast horses in the city."

"You talk as though I weren't responsible, Mother."

"When you get your mind on something, Richard, you forget everything around you."

The idea seemed to persist that some errand was taking him to town.

They were up betimes next morning. Nancy spent the night with Thorne, and the two girls dressed in fluttering haste to be ready by the time the carriage and team were at the door. The little boys, so heavy with sleep that Thorne had to dress them, were stowed away on the roomy back seat, and Nancy, by right of seniority, appropriated the front seat beside Richard, to that gentleman's complete exhaustion. It was a five-hour drive to Terre Haute, and her tongue outran the horses all the way. On the back seat, Thorne and the children slept peacefully.

As soon as they reached the city the boys awoke and demanded to eat. They had been too excited for breakfast and now they were ravenous. As it was nearly noon, Richard put the horses in a livery stable and piloted his little crowd to a quiet family eating house on Wabash Avenue. Dinner at a restaurant was an unprecedented experience for at least three of his charges and would consume, he hoped, considerable time. It would be bad manners to call upon Miss Judith before two o'clock.

But long before the meal was over he felt as though the expedition had already lasted for weeks. The day was scorching. The children were restless, excited, noisy, thirsty, and embarrassingly tormented by the demands of nature. They discovered a water cooler with a fascinating little spigot which turned on and off, and they imbibed so much liquid that it seemed to their harassed young father that it went right through them. He made so many trips out of the room, with first one, then the other, that Nancy giggled insufferably and even Thorne teased him. They were all in a state of hilarity, but he was too weary by this time to smile. When he wiped Rodgie's nose and discovered too late that he had used a napkin instead of his handkerchief, he groaned. Six hours of caring for his own children had worn him threadbare. He wondered how his mother had put up with them all these years.

Upon their demand at the conclusion of the meal for further entertainment, he explained somewhat grimly that they were going to see a ladv. Thorne had received a note from their friend Miss Judith—they remembered Miss Judith, didn't they?—inviting her to call. Of course Thorne couldn't go alone, so they were all going with her. Thorne's clear eyes widdened rather blankly as she heard herself thus credited with the purely theoretical motive for the excursion. But loyally she made no comment.

They walked through the broiling heat to Mrs. Prewitt's boardinghouse and stood about in languid attitudes of boredom while Richard rang the bell. Calling on a schoolteacher was not their idea of making holiday. Watching their perspiring disappointment, he half wished he had not come. It was a fool's errand anyway. He had a mind even now to return to Timberley without seeing Judith. He was in no mental state for the delicate mission before him. He would likely make an ass of himself and be ordered from the house. He hoped fervent!}' she was not in.

Thorne hoped so too.

But Judith was in and very glad indeed to see her friends from Timberley. One glance at Richard's face was sufficient to tell her why he had come, why he had fortified himself with four limp, bedraggled children. He had thought better of his rash commitment and had come to withdraw it. Like a forewarned general, she swiftly altered her own strategy to meet the attack.

Leading the little party around to the cooler side porch, she listened to Nancy's chatter and questioned the boys and Thorne about their summer's activities until her adult caller had time to cool off. Then she brightly suggested that the young people make a visit to the ice-cream parlor just a block away. They served delicious cream and ices and had cunning little tables and chairs at which to eat them. At the mere mention of ice cream the children revived astonishingly. Ice cream was an unheard-of treat. Before Richard could collect his scattered faculties and fumble for his wallet Judith had sped up to her room and back and pressed the money into Nancy's plump, moist palm.

They were gone, the four of them, with Richard's tardy dollar bill entrusted to Thorne, and Richard flushed with embarrassment, putting his wallet back into his pocket while Judith laughed at his discomfiture.

"Don't look so concerned, Mr. Tomlinson. I'm not too impoverished to treat the children to ice cream. Besides, this is a special occasion. When they've come so far to see me I should feel quite distressed if I had to let them go back without some little gesture of hospitality."

She looked so cool and neat in her crisp green chambray, she had been so gracious and clever in her handling of his dilemma, that he looked at her admiringly, wondering if he were making a mistake in letting this woman go.

''Miss Judith—I c-can't tell you " he stammered boyishly, and fanned his hot face with his hat. He felt crumpled and untidy beside her immaculate daintiness. If he had known that his damp hair, curling moistly in the heat, gave him the artless charm of his son Ricky, he might have been even more dubious of his mission than he was.

He inquired naively if there was anyplace less public where they could talk. Judith led him into what was elegantly referred to as the garden but was literally Mrs. Prewitt's back yard. There was grass, however, and a pergola covered with Virginia creeper. They took refuge here from the torrid sunshine, and he tried to summon the thoughts he had so carefully arranged the night before.

It was a hopeless endeavor. No sooner had they entered the privacy of the little summerhouse than he found Judith's cool fingers touching his and her face uptilted temptingly close to his lips.

"Richard!" she whispered. "You don't have to tell me why you have come. I know. Only I didn't expect you so soon."

And then—he never quite knew how it happened—she was in his arms and he was kissing her with a roughness that was a compound of embarrassment, August temperature, and long-pent-up desires. Not for years had he touched a woman. Never had he held one like this. He realized with a shock that he had wanted to kiss her ever since that night at the theater.

Somewhere in the giddy tumult of his mind, whence rational thought had retreated, a disquieting note sounded clear for a single second. It was the instinctive knowledge that this woman who yielded so eagerly to his embrace was not the artless lover that she seemed but a schemer, wily and ruthless. Then his own generous nature rose, indignant, at such heresy and drowned it in fresh ardor.

There were footsteps in the yard, and Judith hastily released herself, whispering, "Mrs. Prewitt! She saw us come in here and she's followed us. Quick! We must set her straight or she'll be telling all sorts of things."

Before he had time to envision what Mrs. Prewitt might tell more incriminating than the truth, he found himself drawn across the lawn and given a rather startling introduction to the redoubtable landlady.

"Mrs. Prewitt, I want you to meet my fiance."

In his confusion he was conscious that Mrs. Prewitt was not the only recipient of the sensational announcement. Around the corner of the house came four disheveled children, replete with candy and ice cream. They had spent Richard's money as well as Judith's and now they were surfeited and ready to go home. They entered the yard in time to hear Judith add, "Mr. Tomlinson and I are going to be married in the fall."

They stood in silence while Mrs. Prewitt beamed and congratulated and crumpled an overdue board bill in her pocket. Then Nancy found voice and began gurgling, "Oh, Richard! Are you really going to marry Miss Judith? How thrilling!" and went off into a series of giggles which brought a furious frown to Richard's face and a brusque reply in confirmation. His small sons, not understanding the trend of events but not liking their father's scowl, set up a cry and blubbered piteously for Gran'ma. Altogether there was quite a commotion before the young Tomlinsons were quieted and made ready for departure. Richard had only a sketchy last moment with Judith, but she managed to make it conclusive.

"I'll send in my resignation to Staunton immediately. We'll be married in October. Tell your mother not to worry about a thing. I'll make all the plans."

He bade her good-by in a kaleidoscopic fog and looked about for Thorne, who had disappeared. It was some time before she was found behind the grape arbor, being very sick all by herself. Mrs. Prewitt said it was the ice cream; Judith said it was the heat. Richard said nothing.

He watched Thorne bathe her face at the pump and suggested that she wait on the porch with Miss Judith while he went to the livery stable for the carriage. But this proposal Thorne flatly rejected. She was perfectly able to walk; in proof of which statement, she immediately set forth. Nancy followed, and Richard, with only the briefest word of farewell, collected the little boys and hurried after. His newly betrothed watched him out of sight with a faint frown of annoyance which, fortunately, there was no one but Mrs. Prewitt to see.

CHAPTER 13

The news of Richard's forthcoming marriage was received with shocked relish everywhere but in his immediate family. The Tomlinsons maintained a discreet attitude, taking their cue from Miss Ann, whose only comment was, ''You are old enough to know what you are doing, Richard. I hope you are happy."

But in Woodridge and throughout the countryside tongues wagged aplenty. For a widower of twenty-six to marry again was to be expected. But for him to wait a bare six months and then select as his bride a stranger who had lived under his roof during his first wife's lifetime cast an interesting suspicion over the whole affair. Too many eager widows and hopeful spinsters had fixed their hopes on Richard for this action to pass unassailed. Speculations were rife concerning the precipitancy of the arrangements. It was prophesied that Abigail would turn over in her grave.

Judith, in her hot back bedroom at Mrs. Prewitt's, busily sewing on her wedding garments, shrewdly divined what the local reaction would be and prepared to offset it. She was well aware that she could not cop the prize matrimonial plum of a small rural community without making enemies. For herself, she cared not a fig. But she was determined to make the second Mrs. Tomlinson a more popular figure than the first Mrs. Tomlinson had been. If she married Richard in Terre Haute and went back to Timberley as his wife she would be forever an outlander. But if she returned to Woodridge as plain Judith Amory and married him on his own ground she would have the sympathy and good will of all who attended her wedding. And it was her plan that everyone of importance should attend.

So the first week in September she packed up, paid off Mrs. Prewitt, and departed from her select boardinghouse forever. Twenty-four hours later she was installed in the Barclays' front parlor in Woodridge, penning a chaste note to her betrothed, notifying him of her change of address. And here she waited, surrounded by Barclays all busily stitching on Judith's trousseau, while she listened for Richard's step on the walk and the ring of the Barclay doorbell.

But when the Timberley surrey stopped at the gate one afternoon it was Ann Tomlinson and not her son who had called. After a momentary qualm Judith was pleased. This was as it should be. Whatever Ann Tomlinson's personal feelings might be regarding this marriage—and Judith had a lively suspicion of their nature—Richard's mother was prepared to do the correct thing.

"My son tells me that you plan to be married in Wood-ridge." Miss Ann went straight to the point as soon as greetings were disposed of. Judith had conveyed this information in her note.

Actually, she had no such plan in mind. The wedding she visualized could never be encompassed in the Barclays' tiny dwelling. But she intended letting Richard—or his mother--make the suggestion that would accomplish her purpose.

"I dislike the idea of being married in a boardinghouse," said Judith wistfully. It was an effective touch. Miss Ann softened.

"I'm sure Richard would never have let you be married from a boardinghouse, even in Terre Haute. Now that you're in Woodridge you must have a church wedding at our own church."