“My little dear Ruth,” Lucilla wrote, “we're coming on the most
important mission to America. Namely, to see you. Yes, and haven't I a
bagful of news for your Royal Highness!
“We sail by the _Cedric_ on the fifteenth of April, Harry can't leave
until then. To confess the truth, he is in Altronde. Civillo,--of
course you've seen it by the papers,--Civillo is gone to a greater
Principality, Bertram is King.
“I want to see you--oh! And Ruth, I burn with curiosity to look on that
New England of yours. Harry, I'm convinced, is prepared to settle there.
He says, so pathetically, that at his time of life he feels the need of
planting cabbages and that the Upper Gardener at Pontycroft gives notice
when he tries to. He's heard that in New England gardeners are kind,
don't mind a bit; they just let you plant, right down; are affable; make
you settle right down and become one of 'em. But Harry says, too,
he pines at first hand to solve the inwardness of a land destined to
dominate us all.
“Ruth, between you and me, in confidence, if America is to be the future
of Europe--well--then I'm glad I shall be dead.
“But between you and me, my dear, what Henry Pontycroft wants is not
so much to plant cabbages neither is it to study politics... What he
truly-truly wants is a glimpse of the Young Person. He's missed you! Ah!
I have news. Your devoted, Lucilla.”
Over this flippant missive Ruth grew hot, then cold, then faint. And she
sat, for a long moment in a state of emotional upheaval, of senseless
vacuity--the while her head whirled and her heart went thump, thump,
thump! It was an entire quarter of an hour before this commotion
subsided, and left her with soft flutterings at her throat.
“They're coming, they're coming, they're coming! He's coming... I shall
hear his voice, I shall see him. Oh, what has happened? Is it possible
that he's free? Oh, my God, my God, help me to wait,” she cried. She
began to cry and to sob like a little child. She craved, wanted, longed
for, unendurably, overwhelmingly, that he should take her in his arms,
caress and fondle her, and, like a veritable little girl pat her cheek
and soothe her, let her unburden her woes, let her lie, her head in his
breast, while he said to her, “There, little child, there, don't cry.”
And it was in Pontycroft's voice that the words fell upon her ears, and
it was on Harry Pontycroft's breast that she dried her eyes. And they
were Pontycroft's eyes into which her eyes smiled, when, presently,
mocking him through her tears, but in oh, such heaven of bliss! she
repeated the trite refrain of the tritest, the most foolish of Ballads.
“In God's hands!” said Ruth; she dried her eyes. “Like everything
else....”
She put her hat and jacket on and went for a walk. When she reached the
house an hour later, she had found her peace, and though her eyes were
singularly bright and her manner curiously vivacious, this contributed
the more to her success of the evening at the Bolingbrokes'.
“Ruth--” Mrs. Bolingbroke rushed at her, enfolded her in an impetuous
hug, “you're delicious! Stay in Washington. Stay in Washington for
ever--”
“Come to Barracks Hill with me,” answered the young lady. “I must be
flitting almost at once.”
“No, no, no....” protested Mrs. Bolingbroke. But it was peaceably
arranged at last that the Bolingbrokes, having a _congé_ at Easter,
should come, then, to Barracks Hill.
And so, on the fifteenth day of March, Ruth bade farewell to Washington
and travelled back to Oldbridge.