Chapter XXXI:
The Honeymoon Tour
MR. WILSON and Elaine were quietly married at the office of the American Embassy on the following afternoon.
That evening they took a train with Lucretia, Zina, and Elaine's Russian maid and passed through and over Jura and the Jura Mountains into Switzerland and stopped at Zurich, where they spent a short while enjoying the sights of the quaint mediaeval-looking prosperous city.
From there they travelled by train to Trieste and remained at the important Austria-Hungarian seaport town, with its Italian-speaking population. They remained there until near the middle of summer, when Lucretia's cheeks had begun to regain their naturally rosy complexion, when they crossed the Gulf of Venice and landed at Venice.
From thence they took a train to Rome. As the summer had now advanced, Mr. Wilson decided they would entrain for Genoa and spend the rest of the summer, when they would embark from that city for America on the first of September.
On the afternoon of their last day in Rome, they visited the Saint Maria della Pace, and were seeking their favorite paintings, when she recognized Lord Winslow standing in a very pensive mood looking upon one of Raphael's paintings with his hands crossed behind his back. He looked so sad and altered that she forgot all of her past doubts and jealousies and wanted to take him in her arms and mother him as if he were a little child. She left her companions abruptly and hastened towards him. But as fate would have it, the Countess was also among the visitors inspecting the paintings, and she saw Lord Winslow at the same time Lucretia did. Since she was nearer she reached his side and familiarly took his arm before Lucretia could reach or attract his attention.
Elaine was searching for Lucretia and just reached her side in time to save her from falling.
Lucretia naturally supposed that they were travelling together and believed that Lord Winslow had really forgotten the "dead" young bride.
When they reached Genoa, Lucretia said to Elaine as they were alone in the latter's dressing room, "Elaine, dear, do you know that I have had a peculiar dream about my mother. I dreamed three times last night that my mother, who is supposed to be dead in Africa, met me at Rev. Jones' Mission, where she is awaiting my father's return.
"My life has been such a strange one of circumstance and almost miraculous escapes from dangers that I am almost persuaded to believe like Zina and the Africans, that my dream is true and that my mother is alive. I can never understand what became of a servant of my father's named 'Twe,' who disappeared on the eve of father's fatal sail. The boy was loyalty itself, but has never been heard of. And my old nurse Yanga, who was left to search for my mother has never been heard of either.
"Now, darling, don't think me ungrateful of your and Mr. Wilson's great kindness, but don't you see that under the circumstances you would do me a greater kindness if you will permit me to visit Freetown and inquire after Rev. Jones. I will promise faithfully not to go into the interior unless I am sure that my mother is alive and I have the proper protection, and I shall keep in touch with you always. Do, dear, persuade Mr. Wilson to consent.
"Some day I shall be in a position to repay the confidence you have placed in me without knowing my identity. But this much I can tell you now, I shall be seventeen this coming September and am a wife who is dead to her husband and relatives. Now, Elaine, you can see I am not the child you thought I was. It is too late to restore my happiness as a wife, but you may assist me to find the mother I have needed so much."
After this confidential outburst of Lucretia, Elaine persuaded Mr. Wilson to consent to Lucretia visiting Freetown, with the understanding that she would finally live with them in Chicago. Mr. Wilson and Elaine accompanied Lucretia as far as Teneriffe, where the party remained together in a mountain cottage for a fortnight.
Mr. Wilson gave Lucretia a very generous cash check upon the British West African Bank at Freetown and his Chicago Club address, where she could always reach them. They then parted from Lucretia upon the leeward-bound West African steamer and embarked in a northwest-bound steamer for their old home in the new world, which held out to Elaine a new and rosy future and a patriotic love she had never before experienced.