And so they were married in a passionate hurry, and went away to spend a few days together before starting the affair of house-hunting. Westenra, whose vacation was already over, could not afford the time for a honeymoon in the Adirondacks which he would have loved Val to see in all the glory of autumn. They went no farther afield than a little house on the edge of Bronx Park, whence, favoured by mild and lovely weather, they adventured forth daily into the beautiful natural woods that skirt this northern point of New York.
To Val at least those were flawless days. For once in her life she had got what she wanted, and the gift had not turned to dust and ashes in her hand. Happiness and gaiety radiated from her, and Westenra, caught in the rays, reflected them back, so that no one would have guessed that he was not so happy as she. Though, indeed, for a man who has the perilous gift of seeing through life's red and golden apples to the little spot of decay at the core, he was extraordinarily content. And at last now that she was his wife he took her into his confidence about his life and profession. Only to a certain extent, however, for he was a deeply reserved man, and constitutionally unable to lay his heart and inner thoughts bare (allowing that such a thing were desirable) to even the best beloved of eyes. That he hid this intense reserve behind frank manners and a witty tongue was a characteristic of his race. The Irish are the jesters of the world, but their laughter is a screen for their hopeless hearts and the deep melancholy of their souls.
Marriage is full of surprises, and not always happy ones. This barrier of reserve that she soon divined in her husband was one of the things that amazed Val. Her own heart was a book ready to open at the touch of love. True, some of its pages were scrawled and scribbled, blotted too in places and stained with tears; but there it was, ready to fly open to a trusted hand. It was not her fault that Westenra had refused to turn up those pages, but rather at his wish that they had been sealed and locked away. Well! that was the book of yesterday. She had begun another since they met, and there, at least, he might turn the pages when he listed and read without misgiving.
But she longed and wished that he would trust her wholly too. Would let her, if not into the secret chambers of his heart, then at least past its outer portals. Spite of his frank, gay ways with her she knew well by the subtle and winding paths in which the minds of women travel, that behind his deep grey-green eyes there was another Garrett Westenra whom she had not yet reached. The knowledge amazed her but did not daunt her. Neither did it spoil her honeymoon. Her faith in love was of the quality that moves mountains. In the meantime life was passing dear and sweet.
But it was characteristic of each of them that until the first days in New York Val did not even know that Westenra was a surgeon. It sounds absurd and improbable and everything that is unpractical; but Val was all of these things, and the fact is she had never given the matter five minutes' thought. She knew he could do something and do it well: that was written all over the man, and that was the only thing of importance.
Once or twice, struck by his logic and extraordinary faculty for stating cases briefly and clearly, she had vaguely wondered if he were a lawyer. It might perhaps be supposed that after her unhappy experience with Valdana she would have exercised a certain caution in the choice of a second husband. Not so--Valentine's was a nature that could never learn caution. What she had learned, however, was a better judgment of men, and she could not have been imposed upon twice by a man of Valdana's stamp. Years of intimate friendship with men who "did and dared" had taught her to know unerringly a "good" man when she met him, meaning by "good," a man who worked with his brain and heart at some business, or even game, in which his principles and honour were involved. In Westenra she recognised the type instantly. This was no man shirking the battle of life and seeking a woman to support him!
Therefore, if Westenra had announced his profession as that of a travelling tinker, she would have been quite undismayed. Indeed, life as the wife of a travelling tinker whom she happened to love would have suited her very pleasantly.
As for Westenra, it has been stated that one of his principles was never to give to fellow-travellers information about himself that did not concern them; and on the ship, right up to the last night, he had essayed to look upon Val as nothing more than a fellow-traveller; therefore, his profession was no concern of hers. Afterwards, when it was so swiftly settled that she was to become his wife, the information did concern her, he made her free of it. She accepted it as she accepted all things concerning him, with ardour and pride. It seemed to her that she could not have chosen any more desirable profession in the world for her man. She had known several doctors abroad, clever and delightful men, but none of them had happened to be married, so she had no idea as to what the special functions and duties of a doctor's wife might be. Whatever they were she was quite ready to tackle them with a stout heart for the sake of Garrett Westenra.
He had taken her to see his bachelor quarters in the deeps of the city where for years he had lived and worked. They were simple almost to bareness, but Val liked them well. They reminded her of her own quarters in London, and she foresaw that with one good maid she would be able to run her little home without the risk of Westenra's ever finding out what a bad housekeeper he had married. It came as a shock to hear that he was considering the matter of leaving these rooms to take a house somewhere else, near Central Park for choice, where he could have a fine operating-room and good accommodation for cases after operation. It must of necessity be a very large house, with an efficient staff of servants and nurses attached. The idea of collaboration with Godfrey had been rejected. He had decided to stand or fall on his own merits.
"Would you mind very much, dearest?" he asked, somewhat diffidently. "I know it is too bad to ask you to make your home in a sort of hospital, but it is for both our sakes. The only way surgeons can really make good on the money side is by having their own place for operations."