“BY THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE”
Alice did not tell Aunt Ella where she was going. To have done so would
have led her aunt to say that it was foolish to go there, for although
she aided Alice in getting ready for her journey she was decidedly
opposed to it. In fact, in her own mind she called it “a wild goose
chase.” But she had learned that Alice had an indomitable will and she
fully realized that further argument and opposition were useless.
Alice went on board the boat at Dover with some foreboding. She had
read and had been told of the rigours of the Channel passage and her
experience was equal to the descriptions. Had it not been for the
presence of Babette, the maid so wisely provided by her aunt, her
journey might have ended at Calais, or even before. She had a horror
of the water and it was with a sense of great mental and physical
satisfaction that her feet touched solid ground again.
They went to Paris, but spent no time in the gay city. Their objective
point was the south of Italy, and then the island of Sicily. Did not the
guide books say that Sicily was the home of the orange and the lemon?
They would stop a short time in each important town. Carriages were
taken from day to day and inquiry was made at the principal groves in
the near vicinity of the towns. Then trips were made into the country,
but everywhere Alice's questions were answered in the negative. She was
allowed to talk to the labourers, by the aid of an interpreter, but none
had any remembrance or had heard of any such man as she described.
At only one grove, near Palermo, was she refused admittance. The
proprietor, Silvio Matrosa, said he had no authority to admit strangers.
Besides, two of the men had been fighting and one was so seriously
injured by a blow upon his head by a club, that he had been sent to the
hospital and it was thought he would die. Under the circumstances “Would
the ladies excuse him?” and Alice was obliged to give up her search in
that direction.
She had been so impressed with the reality of her dreams that she had
thought she could easily recognize her husband's surroundings, but she
confessed to Babette, who was sympathetic and engaged eagerly in the
search, that she had seen no place that resembled the scene of her
dreams.
More weary wandering without result followed, and so intent was she on
the object of her search that the beauties of “Sunny Italy” were lost
upon her. The weather was hot and enervating and Babette suggested that
her mistress should go to Switzerland and rest before continuing her
search. Alice consented, but when they reached Vienna she was too ill
to proceed farther. Babette was at home in Vienna for she could speak
German, and she soon learned that the Hospital of St. Stephen's would
give her mistress the rest and medical treatment that her condition
required--for she was on the verge of nervous prostration. The
discomfort of travelling was not the cause of her physical break-down
for Aunt Ella had told her “that nothing was too good for a traveller”
and every comfort and convenience that money could supply had been hers.
Her mental disquietude had produced the physical relapse. She had been
so confident of the truth of her dreams, and that some power, she
knew not what, but which she trusted implicitly, would lead her to her
husband, that her disappointment was more than her strained nervous
system could bear.
After a week's rest, although unable to rise, she called Babette to her
bedside. “I wish to send word to my aunt in England but I do not feel
able to sit up and write. I will dictate, you can write, and I will sign
it.”
Then Babette wrote:
“MY DEAR AUNT ELLA: Confession, they say, is good for the soul. My body
is weak to-day and so Babette is writing my confession. I have been to
Sicily and all over the southern part of Italy, but no success has come
to me. If Quincy had been in one of those orange or lemon groves he
could not have lived there for so many years; the work is too hard,
and he was never used to manual labour. So, as soon as I am able, I am
coming home. I will never trouble you with any more dreams. I believe,
as you do, that they are products of imagination. I am not sick, only
tired out, and naturally, at first, very much disheartened. I shall be
with you very soon, never more to leave you.” ALICE.
“P. S. As soon as I am able to take a drive I am going to view the
attractions of this city--which Babette says is even more beautiful than
Paris. I must see 'The Beautiful Blue Danube,' and I must hear Johann
Strauss's orchestra. They will be the only happy memories of my
fruitless journey.”