A CONVERSATION WITH JUDY
All of Vivienne’s unhappiness passed away with her night’s sleep. On
waking up to the bright, still beauty of a clear December morning her
naturally high spirits rose again.
“The Armours have really little power to afflict me,” she said, getting
out of bed with a gay laugh. “My attachment to them is altogether a
thing of duty, not affection. If they do not care for me I will leave
them. That is a simple matter,” and going to the window she drew in a
long breath of the fresh morning air and noted with delight the blueness
of the sky, the whiteness of the snow, and the darkness of the sombre
evergreens before the house, where a number of solemn crows sat cawing
harshly as if asking for some breakfast.
“Ah, it is cold,” she exclaimed, drawing her gown about her, “and I am
late. I must hurry.”
When she at last left her room the breakfast bell had long since rung.
She speedily made her way down the staircase, glancing critically
through open doors as she passed them.
“The furnishings are too gorgeous, too tropical,” she murmured; “and
flaming colors are everywhere. Evidently the person who furnished this
house had a barbaric fondness for bright shades.”
On arriving in the lower hall she paused before the dining-room door.
She could hear the tinkling of china and murmur of voices within. Then
with a composure not assumed but real she drew aside the curtain and
entered the room.
Mrs. Colonibel, handsome and imposing in a bright blue morning gown, sat
behind the silver coffee urn at the head of the table. She knew that
Vivienne had entered yet she took up a cream jug and gazed as
steadfastly into its depths as though she expected to find a treasure
there.
The corners of Vivienne’s lips drooped mischievously. “For all exquisite
torture to which one can be subjected,” she reflected, “commend me to
that inflicted on woman number two who enters the house of woman number
one who does not want her.”
Beside Mrs. Colonibel sat her daughter—a small misshapen girl, with
peering black eyes and elfish locks that straggled down each side of her
little wizened face and that she kept tossing back in a vain endeavor to
make them hide the lump on her deformed back.
“What a contrast,” thought Vivienne with a shudder, “between that poor
child and her blonde prosperous-looking mother.”
Colonel Armour, tall and stately, but looking not quite so young as he
had in the lamplight of the night before, sat—as if in compensation for
not occupying the seat at the foot of the table—on Mrs. Colonibel’s
right hand. Holding himself bolt upright and stirring his coffee gently,
he was addressing some suave and gracious remarks to the table in
general.
Stanton Armour, who sat opposite Mrs. Colonibel, made no pretense of
listening to him. Plunged in deep reflection he seemed to be eating and
drinking whatever came to hand.
Valentine, gay and careless, alternately listened to his father and
tried to balance a piece of toast on the edge of a fork.
“A happy family party,” murmured Vivienne; “what a pity to disturb it!”
The table maid, who was slipping noiselessly around the room, saw her
but said nothing. Mr. Valentine raising his eyes caught the maid’s
curious glances and turned around. Then he hurriedly got up.
“Good-morning. Flora, where is Miss Delavigne to sit?”
In some confusion she ejaculated: “I do not know; Jane bring another
chair.”
“Is there no place for Miss Delavigne?” said Mr. Armour in cold
displeasure. “Put the things beside me,” and he turned to the maid, who
with the greatest alacrity was bringing from the cupboard plates,
knives, and forks, enough for two or three people.
“What may I give you?” he went on when Vivienne was seated. “Porridge?
We all eat that. No, not any? Shall I give you some steak? Flora, Miss
Delavigne will have some coffee.”
Vivienne sat calmly—Mr. Armour on one side of her, his father on the
other—taking her breakfast almost in silence. A few remarks were
addressed to her—they evidently did not wish her to feel slighted—to
which she replied sweetly, but with so much brevity that no one was
encouraged to keep up a conversation with her.
There was apparently nothing in the well-bred composure of the people
about her to suggest antipathy, yet her sensitiveness on being thrown
into a hostile atmosphere was such that she could credit each one with
just the degree of enmity that was felt toward her.
After all, what did it matter? She would soon be away; and her dark face
flushed and her eyes shone, till the surreptitious observation of her
that all the other people at the table—except Mr. Armour—had been
carrying on bade fair to become open and unguarded.
Mrs. Colonibel’s heart stirred with rage and uneasiness within her. She
hated the girl for her youth and distinction, and with bitter jealousy
she noted her daughter’s admiring glances in Vivienne’s direction.
“Judy,” she said, when breakfast was over and the different members of
the family were separating, “will you do something for me in my room?”
“No, mamma,” said the girl coolly, and taking up the crutch beside her
chair she limped to Vivienne’s side. “Are you going to unpack your
boxes, Miss Delavigne?”
“Yes, I am.”
“May I go with you? I love to see pretty things.”
“Certainly,” murmured Vivienne; and suiting her pace to that of the lame
girl she went upstairs beside her.
“Bah,” said Judy, halting at the door of the pink room, “they have put
you in this atrocious rose-bed.”
“Pink is a charming color,” said Vivienne.
“Yes, in moderation. Come upstairs and see my rooms,” and she slowly
ascended another staircase.
Vivienne followed her to the story above, and through a third square
hall to a long narrow apartment running the whole length of the northern
side of the house.
Judy threw open the door. “Here,” she said, with a flourish of her hand,
“having everything against me, I yet managed to arrange a sitting room
where one is not in danger of being struck blind by some audacious blue
or purple or red. What do you think of it?”
Vivienne glanced about the exquisitely furnished room. “It is charming.”
“Come in,” said Judy, hospitably pulling up a little white chair before
the blazing fire. “We’ll have a talk.”
“Do you know,” she went on, seating herself beside Vivienne, “this used
to be a lumber room? I got Stanton to come up one day and look at it—he
is as artistic in his tastes as mamma is inartistic—and he suggested all
this. We cleared out the old furniture and put in those yellow panes of
glass to simulate sunshine, and got this satin paper because it would
light up well, and he had the white and gold furniture made for me. The
cream rugs were a present from Uncle Colonel. Here is my bedroom,” and
she hobbled to a door at the western end of the room and threw it open
for a full view of the room beyond.
“What a dainty place!” said Vivienne.
“An idea strikes me,” exclaimed Judy, hurrying to the other end of the
apartment. “Look here,” and she opened a second door.
Vivienne surveyed a small empty room.
“Wouldn’t you like this for a bedroom?” said Judy excitedly. “We can
share this big room in common. You can read and work here, for I am sure
you and I would pull well together, and like me you will just hate
sitting downstairs all the time.”
Vivienne smiled at her. “I should disturb you—and besides I have been
put in the room below.”
“You needn’t mind leaving it,” said Judy. “Mamma will be delighted to
get you out of it; it is one of the guest rooms.”
“Oh, in that case,” said Vivienne, “I will accept your invitation. You
will speak to Mrs. Colonibel?”
“I will go now,” said Judy, hurrying from the room. Vivienne sat down by
the fire and dropped her head upon her hands. “I am not likely to be
here long,” she said, “so it doesn’t matter.”
“Mamma is delighted,” she heard presently in a shrill voice. “I knew she
would be. There is some furniture that can be put in the room, and when
the servants finish their work below they will come up and arrange it.
What fun we shall have——”
Vivienne looked kindly at the little cynical face.
“’Till our first row,” said Judy, letting her crutch slip to the floor.
“I suppose I shall hate you as I do every other body who has a straight
back.”
Vivienne did not reply to her, and she went on peering restlessly into
her face. “Well, what do you think of us?”
“This is not my first acquaintance with the Armours,” said Vivienne
evasively.
“Ah, you were once here as a little child; but you don’t remember much
about them, do you?”
“I remember Mammy Juniper,” said Vivienne, with a laugh, “and that she
hated me and my father’s memory. I see that she still keeps up her
old-womanish habit of prowling about the house at night.”
“Yes,” said Judy peevishly; “and if we forget to lock our doors we find
her praying over us at unearthly hours.”
“She has been a faithful servant to the family, hasn’t she?” said
Vivienne.
“And she has a diabolical temper,” said Judy.
“Don’t you think that she is crazy?”
“A little perhaps, though I think that she pretends to be more so to
cover her inconsistencies. She belongs to the Armours, body and soul,
and prides herself on being a model Christian. I say the two things
don’t go together. The Armours haven’t been famed for devotion to the
cause of religion for some years.”
“She talks about Ephraim,” said Vivienne; “who is he?”
“Ephraim is Uncle Colonel,” said Judy, with a chuckle. “Did she mention
his having made a covenant with the Egyptians?”
“No.”
“He has; and the Assyrians are the people of Halifax. If you can get her
started on that you’ll be entertained,” and Judy began a low, intensely
amused laugh, which waxed louder till Vivienne at last joined her in it.
“It’s too funny,” said Judy, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I can even
make Stanton laugh telling him about it, and he’s about the glummest man
I know.”
“Is he always as, as——”
“As hateful?” suggested Judy cheerfully.
“As reserved,” went on Vivienne, “as he is now?”
“Always for the last few years. He gets too much of his own way and he
worries over things. I asked him the other day if he had committed a
murder. My, how he glowered at me! He’s the worst-tempered man I know.”
“He looks as if he had plenty of self-control,” said Vivienne.
“Wait till you see him in one of his rages—not a black one, but a white,
silent Armour rage. He’s master absolute here, and if any one opposes
him—well, it’s a bad thing for the family. You know, I suppose, that he
has pushed Uncle Colonel out of the business?”
“Has he?” said Vivienne. “I didn’t know it.”
“Didn’t he write you while you were away?”
“Business letters only,” said the girl, “and they were always written by
Mr. Stanton, even when I first went.”
“Well, Uncle Colonel is out,” said Judy. “Stanton won’t even let him
live in the house.”
“Why he was here last evening and this morning.”
“Oh yes, he gets his meals here. He and Val live down in the cottage;
look, down there among the trees,” and she pointed to the gabled roof of
a handsome colonial building some distance below the house.
Vivienne got up and went to the window.
“It’s a great surprise to us all to have you come home so unexpectedly,”
said Judy; “to mamma, especially, though she has always dreaded it. Did
you know you were coming?”
“No,” said Vivienne, in a low voice.
“I thought that you were to be kept abroad now that you have grown up. I
don’t know why Stanton brought you back. Does he mean to keep you here?”
“I do not know.”
“It would be a great deal pleasanter for you to live abroad,” said Judy,
“and for us too. Your coming is sure to revive unpleasant memories.”
Vivienne turned around swiftly. “What do you mean by unpleasant
memories?”
Judy stared at her. “Don’t you know all about yourself—about your
father?”
“I know that my father was obliged to work for his living,” said
Vivienne proudly, “and that he served Colonel Armour long and
faithfully. I see nothing unpleasant about that.”
“No, that is not unpleasant,” said Judy. “But on your word of honor, do
you know nothing more?”
“I am at a loss to understand your meaning,” said Vivienne coldly.
“And you will continue at a loss,” replied her new friend doggedly, “for
I shall tell you nothing further. I am usually fond of gossip; now I
shall hold my tongue.”
Vivienne looked into the little, shrewd, not unkindly face and smiled.
“You are an odd girl. How old are you?”
“Sixteen when I’m not sixty,” said the younger girl wearily. “I hate to
live and I hate to die; and I hate everything and everybody.”
“Why do you talk like that?” asked Vivienne caressingly.
“Suppose instead of being straight and tall and distinguished-looking,
you were an ugly little toad like me—how would you talk?”
“You have beautiful eyes,” said Vivienne, touching Judy’s cheek softly
with her fingers.
“Don’t you pity me,” said Judy threateningly. “Don’t you pity me or I
shall cry,” and slipping on her knees beside Vivienne she burst into
tears.