Part 10

“You know English couples often borrow a country house from friends to settle in for the honeymoon, if they’ve none of their own,” she continued. “There is nothing lovelier than a newly furnished country house, all white enamelled furniture, flowered chintz, and muslin draperies, with the maids in light blue or pink chambray and ruffled bib aprons; besides, Agatha, you know that to be asked to a week-end party is more of a compliment than a dinner. I shall make Margie invite me to the very first of them. Then, of course, she will be sure to go in for a specialty,—golf, tennis, motoring, or the garden craze; everybody rushes you out to see the garden now, and tells you how many loads of earth it took to fill it in, and who the landscape architect was.

“I only hope Margie will have an English garden with wooden benches; the seats in an Italian garden have no backs, and are _so_ cold if you sit out in the moonlight, in a thin petticoat; and of course that’s one of the things that one goes to week-end parties for, the moonlight spooning, I mean.”

“You may banish all your pictures of that sort of thing,” said Agatha, speaking in a tone in which mystery and disgust were blended. “There will be no draperies or garden seats or maids; my sister has but _one_ person to do everything, an old black woman named Juno, who wears a turban, and who, I believe, was Billy’s nurse. As for the house, it’s in the middle of a field, with some gloomy woods behind it; there’s hardly a thing in it but wall-papers, Japanese matting, and flower vases, for Marjory has absolutely sent all of her magnificent silver and bric-à-brac to storage at Tiffany’s. For the rest, they’ve a ginger-coloured pony and an absurd buggy, by way of a trap, and I shouldn’t be surprised to find that they all, including the pony, take their meals in the kitchen, and that Billy wears an apron and waits on Marjory and Juno, for she says they intend to lead the simple life this summer. Think of it! Deliberately committing social suicide.”

Agatha’s voice had a tragic break in it. Poor Agatha, who had never committed a social error in her life, and had made the most of everything almost to the extent of separating a poached egg on toast garnished with parsley into three separate courses, toast, egg, and salad! Yet at thirty-eight she had acquired nothing but an equivocal sense of correctness and a complexion that refused either to stand the light of day or to receive graciously and absorb the improvers that the owner lavished upon it.

Before Pussy Taylor or any one else could recover from their astonishment, the door was flung open, the butler announced in his formal drawl,—Mrs. Rodney Kent, and Marjory herself came in, stopping short in the middle of the room with a quizzical expression as she saw the very conscious faces of her friends.

“My dear,” purred Pussy Taylor, throwing her arms around the bride’s neck, “you’ve come just in time to defend yourself. Oh, yes, of course we were talking about you, and now, before you begin about the country, we must know instantly why you have on your last spring suit, which is of an entirely different shade of brown from this season’s wear, instead of your lovely reseda going-away gown; what you are doing in the city at five o’clock in the afternoon, when you are supposed to be wandering in green lanes and picking violets hand in hand with Billy, who, every now and then, kneels to tie your shoes; and lastly, why you are personally conducting those three queer bundles, and what do they contain? I’m sure if I had appeared at the front door similarly laden, that last butler of Agatha’s training would have sent me to the basement.”

Marjory looked about for a safe place of deposit for her bundles, which she finally confided to a tufted chair; then, throwing off her jacket and drawing off her gloves very deliberately, she took the proffered half of the seat that Pussy occupied by the tea-table.

Marjory was not what is commonly called a pretty woman; every feature was alert and too well adapted for the expression of humour for mere prettiness. A brunette of good colouring, she possessed that quality of charm that no one denies, even while they cannot locate its exact source. Matching her forefingers together, she began to count off the answers to Pussy’s questions.

“Number one. I wore my old suit because this morning it looked like rain; no one seems to bother much about rain in the city, but in the two weeks we’ve been at Oaklands, I’ve learned to tell by the colour of the morning sky, as we see it between two great trees on the hilltop, what the weather is likely to be. This morning it said rain, and though it’s held off all day, it’s beginning now.”

“Mercy me!” exclaimed Pussy, rushing to the window; “and my new lace coat is shrinkable, and interlined with chiffon, to say nothing of my maline hat. May I use the ’phone to call a cab, Agatha?”

“Secondly,” continued Marjory, “the Head of the Firm asked Billy, as a favour, if he would come down to-day,—though he still has two weeks to his credit,—for things were getting in a snarl. As I didn’t care to stay alone, and needed some downtown things, I came, too, and where do you think Billy and I lunched? In the private office of his Majesty, to be sure.”

“What a common thing for you to do,” interrupted Agatha, “trailing into the office after Billy and lunching with Mr. Coates before Mrs. Coates has had a chance to make her wedding call.”

Marjory flushed, but without replying to the criticism, continued, “Then after luncheon the Head of the Firm kindly offered to pilot me to do my last errand, which was in a very mussy sort of street that ran west of City Hall Park, and the result of the shopping is in those three boxes.

“Yes, Pussy, something breakable; I’ll give you three guesses. No? You give it up? Well, then, the boxes are full of eggs. Plymouth rocks, white leghorns, and buff cochins, each kind by itself. Not store eggs for cooking, with some ingredients missing, but hatching eggs that will turn into chickens; for it seems that they are quite different affairs, and Mr. Coates explained the whole matter to me so nicely.” (“How disgusting,” muttered Agatha.) “I find that he was brought up on a stock farm, and expects to have a model one of his own as soon as he and the Missus can settle upon a location.”

“Marjory Kent, will you please remember who you are, and refrain from applying such a vulgar title to Mrs. Erastus Coates, whose mother was Martin Cortright’s aunt, and her father a Philadelphia Biddle? Suppose it reached her ears, do you think it would improve your prospects?”

“Me? Oh, that’s not original; I was merely quoting the Head of the Firm, who called her ‘the Missus.’”

“I thought that no one used hens, and that all you had to do was to buy a box full of eggs, called an incubator, and the lamp that goes with it did the rest,” said Pussy, wisely, for she sometimes read the advertisements in her brother’s sporting paper.

“An incubator,” said Marjory, blind to the looks of boredom on the faces of her friends, “puts all the responsibility upon us, and unnecessary responsibility is what we are planning to avoid, for this summer at least. So as we have three very broad-chested, comfortable hens, who are simply ‘creaking’ with a desire to set, as Juno the cook puts it, we are going to supply them with good food and a nest of eggs apiece, and let them take the responsibility.

“Do we care to raise poultry and things? We don’t know; who was it that said, ‘We know what we are but not what we may be’?”

“Juliet,” cried Pussy.

“No, Ophelia,” said Agatha; “you might know that in Marjory’s present state of mind she would only quote a mad woman!”

“Whichever it is, that is our present condition, for we may develop a liking for anything simple! So we shall try chickens and see, and that’s another thing that we’re going to do this summer,—try to find out what we really like to do. Billy says that the best beginning is to do nothing that we are sure we dislike.”

(“And lose all your friends in the process,” growled Agatha.)

“That sounds comfy, but meanwhile aren’t you going to fix up your house, and ask us all out there by nicely chosen twos or fours?” pleaded Pussy. “Surely all this stuff about no maids and the simple life that Agatha has been telling us isn’t true; you will have tables and chairs and beds, and not expect us to sleep on the matting, with our heads on blocks, like the Japs?”

“It won’t be quite as simple as that, though I don’t know exactly what Agatha has said; merely, as I told you before, we are going to try to avoid unnecessary responsibility in everything, and keep the time we gain for ourselves. Possibly, after all, that is what is really meant by the simple life.

“To have no maids wouldn’t be doing that. Juno is a treasure, and to have no cook would be putting an awful responsibility upon me; while if I had to get up and make early breakfast for Billy every morning, it would be putting upon him the responsibility of tiring me out. We’re not going to ask a human being to visit us, for then we should be responsible if they didn’t like our ways, but to any one who takes the initiative of inviting themselves, we shall be as nice as we know how. And mind you, Pussy, if guests come in pairs, and choose the full o’ the moon, we’ve a lovely comfortable bench that we bought of a pedler. It is set nearly on the edge of the woods, where it’s all ferny and sweet smelling, and quite out of sight of the house. If our guests, who invite themselves, choose to go there, of course we shan’t have to be responsible for what happens! Now I must run up and see mummy, for Billy’s coming for me in about five minutes, and I’ll give you a chance to quiz him all you wish.”

“Hopeless,” sighed Agatha, despondently, as the door closed; “but what can you expect when she was born eccentric?—and Billy always agrees with her in everything. He even wears a long mustache when all the other men of his class are smooth-shaven, simply because Marjory said she could recognize him in the street two blocks sooner than if he were without. There is one thing certain, _I_ shall not go to Oaklands unless I have a proper invitation.”

“Perhaps,” Pussy began, and then choked and started again, “perhaps two of you would like to drive up town with me. I see the cab is here, and it’s more than a shower.”

No one else was ready to leave, however, and in going out, who should Pussy bump into but the bridegroom, who was coming up the steps arm in arm with another man, who at the sight of the now blushing Miss Pussy, raised his forgotten umbrella, took her to the cab, and then concluded that it would be only polite to shield her from the rain at the other end of the route.

CHAPTER II

Marjory and Billy Kent were seated at their breakfast table, which, indeed, was lunch and dinner table also, and was spread on the back porch. The fact that it was Saturday, and therefore “Massa’s day to home,” accounted for the way in which the pair were lingering over their meal, as well as for the chuckling good nature of June, short for Juno, who paused to gaze affectionately at “the chillun” every time she came near the little window that connected the kitchen with this outdoor dining room.

When the meal was once put upon the table, there was no need of further service, for a revolving stand in the centre of the table brought everything conveniently to hand. But still that did not prevent old June from peeping.

As yet the rolling ground that surrounded the house on three sides was billowy with long grass, and showed little sign of cultivation; on either side of the steps was a wide bed of heliotrope, and another of mignonette, and a soldierly line of sweet peas and other garden annuals broke the stiffness of the path leading to the little barn that housed horse, cow, buggy, and hay under one roof.

“What are you thinking of, Marjory Daw?” asked Billy, looking up from his newspaper at the face that was looking contentedly into space. Yes, Billy Kent read the newspaper at the breakfast table, as he always had done in his bachelor days. His wife would not dream of taking the responsibility of upsetting the habit; in fact, she had grown to like it, especially as he often read bits of interesting news that might otherwise have escaped her.

“I was thinking of three things together,” answered Marjory, smiling, “waiting-maids, chickens, and cats.”

“Do you want a waitress?” said Billy, quickly. “I was thinking at this very moment how jolly it is to be alone with ourselves, and perfect freedom of speech between us. Somehow the desire for it is always developed by eating!”

“No, I do not wish one. I was thinking the same thing when you spoke. What is handing a few dishes through to June compared with having even one’s unspoken thoughts read through your back, while as for fussing and dusting up the living-room, I love it, for it gives one a chance to get acquainted with one’s things, and see if they stand the test of being either useful or beautiful. We need not use the dining room before September, and by that time we shall have decided what not to put in it.”

“But how about the chickens and cats?”

“I’ve made up my mind that I don’t care for them any more than waitresses. You see, Billy, I’ve decided already that we only want to grow things that are pleasant when they develop. Morning-glory seeds grow into those lovely flowers that have transformed the clothes-poles yonder (yes, they try to reach out and appropriate the clothes-line, but I give them a warning pinch now and then); and tomato and lettuce seeds turn into delicious salads; but the adorable fuzzy chicks turn to broilers that have to have their heads cut off, and a cat turns into so many kittens that they must be drowned. So we won’t have either of them after this summer. A cow will stand the test, for she will not only look well out there in the grass, but milk is such a peaceful, placid thing, it makes me sleepy even to think of the sizzing it makes in the pail when Peter milks.

“By the way, I’ve had a letter from Pussy Taylor; she will be in town the last of the month for a few days between seashore and mountains, and as she says she wants to come here, I’m dreadfully sure she will.”

“Why the word ‘_dreadfully_’? Isn’t she a very good friend of yours?”

“Yes, Billy; but somehow this summer is so perfect that I’m afraid it isn’t real, and that somebody will come and wake me up.”

“It’s real enough, sweetheart, and will continue to be if we don’t expand without knowing it and suddenly wake up and find that we have dropped the oars and are being towed beyond our depth. Your father had a talk with me about this country matter last week; he thinks that I am making a mistake in living out of town, that I ought to be seen at the clubs and dine people in winter; he is afraid that when in the future it comes to the matter of a third partner, the Head of the Firm will think that I spend too much time on the road for a junior, and jump over me for an outsider; yet I know that I’ve never had so much time for sleep and law reading these ten years. By the way, have you thought of a name for the place? I’ll have you some paper stamped.”

“Yes, I’ve a name; it is ‘As _We_ Like It Inn,’ and I want it put on a little swinging sign to hang by the front gate, and then the people who come to stay with us will not be misled.”

“Talking of guests, there is one in particular that I want you to invite in some perfectly informal way, and then make a special point of treating precisely as if she were one of ourselves,” said Billy, with a very conscious look, bringing out each word with such undue precision that his wife stopped arranging the flowers in the bowl before her and fixed her eyes suspiciously on his face.

“Who is it, Billy? Some one that either I probably never have thought of, or else object to, or you would never hold on to your words so.”

“It is Mrs. Coates; she has been down to luncheon two or three times lately, with the Head of the Firm, and she seems really interested in our affairs and wants to know you; says she had no chance to call in town, because we came here the very day of the wedding, so you see she has really followed your rule and has as good as asked to come.”

“Yes, I see,” said Marjory, straightening herself, and all the comfortable relaxation of mind and body at once leaving her attitude; “and I suppose she will come here from that palace called a cottage at Tuxedo, and find the rooms too small to breathe in.”

“If she does, keep her outside,” said cheerful, short-sighted Billy; “of course you will lunch out here, and then if talk fails, you can take the pony and drive her down to the Cortrights’ for a call; you know she is Martin’s cousin. Naturally she won’t stay overnight; she hates, she says, to sleep in strange places, and of course she couldn’t bring her maid here and we have none to offer her.”

“Me have Mrs. Coates out here? I wonder what Agatha would say;” and then Marjory realized that all such wonderments were things of the past, and hastened to add, “The best way will be for me to write and give Mrs. Coates the option of any day next week; then if it rains, the choice will be her own. But Billy, don’t you think I had best open the dining room? It’s hardly polite to ask her to lunch on this little round white wood table as we do, with the dogs lying on the steps.”

“Don’t make the mistake of doing anything different, Margie. Can’t you realize from even the little that you have been about for two years, that a glimpse of really contented people, living unobtrusive lives, is the greatest novelty you could offer her?”

* * * * *

In the modern garden of Eden, social judgment is the serpent, and social ambition the forbidden apple, and at this moment an unexpected whiff of wind brought the scent of this fruit to Marjory’s keen nostrils. Mrs. Coates wrote an immediate reply that she would come the following Friday, while Kent, the matter being settled, did not give it another thought, except to take it for granted that when the wife of the Head of the Firm once knew Marjory, she would be her friend for life.

* * * * *

When Billy returned home on Monday, he brought Marjory news that meant their first separation. The Head of the Firm wished him to go on a three or four days’ business mission of considerable importance, and Billy did not attempt to conceal his elation at the fact. Marjory also entered into the spirit of the occasion, and made no complaint about being left alone; but when twilight closed in on Tuesday, and there was no one to meet at the turn of the road, no one opposite at supper, and no glowing firefly that marked the location of Billy and his cigar among the piazza vines, it changed the aspect of things. That a first night of separation is inevitable, does not make it any the less of a shock to the young wife. Out of the gripping loneliness comes the wonder, “How did I live before, and what should I do _if_—?” a question which is usually and naturally drowned in tears.

Before the tears had more than started, however, Marjory jumped up with a very resolute expression on her face, went into the house, lit the lamp in the den, and finding her pad and pencil, seated herself in front of the lamp, elbows on table, and gazed at the paper with the same blank intensity that Agamemnon Peterkin’s face must have worn when he tried to write a book to make his family wise, but discovered that he had nothing to say.

But what Marjory failed to write down, she repeated to herself half aloud: “It is all very well for Billy to say, ‘Don’t make any difference for Mrs. Coates; I particularly want her to take us as we are, and I’m sure she also would prefer it;’ the question is, would she? Luncheon ‘just as we are’ for Friday would be the peas and beans left from Thursday’s dinner added to lettuce for a salad, bread and butter, raspberries, and iced tea.

“Mrs. Coates will arrive at ten-thirty, then we will drive around by the Cortrights’; by one she will be hungry, and I must at least add meat or chicken to the menu; which shall it be? I think I’ll consult June.”

So saying, Marjory, glad of an excuse to talk to some one, went to the kitchen porch, where sat that comfortable old aunty, rocking, fanning, and crooning hymns to herself, and there laid the case before her.

Ah, little imps that sometimes climb up aloft and grin at those who, mistaking you for cherubs, take your advice, why did it happen that the master of the house was called away at this particular juncture?

“Missus Coates am sure one ob de quality, honey,” said June, unfolding and setting in place her silver-bowed spectacles, even though it was dark, and instantly being seized with a flow of language. “If she’s real quality, I don’t allow it’s showin’ right ’spect and dignification to Marsa Rod’s Bosses’s Missus to feed her with cole vittles on the back stoop like she was hounds, even if you-all do like the airyation and simplification ob it your two selves.

“Lor’, Miss Margy, do dress out de house a bit, and fetch out dem weddin’ gifts dat outshun all de glories ob Solomon and was hid away so quick dat folks hadn’t got through blinkin’ at ’em. Spread Missus Coates a banquet ter bulge her eyes, and old June’ll do some tall cookin’. Den sweep down dem stairs to fetch her in with a long-trailed skirt out behind and a real lace hankerchief stuck in front just soppin’ with perfummery. I tell you, Miss Margie, when Marsa Rod’s pa and ma down Baltimore way done entertained the governor and his lady—”

But at this introduction to a recitation of Juno’s that was warranted to last an hour in its most abridged form, Marjory interrupted her with, “I’ll think it over and decide to-morrow; at least you shall make your stuffed peppers and Creole chicken,” and then she fled to her own room and locked the door.

Sleeping was an empty ceremony that night; instead, Marjory devised plans for Mrs. Coates’s entertainment. By morning, all the pleasure and originality of their daily life had apparently vanished, and Marjory had resolved to leave her own coign of vantage and meet Mrs. Coates more than halfway.

In the first place, she went to town and secured a trunk full of silver from the safety vault, and then spent two nights in a fever of anxiety, because for safe-keeping she had put the trunk under her bed. She unpacked draperies from the attic chests, crowded all the ornaments into the three rooms she expected to use, the dining room, living-room, and den, before it occurred to her that if she was to have a luncheon of many courses in the dining room she must also have a waitress, or preferably two, to match the splendid silver service.

Where were waitresses to be found? After spending a hot and weary morning scouring the neighbourhood, she finally discovered that the niece of a near-by German truck farmer had “waited,” and the eldest daughter of the family who worked on the adjoining place would like “to learn”; so, telling them to come early the next morning to be instructed, she repaired to Bridgeton for white aprons and caps, as she found that both girls owned decent black gowns.

It must be confessed that the dining room had a very high-bred and elegant air when the round table was spread with a lace-edged cloth, its load of silver, cut glass, and candelabra with delicate green candles to match the fern decorations. (Then, of course, it was necessary to draw in the blinds, both to keep out the glare and give the candles a chance.)