“Did you ever hear of an engaged pair who didn’t write every day?”
“It must take a good deal of your time,” she remarked. “But, of course, she can cook. Every sane girl takes a cooking-school course nowadays. It’s as essential as French.”
“You did, then?”
“Of course. Don’t you remember when I used to edify you with new and wonderful dishes every time you dropped in to luncheon?”
“But did you learn the more important things?”
“I paid especial attention to soups, sir,” laughed Juliet. “Now, if Mrs. Anthony has done that you can live very economically.”
“I’ll suggest it to her,” said Anthony gravely.
V.—Muslins and Tackhammers
It took several trips to the small house, and a great deal of hemming and ruffling of muslin on the part of Juliet and the Marcy sewing-woman, to say nothing of many days of Anthony’s hard labour, to get everything in place. But it was all done at length, and the hour arrived to close the new home and leave it to wait the oncoming day in September when it should be permanently opened.
“I’ll just go over it once more,” said Juliet to Mrs. Dingley. The latter lady was lying in a hammock out under the apple trees, waiting for train time and her final release from duties which were becoming decidedly wearisome. It was the first day of August, and the evening was a warm one. Anthony had gone off upon a last errand of some sort. Mrs. Dingley was too exhausted to offer to accompany her niece, and Juliet ran back into the house alone. She wandered slowly through the rooms, looking about to see if there might be any perfecting touch which she could add.
It was a charming place; even a daughter of the house of Marcy could but own to that. Under her skilful management the little rooms had blossomed into a fresh, satisfying beauty that needed only the addition of the personal adornment which Anthony’s bride would be sure to bring, to become a home—the home not only of a poor man but of a refined and cultured one as well. Restricted though she had been to the most inexpensive means of bringing about this happy result, Juliet had made them all tell toward an effect of great harmony and beauty. Perhaps to nobody was this more of a revelation than to the girl herself.
She was very proud of the living-room, as she looked about it. The partition between it and the tiny hall had been removed, according to her suggestion, and the straight staircase altered by means of a landing and an abrupt turn which transformed it into picturesqueness. With its low, broad steps, its slender spindles and odd posts, it added much to the character of the room.
Like most old New England houses, this one’s chief glory was its great central chimney, with big fireplaces opening both into the living-room and the dining-room. In the former, between the fireplace and the staircase, and forming a suggestion of an inglenook, Juliet had contrived a high, wide seat, cushioned in dull green, and boasting a number of pretty pillows. It must be confessed that she had surreptitiously added a little to these in the matter of certain modestly rich bits of material, and she contemplated the result with great satisfaction. It may be remarked, with no comment whatever, that in spite of their beauty there was not a pillow of all those scattered about the house which a weary man might not tuck under his head without fear of ruining a creation too delicate for any use but to be admired.
Having seized upon the idea of staining cheap material, she had carried it out in a set of low bookcases across the end and one side of the room. These awaited the coming of the several hundreds of choice books which Anthony had saved from his father’s library. Two fine old portraits, dear to the hearts of many generations of the “Robesons of Kentucky,” lent distinction to the home of their young descendant. Altogether the room was both quaint and artistic, and with its few plain chairs and tables, mostly heirlooms, and all of good old colonial design, was a room in which one could readily imagine one’s self sitting down to a winter evening of cosy comfort, such as is not always to be had in far finer abiding-places.
The dining-room was a study in its reds and browns, and its home-made furniture was an astonishing success—if one were not too severely critical. As she surveyed it Juliet seemed to see the future master and mistress of this little home sitting down opposite each other in the fireglow, and smiling across.
The coming Mrs. Robeson, if one might judge by her photograph, was a woman to lend grace and dignity to her surroundings, whatever they might be. Juliet could imagine her pretty, stately way of presiding at such small feasts as the room was destined to see, making her guests quite forget that she was not mistress of a mansion equal to any in the land. Would she be happy? Could she be happy here, after all that she had had of another and very different sort of life? For some reason, as Juliet stood and looked and thought, her face grew very sober, and a long-drawn breath escaped her lips.
The little kitchen was an exceedingly alluring place, gay in the bravery of fresh paint and spotless, shining utensils. There were even crisp curtains—at eight cents a yard—tied back at the high, wide-silled, triple window with its diminutive panes. It needed only a pot or two of growing plants in the window, and a neat-handed Phyllis in a figured gown, to be the old-time kitchen of one’s dreams.
But it was upon the rooms on the upper floor that Juliet had exhausted her imagination and effort. Nothing could have been conceived of more dainty than they. Here her denims and muslins had run riot. Low dressing-tables clad in ruffled hangings, their padded tops delicate with the breath of orris; beds valanced with similar stuffs; high-backed chairs, their seats cushioned into comfort—everything was done in the cleverest imitation of the ancient styles in keeping with the old-fashioned house. It all made one think of the patter of high-heeled, buckled slippers, and stiff, rustling, brocaded gowns, and powdered hair, and the odours of long ago. Anthony would never know what his friendly home-maker had put into these rooms of sentiment and charm.
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. He looked 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