Enchanted Spring by Peggy Gaddis Read Free Book Online Page A

fireplace, in which a great fire of logs blazed, was built of rough, cheap brick. There were two windows against which the wet, cold night pressed sullenly between hideous curtains of stringy-looking “lace.” Altogether it seemed to Carey the dreariest, most cheerless room she had ever seen.
    “Don’t look so tragic,” said a low-pitched voice beside her. “After all, you’re tired. Things will look much brighter tomorrow.”
    She would not look at Joel Hunter. She felt she knew exactly the expression that would be on his face. He despised her and she loathed him, and if they were thrown into contact for the next hundred years, she told herself passionately, she’d go right on loathing him. Only her loathing would grow deeper and more blistering with the years, she promised herself savagely.
    The seemingly interminable meal was over at last. Carey found that these amazing neighbors grouped about were treating her as though she were a guest in their home, instead of the reverse. She was ushered off upstairs to her own room by Ellen Hogan, while the nurse and Joel got her father away from his friends and to his room opposite the dining room.
    Ellen had carried a lamp high in her hand, lighting Carey’s stumbling feet up the stairs and along a bleak, echoing corridor to a door which Ellen pushed open.
    “I thought you’d like this room better than one at the front,” Ellen said cheerfully. “For one thing it’s right above the kitchen and so there’s a place for a small heating stove. I had ‘em put one up for you and built you a fire. After all, you city girls are used to being a heap more comfortable than country folks.”
    She was busily turning down the covers on a huge bed where the pillows looked to Carey larger than her mattress back home. The covers were thick-looking, gaily colored patchwork quilts, and sheets that were coarse but spotlessly clean. Carey had never seen so puffy a bed or one that looked quite so inviting to her weary body.
    “Where is the bath?” she asked as she opened her overnight case and brought out a chiffon nightgown, a matching negligee and frivolous, feather-trimmed mules.
    She looked up when Ellen did not answer her and caught the woman’s eyes on the contents of the overnight case. There was such hunger in Ellen’s tired, middle-aged eyes that for a moment Carey was startled and touched with pity. Then Ellen caught herself up, looked at Carey and said gently:
    “Heavens, child, there ain’t no bathroom. There’s no waterworks here. But I brought up a fresh pitcher of water for you, and I can get you some hot water off the stove. It won’t be a mite of trouble.”
    Without waiting for Carey to answer she bustled out, and Carey looked about her, winking back the tears. The room was large like all the rest of the house she had seen. It was a corner room, as gaunt-looking, as barnlike, as the ones downstairs.
    Ellen came back while Carey still stood with the cobwebby nightgown in her hand, an almost frightened look in her eyes as she took in the place about her.
    “Here’s your hot water, child,” Ellen said cheerfully. “Shall I stay and tuck you in?”
    “Oh, no — thank you very much, but I’m quite capable of putting myself to bed.”
    She hadn’t meant to sound curt or unfriendly. But she was tired and heartsick and she felt that if this woman didn’t go and leave her alone to her unhappy thoughts, she’d scream.
    Ellen seemed to understand. For a moment she hesitated and then she seemed to think better of whatever it was that she had been about to say. So she said quietly, “Don’t take things so hard, child. After all — whatever it is that hurts you — it can’t last. Nothing ever does. We sort of outgrow things — heartache and despair, and all the rest of it. After you’ve had a good night’s sleep you’ll feel much better.”
    She went out and closed the door. And Carey was free at last to slide out of her traveling clothes and into her