"Very well," he declared. "I shall go to--to the devil, I think. Yes, I will. I shall give away my money, all of it, and go to the devil."
It was absurd enough, but the absurdity of it did not strike either of them then.
"Oh, WON"T you go to Egypt?" she begged. "Won"t you, PLEASE?"
He was firm. "No," he declared. "Not unless you go with me. Ah--ah--Miss Martha, will you?"
She hesitated, wrung her hands--and surrendered. "Oh, I suppose I shall have to," she said.
He did not dare believe it.
"But--but I don"t want you to have to," he cried. "YOU mustn"t marry me for--for Egypt, Miss Martha. Of course, it is too much to ask; no doubt it is quite impossible, but you--you mustn"t marry me unless you really--ah--want to."
And then a very astonishing thing happened. Martha turned to him, and tears were in her eyes.
"Oh," she cried, breathlessly, "do you suppose there is a woman in this world who wouldn"t want to marry a man like YOU?"
After a while they discovered that it was raining. As a matter of fact, it had been raining for some time and was now raining hard, but as Galusha said, it didn"t make a bit of difference, really. They put up the umbrella, which until now had been quite forgotten, and walked home along the wet path, between the dripping weeds and bushes. It was almost dark and, as they pa.s.sed the lighthouse, the great beacon blazed from the tower.
Galusha was babbling like a brook, endlessly but joyful.
"Miss Martha--" he began. Then he laughed aloud, a laugh of sheer happiness. "It--it just occurred to me," he exclaimed. "How extraordinary I didn"t think of it before. I sha"n"t have to call you Miss Martha now, shall I? It is very wonderful, isn"t it? Dear me, yes!
Very wonderful!"
Martha laughed, too. "I"m afraid other people are goin" to think it is very ridiculous," she said. "And perhaps it is. Two middle-aged, settled folks like us startin" up all at once and gettin" married. I know I should laugh if it was anybody else."
But Galusha stoutly maintained there was nothing ridiculous about it. It was wonderful, that was all.
"Besides," he declared, "we are not old; we are just beginning to be young, you and I. Personally, I feel as if I could jump over a bush and annihilate a--ah--June bug, as Luce did that night when we went out to see the moon."
Luce himself was at the door waiting to be let in. He regarded the pair with the air of condescending boredom which the feline race a.s.sumes when confronted with the idiosyncrasies of poor humanity. Possibly he was reflecting that, at least, he knew enough to go in when it rained.
Martha opened the door, but Galusha paused for a moment on the threshold.
"Do you know," he said, "that, except--ah--occasionally, in wet weather, it scarcely ever rains in Egypt?"
CHAPTER XXIV
(A letter from Mrs. Galusha Bangs to Miss Lulie Hallett.)
Shepheard"s Hotel, Cairo, Egypt, February tenth.
MY DEAR LULIE:
Well, as you can see by this hotel letter paper, here we are, actually here. Of course we are only a little way toward where we are going, but this is Egypt, and I am beginning to believe it. Of course, I can"t yet quite believe it is really truly me that is doing these wonderful things and seeing these wonderful places. About every other morning still I wake up and think what a splendid dream I have had and wonder if it isn"t time for me to call Primmie and see about getting breakfast. And then it comes to me that it isn"t a dream at all and that I don"t have to get up unless I want to, that I don"t have to do anything unless I want to, and that everything a sensible person could possibly want to do I CAN do, and have a free conscience besides, which is considerable.
I don"t mean that I lay a-bed much later than I used to. I never could abide not getting up at a regular time, and so half past seven generally finds me ready to go down to breakfast. But, oh, it is a tremendous satisfaction to think that I could sleep later if I ever should want to.
Although, of course, I can"t conceive of my ever wanting to.
Well, I mustn"t fill this whole letter with nonsense about the time I get up in the morning. There is so much to write about that I don"t know where to begin. I do wish you could see this place, Lulie. I wish you could be here now looking out of my room window at the crowds in the street. I could fill a half dozen pages telling you about the clothes the people wear, although I must say that I have seen some whose clothes could be all told about in one sentence, and not a very long sentence at that. But you see all kinds of clothes, uniforms, and everyday things such as we wear, and robes and fezzes and turbans and I don"t know what.
You know what a fez is, of course. It"s shaped like a brown-bread tin and they wear it little end up with a ta.s.sel hanging down. And turbans!
To me, when I used to see pictures of people wearing turbans, they were just pictures, that"s all. It didn"t seem as if any one actually tied up the top of their head in a white sheet and went parading around looking like a stick with a s...o...b..ll stuck on the end of it. But they do, and most of them look as dignified as can be, in spite of the s...o...b..ll. And I have seen camels, quant.i.ties of them, and donkeys, and, oh, yes, about a million dogs, not one of them worth anything and perfectly contented to be that way. And dirt! Oh, Lulie, I didn"t believe there was as much dirt in all creation as there is in just one of the back streets over here. Galusha asked me the other day if I didn"t wish I could go into one of the houses and see how the people lived; he meant the poor people. I told him no, not if he ever expected me to get anywhere else.
If the inside of one of those houses was like the outside, I was sure and certain that I should send for a case of soap and a hundred barrels of hot water and stay there scrubbing the rest of my life. And, oh, yes, I have seen the Pyramids.
Of course, you want to know how I got along on the long voyage over. I wrote you a few lines from Gibraltar telling you a little about that. I wasn"t seasick a single bit. I think it must be in our blood, this being able to keep well and happy on salt water. Our family has always been to sea, as far back as my great-great-grandfather, at least, and I suppose that explains why, as soon as I stepped aboard the steamer, I felt as if I was where I belonged. And Galusha, of course, has traveled so much that he is a good sailor, too. So, no matter whether it was calm or blowy, he and I walked decks or sat in the lee somewhere and talked of all that had happened and of what was going to happen. And, Lulie, I realized over and over, as I have been realizing ever since I agreed to marry him, what a wonderful man he is and what a happy and grateful woman I ought to be--and am, you may be sure of that. Every day I make a little vow to myself that I will do my best not to make him ashamed of me. Of course, no matter what I did he would think it all right, but I mean to prevent other people from being ashamed for him. That is, if I can, but I have so much to learn.
You should see how he is treated over here, by the very finest people, I mean. It seems to me that every scientist or explorer or professor of this or that from China to London has been running after him, all those that happen to be in this part of the world, I mean. And always he is just the same quiet, soft-spoken, gentle person he was at the Cape, but it is plain to see that when it comes to matters about his particular profession, my husband is known and respected everywhere. Perhaps you will think, Lulie, that I am showing off a little when I write "my husband" like that. Well, I shouldn"t wonder if I was. n.o.body could help being proud of him.
I had a trial the other evening. That is, it seemed as if it would be the greatest trial that ever I had to face and my, how I dreaded it. Sir Ernest Brindlecombe, an English scientist, and, so Galusha says, a very great man, indeed, is here with his wife, and they have known Galusha for years. So nothing would do but we must come to their house to dinner. He is in the English government service and they have a wonderful home, more like a palace than a house--that is, what I have always supposed a palace must be like. I felt as if I COULDN"T go, but Galusha had accepted already, so what was there to do?
Of course, you are wondering what I wore. Well, as I wrote you from Washington, I had bought a lot of new things. The wife of Professor Lounsbury, at the Inst.i.tute, helped me pick them out, and oh, what should I have done without her! Galusha, of course, would have rigged me up like the Queen of Sheba, if he had had his way. I tried going shopping with him at first, but I had to give it up. Every pretty dress he saw, no matter if it was about as fitting for my age and weight as a pink lace cap would be for a cow, he wanted to buy it right off. If the price was high enough, that seemed to be the only thing that counted in his mind. I may as well say right here, Lulie, that I have learned by this time, when he and I do go shopping together, to carry the pocketbook myself. In that way we can manage to bring home something, even if it is only enough to buy a postage stamp.
But I am wandering, as usual. You want to know about the dinner at the Brindlecombes". Well, thanks to Mrs. Lounsbury"s help and judgment, I had two dresses to pick from, two that seemed right for such a grand affair as I was afraid this was going to be. And I picked out a black silk, trimmed--
(Two pages of Mrs. Bangs" letter are omitted here)
There is more of it at the top and bottom than there was to a whole lot of evening gowns I have seen, on the steamer and in Washington, but I can"t help that. I guess I am old-fashioned and countrified, but it does seem to me that the place to wear a bathing suit is in the water, especially for a person of my age. However, it is a real sensible and rich-looking dress, even if it is simple, and I think you would like it.
At any rate, I put it on and Galusha got into his dress suit, after I had helped him find the vest, and stopped him from putting one gold stud and two pearl ones in his shirt. HE didn"t notice, bless him, he was thinking of everything but what he was doing at the minute, as he always is.
So, both in our best bibs and tuckers, and all taut and ready for the sea, as father would have said, we were driven over to the Brindlecombe house, or palace, whichever you call it. Mr. Brindlecombe--or Sir Ernest I suppose he should be called, although _I_ never remembered to do it, but called him Mr. Brindlecombe the whole evening--was a fleshy, bald-headed man, who looked the veriest little bit like Mr. Dearborn, the Congregational minister at Denboro, and was as pleasant and jolly as could be. His wife was a white-haired little lady, dressed plainly--the expensive kind of plainness, you know--and with a diamond pin that was about as wonderful as anything I ever saw. And I kept thinking to myself: "Oh, what SHALL I say to you? What on EARTH shall we talk about?" and not getting any answer from myself, either.
But I needn"t have worried. She was just as sweet and gentle and every-day as any one could be, and pretty soon it came out that we both loved flowers. That was enough, of course, and so while Mr. Sir Ernest and Galusha were mooning along together about "dynasties" and "papyri"
and "sphinxes" and "Ptolemies" and "hieroglyphics" and mummies and mercy knows what, his wife and I were having a lovely time growing roses and dahlias and lilies. She told me a new way to keep geranium roots alive for months after taking them up. She learned it from her gardener and if ever I get a chance I am going to try it. Well, Lulie, instead of having a dreadful time I enjoyed every minute of it, and yesterday Mrs.
Brindlecombe--Lady Brindlecombe, I suppose she really is--came and took me to drive. We shopped and had a glorious afternoon. I presume likely I said "Mercy me" and "Goodness gracious" as often as I usually do and that they sounded funny to her. But she said "My word" and "Fancy"
and they sounded just as funny to me. And it didn"t make a bit of difference.
There was one thing that came from our dinner at the Brindlecombes"
which I must tell you, because it is so very like this blessed husband of mine. I happened to speak of Mrs. Brindlecombe"s pin, the wonderful one I just wrote about. The very next day Galusha came trotting in, bubbling over with mischief and mystery like the boy he is in so many things, and handed me a jeweler"s box. When I opened it there was a platinum brooch with a diamond in it as big--honestly, Lulie, I believe it was as big as my thumbnail, or two thirds as big, anyway. This husband of mine had, so he told me, made up his mind that n.o.body"s wife should own a more wonderful pin than HIS wife owned. "Because," he said, "n.o.body else has such a wonderful wife, you know. Dear me, no. No, indeed."
Well, I almost cried at first, and then I set about thinking how I could get him to change the pin and do it without hurting his feelings. As for wearing it--why, Lulie, I would have looked like the evening train just coming up to the depot platform. That diamond flashed like the Gould"s Bluffs light. The sight of it would have made Zach Bloomer feel at home.
And when I found out what it cost! My soul and body! Well, I used all the brains I had and strained them a little, I"m afraid, but at last I made him understand that perhaps something a tiny bit smaller would look, when I wore it in the front of my dress, a little less like a bonfire on a hill and we went back to the jewelry store together. The upshot of it was that I have a brooch--lots smaller, of course--and a ring, either of which is far, far too grand for a plain woman like me, and which I shall wear only on the very stateliest of state occasions and NEVER, I think, both at the same time, and I saved Galusha a good many dollars besides.
So, you see, Lulie, that he is the same impractical, absent-minded, dear little man he was down there in East Wellmouth, even though he is such a famous scientist and discoverer. I think I got the best salve for my conscience from knowing that, otherwise I should always feel that I never should have let him marry me. In most respects I am not a bit the wife he should have, but I hope I am of some use in his practical affairs and that at last I can keep him from being imposed upon. I try.
For instance, on the steamer his cap blew overboard. I wish you could have seen the cap the ship"s steward sold him. The thing he bought at Ras Beebe"s store was stylish and subdued compared to it. And I wish you could have seen that steward when I got through talking to him. Every day smooth-talking scamps, who know him by reputation, come with schemes for getting him to invest in something, or with pitiful tales about being Americans stranded far away from home. I take care of these sharks and they don"t bite me, not often. I told one shabby, red-nosed rascal yesterday that, so far as he was concerned, no doubt it was tough to be stranded with no way of getting to the States, as he called them; but that I hadn"t heard yet how the States felt about it. So I help Galusha with money matters and see that he dresses as he should and eats what and when he should, and try, with Professor King, his chief a.s.sistant with the expedition, to keep his mind from worry about little things. He seems very happy and I certainly mean to keep him so, if I can.
We talk about you and Nelson and Captain Jethro every day. The news in your last letter, the one we found at Gibraltar, was perfectly splendid.
So you are to be married in June. And Galusha and I can"t come to your wedding; that is a shame. By the time we get back you will be so long settled in the cottage at the radio station that it won"t seem new at all to you. But it will be very new to us and we shall just love to see it and the new furniture and your presents and everything. We both think your father"s way of taking it perfectly splendid. I am glad he still won"t have a word to say to Marietta Hoag or her crowd of simpletons.
Galusha says to tell your father that he must not feel in the least obliged to him for his help in exposing Marietta as a cheat. He says it was very good fun, really, and didn"t amount to much, anyway. You and I know it did, of course, but he always talks that way about anything he does. And your thanks and Captain Jethro"s pleased him very much.
Primmie writes that...
(A page omitted. See Primmie"s letter.)
Please keep an eye on her and see that she doesn"t set fire to the house or feed the corn to the cat and the liver to the hens, or some such foolishness. And don"t let her talk you deaf, dumb and blind.