Part 5 (2/2)
”Would you like some relics?” says a voice at her elbow.
Eleanor knows who is speaking before she looks round. Herbert Dallison stands besides her, holding out a French forage cap, a bullet, and a rusty sword broken off in the middle.
She seizes them delightedly.
”Thank you, thank you, but please go away,” as Philip's figure looms in sight.
She does not need to ask twice. Herbert Dallison seems to vanish into thin air.
”You silly child!” cries Philip laughingly, ”to spend your money on those so-called 'relics' manufactured at Birmingham or Brussels to beguile innocent tourists. A fresh crop of bullets and swords, I'm told, is sown every year, that you may have the pleasure of seeing them turned up yourself.”
Eleanor smiles a little nervously. She is beginning to wish she had not taken the presents. What would Philip say if he knew?
He helps her into the carriage with her spoil, the giver following with his party in the rear.
Eleanor becomes momentarily more conscience-stricken; the sight of the ”relics” are hateful to her.
”I want to throw all this rubbish away,” she cries at last. ”It will only be a worry to me.”
”Very true,” replies her husband.
”I know,” a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. ”Let me shy them out on the road, and someone will think they have discovered real curiosities.”
She stands up in childish glee, casting back a mocking smile at Herbert Dallison. One by one she flings his gifts from her, with an expressive look signifying second thoughts are best. He has taken his friends into his confidence, and is horrified at the hilarious laughter which breaks from them at Eleanor's act.
”Hang it all,” he mutters, ”it's beastly ungrateful; can't buy that sort of rot for nothing.”
But he is too proud to stop and recover his property; so a bullet, a cap, and a sword are left by the wayside like the seed that was not good, to pa.s.s into strange hands.
”Moral,” cries Bertie's pal, slapping him on the back, ”don't interfere with honeymoon couples, they're abominably slow. Stick to widows, old man, for the future.”
At the word ”widow” Bertie actually blushes. There is more sting in this light chaff than his comrades suppose, for the vision of a villa at Richmond with its dark-haired divinity rises between the dust of the two carriages, soothing his ruffled feelings and drowning Eleanor's fair form in the seas of forgetfulness.
The honeymoon slips by pleasantly.
Mrs. Roche enjoys the long railway journeys above everything, which astonishes Philip, who thinks them the worst part of the trip.
”You see I so seldom go in trains,” Eleanor says when he expresses surprise. ”I love to listen to the whizz of the engine, and see the rus.h.i.+ng, panting people on the stations worrying the grand officials in their smart uniforms. Then it is so nice to be first-cla.s.s, and lean back on the cus.h.i.+ons and c.o.c.k up your feet if you wish. Besides, it is awfully jolly just now to look out of the window and think.”
”What do you think of?” asks her husband.
”All the beautiful presents you have given me, and the lovely house on the terrace at Richmond where I am to live.”
The pleasure she takes in little things is a daily marvel to Philip.
In the train, for instance, every moment she opens her dressing-bag, to shake scent from a silver bottle over her hands or peep in a dainty gla.s.s at her complexion. Each time they stop something fresh must be bought--a bunch of grapes, a bag of red plums, flowers, and unwholesome-looking tarts.
She actually purchases a tumbler of lager beer, drinking it with relish, declaring it quite home-like and jolly.
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