第81章

Twilight was coming on,the train was winding through the mountain passes,crossing and re-crossing a swift little stream whose banks were massed with alder;here and there,on the steep hillsides,blazed the goldenrod....Presently I turned,to surprise in her eyes a wide,questioning look,--the look of a child.Even in this irrevocable hour she sought to grasp what manner of being was this to whom she had confided her life,and with whom she was faring forth into the unknown.

The experience was utterly unlike my anticipation.Yet I responded.The kiss I gave her had no passion in it.

"I'll take good care of you,Maude,"I said.

Suddenly,in the fading light,she flung her arms around me,pressing me tightly,desperately.

"Oh,I know you will,Hugh,dear.And you'll forgive me,won't you,for being so horrid to-day,of all days?I do love you!"Neither of us had ever been abroad.And although it was before the days of swimming-pools and gymnasiums and a la carte cafes on ocean liners,the Atlantic was imposing enough.Maude had a more lasting capacity for pleasure than I,a keener enjoyment of new experiences,and as she lay beside me in the steamer-chair where I had carefully tucked her she would exclaim:

"I simply can't believe it,Hugh!It seems so unreal.I'm sure I shall wake up and find myself back in Elkington.""Don't speak so loud,my dear,"I cautioned her.There were some very formal-looking New Yorkers next us.

"No,I won't,"she whispered."But I'm so happy I feel as though Ishould like to tell everyone.""There's no need,"I answered smiling.

"Oh,Hugh,I don't want to disgrace you!"she exclaimed,in real alarm.

"Otherwise,so far as I am concerned,I shouldn't care who knew."People smiled at her.Women came up and took her hands.And on the fourth day the formidable New Yorkers unexpectedly thawed.

I had once thought of Maude as plastic.Then I had discovered she had a mind and will of her own.Once more she seemed plastic;her love had made her so.Was it not what I had desired?I had only to express a wish,and it became her law.Nay,she appealed to me many times a day to know whether she had made any mistakes,and I began to drill her in my silly traditions,--gently,very gently.

"Well,I shouldn't be quite so familiar with people,quite so ready to make acquaintances,Maude.You have no idea who they may be.Some of them,of course,like the Sardells,I know by reputation."The Sardells were the New Yorkers who sat next us.

"I'll try,Hugh,to be more reserved,more like the wife of an important man."She smiled.

"It isn't that you're not reserved,"I replied,ignoring the latter half of her remark."Nor that I want you to change,"I said."I only want to teach you what little of the world I know myself.""And I want to learn,Hugh.You don't know how I want to learn!"The sight of mist-ridden Liverpool is not a cheering one for the American who first puts foot on the mother country's soil,a Liverpool of yellow-browns and dingy blacks,of tilted funnels pouring out smoke into an atmosphere already charged with it.The long wharves and shed roofs glistened with moisture.

"Just think,Hugh,it's actually England!"she cried,as we stood on the wet deck.But I felt as though I'd been there before.

"No wonder they're addicted to cold baths,"I replied."They must feel perfectly at home in them,especially if they put a little lampblack in the water."Maude laughed.

"You grumpy old thing!"she exclaimed.

Nothing could dampen her ardour,not the sight of the rain-soaked stone houses when we got ashore,nor even the frigid luncheon we ate in the lugubrious hotel.For her it was all quaint and new.Finally we found ourselves established in a compartment upholstered in light grey,with tassels and arm-supporters,on the window of which was pasted a poster with the word reserved in large,red letters.The guard inquired respectfully,as the porter put our new luggage in the racks,whether we had everything we wanted.The toy locomotive blew its toy whistle,and we were off for the north;past dingy,yellow tenements of the smoking factory towns,and stretches of orderly,hedge-spaced rain-swept country.

The quaint cottages we glimpsed,the sight of distant,stately mansions on green slopes caused Maude to cry out with rapture:--"Oh,Hugh,there's a manor-house!"More vivid than were the experiences themselves of that journey are the memories of them.We went to windswept,Sabbath-keeping Edinburgh,to high Stirling and dark Holyrood,and to Abbotsford.It was through Sir Walter's eyes we beheld Melrose bathed in autumn light,by his aid repeopled it with forgotten monks eating their fast-day kale.

And as we sat reading and dreaming in the still,sunny corners I forgot,that struggle for power in which I had been so furiously engaged since leaving Cambridge.Legislatures,politicians and capitalists receded into a dim background;and the gift I had possessed,in youth,of living in a realm of fancy showed astonishing signs of revival.

"Why,Hugh,"Maude exclaimed,"you ought to have been a writer!""You've only just begun to fathom my talents,"I replied laughingly.

"Did you think you'd married just a dry old lawyer?""I believe you capable of anything,"she said....

I grew more and more to depend on her for little things.

She was a born housewife.It was pleasant to have her do all the packing,while I read or sauntered in the queer streets about the inns.

And she took complete charge of my wardrobe.

She had a talent for drawing,and as we went southward through England she made sketches of the various houses that took our fancy--suggestions for future home-building;we spent hours in the evenings in the inn sitting-rooms incorporating new features into our residence,continually modifying our plans.Now it was a Tudor house that carried us away,now a Jacobean,and again an early Georgian with enfolding wings and a wrought-iron grill.A stage of bewilderment succeeded.