It is not possible that two persons could have been any happier than Helen and I were during Christmas week at Winchester. Others may have equalled our happiness; no couple have surpassed it. Not only was it the first time we had been by ourselves since on board the steamer, but also Winchester itself, as that very Camelot we had made up stories about in the woods back of Deep Harbor, was to us a speechless delight. I had not been there before, and thus its quaintness was as new to me as to Helen. We ate and slept in a hotel somewhere off the High Street. The rest of the time (despite the oncoming event of Edward Jevons, Junior) we wandered about or sat in the nave of the long bare cathedral. Helen actually got as far afoot as the summit of St. Catherine's hill. We took a fly and drove out to St. Cross, where we designed a new dream cottage from its mediaeval gables and timbers. The same faithful fly conducted us to other delights when I thought Helen had walked enough. There are more things in Winchester than can be set down, save in the book of memory. Jane Austen's house, the cathedral, the school, the river Itchen where old Izaak Walton fished—one can go on for a long time wandering among mysteries and dreaming. We grew technical over architecture and had an argument about it with a verger in the cathedral. On the High Street we likewise discovered a satisfactory second-hand bookshop containing a lot of theatrical memoirs. Joys of joys, we bought ourselves as a Christmas present Bell's British Theatre, complete with all the plates! To be sure, it was but a shilling a volume; yet no collector ever walked out of Christie's more proud than we. Forty shillings had been set aside for Christmas recklessness. Bell and his collection of plays made quite a hole in this, even at only a shilling a volume.
On the night before Christmas there was a telegram from my father. The trouble had been successfully located in the commercial acid; there was no doubt that with pure acid the trouble of manufacturing would be cleared up. More good news was to come next morning. There was a letter from Deep Harbor containing a present of one hundred dollars for Helen, as well as the announcement that her father purposed, from this time forth, to give his daughter one hundred dollars a month pocket money.
"Ted, Ted!" she cried, pouring her letter and its contents into my lap, her eyes dancing, "we can get all the books we want! See here! And we'll have five more pounds of our own to spend on our week-ends."
Curiously enough, it did not cross the mind of either of us that we could possibly have any other use for that money. Perhaps we had been badly brought up, both of us—I don't know. At any rate we always had a lot of fun out of our extravagance. And on this morning, as soon as we could get there, we furiously rang the doorbell of the bookshop, in spite of the closed shutters. We knew we could rout the old codger, the owner, out, if we made noise enough, for he lived over his shop. He grumbled at first; then, when he found us equipped to buy, cheerfully let us in. No, we did not spend all of the twenty pounds, but we made a good hole in that, too. He had a rather good Memoirs of Charles Matthews, extra-illustrated. It was a new kind of pleasure for us to own such a wanton luxury as that.
A day or two after Boxing Day we returned to London. Going up in the train, I said: "Well, Lady Grey Eyes, the second Christmas didn't turn out so black as we'd painted it, did it?" Helen simply looked things at me.
"They'll all be as wonderful as this one, dear," I added, Helen's eyes clouded. "Don't say it, Ted! Don't!" and she touched the wood of the railway carriage beside her. We were alone in the compartment, so my reply may be imagined.
It was some time in the spring that a trained nurse came to live with us in the little house in Kensington. Her advent set the whole household bustling over the preparations for the expected arrival of Edward Jevons, Jr. It was my mother who insisted upon Helen's having a nurse, long before the day was due, although she still maintained her attitude of being officially polite to Helen and almost ignoring my existence. I had not yet atoned for my fatal attempt at setting matters right. Things were going swimmingly at the factory. I was naturally busy enough, for I had to train the whole staff, with the result that production was not yet on a large scale. But what we were making was right, orders were coming in, and every week I was able to report increased production. Chitty was one smile as he watched me whistling at my work.
Helen and I were now under no worry or anxiety concerning the event to befall her. The doctor was cheery, Helen's health and physique were splendid; the trained nurse kept a sharp look-out. Our only regrets were over the interruptions of our week-ends and the presence of the confounded nurse always under foot. A stranger in one's household, on an intimate footing, is a supreme test of one's forbearance. It must also be quite a test for the stranger. This nurse was willing, capable, and good-humoured; yet there were times when Helen and I wished her elsewhere. She packed Helen off to bed at nine; Helen and I were accustomed to sitting up till all hours, talking or reading in the study. She frowned upon the theatre and forbade the pit altogether, although, now Helen and I were in funds, that prohibition did not worry us so much. We were not permitted to dine of a Saturday night at the Café Royal or have luncheon at Kettner's. Indeed, Helen's diet was prescribed for her—a great hardship, as neither of us liked "wholesome" food and things that "were good" for you. I had to feed Helen chocolates on the sly. My own movements were curtailed, because it was no fun doing things without Helen. Not for worlds would I have bought an old book unless Helen were along to share in the joy of the purchase.