I asked James very gently whether he could take a few small things. “Oh, easily,” he said, “anything you like.” (He now adds “within reason,” when he undertakes to help me.)
So I took him just a few small things, such as my writing-case. He said it had an utterly unmanageable figure, but that was because I was taking a lot of unanswered letters to do while we were away. That was all except a tin of biscuits, a bottle of bath salts—I had to get a good-sized one, as we were to be away for some time—a case of tools and my work-basket. Really nothing to what I had managed to fit into my own box; besides, I offered to take some of his shirts in exchange.
The carriage was at the door when I ran upstairs to get a pin for my veil, and there, on the dressing-table, I found all the writing things I had collected two days before, my hair-pins, brush and comb, and powder-box. James said they could not all go in his pocket, so I carried them under my arm, intending to repack my dressing-case in the train.
James’s account of our journey contains much that is unfair and exaggerated. He says, for instance, that during the long night journey from Calais to Rome I showed want of consideration for the comfort of our fellow-passengers. The train was very crowded; we could not have a sleeping compartment to ourselves, so it was arranged that Louise and I and a strange lady should be huddled together in one dog’s-hole of a place, and James would join a man’s party in the next.
The lady who dangled a pair of fat, booted ankles above my head possessed an over-anxious husband; therefore, I suppose, she had a surname, but I never discovered it. To me she was, and always will be, “Georgie.” We had settled down for the night in considerable irritability, and the atmosphere of hell, when the door was pushed gently open.
“Georgie, my dear, are you all right?” inquired a timid little voice.
Georgie, who was determined to enjoy everything and look on the bright side, said, “Yes, thank you, dear,” in a crisp voice, and composed herself to sleep. Presently there was a knock at the door.
“Georgie, my dear, would you care for a little chocolate?”
Dear, good-natured Georgie had already begun to sleep; I heard her quite distinctly. But she awoke—out of that first blissful state, just imagine! and with all the discomfort of sleeping in her stockings and everything—and gratefully accepted the chocolate.
Next time there was a knock I nearly choked myself in efforts for politeness. I longed to say, “Go away. I will give Georgie a pocket-handkerchief, and the nut-crackers, and some Balsam of Peru when she wakes.” Fortunately, Georgie was breathing so loudly that even he understood that for the moment all the husbands in Christendom could not improve her condition, and, therefore, retired for some hours. The crisis was next morning. Anyone who has travelled knows how easy it is to mislay anything, however large, in a sleeping berth. If you put a hippopotamus under your pillow at night, it will be gone in the morning. My hair-pins, side-combs, hat, waistband, and shoes were all rescued from different parts of the train by Louise, but my jewellery I was determined not to part with. I put my watch, rings, and ear-rings into my purse, and put the purse into a travelling-case which I strapped to the rack by my side. It was there in the morning when I awoke, and remained there while I dressed. I then unfastened the strap, and laid the case on the bed for a moment, while I pinned my hat. I looked round and it was gone. I threw the bedclothes into the passage and shook them; I took off the mattress and turned it; Louise and I took her bed to pieces and threw it also into the passage. My condition was desperate. In a quarter of an hour we should be at the end of our journey, and the train would disappear into an everlasting nowhere, carrying the beloved companions of my life embedded in its ugly, screaming, joggling anatomy. Some shameless, painted, French official’s wife would eventually wear my darlings on her fingers, and dangling from her ears. I could never get any more, because they were James’s wedding presents. Life and happiness were blotted from my imagination.