XIV.—Strawberries
“Here are yer strawberries, ma’m.”
Juliet, alone in her little kitchen, ran to the door in dismay. She looked down at a freckle-faced boy carrying a big basket filled with strawberry-boxes.
“But my order was for next Wednesday,” she said.
“Well, Pa said he cal’lated you’d ruther have ’em when they was at the best, an’ that’s now. This hot weather’s a dryin’ ’em up. May not be any good ones by Wednesday.”
Every housekeeper knows that if there is one thing particularly liable to happen it is the arrival of fruit for preserving at the most inopportune moment of the week. It matters little what the excuse of the sender may be—there is always a sufficient reason why the original date set by the buyer has been ignored. In this case the strawberries had been engaged from a neighbour, and Juliet understood at once that she must not refuse to take them.
She stood looking at the rows of baskets upon the table, when the boy had placed them there and gone whistling away. She was in the midst of a flurry of work. It was Saturday, and she was cooking and baking, putting together various dishes to be used upon the morrow. Mr. Horatio Marcy had lately returned from abroad. He and Mrs. Dingley were to spend the coming Sabbath with Juliet and Anthony—the first occasion on which Juliet’s father should be entertained in the house. It was an event of importance, and his daughter meant to show him several things concerning her fitness for her present position.
Rachel Redding was not available upon this Saturday morning. Her mother had been taken seriously ill the night before, and Rachel had sent word that she could not leave her. Juliet had not minded much, although it was a day when Rachel’s help would have been especially acceptable. As it was, she had reached a point where her housewifely marshalling of the day’s work was at a critical stage. A cake had been put into the oven. A large bowl of soup stock had been brought from a cool retreat to have the smooth coating of fat removedfrom its surface. Various other dishes, in process of construction, awaited the skilled touch of the cook.
“I shall have to do them, I suppose,” said Mrs. Robeson to herself, regarding the strawberries with a disapproving eye. “Butwhythey had to come to-day——”
She went at the strawberries, wishing she had ordered less. They were fine berries—on top; by degrees, as the boxes lowered, they became less fine. It seemed desirable to separate the superior from the inferior and treat them differently. Only the best would do for the delectable preserve which was to go into glasses and be served on special occasions; the others could be made into jam less attractive to the eye if hardly less acceptable to the palate. Juliet was obliged to put down her berry-boxes every fifth minute to attend to one or other of the various saucepans and double-boilers upon the little range. Her cheeks grew flushed, for the day was hot and the kitchen hotter. It must be admitted that her occasional glance out over the green fields and the woods beyond was a longing one.
The better selection of the berries wentinto the clear syrup in the preserving-kettle. Juliet flew to get her glass pots ready. She stopped to stir something in a saucepan. She thrust some eggs into the small ice-chest to cool them for the salad dressing soon to be made. She kept one eye on the clock, for the strawberry preserve had to be timed to a minute—ten, no more, no less. It was a strenuous hour.
As she dipped up the fourth ladleful of crimson richness—translucent as a church window—and filled the waiting jar, a peculiar pungent odour drifted across the fragrance of the strawberries. Juliet dropped her ladle and pulled open the oven door.
The delicate cake which she had compounded with especial care because it was Mrs. Dingley’s favourite, lay a blackened ruin. Some of it had run over upon the oven bottom and become a mass of cinders. Juliet jerked the cake-tin out into the daylight and shut the oven door with a slam.
It was at this unpropitious moment that a figure appeared in the doorway—a tall, slim figure, in crisp, cool, white linen. A charming white hat surmounted Mrs. Wayne Carey’s carefully ordered hair, a whiteparasol in her hands completed a particularly chaste and appropriate morning toilette for a young woman who had nothing to do with kitchens.
She was regarding with interest the young person at the range. Juliet wore one of her characteristic working frocks, and the big pinafore which enveloped it from head to foot was of an attractive design. But the morning’s flurry had set its signs upon her, and the pinafore was not as immaculate as it had been three hours earlier. Her hair, curling moistly about her flushed face, had been impatiently pushed back more than once, and its disorder, while not unpicturesque, was suggestive of a somewhat perturbed mind. Her hands were pink with strawberry juice. She looked warm, tired, and—if the truth must be told—at the moment not a little out of temper. The smile with which she welcomed her friend could hardly be said to be one of absolute pleasure.
“I’m afraid I’ve come at the wrong time,” said Judith, regretfully. “Did you just burn something? Too bad. I suppose all young housekeepers do that. Where’s your—assistant?”
“She’s not here to-day,” said Juliet, ladling up strawberry preserve with more haste than caution. Her fingers shook a little but she kept her voice tranquil. “It’s all right. A number of things had to be done at once, that’s all. Please don’t stay in this hot place. Take off your hat and find a cool corner somewhere in the house. I’ll be in presently.”
“I mustn’t bother you. I was going to stay for lunch with you, it was so hot in town, but I mustn’t think of it when you’re so——”
“Of course you’ll stay,” said Juliet with decision. “What you see before you is only the smoke of battle. It will soon clear away. Run off—and I’ll be with you presently. You’ll find the late magazines in the living-room.”
Her tone was intended to deceive and it was sufficiently successful. Judith was anxious to stay. She was also interested in the situation. She had heard much from Wayne in praise of Juliet’s successful housekeeping, and had seen enough of it herself to be curious about its inner workings. For the first time she had happened upon a scene which would seem to indicatethat there were phases in this sort of domestic life less ideal than she was asked to believe. She went back into the coolness and quiet of the living-room with a full appreciation of the fact that no hot kitchens ever threatened her own peace of mind.
Juliet finished her strawberry preserve, saw that everything liable to burn was removed to safe quarters; then deliberately took off her apron and stole out of the kitchen door. She went swiftly down through the orchard to the willow-bordered path by the brook; then, out of sight of everything human, ran several rods down it with a sweep of skirts which put everything in the bird creation to flight. At a certain pleasant spot among the willows, sheltered from all possible observation, she paused and flung herself down upon the warm ground.
But not in any attitude of despair. Neither did she cry tears of vexation and weariness. She was a healthy girl, with the perfect physical being whose poise is not upset by so small a matter as a fatiguing morning. Because a cake had burned, an extra amount of work had had to be conqueredand an unexpected guest had arrived, her nerves were not worn to the rending point. But, having been reared in the belief that a breath of outdoors is the great antidote for all physical or mental discomforts born of confinement indoors, she had acquired a habit of running away from her cares at any and all times of day in precisely this fashion—and many were the advantages she had reaped from this somewhat unusual course of procedure.
Mrs. Anthony Robeson lay upon one side, her arm outstretched, her cheek pillowed upon her arm. She was drawing long, deep breaths, and looking lazily off at a stretch of blue sky cleft in the exact centre by one great graceful elm tree. One would have thought she had forgotten every care in the world, not to mention the guest from the city waiting expectantly for her hostess to appear. After ten minutes of this sort of indolence the figure in the blue and white print dress sat up, clasped both arms about her knees and remained regarding with half closed eyes the softly fluttering leaves of the willows along the edge of the brook. The hot flush died out of her cheeks; the lips whose expression a few minutes sincehad indicated self-control under a combination of trying circumstances, relaxed into their natural sweetness with a tendency toward mirth; and her whole aspect became that merely of the young athlete resting from one encounter and preparing herself for another.
At length she rose, shook out her skirts, and said aloud: “Now, Judith Dearborn Carey, I’m ready to upset your expectations. Since you looked in at me this morning you’ve been thinking I wished I hadn‘t—haven’t you? Well, you may just understand that I don’t wish anything of the sort.” And in five minutes more she had walked in upon her guest by way of the front door, her pretty face serene, her hands full of pink June roses which she threw in a fragrant mass of beauty into her friend’s lap.
“Put those into bowls for me, will you?” she requested. “Arrange them to suit yourself. Aren’t they lovely? I suppose you’re getting hungry. In half an hour you shall be served with a very modest but, I trust, not insufficient lunch. Would you like hot chocolate or iced tea?”
“Iced tea, by all means,” chose Judith,who, being used to the privileges of selection from a variety of offered foods and beverages, was apt to want what was not set before her, when at a private table. Juliet understood this propensity of her friend and slyly took advantage of it. As it happened, she knew that at the moment she was quite out of chocolate, but she had counted advisedly upon Judith’s choice on a hot June day, and she smiled to herself as she chopped ice and sliced lemon.
At the end of the half hour, Judith, who found the coolness of the living-room too delightful to allow her to keep watch of her friend in the hot kitchen, much as she was tempted to do so, was summoned to an equally cool dining-room. Upon the bare table, daintily set out upon some of the embroidered white doilies of Juliet’s wedding linen, was a simple lunch of a character which appealed to the guest’s critical appetite in a way which made her draw a long breath of satisfaction.
“You certainly do have a trick of serving things to make them taste better than other people’s,” she acknowledged, glancing from the little platter of broiled chicken with its bit of parsley to the crisp fruitsalad made up of she knew not what, but presenting an appetising appearance—then regarding fondly a dish of spinach, pleasingly flanked by thin slices of boiled egg.
“It’s really too hot to eat anything very solid,” agreed Juliet with guile. “Rachel and I have a way of planning our lunches a day or two ahead, so that the leftovers we use up are not yesterday’s but the day before’s, and we remember with surprise how good the original dish was far back in the past. I wish Anthony could have his midday meal at home—though perhaps if he did the dinners wouldn’t strike him so happily. Don’t you think it’s great fun to see a big, hearty man sit down at a table and look at it with an expression of adoration? Women may deride the fact as they will, but a healthy body does demand good things to eat, and shouldn’t be blamed for liking them.”
“Wayne hasn’t much appetite,” said Judith, eating away with relish. “He dislikes the people at our table—sometimes I think that’s why he bolts his food and gets off in such a hurry. By the way, Juliet, are you and Tony coming in to the Reardons’ to-night? Of course you are.”
“I suppose we must,” admitted Juliet with reluctance. “We have refused a good many things since we’ve been here, but I did promise Mrs. Reardon we would try to come to-night.”
The little repast over, Judith offered, with well simulated warmth, to help her friend with the after work. But Juliet would have none of her. She sent her guest out into a hammock under the trees, and despatched the business of putting the little kitchen to rights with the celerity of one who means to have done with it.
In the middle of the June afternoon Judith awoke from a nap in the hammock to find her hostess standing laughing beside her, fresh in a thin gown of flowered dimity.
“Well,” yawned Judith, heavily, “I must have gone off to sleep. I was tired—I am tireder. This is a fatiguing sort of weather—don’t you think so? But you don’t look it. And after all that work I found you in! Why aren’t you used up? Itkillsme to do things in the heat.”
Juliet dropped a big blue denim pillow on the ground and sat down upon it in a flutter of dimity. She lifted a smiling face and said with spirit:
“Last summer I could walk miles over a golf course twice a day and not mind it in the least. The year before I was most of the time on the river, rowing till I was as strong as a girl could be. I’ve had gymnasium work and fencing lessons and have been brought up to keep myself in perfect trim by my baths and exercise. What frail thing am I that a little housework should use me up?”
“Yes—I know—you always did go in for that sort of thing,” reflected Judith, eyeing her companion’s fresh colour and bright eyes. “I suppose I ought, but I never cared for it—I don’t mean the baths and all that—of course any self-respecting woman adores warm baths. I don’t like the cold plunges and showers you always add on.”
“Then don’t expect the results.”
“It isn’t everybody who has your energetic temperament. I hate golf, despise tennis, never rowed a stroke in my life, and could no more keep house as you are doing than I could fly.”
“Let me see,” said Juliet demurely, pretending to consider. “What is it that you do like to do?”
“You know well enough. And little enough of it I can get now with a husband who never cares to stir.” There was a suspicion of bitterness in Judith’s voice. But Juliet, ignoring it, went blithely on:
“I’ve a strong conviction that one can’t be happy without being busy. Now that I can’t keep up my athletic sports I should become a pale hypochondriac without these housewifely affairs to employ me. I don’t like to embroider. I can’t paint china. I’m not a musician. I somehow don’t care to begin to devote myself to clubs in town. I love my books and the great outdoors—and plenty of action.”
“You’re a strange girl,” was Judith’s verdict, getting languidly out of the hammock, an hour later, after an animated discussion with her friend on various matters touching on the lives of both. “Either you’re a remarkable actress or you’re as contented as you seem to be. I wish I had your enthusiasm. Everything bores me—Look at this frock, after lying in a hammock! Isn’t white linen the prettiest thing when you put it on and the most used up when you take it off, of any fabric known to the shops?”
“It is, indeed. But if anybody can afford to wear it it’s you, who never sit recklessly about on banks and fences, but keep cool and correct and stately and——”
“—discontented. I admit I’ve talked like a fractious child all day. But I’ve had a good time and want to come oftener than I have. May I?”
“Of course you may. Must you go? I’ll keep you to dinner and send for Wayne.”
“You’re an angel, but I’ve an engagement for five o’clock, and there’s the Reardons’ this evening. You won’t forget that? You and Anthony will be sure to come?”
“I’ll not promise absolutely, but I’ll see. Mrs. Reardon was so kind as to leave it open. It’s an informal affair, I believe?”
“Informal, but very gorgeous, just the same. She wouldn’t give anybody but you such an elastic invitation as that, and you should appreciate her eagerness to get you,” declared Judith, who cared very much from whom her invitations came and could never understand her friend’s careless attitude toward the most impressive of them.
Juliet watched her guest go down the street, and waved an affectionate hand ather as Judith looked back from her seat in the trolley car. “Poor old Judy,” she said to herself. “How glad you are you’re not I!—And how very, very glad I am I’m not you!”
An observation, it must be admitted, essentially feminine. No man is ever heard to felicitate himself upon the fact that he is not some other man.
XV.—Anthony Plays Maid
After dinner that night, Juliet, having once more put things in order and slipped off the big pinafore which had kept her spotless, joined her husband in the garden up and down which he was comfortably pacing, hands in pockets, pipe in mouth.
“Jolly spot, isn’t it? Come and perambulate,” he suggested.
“Just for a minute. Tony, are we going to the Reardons?”
He stood still and considered. “I don’t know. Are we? Did you accept?”
“On condition that you felt like it. I represented you as coming home decidedly fagged these hot nights and not always caring to stir.”
“Wise schemer! I don’t mind the aspersion on my physical being. She urged, I suppose?”
“She did. I don’t know why.”
“I do.” Anthony smiled down at his wife. “Everybody is a bit curious aboutus these days. Your position, you see, is considered very extraordinary.”
“Nonsense, Tony. Shall we go?”
“Possibly we’d better, though it racks my soul to think of dressing. The less I wear my festive garments the less I want to. For that very reason, suppose we discipline ourselves and go. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. We’ll have to dress at once, for it’s nearly eight now, and by the time we have caught a train and got to Hollyhurst——”
“To be sure. Here goes, then.”
Half an hour later Anthony, wrestling with a refractory cuff button, looked up to see his wife at his elbow. She was very nearly a vision of elegance and beauty; the lacking essential was explained to him by a voice very much out of breath and a trifle petulant:
“If you care anything for me, Tony, stop everything and hook me up. I’m all mixed up, and I can’t reach, and I’m sure I’ve torn that little lace frill at the back.”
“All right. Where do I begin?”
“Under my left arm, I think—I can’t possibly see.”
“Neither can I.” He was poking aboutunder the lifted arm, among folds of filmy stuff. “Here we are—no, we aren’t. Does this top hook go in this little pocket on the other side?”
“I suppose so—can’t you tell whether it does by the look?”
“It seems a bit blind to me,” murmured Anthony, struggling.
“It’s meant to be blind—it mustn’t show when it’s fastened.”
“It certainly doesn’t now. Hold on—don’t wriggle. I’ve got it now. I’ve found the combination. Three turns to the right, five to the left, clear around once, then—Hullo! I’ve come out wrong. The thing doesn’t track at the bottom.”
“You’ve missed a hook.”
“Oh, no. I hung onto ’em all the way down.”
“Then you missed an eye. You’ll have to unhook it all and begin again.”
Anthony obeyed. “I’m glad I don’t have to get into my clothes around the corner this way,” he commented. “Here you are. We stuck to the schedule this time.”
“Wait, dear. You haven’t fastened the shoulder. There are ever so many littlehooks along there and around the arm hole.”
“I should say there were. What’s the good of so many?—Where do they begin? Look out—wait a minute—Juliet, if you don’t stop twisting around so I never can do it. I can do great, heroic acts, it’s the little trials that floor me—There—no!—that doesn’t look right.”
Juliet ran to the mirror. “It isn’t right,” she cried. “Look—that corner shouldn’t lap over like that. Oh, if I could only reach myself!”
“You can‘t—I’ve often tried it. The human anatomy—Stand still, Julie—you’re getting nervous.”
“If there’s one thing that’s trying——” murmured Juliet.
“Why do you let your dressmakers build your frocks this way? Why not get into ’em all in front, where you can see what you’re doing?—Now I’ve got it. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes. Wait, Tony—here’s the girdle. It fastens behind.”
Anthony surveyed the incomprehensible affair of silk and velvet ribbon she put into his hands. “Looks like a head-stall tome,” he said. Juliet laughed and fitted it about her own waist. Anthony attempted to make it join at the back of the points she held out to him.
“It won’t come together,” he said.
“Oh, yes, it will. Draw it tight.”
“I am drawing it tight. It’s smaller than you are. You can’t wear it.”
Juliet laughed again. Anthony tugged.
“Wait till I hold my breath,” she said.
“Great guns!” he ejaculated, and by the exertion of much force fastened the girdle. Then he stood off a step or two and looked at his wife curiously. Flushed and laughing she returned his gaze.
“Can you breathe?” he asked solicitously.
“Of course I can.”
“What with?”
“It is a little tight, of course,” she admitted. “This is one of my trousseau dresses. I’ve grown a little stouter, I suppose. Never mind, I can stand it for to-night. Thank you very much. You must hurry now, Tony.”
“I haven’t had my pay for playing maid,” he said, and came close. He surveyed his wife’s fair neck and shoulders, turned her around and deliberately kissedthe soft hollow where the firm white flesh of her neck met the waving brown hair drawn lightly upwards.
“That’s the spot that tantalized me for about six years,” he observed.
Hunting hurriedly through various drawers and boxes in the blue-and-white room, in search of gloves and fan, Juliet heard her husband come in his turn to her open door.
“Will you have the goodness to look at me?” he requested, in a melancholy voice. Juliet turned, gave him one glance, and broke into a merry peal.
“Oh, Tony!—What’s the matter? Have you been growing stouter, too?”
“It must be,” he said solemnly.
His clawhammer coat was so tight across the shoulders that the strain was evident. He was holding his arms in the exaggerated position of the small boy who wears a last year’s suit. Juliet revolved around her husband’s well built figure with interest.
“It does look tight,” she said. “But have you grown heavier all at once? It can’t be long since you wore that coat before.”
“Don’t believe I have for months. It’sbeen altogether frock-coats and informals. I haven’t been to an evening affair with ladies for a good while.”
“It doesn’t look as it feels, I’m sure. It’s getting very late—we ought to be off,” and Juliet gathered up her belongings and gave him a long loose coat to hold for her which covered her finery completely.
“Now’s the hour when I regret that I haven’t a carriage for you,” said Anthony, as they descended the stairs. He got into his outer coat reluctantly. “I shall split something around my back before the evening is over,” he prophesied resignedly.
“Never mind. Remember how tight my girdle is. It grows tighter every minute.”
They got out upon the porch and Anthony locked the door. “If I should show that door-key to any man I know except Carey he would howl,” he remarked, holding up the queer old brass affair before he slipped it into his pocket. He looked down at Juliet in the gathering June twilight. “Don’t you wish we didn’t have to go?”
“Yes, I do,” she agreed frankly.
“Let’s not!”
“My dear boy! At this hour?”
“We could telephone.”
“Shouldn’t you feel rather ashamed to, so late?”
“Not a bit. But of course we’ll go if you say so.”
She laughed, and he joined her boyishly. She hesitated.
“If I see you looking faint in that girdle shall I throw a glass of cold water over you?”
“Please do. If I hear a sound as of rending cloth shall I divert the attention of the company?”
“By all means.”
They were laughing like two children. Anthony sat down in one of the porch chairs. He drew a long sigh. “I never hated to leave my dear home so since I came into it,” he said gloomily.
Juliet pulled off her coat. “If you’ll do the telephoning I’ll stay,” she said.
He jumped to his feet. “Let me loosen that girdle for you. I haven’t been breathing below the fifth rib myself since you put it on, just in sympathy,” he declared.
XVI.—A House-Party—Outdoors
“The trouble is,” said Anthony Robeson, shifting his position on the step below Juliet so that he could rest his head against her knee, “the trouble is we’re getting too popular.”
Juliet laughed and ran her fingers through his thick locks, gently tweaking them. The two were alone together in the warm darkness of a July evening, upon their own little porch.
“It’s the first evening we’ve had to ourselves since the big snowdrift under the front windows melted. That was about the date Roger Barnes met Louis Lockwood here the first time. Ye gods—but they’ve kept each other’s footprints warm since then, haven’t they? And now Cathcart is giving indications of having contracted the fatal malady. Can’t Rachel Redding be incarcerated somewhere until the next moon is past? I notice they all have worse symptoms each third quarter.That girl looks innocent, but—by heaven, Julie, I think she has it down fine.”
“No, you don’t,” said Juliet persuasively. “I should catch her at it if she were deliberately trying to keep two such men as Roger and Louis pitted against each other. They’re doing it all themselves. I’ve known her to run away when she saw one of them coming—so that she couldn’t be found. But, Tony dear, I’ve a plan.”
“Good. I hope it’s a duel between the two principals. If it is I’m going to tamper with the weapons and see that each injures himself past help. I’m getting a little weary of playing the hospitable host to a trio of would-bes.”
“Listen. We’ll entertain them all at once for a week, with some extra girls, and Judith and Wayne, and then we’ll announce that we’re not at home for a month.”
“All at once—a house-party?” Anthony sat up and laughed uproariously. “I’ve tremendous faith in you, love, but where in the name of all the French sardines that ever were dovetailed would you put such a crowd?”
“I’ve a practical plan. Louis Lockwood belongs to a fishing club that spends everyAugust up in Canada. They have a big tent, twenty by twenty-five, for he told me so the other day. He would get it for us; we would put it out in the orchard, close to the river. You and Wayne, and Roger and Louis, and Stevens Cathcart could sleep down there, and I could easily take care of Judith and Suzanne Gerard and Marie Dresser, here in the house. Rachel should stay here, too. And Auntie Dingley would send down Mary McKaim to cook for us, I’m sure.”
“That’s not so bad. But why Rachel—when you have so little room?”
“Because I want her to have all the fun; because if I don’t keep her here she will be running away half the time; and because——”
“Now comes the real reason,” observed Anthony sagely.
“I don’t want the other girls thinking she has the unfair advantage of taking a man away from the party every evening to walk down home with her.”
“Wise little chaperon. I can see Roger and Louis now, glaring at each other as the hour approaches for her departure.”
“What do you think of my plan? It’sonly a plan, you know, Tony—subject to your approval.”
“Diplomat!” murmured Anthony, reaching up one arm and drawing it about her shoulders. “You know you’re safe to have my approval when you put it in that tone. Well, provided you can figure out the finances—and I know you wouldn’t propose it if you hadn’t done that already—I don’t see any objection. On one condition, though, Julie, mind you—on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Of course, I can only be here evenings during your house party. So my condition is that I have you and the home all to myself for my vacation afterward. Not a wooer nor a chum admitted. No overdressed women out from town, taking afternoon tea—no invitations to lonesome husbands out to dinner. Just you and I. Did you ever imagine life in the rural localities would be so gay, anyhow? I want to go fishing with you—tramping through the woods with you—sitting out here on the porch with you—in short, have you all to myself—and”—he turned completely about, kneeling below her on the step, crushing her in both arms so vigorouslythat he stopped her breath—“eat—you—up!”
“What a prospect,” she cried softly, when she found herself partially released. “Are you sure you need a vacation, just for that?”
“Certain of it. I’ve had to share you with other people all the year—and now I’ve got to give you up to a jealous lovers’ assemblage. So after that, mind you, I have my satisfaction.”
When Doctor Barnes was told of the plan he looked gloomy. “Going to ask Lockwood?” he inquired at once.
“Of course,” assented Juliet promptly.
“I don’t see any ‘of course’ about it.”
“What would Marie Dresser do to me if I didn’t invite him?”
“He doesn’t care for her——”
“Oh, yes, he does. Why, last winter he seemed to be on the point of asking her to marry him. Everybody expected the announcement any day.”
“Last winter and this summer are two different propositions.”
“Marie doesn’t think so.”
“She’ll get mightily undeceived, then. Whom else are you asking?”
“Stevens Cathcart.”
The doctor groaned. “Is this a dose you’re fixing for me? I’m going to be too busy—I can’t come.”
“Very well,” said Juliet placidly. She was sewing, upon the porch, and the doctor sat on the step.
He looked up with a grimace. “I suppose you think I’ll be out on the next train after the rest arrive.”
“I certainly do, Dr. Roger Williams Barnes.”
“I presume you are inviting Suzanne?” he queried.
“Why not?”
“No reason why not. Cathcart admires her immensely—or did, before he began to cultivate this place.”
Juliet laughed. “Suzanne would never forgive you if she heard that.”
“By-the-way,” said the doctor slowly, “has she ever met—Miss Redding?”
“No.”
He meditated for several minutes in silence, while Juliet sewed, glancing from time to time at one of the most attractivemasculine profiles with which she was familiar. He was not as handsome a man as Louis Lockwood, but every line of his face stood for strength, not without some pretensions to good looks. He looked up at length and straight at her.
“Would you mind telling me,” he began, “just what you intend to effect with this combination? I never gave you credit, you know, Juliet, for wanting to manage Fate, and I don’t believe it now.”
“No, I don’t want to manage Fate,” said Juliet, smiling over her work, “but I admit I want two things: I want you to see Rachel Redding beside Suzanne Gerard, and—I want Rachel to see you beside Louis Lockwood and—Suzanne.”
“I see,” said the doctor grimly. “In other words, you want your protégée to have fair play.”
“Just that,” Juliet answered, more gravely now. “I think lots of you, Roger, and well of you—you know I do—and yet——”
“And yet——”
“Let me guard my girl. She’s not like the others, and you and Louis are making it tremendously hard for her between you.”
“You seem to be planning to make it infinitely harder.”
Juliet shook her head. “Trust me, Roger, please.”
“All right, I will,” promised the doctor. “But just assure me that you’re on my side.”
“I’m on nobody’s side,” was all the comfort he got.
Juliet’s invitations received delighted acceptances, though Wayne Carey and Doctor Barnes would be able to come out only for the nights—in time, however, for late and festive suppers outdoors. The tent in the orchard, with its comfortable bunks, was accepted by all the men with enthusiasm.
“And to satisfy the men is the essential thing, you know, Tony,” Juliet had observed sagely when she saw their pleasure in their quarters. “The girls will accept any crowding together if they have a mirror and room to tie a sash in, as long as devoted admirers are not wanting.”
The moment Miss Dresser and Miss Gerard saw Miss Rachel Redding—to quote Anthony—the fun began. Mrs. Wayne Carey had already met her, and had beencarefully coached by Juliet as to the bearing she must assume toward Juliet’s new friend. So when Marie and Suzanne began to inquire of Judith the latter was prepared to answer them.
“She’s a beauty in her way, isn’t she?” Judith asserted. “Juliet’s immensely fond of her, I should judge.”
“But who is she?” demanded Suzanne.
“A neighbour, a country girl, a school and college girl, a comparatively poor girl—and a lucky girl, for Juliet likes her.”
“Have the men met her before?”
“Goodness, yes. Haven’t you heard how they beg invitations home to dinner of Anthony, just to see her?” Judith was enjoying the situation. This statement, however, was no part of Juliet’s coaching.
“I didn’t see anything particularly attractive about her,” said Marie promptly. “She’s a demure thing. One wouldn’t think she ever lifted those long lashes to look at a man—but that’s just the kind. Awfully plainly dressed.”
“That’s her style,” said Suzanne. “These poor, pretty girls are once in a while just clever enough to make capital out of their poverty by wearing simply fetching thingsin pale gray dimity and dark blue lawn and sunbonnets. Stevens Cathcart would be just the kind to be carried away with her. Roger Barnes wouldn’t look at her twice.”
“Louis might pretend to admire her, to please Juliet,” admitted Marie. “He has a way of making every girl think he is in love with her—and he is, to a certain extent. But it’s never serious.”
Whether it were serious in this instance Miss Dresser soon had opportunity to judge.
After dinner that first night Anthony proposed taking all his guests out upon the river in a big flat-boat he had rented. But when he made up the party Rachel was not to be found.
“I’m afraid she’s gone home,” said Juliet.
“I’ll run down and see,” proposed Lockwood instantly, and was suiting the action to the word when Cathcart got off ahead of him.
“I’ll have her back presently,” he called as he dashed down the road. “You people go on—we’ll catch you.”
“We’ll wait for you,” Lockwood shouted after him.
“Why should we wait?” demurred Marie, beginning to walk away toward the river.
“If we don’t he’s liable not to find it convenient to catch up with us,” Lockwood retorted.
“If they prefer their own company why not let them have it?” she said over her shoulder.
“Run along, Louis,” murmured Doctor Barnes. “One girl at a time.”
He turned to Juliet. “Shall we go?” he said.
Anthony caught his glance, and, laughing, turned to Suzanne. “Will you console an old married man, Miss Gerard?” he inquired.
But when Cathcart reappeared, which he did very soon, Rachel was not with him. “She said she had to stay with her mother,” he explained in a tone which so closely resembled a growl that everybody laughed.
“Bear up, Stevie, boy,” chaffed Wayne Carey. “I’m confident she likes you, but she may not like you all the time, you know. They seldom do.”
XVII.—Rachel Causes Anxiety
In spite of all Juliet’s efforts to bring about Rachel’s presence as one of her guests she found herself unable to accomplish it. Whenever she was needed for help Rachel was never absent, but the moment she was free the girl was off, and that quite without the appearance of running away. The men of the party followed her, but they were not allowed to remain. The girls, confident that her disappearances were part of a very deep game, begged her to stay; it was useless. Rachel’s excuses were ready, her manner charmingly regretful in a quiet way, but stay she would not.
Dr. Roger Barnes waylaid her one evening as she was vanishing down the willow-bordered path by the brook, leading to her own home.
“Here you go again,” he began discontentedly. “I wish I knew why.”
Rachel paused. It was difficult to do otherwise with a large and determined figure blocking a very narrow path.
“I have ever so many things waiting at home for me to do.”
“At nine o’clock in the evening?”
“At whatever hour I am through at Mrs. Robeson’s.”
“I wish I could imagine something of what they are. It might relieve my mind a little.”
“Why, I will tell you,” said Rachel with great appearance of frankness. “I have to do some mending for mother, read the evening paper for father, and set the bread. Then the clothes must be sprinkled for ironing in the morning.”
The doctor studied her face in the dimming light. “Who washed the clothes?” he asked bluntly.
“Do you think you ought to ask?” said Rachel.
“Yes. I’m in the habit of asking questions.”
“Of patients——”
“Of everybody I care for. You don’t have to answer, but if you don’t I shall know who did the washing.”
“Yes, I did it,” said Rachel steadily. “It is easily done.”
“And then you came over here and got breakfast?”
“Not at all. I helped Mrs. Robeson and Mary McKaim get it. Doctor Barnes, do you know that you are standing directly in my path?”
“Certainly,” said the doctor. “It’s what I’m here for.”
“Then I shall have to go back and take the road home.”
“If you do you will evade me only to encounter another man. Lockwood’s keeping a ferret’s eye on the Robeson house door; and I think Cathcart is already patrolling the road in front of your house.”
The girl turned. “You are making me feel very absurd,” she said. “I want to go home, Doctor Barnes. Please let me pass you.”
“May I go with you?”
“I would rather not.”
“Well, that’s frank,” he said, amusement and chagrin struggling for the uppermost. “I wonder I don’t stalk angrily away——”
“I wish you would.”
Roger Barnes threw back his head and laughed. “I wish you would give some other girls a leaf out of your book,” he said.“The more you turn me down the more ardently I long to be with you; while the opposite sort of thing—I’ll tell you, Miss Redding, if you want to be rid of me try these tactics: Say with a languishing smile, ‘Oh, Doctor Barnes, won’t you take me a little way down this lovely path?’ Perhaps that will accomplish your ends. I’ve often felt an instant desire not to do the thing I’m begged to.”
“‘Oh, Doctor Barnes,’” said Rachel Redding—and he caught the mischief in her tone—even Rachel could be mischievous, as Juliet had said—“‘won’t you take me a little way down this lovely path?’”
“With the greatest pleasure in the world,” replied the doctor promptly, and stood aside to let her pass him. Whereupon she slipped by him, and before he could realise that she had gone was running fleetly away in the twilight down the winding, willow-hung path. With an exclamation he was off after her, but though he dashed at the pace of a hunter through the intricacies of the way he presently discovered that he was following nothing but the summer breeze rustling the willow leaves and wafting into his face the breathof new-cut hay, the aftermath of late July. He stopped at length and stared about him, baffled and half angry.
“There never was a girl like you,” he muttered. “If you are deliberately trying to make men mad to get you you are succeeding infuriatingly well. If I catch you to-night it will be your fault if I tell you what I think of you. I’ll tell you now, for I suppose you are hiding somewhere in this undergrowth till I give it up and you can get away home. You shall listen to me if you are here, for you can’t help yourself.”
He was speaking in a low, even tone, walking slowly along the path and peering sharply into the bushes on both sides. Suddenly he stood still. He had detected a spot beside a low-hanging willow which showed nearly white in the deepening darkness. Rachel was wearing white to-night, he remembered. His heart quickened its paces and he paused an instant to get past a certain tightening in his throat.
Then he bent forward and whispered: “If that’s not you there I can say what I like, and there’ll be some satisfaction inthat. If you’ll speak now you may save yourself, but if you don’t I’ve no reason to think it’s you, and so I can say——”
There was a sharply perceptible noise farther down the path toward the Redding home. Barnes turned quickly and stood up straight, waiting. Footsteps came rapidly along the path—no footsteps of hers, evidently. A man’s voice humming a tune grew momentarily plainer—then the voice stopped humming and began to sing in a subdued but clear and fine barytone:
“Down through the lane
Come I again
Seeking, my love, for you;
Run to me, dear,
Losing all fear,
Love and——”
The voice stopped. Two men’s figures confronted each other in an extremely narrow path. It was not too dark yet for each to be plainly recognisable to the other.
“Hallo—that you, Lockwood?”
“Hi there, Roger Barnes; what you doing here? Fishing?”
“Looking for something I’ve lost.”
“Getting pretty dark to find it. Something valuable?”
“Rather. Think I’ll give it up for to-night.”
“Too bad. Nice night.” Lockwood was hastening toward the end of the path which came out near Anthony’s house. Barnes looked after him grimly.
“That voice of yours, young man,” he thought, “handicaps me from the start. Now, if I could just warble my emotions that way——”
He turned and peered again at the white place by the tree. He moved stealthily toward it, and ascertained presently that it was not what it seemed. He rose to his feet and walked rapidly down the path to the Redding house. When he came in sight of it he saw that the kitchen windows were lighted and that a man stood with his arm on the sill of one of them. Silhouetted against the light were the familiar outlines of Stevens Cathcart. As Barnes stood staring amazedly at this, a slender figure in white came to the window, and in the stillness he could hear the quiet voice:
“Please let me close the window, Mr. Cathcart. Thank you—no—and good-night.”
“‘Three Men in a Boat,’ by Rachel Redding,”murmured the doctor to himself, and slipped back to the willow path, from which he at length emerged to join the group upon the porch—which then, it may be observed, held for the first time that night its full complement of men.
Three big Chinese lanterns shed a softly pleasant light upon the porch and the lawn at its foot. Suzanne Gerard and Marie Dresser made a most attractive picture, one in a low chair, the other upon a pile of cushions on the step. Suzanne lightly picked a mandolin. Marie was singing softly:
“Down through the lane
Come I again
Seeking, my love, for you;
Run to me, dear,
Losing all fear,
Love and my life will be true.”
It was one of the songs of the summer—foolish words, seductive music—everybody hummed it half the time. Roger Barnes smiled to himself, remembering where he had heard it last.
“Come here and give account,” commanded Suzanne the instant he appeared. “Every unmarried man vanished the momenttwilight fell. You are the last to show your face. I challenge you, one and all, to swear that you have not been within sight of a certain small brown house at the foot of the hill since supper.”
Her voice was music; in her eyes was laughter. Marie sang on, pointing her words with smiles at one and another of the culprits.
From his seat on the threshold of the door, where his head rested against Juliet’s knee as she sat behind him, Anthony laughed to himself. Then he turned his head and whispered to his wife: “Feel the claws through the velvet? Poor boys, they have my sympathy.”