XXVIII.
THE next day Paul started at dawn for Port aux Pins, he wished to make the house ready for his wife; he had not much money, but there was one room in the plain cottage which should be beautiful. No suspicion came to him that there would be any difficulty in making it beautiful; his idea was simply that it was a matter of new furniture.
He reached Port aux Pins at night, and let himself into his cottage with his key; lighting a candle, he went to his room. He had never been dissatisfied with this simple apartment, he was not dissatisfied now; there was a good closet, where he could hang up his clothes; there was a broad shelf, where he could put his hand in the dark upon anything which he might want; there was his iron bedstead, and there was his white-pine bureau; two wooden chairs; a wash-hand stand, with a large bowl; a huge tin pail for water, a flat bath-tub in position on the floor, and plenty of towels and sponges—what could man want more?
But a woman would want more; and he gave a little laugh, which had a thrill in it, as he thought of Eve standing there, and looking about her at his plain masculine arrangements. The bare floor would not please her, perhaps; he must order a carpet. “Turkey,” he thought, vaguely; he had heard the word, and supposed that it signified something very light in color, with a great many brilliant roses. “Perhaps there ought to be a few more little things,” he said to himself, doubtfully. Then, after another moment’s survey: “But I needn’t be disturbed, she’ll soon fill it full of tottlish little tables and dimity; she’ll flounce everything with white muslin, and tie everything with blue ribbons; she’ll overflow into the next room too, this won’t be enough for her. Perhaps I’d better throw the two into one, with a big fireplace—I know she likes big fireplaces; if it’s as large as that, I sha’n’t be suffocated, even with all her muslin.” And, with another fond laugh, he turned in.
The morning after Paul’s departure, Eve did not go near Cicely; she asked Mrs. Mile, in a tone which even that unimaginative woman found haughty, how Mrs. Morrison was. (In reality the haughtiness hid a trembling fear.)
“She seems better, Miss Bruce, as regards her physical state. Truth compels me to add, however, that she says extremely irrational things.”
“What things?” asked Eve, with a pang of dread. For the things which Mrs. Mile would call irrational might indicate that Cicely was herself again, Mrs. Mile’s idea of the rational being always the commonplace.
“When she first woke, ma’am, she said, ‘Oh, what a splendid wind!—how it does blow! I must go out and run and run. Can you run, Priscilla Jane?’—when my name, ma’am, is Priscilla Ann. Seeing that she was so lively, I began to tell her a dream which I had had. She interrupted me: ‘Dreams are the reflections of our thoughts by day, Priscilla Jane. I know your thoughts by day; they are wearing. I don’t want repetitions of them by night, I should be ground to powder.’ Now, ma’am, could anything be more irrational?”
“She is herself again!” thought Eve. She went off into the forest, and did not return until the noon meal was over. Going to the kitchen, she ate some bread, she was fond of dry bread; coming back after this frugal repast, she still avoided Cicely’s lodge, she went down to the beach. Here her restlessness ceased for the moment; she sat looking over the water, her eyes not seeing it, seeing only Paul. After half an hour, Hollis, with simulated carelessness, passed that way and stopped. As soon as he saw her face he said to himself, “They are to be married immediately!”