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Show NORR.IS W.N.U. RELEASE aaJ" 1 , 1 ' -J. v ajjtw. J v. I , jHa L A "V 111 "Of course I don't know what she said," the judge admitted with a faint frown. "But whatever she said it didn't last long, for Amelia fainted, and when she came to she was very ill and the baby was born within the hour." THE STORY SO FAR: Charlotte i (Cherry) Rawlings, an orphan at Saint Dorothea's convent school since she was seven, knows almost nothing of her early history, but she has gradually realized that like other girls at the school she has no family. She questions whether she has the right to her father's name. Judge Judson Marshbanks and Emma Haskell, housekeeper for wealthy Mrs. Porteous Porter in San Francisco, are her guardians. When Cherry is twenty Emma gets her a secretarial job with Mrs. Porter, but she goes first to the Marshbanks mansion, meeting the judge's young wife and his rich niece, Amy, daughter of his brother, Fred, now dead. Life at Mrs. Porter's becomes monotonous and Cherry is thrilled when Kelly Coates, an artist, sends her a box of candy, and she is jealous when he brings Fran to a party at Mrs. Porter's. Emma tells Cherry that her sister Charlotte Char-lotte was Cherry's mother. Kelly takes Cherry along so Fran can visit his stu dio, and Cherry senses that he is very much in love with Fran, but soon he tells Cherry despondently that Fran has promised prom-ised the judge she will not see him any more. Mrs. Porter dies, leaving Cherry $1,500, and she learns from Marshbanks that his brother Fred, who was Amy's father, was also her father. Cherry decides de-cides to go to Stanford University and the judge suggests that she live with Mrs. Pringle. As Fran Is driving her there she asks Cherry to be Kelly's friend, saying he likes Cherry and that she has decided to do the honorable thing and avoid him. Kelly wires Cherry, Cher-ry, drives her to his studio, and after a party there with friends starts with her to the Marshbanks mansion. Dora Marshbanks, Marsh-banks, the formidable woman who was the .Judge's mother and Amy's and her own grandmother, objects to Cherry's presence in the house. Cherry teUs Kelly about it some weeks later. Now continue with the story. CHAPTER XI "Yes, but old Mrs. Marshbanks was too wild to mind that . . . Well, after we'd all stood petrified for what seemed about an hour, she said to Amy, 'it is extremely dishonorable dis-honorable to listen to the conversation conversa-tion of others!' and walked out of the room. Of course Amy was mad with curiosity and so I pretended that her grandmother didn't like me because Emma was once their nurse, and she didn't think it was a very suitable friendship for her granddaughter." "Good girl, Cherry!" There "was a long silence. Kelly raised himself on his elbows and stared at her. "What are you thinking?" Cherry said. "That you look very nice, today. That well, I was wondering if you'd like to come and live at Topcote, Cherry." She looked at him, flushing and paling. "How do you mean?" "I mean marry me, of course; 1 mean as Mrs. Coates." "I see," Cherry said, she looked away. "I've been thinking about it. Ever since that night when you made the toast and it was so cold and the Wilcoxes were there, I've been wondering won-dering why it was all so cozy that night. It came to me that it was you. So I telephoned you and asked you if you were free last Sunday, and you were going on a picnic to Point Lbbos." "George arranged that." "Is George Pringle in love with you?" "He has a case," Cherry answered indifferently. "But you don't like him." "Not that way. No. He's nice, but not that way. No." "You know how I feel about Fran," Kelly said presently. "She'll always be the unattainable the dream woman. I can't help that. But you and I could have a lot of fun, Cherry, roaming about, painting paint-ing things and clearing the creek." He looked at her expectantly, and met a strange, thoughtful look in her eyes, fixed upon his. Cherry jumped to her feet, and started to walk to the car that was parked a hundred yards away. "Why, thank you, Kelly!" she said politely. "You're tremendously kind to think that way about me. I appreciate ap-preciate it just as much, and I'm eternally grateful to you," she went on briskly, no emotion whatsoever discernible in manner or voice, "but well, you see, I've missed a good deal in my lite. I've never had a father; I barely remember my mother; I had no home as a child, no birthday parties and bedtime stories sto-ries all that. "Now I have a half sister and an aunt and a grandmother and a cousin cous-in and I can't claim any of them," she continued, still in the same light, impersonal voice. "I never can claim them. So when I am a wife, Kelly," Cherry said, with a quick glance at him over her shoulder as they walked toward the car, "I want the whole thing. I want some man to think I am perfection. I want romance and glamor and the feeling feel-ing that we two are all the whole world to each other. No Fran in the background! "So I do thank you. and the answer an-swer is 'No.' And I hope you'll forget for-get that you said anything about it, and we'll have more picnics and walks some day. I'm walking home," she finished, as they reached the car. "It's not far, and I want to be alone. Good-by Kelly." "Cherry, you've got me all wrong!" he began distressedly. But she only said good-by again, and walked away down the orchard. After Aft-er a minute or two he got into the car and drove away. Just a week later Cherry sat opposite op-posite the judge in his comfortable chambers. His kindly eyes smiled at her. "It's the summer plan the camp at Big Basin you wanted to see me about?" "No, not unless you object. Beck and I can't wait to pack. We go next Tuesday, and the girls begin to come in Saturday." "Then what was the trouble, Cherry? Cher-ry? Your letter said 'trouble.' " "It's this. Amy came down to see me Wednesday. I didn't know she was going to. She wanted to tell me all about the trip and this Navy ensign she's so crazy about." "Yes, but why look so distressed about that? You like Amy?" "I do like Amy. Amy's my of course we're pretty closely related, Amy and I. But one thing is one thing is that your mother doesn't like me to see Amy too much. She asked me she practically asked me not to come to the house any more." A shadow came over the genial face; the judge's forehead contracted contract-ed a little, "My mother did?". "Yes. She said it wasn't decent." "H'm!" the judge said, gravely enough. "I'm sorry she did that. You know how much we all like you, and what reason I have for feeling that I've something to make up to you." "Amy came in while your mother was talking to me. I'd reached the house before Amy did, and I was in my room, reading, and your mother came in and said how much she resented re-sented my being there." "How much did Amy hear?" "Well, your mother had just said that if I didn't break off all my relationships re-lationships there, she'd have to let everyone know, and Amy too, that we were half sisters. And she said that would hurt my father, and my mother, too. And I said that that meant injuring the reputation of her own son! Amy heard that." "And guessed the rest?" "Guessed that it was you, instead of your brother Fred. After your mother had gone Amy said that she always had suspected that I was " Cherry's throat thickened, she looked at him imploringly, "that I was your daughter." "I see," he said thoughtfully. "I didn't contradict her 1 couldn't say anything. I kept trying try-ing to think which would be worse, telling her, or letting it go and talking talk-ing some day to you." "Fran and I were in Los Angeles then?" "Yes. And then I went to Palo Alto and didn't see you, and I knew that your mother cared more about keeping it from Amy than anything else, and I hoped that Amy wouldn't talk. But now Amy's back, and she wants me to come in to spend the night with her next Saturday, and go the Quatres Arts Ball, and I don't know what to do!" "My mother's a proud, woman, Cherry," the judge said, after a silence. si-lence. "She's had a sad life." "She had been living in an apartment apart-ment hotel and hating it. Fred and his wife, Amelia, had had a little place in Burlingame. But after years, five or six years, I think, she was going to have a baby. Old Wellington, Well-ington, her father, was an immensely immense-ly rich man; he was going to come on from New York for the event, and do everything for the baby. Fred, who'd been restless and unsatisfied, un-satisfied, settled down all of a sudden. Mother had opened the city house by this time, and they were all together. The baby was coming in November " "I know. I'm four days older than Amy," Cherry, listening ab-sorbedly, ab-sorbedly, put in as he paused. "But you came two months too soon. That's all part of the story. Well! My wife and I and little Gregg got here just a week or two before be-fore Amy was born, and what we learned was rather confusing. It seems that Emma's sister, Charlotte Char-lotte Rawlings much younger than she was sometimes at the house, and that Fred had seen this girl, and had taken advantage of her. Emma knew nothing of it until almost al-most the end when Lottie came to her and told her. Emma felt that nobody must know, that her sister's sis-ter's secret must be kept now, of all times, when Fred's wife, who wasn't any too strong, was expecting expect-ing her own baby any day. "But poor little Lottie couldn't bear it. One night she suddenly appeared in my brother's room, as he was reading to his wife, and accused ac-cused him of having ruined her life!" "If I was the baby," Cherry said, hardly breathing. "I must have been born just about that time, too." "You were only a few days old. Your mother, poor Lottie, was perhaps per-haps weak and feverish, hardly knowing what she was doing." "But she couldn't have come to the house. She'd have been too weak." "She may have been in the house with Emma. I have always suspected sus-pected that Emma was there and the baby was born there. However it was, she rushed into Amelia's room. Amelia had lost all control of herself; she was sobbing bitterly bitter-ly ..." . "Did she say anything about the baby?" "No. Amelia never knew about the baby. "Of course I don't know what she said," the judge admitted with a faint frown. "But whatever what-ever she said, it didn't last long, for Amelia fainted, and when she came to she was very ill, and the baby was born within the hour." Emma came hurrying down and took Lottie away, and a few days later Emma left my mother, and she and Lottie went to live somewhere some-where in the country. "Fred was killed in a motor smash a few years later, and Amelia Ame-lia didn't survive long. My mother took charge of Amy, and the money my brother left for you I administered admin-istered as best I could. Emma had sent her sister to this school of Saint Dorothea's for a while, when she was little but Lottie hated it and came back. "A school of character," charac-ter," as the catalogue says, and she wanted you sent there." Cherry was standing; she came over to his chair, bent over him swiftly, and he felt her warm hps against his forehead. "I love you! There's never any trouble for anyone where you are!" she said, and was gone. "Oh, the relief, Kelly!" she wrote him from camp. "The relief of doing do-ing something you simply don't want to do, and having it over, and your soul as clear as a bell! "When will you see me? When college col-lege opens. For three delicious weeks before that, as soon as we close camp, Rebecca and I and a darling girl named Lucie Fargo are going on a wild cruise. Up to Victoriawe'll Vic-toriawe'll actually be out of America, Amer-ica, imagine! and on the way home we're going to stay with Lucie's grandmother, who has a country hotel. ho-tel. That's up in Mendocino County, Coun-ty, not far from Aunt Emma's place; it's only about thirty miles. So I've written Aunt EmmalOthat I'm coming over to see her." And she signed it "Your devoted and obedient Marchioness." But despite high spirits she dreaded dread-ed the visit to Emma, and was glad that it was to be put off until the end of the holiday. In due time she and Rebecca and Lucie drove along the ocean coast, and into high mountains, and through valleys where great rivers raced. It was all glorious and restful rest-ful and exciting. When they were back in California with the great mountains and the days of laughter and change and adventure behind them, Cherry felt herself older and wiser. On a certain cer-tain sober September afternoon she presented herself at the door of Emma's Em-ma's cabin with nothing more than a little shyness in her manner. Emma lived in a lumber country. Cherry, for her drive of thirty miles, had borrowed the car, leaving the other girls with Lucie's grandmother. grand-mother. Emma had been lying on the couch, evidently napping; she welcomed wel-comed Cherry pleasantly enough, but without an embrace, and put the girl into a chair at the hearth while she started a fire and lighted ona dim kerosene lamp. (TO BE CONTINUED) |