“The Priory--May Day.
“Dear Aunt Rachel: The great evening is over! Such dresses, such
diamonds--you never saw the like! The smart folks are just like other
human beings, and I was not the tiniest bit afraid of them. My own part
of the programme went off pretty well, I think. Mr. Koenig had arranged
the harmonies and accompaniments of some of our old Manx songs, so I
sang Mylecharaine, and they listened and clapped, and then Ny Kiree
fo Niaghtey, and they cried (and so did I), and then I imitated some
work-girls singing in the streets, and they laughed and laughed until
I laughed too, and then they laughed because I was laughing, and we all
laughed together. It was over and done before I knew where I was, and
everybody was covering me with--well, no, not kisses, as grandfather
used to do, but the society equivalent--ices and jellies--which the
gentlemen were rushing about wildly to get for me.
“But all this is as nothing compared to what is to happen next. I
mustn't whisper a word about it yet, so false face must hide what the
false heart doth know. You'll _have_ to forgive me if I succeed, for
nothing is wicked in this world except failure, you know, and a little
sin must be a great virtue if it has grown to be big enough, you see.
There! How sagacious of me! You didn't know what a philosopher you had
in the family, did you, my dears?
“It is to be on the 24th of May. That will be the Queen's birthday over
again; and when I think of all that has happened since the last one I
feel as romantic as a schoolgirl and as sentimental as a nursery maid.
Naturally I am in a fearful flurry over the whole affair, and, to tell
the truth, I have hied me to the weird sisters on the subject--that
is to say, I have been to a fortune-teller, and spent a 'goolden'
half-sovereign on the creature at one fell swoop. But she predicts
wonderful things for me, so I am satisfied. The newspapers are to blaze
with my name; I am to have a dazzling success and become the idol of the
hour--all of which is delightful and entrancing, and quite reasonable at
the money. Grandfather will reprove me for tempting Providence, and, of
course, John Storm, if he knew it, would say that I shouldn't do such
things under any circumstances; yet to tell me I oughtn't to do this and
I oughtn't to do that is like saying I oughtn't to have red hair and
I oughtn't to catch the measles. I can't help it! I can't help it! so
what's the good of breaking one's heart about it?
“But I hadn't got to wait for _Hecate et cie_ for what related to the
newspapers. You must know, dear Aunt Rachel, that I _did_ meet Mr. Drake
at the house of the Home Secretary, and he introduced me to a Miss Rosa
Macquarrie, who is no longer very young or beautiful, but a dear for all
that! and she, being a journalist, has bruited my praises abroad, with
the result that all the world is ringing with my virtues. Listen, all
men and women, while I sound mine own glory out of a column as long as
the Duke of York's:
“'She is young and tall, and has auburn hair' (always thought it was
red myself) 'and large gray eyes, one of which seems at a distance to be
brown' (it squints), 'giving an effect of humour and coquetry and power
rarely, if ever, seen in any other face.... Her voice has startling
varieties of tone, being at one moment soft, cooing, and liquid, and at
another wild, weird, and plaintive; and her face, which is not strictly
beautiful' (oh!), 'but striking and unforgetable, has an extraordinary
range of expression.... She sings, recites, speaks, laughs, and cries
(literally), and some of her selections are given in a sort of Irish
_patois_' (oh, my beloved Manx!) 'that comes from her girlish lips
with charming vivacity and drollness.' All of which, though it is quite
right, and no more than my due, _of course_, made me sob so long and
loud that my good little hippopotamus came upstairs to comfort me, but,
finding me lying on the floor, he threw up his hands and cried, '_Ach_
Gott! I t'ought it vas a young lady, but vhatever is it?'
“Yet wae's me! Sometimes I think how many poor girls there must be who
have never had a chance, while I have had so many and such glorious
ones; who can not get anybody to listen to them, while I am so pampered
and praised; who live in narrow alleys and serve in little dark shops,
where men and men-things talk to them as they can't talk to their
sisters and wives, while I am held aloft in an atmosphere of admiration
and respect: who earn their bread in clubs and casinos, where they
breathe the air of the hotbeds of hell, while I am surrounded by
everything that ennobles and refines! O God, forgive me if I am a
vain, presumptuous creature, laughing at everything and everybody, and
sometimes forgetting that many a poor girl who is being tossed about in
London is just as good as me, and as clever and as brave.
“But hoot! 'I likes to be jolly and I allus is.' So Aunt Anna doesn't
like this Wandering Jew existence! Well, do you know I always thought
I should love a gipsy life. It has a sense of movement that must be
delightful, and then I love going fast. Do you remember the days when
'Caesar' used to take the bit in his teeth and bolt with me! Lo, there
was little me, cross-legged on his bare back, with nothing to trust to
but Providence and a pair of rope reins; but, oh my! I couldn't breathe
for excitement and delight! Dear old maddest of created 'Caesars,' I
feel as if I were whacking at him yet! What do you think of me? But we
'that be females are the same craythurs alwis', as old Chalse used to
say, and what a woman is in the cradle she continues to be to the end.
There again! I wonder who told you that, young lady!
“But to tell you the truth at last, dear Aunt Rachel, there is something
I have kept back until now, because I couldn't bear the thought of any
of you being anxious on my account, especially grandfather, who thinks
of Glory so much too often as things are. Can't you guess what it is?
I couldn't help taking up my life of Wandering Jew, because I was
dismissed from the hospital! Didn't you understand that, my dears? I
thought I was telling you over and over again. Yes, dismissed as unfit
to be a nurse, and so I was, according to the order of the institution
first, and human love and pity last. But all's well that ends well, you
know, and now that my wanderings seem to be over and I am in my
right place at length, I feel like one who is coming out of a long
imprisonment, a great peril, a darkness deeper even than John Storm's
cell. And if I ever become a famous woman, and good men will listen to
me, I will tell them to be tender and merciful to poor girls who are
trying to live in London and be good and strong, and that the true
chivalry is to band themselves together against the other men who are
selfish and cruel and impure. Oh, this great, glorious, devilish, divine
London! It must stand to the human world as the seething, boiling,
bubbling waters of Niagara do to the world of Nature. Either a girl
floats over its rapids like a boat, and in that case she draws her
breath and thanks God, or she is tossed into its whirlpool like a
dead body and goes round and round until she finds the vortex and is
swallowed up!
“There! I have blown off my steam, and now to business. Mr. Drake is to
give a luncheon party in his rooms on the twenty-fourth, in honour of
my experiment, but the great event itself will not come off until nearly
half-past nine that night. By that time the sun will have set over the
back of the sea at Peel, the blackbird will have given you his last
'guy-smook,' and all the world will be dropping asleep. Now, if you'll
only remember to say just then, 'God bless Glory!' I'll feel strong and
big and brave.
“Your poor, silly, sentimental girlie, Glory.”