CHAPTER XXII
CECIL finished his Oxford epoch, taking his double first and crowning his athletic career as stroke of his college eight. He wrote to Lee that he was a wreck mentally, and was going on a tour round the world to shoot big game; he should eventually land in California, where he expected she would have a grizzly for him. He hoped for tigers in India, lions and elephants in Africa, and buffalo in the “Western” United States. He should also take a run through South America. When he had finished with the grizzly, he should feel a man once more, not a worn-out intellect.
“It would be quite dreadful not to have gone through Oxford,” he confessed, “for nothing else moulds a man’s brain into shape—if he’s got one. How odd and unfinished your American men must be! I understand that few of those who go to the Universities take the whole course—which is a kindergarten compared to ours—and that the majority scorn education after eighteen; but I am more than willing to forget all I ever knew for at least two years. After that, of course, I shall think seriously of what I am to do with my life. I did not tell you, I think, that my grandmother is dead, and that I am not quite a pauper. I feel reasonably sure that the political life will be my choice, and I shall manage to learn something of each of our colonies that I visit.”
“It would be quite dreadful not to have gone through Oxford,” he confessed, “for nothing else moulds a man’s brain into shape—if he’s got one. How odd and unfinished your American men must be! I understand that few of those who go to the Universities take the whole course—which is a kindergarten compared to ours—and that the majority scorn education after eighteen; but I am more than willing to forget all I ever knew for at least two years. After that, of course, I shall think seriously of what I am to do with my life. I did not tell you, I think, that my grandmother is dead, and that I am not quite a pauper. I feel reasonably sure that the political life will be my choice, and I shall manage to learn something of each of our colonies that I visit.”
Lee understood Ned Geary, Tom Brannan and more than one other of the men who had given her opportunity to study them. At times she was sure that she knew Randolph, leaf by leaf. The habit in which the average American lives may be said to be an illuminated manuscript of himself, profusely illustrated with drawings by the author. When he is not disclosing his inmost mind, he is criticising life, within the narrow horizon of his experience, from the personal view-point; which reflections are as self-revealing as annotations by the ambitious editor of a great poet. There was no mystery about any of them for Lee, and, like all bright imaginative girls, she loved mystery. She felt that it would be long before she could understand the least of Cecil, particularly if he was anything like Lord Arrowmount. It is true that he had often written at great length, and by no means ignored the sacred subject of himself; but there was always a magnificent reach about Cecil, and a corresponding lack of ingenuousness.
She wondered if she had given him the same suggestion of a complex mind and nature, and one day re-read his letters. The first fifteen or twenty contained references to the episodes of their brief companionship. Later, these episodes seemed quite forgotten. And he not only demanded no return of confidences, he evinced no curiosity. In all his letters there was not a reference to her inner life. Occasionally he asked what she was reading, and if she were happy in her new home; that was all.
“How is one to prepare oneself for such a man as that?” thought Lee. “What does he want? Anear—nothing more? He seems different enough from American men. They seem either to understand me, or to suggest that it doesn’t matter whether they do or not; I am perfect all the same. But Cecil Maundrell!” She kicked out her little foot rather viciously. After all, why should she adapt herself to anybody? She was an individuality, more of one every month of her life, and extremely interesting to herself and other people. Englishwomen, she had been told, were very much of a pattern—the result of centuries of breeding in uninterrupted conditions. It was the very reverse that made up nine-tenths of the fascination of the American woman. When she married Cecil Maundrell—she had tossed “if” out of her vocabulary—they might take a year or two to adjust themselves to each other; but they both had brains enough to succeed in the end; and he could not fail to be charmed with a wife cut out of her own piece of cloth, and specially designed for himself.