The Log-Cabin Lady | Page 7

all.
Tom roared when I made my confession. With his boyish good humor he promised to answer all my questions on board ship.
So, without a care in those delicious days that followed, I wandered down Sixth Avenue to New York's then most correct shops, buying clothes and clothes and clothes. I bought practical and impractical gifts for the twins back in Wisconsin and for all the family and those good friends who had helped me through Madison.
The week before we sailed my husband said, out of a clear sky: "Be sure you have the right clothes, Mary. The English are a conservative lot." Suddenly I was conscious again that I did not know the essential things the wife of a diplomat ought to know--what to wear and when, a million and one tremendous social trifles.
The moment our magnificent liner left the dock I heaved a sigh of relief. Tom would be mine for two whole weeks, and all the questions I had saved up would be answered. That evening he announced: "We don't dress for dinner the first night out."
"Dress for dinner?" I asked. "What do you mean?"
And then very gently he gave me my first lesson. I had never seen anything bigger than a ferry-boat. How could I guess that even on an ocean liner we did not leave formality behind? The "party dresses", so carefully selected, the long, rich velvet cape I had thought outrageously extravagant, and the satin slippers and the suede--I had packed them all carefully in the trunk and sent them to the hold of the ship. But, with the aid of a little cash, the steward finally produced my treasure trunk, and thereafter I dressed for dinner.
The two weeks I had expected my husband to give me held no quiet hours. There is no such thing, except when one is seasick, as being alone aboard a ship. Tom was popular, good at cards and deck games, always ready to play. And the fourth day out I was too ill to worry about the customs at the Court of St. James.
It was not until just before we reached England that I began to feel myself again. I stood on deck, thrilled with the tall ships and the steamers, the fishing smacks and the smaller craft in Southampton harbor.
"What will be the first thing you do in London?" somebody asked me.
"Go to Mayfair to find the home of Becky Sharp," I answered. Becky Sharp was as much a part of English history to me as Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn or William the Conqueror. When my husband and I were alone he said: "I think they have picked out No. 21 Curzon Street as the house where Becky Sharp is supposed to have lived. But what a funny thing for you to want to see first!"
I remembered what old Lord Steyne had said to Becky: "You poor little earthen pipkin. You want to swim down the stream with great copper kettles. All women are alike. Everybody is striving for what is not worth the having."
I was quite sure I did not want to drift down the stream with copper kettles. I only wanted to be with Tom, to see England with him, to enjoy Dr. Johnson's haunts, to go to the "Cheddar Cheese" and the Strand, to Waterloo Bridge, and down the road the Romans built before England was England.
I wanted to see the world without the world seeing me. In my heart was no desire to be a copper kettle. But I had been cast into the stream, and down it I must go, like a little fungus holding to the biggest copper kettle I knew.
I told my husband this. It was the first time he had been really irritated with me. "Why do you worry about these things?" he protested. "You have a good head and a good education. You are the loveliest woman in England. Be your own natural self and the English will love you." But I remembered another occasion when he had told me to be my own natural sweet self.
"How about what happened to Becky?" I asked.
Tom went into a rage. "Why do you insist on comparing yourself with that little -----!" The word he used was an ugly one. I did not speak to him again until after we had passed the government inspectors.
I shall never forget my first day in London, the old, quiet city where everybody seemed so comfortable and easy-going. There was no show, no pretense. The people in the shops and on the street bore the earmarks of thrift. I understood where New England got its spirit.
The first morning at the Alexandra Hotel, Tom fell naturally into the European habit of having coffee and fruit and a roll brought to his bed. I wanted to go