She tapped lightly on the door of the room, and the clacking ceased. She heard Alison’s voice calling, “Come in,” and she opened the door.
Alison sat behind the small desk, her fingers poised above the keys, looking across the room at Judy with a faint smile.
“Oh, hello, Judy. Come in.”
Judy asked, “Why aren’t you downstairs having dinner with the others?”
Alison sat behind the small desk, her fingers poised typewriter, even while a faint fan of color touched her cheeks and her eyes would not meet Judy’s.
“Oh, it seems there were letters in the afternoon mail that had to be answered in time for tomorrow’s post,” Alison said hurriedly.
“All that important, are they? There is only one mail a day out here, so that means the letters have been here since this morning. Why didn’t Marise tell you about them earlier?” Judy demanded.
“Well, I suppose she thought I’d be around all day,” Alison replied.
“So you went off to town with Sam and me and, I hope, had an elegant time, and that’s something her ladyship can’t abide unless it happens to her,” Judy said. She added briskly, “Have you had any dinner?”
“No, but I’m not hungry.”
“Pish-tush and fiddle-faddle!” Judy snorted inelegantly. “I’ll bring you a tray. And don’t argue with me, woman. I will not have you dying of malnutrition beneath the roof of Oakhill. It might give the place a bad name.”
Without waiting for an answer, Judy went out quickly and down the stairs. She had forgotten her tears. When she went into the kitchen, Mam’ Chloe looked at her sharply and demanded, “How come you been crying?”
“Don’t be silly!” Judy scoffed, getting out a tray. She neatly sidestepped the hurrying servants and placed food on the tray while Mam’ Chloe eyed her sharply. “Who’s been crying?”
“Well, if you don’t know, I sure don’t,” Mam’ Chloe told her, and added curiously, “You didn’t have your dinner with Miz’ Beth?”
“Sure. This is for Miss Parker, Miss
Alison
Parker,” Judy answered. “She’s working too hard to come down to dinner, so I’m taking her a tray.”
“You don’t have to do that, Miss Judy. Let one of the maids do it. It ain’t fittin’ for you to be totin’ trays,” Mam’ Chloe protested.
Judy hooted derisively at her as she lifted the tray and headed for the back stairs.
“You may be surprised, Mam’ Chloe darling, what’s fittin’ for me,” she called over her shoulder.
Alison rose as Judy came in with the tray and protested, “Oh, Judy, you needn’t have gone to so much trouble. A sandwich and a glass of milk would have been plenty.”
“Hush your fuss and clear that table beside the window,” Judy ordered briskly. “I brought you some of everything that was going into the dining room. Mam’ Chloe’s on her mettle. She’s determined that Mr. Bix and his guests are going to have the best Oakhill affords.”
Alison eyed the tray hungrily and asked, “Have you had dinner, Judy? There’s plenty here for both of us.”
Judy laughed. “Oh, I had mine hours ago. And besides, I have a date for a moonlight walk in the rose garden.”
Alison asked, “With Sam?” And there was more than a hint of wistfulness in her voice.
“Of course not. Sam and I have known each other for centuries. Why would we go for a moonlight walk in the rose garden or elsewhere?” Judy laughed.
“It sounds as if it might be nice,” Alison said, and the wistfulness in her voice made Judy look at her so sharply that Alison said hurriedly, “If not with Sam, then with Bix, maybe? Or that nice young man we met in town?”
Judy shook her head. “With Roger Mayson. Do you mind?”
Alison stared at her. “Roger? Do I mind? Goodness, of course not. But Marise will, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, now that’s just too bad! I’ll worry about that some day when I can’t think of anything else to worry about,” Judy retorted, and looked at the tray. “Sure you have everything there you need? If not, ring, and Mam’ Chloe will send one of the maids up.”
“I couldn’t possibly want any more than this, or even half of it,” Alison answered, and added impulsively, “Be careful, Judy!”
Puzzled, Judy asked, “You mean of Roger? Why, he seems quite harmless—though he’d hate me for saying that, wouldn’t he?”
“Not of Roger. He’s a lamb,” Alison answered. “I meant, be careful of Marise. She can be a very bad enemy.”
Judy stared at her and laughed. “Alison, I swear I think you are afraid of her!”
Alison looked down at the laden tray, and her cheeks were hot with color.
“Of what she can do. She can be very unpleasant, even brutal,” she said huskily.
Judy asked impulsively, “Why do you put up with it, Alison?”
Alison’s mouth thinned to a bitter line, and her eyes would not meet Judy’s.
“Because I’m a spineless coward, afraid to try to earn my own living in a big, wicked world when I’ve had no training of any kind,” she said brusquely. “Please, Judy, run along now and let me get back to work. I have to finish these letters before I can stop. Thank you for the tray, Judy. Thanks a lot.”
Judy eyed her curiously.
“You’re welcome, Alison. Good night,” she said, and let herself out of the room, drawing the door shut behind her.
In her own room, she removed the traces of tears, brushed her hair and slipped into a fresh dainty frock of flower-sprigged cotton. The night was cool, and so she flung a light sweater around her shoulders and went down the stairs.
Roger was waiting for her on the wide verandah. He said accusingly, “You’re late. The moon is already up!”
Judy laughed as they went side by side down the wide, shallow stairs.
“Oh, well, it will stay up for hours,” she mocked him as she led the way around the terraced drive and to the two wide, flat steps that led down to the garden.
At the top of the steps, Roger paused and flung up his head, sniffing delightedly.
“Well, what do you know?” he marveled. “There really
is
a rose garden.”
Judy looked up at him, puzzled.
“You must have known there was one when you invited me to walk in it with you in the moonlight,” she told him.
He cupped her elbow in his palm and drew her closer to him, bending his head slightly.
“That was merely a figure of speech,” he informed her. “I would just as gladly walk with you through freshly plowed fields in a thunderstorm.”
All about them the garden lay dreaming in the moonlight, fragrant with dew. It was early, and not many of the roses were in full bloom, but the bushes were thickly starred with buds. The path that led down through the middle of the garden was bordered with fragrant narcissi and hyacinth and other spring flowers Roger could not identify, though their mingled fragrance made him sniff with delight.
Midway in the path ahead of them there was a small fountain, and at its base, where the water overflowed the bowl, were pond lilies, white and fragile against the dark water that was silvered here and there by moonlight.
“What a place!” said Roger softly, his tone touched with awe as they paused at the fountain and he looked about him.
The moonlight lay in a silver flood across the garden. Beneath the tall trees the shadows were ink-black. The house was like a vast ship floating on a bright sea. Judy looked up at Roger’s face, which was revealed in the moonlight, and said softly, “I wish Bix felt like that about Oakhill.”
“Bix is a very spoiled young man who doesn’t know what’s good for him,” Roger said firmly. “Any man with a brain in his head would realize that Oakhill is just about as close to Paradise as a fellow can get and still live. I only wish I lived here.”
“You’d probably be as bored as Bix if you had to stay here,” Judy told him.
“That’s a terrible thought, Pretty Thing—that I could be bored amid all this beauty and peace.”
Suddenly in a tree very near them, a mockingbird awoke, plagued by the moonlight, disturbed by their voices, stirred, made a soft rustling sound and then began a trill that was purest melody.
Judy laid her hand on Roger’s arm, and they listened to the song, soft and sweet and rising now and then to a crescendo of joy until at last it faded into silence.
“What price the nightingale in Berkely Square?” Roger said softly when the music had died away, and his voice was slightly shaken.
“I don’t believe it could be more beautiful, do you? The mockingbirds sing a lot at night later when the weather gets warmer. But he’s early. Maybe he’s got a lot to be happy about: a mate and a nest. Eventually there’ll be baby birds, and he’ll just about work himself to death feeding them.”
Roger looked down at her. “So he sings day and night now while he can,” he commented. “Well, hooray for him!”
“You don’t mind him singing? I mean, you were disturbed by the birds when you first arrived, remember?” Judy teased him.
“When I first arrived and shared a room with Terry, it was his snoring that kept me awake! He drinks like a fish and has practically to be poured into bed, so of course he snores,” Roger told her matter of factly. “But when you were kind enough to give me a room to myself away from him, I decided the birds were much better than alarm clocks, even if you can’t turn them off the way you do an alarm clock when you want to go back to sleep.”
Judy laughed up at him.
“I’m glad you’ve grown accustomed to the birds,” she told him. “I love them! They’re part of Oakhill and come back every year; those that ever go away, I mean. Most of them don’t, of course.”
“They’d be fools if they did,” Roger told her firmly. “Where would they ever find another place as beautiful as this where they would be welcome?”
Judy looked up at him swiftly in the silvery moonlight.
“Do you think Oakhill is beautiful?” she asked.
Puzzled by the unexpected vehemence of the question, he looked down at her, trying to read her expression, though she stood where her face was in the shadows.
“Beautiful?” he repeated as though he found the word completely inadequate. “Why, it’s an earthly Paradise. I can’t think of any place I’ve ever seen that is one half so beautiful.”
“Would you be willing to live here?” she persisted, and added, “I mean permanently?”
His puzzled expression deepened.
“That would all depend on who shared the place with me,” he answered. “What kind of a question is that?”
She turned away from him and spoke over her shoulder.
“Oakhill will belong to Bix when the Old Gentleman is gone,” she told him. “And Bix is going to sell it.”
“The devil you say!” Roger protested. “Well, of course Bix is a city slicker now. I suppose life does seem a bit dull for him here, though I imagine that disposing of a piece of property as extensive as Oakhill will be quite a job.”
She did not answer. At the moment she could not trust her voice not to shake. Roger put his hand on her shoulder and turned her about to face him.
“Look, Pretty Thing, you mustn’t let this get you down,” he urged her gently. “Sure, I know Oakhill means an awful lot to you. But after all, you’ll be getting married one of these days and going away from here, even if it isn’t sold.”
She shook her head stubbornly.
“I’d never marry anybody who couldn’t be perfectly happy living at Oakhill.”
Roger studied her for a moment—the moonlight was full on her face now—and suddenly he grinned.
“Thanks,” he said warmly.
Puzzled, she asked, “Thanks for what?”
“For making it plain that you aren’t—what’s that word that is so old-fashioned no other word fits the setting and the scenery?—betrothed!”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Of course not. But if you had someone in mind, someone you expected or wanted to marry, you’d never have said that!” He was quite smug about it. “That is, of course, unless it’s somebody who lives here at Oakhill and likes it enough to want to go on living here.”
He drew a deep breath and was thoughtful for a moment. Then he nodded.
“That, of course, would be Sam Gillespie.” His tone made it a statement, not a question.
More puzzled now than before, Judy asked, “How did Sam get into this?”
“Well, he seems to be quite a lad. He’s lived here all his life, and so have you. And since you’d make a very attractive couple, what could be more natural than that you and Sam should have plans for the future, even if Oakhill
is
sold?”
Judy stared at him, and then burst out laughing.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” she gasped. “Sam’s my big brother! I couldn’t possibly be in love with Sam! He’s my very best friend and the one I run to when a problem crops up. But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him!”
Roger beamed at her happily, and for a moment his arm drew her close.
“Now that’s what I wanted to hear!” he told her happily. “If you’re not bespoken for, then there’s nothing to stop me from pursuing you relentlessly, is there?”
Judy freed herself from his arm, still smiling up at him, and said lightly, “Not if you don’t mind knowing from the beginning that it’s a quite hopeless pursuit.”
Roger nodded soberly. “That I do mind very much,” he admitted frankly. “But then I’m a persistent cuss. I won’t give up until I see you march down the aisle with another guy. I only hope I’ll be able to restrain myself from shooting him full of holes; one of those ‘if I can’t have her, nobody else can’ shooting scrapes we read about often.”
Judy laughed up at him as she turned toward the house and said, “Oh, somehow I can’t imagine you ever wanting something badly enough to fight for it.”
“Now that I
do
resent very much,” he told her swiftly. “I’m not all that wishy-washy! I admit there’s not a great deal I want badly enough to feel a fight is justified. But for a girl like you, I could be a roaring lion.”
“I’m flattered,” she teased him as they mounted the wide, shallow stone steps that led up from the garden to the broad verandah, its white columns glowing in the moonlight
Before he could answer that, Marise and Sam came out of the house. Marise was laughing up at Sam, her hand on his arm holding him while she finished some gay remark. Sam nodded, smiled at her, and glanced at Judy and Roger where they stood a few feet away. For a moment Sam looked straight at Judy, then at Roger, and his jaw hardened as he turned and walked to his car.