第61章

It was the one pleasure he could not share with his wife.Laura was unable to bear the monotony of the slow-moving boat, the hours spent without results, the enforced idleness, the cramped positions.Only occasionally could Jadwin prevail upon her to accompany him.And then what preparations! Queen Elizabeth approaching her barge was attended with no less solicitude.MacKenny (who sometimes acted as guide and oarsman) and her husband exhausted their ingenuity to make her comfortable.They held anxious debates: "Do you think she'll like that?" "Wouldn't this make it easier for her?" "Is that the way she liked it last time?" Jadwin himself arranged the cushions, spread the carpet over the bottom of the boat, handed her in, found her old gloves for her, baited her hook, disentangled her line, saw to it that the mineral water in the ice-box was sufficiently cold, and performed an endless series of little attentions looking to her comfort and enjoyment.It was all to no purpose, and at length Laura declared:

"Curtis, dear, it is no use.You just sacrifice every bit of your pleasure to make me comfortable--to make me enjoy it; and I just don't.I'm sorry, I want to share every pleasure with you, but I don't like to fish, and never will.You go alone.I'm just a hindrance to you." And though he blustered at first, Laura had her way.

Once in the period of these three years Laura and her husband had gone abroad.But her experience in England--they did not get to the Continent--had been a disappointment to her.The museums, art galleries, and cathedrals were not of the least interest to Jadwin, and though he followed her from one to another with uncomplaining stoicism, she felt his distress, and had contrived to return home three months ahead of time.

It was during this trip that they had bought so many of the pictures and appointments for the North Avenue house, and Laura's disappointment over her curtailed European travels was mitigated by the anticipation of her pleasure in settling in the new home.This had not been possible immediately after their marriage.For nearly two years the great place had been given over to contractors, architects, decorators, and gardeners, and Laura and her husband had lived, while in Chicago, at a hotel, giving up the one-time rectory on Cass Street to Page and to Aunt Wess'.

But when at last Laura entered upon possession of the North Avenue house, she was not--after the first enthusiasm and excitement over its magnificence had died down--altogether pleased with it, though she told herself the contrary.Outwardly it was all that she could desire.It fronted Lincoln Park, and from all the windows upon that side the most delightful outlooks were obtainable--green woods, open lawns, the parade ground, the Lincoln monument, dells, bushes, smooth drives, flower beds, and fountains.From the great bay window of Laura's own sitting-room she could see far out over Lake Michigan, and watch the procession of great lake steamers, from Milwaukee, far-distant Duluth, and the Sault Sainte Marie--the famous "Soo"--defiling majestically past, making for the mouth of the river, laden to the water's edge with whole harvests of wheat.At night, when the windows were open in the warm weather, she could hear the mournful wash and lapping of the water on the embankments.

The grounds about her home were beautiful.The stable itself was half again as large as her old home opposite St.James's, and the conservatory, in which she took the keenest delight, was a wonderful affair--a vast bubble-like structure of green panes, whence, winter and summer, came a multitude of flowers for the house--violets, lilies of the valley, jonquils, hyacinths, tulips, and her own loved roses.

But the interior of the house was, in parts, less satisfactory.Jadwin, so soon as his marriage was a certainty, had bought the house, and had given over its internal furnishings to, a firm of decorators.

Innocently enough he had intended to surprise his wife, had told himself that she should not be burdened with the responsibility of selection and planning.

Fortunately, however, the decorators were men of taste.

There was nothing to offend, and much to delight in the results they obtained in the dining-room, breakfast-room, parlors, drawing-rooms, and suites of bedrooms.

But Laura, though the beauty of it all enchanted her, could never rid herself of a feeling that it was not hers.It impressed her with its splendour of natural woods and dull "colour effects," its cunning electrical devices, its mechanical contrivances for comfort, like the ready-made luxury and "convenience" of a Pullman.

However, she had intervened in time to reserve certain of the rooms to herself, and these--the library, her bedroom, and more especially that apartment from whose bay windows she looked out upon the Lake, and which, as if she were still in her old home, she called the "upstairs sitting-room"--she furnished to suit herself.

For very long she found it difficult, even with all her resolution, with all her pleasure in her new-gained wealth, to adapt herself to a manner of living upon so vast a scale.She found herself continually planning the marketing for the next day, forgetting that this now was part of the housekeeper's duties.For months she persisted in "doing her room" after breakfast, just as she had been taught to do in the old days when she was a little girl at Barrington.She was afraid of the elevator, and never really learned how to use the neat little system of telephones that connected the various parts of the house with the servants' quarters.For months her chiefest concern in her wonderful surroundings took the form of a dread of burglars.

Her keenest delights were her stable and the great organ in the art gallery; and these alone more than compensated for her uneasiness in other particulars.