Vision House Part 29

Did they admire him? Would _she_ have admired him if she'd seen him for the first time as well-dressed as he was now, wearing a smart Guards'

tie, and if she had never learned to think of him as a Devil and a Brute?

Certainly his hair was nice. It grew well on his forehead, and brushed straight back it would have had the effect of a bronze helmet if there hadn't been a slight ripple to break the smoothness.

"Monsieur Garth has received a telegram in the train," said Celine that night as she helped "Madame" to undress. "He has no stateroom himself. I suppose he could not get one. He is in a 'section,' no better than mine.

He is sitting there now reading the telegram. I think he has read it several times. Perhaps it is from Madame his mother, whom we go to visit."

"Perhaps," echoed Marise. But somehow she felt sure it wasn't. It wasn't about business, either! Strange that you could get telegrams in trains.

He must have told the person to wire; and the person was a woman--Zelie Marks, most likely. All Marise's resentment against Garth came back, as her mother would have wished for Severance's sake.

At Chicago, where they arrived next morning, they had to stop all day until the Santa Fe Limited left at night. Garth took his wife to "see the sights." He was quite agreeable, in an impersonal way, and so was she; but they did not laugh together again. They talked only of the moment, never planned ahead; yet Marise's thoughts kept flying on to the end of the journey, and what life would be like then.

The morning after brought them to Kansas City, where Zelie, bound on her secret mission, had got off to buy beautiful things for the far-away house. But Major and Mrs. John Garth did not get off. They went on and on, till the flat country of waving gra.s.s turned to red desert dotted darkly with pines, and having here and there a mysterious mound like an ancient tumulus. Instead of homely villages there were groups of adobe houses, such as Marise vaguely pictured in Africa. Out of the hard scarlet earth pushed grey rocks like jagged teeth of giant, buried skulls; and at last it seemed that the train was rushing straight to the setting sun where it would be engulfed in fire.

Now and then when the girl glanced at Garth, who was absorbed in the wistful ecstasy of homecoming, it occurred to her that he had changed.

His eyes were more tawny than ever they had been. Perhaps it was the red reflection shining up into them! Now she understood better than before why they had looked like the eyes of a lion that sees his lost and distant desert. This was Garth's desert--_his_, and he loved it! A queer little thrill of involuntary sympathy ran through her. She felt that it might be in her also to love this wild rose-red and golden land, with its dark, stunted trees, and the draped Indian figures silhouetted on slim ponies against a crystal sky. It appealed to something in her soul that had never yet found what it wanted. It made her feel that she was very little in her outlook, her aspirations, but that she might some day grow to a stature worth while.

It was morning--late morning--when they reached Albuquerque, once settled and named by Spanish explorers. As the train drew into the station Marise glanced out with veiled eagerness. Yes, she _was_ eager, but she didn't want Garth to know that. It would please him too much--more than it was safe to please him, maybe!

There was a surprisingly delightful hotel built in old Spanish style, which seemed to be part of the station itself: and on the platform were knots of Indians so picturesque that the girl nearly cried out in sheer pleasure.

Garth had come into the stateroom to help gather up her things. She had been wondering for some moments at the strained frown between his eyebrows when he should have been smiling with joy. Suddenly he spoke.

"Marise" (he always called her Marise, and she had ceased to resent it), "there's something I want to ask you to do. I kept putting it off, but now the last minute has come. You know I think a lot of Mrs. Mooney, my adopted mother, don't you?"

"You've told me so. And it goes without saying, as you had an _idee fixe_ that you must make her this visit at any cost," Marise replied.

"At any cost--that's just it," he repeated. "Well, she's as old-fashioned as you're new-fashioned. She couldn't understand a motive for marriage except love--she'd hardly believe there was any other! I don't want to shock or worry her if I can avoid it. Will you please help me out in keeping her as happy about--us, as you reasonably can?"

"Of course I don't want to hurt her," said Marise. "I hate hurting people--as a general rule, though you mayn't believe it. What do you want me to do--something special?"

"Yes. Could you bring yourself to call me 'Jack' before her? She'd notice if you always called me 'You,' as you do--as you have since I pointed out that 'Major Garth' didn't fit the situation."

"Certainly. That's easy enough!" Marise rea.s.sured him. "I'm not an actress for nothing. Many a man whom I wouldn't dream of calling by his Christian name off the stage has had to be 'dearest' and 'darling'

_on_!"

Garth flushed darkly, she could not quite guess why. "Thank you," he said. "We'll consider ourselves in the theatre, then, when we're at Mothereen's, playing--don't you say?--'opposite' parts. I'll try and make yours not too hard. I don't know whether she'll have come to the depot to meet us or not, but--hurrah, _there_ she is!"

His voice rang out as Marise had never yet heard it ring. Yes, she had once--just for an instant--that first Sunday when he said, "I would sell my soul for you!"--or some foolish words of the kind.

Since then, she had forgotten those tones, and thought his voice hard; but now its warmth and mellowness brought back a memory.

The train was stopping. In front of a wonderful window full of Indian curios stood a little woman looking up and waving a handkerchief. She was dressed in black, with the oldest-fashioned sort of widow's bonnet.

And if you'd seen her on top of the North Pole, you would have known she was Irish.

Garth flung a window up, and shouted, "Mothereen!"

CHAPTER XXVII

SECOND FIDDLE

The next thing that Marise knew, she was on the platform, being hugged and kissed by the little woman in black, admired by a pair of big, wide-apart blue eyes under black hair turning grey, smiled at by a kind, sweet mouth whose short upper lip showed teeth white as a girl's.

Not even Mums had ever hugged or kissed Marise like that! There had always been just a perceptible holding at a distance lest hair or laces should be rumpled. But there was no dread of rumpling here! Marise knew that Mrs. Mooney wouldn't have cared if her hair had come down or her funny old bonnet had been squashed flat. There was something oddly delicious, almost pathetic--oh, but _very_ pathetic as things really were between her and Garth!--in being taken to that full, motherly bosom where the heart within beat like the wings of a glad bird.

Suddenly--perhaps because she was tired and a little nervous after her immense journey--Marise wanted to cry in the nice woman's neck, which smelt good, like some sort of warm, fresh fruit. But she didn't cry. She smiled, and behaved herself well, as Mrs. Mooney turned her affectionate attentions to "Johnny."

"Sure, boy," she said, when Garth had come in for a full share of caresses, "your bride's beautiful. You didn't tell me _half_, and neither did----"

But Mothereen broke off short, and squeezed the gloved hands of Marise, shaking them up and down to cover an instant's confusion. She had been solemnly warned by Zelie that the name of Marks was taboo, and now she had nearly let it out!

"There's an automobile waiting," she hurried on. "Not that I've got one, or the likes of one, meself, but ye're from N'York, me dear, and I felt it would be the right thing to have."

"So it is, Mothereen," said Garth. "Now I'll just get the 'shuvver' to help me with our bags and things----"

"Not yet, boy, please," she begged excitedly. "There's a lot of folks waitin' for the good word with ye, the minute we've had our meetin'

over. I couldn't keep 'em from comin', Johnny, honest I couldn't, try as I might. I believe if we had a carriage instead of an auto to drive home in, they'd take out the horses and draw ye along themselves, singin'

'Hail the Conquerin' Hero'!"

As if her words were a signal, a crowd of men and women, mostly young, burst out from the hotel, or from the Indian museum with its window display of brilliant rugs, totems, turquoises, black opals, and chased silver. "Hurrah for our Jack! Hurrah for our V.C.!" they yelled.

Marise was taken aback and hardly knew what to do. It was so odd to hear roars of applause which were not for _her_!

It wasn't that she wanted the roars, or envied the embarra.s.sed recipient of the unexpected honours; but it _was_ strange to stand there--she, the famous and beautiful Marise Sorel--with no one looking at or thinking anything about her at all.

Garth _was_ a V.C., of course, and worthy of praise for brave deeds he must have done (she'd never heard what they were, or thought very much about them!), yet it did seem funny, just for the first surprised moment, that these creatures should be so wild over him without caring an atom for her!

"Oh, darlint, and ain't we two women proud of him!" gasped Mothereen, squeezing the girl's arm convulsively.

Marise glanced down at the plump, black-clad form quivering with emotion at the sight of Garth being shaken hands with and pounded on the back.

"Yes, we are," she echoed kindly, for she would not have pained the dear woman for anything on earth.

"I shall have my work cut out for me, while I'm in her house, if she expects me to be chorus for her adopted son," the transported favourite told herself. "But she is a darling, and I'll do my best for the few days I'm here, at--well, at _almost_ any price."

When Garth's old friends had thrown themselves upon him like a tidal wave, the reflex action came, and they were willing to meet and be nice to his wife. Male and female, they saw that she was tremendously pretty and smart. Many knew who she was, and had heard of her success, even though they had never seen her on the stage. But what was a star of the theatre, compared with a hero of the war? Garth was It. Marise was only It's second fiddle.

"Isn't he great?--fine?--wonderful?" were the adjectives flung at her head by gushing girls. "I suppose he lets you wear his V.C.?" a man pleasantly condescended. Everyone was sure, as Mothereen had been sure, that she must be "very proud" of the splendid husband she'd been lucky enough to catch.

Marise smiled as she pictured what Mums' expression would have been among these adorers of the Fiend, the Brute, beings from another world, for whom the celebrated Miss Sorel was n.o.body. Really, the scene on this platform was like a village green in a comic opera, with all the minor characters dancing round the tenor!

At last Garth--happy yet ill at ease and half ashamed--contrived to rescue his mother and wife. They got to the motor-car waiting outside the station; but there they collided with a new procession, belated yet enthusiastic. It was, "Garth forever!" again: more shouts of joy, more slaps, more introductions to the harmless, necessary bride.

Even when the three had ambushed themselves in the car, boys hung on behind, singing, "For he's a jolly good fellow!" and girls threw flowers in at the windows.

"This is the happiest hour of my life since I first met up with ye, Johnny dear," choked Mothereen, wiping her smiling eyes. "And I'm sure it's the same for you, isn't it, my child?"