I went from the front porch up to my room to take off my hat and see if
Martha had come from a day with Mother Spurlock down in the Settlement.
I found instead of Martha or the boy or Mother Elsie, Jessie Litton
seated at my desk and looking out the window across to Paradise Ridge.
"I came up to wait, Charlotte, because--because I'm in deep water and
need a hand out. You have always helped and somehow I feel that you have
so much more to give me now than you ever had. Clifton Gray told me last
night that he loved me and is going to break his engagement with Letitia
Cockrell. He had heard Letitia and Nell talk over Nell's mourning
trousseau for the winter and he was disgusted--that, and--and I think it
has been coming some time. He is with Mr. Goodloe a lot lately in
getting things about the town started to going again and he is--is
thinking. I don't know how to help him think; it's a thing I've never
done. I am at sea myself but I know that he must not throw Letitia over.
Will you talk to him?"
"I couldn't help him if--if Mr. Goodloe can't," I faltered, simply sick
with distress.
"Cliff said not a week ago that your eyes made him feel like a light he
saw ahead on a wooded island after he had drifted without a paddle two
days in a canoe one time in Canada. You'll have to talk to him. Give him
a little life kernel; I've only got shells for myself. I'm going down to
Florida suddenly next week and when I come back I--I, well, I'll either
go into the movies or study with Mother Spurlock to get a deaconess'
cap." As she spoke I saw that the fight was on in Jessie's soul, and it
would be to a finish.
"God bless and keep you, dear," I held her back long enough to say as
she picked up her sweater and left me. Hampton Dibrell has been
constantly with Bessie Thornton since Ted Montgomery's death, and I knew
that Jessie's time of trial had come, for her love for him had grown
through her denial because of the taint of her mad mother. And somehow I
felt sure of the outcome, that she would find strength to let him go. I
didn't know why I felt so sure; but I did, and I went down to the
library with a great peace in my heart that I knew later would be in
hers.
And I made my entry into father's den in the midst of a scene of great
moment. I paused and listened with profound respect. Tradition was on
trial and the result I felt would be momentous. Father sat in his huge
chair before a small crackling fire in the wide chimney, and Martha's
boy stood before him with a large, profusely illustrated volume of Hans
Christian Andersen clasped passionately to his little breast. He had the
floor.