A few days later, when they were all at the supper table, Judge Carter grinned impishly at his wife and daughter and said cheerfully, “Steve and I had a caller today.”
“Well, I should hope so,” Lynn said with mock severity. “How are you going to support Mother and me in idle luxury if you don’t have an occasional caller, at least?”
“Anybody we know?” asked Ruth. And though she smiled, there was a touch of anxiety in her eyes.
“Wayde McCullers,” said the Judge, and chuckled at their surprise.
“Well, what in the world did he want?” asked Ruth, astonished.
“Oh, something about having his land posted against hunting,” said the Judge, and Lynn caught her breath on a small, soundless gasp.
“Oh, I am glad. That will protect Bert’s ‘little people,’” Ruth began, pleased.
“Steve and I advised against it,” said the Judge briskly.
Lynn cried, “Oh, Dad, you didn’t!”
The Judge smiled faintly.
“We pointed out that it would only be a sort of challenge. It would bring in more hunters than there have ever been and I’m afraid poor Bert’s ‘little people’ would be wiped out in no time at all.”
Lynn nodded, downcast.
“That’s what he told me it would do,” she admitted, and looked up. “Yes, I went to see him and asked him to put up the signs.”
“Why, Lynn!” protested Ruth, shocked.
“Anyway,” the Judge hurried on, “we are all invited there to dinner tomorrow night. Stella is included in the invitation, too.”
“And of course you told him we wouldn’t come,” Lynn flashed.
Judge Carter eyed her curiously.
“Why, no, honey, I told him we’d be delighted.”
“He’s got a houseful of guests.”
“They all left yesterday,” the Judge answered.
There was a brief moment of silence, and then Lynn said curiously, “There was a very beautiful blonde girl there.”
“I’m sure there was,” said Ruth. “Wherever Wayde McCullers is, there will always be beautiful blondes — also brunettes, redheads and in-betweens!”
“Now, Ruthie,” protested the Judge, “you’ve never even met the man.”
“And I have no wish to,” Ruth flashed hotly.
“Now, Ruthie, you have no right to judge a man before meeting him, getting to know him.” The Judge’s voice held a faint ring of censure.
“I know all I need to know about him,” Ruth insisted. “Coming down here with a train-load of fancy guests who swoop through town on their way to more exciting amusements—” She subsided as she met the Judge’s eyes. “He never shows the slightest interest in Oakville, and it was here that his great-grandfather laid the foundation for all that wealth he now controls.”
“He’s showing an interest in us, and we’re part of Oakville. Maybe if we show him we can be pleasant, friendly, interested in him—” the Judge began.
“Well, I can’t be pleasant or friendly or show any interest in him,” Lynn burst out rashly. “He’s a spoiled, arrogant, self-centered, egotistical creature who thinks all women should swoon at his feet.”
“Stella rather liked him.” Steve spoke for the first time, his tone quiet, his eyes on Lynn. “I’d no idea you knew him so well, Lynn.”
“I don’t,” Lynn answered sulkily. “I only met him twice — at the Junction and then when I went to see him about Bert.”
“But you seem to despise him thoroughly,” Steve pointed out relentlessly.
“I do,” Lynn defended her position with blazing eyes. “I despise any man as rootless, as useless, as much a clutterer of the earth as he is. And he hasn’t even the decency to be ashamed!”
Steve asked curiously, “You think, with all his money, he should work, make himself useful some way?”
“Don’t you?” demanded Lynn sharply.
Steve grinned ruefully.
“Oh, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know enough to be able to judge,” he brushed the question off. “I’ve never had enough money to do more than pay this month’s bills. But I’m like your father and Stella. I rather liked the guy.”
“Oh, he can be very charming when he wants to be,” Lynn answered.
“Well, he wasn’t trying to charm us,” the Judge protested. “He was merely being courteous and friendly and pleasant. He may have exerted a bit of charm on Stella, of course.”
“That I doubt,” Steve insisted. “Stella’s proof against that sort of thing. Stella is a single-minded woman, with her mind centered on the study of law and the determination to ‘be somebody.’ I doubt if she’d give a second glance to a man like McCullers.”
Lynn stared at him, round-eyed. “Oh, Steve, don’t be a fool!” she protested.
“Lynn!” Ruth was shocked.
“Sorry, Steve. I just meant that if you’re in love with Stella—”
Steve’s eyes widened and his brows went up to the edge of his sandy hair.
“In love with Stella?” he gasped, as though he could hardly believe she had really said it. “In the name of Blackstone, who ever said I was?”
“Well, you always speak of her with so much admiration and respect — I suppose I took it for granted that you planned to set up shop together some day,” Lynn defended the remark. “I only meant if you had any such idea, see that she isn’t exposed to a creature like Wayde McCullers. He could be very bad medicine for a girl like Stella.”
“But of course for a sophisticated city gal like you—” There was a tautness in Steve’s tone that made her frown slightly as she looked at him.
“I don’t claim to be sophisticated, Steve, but I’ve met the likes of him before — men who are convinced of their good looks and charm, and who feel they are doing a girl an inestimable favor just by wearing her on their arm when they go out.”
Judge Carter sighed and made a little gesture of weariness, though there was a twinkle in his eyes.
“Seems to me we’re getting a bit away from the subject at hand, aren’t we?” he suggested mildly. “Weren’t we discussing a dinner invitation to Inspiration Hill tomorrow night?”
“I won’t go,” said Lynn firmly.
Ruth said just as firmly, “Oh, yes you will, my girl.”
For a moment Lynn and her mother eyed each other, and suddenly Lynn laughed and spread her hands in a gesture of defeat.
“So all right, I’ll go,” she yielded, “if that’s the way you want it. But I can warn you now, the place will give you the creeps. Spook Hill people call it, and Spook Hill it most certainly is. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear the clanking of chains, the moaning of a ghost, perhaps even see one! It’s a place that ought to be haunted, if it isn’t!”
“I do hope so,” said Ruth cheerfully. “I’ve always wanted to see a ghost. And I’ve always wanted to see the inside of Spook Hill.”
“Better get used to calling it Inspiration Hill, before you make a slip and let McCullers discover what the people here call it,” warned the Judge.
“Oh, he knows,” said Lynn, and was slightly abashed at the startled looks of the others. “I made the slip when I first met him at the Junction. He seemed rather pleased and said it was most appropriate.”
“That’s too bad,” said Ruth quietly. “After all, it is his home: the only real home he has, I imagine. Too bad he can’t be fond of it.”
“Wait until you see it,” suggested Lynn grimly. “You’ll see why nobody in the world could ever be fond of such a place, and why he’d probably laugh his head off at the suggestion that it is a home.”
“But surely he could change things, redecorate,” protested Ruth.
Lynn chuckled wryly. “I suggested that,” she admitted.
“Oh, Lynn, you didn’t! How could you be so rude?” Ruth gasped.
“Well, he was apologizing for the gloom, and I said he could redecorate, and he said, ‘Just for the length of my sentence? It would scarcely be worth-while. I am here as little as I can manage.’ Now that’s one of the things I dislike about him: that he looks on three months every year at Oakville as a prison sentence; and to me it’s an enchanted spring!”
The other three at the table exchanged glances, and Ruth said mildly, “You two do seem to have become fairly well acquainted, after just two meetings.”
“Oh, I learned all I want to know about him the first meeting, at the Junction,” Lynn said swiftly.
“And apparently when you went to call on him, you learned a bit more,” suggested the Judge dryly.
“Nothing that made me like him any better,” Lynn flashed stubbornly, and met their eyes, feeling warmth in her cheeks and hating herself because she was blushing.