I Walked in Arden Part 47

"This spot has been especially earmarked for Leonidas," I said to my mother, with a wink at Helen.

"Ted, what absurd words you use at times!" my mother said. "I can't see what attraction there is about that wretched animal. It's a loathsome yellow cur. If you are going to have a dog, for G.o.d's sake get a good one."

"He matches our family crest, mother. On a field vert, a hound souriant, or, enkennele."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about, Ted. You are always a bore, like all the Jevonses, when you try to be amusing. The crest is certainly not a yellow dog."

There had been no time, as yet, to do anything to the garden. We stood, therefore, and talked of possibilities rather than of facts. We hoped to afford a tennis court by spring. There was just enough length, with room along the sides for flowers and a vegetable patch at the back. By the dining room window we were meditating a pergola.

"Amateur flowers never grow, or, if they do, they never blossom,"

announced my mother.

The housemaid rang the dinner gong. Helen and I felt we had now to face the supreme test. Our first dinner party! Helen was probably nervous as we sat down, and I rather wished I knew more about carving. My dear wife, not thinking of me, had ordered ducklings. The soup pa.s.sed off very well. I had cheated there and brought some out from a caterer's in town.

"Helen makes rather good soup," I remarked, while the lady of the house cast me an imploring look from the other end of the table.

"It's the best soup I ever tasted," affirmed my father, wishing to be tactful. "Very clever of you, Helen."

Helen blushed crimson, but sat silent.

"You got it at Hickson's," said my mother calmly. "We often have it at home, although no one notices it."

"Ted--" Helen began. My mother cut her short.

"You need not apologize for Ted, Helen. I knew him before you did."

"May I offer an apology for hitting Helen with my boomerang?"

"Do," my mother replied. "It is exceedingly unusual for a Jevons to be aware he owes one."

The ducklings arrived at this point, and I arose to get a firmer grip upon them than was possible from a chair. Delicately I made the first incision, only to discover that ducklings do not respond to delicate treatment. I worked in silence for a time upon number one. Although division into his integral factors acc.u.mulated many apparent units, there seemed surprisingly little of him to serve when thus reduced to his lowest terms. Frances giggled.

"You look so funny, Ted," she explained, with sisterly devotion.

"For that you shall have a drum-stick," I retorted.

"I can see nothing funny in watching good food being ruined," my mother said encouragingly. The housemaid standing at my elbow with a plate ready made me nervous.

"It is a curious fact," my mother went on, in a reminiscent mood, "that no Jevons could ever carve. They are the most incompetent men that ever existed."

As I knew for a certainty that the only two Jevonses on earth my mother had ever seen were my father and myself, I wondered whether she was drawing on state doc.u.ments or simply making a sweeping generalization from two examples. Something told me, however, not to argue this point.

"A duckling," I said, "is an act of G.o.d. Steamer tickets and insurance policies specially provide for no liability for such. Even a Jevons is powerless in the face of the handiwork of Providence."

"Sit down, Ted, and let me finish. It makes me ill to see you messing up those ducklings," my mother said. Willingly I changed places. To my secret joy she splashed some gravy on the table cloth. I tried to kick Helen under the table, but all I did was to make an awful crash against one of the complicated gate legs. My mother looked fixedly at me. I did not move a muscle of my face.

"Sorry," I murmured. "I haven't room for my feet."

The fragments of the two ducklings were at last distributed to my mother's satisfaction. The remainder of the dinner was eaten without caustic. Indeed, my mother commended the Burgundy, bought for her particular gratification.

It was, if the truth must be told, with mixed feelings that Helen and I sat down after saying good-bye to the family that evening. The day had been trying for Helen, for it was like being on dress parade before a critic whose motives were kindly, but who was perhaps all the more eager, for that reason, to find mistakes. Never before this week had the child kept house or entertained guests of her own. She could hardly be blamed for uttering a sigh of relief when it was all over. On the other hand, we neither of us knew when we should see any of the family again, for they were leaving England at once. Eager as we had been to be our own masters, we felt the isolation that was now to be ours as almost too literal a response to our prayers. Our circle of friends in town was neither large nor intimate; we had yet to test the resources of our village. Of one thing, however, time had made us absolutely certain.

That certainty was concerning the stability of our love. Each week, each day made that firmer and more intense. We lived but for each other; we thought of nothing else....

"Well, Ted," Helen smiled at me, "there is one thing we can do now."

"What is that, dear?"

"Work. We have the leisure we have dreamed about. Let's use it. You shall begin writing your play in the morning." We went to bed very happy.

Chapter Sixteen

WE HEAR SENTENCE p.r.o.nOUNCED

Three years and a few months more went by, not uneventfully for us, yet without any striking change in the happy quiet of our lives in the little Hertfordshire village. We had acquired a few friends, some from London, others from among our neighbours. Week-ends were certain to find our guest room occupied, if we were not ourselves away on a visit elsewhere. There was tennis of a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, golf, or a walk across the fields by the paths leading Aldenham way. Often we rode horseback, particularly in the autumn, when hounds were out. We were not, however, hunting people, for we could not afford a pair of good hunters; we contented ourselves with riding to the meets on our hired beasts, with a canter through a lane afterwards.

When there was something new on at the theatre, we dined in town, coming home after the performance by the late train. Our gradually increasing circle of friends connected with the theatres made it possible for us to obtain seats for first nights--not always, of course, but for many important openings. We came to know, by sight, at least, the perpetual first night audience of London, its critics, dramatists, and friendly connections. We enjoyed thoroughly whispering and nudging one another: "There's So-and-So," or "look at that dress Mrs. What's-her-Name is wearing." It was our way of joining in the outburst of applause with which it was the custom of the pit to greet the entry of each celebrity.

But our theatrical friends were not in this group of big-wigs. We knew the younger generation--players of small parts, recent graduates from the Benson company, dramatists who had not yet had a West End production, idealistic members of the Stage Society--in fact, mostly the youngsters who believed themselves "advanced." Perhaps they were; I don't know. We were keen on Ibsen and smiled pityingly at the mention of Pinero. We were Fabians because of Mr. Shaw. Sometimes we--Helen and I--dabbled a bit in writing dramatic criticism. We began to get some articles accepted. But our greatest fun upon returning from a first night was to sit down and write parodies of the notice we expected to read in the morning in _The Daily Telegraph_. We became quite skilled at this latter art.

During these three years we saw my mother and sister but once or twice, when they came back to London for short visits. My sister was being taken to live now in Paris, now in Rome, and finally in Munich, to follow out a theory of education invented by the family. My father we saw more often, for he came back on periodical visits to look after his business. He preferred, however, his club in town to our more inaccessible village. If we wished to see much of him, we had to go up to London.

The baby had grown to be a constant source of surprise and delight to us. Her conversation was fluent, her interest in the garden intense. In violation of all the proprieties, she sat in a high chair at table with us for breakfast and luncheon. Leonidas also had his special chair in one corner of the dining room, which he mounted at the sounding of the gong and remained in until his own plate was carried out to his kennel.

The baby and Leonidas were most astonishingly good pals. He would tolerate liberties at her hands that no one else dared venture upon. The worst ordeal of the day for Leonidas was to take tea with the dolls.

With a napkin tied under his chin, he was compelled to occupy a place at the dolls' tea-table and sit there immovable until the ceremony was over. No Christian martyr ever had a more expressive countenance; yet he, like the martyrs, did not question the necessity for his sufferings.

The lump of sugar which signalized the close of each day's tea-party would send Leonidas galloping in frenzied circles about the garden in joy over his regained freedom.

Our income was increasing, not to make us rich, but to keep pace with the things we enjoyed doing. In the first place, there were the modest profits of our share in the Willesden factory--a sum which about covered ordinary living expenses, clothes, and theatre tickets. Then there was Helen's allowance, which we used for horseback riding, week-end trips, old books, and little luxuries. From time to time we sold a ma.n.u.script--money which it particularly delighted us to earn. The great play had not yet been written; yet we were still hopeful that the future would bring us that. Several drawers of ma.n.u.script plays were beginning to acc.u.mulate. Last of all, a sheer piece of financial luck befell us.

A friend who was a solicitor in the City, had a client interested in chemical patents. I was casually asked one day to write a report on one of these patents. Helen and I worked out a doc.u.ment one evening, after messing about for a few days in the laboratory upstairs, sent it to the solicitors, and thought no more about it. To our surprise we received a check for fifty guineas a few days later, together with a request for reports on other patents. We embarked cautiously on the career of consultant, for, although the fees were tempting, we both feared being taken again from our writing and reading. We set a limit to the time to be given to this new work, not thinking it right wholly to refuse such a gift at fortune's hands. These occasional fees put us beyond any fear of financial worry. Helen refused, on the other hand, to let me open an office in the City. As long as the clients were willing to submit work to me at home, well and good. My mornings, she insisted, should be kept free for writing. Thus our days were very full and very happy.

We made a few trips to the Continent on our own account. The consulting fees made these easily possible. We went to Paris and Rouen, to the French Channel watering places, through Normandy, Holland, and Belgium--all at different times. We were never away longer than ten days, on account of the baby, and often not more than the week-end. In the same way I took Helen to see more of England, until, like me, she soon came to look upon England as home. Memories of Deep Harbor, in spite of weekly letters from her father and mother, were growing dim.

There was no question of home-sickness; instead, I could see the love of England in her eyes as we rode between the Hertfordshire hedgerows or chatted with our friends at tea time in the garden.

There was but one thing that troubled me; in spite of our outdoor life and quiet habits, the climate did not always agree with Helen. In the winter she had too many heavy colds; in the spring her cough lingered longer than I liked. It was in June, when we were entering upon our fourth year in the village, that I asked a doctor in town to come out and have a special look at her. She had been a little languid, a most unusual thing for her, and the cough still hung on. The local pract.i.tioner, an amiable man hara.s.sed with overwork, had made light of it.

"Your soil is a bit clayey," he had said. "It would be better if you were on gravel, but it's nothing. Keep on with your riding; it will soon pa.s.s away."

It hadn't. That is why I sent for the London man. I waited downstairs for his verdict. He came in smiling, after half an hour, and I could feel my heart leap at the sight of his cheerful face.

"I don't think it's anything," he said. "Come, we won't believe it is,"

he added, and a strange icy chill went through me, leaving me speechless and physically helpless. I had just strength to grasp a chair. "I shouldn't say anything to her about it," he added--"at least, not for the present. I've taken a sample of her sputum and will have it a.n.a.lyzed, just to make certain. Still, I can't believe it."

"Believe what?" I gasped, my voice breaking in spite of my efforts at self-control.