July 19.
It is just half-past ten, my Constance; the two old ladies have gone
to bed. I am getting on very well, on the whole, although I had the
misfortune to keep them waiting three-quarters of an hour for
breakfast this morning. It was so beautiful out of doors, and I was
so happy roaming in field and wood,--happy with the happiness
sunshine can lay atop of the greatest sorrow,--that I stayed out
till nearly ten o'clock. I had taken some milk and bread in the
kitchen before starting, not realising that breakfast here is a
solemn meal. Poor old souls! they were too polite to begin without
me, and I found them positively drooping with hunger.
All the rancour that I had harboured in my heart this many a year
against my father's stepmother has vanished into thin air. One
glance at the old lady's delicate weak face, at her diffident eyes
and nervous fingers, dispelled once and forever any preconceived
idea that she might have helped him in his ardent difficult boyhood,
stood between him and his father in his day of disgrace. Had she
been a woman of mettle, I could never have forgiven her the neutral
part she played; but she stands there cleared by her very impotence.
I think she was nervous of meeting me, last night; she said
something confused about my poor papa, about her husband's severity,
adding that she was sorry not to have known my mamma, but supposed I
must be like her, as I looked quite the foreigner with my black
eyes. Her whole manner towards me is almost painful in its humility;
this morning she begged me to let her live with me, and die in this
house, saying she did not care to go and live with her son; upon
which I of course assured her that she must still consider
everything her own, and the scene ended in kisses and a
pocket-handkerchief.
There is something very touching about an old woman's hand; I felt
myself much more moved than the occasion warranted when she held me
with her trembling fingers, moving them nervously up and down, so
that I felt the small weak bones under the skin, all soft,
full-veined, and wrinkled.
Her sister, Caroline Seymour, is younger, probably not more than
sixty, and very active. She has a bright, bird-like face, over which
flits from time to time a sad little gleam of lost beauty. Her
fingers are always busy, and the beads in her cap bob up and down
incessantly as she bends over her fancy-work. Poor old souls--poor
old children! I think my grandfather must have led them a life;
there is a peacefulness upon them that suggests deliverance. He has
been dead just five weeks.
But the old house will see quiet days enough now. I have wandered
all over it, and find it a beautiful place in itself, although it is
so stuffed with wool-work, vile china, gildings, wax flowers, and
indescribable mantel-piece atrocities, that there is not a simple or
restful corner anywhere. Yet I find myself touched by its very
hideousness, when I think that it probably looked even so, smelt
even so stale and sweet, in the days of my dear father's boyhood.
There is a picture in the large drawing-room that gives me infinite
pleasure. It is a portrait of my own grandmother with papa in a
white frock on her knees, and my poor Aunt Fanny beside her, a neat
little smiling girl in pink, with very long drawers. There is
something in the young mother's face that, at first sight, made my
father's smile rise clearly to my memory. I have since tried to
recall the vision, but in vain.
My father's half-brother, George Fletcher, a widower with a large
family, who lives four miles from here, came to see me this
afternoon, and I took a great dislike to him. (Did I hear you say
"Of course"?) But really, dearest, these introductions are very
painful; it is most unpleasant to have the undesirable stranger
thrust upon one in the guise of friend and protector, to find
oneself standing on a footing of inevitable familiarity with people
whose hands one had rather not touch. He kissed me, Constantia, but
he certainly will not do so again. Fortunately, I like my two old
ladies; things might be worse.
To-morrow my lawyer comes from London to speak to me on business. I
shall be glad when the interview is over, for I understand nothing
at all about business matters. I can indeed barely grasp the fact
that I have come into possession of land and money. Heaven only
knows what I am to do with it all.
Write to me; write soon. You seem further away from me to-day than
you did last night; and yet I should miss you more if I could
realise my own existence. Can you make your way through these
contradictions? It seems to me this evening that I, Emilia, am still
beside you, that some one else sits here in exile with nothing
written on the page of her future, not even by the finger of Hope.
Good night, dearest.
Yours ever and always,
EMILIA.