The Upas Tree, Florence Louisa Barclay [the little red hen read aloud .TXT] 📗

"I won't go. It isn't worth it."

Her arms strained around him, and he heard her sob; and, alas--it was the sob of the woman in the long grass, when she clung to the man who had crawled out first. His plot stood out to him once more as the supreme thing.

"At least," he added, "it wouldn't be worth it, if it costs you so much. It _is_ my strongest plot, but I will give it up if you would rather I stayed at home."

Then Helen loosed her detaining arms, and lifting a brave white face, smiled at him through her tears.

"No, Ronnie," she said. "I promised, when we married, always to help you with your work and to make it easy. I am not going to fail you now. If the new book requires a parting, we will face it bravely. At the present moment we both need luncheon, and I must get out of my habit. Ring, and tell them we shall not be ready for a quarter of an hour, there's a dear boy! And think of something really funny to tell me at lunch. Afterwards we will discuss plans."

She had reached the door when Ronald suddenly called after her: "Helen! Hadn't you something to tell me, too?"

She turned in the doorway. Her face was gay with smiles.

"Oh, mine must wait," she said. "Your new plot, and the wonderful journey it involves, require our undivided attention."

The sun shone very brightly just then. It touched the halo of Helen's soft hair, turning it to gold. _In hoc vince_ gleamed upon the pane.

For a moment she stood in the doorway, giving him a chance to insist upon hearing that which she had to tell. But Ronald, easily satisfied, turned and rang the bell.

"All right, sweet," he said. "How lovely you look in the sunshine! If it was business, or anything worrying, I would certainly rather not hear it now. You have bucked me up splendidly, Helen. Seven months seem nothing; and my whole mind is bounding forward into my story. I really must give you an outline of the plot." He followed her into the hall. "Helen! Do come back for a minute."

But Helen was half way up the stairs. He heard her laugh as she reached the landing.

"I am hungry, dear," she called over the banisters, "and so are you, only you don't know it! Crawl out of your long grass, and make yourself presentable before the gong sounds; or I shall send bananas for one, to your study!"

"All right!" he shouted; gave Helen's message to the butler; then went through the billiard-room, whistling gaily.

"Why, she is as keen as I am," he said to himself, as he turned on the hot and cold water taps. "And she is perfectly right about not coming with me. Of course it's jolly hard to leave her; but I believe I shall do better work alone."

His mind went back to Helen's bright face in the doorway. He realised her mastery, for his sake, of her own dread of the parting.

"What a brick she is!" he said. "Always so perfectly plucky. I don't believe any other fellow in the world has such a wife as Helen!"


CHAPTER III


HELEN TAKES THE INITIATIVE

Having once made up her mind that it was right and wise to let Ronnie go, Helen did not falter. She immediately took control of all necessary arrangements. Nothing was forgotten. Ronnie's outfit was managed with as little trouble to himself as possible. They dealt together, in a gay morning at the Stores, with all interesting items, but those he called "the dull things" apparently selected themselves. Anyway, they all appeared in his room, when the time came for packing.

So whole-hearted was his wife's interest in the undertaking, that Ronnie almost began to look upon it as her plan.

It was she who arranged routes and booked his passages.

When Cook's cheque had to be written it was a large one.

Helen took out her cheque book.

"No, no, dear," said Ronnie. "I must pay it out of my own earnings. It is a literary speculation."

Helen hesitated. She knew Ronnie did not realise how much the new building and necessary repairs on the estate were costing her this year.

"What is your balance at the bank, Ronnie?"

"I haven't the remotest idea."

"Darling, why don't you make a note of your last balance on your counterfoil? Then at any moment you can add up all subsequent cheques and see at a glance how you stand."

"Yes, I know, you have explained all that to me before, Helen. But, you see, most of my counterfoils are blank! I forget to fill them in. You can't write books, and also keep accounts. If you really think it important, I might give up the former, and turn my whole attention to the latter."

"Don't be silly, dear! You are blessed with a wife who keeps a careful account of every penny of her own. But I know nothing of your earnings and spendings, excepting when you suddenly remark at breakfast: 'Hullo! Here's a useful little cheque for a thousand'--in much the same tone of voice as you exclaim the next minute: 'Hullo! What excellent hot-buttered toast!' Ronnie, I wish you would manage to invest rather more."

"My dear girl, I have invested heaps! You made me. But what is the use of saving money when there are only ourselves to consider? We may as well spend it, and have a good time. If there were kiddies to leave it to, it would be different. I had so long of being impecunious, that I particularly enjoy feeling bottomless! Besides, each year will bring in more. This African book ought to be worth all the rest put together."

Helen was silent; but she sighed as she filled in Cook's cheque and signed it. Ronald had spoken so lightly of the great disappointment of their married life. It was always difficult to get Ronnie to take things seriously. The fact was: he took _himself_ so seriously, that he was obliged to compensate by taking everything and everybody else rather lightly. No doubt this arrangement of relative values, made for success. Ronnie's success had been very rapid, and very brilliant. He accepted it with the unconscious modesty of the true artist; his work meaning immeasurably more to him than that which his work brought him, either in praise or pennies.

But Helen gloried in the praise, kept a watchful eye, so far as he would let her, on the pennies; and herself ministered to the idea that all else must be subservient, where Ronnie's literary career was concerned.

She was ministering to it now, at a personal cost known only to her own brave heart.


CHAPTER IV


FIRELIGHT IN THE STUDIO

It was Ronnie's last evening in England. The parting, which had seemed so far away, must take place on the morrow. It took all Helen's bright courage to keep up Ronnie's spirits.

After dinner they sat together in a room they still called the studio, although Helen had given up her painting, soon after their marriage.

It was a large old-fashioned room, oak-panelled and spacious.

A huge mirror, in a massive gilt frame, hung upon the wall opposite door and fireplace, reaching from the ceiling to the parquet floor.

Ronald, who used the studio as a smoking-room, had introduced three or four deep wicker chairs, comfortably cushioned, and a couple of oriental tables.

The fireplace lent itself grandly in winter to great log-fires, when the crimson curtains were drawn in ample folds over the many windows, shutting out the dank bleakness of the park without, and imparting a look of cosiness to the empty room.

A dozen old family portraits--banished from more important places, because their expressions annoyed Ronnie--were crowded into whatever space was available, and glowered down, from the bad light to which they had been relegated, on the very modern young man whose uncomplimentary remarks had effected their banishment, and who sprawled luxuriously in the firelight, monarch of all he surveyed, in the domain which for centuries had been their own.

The only other thing in the room was a piano, on which Ronnie very effectively and very inaccurately strummed by ear; and on which Helen, with careful skill, played his accompaniments, when he was seized with a sudden desire to sing.

Ronald's music was always a perplexity to Helen. There was a quality about it so extraordinarily, so unusually, beautiful; combined with an entire lack of method or of training, and a quite startling ignorance of the most rudimentary rules.

On one occasion, during a sharp attack of influenza, when he had insisted upon being down and about, with a temperature of 104, he suddenly rose from the depths of a chair in which he had been lying, talking wild and feverish nonsense; stumbled over to the piano, dropped heavily upon the stool, then proceeded to play and sing, in a way, which brought tears to his wife's eyes, while her heart stood still with anxiety and wonder.

Yet, when she mentioned it a few days later, he appeared to have forgotten all about it, turning the subject with almost petulant abruptness.

* * * * *


But, on this their last evening together, the piano stood unheeded. They seemed only to want two chairs, and each other.

She could hardly take her eyes from his face, remembering how many months must pass before she could see him again. Yet it was Ronnie who made moan, and Helen who bravely comforted; turning as often as possible to earnest discussion of his plot and its possibilities. But after a while even she went under, to the thought of the nearness of the parting.

Though it was late in April, the evenings were chilly; a fire glowed in the grate.

Presently Ronnie rose, turned off the electric light, and seated himself on the rug in the firelight, resting his head against his wife's knees.

Silently she passed her fingers through his hair.

Something in the quality of her silence turned Ronald's thoughts from himself to her alone. "Helen," he said, "I hate to be leaving you. Shall you be very lonely?"

She could not answer.

"You are sure your good old Mademoiselle Victorine is coming to be with you?"

"Yes, dear. She holds herself in readiness to come as soon as I feel able to send for her. She and I lived alone together here during eighteen months, after Papa's death. We were very quietly happy. I do not see why we should not be happy again."

"What shall you do all day?"

"Well, I shall have my duties in the village and on the estate; and, for our recreation, we shall read French and German, and do plenty of music. Mademoiselle Victorine delights in playing what she calls '_des a quatre mains_,' which consist in our both prancing vigorously upon the same piano; she steadily punishing the bass; while I fly after her, on the more lively treble. It is good practice; it has its fascinations, and it will take the place of riding, for me."

"Shan't you ride, Helen?"

"No, Ronnie; not without you."

"Will you and Mademoiselle Victorine drive your four-in-hands in here?"

"No,