Part 6

"Ah, but I'm well trained," he boasted.

"If you were you wouldn't put it away wet," observed Rachel slyly.

Anthony withdrew the tin, wiped it with much solicitude, and replaced it.

"These little technicalities are beyond me," he apologised. "Your real athlete in kitchen work is your scientific man. See him dry that bean-pot with the glass-towel. Now, I know better than that."

"Go away, all of you," commanded the mistress of the place. "Go back to the fire and we'll join you. If you are very good we'll bring you a special treat by-and-by."

"That settles it," said the doctor, and led the retreat, but not without a backward glance at the little kitchen.

Juliet had gone into the dining-room with a trayful of glass and silver. Rachel Redding was plunging half a dozen white towels into a pan of steaming water. Barnes stood an instant, staring hard at the slender figure in the white pinafore, the round young arms gleaming in the lamplight—then he turned to follow the others. There are some pictures which linger long in a man's memory; why, he can hardly tell. With all his varied experiences Dr. Roger Barnes had never before discovered how attractive a background a well-kept kitchen makes for a beautiful woman, so that she be there mistress of the situation. Long after he had gone back to the fire his absent eyes, while the others talked, were studying the—to him—unaccustomed and singularly charming scene he had just left in the kitchen.

When Juliet and Rachel came in at length they found a plan afoot for their entertainment. Wayne Carey was standing at the window showing cause why the whole party should go out and coast upon the hill near by.

"You admit," he argued with Anthony, "that you know where we can get a pair of bobs—and if you can't I'll bribe some of those youngsters out there to let us have theirs. The storm has stopped; the boys have swept off the whole hill, I should judge, by the way their track shines again under the moonlight. I haven't had a good coast since I left college."

He turned to Juliet. "Will you go?" he asked coaxingly.

"Of course we will," promised Juliet. "Tony wants to go—he's just enjoying making you tease. As for the doctor—"

"If my right hand has not forgot her cunning," he agreed.

In ten minutes the party was off. A young matron of five months' standing is not so materially changed from the girl she used to be that she can fail to be the gayest of company, perhaps with the more zest that the old good times seem a bit far away already and she is glad to bring them back.

As for the real girl of the party, in this case it chanced to be a country lass who had been away to school and half-way through college, had been brought home by love and duty to some elderly people who needed her, and had known many hours of stifled longing for the sort of companionship with which she had grown happily familiar.

Matron and maid—they were a pair for whose sakes the men who were with them gladly made slaves of themselves to give them an evening of glorious outdoor fun—and at small sacrifice.

"What a night!" exulted the doctor, striding up the long hill beside Rachel Redding breathing deep. "I'm thanking all my lucky stars that they led my path across Anthony Robeson's to-night. I've been intending to come out here ever since he was married—and might not have done it for another six months if I hadn't got started. He'll have all he wants of me now. It's the most delightful spot I've been in for many moons."

"It is a dear little home," agreed Rachel warmly. "Mrs. Robeson would make the most commonplace house in the world one where everybody would want to come."

"That's evident. Yet, somehow, knowing her well as a girl, I never should have suspected just those home-making qualities. You didn't know her then, I suppose? She was a girl other girls liked heartily, and men enthusiastically—one of the 'I'll be a good friend, but don't come too near' sort, you know. But she was very fond of travel and change, ready for everything in the way of sport—and, well, I certainly never saw her before in anything resembling an apron of any description. What a delightful article of attire an apron is, anyhow. I think I never appreciated it before to-night."

"That's because you never saw one of Mrs. Robeson's aprons. Hers are not like other people's."

"She makes hers poetic, does she?"

"She certainly does—even the ones for baking and sweeping. Not ruffled or beribboned, but cut with an eye to attractiveness, and always of becoming colour."

"I see. She's an artist—that was noticeable in the oysters—if she made the dish."

"Of course she did."

"The coffee was the best I ever drank."

"Was it?"

"You made that, then," remarked the doctor astutely.

"I'm glad it was good," said Rachel demurely.

They had reached the top of the hill. Doctor Barnes insisted that Anthony had been the best steerer of coasting parties known to the juvenile world, and placed him at the helm. Next came Juliet, with both arms clasped as far about her husband's stalwart frame as they would go. Carey had wanted to be the end man, but Doctor Barnes would have none of it. "You have to take care of Mrs. Robeson," he said firmly, and placed him next. This brought Miss Redding last, and Dr. Roger Barnes, knowing man, as hanger-on behind upon bobs already fairly full. The last man, as every coaster understands, has to be alert to help out any possible bad steering, and so keeps a watchful head thrust half over the shoulder in front.

The foregoing explanation will show how it came about that all down the long, swift descent, Rachel, breathless with the unaccustomed delight of the flight, felt upon her cheek a warm breath, and was conscious of a most extraordinary nearness of the lips which kept saying merry things into her ear. The ear itself grew warm before the bottom of the track was reached.

"That was a great coast," cried the doctor as they reached the end of the long slide. "Now for another. I'm a boy again. This beats the best thing I could have had in town if I hadn't run across Anthony."

So they had another—and another—and one more. Then Rachel Redding, stopping in front of a small house which lay at the foot of the hill, said good-night to them and slipped away before Barnes had realised what had happened.

"Does she live there?" he questioned Juliet, as the four who were left moved on toward home. Anthony and Wayne were discussing a subject on which they had differed at the top of the hill. "Somehow, I got the impression she lived with you."

"No—but she comes over a good deal. I couldn't get on without her."

"As a friend?"

Juliet looked up at him. "I think it would be better that you should know, Roger," she said, "and I'm sure Miss Redding herself would prefer it—that I pay her for several hours a day of regular work. You've only to see her to understand that she does this simply because it's the only thing open to her as long as her father and mother can't spare her to go away. She gave up her college course in the middle because she said they were pining to death for her. They are in very greatly reduced circumstances, after a lifetime of prosperity. She's a rare creature—I'm learning to appreciate her more every day. She's never said a word about her loneliness here, but it shows in her eyes. It's a perfect delight to me to have her with me, and I mean to give her all the fun I can. For all that demure manner and her Madonna face she's as full of mischief as a kitten when something starts her off."

"Juliet," said the doctor soberly, turning to look searchingly down at her in the moonlight, "would you be willing to let me come often?"

Juliet looked up quickly. "So that you may see her?" she asked straightforwardly.

"Yes. I won't pretend it's anything else. I can tell you honestly that if there were no other reason I should want to come because of my old friendship for you and Anthony, and because this evening in your little home has given me a rare pleasure. I know of no place like it. But I'll tell you squarely that I want the chance to meet your friend often and at once. If I don't you will have other people coming out from town—"

"Yes," said Juliet, and something in the way she said it made him ask quickly: "Has that already happened? Am I too late?"

"I don't know whether you're too late, but I know that we've suddenly grown most attractive to another man from town. If you had gone into Rachel's home the odour of violets would have met you at the door. He sends them every few days."

"Ah!" said the doctor. It was not much of a comment, but it spoke volumes. He had been keen before—he was determined now. Violets—well, there were rarer flowers than those.

XIII.—SMOKE AND TALK

At the house there remained for the guests an hour before the fire, where Juliet brought in something hot and sweet and sour and spicy, which tasted delicious and brought her a shower of compliments while they drank a friendly draught to her. When she had left them, standing in an admiring group on the hearth-rug and wishing her happy dreams, they settled into luxurious positions of ease before the fire—a fire in the last stages of red comfort before it dies into a smoulder of torrid ashes.

"Anthony Robeson," said Wayne Carey, regarding the andirons fixedly over his bed-time pipe, "you're a happy man."

Anthony laughed contentedly. He had thrown himself down upon the hearth-rug with his head on a pillow pulled from the settle, and lay flat on his back with his hands clasped behind his neck. It was an attitude deeply expressive of masculine comfort.

"You're exactly right," said he. "And you would be the same if you would give up living in that infernal boarding-house. What do you want to fool with your first year of married life like that for? You told me that Judith was bowled over by our wedding, and was ready to go in for this sort of thing with a will."

"I know it," admitted Carey, "but"—he spoke hesitatingly—"we couldn't seem to find this sort of thing. You had corralled all there was."

"Nonsense."

"You had. Everything we looked at was so old and mouldy, or so new and inartistic, or so high-priced, or so far away—well, we couldn't seem to get at it, so we said we'd board a while and wait until we could look around."

"How does it work?"

"Why, I suppose it works very well," said Carey cautiously. "Judith seems contented. We have as good meals as the average in such houses, and the people are rather a nice lot. We're invited around quite a good deal, and Judith likes that. I ought to like it better than I do, somehow. I'm so confoundedly tired when I get home nights I can't help thinking of you and Juliet here in this jolly room. There's an abominable blue and yellow wall-paper on our sitting-room—and it has a way of appearing to turn seasick in the evening under the electrics. Sometimes I think it's that that makes me feel—"

"Seasick, too?" inquired the doctor with his professional air. He was standing with his arm on the chimney-piece, looking alternately down on his friends and around the long, low room. It was a jolly room—the very essence of comfort and cosiness. It was a beautiful room, too, in a simple way; one which satisfied his sense of harmony in colours and fabrics—a keen sense with him, as it is apt to be with men of his profession.

"Judith likes this, too, you know," Carey went on loyally. "She thinks it's great. But how to get it for ourselves—that's another matter. Somehow, you were lucky."

"Did you ever happen to see," asked Anthony, "a photograph I took, just for fun, of this house as it was when Juliet saw it first? No? Well, just look in that box on the end of the farther bookcase, will you? It's near the top—there—that's it."

He lay looking up through half-closed lashes at the two men as they studied the photograph, the doctor leaning over Carey's shoulder.

"On your word, man, did it look like that?" cried Barnes.

"Just like that."

"Yes, I've heard it did," admitted Carey; "but I never quite believed it could have been as bad as that."

"Who planned it all?" the doctor asked, getting possession of the photograph as Carey laid it down, and giving it careful scrutiny.

"My little home-maker."

"Jove—are there any more like her?"

"They're pretty rare, I understand. Juliet has one in training—one with a good deal of native capacity, I should judge."

"Let me know when her graduation day approaches," remarked the doctor.

When he fell asleep that night in the dainty guest-room Barnes was wondering whether Mrs. Robeson got her own breakfasts, and hoping that she certainly did not, at least when guests were in the house. He was down half an hour earlier than necessary, and to his great satisfaction found a slender figure brushing up ashes and setting the fireplace in order for the morning fire. As he begged leave to help he noted the satin smoothness of Miss Redding's heavy black hair and the trim perfection of her attire. She reminded him of his hospital nurses in their immaculate blue and white. When he saw the mistress of the house and found her similarly dressed a certain skepticism grew in his mind.

When he went out to breakfast he murmured in Anthony's ear: "Just tell me, old fellow—to satisfy the curiosity of a bachelor—do these girls of your household always look like this in the early morning? I know it's mean—but you will know how to evade me if I'm too impertinent—"

Anthony glanced from Juliet, resembling a pink carnation in her wash frock—February though it was—to Rachel Redding in dark blue and white, and smiled mischievously. "Mrs. Robeson—and Miss Redding—you are challenged," he announced. "Here's a fine old chump who has an awful suspicion that maybe when there are no guests you come down in calico wrappers with day-before-yesterday's aprons on."

Juliet gave the doctor a glance which made him pretend to shrink behind Carey for protection. "Will you please answer him, Tony?" she said.

"On my word and honour, Roger Barnes, then," said Anthony proudly, "they always look like this."

When the doctor left he was weighing carefully in his mind an urgent problem: After waiting six months before making his first visit at the Robesons, how soon could he decently come again?

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 removed from 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. "But why they 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 went into 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 white parasol 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."