"That's nothing to what Miss Barnes, who does the social notes for the
_Eagle_, will say tomorrow. You will be worth at least three quarters of
a column--not front-page stuff, of course, but the feature story under
'Society,' opposite the woman's page," he continued, ignoring my
threats.
At twelve I insisted upon going out to lunch. Knowlton stuck with me. In
the grill room of the Otooska House--a lonesome spot, thronged only at
night--we had a steak, with which Knowlton drank a glass of milk.
"I'm sorry, Knowlton," I said over cigarettes, "that you won't accept my
father's offer and try your luck in England."
"I appreciate that, Ted. But I guess I belong over here. I'm going to
take my bonus money and set up for myself as a consultant in New York. A
man better stick to what he knows. If I went to London, I'd have to
learn all over again. It's different with you--you are going home. I'm
going to stay here."
* * * * *
A little before two, one of Deep Harbor's most elaborate "hacks"
deposited Knowlton and me at the awning-covered approach to the portal
of St. Asaph's. I remember that there were a few curious onlookers
standing on the pavement outside, and inside, there seemed to be music
and a lot of vegetation. Beyond these blurred impressions I can
recollect nothing until I was aware that Helen was coming down the aisle
on her father's arm. It flashed across me that Mrs. Claybourne must be
weeping somewhere near. Helen looked at me steadily through her veil, a
deep and wonderful grey in her eyes as she came on, and I know I wanted
to cry out, "Oh, damn this ceremony--let's bolt for the station,
dearest." We did as we had been instructed--just what, I don't know, but
the Reverend Mr. Osborough's voice got under way promptly. It was in the
air above me, I felt. Helen wore a wreath of orange blossoms--not
unusual for a bride, of course--but I loathed their scent, as I had ever
since the day of my small-boyhood when a flower girl under Charing Cross
station in London had thrust some beneath my nose.
The questions were beginning, and I made an effort to pull myself
together. What was my cue? I heard Osborough whispering something under
his breath. I had missed the first response, and he was prompting me.
Would Knowlton grin? I couldn't look around. I stumbled through my
lines, and Knowlton came forward with the ring. Helen was
letter-perfect; not once did she fluff her lines or miss a bit of stage
business. I admired her for it. We had to kneel--side by side. I saw the
ring on her finger--it must be nearly over. We got up again--"Now!" I
thought. No, Osborough was off again. What was this about? A sermon
specially for our benefit--we were kneeling before the altar. I blinked
at the candles to avoid looking at Osborough. I had hold of Helen's
hand. I felt her press mine gently. "She's kept her head--I knew she
would!" I thought in an ecstasy of delight over her self-control.
"Probably knows everything that's happening." Ah, the benediction at
last--obviously the finale; that isn't the right technical word. We were
standing up--Helen had thrown back her veil.
"Kiss me quick, Ted, before any one else gets to me," I heard her say. I
obeyed with great speed. Osborough was next, then Knowlton--things were
growing confused again, and I'm not sure of my facts. There was a
fearful uproar from the organ, and we were very near it. We started back
down the aisle, Helen on my arm. Women peered into our faces. I felt
that there were a great many persons treading on our heels--bridesmaids,
some of them, and Knowlton mixed up with them. I wanted to look around,
but a strange woman was glaring at me from a pew near at hand. What had
become of my hat? It mysteriously appeared again at the door--out of the
void a hand passed it to me. Helen and I were wafted into a carriage--I
am certain our own legs had nothing to do with it--rice and confetti
fell into our laps--and the horses started with a jerk.
"Ted, we're married," Helen said, and laid her cheek against mine. I
closed my eyes and held her hand tightly. Some things are hard to
realize. There was a clamour in my brain, and I couldn't think. The
carriage stopped. The Claybourne house was not over a few hundred yards
from the church.
Knowlton helped us out. "How the devil did you get here ahead of us?" I
asked in terrified surprise. His grin returned. It was reassuring, like
finding a link with home when lost in a strange place. The unseen force
took us up the steps and into the house--more flowers and greens. We
were made to stand by the drawing-room doors, Knowlton close behind me.
Mr. and Mrs. Claybourne were next, and there were embraces; Mr.
Claybourne shook my hand and clapped me on the back. Then floods of
people--Uncle Peter and his wife, with bridesmaids and ushers. The
ushers kissed Helen, and I had to kiss the bridesmaids. One got kissed
twice, and there was a great deal of laughter at my expense. They were
difficult to tell apart. In the background several women were weeping.
After it did not seem possible I could kiss another girl--for all and
sundry followed the bridesmaids, while Helen was kept busy by the male
half of Deep Harbor--we sat down to what was called a breakfast.
There was a large bride's cake and champagne, to say nothing of Uncle
Peter's speech. It was a funny speech: that is to say, each word he
uttered was received with roars of laughter. I don't, myself, remember
it. Plate after plate of various foods were put in front of us by
swarthy foreign waiters, and whisked away again before I got around to
eat. I wasn't hungry. In the midst of a particularly noisy demonstration
I became aware that I was being called on for a speech.
"Get up, Ted," Helen whispered. I got up, and my teeth chattered, but no
words flowed through them. Knowlton handed me a glass of champagne, with
a grin floating across it. I said something; great applause and
laughter. This was encouraging, considering I hadn't any idea what I had
said. I went on--more applause. I pulled Helen to her feet, and we drank
from the same glass of champagne as a climax. Tremendous hit! We sat
down.
Helen went upstairs to change to a travelling frock. From the top of the
stairs she tossed her bridal bouquet to the bridesmaids. They tore it
apart like a pack of hounds making a kill. Knowlton led me away to
another room to dress, as a policeman might help a blind man across
Piccadilly Circus. Mysteriously to me, I found my own dressing bag there
and all my things laid out. Knowlton sat on the bed and grinned at me as
I struggled into the other clothes.
"Pretty good for a somnambulist," he conceded when I had done.
"Knowlton," I said, trying my best to make my true feelings carry, "I
don't know what I should have done without you today."
"I don't either," he grinned. "It was my toast at breakfast that gave
you the strength for the ordeal."
He produced a packet of papers. "Now you are coming out of your trance
nicely, I'll give you these," he went on. "This envelope, which is
green, contains your railroad tickets; this blue one, your steamer
tickets; the white one, the checks for your baggage. Get that?"
He opened my coat and put them in the inside pocket and buttoned me up
again, like a child. "If you find your mind gone on the train, just tell
the conductor to search you."
At the door of the room I had a final word with Mr. Claybourne. Then the
three of us went downstairs. In a few minutes Helen appeared. She looked
more beautiful in her tailor-made travelling dress than in her bridal
array. My head swam again when I went to her. We were surrounded by a
babel of voices, and Miss Hershey led in Mrs. Claybourne. Every one was
going to the station to see us off. Leonidas was howling dismally
outside from the centre of a large crate which was to be his prison as
far as New York. On this one point Helen was adamant. She would not go
to England without Leonidas.
The preliminary farewells began, and even Jane, the maid, joined the
chorus of feminine weepers. The Claybournes, Helen, and I got into one
carriage; Knowlton, with an assortment of bridesmaids, followed in
another. More rice and confetti, not to speak of old shoes tied to the
carriage by white ribbons. We were not to be spared a single torture.
The crowd at the station were delighted with our arrival. Leonidas and
his cage gave the final touch. Some merry wag, blast his eyes, had tied
a large bow of white ribbon to Leonidas' collar. There was no time to
remove it, for the New York train thundered in from the further West,
and the ivory flashes of a Pullman porter took over our care. We left in
a bedlam, Mr. Claybourne's face looking rather solemnly at us, Mrs.
Claybourne, quite overcome, on Miss Hershey's shoulder, and Knowlton's
grin frozen half way. Helen and I waved as long as they were in sight,
then turned around in our seats and faced each other....
* * * * *
Two days later the Cunarder backed out from her dock and our voyage
began. Helen and I stood on the top deck, where we could see the tugs
turn the ship around. The fantastic skyline of Manhattan loomed over us.
"Lady Grey Eyes, I love you," I whispered, as our boat went slowly down
stream. "Are you glad?"
"My darling!" floated from her lips, no more than a breath. I had to
lean close to her to hear. "I'm so happy, Ted!"
We stood upon the upper deck until dusk, watching the coast fade into
the haze. At last it had gone, save for one far flashing light. We were
at sea.
At dinner we found ourselves seated opposite a dear old English lady,
who took one look at Helen and then and there resolved to "mother" her.
We had hoped, half seriously, that we could escape passing as bride and
groom. No sooner, however, had we taken our seats than a delighted
steward brought in a large basket of white roses, set off with white
ribbons. This he placed in front of Helen. It bore a card, with this
legend: "From the Deep Harbor gang." The old English lady said, "How
sweet of your friends, my dear." I had another opinion of their conduct.
I didn't mind so much, for Helen was loveliest when she blushed.
After dinner we sat and talked a bit with the old English lady--a Mrs.
Parsons from High Wycombe. To tell the truth, I liked to hear her call
Helen "my dear." It was a good omen. She asked us a hundred questions
which, somehow, we did not mind at all. Helen poured out her heart to
her. It was "Ted this" and "Ted that" until I threatened to put my hand
over her mouth.
"I shall call you Edward and Helen," Mrs. Parsons announced decisively.
"It would be positively ridiculous to call two such babies Mr. and Mrs.
Jevons. How old are you, Helen?"
"Nineteen," said Helen with absolutely her prettiest blush.
"And you, Edward?"
"Twenty-four," I confessed, as Helen most brazenly leaned against my
shoulder.
"What your mothers were thinking of, I can't imagine," exclaimed Mrs.
Parsons. "You shouldn't be out without a nurse."
When we went to our cabin Helen said: "I like to have people nice to us,
don't you, Ted?"
"I love to have them nice to you," I answered.
* * * * *
A few days later Helen and I stood far forward on the boat deck,
straining our eyes for the first glimpse of land. She was all
excitement, dancing up and down with little steps and squeezing my arm
in between times. "It is just like one of our fairy stories, Ted," she
whispered, her face so close that the sea wind blew a damp lock of her
hair across my eyes. From the ship's bridge a cynical first officer,
telescope under arm, smiled down at us. Helen turned toward him and
called: "Oh, please tell us as soon as you see anything." He nodded and
sent a sailor down to us with a pair of binoculars. Porpoises were
leaping and playing about the ship; the sea gulls were beginning to
accumulate off the stern. Helen tried to focus the glasses, but her
hands shook so with joy and excitement, I had to help her.
Suddenly the look-out called from the crow's nest on the mast. According
to the experts of the sea the noise he made should have been "Land-ho!"
but it did not sound like anything articulate. We could still see
nothing, for we were lower down. The officer on the bridge pointed the
direction for us; Helen and I kept snatching the binoculars from one
another. Then the top of a light-house stuck up above the horizon. We
could hear a scurrying of passengers.
"How disappointing!" exclaimed Helen. "I thought we would see white
chalk cliffs."
"This is Ireland--not England," I answered. "The Old Head of Kinsale is
dark rock a few miles behind the light-house. If the Irish cliffs were
like the English, Irishmen would paint them a different colour."
It was not long before we were close enough to the coast to see the
emerald of the fields at the summit of the rocky cliffs. A line of white
edged the meeting of the black rocks with the blue of the sea. Helen
drew a long breath as she gazed at the startling beauty of the Irish
coast.
"Ted! Ted!" she whispered. "It makes me want to cry."
Passengers crowded about us, and the wise man who knows everything began
explaining in a loud voice to all and sundry.
"Ted, take me away. Isn't there somewhere on this boat that we can see
all by ourselves?"
We found a cranny, further aft, between two life boats. Helen rested her
elbows on the rail, her chin in her hands, and gazed, the starlight of
her eyes shining.
"Don't speak to me for a while, darling," she said. "I want to look."
I studied the curve of the back of her neck, where the light brown hair
played little tricks of its own while her head was bent forward. She was
unconscious of what I was doing.
"Put your arm around me, Ted. No one can see," she sighed from between
her hands. "Don't talk."
I obeyed. I never touched her that it did not seem a miracle that I
should be permitted such liberty. It was like touching something
exquisitely delicate and sacred. Not that she was "petite" in the sense
in which that banal word is generally used; on the contrary, she was
tall and of athletic figure. It was her beauty that seemed,
nevertheless, dainty and fragile. "You'll spoil me, Ted, if you make
such a fuss over me," she had once laughingly warned me.
We were wakened from our reverie by the hearty voice of Mrs. Parsons
behind us. "That is Ireland over there, my children," she said, with the
air of one giving valuable and hitherto unknown information. Helen and I
started apart guiltily. We had not yet been married long enough to get
over the self-consciousness of an engaged couple. Mrs. Parsons unrolled
a map, with great difficulty because of the wind. We were in for a
lecture. "This is where we are."
She indicated a spot which would be about sixty miles in circumference,
out in the open sea. "Up there is Queenstown. That is where we are
going. Then Liverpool is up there, just back of Anglesea."
Helen said the right thing, while her eyes shot a look at me which only
I could understand.
"See, I've brought you some chocolates, my dear," and Mrs. Parsons
fished in the jumbled depths of a handbag. She handed them to Helen.
"Mind you don't forget to come down for tea. I'll send the steward when
it's quite ready," and she was off.
Helen laughed a laugh that was a joy to hear. "She'll be bringing us
bottles of warm milk next. But she's a dear, Ted."
After tea we returned to the boat deck. The ship was approaching
Queenstown harbour. There may be more beautiful spots on the surface of
this earth than this harbour, but if so, Helen and I had never seen any
of them.
"Ted, did you ever dream of such green grass! And look at those little
white houses--like fairy houses, Ted! And the trees! What a funny shape
they are, Ted. Look at them."
"I am looking, my dearest." I did not dare say what it meant to me to be
nearing home. I thought it would sound disloyal to Helen and to the
happiness we were bringing with us.
"There is an English cruiser, flying the white ensign," I exclaimed--a
queer feeling inside me at the sight of her flag.
"Is that an English flag? I thought the English flag was red, with a
union Jack in the corner."
"Helen!" I cried, in a voice more shocked than I realized it would
sound. "You don't know the white ensign?"
"Ted, how can I possibly know all your beastly old flags?" she flared
up. "Please don't look at me like that, Ted. What have I done?"--and a
mist gathered quickly in her grey eyes.
"I forgot, dearest," I said, slipping my arm tightly around her. "Please
forgive me. But that flag means we are home."
Her soft hand found mine and clung. "Home, Ted," she whispered, "our
home." She looked at the cruiser lying near us. The ensign fluttered
jauntily in the wind. "We are Americans, Ted," she said after a long
pause. "I wonder if we ought to feel the way we do?"
"The best way is to love both our homes, Helen sweetheart."
She looked up at me and smiled: "Love is enough, Ted," she said
softly--and we both remembered the old clearing by the wood back of Deep
Harbor, where we had read William Morris together.