VI.—A Question of Identity
At the door of the blue-and-white room, the one upon which the girl had lavished her most tender fancies, she stood at length, looking in. And as she looked something swam before her eyes. A sob rose in her throat. She choked it back; she brushed her hand across her face. Then she tried to laugh. “Oh, what a goose I am!” she said sternly to herself. And then she ran across the room, sank upon her knees before the window-seat with its blue and white cushions, and burying her face in one of them cried her wretched, jealous, longing heart out.
Anthony, coming in hastily but softly through the small kitchen, heard the rush of footsteps overhead, and stopped. He waited a moment, listening eagerly; then he came noiselessly into the living-room and stood still. His face, always strong and somewhat stern in its repose, had in it to-night a certain unusual intensity. Helooked at his watch and saw that there was an hour before train time. Then he sat down where he could see the top of the staircase and waited.
By and by light footsteps crossed the floor above and came through the little hall. From where he sat Anthony caught the gleam of Juliet’s crisp linen skirt. Presently she came slowly down. As she turned upon the landing she met Anthony’s eyes looking up. In a fashion quite unusual to the straightforward gaze of his friend her eyes fell. He saw that her cheeks were pale. He rose to meet her.
“Come and rest,” he said. “You are tired. You have worked too hard. Such a helper a man never had before. And you have made a wonderful success. Juliet, I can’t thank you. It’s beyond that.”
But she would not be led to the cosy corner by the window. She found something needing her attention in the curtain of the bookcase in the dimmest corner of the room, and began solicitously to pull it in various ways, as if there were something wrong with it. He watched her, standing with his arm on the high chimney-piece.
“I think you enjoyed it just a little bityourself, though,” he observed. “Didn’t you, chum?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Juliet.
Her back was toward him, her head bent down, but his quick ear detected a peculiar quality in her voice. He questioned her again hurriedly.
“You’re not sorry you did it?”
“Oh, no,” said Juliet.
Now there is not much in two such simple replies as these to indicate the state of one’s mind and heart; but when a girl has been crying stormily and uninterruptedly for a half-hour, and is only not crying still because she is holding back the torrent of her unhappiness by sheer force of will, it is radically impossible to say so much as four words in a perfectly natural way. Anthony understood in a breath that the unfamiliar note in his friend’s voice was that of tears. And, strange to say, into his face there flashed a look of triumph. But he only said very gently:
“Come here a minute—will you, Juliet?”
She bent lower over the curtain. Then she stood up, without looking at him, and moved toward the door.
“I believe I’m rather tired,” she said ina low tone. “It has been so warm all day, and I—I have a headache.”
In three steps he came after her, stopping her with his hand grasping hers as she would have left the room.
“Come back—please,” he urged. “Your aunt is asleep out there, I think. I wanted to go over the house once more with you, if you would. But you’re too tired for that. Just come back and sit down in this nook of yours, and let’s talk a little.”
She could not well refuse, and he put her into a nest of cushions, arranging them carefully behind her back and head, and sat down facing her. He had placed her just where the waning light from the western sky fell full on her face; his own was in the shadow. He was watching her unmercifully—she felt that, and desperately turned her face aside, burying in a friendly pillow the cheek which was colouring under his gaze.
“Is the headache so bad?” he asked softly. “I never knew Juliet Marcy to have a headache before. Poor little girl—dear little girl—who has worked so hard to please her old friend.” He leaned forward and she felt his hand upon her hair.The tenderness in his voice and touch were carrying away all her defences. But he went on without giving her respite.
“Do you thinkshewill be happy here, chum? Will it take the place of the old life for a few years, till I can give her more? She’ll have nothing here, you know, outside of this little home, but my love. That wouldn’t be enough for any ordinary woman, would it?”
She was not looking at him, but she could see him as plainly as if she were. Always she had thought him the strongest, best fellow she knew. He had been her devoted friend so long; she had not realised in the least until lately how it was going to seem to get on without him. But she knew now.
She felt a dreadful choking in her throat again. It seemed to be closely connected with another peculiar sensation, as if her heart had turned into a lump of lead. In another minute she knew that she should break down, which would be humiliating beyond words. She started up from her cushions with a fierce attempt to keep a grip upon herself.
“I know you’re very happy,” she breathed, “and I’m very glad. But reallyI—I’m not at all sentimental to-night. I’m afraid a headache does not make one sympathetic.”
But she could not get past him; Anthony’s stalwart figure barred the way. His strong hands put her gently back among the cushions. She turned her head away, fighting hard for that thing she could not keep—her self-control.
“Is it really a headache?” asked the low voice in her ear. “Just a headache? Not by any chance—a heartache, Juliet?”
“Anthony Robeson!” she cried, but guardedly, lest the open window betray her. “What do you mean? You say very strange things. Why should I have a heartache? Because you are marrying the girl you love? How often have I begged you to go and find her? Do you think I would have done all this for her—and you—if I had cared?”
She tried to look defiantly into his eyes—those fine eyes of his which were watching her so intently—tried to meet them steadily with her own lovely, tear-stained ones—and failed. Swiftly an intense colour dyed her cheeks, and she dropped her head like a guilty child.
“Of course I care—that is, in a way,” she was somehow forced to admit before the bar of his silence. “Why shouldn’t I hate to lose the friend who used to carry my books to school, and fought the other boys for my sake, and has been a brother to me all these years? Of course I do. And when I am tired I cry for nothing—just nothing. I——”
It was certainly a brave attempt at eloquence, but perhaps it was not wonderfully convincing. At all events it did not keep Anthony from taking possession of one of her hands and interrupting her with a most irrelevant speech.
“Juliet, do you remember telling me that you should expect a man who loved you to carry your likeness always with him? And you asked me forhers—and I had to own I had left it behind. Yet I had one with me then—it is always with me—and that was why I forgot the other. Look.”
He drew out a little silver case, and Juliet, reluctantly releasing one eye from the shelter of the friendly sofa pillow, saw with a start her own face look smiling back at her. It was a little picture of hergirlish self which she had given him long ago when he went away to college.
“No,” he said quickly, as he recognised the indignant question which instantly showed in her eyes, “I’m not disloyal to Eleanor Langham. Because—dear—there is no such person.”
With a little cry she flung herself away from him among the pillows, hiding her face from sight. There was a moment’s silence while Anthony Robeson, his own face growing pale with the immensity of the stakes for which he played, made his last venture.
“The little home is only for you, Juliet. If you won’t share it with me it shall be closed and sold. Perhaps it was an audacious thing to do—it has come over me a great many times that it was too audacious ever to be forgiven. But I couldn’t help the hope that if you should make the home yourself you might come to feel that life with a man who had his way to make could be borne after all—if you loved him enough. It all depended on that. As I said, I didn’t mean to be presumptuous, but it was a desperate chance with me, dear. I couldn’t give you up, and Ithought perhaps—justperhaps—you cared—more than you knew. Anyhow—I loved you so—I had to risk it.”
Juliet’s charming brown head was buried so deep in the pillows that only its back with the masses of waving, half-rumpled hair was visible. But up from the depths came a smothered question:
“The photograph?”
Anthony’s face lightened as if the sun had struck it, but he kept his voice quiet. “Borrowed—it’s my old friend Dennison’s. I never even saw the girl—though I ought to beg her pardon for the use I have made of her face. She’s married now, and lives abroad somewhere. Will you forgive me?”
He was standing over her, leaning down so that his cheek touched the rumpled hair. “How is it, Juliet? Could you live in the little home—with love—and me?”
It was a long time before he got any answer. But at last a flushed, wet, radiant face came into view, an arm was reached out, and as with an inarticulate, deep note of joy he drew her up into his embrace, a voice, half tears, half laughter, cried:
“Oh, Tony—you dear, bad, darling, insolent boy! I did think I could do withoutyou—but I can’t. And—oh, Tony”—she was sobbing in his arms now, while he regarded the top of her head with laughing, exultant eyes—“I’m so glad—so glad—so glad—there isn’t any Eleanor Langham! Oh,howI hated her!”
“Did you, sweetheart?” he answered, laughing aloud now. Then bending, with his lips close to hers—“well, to tell the truth—to tell the honest truth, little girl—so did I!”
VII.—An Argument Without Logic
“I don’t like it,” repeated Mr. Horatio Marcy, obstinately, and shook his head for the fifth time. “I’ve not a word to say against Anthony, my dear—not a word. He’s a fine fellow and comes of a good family, and I respect him and the start he has made since things went to pieces, but——”
Juliet waited, her eyes downcast, her cheeks very much flushed, her mouth in lines of mutiny.
“But—” her father continued, settling back in his chair with an air of decision, “you will certainly make the mistake of your life if you think you can be happy in the sort of existence he offers you. You’re not used to it. You’ve not been brought up to it. You can spend more money in a forenoon than he can earn in a twelve-month. You don’t know how to adapt yourself to life on a basis of rigid economy. I——”
“You don’t forbid it, sir?”
“Forbid it?—no. A man can’t forbid a twenty-four year old woman to do as she pleases. But I advise you—I warn you—I ask you seriously to consider what it all means. You are used to very many habits of living which will be entirely beyond Anthony’s means for many years to come. You are fond of travel—of dress—of social——”
“Father dear,” said his daughter, interrupting him gently by a change of tactics. She came to him and sat upon the arm of his chair, and rested her cheek lightly upon the top of his thick, iron-gray locks.—“Let’s drop all this for the present. Let’s not discuss it. I want you to do me a particular favour before we say another word about it. Come with me down to see the house. It’s only three hours away. We can go after breakfast to-morrow and be back for dinner at seven. It’s all I ask. My arguments are all there. Please!—Please!”
So it came about that at eleven o’clock on a certain morning in August, Mr. Horatio Marcy discovered himself to be eyeing with critical, reluctant gaze aquaintly attractive, low-spreading white house among trees and vines. He became aware at the same time of a sudden close clasp on his arm.
“Here it is,” said a low voice in his ear. “Does it look habitable?”
“Very pretty, very pretty, my dear,” Mr. Marcy admitted. No sane man could do otherwise. The little house might have been placed very comfortably between the walls of the dining-room at the Marcy country house, but there was an indefinable, undeniable air of gracious hospitality and homelikeness about its aspect, and its surroundings gave it an appearance of being ample for the accommodation of any two people not anxious to get away from each other.
Juliet produced an antique door-key of a clumsy pattern, and opened the door into the living-room. She ran across to the windows and threw them open, then turned to see what expression might be at the moment illumining Mr. Marcy’s face. He was glancing about him with curious eyes, which rested finally upon the portrait of a courtly gentleman in ruffles and flowing hair, hanging above the fireplace. Headjusted a pair of eyeglasses and gave the portrait the honour of his serious attention.
“That is an ancestor,” Juliet explained. “Doesn’t he give distinction to the room? And isn’t the room—well—just a little bit distinguished-looking itself, in spite of its simplicity?—because of it, perhaps. The tables and most of the chairs are what Anthony found left in the old Kentucky homestead after the sale last year, and bought in with—the last of his money.” Her eyes were very bright, but her voice was quiet.
Mr. Marcy looked at the furniture in question, stared at the walls, then at the rug on the polished floor. The rug held his attention for two long minutes, then he glanced sharply at his daughter.
“The colourings of that rug are very good, don’t you think?” she asked with composure. “It will last until Anthony can afford a better one.”
Mr. Marcy turned significantly toward the door of the dining-room, and Juliet led him through. He surveyed the room in silence, laying a hand upon a chair back; then looked suddenly down at the chair and brought his eyeglasses to bear upon it.
“The furniture was made by a country cabinet-maker who charged country prices for doing it. Tony rubbed in a very thin stain and rubbed the wood in oil afterward till it got this soft polish.”
The visitor looked incredulous, but he accepted the explanation with a polite though exceedingly slight smile. Then he was taken to inspect the kitchen. From here he was led through the pantry back to the living-room, and so upstairs. He looked, still silently, in at the door of each room, exquisite in its dainty readiness for occupancy. As he studied the blue-and-white room his daughter observed that he retained less of the air of the connoisseur than he had elsewhere exhibited. She had shown him this place last with artful intent. No room in his own homes of luxury could appeal to him with more of beauty than was visible here.
When Mr. Marcy reached the living-room again he found himself placed gently but insistently in the easiest chair the room afforded, close by an open window through which floated all the soft odours of country air blowing lightly across apple orchards and gardens of old-fashioned flowers. Hisdaughter, bringing from the ingle seat a plump cushion, dropped upon it at his feet. But instead of beginning any sort of argument she laid her arm upon his knee, and her head down upon her arm, and became as still as a kitten who has composed itself for sleep. Only through the contact of the warm young arm, her father could feel that she was alive and waiting for his speech.
When he spoke at last it was with grave quiet, in a gentler tone than that which he had used the day before in his own library.
“You helped Anthony furnish this house?”
“Yes, father.”
“Do you mind telling me how much you had at your disposal?”
“Five hundred dollars.” Juliet maintained her position without moving, and her face was out of sight.
“Did this include the repairs upon the place?”
“Yes—but you know wages are low just now and lumber is cheap. Having no roof to the porch made it inexpensive. The painting Anthony helped at himself. He worked every minute of his two weeks’vacation on whatever would cost most to hire done.”
“Anthony worked at painting the house?” There was astonishment in Mr. Marcy’s voice. He had known the Robesons of Kentucky all his life. He had never seen one of them lift his hand to do manual labour. There had been no need.
“Yes,” said Juliet, and the cheek which rested against her father’s knee began to grow warm.
“You have obtained a somewhat extraordinary effect of harmony and comfort inside the house,” Mr. Marcy pursued. “It is difficult to understand just how you brought it about with so small an expenditure of money.”
It was quite impossible now for Juliet to keep her head down. She looked up eagerly, but she still managed to speak quietly.
“Itiseffect, father, and it is art—not money. The paper on the wall cost twenty-five cents a roll, but it is the right paper for the place, and the wrong paper at ten times that sum wouldn’t give the room such a background of soft restfulness. Then, you see, the old white woodwork is in verygood style, and the green walls bring it out. The old floor was easily dressed to give that beautiful waxed finish. They told me how to do that at the best decorator’s in Boston. The rug fits the colourings very well. Anthony’s old furniture would give any such room dignity. The portrait lends the finishing touch, I think. You see, when you analyse it all there’s nothing in the least wonderful. But it looks like a home—doesn’t it? And when the little things are in which grow in a home—the photographs, a bowl of sweet-williams from the garden, the lovely old copper lamp you gave me on my birthday—can’t you think how dear it will all be?”
Mr. Marcy glanced down keenly into his daughter’s face.
“There are a great many things of your own at home which would naturally come into your married home,” he said.
Juliet coloured richly. “Yes,” she answered with steady eyes, “but except for the lamp, and the photographs, and a few such very little things, I should not bring them. Anthony is poor, but he is very proud. I couldn’t hurt him by furnishing his home with the overflow of mine.Besides—I don’t need those things. I don’t want them. All I want out of the old home is—your love—your blessing, dear!”
The sharp eyes meeting hers softened suddenly. Juliet drew herself to her knees, and leaning forward across her father’s lap, reached both arms up and flung them about his neck. He held her close, her head upon his shoulder, and all at once he found the slender figure in his arms shaken with feeling. Juliet was not crying, but she was drawing long, deep breaths like a child who tries to control itself.
“You need have no doubt of either of those things, my little girl,” said her father in her ear. “Both are ready. It is only your happiness I want. I distrust the power of any poor man to give it to you. That is all. Since I have seen this house the question looks less doubtful to me—I admit that gladly. But I still am anxious for the future. Even in this attractive place there must be monotony, drudgery, lack of many things you have always had and felt you must have. You have never learned to do without them. I understand that Robeson will not accept them at myhand, nor at yours. I don’t know that I think the less of him for that—but—you will have to learn self-denial. I want you to be very sure that you can do it, and that it will be worth while.”
There was a little silence, then Juliet gently drew herself away and rose to her feet. She stood looking down at the imposing figure of the elderly man in the chair, and there was something in her face he had never seen there before.
“There’s just one thing about it, sir,” she said. “I can’t possibly spare Anthony Robeson out of my life. I tried to do it, and I know. I would rather live it out in this little home—with him—than share the most promising future with any other man. But there’s this you must remember: A man who was brought up to do nothing but ride fine horses, and shoot, and dance, must have something in him to go to work and advance, and earn enough to buy even such a home as this, in five years. He has a future of his own.”
Mr. Marcy looked thoughtful. “Yes, that may be true,” he said. “I rather think it is.”
“And, father——” she bent to lay aroseleaf cheek against his own—“you began with mother in a poorer home than this, and were so happy! Don’t I know that?”
“Yes, yes, dear,” he sighed. “That’s true, too. But we were both poor—had always been so. It was an advance for us—not a coming down.”
“It’s no coming down for me.” There was spirit and fire in the girl’s eyes now. “Just to wear less costly clothes—to walk instead of drive—to live on simpler food—what are those things? Look at these,” she pointed to the rows of books in the bookcases which lined two walls of the room. “I’m marrying a man of refinement, of family, of the sort of blood that tells. He’s an educated man—he loves the things those books stand for. He’s good and strong and fine—and if I’m not safe with him I’ll never be safe with anybody. But besides all that—I—I love him with all there is of me. Oh—areyou satisfied now?”
Blushing furiously she turned away. Her father got to his feet, stood looking after her a moment with something very tender coming into his eyes, then took a step toward her and gathered her into his arms.
VIII.—On Account of the Tea-Kettle
“This is the nineteenth day of August,” observed Anthony Robeson. “We finished furnishing the house for my future bride on the third day of the month. Over two weeks have gone by since then. The place must need dusting.”
He glanced casually at the figure in white which sat just above him upon the step of the great porch at the back of the Marcy country house. It was past twilight, the moon was not yet up, and only the glow from a distant shaded lamp at the other end of the porch served to give him a hint as to the expression upon his companion’s face.
“I’m beginning to lie awake nights,” he continued, “trying to remember just how my little home looks. I can’t recall whether we set the tea-kettle on the stove or left it in the tin-closet. Can you think?”
“You put it on the stove yourself,” said Juliet. “You would have filled it if Auntie Dingley hadn’t told you it would rust.”
Anthony swerved about upon the heavy oriental rug, which covered the steps, until his back rested against the column; he clasped his arms about one knee, and inclined his head at the precise angle which would enable him to study continuously the shadowy outlines of the face above him, shot across with a ruby ray from the lamp. “I wish I could recollect,” he pursued, “whether I left the porch awning up or down. It has rained three times in the two weeks. It ought not to be down.”
“I’m sure it isn’t,” Juliet assured him. There was a hint of laughter in her voice.
“It was rather absurd to put up that awning at all, I suppose. But when you can’t afford a roof to your piazza, and compromise on an awning instead, you naturally want to see how it is going to look, and you rush it up. Besides, I think there was a strong impression on my mind that only a few days intervened before our occupancy of the place. It shows how misled one can be.”
There was no reply to this observation, made in a depressed tone. After a minute Anthony went on.
“These cares of the householder—theyabsorb me. I’m always wondering if the lawn needs mowing, and if the new roof leaks. I get anxious about the blinds—do any of them work loose and swing around and bang their lives out in the night? Have the neighbours’ chickens rooted up that row of hollyhock seeds? Then those books I placed on the shelves so hurriedly. Are any of them by chance upside down? Is Volume I. elbowed by Volume II. or by Volume VIII.? And I can’t get away to see. Coming up here every Saturday night and tearing back every Sunday midnight takes all my time.”
“You might spend next Sunday in the new house.”
“Alone?”
“Of course. You have so many cares they would keep you from getting lonely.”
Anthony made no immediate answer to this suggestion, beyond laughing up at his companion in the dim light for an instant, then growing immediately sober again. But presently he began upon a new aspect of the subject.
“Juliet, are we to be married in church?”
“Tony!—I don’t know.”
“But what do you think?”
“I—don’t think.”
“What! Do you mean that?”
“No-o.”
“Of course you don’t. Well—what about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are we to have a big wedding?”
“Do you want one?”
“I—but that’s not the question. Do you want a big wedding?”
She hesitated an instant. Then she answered softly, but with decision: “No.”
Anthony drew a long breath. “Thank the Lord!” he said devoutly.
“Why?” she asked in some surprise.
“I’ve never exactly understood why the boys I’ve been best man for were so miserable over the prospect of a show wedding—but I know now. A runaway marriage appeals to me now as it never did before. I want to be married—tremendously—but I want to get it over.”
A soft laugh answered him. “We’ll get it over.”
Anthony sat up suddenly. “Will we?” he asked with eagerness. “When?”
“I didn’t say ‘when’!”
“Juliet—when are you going to say it?”
“Why, Tony—dear——”
“That’s right—put in the ‘dear,’” he murmured. “I’ve heard mighty few of ’em yet, and they sound great to me——”
“We’ve been engaged only two weeks—”
“And two days——”
“And the little house isn’t spoiling, even though you’re not sure about the tea-kettle and the awning. I—you don’t want to hurry things——”
“Don’t I!”—rebelliously.
“If I’m very good and say ‘Christmas’——”
“‘Christmas!’—Great Cæsar!”
“But, Tony——”
“Now see here—” he leaned forward and stared up at her, without touching her—he was as yet allowed few of the lover’s favours and prized them the more for that—“do you think our case is just like other people’s? Here I’ve been waiting for you all my days—waiting and waiting, and tortured all the time by suspense. Then I lived that month of July with my heart in my mouth—you’ll never know what you put me through those days, talking and jollying about ‘Eleanor Langham,’ and never for one instant, until just that last day, giving methe smallest pinch of hope that it was anything to you except just what it pretended to be. Then—I’ve been a long time without a home—and the little house—sweetheart—it looks like Heaven to me. Must I stay outside till Christmas—when everything’s all ready? Confound it—I don’t want to play the pathetic string, and the Lord knows I’m happy as a fellow can be who’s got the desire of his life. But——”
A warm hand came gently upon his hair, and for joy at the touch he fell silent. Once he turned his head and put his lips against the white sleeve as it fell near, and looked up an instant with eyes whose expression the person above him felt rather than saw through the subdued light. By and by she took up the conversation.
“So you are rejoiced that I don’t want a great wedding?”
“Immensely relieved.”
“What would you like best?”
“I don’t dare tell you.”
“You may.”
“Tell me what you would like, Julie.”
“Of course father would say the town house, even if it were a small affair. Auntie Dingley would probably agree to havingit here—if that were what you—we—wanted—that is——”
Anthony looked up quickly. “Even at Christmas?”
“Why—yes. We could come back. People do that sometimes.”
“Yes. Must we do what other people do?”
“Would you rather not?”
“Ten thousand times. It seems to me that the biggest mistake people make is the way they do this thing. Juliet—think of the little house. We made it—you made it. For years, without doubt, it’s to hold us and our experiences. Do you know I’d like to give it this one to begin with?—I’m holding my breath!”
Plainly she was holding hers. Her head was turned away—he could just see her profile outlined against the ruby light. And at the moment there were footsteps inside a long French window near at hand which lay open into the library. Mr. Horatio Marcy came out and stood still just behind them.
Anthony sprang to his feet, and came forward up the steps. The older man greeted him cordially. Anthony pulled abig chair into position, and Mr. Marcy sat down. He was smoking and wore an air of relaxation. He and his guest fell to talking, the younger man entering into the conversation with as much ease and spirit as if he were not fresh from what was to him at this hour a much more interesting discussion. Juliet sat quietly and listened.
It grew into an absorbing argument after a little, the two men taking opposite sides of a great governmental question just then claiming public interest. Mrs. Dingley came out and joined the group, and she and Juliet listened with increasing delight in a contest of brains such as was now offered them. Mr. Marcy himself, while he put forth his arguments with conviction and with skill, was evidently enjoying the keen wit and wisdom of his young opponent. The elder man met objection with objection, set up men of straw to be knocked down, and ended at last with a hearty laugh and a frankly appreciative:
“Well, Anthony—you have convinced me of one thing, certainly. There are more sides to the question than I had understood. I will admit that you’ve made a strong argument. But when I come back I’lldown you with fresh material. I shall have plenty of it.”
“Are you going away soon, sir?” Anthony asked with some surprise. Mr. Marcy was a frequent traveller, preferring to look after various business interests in faraway ports himself rather than entrust them to others.
“Yes—I shall be off in a few weeks—and for a longer time than usual. I haven’t told these ladies of my household yet—but this is as good a time as any. Juliet, little girl—I may be gone all winter this time.”
She came quickly to him without speaking, and gave him her regretful answer silently.
“When do you go, Horatio?” Mrs. Dingley asked.
“About the first of October. I hadn’t fully decided till to-day. I had thought of inviting you two to go with me.”
He looked with a smile at his sister and his daughter, then somewhat quizzically at Anthony. The latter was regarding him with an alert face in which, as nearly as could be made out in the dim light, were no signs of discomfiture.
“Horatio,” said Mrs. Dingley, “I wishyou would come into the library for a few minutes. This reminds me of a letter I had to-day from one of your old friends, asking when you were to be at home.”
The French window closed on the two older people. Juliet, left sitting on the arm of her father’s chair, found Anthony behind her.
“Do you want to go on a voyage to the Philippines?” he was asking over her shoulder.
“I’m not sure just what I do want,” she answered rather breathlessly.
“The tea-kettle would rust while you were gone.”
He got no reply.
“The dust would grow inches deep on the dining-table we polished so carefully.”
Juliet rose and walked slowly to the edge of the steps. Anthony followed. “Let’s go and walk on the terrace,” he proposed, and they ran down to the smooth sward below. It was a warm night, with no dew, and the short-shaven grass was dry. All the stars were out. Anthony walked beside the figure in white, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Do white ruffled curtains like those atour windows ever grow musty from being shut up?” he insinuated gently.
“I don’t know.”
“Will you write from every port you touch at? It will take a good many letters to satisfy me.”
“I suppose so.”
“Suppose what? That you will write?”
Juliet stood still. “You’re the greatest wheedler I ever saw,” she said.
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s not meant for one. What am I to do when I’m——”
“Married to me?—I don’t know, poor child. I can only pity you. What do you think the prospect is for me, never to be able to get the smallest concession from you except by every art of coaxing? Yet—if I can get this thing I want, by any means—I warn you I shall not give up until I’ve seen you sail.”
“You’ll not see me sail.”
He wheeled upon her. He had her hand in his grasp. “And if you don’t go?”
“I’ll stay.”
“With me?”
She laughed irresistibly. “How could I stay without you?”
“Will you marry me before your father goes?”
“Oh, Tony, Tony——”
“We can’t be married without his blessing, can we?”
“No—dear father.”
“Then——”
“I’ll tell you to-morrow,” said she.
IX.—A Bishop and a Hay-Wagon
Juliet Marcy’s prospective maid-of-honour found Anthony Robeson’s best man at her elbow the moment she entered the waiting-room of the big railway station. Now, although she greeted him with a charming little conscious look, there was nothing either new or singular about the quiet rush he had made across the waiting-room the instant he saw her. The rest of the party of twenty people who were going down into the country to the Marcy-Robeson wedding understood it perfectly, although the engagement had not been announced and probably would not be until Wayne Carey should have an income decidedly larger than he had at present.
Judith Dearborn joined the group at once, and Carey reluctantly followed her. Judith had a way of joining groups and of giving her betrothed many impatient half-hours thereby.
“Just think of this,” she said to theothers. “When I knew Juliet had really given in to Anthony Robeson at last I thought I should be asked to assist at an impressive church wedding. But here we are going down to what Tony describes as ‘a box of a house’ in the most rural of suburbs. If it’s really as small as he says even twenty people will be a tight fit.”
“How in the world did they come to be married there?” asked the sister of the best man. Everybody had been summoned to this wedding so hurriedly and so informally that nobody knew much about it.
The son of the Bishop—whose father was going down to perform the ceremony—answered promptly:
“Tony tells me its Juliet’s own choice. You see they furnished the house together, with her aunt, Mrs. Dingley; and Juliet fell so in love with it that she must needs be married in it. What’s occurred to that girl I don’t know. After the Robesons of Kentucky lost their money and everything else but their social standing I thought it was all up with Anthony. But he’s plucky. He’s made a way for himself, and he’s won Juliet somehow. He seems to be a late edition of that obstinate chapwho remarked ‘I will find a way or make one.’ By Jove—he must have made one when he convinced Juliet Marcy that she could be happy in a house where twenty people are a tight fit.”
When the train stopped at the small station Judith Dearborn said in Wayne Carey’s ear, as he glanced wonderingly from the train: “Is this it? Juliet Marcy must be perfectly crazy!”
“She certainly must,” admitted Robeson’s best man. But he stifled a sigh. If Juliet Marcy could do so crazy a thing as to marry Anthony Robeson on the comparatively small salary that young man—brought up to do nothing at all—was now earning, why must Wayne Carey wait for several times that income before he could have Juliet’s closest friend? Was there really such a difference in girls?
But at the next instant he was shouting hilariously, and so was everybody else except the Bishop and the Bishop’s wife, who only smiled indulgently. The rest of the party were young people, and their glee brooked no repression. The moment they reached the little platform they comprehended not only that they were coming to a most informalwedding—they were also in for a decidedly novel lark.
Close to the edge of the platform stood a great hay-wagon, cushioned with fragrant hay and garlanded with goldenrod and purple asters. Standing erect on the front, one hand grasping the reins which reached out over a four-in-hand of big, well-groomed, flower-bedecked farm horses, the other waving a triumphant greeting to his friends, was Anthony Robeson, in white from head to foot, his face alight with happiness and fun. He looked like a young king; there could be no other comparison for his splendid outlines as he towered there. And better yet, he looked as he had ever looked, through prosperity and through poverty, like a “Robeson of Kentucky.”
Below him, prettier than she had ever been—and that was saying much—her eyes brilliant with the spirit of the day, laughing, dressed also in white, a big white hat drooping over her brown curls, stood Juliet Marcy.
In a storm of salutations and congratulations the guests rushed toward this extraordinary equipage and the radiant pair who were its charioteers. All regrets over the probable commonplaceness of a small country wedding had vanished.
“Standing erect ... one hand grasping the reins ... was Anthony Robeson.”
“Standing erect ... one hand grasping the reins ... was Anthony Robeson.”
“Might have known they would do things up in shape somehow,” grunted the Bishop’s son approvingly. “This is the stuff. Conventionality be tabooed. They’re going to the other extreme, and that’s the way to do. If you don’t want an altar and candles, and a high-mucky-muck at the organ, have a hay-wagon.Gee!—Let me get up here next to Ben Hur and the lady!”
Even the Bishop, sitting with clerical coat-tails carefully parted, his handsome face beaming benevolently from under his round hat, and Mrs. Bishop, granted by special dispensation a cushion upon the hay seat, enjoyed that drive. Anthony, plying a long, beribboned lash, aroused his heavy-footed steeds into an exhilarating trot, and the hay-wagon, carrying safely its crew of young society people in their gayest mood, swept over the half-mile from the station to the house like a royal barge.
As they drew up a chorus of “Oh’s!” not merely polite but sincerely surprised and admiring, recognised the quaint beauty of the little house. It was no commonplacecountry home now, though the changes wrought had been comparatively slight. It looked as if it might have stood for years in just this fashion, yet it was as far removed from its primitive characterless condition as may be an artist’s drawing of a face upon which he has altered but a line.
Mrs. Dingley and Mr. Horatio Marcy—a pair whose presence anywhere would have been a voucher for the decorum of the most unconventional proceedings—welcomed the party upon the wide, uncovered porch.
“We’re going to be married very soon, to have it over,” called Anthony. “But you may explore the house first, so your minds shall be at rest during the crisis. Just don’t wander too far away in examining this ancestral mansion. There are six rooms. I should advise your going in line, otherwise complications may occur in the upper hall. Please don’t all try to get into the kitchen at once; it can’t be done. It will hold Juliet and me at the same time—all the rooms have been stretched to do that—they had to be; but I’m not sure as to their capacity for more. Now make yourselves absolutely at home. The place isyours—for a few hours. After that it’s mine—and Juliet’s.”
He glanced, laughing, at his bride, as he spoke from where he stood in the doorway. She was on the little landing of the staircase, at the opposite end of the living-room. She looked down and across at him, and nearly everybody in the room—they were thronging through at the moment—caught that glance. She was smiling back at him, and her eyes lingered only an instant after they met his, but her friends all saw. There could be no question that the Juliet Marcy who, since she had laid aside her pinafores, had kept many men at bay, had at last surrendered. As for Anthony——
“Why, he’s always been in love with her,” said the Bishop’s son in the ear of the best man, as in accordance with their host’s permission they peeped admiringly in at the little kitchen, “but any idiot can see that he’s fairly off his feet now. Ideal condition—eh? Say, this dining-room’s great—Jove, it is. I’m going to get asked out here to dinner as soon as they are back. Let’s go upstairs. The girls are just coming down—hear ’em gurgling over what they saw?”
Upstairs the best man looked in at the blue-and-white room with eyes which one with penetration might have said were envious. Indeed, he stared at everything with much the same expression. He was the soberest man present. Ordinarily he could be counted on to enliven such occasions, but to-day his fits of hilarity were only momentary, and during the intervals he was observed by the Bishop’s son to be gazing somewhat yearningly into space with an abstraction new to him.
Nobody knew just how the moment for the ceremony arrived. But when the survey of the house was over and everybody had instinctively come back to the living-room, the affair was brought about most naturally. The Bishop, at a word from the best man, took his place in the doorway opening upon the porch, which had been set in a great nodding border of goldenrod. Anthony, making his way among his guests, came with a quiet face up to Juliet and, bending, said softly, “Now, dear?” A hush followed instantly, and the guests fell back to places at the sides of the room. Anthony’s best man was at his elbow, and the two went over to the Bishop, to stand by hisside. Mr. Marcy moved quietly into his place. Juliet, with Judith, who had kept beside her, walked across the floor, and Anthony, meeting her, led her a step farther to face the Bishop. It was but a suggestion of the usual convention, and Anthony, in his white clothes, surrounded as he was by men in frock-coats, was assuredly the most unconventional bridegroom that had ever been seen. Juliet, too, wore the simplest of white gowns, with no other adornment than that of her own beauty. Yet, somehow, as the guests, grown sober in an instant, looked on and noted these things, there was not one who felt that either grace or dignity was lacking. The rich voice of the Bishop was as impressive as it had ever been in chancel or at altar; the look on Anthony’s face was one which fitted the tone in which he spoke his vows; and Juliet, giving herself to the man whose altered fortunes she was agreeing to share, bore a loveliness which made her a bride one would remember long—and envy.
“There, that’s done,” said the Bishop’s son with a gusty sigh of relief, which brought the laugh so necessary to the relaxing ofthe tension which accompanies such scenes. “Jove, it’s a good thing to see a fellow like Robeson safely tied up at last. You never can tell where these quixotic ideas about houses and hay-wagons and weddings may lead. It’s a terrible strain, though, to see people married. I always tremble like a leaf—I weigh only a hundred and ninety-eight now, and these things affect me. It’s so frightful to think what might happen if they should trip up on their specifications.”
There was a simple wedding breakfast served—by whom nobody could tell. It was eaten out in the orchard—a pleasant place, for the neglected grass had been close cut, and an old-fashioned garden at one side perfumed the air with late September flowers. The trim little country maids who brought the plates came from a willow-bordered path which led presumably to the next house, some distance down the road. There were several innovations in the various dishes, delicious to taste. Altogether it was a little feast which everybody enjoyed with unusual zest. And the life of the party was the bridegroom.
“I never saw a fellow able to scintillatelike that at his own wedding,” remarked the son of the Bishop to the best man’s sister. “Usually they are so completely dashed by their own temerity in getting into such an irretrievable situation that they sit with their ears drooping and their eyes bleared. Do you suppose it’s getting married in tennis clothes that’s done it?”
“Tennis clothes!” cried the best man’s sister with a merry laugh. “If you realised how much handsomer he looks than you men in your frock-coats you would not make fun.”
“Make fun!” repeated the Bishop’s son solemnly. “I joke only to keep my head above water. I never in my life was so completely submerged in the desire to get married instantly and live in a picturesque band-box. Nothing can keep me from it longer than it takes to find the girl and the band-box. If—if—” his voice dropped to a whisper, and a hint of redness crept into his face which belied his jesting words, “you knew of the girl—I—er—say—should you mind living in a band-box?”
The best man’s sister was the sort of girl who can discern when even an inveterate joker is daring to be somewhat more thanhalf in earnest, and she flushed so prettily that the son of the Bishop caught her hand boyishly under the little table. He had hitherto been considered a hopeless old bachelor, so it may readily be seen that, now the contagion had caught him, his was quite a serious case.