A Romance of Billy-Goat HillRice, Alice Caldwell Hegan
General
A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill
Rice, Alice Caldwell Hegan
Kentucky -- Fiction
“Yes, I know, but they don't fit. And get some shoes that don't creak,
and--and you won't mind my telling you, Noah? Pompadours went out of
style six years ago.”
Noah gloomily shook his head. “It's not my clothes. It's not clothes
that make Don Morley. By the way, aren't you two friends, any more?”
Miss Lady faced the question unflinchingly. “Yes, we are friends. Is he
going to win out?”
“With Miss Connie?”
“No, you foolish boy. In his trial.”
“I don't know.”
“What will happen if he loses?”
“The case will be appealed.”
“And if he loses in the Court of Appeals?”
“It's up to Gooch to see that he doesn't lose. I only wish I was as
certain of a few other things as I am of Donald Morley's innocence!”
One afternoon, a few days before the trial, Donald after oscillating
between the hotel and his club and finding each equally intolerable,
jumped on the car and went out to the Queeringtons. It was a cold, raw
day, with a fine mist filling the air, and even the dull formality of
the drab parlor seemed a relief from the gloom without.
Miss Lady started up from the piano as he entered, but Connie pulled her
back:
“You shan't run off and leave us, shall she, Cousin Don? She was just
going to play for Mr. Wicker to sing. Did you know he could sing?”
“Oh, yes. Wick's the Original Warbler. Do you remember our serenades on
the Cane Run Road, Wick?”
“Yes,” said Noah glumly.
“I forgot that you and Mr. Wicker used to know each other,” Connie said
curiously. “Why the Cane Run Road runs by Thornwood, doesn't it?”
“Yes,” said Don calmly, seizing the conversation and shoving it out
of shoal water. “Go ahead, Wick, and sing something; we'll join in the
chorus.”
But when the time for the chorus came Donald had forgotten his promise.
He was leaning back in a corner of the sofa, his hand shading his eyes,
watching Miss Lady, and wondering what trick of fate had driven her to
marry John Jay Queerington. There was no man in the world whose moral
worth he admired more, but Miss Lady seemed as out of place in his life
as a darting, quivering humming-bird in a museum of natural history. He
noticed the faint shadows about her eyes, and the wistful droop of her
lips. If he could only set her free! A mad desire seized him to see her
once more joyously on the wing with all her old buoyancy and daring. And
yet she had walked open eyed into her cage, and he had yet to see the
tiniest flutter of her wings against the bars.
On that first night of his home-coming surely he had read a welcome in
her eyes! But never since by word or gesture had he reason to think that
she remembered. She was gracious and elusive, and she talked to him as
she talked to Decker and Gerald Ivy, only she looked at them when she
talked, and she never even looked at him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account