Then I dried myself in a huge towel, and dressed. I laughed at the curling tongs, and blew the little lamp out—my hair did not want curling tongs. I laughed to think of the frights of women going about with their noses in the air, who had to curl their heads.
One of the bonnets in the wardrobe fitted me perfectly. I could have chosen a hat, but I preferred this bonnet. I put on the sealskin cloak. Then, taking the bunch of violets with the stalks all dripping, I put it in my breast.
Wilder was standing in the hall as I came down the great staircase. He smiled at the violets as if he were pleased. "You look very well," he said, passing, as he spoke, into the library, where I followed him. "Now, here are three letters I have written—one to the jewellers, this one to the portmanteau people, and this to Coutts' bank. Drive first to Coutts', give them this letter and my cheque on the British Linen Company. They will open an account with you, small as the sum is, because they know me very well; they will give you a cheque book, and you can give cheques to your milliners and people—poor Beatrice, I want you to be happy." I felt horrible for a moment as he said this. It was said in such a supplicatory tone, as if he wanted to propitiate me, as if I were some evil thing he feared, and he had said it before just in the same voice, "Poor Beatrice, I want you to be happy."
How this story is lengthening out. I thought I could have told it all in three or four pages, and now look, thirty pages—and yet I want to make it as long as possible. Can you guess what I say to the old doctor who comes to see me every day? I ask him, does he know how long I will live? and he shakes his head and says something about "the hands of Providence." No, I answer, not the hands of Providence, but these hands—when they have finished writing what they have to write I shall die. I know it.
CHAPTER IV
INSTRUCTIONS PERFORMED
Then Wilder opened the hall door and I saw a splendid carriage and pair drawn up, the horses champing and flinging white foam about from their mouths. Wilder came down the steps and helped me in, the tall footman shut the door, and I heard Wilder's voice saying to the coachman, "Coutts'."
Gracious! all the things I thought of as the carriage drove into Oxford Street. It was an open landau, and I wondered that everyone did not stop to stare at me. How strange all the people that were walking seemed, just like mean things that had no business with life; how sweet the violets smelt in my bosom.
How nice Wilder was, not a bit good looking, but so different from the men I had mostly known. He was a gentleman, one could tell that just by his easy and languid voice; and what a hold I had upon him. And this journey to the north, I had a presentiment that it was to be strange, but how could I have told how strange, how beautiful it was to be?