Chapter IX: Julia Herself

"FRANCESCA—"

"Yes."

"What time did Harvey say he would arrive?"

"My dear! as if you were not a great deal more likely to know than I am. Now, Mittie—you are after some mischief with my work-basket."

"Yes; but I want to see if your recollections agree with mine. He was in such a hurry just at last. I don't think I quite heard what he said."

"Harvey generally is in a slow hurry just at last. Like most men who always put off everything as long as possible. Oh, he will appear some time this evening, never fear. Unless he changes his mind, and puts off till another day. Not so very unlikely, after all. He has not seen this ancient uncle of his for a good many years."

"Harvey will not put off. I want to meet him at the station."

"Julia! What nonsense! You and I are going for a drive on the boulevards."

"I don't care for a drive. I want to meet Harvey."

"And go through an ecstatic meeting in public! All very well if he were a Frenchman or a German. Unfortunately he is English, and doesn't appreciate gush. Depend upon it, he will be much better pleased if you leave him alone to walk in when he chooses. Mittie, come away from that basket."

"He said he would be with us in time for table d'hôte, I know."

"Well—then, that is all right. We shall manage our drive first. I have some shopping to do, which I can't possibly put off. Mittie! do you hear? Leave that basket alone."

The little girl just glanced up with an air of placid independence, and went on fumbling. The raised tone of her mother's order, and the slight stamp of her mother's foot, produced no impression whatever. Mrs. Trevor was plainly not "used to command" successfully with her only daughter.

The ladies occupied a comfortable private sitting-room on the second floor of a first-class Paris hotel. The windows, thrown wide open for air, looked down upon a busy, not to say noisy street. It was not one whit too busy or noisy for Francesca Trevor, whose idea of happiness was to live in a whirl. Julia Dalrymple's tastes were not altogether the same.

Little resemblance might be found between the two sisters in outward appearance. Julia was tall; not slight, but very well proportioned, and in colouring a decided brunette. Whether she could be called pretty or no, might be, as Harvey had told Hermione, "a matter of opinion," probably depending a good deal upon passing moods. If so, the present mood was hardly favourable. She seemed restless and teased, and the black eyes, by nature soft, had a strained look which could not be called beautiful.

Mrs. Trevor was half a head shorter than Julia, rounded and plump in make. While really years the older, she was still far too young-looking for the mother of a child of eight. Though strictly not in the least handsome, she nevertheless managed so to make the best of herself as never to be entirely passed by. Of all earthly horrors, that of "being passed by" would have seemed to Francesca Trevor one most to be dreaded. So she had cultivated attractive manners, and every item of attire that she wore was always carefully studied with a view to effect. Of course she had still to wear mourning, but too much soberness was obviated by sparkling jet, and her flaxen hair was elaborately arranged under the slight apology for a widow's cap which rested on the summit.

Mittie Trevor, standing near a window, calmly searching with small fingers in her mother's work-basket, had inherited an abundance of that same fair hair, rising in flaxen masses over her brow and falling in flaxen masses to her waist; while with this she had inherited the same large black eyes, soft and serious, as her Aunt Julia. Mittie was an extremely pretty child, and just the child whom a weak mother would be disposed to spoil. Francesca Trevor had character enough of a certain stamp, but she never seemed to possess the slightest notion of training a child to obedience.

Few would have guessed Mrs. Trevor to be a ruined widow, almost wholly dependent for herself and her little girl upon the kindness of a brother-in-law. Not absolutely dependent, since she possessed some eighty pounds a year of her own; but Mrs. Trevor counted eighty pounds a small allowance for dress.

"You can drop me at the station, on your way to the shops, Francesca."

"I am not going in that direction, thanks."

Julia was silent. Certainly no one would have imagined on the face of things, that she was the woman of property and Mrs. Trevor the poor dependent.

Mrs. Trevor looked once more towards the child.

"Mittie!"

"Yes, mother."

"Leave my basket alone." "Yes, mother. I want a bodkin."

"Well, you have bodkins of your own. I don't want my basket tumbled in that fashion." A pause. "You should have asked leave first."

Mittie searched on undaunted, and presently extracted the desired article from a tangle of silks and cotton.

"Now just see, you naughty child, the state my things are in. I have a great mind to make you put them straight."

"I am sure I would," murmured Julia, as Mittie went off to the window and there sat down.

"Mittie! Do you hear? You ought to put my basket tidy." No response from the cloud of flaxen hair, which was now about all that could be seen of Mittie beyond a table. "Well—I suppose I shall have to do it myself."

"I would not," Julia said in an undertone.

Mrs. Trevor paid no attention to the remark, but perhaps it was not without effect, for she presently remarked, "You have been a very naughty disobedient girl, Mittie. I have a great mind not to take you for a drive."

Mittie did not stir. She only answered placidly, "If you don't, mother, I shall cry."

Mrs. Trevor seemed to count that threat conclusive, for she allowed the matter to drop; and half-an-hour later, when the two ladies dressed, Mittie too put on a picturesque hat and a pair of dainty kid gloves.

"I can't think why you should object to driving alone with Mittie, and letting me go to the station," Julia broke out at the last moment.

"Because I prefer to have you with me, my dear. Driving alone makes me nervous. Besides, it is quite useless your going. Nobody knows what hour Harvey will really arrive."

Julia submitted, but she proved to be of little use in the conversational line. All through the drive she seemed distraite, as if her mind were elsewhere, and when Francesca wanted an opinion on different qualities of black silk, Julia had none to give. Her one desire was to get back early, lest Harvey should arrive and find empty rooms. It would be so forlorn, so chilling, for the young husband to have no welcome. Julia judged him by herself, knowing how she would feel in his place, not perhaps allowing for his more phlegmatic and even temperament. She loved him passionately, all the fervent warmth of her nature, which for years had found no outlet, flowing in the new-made channel. The short necessary absence, which he counted so very short and so very necessary, was to her a long and severe trial; and she reckoned the hours, almost the minutes, to the time when he would be with her again, with something of a child's impatience.

But Francesca would not be hurried. The choice of a few yards of silk was, in her estimation, a serious and weighty business. She bestowed upon it all her powers of thought and attention, utterly disregarding Julia's stifled agony of impatience.

However, everything comes to an end in time, and so did Francesca's shopping. Then they were driving in the direction of the hotel, Julia leaning well forward, as if she could thus urge the horses to the speed she desired. Her eyes gazed fixedly ahead, and Francesca's observations were unheard.

"You are a lively companion, I must say," the latter remarked, as she alighted.

Julia turned from her to hasten up the wide staircase. Francesca paused to make inquiry, and before Julia reached the top of the first flight Francesca's voice followed her. "He has not appeared yet! I told you so."

Nor did he appear. Dinner-time arrived, but no Harvey, and no letter from Harvey. Through the evening Julia watched in vain. She grew heart-sick with disappointment—such a tiny disappointment Francesca thought it, while Julia hardly knew how to face the prospect of another long night and day without him. She was hurt and grieved too that he had not written. He might surely have sent one line.

Till bed-time came Julia kept up pretty well, but when once alone tears were allowed full swing. Nobody would be any the wiser, so why not? The old desolate feeling, often hers in years gone by, resumed its sway, and with it was a new pain. Did Harvey really care for her as intensely as she loved him? If he did, could he stay away one hour longer than was absolutely necessary in this their first month of married life?

Julia knew practically nothing of the help from Above which may be had through these fretting cares. Even theoretically she knew very little. Religion for Francesca Trevor meant going to Church once every Sunday in a fascinating costume, and occasionally adding her name to some benevolent subscription-list headed by a marchioness or an earl's daughter. And since Francesca had had the main part of Julia's religious training in her hands for twelve years past, it is not surprising if Julia's religious education were defective.

As a child indeed she had been somewhat better taught, not personally by her parents, who were in India from her infancy until their death, but by a certain lady who had charge of her till after her ninth birthday. Francesca then, on the death of her parents one after the other, came home—she had not been out more than a year—and the two sisters went to live with an old uncle, Francesca setting herself thenceforth to the deliberate undoing of Julia's early training. She was resolved to prevent all "particularity of views," as she would have described it, in her young sister. By which Francesca simply meant that it mattered not at all to her what was or was not truth in questions touching a life to come. All she desired was that Julia should think nothing, believe nothing, do nothing which might one day stand in the way of "a good marriage."

Francesca's efforts, followed out with a perseverance worthy of some better cause, met with proportionate success. There were unhappily no counter influences. The old uncle left everything in Francesca's hands; and when Francesca married— "well" as she said, looking on the matter purely from a money and society point of view—Julia lived with her still. So by this time Julia really had no "particular views" at all on the subject of religion. She did not know what she thought, or what she ought to think.

When Harvey Dalrymple asked her to marry him, it never even occurred to her to consider whether he were a good man, or what manner of principles he held. She only knew that she loved him, that to know of his love for her filled life with happiness, that she wanted nothing and cared for nothing in addition.

Yet in her secret self she did want, did care. For no purely human love can ever absolutely satisfy the heart which is made for higher things, and in the brightest floods of mere earth-sunshine the question must still arise—What lies beyond?

To that question, old as the human race, Julia had never even attempted to find an answer. She put it aside, thrust it out of sight. She lived solely in the present—a bright present of late, but a cloud had come over the brightness already. She had little expected on her wedding-day to have to sob herself to sleep alone scarcely four weeks later.

Another long and dull morning followed; Julia would not go out. Francesca ordered, argued, and coaxed in vain. Julia held to her point. She must and would be in, she said, when Harvey should arrive. Francesca at length went off with Mittie, not in the best of tempers, and Julia kept solitary watch at the window.

Nobody then could have called her pretty. She looked dejected and careworn, her cheeks pale, her eyes drooping and lustreless. Francesca, coming in before lunch, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "I declare you might be forty years old when you get into this state."

"I can't help it. My head aches," Julia answered.

"No wonder, when you sit mumping indoors the morning. How can you be so ridiculous? Very likely he will not arrive for a week!"

Julia shuddered at the idea. She would not eat any lunch, and how to get through the afternoon was a difficult problem.