Their Wedding Journey | Page 5

from the earth, while the
thunder roared overhead without ceasing. There was something
splendidly theatrical about it all; and when a street-car, laden to the last
inch of its capacity, came by, with horses that pranced and leaped under
the stinging blows of the hailstones, our friends felt as if it were an

effective and very naturalistic bit of pantomime contrived for their
admiration. Yet as to themselves they were very sensible of a potent
reality in the affair, and at intervals during the storm they debated about
going at all that day, and decided to go and not to go, according to the
changing complexion of the elements. Basil had said that as this was
their first journey together in America, he wished to give it at the
beginning as pungent a national character as possible, and that as he
could imagine nothing more peculiarly American than a voyage to New
York by a Fall River boat, they ought to take that route thither. So
much upholstery, so much music, such variety cf company, he
understood, could not be got in any other way, and it might be that they
would even catch a glimpse of the inventor of the combination, who
represented the very excess and extremity of a certain kind of
Americanism. Isabel had eagerly consented; but these aesthetic motives
were paralyzed for her by the thought of passing Point Judith in a storm,
and she descended from her high intents first to the Inside Boats,
without the magnificence and the orchestra, and then to the idea of
going by land in a sleeping-car. Having comfortably accomplished this
feat, she treated Basil's consent as a matter of course, not because she
did not regard him, but because as a woman she could not conceive of
the steps to her conclusion as unknown to him, and always treated her
own decisions as the product of their common reasoning. But her
husband held out for the boat, and insisted that if the storm fell before
seven o'clock, they could reach it at Newport by the last express; and it
was this obstinacy that, in proof of Isabel's wisdom, obliged them to
wait two hours in the station before going by the land route. The storm
abated at five o'clock, and though the rain continued, it seemed well by
a quarter of seven to set out for the Old Colony Depot, in sight of
which a sudden and vivid flash of lightning caused Isabel to seize her
husband's arm, and to implore him, "O don't go by the boat!" On this,
Basil had the incredible weakness to yield; and bade the driver take
them to the Worcester Depot. It was the first swerving from the ideal in
their wedding journey, but it was by no means the last; though it must
be confessed that it was early to begin.
They both felt more tranquil when they were irretrievably committed
by the purchase of their tickets, and when they sat down in the waiting.
room of the station, with all the time between seven and nine o'clock

before them. Basil would have eked out the business of checking the
trunks into an affair of some length, but the baggage-master did his
duty with pitiless celerity; and so Basil, in the mere excess of his
disoccupation, bought an accident-insurance ticket. This employed him
half a minute, and then he gave up the unequal contest, and went and
took his place beside Isabel, who sat prettily wrapped in her shawl,
perfectly content.
"Isn't it charming," she said gayly, "having to wait so long? It puts me
in mind of some of those other journeys we took together. But I can't
think of those times with any patience, when we might really have had
each other, and didn't! Do you remember how long we had to wait at
Chambery? and the numbers of military gentlemen that waited too,
with their little waists, and their kisses when they met? and that poor
married military gentleman, with the plain wife and the two children,
and a tarnished uniform? He seemed to be somehow in misfortune, and
his mustache hung down in such a spiritless way, while all the other
military mustaches about curled and bristled with so much boldness. I
think 'salles d'attente' everywhere are delightful, and there is such a
community of interest in them all, that when I come here only to go out
to Brookline, I feel myself a traveller once more,--a blessed stranger in
a strange land. O dear, Basil, those were happy times after all, when we
might have had each other and didn't! And now we're the more precious
for having been so long lost."
She drew closer and closer to him, and looked at him in a way that
threatened betrayal