The Story of Julia Page Part 33

"Yes, so of course that makes everything all right," Jim said ironically. But Mr. Babc.o.c.k was in no mood to be critical of tones.

"Sure it does!" he agreed contentedly. And when Jim had disgustedly departed, he remained still staring into the fire, a pleased smile upon his face.

Julia spent the next day in bed fighting a threatened nervous breakdown, and Jim came to see her at two o'clock, and they had a long and memorable talk, with Jim's chair drawn close to the couch, and the girl's lax hand in his own. She had not slept all night, she told him, and he suspected that she had spent much of the long vigil in tears.

Tears came again as she begged a hundred times to set him free, but he quieted her at last, and the old tragedy that had risen to haunt them was laid. And if Julia felt a rush of blind grat.i.tude and hope when they sealed their new compact with a kiss, Jim was no less happy--everything had come out wonderfully, and he loved Julia not less, but more than he had ever loved her. The facts of her life, whatever they had been, had made her what she was; now let them all be forgotten.

"Still, you are not sorry I told you, Jim?" Julia asked.

"No, oh, no, dearest! If only because you would have been sure to want to do it sooner or later--it would have worried you. But now I do know, Julie, you little Spartan! And this ends it. We'll never speak of it again, and we'll never think of it again. You and I are the only two who know--And we love each other. When all's said and done, it's I that am not good enough for you, darling, not worthy to tie your little shoe laces!"

"Oh, _you_!" Julia said, in great content.

The rest followed, as Julia herself said, like "a house-maid's dream."

Jim went home to tell his own people that night, and the very next morning Julia, surprised and smiling, took in at the door a trim little package that proved to be a blue-and-white Copenhagen teacup, with a card that bore only the words "Miss Barbara Lowe Toland." Julia twisted it in her fingers with a curious little thrill at the heart. The "nicest" people sent cups to engaged girls, the "nicest" people sent their cards innocent of scribbled messages. She, Julia Page, was one of the "nicest" people now, and these were the first tentacles of her new estate reaching out to meet her.

Notes and flowers from the Tolands and the warm-hearted Tolands themselves followed thick and fast, and in a day or two notes and cups--cups--cups--were coming from other people as well. The Misses Saunders, the Harvey Brocks, the George Chickerings, Mr. Peter Coleman, Mr. Jerome Phillips, Mrs. Arnold Keith, and Miss Mary Peac.o.c.k--all had found time to go into Nathan Dohrmann's, or Gump's, or the White House, and pick out a beautiful cup to send Miss Julia Page.

Six weeks--five weeks--three weeks to the wedding, sang Julia's heart; the time ran away. She had dreaded having to meet Jim's friends, and had dreaded some possible embarra.s.sment from an unexpected move on the part of her own family, but the days fled by, and the miracle of their happiness only expanded and grew sweeter, like a great opening rose.

Their hours together, with so much to tell each other and so much to discuss, no matter how short the parting had been, were hours of exquisite delight. And as Julia's beauty and charm were praised on all sides, Jim beamed like a proud boy. As for Julia, every day brought to her notice something new to admire in this wonderful lover of hers: his scowl as he fixed his engine, the smile that always met hers, the instant soberness and attention with which he answered any question as to his work from the older doctor--all this was delightful to her. And when he took her to luncheon, his careless big fingers on the ready gold pieces and his easy nod to the waiter were not lost upon Julia. She had loved him for himself, but it was additionally endearing to learn that other people loved him, too, to be stopped by elderly women who smiled and praised him, to have young people affectionately interested in his plans.

"You know you are nothing but a small boy, Jim," Julia said one day, "just a sweet, happy kid! You were a spoiled and pitied little boy, with your big eyes and your velvet suits and your patent leathers; you loved every one--every one loved you; you had your allowance, you were born to be a surgeon, and chance made your guardian a doctor--"

"I fell down on my exams," Jim submitted meekly. "And there was a fellow at college who said I bored him!"

"Oh, dearest," Julia said, beginning to laugh at his rueful face, "and are those the worst things that ever happened to you?"

"About," said Jim, enjoying the consolatory little kiss she gave him.

"And your youngness baffles me," pursued Julia thoughtfully. "You're ten years older than I am, you've been able to do a thousand things I never did, you're a rising young surgeon, and yet--and yet sometimes there's a sort of level--level isn't the word!--a sort of _positive_ youth about you that makes me feel eighty! It's just as if you had been born everything you are, ready made! When you have to straighten a child's hip, you push your hair back like a nice little kid, and say to yourself, 'Sure--I can do that!' You seem as pleased and surprised as any one else when everything comes out right!"

"Well, gosh! I never can put on any lugs!" said James, rumpling his hair in penitential enjoyment.

"I have to learn things so _hard_," Julia mused, "they dig down right into the very soul of me--"

"You're implying that I'm shallow," said the doctor sternly. "You think I'm a pampered child of luxury, but I'm not! I just think I'm a pretty ordinary fellow who came in for an extraordinary line of luck. I would have made a pretty good bluff at supporting myself in any sort of life; as it was, when I was a youngster, growing up, I used to say to myself, 'You think you're going to be rich, but half the poor men in the world are born rich, anything may happen!' However, I enjoyed things just the same, and I went to medical college just because Dad said every man ought to be able to support himself. Then I got interested in the thing, and old Fox was a king to me, and told me I ought to go in for surgery.

My own father was a surgeon, you know. Some hands are just naturally better for it than others, and his were, and mine are. And at twenty-five I came of age, and found that my money was pretty safely fixed, and that Dad was kind of counting on my going in with him. So there you are! Things just come my way; as I say, I'd have been satisfied with less, but I've got in the habit of taking my luck for granted."

"And some people, like--well, like my grandmother, for instance, just get in the habit of bad luck," Julia said, with a sigh. "And some, like myself," she added, brightening, "are born in the bad belt, and push into the good! And we're the really lucky ones! I shall never put on a fresh frock, or go downtown with you to the theatre, without a special separate joy!"

Jim said, "You angel!" and as she jumped up--they had been sitting side by side in the hall at The Alexander--he caught her around the waist, and Julia set a little kiss on the top of his hair.

"But you do love me, Ju?" Jim asked.

"But I do indeed!" she answered. "Why do you always ask me in that argumentative sort of way? But me no buts!"

"Ah, well, it's because I'm always afraid you'll stop!" Jim pleaded.

"And I do so want you to begin to love me as much as I do you!"

"You must have had thousands of girls!" Julia remarked, idly rumpling his hair.

"I never was engaged before!" he a.s.sured her promptly. "Except to that Delaware girl, as I told you, and after five years she threw me over for a boy named Gregory Biddle, with several millions, but no chin, Julia, and had the gall to ask me to the wedding!"

"Jim, and you went?"

"Sure I went!" Jim declared.

"Oh, Jim!" and Julia gave him another kiss, through a gale of laughter, and ran off to change her gown and put on her hat.

It was a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and they were going to Sausalito. But first they went downtown in the lazy soft spring afternoon, to buy gloves for Julia and a scarf pin for Richie, who was to be Jim's best man, and to go into the big railroad office to get tickets for the use of Dr. and Mrs. James Studdiford three days later.

"Where are we going?" Julia asked idly, her eyes moving about the bright pigeonholed office, and to the window, and the street beyond. Jim for answer put his thumb upon the magic word that stared up at her from the long ticket.

"New York!" she whispered; her radiant look flashed suddenly to him.

"Oh, Jim!" And as they went out he heard a little sigh of utter content beside him. "It's too much!" said Julia. "To go to New York--with you!"

"Wherever you go, you go with me," he reminded her, with a glance that brought the swift colour to her face.

Then they went down to the boat. It was the first hot afternoon of the season; there was a general carrying of coats, and people were using the deck seats; there was even some grumbling at the heat. But Sausalito was at its loveliest, and Julia felt almost oppressed by the exquisite promise of summer that came with the sudden sound of laughter and voices in lanes that had long been silent, and with the odour of dying gra.s.s and drooping b.u.t.tercups beside the road. The Toland garden was full of roses, bright in level sunshine, windows and doors were all wide open, and the odours from bowls of flowers drifted about the house. Barbara, lovely in white, came to meet them.

"Come in, you poor things, you must be roasted! Jim, you're as red as a beet; go take a bath!" said Barbara. "And Julia, Aunt Sanna is here, and she says that you're to lie down for not less than an hour. And there are some packages for you, so come up and lie down on my bed, and we'll open them!"

"Barbara, I am so happy I think my heart will burst!" said Julia, ten minutes later, from Barbara's pillows.

"Well, you ought to be, my good woman! Jim Studdiford--when he's sober--is as good a husband as you're likely to get!" said Barbara, laughing. "Now, look, Julia, here's a jam pot from the Fowlers--Frederic Fowlers--I call that decent of them! Janey, come in here and put this jam pot down on Julia's list! And this heavy thing from the Penroses. I hope to goodness it isn't more carvers!"

It was Barbara who said later to Julia, in a confidential undertone:

"You know you've got to write personal notes for every bit of this stuff, Julia, right away? Lots of girls do it on their honeymoons."

"Well, I wanted to ask you, Barbara: how do I sign myself to these people I've never seen: 'Yours truly'?"

"Oh, heavens, no! 'Sincerely yours' or 'Yours cordially' and make 'em short. The shorter they are the smarter they are, remember that."

"And if I sign J. P. Studdiford, or Julia P. Studdiford--then oughtn't 'Mrs. J. N.' go in one corner?"

"Oh, _no_, you poor webfoot! No. Just write a good splashy 'Julia Page Studdiford' all over the page; they'll know who you are fast enough!"

"Thanks," said Julia shyly.

"You're welcome," Barbara said, smiling. "Are you ready to go down?"

After dinner the young Tolands, augmented by several young men, and by Julia and the doctor, all wandered out into the thick darkness, rejoicing in the return of summer. Sausalito's lanes were sweet with roses, lights shone out across the deep fresh green of gardens, and lights moved on the gently moving waters of the bay. A ferryboat, a ma.s.s of checkered brightness, plowed its way from Alcatraz--far off the city lay like a many-stranded chain of glittering gems upon the water. Julia and Doctor Studdiford let the others go on without them, and sat together in the dim curve of the O'Connell seat, and the heartbreaking beauty of the night wrapped them both in a happiness so deep as to touch the borderland of pain.

"Was there ever such a night?" said little Julia. "Shall we ever be so happy again?"

Jim could not see her clearly, but he saw her bright, soft eyes in the gloom, the shimmer of her loosened hair, the little white-clad figure in the seat's wide curve, and the crossed slim ankles. He put his arm about her, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Don't say that, darling!" said Jim. "This is great, of course. But it's nothing to all the happy months and years that we'll belong to each other. Nothing but death will ever come between you and me, Julie!"