"CAKES AND ICES"
Jefferson Craig found plenty of the zest which he had told
Georgiana--that last evening on shipboard--her eager-eyed look added to
his life, when, the next day, in a compartment reserved for the three
travelers, he watched her as she fairly hung out of the windows. All
through Devonshire and on to the northeast. She was drinking in the fair
and ordered beauty of the English countryside in April, exclaiming over
apple orchards rosy as sea-shells with bloom, over vine-clad cottages
and hedge-bordered lanes, masses of wall flowers at each trim station,
and such green fields as she had never seen in her life. Father Davy was
not far behind her in his quiet enjoyment of the unaccustomed scenes.
A night at Bath, picturesque and interesting, and then before the eldest
of the three travelers could be really weary they were in famous Oxford.
Professor Pembroke and his wife, Allison Craig, met them at the station,
to convoy them to the comfortable quarters in the dignified stone house
near Magdalen College, which Craig had more than once described to
Georgiana.
Here the young American had her first taste of a manner of life which
enchanted her. From the moment that she set eyes on Jefferson Craig's
sister, the original of the photograph she had so often studied with a
constriction of the heart, not knowing whose it was, she was drawn to
her as she had never been drawn to any other woman.
Sitting with her in the pleasant, chintz-hung living-room, walking with
her in the garden which was like no garden she had ever imagined, she
was conscious of a stronger sense of wonder than ever that a man whose
family was represented by a sister like this could ever have chosen the
crude young person she still considered herself. From Mrs. Pembroke,
however, she received only heart-warming assurance of her welcome and
her fitness.
"My dear," Allison said, as the two stood at an ivy-framed window one
morning, looking out at Mr. Warne and his son-in-law as they slowly
paced up and down beneath a row of copper beeches between house and
garden, "I never saw my brother so happy in his life. Jeff always was
hard to please as a boy. I used to think it was merely a critical
disposition, but later I discovered that it was his extreme distaste for
all artifice, acting, intrigue--all absence of genuineness. Only those
boys and men interested him whom he had absolute faith in.
"I don't mean that he himself was a goody-goody--far from it; he was a
terrible prank maker, and more than once narrowly missed suffering
serious consequences. But when he really grew up and it came to an
acquaintance with women, very few have even attracted him. I began to
fear that he was becoming hardened and would never find just what his
fastidious taste could approve--not to mention what his heart might
soften to. But now--well, I think I am almost as happy as he is, that he
has found you. He seems like a different being to me, and evidently it
is you who have wrought the miracle."
"I surely have made no change in him," Georgiana protested. "He has been
just as he is now from the beginning--except, of course, that I know him
better. I can't imagine him hardened to anything."
Allison Pembroke looked at her, smiling. She was herself an unusually
beautiful woman, more mature than Georgiana, but still with a touch of
girlishness in her personality which made her very appealing to her
young guest.
"Evidently the softening process began the moment he met you," she said.
"He frankly admits that himself. I am going to tell you what he wrote to
me last winter, after you had begun your work with him. 'I feel like a
footsore traveler,' he said, 'who has been walking for many miles along
a hot and crowded highway, with the dust heavy on his shoulders and
thick in his throat, who suddenly finds his course turned aside through
a deep and quiet wood, with flowers springing on all sides, and a clear
stream running beside him, where he may bathe his flushed face and cool
his parched throat.' I have never forgotten the words, because they
struck me as so unlike him. I knew then that something had happened to
him there in the old manse. And when I saw you, dear, I didn't wonder
that he chose just those words."
"I should never have thought," murmured Georgiana, incredulously, "that
I could ever have reminded anybody of a quiet wood--I with my hot
rebellion at having to spend my days in the country, which I could never
quite cover up."
"I know. Just the same, Georgiana, after having known so many artificial
women, posing, as women do pose for a man in Jefferson's place, it
refreshed his very soul to find a girl like you, who dared to be herself
from head to foot, whether she pleased him or not. And oh, I am so
thankful you could care for him, since he needed you so much!"
Such talks brought these two very close together.
It was a happy week which Georgiana spent in the fine, classic old town,
walking or driving with Allison, exploring quaint, winding streets,
ancient halls, and flowery closes; or meeting interesting people of all
ranks, from the chancellor of the University himself to the young
undergraduates who offered her in their old and dingy but distinguished
rooms tea and toasted scones, along with their fresh-cheeked admiration.
Not the least of her pleasure was in watching Father Davy's keen
enjoyment of everything that came his way, and in noting how many of
these English people seemed to find him one of them in his appreciation
of all they had to offer and in his intimate knowledge of their
time-honoured history. He apparently grew a little stronger with each
succeeding day; certainly he grew younger, for happiness is a tonic
which has special power upon those who carry the burden of years; and
Father Davy's years, while not so many, had been heavy of weight upon
his slender shoulders and had bowed them before their time.
After Oxford came London--a fortnight of it, and a very different
experience. Living at a luxurious hotel with Allison Pembroke, who had
come up with them, to show her all the ways of which she felt herself
ignorant; with Craig coming and going from hospital and lecture room,
suggesting each day new wonders; with hours spent daily in the dear
delight of exploration in all sorts of out-of-the-way, famous places;
Georgiana felt as if it were all too miraculous to be true.
That she, "Georgie Warne," as the village people had called her all her
life, should, for instance, be walking with charming Mrs. Pembroke along
Piccadilly in the May sunshine--real London sunshine and no watery
imitation such as she had heard of--dressed in the most modish of spring
costumes, violets in her belt purchased on a street corner from a young
girl with the eyes of a Mrs. Patrick Campbell and the accent of
Battersea Park--well, it simply did not seem real!
Much less did the hours seem real when she went with her husband to take
tea on the Terrace at the Houses of Parliament, or with all three of her
party to dine with some friendly Londoner who appeared eager to offer
hospitality to the whole party. Best of all, perhaps, were the late
evening walks upon which Craig took her alone, to stroll along the
Victoria Embankment, a place of which she never tired, to watch the
myriad lights upon the black river, and to talk endlessly of all the
pair could see before them of purpose and achievement.
"Do you know what you remind me of these days?" Craig asked one night,
when the two had returned to the hotel after one of these long, slow
walks, during which they had been unusually silent.
He threw himself into a deep armchair as he spoke and sat looking up at
his wife, who stood at the open balcony window, gazing down at the
street below, with the interest in everything human which seemed never
to abate.
She turned, smiling. She was particularly lovely to look at to-night,
wearing a little pale-gray, silk-and-chiffon frock (lately purchased at
a French shop in London), which, in spite of its Parisian lines and
graces, was distinctly reminiscent of a certain other gray-silk frock
worn on a never-to-be-forgotten occasion.
"Of a child at her first party?" she asked. "That's what I feel like.
Only there's no end to the cakes and ices, the bonbons and surprises.
And I never have to worry because before long I must go home!"
"No, not like that; your similes are always too self-deprecatory. You
seem to me more and more like a young queen who has just come to the
throne, but who is shy about picking up her sceptre. She prefers
long-stemmed roses, and every now and then she catches up her train and
runs down from her dais and out-of-doors, until some shocked courtier
rushes after her and brings her back!"
"Now you _are_ laughing at me!" Georgiana wheeled to confront her
husband, who, stretched lazily in his chair, after a long day at the
side of a great biologist in his laboratory, was relaxing muscles and
nerves at the same time.
He put out one arm toward her, and she came slowly to his side. "Not a
bit. It just delights me to see you your natural self in spite of all
that London can do to you. Allison tells me that it is the most
interesting thing in the world to watch you decide whether you will buy
a new hat or a new book. She declares that milliners admire you and seem
anxious to please you, but that when you get into a bookshop you have
every old bookseller climbing about his ladders to bring down his
choicest treasures for you."
Georgiana laughed. "I can't get used to buying hats at all--not to
mention silk stockings--and as for buying hats and books and silk
stockings on the same day, it's simply past belief that I can do it. Why
do you fill my purse so full? I'm afraid I'm losing all the benefit of
my long training in frugality."
"I hope so. I can never forget last winter watching you dissemble your
good healthy appetite and pretend you didn't want beefsteak, while you
fed your father and me on a juicy tenderloin. Brave little housekeeper
on nothing a month!"
She looked at him quickly. "I never dreamed you noticed. And besides, I
really didn't want----"
"Take care! The table was the only place where I ever caught you playing
a part. I forgave you, only--how I did long to divide with you! Now all
the rest of my life I can divide, equal shares, with you--my Georgiana!"
The weeks flew by, bringing never-ending interest. After London came
Edinburgh, city of stately beauty, where among Scottish friends of the
Craigs Georgiana learned whence her husband's family had sprung, and
their noble origin and history.
Then the vacation was at an end "for this time," as Craig said, and the
little party turned their faces homeward.
A letter from James Stuart, in the same mail with one twice its length
from Jeannette Crofton, caused them to hasten their date of sailing by a
week in order to be in time for a great event. Stuart wrote
characteristically:
You simply have to come home, George, and help me through it. Of
course I knew from the first I'd have to face a big city wedding,
but the actual fact rather daunts me. Of course it's all right, for
we know Jean's mother would never be satisfied to let me have her
at all except by way of the white-glove route. The white gloves
don't scare me so much as the orchids, and I suppose my new tailor
will turn me out a creditable figure. But if I can't have you and
Dr. Jeff Craig there I don't believe I can stand the strain.
The worst of it is that after all that show I can only take her
back to the old farm. Not that she minds; in fact, she seems to be
crazy about that farm. But it certainly does sound to me like a
play called "From Orchids to Dandelions."
So, for heaven's sake, come home in time! The date's had to be
shoved up on account of some great-aunt who intends to leave Jean
her fortune some day if she isn't offended now, and the nice old
lady wants to start for the Far East the day after the date she
sets for our affair.
"Of course we must go," Craig agreed. "We'll stand by the dear fellow
till the last orchid has withered--if they use orchids at June weddings,
which I doubt. As for the dandelions, I think there's small fear that
Jean won't like them. I fully believe in her sincerity, and I'm prepared
to see her astonish her family by her devotion to country life. Stuart's
able to keep her in real luxury, from the rural point of view, as I
understand it, and she will bring him a lot of fresh enthusiasm that
will do him a world of good."
"I'm trying to imagine Jimps's June-tanned face above a white shirt
front," mused Georgiana. "He'll be a perfect Indian shade by that time."
"Not more so than any young tennis or golf enthusiast, will he?"
"Oh, much more. Jimps is out in the sun from dawn till sundown; his very
eyebrows get a russet shade. But of course that doesn't matter, and his
splendid shoulders certainly do fill out a dress coat to great
advantage. You don't mind being considered one of his best friends by a
young farmer, do you? That's the way he feels about you."
"I consider it a great honour. I never was better pleased than when
Stuart first made friends with me, even after I discovered that he was,
as I thought, my successful rival. It was impossible to help liking him.
In fact, I've often wondered why--he didn't continue to be my rival."
"Oh, no, Jefferson Craig, you couldn't possibly wonder that!"
contradicted Georgiana, in such a tone of finality that her husband
laughed and told her that flattery could go no farther.
The voyage home was nearly a duplicate of the one outward bound, except
that the two workers put in much extra time on the book and pushed it
well toward completion.
Father Davy acquired the strength to take short walks on an even deck
and boasted hugely of his acquisition, a twinkle in his eye and a tinge
of real colour in his cheek.
"Imagine my coming home from abroad with trunks full of clothes and
books and pictures," murmured Georgiana, as the three stood together
watching the big ship make her port. "I feel like a regular
millionairess."
"A regular one would smile at your modest showing," was Craig's comment.
"I'm quite certain no man ever found it more difficult to persuade his
wife to buy frocks, even when he went with her and expressed his anxiety
to see her in particular colours."
"Confess," demanded Georgiana with spirit, "that you would be
disappointed if I suddenly became a devotee of clothes and wanted all
those gorgeous things we saw, and which that black-eyed Frenchwoman
tried so hard to make me take."
"Those wouldn't have suited you, of course. I don't want to make an
actress of you, or even a society woman who gets her gowns described in
the Sunday papers. But when you refuse simple white frocks with blue
ribbons----"
"Costing three figures! And I could copy every one of those myself for a
fraction of the money."
"What would you do with the money saved?"
"Buy books."
Georgiana and Father Davy exchanged a smiling, tender glance which spoke
of past years of longings now satisfied.
Craig laughed heartily. "Incorrigible little book-lover! Well, it's a
worthy taste. I happened to overhear a comment on your reading the other
day which amused me very much. When you left your steamer chair to walk
with me you left also a copy of _Traditions of the Covenanters_. A
little later, coming up behind that young Edmeston, who spends most of
his time lounging in the chair next yours, I heard him say to a girl:
'She doesn't look such an awful highbrow, but believe _me_, the things
she reads on shipboard when the rest of us are yawning over summer
novels would help weight the anchor if we got on the rocks!' Then with
awe he mentioned the name of that book, and the girl said:' How
frightful! But I'm crazy about her just the same. I do think she wears
the darlingest clothes.' So there you are! The men impressed, the girls
envious, and your husband--worshipful. What more could a young wife
ask?"
"Absolutely nothing," acknowledged Georgiana with much amusement.