“I couldn’t tell him!” sobbed Violet—“I wanted to, but I didn’t dare! And Max said that if I toldyou, he would tell uncle. Do you see? Then you two would meet and talk it over. There is nothing wrong with Max except his horrid money! Because everybody will say that I am a mean, designing, little wretch—and I really have not been anything of the kind—I never did anything to make him like me—only be just myself——”
Miss Letty kissed her.
“That is the secret of it, little one!” she said—“Being yourself—your dear self—is the only way to win a man’s heart! And do you love him?”
Violet raised her eyes fully this time, and dashed away her tears.
“Yes, I do!” she said earnestly—“I love him dearly!”
Miss Letty stroked her hair thoughtfully.
“It will be a very responsible position for you, dear child, if you marry Mr. Nugent,” she said seriously—“Very brilliant—very difficult—almost dangerous for such a young thing as you are! I think, Violet—that perhaps you would rather not have any advice from me just now?”
“Oh yes—yes! Do advise me! I want advice!” cried the girl enthusiastically. “Max said whatever you told me I was to do—as he honoured you more than any woman in the world—except me!”
Miss Letty laughed.
“I was going to say—surely he makes that one reservation!” she said. “Well, my dear, my adviceis that you refrain from entering into any sort of an engagement for at least a year. Your love for each other will hold out during that time of probation if it is worth anything—and then—you will be more certain of your own mind. Yes, I know”—for Violet was about to interrupt her,—“You think you are quite certain now, but you are not quite eighteen yet—a mere child—and Mr. Nugent is a man of the world—believe me, dear, it will be better for you, and better for him, to endure this test of faith. However, I am not the only one whose advice you must consider—there is your uncle Desmond. Now you know, Violet, he is one of the best and kindest men living, and he is very anxious to do everything well for his dear sister’s child,—you will obey his wishes whatever they are, will you not?”
“Indeed, indeed I will!” said Violet earnestly,—“I promise!”
“That’s my dear girl!” and Miss Letty kissed her again—“Now tell me all about this wonderful Max—though I know just how you feel about him.”
“Do you?” said Violet, smiling and blushing—“Thenyoutellme!”
“You feel,” said Miss Letty, taking her hands and pressing them tenderly, “that there never was, and never will be, such a splendid lover for a girl in the world as he is,—you feel that when he is near you you are quite happy, and want nothing more than just to hear him speak, and watch his eyes restingupon you,—you feel that there is a blank in your life when he is absent,—you feel that you would not worry him or vex him by so much as a thought—you feel that if God were to take him from you now—you would be very lonely—that you would perhaps never get over it all your life long.”
Her voice trembled,—and Violet threw her arms impulsively about her.
“Dear,dearMiss Letty, you know!”
“Yes,” said Miss Letty with a faint smile—“I know! Now, little one, let us try and talk quietly over this affair. Let me get to my work—you talk—and I listen.”
And so as the drowsy heat of the afternoon cooled off towards sunset, when the humming-birds left off kissing the flowers and went to bed, like jewels put by in their velvety nest-cases, the two women sat together—the one young and brimful of hope and the dreams of innocence—the other old, but as fresh in heart and simplicity of faith as the girl who so joyously exulted in her springtime.
That evening Violet went off to a dance at the house of a neighbour, and Major Desmond dropped in to see Miss Letty, just as she was thinking it was about time to go to bed, notwithstanding the wonderful glory of the moon which looks so much more luminous and brilliant in the clear atmosphere of America than in the half misty but more tender pearl tint of the ever-changeful English skies. She stood on the lowstep of her verandah, gazing wistfully up at the proudly glittering Diana, sweeping through heaven like the veritable huntress of the classic fable, without a cloud to soften the silver flashing of her bow—and as the Major’s stalwart figure came slowly across the lawn, she was for a moment startled. He looked anxious and careworn; and her heart sank a little. She was not actually surprised to see him; he had his suite of rooms at an hotel not so very far away, and he was accustomed to stroll up to her house very often, bringing his friends with him. But a worried look on that cheery face was new to her, and she was not a little troubled to see it.
“Why, Dick!” she said, as he approached—“Isn’t this rather a late visit?”
“Is it too late for you, Letty?” he asked gently—“If so, I’ll go away again.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” she said cheerily,—“Violet has gone to a dance, and I meant to sit up for her in my room, but now we’ll both sit up for her here. What a warm day it has been!—and it’s a warm night too—I’ll order you an iced sherry-cobbler.”
She rang a bell which communicated with the house, and gave her order to the servant who answered it—then pushed a comfortable chair forward. The Major sank into it with a deep sigh.
“That’s nice!” he said—“And I won’t say no to the sherry-cobbler. I’ve had a wearying day.”
“Have you? I am sorry!” and Miss Letty’s eyes were full of sympathy—“Is it about—about Violet?”
“Yes—it’s about Violet,” said the Major, and then became silent, meditatively tinkling with a spoon the lumps of ice in the sherry-cobbler which had just been set before him.
“But I don’t think you need worry about that,” began Miss Letty.
He interrupted her by a slight gesture.
“Ah, you dear woman! You don’t know! You are as sweetly ignorant of the ways of modern men as the ladies in the old-fashioned ‘Book of Beauty,’ who always wore their hair parted in the middle and went on smiling serenely at everything and everybody, even when their lives were ruined and their hearts broken. No, Letty! You don’t know! Has Violet told you?”
“About Mr. Nugent—yes. I confess I was very much surprised.”
“So was I—so I am still!” said the Major—“I don’t know what to say about it. You see, Letty, it’s this way. Max Nugent’s father was the biggest rascal that ever died unhanged. He made his wealth by fraud—and thank goodness, he killed himself by overeating! This young man, his only son, may be a very good fellow—but he has nothing to be proud of in his ancestry, and he has seen a great deal of the worst side of the world. He has lived his own life in Paris, Petersburg and Vienna, and I doubt—I doubtwhether he would make such a simple, unsophisticated little girl as Violet, happy. I told him so plainly. He came to me to-day, and talked very eloquently—and I must say very well. I explained to him that his wealth was simply monstrous and appalling,—positively vulgar, in fact. He said he knew it was, but he could not help it. Which of course he can’t!”
Miss Letty laughed.
“Poor man! Are you not a little hard on him, Dick?”
The Major sipped his cobbler with a relish. His brows were clear,—the gentle presence of Miss Letty was already doing him good.
“I think not—I hope not!” he answered—“I told him just what I felt about it. I said that his money was a disgrace, because it had been gotten together by fraud. He admitted it. He offered to endow hospitals, free libraries, and build all sorts of benevolent institutions,—educate poor children, and encourage deserving beggars all round, if I let him marry Violet——”
“Well!”
“Well—I don’t like it,” said the Major very emphatically—“I tell you plainly, I don’t like it! There’s just a something about Nugent that I don’t quite trust!”
Miss Letty looked grave.
“If you really feel like that, Dick——” she began.
“I do feel like it!” and the Major squared hisshoulders with a movement of resolution—“But I don’t mean to make myself a slave to personal prejudice. And I have not refused Nugent—but I have said he must wait a year.”
“That’s exactly what I told Violet!” said Miss Letty triumphantly.
Desmond looked at her wistfully.
“There you are, you see! Everything proves as plainly as possible that we two ought to have been one, Letty! Our wits jump together by mutual consent. Well now, I have told this golden-crusted millionaire that I cannot permit any sort of engagement to exist between him and my young niece for twelve months. After that time is ended, if both he and she are of the same mind, I will consent to an engagement,—the marriage to follow in six months afterwards. He was very loth to agree to these terms—but finally, as I would hear of nothing else, he consented. And what does Violet say?”
“She is willing to do anything you wish,” said Miss Letty.
“Yes—she is willing to do anything you wish!” echoed a soft voice behind them.
They both started and turned round. There stood Violet, just returned from her dance, looking the very perfection of sweet girlhood, in her simple white ball-dress, with a knot of carnations on her bodice, and a little wisp of tulle thrown over her head and shoulders. Her face was smiling, but her eyes weresoft and serious, and as soon as she saw she was perceived, she came forward and knelt down with a pretty grace at her uncle’s feet.
“She is willing to do anything you wish!” she repeated—“Dearest uncle, you know I am!”
The old Major patted her head kindly.
“Yes, child!—I am sure you are! And so you have been playing the eavesdropper, eh? Now, who brought you home from the dance just now?”
“Max—Mr. Nugent did,” answered Violet frankly—“But only just as far as the door. I asked him to come in and see Miss Letty, but he wouldn’t!”
“Why wouldn’t he?” asked the Major.
“Oh, I don’t know!” and Violet gave a pretty gesture of deprecation—“I think he was shy!”
Desmond gave a short laugh.
“Shy! I never heard that of Max Nugent before! However,—love works wonders! Well now, Violet, Miss Leslie and I have been talking this matter over—and I’ll tell you what we have decided. We are going to take you back to England for a year!”
Violet rose from her kneeling attitude at her uncle’s side, and her face grew wistful.
“To England!”
“Yes—to England. Eh, Letty?” and he gave her a side wink. Miss Letty was startled, but she did not show it outwardly. She merely replied with a becoming meekness,—
“Whatever you think best for Violet, Dick.”
“Well, I think that best,” said Desmond firmly—“And to England we will go as soon as the summer is over; it’s July now—we’ll give you August and September to be happy in your own way, Violet, and to make Mr. Nugent distinctly understand that you have sufficient breadth and firmness of character to obey those who feel themselves responsible in a way for your future life and happiness,—and that you mean to make him deserve you by patience and fidelity. Do you understand?”
“Yes, uncle. I quite understand!” said Violet gently.
“And you are not unhappy about it?”
“No, uncle. You have been so good to me, and your love has been so true and kind, that I cannot doubt your knowing and doing for the best. I should indeed be an ungrateful little wretch if I thought otherwise. I shall obey you absolutely. And dear Miss Letty too!”
She stooped and kissed them both tenderly.
“Good night!” she said cheerily. “I have danced nearly all the evening—I’m tired, and I’m going to bed!”
“Good night, little one—God bless you!” said Miss Letty fondly.
“God bless you, darling Miss Letty!” And with another kiss and smile, Violet entered the house, paused on the threshold for a moment to wave her hand once more, and then vanished.
The two old people were silent for some minutes after she had gone. The glorious moon shed broad haloes of silvery light around them, and in the deep silence a whisper seemed to steal upon the heavily perfumed air, and creep into both their hearts, saying—“You two—you both were young once,—and now—do you not think you have wasted your lives for a dream’s sake?”
But though they were conscious of this subtle suggestion, their brave souls had but the one response to it. Miss Letty certainly did not think her life was wasted because she had been faithful to the memory of her first love, and because since his death she had done what she could to make others, instead of herself, happy. And Dick Desmond, though he sometimes did feel a little bit sore about having had to sacrifice a sweet wife and cosy home, for the memory as he always said to himself “of a dead rascal,”—still he did not complain of the romantic faith that had kept his heart warm all these years, and enabled him to do good wherever he could in his own particular way. So that whisper of a half regret passed them by like the merest passing shadow,—and the Major rose up to go, squaring his shoulders in his usual fashion and shaking himself like a big retriever.
“I think I’m right, Letty!” he said with a meaning nod towards the direction in which Violet had disappeared.
“You are always right, Dick, I am sure!” responded Miss Letty sweetly.
The Major took up his broad Panama hat, and looked into its crown thoughtfully.
“You’ll be ready to sail the first week in October, Letty?”
“Quite!”
“Good night!”
“Good night, Dick!”
Whereupon the Major put his Panama firmly on his head and walked slowly and meditatively down the garden and out of it—and Miss Letty put by the chairs on the verandah, and shut all the drawing-room windows. As she paused for a moment by her worktable to put one or two trifles by, her eyes rested for a moment on the pair of little worn shoes on the bracket above, and the pensive aspect of the toy cow “Dunny” that stood close by them, and that seemed to be steadfastly regarding their shabby toes with a contemplative sadness too deep for even a movable head to wag over.
“Poor Boy!” mused Miss Letty—“I wonder where he is—and what he is like—now!”
Thesummer flew by,—on wings of romance for Violet Morrison, but somewhat burdened with anxiety for Major Desmond and Miss Leslie. Max Nugent, millionaire and man of the world, was most charming in his manner to both the elderly people, and most tender and deferential in his devotion to the young girl in their charge,—but Major Desmond was not altogether satisfied about him. He wore a glass in his eye for one thing. People laughed at the Major when he made objection to such a trifle,—even Miss Letty laughed. But Desmond was obstinate.
“Well, will you tell me,” he demanded, “the practical use of a glass in one eye? It can’t assist the sight, for Nugent always reads without it. What’s it for, then? To look at the scenery? That won’t do, for the man always clicks it out of his eye whenever he glances at the landscape! There is only one reason for his wearing it—and that is to conceal his true expression!”
“Now look here, Desmond,” said one of his clubfriends—“You really are going too far. How the deuce can an eyeglass conceal expression?”
“I’ll tell you how”—and the Major proceeded to demonstrate. “Suppose you succeed in training one eye to look straight while you told a crammer, and you can’t train the other? Suppose that other eye insists on shifting about and blinking as the lie pops out of your mouth? Why then, clap the eyeglass on, and there you are!”
And though he was laughed at for this theory, he, to put it in his own way, “stuck to his guns.”
And the middle of October saw Miss Letty back in England. October is often a very beautiful month in these “Happy Isles,” and Miss Letty was not sorry to see the old country once again. Her house in Hans Place was still occupied by her tenants, whose lease did not expire till the coming Christmas; so she took a suite of rooms in one of the many luxuriously appointed hotels which nowadays make London such a habitable resort, and fixed this as her headquarters, while, in compliance with Major Desmond’s ideas, she took Violet for various visits to some of the grand old country seats in England. For both she and Major Desmond had many friends among the best of the county folks who had beautiful homes, and loved those homes with a love which unfortunately is being relegated to the list of old-fashioned virtues, and Violet had plenty of chances to see for herself how English lives were lived, and whatEnglish young men were like. But the girl was not attracted by any of thejeunesse doréeof her native country. Compared with the courtesy and attention she had received from the sterner sex in America, who are accustomed to treat women with the greatest honour and reverence, she found the English young man brusque, conceited, and often coarse in manner and conversation. And her love for the polished and deferential Max Nugent grew stronger and deeper, and all the graceful fancies, hopes and dreams of her young life clustered around him as the one inevitable centre of her existence. And the “eyeglass,” to which her uncle attached such grave importance, never troubled her thoughts at all, except to move her to a smile when she thought of “uncle’s fancy” regarding it. And Miss Letty watched her as a mother would have watched her, and noted all the little signs of this deep first love absorbing her life, with a tenderness and interest which were, however, not without a vague touch of foreboding.
Soon after their return to England, there came an excitement for Miss Letty herself, in the shape of a letter from Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir. Miss Letty had written to announce her return, but had scarcely expected any reply, though she had ventured to express the hope that “dear Boy” was quite well. Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir now wrote as follows, dating from a suburb of London:—
“My dear Letitia,Your letter was quite a surprise to me, as I thought you had gone to America for good. I had a funny idea that you would perhaps get married there after all, for one hears of so many elderly women marrying nowadays, that there really seems a chance for everybody. Boy is at his military college preparing for Sandhurst, but as he will be up in London for an exam. next week I have told him to go and see you. I thought he had quite forgotten you, but he appears to remember you fairly well. Of course he was barely ten when you saw him last, and he is now sixteen, almost a young man as you will find. He is very tall, andIthink good-looking, though that may be only a mother’s fondness. Jim has been very ill lately;—a touch of what the doctors call hemiplegia, brought on of course by his own recklessness. I have to nurse him, and so you must excuse me if I do not make a formal call upon you. I have had to make many sacrifices in order to keep Boy at college, but a mother never grudges what she does for her son. Hoping you will be pleased to see Boy, and that you are as well as a woman of your age can expect to be,Believe me, yours very sincerely,Amelia D’Arcy-Muir.P.S.—Boy will call and see you on Wednesday afternoon next, unless you write to say that the day is inconvenient.”
“My dear Letitia,
Your letter was quite a surprise to me, as I thought you had gone to America for good. I had a funny idea that you would perhaps get married there after all, for one hears of so many elderly women marrying nowadays, that there really seems a chance for everybody. Boy is at his military college preparing for Sandhurst, but as he will be up in London for an exam. next week I have told him to go and see you. I thought he had quite forgotten you, but he appears to remember you fairly well. Of course he was barely ten when you saw him last, and he is now sixteen, almost a young man as you will find. He is very tall, andIthink good-looking, though that may be only a mother’s fondness. Jim has been very ill lately;—a touch of what the doctors call hemiplegia, brought on of course by his own recklessness. I have to nurse him, and so you must excuse me if I do not make a formal call upon you. I have had to make many sacrifices in order to keep Boy at college, but a mother never grudges what she does for her son. Hoping you will be pleased to see Boy, and that you are as well as a woman of your age can expect to be,
Believe me, yours very sincerely,Amelia D’Arcy-Muir.
P.S.—Boy will call and see you on Wednesday afternoon next, unless you write to say that the day is inconvenient.”
With an inward delight which she felt was foolish, yet which she could not suppress, Miss Letty straightway wrote an answer to this, saying that she would be very pleased indeed to see Boy to luncheon on the Wednesday named; and having despatched this missive, she called Violet and told her of the expected visit of the child, now grown to a young stripling, whom she had loved so fondly. Violet listened with attentive sympathy.
“He was such a dear, pretty little fellow!” said Miss Letty affectionately. “He had such droll ways, and was altogether so quaint and lovable!”
“And how old is he now?” asked Violet.
“He is sixteen,—yes—of course he must be getting on for seventeen!” said Miss Letty almost wonderingly. “Dear me! How the time flies!”
“Just a year younger than I am!” said Violet.
“Yes. But you are quite a woman—thinking of getting married too! Well, well!”—and Miss Letty heaved a little sigh of resignation. “However, young women grow older much more quickly than young men, and I daresay Boy is quite a boy still!”
“I hope he is,—for your sake, my own Miss Letty!” said Violet tenderly—“I shouldn’t like you to be disappointed in him!”
Miss Letty looked thoughtful.
“Of course he will be changed,” she said—“very much changed! He was changed even when he came to stay with me in Scotland, and he was not quite tenthen. He seemed to me much sadder and older than a child of his years ought to have been. But he has had a long time of study at a very excellent military college somewhere down in the country, and I daresay that the training there has made quite a man of him. Poor Boy! Margaret will tell you all about him if you ask her.”
And Violet did ask Margaret, who now, grown extremely stout and jolly, had come over from her home in Scotland to serve her beloved Miss Letty once more. The trip to America had been too much for the worthy woman’s contemplation, and when her mistress had gone there, she and the respectable butler Plimpton had made a match of it, and were now the proprietors of a small but extremely cosy hotel on the picturesque shores of Loch Etive. But as soon as she heard that Miss Letty had returned to England for a time, nothing would serve but that she must come to London and attend upon her again,—an idea which entirely met with her husband’s approval. And so here she was, established in the hotel in a room adjoining Miss Letty’s, wearing a smart white apron, and sewing away as if she had never left her situation at all, and as if the six years of her married life that had intervened were nothing but a dream.
“Do I remember Master Boy?” she said now, as Violet asked her the question,—“I should think I do indeed! Just the bonniest wee lad! And MissLetty was sair fashed about him,—and she would have given her best of all in the world to have got him wi’ her, and adopted him as her own. Ah, she’s a grand leddy! What a wife and mither she would ha’ made to any man gude enough for her!”
“And she loved Boy very much then?” went on Violet, playing abstractedly with a gold chain she always wore, on which Max Nugent had hung a heart of fine rubies and diamonds.
“Ay, that she did!” said Margaret, stitching away at the frill of one of her “leddy’s” silken gowns. “And she loves him still just as much, I’ll be bound. You mark my words, Miss Violet,—I’m pretty sure the dear woman hasna done wi’ Master Boy!” and she nodded her head and pursed up her lips mysteriously.
“You think he will want Miss Letty to help him on in his career perhaps?” said Violet.
“I couldna tell—I canna say!” replied Margaret. “But if ever a lad had feckless parents, it’s this same lad—and if ever a bairnie had a bad start to begin life upon, it’s this same bairnie! You tell me what you think of him, Miss Violet, after ye’ve had a bit look at him?”
“Oh, if he knows you are here, he’ll want to see you himself, surely!” said the girl.
Margaret looked up with a shrewd smile in her kind eyes.
“Don’t ye be thinking of that, Miss Violet,” shesaid. “There is naebody like myself for kennin’ how soon we’re forgotten by the folks we have loved. I mind me when I used to put Master Boy to bed, he would throw his wee arms round me and say, ‘I’ll never forget ye, Margit,’ and it just pleased me for a while to believe it. But when I married Plimpton, I sent the laddie a bit o’ wedding cake marked ‘from Margit,’ and never a word did I hear o’ the lad or the cake at all. And I was a fule to expect it; for ye see, when he was in Scotland wi’ us, we had a bit few of his old toys, and with them there was one he used to be amazing fond of——”
“I know!” said Violet quickly—“The Cow!”
Margaret laughed.
“Yes—just the Cow!” she said—“The wee wise-looking thing you see ever on a shelf somewhere near Miss Letty, with the old shoes Master Boy left behind him when he first stayed with her. Well, when he came to Scotland, he didna care for the puir beastie any more,—and that’s just how it is wi’ me,—he’s just as indifferent to me as he is to the toy he put away in his babyhood. That’s where all we women have to suffer, Miss Violet,—when the bairnies we ha’ loved and tended grow up to be men and women, they never give us more thought than the playthings they have done with!”
Violet heard, and went away, thinking gravely of many things. She was growing a little more serious and wistful in her manner; the difficulties and disappointments of life were beginning to suggest themselves to her young spirit, although vaguely as yet and dimly. She had nothing to complain of at present in her own fortunes—except—except that Max Nugent’s letters were all very brief and scrappy. She would have liked longer and more ardent epistles from her declared lover,—and she scolded herself for this wish, which she said was selfish, because of course, with all his great responsibilities of wealth, he must have a great deal to do. But despite her struggle with herself, the little shadow of disappointment hung like a faint cloud in her sky, and made her particularly sensitive to the possible griefs of others.
“It must be so hard to be disappointed in persons you love!” she thought. “To find that they are not the good or noble beings you imagined them—it must be so hard! I do hope Miss Letty will find Boy all that she expects him to be—and more!”
The anxiously expected Wednesday came at last, and Miss Letty ordered a charming little luncheon in her private sitting-room, and decorated the table herself with the loveliest flowers to welcome Boy. Violet, with instinctive tact, arranged to go out that morning with her uncle, and not to return till it was quite the luncheon-hour, in order that Miss Letty might have the first meeting with her young friend alone. The dear lady was in a great flutter; she was for once quite fastidious about her appearance, andput on her newest gown, a soft, silver-grey silk, trimmed with an abundance of fine old Irish point lace. And when she was dressed, it was no exaggeration on the part of the faithful Margaret to say she looked “quite beautiful”! With her sweet, good face, and soft hair, now snow-white, raised from her clear, open brow, and that indefinable grace of perfect breeding which always distinguished her, Miss Letty looked much fairer than many a young woman in the pride of her earliest days. And when, as the hour grew nearer for Boy’s arrival, a little pink flush coloured the pale transparency of her cheeks, she had such a charm about her as would certainly have made fresh havoc in the good Major’s warm heart, had he seen her just at that moment. There was an elaborate Parisian clock in the sitting-room, the pendulum of which was an unpleasant-featured gilt nymph in a swing, and Miss Letty looked anxiously at the ugly and inflexible young lady as she jerked the minutes away with a seemingly infinite tedium. At last the hotel waiter appeared with the brief announcement,—
“A young gentleman to see you, mum!”
Miss Letty advanced trembling, as a slim lad, getting on for six feet in height, stumbled over the door-mat and entered awkwardly.
“Boy! I am so glad to see you again!”
The stripling giggled nervously.
“Yes—er,—how d’you do?” he stammered; andhe sought anxiously about for a place to put his bowler hat, and finally set it carefully down on an empty flower-pot and began to stare doubtfully at the ceiling. But Miss Letty was not disheartened by these signs of indifference.
“What a big fellow you are!” she said tenderly, looking at him with eyes that were almost tearful. “I really don’t think I should have known you if I had met you in the streets by chance!”
Boy giggled again.
“N—o! I don’t suppose you would!” he said. “Mother said you wouldn’t!”
“Have you just come from your college?” asked Miss Letty, her heart beginning to sink a little as she noticed that his eyes wandered completely away from her, and considered the wall-paper more attentively than herself.
“Yes. Some fellows came up for the exam. with me. Two are going for the medical. I’ve done that!”
“Oh! And have you passed?”
“Oh yes! I’m all right!”
Boy smiled foolishly, scratched his chin, and sitting down on a high chair measured the toes of his boots carefully together.
“What exam. are you going up for now?” asked Miss Letty, sitting down also, and realising with a sudden pang that he was not in the least moved to any affectionate outburst by seeing her.
“Oh, just the first one for Sandhurst. I don’t expect I shall pass it.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, it’s pretty stiffish. I don’t care much if I don’t pass. There’ll be another.”
Good Miss Letty was not very deeply instructed on the subject of exams., so she changed the subject.
“I’ve been a long time away in America, you know,” she said. “I have only just come back.”
“Yes. So I heard.”
Miss Letty looked steadfastly at him. He was a good-looking lad, thin but well made, and delicately featured,—but his eyes were shifty and avoided hers.
“Do you remember me at all, Boy?” she asked very tenderly.
Boy coloured and hesitated.
“I—I think I do,” he said. “I stayed with you in Scotland.”
“Yes. And you used to play with a little boy named Alister McDonald,—do you ever think of him?”
Boy looked puzzled for a moment.
“Oh, yes! I know! A little round-faced chap!”
Miss Letty went on patiently,—
“Do you remember Major Desmond?”
“Yes—a little.”
Miss Letty took up her sewing. She required that useful embroidery to steady her trembling fingers.
“I asked you when we were in Scotland to write to me sometimes,” she said gently. “And you said you would. Why didn’t you?”
“I did!” burst out Boy suddenly, getting very red, and remembering the old injury which had rankled far more deeply in his soul all these years than any remembrance of affection. “And you never answered!”
Miss Letty laid down her work with a look of surprise and indignation darkening her gentle eyes.
“You wrote and I never answered!” she repeated. “My dear Boy, there must be some mistake! I have never heard a word from you since you said good-bye to me in Scotland!”
Boy’s cheeks paled as suddenly as they had reddened, and he took to the re-measuring of his boot toes.
“Mother didn’t send the letter!” he said slowly,—“that’s how it was. It was not my fault. I wrote to you before I went to school in France!”
Silence fell between them. Miss Letty had much ado to keep back the outward expression of her wounded feeling,—and, as she looked at the lad and began to notice the air of listless indifference which surrounded him like a natural atmosphere exhaled from his own personality, she was conscious of a great bitterness and resentment in her own mind. After a little, however, she managed to control herself, and said gently,—
“Can you recollect what it was you wrote to me about?”
“Oh yes,”—Boy answered readily,—“I wrote to tell you that I was being sent to a school in France, and asked you to try if you could help me not to go. I was a little chap and did not like it.” He paused a moment and reddened at the recollection,—then smiled sheepishly. “But it did not matter!”
Miss Letty thought it did matter,—but she said nothing.
“I went to France,” continued Boy. “It was all right!”
“Did you like the school there?”
“Oh, it was fairly decent!” he answered briefly.
At that moment a diversion was created by the entrance of Major Desmond and his niece. Miss Letty looked a little wearied and wistful as she said,—
“Violet, this is Boy. Boy, this is Major Desmond’s niece who has been with me in America, Miss Violet Morrison.”
Boy jerked himself up out of his chair, glanced at the young lady shyly, and smiled vaguely.
“Won’t you shake hands?” said Violet kindly.
Boy went through this act of courtesy with a curiously limp ungraciousness, the Major staring at him the while.
“He has grown very tall, hasn’t he?” said Miss Letty, with a little sigh, as she rang the bell for luncheon to be served.
“Tall! I should think so!” replied the Major. “He’s grown out of all knowledge. Well, sir, how are you?”
“Very well, thank you!” answered Boy, without raising his eyes from their study of the carpet.
“I suppose you don’t remember me at all,” pursued the Major—“do you?”
“Y—yes! You took me to Scotland to see Miss Letty.”
As he uttered her name thus—“Miss Letty,”—a sudden sparkle came into his eyes, and he looked at her with more interest than he had yet shown. Some little brain-cell was stirred which awakened old past associations, and a number of half-forgotten memories began to run through his mind like the notes which form the cadence of a song. “It was always like this,” he considered—“beautiful rooms and beautiful flowers,—and she—she always wore beautiful silks and lace like to-day,—but then, as mother says, she’s got any amount of money.”
Just then, the waiter entered with the luncheon, and they all sat down to table, Violet glancing at Boy from time to time under the shadow of her long eyelashes, not knowing quite what to make of him.
“Well, what are you doing with yourself now?” asked the Major. “Going up for Sandhurst?”
“Yes.”
“Are you glad you are going to be a soldier?”
Boy was engaged in fastidiously picking one or two bones out of the small piece of fish which had just been served to him, and he replied abstractedly,—
“Oh, I don’t mind it!”
“Don’t mind it!” exclaimed Desmond. “But—God bless my soul!—don’t youlikeit? Don’t youloveit? Don’t you think it’s the finest thing a young chap can do,—to learn how to fight for the glory of his country?”
Boy looked quite surprised at this outburst. Then it seemed to dawn upon him in the light of a joke, for he sniggered.
“Oh, not so much as all that!” he said, and fell to carefully considering the fish-bones again.
The Major gave a portentous cough, and swallowed his portion of fish recklessly, somewhat as if he were swallowing a big “D——n!” by way of sauce and flavour to the whole. Violet flushed and paled alternately,—she was feeling worried on behalf of Miss Letty, who looked nervous and preoccupied.
“Would you have preferred some other profession?” she asked gently, venturing to join in the conversation.
“I never thought about it,” said Boy, eating his fish now that it was picked and prepared to his particular liking. “When I came back from France, father sent me just where he chose—— and—that’s how it is.”
“Then you don’t really care about it, perhaps?” queried Miss Letty, determined to get somethingout of him somehow concerning his tastes or aversions. “You don’t reallylovethe work of preparing for the Army?”
“Oh, I don’t think any of the fellows care much about thework,” said Boy carelessly—“you couldn’t expect them tolovework! You see they do just what their fathers and mothers want them to do. Some chaps have a choice, I believe—but I don’t know any. It’s no good saying you want to be one thing when your father wants you to be something else.”
Major Desmond listened attentively, and his eyes, twinkling with anger a moment before, softened a little.
“What did you want to be?—if ever youdidwant to be anything?” he asked.
Boy hesitated and shuffled his feet under the table. Miss Letty looked at him anxiously,—so did Violet. Catching Miss Letty’s loving glance, he took courage.
“When I was quite a small chap like,—” he explained stammeringly, “I used to think I would be an explorer. I wanted to travel a long long way off to strange countries, and find things nobody had ever found.”
He checked himself abruptly. The waiter was handing round new dishes to tempt the appetite, and Boy had to choose between ‘vol-au-vent,’ and ‘cotelettes d’agneau, points d’asperges.’
“Well,” said the Major—“that wasn’t a bad idea.There’s nothing to prevent your doing that still. A soldier can be an explorer as well.”
“Yes, but I think that all gets knocked out of you at college,” said Boy, beginning to gain more confidence as he talked. “You see, you can’t be an explorer very well, unless you can get some Government to commission you to explore, and find you all the money and the rig-out. And when you’re an officer in the Army, you’ve got to obey orders, and go where you’re told,—not where you like.”
This statement was unanswerable, and for a few minutes the little party of four at luncheon ate ‘vol-au-vent’ and ‘cotelettes d’agneau,’ without much recognition of the delicacies they were supposed to be enjoying. Miss Letty had certainly lost her appetite. But—as was her usual habit—she mentally scolded herself for allowing any sense of hurt or disappointment to weigh upon her mind. “What am I bothering my head about!” she thought: “the boy is going through the usual training necessary for his career, and is being turned out just like other boys.” But there, though she did not admit it to herself, was the chief source of her regret,—“just like other boys!” That was the pity and pain of it. Ground down into the same educational pattern,—crammed with the same assorted and classified facts,—trained by the same martinet rules of discipline, without any thought taken as to diversity of character or varying quality of temperament, Boy was being shaped, like a jellyin a cook’s mould, to the required size and type of the military automaton. There would be no room left for the expansion of any new or bold form of disposition,—no chance would be given for any originality of ideas,—he was destined to become merely one of a set of army chess-men, moving in strict accordance with the rules of the game,—rules, not only of the game of war, but of the game of life. And part of this game of life, with latter-day Englishmen, is to check all natural emotion,—kill enthusiasm,—and let all the wonders of the world and the events of time and history pass by, while you stand in the place where fortune or circumstance has thrown you, never budging, and indifferent to all things but your own precious, and (if you only knew it!) most unimportant and ridiculously opinionated self. It was the knowledge of this system of education that gave Miss Letty the uncomfortable little ache at her heart, as she noted Boy’s evident listlessness and cynicism; for in the sweet, eminently idealistic, but unpractical way of women, she had hoped something better and higher might have chanced for him. She watched him as he ate his ‘vol-au-vent,’—which, after a slow consideration, causing much irritation to the vivacious French waiter who served it to him, he had chosen as the most tempting of the two ‘entrées’ offered,—and wondered what would be his ultimate fate! In prospective fancy she saw him as an officer on halfpay, like his father,—perhaps married to a slovenlywoman, like his mother,—and—who could tell?—finally taking to the same dissolute courses which marked the daily existence of the Honourable Jim! And while she was thinking this with a little inward shudder, Violet was endeavouring to ‘draw him out’ on some other subject than the way in which he considered his career,—a way which she could see was distinctly vexatious to both her uncle and Miss Letty. Drawing towards her one of the graceful clusters of flowers which so lavishly decorated the table, she said,—
“How lovely the English roses are!—much sweeter than the American! Are you fond of flowers?”
This, with a bright glance at Boy.
“I don’t mind them much!” he replied indifferently.
Violet coloured a little, and was silent. Her attempt to turn the conversation into a lighter and more pleasant vein, was frustrated.
But now the Major spoke.
“You don’t ‘mind’ flowers?” he said. “Well, whatdoyou mind? Anything?”
Boy laughed.
“I don’t know.”
“I wish you did know!” said the Major with impressive mock-solemnity—“I should like to ascertain from you just exactly the worth of things. I am sure you could tell me!”
Boy took this quite seriously.
“How?” he enquired.
“Well, in this way. You are learning more at your college than I learned in all my life. When I was a young chap drilling for the Army, I didn’t know anything except the rough-and tumble glory of it. I had no one to ‘cram’ me,—I passed no ‘exams.’ It’s all altered, you see. A young subaltern knows nearly as much (on paper) as his commanding officer nowadays. That’s why I want you to tell me things.”
“Don’t, Dick!” remonstrated Miss Letty with a faint smile.
“Don’t—what?—Don’t try to learn any more than I know at my age? All right!—if you ask me I won’t!” And the old gentleman gave one of his hearty jolly laughs. “Now, for goodness’ sake, Boy, eat some pudding!”
“I don’t care for pudding, thanks!” said Boy, allowing the suggested dainty to pass him. “I never eat sweets.”
“God bless my soul!” ejaculated the Major. “Here, waiter!—pudding for me, please!—I’m a boy! A boy!—by Jove!—I’m a child!—this young gentleman has so far outgrown me, that I’m a positive baby!”
Boy looked vaguely surprised at the Major’s hilarity over this trifle, but he was not personally moved by it, nor did he accept it as a good-humoured satire on himself. He smiled, and sat, civilly serene, crumbling a bit of bread on the table; and when the luncheon was finished, every one,—even Miss Letty—seemed glad that an exceptionally embarrassing meal had come at last to an end.
After it, however, there was nothing more to be done. Any display of affection towards Boy was rendered, by the impassibility of the lad himself, out of place. Miss Letty felt that she could not have kissed him for all the world as she used to do, and Violet saw that it would be a hopeless business to try and remind him of his old friend Margaret, who had tended him with such devoted care in bygone days. The Major, in his strong interest and affection for Miss Letty, did his best to enliven the dull atmosphere, and to coax Boy to express himself with freedom and fearlessness and candour,—but it was no use. There was a piano in the room, and Violet, who had a very sweet and beautifully trained voice, gave them a pretty old ‘plantation’ song, eliciting from Boy the remark that he ‘had not heardthatone before.’ Asked as to the health of his father and mother, he said they were both ‘all right.’
“I thought your father was ill?” said Miss Letty.
“Oh yes, if you meanthatkind of illness. He can’t move one of his legs,—but he’s been like that a good while.”
Pressed for his opinion on what he would like best in the world, he answered, with more brightness than he had yet displayed,—
“Plenty of money.”
“Why?” asked the Major.
“Well, you can do anything with it, you see. There’s a fellow in our college, for instance—he’s an awfully low chap—and if his father hadn’t got what they call a ‘boom’ in some stock or other, he couldn’t have got in, for it’s supposed to be a college of gentlemen’s sons only, and his father kept a fish-stall, so they say. And he’s going in for the Army now. You can do everything with money.”
“You can’t buy friends with it,” said the Major.
“Can’t you? I thought you always could!” And Boy smiled, the smile of the superior cynic who knows he has uttered an unpleasant truth.
The Major was taken aback for a moment. But he returned to the charge.
“You can buy social friends, no doubt,” he said,—“but not true ones.”
“I shouldn’t care forverytrue friends,” said Boy calmly. “They would be sure to interfere with whatever you wanted to do.”
No one vouchsafed a comment on this remark, and Boy went on,—
“Mother says friends are always prying about and bothering you. If you get too much of them like, they are an awful nuisance.”
Still no observation was volunteered by either of the elderly people, or the one young girl, who sat listening to these cutting statements from a lad of sixteen.
“If I had a lot of money—heaps and heaps ofmoney”—continued Boy—“I could do just as I liked. I could leave the Army—go travelling—or do nothing but just amuse myself, which of course would be best of all.”
“You think so?” said the Major. “Well, you would find it a pretty hard task to amuse yourself, if you had no fixed occupation and no friends. You’d go to the devil, as they say, in double-quick time, without so much as a halt by the way.”
Boy laughed, but looked incredulous.
“Work,” pursued the Major sententiously, “is the greatest blessing in the world. If a man has no work to do, he should find some.”
“I don’t see how that is,” said Boy. “People only work in order to have no need to work.”
Miss Letty suddenly rose from her chair. She was looking tired and pale.
“I think,” she said gently, “I will say good-bye to you now, Boy. I am going out for a drive,—and you—you have to go for your exam., haven’t you?”
“Yes,”—and Boy glanced furtively at the clock,—“I’ve got to be there by three.”
“Well, it’s time you were off, then,” said the Major, somewhat gruffly. “I’ll walk with you part of the way.”
Boy scrambled about for a minute or two in search of his hat,—found it, and stuck it on his head.
“Good-bye!” he said, nodding at Miss Letty.
“Take your hat off, sir!” said the Major, bluntly.
Boy looked exceedingly foolish, and blushed deeply as he removed the offending ‘bowler.’ Miss Letty felt sorry for him, and came up in her own gracious, gentle manner to pat his shoulder, and to press a little knitted silk purse into his hand. She had made the purse, dear soul, herself, with loving thoughts as well as loving fingers.
“Good-bye, Boy!” she said, rather sadly. “This is just a little present—you can buy what you like with it. I hope you will pass your exam. If you have time will you let me know?”
“Oh yes,” said Boy, taking the purse, and cramming it into his pocket without a look, or a smile, or a ‘thank you,’—“as soon as I know myself. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!” said Violet, without offering her hand this time.
“Good-bye!”
The Major clapped on his hat.
“Come along!” he said brusquely.
Boy looked round,—at the ceiling, at the walls, and finally at Miss Letty.
“Good-bye!” he said again.
“Good-bye, dear Boy!”
The door opened—closed,—he was gone,—following the Major, who, in somewhat irritated haste, led the way.
When the echo of their footsteps had passed through the outer passage and sunk into silence, MissLetty sat quietly down in her arm-chair again. Half mechanically she fingered the old Irish point lace at her neck, and looked at the soft silken folds of her ‘best’ gown that swept the floor. After all, she need not have been so particular about her dress! Boy had not noticed her appearance with any visible amount of affectionate liking or observation!
Still slowly and musingly she played with her delicate lace and sighed almost unconsciously, till Violet, after sympathetically watching her for a few minutes, could bear it no longer.
“My own Miss Letty!” she said fondly, going up to her chair and kneeling down beside it,—“you are tired?”
“A little, my dear!”
“And—and disappointed?” murmured Violet timidly.
Miss Letty paused before replying. Then she took the girl’s hand in her own and patted it tremblingly.
“Well—I won’t be a humbug about it, child!” she said with a faint smile—“Iamdisappointed. Yes. I don’t know why I should be, but I am.”
“He is a very nice-looking boy,” said Violet soothingly. “It is only his manner that seems so curt and ungracious. But all English boys are like that, I think, and he is at an awkward age.”
Miss Letty shook her head.
“Yes—that may be,” she said. “But it is not his manner, Violet,—it is his heart! That is what fretsme. It is the sweet little heart of the child I loved so much!—that heart is gone, Violet! Quite gone!—there is something withered and hard in its place that is not a heart at all—the heart has gone!”
Violet was silent.
“The heart has been killed in him,” went on Miss Letty regretfully—“it has been crushed out of him. There is no warmth—no brightness of feeling in that starved little soul! He is not to blame. It is the fault of his bringing-up. I am very sorry for him—very! Poor Boy!”
She sat quiet for a few minutes, trying to control the little nervous trembling which, like a cold ague, now and then shook her thin and delicate frame,—then she said suddenly,—
“Violet, do you know I feel very strangely about Boy!”
“Do you, my own Miss Letty?”—and Violet slipped an affectionate arm about her—“What do you feel?”
“Well,—you will think me a very foolish old woman perhaps, my dear—but I feel that Boy—the Boy I loved—is not here any more. He is not dead, but he has gone!—gone in some way that I cannot explain,—but I shall meet him in Heaven! Yes!” and Miss Letty smiled—“I shall find him again,—I shall find the little fair soul of the child that used to call me ‘Kiss Letty’—the soul that is no longer here,—but—there!”
She raised her soft blue eyes, radiant with love and trust; and Violet looked at her with the worship of a devotee for a shrined saint. Miss Letty, presently meeting this upturned adoring gaze, bent down and kissed her very tenderly.
“And so, dear girl,” she continued, “we will say no more of Boy just now. Boy is put away among an old woman’s sentimental memories. The last illusion of a life, my dear!—the last illusion of a life! Let it go,—back to God where it came from! Because He will restore to us all our lost beautiful things, and teach us why they were taken from us for a little while—only for a little while....”
She pressed Violet’s hand,—then, with a slight effort, rose from her chair, and smiled cheerfully.
“Put your things on, little one!” she said—“we will go for a drive. And we will think of nothing except just how to make ourselves pleasant and kind to every one for the passing hour,—for that is as much a duty as anything else in this world. Run away!—dress quickly!”
Violet kissed her, and ran off.
When she was gone, Miss Letty stood gazing into vacancy, with a strangely wearied expression. A grey shadow, like a hint of death, clouded her sweet old face for the first time.
“Good-bye, Boy!” she whispered softly to the silence.... “Good-bye, dear little Boy! God bless you!”
Oneof the greatest among our most English of English poets has finely expressed the melancholy transformation which one brief day may make in human destinies, thus:—