“To me any flower shop, however small, acted as a magnet. One day I stood gazing in the window of a tiny florist’s shop on the Strand. A girl was kneeling among the flowers, and as she lifted her head our eyes met. She was like a golden lily. Her hair was like Connie’s hair, and the blue of her eyes was the blue of the pansies she held in her hand. And her name was Constance.”
He paused for an instant.
“Her father, who had been a rector in a small parish in the south of England, died just previous to our meeting, leaving his motherless child without kith or kin. Lest I weary you I may say briefly that we were married. My father would not even grant me an interview, but wrote to me saying that marrying as I had done had barred me forever from his door. I did not care. I was happy—completely, supremely happy. I sold a small estate bequeathed to me by my mother, and we set out for British Columbia.
“Ah!” he breathed softly, “that voyage! We could not afford it, but we travelled first-class—it was our honeymoon and we were young. We had never been to sea before, and the novelty of it all wove a spell about us. As we walked the deck we talked joyously of our wonderful future in the mysterious Great West.
“Our first year in Vancouver was one of blessed content. There is no love that could be greater than ours. Clerical work was scarce, so I took any job that offered. I would come home black with coal-dust or white with lime, and my wife would cry out merrily as she threw herself into my arms. We turned our hardships into jests.”
A smile of infinite tenderness played about his eyes as memory recalled the golden days with the woman he loved.
“The next winter I was taken grievously ill. I lay helplessly on my back while my tender wife tramped from house to house teaching painting and music. Day after day through all kinds of weather she made her daily rounds to keep us in the bare necessities of life, and pay the doctor’s bills.”
Wainwright’s voice sank and almost failed him for a moment. Recovering himself, he resumed his story.
“She would come home at night, tired and worn, to fall asleep in a chair by my bedside, while I raved in a fever. She went without food to buy dainties for me. She never lost her cheery smile—but it killed her! She died giving birth to—to—Constance.”
Tears rose to his eyes, and for a moment he covered them with his hand. With a great effort he continued.