Show nom 7 L A 1 I 1 0 11 ta JUI jill mcfarlane whose father richard disappeared appeared dlf in world war 1 I falls in ID love IOTO with spang gordon a young lie he tells her that her brother ric Is seeing a divorces divorcee and ab the goes oe to camp to investigate ric avoids avoid her but bat the be later sees leei him with sandra calvert an older hardened woman captain mackay known as old cyanide 11 tells her he knew her mother many years ago aco she feels she has met him before spang calls to say good food bye later while riding with dave patterson a family friend who has always secretly loved her mother julia jill startles him by asking why dont you yon marry my mother dave speaks ol of her father CHAPTER IX dave gathered up the reins 1 I know jill but theres nothing I 1 can do nothing I 1 can say but its so stupid with a world full of unhappy heartbroken people people who cant help themselves who cant change things wh why should people make themselves unhappy uselessly when it make sense dave looked at her then do you think dooley is unhappy jiu jill 1 I dont think she has ever been really happy and ashes so alone somehow even with grandfather and me around and mamie sputtering in the kitchen and ric to worry about ashes still so shut in somehow so separate and remote casual things she can share but real things the things that matter never so I 1 dont even know if she cares about you dave im just the fool rushing I 1 in then dave said 1 I do love your mother JIU youve seen that so theres no use evading but I 1 cant talk to her about it not with the barriers standing that she sets up and defends as she does 1 I 1 know she retires behind that aloof wall and smiles at you across it but you cant touch her and if you present any argument she levels you with that gentle kind of condemnation dem nation she does that to me it affronts her that other people wont share her mistaken loyalty my father has always been something splendid in my life but I 1 cant put him like a pillar of cloud between me and the things I 1 live with the way dooley does I 1 know that he want that sort of loyalty he was a human person definitely ini tely from the few things that grandfather has let slip when hes angry at ric he liked living and he be happy to know that anybody took the veil on his account co t yes he be liked living dave said and he did a lot of it in the few years that he had he was a very handsome boy he had that classic face like bics but he had blue eyes with a cool direct look 1 I know ive got the picture of him and a sort of laughing mouth amused dave helped her out though the word that had first flashed into his mind was mocking he was a lot like ric hed never been disciplined he had a restlessness that kept him on the move he dave stopped embarrassed barr assed feeling that he be had said too much for aills face had changed oddly it was as if something had come to her something only half guessed before something she had felt and feared a little and put away hanging flags and decorations to hide the sore place where it had eaten she said abruptly lets go back im chilly dave said cold in this sun mamie would say a goose was eating grass on my grave just one of those shuddery things thing sl jill tried to laugh but inside she was cold and quaking inside somehow now she knew about her father all the things that had never been said all the things that her mother had guarded even in her thoughts when her children were present her father had been like ric not a comfort not some one to lean on some one to be proud of but a heart strain an unsolved riddle a bewildering and uncertain element in the chemistry of her mothers life A realization leads to accident suddenly she knew that ane look she had glimpsed in julias eyes whenever she looked at that picture that jill kept like a shrine was not really love not the quivering reaching aching kind of love that she herself had tor for spang it was different withdrawn somehow holding something back remembering too much things that had never been told that never she knew would be told she whacked the mare suddenly with the reins jerked her head up pulled her about sharply the startled animal floundered lost her tooting footing jumped and scrambled to regain lt it and dave yelled warningly and hurled his horse ahead but too late JIU jill went twisting from the saddle and landed on an her shoulder in the rocky rubble of the lane her bright hair flying her arm crumpled under her the mare jumped again clearing aills legs and then stood still till shivering dave lumped jumped down cried bilu JW sharply but juls half open eyes were senseless and glazed he did not lift her he shouted a at t the mare till she trotted bewildered aside and then he eased ains legs straight and picked a wild grape bough and bent it over her to keep the sun from her eyes then tying the mare to the fence he jumped back to his horse and went pounding down the rocky hill bill to the red roofs of buzzards hill jill opened her eyes and sneezed and tried to push the tickling branch off her face but oddly her left arm would not work she began to cry in a childish way tears running down her temples and making wet spots on the earth the mare lifted her head and shrilling a summons wheels were coming up the lane an engine labored on the slope and there were voices jill jall lifted her head painfully and looked into her grandfathers frightened face john 1 I had no collar on and partly wiped ort off lather was drying on his half shaven whiskers t the startled animal floundered lost her footing jumped and scrambled to regain it you look tunny funny jill said hoarsely the dim blur of her mothers face was close then very white her eyes big and terrified where does it hurt darling my arm jill gasped and lay back again its gone it gone its broken I 1 think dont lift her lie still jill daves voice cut through the foggy morass of pain that was pressing jill down keep the sun off her face dooley well get some kind of stretcher theres an army cot go WRY with dave john I 1 you know where it is and telephone the doctor oh dooley I 1 dont want to be sick I 1 dont want to be hurt and all crippled uple up jill wailed 1 I can get up you help me no dont move jill lie perfectly still till we can have some X rays till we know whether theres any other injury or not if you mean is my back broken it I 1 can move my legs and everything see it its 3 just this arm darn it 1 I know baby its a rotten shame but well get you fixed up quickly here they come now the station wagon roared back up and the two men got down da dave ve in one leap and john 1 I backing but stiffly they unfolded the army cot and awkwardly lifted jill up onto it you cant lift her that high john 1 I let me julia ordered tugging and panting they pushed the cot into the rear of the station wagon finally and jill relaxed and giggled a little wagging her boots in their faces get zero on an ambulance crew you two she said and then she turned her face away and closed her eyes richard returns from the dead A little glow sustained jill through the rest of that awful day 77 through rough the jolting ride to town and the anguish of being lifted onto that stony table through the torture of splints and the sick contusion confusion of hypodermics she lay in a high hospital bed and decided in a druggy dazed lassitude that though this was purgatory at least she had made things right tor for dave and dooley she did not know because they never told her about the car that rolled under the porte cocheres at buzzards hill that night she did not see her mothers startled face when she opened the screen door and saw a tell tall officer standing there with silver bars on his shoulder and the blue and silver of the air corps on his sleeve a man with cool mocking blue eyes and oil ill vered temples she did not see julia juila mcfarlane McF arIane stunned and stricken look as this stranger smiled at her and said aid I hello Doo leyl they stared at each other for or a long minute and then julia gave 11 choked little cry richardt Richar dl old john L I 1 who had beer been asleep in his bis chair worn wom out by the strain and excitement of the day closed his sagging mouth and blinked and said what say who Is it julia drew back as the officer advanced into the room its richarda Hichar dl her voice was a hoarse strangled breath irs if richard ome come homel the old man jumped to his bis teet feet and glared hello father richard lane said coolly so its you Is it john Ls stare was hostile its you after twenty five what do you want dont john II 11 julia protested she said a come lii in richard but she did not hold out her hand nice to see you again surprised julias astonished confusion chilled to a controlled calm she stood still poised stony not feeling eeling anything at all naturally richard having mourned you for years as one nobly dead naturally im surprised will you sit down he took the chair she indicated and eased the creases of his smart gabardine slacks with the old casual gesture that she remembered john I 1 did not sit down his whit mustache was quivering like the antennae of an angry insect his eyes snapped fire and to what extraordinary circumstances cum stances are we indebted tor for the honor of this sudden visit he demanded please julia stayed stayed the old mans fury with a pleading hand richard has come home sit down john L youre shaking all over would you like a drink richard not now thank you dooley why dont you sit down yourself she would not collapse into the chairs she let herself down carefully a bit stiffly feeling suddenly as though her body had turned to wood as though her voice was something mechanical grinding out words so you want to come back richard all these years twenty five years youve let us go on with nothing but silence nothing but emptiness because you wanted it that way he dare come backi barked john I 1 1 I suppose youve just found out sir that id cleared up all that mess in washington it would have been outlawed anyway but I 1 paid it all off every penny was there something that had bad to be paid off richard asked coolly c 00 lly not stirred not troubled apparently by the electric currents that sparked around them in that room this is the first ive heard of it old john I 1 snarled iahn h hl but julia juila quieted him again with a gentle gesture sit down please john I 1 we can talk this over quietly dont you think we can listen to whatever richard has to say when loyalty tumbled down what can he say now years late demanded the old man he would not sit down he stood facing them bristling all over like a small gray furious dog do julla julia thought with a small corner comer of her mind theres really nothing to say richard began blandly lighting A cigarette looking around for an ash tray and finding none twisting the burnt match in his fingers 1 I discovered that I 1 missed you all I 1 was passing this way on a military mission so I 1 came home no amnesia no wandering aro around und europe tor for year snot knowing who you were you just came homel john L was bitter julias face was as pale as death this was a death something dying in her an ember dying a spark sinking into nothingness the spark she had tended so long so stubbornly knowing all the while that it was wa doomed to the dry arld aridness ness ot of ashes but refusing to give up that was what hurt re remembering mem bering that foolish loyalty that tower she bad built of air and dreams and deceptive memory that tower built of nothing upon not nothing hIngl no I 1 even a dramas story richard sall said 1 I wounded I 1 at even scratched I 1 got a little sick of the war after fter lying around a muddy trench for seventy days so I 1 went to paris I 1 stayed too long and explanations would have been awkward slid and then suddenly the war ended so I 1 go back we traced you that tar far julia said your father went to part paris in twenty one and spent two months in france and two thousand doUar dollar sl th old man put in TO BE CONTINUED |