Afterwards she wondered if that had been the voice of V. Lydiat crying in the wilderness. The note of preparation.
But where to go? Her aunt was still treading the daily round of bridge and luncheon parties in Montreal and the soul of Beatrice Veronica shuddered in the remembrance. No, no. The bird set free does not re-enter its gilded cage, however temptingly the little dish of seed is set forth. But she loved Canada for all that. She remembered, as she and Sidney Verrier had passed through the glorious giant-land of the Rockies, how broadly uplifted and vast had been the heights and spaces, how enormous the glee of the rivers tumbling from hidden sources, and they called her across far waters and beneath strange stars.
But could one live in such colossal companionship? Is it possible to dine and sleep and yawn in the presence of Gods and Emperors? There was the doubt. And then she remembered a shining city laving her feet in shining seas, with quiet gardens where the roses blush and bloom in a calm so deep that you may count the fall of every petal in the drowsy summer afternoons. A city of pines and oaks, of happy homes great and small,—a city above all, bearing the keys of the Orient at her golden girdle,—for it is but to step aboard a boat, swift almost as the Magic Carpet, and you wake one happy morning with all the dear remembered scents and sights before you once more. And her heart said “Victoria,”—where Westernmost West leans forward to kiss Easternmost East across the Pacific.
So she went there—now a woman of twenty-nine, self-possessed, and capable, and settled herself in a great hostelry to choose and build her home. Her home, mark you!—not her prison. It was not to be so large as to hamper flight when the inevitable call came—
Take down your golden wings now
From the hook behind the door,
The wind is calling from the East
And you must fly once more.
I wish I might write of the building of Beatrice Veronica’s home for it developed into one of the immense joys of her life. But more important things are ahead, so it must suffice to say that it was long, low and brown with sunny verandas and windows avid of sunshine, and that all the plunder of travel, and books, books, books found happy place in it and grew there as inevitably as leaves on a tree.
But it was while all this was in embryo that the thought of writing impressed itself on Beatrice Veronica. Partly because the house adventure was expensive and she wanted a larger margin, partly because she had seen with delighted interest and intelligence all the splendid spectacle of men and cities. Her sound knowledge of history and cultivated taste in literature should count for pebbles in the writer’s sling who goes forth to conquer the great Goliath of the public. She revolved this thought often as she walked by murmurous seas or nested in a niche of rock to watch the mountains opposite reflecting every change of sunlight as a soul in adoration reflects its deity. It really seemed a waste not to turn all this to some sort of account. And success would be sweet. But how to begin!