CHAPTER IX

It was decided that my husband and I should go to New York by motor, spending the night with his uncle, Peter and Sarah to join us the following day, so that the last packing could be leisurely attended to before we sailed.

I had my farewells with father alone. Dr. Denton went in first and came out looking more moved than I believed possible. If I could have liked him at all, it would have been for his devotion to my father.

I can't write about how dear father was when he told me good-by.

John Denton went up to town with us. I begged him to, and he very naturally attributed my nervousness and pallor to the long strain of my father's illness. He was very good to me.

Leaving my house, in a sense for the first time, and knowing it would be months before I saw it again, I experienced a sinking of the heart that was terrible. Not till then had I realized how much my home meant to me, how much freedom had been mine beneath it's little roof, how lovingly the friendly walls had safeguarded and sheltered me.

At the door, I clung first to Mrs. Goodrich and then, for a long, close moment, to Sarah. She seemed a rock of strength, the last familiar landmark. But strong hands drew me away from her, and presently I was in the closed car, and we were off for New York.

I had very little sensation: only a feeling of great numbness and a consciousness that if I could know any emotion it would be that of an infinite despair. I was dimly grateful that I need not go by train. In this, at least, they had humored me. All through the long ride, I sat huddled in the new furs which were Uncle John's wedding gift to me, my eyes closed, and my hand in John Denton's warm clasp. I did not hear what the two men said to one another. Possibly, when they spoke to me, I answered. I do not know.

Something of the terrifying maelstrom of the city traffic penetrated my stupor as we came smoothly into town. It was all so new ... the noise and rush and bewilderment of it. The lights were beginning to flare up all about me: faces seen in the crowds struck at me like a blow. Such hungry, restless, seeking faces.... But here and there, the happy eyes of a girl clinging to a man's arm, or walking alone with her dreams, stood out for me, and brought the tears to my eyes. Wearily I thought, if I could only cry again--for it seemed so long since I had known the release of tears.

I must have fainted when we reached the house, for the next thing I remember is waking up in a great, wide bed, in a huge, high-ceilinged room, with a kindly, round old woman fussing over me.

"You're to lie still, dearie," she said, as I tried to sit up, "and have a bite of supper on a tray. 'Tis the Doctor's orders, ma'am," and she smiled at me with a certain shy sweetness, and tucked a billowy eiderdown quilt more closely about my feet. I discovered then that I was undressed and surrounded by hot-water bottles.

I tried to thank her, but words were difficult. I was so very tired.

Someone knocked.

"It's himself, surely," said the old woman, as she hastened to open, and then stood aside, her hands beneath her apron, to let my husband come in. He thanked her, dismissed her, and came straight to my bedside, where he stood looking down at me.

I drew the clothes tight about my throat and looked at him mutely.

"How do you feel?" he asked, retrieving one of my submerged hands and placing a steady finger on the pulse.

"Tired," I answered, and then, "Oh, Doctor Denton, when will Sarah be here?"

I knew quite well: but something unreasonable in me hoped that I had slept a whole twenty-four hours away and that I would very soon hear her comforting step outside my door.

"Tomorrow," he answered, and added with a suspicion of a smile, "but I thought we were agreed that Doctor Denton, as a form of address, is taboo, under the circumstances."

"William, then," I said, with a great weariness in my heart.

"Could you manage Bill?" he asked. "I have unpleasant associations with my full name: it always reminds me of the woodshed, and my father's strong right hand."

Absurdly enough, I heard my own voice saying solemnly:

"Father called me William, Mother called me Will, Sister called me Willie, but the fellers called me Bill."

I stopped suddenly, wondering if I were going quite mad. But there was reassuring laughter in the eyes bent upon me.

"Exactly," he said, gravely.

I attempted to laugh. It was a very poor effort, and ended in tears.

Dr. Denton sat down on the bed and took me into his arms, pressing my head against his shoulder. I didn't care. I cried there very comfortably, for a long time.

"It's all right," I heard his voice saying, coming, so it seemed, from a great distance. "It's all right. You'll feel lots better for it, Mavis."

After a while, I dried my eyes and lay back against the pillows again. The intolerable burden about my heart had eased a little, in some miraculous manner.

"And now," announced my husband, "Mrs. Cardigan is going to bring you some supper. After that, she will make you comfortable for the night, and you are to drink what I send you. Uncle John sends his love and the demand that you pour his coffee for him in the morning, or, if you do not feel strong enough, you are to stay in bed, he says, and he will come up and pour yours! And I shall be next door to you, if you want anything in the night. But I am sure that you are going to sleep soundly."

He rose and looked down on me once more.

"Good night," he said. "Sleep well."

"Good night," I answered, "Dr.--B-B-Bill!"

His eyes twinkled, just for a moment.

"Good night," he responded, "Miss--M-M-Mavis!"

He opened the door for Mrs. Cardigan and her tray, stood aside, waved to me once, and was gone. All the way down the hall I heard him singing: "You are old, Father William" in a pleasant, gay baritone.

Suddenly I realized I was hungry.

I awoke the following morning feeling almost happy. There was a wonderful sense of adventure in looking out of my windows over the grey city streets, in hearing the hurrying footsteps go past me. So many people! So many sorrows and joys passing beneath my window, so many eager feet going out to meet the day! I felt very small, almost insignificant, very unimportant.

"It's like an angel you're looking today, Mrs. Denton!" said Mrs. Cardigan amiably, as she brought me my breakfast, with Uncle John following hard on her heels.

"And it's blushing she is!" added the honest creature in amazement.

Uncle John laid his hand on the shoulder of the old woman who had been nurse and housekeeper and almost-mother to him for thirty years.

"Run off with you, Mary," he said, laughing. "Mrs. Denton isn't used to blarney!"

"And her with the fine young husband!" said Mrs. Cardigan in obvious astonishment as she backed to the door.

Uncle John looked at me with laughing eyes: but I could not meet his glance.

The rest of the day is more or less of a blur to me now. Sarah came, with Peter and Wiggles. It was a matter for debate, which of the two last mentioned was the more excited. But it is certain that Peter talked more. His ideas of Cuba were wonderful and strange, and it was only by dint of dire threats of being left on the dock that we finally persuaded him to go to bed.

The following morning, February tenth, with the thermometer flirting with zero, we sailed for Cuba.

Sarah and I had connecting cabins: and I bribed a blonde, friendly steward to let me conceal Wiggles behind locked doors and thus keep him with us. On the other side of me, Dr. Denton was housed with Peter. All the cabins were full of flowers and fruit and books, and I am sure that, although I may have concealed it better, I was quite as excited as Peter and the pup.

It was, they tell me, a rough passage. Somehow, I didn't seem to mind. To lie in a deck-chair, muffled to the eyes, and to watch the ocean seemed all that I wanted in life. I never tired of it. Grey and green and blue, as the fog or the sun caught it, there was never anything as wonderful as my first sight of the sea. I was even glad of the storms that delayed us longer than usual. For, even beyond Cape Hatteras, we had wind, and snow and cold. And then came a day when, little by little, people began to crawl greenly up from their cabins, shed their sweaters, and take an interest in life. Sarah among them. Poor dear, she had succumbed almost before we left the dock! Every dip of the boat, every rising and falling swell was met by her with the gloomy announcement that she wanted to die. Once, when I peered in at her, I found my husband sitting by her berth and answering quite gravely, her innumerable questions as to how they conducted burials at sea. Were they conducted "with decent Christian rites?" she was demanding weakly.

As I walked the deck with him, braced against the salt wind, my hair flying under my fur cap,

"You shouldn't tease Sarah!" I said indignantly.

"Shouldn't I?" he asked, forcibly restraining Peter from going over the rail--shouting, "I see a mermaid, Aunt Mavis!" "Perhaps not. But to the good sailor, seasickness is always a matter, inexplicable and humorous."

"By the way, I'm glad," he continued, "that you've stood the trip so well. It would be a pity," said he pensively, "to have injected into the romance of a honeymoon the very mundane element of mal-de-mer...."

I turned on my heel to leave him, but reckoned without the tremendous wave which swung lazily up to the boat, smote it, held it suspended a breathless moment, and then let it down again with unparalleled suddenness. My husband's arm intervened between me and the rail, checking my mad career in mid-air.

"Steady on," he said. "We've not reached tropical waters yet."

There was nothing to do but take his proffered arm and walk on, in haughty silence.

We sat at the Captain's table, and for the greater part of the trip we and the Captain sat there alone. No, not quite alone, for at the Captain's right sat the prettiest girl I have ever seen. We met her the first day out, and it was not long before she had attached herself to our party. Peter, always susceptible to beauty, caused me not a few pangs of jealousy before the trip was over. And Miss Mercedes Howell, for such was her mismated name, seemed to find much in common with my husband. She had thought at first, she confided to me naïvely, that the Doctor and I must be brother and sister despite the passenger list, and at all events, we must have been married a long, long time--was it not so, dear Mrs. Denton?

On my stately assurance that I had been married less than a week, her enormous black eyes flew open to their widest. I changed the subject.

Miss Howell, so her vivacious chatter informed us, was returning to Havana after a period of college. I gathered that by the edict of the faculty she had gone through Vassar in two years instead of the prescribed four.

"Oh, but it was dull," she told us at the table, with melting, melancholy eyes. "No young men! Nothing! Just stupid books and rules--rules--rules!! It was like prison! Imagine!"

And she looked brightly about the board for sympathy. If I had a momentary sense of sympathy, it was for the faculty, but evidently my husband and the Captain felt otherwise.

Mercedes, as she insisted I should call her, extending the courtesy to the entire family, and, as a matter of course, addressing me as Mavis and the remainder of the party as Peter and Bill, was the daughter of a wealthy American, settled in Cuba with a Spanish wife. She was twenty, and on returning to Cuba, was to make her debut. I was tremendously interested by her vivid account of Cuban Society, and went to bed each night with my head a whirl of horse races, and parties and country clubs and motor trips.

Her chaperone being confined to her cabin, Mercedes found that, after I had retired it was quite providential that she should keep "Billy" pleasantly occupied on deck until such time as she should elect to go to bed. I must say that my husband advanced no serious objections. And when we parted on the docks at Havana, Mercedes escaped from her wan and weary attendant long enough to assure us all of her undying affection and to impart to us the pleasing information that Guayabal, whither we were bound, was quite near Havana, and that we could expect to see her often. I am afraid I was not very cordial. She was rather a dear, and superlatively, almost superfluously, pretty, but she made my head ache, and beside her youth and effervescence I felt curiously old.

Entering the harbor was something I shall never forget. The blue water and the sun on the white and mauve and pink houses, and the shining fortress of Morro castle rising up from the bay. Bill told me something of its history, as we leaned over the rail and watched the approach. And a sense of horror took hold of me, in the warmth and sunlight, as I thought of the torture chamber and the silenced screams of the prisoners....

And that is why, I suppose, my first impression of Cuba was one of beauty and cruelty, warmth and color and the dark, swift treachery of by-gone ages.

The landing, the inspection, the docks, passed in a blur. Sarah, pale and miserable, sat on a trunk with Peter and watched her alien surroundings with unfriendly eyes. But it was not long before we were hustled away and into a long, luxurious open car, driven by a lean, hawk-eyed person who greeted us in an unmistakable Yankee twang, bless him, and seemed unfeignedly glad to see us.

"This is Silas, Mavis," my husband informed me, "chauffeur extraordinary, Jack-of-all-trades, and overseer-in-particular to my friend, Harry Reynolds. And this, Silas," he said, quite impressively, "is Mrs. Denton!"

I shook hands and presented Sarah, who brightened visibly at the home-touch, and after we were settled, with Peter and Wiggles and innumerable bags stowed in the front seat with Silas, I drew a deep breath and watched Havana slide by, gay with color, its narrow streets crowded, under a heavenly blue sky.

We ran along the low sea-wall, and passing parks and wonderful stone edifices which seemed too fairy-like to be called houses, we were soon leaving the outskirts far behind us. Before us stretched a long, wide, white road, thick with fine, sharp dust.

"We're climbing," said my husband, "you'll notice the change of air soon, for Guayabal is in a mountain district."

I hardly heard him. I was too busy watching the various family groups as we went through the villages. It was all so incongruous: here, a marvellous house that might have belonged to some foreign Prince--there, huddled at its very gate, a cluster of huts, thatched, and sun-baked; and brown babies all over the landscape, very naked, very dirty and, from a distance at least, wholly enchanting. And then the trees! The tall, royal palms, with the afternoon wind in them!

"Oh-h!" I said, as we passed a clump of wonderful scarlet blossoms, "what is it?"

Sarah was exclaiming too, sitting perfectly upright and rigid beside me.

"Hibiscus," answered our companion. "You'll find lots of it where we are going."

The villages went by. A crimson sun was glowing over the palms, and almost before I had seen it, it was gone, and a violet after-glow was coloring distant hilltops. I clasped my hands in my lap and wondered if ever there had been anything as lovely and remote. And it was with a sense of absolute shock that I heard and saw Silas snap on the lights of the car and realized that now the after-glow had gone and that the heavy Southern night had closed in around us.

"Why, there isn't any twilight," I said, in childish disappointment.

"Not here," answered my husband, "Nature strikes suddenly and swiftly in the tropics. She has no halftones, no compromise...."

Even in the dark I could feel his glance at me. I said nothing.

When we entered the village of Guayabal and drove up the winding roadway through the gates and into the drive, the stars were shining. Very close they seemed, and tremendous--"as big as dinner plates," as Sarah put it to me afterwards, with obvious disapproval. And they were warm, almost fragrant, I fancied, unlike our cold, high, impersonal stars of the North. They frightened me....

The lights shone out from a low, long house as the car stopped under a portico. Two smiling Chinese housemen were standing, ready to take our bags, and my heart sank as I thought of what Sarah--who contributes so religiously to foreign missions--must be thinking. It was with relief, therefore, that I saw the unmistakable Hibernian face of the cook at the door. The domestic staff consisted then, of Wing and Fong and Norah; and I blessed the Reynolds, that, in assembling their household Lares and Penates, they had included something white and clean and very cordial to preside over the kitchen, for I feared for Sarah's peace of mind....

Peter, tired and perhaps somewhat frightened by the strangeness and by the yellow hands raised to lift him down from the car, whimpered a little, and my husband, jumping out, took the child in his arms and turned to me,

"Welcome," he said, with a certain dignity, "to the Palms."

It was the loveliest house. Even Sarah was moved to favorable comment, and Wiggles went quite mad. We entered through a screened, tile-floored verandah, lamp-lighted, and bright with wicker-ware, to an enormous room. The walls were panelled in dark wood, the floor red-tiled, the ceiling raftered, and it was wide and high and long beyond my wildest dreams of any room. There were tables and books and myriad comfortable chairs all about, and at the far end, a huge fireplace, wherein a little red fire burned comfortably. For as the night came, so came the sudden amazing chill after the day's heat, and I found the warmth and sight of the fire very gratifying. The room was living and dining room in one, Norah explained to me, and showed me hard by the pantry door, the table laid for two. And after my first curiosity had subsided, she took me to my room.

It was many-windowed, and all the windows were barred. Three red steps led up to the alcove where a great bed was set, under an age-old crucifix. And it was gay with chintz and dimities, while against my windows a bourginvilla vine whispered in the wind.

Peter and Sarah were next door, with a bath between, and across the way, my stranger-husband had his own room and bath, as big and odd and delightful as mine. I could hardly sit down or let Sarah brush my hair or even wash the dust of the journey from me for excitement.

Peter, soon undressed and sitting up in bed with a big bowl of bread and milk, was trying heroically to keep his eyes open. I heard his prayer, answered half a thousand questions as best I could, left him sleeping quietly, and went in search of my--host.

I found him, in a dinner jacket, at the piano, playing something very softly, and with his eyes half-closed. When he heard my step on the tiles, he jumped up.

"I didn't know you played," I said politely, glad that Sarah had persuaded me to change, and conscious of how very becoming the new mauve voile must be.

"I have a number of accomplishments," he answered irritatingly.

I stood for a moment, by the fireplace, the mantel high above my head.

"This is a wonderful house," I said, trying to make conversation. "Tell me something about it."

Dr. Denton drew two big chairs close to the fire and for half an hour told me of his friend, Harry Reynolds, and his delicate little wife, of how they had come to Cuba and built this place of dreams and sent for Silas from Vermont to come and take care of it.

"It is only about a hundred acres," said my companion, "mostly in sugar cane. But Reynolds has plenty of money and they were very happy here. When the youngest boy died of fever, Mrs. Reynolds couldn't stand it any longer. The place had too many associations. So they left, last summer, keeping the servants on, for Harry had to make several flying trips back and forth. And he was glad to let us have the house for a time, until he decided what to do with it. His wife swears she will never come here again: and yet, they are reluctant to sell it. I have spent a number of happy holidays here and so ... well, it was all most opportune and providential ... and I am convinced that the climate will be admirable for you."

He was speaking in his professional tone, and I, nervous and ill-at-ease, was glad to talk of my returning health and of other prosaic matters.

"When you are rested," he said, "in a day or two, we must go into Havana--you will want an account opened there at one of the banks."

That reminded me of something that had been troubling me.

"But it is not my money," I began rather abruptly, and stopped.

"It is," he assured me, "Your father has been very generous with you and you need feel under no obligations to me--unless you object to having me play the host a little until--later."

I didn't know what to answer, and blessed Fong's sleek black head, as slippered and silent, he slid in to announce dinner.

Norah had outdone herself for the "new Missis." And it was pleasant in the softly lighted room, with the candles burning on the table, shining across delicate old china and worn silver.

My husband exerted himself to be amusing. Our talk was all give and take, and there were even laughter awaking echoes in the room.

Dinner over, after I had made a face over the strong Cuban, and Bill--it was still so difficult to call him that--had sent out word to Norah that hereafter we would drink the sort of beverage I had been accustomed to, he went to the piano again, and with a little snub-nosed pipe between his teeth, sang ridiculous Bab ballads and played enchanting snatches of melody while, with Wiggles on my lap, I dreamed before the fire.

Father would have loved it.... I missed him terribly.

The music stopped.

"Mavis...." he was beside me, something in his hand. I turned, startled.

"I didn't give you a wedding present," he said, half-smiling, "but before we left I had just time to have this made for you."

I took the small, black leather case from his hand and opened it. My father's face looked back at me, wonderfully living. Almost it seemed as if the gentle, strong mouth would smile and speak.

"I had it painted before--before the tide turned," said Bill, "from the picture he gave me."

I closed my hands upon the miniature and my eyes against the tears.

"You are very good," I said falteringly. "I--you couldn't have given me anything I could have cared for more."

He stood, his broad shoulders squared against the mantel, and looked at me gravely.

"I hope," he said and stopped. Then, very evenly, he went on, "I hope you will try to be happy here, Mavis."

Happy! A sudden revulsion of feeling came over me. What use had I for happiness? I had been almost stupefied, like an animal in the sun, dreaming vaguely before the fire. But now....

"I will try to be--content," I told him.

His eyes hardened, grew keen and cold again.

"Thank you," he said, not quite sincerely.

We were silent a moment, until Silas came in to get the orders for the following day. I hardly heard the voices, talking so near me. It mattered so little what they, or anyone, said. I thought of Green Hill, of Peter asleep near me.... I thought of father, in his big woods, his old strength coming back to him ... and I thought of the letter that had reached me on my wedding day ... my first love letter. I had not answered it. For me, no "lyric hour" could exist. No, nor not even the dream of one. Uncle John, I thought, would have told Richard Warren by now that I was married. Mrs. William Denton....

My thoughts blurred into a half-dream. I was on a ship. Somewhere Mercedes Howell was standing. I heard her calling from far off, "Billy, Billy!"

I awoke suddenly. Silas had gone and my husband was standing near me,

"You called me, Mavis," he was saying.

I looked at him, at the great, strange room, confused and half asleep.

"I was dreaming," I said, and then, "a nightmare."

"Oh, I see!" he laughed a little. "You look like a child," he said slowly, "with the firelight on your yellow hair and that flush in your cheeks."

I rose, tumbling Wiggles unceremoniously to the floor.

"Good-night," I said.

"Good-night," he answered, his hands deep in his pockets, and then, as I turned, "Sleep well, my little Make-Believe-Wife!"