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_ They rode out of London in a third-class compartment, opposite
a curate and two stodgy people who were just people and defied
you (Istra cheerfully explained to Mr. Wrenn) to make anything
of them but just people.
"Wouldn't they stare if they knew what idiocy we're up to!"
she suggested.
Mr. Wrenn bobbed his head in entire agreement. He was trying,
without any slightest success, to make himself believe that Mr.
William Wrenn, Our Mr. Wrenn, late of the Souvenir Company, was
starting out for a country tramp at midnight with an artist girl.
The night foreman of the station, a person of bedizenment and
pride, stared at them as they alighted at Chelmsford and glanced
around like strangers. Mr. Wrenn stared back defiantly and
marched with Istra from the station, through the sleeping town,
past its ragged edges, into the country.
They tramped on, a bit wearily. Mr. Wrenn was beginning to
wonder if they'd better go back to Chelmsford. Mist was
dripping and blind and silent about them, weaving its heavy gray
with the night. Suddenly Istra caught his arm at the gate to a
farm-yard, and cried, "Look!"
"Gee!... Gee! we're in England. We're abroad!"
"Yes--abroad."
A paved courtyard with farm outbuildings thatched and ancient
was lit faintly by a lantern hung from a post that was thumbed to
a soft smoothness by centuries.
"That couldn't be America," he exulted. "Gee! I'm just
gettin' it! I'm so darn glad we came.... Here's real England.
No tourists. It's what I've always wanted--a country that's old.
And different.... Thatched houses!... And pretty soon it'll
be dawn, summer dawn; with you, with Istra! _Gee!_ It's the
darndest adventure."
"Yes.... Come on. Let's walk fast or we'll get sleepy, and
then your romantic heroine will be a grouchy Interesting
People!... Listen! There's a sleepy dog barking, a million
miles away.... I feel like telling you about myself. You don't
know me. Or do you?"
"I dunno just how you mean."
"Oh, it shall have its romance! But some time I'll tell
you--perhaps I will--how I'm not really a clever person at all,
but just a savage from outer darkness, who pretends to
understand London and Paris and Munich, and gets frightfully
scared of them.... Wait! Listen! Hear the mist drip from that
tree. Are you nice and drowned?"
"Uh--kind of. But I been worrying about you being soaked."
"Let me see. Why, your sleeve is wet clear through. This khaki
of mine keeps out the water better.... But I don't mind getting
wet. All I mind is being bored. I'd like to run up this hill
without a thing on--just feeling the good healthy real mist on
my skin. But I'm afraid it isn't done."
Mile after mile. Mostly she talked of the boulevards and Pere
Dureon, of Debussy and artichokes, in little laughing sentences
that sprang like fire out of the dimness of the mist.
Dawn came. From a hilltop they made out the roofs of a town and
stopped to wonder at its silence, as though through long ages
past no happy footstep had echoed there. The fog lifted. The
morning was new-born and clean, and they fairly sang as they
clattered up to an old coaching inn and demanded breakfast of an
amazed rustic pottering about the inn yard in a smock. He did
not know that to a "thrilling" Mr. Wrenn he--or perhaps it was his
smock--was the hero in an English melodrama. Nor, doubtless,
did the English crisp bacon and eggs which a sleepy housemaid
prepared know that they were theater properties. Why, they were
English eggs, served at dawn in an English inn--a stone-floored
raftered room with a starling hanging in a little cage of withes
outside the latticed window. And there were no trippers to
bother them! (Mr. Wrenn really used the word "trippers" in his
cogitations; he had it from Istra.)
When he informed her of this occult fact she laughed, "You know
mighty well, Mouse, that you have a sneaking wish there were one
Yankee stranger here to see our glory."
"I guess that's right."
"But maybe I'm just as bad."
For once their tones had not been those of teacher and pupil,
but of comrades. They set out from the inn through the
brightening morning like lively boys on a vacation tramp.
The sun crept out, with the warmth and the dust, and Istra's
steps lagged. As they passed the outlying corner of a farm
where a straw-stack was secluded in a clump of willows Istra
smiled and sighed: "I'm pretty tired, dear. I'm going to sleep
in that straw-stack. I've always wanted to sleep in a
straw-stack. It's _comme il faut_ for vagabonds in the best set,
you know. And one can burrow. Exciting, eh?"
She made a pillow of her khaki jacket, while he dug down to a
dry place for her. He found another den on the other side of
the stack.
It was afternoon when he awoke. He sprang up and rushed around
the stack. Istra was still asleep, curled in a pathetically
small childish heap, her tired face in repose against the
brown-yellow of her khaki jacket. Her red hair had come down
and shone about her shoulders.
She looked so frail that he was frightened. Surely, too, she'd
be very angry with him for letting her come on this jaunt.
He scribbled on a leaf from his address-book--religiously carried
for six years, but containing only four addresses--this note:
Gone to get stuff for bxfst be right back.--W. W.
and, softly crawling up the straw, left the note by her head.
He hastened to a farm-house. The farm-wife was inclined to
be curious. O curious farm-wife, you of the cream-thick Essex
speech and the shuffling feet, you were brave indeed to face
Bill Wrenn the Great, with his curt self-possession, for he was
on a mission for Istra, and he cared not for the goggling eyes
of all England. What though he was a bunny-faced man with an
innocuous mustache? Istra would be awakening hungry. That was
why he bullied you into selling him a stew-pan and a bundle of
faggots along with the tea and eggs and a bread loaf and a jar
of the marmalade your husband's farm had been making these two
hundred years. And you should have had coffee for him, not tea,
woman of Essex.
When he returned to their outdoor inn the late afternoon glow
lay along the rich fields that sloped down from their
well-concealed nook. Istra was still asleep, but her cheek now
lay wistfully on the crook of her thin arm. He looked at the
auburn-framed paleness of her face, its lines of thought and
ambition, unmasked, unprotected by the swift changes of
expression which defended her while she was awake. He sobbed.
If he could only make her happy! But he was afraid of her moods.
He built a fire by a brooklet beyond the willows, boiled the
eggs and toasted the bread and made the tea, with cream ready in
a jar. He remembered boyhood camping days in Parthenon and old
camp lore. He returned to the stack and called, "Istra--oh, Is-tra!"
She shook her head, nestled closer into the straw, then sat up,
her hair about her shoulders. She smiled and called down:
"Good morning. Why, it's afternoon! Did you sleep well, dear?"
"Yes. Did you? Gee, I hope you did!"
"Never better in my life. I'm so sleepy yet. But comfy.
I needed a quiet sleep outdoors, and it's so peaceful here.
Breakfast! I roar for breakfast! Where's the nearest house?"
"Got breakfast all ready."
"You're a dear!"
She went to wash in the brook, and came back with eyes dancing
and hair trim, and they laughed over breakfast, glancing down
the slope of golden hazy fields. Only once did Istra pass out
of the land of their intimacy into some hinterland of
analysis--when she looked at him as he drank his tea aloud out
of the stew-pan, and wondered: "Is this really you here with
me? But you _aren't_ a boulevardier. I must say I don't
understand what you're doing here at all.... Nor a caveman,
either. I don't understand it.... But you _sha'n't_ be worried
by bad Istra. Let's see; we went to grammar-school together."
"Yes, and we were in college. Don't you remember when I was
baseball captain? You don't? Gee, you got a bad memory!"
At which she smiled properly, and they were away for Suffolk again.
"I suppose now it'll go and rain," said Istra, viciously, at
dusk. It was the first time she had spoken for a mile. Then,
after another quarter-mile: "Please don't mind my being silent.
I'm sort of stiff, and my feet hurt most unromantically. You
won't mind, will you?"
Of course he did mind, and of course he said he didn't.
He artfully skirted the field of conversation by very West
Sixteenth Street observations on a town through which they
passed, while she merely smiled wearily, and at best remarked
"Yes, that's so," whether it was so or not.
He was reflecting: "Istra's terrible tired. I ought to take
care of her." He stopped at the wood-pillared entrance of a
temperance inn and commanded: "Come! We'll have something to
eat here." To the astonishment of both of them, she meekly
obeyed with "If you wish."
It cannot be truthfully said that Mr. Wrenn proved himself a
person of _savoir faire_ in choosing a temperance hotel for their
dinner. Istra didn't seem so much to mind the fact that the
table-cloth was coarse and the water-glasses thick, and that
everywhere the elbow ran into a superfluity of greasy pepper and
salt castors. But when she raised her head wearily to peer
around the room she started, glared at Mr. Wrenn, and accused:
"Are you by any chance aware of the fact that this place is
crowded with tourists? There are two family parties from
Davenport or Omaha; I _know_ they are!"
"Oh, they ain't such bad-looking people," protested Mr.
Wrenn.... Just because he had induced her to stop for dinner
the poor man thought his masculine superiority had been
recognized.
"Oh, they're _terrible!_ Can't you _see_ it? Oh, you're _hopeless_."
"Why, that big guy--that big man with the rimless spectacles
looks like he might be a good civil engineer, and I think that
lady opposite him--"
"They're Americans."
"So're we!"
"I'm not."
"I thought--why--"
"Of course I was born there, but--"
"Well, just the same, I think they're nice people."
"Now see here. Must I argue with you? Can I have no peace,
tired as I am? Those trippers are speaking of `quaint English
flavor.' Can you want anything more than that to damn them? And
they've been touring by motor--seeing every inn on the road."
"Maybe it's fun for--"
"Now _don't_ argue with me. I know what I'm talking about.
Why do I have to explain everything? They're hopeless!"
Mr. Wrenn felt a good wholesome desire to spank her, but he
said, most politely: "You're awful tired. Don't you want to
stay here tonight? Or maybe some other hotel; and I'll stay here."
"No. Don't want to stay any place. Want to get away from
myself," she said, exactly like a naughty child.
So they tramped on again.
Darkness was near. They had plunged into a country which in the
night seemed to be a stretch of desolate moorlands. As they
were silently plodding up a hill the rain came. It came with a
roar, a pitiless drenching against which they fought uselessly,
soaking them, slapping their faces, blinding their eyes. He
caught her arm and dragged her ahead. She would be furious with
him because it rained, of course, but this was no time to think
of that; he had to get her to a dry place.
Istra laughed: "Oh, isn't this great! We're real vagabonds now."
"Why! Doesn't that khaki soak through? Aren't you wet?"
"To the skin!" she shouted, gleefully. "And I don't care!
We're _doing_ something. Poor dear, is it worried? I'll race
you to the top of the hill."
The dark bulk of a building struck their sight at the top, and
they ran to it. Just now Mr. Wrenn was ready to devour alive
any irate householder who might try to turn them out. He found
the building to be a ruined stable--the door off the hinges, the
desolate thatch falling in. He struck a match and, holding it
up, standing straight, the master, all unconscious for once in
his deprecating life of the Wrennishness of Mr. Wrenn, he
discovered that the thatch above the horse-manger was fairly
waterproof.
"Come on! Up on the edge of the manger, Istra," he ordered.
"This is a perfectly good place for a murder," she grinned, as
they sat swinging their legs.
He could fancy her grinning. He was sure about it, and well content.
"Have I been so very grouchy, Mouse? Don't you want to murder
me? I'll try to find you a long pin."
"Nope; I don't think so, much. I guess we can get along without
it this time."
"Oh dear, dear! This is very dreadful. You're so used to me now
that you aren't even scared of me any more."
"Gee! I guess I'll be scared of you all right as soon as I get
you into a dry place, but I ain't got time now. Sitting on a
manger! Ain't this the funniest place!... Now I must beat it
out and find a house. There ought to be one somewheres near here."
"And leave me here in the darknesses and wetnesses? Not a chance.
The rain'll soon be over, anyway. Really, I don't mind a bit.
I think it's rather fun."
Her voice was natural again, natural and companionable and brave.
She laughed as she stroked her wet shoulder and held his hand,
sitting quietly and bidding him listen to the soft forlorn
sound of the rain on the thatch.
But the rain was not soon over, and their dangling position was
very much like riding a rail.
"I'm so uncomfortable!" fretted Istra.
"See here, Istra, please, I think I'd better go see if I can't
find a house for you to get dry in."
"I feel too wretched to go any place. Too wretched to move."
"Well, then, I'll make a fire here. There ain't much danger."
"The place will catch fire," she began, querulously.
But he interrupted her. "Oh, _let_ the darn place catch fire!
I'm going to make a fire, I tell you!"
"I don't want to move. It'll just be another kind of
discomfort, that's all. Why couldn't you try and take a little
bit of care of me, anyway?"
"Oh, hon-ey!" he wailed, in youthful bewilderment. "I did try
to get you to stay at that hotel in town and get some rest."
"Well, you ought to have made me. Don't you realize that I took
you along to take care of me?"
"Uh--"
"Now don't argue about it. I can't stand argument all the time."
He thought instantly of Lee Theresa Zapp quarreling with her
mother, but he said nothing. He gathered the driest bits of
thatch and wood he could find in the litter on the stable floor
and kindled a fire, while she sat sullenly glaring at him, her
face wrinkled and tired in the wan firelight. When the blaze
was going steadily, a compact and safe little fire, he spread
his coat as a seat for her, and called, cheerily, "Come on now,
honey; here's a regular home and hearthstone for you."
She slipped down from the manger edge and stood in front of him,
looking into his eyes--which were level with her own.
"You _are_ good to me," she half whispered, and smoothed his
cheek, then slipped down on the outspread coat, and murmured,
"Come; sit here by me, and we'll both get warm."
All night the rain dribbled, but no one came to drive them away
from the fire, and they dozed side by side, their hands close
and their garments steaming. Istra fell asleep, and her head
drooped on his shoulder. He straightened to bear its weight,
though his back twinged with stiffness, and there he sat
unmoving, through an hour of pain and happiness and confused
meditation, studying the curious background--the dark roof of
broken thatch, the age-corroded walls, the littered earthen
floor. His hand pressed lightly the clammy smoothness of the
wet khaki of her shoulder; his wet sleeve stuck to his arm, and
he wanted to pull it free. His eyes stung. But he sat tight,
while his mind ran round in circles, considering that he loved
Istra, and that he would not be entirely sorry when he was no
longer the slave to her moods; that this adventure was the
strangest and most romantic, also the most idiotic and useless,
in history.
Toward dawn she stirred, and, slipping stiffly from his
position, he moved her so that her back, which was still wet,
faced the fire. He built up the fire again, and sat brooding
beside her, dozing and starting awake, till morning. Then his
head bobbed, and he was dimly awake again, to find her sitting
up straight, looking at him in amazement.
"It simply can't be, that's all.... Did you curl me up? I'm
nice and dry all over now. It was very good of you. You've
been a most commendable person.... But I think we'll take a
train for the rest of our pilgrimage. It hasn't been entirely
successful, I'm afraid."
"Perhaps we'd better."
For a moment he hated her, with her smooth politeness, after a
night when she had been unbearable and human by turns. He hated
her bedraggled hair and tired face. Then he could have wept, so
deeply did he desire to pull her head down on his shoulder and
smooth the wrinkles of weariness out of her dear face, the
dearer because they had endured the weariness together. But he
said, "Well, let's try to get some breakfast first, Istra."
With their garments wrinkled from rain, half asleep and rather
cross, they arrived at the esthetic but respectable colony of
Aengusmere by the noon train. _
Read next: CHAPTER XI HE BUYS AN ORANGE TIE
Read previous: CHAPTER IX HE ENCOUNTERS THE INTELLECTUALS
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