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The Voice of the People, a novel by Ellen Glasgow |
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Book 4. The Man And The Times - Chapter 5 |
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_ BOOK IV. THE MAN AND THE TIMES CHAPTER V "Juliet!" called Galt as he swung open his house door. It was his habit to call for his wife as soon as he crossed the threshold, and she was accustomed to respond from the drawing-room, the pantry, or the nursery, as the case might be. This evening her voice floated from the dining-room, and following the sound he stumbled over a shadowy palm and came upon Juliet as she put the last touches to a long white table, radiant with cut glass and roses. She wore a faded blue dressing-gown, caught loosely together, and her curling hair, untouched by gray, fell carelessly from its coil across her full, fair cheek. She had developed from a fragile girl into a rounded matron without losing the peculiar charm of her beauty. The abundant curve of her white throat was still angelic in its outline. As she leaned over to settle the silver candelabra on the table, the light deepened the flush in her face and imparted a shifting radiance to her full-blown loveliness. "How is it, little woman?" asked Galt as he put his arm about the blue dressing-gown. "Working yourself to death, are you?" Since entering his home he had lost entirely the air of business-like severity which he had worn all day. He looked young and credulous. Juliet laughed with the pettish protest of a half-spoiled wife and drew back from the table. "It is almost time to dress Carrie," she said, "and the ice-cream hasn't come. Everything else is here. Did you get dinner downtown?" "Such as it was--a miserable pretence. For heaven's sake, let's have this over and settle down. I only wish it were Carrie's wedding; then we might hope for a rest." "Until Julie comes out--she's nearly fourteen. But you ought to be ashamed, when we've been working like Turks. Eugenia cut up every bit of the chicken salad and Emma Carr made the mayonnaise--she makes the most delicious you ever tasted. Aren't those candelabra visions? Emma lent them to me, and Mrs. Randolph sent her oriental lamps. There's the bell now! It must be Eugie's extra forks; she said she'd send them as soon as she got home." "Good Lord!" ejaculated Galt feebly. "You are as great at borrowing as the children of Israel." His comments were cut short by the entrance of Eugenia's silver basket, accompanied by an enormous punch bowl, which she sent word she had remembered at the last moment. "Bless her heart!" exclaimed Juliet. "She forgets nothing; but I hope that bowl won't get broken, it is one somebody brought the general from China fifty years ago. Eugie is so careless. She invited the children to tea the other afternoon and I found her giving them jam on those old Tucker Royal Worcester plates." She broke off an instant to draw Galt into the reception rooms, where her eyes roved sharply over the decorations. "They look lovely, don't they?" she inquired, rearranging a bowl of American Beauty roses. "I got that new man to do them Mrs. Carrington told me about--Yes, Carrie, I'm coming! Why, I declare, I haven't seen the baby since breakfast. Unnatural mother!" And she rushed off to the nursery, followed by Galt. An hour later she was in the drawing-room again, her fair hair caught back from her plump cheeks, her white bosom shining through soft falls of lace. "I wonder how a man feels who isn't married to a beauty," remarked Galt, watching her matronly vanity dimple beneath his gaze. He was as much her lover as he had been more than twenty years ago when pretty Juliet Burwell had put back her wedding veil to meet his kiss. The very exactions of her petted nature had served to keep alive the passion of his youth; she demanded service as her right, and he yielded it as her due. The unflinching shrewdness of his professional character, the hardness of his business beliefs, had never entered into the atmosphere of his home. Juliet possessed to a degree that pervasive womanliness which vanquishes mankind. After twenty years of married life in which Galt had learned her limitations and her minor sins of temperament, he was not able to face her stainless bosom or to meet her pure eyes without believing her to be a saint. In his heart he knew Sally Burwell to be a nobler woman than Juliet, and yet he never found himself regarding Sally through an outward and visible veil of her virtues. Even Tom Bassett, who was married to her, had lost the lover in the husband, as his emotions had matured into domestic sentiment. Galt had seen Sally wrestle for a day with one of her father's headaches, to be rewarded by less gratitude than Juliet would receive for the mere laying of a white finger on his temple--Sally's services were looked upon by those who loved her best as one of the daily facts of life; Juliet's came always as an additional bounty. To Galt himself, the different developments of the two women had become a source of almost humorous surprise. After her marriage Sally had sunk her future into Tom's; Galt had submerged his own in Juliet's. Behind Tom's not too remarkable success Galt had seen always Sally's quicker wit and more active nature; to his own ambitions, his love for Juliet had been the retarding influence. He had been called "insanely aspiring" in his profession, and yet he had sacrificed his career without a murmur for the sake of his wife's health. He had sundered his professional interests in New York that he might see the colour rebloom in her cheek, and neither he nor she had questioned that the loss was justified. In return she had rendered him a jealous loyalty and an absorbing wifehood, and he had found his happiness apart from his ambition. Now she dimpled as he looked at her and he pinched her cheek. "The mother of six children!" he exclaimed; "they're changelings." He looked at Carrie, who was flitting nervously from room to room. "It's a shame she didn't take after you," he added. "She carries the curse of my chin." "She's splendid!" protested Juliet. "I never had such a figure in my life; Sally says so. Carrie is a new woman, that's the difference." "But the old lady's good enough for me," finished Galt triumphantly; then he melted towards his daughter. "I dare say she's stunning," he observed. "Come here, Carrie, and bear witness that you're as handsome as your parents." Carrie floated up, a straight, fine figure in white organdie, her smooth hair shining like satin as it rolled from her brow. Her mouth and chin were too strong for beauty, but she was frank and clean and fresh to look at. "Oh, I am just like you," she declared, "and I'm not half so pretty as mamma. There's the bell. Somebody's coming!" There was a rustle of women's skirts on the way upstairs, and in a moment several light-coloured gowns were fringed by the palms in the doorway. When the governor entered, several hours later, the rooms were filled with warmth and laughter and the vague perfume of women's dresses mingled with the odour of American Beauty roses. An old-fashioned polka was in the air, and beyond the furthest doorway he saw young people dancing. The red candles were burning down, and drops of wax lay like flecks of blood upon the floor. Near the entrance, a small, dark woman was leaning upon a marble table, and as she saw him she held out a cordial hand. She was plain and thin, with pale, startled eyes and a mouth that slanted upward at one corner, like a crooked seam. She spoke in an abrupt, skipping manner that possessed a surprising fascination. "Behold the conquering hero!" she exclaimed, her pale eyes roving from side to side. "I suppose if you were never late, you would never be longed for." "My dear Miss Preston," protested pretty little Mrs. Carrington, who was soft and drowsy, with eyes that reminded one of a ruminating heifer's. "I assure you, I have been positively longing to have you gratify my curiosity," declared Miss Preston. "You know you do such dear, eccentric things that we couldn't exist without you--at least I couldn't because I should perish of boredom. No, you shan't escape just yet, so stop looking at that beautiful Mrs. Galt. You must tell me first if it is really true that you once carried a woman out of a burning building in your right hand. It is so delightful to be strong, don't you think?" The governor regarded her gravely. Before her animated chatter his gravity became almost grotesque. "The only burning building I was ever in was a burning smoke-house," he returned quietly. "I never carried a woman out of anything in either hand." There was a bored expression in his eyes, and he glanced beyond the group to where Juliet stood surrounded. "Pardon me," he said in a moment, and passed on. In the crowd about him, where pretty women were as plentiful as pinks in a garden bed, he moved awkwardly, with the hesitating steps of a man who is uncertain of his pathway. His powerful frame and the splendid vigour in his daring strides seemed out of place amid a profusion of exotics that trembled as he passed. His appearance suggested the battlegrounds of nature--high places, or the breadth of the open fields; at the plough he would have been grandly picturesque, in the centre of a throng of graceful men and women he loomed merely large and ill at ease. Above his evening clothes his face showed rough, rather than refined, and his stubborn jaw gave an impression of heaviness. As he reached Juliet she uttered an exclamation of pleasure and held out her hand. "Emma, you have heard of my Sunday-school scholar," she said to a girl beside her. "My prize scholar, I mean. Sally, have you seen the governor?" Emma Carr, a pink-and-white girl who bore herself with the air of an acknowledged belle, bowed, with a platitude that sounded original on her lovely lips, and Sally Bassett turned with a hearty handshake. "And he is our Nick Burr!" she exclaimed. "Tom, where are you?" She spoke with an impulsive flutter which he had remembered as the sparkle of mere girlish liveliness. Now he saw that it had degenerated into a restlessness that appeared to result from a continued waste of nervous energy. She looked older than Juliet, though she was in fact much younger, and her face was drawn and heavily lined as if by years of ill-health. Her physical strength was prodigious; one perceived it with the suddenness of surprise. Much the same impression was produced by her youthful manner in connection with her worn features; yet, in spite of her faded prettiness, there was a singular charm in her unabated vivacity. She darted off in pursuit of Tom, to be arrested by the first newcomer she encountered, and Nicholas was responding gravely to Juliet's banter when his eyes fell full upon Eugenia Battle as she stood at a little distance. He had not seen her for fifteen years, and he started quickly as if from an unsuspected shock. She was talking rapidly in her fervent voice, the old illumination in her look. Her noble figure, in a straight flaxen gown, was drawn against a background of green, her head was bent forward on her long white neck, her kindly hands were outstretched. She had developed from a girl into a woman, but to him she was unchanged. Her face was, perhaps, older, her bosom fuller, but he did not see it--to him she appeared as the resurrected spirit of his youth. Miss Carr was speaking and he made some brief rejoinder. Eugenia had turned and was looking at him; in a moment he heard her voice. "Are old friends too far beneath the eyes of your excellency?" she asked, and he heard the soft laugh pulse in her throat. Her hand was outstretched, and he took it for an instant in his own. "I am very glad to see you," he remarked lamely as he let it fall--so lamely that he bit his lip at the remembrance. "You are looking well," he added. "Of course--a woman always looks well at night," she answered lightly. "And you," she laughed again, her kindly, unconscious laugh; "you are looking--large." He did not smile. "I have no doubt of it," he responded, and was silent. Juliet Galt broke in with an affectionate protest. "Eugie is as great a tease as ever," she said. "She will be the death of my baby yet. I tell her to choose one of her own size, but she never does. She always plagues those smaller than herself--or larger." But Eugenia had turned away to greet a stranger, and in a moment Nicholas drew back into a windowed embrasure where the lights were dim. Suddenly a voice broke upon his ear addressing Juliet Galt--the vibrant tones of Dudley Webb. He had come in late and was standing in mock helplessness before Juliet and Carrie, his plump white hand vacillating between the two. "I am at a loss!" he exclaimed with an appealing shrug of his shoulders. "Which is the debutante?" Juliet laughed, her cheeks mantling with a pleased blush. "You're a sad flatterer, Dudley! Isn't he, Eugie?" Eugenia turned with a questioning glance. "Oh, it's just his way," she returned good-humouredly. "A kindly Providence has decreed that he should cover over my deficiencies." Dudley protested affably, and ended by giving a hand to each. In the crowded rooms he had become at once the picturesque and popular figure. His magnetism was immediately felt, and men and women surrounded him in small circles, while his pleasant words ran on smoothly, accompanied by the ring of his infectious laugh. The luminous pallor of his clear-cut, yet fleshy face, was accentuated by the sweep of his dark hair that clung closely to his forehead. He seemed to have brought with him into the heated rooms the spirit of humour and the zest of life. From the deep embrasure Nicholas Burr watched curiously the flutter of women's skirts and the flicker of candle light on shining heads. Eugenia moved easily from group to group, the straight fall of her flaxen gown giving her an added height, the dark coil of hair on the nape of her long neck seeming to rise above the shoulders of other women. She was never silent--for one and all she had some ready words, and her manner was cordial, almost affectionate. It was as if she were in the midst of a great family party, held together by the ties of blood. In a far corner Juliet Galt and Emma Carr, the prettiest women in the room, sat together upon a corn-coloured divan, and in front of them a file of men passed and repassed slowly on their way to and from the dining-room, pausing to exchange brief remarks and drifting on aimlessly. Near them a fair, pale gentleman, robust and slightly bald, with protruding eyes and anaemic lips, had flung himself upon a gilded chair, a glass of punch in his hand. He had danced incessantly for hours in the adjoining room, and at last, wearied, winded, with a palpitating heart, he had found a punch bowl and a gilded chair. Through the doorway floated music and the laughter of young girls intoxicated with the dance. In the hall, some had sought rest upon the stairway, and sat in radiant clusters, fanning themselves briskly as they talked. There was about them an absence of coquetry as of self-consciousness; they were frank, cordial-voiced, almost boyish. The governor stepped suddenly from the embrasure and ran against Ben Galt, who caught his arm. "I've been searching the house for you," he exclaimed, "after landing my twelfth matron in the dining-room." Then catching sight of the other's face, he inquired blandly: "Bored?" "I am." Galt gave a comprehending wink. "So am I. These things are death. I say, don't go! Come into the library and we'll lock the door and have supper shoved in through the window, while we talk business. I've a decanter of the finest Madeira you ever tasted behind the bookcase. Juliet will never know, and I don't care a continental if she does. I'm a desperate man!" "I was just going," replied the governor. "I'm not up to parties; but lead off, if it's out of this." _ |
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