Part 7

Then she sealed her doom. “Ladies never make gifts to their servants,” she added. “Their secretaries, housekeepers, or companions disburse their bounty.”

I remembered the old U. S. A. An American chef waiter might hope to be the father of a President. On the ranch I had cooked for men of less education and much worse manners than this domestic who brought my athletic husband's breakfast to his bedside and who happened to be the proud father of twins.

I would learn table manners from an English lady of aristocratic birth and social experience; but when it came to the human act of a little gift to a faithful servant, I declared my American independence.

I was homesick for Wisconsin, homesick for real and simple people. I wanted to go home! That night Tom and I had our first real quarrel, and it was over my dismissal of the Scotch lady of aristocratic birth. Life became intolerable for a while. I dragged through days of bitter homesickness. Nothing seemed real. No one seemed sincere. Life was a stage. Everybody seemed to be acting a part and speaking their pieces with guttural voices. Even my husband's voice sounded different--or else I realized for the first time that Boston apes London English. Tom had learned his mother tongue in Boston, and now suddenly he seemed like a foreigner to me simply because he spoke like these other foreigners. The sun went out of my heaven. I was dumb with loneliness and sick with the fear of lost faith. Could it be that my husband was affecting these English mannerisms? Certainly he seemed at home in England, while I seemed to be adrift, alone in an arctic ocean.

I had no friend in England, and more and more my husband's special work was engrossing him. When we were together I felt tongue-tied. He had tried to be gentle with me; but I was strange in this world of his, and lonely and sensitive. I had dreamed so much of this world, and now that I was in it, it was false and petty. I longed for the United States, for my Northwest, for my hills and wide, far plains. I wanted to meet somebody from Madison who smiled like a friend.

One day Tom looked at me searchingly, and said I must be ill.

I confessed to a little homesickness. Tom became very attentive. He took me sightseeing. We lunched at the quaint inn where Dickens found his inspiration for “Pickwick Papers” and where the literary lights of London foregathered and still foregather for luncheon. We sat in one of the cozy little stalls--just Tom and I.

Suddenly it swept over me that life had gone all wrong. Here was a dream come true, and no joy in my heart. Tom asked me for my thoughts. I told him, quite frankly, I was thinking of home. I was thinking of mother in her cotton house dress with her knitted shawl around her shoulders, of father in his jeans and high boots tramping over the range with the men; I saw the cow and the pigs and the chickens, the smelly corral and the water hole, the twins trying to rub each other's face in the mud. And I was thinking--Tom would n't fit into my world, and I could not belong to his. That was the second time I heard Tom swear. He wanted to know what kind of a snob I thought he was. He'd be as much at home with dad on the ranch as he was in London. “The fault is with you,” he said. “You 're not adaptable, and you don't try to be.”

Tom did n't understand. He never did. In all the years together, which he made so rich and happy, Tom never understood how hard and bitter a school was that first year of my married life. But Tom did try to give me a good time in London. He took me to interesting places and we were entertained by a number of people, mostly ponderous and stupid. Tom did not suggest that we entertain in our turn. I think he felt I was not ready for it, although even in after years, when we talked frankly about many things, he would never admit this.

I shall never forget my first week-end party in England. I was not well, and Tom, manlike, felt sure the change, a trip down to Essex and new people, would do me good. The thought of the country and a visit with some good simple country folk appealed to me too, so I packed the bags and met Tom at Victoria Station at eleven o'clock. Alas! It is a far cry from a Montana ranch to a gentleman's estate in England! My vision of a quiet visit “down on a farm” vanished the minute we stepped off the train. Liveried coachmen collected our baggage. They seemed to be discussing something; then I heard Tom say: “I guess that 's all. I 'll wire back for the rest of it.”

We were led to a handsome cart drawn by a fine tandem team, and Tom and I were alone for a minute.

“My God, Mary!” he burst out, “didn't you bring any clothes for us?”

“I certainly have,” I retorted, sure I was in the right this time. “Your nightshirt and my nightgown; your toilet articles and mine; a change of underclothes; a clean shirt and two collars for you, and my new striped silk waist.”

I shall never forget Tom's expression.

“Do you know where we are going?” he groaned. “To one of the grandest houses in England! Oh, Lord! I ought to have told you. You 'll need all the clothes you have down here. And--and a valet and maid will unpack the bags--oh, hell!” After more of the same kind of talk, he began to cook up some yarn to tell the valet.

Suddenly all that is free-born in me rose to the surface. “Is it the thing for gentlemen to be afraid of the valet?” I asked my husband. “Does a servant regulate your life and set your standards?”

Tom was quiet for several moments; then he took my hand and said very earnestly: “Mary, don't you ever lose your respect for the real things. It will save both of us.” After a while he added: “Just the same, I 'll have to lie out of this baggage hole.”

He did, in a very casual, laughing way--such a positive set of lies that I marveled and began to wonder how much of Tom was acting and how much was real.

Tom went back to London on the next train, and reached the “farm” with our baggage before it was time to dress for the eight-o'clock dinner.

The dinner was long and stupid. After dinner the women went into the drawing-room and gossiped about politics and personalities until the men joined them, when they sat down to cards. I did not know how to play cards, and so was left with a garrulous old woman who had eaten and drunk over-much.

It had been a long day for me. I was ill and tired. Suddenly sleep began to overpower me. I batted my eyes to keep them open. I tried looking at the crystal lights, but my leaden eyes could not face them. The constant drone of that old woman was putting me to sleep. I tried to say a few words now and then to wake myself. I felt myself slipping. Once my head dropped and came up with a jerk. I watched the great French clock. Its hands did not seem to move. I looked at Tom. He was absorbed in his game. I could not endure it another minute. I went over and said good night to my hostess who had spoken to me only once since my arrival.

Drowsy as I was, I noticed she seemed surprised. “Oh, no,” I told her; “I am not ill, only very sleepy.”

How good my pillow felt!

The next morning Tom was cross. I had made a faux pas. I had shown I was bored and peeved and had gone to bed before the hostess indicated it was bedtime. It “was n't done” in England.

“What do you do if you can't keep awake?” I asked. “You slip out quietly, go to your room ask a maid to call you after you have had forty winks, then you go back and pretend you are having a good time,” said Tom.

There were some bitter hours after we got back to London. But Tom won, and I promised to get a companion. Then there came into my life the most wonderful of friends. She was the widow of a British Army officer who had been killed in India, and her only child was dead. She was a woman of education and heart; she understood my needs, all of them, and I interested her. She had seen great suffering; she had a deep feeling for humanity and an honest desire to be of use in the world. In the English register my companion was listed as the Honorable Evelyn, but we quickly got down to Mary and Eve. We loved each other. Eve went to France with us a few months later. She made me talk French with her. My first formal dinner in France was a pleasant surprise. It was like a great family party--not dull and quiet like the English dinner, and ever so much more fun. Everybody participated. If there was one lion at the table, everybody shared him.

There is something in being born on a silken couch. Nothing surprises you. You are at ease anywhere in the world. Eve fitted into Paris as naturally as in her native London, I began to feel at home there myself. It was a city of happy people--care free, natural, sympathetic. There was a lack of restraint which, after the oppressive dignity of London, was a rare treat. No one was critical. Every one accepted my halting and faulty French without ridicule or condescension. The amiability and the friendliness of the French people thawed my heart and began to lift me out of my slough of homesickness. Happiness came back to me.

There had been hours in England when only the knowledge that a woman's rarest gift was coming to me, and that Tom was proud and happy about it, kept me from running away--back to the simple life of my own United States.