“Yes, the subject of my dream was my father,” she repeated to herself, wondering suddenly what she was doing in Paris, and hearing a slight snore she looked over the edge of the bed at the sleeping figure beside her.
“Why am I here?” she thought. “This is madness!” and she determined to get out of bed and dress and hurry away if she could do so without waking her neighbour. A minute passed while she waited for him to fall sound asleep, but he stirred uneasily when she sat up in bed. “I must give him five minutes,” she thought. “Then I shall be rested.” She lay back, aware that a task awaited her which would need all her strength, but before two minutes had passed she began breathing gently and was asleep herself.
FIFTEEN: HONEYMOONING
A month had passed, and in the last week of their honeymoon Mr. and Mrs. Grandison were staying at an hotel in Avignon. The sun was already hot when Anne came down to breakfast after waking her husband and leaving him to shave and to dress. The American ladies smiled at her as she came into the little courtyard, bidding her: “Good morning,” and hoping that she had passed a pleasant night.
A pleasant night! What could she answer to them? But Anne smiled back, and then she laughed, for she was happy to be alive, and her skin tingled with pleasure as she took her seat carelessly under the flowering oleander. A dog ran in from the street causing a diversion, the cat sunning herself on the cobblestones leapt on to one of the tables; the dog yapped, but he was in no mood for cats, and hearing his master’s whistle he ran out again. But watching them Anne felt as much excitement as if she had never seen a cat and a dog before. Her eyes were still bright with interest when the waiter came up with coffee, and he also asked if she had slept well. On the tray there were two letters, one for her and one for Monsieur.
The first letters for three weeks! And Anne seized hers, forwarded from her hotel in Paris, and tore it open. It was from her father and ran as follows:
The Vicarage, Dry Coulter,
Huntingdonshire.
My dear Anne,
The news of your marriage is not such a great surprise as you anticipated, but it is not the less welcome because I had an inkling that what moved you to fly abroad was much the same as that which moves the whitethroat to fly here in summer.
Dear girl, I write strangely removed from you and the blessing I send is a more disinterested one than parents are usually in a position to give. My revelation has come to me late in life, but I am aware that it has changed me greatly, so that now I find it almost impossible to think of worldly things. However, I have packed up the old silver teapot which was your mother’s and have had it sent to you addressed to the Paris branch of our bank at Linton for greater safety.... You shall have the rat-tail spoons, but one seems to be mislaid. Your letter was the first communication for many weeks to recall me to this transient world, and to that extent I must admit that your marriage caused me pain. But no, I am wrong, something else has happened since you left—a sad tragedy.