A LADY PRESENTS HER COMPLIMENTS TO MISS L. D.
One morning, while Lily Dale was staying with Mrs. Thorne in London,
there was brought up to her room, as she was dressing for dinner,
a letter which the postman had just left for her. The address was
written with a feminine hand, and Lily was at once aware that she did
not know the writing. The angles were very acute, and the lines were
very straight, and the vowels looked to be cruel and false, with
their sharp points and their open eyes. Lily at once knew that it was
the performance of a woman who had been taught to write at school,
and not at home, and she became prejudiced against the writer before
she opened the letter. When she had opened the letter and read it,
her feelings towards the writer were not of a kindly nature. It was
as follows:--
"A lady presents her compliments to Miss L. D., and earnestly
implores Miss L. D. to give her an answer to the following question.
Is Miss L. D. engaged to marry Mr. J. E.? The lady in question
pledges herself not to interfere with Miss L. D. in any way, should
the answer be in the affirmative. The lady earnestly requests that a
reply to this question may be sent to M. D., Post-office, 455 Edgware
Road. In order that L. D. may not doubt that M. D. has an interest in
J. E., M. D. encloses the last note she received from him before he
started for the Continent." Then there was a scrap, which Lily well
knew to be in the handwriting of John Eames, and the scrap was as
follows:--"Dearest M.--Punctually at 8.30. Ever and always your
unalterable J. E." Lily, as she read this, did not comprehend that
John's note to M. D. had been in itself a joke.
Lily Dale had heard of anonymous letters before, but had never
received one, or even seen one. Now that she had one in her hand, it
seemed to her that there could be nothing more abominable than the
writing of such a letter. She let it drop from her, as though the
receiving, and opening, and reading it had been a stain to her. As it
lay on the ground at her feet, she trod upon it. Of what sort could a
woman be who would write such a letter as that? Answer it! Of course
she would not answer it. It never occurred to her for a moment that
it could become her to answer it. Had she been at home or with her
mother, she would have called her mother to her, and Mrs. Dale would
have taken it from the ground, and have read it, and then destroyed
it. As it was, she must pick it up herself. She did so, and declared
to herself that there should be an end to it. It might be right that
somebody should see it, and therefore she would show it to Emily
Dunstable. After that it should be destroyed.
Of course the letter could have no effect upon her. So she told
herself. But it did have a very strong effect, and probably the exact
effect which the writer had intended that it should have. J. E. was,
of course, John Eames. There was no doubt about that. What a fool
the writer must have been to talk of L. D. in the letter, when the
outside cover was plainly addressed to Miss Lilian Dale! But there
are some people for whom the pretended mystery of initial letters
has a charm, and who love the darkness of anonymous letters. As Lily
thought of this, she stamped on the letter again. Who was the M. D.
to whom she was required to send an answer--with whom John Eames
corresponded in the most affectionate terms? She had resolved that
she would not even ask herself a question about M. D., and yet she
could not divert her mind from the inquiry. It was, at any rate, a
fact that there must be some woman designated by the letters,--some
woman who had, at any rate, chosen to call herself M. D. And John
Eames had called her M. There must, at any rate, be such a woman.
This female, be she who she might, had thought it worth her while
to make this inquiry about John Eames, and had manifestly learned
something of Lily's own history. And the woman had pledged herself
not to interfere with John Eames, if L. D. would only condescend to
say that she was engaged to him! As Lily thought of the proposition,
she trod upon the letter for the third time. Then she picked it up,
and having no place of custody under lock and key ready to her hand,
she put it in her pocket.
At night, before she went to bed, she showed the letter to Emily
Dunstable. "Is it not surprising that any woman could bring herself
to write such a letter?" said Lily.
But Miss Dunstable hardly saw it in the same light. "If anybody were
to write me such a letter about Bernard," said she, "I should show it
to him as a good joke."
"That would be very different. You and Bernard, of course, understand
each other."
"And so will you and Mr. Eames--some day, I hope."
"Never more than we do now, dear. The thing that annoys me is that
such a woman as that should have even heard my name at all."
"As long as people have got ears and tongues, people will hear other
people's names."
Lily paused a moment, and then spoke again, asking another question.
"I suppose this woman does know him? She must know him, because he
has written to her."
"She knows something about him, no doubt, and has some reason for
wishing that you should quarrel with him. If I were you, I should
take care not to gratify her. As for Mr. Eames's note, it is a joke."
"It is nothing to me," said Lily.
"I suppose," continued Emily, "that most gentlemen become acquainted
with some people that they would not wish all their friends to know
that they knew. They go about so much more than we do, and meet
people of all sorts."
"No gentleman should become intimately acquainted with a woman who
could write such a letter as that," said Lily. And as she spoke she
remembered a certain episode to John Eames's early life, which had
reached her from a source which she had not doubted, and which had
given her pain and offended her. She had believed that John Eames had
in that case behaved cruelly to a young woman, and had thought that
her offence had come simply from that feeling. "But of course it is
nothing to me," she said. "Mr. Eames can choose his friends as he
likes. I only wish that my name might not be mentioned to them."
"It is not from him that she has heard it."
"Perhaps not. As I said before, of course it does not signify; only
there is something very disagreeable in the whole thing. The idea
is so hateful! Of course this woman means me to understand that she
considers herself to have a claim upon Mr. Eames, and that I stand in
her way."
"And why should you not stand in her way?"
"I will stand in nobody's way. Mr. Eames has a right to give his hand
to any one that he pleases. I, at any rate, can have no cause of
offence against him. The only thing is that I do wish that my name
could be left alone." Lily, when she was in her own room again, did
destroy the letter; but before she did so she read it again, and it
became so indelibly impressed on her memory that she could not forget
even the words of it. The lady who wrote had pledged herself, under
certain conditions, "not to interfere with Miss L. D." "Interfere
with me!" Lily said to herself; "nobody can interfere with me; nobody
has power to do so." As she turned it over in her mind, her heart
became hard against John Eames. No woman would have troubled herself
to write such a letter without some cause for the writing. That the
writer was vulgar, false, and unfeminine, Lily thought that she could
perceive from the letter itself; but no doubt the woman knew John
Eames, had some interest in the question of his marriage, and was
entitled to some answer to her question;--only was not entitled to
such answer from Lily Dale.
For some weeks past now, up to the hour at which this anonymous
letter had reached her hands, Lily's heart had been growing soft
and still softer towards John Eames; and now again it had become
hardened. I think that the appearance of Adolphus Crosbie in the
park, that momentary vision of the real man by which the divinity
of the imaginary Apollo had been dashed to the ground, had done a
service to the cause of the other lover; of the lover who had never
been a god, but who of late years had at any rate grown into the full
dimensions of a man. Unfortunately for the latter, he had commenced
his love-making when he was but little more than a boy. Lily, as she
had thought of the two together, in the days of her solitude, after
she had been deserted by Crosbie, had ever pictured to herself the
lover whom she had preferred as having something godlike in his
favour, as being far the superior in wit, in manner, in acquirement,
and in personal advantage. There had been good nature and true hearty
love on the side of the other man; but circumstances had seemed to
show that his good-nature was equal to all, and that he was able
to share even his hearty love among two or three. A man of such a
character, known by a girl from his boyhood as John Eames had been
known by Lily Dale, was likely to find more favour as a friend than
as a lover. So it had been between John Eames and Lily. While the
untrue memory of what Crosbie was, or ever had been, was present to
her, she could hardly bring herself to accept in her mind the idea
of a lover who was less noble in his manhood than the false picture
which that untrue memory was ever painting for her. Then had come
before her eyes the actual man; and though he had been seen but for
a moment, the false image had been broken into shivers. Lily had
discovered that she had been deceived, and that her forgiveness had
been asked, not by a god, but by an ordinary human being. As regarded
the ungodlike man himself, this could make no difference. Having
thought upon the matter deeply, she had resolved that she would not
marry Mr. Crosbie, and had pledged herself to that effect to friends
who never could have brought themselves to feel affection for him,
even had she married him. But the shattering of the false image might
have done John Eames a good turn. Lily knew that she had at any
rate full permission from all her friends to throw in her lot with
his,--if she could persuade herself to do so. Mother, uncle, sister,
brother-in-law, cousin,--and now this new cousin's bride that was
to be,--together with Lady Julia and a whole crowd of Allington
and Guestwick friends, were in favour of such a marriage. There
had been nothing against it but the fact that the other man had
been dearer to her; and that other fact that poor Johnny lacked
something,--something of earnestness, something of manliness,
something of that Phoebus divinity with which Crosbie had contrived
to invest his own image. But, as I have said above, John had
gradually grown, if not into divinity, at least into manliness; and
the shattering of the false image had done him yeoman's service. Now
had come this accursed letter, and Lily, despite herself, despite her
better judgment, could not sweep it away from her mind and make the
letter as nothing to her. M. D. had promised not to interfere with
her! There was no room for such interference, no possibility that
such interference should take place. She hoped earnestly,--so she
told herself,--that her old friend John Eames might have nothing to
do with a woman so impudent and vulgar as must be this M. D.; but
except as regarded old friendship, M. D. and John Eames, apart or
together, could be as nothing to her. Therefore, I say that the
letter had had the effect which the writer of it had desired.
All London was new to Lily Dale, and Mrs. Thorne was very anxious
to show her everything that could be seen. She was to return to
Allington before the flowers of May would have come, and the crowd
and the glare and the fashion and the art of the Academy's great
exhibition must therefore remain unknown to her; but she was taken to
see many pictures, and among others she was taken to see the pictures
belonging to a certain nobleman who, with that munificence which is
so amply enjoyed and so little recognized in England, keeps open
house for the world to see the treasures which the wealth of his
family has collected. The necessary order was procured, and on a
certain brilliant April afternoon Mrs. Thorne and her party found
themselves in this nobleman's drawing-room. Lily was with her, of
course, and Emily Dunstable was there, and Bernard Dale, and Mrs.
Thorne's dear friend Mrs. Harold Smith, and Mrs. Thorne's constant
and useful attendant, Siph Dunn. They had nearly completed their
delightful but wearying task of gazing at pictures, and Mrs. Harold
Smith had declared that she would not look at another painting till
the exhibition was open; three of the ladies were seated in the
drawing-room, and Siph Dunn was standing before them, lecturing
about art as though he had been brought up on the ancient masters;
Emily and Bernard were lingering behind, and the others were simply
delaying their departure till the truant lovers should have caught
them. At this moment two gentlemen entered the room from the gallery,
and the two gentlemen were Fowler Pratt and Adolphus Crosbie.
All the party except Mrs. Thorne knew Crosbie personally, and all of
them except Mrs. Harold Smith knew something of the story of what had
occurred between Crosbie and Lily. Siph Dunn had learned it all since
the meeting in the Park, having nearly learned it all from what he
had seen there with his eyes. But Mrs. Thorne, who knew Lily's story,
did not know Crosbie's appearance. But there was his friend Fowler
Pratt, who, as will be remembered, had dined with her but the other
day; and she, with that outspoken and somewhat loud impulse which was
natural to her, addressed him at once across the room, calling him by
name. Had she not done so, the two men might probably have escaped
through the room, in which case they would have met Bernard Dale and
Emily Dunstable in the doorway. Fowler Pratt would have endeavoured
so to escape, and to carry Crosbie with him, as he was quite alive
to the expedience of saving Lily from such a meeting. But, as things
turned out, escape from Mrs. Thorne was impossible.
"There's Fowler Pratt," she had said when they first entered, quite
loud enough for Fowler Pratt to hear her. "Mr. Pratt, come here. How
d'ye do? You dined with me last Tuesday, and you've never been to
call."
"I never recognize that obligation till after the middle of May,"
said Mr. Pratt, shaking hands with Mrs. Thorne and Mrs. Smith, and
bowing to Miss Dale.
"I don't see the justice of that at all," said Mrs. Thorne. "It
seems to me that a good dinner is as much entitled to a morsel of
pasteboard in April as at any other time. You won't have another till
you have called,--unless you're specially wanted."
Crosbie would have gone on, but that in his attempt to do so he
passed close by the chair on which Mrs. Harold Smith was sitting, and
that he was accosted by her. "Mr. Crosbie," she said, "I haven't seen
you for an age. Has it come to pass that you have buried yourself
entirely?" He did not know how to extricate himself so as to move
on at once. He paused, and hesitated, and then stopped, and made an
attempt to talk to Mrs. Smith as though he were at his ease. The
attempt was anything but successful; but having once stopped, he did
not know how to put himself in motion again, so that he might escape.
At this moment Bernard Dale and Emily Dunstable came up and joined
the group; but neither of them had discovered who Crosbie was till
they were close upon him.
Lily was seated between Mrs. Thorne and Mrs. Smith, and Siph Dunn had
been standing immediately opposite to them. Fowler Pratt, who had
been drawn into the circle against his will, was now standing close
to Dunn, almost between him and Lily,--and Crosbie was standing
within two yards of Lily, on the other side of Dunn. Emily and
Bernard had gone behind Pratt and Crosbie to Mrs. Thorne's side
before they had recognized the two men;--and in this way Lily was
completely surrounded. Mrs. Thorne, who, in spite of her eager,
impetuous ways, was as thoughtful of others as any woman could be, as
soon as she heard Crosbie's name understood it all, and knew that it
would be well that she should withdraw Lily from her plight. Crosbie,
in his attempt to talk to Mrs. Smith, had smiled and simpered,--and
had then felt that to smile and simper before Lily Dale, with a
pretended indifference to her presence, was false on his part, and
would seem to be mean. He would have avoided Lily for both their
sakes, had it been possible; but it was no longer possible, and he
could not keep his eyes from her face. Hardly knowing what he did, he
bowed to her, lifted his hat, and uttered some word of greeting.
Lily, from the moment that she had perceived his presence, had looked
straight before her, with something almost of fierceness in her eyes.
Both Pratt and Siph Dunn had observed her narrowly. It had seemed
as though Crosbie had been altogether outside the ken of her eyes,
or the notice of her ears, and yet she had seen every motion of his
body, and had heard every word which had fallen from his lips. Now,
when he saluted her, she turned her face full upon him, and bowed to
him. Then she rose from her seat, and made her way, between Siph Dunn
and Pratt, out of the circle. The blood had mounted to her face and
suffused it all, and her whole manner was such that it could escape
the observation of none who stood there. Even Mrs. Harold Smith had
seen it, and had read the story. As soon as she was on her feet,
Bernard had dropped Emily's hand, and offered his arm to his cousin.
"Lily," he had said out loud, "you had better let me take you away.
It is a misfortune that you have been subjected to the insult of
such a greeting." Bernard and Crosbie had been early friends, and
Bernard had been the unfortunate means of bringing Crosbie and Lily
together. Up to this day, Bernard had never had his revenge for the
ill-treatment which his cousin had received. Some morsel of that
revenge came to him now. Lily almost hated her cousin for what he
said; but she took his arm, and walked with him from the room.
It must be acknowledged in excuse for Bernard Dale, and as an
apology for the apparent indiscretion of his words, that all the
circumstances of the meeting had become apparent to every one there.
The misfortune of the encounter had become too plain to admit of its
being hidden under any of the ordinary veils of society. Crosbie's
salutation had been made before the eyes of them all, and in the
midst of absolute silence, and Lily had risen with so queen-like
a demeanour, and had moved with so stately a step, that it was
impossible that any one concerned should pretend to ignore the facts
of the scene that had occurred. Crosbie was still standing close to
Mrs. Harold Smith, Mrs. Thorne had risen from her seat, and the words
which Bernard Dale had uttered were still sounding in the ears of
them all. "Shall I see after the carriage?" said Siph Dunn. "Do,"
said Mrs. Thorne; "or, stay a moment; the carriage will of course be
there, and we will go together. Good-morning, Mr. Pratt. I expect
that, at any rate, you will send me your card by post." Then they all
passed on, and Crosbie and Fowler Pratt were left among the pictures.
"I think you will agree with me now that you had better give her up,"
said Fowler Pratt.
"I will never give her up," said Crosbie, "till I shall hear that she
has married some one else."
"You may take my word for it, that she will never marry you after
what has just now occurred."
"Very likely not; but still the attempt, even the idea of the
attempt, will be a comfort to me. I shall be endeavouring to do that
which I ought to have done."
"What you have got to think of, I should suppose, is her
comfort,--not your own."
Crosbie stood for a while silent, looking at a portrait which was
hung just within the doorway of a smaller room into which they had
passed, as though his attention were entirely riveted by the picture.
But he was thinking of the picture not at all, and did not even know
what kind of painting was on the canvas before him.
"Pratt," he said at last, "you are always hard to me."
"I will say nothing more to you on the subject, if you wish me to be
silent."
"I do wish you to be silent about that."
"That shall be enough," said Pratt.
"You do not quite understand me. You do not know how thoroughly I
have repented of the evil that I have done, or how far I would go to
make retribution, if retribution were possible!"
Fowler Pratt, having been told to hold his tongue as regarded that
subject, made no reply to this, and began to talk about the pictures.
Lily, leaning on her cousin's arm, was out in the courtyard in front
of the house before Mrs. Thorne or Siph Dunn. It was but for a
minute, but still there was a minute in which Bernard felt that he
ought to say a word to her.
"I hope you are not angry with me, Lily, for having spoken."
"I wish, of course, that you had not spoken; but I am not angry. I
have no right to be angry. I made the misfortune for myself. Do not
say anything more about it, dear Bernard;--that is all."
They had walked to the picture-gallery; but, by agreement, two
carriages had come to take them away,--Mrs. Thorne's and Mrs. Harold
Smith's. Mrs. Thorne easily managed to send Emily Dunstable and
Bernard away with her friend, and to tell Siph Dunn that he must
manage for himself. In this way it was contrived that no one but Mrs.
Thorne should be with Lily Dale.
"My dear," said Mrs. Thorne, "it seemed to me that you were a little
put out, and so I thought it best to send them all away."
"It was very kind."
"He ought to have passed on and not to have stood an instant when he
saw you," said Mrs. Thorne, with indignation. "There are moments when
it is a man's duty simply to vanish, to melt into the air, or to sink
into the ground,--in which he is bound to overcome the difficulties
of such sudden self-removal, or must ever after be accounted poor and
mean."
"I did not want him to vanish;--if only he had not spoken to me."
"He should have vanished. A man is sometimes bound in honour to do
so, even when he himself has done nothing wrong;--when the sin has
been all with the woman. Her femininity has still a right to expect
that so much shall be done in its behalf. But when the sin has been
all his own, as it was in this case,--and such damning sin too,--"
"Pray do not go on, Mrs. Thorne."
"He ought to go out and hang himself simply for having allowed
himself to be seen. I thought Bernard behaved very well, and I shall
tell him so."
"I wish you could manage to forget it all, and say no word more about
it."
"I won't trouble you with it, my dear; I will promise you that. But,
Lily, I can hardly understand you. This man who must have been and
must ever be a brute,--"
"Mrs. Thorne, you promised me this instant that you would not talk of
him."
"After this I will not; but you must let me have my way now for one
moment. I have so often longed to speak to you, but have not done so
from fear of offending you. Now the matter has come up by chance,
and it was impossible that what has occurred should pass by without
a word. I cannot conceive why the memory of that bad man should be
allowed to destroy your whole life."
"My life is not destroyed. My life is anything but destroyed. It is a
very happy life."
"But, my dear, if all that I hear is true, there is a most estimable
young man, whom everybody likes, and particularly all your own
family, and whom you like very much yourself; and you will have
nothing to say to him, though his constancy is like the constancy of
an old Paladin,--and all because of this wretch who just now came in
your way."
"Mrs. Thorne, it is impossible to explain it all."
"I do not want you to explain it all. Of course I would not ask any
young woman to marry a man whom she did not love. Such marriages are
abominable to me. But I think that a young woman ought to get married
if the thing fairly comes in her way, and if her friends approve, and
if she is fond of the man who is fond of her. It may be that some
memory of what has gone before is allowed to stand in your way, and
that it should not be so allowed. It sometimes happens that a morbid
sentiment will destroy a life. Excuse me, then, Lily, if I say too
much to you in my hope that you may not suffer after this fashion."
"I know how kind you are, Mrs. Thorne."
"Here we are at home, and perhaps you would like to go in. I have
some calls which I must make." Then the conversation was ended, and
Lily was alone.
As if she had not thought of it all before! As if there was anything
new in this counsel which Mrs. Thorne had given her! She had received
the same advice from her mother, from her sister, from her uncle, and
from Lady Julia, till she was sick of it. How had it come to pass
that matters which with others are so private, should with her have
become the public property of so large a circle? Any other girl would
receive advice on such a subject from her mother alone, and there the
secret would rest. But her secret had been published, as it were, by
the town-crier in the High Street! Everybody knew that she had been
jilted by Adolphus Crosbie, and that it was intended that she should
be consoled by John Eames. And people seemed to think that they had
a right to rebuke her if she expressed an unwillingness to carry out
this intention which the public had so kindly arranged for her.
Morbid sentiment! Why should she be accused of morbid sentiment
because she was unable to transfer her affections to the man who
had been fixed on as her future husband by the large circle of
acquaintance who had interested themselves in her affairs? There was
nothing morbid in either her desires or her regrets. So she assured
herself, with something very like anger at the accusation made
against her. She had been contented, and was contented, to live at
home as her mother lived, asking for no excitement beyond that given
by the daily routine of her duties. There could be nothing morbid in
that. She would go back to Allington as soon as might be, and have
done with this London life, which only made her wretched. This seeing
of Crosbie had been terrible to her. She did not tell herself that
his image had been shattered. Her idea was that all her misery had
come from the untowardness of the meeting. But there was the fact
that she had seen the man and heard his voice, and that the seeing
him and hearing him had made her miserable. She certainly desired
that it might never be her lot either to see him or to hear him
again.
And as for John Eames,--in those bitter moments of her reflection she
almost wished the same in regard to him. If he would only cease to
be her lover, he might be very well; but he was not very well to her
as long as his pretensions were dinned into her ear by everybody who
knew her. And then she told herself that John would have had a better
chance if he had been content to plead for himself. In this, I think,
she was hard upon her lover. He had pleaded for himself as well as he
knew how, and as often as the occasion had been given to him. It had
hardly been his fault that his case had been taken in hand by other
advocates. He had given no commission to Mrs. Thorne to plead for
him.
Poor Johnny. He had stood in much better favour before the lady had
presented her compliments to Miss L. D. It was that odious letter,
and the thoughts which it had forced upon Lily's mind, which were now
most inimical to his interests. Whether Lily loved him or not, she
did not love him well enough not to be jealous of him. Had any such
letter reached her respecting Crosbie in the happy days of her young
love, she would simply have laughed at it. It would have been nothing
to her. But now she was sore and unhappy, and any trifle was powerful
enough to irritate her. "Is Miss L. D. engaged to marry Mr. J. E.?"
"No," said Lily, out loud. "Lily Dale is not engaged to marry John
Eames, and never will be so engaged." She was almost tempted to sit
down and write the required answer to Miss M. D. Though the letter
had been destroyed, she well remembered the number of the post-office
in the Edgware Road. Poor John Eames!
That evening she told Emily Dunstable that she thought she would like
to return to Allington before the day that had been appointed for
her. "But why," said Emily, "should you be worse than your word?"
"I daresay it will seem silly, but the fact is I am homesick. I'm not
accustomed to be away from mamma for so long."
"I hope it is not what occurred to-day at the picture-gallery."
"I won't deny that it is that in part."
"That was a strange accident, you know, that might never occur
again."
"It has occurred twice already, Emily."
"I don't call the affair in the Park anything. Anybody may see
anybody else in the Park, of course. He was not brought so near you
that he could annoy you there. You ought certainly to wait till Mr.
Eames has come back from Italy."
Then Lily declared that she must and would go back to Allington on
the next Monday, and she actually did write a letter to her mother
that night to say that such was her intention. But on the morrow her
heart was less sore, and the letter was not sent.