"I can't come with you, Ted; my business ties me here. And I won't let
Mrs. Claybourne go with you--I guess you know why. Don't spare
expense--no matter what it is. Get the best specialist and the best of
everything for her. If you run short, simply call on me." He fumbled in
a pocket book. "Here is a draft on a Los Angeles Bank. Deposit it as a
reserve fund."
I was surprised to see that his eyes, like mine, were wet when he handed
me the draft. Then he smiled: "We mustn't lose our nerve, Ted. Go out
there and fight for that girl," and he gripped my hand.
* * * * *
The next day we began our long journey across the Continent We had
several hours to wait in Chicago before the Santa Fe limited left in the
evening. We hired an open cab and drove for an hour along the lake front
of that amazing city. Helen took her old, eager childish delight in
seeing something new. Her eyes danced as I had not seen them dance for
weeks. We astonished passersby by halting our cab to stare upward at
sky-scrapers or to peer from alongside the curb at luxurious shop
windows.
"They wonder what curious brand of country folks we are," I laughed with
her.
"Ted!" Helen exclaimed, clutching my arm, "there's one of those
wonderful American candy shops--do buy me some chocolates."
Again I laughed at the blend of the two countries in her remark. The cab
was stopped once more and a box of chocolates added to our luggage. In
our delight over sight-seeing together, we forgot for a time the shadow
hanging over us. It was Miss Brock who brought us to ourselves. Helen
was getting dangerously excited. The cabman drove us to our hotel. There
we sat in a room looking out over the lake until time to go to our
train.
Driving to the station, Helen said: "Let's stop for a day or two in
Chicago on our way back next June, Ted. I think it's fun."
On the train Helen and I had a little compartment to ourselves, with
another for baby, nurse, and Miss Brock, the trained nurse. Helen
insisted at once on playing house and having the baby come as a caller
to visit us.
"Ted--just think! We are going across the Continent. It's a real
adventure, dear."
"To be anywhere with you is a beautiful adventure," I whispered. It
sounded banal, but I meant it.
"Dear old boy, you still pay me compliments after being married to me
for ages. And I like them just as much as ever, Ted." She snuggled
against me, saying, "Make me comfy, Ted."
In spite of Helen's joy in travel, I found my courage oozing out of me
on that train. The tracks stretched so remorselessly and interminably
away from the rear carriage, while we went on and on. Our old life and
happiness seemed to be fading far off over many horizons. Ahead of us
there was nothing but a strange land and an unknown, perilous struggle.
I wondered at the towns we passed through, and if, in each village we
went by, there were others righting the same fears and watching beside
their beloveds.
Mother and baby often sat on opposite seats, chattering to each other of
the things seen out the window--gee-gees, moo-cows, and all the rest
that all mothers show their babies. Little Helen no longer could sit in
her mother's lap.
"Daddy," she asked one day, "why can't I sit in mummy dear's lap any
more the way I did in England?"--everything now she compared with
England--"and, daddy, why doesn't mummy dear kiss me good-night any
more?"
I held little Helen very tight at this, for a pair of grey eyes opposite
were staring out the Pullman window.
"Ted," said the grey eyes slowly, "tell her the truth."
"Mummy dear is ill, little girl--and the doctor says you mustn't sit in
her lap or kiss her until she is quite well again."
"I want mummy dear to get well quickly, daddy. Tell the doctor to make
her well. I want mummy dear to kiss me again."
"Ted, I'm afraid I'll have--to ask you--to--to take baby back--to
nurse," the grey eyes tried to smile. "I can't stand--everything, dear."
* * * * *
Helen woke me up the second or third morning--I can't remember
which--calling, "Ted, do look at this wonderful country--we are in New
Mexico, dear. Look at it!"
I shook myself awake and climbed out of my berth. Helen was sitting in
her dressing gown by the window. I noticed that the skin on her throat
looked white and waxy. But I came quickly beside her.
"It is like another world out there."
Sagebrush had begun; in the distance were strange, eerie-looking
mountains. Shadows were sharp and hard, with edges that looked as if
they had been trimmed with a jackknife.
"It _is_ another planet," I said, as we looked at this weird panorama
unfolding before us. "It couldn't have been the same God that made
this."
The train stopped with a jerk at some collection of little wooden houses
whose gable roofs were squared off by false fronts.
"It's like the Western novels, Ted. Oh, look--there's a real cowboy--by
Jove, Ted, he _can_ ride!"
A man in leather chaps rode up to the little station and dismounted with
a flourish, I suspect for the benefit of the train. There was, however,
no doubt that he and a horse were old acquaintances. Helen made me open
the window.
"May I give your horse a lump of sugar?" she called to the man. He
looked up surprised, then grinned.
"Sure, lady, if I can coax him alongside of the train."
About this the horse was of another opinion. He reared magnificently and
struck out with his forefeet.
"I want to ride that horse, Ted."
We compromised by handing the man the lump of sugar to be transferred to
the horse. The horse sniffed it disdainfully and spat it out.
"I guess he ain't used to no dainties, lady," the man apologized.
The train whistled, and we were off again. The man swung into his
saddle, the horse bolting with him across the desert. We saw him rein
him in and turn in his saddle to wave his hat at the train. Helen
fluttered her handkerchief out the window.
"Couldn't we take a Western pony back with us, Ted? I think we can
almost afford it."
"If you want one, dear."
"I'd make a sensation on a horse like that at a meet of the Old Berkeley
East hounds."
"I think his carelessness with his forefeet would bar him out," I
replied.
* * * * *
California at last. The train climbed over a range of the curious
mountains, and then coasted down into a wide, flat plain set with groves
of trees.
"Orange trees, Ted!" Helen exclaimed.
"Something like the Riviera," I said, a bit doubtfully. I wasn't quite
certain, this country was what we had expected. We looked anxiously at
the towns, to see what they were like. I think each of us had a little
the feeling we were making the best of what we saw for the others'
benefit. The towns were--well, still like other Western small towns. The
main streets were a hodge-podge of rural-looking shops. From a train
they were not attractive.
"Of course," I said, "Los Angeles is a large city with magnificent
suburbs--we mustn't expect the fruit-growing sections to be very
home-like."
"I wonder, Ted? Suppose we don't like it here?"
"Nonsense," I answered stoutly. "Think of all the fine things we have
heard about California."
It was dusk when the train arrived at Los Angeles. The hotel reassured
us, for it was comfortable, and we were pleasantly received. In the
morning I was to begin my search for a bungalow--one right out on the
desert, if there were such things here as desert bungalows. I went to
bed with a shade of anxiety concerning the recommendation of the London
doctor. I had seen nothing yet to make me think this a particularly good
place for an invalid.
A house agent took me in tow in the morning. We went first to Pasadena,
a beautiful place, as I admitted to the agent, but far too town-like and
civilized for our purposes. The agent had much to say about the
Californian climate; I had quite a fund of information on this subject
before I had done with him. I forget now his statistics: the number of
days of sunshine, the number of inches of rain, the number of cool
nights in summer. I likewise have forgotten his commercial statistics
concerning the thousands of carloads of oranges--"citrus fruits," I
believe he called oranges and lemons.
From time to time I reminded him that I was looking for a bungalow. This
was necessary, for he preferred to talk of California at the expense of
facts nearer home. "It's the garden spot of the world," he exclaimed
ecstatically from time to time--"the sun-kissed valleys of California."
"What I am looking for is a sun-kissed bungalow in your garden spot, old
thing," I remarked about two o'clock. "We haven't found one yet."
He pulled himself together, and we followed another clue out in
Altadena. As we neared the great range of the Sierra Madre mountains, I
felt, as children say, we were "getting warm." They towered crisp and
clear, like theatrical scenery, and their lower slopes lay pleasantly
exposed to the sun. The agent protested that I would find it unpleasant
to live so far out.
"What is one near, if one lives further in?" I asked, not unkindly.
I was almost ready to return to Los Angeles with the resolve of seeking
another agent on the next day, when we really came across a charming
little bungalow standing all by itself on irrigated land. The agent was
contemptuous; the locality was not fashionable; he had many other
objections. Overhead the mountains fairly hung upon us. All around was
open land, unbuilt upon. The house itself was new, comfortable, and of
the right size. To the agent's disgust and the landlord's amazement, I
paid a month's rent in advance, upon the spot, and with my own hands
took down the "For Rent" sign.
One difficulty developed at the last moment.
"Your wife isn't a lunger, is she?" the landlord inquired.
"A what?" I asked.
"Lunger. Has she got T.B.? Because, if she has, I don't want her in no
house of mine. Can't rent a bungalow out here after any one has died of
tuberculosis in it."
"My wife is only slightly ill."
"They all say that," remarked the landlord.
"Will you let me have it for more rent?"
"No--but I'll sell it, young man."
We dickered a while and at last struck a bargain. I could not draw from
the agent any opinion concerning a fair price. I had to trust to luck
that I wasn't being unreasonably cheated. It was a top price, I knew,
but Helen could not stay in a hotel in Los Angeles. A sum down,
including a check, served to clinch the bargain. There remained only to
buy some cottage furniture and install it.
On the way back the agent tried to hold me up for a commission.
"You'll collect your commission from your friend, the landlord," I
replied firmly. We let it go at that.
Three days later I got enough furniture into the place to enable us to
move in. My three days of preparation involved a great deal of strenuous
urging. But it was done at last, even to a floored tent behind the
bungalow for Helen and me to sleep in. We had likewise a cook, a
protesting coloured woman from Texas, who swore many strange oaths that
she had never seen any one in such a mighty hurry as I was. A special
bribe got her from under the nose of some of Pasadena's elite who were
besieging the employment agency.
It was late in the afternoon when Miss Brock and I carried Helen from
the carriage to a long chair on the verandah and propped her up with
pillows. The baby had already begun to play about the bungalow. Inside
we could hear the cook talking to her pots and pans as if they were
sentient beings in league against her. By the verandah stood two orange
trees in blossom. The breeze stirred slightly in their branches,
carrying a whiff of their sweet, sickly scent to my nostrils. I started
with a shudder, for I remembered how I had always hated the scent of
orange blossoms from the time I first met the flower girl under the
archway of Charing Cross station. Could this be why I disliked that
odour? Was I to learn the reason at last? Helen was holding my hand,
resting quietly, for the journey had tired her. I saw her look at the
mountains and from them to her baby at play.
"Ted," she said, so faintly I had to lean forward to hear, "I want to go
home--to our own little house in Hertfordshire. Take me back, Ted. I'm
homesick."