The kitchen in the old Cox house formed a sort of one-story annex behind
the building, and had windows on three sides, so that on a certain
exquisite morning in March, four years later, sunlight flooded the two
eastern windows and fell in clear squares of brightness on the checkered
blue-and-white linoleum on the floor. There were thin muslin sash
curtains at these windows, and white shades had been drawn down to meet
them. Some trailing English ivy made a delicate tracery in dark green
beside one window, and two or three potted begonias on the sill lifted
transparent trembling blooms to the sun. The rest of the large room was
in keeping with this cheerful bit of detail. There was a shining gas
stove beside the shining coal range, and a picturesque bit of colour in
the blue kettles and copper casseroles that stood in a row on the
shelves above the range. A pine cupboard had been painted white, and
held orderly rows of blue plates and cups; there were several
white-painted chairs, and two tables. One of these was pushed against
the west wall, and was of pine wood white from scrubbing; the other
stood on a blue rag rug by the eastern windows, and was covered by a
fringed tablecloth in white and blue. Near the outer door, with a window
above it, was a white-enamelled sink in a bright frame of hanging small
utensils.
The sunlight twinkled here and there on a polished surface, and flung a
trembling bright reflection on the ceiling from the brass faucets of the
sink. A clock on the wall struck seven.
As the last stroke sounded, Julia Studdiford quietly opened the hall
door and stepped into the kitchen. She softly closed the door behind
her, and went to another door, at which she paused for a few seconds
with her head bent as if listening. Evidently satisfied that no one
stirred in the bedroom beyond the door, she set briskly if noiselessly
about her preparations for breakfast.
These involved the tying on of a crisp checked apron, and various
negotiations with a large enamelled coffee pot, an egg, and the dark
grounds that sent a heartening odour of coffee through the room. Bread
was sliced and trimmed for toast with delightful evenness and swiftness,
a double boiler of oatmeal was lifted from the fireless cooker, and the
ice box made to furnish more eggs and a jar of damp, firm butter.
It was while making a little journey to the back porch for milk and
cream that the housekeeper first wavered in her swift routine. Below the
back steps lay a little city garden, so lovely in the strengthening
March sunlight that she must set her bottles down on the step, and run
down for a whiff of the fragrance of climbing roses, just beginning to
bloom, of bridal-wreath and white lilac. Cobwebs, caught from bush to
wet bush, sparkled with jewels; a band of brown sparrows flew away from
a dripping faucet, and a black cat, crouching on the crosspieces of the
low fence, rose, yawned, and vanished silently. The wall was almost
entirely hidden by vines, principally rose vines, which flung long arms
in the air. Presently a woman in the next yard parted these vines, to
look over and say pleasantly:
"Good-mornin', Mis' Studdiford! I's just looking over an' _dee_-spairin'
of ever gettin' my backyard to look like yours! It does smell like one
big bo'quet mornin's like this!"
"Oh, well, there are so many of us to fuss with it," said the young
woman addressed, cheerfully. "My aunt and my cousins are nearly as crazy
about flowers as I am, and the other day--that warm day, you know, when
we had my mother out here--she was just as absorbed as the rest of us!"
She put a friendly head over the wall. "But I don't see what you've got
to complain of, Mrs. Calhoun," said she, "especially as you're just
beginning! I see your geraniums all took hold!"
"Every one but the white Lady Washington," the woman said. "How is your
mother?" she added.
"Pretty comfortable, thank you!" said the other. "I imagine she may have
had a restless night, for both she and my aunt seem to be asleep, so I'm
getting breakfast for my cousins and uncle myself! And I'm not supposed
to be out here at all!" she added, with a farewell laugh and nod, as she
turned back to the steps. "But I just couldn't resist the garden!"
She picked up the milk bottles and reentered the kitchen just as a
trimly dressed young woman came into it from the hall. The newcomer was
tall, and if not quite pretty was at least a fresh-looking,
pleasant-faced girl. She wore a tailor-made skirt and white shirt waist,
and a round hat covered with flowers, and laid her jacket over the back
of a chair.
"Julie, where's Ma?" said she, in surprise. "Have you been doing
everything?"
"Not everything!" Julia smiled. "But Aunt May must have overslept
herself; there hasn't been a sound from their room this morning. Your
suit looks lovely," she added admiringly.
"Oh, do you think so?" asked the younger woman eagerly. She interrupted
her task of putting plates and cups on the table, to come close and turn
toward Julia the back of her head for inspection. "Like it?" asked she.
Julia seriously inspected the rhinestone comb that glittered there.
"Why, I don't utterly dislike it," she said, in her pleasant voice.
"But you don't think it's in good taste, Julie?"
"Well no, not exactly. Not for the office, anyway."
"All right, then--that settles it!" the young woman assured her. "I'll
run upstairs after breakfast and change. We had a glorious time last
night!" she went on, putting her head on one side to give the table a
critical glance. "I'll tell you about it. This has boiled up, hasn't
it--it can be settled?"
"Yes, settle it." said Julia, buttering toast, "and tell me!"
But at this moment the hall door opened again, and a little girl of four
and a half appeared in the doorway. She was so lovely a vision, with her
trailing wrapper and white nightgown bunched up to be out of her way,
curls tumbled about her face, and eyes big with reproach, that both
women laughed with pleasure at the sight of her.
"Mother," said she, with that lingering on the last consonant that marks
the hurt pride of a child, "why diddunt you wake me?"
"Because you were sleeping so nicely, Pussy!" Julia laughed, on her
knees by this time, with both arms about the little figure. "Give me a
thousand kisses and say 'I love my mother!'"
"I love my mother!" said Anna, her eyes roving the room over her
mother's shoulder. "I guess you don't know how hard you're squeezing me,
Mother!" she added. "Can I come out here in my wrapper, and have
breakfast with Regina?"
"Yes, let her, Julia!" Regina urged. "Come on, darling! Bring your bowl
up here to my end. Do sit down and eat something yourself, Julia."
"This is the way to enjoy breakfast; not twenty feet from the stove!"
Julia said, pouring the cream into her coffee. "Was Geraldine stirring
when you got up, Regina?"
"Not a stir!" Regina said cheerfully. "She and Morgan were talking last
night until two--I looked at the clock when she came upstairs! What they
have to talk about gets me!"
"Oh, my dear, engaged people could talk forever," Julia said leniently.
"They were househunting yesterday, there's always so much to talk
about!"
"It seems to me that the people who don't marry have the most fun,"
Regina said. "Look at Muriel and Evvy, the money they make! Evvy going
East for the firm every year, and Muriel getting her little twenty-five
a week. And then look at Rita, with four children to slave for--"
"Ah, well, Rita's husband doesn't work steadily, and she hates
housework--she admits it!" Julia protested swiftly. "Rita could do a
good deal, if she would."
"Rita gives me a great big pain," said her younger sister absently.
"A boy named Willis had a sword, and he hit a little boy with it, and
Mrs. Calhoun said it was a wonder he wasn't killed!" contributed Anna
suddenly, her eyes luminous from some thrilling recollection.
"Fancy!" Julia said. "Eat your oatmeal, Baby, and run upstairs and get
some clothes on!" she added briskly. "You'll catch cold!"
But there was no severity in the glance she turned upon her daughter.
Indeed, it would have been a stern heart that little Anna Studdiford's
first friendly glance did not melt. She had been exquisite from her
babyhood, she was so lovely now, as she emerged from irresponsible
infancy to thoughtful little girlhood, that Julia sometimes wondered how
she could preserve so much charm and beauty unspoiled. Anna had her
mother's ash-gold hair, but where Julia's rose firm and winglike from
her forehead, and was held in place by its own smooth, thick braids, the
little girl's fell in rich, shining waves, sprayed in fine mist across
her eyes, glittered, a golden mop in the sunlight, and even in the shade
threw out an occasional gleam of gold. Anna's eyes were blue, with
curled thick lashes like her mother's, but in the firm little mouth and
the poise of her head, in the quick smile and quicker frown, Julia saw
her father a hundred times a day. Her skin had the transparent porcelain
beauty of babyhood, there was a suggestion of violet shadow about her
eyes, and on her cheeks there glowed the warm colour of a ripe apricot.
Even the gingham aprons and sturdy little shoes which she customarily
wore did not disguise Anna's beauty. Julia trusted more to the child's
wise little head than to the faint hope that her own precautions could
ward off flattery and adulation. The two had been constant companions
for more than four years: Anna's little bed close to her mother's at
night, Anna's bright head never out of Julia's sight by day. If Anna
showed any interest in what her mother was reading, Julia gave her a
grave review of the story; if Julia went to market, Anna trotted beside
her, deeply concerned as to cuts of meat and choices among vegetables;
and when baking was afoot, Anna had a tiny moulding board on a chair,
and cut cookies or scalloped tarts with the deep enjoyment of the born
cook.
Once or twice the child had asked for her father, accepting quietly
enough the explanation that he was in Germany, and very busy.
"Aren't we going to see him some time, Mother?"
"Not while Grandma needs Mother so much, dear!" Julia would answer
easily.
Easily, because the busy months with their pain and joy, their problems
and their successes, had seemed to seal away in a deep crypt her
memories of her husband. Julia had been afraid to think of him at first;
she could not make herself think of him now; his image drifted vaguely
away from her, as unreal as a dream. He was as much a name as if she had
never seen him, never loved him, never suffered those exquisite agonies
of grief and shame with which the first year of their separation was
full. Jim's child had taken his place; the purity and sweetness of the
child's love filled Julia's heart; she wanted only Anna, and Anna was
her interpreter for all the relationships of life. Anna first made her
draw close to her own mother; Anna was at once her spur and her reward
during the first hard years at Shotwell Street.
Anna had gone upstairs, and Regina was finishing her breakfast when
Chester came downstairs, followed by the still sleepy yet shining-eyed
Geraldine. Geraldine was to be married in a few weeks now, and had given
up her position in an office, to devote all her time to house-furnishing
and sewing.
"I'm awfully sorry to be so late," smiled Geraldine, "but we talked
until I don't know when last night!" She poured herself a cup of coffee;
the meal went cheerfully on. Presently the bedroom door opened, and a
stout, handsome, middle-aged woman came into the kitchen.
Julia was used, by now, to the transformation that had come to house and
garden, that had affected every member of her mother's family in the
past four years. But to the change in her aunt, Mrs. Torney, she never
became quite accustomed. It had been slow in coming; it had come all at
once. There had been weeks when Julia felt that nothing would ever
silence the whining voice, or make useful the idle hands. There had been
a wretched time when the young woman had warned the older that matters
could not continue as they were. There had been agitated decisions on
Mrs. Torney's part to go away, with Regina, to starve and struggle
again; there had been a scene when Regina coolly refused to leave the
new comforts of Julia's rule.
And then, suddenly, there was a new woman in the family, in Aunt May's
place. Julia always dated the change from a certain Thanksgiving Day,
when Mrs. Torney, who was an excellent cook, had prepared a really fine
dinner. Julia and the girls put the dining-room in order, a wood fire
roared in the air-tight stove, another in the sitting-room grate. Julia
dressed prettily; she put a late rose in her mother's hair, draped the
invalid's prettiest shawl about the thin shoulders, arrayed the toddling
baby in her daintiest finery. She coaxed her aunt to go upstairs to make
herself fresh and neat just before dinner, and during the whole evening
Mrs. Torney's sons and daughters, Julia and Evelyn, Chester and Mrs.
Page and little old Mrs. Cox united to praise the dinner and the cook.
It was as if poor Aunt May had come into her own, had been given at last
the role to which she had always been suited. Handsome in her fresh
shirt waist and black skirt, with her gray hair coiled above a shining
face, she beamed over turkey dressing and cranberry sauce; she laughed
until she cried, when Elmer, who had come from Oakland for the feast,
solemnly prefaced a request for more mince pie with a reckless: "Come
on, Lloyd, let's die together; it's worth it!"
From that day hers was the happy part of the bustling housewife. No New
England matron ever took more pride in cup cakes or apple pies, no
kitchen in the world gave forth more savoury odours of roast meats and
new-baked bread. Mrs. Torney's heavy tread on the kitchen floor was
usually the first thing Julia heard in the morning, and late at night
the infatuated housekeeper would slip out to the warm, clean, fragrant
place for a last peep at rising dough or simmering soup. Aunt May read
the magazines now only to seek out new combinations of meats and
vegetables. Julia would smile, to glance across the dining-room to her
aunt's chair beneath the lamp, and see the big, kindly face pucker over
some startling discovery.
"Em!" Mrs. Torney would remove her glasses, she would address her sister
in shocked tones. "Here they've got a sour-cream salad dressing. Did you
ever hear of such a thing!"
"For heaven's sake!" Mrs. Page would look up from her absorbed watching
of Chester's solitaire, drop her emaciated little head back against the
waiting pillow.
"Try it some time, Aunt May, you could make anything taste good!" Julia
might suggest. But Mrs. Torney would shake a doubtful head and, with a
muttered "Sour cream!" resume her glasses and her magazine.
Now she was tying a crisp apron over her blue cotton dress, and ready
with a smiling explanation for Julia.
"I declare, Ju, I don't know what's got into my alarm. I never woke up
at all until quarter to eight o'clock! Don't start those dishes, lovey,
there's no hurry!"
"I was afraid that Mama'd had a bad night," Julia said, smiling a
good-morning from the sink. "Sit. down, Aunt May, I'll bring you your
coffee!"
"No, Emeline had a real good night. She was reading a while, about
three, but she's sound asleep now."
"I lighted a fire in the dining-room," said Chester, "just to take the
chill off, if Em wants to go in there!"
"Then I'll bring my sewing down, after the beds are made," Geraldine
said. "You go to market if you want to, Julie; I'll do your room."
"Well," Julia agreed, "perhaps I can get back before Mama wakes. I'll go
up and see what Anna is doing."
Regina and Chester presently went off to their work, Mrs. Torney and
Geraldine fell upon the breakfast dishes, and Julia went upstairs. She
found the little Anna dreaming by a sunny window, one stocking on, one
leg still bare, and her little petticoat hanging unbuttoned.
"Come, Infant, this won't do!" Julia's practised hands made quick work
of the small girl's dressing. A stiff blue gingham garment went on over
Anna's head, the tumbled curls were subjugated by a blue ribbon. When it
was left to Anna merely to lace her shoes, Julia began to go about the
room, humming as she busied herself with bureau and bed. She presently
paused at the mirror to pin on a wide hat, and her eye fell upon the
oval-framed picture of Jim that she had carried away with her from the
Pacific Avenue house. It had been taken by some clever amateur; had
always been a favourite with her. She studied it dispassionately for a
moment.
Jim had been taken in tennis clothes; his racket was still in his hand,
his thin shirt opened to show the splendid line of throat and chin. His
thick hair was rumpled, the sunlight struck across his smiling face.
Julia's memory could supply the twinkle in his eye; she could hear him
call to Alan Gregory: "For the Lord's sake, cut this short, Greg! It's
roasting out here!"
Beside this picture hung another, smaller, and also a snapshot. This was
of a man, too, a tall, thin, ungainly man, sitting on a roadside rock,
with a battered old hat in his hand. Behind him rose a sharp spur of
rough mountainside, and so sharply did the ground fall away at his feet
that far below him was a glimpse of the level surface of the Pacific.
Julia smiled at this picture, and the picture smiled back.
"Come, Mouse!" said she, rousing herself from a reverie a moment later.
"Get on your hat! You and I have to go to market!"
The morning wore on; it was like a thousand other happy mornings. Julia
and Anna loitered in the cool odorous fish stalls at the market,
welcomed asparagus back to its place in the pleasant cycle of the year's
events, inspected glowing oranges and damp crisp heads of lettuce;
stopped at the hardware store for Aunt May's new meat chopper, stopped
at the stationer's for Anna's St. Nicholas, stopped at the florist's to
breathe deep breaths of the damp fragrant air, and to get some
buttercups for Grandma.
Julia's mother was in the kitchen when she and Anna got home, her dark
hair still damp from brushing, her thin wrists no whiter than her snowy
ruffles. Presently they all moved into the dining-room, where
Geraldine's sewing machine was temporarily established, and where Anna's
blocks had a corner to themselves. The invalid, between intervals of
knitting, watched them all with her luminous and sympathetic smile.
"A letter for you, Julie, and four for me," said the bride-elect, coming
back from the door after the postman's ring.
"_Four_ for you--Gerry! You lucky thing!"
"Well--two are from Morgan," admitted Geraldine, smiling, and there was
a laugh as Julia opened her own letter.
"It's from Dr. Richard Toland," she announced a moment later. "He says
Mill Valley is too beautiful for words just now. How'd you like to go
over and see Uncle Richie to-morrow, Anna?"
"I'd love it," said Anna unhesitatingly.
"We've not been for weeks," Julia said, "I'd love it, too, if my Marmer
doesn't mind?" She turned her bright smile to her mother. "Regina says
she has an engagement with the O'Briens for Sunday," said she, "and if
Gerry goes off with Morgan, will that leave things too quiet?"
"Indeed it won't!" said Mrs. Torney, looking up from the tissue-paper
pattern over which she had hung in profound bewilderment for almost half
an hour. "Rita may bring some of the children in, or Lloyd and Elmer may
come over. Go along with you!"
Richie, much stronger in these days, and without his crutch, though
still limping a little, met Julia and the dancing Anna on the following
afternoon, and the three crossed the ferry together. It was a day
bursting with summer's promise, the air was pure and warm, and the sky
cloudless. Getting out of the train at Mill Valley, Julia drew an
ecstatic breath.
"Oh, Richie, what heavenly freshness! Doesn't it just smooth your
forehead down like a cool hand!"
There was a poignant sweetness to the mountain air, washed clear by the
late rains, and warmed and invigorated by the sunshine of the
lengthening March day. The country roads were dark and muddy and churned
by wheel tracks, but fringed with emerald grass. Even at four o'clock
the little valley was plunged in early shadow, but sunshine lay still
upon the hills that framed it, and long lines of light threw the grim
heights of Tamalpais into bold relief. The watching tiers of the
redwoods looked refreshed, their spreading dark fans were tipped with
the jade-green sprays of the year's new growth. The first pale smoke of
wild lilac bloom lay over the hills.
"It makes you think of delicious words," said Julia, as Richie's rusty
white mare plodded up and up the mountain road. "Ozone--and
aromatic--and exhilarating! In town it was a little oppressive
to-day--Anna and I were quite wilted!"
"You don't look wilted!" Richie smiled at his goddaughter, who was in
her mother's arms. "Look, Ju--there's columbine! Loads of it up near my
place!" "And the wild currant, with that delicious pungent smell!"
sighed Julia blissfully. "What's new with you, Richie?" she asked
presently.
"Oh, nothing much! Cable from Bab yesterday, but you must have had one,
too?"
"Yes, I did. A third boy!" Julia laughed. "Poor Bab--when she wanted a
girl so badly!"
"I suppose she did," grinned Richard.
"Oh, of course she did! Who wouldn't?" Julia hugged her own girl. "And
isn't it glorious about Keith?" she added, with sudden enthusiasm.
"Is it? I suppose it is," Richie said. "But then those old guys in
Germany called him a genius long before New York did, and you girls
didn't make so much fuss!"
"Oh, but Richie, there's so much money in this American tour; three
concerts in New York alone, think of it!" Julia protested eagerly. "And
Sally's letter sounded so gay; they were having a perfectly glorious
time. I hope they come to San Francisco!"
"Well, she deserves it," Richie observed, flicking the rusty mare with a
whip she superbly ignored. "Sally's had a pretty rotten time of it for
seven or eight years--paying his lesson bills when she didn't have
enough to eat or shoes to wear--and losing the baby----"
"I don't believe all that meant as much to Sally as you think," Julia
said sagely. "Her entire heart was set upon Keith's success, and that
has come along pretty steadily. Her letter to me about the baby wasn't
the sort I should have written; indeed, I couldn't have written at all!
And then that was four years ago, Richie, and four years is a long
time!"
"It is!" Richie agreed. "Keith's about all the baby she'll ever want;
those fellows take an awful lot of spoiling. But I get more pleasure
from Mother's and Dad's pleasure than for Sally herself," he added.
"Mother saves up newspaper accounts, and has this translated from the
German and that from the French--it's sort of pathetic to see! Dad and
Janey are in New York now; something was said last night about their
going over to see Bab."
"Ted and your mother are alone, then? How's Ted?"
"Oh, driving Mother crazy, as usual. She'd flirt with the Portuguese
milkman if she had a chance. She can't seem to understand that because
she wants to be free she _isn't_ free! Talks about 'if I marry again,' and
so on. Of course Carleton's marrying again has made her wild."
"But, good heavens, Richie, Ted ought to have some _sense_!"
"Well, she hasn't. She stretched a point to marry him, d'you see?
Carleton had been baptized as a child, and his first wife hadn't, and
they were married by a Justice of the Peace, or something of that sort.
So Ted claimed that in the eyes of the Church he hadn't been married at
all, and she married him. Then----"
"But if she loved him, Richie--and Ted was so young!"
"All true, of course, only if you're going to push things to the point
of taking advantage of a quibble like that, your chance of happiness is
more or less slim! So three years ago Carleton proved that he hadn't
cared a whoop about the legal or religious aspects of the case, and left
Ted. And now Ted can't see herself, at twenty-seven, tied to another
woman's husband!"
"She has her boy," Julia said severely.
"Yep, but that doesn't seem to count."
"Well, it's funny, Richie, take us all in all, what a mess we've made of
marrying!" Julia mused. "Ned gives me the impression, every time I see
him, of being a sulky martyr in his own home; Sally's managed to drag
happiness out of a most hopeless situation; Ted, of course, will never
be happy again, like Jim and me; and Connie, although she made an
exemplary marriage, either has to leave her husband or bring her baby up
in Manila, which she says positively isn't safe! Bab is the only shining
success among us all!"
"Oh, I don't know," Richie said, stopping the horse, and flinging the
reins to the Portuguese who came out of a small barn to meet them. "Here
we are, Ju--take your time! I've always considered you rather
successful," he resumed.
"Oh, me!" Julia laughed as she jumped down like a girl. She followed
Anna across a little hollow filled with buttercups and long grasses, and
they mounted the little rise to Richie's tiny cabin. The little house
had Mount Tamalpais for a background, and its wide unroofed porch faced
across the valley, and commanded a view of the wooded ridges, and the
marshes, and the distant bay, and of San Francisco twelve miles away.
Scrub oaks and bay trees grew in a tangle all about it, even a few young
redwoods and an occasional bronze and white madrona tree. Wild roses and
field flowers crowded against its very walls, and under the trees there
were iris and brown lilies, and a dense undergrowth of manzanita and
hazelnut bushes, wild currant and wild lilac trees.
The big room that Julia entered first was dim with pleasant twilight,
and full of the sweet odours of a dying wood fire. It had nothing of
distinction in it: a few shabby chairs, an old square piano, an
unpainted floor crossed here and there by rugs, books in cases and out
of them, candlesticks along the brick mantel, a green-shaded student's
lamp on a long table, and several wide windows, dim and opaque now in
the fast-gathering darkness, but usually framing each a picture of
matchless mountain scenery.
A door at one side of the fireplace led into a tiny kitchen whose
windows looked out into oak branches; and another door, on the other
side, gave access to a little cement-floored bathroom with a shower, and
two small bedrooms, each with two beds built in tiers like bunks. This
was Richie's whole domain, and whether it was really saturated with the
care-free atmosphere of childhood, and fragrant with the good breath of
the countryside all about it, or whether Julia only imagined it to be
so, she found it perfect, and was never so happy in these days as when
she and Anna were there. She was always busy, and satisfied in her work,
but there were needs of heart and mind that her own people could not
meet, and when these rose strong within her she found no company as
bracing and as welcome as Richard's.
"No Aunt Sanna?" said she cheerfully, when she had taken off her hat and
the small girl's, and was in her favourite chair by the fire.
"No, darn it!" said Richie, struggling with a refractory lamp wick.
"Oh, don't be so blue, Rich! She'll be here on the seven."
"No, she won't--she said the four--I expected to find her here," Richie
said, settling the glass chimney into place, as the light crept round
the wick. A little odour of hot kerosene floated on the air, and was
lost in other odours from the kitchen, where a Chinese boy was padding
about in the poor light of one lamp. He began to come and go, setting
the table, the ecstatic Anna at his heels. Whenever the outer door was
opened, a cool rush of sweet country air came in. Richie began to stamp
back and forth with great logs for the fireplace.
"Wonderful what millions of miles away from every one we seem, Rich!"
Julia said contentedly. "Was there ever anything like the quiet of this
mountain?"
"I'm terribly sorry about Aunt Sanna," Richie said. "I feel like an
ass--getting you way up here!"
"Why, my dear boy, it's not _your_ fault!" Julia said, round eyed.
"She said she would positively be here," Richie pursued. "I suppose
there's no earthly reason--" he added uncomfortably.
"Why you and I shouldn't stay here alone? I should hope not!" Julia
reassured him roundly. "And she may come on the seven, anyway!"
"These are the times I wish I had a telephone," said Richie.
"Aw leddy," contributed the Chinese boy. They took their places at the
table, and dinner was eaten by the light of the lamp. But after dinner,
when Julia had tucked Anna into bed, she came back and put out the lamp.
She lighted two candles on the mantelpiece that sent a brave flicker
over the dull walls and up to the ceiling.
"There!" said she, with an energetic stirring of the fire, as she took
her chair again, "that's the way I like this room to look!"
Richard disposed of his awkward length in an opposite chair, his big
bony hands interlocked. In the fire and candlelight Julia looked very
young, her loosened hair glimmering against the back of her chair, her
thin white skirts spreading in a soft circle above her slipper buckles.
The man noticed the serene rise and fall of her breast under her thin
blouse, the content in her half-shut blue eyes. He let his thoughts
play for a moment with the perilous dream that she belonged here at his
hearth, that her sweetness, her demure happiness, her earnest interest
in everything that concerned him, were all his by right.
"I don't quite know what to do about this!" he said gruffly.
"What--our being here?" Julia looked surprised. "Why, Richie, what can
we do? Do you think it matters, one night? After all, we're brother and
sister-in-law!"
"Almost," said Richie, with a laugh.
"Why, Rich, I would never give it one moment's thought; not if I stayed
here a month!" Julia assured him. "And neither would any one else. Don't
be so silly!"
"It's not me; but it isn't fair to you!" Richard said.
Julia had grown a little red. Now she stared into the fire.
"This sort of fuss isn't like you, Rich," she said presently, with an
uncomfortable laugh. "You--you don't usually talk about such things!"
"No, I know I don't," Richard admitted, untouched by her reproach. "I
could go up to Porter's and try to get Aunt Sanna by telephone!" he
muttered.
Julia was displeased, and made no answer, and presently he got up and
went out. She sat there listening to the rattle of dishes in the
kitchen, until a splash announced the dishpan emptied under the oak
trees, and the Chinese through with his work for the night. After a
while she went to the doorway, and stared out at the starry sky and the
dark on darkness that marked masses of trees and long spurs of the
mountain. The air was sweet and chilly, frogs were peeping, from
somewhere near came the steady rush of a swollen creek.
While Julia stood on the porch a livery hack from the village creaked
up, and stopped ten feet away. The horses were blowing on the steep
grade, and a strong odour from the animals and their sweated harness
smote the pure night air. The carriage lanterns sent a wavering
brightness across the muddy road, the grass looked artificial in the
yellow light. Miss Toland, vociferating apology and explanation, emerged
from the carriage.
When Richard came back from his fruitless errand he found both women
enjoying the fire, Miss Toland's skirt folded over her knees, her veil
pushed up on her forehead. In his enormous relief, Richie felt that he
could have danced and sung. He busied himself brewing a hot drink for
the older woman.
"Richie," said Julia, with a pleasant childish note of triumphant
reproach in her voice, "was worried to _death_ because I was here alone
with Anna! Don't you think he's crazy, Aunt Sanna?"
"Why, you two have been here alone?" Miss Toland asked, stirring her
chocolate.
"No, we haven't!" Julia answered cheerfully. "I never thought of it
before; but this dear old maid either has you here, or Janey, or Doctor
Brice's Mary from the village--isn't he queer?"
"It isn't as if you weren't practically brother and sister, Richie,"
Miss Toland said moderately. "Not too much butter, dear!" she
interpolated, in reference to the toast her nephew was making, adding a
moment later, "Still, I don't know--a pretty woman in your position
can't be too careful, Julia!"
"Oh, Lord, you're an appreciative pair!" Richard said disgustedly, going
out to the kitchen for more bread.
Presently Miss Toland complained of fatigue, and left them to the fire.
And sitting there, almost silent, Julia thought that she had never found
her host so charming before. His rambling discourse amused her, touched
her; she loved his occasional shy introduction of a line of poetry, his
eager snatching of a book now and then to illuminate some point with
half a page of prose.
"Pleasant, isn't this, Rich?" she asked lazily, in a quiet interval.
"Oh, _pleasant_!" He cleared his throat. "Yes--it's very pleasant!"
"And why couldn't you and I have done this just as well without Aunt
Sanna?" Julia asked triumphantly.
Richard gave her a look full of all-dignified endurance, a look that
wondered a little that she could like to give him pain.
"No reason at all," said he. And a sudden suspicion flamed in Julia's
heart with all the surety of an inspiration.
The revelation came in absolute completeness; she had never even
suspected Richie's little tragedy before. For a few moments Julia sat
stunned, then she said seriously:
"I always feel myself so much Jim's wife, Rich; I suppose it's a sort of
protection to me. It never occurs to me that any one could think me less
bound than I think myself."
"Sure you do!" Richard said, struggling with the back log. "But other
people might not! And it would be rotten to have him come back and hear
anything."
"I suppose he'll come back," Julia said, dreamily, almost in a whisper.
"I don't think of it much, now! I used to think of it a good deal at
first; I used to cry all night long sometimes, and write him long
letters that I never sent. It seemed as if the longing for him was
burning me up, like a fire!"
"Damn him!" Richard muttered.
"Oh, no, Richie, don't say that!" Julia protested. Richard, still on one
knee, with the poker in his hand, turned to her almost roughly.
"For God's sake, Julie, don't defend him! I'll hold my tongue about him,
I suppose, as I always have done, but don't pretend he has any excuse
for treating you this way! You--the best and sweetest and bravest woman
that ever lived, bringing happiness and decency wherever you go--"
"Richie, Richie, stop!" Julia protested, between laughter and tears.
"Don't talk so! I _will_ defend Jim," she added gravely, "and he _did_ have
an excuse. It seems unfair to me that he should have all the blame." She
held her hand out, fingers spread to the reviving flame, rosy and
transparent in the glow.
"Rich, no one knows this but Jim and me; not Aunt Sanna, not my own
mother," she presently resumed. "But it makes what he did a little
clearer, and I'm going to tell you."
"Don't tell me anything," said Richard gruffly, eyes on the fire.
"Yes, I want to," Julia answered. But she was silent for a while, a look
of infinite sadness on her musing face. "I made a serious mistake when I
was a girl, Rich," she went on, after an interval. "I had no reason for
it--not great love, or great need. I had no excuse. Or, yes, I did have
this excuse: I had been spoiled; I had been told that I was unusual,
independent, responsible to nobody. I knew that this thing existed all
about me, and if I thought of it at all, I suppose I thought that there
could be nothing so very dreadful about what men did as a matter of
course! Perhaps that's the best explanation; my mind was like a young
boy's. I didn't particularly seek out this thing, or want this thing;
but I was curious, and it came my way--
"Don't misunderstand me, Richie. I wasn't 'betrayed.' I'd had, I
suppose, as little good instruction, as little example, and watching and
guarding as any girl in the world. But I knew better! Just as every boy
knows better, and is taken, sooner or later, unawares. Of course, if I'd
been a boy--all this would be only a memory now, hardly shameful or
regrettable even, dim and far away! Especially as it lasted only a few
weeks, before I was sixteen!
"And, of course, people would say that I haven't paid the full penalty,
being a girl instead of a boy! Look at poor Tess, and Trilby, and Hetty
in 'Adam Bede!' I never let any one know it; even your aunt never would
have overlooked _that_, whatever she might say now. No; even Jim protected
me--and yet," Julia put her head back, shut her eyes, "and yet I've paid
a thousand times!" said she.
There was a long silence, and then Richard said:
"I've thought sometimes this might be it, Ju. Being alone so much, and
reading and thinking--I've worked it out in my own mind. Aunt Sanna saw
Jim in Berlin two years ago, you know, and gave him a horrible raking
over the coals, and just from what she quoted, it seemed as if there was
some secret about it, and that it lay with you. Then, of course," Richie
eased his lame leg by stretching it at full length before him, sinking
down in his chair, finger tips meeting, "of course I knew Jim," he
resumed. "Jim's pride is his weak point. He's like a boy in that: he
wants everything or nothing. He's like all my mother's children," said
Richie, comfortably analytical, "undisciplined. Chill penury never
repressed our noble rages; we never knew the sweet uses of adversity. I
did, of course, but here I am, a childless getting on in years, not apt
to leave a deep impression on the coming generation. It's a funny world,
Julie! It's a strange sort of civilization to pose under the name of
Christ. Christ had no double standard of morals; Christ forgave. Law is
all very well, society has its uses, I have no doubt, but there are
higher standards than either!" "Well, that has come to me forcibly
during the past few years," Julia said thoughtfully. "I wasn't a praying
small girl; how could I be? But after I went to The Alexander, being
physically clean and respectable made me long to be clean all over, I
suppose, and I began to go to church, and after a while I went to
confession, Rich, and I felt made over, as if all the stain of it had
slipped away! And then Jim came, and I told him all about it--"
"Before you were married?"
"Oh, Richie, of course!"
"Well, then, what--if he knew--"
"Oh, Richie, that's the terrible part. For I thought it was all dead and
gone, and it _was_ all dead and gone as far as I was concerned! But we
couldn't forget it--it suddenly seemed a live issue all over again; it
just rose and stood between us, and I felt so helpless, and poor Jim, I
think he was helpless, too!"
Richard made no comment, and there was a silence.
"You know Jim wasn't a--wasn't exactly a saint, Ju," Richard said
awkwardly after a while.
"I know," she answered with a quick nod.
"I believe he was an exceptionally decent fellow, as fellows go,"
pursued Richie. "But, of course, it is the accepted thing. On Jim's
first vacation, after he entered college, he told me he didn't care much
for that sort of thing--we had a long talk about it. But a year or two
later there was a young woman--he used to call her 'the little girl'--I
don't know exactly--Anyway, Dad went East, there was some sort of a
fuss, and I know Jim treated her awfully well--there never was any
question of that--she never felt anything but gratitude to him, whatever
grievances she had about any one else--"
His voice dropped.
"But it's not the same thing," Julia said with a sigh.
"No, I suppose not," Richard agreed.
"Life has been too violent and too swift with me," Julia resumed, after
a while. "If I had the past fifteen years to live over again, I would
live them very differently. I made an idol of Jim; he could do no wrong.
He wanted more bracing treatment than that; he should have been boldly
faced down. If I had been wiser, I would have treated all my marriage
differently. If I had been very wise, I should not have married at all,
should have kept my own secret. Perhaps, marrying, I should not have
told him the truth; I don't know. Anyway, I have mixed things up
hopelessly, given other people and myself an enormous amount of pain,
and wrecked my life and Jim's. And now, when I am thirty, I feel as if I
could begin to see light, begin to live--as if now, when nothing on
earth seems really important, I knew how to meet life!"
"Well, that's been my attitude for some years," Richie said, shifting
his lame leg again. "Of course I started in handicapped, which is a
great advantage--"
"Advantage? Oh, Richie!" Julia protested.
"Yes, it is, from one point of view," he insisted whimsically. "'Who
loses his life,' you know. Most boys and girls start off into life like
kites in a high wind without tails. There's a glorious dipping and
plunging and sailing for a little while, and then down they come in a
tangle of string and paper and broken wood. I had a tail to start with,
some humiliating deficiency to keep me balanced. No football and tennis
for me, no flirting and dancing and private theatricals. When Bab and
Ned were in one whirl of good times, I was working out chess problems to
make myself forget my hip, and reading Carlyle and Thoreau and Emerson.
Nobody is born content, Ju, and nobody has it thrust upon him; just a
few achieve it. I worked over the secret of happiness as if it was the
multiplication table. Happiness is the best thing in the world. It's
only a habit, and I've got it."
"_Is_ happiness the best thing in the world, Rich?" Julia asked wistfully.
"I think it is; real happiness, which doesn't necessarily mean a box at
the Metropolitan and a touring car," Richie said, smiling. "It seems to
me, to have a little house up here on the mountain, and to have people
here like me, and let me take care of them--"
"For nothing?" interposed Julia.
"Don't you believe it! I didn't write a cheque last month! Anyway, it
suits me. I have books, and letters, and a fire, and now and then a
friend or two--and now and then Julia and Anna to amuse me!"
"I'm happy, too," Julia said thoughtfully. "I realized it some time
ago--oh, a year ago! I feel just as you might feel, Rich, if you had
left some critical operation unfinished, or done in a wrong way, and
then gone back to do it over. I feel as if, in going back to first
principles, and doing what I could for my own people, I had 'trued' a
part of my life, if you can understand that! I had gone climbing and
blundering on, and reached a point where I couldn't help myself, but
they were just where they started, and I _could_ help them!"
"It was probably the best thing you could have done for yourself, at the
same time," Richard interpolated, with a swift glance.
"Oh, absolutely!" Julia laughed a little sadly. "I was like an animal
that goes out and eats a weed: I had a wild instinct that if I rushed
into my grandmother's house, and bullied everybody there, and simply
shrieked and stamped on the dirt and laziness and complaining, on the
whole wretched system that I grew up under, in short, that it would be a
heavenly relief! My dear Richie," and Julia laughed again, and more
naturally, "I wonder they didn't tar and feather me, and throw me out of
the house! I scoured and burned and scolded and bossed them all like a
madwoman. I told them that we had enough money to keep the house
decently, and always had had, but, my dear! I never dreamed the whole
crowd would fall in line so soon!"
"But, my Lord, Julie, what else could they do? You were paying all the
expenses, I suppose?"
"No, indeed I wasn't! Chester has a pretty fair salary now, and my
aunt's boys are awfully good about helping out. And then Muriel has a
position, and Evelyn is in a fair way to be a rich woman. Besides, the
mere question of where money is coming from never worried my people!
They managed as well with almost nothing at all, as with a really
adequate amount--which is to say that they don't know in the least what
the word manage means! Jim left me an immense sum, Rich, but I've never
touched anything but the interest. When we shingled or carpeted or
gardened out there, we paid for it by degrees, and it cost, I must
admit, only about one third of what it would have been on the other side
of town. I look back now at those first months, more than four years
ago," went on Julia, smiling as she leaned forward in her low chair, her
hands locked about her knees, her thoughtful eyes on the flickering
logs, "and I wonder we didn't all rise up in the night and kill each
other. I was like a person with a death wound, struggling madly through
the little time left me, absolutely indifferent to what any one thought.
I simply wanted to die fighting, to register one furious protest against
all the things I'd hated, and suffered, too! I remember reporters
coming, at first, wild with curiosity to know what took Doctor
Studdiford abroad, and why Mrs. Studdiford was living in a labourer's
house in the Mission. What impression they got I haven't the faintest
idea. Once or twice women called, just curious of course, Mrs. Hunter
and Miss Saunders--but that soon stopped. I was better hidden on
Shotwell Street than I would have been in the heart of India! Miss
Saunders came in, and met Mama and Grandma; we were having the kitchen
calcimined, the place was pretty well upset, I remember. Dear me, how
little what they thought or did or said seemed to count, when my whole
life was one blazing, agonizing cry for Jim!"
"That got better?" Richard asked huskily, after a pause.
"Rich, I think the past two, well, three years, have been the happiest
in my life," Julia said soberly. "My feet have been on solid ground. I
not only seem to understand my life better as it is, but all the past
seems clearer, too. I thought Jim was like myself, Richie, but he
wasn't; his whole viewpoint was different; perhaps that's why we loved
each other so!"
"And suppose he comes back?" Richard asked.
Julia frowned thoughtfully.
"Oh, Richie, how do I know! It's all so mixed up. Everybody, even Aunt
Sanna, thinks that he will! Everybody thinks I am a patient,
much-enduring wife, waiting for the end of an inexplicable situation.
Aunt Sanna thinks it's temporary aberration. Your father thinks there's
another woman in it. Your mother confided to Aunt Sanna that it is her
opinion that Bab refused Jim, and Jim married from pique."
"That sounds like Mother!" Richie said with a dry laugh.
"Doesn't it?" Julia smiled. "But the truth is," she added, "Jim has no
preconcerted plan. He's made a very close man friend or two in Germany,
belongs to a doctors' club. I know him so well! He lets the days, and
the weeks, and the years go by, forgetting me and everything that
concerns me as much as he can, and getting into a slow, dull rage
whenever he remembers that fate hit him, of all men in the world, such a
blow!"
"And the baby?" said Richie. "Don't you suppose she counts? Oh, Lord, to
have a kid of one's own," he added slowly, with the half-smiling sigh
Julia knew so well.
"I imagine she would count if he had seen her lately," Julia suggested.
"But she was such a tiny scrap! And Jim, as men go, isn't a lover of
children."
"You wouldn't divorce him, Julie?" Richard asked, after a silence.
"Oh, never!" she answered quickly. "No, I won't do that." She smiled.
"Yet, Rich," she added presently, "it's a strange thing to me that
really my one dread is that he will come back. I _think_ he means nothing
to me, yet, if I saw him--I don't know! Sometimes I worry for fear that
he might want Anna, and of course I wouldn't give her up if it meant a
dozen divorces."
Richard sat staring into the fire for a few moments; then he roused
himself to ask smilingly:
"How'd we get started on this little heart to heart, anyway?"
"Well, I don't know," Julia said, smiling, too. "I couldn't talk of it
for a long while. I can't now, to any one but you. But it all means less
to me than it did. Jim never could hurt me now as he did then." She
straightened up in her chair. "It's been a wonderful talk!" she said,
with shining eyes. "And you're a friend in a million, Richie, dear! And
now," very practically, "where are you going to sleep, my dear? Aunt
Sanna has your room."
"This couch out here is made up!" Richard said, with a backward jerk of
his head toward the room behind him.
"Ah, then you're all right!" Julia rose, and stopped behind his chair
for a moment, to lay a light kiss on his hair. "Good-night, Little
Brother!" she said affectionately.
Instantly one of the bony hands shot out, and Julia felt her wrist
caught as in a vise. Richard swiftly twisted about and got on his own
feet, and for a minute their eyes glittered not many inches apart. Julia
tried to laugh, but she was breathing fast.
"_Richard_!" she said in a sharp whisper. "What is it?"
"Julia!" he choked, breathing hard.
For a long moment they remained motionless, staring at each other. Then
Richard's grip on her wrists relaxed, and he sank into his deep chair,
dropped his elbows on his knees, and put his hands over his face. Julia
stood watching him for a second.
"Good-night, Richie!" she said then, almost inaudibly.
"Good-night!" he whispered through his shut fingers. Julia slipped
softly away, closing the door of her bedroom noiselessly behind her.
Anna was asleep in the upper bed, lying flat on her back, with her
lovely hair falling loosely about her flushed little face. The little
cabin bedroom was as sweet as the surrounding woodland, wide-open
windows admitted the fragrant coolness of the spring night. There was no
moon, but the sky that arched high above the little valley was thickly
spattered with stars. Richie's cat, a shadow among paler shadows, leaped
swiftly over the new grass. Julia got the milky odour of buttercups, the
breath of the little Persian lilac that flanked one end of the porch.
Her heart was beating thickly and excitedly, she did not want to think
why. Through her brain swept a confusion of thoughts, thoughts
disconnected and chaotic. She tried to remember just what words on her
part--on Richard's--had led to that strange mad moment of revelation,
but the memory of the moment itself overleaped all those preceding it.
Julia knelt, her elbows on the window sill, and felt merely that she
never wanted to move again. She wanted just to kneel here, hugging to
her heart the thrilling emotion of the moment, realizing afresh that
life was not dead in her; youth and love were not dead in her; she could
still tremble and laugh and cry in the exquisite joy of being beloved.
And it was Richie, so weak in body, so powerful in spirit; so humble in
little things, so bold and sure in the things that are great; not rich
in money, but rich in wisdom and goodness; Richie, who knew all her
pitiful history now, and had long suspected it, who loved her! Julia
knew even now that it was an ill-fated love; she knew that deep under
this first strangely thrilling current of pride and joy ran the cold
waters of renunciation. But cool reason had little to do with this mood;
she was as mad as any girl whose senses are suddenly, blindly, set free
by a lover's first kiss.
After a while she began mechanically to undress, brushed her hair, moved
about softly in the uncertain candlelight. And as she did so she became
more and more unable to resist the temptation to say "Good-night" to
Richie again. Neither brain nor heart was deeply involved in this
desire, but some influence, stronger than either, urged her irresistibly
toward its fulfilment.
She would not do it, of course! Not that there was harm in it; what
possible harm could there be in her putting her head into the
sitting-room and simply saying "Good-night?" Still, she would not do it.
A glance at herself in the dimly lighted mirror set her pulses to
leaping again. Surely candlelight had never fallen on a more exquisite
face, framed in so shining and soft an aureole of bright hair. The long
loose braid fell over her shoulder, a fine ruffle of thin linen lay at
the round firm base of her throat. She was still young--still
beautiful--
Anna stirred, sighed in her sleep. And instantly Julia had extinguished
the candle, and was bending tenderly over the child.
"It's only Mother, Sweet! Are you warm enough, dear? You _feel_
beautifully warm! Let Mother turn you over--so!"
"Is it morning, Mother?" murmured Anna.
"No, my heart! Mother's just going to bed." And ten minutes later Julia
was asleep, her face as serene as the child's own.
The morning brought her only a shamed memory of the night before and its
moods, and as Richie was quite his natural self, Julia determined to
dismiss the matter as a passing moment of misinterpreted sentiment on
both their parts. To-day was a Sunday, so perfect that they had
breakfast on the porch, and in the afternoon took a long climb on the
mountainside, across patches of blossoming manzanita, and through
meadows sweet with the liquid note of rising larks. They came back in
the twilight: Anna limp and drowsy on Richard's shoulders, Miss Toland
admitting to fatigue, but all three ready to agree with Julia's estimate
that it had been a wonderful Sunday.
But night brought to two of them that new and strange self-consciousness
that each had been secretly dreading all day. Julia fought it as she
might have fought the oncoming of a physical ill, yet inexorably it
arrived. Supper was an ordeal, she found speech difficult, she could
hardly raise her eyes.
"Julie, you're as rosy as a little gipsy," said Miss Toland approvingly.
"Doesn't colour become her, Rich?"
"She looks fine," Richard muttered, almost inarticulately. Julia looked
up only long enough to give Miss Toland a pained and fluttering smile.
She was glad of an excuse to disappear with Anna, when the little girl's
bedtime arrived, and lingered so long in the bedroom that Miss Toland
came and rapped on the door.
"Julia! What _are_ you doing?" called the older woman impatiently. Julia
came to the door.
"Why, I'm so tired, Aunt Sanna," she began smilingly.
"Tired, nonsense!" Miss Toland said roundly. "Come sit on the porch with
Richie and me. It's like summer out of doors, and there'll be a moon!"
So Julia went to take her place on the porch steps, with a great curved
branch of the white rose arching over her head, and the fragrant stretch
of the grassy hilltop sloping away, at her feet, to the valley far
below. Miss Toland dozed, and the younger people talked a little, and
were silent for long spaces between the little casual sentences that
to-night seemed so full of meaning.
The next day Julia went home, to Miss Toland's disgust and to little
Anna's sorrow. Richie drove Julia and the little girl to the train;
there was no explanation needed between them; at parting they looked
straight into each other's eyes.
"Ask us to come again some day," Julia said. "Not too soon, but as soon
as you can. And don't let us ever feel that we've done anything that
will hurt or distress you, Richie."
"You and Anna are both angels," Richard answered. "Only tell me that you
forgive me, Julie; that things after this will be just as they were
before?"
Julia smiled, and bit a thoughtful under lip.
"This is March," she said. "We'll come and see you, let me see--in July,
and everything shall be just as it was before! Perhaps I am really
getting old," she said to herself, half laughing and half sad, when she
was in her own kitchen an hour or two later. "But, while home is not
exciting, somehow I'd rather be here than philandering on the mountain
in the moonlight with Richie!"
"What you smiling about, Julie?" her mother asked, from the peaceful
east side of the kitchen where her chair frequently stood while Julia
and Mrs. Torney were busy in that cheerful apartment.
"Just thinking it was nice to be home again, Mama!"
"I don't hold much with visiting, myself," said Mrs. Torney, who was
becoming something of a philosopher as she went into old age. "But you
can't get that through a young one's skull!" she added, trimming the
dangling pastry from a pie with masterly strokes of her knife. "Either
you have such a good time that your own home is spoiled for you, for
dear knows how long, or else you set around wondering why on earth you
ever come. And then you've got to have the folks back to visit you, and
wear yourself all out talking like all possessed while you cook for 'em
and make their beds. I don't never feel clean when I've washed my face
away from home anyway, and I like my own bed under me. You couldn't get
me to visit anywheres now, if it was the Queen of Spain ast me!"
Julia laughed out merrily, and agreed with her aunt, glad to have left
the episode with Richie behind her. But it haunted her for many days,
nevertheless, rising like a disturbing mist between her and her calm
self-confidence, and shaking her contented conviction that the
renunciations necessary to her peace of mind had all been made. She
found fresh reason to gird herself in circumspection and silence, and
brooded, a little in discouragement, upon the incessantly recurring
problems of her life.
She went to visit the cabin on Tamalpais earlier even than she had
promised, however, for in June Barbara came home for a visit, bringing
two splendid little boys, with whom Anna fell instantly in love, and a
tiny baby in the care of a nurse. Julia spent a good deal of her time in
Sausalito during the visit, and more than once she and Barbara took the
four children to Mill Valley, and spent a few days with Richie, quite as
happy as the boys and Anna were in the free country life.
Five years of marriage had somewhat changed Barbara; she was thinner,
and freckled rather than rosy, and she wore her thick dark hair in a
fashion Julia did not very much admire. Also she seemed to care less for
dress than she once had done, even though what she wore was always the
handsomest of its kind. But she was an eagerly admiring and most devoted
wife, calmly assuming that the bronzed and silent "Francis" could do no
wrong, and Julia thought she had never seen a more charming and
conscientious mother. Barbara, whose husband's uncle was a lord, who had
been presented at the English court, and whose mail was peppered with
coats-of-arms, nursed her infant proudly and publicly, and was heard to
mention to old friends--not always women either--social events that had
occurred "just before Geordie came" or "when I was expecting Arthur."
Her rather thin face would brighten to its old beauty when Geordie and
Arthur, stamping in, bare kneed and glowing, recounted to her the joys
of Sausalito, and in evening dress she was quite magnificent, and
somehow seemed more at ease than American women ever do. Her efficiency
left even the capable Julia gasping and outdistanced. Barbara was equal
to every claim husband, children, family, and friends could make. She
came down to an eight o'clock breakfast, a chattering little son on each
side of her, announcing briskly that the tiny Malcolm had already had
his bath. She started the little people on the day's orderly round of
work and play while opening letters and chatting with her father; earned
the housemaid's eternal affection by personally dusting the big
drawing-room and replacing the flowers; answered the telephone in her
pleasantly modulated voice; faced her husband during his ten o'clock
breakfast, and discussed the foreign news with him in a manner Julia
thought extraordinarily clever; and at eleven came with the baby into
her mother's sunny morning-room for a little feminine gossip over
Malcolm's second breakfast. Barbara never left a note unanswered, no old
friend was neglected; tea hour always found the shady side porch full of
callers, children strayed from the candy on the centre table to the
cakes near the teapot, the doctor's collie lay panting in the doorway.
Barbara's rich soft laugh, the new tones that her voice had gained in
the past years, somehow dominated everything. Julia felt a vague new
restlessness and discontent assail her at this contact with Barbara's
full and happy life. Perhaps Barbara suspected it, for her generous
inclusion of Julia, when plans of any sort were afoot, knew no limit.
She won Anna's little heart with a thousand affectionate advances; loved
to have the glowing beauty of the little girl as a foil for her own
dark-haired boys.
"You're so busy--and necessary--and unself-conscious, Barbara," Julia
said, "you make other women seem such fools!"
It was a heavenly July afternoon, and the two were following Richie and
the children down one of the mountain roads above Mill Valley. Barbara,
who had acquired an Englishwoman's love of nursery picnics, had lured
her husband to join them to-day, and Julia had been pleasantly surprised
to see how fatherly the Captain was with his small boys, how willing to
go for water and tie dragging little shoe laces. But presently the
soldier grew restless, stared about him for a few moments, and finally
decided to leave the ladies and children to Richie's escort, and walk to
the summit of the mountain and back, as a means of working off some
excess of energy and gaining an appetite for dinner. He apparently did
not hear Barbara's warning not to be late, and her entreaty to be
careful, merely giving her a stolid glance in answer to these eager
suggestions, and remarking to the boys, who begged to accompany him a
little way: "Naow, naow, I tell you you carn't, so don't make little
arsses of yourselves blabbering abaout it!"
This, however, was taken in good part by his family; there was much
waving of hands and many shouted good wishes as he walked rapidly out of
hearing.
"Poor Francis, I hope he's going to enjoy his walk," Barbara said, as
they started homeward. "He gets so bored out here in California!"
"I wonder why?" Julia said, hiding a Californian's resentment.
"Oh, well, it _is_ different, Ju--you can't deny it! One wants to be
loyal, and all that," Barbara said, "but in England there's a
_purpose_--there's a recognized order to life! They're not eternally
experimenting; they don't want to be idle and ignorant like our
women--they've got better things to do. There's a finish and a
pleasantness about life in London; men have more leisure to take an
interest in women's work; why, you've no idea how many interesting,
clever, charming men I know in London! How many does one know here? And
as for the _women_--"
It was then Julia said:
"Ah, well, you're different from other women. You're so busy--and
necessary--and unself-conscious, Barbara. You make other women seem such
fools!"
"Not necessarily," said Barbara, smiling. "And don't think I'm horribly
conceited, Julia, talking this way. It's only to you!" They walked a
little way without speaking, and then Barbara sat down on a low bank,
some quarter of a mile above Richie's cabin, and added: "Do sit down,
Ju. You and I are never alone, and I want to talk to you. Julie, don't
be angry--it's about Jim."
Julia's eyes immediately widened, her lips met firmly, she grew a little
pale.
"Go ahead," she said steadily. "Have you seen him?"
Barbara answered the question with another.
"You knew he was in London?"
"No," said Julia, "I didn't know it."
She had remained standing, and now Barbara urged her again to sit down.
But Julia would not, pleading that she would rather walk, and in the end
Barbara got up, and they began slowly to walk down the road together.
"Tell me," Julia commanded then.
"Now, dearest girl," Barbara pleaded, "_Please_ don't get excited over
nothing. Jim's been in London nearly a year; in fact, he's settled
there. He's associated with one of the biggest consulting surgeons we
have, old Sir Peveril McCann. They met in Berlin. I didn't know it until
this spring--March it was. We'd just come up from the country to meet
Francis, home on a year's leave; it was just before Malcolm arrived.
Somebody spoke of this Doctor Studdiford, and I said at once that it
must be my foster brother. I explained as well as I could that since
Francis and I had been travelling so much, Jim and I had fallen out of
touch, and so on."
"Who told you about him?" Julia asked.
"A Mrs. Chancellor. She's quite a character," Barbara said. "Some people
like her; some don't. I don't--much. She's rich, and a widow; she
studies art, and she loves to get hold of interesting people."
Julia winced at the vision of a plump, forty-year-old siren sending
coquettish side glances at an admiring Jim. Anger stirred dully within
her.
"Pretty?" she asked, in as nonchalant a voice as she could command.
"Ivy Chancellor? No--she's really plain," Barbara said, "a sandy,
excitable little chatterbox, that's what _she_ is! She's Lady Violet
Dray's daughter; Lady Violet's quite lovely. How much Jim admires Ivy I
can't say; she took him about with her everywhere; he was always at the
house."
This was too much. Julia felt the friendly earth sway under her, a dry
salty taste was in her mouth, a very hurricane of resentment shook her
heart.
"Oh, Barbara, do you see how he _can_?" she asked, in a stricken voice.
"No, I don't!" Barbara answered, with a concerned glance at Julia's
white face. "Well, as I know him, I can't believe it's the same Jim!"
"I wish you had seen him," Julia said, after an interval of thought.
Barbara said nothing for a few moments, then she confessed suddenly:
"I _did_ see him, Julie."
"You did? Oh, Bab, and you never told me all this time!"
"Well, Mother and Aunt Sanna begged me not to, Ju, and Francis was most
emphatic about it," Barbara pleaded.
"Aunt Sanna--and Francis! But--" Julia's keen eyes read Barbara's face
like an open page. "Then there was more to it!" she declared. "For they
couldn't have minded my knowing just this!"
"I wish I had never mentioned Jim," Barbara said heartily. "It's none of
my business, anyway, only--only--it makes me so unhappy I just can't
bear it! I simply can't bear it!" And to Julia's astonishment, Barbara,
who rarely showed emotion, fumbled for her handkerchief and began to
cry. "I love Jim," pursued Barbara, with that refreshed vehemence that
follows a brief interval of tears. "And you're just as dear to me as my
own sisters--dearer! And I can't _bear_ to have you and that _darling_ baby
here alone, and Jim off in trailing around after a little _fool_ like Ivy
Chancellor! I can't bear it," said Barbara, drying her eyes, which
threatened to overflow again. "It's monstrous! You're--you're wonderful,
of course, Julie, but you can't make me think you're happy! And Jim is
_wretched_. I've known him since I was a baby, and he can't fool _me_! He
can bluff about his work and his club and all that as long as he
pleases! But he can't fool _me_; I know he's utterly miserable."
"And you saw him?" Julia asked.
They were in a little strip of woods just above Richard's cabin now, and
Julia seated herself on the low-hanging branch of an oak. Her face, as
she turned to Barbara, was full of resolute command.
"Sit down, Bab," she said, indicating a thick fallen log a few feet
away. "Tell me all about it."
"Francis would strangle me," Barbara murmured, seating herself
nevertheless. "And there isn't very much to it, anyway," she added, with
a bright air of candour. "I wrote Jim a line, and he came to our house
in Ludbroke Road, and we had a little talk. He's fatter. He was awfully
interested in some knee-cap operation--"
"Babbie!" Julia reproached her.
"And we talked about everything," Barbara hastened to say.
"Me?" Julia asked flatly.
"A little," Barbara admitted. "I had nurse bring the boys in--"
"Oh, Barbara, for God's sake tell me!" Julia said, in an agonized burst.
"Oh, Julie--if only I'm doing the right thing!" Barbara answered in
distress.
"This _is_ the right thing," Julia assured her. "This is my affair."
"Francis and Mother--" Barbara began again, hesitatingly. But
immediately she dismissed the doubts with a shake of her head, and
suddenly assuming a confident air, she began: "I'll tell you exactly
what happened, Ju. Jim came one afternoon; I was all alone, and we had
tea. He's very much changed, Ju. He's harder, in some way, and--well,
changed. Jim never used to be able to conceal his feelings, you know,
but now--why, one feels that he's dissembling all the time! He was so
friendly, and cheerful, and interested--and yet--There was something
all wrong. He didn't exactly _evade_ the subject of you and Anna, but he
just said 'Yes?' or 'No?' when I talked of you--"
"I know exactly how," Julia said, wincing at some memory.
"I touched him on the quick finally," Barbara pursued; "something I said
about you made him colour up, that brick-red colour of his--"
"I know!" Julia said quickly again.
"But, Julia," Barbara added earnestly, "you've no _idea_ how hard it was!
I told him how grieved and troubled we all were by this silence between
you, and I went and got that snapshot Rich took of Anna, you know, the
one with the collies. Well, way in the back of that picture you were
snapped, too, the tiniest little figure, for you were way down by the
road, and Anna close to the porch. But, my dear, he hardly glanced at
Anna; he said in a quick, hushed sort of voice, 'What's she in black
for?' Then I saw your picture for the first time, and said, 'Why, that
must be Julia!' 'Certainly, it's Julia,' he said. I told him your
grandmother had died, and he said, 'But she's still needed there, is
she?' That was the first sign of _anything_ like naturalness. And, oh, Ju,
if only it had happened that Francis didn't come in then! But he did,
starving for his tea, and wondering who on earth the man that I was
sitting in the dark with was--it was so unfortunate! You know Francis
thinks we've all spoiled Jim, always, and he looked right over him. I
said, 'Francis, you remember my brother?' and Francis said, with a
really insulting accent, 'Perfectly!' Jim said something about liking
London and hoping to settle there, and Francis said, 'Studdiford, I'm
glad you've come to see my wife, and I hope the affection you two have
felt for years won't be hurt by what I say. But I admire your own wife
very deeply, and you've put her in a most equivocal and humiliating
position. I can't pretend that I hope you'll settle here; you've caused
the people who love you sufficient distress as it is. I don't see that
your staying here is going to make anything any easier, while things are
as they are in California!' My dear," said Barbara with a sigh, "Francis
gets that way sometimes; English people do--there seems to be a sort of
moral obligation upon them to say what's true, no matter how
outrageously rude it sounds!"
"I had no idea Captain Fox felt that way," Julia said, touched.
"Oh, my dear! He's one of your warmest admirers. Well," Barbara went on,
"of course Jim ruffled up like a turkey cock. I didn't dare say
anything, and Francis, having done his worst, was really pretty fair.
Luckily, some other people came in, and later I went with Jim to the
nursery. Then he said to me, 'Do you think Julia's position is
equivocal, Bab?' And I said, 'Jim, I never knew any one to care so
little for public opinion as Julia. But all the rumour and gossip, the
unexplained mystery of it, are very, very hard for her.' I said, 'Jim,
aren't you going back?' and he said, 'Never.' Then he said, 'I think
Francis is right. This way is neither one thing nor the other. It ought
to be settled. Not,' he said, 'that I want to marry again!' I said,
'Jim, you _couldn't_ marry again, don't talk that way!' He said something
about my clinging to old ideas, and I said, 'Jim, don't tell me you have
given up your faith?' He said, very airily, 'I'm not telling you
anything, my dear girl, but if the law will set me free, perhaps that's
the best way of silencing Francis's remarks about Julia's equivocal
position!'"
Julia was silent for a while, staring beyond Barbara, her eyes like
those of a sick person, her face ashen. Barbara began to feel
frightened.
"So that's it," Julia said finally, in a tired, cold voice.
"Ju--it's too dreadful to hurt you this way!" Barbara said. "But that's
not all. The only reason I told you all this was because Jim may be
coming home; he may come on in October, and want to see you. Francis
thinks--But it seems too cruel to let him come on and take you by
surprise!"
"Oh, my God!" said Julia, in a low, tense tone, "what utter wreck I have
made of my life! Why is it," she said, springing up and beginning to
walk again, "why is it that I am so helpless, why must I sit still and
let the soul be torn out of my body! My child must grow up
fatherless--under a cloud--"
"Julie! Julie!" Barbara begged, wild with anxiety, as she kept pace
beside Julia on the dry brown grass. "Dearest, don't, or you'll make me
feel terribly for having told you!"
"Oh, no--no," Julia said, suddenly calm and weary. "You had to tell me!"
The two walked slowly on for a moment, in silence, then Julia added
passionately: "Oh, what a wretched, miserable business! Oh, Bab, why do
I simply have to go from one agony to another? I'm so tired of being
unhappy; I'm so wretched!" Her voice fell, the fire went out of her
tone. "I'm tired," she said, in a voice that seemed to Barbara curiously
in keeping with the flat, toneless summer twilight, the dull brown
hills, the darkening sky, the dry slippery grass over which a cool swift
breeze was beginning to wander. "If Anna and I could only run away from
it all!" said Julia sombrely.
"Julie, just one thing." Barbara hesitated. "Shall you see Jim?"
Julia paused, and their eyes met in the gloom. Barbara thought she had
never seen anything more marked than the tragic intensity of the other
woman's face. Julia might have been a young priestess, the problems of
the world on her shoulders.
"That I can't say, Bab," she answered thoughtfully. And a moment later
they reached the cabin, and were welcomed by Richie and the children.