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Show LADY BLANCHE FARM A Romance of the Commonplace by Frances Parkinson Keyes WNTJ Service Copyright by Frances Parkinson Keyes 1 MIMIll ' yon wouldn't know to remember that I didn't even kiss you good-by. For I wasn't honest. I mean It was possible pos-sible I mean, I did " Paul stood for a stupefied moment, staring at her. Then he cried aloud with joy. "You care now !" he exclaimed. "You have cared all the time!" Then, as he tried, very gently, to take down the. trembling hands with which she had suddenly covered her face, he realized that his own were shaking, too. "Mary," he said brokenly, "I won't. If you really don't want me to. But If you do you won't make me wait any longer, will you? I've starved for you, too " "You won't ever have to starve again," said Mary with a great sob, and took down her hands herself. It was very late that evening, when Jane Manning, remembering that she had not "set back her chairs" against a possible storm though there was not a cloud In the sky went out on I her piazza to "make sure everything was all right" for the night. She stopped In the middle of her pleasant task and stood stock-still. The moon shone very clear and bright and on the wide granite doorstep of her cousin's house opposite, she could see two persons a man and a girl grinding grind-ing very close together, their arms around each other. Then the man bent his head, and It was a long, long time before he lifted It again. "Good night, sweetheart," she heard him say at last, and then saw him turn and come down the walk, his young face lighted with a radiance that did not seem to come wholly from the moon. "Great Glory !" ejaculated Cousin Jane aloud, and without conscious profanity. pro-fanity. Paul heard her, stopped for a min-nte, min-nte, and then walked rapidly toward her. "Is that you. Cousin Jane," he called, "fixing up the piazza? Here, let ma help you !" When complete order was restored, he blocked her entrance Into the house for a minute, standing with his hack against the door. "Mary Is going to marry me," he said, his voice ringing like a hallelujah, hallelu-jah, "right off. We've going away for a few weeks till I get stronger, and she gets rested to some quiet place by the sea And then we're coming back here to Lady Blanche farm coming home together. Oh, God, how happy I am !" "T dunno's I blame ye," said Cousin Jane. His mother's house was dark, and Paul did not feel sorry. In the morning, morn-ing, of course, she must be told, and Mary's father but tonight! However, How-ever, when he noticed a faint light shining from the upper windows of Carte Blanche, he went close to the little building and called "Blanche! May I came up?" "Yes I've been hoping you would." She was sitting In a low rocker, nursing her baby. He crossed the room softly, and sat down on a footstool foot-stool beside her. "Mary's going to marry you," she whispered. "How did you know?" "How could I help knowing, looking at you? I've seen that look in a man's face before." "Oh, you poor little thing!" "Hush! Don't speak that way! I don't feel like that about It! And I'm so thankful so happy that I've seen It In yours, too." They sat for a long time together, after the sleeping baby had been laid back In his cradle. And meanwhile, the woman who had never had a lover went slowly up to her room, and sit- then I was hurt again, before I was taken prisoner " "Go on." "1 was a prisoner several months, you see. I couldn't write then. Even after the armistice was signed, we weren't released right off. And then for a while, I wasn't well " "You mean you were starving." "Well, I wasn't hungry, anyway!" said Paul, lightly. "But I'm all right now. And I'm home. You won't mind, will you, if I don't tell ,you more than this, just now? We the, men who've been there don't like to talk about it much. Won't you say you're glad to see me? All the rest of the family has. Mother had hysterics, of course, but she was awfully glad, just the same. I couldn't help knowing that. And Blanche well of course Blanche and I both broke down a little. 1 didn't know, you see, about Philip or little Philip. Well, then 1 went to the barn and found Cousin Seth. He said I might find you up here." Now they were sitting on the old boulder, hand in hand, as they had done when they used to rest after picking blackberries "You're not strong," she said with a great effort, "and you've had this this hard climb to reach ma I'm sorry." For a moment Paul did not answer. an-swer. Then he took the hand he held, and laid it against his lips. "No, I'm not strong," he said huskily. "1 know that And 1 have had to climb to climb a long way to reach you. But I'm not sorry. I'm glad." "Paul ! You know 1 didn't mean It that way !" "1 know you didn't, dear, but I did. For it's true. But please tell me aren't you glad I'm here, at last?" "Yes," said Mary, very low Indeed. "Then, may I tell you anything I want to?" "Yes," she said again, lower still. "Do you remember what you said to me that day In Boston about what loving really means?" "Yes," said Mary a third time, though It was only a whisper now. "Well that's the way I love you. You were right 1 didn't then. But I have learned to, since. At first It was just a dreadful physical longing and raging grief because I hadn't got what I wanted. I'd felt so hopeful so sure that day I went to you in Boston, that I'd get my week hut all the time the things you'd said about how you loved me, kept hammering themselves Into my stupid brain, making me see more and more clearly that, even then, I didn't care for you like that, or It wouldn't be my own disappointment I'd be thinking most about. It would be the way I'd treated you, from the time we were youngsters taking all your loveliness and goodness for granted and then throwing it away " "Don't, Paul," she said softly. "Don't speak of that, or even remember remem-ber It any more. I've forgotten all about It." "1 haven't," he said between his teeth, "I never shall, I never can, unless un-less 1 can atone for It I began to forget that I had lost you and to wonder how " "How you could get me back?" "Not even that till afterwards. Only how I could make things up to you. Whether there was anything on earth I could do to make me worthy to come to you and say 1 was sorry, whether you were proud of me or not. That I'd got to change Inside. I'd reached that point by the time I got to prison, and then it was weeks and weeks before 1 could think at all. But when I could It was what kept me clean " "And there wasn't any 'pretty little French peasant,' " he said, after a long pause. And In that one simple sentence, Mary understood, though she could not answer, all that he was trying to tell her. He misinterpreted her silence. He kissed her hand again, dropped It gently, and rose. "It was wrong of me, maybe, to say all this to you so soon," he said. "But I saw Mr. Hamlin just before I sailed for home. He told me that that you hadn't changed your mind about him, and that he knew you never would. He told me, too, that he knew you'd refused Thomas Gray. Sylvia sent me a message once, by David 1 didn't got It until after she died telling me never to stop fighting fight-ing for you. If 1 had to die fighting. I thought for a while, that I was going go-ing to die fighting then In that German Ger-man prison. 1 was afraid for a while that I wasn't even going to die fighting fight-ing that it was to he starving, rotting. rot-ting. Now I know Cm not going to die at all not for a good many years, I mean but I'm going to live fighting. fight-ing. Do you remember, when I was a little cbap. how 1 used to stand In the front yard, whenever I wanted to see you, and simply holler, 'Come over Mary, come over?' And you always camel I'm going right on calling for you now, until I've made you come again! I'll go down now, and see mother I promised her that I wouldn't be long. But we'll see each other, Rome way, right along, won't we, Mary 7" lie was half-way down the hill when he felt her touch on his arm. lie turned quickly. "What In It. dear?" he asked. "Is anything the matter?" "No yes I haven't been honest." "You haven't been honest !" echoed Paul In astonishment. "What do you mean?" "I let you go away thinking that. I was afraid to let you think anything else, because I knew, though you 'wanted' me ho much, you didn't really love me - then. I I hoped yon would, Home day, U'h nearly killed me ever Hlnce to think If vou never came buck. CHAPTER XIV Continued 16 "Yes, she Is real peculiar. Her mother was the same. She'd go a long time without hardly openin' her head, Laura Mannin' would, and then she'd up and take the bit in her teeth like when she named Algy, and sent Mary off to school. I've always thought Mary some like her mother. But the menfolks do seem to like her they never show much sense In their selections. Why, I never had an offer till I was most thirty! Blanche don't seem to pindle none, does she?" "No, she's actually gained since she's been nursing the baby, and she said the other day she'd never be happier In her life. I can't see what ails the girls in this generation. Rosalie King has come to visit Mrs. Weston again, and I can't see that she's changed at all. She doesn't even wear crepe just plain blaek and she says 'she should worry,' that she's 'hung on to her old job and got a raise at that' and that although she can't always buy the 'very latest' to wear, she's got a 'long way from September morn' whatever she means by that ! One of her usual vulgar expressions! And yet Mrs. Weston says she knows Rosalie thought the world of that man she married. She can't have, that's all not In the way a womanj of real refinement would have cared. Why, after Martin died, I refused all nourishment except what was absolutely abso-lutely necessary, of course, to keep up my strength and lay in a dark room for weeks and never dreamed of stirring stir-ring out, even after that, except to go to church and to the cemetery. My heart was buried In the grave. I'm afraid Mary has been putting some of her queer Ideas Into Blanche's head, for when I asked her a little while ago if hers wasn't, she said no indeed, It was all with Philip!" "Land ! Where does she think Philip is?" "She said in Heaven. And that Heaven was anywhere, If you could only see It" Mrs. Elliott arose, and folded her work. "Them kind of notions give me the creeps," she said uneasily. "I must be goin'." Mary was sitting on top of Countess hill, her chin resting on her hands, looking out over the meadows. She sat very still, watching the changing chang-ing light Without understanding why, and in spite of all her grief and weariness, she felt that one of the great hours of her life had come. The beauty and peace and promise of the country suddenly seemed to overcome her as no inanimate things had ever overcome her before. She felt, like an actual presence, the spirit of her puritan puri-tan forefathers who had turned this valley from a wilderness into a garden, gar-den, who had lived their simple faith as truly as they had professed It, who had fought and died, when necessary, for an Ideal. She turned her head, half expecting to glimpse some heavenly heaven-ly vision, trembling But there was nothing to be heard, nothing to be seen, only something wonderful to be felt. She bowed her head and prayed. It was a long time before she lifted It again. When she did, Paul, bareheaded, bare-headed, dressed In khaki, was standing stand-ing beside her. She sprang to her feet, shaking all over, entirely unable to speak. He was taller, thinner, paler. Infinitely older and graver, all the bloom and softness of his boyish beauty had gone. For a moment she thought It must be She shut her eyes, swaying and crying aloud, as she felt herself falling. fall-ing. Then suddenly she was upheld by a strong arm, swung quickly around her shoulder, a firm hand taking tak-ing both her trembling ones In a warm and steady grasp. "There, there," Paul was saying, as If he had been speaking to a little child, and patting her arm as he spoke. "It's all right. I didn't mean to frighten you like this. Don't. Mary. Don't cry so. Why, there Is nothing to cry about! I'm all right. I'm here! "Can't we sit down and talk?" he asked, and drew her down beside him on the big rock, still holding her hand. Then seeing how utterly Impossible It was for her to speak, he went on, "1 got In on the four o'clock and walked straight up to the farm. I didn't let mother know I was coming, for I thought. If I did, she'd have the minister, min-ister, or n delegation from the I). A. K. or the Wallaeetown band, or mnyhe all three, at the station to meet me. It never occurred to me that none of my letters from the other Hide telling ner In a general way when to expect rue. would have reached her." "Tell me," said Mary, finding her voice (it In Ht. "There lun't mucli to tell. Vou know what happened up to tlw Uui 1 was wounded. And the wound the first oiio didn't amount to anything. I wm) buck at the front In no time. And ting down In the old chair, took up the Bible that lay near It, to read In It, as always, before she went to bed. It fell open at the last chapter of Proverbs : "Who can find a virtuous woman," read Cousin Jane, "for her price is far above rubies. . . . Her children arise up also and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he pralseth her. Give her the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her In the gates." The Bible slipped from her lap, unnoticed, un-noticed, and Cousin Jane sat for a long time with happy tears rolling down her cheeks. "I suppose that woman In the Bible may have had her faults," she said aloud at last, "same as Mary has. I shouldn't be a ml t e surprised If she had a tongue and a temper and a backbone and didn't forgive and forget for-get very easy, though Solomon doesn't mention it. Seems to me there's some likeness between the two. Mary's ben faithful to the trust her dead mother left her and denied herself to do for her father and tier little brothers. broth-ers. She's ben strong nnd wise enough to say 'no' to a rich man she didn't love and turn the poor, weak, shiftless hoy she did love Into a fine creature that needn't bo afraid to look his Maker In the face. And she hasn't shirked or nagged or complained or boasted while she's ben doln' It. She's kept herself sweet and lovely through It all. There may he belter Jobs for women to do than things like (hem, but If there Is, I never heard of 'em, any more than Solomon seems to hev. We've ben worryln' considerable lately late-ly about the little countess' curse, and I don't deny that It seems the Almighty Al-mighty gives strange powers to human hu-man bein's sometimes, even after they're dead. But for all that, I guess Ills blessln' Is morn powerful than anything else, Jus' the snme. And I guess, too, that as long as Mary Htays here, that hlessln' will rest on Lady Blanche farm In the future, nama as It has In the past." LTIIM ICND.J |