Here we made use of Mrs. Bert"s list, and left our order to be filled.
As we stepped out on the street, we looked at each other, and laughed.
"It"s preposterous, but I suppose the evidence is against us," she twinkled.
"The evidence is against us, at any rate," I answered.
She looked away quickly, and said, "Where is the furniture store?"
We found it, and here we looked at iron beds for Mrs. Pillig and son Peter, and for one of the spare rooms so that I might have a guest up after college closed. She let me have the bed I wanted for the spare room, but the other two had to be plainer--or rather less plain, for the cheaper furniture is, the more jimcracky it appears to be. I asked the clerk why simplicity is always expensive, but he threw no light on the point. Next we bought a few cheap bedroom chairs, and a cheap bureau for Mrs. Pillig, and a better bureau for the spare room. I bought no other furniture, preferring to wait till I could get to New York or Boston, or better yet pick up old mahogany at country auctions, which I then believed in my ignorance was possible. Then we invaded the dry-goods shop, where again I stood helplessly by while the girl bought bedding and tablecloths and napkins and dishcloths and towels.
"I know you haven"t any decent towels," she said, "because you"ve been a bachelor so long, and sent "em to laundries. I send mine to laundries, too. That"s how I know."
I stood by helplessly, but not without emotion. Many emotions are possible to a man while watching a woman shop, the most common, perhaps, being impatience. Your average woman shopping is the epitome of irresolution, or so it seems to the man. She always explains the huge pile of goods, which she compels the poor clerk to heap on the counter, by an alleged desire to get the most for her money--though she almost invariably comes back to the first thing exhibited and buys that in the end. A mere man buys the first thing he likes then and there. But my companion was not the usual woman shopper. She wanted towels of a certain grade, for instance, inspected them, and if they were up to her standard bought them without further to-do. At my enthusiastic comments she smiled. "That"s because it is your money I"m spending. I don"t have to count the pennies!"
No, my emotion was not one of impatience. Indeed, I should have liked to prolong the process. It was one which only a man with his bachelor days fresh in mind can understand. It was the subtle thrill of being led helpless by a woman who is intent on providing him creature comforts which he could not arrange for himself, of seeing her purchase for him the most intimate of domestic necessities, and inevitably filling his mind with thoughts of her in his establishment. If I were a woman and wanted to win a man, I should make him take me shopping when he needed new towels!
We finished in the dry-goods store at last, and I said, "I am sorry."
"Why?" asked the girl.
"Because," I answered, "with every purchase you make for me, you lay a new brick in the structure of our friendship--or a new towel!"
She turned her face quickly away, and made no reply.
Our next quest was for a sundial plate, but it was a vain search, for not a store in town carried such an article. As we came out of the last shop, she sighed. "Well, I can"t spend any more of your money!" she said. "But I"ve really saved it for you. Goodness knows how much you"d have spent by yourself. Why, you wanted the most expensive kind of _everything_!"
"Of course," said I; "nothing is too good for Twin Fires."
"Well, it"s lucky I was along, then."
"Lucky isn"t just the word," said I. "I feel already as if Twin Fires was as much yours as mine."
Again she made no reply, except to ask when the train went back. But the train had long since gone back. It was nearly two o"clock, and we realized that we were hungry. So we gayly hunted out the hotel, and here I took command. "I"m going to order this lunch," I declared, "and the expense go hang. We"ll have a regular spree, c.o.c.ktails and all."
The hotel was really a good one, and the presence of several motor parties gave the cafe almost a metropolitan appearance. The change from Mrs. Bert"s simple service to this was abrupt, and we were in the highest spirits. The c.o.c.ktails came, and we clinked gla.s.ses.
"To Twin Fires!" said the girl.
"To the fairy G.o.dmother of Twin Fires!" said I.
Our eyes met as our gla.s.ses touched, and something electric pa.s.sed between us. Then we drank.
"That is my first c.o.c.ktail," she laughed, as she set her gla.s.s down.
"Heavens!" I exclaimed, "and we in a public place!"
It was my first since I came to Bentford, and we both enjoyed the luxury of dissipation, and laughed brazenly at our enjoyment. Then the lunch came, and we enjoyed that, and then we caught a train, and half an hour later were walking toward the farm. We pa.s.sed the golf links on the way, at the end of the beautiful, elm-hung main street of Bentford, and saw players striding over the green turf along the winding river.
"Quick, drag me past!" I cried. "Oh, Lord, lead us not into temptation!"
"Haven"t you joined yet?" she asked.
"No, I don"t dare. I shan"t join till the farm is in running order.
The game is like Brand"s conscience, it demands all or nothing."
"You men are dreadful babies about your sports," she said.
"Yes"m," I replied, "quite so. We haven"t the firm-mindedness of your s.e.x, about bridge, for instance."
"I never played a game of bridge in my life," said she indignantly.
"I wasn"t thinking of you, but your s.e.x," I answered.
"You find a difference?"
"Decidedly."
"That is just what Sentimental Tommy told every woman he met."
"Except Grizel--of whom it was true." I looked at her keenly, and she cast down her eyes.
"A farmer shouldn"t talk in literary allusions," she said softly.
"Well," I laughed, "they"ve got me past the golf links!"
We reached Twin Fires, and walked out to see if the roses were all alive, though they hadn"t had time to die. Then I went into the house to work, and she gathered a few sprays of lilac, and while I was settling down at my desk she arranged them in water and stood them on the mantels, humming to herself. Then she turned to go.
"Don"t go," I cried.
She looked at me with a little smile, as if of query.
"It"s been such a nice day," I added, "and it"s so pleasant to feel you here in the house. Please strum something while I work."
"For ten minutes," she replied, sitting down at the piano. "Then I must work, too--horrid letters."
She rose presently, while I was scarce aware of it, and slipped out. I worked on, in silence save for the talk of the painters putting aside their brushes after the day"s work. But I could smell the lilacs she had left, and the scent of them seemed like the wraith of her presence in the sunny room.
Chapter XIII
THE ADVENT OF THE PILLIGS
The next day the painters left for good. Hard Cider had completed his tasks, Mike had no further need for his son Joe till haying time, and I no longer had an excuse for putting off my departure from Bert"s and my embarkation upon the dubious seas of housekeeping with Mrs.
Pillig at the wheel and son Peter as cabin boy. So I sent word to Mrs. Pillig to be ready to come the next morning, asked Mrs. Bert to order for me the necessary stock of groceries from the village, and gave myself up to the joys of transplanting. It was a cloudy day, with rain threatening, so that Mike a.s.sured me I could not find a better time. Miss Goodwin worked by my side, her task consisting of a careful perusal of the seed catalogue and a planting table. What colour were the flowers? How far apart should the plants be set? How tall did they grow? My ignorance was as profound as hers. But perhaps that added to the pleasure. It did to mine, at any rate. I was experimenting with the unknown.
I"ve set many a seedling since and needed no table to tell me how, but I have never recaptured quite the glee of that soft, cloudy June morning, when my shiny new trowel transferred unknown plants to the flats on the wheelbarrow, and a voice beside me read: