Romance Classics (6 page)

Geraldine’s face was scarlet but she met Jamie’s grave eyes steadily.

“All that I have to give, Jamie — always,” she said quietly and knew that Jamie understood that she meant it exactly as it was spoken.

The nurse smiled warmly.

“Then that’s all right,” she said with relief. “Don’t fuss over him; don’t try to coddle him. As nearly as is humanly possible treat him exactly as you would if he had never gone off to war. And gradually you’ll have him back, the way he was then — almost.”

The two women smiled at each other shyly, wanting to be friends, not quite sure how to bridge the gap that lay between their backgrounds, their experience, their knowledge of the world.

After Jamie and Bob Drake had gone, Mrs. Parker said indignantly, “How very rude of her! To bring a guest without asking permission: I was terrified there wouldn’t be enough — ”

She stopped, startled, at the glance Tip flung at her, and a moment later, unwontedly subdued, she said good night and went away.

Tip stood at the window, his shoulders hunched, his clenched hands sunk deeply into his pockets.

Geraldine waited. She still felt shy of this man who had been her husband but who was now a stranger to her. Instinctively she waited for him to break the silence, and at last, as though feeling her presence, he turned and looked at her.

For a moment his eyes were blank, his face terribly tired and taut And then with a conscious effort he smiled and said, “Hello! My, but you’re pretty tonight, Mrs. Parker. A new dress?”

“A present for you,” said Geraldine, trying hard to be gay and flippant, as she swept him a little mocking curtsy. “Your mother selected it — she said it was your favorite color.”

“Any color you wear is my favorite color,” said Tip gallantly.

And then he moved, unexpectedly, and his arms were about her, holding her close against him, his cheek pressed against her hair.

They arrived in Marthasville a little after eleven on a spring morning that was doing its best to behave like summer.

The train slowed and came to a stop. There was a great roar from many voices; and Geraldine, startled, looked out to see that station jam-packed with people. As she and Mrs. Parker and Tip stepped from the train, the Fireman’s Volunteer Band struck up a resounding rendition of “Hail the Conquering Hero” and the three self-conscious little drum-majorettes from the High School band stepped smartly like prancing ponies.

Stretched from one side of the street to the other was a huge banner asway in the spring breeze. A banner that proclaimed in great scarlet letters:

Dazed, bewildered, Tip stepped down from the platform and stood, with his proud mother on one side, Geraldine on the other, while the Mayor, fat, complacent, red-faced Homer Lloyd, stepped forward, bearing an enormous key made of gilt paper, plentifully adorned with flowing streamers.

“It gives me the greatest of pleasure, Captain Parker,” boomed the Mayor, handsomely ignoring the fact that Tip was a mere lieutenant (j.g.) “to welcome you, on behalf of your proud townspeople. And to offer you, as a very small measure of our esteem, the key to the city that holds you so dear.”

Mayor Lloyd dropped his pompous manner and his booming voice to a more nearly confidential tone as he added, “And the key to the city really means something this time, Tip, my boy. It entitles you to enter any store or shop in the city today and select anything you want, from a baby grand piano from Friedman’s Music Store, to a bale of hay from Tom Foster’s feed store. And the folks that run the stores are going to be mighty hurt if you don’t collect, son!”

Tip made his taut face take on the semblance of a smile.

“It’s an irresistible temptation, Mayor,” he said and his voice was picked up and broadcast via loud speaker so that all the crowd, practically every man, woman, and child in the city could hear it. “I’ve always wanted a baby grand piano — and I imagine we could use a bale of hay, too!”

A great laughing cheer went up from the crowd, and then the Mayor was urging Tip, Mrs. Parker, and Geraldine towards a long, gleaming black car gaily decorated with streamers.

“There’s a reception at the Mansion House, and after that a banquet and a tour of the city — ” began the Mayor importantly.

Tip’s face twisted and he murmured to Geraldine in a voice that was an agonized appeal, for all its words did not reach beyond her ears, “Get me out of this, Gerry — for God’s sake,
get me out of this!”

She felt the trembling of his arm and knew he was holding himself rigid only by exerting every atom of his will; and suddenly she paused before the microphone which the Mayor was urging towards Tip, and said clearly, gaily:

“Here, wait a minute! After all, he’s my husband, and I’ve only barely seen him! I hope you don’t think I’m going to share him with all of you before we’ve even had a chance to get acquainted again? If you do, you’re mistaken! I’m not
that
unselfish! Later, maybe, but right this minute, I’m going to take him home and put him to bed! After all, he’s not very strong yet.”

It was a hasty little speech and she had let the words tumble out, because there was no time to plan more carefully. But her impulsiveness had been exactly the right note, and people laughed and cheered and swallowed their disappointment.

Mayor Lloyd said, “I’m sorry. Of course he’s not up to the sort of shindig we’d planned. But we thought when we got Mrs. Parker’s wire — ”

Geraldine said sharply, “Mrs. Parker wired you the time of our arrival?”

“Of course. She knew we’d want to give the boy a welcome he wouldn’t forget.”

Mrs. Parker had stepped into the car, cold-eyed. Tip stumbled a little as he followed her; as the door was held open, Geraldine turned slightly to the left and looked up into Phil’s eyes. He was standing beside the car, held there in a press of people who had crowded about to see or hear or touch their beloved son who had come home so dramatically from the dead.

For a moment Geraldine’s heart turned over. She felt her face go white, but there were many curious eyes on them, and so she made herself say quietly, “Hello, Phil.”

“Welcome home, Gerry,” said Phil.

And then Geraldine got into the car and it swirled away from the traffic and out towards the Parker home.

“I must say, Geraldine,” stated Mrs. Parker in cold anger, “that was an extremely ill-bred gesture of yours, dragging Tip away from the welcome his friends had prepared. I’m disappointed.”

“It was an extremely thoughtless gesture of yours, Mother,” said Tip and the measure of his displeasure was attested by the unaccustomed title, “to arrange anything like that. It takes a guy in much better shape than I’m feeling to face a thing like that.”

Hurt, Mrs. Parker said stiffly, “I saw no reason why you should sneak back to town like a — a —
anybody.”

Tip said wearily, “O.K., Mother, skip it. Only I asked Gerry to get me out of it and I thought she did a very nice job of it.”

His hand closed warmly over Geraldine’s and held it. Mrs. Parker made the rest of the trip in deeply offended silence, which Tip quietly ignored.

He looked about him with keen delight as the car swept up the driveway. In the garden, tulips were lifting shining cups of beauty; the grass was green, and some of the trees already wore tiny green leaf buds, tightly curled as a baby’s fist. Birds sang and darted like mad things, intent on nest-building and matters of grave import to themselves. All along the peach orchard there were drifts of pinkish-white bloom where the earliest peaches were already flowering.

Tip stood on the steps for a moment, his shoulders hunched a little against the crisp spring air, and his eyes drank in the scene about him. And Geraldine heard him say under his breath, “Home! I’m
home!”
as though he could scarcely believe the miracle that had happened.

Mrs. Parker, leaving her son and Geraldine in the big reception hall, had hurried away up the gracefully curving staircase, and now she came to the head of the stairs and called down to them gaily.

“Come along, children. I have such a lovely surprise for you.”

Tip smiled at Geraldine, tucked her hand through his arm, and they mounted the stairs side by side. At the doorway of the room that Tip and Geraldine had so briefly shared, and where Geraldine had cried herself to sleep, for so many nights, Mrs. Parker stood back and they walked in.

It had been completely redecorated. The walls done over, new and very handsome furniture installed. There was a private bath, gleaming in ivory and pale green tile; the adjoining bedroom had been turned into a sitting room, gay and colorful with hand-blocked linen draperies, blond maple furnishings, and a moss-green rug on the floor. The windows looked out over the garden, with the green, velvety sweep of the meadow beyond, ending where the yellow-green willows marked the tiny creek, the darker green loveliness of pine trees riding the hill beyond.

“I wanted you to have a little apartment all your own, so you wouldn’t want to go away and leave me all by myself,” said Mrs. Parker eagerly. “There is such a lot of space in this house — surely enough for all of us. But I know young people need privacy and a place of their own, so I thought this would be better than your having just a room. You can even have your meals served here if you like.”

Tip put his arms about her, suddenly remorseful.

“Nonsense, Miss Lucy! Such foolishment you’re talking,” he protested gently. “This is an elegant place. Geraldine can have it and I’ll take the guest room across the hall.”

Mrs. Parker opened her mouth to protest but Tip disposed of that neatly by kissing her and having his baggage taken across the hall, while his mother followed Geraldine into the luxurious, newly furnished apartment, her eyes cold.

“What’s all this nonsense about you and Tip having separate quarters?” she demanded so sharply that Geraldine’s color rose.

“It’s the way he wants it until he is more nearly himself.”

“You haven’t broken your promise to me?”

“I have not!”

“I don’t believe you!”

Geraldine stiffened and her head went up a little.

“I haven’t broken my promise,” she said evenly.

Mrs. Parker nodded. “I hope not.”

“But you realize, of course, that sooner or later somebody here is going to tell him and that it would be much better for him to hear it from me.”

“I don’t realize anything of the sort! If you tell him, he’ll attach a great deal of importance to it. He might even believe that you’re really in love with this — this Donaldson man.”

“As, of course, you and I both know I am, in spite of all I can do.” Geraldine could not keep back the bitter words, though the moment they were out she regretted them,

Mrs. Parker studied her with hostile eyes.

“Have you been writing to him?” she demanded flatly.

Geraldine’s cheeks blazed.

“Certainly not!”

“Yet he was at the station today. Wretched bad taste, I must say.”

Geraldine controlled her temper with an effort and made herself speak with an entirely deceptive calm.

“I hardly see how he could have avoided participating in the town’s welcome to Tip, considering that Tip is the grandson of the founder of the mills, and Phil General Manager.”

“Just the same, I think his presence there was unnecessary.” Mrs. Parker was unconvinced because she wanted to be.

Geraldine said, through her teeth, “If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to freshen up a bit. I’m rather tired.”

Mrs. Parker glanced about the luxurious apartment and said, annoyed, “It’s too absurd of Tip to insist on that room across the hall. Oh, well, I dare say we shall all feel better after a bath and a nap. I’ll see you at teatime.”

She went away and Geraldine closed the door behind her and stood leaning against it, trembling, her hands over her eyes.

She had steeled herself, all the way back to Marthasville, for her first sight of Phil. And yet when she had looked up into his eyes, she had felt the ground rock beneath her feet. There had been a dizzying rush of sweetness through her heart, like the first breath of new life to come. They had spoken only two words to each other, and yet their hearts had cried aloud in utter ecstasy and delight, and a yearning Geraldine knew she could never quite erase from her heart.

And so the new life began. A strange, unreal sort of life it sometimes seemed to Geraldine, adapting herself and all her plans for the days and nights to Tip’s need.

At first he seemed content merely to go for longer and longer walks, more often than not alone. As the spring days grew warmer, and the blessed miracle of greening trees and springing flowers walked the earth, he lay for hours on a canvas chair in the garden, his unseeing eyes on the low, far hills that lifted round blue shoulders against a sky almost as blue.

He was fond of Beth and Tom and he and Geraldine went to them often to dinner. The first time they went, Geraldine went with Beth into the kitchen, leaving Tom and Tip alone in the living room, and Beth looked at Geraldine anxiously.

“How are you, darling?” she asked gently.

“Oh, I’m fine, Mother,” Geraldine answered swiftly.

Beth hesitated and then said with a little rush, “I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it, Gerry, but — Phil’s living here.”

Geraldine stood perfectly still for a moment, her eyes wide and unbelieving, and Beth rushed on.

“You see, darling, the carriage house had been all fixed up and it was so much more comfortable than that awful room he had in town; and — well, Tom and I are fond of him and he’s very lonely and it seemed silly not to make use of the place. He has his meals with us and — well, it seemed a good idea.” Her anxious voice trailed to silence as she watched Geraldine’s white face.

“It seems to me a good idea, too,” said Geraldine when she could trust her voice. “I’m sure it’s — a very pleasant arrangement all around.”

“Then you don’t mind?” Beth asked anxiously.

Geraldine smiled at her brightly.