Judith of the Godless Valley Part 31

"But what will you do about love?" asked Douglas.

Judith's burning eyes grew soft. "Cherish it," she answered in a low voice. "Keep it forever. Never murder it by marriage. It's the most wonderful thing that comes into human life."

Douglas smiled sadly. "You talk as if you were a thousand years old, Judith, on the one hand and like a baby on the other. What will you do, marry without love? Somehow the children have got to be cared for by responsible parties."

"Responsible parties!" Jude was derisive. "Do you call Dad a responsible party?"

"He's fed and clothed us."

"What does that amount to?" said Judith largely. "An orphan asylum would do that. The kind of parents kids need are the ones that will answer your questions. I mean the real questions. The ones we don't dare to ask."

"About life and s.e.x and all those things!" Doug nodded understandingly.

There was silence, then Doug shook his head. "I don't know how things would go along without marriage. Just you wait until you fall in love and see how you feel. You'll want to marry just like all the rest of us."

"Never! I'm with Inez on that!"

"Inez!"

"Yes, Inez! She's got more sense about living than all the women in this valley put together. And she knows life."

Douglas sighed. "What are some of Inez' ideas about marriage?"

"Well, she just says it won't do! She says that the children have got to be taken care of but that it isn't fair to put the curse of marriage on parents. And she says her way isn't the answer, either, but that anyhow it's honest, which is a darn sight more than a lot of marriages in Lost Chief."

Judith paused to take breath and Douglas asked, "Say, now listen, Jude, was Inez ever in love?"

"She says she's in love right now but she won't say who he is."

"I don't believe she knows what love is! Her ideas aren't worth anything.

I've lost faith in these folks that tell you they know life. They're exactly like the rest of us under their skins. I'm getting to believe that we all get happiness in the same way and over mighty few things.

Loving and having children, that's about all."

"Inez says it's nothing of the kind; that the only way to be happy is to know what is beautiful when you see it."

"I suppose that's smart," said Douglas crossly, "but I haven't any idea what it means."

"I know what it means; but you never will until you can ride across Fire Mesa with your heart aching because it's so beautiful."

"I don't see where in the world you get the idea that I don't see the beauty in things!" protested Douglas. "I can't gush like a girl and quote poetry, but this sure is a lovely country to me. And I want my children's children to have this valley and hold it till the very bones of their bodies are made out of the dust of Lost Chief. That's how I feel about these old hills. More than that, I can see how a marriage here in Lost Chief might be a life-long dream of beauty."

Judith looked at Douglas with astonishment not unmixed with admiration.

But she returned st.u.r.dily to her own line of defense.

"Doug, do you see any beautiful marriage around here?"

Douglas stared at her tragically, then answered with a groan: "No, I don't! But," with new firmness, "that's not saying I don't firmly believe I couldn't make marriage a lovely thing."

"Why, do you think you are cleverer than anybody else?"

"Not clever, but--but--" Douglas paused, powerless to tell Judith of that something within him that suddenly told him that his fate was to bring to Lost Chief the thing of the soul it never had had. How or what this was to be, he did not know.

After a time, he said softly, "Judith, were you ever in love?"

Judith returned his look with a curiously impersonal glance. "I'm not sure," she answered slowly. "Not what Inez calls love, that's sure."

"Isn't there any other woman in Lost Chief that could give you ideas except Inez?" asked Douglas impatiently.

"What woman would you suggest?" Judith waggled one foot airily and tossed her head.

"Charleton's wife. She has brain and she's interesting."

"She's too old. I mean she looks at everything from an old-fas.h.i.+oned viewpoint. I wouldn't care what her age was if she could just see things the way they look to a person sixteen or seventeen years old. Now, Inez is awfully modern."

"Modern!" snorted Douglas. "Where'd you read that? It sure is a new word for Inez' kind!"

Judith flushed angrily but was denied a retort, for Peter suddenly appeared in the door.

"What in the world do you children mean by this kind of talk?" he shouted. "I couldn't help hearing while I was sorting mail. What do you mean by thinking such thoughts, Judith? Have you the nerve to admit that you are patterning your ideas on a woman like Inez?"

"I don't care what she is," replied Judith obstinately. "She's the only woman in Lost Chief who can talk about anything but babies and cattle raising. And more than that, and anyhow, I like her."

Peter took a turn or two up and down the room.

"I don't object so much to your liking her," he said, "as I do to your absorbing her cynical ideas."

"Pshaw, Peter! I don't notice you're displaying a wife and a happy home for us to copy after!" sniffed Judith. "What I want you old people to do is to show me by example how practical and true all these fine old precepts are that you are so free about laying down for us kids. Where's your happy marriage, Peter?"

Peter's lips twisted painfully. "My happy marriage is in Limbo, Judith, with the rest of my dreams. As for being old--why, Jude, I'm still in my forties."

"Forty!" gasped Judith.

"Yes, forty; and if I hadn't been a fool I'd still be facing the most useful part of my life. Heaven knows, children, I'm not offering myself or any one else in Lost Chief as an example to you."

"What do you offer?" asked Jude with an impish smile.

Again Peter paced the room before coming to pause by Douglas' pillow.

"You both heard what I said this morning about the lack of a church in Lost Chief. That's what you children need for a pattern. Disagree with his creed as you might, the right kind of a preacher in here could answer your questions as they should be answered. If the church doesn't form ideals for young people like you, loose women and loose men will."

"That might be true, Peter," said Douglas; "but I don't see why you should expect us to believe the stuff you can't believe yourself."

Peter winced, then said gruffly, "I don't know as I do. All I know is that when I was a boy I went to church on Sunday morning with my mother and that there was an old vicar who would have set me straight on the things you are talking about, if I'd have let him."

"Couldn't you believe what he said?" asked Douglas.

"I never went to him. I preferred my own rotten ideas. I--" He drew himself up with a sudden expression of disgust. "Faugh! How like a fool I'm talking!" He stalked out, this time closing the door of the room behind him.

"I wonder who Peter really is?" said Judith in a low voice.