Miss Toland, who had accepted Julia's invitation for Thanksgiving,
arrived unexpectedly on the afternoon before the holiday, to spend the
night with the Studdifords. It was a wild, wet day, settling down to
heavy rain as the early darkness closed in, and the Pacific Avenue house
presented a gloomy if magnificent aspect to the guest as she came in.
But Ellie beamingly directed her to the nursery, and here she found
enough brightness to flood the house.
Caroline, it appeared, had gone to her own family for the afternoon, and
Julia, looking like a child in her short white dress and buckled
slippers, was sitting in a low chair with little Anna in her arms. The
room was bright with firelight and the soft light from the subdued
nursery lamps, and warm russet curtains shut out the dull and dying
afternoon. Dolls and blocks were scattered on the hearth rug, and Julia
sat her daughter down among them, and jumped up with a radiant face to
greet the newcomer.
"Aunt Sanna--you darling! And you're going to spend the night?" Julia
cried out joyfully, with her first kisses. "What a dear thing for you to
do! But you're wet?"
"No, I dropped everything in my room," Miss Toland said. "Things were
very quiet at The Alexander--that new woman isn't going to do at all, by
the way, too fussy--so I suddenly thought of coming into town!"
"Oh, I'm _so_ glad you did!" Julia exulted. Miss Toland rested firm hands
on her shoulders, and looked at her keenly.
"How goes it?"
"Oh, splendidly!" The younger woman's bright eyes shone.
"No more blues, eh?"
"Oh, _no_!"
"Ah, well, that's a good thing!" Miss Toland sat down by the fire, and
stretched sturdy shoes to the blaze. "Hello, Beautiful!" she said to the
baby.
Julia dropped to the rug, and smothered the soft whiteness and fragrance
of little Anna in a wild hug.
"She has her good days and her bad days," said Julia, biting ecstatic
little kisses from the top of the downy little head, "and to-day she has
simply been an _angel_! Wait--see if she'll do it! See, Bunny," Julia
caught up a white woolly doll. "Oh, see poor dolly--Mother's going to
put her in the fire!"
"Da!" said Anna agitatedly, and Julia tumbled her in another mad
embrace.
"Isn't that _darling_, not six months old yet?" demanded the mother.
"Here, take her, Aunt Sanna, and see if you ever got hold of anything
nicer than that! Come, baby, give Aunt Sanna a little butterfly kiss!"
And Julia swept the soft little face and unresponsive mouth across the
older woman's face before she deposited the baby in her lap.
"She's like you, Julie," Miss Toland said, extending a ringed finger for
her namesake's amusement.
"Yes, I think she is; every one says so. You see her hair's coming to be
the same ashy yaller as mine. And see the fat sweet little knees, and
don't miss our new slippers with wosettes on 'em!"
"She's really exquisite," Miss Toland said, kissing the tawny little
crown as Julia had done, and watching the deep-lashed blue eyes that
were so much absorbed by the rings. "Watching her, Ju, we'll see just
what sort of a little girl you were."
"Oh, heavens, Aunt Sanna," Julia protested, with a rather sad little
smile, "I was an awful little person with stringy hair, and colds in my
nose, and no hankies! I never had baths, and never had regular meal
hours, or regular diet, for that matter! Anna'll be very different from
what I was."
"Your mother was to blame, Ju," Miss Toland said, gravely shaking her
head.
"Oh, I don't know, perhaps _her_ mother was," Julia suggested. "Yet my
Grandmother Cox is a sweet little old woman," she went on, smiling,
"always afraid we're hungry, and anxious to feed us, tremendously loyal
to us all. I went out there to-day, to take Mama some special little
things for Thanksgiving, and see if their turkey had gotten there, and
so on, and my heart quite ached for Grandma--Mama's very exacting now,
and the girls--my aunt, Mrs. Torney's girls--seemed so apathetic and
dull. The house was very dirty, as it always is, and the halls icy, and
the kitchen hot--I just wanted to pitch in and _clean_! Mama was cross at
me for not bringing Anna, in this rain, and staying to dinner to-morrow;
but Grandmother was so pleased to have the things, and she got to
telling me of old times, poor thing, and how she had to work and scheme
to get up a Thanksgiving dinner, and how my grandfather would worry her
by promising that he'd only have one drink, and then disappearing for
hours--"
"Does it ever occur to you that you are an unusual woman, Julia?" Miss
Toland asked, holding her watch to the baby's ear. Julia flushed and
laughed.
"Well, no, I don't believe it ever did!"
"Not so much in climbing up in the world as you have," pursued the older
woman, "but in not despising the people you left behind you! That's very
fine, Julie. I can't tell you how fine it seems to me!"
"There's nothing fine about it," Julia said simply. "It's just that I
like that sort of people as well as I do--Jim's sort. I used to think
that to work my way into a world where everything was fine and fragrant
and costly would mean to be happy, but of course it doesn't, and I've
come more and more to feel that I like the class where joys are real,
and sorrows are real, and the goodness means more, and there's more
excuse for the badness!"
"Did you ever think of writing, Julia?" Miss Toland asked. "Stories, I
mean?"
"Everybody does nowadays, I suppose," Julia laughed. "Sometimes I think
what good material The Alexander stuff would be, Aunt Sanna. But the
truth is, Jim doesn't like the idea."
"Doesn't? Bless us all, why not?"
"Oh!" Julia dimpled demurely. "The great Mrs. Studdiford writing, like a
mere ordinary person?" she asked.
"Oh, that's it? Where is Jim, by the way?"
"Sacramento. But the operation was on Sunday, so he should have been
here yesterday, at latest," Julia said. "However, he'll rush in to-night
or to-morrow; he knows you're all going to be here. Give her to me, Aunt
Sanna, she's getting hungry, bless her little old heart! Ah, here's
Ellie with something for Mother's girl!"
"And tea for you in the library," Ellie said in an aside, receiving the
baby into her arms with a rapturous look.
"Tea, doesn't tea sound good!" Julia caught Miss Toland by the hand.
"Come and have some tea, Aunt Sanna!" said she. "I'm starving!"
They were loitering over their teacups half an hour later when Lizzie
came into the library with a special delivery letter.
"For me?" Julia smiled, reaching for it. "It's Jimmy!" she added
ruefully, for Miss Toland's benefit, as she took it. "This means he
can't get here!"
"Drat the lad!" his aunt said mildly. "What has he got to say?"
Julia pulled out a hairpin to open the letter, her face a little
puzzled. She unfolded three pages of large paper closely written.
"Why, I don't understand this," said she. "Jimmy writes such short
letters!"
And immediately fear, like cold iron, entered her heart, and she felt a
chill of distaste for the letter; she did not want to read it, she
wished she might fling it on the ere, and rid her hands of the horrible
thing.
"It _is_ Jim, isn't it?" Miss Toland said, with a sharp look. "Is he
coming?"
"I don't know," Julia said, hardly above a whisper.
"Anything wrong?" Miss Toland asked, instantly alert.
"No, I don't suppose so!" Julia said, trying to laugh. "But--but I hate
him to just send a letter when I expected _him_!" she added childishly.
She picked it up, and began slowly to read it. Miss Toland, watching
her, saw the muscles of her face harden, and her eyes turn to steel. The
blood rushed to her face, and then receded quickly. She read to the last
word, and then looked up to meet the other woman's eyes.
"What _is_ it?" Miss Toland demanded, aghast at Julia's look.
"It's Jim," said Julia. Her face was blazing again, and she seemed to be
choking. "He's going to Europe," she went on, in a bewildered tone,
"he's not coming back."
"_What_!" said Miss Toland sharply. "D'you mean to tell me he's simply
walked off--"
Julia's colour was ghastly; her eyes looked sick and heavy.
"No, no, he can't mean that!" she said quickly. She crushed the pages of
the letter together convulsively. "I can't--" she began, and stopped.
Suddenly she rose to her feet, muttered something about coming back, and
was gone.
She ran up to her room, and alone there, it seemed for a few moments as
if she must suffocate. She put the letter on her desk, where its folded
sheets instantly looked hideously familiar. She went into the bathroom,
and found herself holding her fingers under the hot-water tap, vaguely
waiting for hot water. Like a hunted creature she went through the
luxurious rooms, the mortal wound in her heart widening every instant;
finally she came back to her desk, and sat down, and read the letter
again.
"Dear Julia," wrote Jim, "I have been thinking and thinking about this
affair, and I cannot stand it. I am going away. Atkins is going to
Berlin for a three months' course under Hofner and Braun, and I am going
with him. I only made up my mind to-night, but I have thought of
something like this a long, long time. I cannot bear it any longer. I
think and think about things--that another man loved you and you loved
him--and I nearly go mad. Even when people meet me and ask how you are,
I am reminded of it; for weeks now I haven't thought of anything else;
it just seems to rise up wherever I go.
"I think it will be better when I don't see you.
"I have been sitting here with my head in my hands, wondering if there
is any way in which I can spare you the pain of reading this letter, but
it's no use, it's impossible to go back and bluff about it.
"Collins spoke to me about the change in me; he said he thought it was
that touch of the sun in September. I wish to God it was!
"I will take the course with Atkins, and then let you know. He wants to
go to Benares for some reason or another, and perhaps I will go with
him, or perhaps come home to you. But I don't think I will come back
under a year.
"You hear of men all your life who do this, but I feel as if it was
killing me, and you, too. I wish there was some other way.
"I have written Harry at the Crocker; my account there is to be
transferred to your name. I don't know exactly what it is, but the money
from the San Mateo lots went in there, and so there is plenty. For God's
sake spend it, don't hesitate about getting anything you want. Why
shouldn't you keep the house, until April anyway; some one would stay
with you, and then you could go to San Rafael.
"I'm not going to try to tell you how I feel about all this, because you
know. It all seems to me a bad dream. Every little while I try to make
myself think that after a while it will all come right, but it seemed to
me all dead and buried after that time on the steamer, and of course it
wasn't!
"Tell people what you please, I leave all that to you.
"Chadwick will sell the car, and send you the bill of sale and the
money. He knows what I want sent; he'll do all that.
"I've written and rewritten this ten times; my head is splitting. It
seems strange to think it is you and me.
"God bless you always, and our little girl.
"_Jim_."
Julia finished it with a little grinding sound, like a groan, heard
herself make a dramatic exclamation, an "Ah!" of agonized unbelief. She
sat down, got up again to take a few irresolute steps toward her desk,
and finally went to her bedside telephone, and took down the receiver.
There was a delay; Julia rapped an impatient slipper on the floor, and
rattled the hook.
"Western Union, please," she said, a moment later; "I want to send a
telegram."
An interval of silence followed. Julia sat staring blankly at the wall.
Then she rattled the hook again.
"No matter about that number, Central; I've changed my mind," she said.
She walked irresolutely into the middle of the room, stood there a
moment frowning, and then turned, to go back and fling herself on her
bed, staring up into the dark, the letter crackling as it dropped beside
her.
After a while she began to say, "Oh, oh, oh!" quietly and quickly under
her breath. The cry grew too much for her, she twisted on her face to
stifle it, and after a few moments it stopped. Then she turned on her
back again, and said something sharply to herself in a whisper once or
twice, and after that the moaning "Oh, oh, oh!" began again.
So Miss Toland found her, when she came into the room without knocking,
a little later.
"Julia," Miss Toland said sharply, sitting down on the edge of the bed
and possessing herself of one of Julia's limp, cold hands, "Ellie told
me you--she came to the door and heard you! My child, this won't do! You
mustn't make mountains out of molehills. If Jim Studdiford has had the
senseless cruelty to go off to Europe in this fashion, why, he ought to
be horsewhipped, that's all! But I don't believe he'll get any farther
than New York, myself; I don't believe he'll get that far!" She paused,
but Julia was silent. After a moment the older woman spoke again. "What
does he say in the letter?" she asked. "One would really like to know
just how this delightful piece of work is explained."
"Aunt Sanna!" Julia said, in a difficult half whisper. She took Miss
Toland's hand and pressed it against her heart. Her lips were shut
tight, and against the white pillow there was a little negative movement
of her head.
"Well, of course you don't want to talk about it," Miss Toland said
soothingly. "But was there a quarrel?"
"Oh, no--no!" Julia said quickly, briefly, with another convulsive
pressure of Miss Toland's hand, and another jerk of her head. "It was
something--that distressed Jim--something I couldn't change," she added
with difficulty.
"H'm!" said the other, and the evidence for both sides was in, as far as
Miss Toland was concerned, and the case closed. She sat beside Julia in
the dark for a long time, patting her hand without speaking. After a
while Ellie brought a glass of hot milk, and Julia docilely drank it,
and submitted to being put to bed, raising a face as sweet as a child's
for Miss Toland's good-night kiss, and promising to sleep well.
The pleasant winter sunlight was streaming into the older woman's room
when Julia came in the next morning, although all San Francisco echoed
to the sombre constant call of the foghorn, and the air was cool enough
to make Miss Toland's fire delightful. Julia had Anna with her, a
delightful little armful in her tumbled nightwear, and she smiled at the
picture of Miss Toland, comfortably enjoying her breakfast in bed. But
it was evident that she had not slept: deep shadows lay under her blue
eyes, and she was very pale. She put the baby down on the bed with a
silver buttonhook and a bracelet, and sat down.
"Sleep any?" Miss Toland asked.
"Yes, I think I did!" Julia said, with an effort at brightness. She
seemed nervous and restless, but showed no tendency to break down. "I've
just been talking to Caroline," she went on. "I told her that Doctor
Studdiford had been called away, and implied that there would be
changes. Then I spoke to Foo Ting at breakfast--Mrs. Pope is crazy to
get him--so that will be all right--"
"Julia--of course I've not read Jim's letter," Miss Toland said
earnestly, "but aren't you taking this too much to heart--aren't you
acting rather quickly?"
Julia looked down at her laced fingers for a few moments without
speaking.
"Jim isn't coming back," she said soberly.
"But what makes you _say_ so, dear? How do you know?"
"Well, I just know it," Julia said, raising heavy-lidded eyes. They
looked at each other.
"But you aren't telling me seriously, my child, that you two--the most
devoted couple I ever _saw_--why, Julia, show a little courage, child! Jim
must be brought to his senses, that's all. We must think what's wisest
to do, and do it. But, my dear, there'd be no marriages left in the
world if people flew off the handle--"
"I _have_ been thinking, all night," Julia said patiently, "and this is
what I thought. I want"--she glanced restlessly about the room--"I want
to get away from here! That'll take some little while."
"Go away by all means, dear, if you want to, but don't dismantle your
house--don't make it impossible for the whole thing to blow over----"
"He won't come back," Julia repeated quietly.
"You don't think so?" Miss Toland said uncomfortably. "H'm!"
"No one must know, not even Doctor and Mother," pursued Julia. "No
newspapers, _nobody_!"
"Well, in any case, that's wise!" the older woman assented. "And where
will you go--to Sally?"
"No!" Julia said with a quick shudder. "Not anywhere near here! No, I
should rather like to give the impression that I will be with Jim, or
near Jim," she added slowly.
"Following him abroad with the baby, that's quite natural!" Miss Toland
approved. "But why not stay a week or two in Sausalito, just to keep
them from guessing?"
"Oh, I couldn't!" Julia said, in a quick breath.
"And where'll you go--New York?"
"Oh, no!" Julia leaned back and shut her eyes. The muscles of her throat
worked. "We were so happy in New York," she said, with a sudden
quivering of her lips. But a moment's struggle brought back her
composure. "I thought--some little French village, or England," she
hazarded.
"England," Miss Toland said promptly. "This is no time of the year to
take a child to France; besides, you get better milk in England, and if
Anna was sick, there's London, full of doctors who speak your own
language."
"So long as it's quiet," Julia said, "and we see nobody--that's all I
care about. Then if Jim should--But I couldn't wait here, with everybody
asking, and inviting me places, and spying on me!"
"We'll take some sort of little place in Oxfordshire," Miss Toland said,
"and then we can run up to London--"
"'We?'" Julia echoed. She gazed bewilderedly at the other woman for a
moment, then put her hands over her face and burst into tears.
A month like a nightmare followed. Julia had never grown to care for the
Pacific Avenue house; now it came to have an absolute horror for her.
She seemed to see it through a veil of darkness; she seemed to move
under the burden of an intolerable weight. Sometimes she found herself
panting as if for air, as she went from silent room to silent room, and
sometimes a memory unbearably poignant and dear smote her as with
physical violence, and her face worked for a few moments, and she fought
with tears.
There were other times, when life seemed less sad than dull. Julia grew
sick of loneliness, sick of silence; she stared at her face in the
mirror, when she was slowly dressing in the morning; stared at herself
again at night--as if marvelling at this woman who was a wife, and a
mother, and deserted in her young bloom. Deserted--her husband had gone
away from her, and she knew no way to bring him back. A weary flatness
of spirit descended upon her; it seemed a part of the howling winter
storms, the dark and heavy weather.
For the servants other positions were quickly found, the furniture was
stored, the motor car sold. On the last day on which the last was at her
disposal, Julia, with Ellie and the baby, drove about downtown, and
disposed of several odds and ends of business. She left the keys of the
Pacific Avenue house at the agent's office, not without an agonized
memory of the day she had first called for them, more than two years
ago. She went to the bank, and was instantly invited into the manager's
office and given a luxurious chair.
"Well, Mrs. Studdiford," said Mr. Perry pleasantly, "what brings you out
in this dreadful weather?"
"Good-byes," Julia said, flinging back her veil, and laying her muff
aside. "Miss Toland and I will probably leave for New York on the
seventh, and sail as soon as we can after we get there. I want to take a
letter of credit, and I want to know just how I stand here."
Mr. Perry touched a button, the letter of credit was duly made out, a
clerk came in with a little slip, which he handed to Mr. Perry.
"Ah, yes, yes, indeed! And where is Doctor Studdiford now? In Berlin?
Lovely city. You'll like Berlin," said Mr. Perry. He glanced at the
slip. "Thirty-seven thousand, two hundred and twenty dollars, Mrs.
Studdiford," said he. "Transferred to your name a month ago.
"I had no idea it was so much!" Julia said, her heart turning to lead.
Why had he given her so much?
Mr. Perry, bowing her out, laughed that that was a fault on the right
side, and Julia left the bank, with its brightly lighted warm atmosphere
tinged with the odour of ink and polished wood and rubber flooring, and
its windows streaming with rain. She got into the motor car again, and
took little Anna on her lap.
"Now I think we'll drop you at the hotel, Ellie," said she, "and I'll
take the baby out to say good-bye to my mother."
"Oh, Mrs. Studdiford, it's raining something terrible!" protested the
maid.
"Yes, I know," Julia agreed, looking a little vaguely out of the blurred
window. "But you see to-morrow may be just as bad, and we've got her all
dressed and out now. So you go home and pack, and I'll just fly out
there and fly back. Day after to-morrow I've promised to take her to
Sausalito, and the day after that we start!"
The city streets looked dark and gloomy under the steady onslaught of
the rain, as the car rolled along. Julia stared sombrely through the
drenched glass, now and then kissing the perfumed top of the little silk
cap that covered the drowsy head on her breast. It was a long trip to
Shotwell Street; for all her family's peculiarities, it was rather a sad
trip to-day. She let her thoughts drift on to the coming changes in her
life. She thought of New York, of the great unknown ocean, of
London--London to Julia meant fog, hansom cabs, and crossings that must
be swept. It was not, she felt, with a certain baffled resentment, what
she wanted to do. London was full of Miss Toland's friends, and Julia
was too sick in spirit to wish to meet them now. To be alone--to be
alone--to be alone--some gasping inner spirit prayed continually. They
would go to Oxfordshire, of course. But Miss Toland would be miserable
in the country, she was always miserable in the country.
They were passing Eighteenth Street, passing St. Charles's shabby little
church. Julia stopped the motor. She got out and carried the baby up the
stairs, and went up the echoing aisle to a front pew, where Anna could
sit and stare about her. Julia, panting, dropped on her knees. The big
edifice was empty, and smelled of damp plaster, rain rattled the high
windows. The afternoon was so dark that the sanctuary light sent a
little pool of quivering red to the floor below.
After a while a very plain young woman came out of the vestry, and
walking up the steps to the main altar, carried away one of the great
candlesticks. She was presently joined by a little nun; the two
whispered unsmilingly together, came and went fifty times with flowers,
with candles, with fresh altar linen.
Julia could not pray. Her thoughts would not settle themselves; they
drifted back and forth like rippling breezes over grass. She felt that
if she might kneel here an hour she could begin to pray. Now a thousand
little things distracted her: the odour of the church, the crisping feet
of some one entering the church far behind her, the odour of the damp
glove upon which she rested her cheek.
Life troubled her; she was afraid. She had thought it lay plain and
straight before her; now all her guide posts were gone, and all her
pathways led into deeper and deeper uncertainty. The utter confusion
into which she had been thrown made even her own identity indefinite to
her; she suffered less for this bewilderment. If by the mere raising of
her hand she might have brought Jim back to her, she would not have
raised that hand; not now, not until some rule that would adjust their
relationship was found. Her marriage seemed a dream, their love as
strange and remote as their separation.
Only Anna seemed real, and as much a sorrow as a joy just now. To what
heritage would the beautiful, mysterious little personality unfold? What
of the swiftly coming time when she would ask questions?
Julia turned to the little white-capped, white-coated figure. Anna had
chewed a bonnet string to damp limpness; now she was saying "Da!" in an
alluring and provocative tone to a lady praying nearby. The lady
regarded her with an unmoved eye, however, and Julia gathered her small
daughter in her arms and went down to the motor car.
At her mother's door she dismissed Chadwick for an hour or two of warmth
and shelter, and, sighing, went into the unaired dark hallway that
smelled to-day of wet woollens and of a smoky kerosene wick, and
retained as well its old faint odour of carbolic acid.