I Walked in Arden Part 39

The dinner began under an air of constraint, for it was always difficult for me to conceal my irritation when my mother rebuked me. My sister smiled sympathy and rea.s.surance across the table at me, and Chitty hovered about me with the hock. Helen felt that I had been put off and kept her eyes on her plate. Right after the soup, Leonidas was ordered out of the room. I was on the verge of a protest when I felt Helen's hand on my arm. Instead, there was another silence.

"Helen, where did you and Ted get that extraordinary dog?" my sister asked, meaning well.

"Let us talk about something pleasant, if we can," my mother cut in.

Revolt came near to breaking forth. My father saved the situation this time by telling me rapidly some story of an occurrence during my absence.

The table was cleared at last, and I was left with my father and our gla.s.ses of port. I could hear my mother playing a Beethoven sonata, which I knew for an ominous sign. The piano was her refuge in times of stress. When things were very bad, she played Bach. My father and I looked at each other, each waiting for the other to begin. I was d.a.m.ned if I would, for I felt most emphatically that Helen required no explanation. Any one who could not see by looking once at her that she was the most adorable girl in the world--words failed even my thoughts.

"It isn't Helen--it's you," my father said, studying his cigar.

"I don't see--" I began.

"Steady, Ted. Listen to me. There are a good many factors in the problem. Your mother idolizes you--"

"It has been fairly well dissembled tonight--"

"Be quiet, Ted! I won't have you speak in that way. If you knew more about the world--or about women--you would know that it is very hard for your mother to forgive the woman who marries you--you are an only son--Ted, you must not explode until I have finished. Last of all, she can't quite forgive you for getting married when she was not there.

Nothing has ever hurt her so much as not being at your wedding. Can't you understand?"

"Well, what am I to do? Sit quiet while she insults Helen?"

"You are riding for trouble, Ted, if you go at it like that. Helen will bring her around in no time, provided you behave yourself. I think your wife has commonsense--she has a level-headed look in her face--"

"Thank you very much," I sneered.

"She's good old American stock like the rest of us, Ted, and I'll back her to win. I haven't been home much, Ted, for a good many years, but I recognized her type the instant I saw her at Euston. Now the thing for you to do is to go out of your way to be nice to your mother--and leave the rest to Helen."

"Considering everything," I replied, "I think my mother might meet me at least half way. I've been out in America for over a year, working ten hours a day in a b.l.o.o.d.y factory, and when I come home with the best wife in the world, I am regarded as having done something criminal."

"Don't be an a.s.s, Ted--or try to make yourself sorry for yourself. You had a d.a.m.ned good time with your ten hours a day, as you call it, and you got a jolly sight better reward for it than you deserve. In my humble opinion, Helen is too good for you."

"We agree on one thing--that's a blessing," I answered, feeling that I was losing when I really had a good case. "I'll do what I can, but I won't sit by and see Helen--"

"Oh, shut up, Ted! To use plain American, you make me tired. Go into the drawing room and be nice to your mother. Tell her what you have been doing. She'll like to hear about the ten hours a day. You can pitch it strong."

I looked up and saw Helen standing at the door. "Won't you come into the drawing room, Ted? I think your mother expects you."

"Come here, little girl," my father said to Helen. She went and sat on his lap. "Can you manage that boy?"

Helen smiled at me and kissed her father-in-law by way of answer.

"You speak American, don't you?"

Helen nodded her head vigorously.

"Well, will you please tell him to keep his hair on?"

Helen came to me with a laugh and caught me by the arm.

"Come, Ted."

I followed her meekly.

When we reached the drawing room, my sister said: "Mother has gone up to bed."

We kissed Frances good night and climbed to our own quarters. I went into my study to look out some of my old books. Upon my return I found Helen lying on her bed, sobbing.

"What is it, my love?"--I flew to her and whispered in her ear.

"Ted, darling--will you ever forgive me? I'm homesick."

She sobbed herself asleep in my arms that night. I lay awake, thinking of many things.

A week later the deadlock between my mother and me was still unbroken.

Helen, however, was rapidly finding her feet in the joy of exploring London. We went the second evening of our homecoming to the Lyceum to see Henry Irving in _The Bells_ and the next night to his _Charles I_.

We lunched out, sometimes at Kettner's in Greek Street, Soho, or down in the City at Crosby Hall or at The s.h.i.+p and Turtle. Helen could not get enough of riding on the tops of the busses. We used no other conveyance except for going to the theatres. We did a certain standard thing each morning, such as going to the Abbey, St. Paul's, or The Tower, and the rest of the time we rode or walked about without plan or purpose. It was enough to be in London--it mattered little where one went or why, there were marvels to be seen in any direction. We sat a lot in quiet old City churches, particularly in St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield. The restoration had not quite done for the simple majesty of its Norman pillars. I could see London literally soaking into Helen's blood. And she greeted the bookshops on Charing Cross Road like a discovery of old friends. We bought all the plays we could find in the sixpenny boxes.

We went out each day early in the morning and returned only in time to dress for dinner. The family were quiescent; no comment was made on our comings and goings, except the daily question whether we were to be expected at luncheon. My mother never said an unkind word to Helen, but she treated her with a stiff, formal politeness that resisted all advances. Frances, my sister, was in despair, not knowing with whom to side. She adored her mother and at the same time had always been a good pal of mine--as much of one, in fact, as the discrepancy in our ages had permitted. Once or twice she went out for the day with us, but our energetic sight-seeing tired her out. She had been born in London and had never lived anywhere else, and its lions did not appeal to her as they did to Helen. Helen and Frances were already fast friends, wandering about the house in the mornings with their arms about each other or exchanging mysterious whispered conferences and giggles in their dressing gowns. They had reached at a bound the intimacy which involved borrowing each other's stockings, garters, and gloves. If Helen had felt homesick again, she said nothing about it.

Then at the end of the week my father requested me to see him in the library. I could tell from the way he was examining a pile of papers that he had something to say to me that he found difficult to express.

He never smoked in the morning--a habit which was in itself a handicap.

"Ted," he said at the conclusion of a few commonplaces, "I am sending you to Berlin tomorrow for a month."

"What fun that will be for Helen," I exclaimed, springing to my feet.

"Sit down--I haven't finished." I resumed my chair with an unpleasant foreboding. "I can't afford to send Helen with you--you are going alone."

"h.e.l.l!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed impolitely. "You might have told me a few days ago."

"I didn't want to interfere with your first week."

"What am I to do in Berlin?"

"I want you to learn a new chemical process we are going to handle. The money from the sale of the Deep Harbor factory has been entirely used to found a new company here. Until we get that on its feet we shall be rather hard-up. But we are playing for big stakes now, Ted. If this goes, you will be free to do as you please."

"I suppose I receive a salary."

"Not enough for you and Helen to live on--that's why you must live with us for the present. But I'll give you a ten per cent. interest in the new company, and it will be up to you to make it good. Meanwhile your salary is the nominal one of two pounds a week."

"But we can't go to the theatre on that," I exclaimed. It was rather a shock, for in Deep Harbor I had been well paid. "I can get a better job on my own."

"I have no doubt of it," replied my father. "Your chemical work is reported as expert. If you want to back out now and leave me in the lurch, go ahead."

I opened my mouth to speak--and paused. A recollection of my interview with Knowlton on this very subject crossed my mind. I heard him say--"play the skunk and leave you flat, Ted." On the other hand, what was my duty to Helen?

"We'll be paying dividends after the first twelve months, Ted. Then you'll be all right. Your interest in the company will be worth a lot of money."