CHAPTER I_Not Under the Law

NOT UNDER THE LAW

_GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL’S_

_Charming and Wholesome Romances_

The Story of a Whim

Re-Creations

Tomorrow About This Time

The Tryst

The City of Fire

Cloudy Jewel

Exit Betty

The Search

The Red Signal

The Enchanted Barn

The Finding of Jasper Holt

The Obsession of Victoria Gracen

Miranda

The Best Man

Lo, Michael!

Marcia Schuyler

Phoebe Deane

Dawn of the Morning

The Mystery of Mary

The Girl from Montana

The Big Blue Soldier

NOT UNDER THE

LAW

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL

AUTHOR OF “MARCIA SCHUYLER”, “THE CITY OF FIRE”, ETC.

[Illustration]

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1925

PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS

PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.

NOT UNDER THE LAW

CHAPTER I

The kitchen door stood open wide, and the breath from the meadow blew

freshly across Joyce Radway’s hot cheeks and forehead as she passed

hurriedly back and forth from the kitchen stove to the diningroom table

preparing the evening meal.

It had been a long, hard day and she was very tired. The tears seemed

to have been scorching her eyelids since early morning, and because

her spirit would not let them out they seemed to have been flowing

back into her heart till its beating was almost stopped by the deluge.

Somehow it had been the hardest day in all the two weeks since her aunt

died; the culmination of all the hard times since Aunt Mary had been

taken sick and her son Eugene Massey brought his wife and two children

home to live.

To begin with, at the breakfast table Eugene had snarled at Joyce

for keeping her light burning so long the night before. He told her

he couldn’t afford to pay electric bills for her to sit up and read

novels. This was most unjust since he knew that Joyce never had any

novels to read, but that she was studying for an examination which

would finish her last year of normal school work and fit her for a

teacher. But then her cousin was seldom just. He took especial delight

in tormenting her. Sometimes it seemed incredible that he could

possibly be Aunt Mary’s son, he was so utterly unlike her in every

way. But he resembled markedly the framed picture of his father Hiram

Massey, which hung in the parlor, whom Joyce could but dimly remember

as an uncle who never smiled at her.

She had controlled the tears then that sprang to her eyes and tried to

answer in a steady voice:

“I’m sorry, Gene, I was studying, I wasn’t reading a novel. You know

last night was the last chance I had to study. The examination is

today. Maybe when I get a school I’ll be able to pay those electric

light bills and some other things too.”

“Bosh!” said Eugene discourteously, “You’ll pay them a big lot, won’t

you? That’s all poppy-cock, your trying to get a school, after a whole

year out of school yourself. Much chance you’ll stand! And you may as

well understand right now that I’m not going to undertake the expense

of you lying around here idling and pretending to go to school for

another whole year, so you better begin to make other plans.”

Joyce swallowed hard and tried to smile:

“Well,” she said pleasantly, “Wait till after the examinations. I may

pass and then there won’t be any more trouble about it. The mathematics

test is this morning. If I pass that I’m not in the least afraid of the

rest. It is all clear sailing.”

“What’s that?” broke in Nannette’s voice sharply, “Are you expecting to

go off this morning? Because if you are you’ve missed your calculation.

I have an appointment with the dressmaker in town this morning and I

don’t intend to miss it. She’s promised to get my new dress done by

the day after tomorrow, and you’ll have to stay home and see that the

children get their lunch and get back to school. Besides, it’s time

the cellar was cleaned and you’d better get right at it. I thought I

heard a rat down there last night.”

Joyce looked up aghast:

“But Nan! You’ve known all along I must go to the school house this

morning early!”

“You needn’t ‘but-Nan’ me, young lady, you’re not in a position to

say ‘must’ to any one in this house. If mother chose to let you act

the independent lady that was her affair, but she’s not here now, and

you’re a dependent. It’s time you realized that. I say I’m going to

town this morning, and you’ll have to stay at home.”

Nannette had sailed off upstairs with the parting words and Eugene

went on reading his paper as if he had not heard the altercation. For

a moment Joyce contemplated an appeal to him but one glance at the

forbidding eyebrows over the top of the morning paper made her change

her mind. There was little hope to be had from an appeal to him. He

had never liked her and she had never liked him. It dated back to the

time when she caught him deceiving his mother and he dared her to tell

on him. She had not told, it had not seemed a matter that made it

necessary, but he hated her for knowing he was not all that his mother

thought him. Besides, he was much older than she, and had a bullying

nature. Her clear, young eyes annoyed him. She represented conscience

in the concrete, his personal part of which he had long ago throttled.

He did not like to be reminded of conscience, and too, he had always

been jealous of his mother’s love for Joyce.

Joyce glanced with troubled eyes at the clock.

She was due at the school house at nine-thirty. Gene would take the

eight-nineteen train to town, and Nan would likely go with him. There

would be time after they left to put up a lunch for the children if

she hurried. Nan didn’t like them to take their lunch, but Nan would

have to stand it this time, for she meant to take that examination. She

shut her lips tightly and began to remove the breakfast things from the

table swiftly and quietly, leaving a plate for Junior who would be sure

to be down late.

Her mind was stinging with the insults that had been flung at her.

She had always known that she and her cousins were not compatible but

such open words of affront had never been given her before, although

the last few days since the funeral there had been glances and tones

of contempt that hurt her. She had tried to be patient, hoping soon

to be in a position where she would not longer be dependent upon her

relatives.

There was some wrangling between Junior and his sister before Nan

and Gene left for the train, and Joyce had been obliged to leave her

work to settle the dispute; and again after they were gone she had

to stop spreading the bread for the lunches and hunt for Junior’s

cap and Dorothea’s arithmetic. It was a breathless time at the end,

getting the lunches packed and the children off to school. She met

with no opposition from them about taking their lunches for they loved

to do it, but they insisted on two slices apiece of jelly roll which

so reduced the amount left in the cake box that Joyce added “jelly

roll” to the numerous things she must do when she got back from her

examination.

But at last she saw them run off together down the street and she

was free to rush to her room, smooth her hair, and slip into her dark

blue serge. It remained to be seen how much time there would be left

for the cellar when she got home. But whatever came she must get those

examinations done.

When she was half way downstairs she ran back and picked up a few

little treasured trinkets from her upper bureau drawer sweeping them

into her bag, some things that Aunt Mary had given her, a bit of real

lace, some Christmas handkerchiefs, one or two pieces of jewelry,

things that she prized and did not want handled over. Both Dorothea

and her mother seemed to consider they had a perfect right to rummage

in her bureau drawers and the day before Joyce had come upon Nan just

emerging from her clothespress door as if she had been looking things

over there.

It was not that the girl had anything of much value, but there were

a few little things that seemed sacred to her because of their

association, and she could not bear to have them handled over

contemptuously by her cousin. Nan might return sooner than she expected

and would be sure to come to her room to look for her. It would only

anger her if she found the door locked, and anyhow the spare room key

fitted her lock also. There was no privacy to be had in the house since

Aunt Mary’s death.

Joyce closed and locked the house carefully, placing the key in

its usual place of hiding at the top of the porch pillar under the

honeysuckle vine, and hurried down the street toward the school

building. She registered a deep hope that she might get home in time to

do a good deal of work in the cellar before Nan arrived but she meant

to try to forget cellar and Nan and everything till her examinations

were over.

At the school house she found to her dismay that the schedule had been

changed and that three of her tests came successively that day. There

would be no chance of getting through before half past three, perhaps

later. Nan would be angry, but it could not be helped for this once.

She would try and forget her until she was through and then hurry home.

She resolved not to answer back nor get angry that night if anything

mean was said to her, and perhaps things would calm down. So she put

her mind on logarithms, Latin conjugations and English poetry. These

examinations offered the only way she knew to independence and it must

be taken.

Late in the afternoon she hurried home, tired, faint, worried lest she

had not answered some of the questions aright, palpitating with anxiety

lest Nan had preceded her, or the children were running riot.

Breathlessly she came in sight of the house, and saw the front door

open wide and the doctor’s car standing in the drive. She ran up the

steps in fright and apprehension.

Nan was very much home indeed, and was furious! She met Joyce in the

hall and greeted her with a tirade. Junior had been hurt playing

baseball and had been brought home with a bandaged head and arm,

weeping loudly.

Dorothea lolled on the stairs blandly eating the remainder of the jelly

roll and eyeing her cousin with contempt and wicked exultation. She had

already lighted the fuse by saying that she and Junior hadn’t wanted to

take their lunch, but Cousin Joyce had insisted, and had given them

_all_ the jelly roll. The light in her mother’s eye had been such as to

make Dorothea linger near at the right time. Dorothea loved being on

the virtuous outside of a fight. If one showed signs of dying she knew

how to ask the right question or say the innocent word to revive it

once more. Dorothea contemplated Joyce now with deep satisfaction.

The doctor’s car was scarcely out of the gate and down the road before

the storm broke once more upon Joyce’s tired head.

Joyce did not wait to go upstairs to her room and change her dress. She

took off her hat on the way to the kitchen and put it and her bag and

books and papers on the little bench outside the kitchen door where

no one would be likely to notice them. She enveloped herself in a big

kitchen apron and went to work, preparing the vegetables for dinner and

getting out materials for jelly roll. Then Nan entered, blue blazes in

her eye.

Nan had not taken off her hat yet and around her neck she was wearing

Joyce’s pretty gray fox neckpiece, Aunt Mary’s last Christmas gift,

which Joyce had supposed was safely put away in camphor on her closet

shelf. Joyce had not noticed it in the darkness of the hall, but now

the indignity struck her in the face like a blow as Nan stood out in

the open doorway smartly gowned and powdered and rouged just a bit, her

face angry and haughty, her air imperious:

“You ungrateful, wicked girl!” broke forth Nan. “You might just as well

have been a murderer! Suppose Junior had been brought home dying and

no one to open the house?”

“I’m sorry, Nan,” began Joyce, “I did not expect to be gone so long. I

was told there would be only one examination today.”

“Examinations! Don’t talk to me about examinations! That’s all you care

about! It’s nothing to you that the little child who has lived under

the same roof with you for three years is seriously hurt. It’s nothing

to you even if he had been killed. And he might have been killed,

_easily_! Yes, he might, you wicked girl! It was at noon he was playing

ball when he got hit, and you knew I didn’t want him to stay at school

at noontime just for that reason. The bad boys tried to hurt him,” so

she raved on, “It was your fault. Entirely your fault!”

There was absolutely no use in trying to say anything in reply.

Nannette would not let her. Whenever she opened her lips to say she was

sorry her cousin screamed the louder, till Joyce finally closed her

lips and went about her work with white, set face, wishing somehow she

might get away from this awful earth for a little while, wondering what

would be the outcome of all this when Gene got home. Gene was not very

careful himself about Junior. He spoiled him horribly, but he was very

keen about defending him always. As she went about her kitchen work she

tried to think what she could say or do that would still the tempest.

It seemed to her that her heart was bursting with the trouble. Maybe

she ought to have given up the examination after all. Maybe she should

have stayed at home. But that would have meant everlasting dependence

upon those to whom she was not closely bound. And Junior had already

recovered sufficiently to be out in his bandages swinging on the gate.

He could not be seriously injured. Oh, why could she not have died

instead of Aunt Mary! Why did people have to bring children into the

world and then leave them to fend for themselves where they were not

wanted? What was life all for anyway?

Dorothea hovered around like a hissing wasp, filching the apples as

they were peeled and quartered for the apple sauce, sticking a much

soiled finger into the cake batter, licking it, and applying it again

to the batter several times, in spite of Joyce’s protests. She seemed

to know that her mother would not reprove her for anything she did to

annoy Joyce tonight.

Gene came in while Joyce was taking up the dinner, and Joyce could hear

his wife telling in a high suppressed key all the wrongs of the day,

with her own garbled account of Junior’s accident and Joyce’s disregard

of orders. So the tears stung into her eyes and her hot cheeks flushed

warmer and the only thing in the world that gave her any comfort was

the sweet spring breath from the meadow coming in the kitchen door

as she passed and repassed, carrying dishes of potatoes and cabbage

and fried pork chops. Their mingled hot odors smothered her as they

steamed up into her face, and then would come that sweet, cool breeze,

blowing them aside, laying a cool hand on her wet brow like the hand

of a gentle mother. How she longed to fly away into the coolness and

sweetness and leave it all behind. How many times during the last two

hard weeks had she looked out that kitchen door across the meadows

and longed to be walking across them into the world away from it all

forever.

Gene came into the diningroom just as she set the hot coffee-pot down

on the table, and he looked at her with his cold blue eyes, a look that

was like a long, thin blade of steel piercing to her very soul. She

thought she had never before seen such a look of contempt and hate. She

felt as if it were something tangible that he had inserted into her

soul which she would never be able to get out again.

“Well, you’re a pretty one, aren’t you? Mother was always boasting

about how dependable you were, I wonder what she would think of

you now! I always knew you had it in you. You’re just like your

contemptible father! Get an idea in your head and have to carry it

out. Bull-headed. That’s what you are. That’s what he was. I remember

hearing all about it. He wanted to study up some germ and make himself

famous. Had to go and get into some awful disease, subject himself to

danger, and finally got the disease and died. Pretended he was doing a

great thing for humanity at large, but left his wife and child for her

poor sister to support and saddled us all with a girl just like him to

house and feed and clothe. Now, young lady, I want you to understand

from this time forth that we’re done with nonsense and whether you pass

or whether you don’t pass, your place is _right here in this house

doing the work_ and _taking the orders from my wife_! I’ve got you to

look after and I’ll do it, but I don’t intend to stand any more of your

monkey-shines. Do you hear? _I won’t have_ anybody in my house _that

doesn’t obey me_!”

Joyce looked at him in a kind of tired wonder. She knew there were

things being said that were dissecting her very soul, and that by

and by when she moved she would bleed, perhaps her soul might bleed

to death with the sharpness of it all, but just now she had not the

strength to resent, to say anything to refute the awful half-truths

he was speaking, to shout out as she felt she ought, that he had no

right to speak that way about her dear, dead father whom she had not

known much, could scarcely remember, but had been taught by both mother

and aunt to love dearly. She could only stand and stare at him as he

talked. She was growing white to the lips. Her knees were shaking under

her, and the children stared at her curiously, even Nannette eyed her

strangely. She was summoning all her strength for an effort:

“Cousin Eugene,” she said clearly as if she were talking to some one

away off, and her voice steadied as she went on. “You know I don’t have

to stay here if you feel this way. I will go!”

And then, like a bird that suddenly sees an opening in its cage and

sets its wings swiftly, she turned and walked out of the room, across

the kitchen, and out the kitchen door into the evening sunlight and the

sweet meadow breath.

On the bench beside the door lay her hat covering her little worn

handbag and books and papers. She swept them all up as she passed, and

held them in front of her as she walked steadily on down the pebbled

path among the new grass toward the garage, the blinding tears now

coming and blurring every thing before her.

“Let her alone!” she heard Gene sneer loudly, “She’ll go out to the

garage and boo-hoo awhile and then she’ll come back and behave herself.

Dishes? I should say not! Don’t you do a dish! Let her do ’em when she

gets over her fit. It’ll do her good. She’ll be of some use to you

after this.”

Joyce swept away the tears with a quick hand and lifted her head. Why

should she weep when she was walking away from this? She had wanted to

go, had wondered and wished for an opening, and now it had come, why

be sad? She was walking away into the beauty of the sunset. Smell the

air! She drew a deep breath and went straight on past the garage, down

through the garden to the fence, and stooping slipped between the bars

and into the meadow.

There were violets blooming among the grass here, blue as the sky, and

nodding to her, dazzling in their blueness. There was a dandelion.

How bright its gold! The world was before her. The examination was

not over. But what of that? She could not go back to take her diploma

anyway, but she was free, and God would take care of her somewhere,

somehow.

A sense of buoyancy bore her up. Her feet touched the grass of the

meadow as if it had been full of springs. She lost the consciousness

of her great weariness. Her soul had found wings. She was walking into

a crimson path of the sunset, and April was in her lungs. How good to

be away from the smell of pork chops and hot cabbage, the steam of

potatoes and Gene Massey’s voice. Never, never would she go back. Not

for all the things she had left behind. They were few. She was glad

she had her few little trinkets. They were all that mattered anyway.

Except the fur neckpiece. It went hard to lose that. The last thing

Aunt Mary bought her. Of course it would have been wiser to wait to

pack. There were her two good gingham dresses, and two others that

were faded, but she would need things to work in, and there was the

little pink Georgette that Aunt Mary bought her last summer! She hated

to lose that. But Aunt Mary, if she could see would quite understand,

and if she could not see it could all be explained in heaven some

day. There would be no use sending to Nannette or Gene for anything.

They would never send her a rag that belonged to her. There would be

inconveniences of course, her hair-brush, her tooth brush--but what

were they?

And then, quite suddenly as she climbed the fence, and stood in a long,

white road winding away over a hill, the sun which had been slipping,

slipping down lower and lower, went out of sight and left only a ruby

light behind, and all about the world looked gray. The sweet smells

were there, and the wonderful cool air to touch her brow lightly like

that hand of her mother so long ago, just as it touched and called her

in the kitchen a few minutes before, but the bright world was growing

quiet at the approaching night, and suddenly Joyce began to wonder

where she was going.

Automobiles were coming and going hurriedly as if the people in them

were going home to dinner, and they smiled and talked joyously as they

passed her, and looked at her casually, a girl walking alone in the

twilight with her hat in her hand.

Joyce came to herself and put on her hat, she put her papers together

in a book, and the books under her arm, and slipped the strap of her

handbag over her wrist. She went on walking down the road toward the

pink and gold of the sunset and wondered where she was going, and then,

as she lifted her eyes she saw a star slip faintly out in the clear

space between the ruby and rose, as if to remind her that One above was

watching and had not forgotten her.