CHAPTER XXI

The boat pulled slowly away from the docks. Standing at the rail, I could plainly see the brilliant feather on Mercedes' little French hat, nodding in the breeze. A fleck of white was in her hand, now fluttering frantically, now at her eyes. Wright, beside her, was gesticulating like a semaphore, and not far away, Silas was straining his keen eyes to catch the last glimpse of his Sarah. Presently the docks faded into a vari-colored blur, and Bill pulled me away from the rail.

"Good-by, Cuba!" I said, waving my hand for the last time, as I turned.

"You're not crying?" he asked, teasingly.

"No," I dried my eyes a little defiantly, "but I have loved it so. Color and warmth and sunshine," I said, watching the soft pastel shades of the shore line, where Morro Castle stood, dazzling in the light, its stone feet set in blue waters, "and I hated to leave, somehow--"

"We'll go back," said he. "No, don't go below. Sarah will unpack and settle for you. I bribed the steward to give us these chairs. Sit down, darling, and let me tuck you up."

Obediently, I sat, and he sprawled his long length beside me, cupping his pipe in his hands, to shield the match flare from the wind.

"But," I argued, "it won't be like going back to 'The Palms.' I'll hate the nasty people who are going to buy it--do you suppose they'll buy Arthur, too?"

"Do you want him?" asked Bill.

I turned my hand so that the light fell on the big, new diamond on my finger. Bill had bought it in Havana, two days after the fire. It was my engagement ring, he said, and I had gotten up more than once in the last few nights to admire it by candle or moonlight. It was like a drop of dew. I told him that when he gave it to me, and he had added "on a white flower," and had kissed the finger he slipped it on.

"Want Arthur? I think not. He'd be the scandal of Green Hill, and perhaps he'd not thrive away from Guayabal--"

"Shall I buy 'The Palms'?" asked Bill, pushing his cap back from his forehead, so that the sun fell across his face.

"Are you crazy?" I demanded.

"Possibly."

He slipped his hand under the rug across my knees and took mine.

"What do you think?" he asked, gravely.

"I think you are," said I. "Such extravagance! Delusions of grandeur. But, anyway, I'd rather we built our own house--"

"So would I," said Bill, with satisfaction.

"Couldn't we add to the Green Hill house?" I asked, "an office for you--and more rooms? Do you mind?" I said. "So much of me is in that house. I don't want to forget those years--. And I was born there. My Mother came there as a bride--and I think Father will want us to live there always--unless," I added careful, "you have other plans, Doctor Denton?"

Bill laughed.

"No. When we get home, if your Father is willing, I'll turn you loose with painters and carpenters and decorators--as long as I may always smoke, even in the 'best parlour' and as long as you don't banish me and my bottles to the garage--for we'll have to have a garage, you know, and I've spoken to Silas about that little house in the garden. There's lots of room."

"Chintz," I said dreamily, "creton,--lots of it--and another fireplace--and oodles of bookshelves. Bill, may I dig in the garden next summer?"

"I shouldn't wonder," he answered cheerfully. "You're really remarkably strong--beyond my wildest hopes. I was amazed to see how soon you recovered from the effects of the fire--"

I looked at the little scars on my hands. They would go, eventually, I knew. Bill had said so. I was a little sorry.

"Were you?" I asked. "But I had a very good doctor, and wonderful medicine--"

He kissed me, to the horror of a passing elderly couple.

"Then," said I, straightening my cap, "you'll practise in Green Hill, after all? People will say you'll be burying yourself there--"

"Let 'em," said Bill. "I shall have time, at last, for all the things I want to do. Time, ambition and encouragement. We'll have a laboratory--away from the house, so your little nose won't be offended and turn up even more--"

"It doesn't," said I, one hand to the insulted feature.

"It does. Don't contradict. I love it!--A laboratory," he went on, "and I can work again on that cancer-cure--"

"Oh, Bill," I said, "isn't it wonderful? To think that perhaps you can bring a blessing to all the world, and I may help--a little--"

We were silent for a while--such a comfortable, understanding silence.

"Aunt Mavis," said Peter, appearing suddenly on deck, "Sarah has gone to bed!"

"Is she ill?" I asked, viewing the water, which was like blue glass.

"Not yet," said Peter gravely, "but she says she's taking no chances!"

"Poor Sarah!" I said, as Bill laughed. "Stay here with your uncle, Peterkins, and I'll go and see if I can do anything for her."

When I returned, I found my young charge and my husband hanging perilously over the rail, watching the antics of the flying-fish.

"Aren't they pretty?" I asked, joining them, "like tiny, colored aeroplanes."

We watched for some time in silence, and then Peter growing sleepy, for we had gotten up very early that morning, Bill tucked him into a rug in a chair, and we left him asleep almost instantly, to walk the deck until luncheon.

"I've got a scheme," said Bill. "Want to hear?"

"Uh-huh!" said I.

"New York first. Uncle John's, or, if you'd rather, a hotel. Your Dad will meet us. We'll ship Sarah on to Green Hill with Peter, to get the house in order and to look after the boy until the Goodriches return. When is it--ten days? And after you've gone on that shopping orgy you threatened me with, I'll have one of the men bring my car down from Green Hill and we'll motor. Would you like that?"

"Oh, Bill, where?" I asked, skipping a little, and collapsing up against his side as the boat rolled.

"Cape Cod, I thought, if you'd care about it. There's a dear old inn at Provincetown--I know you'd love it. We could go there, for a week or so--it's so early yet we'd have the place to ourselves. And then, early in May, back to Green Hill and settle for the summer. What do you think?"

"I think you're a darling!" I answered, brazenly, and with just the effect I had calculated. And after we had told each other several times that no one in the world could be as happy and as much in love as we were--and firmly believed it, too I--Bill said suddenly,

"I cabled Mother from Cuba--and wrote her. She will meet us in New York."

"For heaven's sake," said I, "do you think she'll like me?"

"Can't tell," said Bill, solemnly, "she's odd. But, after all, it isn't as if you were a stranger. You've corresponded with her, you know, and she made you some bed-socks. That's a bond."

"But that was Richard Warren's mother," I said, not quite convinced.

"She's mine too. Funny, isn't it? I think you've committed bigamy."

"Is she really little and blue-eyed and red-haired?" I asked, "or was that poetic license?"

"Honest truth. She's the prettiest thing in the world--except you. And I've written her all about it."

"Did she know that I didn't know you were you?" I asked somewhat incoherently. But he understood. That was one of the nice things about Bill--recently, anyway. He was the Person Who Understood.

He nodded.

"Yes, but she didn't know everything--not that we were married."

"Why?" I asked, curiously.

He smiled down at me, very big, very protective.

"Why, you see," said Bill gently, "she knew that I loved you. And she'd got to love you too. After all, she has a weakness for me, and an unbounded faith in my choice. And so--well, I didn't want to disappoint her--didn't want her to know how matters stood--that we weren't quite happy. So I waited. After a while, I grew afraid that she would have to be told after all--"

"Please, don't," I said hastily. "What did you write her?"

"Cabled first: 'Married Mavis. Meet us in New York at Uncle John's as soon as you can.' And then, I wrote and sent it by someone who was sailing sooner. She will break the trip from California in Chicago, she has cousins there. I hope the letter will catch her."

"I've never had a mother," I said, the least bit wistfully.

"You have one now," said Bill.

Cuba had long since disappeared. I closed my eyes for a second to keep the memory of all we had left clear and vivid. The Palms--the cane, as it had looked before the fire, emerald-green and graceful--the red soil of Guayabal and the long, white roads--the mountains in the distance--the palm-trees, straight as arrows, with their rustling tops--my own orchids, little lavender balloons--peacocks and ox-carts--naked brown babies creeping in the sun--sunlight on adobe and thatch--and Arthur, screaming raucously for his morning coffee.

No, I would never forget.

The trip passed like a dream. Peter found some American children to play with on the boat, and romped with them under the watchful eyes of a correct English nurse. Sarah, with Wiggles, kept to her cabin. And Bill and I, exchanging polite platitudes with the people at our table, were left very much to ourselves. And the voyage was calm, totally unlike the one we had taken so many months before.

It was on the boat that I read some of Richard Warren's new poems, part of the new volume. And, sitting in a sheltered corner of the deck, I watched my husband write the dedication across a white sheet of paper:

"To my wife."

"I'm very proud," said I, a little tremulously. "They are beautiful. Wright knew. He said they were bigger and finer than the others. But," I added, "after all, I fell in love with _The Lyric Hour_, Bill."

"But these," said Bill, "are your own."

And so they were.

"Now," he said, "suppose you show me what you were so careful to hide from me in Cuba?"

"Did Wright--?" I began indignantly, "What do you mean?"

"No, Wright didn't. But I guessed. Have I written for nothing all these years? I'm a sleuth when it comes to a fellow-craftsman. Besides, there's this--"

He drew a crumpled sheet from his inner pocket. I snatched at it.

"That old thing!" said I, with scorn. "Where did you find it?"

"I couldn't account for your inky little hands and your fits of abstraction," he answered, "solely by an explanation of your love for letter-writing and your dislike of me."

"Where did you find it, Creature?" I demanded again.

"In Wright's pocket. Old coat, on a chair--I was looking for a match."

"Doesn't sound plausible," said I, spreading out the blotted paper. Bill read with me, over my shoulder.

AFTER SUNSET

Carved in dull ebony, one somber row Of straight palms, etched in sudden, sharp relief, Against a molten-copper afterglow.... Oh, Hour of Enchantment, past belief, When down the garden paths the peacocks go, In plumed splendor and with stately tread. Across the shadowed valleys cool winds blow, From where the smoke-blue mountain rears its head. Beyond the world's rim, slips the ghost-wan Day, To draw Night's curtain close about her bed And set a star to light her to her rest, While Evening, shaking free her dusky hair, Lures every weary bird to seek its nest, And, kissing shut the tired eyes of care, Lulls Earth to peace upon her gentle breast.

"I didn't mean you to know," I said, as he took the verse away from me again and put it back in his pocket.

"But you told Wright," said he.

"That was different," I answered, firmly.

"Mad?"

"N-No!"

He slipped his arm around me.

"Mavis," he said very softly, "Mavis with the amber hair and the deep brown eyes. Mavis, child and poet and--all mine."

"You're not laughing?" I asked anxiously. "I mean, about the verses?"

"Laughing?" he raised his head from my hair. My cap had fallen off, and it blew in wildest confusion about my face and his. "I'm very far from laughing. I'm proud and happy. But," said he, with a change of tone, "to steal my thunder! You'll be dabbling in my pill-boxes yet! I suppose I may as well reconcile myself to being known as 'the husband of Mavis Denton.' Appalling outlook!"

"Is it?" I asked impishly.

"Well--in that sense at least. 'Husband of The Poetess.' It wounds my masculine pride."

"It shouldn't," said I, triumphantly, "if it ever happened--which, of course, it won't. But I will be quite content to be known as Richard Warren's wife--"

"You dear! But, of course, you have a better disposition than I have--"

"I haven't! I'm a petulant, snappish, mean--"

"You're the loveliest thing God ever made!"

And so on, ad infinitum.

The lazy, happy trip over, we sailed importantly into New York once more. Father and Uncle John were on the dock, two bronzed, happy men, and it was late that night before I got to sleep, in that same, old-fashioned room, my head in a perfect whirl. How we had talked and laughed, questioned and answered! From the twinkle in Uncle John's eyes, the tenderest, most quizzical twinkle, I half-suspected that he knew more than I had thought. He didn't say so, but if he didn't know--well, he had developed perfectly miraculous powers of teasing since I had left. But he was a dear. And it was so amazing to sit there and listen to him and Bill discuss the new volume, and to put my little, critical oar in now and then, while Father sat by, my hand in his, a look of the most wonderful content on his face. They had great difficulty to persuade me to go to bed. It was fascinating to linger in the smoky old room, with its rows and rows of books and its untidy, comfortable, masculine atmosphere. After I had three times refused to leave them, Bill unceremoniously picked me up and carried me up the stairs, kicking, and losing my slippers on the way.

Did I say that a wire was waiting for me when I reached Uncle John's?

"LOVE TO YOU BOTH," it read. "WILL BE WITH YOU WEDNESDAY AT THE LATEST," and it was addressed to me, and signed, "MOTHER." Wednesday was two days off. I spent the intervening time in the outrageous shops, Bill stalking uneasily behind me, deferred to by the lithe, wonderfully coiffured, purring Goddesses who paraded mannequin after pretty mannequin before my startled eyes. I think, however, that Bill was a little more embarrassed than I.

"How they live," he said to me, seriously, on one occasion, "I don't see. I should think they'd spend most of their time in a pneumonia ward!"

We drove in the Park one afternoon. It was gay with Spring flowers and pretty girls. We had a hansom, because I had read about them in books. Coming back, through the falling dusk, with the lights of the city twinkling out, yellow and beckoning, and the great, massive bulk of the Plaza, illuminated like a birthday cake, just ahead, I suddenly conceived an affection for New York. But I didn't want to live there.

"Next time we come," said Bill, "in the Fall, perhaps, I want to take you to the theatres and to the gayest restaurants, and concerts. Why, you funny child, your eyes are as big as saucers!"

Our lean horse stumbled just then, and the hansom gave a seasick lurch. I felt as people mounting camels must feel. When the horse and I had somewhat recovered, I answered,

"I'd love it! And you'll teach me to dance--sometime?--May I?"

"Well," said Bill gravely, "I'm not much of a dancer--too big and all that. I always step on the dear things' feet. But you may, I think, and we'll take lessons together, if you like--"

"I'd adore it!" I said.

My husband drew me close--,

"You baby," he said. "Sometimes I think I have been selfish, tying you down to a cross old husband before you've had your good times--"

"Don't want any good times without you!" I said, obstinately.

"All right," said he. "We'll have them together. I'll renew my youth!"

"Don't be absurd! You're a mere infant!"

"Second childhood," he said, "you've been an elixir of youth to me; of life itself."

"You do say such nice things," I sighed. "That comes of being a poet!"

"Poet be hanged!" said Bill. "It comes of being in love--with--you--with you--"

That was a very nice drive. After all, the hansom has advantages. One can sit awfully close, and hold hands under the shiny, wooden apron.

Wednesday Mother came. I called her that right off. She was the dearest thing, with such curly red hair and eyes the color of Bill's, only a different shape. She was littler than I even, with hands and feet that were wholly ridiculous. Father was immediately enchanted with her. The four of us had a long talk, all one soft Spring day, interrupted by Uncle John, and by getting Peter and Sarah safely off to Green Hill. And then, while I was resting, she had her talk with her son, and came to me later, after I had gone to bed.

She curled up beside me in a wonderful blue negligée which made her look like a girl. And we talked--and talked.

"You're the nicest thing that Bill has given me," I said, happily, before she left, "and Bill's the nicest thing you could give me. You don't feel," I begged, "that I am taking him away from you--?"

"I love you," she answered, the laughter gone from her eyes, and her face very sweet to see, "for yourself--for Bill too, but most of all for yourself. I have wanted this since he first wrote me about you. I have prayed for it every night. You were so exactly the sort of a girl I wanted my boy to marry--"

"But," I said, "I was just a little, bed-ridden, useless creature then--"

"I knew that Bill would cure you," said Mother. "He always gets what he wants--"

"Doesn't he though?" I interrupted, proudly.

"And he wanted you!"

"I love him so," I whispered against the soft lace at her breast.

She put her arms very closely around me. I don't know why I cried.

And then, she talked to me. Just as my own Mother would have done--very gravely and tenderly for a long half-hour. When she left my room, I lay awake a long time, thinking about her and Bill, wondering if I could ever be to him all that she had said I would be. I was happy, a little frightened, and so grateful--so grateful.