CONFIDENTIAL.
_Letter from_ Miss Collumpton, _in London, to_ Miss Browne, _in
the country_.
"My Dearest Mora,--Your telegram of yesterday, followed by your
letter, which came to hand this morning, was a great relief to our
anxiety. Pray give our joint love (Aunt Percival's and mine) to your
dear mother, and say how happy it has made us to hear of such a
decided change for the better.
"Had you not in your letter made a special point of asking me to
furnish you with all particulars anent a certain affair, I should not
have thought of troubling you at a time like the present. As, however,
you want 'to know, you know,' I shall be glad to do my best to satisfy
your curiosity.
"If you remember, dear, you seemed terribly shocked at the idea of Mr.
Fildew having asked me to meet him. And yet, what else could the poor
man do? Pray bear in mind that in his eyes I am only an indigent young
lady, who earns her living by filling the post of companion to a rich
young lady. He could not come to Cadogan Place and ask for me. He
knows nothing of my friends and connections. Having very foolishly
fallen in love with me, how else was he to plead his cause, how else
say all that he wanted to say? I have no expectation of making a
convert of you, simply because this is one of those questions that you
and I look at from totally different points of view. In the first
place, you would never fall in love with an artist--at least, not with
one who, like Mr. Fildew, had still his way to fight; in the second
place, you would never give any man who had not an assured income the
slightest encouragement to fall in love with you. Still, without
hoping that anything I can say will induce you to modify your views, I
must, in justice to myself, put down some of the reasons by which I
have been influenced in doing as I have done. All through the affair I
have argued with myself in this wise: Supposing I were really a poor
girl who was earning her living in a shop or a warehouse, or it
matters not how, and Clement had fallen in love with me, what form
would our courtship have taken? how and where should we have seen each
other? and so on. Thousands of such courtships are going on around us
every day. It was only to imagine that Cis Collumpton had lost the
whole of her fortune, or had never had any to lose. In short, I wanted
to be loved for myself alone; I wanted to be courted as if I were a
girl without a 'tocher.'
"Well, I met him by appointment at seven o'clock one evening, in a
quiet crescent not far from Sloane Street. He lifted his hat, shook
hands, and said how pleased he was to see me. Then he put my hand
under his arm, and so took possession of me. 'We can talk better
thus,' he said; 'I have something particular to say to you; besides, I
want to have you as close to me as possible.'
"Would you believe it, Mora, I seemed to have altogether lost my
tongue,' as we used to say when I was a little girl. For aught I had
to say for myself, I might have been brought up in the farthest
Hebrides. However, he did not seem to mind whether I answered him or
not; he had taken me into custody, as it were, and I had no power to
resist--nor any inclination either, for the matter of that.
"He began by apologizing for the liberty he had taken in asking me to
meet him; 'but as you are here,' he added, 'I may, perhaps, hope that
I have not transgressed beyond forgiveness; although, indeed,' he went
on, 'I knew of no other mode of obtaining an opportunity of saying all
that I want to say.' Still I was tongue-tied, still the words refused
to come. The next ten minutes were the most memorable of my life. How
my heart beat! how his words thrilled me from head to foot! What he
said you can perhaps faintly imagine; if you cannot, I cannot tell
you.
"He pressed me for an answer. Then my tongue was loosened. It would
not be worth while to put down here what I said, even if I could do
so, which I very much doubt. The result was that I promised to meet
him again the following Friday evening at the same time and place, and
give him an answer of some kind.
"What that answer would be was a foregone conclusion from the first. I
might just as well have said 'Yes' then and there, but that I would
not have him think I was to be quite so easily won. He pressed my hand
to his lips at parting. I left him at the corner at which I had met
him, and ran nearly all the way home. Of course, dear, you may be sure
that the first thing I did when I found myself alone was to have a
good cry. But what happy tears they were! From all which you will
understand that your poor Cecilia's case is a desperate one indeed.
"How the time passed till Friday came round I hardly know. I wanted it
to come and yet I didn't, if you can understand such a paradox. I
longed and yet I trembled, and when Friday evening was really here I
wished it were only Thursday. However, I met him as agreed, and was
again taken possession of. 'I am afraid you are cold,' he said. 'You
ought to have wrapped yourself up more warmly.' I was trembling a
little, but not with cold. We walked slowly along, and for some
minutes Clement said very little. I think he saw that I was put out,
and he was giving me time to recover myself. At length my hand ceased
to tremble, and then he spoke, asking me whether I had thought over
his words--whether I felt that I could accept his love and give him
mine in return? A church clock was beginning to strike eight as he
finished speaking. Not till the last stroke had ceased to reverberate
did I make any reply. Then for answer I laid one of my hands softly on
one of his. 'God bless you, dear one!' he said. 'May you never regret
the gift you have given me to-night.' Then, before I knew what had
happened, a strong arm was passed round my waist and Clement's lips
were pressed to mine. A lamp was no great distance off and a policeman
was passing at the moment. The man turned his head and coughed
discreetly behind his hand. I turned hot all over, but Clement only
laughed, and said it would not have mattered if all the world had been
there to see.
"After that we had a long, delicious walk through quiet streets and
squares where there were few passers-by. There was a sweet, new
feeling at my heart of belonging to some one and of some one belonging
to me. Clement asked whether he should write to or see my father. Then
I told him that I was an orphan and my own mistress. 'In that case our
marriage need not be long delayed,' he said. This frightened me. I had
never contemplated such a contingency except as something very remote
and far-off indeed. After that he began to talk to me about his
position and prospects. He was far from rich at present, he said, and
could not give me such a home as he would have liked; but he hoped to
be better off by and by. He was getting higher prices for his
pictures, and people were beginning to seek him out. If only his
Academy picture found a purchaser there was no reason why we should
not be married before midsummer. Knowing what I did, I could have
clapped my hands for glee as I listened to him. I said I was afraid
that I could not make arrangements to be married before Christmas at
the very soonest. I could see that he was disappointed. 'I shall
certainly hold you to midsummer,' he said, 'unless you can give some
good and valid reason for delay.'
"' You must come and see my mother before you are many days older,' he
said, presently. 'I have spoken to her about you already.' Would you
believe it, Mora, a little jealous pang shot through my heart when he
said this? I felt as if I did not want even a mother to come between
him and me. But next moment I put away the thought as utterly
unworthy, and said how pleased I should be to see and know Mrs.
Fildew.
"Then he told me that his mother had been an invalid for years, and
that there was no hope of her ever being any better. He told me, too,
how cheerful she was---how bravely she bore up against the insidious
disease that was slowly but surely eating away her life. I hated
myself for allowing even a moment's jealous feeling to find room in my
heart. I would try to love her as much as Clement loved her; but what
if she should turn against me and say that her son's choice was a
foolish one?
"This evening Clement would insist on walking with me nearly to the
door. I was in mortal fear lest my aunt should chance to be passing
and should recognize me. But nothing happened except that, when the
moment came for saying goodnight, Clement repeated the process which
had frightened me so much before. But I don't think that even a
policeman saw us this time: still I must admit that it was very
dreadful. All that night I hardly slept a wink. I felt that I had
taken the great, irrevocable step of my life. Did I regret it? you
will perhaps ask. No; a thousand times no!
"It was arranged that at our next meeting I should accompany Clement
to his mother's to tea. Mrs. Fildew's hour for tea is six o'clock,
from which you will at once infer that she belongs to the old school,
and having grown up when people took their meals at more rational
hours than they do now, she still keeps up the traditions of other
days. I had hitherto had no difficulty in stealing out for an hour
without my aunt knowing anything about it, but to leave home at
half-past five and not get back till ten or eleven, without saying
where I was going, or ordering the brougham to take me, was a matter
that required a little diplomacy. I hit on a plan at last which I need
not detail here, and that without having to tell my aunt any absolute
fib about it. It is sufficient to say that I met Clement at the
appointed time and place, and that three minutes later I found myself
with him in a hansom cab and being whirled along Piccadilly at a
tremendous pace. It was not nearly dark yet, and we passed several
people whom I had seen only an hour previously in the Row. What their
thoughts would have been had they seen Miss Collumpton flashing past
them in a hansom, I leave you to imagine.
"I am quite aware, Mora, that in confessing to all this I am shocking
some of your most cherished prejudices. But where is the use of having
prejudices unless you can have them pleasantly shocked now and again?
Does not the process put you in mind of an electrical machine, and of
the brass rods we used to touch so tremblingly when we were girls at
school?
"It is almost worth while being poor for the sake of riding about in a
hansom. A ride in a brougham or a victoria is the tamest of tame
affairs in comparison. I had never been in a hansom before that
evening when I went to see Mrs. Fildew, but I have been in one several
times since--of course, with Clement to keep me company. How 'jolly'
it is when you happen to have a good horse and a skilful driver! (The
adjective may sound objectionable, dear Mora, but I can't hit on
another just now that expresses my meaning half so clearly.) How
quickly you get over the ground! How you dash in and out among
carriages, carts, and busses, leaving them behind one after another!
Everybody and everything seem to get out of your way. The wind blows
in cheerily perhaps a few drops of rain dash against your face now and
then, but you don't mind them in the least. You experience a sense of
freedom, of brisk open-air enjoyment, such as no other mode of
conveyance that I know of can give you. And then how cosey inside!
Just room for two, and none to spare. But that doesn't matter in the
least if your companion is some one you like to sit close to. I wonder
whether it would be wrong, Mora, for you and me to be driven out in a
hansom some afternoon by our two selves. But you are such a slave to
Mrs. Grundy that I almost despair of being able to persuade you to
join me in such an expedition.
"Here I am at the end of my paper and I have not introduced you to
Mrs. Fildew. I must consequently defer that pleasure till I write to
you again, which will be not later than the day after to-morrow. I
have much to tell you yet. Pray let me hear from you by return, if
only a word to say how your mother is progressing. I cannot tell you
how lonely I feel while you are away.
"Your affectionate friend,
"Cecilia Collumpton."