CHAPTER VII

THE DARING ADVENTURE

They were married at two o'clock the next day. The wedding was in church, at Elsie Murray's desire. With a certain defiance expressive of his attitude toward all the world, Adriance, after obtaining their license, took her to the rector of that costly and fashion-approved cathedral which the Adriances graced with their membership and occasional attendance. Of course the two were met with astonishment, but there was a decision in the young man's speech and bearing that forbade interference. The clergyman did not find the familiar, easy, good-natured Tony Adriance in the man who curtly silenced delicate allusion to the wedding's unexpectedness and the surprising absence of Mr. Adriance, senior.

"I am over age, and so is Miss Murray," was the brief statement, whose finality ended comment. "Will you be good enough not to delay us; we are leaving town?"

There were no more objections. Of course the bride was not recognized as Mrs. Masterson's nurse; she simply was an unknown girl. And she did not in any way suggest that Mr. Adriance was marrying out of his world. Adriance himself entirely approved of her in this new role. He liked her dark-blue suit with its relieving white at throat and wrists, and her small hat with a modest white quill at just the right angle. And she wore the shining, Spanish-heeled, small shoes of his choosing. He noticed how large her gray eyes were, when she lifted them to his, large, and clear as pure water is clear under a still, gray sky. But her heavy lashes threw shadows across them, as he had once seen lines of shadow lie across a little lake in Maine on an autumn day. He wondered if she was happy, or frightened. He could not tell what she was thinking or feeling.

So they were married before the imposing altar of cream-hued marble, and the conventional notice went to the newspapers:

Adriance-Murray. Elsie Galvez Murray to Anthony Adriance, Jr., by the Rev. Dr. Van Huyden, at St. Dunstan's Cathedral.

It was very simply done, for so daring an adventure.

When they stood outside, in the sparkling autumn sunshine, Elsie Adriance asked her first question.

"Where are we going?" she wondered, in her soft, blurred speech that now Adriance recognized as of the South. Her middle name had caught his attention also. There once had been a governor of Louisiana called Galvez; New Orleans has a street named for him.

But he was not thinking of ancestry now. He looked doubtfully at his companion. In spite of his repressed bearing, he was suffering a terrible excitement and a tearing conflict of will and desire. He was acutely conscious of the finality of what had been done; and one part of him wished it undone. He thought of his father and Lucille as a man in a fever thinks; glimpsing them in a confusion of remembered pictures, conceiving their future attitude with the exaggeration of his unreasoning sense of guilt and belated regret. He felt himself in bonds, and the instinct of escape gripped and shook him. But he kept himself in hand.

"Where do you wish to go?" he temporized, withholding his own wish. It became him to consider her first, now and hereafter.

She shook her head.

"I follow you," she reminded him, quite simply and gravely. "Where would--it be easiest for you? You spoke of going out of town; perhaps that would be best. I think, it seems to me, that we should start as we mean to go on."

"Yes!" he exclaimed eagerly. She had offered him his inmost desire; in his gratitude he caught her hand, stammering in the rush of words released. "Yes. If you will go, I have a house--our house. Let me tell you. Yesterday, after meeting you at Masterson's the night before, I was at the limit. I had to keep out of doors and keep moving, or go to pieces. I kept seeing Fred, and Holly. Well, I took a long drive; across the river, I went, perhaps because you were always looking over there as if it were some kind of a fairyland. And on the way back, on the road along the Palisades, I saw the house. It was--I stopped and went in. It looked like a place you had made a picture of. I can't explain what I mean, but I sat down there and thought things out. You won't be angry? I bought it. Not that I was so sure of you! You see, if you refused to take me, I knew I had money enough to buy fifty like it for a whim. And if you would come, it was the house."

There was no anger in her glance, only a heartening comprehension and cordial willingness.

"Let us go there," she agreed. "I should like that best of all."

Reanimated, he put her into the waiting taxicab, gave the chauffeur his directions, and closed the door upon their first wedded solitude.

"But this is one of the things we must not do," she told him, bringing the relief of humor to the situation. "We must not take taxis and let them wait for us with a price on the head of each moment. It is more than extravagant; it is reckless."

He laughed out, surprised.

"So it is. I am afraid you will have a lot to teach me."

"Yes," she assumed the burden. "Yes."

They rode down to the ferry, and the taxicab rolled on board the broad, unsavory-smelling boat. When the craft started, the vibration of the engine sent a throbbing sense of departure through Adriance such as he never had felt in starting a European voyage. This time he could not return. He was humbly grateful for Elsie's silence, which permitted his own.

On the Jersey side their cab slowly moved through the dark ferry house, then plunged out into a sun-drenched world and swung blithely up to the long Edgewater hill. They left the river shipping behind, presently. The sunlight glittered through the woods that still clothe the long, rampart-like stretches along the summit of the great cliffs; a forest of jewels like the subterranean woods of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, only instead of silver and diamonds these trees displayed the red of cornelian and brown of topaz all set in copper and bronze. The storm of the night before had littered the ground with the spoils of Lady Autumn's jewel-box; the air was spicily sweet and very clear.

The village on the first slope of the hills had been dingy and poor. Here above, on the heights winding up the river, there were few houses, with long spaces between. Elsie leaned at the window, her wide eyes embracing all. Adriance leaned back, seeing nothing.

The taxicab finally stopped, nevertheless, at his signal, before a little red cottage set far back from the road.

"Here?" the chauffeur queried, with incredulous scorn.

"Here," Adriance affirmed, swinging out their two suit-cases and his wife. He laughed a little at the man's face. "How much?"

The toll pointed Elsie's warning. She made a grimace at her pupil. His spirits mounting again, Adriance answered the rebuke by catching her hand to lead her up the absurd, staggering Gothic porch in miniature.

"I'll come back for the baggage," he promised. "Come look, first."

"Is there anything inside?"

"Oh, yes. I----" he looked askance at her. "I bought things, at a shop in Fort Lee, early this morning. I suppose they're all wrong."

She met his diffidence with a smile so warm, so enchanting in its sweet, maternal raillery and indulgence that his heart melted within him. And then, as he fumbled with the key, she took from her hand-bag a book and a small glass bottle, and gave them to him.

"What----?" he marvelled.

"Don't you know?" she wondered at him. "'Where was you done raised, man?' Don't you know there is no luck in the house unless the first things carried into it are the Bible and the salt?"

He did not know, but he found the superstition of a singular charm.

"Give me the salt, then, and you take the other," he divided the ceremony.

"No," she denied quietly. "You should carry the Book, because you will make the laws. I will take the salt, because I shall keep the hearth."

So they went in, he oddly sobered by the dignity she laid upon him.

There were only two rooms on the ground floor. The one into which they stepped was large and square, with a floor of brick faded to a mellow Tuscan red, and walls of soft brown plaster. A brick fireplace was built against the north side; the furnishings comprehended two arm-chairs, a round Sheraton table and china closet, a tall wooden clock, and four rag rugs in red and white. In one corner, modestly retired, a plain deal table supported an oil cook-stove, with an air of decent humility and shrinking from observation. The open door beyond revealed a bed-chamber, also rag-rugged, furnished with a noble meagreness, but displaying a four-posted bed of carved and time-darkened ash. Elsie took a long, full look, then regarded her husband with widening eyes.

"Anthony, _where_ did you buy them? And what did you pay for them?"

No one within his memory had ever called Adriance by his unabbreviated name. It came to him as part of this new life where he was full-grown man and master. And he welcomed the frank comradeship with which she used it, without a sentimental affectation of shyness.

"At a little place with a sign 'Antiques'," he confessed. "I had passed it in the car. I thought they might do as well as new things, since we have got to economize. I never bought any furniture before; if they won't do----"

"They are perfect." The mirth in her eyes deepened. "But you had better let me help you, next time we shop economically. Hadn't we better build a fire, first, to drive away the chill? Oh, and is there anything to eat?"

"In the cupboard over there; everything the grocer could think of," he said meekly. "I'll go get anything else you say. First, though, I'll run down to the gate and bring in our suit-cases."

"Do," she approved. "I want an apron. Do you know, you never asked me if I could cook."

"Can you?"

"Wait and see. What woman thought of the oil-stove?"

"The antiquarian's wife. She said the fireplace was more bother than it was use and suggested stuffing it with paper to keep the draughts out."

"Well, we will stuff it with fire," she declared.

They built the fire; or rather, Adriance built it, aided by the girl's tactful advice. When the flames were roaring and leaping, she sent him to the nearest shop where lamps could be purchased, the trifling question of light having been overlooked.

When he hurried back from the village, the need of light was becoming imminent. Dusky twilight came early here under the edge of the hills. Climbing the steep road, Anthony Adriance looked across the violet-tinted river toward the chain of lights marking the street where Tony Adriance had lived and idled. Already he knew himself removed, altered; he was interested in keeping on with this thing. Of course, he must keep on, he had set a barrier blocking retreat; he had taken a wife.

He opened the brown door of the shabby little cottage, and stopped.

The fire on the hearth had settled to a warm, rosy steadiness, filling the room with its glow and starting velvet shadows that tapestried the simple place with an airy brocade of shifting patterns. In the centre of the room stood the round table, robed in white and gay with the antique shop's ware of blue-and-white Wedgewood. The perfume of coffee and fragrance of good food floated on the warm air. The fire snapped at intervals as if from jovial excess of spirits, and a tea-kettle was bubbling with the furious enthusiasm of all true tea-kettles. It was the room of his fancy, the unattainable home that Elsie had pictured on the first evening he had spoken to her out of his sick heart.

Elsie herself stood beside the hearth. Elsie? He never had seen her like this. But then, he scarcely had seen her at all except in the severe black of a nurse's livery.

She had merely taken off her jacket, now, although he did not realize the fact. Her soft white blouse rolled away from a round, full throat pure in color and smoothness as cream. She was no sylph-slim beauty, but a deep-bosomed, young girl-woman, fashioned with that rich fulness of curve and outline that artists once loved, but which Fashion now disapproves. Her mouth, too, curved in generous, womanly softness; neither a thin line nor a round rosebud. Her dark hair rippled of itself around her forehead and was lustrous in the firelight.

His entrance caught her off guard. He surprised herself in her eyes, before she masked feeling in gayety. And he saw a wistful, frightened girl whose trembling excitement matched his own.

The latching of the door behind him ended the brief instant of revelation. At once she turned to him the cordial comrade's face he knew.

"Dinner is served," she announced merrily. "At least, it is waiting in the oven. We have hot biscuits, scrambled eggs, a fifty-eighth variety of baked beans, and strawberry jam. There is no meat, because you only shopped at a grocery, sir. Do you really adore canned oysters, Anthony?"

"I never tasted one," he slowly replied, putting down the packages he had brought, without taking his gaze from her.

"Well, you bought six tins of them," she shrugged.

He made no pretense of replying, this time, moving across the room toward her. He was remembering that she was a bride, who by her confession loved him, and that he had given her nothing except the gold ring compelled by custom; not a caress, not a flower, even, to speak of tenderness and reassurance. He was astounded at himself, appalled by his degree of selfish absorption. All day she had given him of her understanding, her warm companionship, her gracious tact and heartening cheerfulness, exacting nothing--and he had taken. Oh, yes, he had taken!

Troubled by his silence, her color mounting in a vivid sweep, the girl tried to turn aside from his approach.

"We must have a little cat," she essayed diversion. "I hope you like kittens? Purrs should go with crackling logs. Not an Angora or a Persian; just a pussy."

Her voice died away. Very quietly and firmly Adriance had taken her into his arms.

"I've made a bad beginning," he made grave avowal. "I am learning how much I need to learn. And I don't deserve my luck in having you to teach me."

She rested quietly in his arms, as if conceding his right, but she did not look at him. She was very supple and soft to hold, he found. There breathed from her a fresh, faint fragrance like the clean scent of just-gathered daffodils, but no perfume that he recognized. She was individual even in little things. He wondered what she was thinking. The uneven rise and fall of her breast timed curiously with the pulse of his heart, as she leaned there, and the fact affected him unreasonably. He did not want her to move; warmth and content were flowing into him. Content, yet---- Suddenly, he knew; a man confronted with a blaze of light after long groping.

"Elsie!" he cried, his voice sounding through the room his great amazement. "Elsie! Elsie!"

She looked at him then, putting her two little hands on his breast and forcing herself back against his arm that she might read his face. But he would not have it so, compelling her submission to the marvel that had mastered him. What the church had essayed to do was done, now. Anthony Adriance had taken a wife.

"I love you," he repeated, inarticulate still with wonder, his lips against her cheek. "Why didn't you tell me? I love you."

He never forgot that she met him generously, with no mean reminder of his tardiness. She took his surrender, and set no price on her own. Her lips were fresh as a cup lifted to his thirst for good and simple things; he thought her kiss was to the touch what her eyes were to the gaze, and tried clumsily to tell her so.

When they finally remembered the delayed supper, that meal was in need of repairs. And because now Adriance would not suffer the width of the room between himself and his wife, he insisted in aiding her in the process, thereby delaying matters still further. Nine o'clock had been struck by the clock in the corner when they sat down to table, lighted by the new lamp. It had a garnet shade, that lamp, upon which its purchaser received the compliments of Mrs. Adriance.

She delivered an impromptu lecture on the subject, as the light glowed into full radiance and illumined her, seated behind it.

"Red, sir, is the color of life. It was the color of the alchemist's fabled rose, looked for in their mystic cauldrons, because if the ruddy image formed on the surface of the brew, the bubbling liquid was indeed the true elixir of youth and immortality. Red is the color of dawn, of sunset, of a fireside; of bright blood, poured splendidly for a good cause or daintily glimpsed in a girl's blush. Red are a cardinal's robes, a Chinese bride's gown, a Spanish bride's flowers. To be kept in a red-draped chamber, in Queen Elizabeth's time, was believed to cure beauty of the smallpox without a scar. Lastly, red is the color of the heart."

"'Lord, keep our heart's-blood red,'" paraphrased Adriance soberly. "I am not clever like you, but I know red is the color of your own jewels."

"Mine?"

He caught her hands across the table.

"Have you forgotten what stones were likened to the value of a good woman? Elsie, Elsie, when I can, I will give you--not diamonds or pearls, but rubies. Rubies, for to-night."

Neither of the two was given to continued sentimentality of speech. But the deep happiness, the shining wonder that still dazzled them found expression in plans for this new future; mere suggestions for the comfort of the house or the pleasure of their leisure together. She mentioned a much-discussed book, and he promised to read it aloud to her.

"I've always wanted to read aloud, but I never found anyone who would listen," he told her, over the strawberry jam and coffee. "You can't escape, so----! You can embroider, and listen."

"Embroider!" She heaped scorn on the word. "Let me inform you, sir, that there will be dish-towels to hem, and napkins. Do you know we have only one tablecloth, and that has a frightful border, with fringe? Blue fringe? And there are no curtains at the windows. Embroider? I shall _sew_, and listen."

"Well, so long as you listen!" He lighted a cigar and leaned back luxuriously. "What little hands you have!"

She spread them out on the table and seriously contemplated them.

"Most Southerners have. Didn't you ever notice it, even with the men? Down in Louisiana most of us have some French or Spanish blood. But mine have not been do-nothing hands, and I think they show it a little bit."

He stopped her, with a sudden distasteful memory of certain wax-white, wax-smooth and useless hands that almost had laid hold on his life.

"I hope that mine may soon show something. To-morrow I will try to become a wage-earner, and start a pay envelope to bring you."

"So soon?"

"Right away. Am I one of the idle rich? The fact is, our grocer tells me chauffeurs are badly needed at a certain factory near the foot of the hill. I think I should rather drive a motor truck than pilot a private car, open doors and touch my cap."

She nodded agreement.

"Yes, of course. What factory is it, Anthony?"

He regarded her with a whimsical humor.

"Well, to be exact, it is not a factory unfamiliar to us. It is one whose sign you often have viewed from the aristocratic side of the Hudson, and it is the property of Mr. Anthony Adriance, senior."

"Oh!" startled. "Is, is that--safe?"

"Why not?" he wondered. "We haven't broken any laws, have we? The worst he could do, if he wanted to do something melodramatic, would be to fire me. But he will not. In the first place, why should he? In the second, he knows a trifle more about the natives of Patagonia than he knows about the men who drive his trucks. I don't believe he has been in this factory for ten years. New York is his end. And I'm giving him a square deal; he will have a very valuable chauffeur, Mrs. Adriance--one who can drive a racing-machine, if required!"

She disclosed two dimples he had not previously observed. But her eyes hid from the challenge of his and she rose hastily to clear away the dishes.

"Let them stand," he commanded, man-like.

There she was firm in rebellion, however. Finally they compromised on his assisting her.

"We must have a dog, too," he decided, when all was neat once more. He glanced about the fire-bright room with a proprietary air. "One that will not eat your kitten."

"With a nice watch-doggy bark?"

"With anything you want!" He turned abruptly and drew her to him. "Elsie, suppose I had missed you? What a poor fool I've been! Last night---- Why don't you take it out of me? Why don't you make me pay as I deserve?"

She smiled with the delicately-mocking indulgence he was learning to know and anticipate; it sat upon her youth with so quaint a wisdom.

"Perhaps I am, or will."

"I believe now that I loved you from the first day. I know that I kept thinking about you and considering everything from the point of view I fancied you would take. You"--with sudden anxiety--"you do not regret coming with me, Elsie? What were you thinking of, just now, when your eyes darkened? You looked----"

"Of Holly," she answered simply. "I hope his new nurse will play with him, and cuddle him."

"The baby?" Her fidelity touched him with a warm sense of promise for his own future. "Yes, I have taken you from him. But, we left him his father."

The allusion brought a constraint. The words spoken, Adriance flushed like a woman and turned his ashamed eyes away from the girl.

"You did not take me from Holly," Elsie hurriedly corrected. "Mrs. Masterson discharged me, night before last. I was to go to-day, anyhow."

"You? Why?"

She hesitated.

"She came to the nursery door while you were speaking to me of telling Holly the story of Mait' Raoul Galvez. You know, Holly is too much a baby to hear stories, so she understood that you meant--other things. And it seems that once you had spoken to her of that story. She--made connections. She accused me of--of flirting with her guests; of being--an improper person."

"Elsie!"

"It is all over. It does not matter, now. But that was how I knew she did not send you away. Of course she said nothing to tell me; she is too clever. But, you see I knew so much already; and when I saw she was jealous even of your speaking to me----!"

The silence continued long. Both were thinking of Lucille Masterson. As if she feared the man's thoughts, Elsie shrank away from her husband's clasp, the movement unnoticed by him. Her clear eyes clouded with doubt, a creeping chill extinguished their glow.

Adriance spoke first, breaking at once the pause and the barrier.

"Once they must have been like this--like us. She would have left Fred, left him down and out, for a new man; and she his wife!"

Disgust was in his voice, wondering contempt. He pressed his own wife hard against his side. But Elsie dragged her arms from the hold that bound them, and impulsively clasped them about his neck in her first offered caress.

"You were thinking _that_?" she cried, fiercely glad in her triumph. "Anthony, you were thinking that?"

He stooped his head to meet her glance; standing together, they looked into each other's eyes.