Judy looked at him, surprised at the turn the conversation was taking.
"Am I?" she asked.
"Yes," continued the Judge, "and especially in two things." His eyes were fixed dreamily on a bed of tall lilies that shone pale in the half light.
"What things?" Judy was interested. She had expected a lecture, but this did not sound like one.
"In your love of flowers--and in your temper--my dear."
Judy"s head went up haughtily. "Grandfather!"
"You don"t probably call it temper. But your grandmother did, and she conquered hers--and I am going to tell you how she did it, because I know she would want me to tell you, Judy."
Judy sat sulkily as far from her grandfather as she could get. Her hands were clasped around her knees and she stared out over the dusky garden, wide-eyed, and it must be confessed a little obstinate. Judy knew she had faults, but if the truth must be told, she was a little proud of her temper--"I have an awful temper," she had confessed on several occasions, and when meek admirers had murmured, "How dreadful,"
she had tossed her head and had said, "But I can"t help it, you know, all of my family have had tempers," and as Judy"s family was known to be aristocratic and exclusive, her more plebeian friends had envied and had tried to emulate her, generally with disastrous results.
She was not quite sure that she wanted to conquer it. It often gave her what she wanted, and that was something.
"The first time I had a taste of your grandmother"s temper," the Judge related, "we had had an argument about a gown. We had been invited to a great dinner at the Governor"s, and she had nothing to wear. She took me to the shop to see the stuff she wanted. It was heavy blue satin with pink roses all over it, and there was real lace to trim it with. It was beautiful and I wanted her to have it, but when they named the price it was more than I could pay--I was a poor lawyer in those days, Judy--so I said we would think it over, and we went home.
All the way there your grandmother was very quiet and very white, but when we reached home and I tried to explain, she simply would not listen. She would not go to the Governor"s, she said, unless she could have that gown. You can imagine the embarra.s.sment it caused me--it was as much as my career was worth to stay away from that dinner, and I couldn"t go without her.
""I won"t go. I won"t go," she said over and over again, and when I had coaxed and coaxed to no effect, I sat down and looked at her helplessly, and troubled as I was, I could not help thinking that she was the loveliest creature in the world--with her rose red cheeks and her flashing eyes.
"She said many cutting things to me, but suddenly she stopped and ran out of the room, and presently I saw her in the garden, this garden, my dear, and she was flying around the oval path, as if she were walking for a wager, her thin ruffles swirling around her, and the strings of her bonnet fluttering in the wind.
"Around and around she went, and I just sat there and stared. When she started in there was a deep frown on her forehead, but as she walked I saw her face clear, and when she had completed the round a dozen times or more, I saw her throw back her head in a light-hearted way, and then she ran into the house.
"She came straight to me and threw her arms around my neck. "John,"
she said, "John, dear," and there was the tenderest tremble in her voice, "John Jameson, I was a hateful thing." I tried to stop her, but she insisted. "Oh, yes, I was. And I don"t want the dress, I will wear an old one--and I"ll make you proud of me--"
"Then all at once she began to sob, and her head dropped on my shoulder. "Oh," she cried, "how could I say such things to you--how could I--?"
""What made you change, sweetheart?" I asked, and she whispered, "Oh, your face and the trouble in it."
""I made up my mind that I wouldn"t say another word until I could get control of my temper, and so I went into the garden and walked and walked, and do you know, John Jameson, that I walked around that oval sixteen times before I could give up that dress."
"It wasn"t the last time she walked around that oval, Judy," the Judge finished, with a reminiscent smile on his old face, "and so perfectly did she conquer herself, that when she left me, it was just an angel stepping from earth to the place where she belonged."
Judy had listened breathlessly. So vivid had been the description, that she had seemed to see on the garden walk, the slender, imperious figure, the intent girlish face, and out of her knowledge of her own nature, she had entered into the struggle that had taken place in her grandmother"s heart, as she flew around the oval of the old garden.
"Oh, grandfather," she said, when the Judge"s quavering voice dropped into silence, "how lovely she was--"
"She was, indeed, and I want you to be as strong."
Judy tucked her hand into his. "I"ll try," she said, simply, "thank you for telling me, grandfather."
"I want you to be happy here, too," said the old man wistfully, and then as she did not answer, "do you think you can, Judy?"
Judy caught her breath quickly. With all her faults she was very honest.
She bent and kissed the Judge on his withered cheek. "You are so good to me," she said, evasively, and with another kiss, she ran up-stairs to Anne.
Anne was in bed and Judy thought she was asleep, but an hour later as she lay awake lonely and restless, with her eyes fixed longingly on the great picture of the sea, a soft seeking hand curled within her own, and Anne whispered, "I didn"t mean to make you unhappy, Judy," and Judy, clear-eyed and repentant in the darkness of the night, murmured back, "I was hateful, Anne," and a half hour later, the moon, peeping in, saw the two serene, sleeping faces, cheek to cheek on the same pillow.
CHAPTER V
TOO MANY COOKS
In spite of herself Judy was having a good time.
"I know you will enjoy it," had been Anne"s last drowsy remark, and Judy"s final thought had been, "I"ll go, but it will be horrid."
But it wasn"t horrid.
There had been Anne"s happiness in the first place. Judy had wondered at it until she found out that Anne"s picnic experiences had been limited to little jaunts with the children of the neighborhood, and an occasional Sunday-school gathering. The Judge had lived his lonely life in his lonely house, and except when Anne and her little grandmother had been invited to formal meals, he had not interested himself in any festivities.
There had been the early start, the meeting of the queer boy at the crossroads--the boy with the lazy air and the alert eyes; the crowding of the big carriage with two rather dowdy little country girls, one of whom was, in Judy"s opinion, exceedingly pert, and the other exasperatingly placid; the laughter and the light-heartedness, the beauty of the blossoming spring world, the restfulness of the dim forest aisles, the excitement of the arrival on the banks of the stream, and the arrangement of the camp for the day.
And now Judy, having declined more active occupation, was in a hammock, swung in a circle of pines. The softened sunlight shone gold on the dried needles under foot, and everywhere was the aromatic fragrance of the forest. Now and then there was a flutter of wings as a nesting bird swooped by with scarcely a note of song. A pair of redbirds came and went--flashes of scarlet against the whiteness of a blossoming dogwood-tree. Far away the squalling of a catbird mingled with the mellow cadences of the mountain stream.
There was the sound of laughter, too, and the chatter of gay voices in the distance, where the young people fished from the banks.
Judy could just see them through an opening in the pines. The three girls perched on the bent trunk of an old tree, which hung over the water, were dangling their lines and watching the corks that bobbed on the surface. The Judge, with a big hat pushed away from his warm, red face, held the can of bait and discoursed entertainingly on his past angling experiences.
Perkins in the foreground was opening the lunch-hampers, and just outside of Judy"s circle of pines, a brisk little fire sent up its pungent smoke, and beside the fire, Launcelot Bart was cutting bacon.
Judy watched him with interest. He was tall and thin, but he carried himself with a lazy grace, and in spite of his old corduroy suit, there was about him a certain air of distinction.
He was whistling softly as he put the iron pan over the coals, and dropped into it a half-dozen slices of the bacon.
"Watch these, Perkins," he called, "I"ll be back in a minute," and he started towards the hammock.
As he came up, Judy closed her eyes, with an air of indifference.
"Asleep?" asked Launcelot, a half-dozen steps from her.
Judy opened her eyes.
"Oh--is that you?" she asked.
"Yes. Don"t you want to come and help me cook?" He was smiling down at her pleasantly.
"I hate cooking." Judy"s voice was cold. She hoped he would go away.
Launcelot leaned against a tree to discuss the question.
"Oh," he said. "I don"t hate it. It"s rather a fine art, you know."