CHAPTER SIX
"That will be all, Miss?"
"Yes," said Judith, with unnecessary emphasis. "Oh, yes, indeed!"
The Everards' car turned and flashed out of the drive and up the street.Judith stood still on the steps and watched it, if a young lady with herbreath coming fast and her eyes shining bright in the dark, and herheart beating unaccountably hard can be said to be standing still. Onelight burned forlornly over the entrance of the inn. Light was JudgeSaxon's one extravagance, and plenty of it was waiting for him in thehouse next door, though it would be two before any one left theEverards' but Judith.
The house before her was dark, and the dimly lighted street wasprofoundly still, with the heavy and brooding stillness that comes uponvillage streets after nine and is to be found nowhere else in the world.Judith did not seem depressed by it. Somewhere on a side street solitaryfootsteps echoed hollow through the silence, and she listened intently,but they came no nearer, and presently died away. She fumbled excitedlywith her key, threw open the door, and groped her way across theunlighted hall. She encountered the telephone table prematurely,clutched it, and laughed a high-keyed, strange little laugh.
"Who's there?" demanded a voice from the stairs, disconcertingly close.The lights, switched suddenly on, flashed into Judith's eyes, and Norahconfronted her, peculiarly forbidding in a discarded cape of Judith'sand her own beflowered best hat.
"Oh, it's you," she said.
"Who did you expect? Anybody else? Did--anybody come?"
"I expected you a half hour ago."
"What made you wait for me?"
"Didn't you want me to?"
"Nana, of course, but if your sister is sick and needs you----"
Norah listened to this irreproachable sentiment suspiciously. "It's lateto go," she said.
"I'll walk up with you if you're frightened."
"You! Can you unhook that dress?"
"Yes. I'm going to bed pretty soon. I'm awfully sleepy."
"There's some ginger ale on the ice."
"I can get it open myself. Did anybody come?"
"A boy you know."
"Who?"
"You're too anxious to know, and too anxious to get rid of me.And you're acting nervous."
"I'm not. I'm just sleepy."
Norah, her grimmest self, as she always was just before relenting, beganto fumble with her hat-pins.
"Let me help, if you really want to take off your hat. You'll spoil yourbeautiful roses. Darling, you look like your niece, the lovely MissMaggie Brady, in that hat. Don't take it off. You're cross because youknow where I've been. Well, they didn't eat me. I'm all here. It wasWillard who came, and I don't care whether you tell me or not. And Idon't want to get rid of you. And I love you and you love me, and you'renot cross now."
"If I love you, you've got need of it, then." Norah struggledperfunctorily, and permitted herself to be kissed. "Alone here till allhours of the night, and Mollie at the dance at the Falls, and your ownmother----"
"But you won't worry about me? And you'll go? And you'll go now, beforeit gets later, so you won't be frightened. You'll go this minute?And--oh, Nana----"
Norah, departing by the front door because the back one was secured byan elaborate system of locks of her own invention, and operated only byherself, turned to give Judith a farewell glance of grim adoration.
"Nana, was it Willard that came?"
"Yes."
"And not--anybody else?"
"No."
Norah, winding herself tightly into the cape in a way that convertedthat traditionally graceful garment into a kind of armour, disappearedup the street. When she was out of sight, and not until then, Judithslammed the door shut, laughing her tense, excited laugh again.
Then, for a sleepy young woman, she began to display surprisingactivity. First she turned off all the lights in the hall but one, in anopalescent globe, over the front door, looked at the faintly lightedvestibule with a calculating eye, and turned that out also. She lookedcritically in at the library, close curtained for the night, and dimlylit by the embers of the wood fire, raked apart, but not dead. Shepushed them together expertly, and added a stick, a little one, whichwould soon burn down to picturesque embers, like the rest. She pulled anarmchair closer to the fire, pushed it away again, and dropped twocushions on the hearth with a discreet space between.
The remains of Willard's last half-dozen carnations and a box of theeighty-cent-a-pound candy which only Mr. Edward Ward was extravagantenough to prefer to the generally popular fifty-cent Belle Isle, wereconspicuous on the table, and Judith carried them into the next room,out of sight. Just then the telephone rang.
Judith started, dropped the candy, ran into the hall, and stood lookingdown at the small instrument resentfully, as if it were personally toblame because she could not see who was calling her without answeringand committing herself. Once she picked it up doubtfully, but finallyput it down, still ringing intermittently, and hurried into the kitchen.She put a second bottle of ginger ale on the ice, brought a hammeredbrass tray and two glasses from the butler's pantry, then substituted aless ostentatious bamboo tray, hesitated, and then put them all awayagain.
Now she went to her own room, turned on an unbecoming but searchinglyclear toplight, and frowned at herself in the mirror, jerked out herhairpins, shook out her soft hair, and brushed and pulled at it withunsteady hands. In spite of them, the pale gold braids, rearranged,looked almost as well as before, if no better, and the heightened colourin her cheeks was charming. From a corner of her glove-case she producedthe two cosmetics then in favour with the younger set in Green River,burnt matches, and a bit of scarlet ribbon, which made an excellentsubstitute for rouge if you moistened it. The ribbon was an unhealthyred, and looked peculiarly so to-night. Judith dropped it impulsivelyinto her wastebasket, but experimented with the matches.
She made both her delicately shaded eyebrows an even splotchy black,admired the result, then suddenly rubbed it off, turned away from themirror without a backward glance, and ran down into the hall. The clockwas just striking ten.
Judith paused for one breathless minute at the library door, pressingboth hands against her heart, then she went into the firelit room andmade the last and most important of her preparations. She switched onthe lights, toplights and sidelights and reading-lamp, all of them, wentto the middle one of the three front windows, crushed the curtains back,and raised both shades high to the top, so that the light in the roomlooked out at the street from this window from sill to ceiling. Judithslipped quickly out of range of the window, dropped down on one of thecushions by the fire, and waited.
She had fluttered through her little hurry of preparation excitedly, butnow there was evidence of deeper excitement about the tense quiet ofher, huddled on her cushion, small hands clasping silken knees, andbrooding eyes on the fire. There was a dignity about her, too, in spiteof her childish pose and a drooping grace that was almost a woman's.
What she was waiting for was slow to come, but she did not seemdisturbed by that. The hands of the clock above her seemed to move withthe unbelievable quickness characteristic of clock hands when there isno other activity in the room, and she observed them calmly. Soon theypointed to the quarter hour, they passed it. She looked faintly worriedthen. The telephone rang again; she pressed her hands over her ears andshut her eyes tight, and did not answer. The stick on the fire burnedlow and she did not replace it. It parted and fell from the andironswith a dull noise that echoed loudly through the empty room. Judithstarted and jumped up, her eyes hard and bright, her hands tightlyclenched.
She eyed the clock threateningly, as if it were personally responsiblefor whatever disappointment she might be feeling, and she were daring itnot to strike. It struck half-past ten in spite of her. Judith's mouthtrembled childishly, and tears started to her eyes. They did not fall.Footsteps sounded outside. They turned into the drive. Judith stood ontiptoe and peeped at herself in the mantel mirror--her flushed cheeks,tumbled hair, and sparkling ey
es. The steps crossed the porch, and sheran to the door and threw it open--the length of the chain, and nowider. She did not unbar the chain. On the threshold, with a substantialbox of Belle Isle under his arm, stood Mr. Willard Nash.
Judith regarded Mr. Nash and his Belle Isle with disfavour.
"You can't come in," she said.
Mr. Nash, who had been stooping to flick some dust from his boots,straightened guiltily. "Why?"
"It's too late."
"I've got to see you."
"You do see me." A white dress, a face almost as white, and big, darkeyes were all he could see, but it seemed to be enough. He inserted asquare-toed boot cautiously in the opening of the door.
"I want to see you _about_ something."
"What?"
"A new comic song for the quartette. They won't let us do 'Amos Moss' atthe Lyceum concert. That part about the red shirt is vulgar. The newone's close harmony. It will show off Murph's voice."
"It's too late now. Go home, Willard."
"But I brought you this."
"Go home and eat it," suggested Judith.
Willard turned scarlet, swung round, then changed his mind and insertedhis foot in the crack of the door again, this time with a purposefulair. He was to develop into the type of man to whom an unpropitious timeand place are an irresistible temptation to demand a show-down. It is atype that goes far, though it is not essentially popular. Judith sighed,then resigned herself.
"Judy, I don't make you out."
"You don't have to."
"I do." Willard's voice was impressive, as even a fat boy's can be whenhe is in the grip of fate and conscious of it. "I do."
"I'm sorry, Willard, dear," murmured Judith, with disarming sweetness,but he was not to be turned from his purpose.
"Judy, are you going with me or not?"
"Going with you?"
"Don't be a snob. What else can I call it but going with me? I don'tknow any other way to say it."
"Then don't say it."
"You've got my class pin and I've got yours. I know there isn't anybodyelse. You let me call and take you places, but you won't let me----"
"What?"
Willard looked sheepishly down at his boots, then bravely up at Judith."Put my arm round you at picnics. Kiss you good-night."
Judith cut short this catalogue crisply.
"Spoon?"
This word was forbidden in the upper circles of the Green River youngerset, and Willard looked pained, but collected himself.
"We are the same as engaged," he insisted sturdily.
He had forced an issue at last, but Judith evaded it, laughing softly inthe dark.
"Oh, are we?"
"Aren't we?"
"How do you know there isn't anybody else?"
"Well, you won't look at Ed, and Murph don't count." Willard made thispronouncement lightly, though the adamantine rules and impassablebarriers of a whole social order were embodied in it. "Murph that you'reso thick with, all of a sudden. He's a bully fellow, all right, nextcaptain of the team, probably. Good thing he's broken into the crowd alittle way. Too bad he's Irish. Murph don't count."
"No--no!" A sudden and poignant sweetness thrilled in Judith's voice.The tenor of the Green River High School quartette, not ordinarilysensitive to variations of tone in the voices of others, could notignore it. The change had disturbed him vaguely. It seemed to call forsome comment.
"Judy, you look great to-night.... I'd do anything for you."
"Then go home, Willard."
"You haven't answered my question."
"What question?"
"Don't tease."
"I honestly don't know."
"You don't hear one word I'm saying to you."
Judith laughed guiltily. "Then what makes you talk to me?"
"Judith--are we the same as engaged?"
Judith hesitated. "Kissing each other good-night--and all that--issilly. I don't want to. Only sometimes I want to, and then afterward I'mashamed, and can't understand why. Willard, I don't want to grow up. Idon't ever want to. I want things to stay just the way they are. Theyare--lovely. Oh, Willard----"
She stopped, with tears in her eyes. There had been a real appeal in hisearnest young voice, and she had done her best to answer it, painfullythinking out loud, with her heart in her words, making him an authenticconfidence. But the confidence was off the point, and he ignored it,pursuing his subject with the concentration which will keep his sex thestronger one, votes for women or no votes for women.
"Are you the same as engaged to me?"
"Will you go home if I say I am?"
"Are you?"
"There isn't any such thing as being the same as engaged."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
Willard, forgetting himself in the heat of debate, had withdrawn hisfoot from the door. Judith, narrowly on the watch for this moment, nowseized it, shutting him and his Belle Isle outside, and slamming thedoor in his face. He had gained his point, and would not linger. Sheheard him ring the bell once or twice in perfunctory protest, then putdown his candy on the steps.
"Good-night," he called cheerfully, through the flimsy barrier of thepseudo-Colonial door.
"Good-night, Willard--dear!"
Judith's voice was sweet, but indifferent, and her manner wasindifferent, for a young lady who would have seemed, to a literal-mindedperson, to have materially affected her whole future life by thisconversation. She did not watch Willard go. She turned and stood in thelibrary door, smiling absently and humming a little snatch of a waltztune. It was eleven now, but the hour had ceased to concern her, as ifshe had been watching the clock for Willard. Presently, as if shereally had, she tossed the cushions back on the couch, drew the shadesover the window, turned off the lights, and disappeared upstairs.Muffled sounds of a methodical but unhurried preparation for bed driftedfaintly down, one last ripple of song, and then it was silent there.
It was very still in the library. The stillness of the whole empty houseand the moonless night outside seemed to centre there. The dying firethrew out little spurts of flame and made wavering shadows on the hearthas if Judith were still crouching there. The embers glowed as red aswhen she had been fire-gazing, but they did not show what it was she hadseen in the fire. They kept her secrets as safely as she kept themherself; as youth must keep its secrets, inarticulate, dumb, because itsees into the heart of the world so deeply that if it were grantedspeech it would make the world too wise. What Judith had seen in thefire, what had really been in her heart when she talked to Willard inthe groping and pitiful language of youth, the only language she had,the fire could not tell, and perhaps Judith did not know.
It was still, and the tiniest sounds were exaggerated: a board creakingat the head of the stairs, and creaking again, the stair-rail creaking,the ghost of a faint little sigh; tiny and intermittent sounds, but thesilence became a listening hush because of them: listening harder andharder. At last a sound broke it: the doorbell, rung three times, onelong peal and two short.
It was rung faintly, but loud enough. There was a soft hurry ofslippered feet down the stairs, and a slender figure, tall instraight-falling draperies, slipped cautiously down and across the hallto the door, stopped and stood leaning with one ear pressed against it,silent and motionless, hardly breathing. The faint signal was repeated.Judith did not move.
There was one more ring, a soft tapping, and then silence. Judithlistened for a minute, then whistled softly, a clear little signal, onelong and two short, like the signal ring. There was no answer. Shepulled frantically at the chain, got it loose, and threw open the door.
A boy was standing on the steps, a stolid, unmoving figure, loomingdeceptively tall in the dark. He did not step forward or greet her.Judith put out a groping hand and caught at his shoulder.
"Is it you? Oh, I thought you had gone," she said. "I was watching foryou upstairs."
"I am going. I can't come in so late."
"No, of course not."
"Then what made you watch for me?"
"I wanted to see if you came."
"Well, I did come, and now I'm going."
"You walked past the house five times."
"Eight." The boy laughed shortly, and Judith's soft laugh echoed his."Oh, what's the use? I'm going."
"Don't you want to come in?"
"No."
"Then what made you walk past the house?"
"You know well enough."
"I want you to tell me.... You can come in just five minutes if you wantto."
"I--you----"
Judith caught her trailing draperies tighter round her, conscious thatthey were under observation. "It's not a kimono, it's a negligee. Andyou've seen my hair in braids before, when I played basket-ball. But youneedn't come in unless you want to."
"I don't."
"You're not very nice to me. Willard tried to break in. Rena's beentrying to get me by 'phone, to stay all night with me. You're not niceto me at all."
His only reply was a kind of tortured groan, but she seemed content withit. Her voice grew compellingly sweet.
"I want to talk to you."
"Go on and talk."
She huddled her draperies closer. "I'm too cold."
"Go to bed then."
"I won't. If you don't come in I shall stand here till mother comes.I'll probably get pneumonia."
This threat evoked no reply.
"Neil," the name was said as only names are said that are new anddear--not often used yet, but often dreamed over, but there was still noanswer.
"Neil, I'm awfully cold."
"I don't care."
"Oh, don't you?"
"You know I do. You know---- Oh, Judith, won't you please let me go? Idon't want to come in, I tell you."
"But you're coming?"
"Yes."
Yielding abruptly, he stepped into the hall beside her. Judith, suddenlysilent, concerned herself conscientiously with the chain.
"Don't stand there like that. I can't fasten this if you do," she saidbreathlessly.
"Why?"
"Go into the library, and don't light the lights, if you're afraid ofpigtails."
"I'm not afraid of--anything."
"Well--I'm not." With a reckless laugh, which made this comprehensivechallenge to the world still more comprehensive, she followed him intothe firelit room. Slender and straight in soft-falling white, her faceflushed and sweet, framed between silvery gold braids, her eyes wide andchallenging, she stood looking at him across the hearth.
He faced her awkwardly but bravely, tall in the shadowy room, his facevery white, his dark eyes catching the last rays of light from the dyingfire. The two did not move or speak till he gave a sudden, shaken laugh.
"You wanted to talk to me--talk." He smiled a quick flashing smile.Judith drew away from him and he followed. "Now you've got me here,can't you shake hands with me?"
"Neil, be careful."
"I'm doing the best I can," he said in a choked voice. "You shouldn'tget me here. You shouldn't get me to a house by night that's not open tome by day."
"But it is. Only they'll never let me see you alone, and I like to. Ilike to talk to you. It makes me feel--comfortable. Isn't it comfortablehere?" Judith paused, overcome by an unaccountable difficulty with herbreathing, but mastered it. "Comfortable and cozy? Aren't you glad youcame in?"
"Comfortable!" He laughed, came two steps nearer to her, andstopped stiffly. Judith, disposing her soft, silky draperies daintily,observed him in silence from a big chair which she had taken possessionof rather abruptly, faintly smiling.
"Don't look at me like that," he commanded.
"Like what? Sit down--over there, Neil. Isn't it cozy? Willard's got anew song that----"
"Willard!"
"Don't be cross. We--haven't very much time."
"Judith, where is this getting us? We're not children. Won't you talkstraight to me? You ought to leave me alone, or talk straight."
"Please don't be cross."
"Cross!" He came across the hearth and stood close before her, awkwardno longer, but splendid with youth in the firelight, his dark eyesshining.
"You knew I'd come, no matter how hard I tried not to?"
"Yes," Judith breathed.
"And you meant to let me in?"
"Oh, yes."
"And you know, if I come, if you let me, I can't help--can't help----"
"What?"
"Oh, Judith!" He dropped on his knees beside her and hid his face.Judith did not touch the dark head that she could see dimly in theshadowy room, outlined against her cloudy white, but she leaned closerto it, her lips parting softly, her eyes wide and strange.
"I don't want you to help it," she breathed.
"But where will it get us?" pleaded a muffled voice.
"I don't care." Her hand hovered over the dark hair, touching it withthe wonderful, blended awkwardness and adroitness of first caresses.
He brushed the butterfly touch away and raised his head and looked longat her, slipping both arms round her waist and holding her tight.
"Will you always say that?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, Judith!" Her sweet, flushed face was close above him now, eyesdrooping, lips faintly apart, drawn down to his as gently and inevitablyas tired eyes close into sleep. "Judith, some day you'll have to care."
"Not yet. Neil, don't talk any more."
"I--can't."
"Then kiss me."