FLETCHER'S HALL, GRAYSMILL,
July 26th.
What do you think stepped in with my bath this morning? A long
narrow letter sealed with a heart. I kissed the blue stamp and
spread the three dear sheets out on my pillow. Oimé, Constantia, how
I love you! But why write about _me_? Why waste pen and ink
wondering how I am? Tell me about yourself, tell me all you do, and
all you think; tell me how many different hats you wore on
Wednesday, and how you misspent your time on Thursday; tell me of
all the nonsense that is poured into your ears, of all the rubbish
you read; tell me even how many times your mother wakes you in the
night to ask if you are sleeping well. I long for you so that the
very faults of your life are dear to me, even those for which I most
reprove you when you are near.
Let me see: it is past midday with you; you and your mother are out
walking. I hear you both.
"Constance," says Mrs. Rayner, "put up your parasol!"
"Thanks, mother," you reply; "I like to feel the sun."
"You'll freckle."
"Through this thick veil and all the powder?"
"You'll freckle, I tell you. Put up your parasol."
"Oh, mother, do let me be!"
Here Mrs. Rayner wrenches the parasol out of your hands and puts it
up with a jerk; you take it, heaving a very loud sigh, upon which
your mother seizes it again and pops it down.
"Very well, be as freckled as you please; what does it matter to me,
after all? It's so pretty to have freckles, isn't it? Please
yourself! Only I warn you that you'll look like a fig before the
year's out!"
Oh, dear me, it seems I'm in good spirits to-day! Why not, with your
letter in my pocket? I am sitting out of doors in the woods. I love
this place, apart from its own beauty; I like to think of my father
out here in the open, dreaming his young dreams. Indoors in the old
house I am often miserable, with a misery beyond my own, remembering
how he suffered once between those walls.
No, I am not really in good spirits, although there comes now and
again a little gust of light-heartedness. You know me. For the rest,
I hate myself, I am a worm. The empire of myself is lost; I am
sitting low on the ground, where my troubles laid me, letting what
may run over me. I hate myself both for my abject hopelessness and
for my incapacity to take comfort at the hands of those about me.
But oh! the deadliness of their life is past description; they have
neither breadth nor health in their thoughts. I am not speaking of
the old women; their lives are at an end; they sit as little
children there, simple of heart; what they were I ask not, nor boots
it now, for their day is done. But George Fletcher and his family,
and my various more distant relatives, and my neighbours far and
near--oh, I shall never be able to live here! Believe me; you will
soon see me back. Good people, mind you, one and all, according to
their lights; God-fearing, law-abiding, nothing questioning, one and
all. I shall soon expect to see the earth stand still and roll
backwards. Yes; there they trot upon life's highway, chained
together, dragging each other along; not one of them dares stop to
pick a flower lest the others should tread on his fingers and toes.
And they are so swaddled up in customs and conventions, baby-learned
forms of speech and bearing, that there is nothing to be seen of the
real man and woman; indeed, I cannot say that I have yet found a
mummy worth unrolling. Yesterday a kind of cousin brought her
children to see me. There was a small girl who had already learned,
poor wretch, to play her little part, to quell the impulses of her
young heart, to tune her tongue to a given pitch. She sat on the
edge of her chair, feigning indifference to everything, from Chinese
chessmen to gingerbread-nuts; it was a positive relief to me when
her younger brother, who has not yet learned the most necessary
falsehoods, yelled lustily and smashed a tea-cup. I should have been
glad to do both myself.
I must unpack my books. A Broadwood is on its way from London; in a
few days I hope to have made unto myself some kind of oasis in this
desert. I have taken possession of the two rooms on the topmost
floor that were my father's nurseries; and there, with my things
about me, I mean to be happy against all odds.
Good-bye for to-day. Do you remember this morning a fortnight ago?
It might be last year--it might be yesterday! How strange is the
beat of Time's wings!
Your EMILIA.