Chapter 67
Stevenson?"
"Yes, only--"
"The discussion's closed."
"Are we engaged?"
"I don't know. We'll have to see our agents about that."
"Oh, don't rag. Marriage is not a joke. You are a most extraordinary girl."
"Thanks for the discount. I shall be thirty in three months, don't forget. Talking of the advantages of rouge, you might get rid of some of yours before supper, if you don't mind."
"Are we engaged?" Arthur repeated, firmly.
"No, the engagement ring and the marriage-bells will be pealed simultaneously. You're as free as Boccaccio, old son."
"You're in one of those moods when it's impossible to argue with you."
"So much the better. We shall enjoy our supper all the more. I'm so excited at the idea of going back to England. After all, I shall have been away nearly three years. I shall find G.o.dchildren who can talk.
Think of that. Arthur, don't you want to go back?"
"Yes, if I can get a shop. I think it's madness for me to leave New York, but I daren't let you go alone."
The antic.i.p.ation of being in England again and of putting to the test her achievement could not charm away all Sylvia's regret at leaving America, most of all New York. She owed to New York this new stability that she discovered in her life. She owed to some action of New York upon herself the delight of inspiration, the sweet purgatory of effort, the hope of a successful end to her dreams. It was the only city of which she had ever taken a formal farewell, such as she took from the top of the Metropolitan Tower upon a lucid morning in April. The city lay beneath, with no magic of smoke to lend a meretricious romance to its checkered severity; a city encircled with silver waters and pavilioned by huge skies, expressing modern humanity, as the great monuments of ancient architecture express the mighty dead.
"We too can create our Parthenons," thought Sylvia, as she sank to earth in the florid elevator.
They crossed the Atlantic on one of the smaller Cunard liners. The voyage was uneventful. Nearly all the pa.s.sengers in turn told Sylvia why they were not traveling by one of the large s.h.i.+ps, but n.o.body suggested as a reason that the smaller s.h.i.+ps were cheaper.
When they reached England Arthur went to stay with his mother at Dulwich. Sylvia went to the Airdales; she wanted to set her scheme in motion, but she promised to come and stay at Dulwich later on.
"At last you've come back," Olive
"Great Scott! Look at Sylvius and Rose!" Sylvia exclaimed. "They're like two pigs made of pink sugar. Pity we never thought of it at the time, or they could have been christened Scarlet and Crimson."
"Darlings, isn't G.o.dmamma horrid to you?" said Olive.
"Here! Here! What are you teaching them to call me?"
"Dat's G.o.dmamma," said Sylvius, in a thick voice.
"Dat's G.o.dmamma," Rose echoed.
"Not on your life, cullies," their G.o.dmother announced, "unless you want a thick ear each."
"Give me one," said Sylvius, stolidly.
"Give me one," Rose echoed.
"How can you tease the poor darlings so?" Olive exclaimed.
"Sylvius will have one," he announced, in the same thick monotone.
"Rose will have one," echoed his sister.
Sylvia handed her G.o.dson a large painted ball.
"Here's your thick ear, Pork."
Sylvius laughed fatly; the ball and the new name both pleased him.
"And here's yours," she said, offering another to Rose, who waited to see what her brother did with his and then proceeded to do the same with the same fat laugh. Suddenly, however, her lips puckered.
"What is it, darling?" her mother asked, anxiously.
"Rose wants to be said Pork."
"You didn't call her Pork," Olive translated, reproachfully, to Sylvia.
"Give me back the ball," said Sylvia. "Now then, here's your thick ear, Porka."
Rose laughed ecstatically. After two ornaments had been broken Jack came in, and the children retired with their nurse.
Sylvia found that family life had not spoiled Jack's interest in that career of hers; indeed, he was so much excited by her news that he suggested omitting for once the ceremony of seeing the twins being given their bath in order not to lose any of the short time available before he should have to go down to the theater. Sylvia, however, would not hear of any change in the domestic order, and reminded Jack that she was proposing to quarter herself on them for some time.
"I know, it's terrific," he said.
The excitement of the bath was always considerable, but this evening, with Sylvia's a.s.sistance, it became acute. Sylvius..h.i.t his nurse in the eye with the soap, and Rose, wrought up to a fever of emulation, managed to hurl the sponge into the grate.
Jack was enthusiastic about Sylvia's scheme. She was not quite sure that he understood exactly at what she was aiming, but he wished her so well that in any case his criticism would have had slight value; he gave instead his devoted attention, and that seemed a pledge of success.
Success! Success! it sounded like a cataract in her ears, drowning every other sound. She wondered if the pa.s.sion of her life was to be success.
On no thoughts urged so irresistibly had she ever sailed to sleep, nor had she ever wakened in such a buoyancy, greeting the day as a swimmer greets the sea.
"Now what about the backing?" Jack asked.
"Backing? I'll back myself. You'll be my manager. I've enough to hire the Pierian Hall for a day and a night. I've enough to pay for one scene. Which reminds me I must get hold of Ronald Walker. You'll sing, Jack, two songs? Oh, and there's Arthur Madden. He'll sing, too."
"Who's he?" Olive asked.
"Oh, didn't I tell you about him?" said Sylvia, almost too nonchalantly, she feared. "He's rather good. Quite good, really. I'll tell you about him sometime. By the way, I've talked so much about myself and my plans that I've never asked about other people. How's the countess?"
Olive looked grave. "We don't ever see them, but everybody says that Clarehaven is going the pace tremendously."
"Have they retreated to Devons.h.i.+re?"
"Oh no! Didn't you hear? I thought I'd told you in one of my letters. He had to sell the family place. Do you remember a man called Leopold Hausberg?"
"Do I not?" Sylvia exclaimed. "He took a flat once for a chimpanzee instead of Lily."