The Indifference of Juliet Part 25

"Yes, he's worried and restless, Tony. He's so devoted to Judith and so anxious to make her happy, her dissatisfaction rests on him like a weight.

Don't you see that every time you see them together?"

"Every time--and more plainly. What's the matter with her anyhow, Julie?

She seemed promising enough as a girl. You certainly found enough in her to make you two congenial. She's no more like you than--electric light is like sunshine," said Anthony, picking up the simile with a laugh and a glance of appreciation.

"Judith shines in the surroundings she was born and brought up in, misses them, and doesn't know how to adapt herself to any others. She ought to have been the wife of some high official--she could entertain royally and have everybody at her feet."

"Magnificent characteristics, but mighty unavailable in the present circ.u.mstances. It carries out my electric-light comparison. I prefer the sunlight--and I have it.--Poor Carey!"

"We'll hope," said Juliet. "And if we have the smallest chance to help, we'll do it."

But, as Anthony had antic.i.p.ated, there was small chance to help. Meeting Carey a fortnight later, Anthony inquired after the new home, and Carey replied with apparent lack of enthusiasm that the house had been leased for a term of three years, with refusal of the purchase at the expiration of the time. He explained that Judith had been unwilling to burn her bridges by buying the place outright, and that he thought perhaps the present plan was the better one--under these conditions. But the fact that the house was not their own made it seem unwise to expend very much upon alterations beyond those of paint and paper. With the prospect of a sale the owner had unwillingly consented to replace the gingerbread porch with one in better style, but refused to do more. The big window, with its abominable topping of cheap coloured gla.s.s, was to remain for the present.

"And I think this whole arrangement is bound to defeat my purpose," said Carey unhappily. "The very changes we can't afford to make in a rented house are the ones Judith needs to have made to reconcile her to the experiment. She says she feels ill every time she comes to the house and sees that window. She wants a porcelain sink in the kitchen. She would like speaking-tubes and a system of electric bells. We're to have a servant--if we can find her. We've put green paper on all the downstairs rooms, and it turns out the wrong green. I wanted a sort of corn-colour that looked more cheerful, but it seems green is the only thing. I don't know what's the matter with me. Perhaps I'm bilious. Green seems to be all right in your house, but in mine it makes me want to go outdoors."

"That's precisely what you should do," Anthony advised cheerfully. "Get outdoors all you can. Start your garden. Mow your lawn yourself. Make over that gravel path to your front door."

"I've only evenings," objected Carey. "And we're not settled yet. The paper's only just on. We haven't moved. We're buying furniture. We bought a sideboard yesterday. It cost so much we had to get a cheaper range for the kitchen than seemed desirable, but Judith liked the sideboard so well I was glad to buy it. I don't know when we shall get to living there permanently. This furnishing business knocks me out. We don't seem to know what we want. I'd like--" he hesitated--"I hoped Mrs. Robeson might be able to give us the advantage of her experience, but it turns out that Judith has a sort of pride in doing it herself, and of course--I presume you made some mistakes yourselves, eh?" He suggested this with eagerness.

"Oh, of course," agreed Anthony readily, though he wondered what they were, and inwardly begged Juliet's pardon for this answer, given out of masculine sympathy with his friend's helplessness. "You'll come out all right," he hastily a.s.sured Carey. "Once you are living in the new place things will adjust themselves. Keep up your courage. Your daily walk to and from the train will do wonders. Lack of exercise will make a rainbow look gloomy to a fellow. I think you've great cause for rejoicing that Judith has agreed to try the experiment at all. And as with all experiments, you must be patient while it works itself out."

"That's so," agreed Carey, a gleam of hope in his eyes; and Anthony got away. But by himself the happier man shook his head doubtfully. "Where everything depends on the woman," he said to himself, "and you've married one that her Maker never fashioned for domestic joys, you're certainly up against a mighty difficult proposition!"

XXIV.--THE CAREYS ARE AT HOME

Wayne and Judith Carey had been keeping house for two months before Judith was willing to accede to her husband's often repeated request that they entertain the Robesons.

"We've been there, together and separately, till it's a wonder their hospitality doesn't freeze up," he urged. "Let's have them out to-morrow night, and keep them over till next day, at least. I'd like to have them sleep under this roof. They'd bring us good luck."

"One would think the Robesons were the only people worth knowing," said Judith, with a petulance of which she had the grace, as her husband stared at her, to be ashamed.

"They're the truest friends we have in the world," he said, with a dignity of manner unusual with him. "Sometimes I think they are the only people worth knowing--out of all those on your calling list."

"We differ about that. Your ideas of who are worth knowing are very peculiar. Heaven knows I'm fond of Juliet, but I get decidedly tired of having her held up as a model. And I haven't been anxious to entertain her until we were in order."

"We're certainly as much in order now as we shall be for some time. Let's have them out. You'll find they'll see everything there is to praise. It's their way."

So Anthony and Juliet were asked, and came. Wayne's prophecy was proven a true one--even Judith grew complacent as her friends admired the result of her house-furnishing. And in truth there was much to admire. Judith was a young woman of taste and more or less discretion, and if she could have had full sway in her purchasing the result might have been admirable. As it was, the unspoken criticism in the minds of both the guests, as they followed their hosts about the house, was that Judith had struck a key-note in her construction of a home a little too ambitious to be wholly satisfactory.

"I believe in buying the best of everything as far as you go," she said, indicating a particularly costly lounging chair in a corner of the living-room. "Of course that was very expensive, but it will always be right, and we can get others to go with it. The bookcases were another high-priced purchase, but they give an air to the room worth paying for."

"I've only one objection to this room," said Wayne with some hesitation.

"As Judith says, the things in it seem to be all right, and it certainly looks in good taste, if I'm any judge, but--I don't know just how to explain it----" he hesitated again, and smiled deprecatingly at his wife.

"Speak out," said Judith. She was in a very good humour, for her guests had shown so fine a tact in their commendation that she was in quite a glow of satisfaction, and for the first time felt the pleasure of the hostess in an attractive home. "It can't be a serious objection, for you've liked every single thing we've put into it."

"Indeed I have," agreed Carey, eagerly glancing about the brilliantly lit room. "I like it all awfully well--especially in the daylight. The corner by the window is a famous place for reading. But, you see, I'm so little here in the daytime, except on Sundays. Of course I know we lack the fireplace that makes your living-room jolly, but it seems as if we lack something besides that we might have, and for the life of me I can't tell what it is."

Anthony knew by a certain curve in the corner of his wife's mouth that she longed to tell him what it was. For himself, he could not discover. He studied the room searchingly and was unable to determine why, attractive as it really was, it certainly did, upon this cool May evening, lack the look of warm comfort and hospitality of which his own home was so full.

"Possibly it's because everything is so new," he ventured. "Rooms come to have a look of home, you know, just by living in them and leaving things about. It's a pretty room, all right, and I fancy it will take on the friendly expression you want when you get to strewing your books and magazines around a little more, and laying your pipe down on the corner of the mantel-piece, you know--and all that. I can upset things for you in half a minute if you'll give me leave."

"You have my full permission," said Judith, laughing. "I fancy it's just as you say: Wayne isn't used to it yet. He always likes his old slippers better than the handsomest new ones I can buy him. Come--dinner has been served for five minutes. No more artistic suggestions till afterward."

The dinner was perfect. It should have been so, for a caterer was in the kitchen, and a hired waitress served the viands without disaster. As a delectable meal it was a success; as an exhibition of Mrs. Carey's capacity for home making, it was something of a failure. It certainly did not for a moment deceive the guests. For the life of her, as Juliet tasted course after course of the elaborate meal, she could not help reckoning up what it had cost. Neither could she refrain from wondering what sort of a repast Judith would have produced without help.

After dinner, as Wayne and Anthony smoked in front of the fireless mantel-piece in the den, each in a more luxurious chair than was to be found in Anthony's whole house, Judith took Juliet to task.

"You may try to disguise it," she complained, "but I've known you too long not to be able to read you. You would rather have had me cook that dinner myself and bring it in, all red and blistered from being over the stove."

"As long as the dinner wasn't red and blistered you wouldn't have been unhappy," Juliet returned lightly. "But you mustn't think that she who entertains may read my ingenuous face, my dear. It isn't necessary that I attempt to convert the world to my way of thinking. And I haven't told you that when Auntie Dingley goes abroad with father again this winter I'm to have Mary McKaim for eight whole months. I can a.s.sure you I know how to appreciate the comfort of having a competent cook in the kitchen."

She got up and crossed the room. "Judith, what an exquisite lamp," she observed. "I'd forgotten that you had it. Was it one of your wedding presents?"

Judith followed her to where she stood examining an imposing, foreign-looking lamp, with jeweled inlets in the hand-wrought metal shade.

"Yes," she said carelessly, "it's pretty enough. I don't care much for lamps."

"Not to read by?"

"It's bright enough for anybody but a blind man to read, here." Judith glanced at the ornate chandelier of electric lights in the centre of the ceiling. "The rooms aren't so high that the lights are out of reach for reading."

"But this is beautiful. Have you never used it?"

"It might be used with an electric connection, I suppose. No, I've never used it as an oil lamp. I hate kerosene oil."

"But you have some in the house?"

"Oh, yes, I think so. Wayne insisted on getting some little hand-lamps.

Something's always happening to the wires out here. That's one of the numerous joys of living in the suburbs."

"Let's fill this and try it," Juliet suggested, turning a pair of very bright eyes upon her friend. "If you've never lit it I don't believe you've half appreciated it. You're neglecting one of the prettiest sources of decoration you have in the house. Out of sympathy for the giver, whoever he was, you ought to let his gift have a chance to show you its beauty."

"Stevens Cathcart gave it to us, I believe," said Judith. "Here, let me have it. I'll fill it, since you insist. But I never thought very much of it. It was put away in a closet until we came here. It took up so much room I never found a place for it."

"Mr. Cathcart gave it to you? That proves my point, that it's worth admiring. If there's a connoisseur in things of this sort, it's he. He probably picked it up in some out-of-the-ordinary European shop."

Smiling to herself, as if something gave her satisfaction, Juliet awaited the return of her hostess. She understood, from the manner of Judith's exit with the lamp, that the free and easy familiarity with which guests invaded every portion of Anthony's little home, was not to be made a precedent for the same sort of thing in Judith's.

The lamp reappeared, accompanied by a lamentation over the disagreeable qualities of kerosene oil for any use whatever.

"You can put electricity into this and use it as a drop-light, if you prefer," said Juliet, as she lit it and adjusted the shade. "May I set it on the big table over here? Right in the center, please, if you don't mind moving that bowl of carnations. There!--Of course you can send it back to oblivion over there on the bookcase if you really don't like it.--But you do like it--don't you?"

"It's handsomer than I thought it was," Judith admitted without enthusiasm. Juliet glanced up at the blazing chandelier overhead.