I Walked in Arden Part 37

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 pa.s.sing 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 acc.u.mulate off the stern. Helen tried to focus the gla.s.ses, 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 s.n.a.t.c.hing the binoculars from one another. Then the top of a light-house stuck up above the horizon. We could hear a scurrying of pa.s.sengers.

"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."

Pa.s.sengers 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 "pet.i.te" in the sense in which that ba.n.a.l 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 circ.u.mference, 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 gra.s.s! 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.

Chapter Thirteen

WE ARRIVE AND LOOK FORWARD TO ANOTHER ARRIVAL

My father, mother, and sifter met the steamer train at Euston. We tumbled out of our compartment a little breathless over the prospect of another ordeal. We seemed hopelessly mixed up with luggage and steamer acquaintances saying good-byes, when I saw my father pushing through the crowd toward us. He hardly looked at me; it was Helen he wanted to see.

My mother and sister were close behind. It gave me quite a shock to note that my sister had her hair up and was wearing long dresses. She looked almost as old as Helen, as indeed she was. The family kissed Helen thoroughly, and my sister clung tenaciously to me. I couldn't think of much to say, except "Well, here we are."

"What a frightful Yankee tw.a.n.g you have, Ted," exclaimed my sister. We made our way toward one of the London and North Western's private omnibuses.