Gaiety in London, sadness by the sea.
Lucy did her very best to entertain Miss Drum with the cheerfulness
of former visits; in none of which had she shown herself more
considerate of the old lady’s tastes than now. She made breakfast
half-an-hour earlier than usual; she culled for her interesting
scraps from the newspaper; she gave her an arm up and down the
Esplanade on sunny days; she reclaimed the most unpromising strayed
stitches in her knitting; she sang her old-fashioned favourite
ballads for an hour or so before teatime, and after tea till bed-time
played energetically at backgammon: yet Miss Drum was sensible of a
change. All Lucy’s efforts could not make her cheeks rosy and plump,
and her laugh spontaneous; could not make her step elastic or her
eyes bright.
It is easy to ridicule a woman nearly thirty years old for fancying
herself beloved without a word said, and suffering deeply under
disappointment: yet Lucy Charlmont was no contemptible person.
However at one time deluded, she had never let a hint of her false
hopes reach Mr. Hartley’s observation; and however now disappointed,
she fought bravely against a betrayal of her plight. Alone in her own
room she might suffer visibly and keenly, but with any eye upon her
she would not give way. Sometimes it felt as if the next moment the
strain on her nerves might wax unendurable; but such a next moment
never came, and she endured still. Only, who is there strong enough,
day after day, to strain strength to the utmost, and yet give no sign?
‘My dear,’ said Miss Drum, contemplating Lucy over her spectacles and
across the backgammon-board one evening when the eyes looked more
sunken than ever, and the whole face more haggard, ‘I am sure you do
not take exercise enough. You really must do more than give me an arm
on the Esplanade; all our bloom is gone, and you are much too thin.
Promise me that you will take at least one long walk in the day
whenever the weather is not unfavourable.’
Lucy stroked her old friend’s hand fondly: ‘I will take walks when my
sisters are at home again; but I have not you here always.’
Miss Drum insisted: ‘Do not say so, my dear, or I shall feel bound to
go home again; and that I should not like at all, as we both know.
Pray oblige me by promising.’
Thus urged, Lucy promised, and in secret rejoiced that for at least
an hour or two of the day she should thenceforward be alone, relieved
from the scrutiny of those dim, affectionate eyes. And truly she
needed some relief. By day she could forbid her thoughts to shape
themselves, even mentally, into words, although no effort could
banish the vague, dull sorrow which was all that might now remain to
her of remembrance. But by night, when sleep paralysed
self-restraint, then her dreams were haunted by distorted spectres of
the past; never alluring or endearing—for this she was thankful—but
sometimes monstrous, and always impossible to escape from. Night
after night she would awake from such dreams, struggling and sobbing,
with less and less conscious strength to resume daily warfare.
Soon she allowed no weather to keep her indoors at the hour for
walking, and Miss Drum, who was a hardy disciple of the old school,
encouraged her activity. She always sought the sea, not the smooth,
civilised esplanade, but the rough, irreclaimable shingle;—to stray
to and fro till the last moment of her freedom; to and fro, to and
fro, at once listless and unresting, with wide, absent eyes fixed on
the monotonous waves, which they did not see. Gradually a morbid
fancy grew upon her that one day she should behold her father’s body
washed ashore, and that she should know the face: from a waking
fancy, this began to haunt her dreams with images unutterably
loathsome. Then she walked no more on the shingle, but took to
wandering along green lanes and country roads.
But no one struggling persistently against weakness fails to
overcome: also, however prosaic the statement may sound, air and
exercise will take effect on persons of sound constitution. Something
of Lucy’s lost colour showed itself, by fits and starts at first,
next steadily; her appetite came back, however vexed she might feel
at its return; at last fatigue brought sounder sleep, and the hollow
eyes grew less sunken. This refreshing sleep was the turning-point in
her case; it supplied strength for the day, whilst each day in its
turn brought with it fewer and fewer demands upon her strength. Seven
weeks after Miss Drum exacted the promise, Lucy, though graver of
aspect, and at heart sadder than before Alan Hartley’s wedding, had
recovered in a measure her look of health and her interest in the
details of daily life. She no longer greatly dreaded meeting her
sisters when at length their much-prolonged absence should terminate;
and in spite of some nervousness in the anticipation, felt confident
that even a sight of Mr. and Mrs. Hartley would not upset the outward
composure of her decorum.
Miss Drum triumphed in the success of her prescription, and brought
forward parallel instances within her own experience. ‘That is
right,’ she would say, ‘my dear; take another slice of the mutton
where it is not overdone. There is nothing like exercise for giving
an appetite, only the mutton should not be overdone. You cannot
remember Sarah Smith, who was with me before your dear mother
entrusted you to my care; but I assure you three doctors had given
her over as a confirmed invalid when I prescribed for her;’ and the
old lady laughed gently at her own wit. ‘I made her take a walk every
day, let the weather be what it might; and gave her nice, juicy
mutton to eat, with a change to beef, or a chicken, now and then for
variety; and very soon you would not have known her for the same
girl; and Dr. Grey remarked, in his funny way, that I ought to be an
M.D. myself.’ Or, again: ‘Lucy, my dear, you recollect my French
assistant, Mademoiselle Leclerc, what a fine, strong young woman she
was when you knew her. Now when she first came to me she was pale and
peaking, afraid of wet feet or an open window; afraid of this, that,
and the other, always tired, and with no appetite except for sweets.
Mutton and exercise made her what you remember; and before she went
home to France to marry an old admirer, she thanked me with tears in
her eyes for having made her love mutton. She said “love” when she
should have said “like;” but I was too proud and pleased to correct
her English then, I only answered, “Ah, dear Mademoiselle, always
love your husband and love your mutton.”’
Lucy had a sweet, plaintive voice, to which her own secret sorrow now
added a certain simple pathos; and when in the twilight she sang
‘Alice Grey,’ or ‘She wore a wreath of roses,’ or some other old
favourite, good Miss Drum would sit and listen till the tears
gathered behind her spectacles. Were tears in the singer’s eyes also?
She thought now with more tenderness than ever before of the suitors
she had rejected in her hopeful, happy youth, especially of a certain
Mr. Tresham, who had wished her all happiness as he turned to leave
her in his dignified regret. She had always had a great liking for
Mr. Tresham, and now she could feel for him.