XV
In the lodging-house in their new life together Julie and Mr. Bixby passed as Mr. and Mrs. Freeman. It was Julie who named them.
“An’ that’s the truth; we are free. It isn’t any lie,” she pleaded.
“It’s God’s truth,” he affirmed solemnly.
They kept their own first names, for they both clung tenaciously to the truth whenever it was possible. Indeed, they did not practise many subterfuges nor make any very great effort at concealment. In this big strange life of a city where neither of them had ever been before, it did not seem likely that he would be traced, or that a country so grimly occupied with war and great undertakings would pause long enough in all the mad confusion to note that one inconspicuous man had failed to appear at the place assigned to him. They were not worried either about finances. They each had a small stock of ready money, and Julie had a couple of Liberty Bonds which could be sold in case he found any trouble in getting work. They had agreed that he must leave his bonds for Elizabeth, although, as she had a small income of her own, she was independent of his support. He found a position almost at once in a printing establishment where war had left them short of men, and where they welcomed his expert services. Julie planned to seek work also later on, but for the present he entreated her not to.
“No, take time just to be alive a while,” he begged. “Why, we’re almost as new as Adam an’ Eve; all I want you to do is just to help me name the animals.”
“Name the animals!” she laughed, as no human being had ever laughed before at his small whimsicalities.
They were both released into a gayety and laughter of life that heretofore had passed them by. Youth flowed back into Julie’s face, and with it her lost prettiness—or perhaps a fresh prettiness which even her youth had never known. Ordinarily the strangeness of their new surroundings, with the inevitable publicity of the lodging-house, would have terrified them both. But not now. As certain animals put their young in the centre of the flock, and then in companionship face the enemy boldly, so together they pooled their confessed weaknesses and fears, and thus were able to turn an assured front to the rest of the world. Their passion had released them. Heretofore they seemed to themselves to be clinging merely to the edges of life, but now they were at its flaming centre. Nay more, they were life itself; and from the heart of it they looked forth at the rest of the world with a fearless joy. Like children who make a tent out of a couple of chairs roofed by an old shawl and, creeping under it, find an enchanted world of their own, no matter what tragedies may be facing the grown-up people around them, so under the grim roof of a world’s war these two discovered a miraculous existence. After their long years of repression, in this sudden release they were intoxicated with the rapture of existence. For Julie the days flowed by in ecstasy, from early morning when she arose and prepared his breakfast, on through all the happy day as she attended to her small home tasks, and so to the fall of evening which brought him home again—every moment was a golden joy keyed to a hidden rhythm. Other people also became a delight to her. With that one defiant and releasing cry of hers, she had defied people, and found freedom; but now that she was free, she no longer held any grudge against them. Indeed, one of the keenest delights in her new existence was a fearless and easy intercourse with the rest of the world. Her happiness and vividness of life was such that it could not be contained within their own two personalities, but must flow forth in a warm friendliness to all the people with whom she came in contact—to the children in the street, the clerks in the shops and at market, and to the other lodgers in the house. With these last she found herself on friendly terms almost at once.
They were ordinary enough people, but to Julie they seemed different from any she had ever known. There was Mrs. Watkins, who had the rooms across the hall from Julie on the first floor. She was a frail and tired little woman, wilted by the heat, and burdened with the care of four small children. She generally managed to get herself into a tidy dress late in the afternoon, but most of the day she went about in a wrapper, her hair in curl-papers, and her constant complaint, “My Lord, ain’t it hot!” To help her with her sewing for the children was a delight to Julie. She did it so eagerly and so well, that even Mrs. Watkins’ fretful discouragement was pierced by gratitude.
“My, but you’re kind! Why, you couldn’t be kinder to me if you was my own sister,” she burst out one day, as Julie held up a completed dress with pretty summer ruffles. “I never did think I’d get that dress finished for poor little Nell. Looks like the heat always drags me down so—but you! Why, you ain’t been at it no time, an’ now it’s all done. Nell!” she called out of the window into the hot street, “Nelly! run here a second; momma’s got something to show you, dearie.”