FLETCHER'S HALL, August 12th.
You must do as you think best. You know that I long for you, that
the thought of your wasted life is constant pain to me. Think again,
think every day, and if ever you can make up your mind to leave Mrs.
Rayner, you know that I am here, that all I have is yours also. I
shall say no more.
So you have seen him, and he asked after me. Well. What was he doing
in Homburg, I wonder? Not that I care. I really believe, Constance,
that I care no longer. And yet it so happens that last night I
thought of him a good deal. It came about so. Grandmamma had gone to
bed, and I went into Aunt Caroline's room to light her candles.
There are some little water-colours round the mirror that she
painted as a girl. I stopped to look at them, and the poor soul took
them down one by one to show me. There was a story attached to each,
and her eyes brightened with remembrance of the past. Most of the
little pictures were different views of the same house. Suddenly she
gave a little smile.
"Wait a minute; I'll show you another picture, Milly--my best
picture." (They will call me Milly; there's no help for it.) "I have
never shown it to any one before, but you are a good girl; I think I
should like to show it to you."
She cleared a space upon her dressing-table, lighted a third
candle, a fourth, making a little illumination; then from her
wardrobe she brought an old desk, and unlocked it solemnly with a
key that always hangs upon her watch-chain. The desk was full of
treasures,--letters, flowers, ends of ribbon, all neatly labelled.
She opened a little case and placed in my hands the portrait of a
young man.
I hardly knew how to take it. "It is beautiful," I said; "what a
handsome face!" Then the veil of silence and old age fell from her
heart; she told me the whole tale. Nothing new, of course. She had
loved, and--strange to say!--the man had done likewise; they were
engaged, but because his family was not equal to hers in birth, her
brother-in-law, my grandfather, would not hear of the match, and
obliged her to break it off. Yet another sin to add to his score!
"I think," said I, "that you should have married him, all the same."
The old woman blew her nose, rose, and kissed me.
"You are the first that ever told me so," she said; "I think so,
too."
It was past midnight when I left her, and I must confess that my own
eyes were not dry.
"Is he still alive?" I asked, as I reached the door.
The old woman smiled.
"I don't know," she said, "but I shall know in good time; please God
we shall soon meet again in a better land."
I lay awake a long time in the night, marvelling at her constancy
and her faith. But then I wept to think how many women, even as she,
have held one only flower in their hands, clung to it still when
colour and scent were gone, refusing to pluck another; wept, too, to
think how many such as she are buoyed up by a hope I cannot share. I
wonder what it feels like, this implicit faith in an after life! It
must make a difference, even in love. Perhaps we who believe in one
life only cling with the greater passion to what we love, seeing
that, once lost, we have no hope of re-possession.
Well, it's a sad world. But a funny one, too. I was quite shy of
meeting Aunt Caroline again this morning, lest the remembrance of
what she had told me over-night should make her feel ill at ease;
lest, in fact, she had repented of her confidence. And I stood quite
a while outside the breakfast-room door, like a fool. But as I
entered, her beaded cap was bobbing over an uplifted dish-cover.
"Oh, good morning, Milly!" she said. "No, sister, it's not Upton's
fault. The bacon's beautiful, only cook can't cut a rasher."
And again I was in my common dilemma; I didn't know whether to laugh
or cry.
Good-bye, sweetest; take care of yourself.