CHAPTER XV

JULIET LEAVES HOME

THE special services conducted by the Rev. Arthur Mainprice at St. Jude's Church excited considerable interest, and were largely attended. Juliet's mother and sisters went to several of them, and did their best to persuade her to accompany them. But in vain they spoke with enthusiasm of the preacher's eloquence, and repeated many of his earnest, pointed words. Juliet would not betray the least interest in him or his sayings. She had no wish to listen to the preaching of a man who had presumed to say that he was sorry for her.

If the words he spoke in private were so ill-chosen, his pulpit utterances might be still more objectionable. Moreover, Juliet was quick to perceive that her elders were anxious that she should attend the services, thinking that they would "do her good," and this perception was sufficient to drive her into an obstinate determination that to not one of the services would she go.

But, notwithstanding her apparent indifference, Juliet took a keen interest in what was going on. No words which the others let fall concerning Mr. Mainprice escaped her ears. She was quick to see that one evening Salome came back from church with eyelids suspiciously red, and she was aware of a change in her sister during the days that followed. It provoked her that Salome should present an invulnerable front to the darts of her sarcasm, and that her stinging words should meet with no like retort. She could not quarrel alone, and she felt vexed with Salome for declining to play her wonted part. It hurt her sorely when Salome one day took considerable pains in order to render her a service. She did not want Salome to begin to evince tokens of kindliness. She wanted her to continue to be disagreeable, and everything in the house to be as unpleasant as possible, that it might be easier to do that which she was secretly planning.

Much as Juliet had resented Mr. Mainprice's words, at times she could almost have owned that they were not uttered without cause. There were moments when she was sorry for herself, when a horror of what lay before her took possession of her mind, and she was ready to cry out to be delivered from her own way. Often at night, when Mrs. Tracy imagined Juliet to be tranquilly sleeping, the girl was shedding tears and stifling sobs, which threatened to disturb her mother. But with the morning light, glowing visions of the future would visit her again, and self-will urge her forward along the path she had chosen.

"Mother," asked Hannah one day, "have you and Juliet come to any decision with regard to our removing from this house? Here is another quarter more than half gone. It is really time something was definitely settled."

"Nothing is decided, dear, and I do not know what to say about it. Juliet appears to have lost her interest in the matter of late. She does not seem to care whether we go or stay."

"That is like Juliet. A little while ago she was so impatient to move into a larger house that she thought we could make every arrangement and get out of this in six weeks' time. I never knew such a creature of moods and tenses as she is."

"She is just at an age when girls often do not know their own minds," said Mrs. Tracy. "I was the same before I married. For my part, I am quite content to remain here, as long as she is willing to do so." And she cast a loving glance round the familiar room.

Her secret hope was that Juliet might ere long win a home of her own. Not that there seemed any likelihood of the girl's marrying at present, but Mrs. Tracy was one of those fond, sanguine mothers who easily persuade themselves of the probability of the happiness they desire for their offspring. Nothing seemed to her more unlikely than that Juliet should remain unsought in marriage. It could not be unreasonable to count upon the arrival of a suitor in every way eligible. Thus Juliet was not the only one who dreamed of a happy future for herself. The visions wrought by her mother's imagination of the life of this darling child might be painted in more commonplace hues, but they were none the less entrancing to the dreamer.

"Has Juliet yet made up her mind with regard to her summer holiday?" asked Hannah. "I have heard her make half a hundred different suggestions, but I have no idea which she finds the most alluring."

"I don't think she knows herself," replied Mrs. Tracy. "A little while ago she was wild to go to Norway. Then she proposed that we should go to Switzerland and the Italian lakes, and thence to Milan for a few weeks, that she might have some lessons of Signor Lombardi. But I do not feel equal to so much knocking about, and I think it better she should not go to Milan, so I discouraged it. You know that the Felgates have asked her to join them at Folkestone, and go across to Boulogne for a week or two; but she declares they would bore her dreadfully, and that if she went on to the Continent, she would want to go farther than Boulogne."

"She is a difficult person to please," said Hannah. "A princess could not be more fastidious. I thought she liked Dora Felgate."

"So she does. I do not think she has actually declined the invitation. I must ask her to decide soon, for our plans are dependent on hers."

"Most people are leaving town now," said Hannah. "And the sooner Juliet gets away the better, for I met Flossie Chalcombe yesterday, accompanied by a young man whom, by the likeness between them, I judged to be her brother. Mrs. Hayes said some time ago that she believed he had left the neighbourhood, but he is evidently here again?"

"Oh, my dear, I do not think you need fear that Juliet would have anything to say to him," replied Mrs. Tracy hurriedly. "She is wiser now, and feels her responsibilities more. Her talking to him at the railway station was just a piece of girlish folly."

"I am glad to hear she is wiser," said Hannah drily.

It was growing dusk as they talked. They were sitting by the open window of the drawing-room, which looked into the tiny strip of garden at the back of the house. Salome was moving to and fro there, watering the flower-borders, which she kept in beautiful order.

Suddenly the house door was heard to open, and the next minute Juliet entered the room carrying her tennis-racket. They knew that she had been playing tennis with friends in the neighbourhood. It had long ceased to be light enough to play, but it was not surprising that she should linger for a chat when the game was over. Mrs. Tracy was far from guessing that Juliet had but now come from a stolen interview with Algernon Chalcombe.

"Sitting in the dark?" said Juliet, as she threw herself wearily into a chair. "Well, you are wise, for it is deliciously cool here. What a warm evening it has been!"

"I have not found it at all too warm," said Mrs. Tracy.

"Ah, you have not been playing tennis."

"Did you have a good game, dear?" asked her mother.

"Yes," said Juliet indifferently.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Salome had finished her gardening, and was carefully putting away everything she had used.

"Mother," said Juliet suddenly, "I mean to join the Felgates at Folkestone. I shall go to them on Tuesday."

"My dear," exclaimed Mrs. Tracy in surprise, "have you really made up your mind to that?"

"Yes," said Juliet in a quick, decided manner, "I have made up my mind. I shall write to Dora to-morrow."

"If your mind has not changed by then," said Hannah. "I should not wonder if you have another impulse to-morrow morning."

"No, I have made my decision, and I shall abide by it," said Juliet, with a curious little quaver in her tones.

Her mother turned towards her as she heard it, but it was impossible to perceive more of Juliet's countenance than the dim outline.

"Are you sure, dear, that you will like going to Folkestone as well as anything else?" asked Mrs. Tracy. "You have not decided too hastily, I hope?"

"Oh no, I shall like it well enough," said Juliet. "The Felgate girls are always good company, and the going to Boulogne will be fun. Perhaps Mr. Felgate may be persuaded to take us to Paris for a few days. Dora said something about it."

"Ah, you would enjoy that," said her mother. "Let me see. You expect to be with them for three weeks, do you not? Will that be change enough for you, or will you like to go somewhere else afterwards?"

"Oh, that will be enough," said Juliet hastily; "at any rate, that is all I can decide on now."

"Very well, dear; only you know it is often necessary to plan a little in advance. It may be impossible to get such rooms as you would like, if you put off securing them."

"I will take the chance of that," said Juliet. "I hate to be tied down to things."

"If Juliet goes to Folkestone, there is no reason why you and I and Salome should not go to the Isle of Wight, as we talked of doing," said Hannah, addressing her mother.

"No, perhaps not. We will see," said Mrs. Tracy, with a sigh, conscious that she cared little about going anywhere if Juliet did not accompany her.

At this moment, Salome entered the room. It was never Salome's way to sit idle in the twilight, and she at once kindled a lamp which stood on a side-table where the air from the open window would not blow on it.

"Oh, Salome," exclaimed Juliet fretfully, as she turned her head aside from the light, "why need you have done that? It was so much nicer without that glare."

Salome without a word placed a shade over the offending lamp, and seating herself near it, opened her work-bag. Then she said quietly—

"Mr. Mainprice is to preach at our church on Sunday."

The racket Juliet was still holding suddenly fell on the floor with a bang. Mrs. Tracy uttered a nervous cry; but, recovering herself, she said—

"Oh, I am glad to hear that! Does he only take one Sunday?"

"I suppose so," replied Salome; "I believe Mr. Hayes will be back for the Sunday after. It is more than a fortnight since they started for Normandy, and they only meant to be away three weeks."

No one spoke again for some moments. Juliet was lying back in her chair dreamily watching a large moth which had fluttered in at the window and was circling round and round the lamp in ever-narrowing gyrations. Suddenly she started up with a cry—

"Oh, save it, Salome, save it! It is such a beauty! Don't let it burn itself!"

Salome looked round in bewilderment, not seeing to what Juliet's words referred. When she understood, it was too late. Drawn by the attraction of its radiance, the moth swept too near to the centre of fierce heat, and the next moment with singed wings it lay writhing on the table in mortal anguish, to which Salome mercifully put a speedy end. Juliet had come to her sister's side, and she now took up the dead creature and gazed with troubled eyes at the lovely spotted wings which the flame had marred.

"What a pity!" she said. "It was such a beauty. Oh, you poor silly thing, why did you go so near?"

Then, as much to her surprise as to that of the others, a sob escaped her. She turned and hurried from the room.

"Whatever can have come to Juliet that she should weep over a dead moth?" exclaimed Hannah. "Something must have happened to put her out."

"She is overdone," said Mrs. Tracy. "I noticed when she came in that she seemed excessively tired. It is quite time she went away, for she needs a change. Juliet is not strong, although she appears to have so much life and spirit. She is highly strung and excitable, and such temperaments have ever more energy than strength. I only hope the change to Folkestone will be the right thing for her."

"You need not fear," said Hannah; "the air on that coast is splendid. It is sure to revive her, if she needs bracing."

Salome said nothing. She believed that the cause of the emotion Juliet had manifested lay deeper than her mother supposed. It had struck her before to-day that Juliet was not happy. She reproached herself for not understanding her young sister better. Now when it was too late, she regretted bitterly the wide breach she had suffered ever to yawn deeper and deeper between herself and Juliet, and which made it impossible for her at this juncture to approach Juliet with sympathy and counsel, when perhaps she needed both.

Juliet wrote to Dora Felgate the next morning, and busied herself with preparations for her departure on the following Tuesday. She found a good deal to do, and appeared to be in a state of bustle and excitement from morning till evening of each day which intervened, except on Sunday, when she complained of a headache, and did not go to church. A casual observer would have said that she was in high spirits at the prospect before her. Hannah quite thought so.

But Juliet's excitable, flighty manner could not deceive her mother. She saw that Juliet was not herself; but she hoped that the trouble was dependent on the condition of her nerves, and would soon be driven away by the strong sea breezes.

One afternoon Juliet, who had been out shopping, returned to the house accompanied by a small boy staggering beneath the weight of a huge flower-pot containing a fine palm.

"Will this do for you, Salome?" she said, as she brought it into the room where her sister was seated and placed it on the floor beside her. "You said the other day that you wished you had a tall palm for the drawing-room. Is this tall enough?"

"Oh, what a lovely one!" exclaimed Salome. "Do? I should think it would! But you should not have bought it, Juliet. It was a pity to spend your money so."

"I spend my money as I please," said Juliet. "Since you admire the palm, perhaps you will be good enough to accept it from me, and to take care of it for my sake?"

"Oh, Juliet How kind of you! It is the very thing I wanted," said Salome, who yet could not help feeling some regret that Juliet should have bought the palm just now, when it would have to be left almost immediately to the mercies of a caretaker.

"You need not thank me," said Juliet, in some confusion; "I expect I only bought it to please myself, as I do most things. Perhaps," she was constrained to add, "I shall one day do something so bad that you will hate the very sight of that palm, and wish I had not given it to you."

"Oh no, I hope not. I am not afraid of that indeed," said Salome. "I think—I hope, Juliet—that you and I are going to get on better in the future. Will you try, if I do?"

And turning, she threw her arm about Juliet's slight form, and bending forward kissed her on the forehead.

Juliet shrank from the kiss as if it stung her. She went hastily from the room, and Salome remained alone, her lips quivering and tears rising to her eyes. She could not but feel bitterly how Juliet had repulsed her. But was it not her own fault that their lives had grown so far apart, their greetings so cold and formal, that an unlooked-for caress from her should thus startle and apparently annoy Juliet?

Hannah was seated at her solid reading in her own room, when Juliet looked in to say, "Hannah, would you like to take my 'handy-volume' Thackerays to the seaside with you? I heard you say you meant to read Thackeray during the holidays."

"Oh, thank you, Juliet; I should be much obliged to you, if you are not afraid of the books getting hurt," said Hannah, surprised by this thoughtfulness on Juliet's part.

"Oh, I want you to keep the books, Hannah. I shall write your name in them. You must keep them as a parting keepsake from me."

"Nonsense, Juliet; I shall do nothing of the kind. Really, to hear you, one would think you were never coming back. The idea of your giving me those books that you like so much."

"I bought the books myself; it is hard if I cannot do what I like with them," said Juliet, affecting to pout. And when she brought her sister the books on the following day, Hannah saw that her name was indeed written in them. She was half touched, half provoked by what she considered a new manifestation of Juliet's eccentricity. She certainly was a very odd girl; but not wholly bad, perhaps, after all.

On the night previous to her departure, Mrs. Tracy advised Juliet to go early to bed, and the girl, unusually docile, obeyed. But, though she went upstairs, she did not lie down till she heard her mother's step upon the stairs. How could she sleep when everything that met her gaze in the old familiar room said to her that it was the last time—the last time probably that she would share that room with her mother, the last time that things would be as they had been?

Juliet was lying motionless, only the top of her head visible above the bedclothes, when her mother entered the room, and Mrs. Tracy moved about noiselessly on tiptoe, lest she should disturb her. But presently Juliet lifted her head and said, "You need not creep about like that, mother; I'm awake."

"Oh, I am sorry, darling," said Mrs. Tracy, coming quickly to her side; "I hoped you were in a nice sleep."

"You need not be sorry about it, mother. You are always being sorry about me, and I wish you would not," exclaimed Juliet, the emotion pent up within her finding vent in irritable speech. "I wish you would learn not to care a bit about me."

"I shall not soon learn that, I think, dear."

"If you knew me as I really am, you would hate me. You cannot think how I hate myself," said Juliet, suddenly beginning to sob. "Oh, mother, if I grieved you very much, if you thought me very wrong, could you still love me?"

"Of course, darling. I should be a poor mother if I could not. But why talk in this morbid way? Nothing so dreadful is going to happen."

"Oh, I don't know; it pleases me to talk so. Mother, if people talked against me, if Hannah and Salome said bitter things of me, would you still try to think the best of me, to believe that I had meant well, although—although—"

Juliet paused, choked by sobs.

"Really, my dear Juliet, it frightens me to see you so upset," said her mother. "If anything is troubling you, tell me, my dear child, that I may help you."

"Oh, nothing is troubling me," exclaimed Juliet wildly making a great effort to master her emotion. "I am very happy, I mean to be very happy. Only I do wish, mother, that you were going with me to-morrow. Mother, promise me that, whatever happens, you always live with me. We must have a home together in the future, you and I. Do promise me that, ever naughty I may be, you will not refuse to live with me."

"You absurd child!" said Mrs. Tracy, beginning to laugh. "As if I should refuse such a thing. Of course, I shall live with you as long as you want me."

"Which will be always," said Juliet, laughing too, rather hysterically. With that she kissed her mother several times, and then lay down to sleep.

Mrs. Tracy was somewhat perturbed by Juliet's wild words, and had many troubled thoughts concerning her ere she fell asleep. But in the morning, Juliet appeared her usual self. She busied herself with her packing assisted by her mother, and talked gaily all the time. At luncheon she could eat little, but the rare excitement of a journey was sufficient to account for that. Hannah was to accompany her to the City and see her safely into the train, after which the short run to Folkestone could be attended by no risk that the most anxious mother could have deprecated.

The cab came late, so that the farewells at the last were hurried. There was some bustle in getting the train, but Hannah succeeded in seeing Juliet comfortably settled in a carriage with several other lady passengers.

"The Felgates will meet you, of course?" she said, more for the sake of making a remark than because she felt any doubt on the subject, having already heard every detail of the arrangements discussed by her mother.

"Yes, I shall be met," Juliet replied.

"And you will write at once?"

Juliet nodded and waved her hand, for the train was already in motion. Then she leaned forward to take a last look at Hannah. It was but a blurred vision she caught, for tears had suddenly risen in her eyes and dimmed their sight.