CHAPTER FIVE
Colonel Everard sat at the head of his dinner table. A little dinner fortwelve was well under way at the Birches. Mrs. Everard was confined toher tower suite to-night with one of the sudden headaches which unkindcritics held were likely to come when the Colonel entertained. RandolphSebastian, his secretary, had superintended the arrangements for thedinner.
Pink roses, rather too many of them, were massed on the big, roundtable. Rather too much polished silver was to be seen on it; the mostornate candlesticks in the Everard collection, and a too complete arrayof small, scattered objects, each with a possible but not an essentialfunction, littering a cloth already complicated by elaborate inserts oflace. But the brilliantly lighted, over-decorated table was effectiveenough in the big, darkly wainscoted room, a little island of light andcolour.
The room was characterless, but finely and generously proportioned, andnot so blatantly new as the rest of the colonel's house still looked.Against the dark walls the pale-coloured gowns around the table werecharming. Indeed, most of the gowns were designed for this setting.
For there were no outsiders among the Colonel's guests to-night.Sometimes there were distinguished outsiders, politicians and other bigmen, diverted from triumphant tours through larger centres by theColonel's influence, and by his courtesy exhibited to Green River afterthey had dined, or bigger men still, whose comings and goings the publicpress was not permitted to chronicle. Sometimes, too, there wereoutsiders on probation, the outer fringe of Green River society,admitted to formal functions, and hoping in vain to penetrate tointimate ones; ladies flustered and flattered, gentlemen sulky butflattered, conscious that each appearance here might be their last, andtrying to seem indifferent to the fact.
But this was the Colonel's inner circle, gathered by telephone attwenty-four hours' notice, as they so often were. No course that thechef had contributed to the rather too elaborate menu was new to them.The Pol Roger which the big English butler was just starting on hissecond round was of the vintage year usually to be found on theColonel's wine list, and on most intelligently supervised wine lists. Adinner for twelve, like plenty of little dinners elsewhere, no morecorrect and no less, but it had this to distinguish it; it was beingserved in Green River.
Served complete from hors-d'oeuvres to liqueurs, in a New England townwhere high tea had been the fashion not ten years ago, and churchsuppers were still important occasions--where you were rich on fivethousand a year, and there were not a dozen capitalists secure of somuch, where a second maid was an object of pride, and there was nobutler except the Colonel's. And he had imported this butler and hischef and his wines, but not his guests; they were quite as impressive,quite able to appreciate his hospitality, if not to return it in kind,and they were all but one native products of Green River.
The youngest guest was eating mushrooms _sous cloche_ in contentedsilence at the Colonel's left. The scene was not new to her. She couldnot remember her first party here; she was probably the only person inGreen River who could pass over that momentous occasion so lightly. Shehad grown up as the only child in the inner circle. She had beenprivileged to excuse herself, when the formal succession of courses atsome holiday function was too much for her, and read fairy tales on acushion by the library fire, out of the fat, purple edition de luxe ofthe "Arabian Nights" that was always waiting for her there. Though herwhite ruffled skirts had grown long now, and her silvery gold braidswere pinned up, and she was allowed to fill an empty place at theColonel's table whenever he asked her, if not quite on his regulardinner list yet, Judith was not much changed from that wide-eyed child,and to-night her eyes looked sleepy and soft, as if she had seriousthoughts of the cushion by the fire and the fairy book still.
The scene was not new, but it kept a fascination for her, like atransformation scene in a pantomime. Mr. J. Cleveland Kent, the managerof the shoe factory, who had taken her in to dinner, had been leaningout of a factory window in his shirt-sleeves, his black hair tumbled,and badly in need of a shave, when she passed on her way home fromschool. He looked mysterious and interesting in a dinner coat, like heridea of an Italian nobleman.
When Judith knocked at the kitchen door to deliver a note, Mrs. TheodoreBurr, in a pink cooking apron, corsetless, and with her beautiful yellowhair in patent curlers, had been blackening the kitchen stove, andquarrelling with the furnace man about an overcharge of fifty cents onhis monthly bill. The Burrs had no maid. Theodore Burr had beenassisting Judge Saxon ever since he passed his bar examinations, but hewas not admitted to partnership yet. This was beginning to make gossip,for he worked hard. He had broken his dinner engagement to-night, as heoften did, to stay at home and work. Randolph Sebastian, the secretary,with the queer, hybrid foreign name, and thin face and ingratiatingbrown eyes, had his place at the table.
Mrs. Burr, stately and slender now in jetted black, the lowest cut gownin the room, her yellow hair fluffing and flaring into an unbelievablenumber of well-filled-out puffs, was chattering to the Colonel in a lowvoice, so that Judith could not understand, and breaking into French atintervals--Green River High School French, but she spoke it with an air,narrowing her blue-gray eyes after an alluring fashion she had andlaughing her full-toned laugh. She was a full-blown, emphatic creature,though she had been married only three years, and was Lil Gaynor stillto half the town.
Auburn-haired little Mrs. Kent had been lying down all the afternoon, asher disapproving domestic had informed any one who inquired at the doorin a shrill voice that did not promote repose. She was very piquant andenticing now, with her bright, slanting hazel eyes, and a contagiouslaugh, but her dinner partner, Judith's father, was tired and hard toamuse. He looked very boyish when he was tired; his blue eyes lookedlarge and pathetic.
The other two young women and Judith's mother, whose dark, low-browedMadonna beauty was gracious and fresh to-night, set off by herclear-blue gown, with a gardenia caught in her sheer, white scarf,deserved the Honourable Joseph Grant's flowery name for them, the ThreeGraces.
Before the Colonel's time and Judith's the Honourable Joe had been themost important man in Green River, and in evening things, and after aproperly concocted cocktail he still looked it, florid and portly andwell set-up, with a big voice that could still sound hearty though itrang rather empty and hollow sometimes. He looked ten years younger thanhis old friend, Judge Saxon. The Judge's coat was getting shiny at theseams, and--this appeared even more unfortunate to Judith--he was in thehabit of pointing out that it was shiny, and without embarrassment. Mrs.Saxon's pearl-gray satin was of excellent quality, but of last year'scut, and the modest neck was filled in with the net guimpe which sheaffected at informal dinners. The Saxons were not quite in the picture,but they were always very kind to Judith.
And if they were not in the picture, Mrs. Joseph Grant, certainly notthe youngest woman in the room, though she was not the oldest, occupiedthe centre of it.
She was like the picture of the beautiful princess on the hill of glass,in a book of Judith's, and besides, she had once been a real debutante,of the kind that Judith liked to read about in novels, before theHonourable Joe brought her from Boston to Green River. Judith liked tolook at her better than any one here except Colonel Everard.
"Cosmopolitan--ten years ahead of Wells, or any town in your state; realgive and take in the table talk; really pretty women; the same littlegroup of people rubbing wits against each other day after day andgetting them sharpened instead of dulled by it; a concentrated, pocketedition of a social life, but complete--nothing provincial about it," avery distinguished outsider had said after his last week-end with theColonel.
But he was fresh from a visit to the state capital, the most provincialcity in the state when the legislature was not in session; also he had aknown weakness for pretty women. Green River did not admire theColonel's circle so unreservedly, but Green River was jealous. Whateveryou thought of it, it was made of fixed and unpromising material, andmaking it was no mean achievement, and the man at the head of the tabl
elooked capable of it, and of bigger things.
The Colonel was a big man and a public character, and as with manybigger men, you could divide the facts of his life into two classes:what everybody knew and what nobody knew. If the known facts were notthe most dramatic ones, they were dramatic enough. He was sixty now. Atfifteen he had been a student in a small theological seminary, workingfor his board on his uncle's farm, and engaged to the teacher of thedistrict school, who helped him with his Greek at night. He gave up theministry for the law, used his law practice as a stepping-stone intostate politics, climbed gradually into national politics, built up afortune somehow--these were the days of big graft--married for money andgot an assured position in Washington society thrown in, and soon afterhis marriage chose Green River as a basis of operations, spending awinter month in Washington which later lengthened to three, ostensiblyfor the sake of his wife's health. The title of Colonel came fromserving on the Governor's staff in an uneventful year. He had held novery important office, but his importance to his party in state andnational politics was not to be measured by that.
White haired, slightly built, managing with perfectly apparent tricksof carriage and dress to look taller than he was, he was the effectivefigure in this rather unusually good-looking group of people. Just nowhe was lighting a fresh cigarette for Mrs. Burr so gracefully that evenJudge Saxon must enjoy watching, so Judith thought, though there was atradition that he did not like women to smoke. Shocking the Judge wasone of their favourite games here. It was only a game. Of course theycould never shock anybody. They were quite harmless people, too grown upto be very interesting, but almost always kind, and always gay.
The Colonel's profile was really beautiful through the curling, bluishsmoke, and Judith liked his quick, flashing smile. He turned now andsmiled at Judith. Her own smile was charming, a faint, half smile, thatnever knew whether to turn into a real smile or to go away and not comeagain, but was always just on the point of deciding.
"Is our debutante bored?"
"Oh, no; I was just thinking. No."
"She's blushing. Look at her."
"Yes, look at a real one. Do you good, Lil," agreed the Judge, and Mrs.Burr rubbed a pink cheek with her table napkin, exhibited it daintily,and laughed.
"Rose-white youth! But she doth protest too much." The Honourable Joewas fond of quotations, and often tried to make his remarks sound likethem, when he could not recall appropriate ones, raising a solemn fatfinger to emphasize them: "The thoughts of youth are long, longthoughts."
"Wrong, wrong thoughts," supplied Randolph Sebastian, so gravely thatthe Honourable Joe accepted the amendment, and looked worried, as onlythe thought of losing his grip on Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" couldworry him at the end of a perfect meal.
"Wrong thought?" he repeated, in a puzzled voice.
"Thinking's barred here. What's the penalty, Judge?"
"You aren't likely to get it inflicted on you, so I won't tell you,Lil."
"No, I don't think; I act," Mrs. Burr admitted cheerfully. She alwaysbecame a shade more cheerful just when you expected her to lose hertemper.
"How true that is," observed Mr. Sebastian gently.
"Ranny!"
"Didn't you play auction with me last night? We're out just----"
"Don't tell me. I can't think in anything beyond three figures. Ted'sdoing higher mathematics over it. That's why he's home, really. I'llplay with you again to-night, for your sins."
"For my sins!" He made melancholy eyes, as if he were really confessingthem. Mr. Sebastian always pretended a deep devotion to Mrs. Burr.Judith thought it was one of the silliest of their games.
"But what was Judy thinking about?" demanded Mrs. Grant, in the sweet,indifferent voice that always made itself heard.
"She met a fairy prince at the ball last night. They are still to bemet--at balls."
"You'd meet one anywhere he made a date, wouldn't you, Edith Kent?" saidthe Judge rudely. "Give Miss Judy a penny for her thoughts, if you wantthem, Everard. You've got to pay sometimes, you know--even you."
"Don't commercialize her too young," said Mr. Sebastian smoothly."Though, on the whole--can you commercialize them too young?"
"Judith, what were you thinking about?" the Colonel interrupted, ratherquickly, turning every one's eyes upon her at once, as he could with aword.
Judith met them confidently--amused, curious eyes, but all friendly andgay. They talked a great deal of nonsense here, but it did not irritateher, as it did her friend Judge Saxon, though she was not always amused,and could not always understand. They never tried to shock her. She wassorry for the Judge. He was not at home with these gay and good-naturedpeople, and it was so easy to be.
She tipped her head backward in deliberate imitation of Edith Kent, whomshe admired, half closed her eyes, like Lillian Burr, whom she admiredstill more, gazed up at the Colonel, and said, in her clear littlevoice:
"I was thinking about you."
"That's the answer," said Mr. Kent, and rewarded it with a lump of sugardipped in his apricot brandy.
"For an ingenue?" said Mrs. Burr, very sweetly indeed.
"'She's getting older every day,'" hummed Mrs. Kent, in her charming,throaty contralto.
But Judge Saxon pushed back his chair and rose abruptly.
"I've had dinner enough," he said, "and so have you, Miss Judy."
"We all have, Hugh," said the Colonel quickly, and rose, too, andslipped an intimate hand through his arm. "Run along, children! Hugh,about that Brady matter----"
Judge Saxon submitted sulkily, but was laughing companionably with theColonel by the time they all reached the library.
Judith never admired the Colonel more than when he was managing JudgeSaxon in a sulky mood. And she never admired the Colonel and his friendsmore than she did in the lazy intimate hour here before the cards began.
The room was long and high, and too narrow; unfriendly, as only a roomthat is both badly proportioned and unusually large can be, but youforgot this in the softening glow of candles and rose-shaded lights. Youforgot, too, that you were an exile from your own generation, amongelders who bored you, though you were subtly flattered to be among them.Safe on a high window-bench in the most remote window, entirely yourown, since the architect had not designed it to be sat on, and nobodyelse took the trouble to climb up, it was so much pleasanter to watchthese people than to talk to them; they had such pretty clothes, andwore them so well, and made such effective, changing pictures ofthemselves in the big room.
Sometimes they amused themselves with the parlour tricks that they hadso many of, and sometimes they drifted in and out in groups of two andthree, to more intimate parts of the house: the smoking-room, or Mrs.Everard's suite, if she was well, or out through the French windows,across the broad, glassed-in veranda that ran the length of the room anddarkened it unpleasantly by day, into the Colonel's rose garden. It waswarm enough for that to-night, and a yellow, September moon showedinvitingly through the windows. Mrs. Grant, who liked to be alone, asJudith could quite understand, since she had to listen to the HonourableJoe's big voice so much of the time, was slipping out through a windownow, taking the coat that Mr. Sebastian brought her, but refusing to lethim go with her.
He went to the piano, ran his thin, flexible brown fingers over thekeys, struck into a Spanish serenade, and sang a verse of it in hisbrilliant but tricky tenor, with his languishing eyes upon Mrs. Burr.
"Ranny, do you want to tell the whole world of our love? You terrifyme," she said, and took refuge on one arm of the Colonel's chair.Judith's mother, protesting that she needed a chaperon, promptly tookpossession of the other arm, disposing her blue, trailing skirtsdemurely, and looking more Madonna-like than ever through the cloudysmoke of a belated cigarette. The others made themselves equallycomfortable, all but Judge Saxon, who had ceased to advertise the factthat he was not.
"Smile at me," Mrs. Kent begged, hovering over his chair; "I'm going tosing by and by, and I need it. Do smile! If you don't, I'm goin
g to kissyou, Judge."
"Go as far as you like, but be sure how far you like to go, Edith," saidthe Judge quietly. She flushed, and turned away abruptly, playing with apile of songs.
"I'm looking for a lullaby. Our youngest seems to need it."
"Not in your line, are they?" said Sebastian, and began to improviseone, while Judith, in her corner, closed her eyes contentedly. Whetherthere was any truth or not in the report that he had been playing aramshackle piano in an East Side restaurant in New York when the Colonelpicked him up, Sebastian could do charming things with quite simplelittle tunes, if you did not inquire into problems of harmony andcounterpoint too closely. He was doing them now, weaving odds and endsof familiar tunes, rather scapegrace and thin, into a lovely, reassuringwhole, that made you feel rested and safe. Judith, making herselfcomfortable against a stiff and unwieldy Arts and Crafts sort ofcushion, as long experience had taught her to, listened, smiling.
She had no idea what a unique position she was occupying there. JudgeSaxon grumbled and scolded, but he was part of the group in the room.He had grown into it, and belonged to them, as he might have belonged toan uncongenial family. The Colonel's distinguished guests saw them onlyon their best behaviour. Their local critics never penetrated here atall. Judith was the only outsider who did, and she had besides theirrevocable right of youth to pronounce judgment upon those who haveprepared the world for it to occupy. She was their only licensed critic.What did she think of them? Her blond head drooped sleepily. She did notlook disposed to say.
Sebastian played on, drifting into something sophisticated, with asuggestion of waltz rhythms running through it. There was a stir ofmovement in the room, and the sound of windows opening and shutting,once, and then again. Judith did not turn her head to see who had goneout. She was too comfortable. It was strange that he could make you socomfortable with his music, when he made you so uncomfortable if youtalked to him, watching you so closely with his queer, bright eyes.
He stopped abruptly, with a big, crashing discord, and Judith rubbed hereyes and sat up. Mrs. Kent was going to sing now. She tossed some musicto him.
"That's over your head," she said; "over all your heads; better put meup there, too, Cleve. Besides, I want to dance. That table will do."She cleared it unceremoniously, with her husband's help, and establishedherself there, poised motionless, through the introductory bars of thesong, her sleepy eyes wide awake now, and a red rose from a bowl on thetable caught between her teeth.
Quietly, always careful to avoid the reputation of being shocked, likethe Judge, Judith slipped down from her perch, and across the room, andout through the window.
"Please keep my folks from kickin'; Grab me while I'm a chicken, I'm getting older every day."
Mrs. Kent's fresh voice was urging, as Judith tiptoed across theveranda.
The rowdy words of her little songs and the demure plaintiveness of Mrs.Kent's voice made an effective contrast. It amused Judith as much as anyone, and she liked to laugh, but she liked better to cry, and if youcould not hear the words, Mrs. Kent's voice made you cry; big, luxurioustears, that stood in your eyes and did not fall. As she found her wayacross the lawn, among the elaborate flower-beds, the voice followedher, mellow and sweet. It had never sounded so sweet before. Everythingsweet in the world was sweeter to-night.
At the edge of the lawn Judith paused. Ahead of her three marble steps,flanked by urns filled with ivy, glaring things in the daytime butglimmering shadowy white and alluring now, led up the terrace to therose garden; a fairy place, far from the world, so hedged in andshadowed by trees that it was dark even by moonlight, entered through anold-fashioned trellised arbour, that was so mysterious and dark, sheliked it almost as well now when the rambler roses were not in flower.
When she left the room her mother had been sitting in Colonel Everard'schair, she seemed to remember, and the Colonel and Mrs. Burr werenowhere to be seen. The whole room looked emptier, though she did notknow who else was missing. But there were two people now in the rosearbour. She could just hear their voices, low, with long silencesbetween.
She wanted the place to herself. She stood still, hoping that they wouldgo. There was a path into the woods on the other side of the littlegarden: the Colonel's bare, semicultivated woods, combed clean ofunderbrush, but you did not miss it at night. The woods were full ofadventure, but the garden was better to dream in, and Judith had a greatdeal to dream about.
The lighted house looked quite small and far away across the wide,moonlit lawn. They had stopped singing, and the laughter that followedthe song did not sound so clear as the music; you could just hear it.Presently you could hear nothing, and it was quiet in the rose arbour,too. She waited until she was sure, standing quite still at the edge ofthe dark enclosure, not a ruffle of her white dress fluttering, veryslender and small against the dark of the leaves. Then she slipped intothe arbour.
Through a fringe of drooping vine that half hid the picture, she couldsee the garden, empty and dimly moonlit, with the marble benches faintlywhite. She hurried through, pushed a trailing vine aside, then droppedit and shrank back under the trellis.
The garden was empty. But across it, just at the entrance of the woodpath, she saw a man and a woman. At first she took the two figures forone, they were standing so closely embraced. She could not see theirfaces, only the two dark figures standing there like one. They stoodstill a long time. They might have been lovers in a picture, only youcould not paint pictures of darkly clothed, ungraceful, shapelesspeople. Finally they moved, the man turning suddenly, slipping an armhigher around the woman's shoulders, and putting his face down to hers.
Then he drew her into the wood path, and they passed down it out ofsight. Judith did not know who the woman was, but the man was ColonelEverard. And they had kissed each other.
Now they were gone. Judith drew a deep breath of relief and stepped outinto the enclosure, pacing across it with slow steps, possessing it forher own and dismissing alien presences. There was a high-backed marbleerection between the benches, which looked like a memorial to the deardeparted, but was designed for a chair. She seated herself theredeliberately, leaning back, at ease somehow in the unfriendly depths ofit, a slender, uncompromising creature, like a young princess sitting injudgment on her throne.
They had kissed each other. She knew they did things like this, but nowshe had seen it, which was different, and not very pleasant. But theywere all so old. Did it really matter whether they kissed each other ornot?
"Stupid old things," said Colonel Everard's only authorized critic, "Idon't care what they do."
Here in the quiet of the garden you were free to think about moreinteresting things than the Everards or even fairy princes.
"Stupid," repeated Judith absently, and forgot the Everards. The moon,far away but very clear, shone down at her in an unwinking,concentrated way, as if it were shining into the Colonel's garden andnowhere else, and at nobody but Judith. She did not look disconcerted bythe attention, but stared back at it with eyes that were not sleepy now,but very big and bright--wondering, but not afraid.
On still nights like this you could just hear the church clock strikefrom the garden, but you could not count all the strokes. Judithlistened for the sound. It was early, and out here, in the cool, stillair, it felt early, though the time had passed so slowly in theColonel's sleepy rooms. She could hear no music from the house. Theywould soon begin to put out the bridge tables. There was always a chancethat they would need her to complete a table, but if they did not, theColonel's car was to take her home at nine.
And the Colonel's youngest guest had further plans for the evening.
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