Judith's Gift To Her Editor

by Anne Shannon Monroe

JUDITH'S GIFT TO HER EDITOR

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Drawings by Wilson Dexter

By ANNE SHANNON MONROE

AND so this," said the editor with a disgusted shrug as Judith stood her dripping umbrella in the rack, "is the best Puget Sound can do for Christmas weather! Ugh!"

"Christmas," came back Judith, busy with her damp gloves, "is a matter of the heart, not of the weather."

"Yes?" with a cynical but willing-to-be-informed lifting of the brows.

"I passed little boys racing through the rain with arms full of holly, whose faces shone with Christmas spirit."

"But they were little boys," with the emphasis on the "little."

"My mother is chirruping about the house over her wreaths and mysterious parcels; and Sam is full of it, planning gifts for his girl. He's a big boy,—as big as you."

"But not so old and wise."

"Not so old—no."

"Score one, Princess!" The very good looking editor smiled quizzically at his small, alert reporter, who now stood by his desk, her gray rain cap pushed back exposing unruly curls, her wet cape tossed jauntily over her shoulder, a flaring red silk tie beneath her small, pointed chin the one note of color to relieve the drabness of the rainy day costume. He smiled; but there was wistfulness in his face, a tone of yearning back of the bantering. "No one is making a gift for me, Princess. Won't you make me a little Christmas gift so I shall be in it tomorrow too?"

Judith looked quickly away. The undertone touched into life something that lay deep buried, something that, throbbing back, sent color to her cheeks, and softness to her eyes.

"Indeed I will," she answered, trying to make her voice light, "if I can think of anything that will really please you."

"Oh, one isn't supposed to be pleased with a Christmas present, Princess. Of course I don't expect to like the thing; but I shall like the thought. Isn't that the prescribed point of view?"

"I don't give that kind," Judith retorted, lifting her independent little chin in the air, at the same time opening her notebook. "If I give you anything at all, you will like it."

He smiled again, and continued to contemplate her so deliberately that the young girl, embarrassed, prompted him, "You left word for me to report the moment I came in."

YES." He drew forward his green eyeshade, the lines in his strong old-young face settled, and he became all the editor, a personality with which no employee took liberties. "It's about Helen Wor—Mrs. Sloane."

Judith sat down quickly and leaned toward him. Fresh trouble for Helen? What could it be? The whole town had been shocked a month earlier when Helen Worthington, a beautiful and popular society girl, married, unknown to her family, Dan Sloane, a common, ignorant miner who had returned from Alaska reputedly with vast wealth. The man had been a two weeks' laughingstock of the town, buying huge diamonds and fantastic clothes, throwing handfuls of nuggets into crowds, and otherwise making a sensational display of his money. How Helen, protected on every hand, had met the man in the first place, how she had brought herself to marry him, and why, had kept the tongues buzzing ever since. A year earlier she had been engaged to a dashing army officer; but the engagement had been broken.

Helen had not confided in Judith, though the girls were lifelong friends: but Judith had been sure the fault was neither Helen's nor the young man's. And then her editor had been seen with the beautiful society girl to an extent that caused their names to be frequently linked in gossipy guessing. Judith came to believe that Helen cared; at least sufficiently to consider him. He was uncommonly good looking in a strong, massive, masculine way,—oh, he had his "points"!—but he was not rich. Judith believed that Helen's mad act had followed her parents' opposition to this second love. Helen had a strain of Spanish blood. She was good hearted; but impulsive and hot tempered. Mrs. Worthington, long in poor health, had died of the shock, and Worthington had not become reconciled to his daughter.

Helen had gone with the man she had married to a hunter's lodge in a great timber belt some miles from town. His parents lived on the place, and there were workmen. Sloane was known to be given to sprees, at which times he was ugly. Everyone shuddered at the unprotected state the girl's folly had brought her to, shuddered—and speculated on how long it would last.

"Late yesterday afternoon came the dénouement," the editor spoke dryly. "Sloane was drowned."

Judith waited, lips apart, eyes strained, for the editor to go on, while there raced through her mind, "Now Helen can marry whom she pleases!" The tumult raised within her own schooled and controlled being startled her as much as did the news.

"The senior Sloanes, it appears," went on the editor in his crisp, informative way, "are rather a bad lot, intent on getting the son's money. They came in late last night with the body. They talked freely and brutally of their son's widow. They claim that the two had quarreled violently, that she was with him when he was drowned, that she stood on the bank—by her own confession—and watched him struggle and go down without making the slightest attempt to assist him. They say that timber cutters were less than twenty feet away, and would have heard an outcry from her; they say that if his will leaves everything to her, it will be the last necessary bit of evidence against her. To make matters worse, Mr. Worthington has been declared bankrupt. It seems he has been on the verge of a break for over a year. This—ah—makes some things plain—apparently." His voice was very dry.

"And I am to—"

"We've got to handle it. 'The Union' will take the senior Sloanes' side and make the most of it,—the moneyed class on the backs of the poor, and so on. If you can get a straight, coherent story from Hel—Mrs. Sloane of the whole day's doings and an account of the drowning that will explain, convincingly, her attitude—well, it's the only course left."

"Where is Helen?"

"At the ranch. She has seen no one. I sent Henson out last night; but he telephoned an hour ago that it was useless to stay any longer. Three other reporters were there; but they were all leaving. You must get into her room and make her realize the importance to her of giving you a straight, reasonable story. You see that quarrel—and then the old folks say that Sloane had not been home all night. I admit it looks bad; but I don't believe—"

"Nor I." Judith rose. "How do I go?"

He gave her instructions; then, queerly for him, he put out his hand. It was a compact,—she was to clear Helen!

MONTHS before, when Judith had finally made up her mind that her editor really did love Helen, she had trampled underfoot the dreaming young self that cried out for romance. She had tried to live impersonally since, and for her work. She was learning to write; she was forging suffering into art; she was putting strength into her characterizations, actuality into her descriptions, an ache into her "sob" stories. She was fast losing her schoolgirl prettiness of expression, and gaining a style that gripped. And at the same time she was carving out a character of her own. Something real had been forming under the surface girlishness and softness; something vital had begun to grow out of pain and experience. The dreaming, joyous young thing who had insisted a year earlier on being allowed to become a newspaper woman was becoming a woman.

Now, as she hurried toward the boat, she went back over the years. She and Helen had been devoted playmates before her father died, when her own future as a brilliant society girl beckoned as hopefully as did Helen's. They had been devoted schoolmates at the old academy where Latoona's "best girls" were educated. And then their ways had parted. Helen had entered upon a life of gaiety with a world of men at her feet; Judith had become an earner. And for her there had been but one man—and Helen had made that one man all but an impossibility—and then she had married—and the one man had no longer seemed quite altogether impossible. But now Helen was free: she was to be back in their lives again!

She, Judith, was actually hurrying through the rain to focus all her painfully acquired insight into life and motives, all her painfully acquired power as a writer, on Helen's case, that she might come back—unblemished. A sudden new intense hatred for Helen flared up in Judith like a tongue of flame.

She went aboard the small tramp steamboat that carried groceries around the Puget Sound waterfront, and being chilled tried the cabin; but the air was suffocating. She went outside, and finding a seat near the rail, gazed across the waste of gray water to the rim of somber fir trees, eternally motionless. Somewhere in that solemn forest was Helen, alone with her story.

She could see that Helen was awake; but the poor girl gave no sign.

She could see that Helen was awake; but the poor girl gave no sign.

THE boat had chugged along for several hours when the purser touched her shoulder. She rose and crossed a narrow plank to a rudely improvised dock. No one was in sight. The boat chugged on, and Judith started up a narrow trail. Huge fir trees dripped on each side; a dense undergrowth of ferns and bracken, fresh washed, shone in its rich, dark green. The forest held little life. She heard no singing birds, she saw no squirrels: just stillness, an awful, ominous, oppressive stillness. She followed the silent trail deeper into the dark woods. She ran, and presently, all out of breath, she came upon a clearing in the center of which stood an imposing structure built of immense logs. Smoke slowly ascended against the damp air from a single chimney. She stopped and knocked on the rough slabwood door.

Jenny conducted her to the spot where the dire tragedy occurred.

Jenny conducted her to the spot where the dire tragedy occurred.

Heavy steps slowly crossed a bare floor within, and the door was opened. A ranch woman stood there, broad of face, heavy of body, but young and wholesome appearing.

"I am a friend of Mrs. Sloane's," Judith said. "Tell her Judith Wells is here."

"She won't see you," the woman replied, not asking her in. "She won't see anyone."

"She must!" Judith protested. "We have been like sisters since we were babies."

"Sure you're not a reporter?"

Judith winced. Before she could frame a reply the woman spoke again.

"There's a return boat at the upper dock in an hour. Two others from Seattle have gone to get it. You'd better take it too."

"You mean the best in the world," Judith said, "and I appreciate what you are trying to do for Mrs. Sloane; but it is best for her that I stay."

Something boiled over on the kitchen stove, and the woman, with the concern of the good cook,—which she looked to be, every inch of her,—turned and hurried to the kitchen. Judith stepped in, hung her cap and cape on a peg back of the door, then sat down before the open fire and put out her feet to dry. Presently the woman returned. Seeing Judith so perfectly at home, she was disarmed. Possibly she was glad, too, to share the responsibility, after she had done her best to carry out instructions.

"She's awful bad," she began, taking a chair opposite and beginning to rock. "I'd have a doctor, if I had my way."

"Hysteria?"

"She lays and clutches tight to the bedding, and won't say anything but 'Don't let anyone in, Jenny!' That's all her fear,—of people coming."

It went through Judith like a flash—could it be possible? Her Spanish blood—her hotheadedness! But instantly she dismissed the thought. Helen might strike in a passion; but she could not deliberately do a real wrong. They talked on.

The woman gave such details as she knew of the drowning. She told how one of the ranch hands had come up the trail from the river carrying the body,—the water being shallow and clear, he had got it almost immediately,—and of finding Helen prostrate on the ground by the bank; of how she had carried her forcibly to the house and put her to bed; and how she had refused to move or talk or eat since.

"I've cooked the best the house affords three times and carried it up to her," she added ruefully, "and never a bite has she swallowed!"

"Of course she must eat," said Judith, seizing on the woman's chief weakness—or strength, as the case might be. "You fix up a nice tray for the two of us—it's nearly noon—and I'll carry it to her. Maybe she will eat with me. Many's the time we've had our bibs tied on and our bowls of bread and milk together."

The passion of the born cook overcame the woman's last scruples. She went to the kitchen, and soon there was a great slapping about of pans and broilers. When she finally brought in the tray there rested on it a couple of broiled squabs, a stack of golden toast, and a pot of steaming tea. She nodded to Judith, and started toward the broad stairway. Judith followed. The woman paused before a door on the upper balcony, put the tray in Judith's hands, then pushed open the door, closing it after her.

JUDITH stood within a huge, bare room, in the far corner of which was a bed, where Helen lay, face downward, a crumpled heap.

She set down the tray and went over to the bed. Helen lay motionless as one dead. She picked up a brush and began to smooth out her heavy mass of matted hair. She could see that Helen was awake; but she gave no sign, probably mistaking her for the housekeeper. Judith continued her task till the mass of purple black hair lay in smooth strands; then she divided it and made two long braids. She pulled off her flaming tie, tore it in two, and made bright bows just above the paint brush ends, as Helen's hair had always been done when a child. She tiptoed across the room, secured a mirror, and coming back slipped her arm round the limp body and by a sudden twist turned Helen and held the mirror before her eyes.

"Childhood days, Nelly," she cried gaily, trying to laugh; but at sight of the pinched white face she dropped into sobbing. Every emotion died in her but her oldtime love for this playmate who was now so troubled. The tears came to Helen's eyes, and the two girls cried together, until at last, from sheer weakness, Helen became quiet, save for long, dry, shivery sobs that racked her body.

Judith picked up one of the squabs and tore it in two. "Eat it with me;" she begged, drawing Helen to a sitting posture.

Helen took a fragment and made an effort to eat; but a few bites and the poor girl could not go on. She dropped her head against Judith's shoulder and implored her not to leave. She seemed to have forgotten everything but that here at last out of the awful blackness had appeared a friend. The realization swept over Judith that Helen trusted her implicitly. Oh, if only she might stay on as her friend! If only there was no newspaper, no editor! But she must get her story—as a friend. She must worm her way into Helen's confidence to satisfy the thousands of curiosity seekers—but then, too, she was also serving her friend. All these reflections raced through her mind as she held Helen in her arms and soothed and comforted her. Time was an object, too. She must get the six o'clock boat back—with the story. She must get Helen out of bed, stop her brooding, and make her talk. She looked across to the cheerless fireplace.

"Don't leave me!" the poor girl pleaded, clutching tightly.

"I won't, Dear; but I'm freezing. Just a moment."

She called down the stairs to the housekeeper, and soon had a blazing log on the hearth. She tidied up the room,—Jenny was a better cook than chambermaid,—and found a woolly dressing gown and some slippers. She made Helen put them on; then, pulling up a great leather chair, half carried the protesting girl to it. She crowded down beside her, and they put their feet out to the flames. How often as children they had sat thus on a rainy afternoon intent over a fairy story! Poor Helen! She looked like a child now with her long braids and her mournful black eyes; just as she had looked the time she had typhoid fever so many years ago.

Judith talked of childish things. "Do you remember the day we broke Blanche's head, and there wasn't any glue to mend her, and you cried so? And old Nancy made us some gingerbread dolls to comfort us? I've often wondered how she made it. I've tried all the recipes I can find, and mine never tastes like hers."

At last Helen's face relaxed, she let her head fall on Judith's breast, the chair swayed gently, the warmth enfolded her, and she slept. Judith maintained her cramped position. If only Helen could rest, she might dare talk to her of the tragedy; but in her present mood she must keep her mind off it.

WHEN she opened her eyes at last she looked up with a happy smile; but almost instantly realization came over her and her face became troubled again.

"Nelly darling, tell me all about it. You'll feel better to get it off your mind. Tell me everything that happened all day."

"Oh, Judie, it was horrible!"

"It won't be so horrible with two to share it."

"We had quarreled dreadfully the evening before," she began. "It was awful. His mother and father took his part, and that made him worse, and he struck off into the woods after saying he would never come back. He was so jealous, Judie! He wanted me all alone—that was why he brought me to this place. He couldn't bear for me to speak to another man. He didn't know—oh, Judie, it's horrible!—but he didn't know enough not to be jealous of the ranch hands. You know we were always taught to be polite to servants; but if I so much as spoke a pleasant good morning to one of them he would go into a black rage.

"I told him that day that he would make me hate him, and that I would leave him, if he didn't stop being suspicious. And I didn't hate him, Judie; for he did love me just for myself. He knew I wouldn't have any money,—I told him so,—but he wanted just me. I had always been so afraid of being married for my money. You see my people were so anxious for me to marry money that I supposed everyone else was equally crazy on the subject. Well, poor Dan wasn't a bit. He didn't care a rap for money: it was all just me.

"And so I got up early yesterday morning,—it was a sunny day,—and I thought I would go for a long walk and try to think things out alone. I came across him sitting on a great log looking so white and desolate,—he'd been there all night,—and the first thing I knew I was in his arms begging him to try to understand me. We talked a long time, and I tried to make him see that a woman of my class couldn't flirt with a servant, a ranch hand. He reminded me that I had married a man who had been worse. Then I began to get his viewpoint, and little by little got into sympathy with him; for, Judie, he did love me. If you could have seen his eyes when he looked at me—when he wasn't jealous, I mean! And I promised never to make him unhappy again. And to celebrate he proposed that we spend the whole day alone in the woods. So he went to the house for a lunch and—oh, yes, I called to him to bring my camera, and we set off.

"Judie, I haven't been so happy in months; for he was so happy, and his eyes shone so when he looked at me. He seemed so elemental and real! He loved the woods, and he loved me, and we played like children. We Robinson Crusoed, and he called me his man Friday, and we built a stove of stones, and broiled bacon for lunch. And then we began getting pictures. He would perch me high in the boughs and snap me, or we'd pose like two birds on a limb and fix the camera so we could snap ourselves; and we laughed and played all day among the things he could understand. I tell you, Judie, a man like that understands a lot about life that we artificial society people miss altogether. We just gossip our lives away while a man like that lives. What if it is rough? It is life, it is not playing at life, or imitating life: it's real."

Judith waited; but fearing too much loss of time, she prompted Helen, "Go on, Dear. The drowning—how did it happen?"

With a shiver the girl again took up the narrative. "Along late in the afternoon we came to the place in the river where the Indians fish; and—oh, Judie, whatever possessed me to do it I don't know, but I said, 'There's a good picture, that old dugout canoe with the riffles in the background; only there's no life in it.' Dan would do anything to please me, and quick as a flash he came back, 'I'll put some life in it,' and before I realized what he was about he had sprung into the boat and pushed off toward the riffles. I leveled my camera; but he called back, 'Wait!' so I held my finger ready to press, and he added, "I'll give you a thrilling one!" With that he went overboard. I was startled, but not alarmed, as he was a good swimmer, and was called one of the most daring men in Alaska. So I just held my breath, and waited, and in a moment his head appeared, and he called something—I thought it was 'Now!'—and clutched for the canoe. And I snapped him; then carefully rolled off the film. When I looked up again he was not in sight, and the old boat had drifted into the rapids. I thought he was making for the bank higher up,—there was a bend in the river,—and I ran up and down and called him; but—I—never saw him again—till—till they brought his body, all dripping!"

"What did you do, Nelly dear? I mean right away. Did you call for help?"

"No. One of ranch hands was cutting timber near, and he heard me call Dan. He came out and answered me; said he hadn't seen Dan all day. He thought I was looking for him. I just pointed to the river—I couldn't speak—I couldn't!"

"And then?"

"The next I remember Jenny brought me home." She closed her eyes and lay back with a shudder.

Judith's arms held her tenderly, closely; but her eyes went on a search about the room. Where was the camera with its corroborating films? She must find the camera, and time was passing, and there was the six o'clock boat. She began to rock and softly to stroke Helen's head, singing to her meantime, as to a sleepy child. Her efforts were at last rewarded, and she stole quietly down the stairs.

"She's asleep," she confided to Jenny, who seemed much relieved. "Do you know where she left her camera?"

"She's got a darkroom upstairs. Like's not it's up there where she had it last."

Judith found the darkroom; but the camera was not there. She went on a still hunt through the other rooms; but without results. Undoubtedly she had left it in the woods. She returned to Jenny, and asked that now wholly acquiescent person to show her the river where Sloane was drowned. The woman gladly conducted her to the spot.

"I'm going to walk about awhile," Judith said. "You had better go back. Mrs. Sloane might wake and want something."

Alone she began a careful examination of the ground. Ten chances to one the films were ruined if the camera had been out in the weather the last twenty-four hours; but the one chance was worth working for. She looked everywhere. She had about concluded to renew the search at the house, when a lone squirrel scampered by with a pine nut for his stores. She watched him—he went into a hollow tree. She followed, idly curious—and there was the camera, put away, possibly, by one of the hands and then forgotten.

Judith ran back to the house and stole up to the darkroom. She and Helen had had the kodak craze together as they had the measles, and she could develop the films very readily. If only they would corroborate Helen's story! She went to work—and two hours later had a dozen splendid films, each showing a different view of a man and a maid, gipsying together in the woods. Helen appeared radiant with young life. She was hatless, and her wilful hair flew about her merry face. She typified joyous abandonment to a nature mood. The man was more sober of mien: but he was hopelessly the indulgent bridegroom, bent on pleasing. The last picture, the one of the drowning, showed his head perfectly, and a hand clutching at the decayed canoe.

Judith, all excitement, didn't wait to print the pictures; but slipped the films carefully into a white photographic envelop, which she crowded into her bag, then crept softly downstairs. Helen was still asleep.

SHE was almost the only passenger on the little grocery boat; so she had the cabin to herself. Across her copy paper flew her swift, coarse editor's pencil, as she pictured this crowning happy day of days for the young married pair, when, to please his bride, the man had arranged all sorts of pictures, his zeal reaching its climax in the river scene, which, through some strange miscalculation of rocks or rapids, had proved fatal. Judith told the story simply, directly, convincingly. It was the best work she had ever done. It saved Helen.

It was late when she reached town. The streets were full of tardy Christmas shoppers hurrying home under umbrellas with full arms and happy faces; but Judith had no time to think of Christmas. The story must be in, the films printed, the halftones made for the morning paper. It meant everything to have your story first. You could never successfully change a wrong impression.

The editor was waiting. Tonight he looked tired and depressed. There had been a big Christmas annual to get out with a colored supplement, and he had had his worries. He merely held out his hand for the story. Judith gave it to him, then began to tug at the thick white envelop in her bag.

"My Christmas present?" he asked with languid interest, and an effort at a smile as he saw the flat envelop.

His Christmas present! Judith had forgotten all about her promise. But what could be better than this,—the proof of Helen's white soul? A moment and the color left her face as the real meaning of it all swept over her with fresh poignancy; then she smiled bravely and lifted her proud, pointed little chin:

"Yes—your Christmas present!" She was gone.