THE AMAZING CONTENTS OF
MR. ELY'S LETTER
Mr. Ely played with that letter as a cat plays with a mouse. It was a
tender morsel, a _bonne bouche_, which must not be hastily dismissed.
He turned it over and over, examining first the superscription, the
bold, flourishing hand in which she had penned his name--how well it
looked; the first time his name had been inscribed by her! Then he
examined the reverse--the monogram. He could make it out quite
well--L. T.--Lily Truscott. He blushed as he caught himself in the act
of raising the magic letters to his lips. Then he laid it down in a
prominent position in front of his plate, and studied the exterior as
he began to eat.
"I wonder what she has to say!" Ah, what! "I wonder if--if she's come
round to my point of view? Got--got spoony, and--and all that. By
George, I hope she has!" What with the food he had in his mouth, and
the sigh, he was almost choked. "I think every woman ought to love the
man she's going to marry. I love her--I know I do."
He began to know that fact too well. The man who had had nothing to do
with sentiment was painfully conscious that he was on the point of
becoming the most sentimental of men.
"I mismanaged the affair all through. I ought to have told her that I
loved her. How can a man expect a girl to love him if she don't
believe that he loves her? Perhaps she has written to say that she can
conceal the fact no longer: that she loves me whether I want her to or
don't. By George! I hope she has."
He feasted his eyes again upon the envelope, and helped himself to
another serving of ham and eggs.
"I thought her behaviour was a trifle cold. It was that beastly dog
that did it. How can a man make himself agreeable to a woman when
there's a dog ready to bite his nose off sitting on her knee? Still, I
thought her behaviour was a trifle cold. She didn't seem to pay much
attention to what I had to say; I believe she would have preferred to
read; and when she did begin to talk she was taking pot-shots at one
all over the place, as it were."
He sighed, and took another egg.
"And when I asked her to marry me I might have been asking her to take
a tart; she didn't seem to be interested in the least. She was most
uncommon anxious to treat the thing in a business-like kind of way. I
oughtn't to have been so particular about saying I was a business man.
That was a mistake; I know it was."
He sighed again. He put down his knife and fork.
"By George, if she writes to say she loves me, I--I'd give a hundred
pounds!"
He took the letter in his hands.
"I wonder if she does!"
In his anxiety he rose from his seat and began to pace the room,
holding the letter tightly in his hand. He paused before the
mantelshelf and regarded himself in the glass.
"Well, upon my word, I never thought that I should come to this--I
never did. Here's all the papers, and goodness knows what news from
Paris, and I haven't looked at one, and don't want to neither, that's
the truth. If she's only written to say she loves me, whether I want
her to or don't, I--I'd give a thousand pounds. Here goes! I can't
stand fooling here all day! Goodness knows what the state of things in
the City may be."
He was about to tear the envelope open with his finger. He changed his
mind.
"She may have written something on the flap. I'd better use a knife."
He used a knife. To see him use it, opening an envelope might have
been the most delicate operation on earth.
"Now for it!" He heaved the greatest sigh of all. "By George, if it's
only to confess her love!"
He seated himself at the table with the letter spread out in front of
him. It might have been as fragile as it was priceless to observe the
ginger way in which he opened it and spread it out. Then he arrayed
himself for its perusal with as much precision as though it were some
formal and rather complicated revelation just to hand from the gods.
"'Dear Mr. Ely' (I say! She might have said 'Dear Fred,' or even
'Frederic'! 'Dear Mr. Ely'! It's rather a stiffish way of writing to
the man you're going to marry, don't you know.) 'Just a line with
reference to what passed between us yesterday. I have changed my mind.
I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment.
It is quite impossible for me to be your wife. The fact is, I am going
to marry Mr. Summers instead. Yours truly, Lily Truscott.'"
Mr. Ely read this note through without, in his astonishment, being in
the least able to grasp its meaning.
"What--what the blazes is all this!" He ploughed through it again.
"'Dear Mr. Ely' (it's evidently meant for me), 'just a line with
reference to what passed between us yesterday'! (What passed between
us yesterday--what's she mean? She hasn't put a date; I suppose she
means my asking her to be my wife. That's a pretty good way of
referring to it, anyhow.) 'I have changed my mind!' (Oh, has she?
About what? It didn't strike me she had a mind to change.) 'I thought
it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment'! (If she
had only told me what it was she thought it better to let me know, it
would have been perhaps as well. If this is a love-letter, give me the
other kind of thing.) 'It is quite impossible for me to be your wife.'
(What--what the blazes does she mean?) 'The fact is, I am going to
marry Mr. Summers instead'!"
Mr. Ely's jaw dropped, and he stared at the letter as though it were a
ghost.
"Well--I'm--hanged!' The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers
instead.' That takes the cake!' Yours truly, Lily Truscott.'--If that
isn't the sweetest thing in love-letters ever yet I heard of!"
Quite a curious change had come over Mr. Ely. If we may be forgiven a
vulgarism which is most expressive--he seemed to have been knocked all
of a heap. His head had fallen forward on his chest, one limp hand
held Miss Truscott's letter, the other dangled nerveless by his side.
"And I gave twenty pounds for an engagement-ring!"
They were the first words in which he gave expression to the strength
of his emotion.
"Good Lord, if I had given him what he asked, and stumped up
forty-five!"
The reflection sent a shudder all through his frame. The horror of the
picture thus conjured up by his imagination had the effect of a tonic
on his nerves, it recalled him to himself.
"I'll have another read at this. There isn't much of it, but what
there is requires a good deal of digesting."
He pulled himself together, sat up in his chair, and had another read.
"'Dear Mr. Ely' (yes, by George, dear at any price, I'll swear! Like
her impudence to call me 'dear'! I wonder she didn't begin it 'Sir'),
'just a line with reference to what passed between us yesterday.'
(That is, I think, about the coollest bit I ever heard of. Quite a
casual allusion, don't you know, to a matter of not the slightest
importance to any one, especially me. That young woman's graduated in
an establishment where they teach 'em how to go.) 'I have changed my
mind!' (That's--that's about two stone better than the other. She's
changed her mind! Holy Moses! About something, you know, about which
we change our minds as easily and as often as we do our boots.) 'I
thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment.'
(She certainly has done that. Unless she had changed her mind before
she had made it up, she could scarcely have let me know it sooner. She
might have wired, to be sure! But perhaps she never thought of that.)
'It is quite impossible for me to be your wife.' (It is as well that
the explanation follows immediately after, or echo would have answered
'Why?') 'The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead.' I
suppose there never was a larger amount of meaning contained in a
smaller number of words. Among the remarkable women the world has seen
the record's hers; she is certainly unique."
Rising from his seat, he put the letter back in the envelope, and
placed the envelope within his letter-case.
"I'll take that letter up to Ash; I'll have a word to say to him. I
wonder if he knows what sort of a ward he's got? That's the best and
truest girl alive; a woman whose word is just her bond; who, when she
says a thing, sticks to it like glue. And to think that I spent twenty
pounds on an engagement-ring!"
He put his hands into his trousers pockets. He balanced himself upon
his toes and heels.
"Twenty pounds for an engagement-ring! I wonder how much Mr. Summers
intends to pay?"
The reflection angered him.
"By George, I'll let her know if she's going to pitch me overboard
quite so easily as that. I'll make her marry me, or I'll know the
reason why."
When he left for the City his first business was to pay a visit to Mr.
Ash. He dismissed the cab at the corner of Throgmorton Street. He had
not taken half a dozen steps along that rather narrow thoroughfare
when a hand was laid upon his shoulder; turning, he saw Mr. Rosenbaum.
"My good friend, I have a little paper here for you."
And Mr. Rosenbaum deftly slipped a paper into his good friend's hand.
"Rosenbaum! What's this?"
"It's a writ, my friend; a writ. You would not tell me the name of
your solicitor, so I try personal service instead."
With a beaming smile and a nod of his head, Mr. Rosenbaum swaggered
away. In a somewhat bewildered state of mind Mr. Ely stared after him,
the paper in his hand.
"It never rains but it pours! Here's two strokes of luck in a single
day, and I've only just got out of bed!"
He opened the legal-looking document with which he had been so
unexpectedly presented by his generous friend, and glanced at its
contents. It was headed "Rosenbaum _v_. Ely," and, so far as he could
judge from his hasty glance, it purported to relate to an action
brought by Ruth Rosenbaum against Frederic Ely, to recover damages for
breach of promise of marriage.
"Well! This is a pretty go!"
He could scarcely believe his eyes; the damages were laid at thirty
thousand pounds! And he had already spent twenty pounds for an
engagement-ring!
His first impulse was to tear the paper up and scatter the pieces in
the street. His second--which he followed--was to place it in the
inner pocket of his coat as a companion to his letter-case.
"Rosenbaum must be a greater fool even than I thought. Thirty thousand
pounds! By George! One girl values me at a considerably higher figure
than another does."
He found that Mr. Ash was still in his office, and alone; so, without
troubling to have himself announced, he marched straight in.
"Hallo, Ely, here again! Anything settled about the date? Or is it
something more tangible than love?"
Mr. Ash was engaged with a file of correspondence, from which he
looked up at Mr. Ely, with a laugh.
"I have to get through all this before I can put in an appearance in
the House. And here's a man who gives me so many minute directions
about what he wants to do that I can't for the life of me understand
what it is he wants. Why people can't just say 'Buy this,' 'Sell
that,' is more than I can tell. But what's the matter? You look quite
glum."
"So would you look glum if you had as much cause for looking glum as
me."
"I don't know! You've won one of the prettiest girls in England--and
one of the nicest little fortunes, too. After that it would take
something to make me look glum."
"She's one of the prettiest girls in England."
"There's no mistake about that. Any man might be proud of such a
prize. I've been thinking about it all night."
"I've been thinking about it, too."
"And the result is to give you that dyspeptic look? Not flattering to
her, eh?"
There was a pause before Mr. Ely answered. With much deliberation he
put his hand into his pocket and drew out his letter-case. "I'm sorry
you don't think it's flattering." Another pause before he spoke again;
then it was with an even more acidulated expression of countenance. "I
have received a letter by this morning's post."
"No! From her? She's going it."
"Yes, she is going it, I think."
"That sort of thing's hardly your line, eh?"
"That sort of thing hardly is my line."
"Don't care for love-letters--as a rule?"
"I should like to refer to a dictionary to know what a love-letter is.
If this is a love-letter, I prefer a summons."
It was on his tongue to say a writ, but he remembered that he already
had one in his pocket, and chose another word.
"Ah, Ely, you must remember that this is a romantic girl. If her
language seems too flowery--too kissy-kissy--you must bear in mind
that in romantic girls affection is apt to take such shapes. Besides,
I should think you'd rather have that than the other kind of thing--I
know I would."
"Perhaps, before you pass an opinion on that subject, you'll allow me
to read to you the letter I've received."
"Read it! I say! Is that quite fair? Men don't read their love-letters
even to their young women's guardians as a rule. Especially the
first--I thought that was sacred above the rest."
"Look here, Ash, I'm the mildest-mannered man alive, but you never
came nearer having an inkstand at your head than since I've been
inside this room."
"Ely! Good gracious, man! What's the matter now?"
"I repeat--perhaps you'll allow me to read to you the letter I've
received."
With the same air of excessive deliberation, Mr. Ely opened his
letter-case, took from it an envelope, and from it a letter, unfolded
the epistle, and looked at Mr. Ash. Mr. Ash did nothing but stare at
him.
"This is my first love-letter--the one which you thought was sacred
above the rest. I don't know about the rest. This is quite enough for
me. You are sure you're listening?"
"I'll take my oath on that."
"'Dear Mr. Ely' (you observe how warmly she begins! Kissy-kissy kind
of way, you know), 'just a line with reference to what passed between
us yesterday.' (That's a gentle allusion to the trivial fact that on
the day before she pledged herself to be my wife. We're getting warm,
you see.) 'I have changed my mind.'"
"She has what?"
"She says that she has changed her mind."
"What does she mean by she's changed her mind?"
"Ah, that's what we have to see. It's an obscure allusion which
becomes clearer later on; an example of the flowery language in which
romantic girls indulge. 'I thought it better to let you know at the
earliest possible moment.' (You'll observe that she wastes no time.
Perhaps that's another characteristic of the romantic state of mind.)
'It is quite impossible for me to be your wife.'"
"What's that?"
"She says that it's quite impossible for her to be my wife."
"But--good heavens!--I thought you told me she said yes."
"She did say yes."
"But an unhesitating--a final and decisive yes?"
"It was an unhesitating, a final and decisive yes.
"You sent me up a wire!"
"It was agreed between us that I should send you up a wire."
"You talked about having the marriage in a month."
"I did talk, about having the marriage in a month."
"And buying a house and furniture, and all the rest of it."
"Precisely; and all the rest of it."
"And you told me that you had bought a ring."
"That's a fact. I did. I paid twenty pounds for an engagement-ring.
It's in my pocket now. That's one of the pleasantest parts of the
affair."
"Then what the dickens does she mean? Is the girl stark mad? Are you
sure the letter comes from her?"
"You shall examine it for yourself in a moment, and then you'll be
able to decide. You understand it is the first love-letter I ever had,
and therefore sacred above the rest. As for what she means, the
explanation comes a little further on--in the next sentence, in fact,
Perhaps you will allow me to proceed!"
"Oh, go on! It is plain the girl is mad."
"'The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead.'"
"Good----! What--what's that?"
"She says that she's going to marry Mr. Summers instead."
"Instead! Instead of whom?"
"Instead of me."
"Well, I'm--hanged!"
"Yes, that's exactly what I am. And as this is the result of my first
love-letter, I don't want to have a second experience of the same
kind, you understand."
"Then he's done it after all! What a fool I've been!"
"Well, it does seem that there's a fool somewhere in the case."
"I've done it all!"
"The deuce you have!"
"Do you know this man Summers?"
"Of course I do. Didn't you see I did when I met him here the other
day?"
"Do you know what he came for then?"
"How should I? For half a crown, I shouldn't be surprised. He's one of
those painter fellows who run up pictures by the yard."
"He came for Lily."
"What the dickens do you mean?"
"I mean exactly what I say. He came to ask my consent to make my ward
an offer of his hand."
"What! Before I did?"
"No; directly you had gone."
"But you had given your consent to me!"
"I told him so. He didn't seem to think that it mattered in the
least."
"Well, he's a cool hand, upon my Sam!"
"When I told him what I had arranged with you, he wanted to start off
for Shanklin there and then. It was with the greatest difficulty that
I got him to listen to common sense--I never saw a man in such a state
of imbecility. Finally, I agreed that if you failed then he should
have his chance."
"But I didn't fail."
"Well, it looks queer."
"Looks queer! Do you want to drive me mad? And I paid twenty pounds
for my engagement-ring! Do you think I should buy engagement-rings if
I wasn't sure that it was clear? A girl promises to be my wife, and
another man comes directly after and eggs her on to break her word!
Looks queer! I should think it does, by George! Look here, Ash, if you
think I'm going to sit down quietly and stand this sort of thing,
you're wrong!"
"Shall I tell you what my own opinion of the matter is?"
"Get it out!"
"The girl's a fool!"
"She's either that or something worse."
"I have only to go down and talk the matter over with her quietly, and
you'll see it will be all right."
"You go down! And where do you suppose that I shall be?"
"You leave the matter in my hands, and you'll find that I will make it
all right."
"I'll be shot if I will! The girl has promised to be my wife, and if
there's any man who's got a right to talk to her it's me. I've had one
day out of town; I think I'll spare myself another. You've got a
time-table, haven't you? When is there a train?"
Producing a Bradshaw, Mr. Ash plunged into its intricacies.
"It's now eleven. There's a train leaves Waterloo eleven thirty-five.
Reaches Shanklin three forty-three. It's too late for that."
"Eleven thirty-five? Is it too late--we'll see. You don't seem to be
aware of the fact that at this moment, for all I know, that man's
amusing himself with the woman who promised to be my wife. It don't
occur to you that there is any necessity for haste. I'm off; you may
come or stay, just as you please."
"I'll come--it's a little awkward, but I'll come."
"It is awkward! You'd think it awkward if you were in the pair of
shoes that I'm wearing now."
"Half a minute! Just let me speak one word to my managing man."
Mr. Ash called in his clerk. Mr. Ely passed into the street, and
engaged a hansom cab. In a remarkably short space of time he was
joined by Mr. Ash. Mr. Ely gave instructions to the cabman.
"Waterloo! Main line! And go like blazes!"
And the cab was off.