When we reached the drawing room, my sister said: "Mother has gone up to
bed."
We kissed Frances good night and climbed to our own quarters. I went
into my study to look out some of my old books. Upon my return I found
Helen lying on her bed, sobbing.
"What is it, my love?"--I flew to her and whispered in her ear.
"Ted, darling--will you ever forgive me? I'm homesick."
She sobbed herself asleep in my arms that night. I lay awake, thinking
of many things.
* * * * *
A week later the deadlock between my mother and me was still unbroken.
Helen, however, was rapidly finding her feet in the joy of exploring
London. We went the second evening of our homecoming to the Lyceum to
see Henry Irving in _The Bells_ and the next night to his _Charles I_.
We lunched out, sometimes at Kettner's in Greek Street, Soho, or down in
the City at Crosby Hall or at The Ship and Turtle. Helen could not get
enough of riding on the tops of the busses. We used no other conveyance
except for going to the theatres. We did a certain standard thing each
morning, such as going to the Abbey, St. Paul's, or The Tower, and the
rest of the time we rode or walked about without plan or purpose. It was
enough to be in London--it mattered little where one went or why, there
were marvels to be seen in any direction. We sat a lot in quiet old City
churches, particularly in St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield. The
restoration had not quite done for the simple majesty of its Norman
pillars. I could see London literally soaking into Helen's blood. And
she greeted the bookshops on Charing Cross Road like a discovery of old
friends. We bought all the plays we could find in the sixpenny boxes.
We went out each day early in the morning and returned only in time to
dress for dinner. The family were quiescent; no comment was made on our
comings and goings, except the daily question whether we were to be
expected at luncheon. My mother never said an unkind word to Helen, but
she treated her with a stiff, formal politeness that resisted all
advances. Frances, my sister, was in despair, not knowing with whom to
side. She adored her mother and at the same time had always been a good
pal of mine--as much of one, in fact, as the discrepancy in our ages had
permitted. Once or twice she went out for the day with us, but our
energetic sight-seeing tired her out. She had been born in London and
had never lived anywhere else, and its lions did not appeal to her as
they did to Helen. Helen and Frances were already fast friends,
wandering about the house in the mornings with their arms about each
other or exchanging mysterious whispered conferences and giggles in
their dressing gowns. They had reached at a bound the intimacy which
involved borrowing each other's stockings, garters, and gloves. If Helen
had felt homesick again, she said nothing about it.
Then at the end of the week my father requested me to see him in the
library. I could tell from the way he was examining a pile of papers
that he had something to say to me that he found difficult to express.
He never smoked in the morning--a habit which was in itself a handicap.
"Ted," he said at the conclusion of a few commonplaces, "I am sending
you to Berlin tomorrow for a month."
"What fun that will be for Helen," I exclaimed, springing to my feet.
"Sit down--I haven't finished." I resumed my chair with an unpleasant
foreboding. "I can't afford to send Helen with you--you are going
alone."
"Hell!" I ejaculated impolitely. "You might have told me a few days
ago."
"I didn't want to interfere with your first week."
"What am I to do in Berlin?"
"I want you to learn a new chemical process we are going to handle. The
money from the sale of the Deep Harbor factory has been entirely used to
found a new company here. Until we get that on its feet we shall be
rather hard-up. But we are playing for big stakes now, Ted. If this
goes, you will be free to do as you please."
"I suppose I receive a salary."
"Not enough for you and Helen to live on--that's why you must live with
us for the present. But I'll give you a ten per cent. interest in the
new company, and it will be up to you to make it good. Meanwhile your
salary is the nominal one of two pounds a week."
"But we can't go to the theatre on that," I exclaimed. It was rather a
shock, for in Deep Harbor I had been well paid. "I can get a better job
on my own."
"I have no doubt of it," replied my father. "Your chemical work is
reported as expert. If you want to back out now and leave me in the
lurch, go ahead."
I opened my mouth to speak--and paused. A recollection of my interview
with Knowlton on this very subject crossed my mind. I heard him
say--"play the skunk and leave you flat, Ted." On the other hand, what
was my duty to Helen?
"We'll be paying dividends after the first twelve months, Ted. Then
you'll be all right. Your interest in the company will be worth a lot of
money."
"It's more or less of a gamble, I suppose?"
"All business is," said my father. "But I was flattering myself I had a
son who had the grit to gamble for big stakes, and the brains to play
the game."
"Damn," I said, getting up and walking about the room. My father began
writing with an abominably scratchy nib.
"I ought to consult Helen," I turned and shot at him. He looked up from
his letter and shrugged. The nib scratched on. "I told her I had
excellent prospects when I married her--that Knowlton and I had made
good with the Deep Harbor Manufacturing Company--" I paused in my
argument, for my father appeared to be ignoring my remarks. He began
another letter.
"Take it or leave it, Ted," he said after another silence. "All I ask is
that you let me know definitely by lunch time. If you don't go, I must
send another chemist to Berlin. I've made you the best offer in my
power. A father can't do more than that."
"I wish you could see my point of view."
"I see it perfectly. Facts, however, overrule a point of view. If I had
the means, I'd set you free this minute. As I haven't, there is nothing
to argue about."
"Facts are damned unfair."
"They are," agreed my father.
"If I put it up to Helen, she'll tell me, of course, to stick by you, no
matter what the sacrifice."
"In that case I should decide for myself, if I were you. It's a poor
plan to try to shift your responsibilities on to some other person."
I had a suspicion my father was secretly laughing at me. I had a knack
of making the worst possible showing in a crisis.
"I want to be fair to you and to Helen," I exclaimed.
"I'm not impressed by heroics," my father answered coldly. "I don't
think either of you is being very hardly used--you have a comfortable
home offered you and a good opportunity to work for. I am not asking
favours--I'm giving them."
In one sense this was, of course, strictly true; yet there was something
to be said on my side. Nothing was to be gained by stating it; I
therefore kept silent. Ten minutes more must have passed while I turned
the problem over. My father imperturbably continued to write, address,
and seal letters.
"Do you know which way I am going to decide?" I asked, curiosity getting
the better of me.
"Frankly," my father replied, "I don't. I'm not bluffing, Ted. I have
never understood you very well. We've always been good chums; still, I
have known that inwardly you go your own gait."
"I don't think I have ever disobeyed an important command."
"No, I don't believe you have--perhaps I have never asked you to do
anything I didn't think was for the best. You didn't like being sent to
Deep Harbor. Are you sorry now you went?"
"You can't take the credit to yourself for Helen and make that into an
argument," I said. "Logic has its limits."
"I never went to college, so logic doesn't bother me," my father smiled.
It was the first time his face had relaxed since I came in.
"I'll go," I announced. My father opened a desk drawer and took out a
bundle of papers.
"Here's your railway ticket--Harwich--Hook of Holland. You leave from
Victoria. And here's your instructions and a letter of introduction to
the Treptow Chemische Gesellschaft. When you know how to use the process
you will be taught, come home. The quicker you learn, the quicker you
get back. But you must know it thoroughly."
"Then you did think I'd accept," I remarked, rather indignant again.
"My dear boy, it never crossed my mind you would make a fuss. You took
me entirely by surprise."
"I always seem to be wrong," I growled.
"But fortunately you often end up by doing right," my father smiled.
Helen was a brick. We talked the whole thing over, and she scolded me
for having hesitated. Helen's scoldings were very affectionate affairs.
She smiled and assured me she would be all right. It might be the best
way to win my mother over, and so on. Besides she would do a thousand
things with Frances and would write me every day. At the end I rang for
Chitty and told him to pack enough things for a month's journey.
"Will you be playing golf, sir?" he asked. Helen squealed with delight
from the bed, where she was sitting with her feet tucked under her.
"No--business, Chitty. No riding clothes."
"Very good, sir. Thank you."
Helen saw me off the next evening, accompanied by the family. Her eyes
were swimming, but she didn't let go. She was the last to kiss me, after
a formal kiss from my mother and a huge puppy embrace from Frances.
"Don't worry, Ted darling. I promise not to be homesick. I love you."
A guard most unceremoniously slammed the door between us. The train
pulled out. I sat and swore nearly all the way to Harwich.
* * * * *
The month did not pass quickly, although I worked hard, for long hours.
The process was intricate and complicated, quite beyond the range of
anything I had done before. The German chemists did their best to help
me, and at the same time made no secret of their contempt for my
training.
Helen wrote amusing and cheerful letters, in which Leonidas and Frances
chiefly figured. She spoke little of my mother, and only to reassure me
that "everything was all right." I knew, therefore, that no progress had
been made there. One piece of news, which, I thought might possibly
come, did not. That had been one of my chief anxieties over leaving
Helen.
I saw a lot of Berlin and went nightly to cheap seats at the theatre. My
experiences of this city are not, however, germane to this narrative. It
was not until the middle of the fifth week of my stay that the Treptow
Chemische Gesellschaft notified me that I had now performed the process
successfully several times and was in a position to return to instruct
others. I made one of the quickest trips to a telegraph office known to
German history. From there to my hotel and on to the Bahnhof I at least
equalled any existing record. Twenty-four hours later Helen was in my
arms on the platform of Victoria Station.
The family were at dinner when we reached Kensington. I hope Gabriel's
trumpet is not timed for the dinner hour, for it is quite certain my
mother will not allow even that to postpone her sitting down.
"Have you got it, Ted?" my father asked.
"What isn't in my head is in the bag upstairs," I replied.
Right after dinner Helen and I fled to our retreat, brutally closing the
door in Frances's face. We sat on the floor before a fire and talked.
Berlin and London--we compared notes until after midnight. As we were
about to go to bed, Helen whispered:
"There's one thing more, Ted, I haven't told you."
And then came the big news I had been expecting while away.
"I just had to tell you yourself, darling. I didn't want to write it."
God! If anything should happen to my beloved! and I went sick and cold
at the thought. But she did not know this fear, for I held her tight,
kissing her eyes. We sat on before the fire, far into the night, talking
of the new future this revealed, of the new wonder that had come into
our lives.
"Edward Jevons, Junior," Helen murmured as she fell asleep on my
shoulder.