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Show jP) B KATH EN ll (SlNOft&IS THE STORY SO FAR: An orphan since the age of seven, Charlotte (Cherry) Rawlings has been attending Saint Dorothea's Doro-thea's school for girls. She knows almost nothing about her early history, but has gradually come to realize that she has no family. When she is twenty Judge Judson Marshbanks comes to arrange for her to quit the convent. He is her co-guardian co-guardian with Emma Haskell. Cherry remembers Emma as her mother's nurse, and when the Judge teUs her that Emma has gotten her a secretarial position posi-tion with the wealthy Mrs. Porteous Porter Por-ter in San Francisco, where Emma is now housekeeper, Cherry hopes that Emma will tell her more about herself. She goes first to the Marshbanks mansion and dines alone with the judge as Fran, his young wife, and his niece, Amy, are dining out. Kelly Coates, an artist, drops in. It is evident to Cherry that Fran and Kelly are interested in each other. Cherry falls easily into her Job with Mrs. Porter, who is old and semi-invalid. She Is Jealous when she sees Kelly and Fran at a party given by Mrs. Porter, and when he stops to talk with her she says he will never think anything of her because be-cause she is a Saint Dorothea's girl. Emma tells Cherry that her sister Charlotte Char-lotte was Cherry's mother. Kelly, with Fran in his old car, picks np Cherry while she Is hiking and takes her to his Sausalito studio. Now continue with the story. CHAPTER VII After lunch he begged them to leave the table disorder just as It was because he could not wait another moment to show them his paintings. and they went to the big barn studio and while Kelly dragged out and dusted canvas after canvas Cherry and Fran were looking and commenting. Neither one assumed any knowledge of his art, but he accepted ac-cepted their criticisms gratefully and pointed out details of technique with no thought that he might be leaving his audience somewhat behind be-hind him. Presently Fran drifted to the great north window that had been cut down to the floor, and stood looking look-ing dubiously between long homespun home-spun curtains at the now steadily falling rain. Kelly went over to stand beside her, and after a moment Cherry returned to the house thrilled by the mere nearness of their emotion emo-tion and realizing what this moment alone might mean to them. For she had not been blind and deaf to the apparently casual phrases and glances that had been sprinkled through the luncheon talk; she was not unaware that Judge Marshbanks was OtheDo; she had even heard Fran at a moment when she supposed sup-posed herself out of hearing in the kitchen answer some remark of Kelly's Kel-ly's with a patient: "Because he may find out about it and it'll be all right if I say she was along!" and then, in another second: "No, but I did promise, Kelly, and I'm breaking my promise." Cherry had heard no more, and what she did hear had not surprised her. She had surmised from a quick, open remark or two made in the car that Judge Marshbanks had asked his wife not to see Kelly, and that the two had met by chance and were risking a discovery that might have been extremely uncomfortable uncom-fortable for them both. And when she found herself alone in the kitchen, she began to feel a certain shame and discomfort' in the part she was playing in their secret. She felt ashamed for them and for herself. When the kitchen clock said quarter quar-ter to four, she went back to the barn. Fran and Kelly were still standing at the window looking out at the rain that was mingling now with an early dusk. .It was raining steadily again when they went out to the open car. Fran had refused Kelly's suggestion that they telephone for a taxi. She had said, "We're late now! We'll be home in twenty minutes; let's make a dash for it!" The women were bundled into snug raincoats with bandannas tied over their heads. They packed themselves them-selves into the wide seat and raised an umbrella close over them. A quarter of a mile down the hill there was a bad turn and Cherry felt the horrible sensation of wheels skidding, skid-ding, and instantly they were wedged in a ditch with the engine's nose stuck into a dripping bank. When repeated efforts had proved that the car would not move with its load, Cherry and Fran got out and stood still, laughing philosophically philosophi-cally under their umbrella. "Don't hurry. I'm just as good as divorced now," Fran's voice with its poignant note of laughter and tears said calmly. "This'll only take a minute," Kelly Kel-ly struggled gallantly for fully ten minutes, his arms wrenching at the steering wheel, his face red. "Damn it!" he muttered under his breath, as the wheels spun around uselessly in a deepening groove of soft, wet earth. "We'd better go back, I think, and telephone for a taxi," Fran said. "Lord, I'm sorry about this," the man said apologetically. "The old bus never let me down before!" Sausalito could supply no taxi but San Francisco obligingly offered to send one. While they waited Cherry telephoned tele-phoned Emma; she had come with friends to Sausalito; they were delayed de-layed by the storm; they would be home in an hour; please tell Mrs. Porter that she was forry. Emma answered that the old lady had felt ill after luncheon and was in bed, so that Cherry need not hurry. This W.N.U. REIEASF I'if After lunch he begged them to leave the table disorder just as ft was because he could not wait another moment to show his paintings- relieved Cherry's mind. Fran was restless and uneasy and Kelly miserably aware of it. His happy day was having the worst possible conclusion; he had long exhausted ex-hausted apology and encouragement, and could only settle down with his guests at the fire and make the best of a bad job. It seemed a long, long time before be-fore the honk of a taxi was heard outside. Fran insisted that Kelly should not come with them; they said hurried good nights and were off. "Cherry," Fran said then, calling her by her name for the first time, "will you do me a great favor?" "Of course," Cherry said with a slightly quickened beat at her heart and a puzzled look. "I want you to come home with me. It's perfectly obvious," Fran explained, "that we've been caught in the rain together. I want my husband to know that you were with me." Cherry was strangely stirred. Fran, the remote and proud, had made her the recipient of her confidence, confi-dence, or at least part of it. She said that she would gladly go home with Fran before going on to her own destination. Fran did not pursue the subject further, and at six o'clock they entered en-tered the front door of the Marshbanks Marsh-banks house. Molly and Martin, maid and butler, came forward immediately, im-mediately, and Fran asked anxiously anxious-ly if Judge Marshbanks was at home. No, not yet? Cherry felt the relief in her voice. Where was Rousseau? Rous-seau? "Right here, Madame." The chauffeur appeared and Fran drew him aside for a moment's talk. "Rousseau says Jud had to go to San Jose to court this afternoon," she then said as she and Cherry went upstairs, "and he's coming back late with Mr. Trotter. So that's all right! You poor child, you're shivering. I have to go out to dinner, din-ner, but why don't you stay and have some with Amy? The poor mouse is in bed with a cold!" "Yes, do; yes, do!" called Amy from her room, and her first gesture ges-ture of friendliness so warmed Cherry's Cher-ry's heart that she could go to the room door and look in upon its pink-ness pink-ness and warmth and coziness as she explained: "I'm all wet and horrid!" "Take a bath in my room, here; I'm dying of loneliness; all my friends are afraid," Amy said eagerly. ea-gerly. "You've just been taking care of flu, so you're in no danger. Stay and have supper and talk. I'll lend you a hostess dress." "I'd love it," Cherry said gladly. She was about to enter when an unexpected and unfamiliar voice behind be-hind her made her turn and find herself her-self facing Fran and also facing a magnificently impressive older woman, a woman of perhaps seventy, seven-ty, who was staring at her with a surprised and unfriendly eye. Fran had been welcoming this stranger, commenting upon her arrival ar-rival a few days earlier than she had been expected from Florida, explaining ex-plaining her own plight. Now she introduced Cherry: "Miss Rawlings, Gran. Cherry, this is Mrs. Marshbanks, Marsh-banks, the judge's mother." "Miss who?" demanded the old lady sharply, following Fran after a perfunctory nod to Cherry. Cherry heard Fran murmuring in answer; the words were indistinct but her tone was conciliatory and apologetic. Suddenly the other woman's wom-an's voice spunded clearly just before be-fore Fran's bedroom door closed: "Of course I know who she is; I knew the minute I saw her! And I won't have Amy know her; I won't have her in this house!" Cherry stood still for a moment, idly reflecting upon the bad temper of this proud, handsome old lady. At the moment it did not occur to her to attempt to give these words significance, still less to connect them in any way with her insignificant insignifi-cant self. But they remained indelibly indel-ibly imprinted upon her memory, and the day came when they found their rightful place in her story. Judge Marshbanks came into the room while Amy" and Cherry were talking and seemed pleased to find them so cozy and friendly. He was tired after a long day in the San Jose court, and regretted frankly that he could not have supper with his niece and her companion. "But Fran and I are going out to dinner and I must go and dress," he said. "So you got caught in the rain, did you, Cherry?" "Oh, we were drowned!" Cherry said. "Over at Coates' place, eh?" "Things going pretty well over at the Porter house?" "They've both been sick, you know, Mrs. Porter and and Emma." She flushed brightly on the last word; it seemed disloyal still to call her no more than that. But evidently he saw nothing amiss. He told her that she looked very nice in that thing of Amy's, and that Rousseau was taking Fran and him to the dinner and would then come back and wait for Cher ry. "Oh, I can walk! Only two blocks and it's stopped raining," she protested. pro-tested. But he would not hear of it. Rousseau was to call for them after their dinner party at half past ten; he would be on service anyway. any-way. "Well, be good. Come and see us again, Cherry," the judge said, and when he was gone the girls fell to eager talk again. There was a light in Emma's room when she quietly climbed the stairs. Cherry went in, sat down near the bed and poured out the story of the day. Emma listened in the convalescent's convales-cent's mood of weary content until Cherry came to the request from Fran that Cherry on the return trip come first to the Marshbanks house. "Why on earth didn't she drop you here if you were dripping wet?" "Well, we weren't quite dripping. We'd sort of dried out over at Mr. Coates' place. But she was worried wor-ried for fear Judge Marshbanks would be mad at her." "For going to have lunch with Mr. Coates?" "They've got an awful crush on each other, Aunt Emma." The title slipped out. Cherry's face turning red as she heard her voice saying it, and Emma's slow flush burning in her thin cheeks in answer. an-swer. "I can't help it. I think of you as 'Aunt Emma' now," Cherry said, laughing, but a little frightened. "You can call me anything you like," Emma conceded briefly. "So Mrs. Marshbanks thinks she's in love with this painter?" she asked. "He's certainly in love with her," Cherry answered. ' "I've never met Judge Marshbanks' Marsh-banks' second wife," Emma said, reflectively, "but I've seen her, and she looks like one of the women who live for that sort of thing. They're always the ones with good husbands too." "He didn't seem very angry. He came into Amy's room, and he was awfully nice. Amy'd had flu, and since we'd had it here, there didn't seem to be much danger .of my bringing it back, and so I had supper sup-per with her. We had it on trays, and it was lots of fun!" "I thought you didn't like Amy," Emma said, quietly watchful. "I didn't." Cherry had a swift moment of surprise that Emma knew it. "She was extremely snobbish snob-bish when we had the dance here for Dorothy," she said; "but she was lovely tonight. Oh, and Aunt Emma! Her grandmother is back; she got back today. She wouldn't come into Amy's room because of the flu, but she brought her all sorts of things you're sick again!" "No; just a little faint. I don't believe I'll ever get my strength back again,'' Emma whispered. In the morning, old Mrs. Porter had a serious setback and was dangerously dan-gerously ill. A few strange days a week went by; doctors came and went; lawyers law-yers came and went. Judge Marshbanks Marsh-banks had a long talk with Emma. The telephone and the doorbell, both muffled, were constantly in action. All the world wanted to know how old Dovey Porter was faring. Just two weeks from the rainy day when Cherry and Fran had come home truants from Topcote, the old lady quietly passed away. The judge and Amy and Fran came to the funeral in the cathedral cathe-dral with hundreds of other black-clad black-clad folks. Cherry and Emma with the entire domestic staff were modestly mod-estly placed at the side of the church. (TO BE CONTINUED) |