The will was read at last.
Gene and Nan, glowering in the corner of Judge Peterson’s comfortable
library, learned with dismay that their part was only a small patrimony
which Mary Massey had in her own right. The rest, house, and meadow
lands, and money enough to keep her comfortably were all Joyce’s left
her by her mother from her own father’s estate.
It had been her mother’s wish that Joyce should not know that she had
anything but herself to depend upon until she grew up. She felt that
so she would the better come up unspoiled and independent. So she had
placed the property in her sister’s hands in such a way that unless
Mary Massey died Joyce would not know that she had anything until she
came of age. Judge Peterson was the other trustee of the property and
was to use his own discretion about telling Joyce in case of her aunt’s
death before her majority. But during the interval of Joyce’s absence
from Meadow Brook Joyce had come to her majority, so there was no
longer any hindrance to her entering into her inheritance at once.
Mary Massey had not told her son the whole thing for reasons of her
own, but she had left a letter explaining the matter to him, and
reminding him of what she had always told him, that she had very little
to leave him, but commending Joyce to his tender care, and saying she
had little fear but that Joyce would always be generous with him.
Gene and Nan arose silently when the business of the will was
concluded. They had a look of withdrawing. A hurt, stricken look.
Joyce sprang up and went over to them, saying eagerly:
“Of course, Gene, you’ll stay in the house.”
“It’s your house,” said Gene. “Of course we’ll get right out.”
“Please don’t,” said Joyce earnestly. “At least not unless you don’t
want to stay, of course. The house was your mother’s home. All these
technicalities of law don’t change the matter a mite to me. I know Aunt
Mary expected us all to live there, and she knew I would say so. Even
though it is mine it’s just the same as yours. Besides, I’ve another
little house of my own in Silverton and I presume I shall go back there
and go on teaching. I should not be happy doing nothing. The house may
have been bought by my father’s money, but it was made into a home by
your mother’s loving care, and it’s yours as much as it is mine. As
long as you live I want you to feel you can live in it if you want to.”
“You could sell it,” said Gene, still independently, “or rent it. I
will pay you rent,” stiffly.
Joyce laughed.
“No, indeed. You won’t pay me rent. If you try to I’ll pay you for your
mother’s love and care. How would that be? And I don’t want to sell
the house. I love it. I like to think it’s there for me to come home
to now and then. And Nan, you don’t need to feel hampered there. You
can arrange things just as you like, just as if it were your own. Just
treat me like a sister, that’s all, and share with me in what there is.”
“I’m sure that’s very generous in you, Joyce,” said Gene, feeling a
sense of shame over the way he had always treated her. “We’ll think
about it. Aren’t you coming home with us now?”
“Why, I’ll be down tomorrow, I guess,” she said pleasantly. “I want to
get all these papers signed and everything fixed. I must be back on my
job Monday, you know.”
“I shouldn’t think you’d have to teach now,” said Nan, an envious note
in her voice. “Why don’t you just telegraph them you aren’t coming
back, and quit?”
“Why, that wouldn’t be honorable,” laughed Joyce. “And besides I like
it. I wouldn’t leave the kiddies for anything till the term is up.”
“You’re a queer girl,” said Nan speculatively. “I don’t see why you
don’t just want to have a good time.”
“Why, I’m having a beautiful time,” said Joyce, wide-eyed. “I’m doing
what I’ve always wanted to do.”
They went home, and the evening passed and still Darcy did not come.
Joyce began to wonder if he were not coming at all. If, perhaps, she
might be going to have to write him a note or call him up or something;
for she did not mean to go back to Silverton without telling him in so
many words how glad she was that he had found her Lord.
Joyce spent Friday in going over her things in the old home and packing
up what she wanted to take back with her to Silverton, but she went
back at night to Judge Peterson’s. The minister and his wife came in to
call that evening and they had a beautiful talk, but all the time Joyce
was listening for a step that did not come, and wondering. Was Darcy
still shy? Surely he would come just once after all that had happened,
after she had come home to make things straight and set him free.
She thought she heard the minister speak his name as they were about
to leave, talking to Dan Peterson over by the door, and Dan said,
“Yes, tomorrow,” that was all. She wanted to ask, but something held
her back, and no one mentioned Darcy. Was it his second trial that was
coming off tomorrow she wondered?
She did not sleep well that night. She kept waking and thinking of
Darcy. Was he going to have to go to prison after all for bootlegging?
It seemed so hard now that he had begun his new life. She wished she
dared ask about the law.
The next morning at the breakfast table she followed a sudden impulse
and told the Judge and his wife all about Darcy’s speech in the meeting
on the night of the rain. Dan had gone into the hall to answer the
telephone and when he came back he tiptoed in and stood by the door
quietly, as if some one were praying. His eyes were down and his face
looked strangely tender as if he were hearing a miracle. Neither the
Judge nor Dan were much on religion, but Mrs. Peterson was a saint if
there was one, and her face glowed with joy over the story. The old
Judge cleared his throat three times before he growled out the words:
“Yes, Darcy’s all right, Darcy’s all right.” His glasses seemed to be
blurred and he had to take them off and polish them before he could see
right again. “He needn’t have confessed that at all. It was all over
and forgot. But still, I like him better for it. Great stuff in him!”
Then Joyce summoned courage.
“Will he have trouble again, with this other trial? What will be the
penalty? Will he have to go to prison?”
“Oh, no, oh, no! Nothing like that,” said the Judge hastily. “Oh, no,
he’ll just have to pay a penalty. Probably about five hundred dollars
or something like that, according to the amount of stuff handled. Know
how much it was, Dan?”
“About,” said Dan gruffly.
“Great boy, Darcy!” said the Judge emphatically. “He’ll be all right
this morning. Case comes off before noon, doesn’t it, Dan? Where’s my
note book?”
“Yes, before noon,” said Dan, and then they both went out and Joyce,
with relieved heart, went to singing and playing on the old tinpanny,
yellow-keyed square piano, singing with all her heart, the song they
sang that night in the meeting:
“Free from the law, O sinner, receive it,
Free from the law, O brother, believe it--!”
and Mrs. Peterson, up in her room making her bed and plumping up the
pillows, said to herself happily:
“Bless her dear little heart. I wish we could keep her here.”
* * * * *
Darcy came home with Judge Peterson at noon to lunch. He seemed a new
Darcy. His face was alight, and his smile was joyous.
He did not talk much during the meal, but what he said rippled with
humor, and kept them all in gales of laughter. The new gravity that was
upon him when he was silent sat well there, and gave him an air of one
who had found a solid foundation.
As they arose from the table he looked at Joyce and said in a tone that
every one could hear:
“Miss Joyce, it’s a gorgeous afternoon and I thought perhaps you’d like
to take a walk through some of the old paths. I have something I’d
like to tell you, and if you don’t mind being seen in company with a
law-breaker like me we might stroll down to the old woods.”
Joyce looked up with her face flooded with glory: “Oh, but you’re not
under the law now, you know,” she said brightly.
“No, not in any sense, thank the Lord,” said Darcy reverently. “Not
even under the law of the land.”
They walked down the long, smooth road together past the bridge and
round the turn, and there on the hill before them lay the woods in all
the beauty of the springtime verdure. They had been talking of the
trial, Darcy telling her all that had gone on before she arrived, and
also of the second trial where he had paid the fine and been set free.
But now, at the turn of the road, they stopped and looked. The scene
was so lovely, one could but exclaim at the beauty of the hillside. The
fields were green and dotted with violets where they walked, and all
about were spicy odors of the spring, with exquisite perfumes in the
making. Before them rose the woods, pale greens stippled with red buds
on their tips, and a background of darker pines. And now they spoke of
Aunt Mary and the day they had spent together.
As they entered the woods frail anemones scattered their pathway, and
hepaticas, blue and white, met them in groups where maiden hair hid,
and little curled fern fronds stuck up through the black mould. As they
walked down that pine-strewn path, flower broidered and dim, each was
conscious of the last time they had passed that way. They had gone out
from that arched silence a boy and girl, they were reëntering man and
woman.
For a few moments neither spoke. Then Darcy, as if he were treading
holy ground:
“It was here you sat when I first saw you.”
Joyce flashed him a golden look.
“And you there?” she pointed. “I have always wanted to go there and sit
myself,” she said, “with my feet hanging over that rock.”
“Let’s go!” he said, and caught her hand.
He helped her down to a comfortable spot, where the mossy rock shelved
over the water, and the little brook babbled over bright stones in a
quiet, musical way.
Sitting there he told her of the deep experience of his heart. Of how
that day and the story of the blind man had lingered with him all those
years, until he came to understand that he was blind, and he was a
sinner and needed a Saviour. He told her how her eyes had pierced his
soul, like the thought of God searching him, and how he had finally
surrendered. He spoke of the peace and joy that were his now, and of
his Bible.
And then Joyce told him how she had come in out of the rain and heard
him talking, and tried to reach him and failed.
The sun dropped lower in the west and the long shadows came within
their sweet retreat. Finally, they sat in silence, just listening to
the birds, and the tinkle of the water, feeling how good it was to be
here after the years.
Suddenly Darcy began to speak again:
“Joyce, I’m going to tell you something. You may think perhaps
I oughtn’t to tell you, that I have no right to speak of such
things--that I am unworthy. But somehow I think you ought to know.
After I’ve told you I’m not going to presume upon it. I know as well
as you do that I’m unworthy. But I’ve loved you all my life, and it’s
kept me from a great deal that I might have done if I hadn’t. I never
dreamed of you as mine, not in any material sense of the word. I always
knew I wasn’t big enough and good enough for you, but I’ve kept you
like a shrine in a temple, a place to worship at. You can’t know what
it’s meant to me. I’m telling you this because it’s the only way I can
thank you for what you did for me. You saved my life, and I want you to
know that all that a man has to give a woman, that I have given to you.
There will never be any other girl for me!”
Joyce’s head was turned away. She was trying to keep the blinding joy
of her heart from leaping to her eyes.
“And you refuse to let me give anything back to you?” she asked in a
little faltering voice.
“What do you mean, Joyce?” He lifted his eyes and looked at her
anxiously.
“I mean, does it mean nothing to you that I have loved you too, ever
since the day we were here last?”
He caught her hand.
“Joyce! Do you mean that? You loved me all that time? But of course you
did not know me, did not know that I was--”
“I loved _you_,” said Joyce firmly. “And I love you now. I didn’t know
it was that when I came home to save you, but I guess it was there all
the time only I hadn’t told myself about it--yet--”
“Oh, Joyce, my darling!”
He gathered her close to his heart and closed his eyes in an ecstasy of
joy.
“It makes me feel so humble!” he said at last looking into her eyes.
“To think that I, a sinner, a law-breaker--”
She laid her fingers on his lips.
“‘For ye are not under the law,’” she quoted softly, “‘but under
grace.’ Have you forgotten that He puts His righteousness upon us?”
* * * * *
They came back from their walk in the twilight with the stars looking
down upon them and a new moon shining in a clear sky, but they did not
see it. They were walking hand in hand and talking of many precious
things.
The Petersons had been waiting dinner for them almost an hour, but they
were serenely unconscious of the fact.
They went to church the next day and sat in the old Peterson pew, side
by side, with the Judge and Mrs. Peterson and Dan, for the delectation
of all eyes, but they didn’t know that either. They were as happy as
any two people could be in this world.
Monday morning, with the first ray of light, Darcy was up and at his
car, and before the people of Meadow Brook had begun to think about
waking up he and Joyce were on their way to Silverton. Joyce had around
her shoulders her gray fox neckpiece. Nan had ostentatiously thrown it
out the window in the gray of the morning when they stopped there for
Joyce’s trunk saying: “Here, Joyce, you’ll need this. It’s chilly. I
had it put carefully away for you in camphor all winter.”
They had the road to themselves for the first two hours and Darcy’s
racing engine flew out along the road as smoothly as perfect steel and
well oiled bearings could make it. They drove into Silverton at ten
minutes to eight, and went straight to Joyce’s little house to leave
her trunk, much to the wonder and delight of Mrs. Bryant who hadn’t
known what to make of Joyce’s absence.
Joyce was wearing on her finger a splendid diamond. Darcy had routed a
jeweller friend out of bed late Saturday night to get it, and paid for
it with a check that almost cleaned his bank account out entirely, but
he wore a look on his face of utter happiness.
They drove up to the school house five minutes before the bell rang,
and Professor Harrington stood on the steps talking to a teacher. Joyce
was still in her new spring suit and pretty, becoming little hat, with
the gray fox around her neck, and Harrington felt his resolve slowly
melting away from him. How could one be cold to a girl who looked like
that? She certainly was stunning in those clothes. He had thought all
along that clothes would make a big difference. But who the deuce was
the big, good-looking giant who brought her.
And then the giant stooped and kissed Joyce, and he frowned.
“Was that your brother?” he asked as Joyce came flying up the walk
afraid she was going to be late.
Joyce lifted a saucy face and smiled:
“No, Mr. Harrington,” she said sweetly. “That is the man I am going to
marry. Have you time to come down and meet him?”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained from the original.