LETTER I.

Fletcher’s Hall, Graysmill, July 18th.

Dear and Beloved Constance,—What shall I say to you? Here I sit, in a strange room, in a strange land,—and my life lies behind me. It is close upon midnight, and very dark. I can see nothing out of window. The air is hot and heavy, the moths flutter round my candle; I cannot save them all. I am trying to write you a letter—do you understand? Oh, but I have no thoughts, only visions! Three there are that rise before me, sometimes separately, sometimes all together.

I see you, Mrs. Norris. We are standing on the platform, side by side; people leaning out of window in my night-gown, watching the mists rise in the valley. The air is very sweet here in England; I see oceans of trees, great stretches of heath and meadow. Surely, surely one ought to be happy in this beautiful world! I shall dress quickly and go out. This letter, such as it is, shall go to you by the first post, and to-night I shall write again, when I myself know something of my surroundings. Good-bye then for the present, my best and dearest.

Emilia.

LETTER II.

July 19.

It is just half-past ten, my Constance; the two old ladies have gone to bed. I am getting on very well, on the whole, although I had the misfortune to keep them waiting three-quarters of an hour for breakfast this morning. It was so beautiful out of doors, and I was so happy roaming in field and wood,—happy with the happiness sunshine can lay atop of the greatest sorrow,—that I stayed out till nearly ten o’clock. I had taken some milk and bread in the kitchen before starting, not realising that breakfast here is a solemn meal. Poor old souls! they were too polite to begin without me, and I found them positively drooping with hunger.

All the rancour that I had harboured in my heart this many a year against my father’s stepmother has vanished into thin air. One glance at the old lady’s delicate weak face, at her diffident eyes and nervous fingers, dispelled once and forever any preconceived idea that she might have helped him in his ardent difficult boyhood, stood between him and his father in his day of disgrace. Had she been a woman of mettle, I could never have forgiven her the neutral part she played; but she stands there cleared by her very impotence.

I think she was nervous of meeting me, last night; she said something confused about my poor papa, about her husband’s severity, adding that she was sorry not to have known my mamma, but supposed I must be like her, as I looked quite the foreigner with my black eyes. Her whole manner towards me is almost painful in its humility; this morning she begged me to let her live with me, and die in this house, saying she did not care to go and live with her son; upon which I of course assured her that she must still consider everything her own, and the scene ended in kisses and a pocket-handkerchief.

There is something very touching about an old woman’s hand; I felt myself much more moved than the occasion warranted when she held me with her trembling fingers, moving them nervously up and down, so that I felt the small weak bones under the skin, all soft, full-veined, and wrinkled.

Her sister, Caroline Seymour, is younger, probably not more than sixty, and very active. She has a bright, bird-like face, over which flits from time to time a sad little gleam of lost beauty. Her fingers are always busy, and the beads in her cap bob up and down incessantly as she bends over her fancy-work. Poor old souls—poor old children! I think my grandfather must have led them a life; there is a peacefulness upon them that suggests deliverance. He has been dead just five weeks.

But the old house will see quiet days enough now. I have wandered all over it, and find it a beautiful place in itself, although it is so stuffed with wool-work, vile china, gildings, wax flowers, and indescribable mantel-piece atrocities, that there is not a simple or restful corner anywhere. Yet I find myself touched by its very hideousness, when I think that it probably looked even so, smelt even so stale and sweet, in the days of my dear father’s boyhood. There is a picture in the large drawing-room that gives me infinite pleasure. It is a portrait of my own grandmother with papa in a white frock on her knees, and my poor Aunt Fanny beside her, a neat little smiling girl in pink, with very long drawers. There is something in the young mother’s face that, at first sight, made my father’s smile rise clearly to my memory. I have since tried to recall the vision, but in vain.

My father’s half-brother, George Fletcher, a widower with a large family, who lives four miles from here, came to see me this afternoon, and I took a great dislike to him. (Did I hear you say “Of course”?) But really, dearest, these introductions are very painful; it is most unpleasant to have the undesirable stranger thrust upon one in the guise of friend and protector, to find oneself standing on a footing of inevitable familiarity with people whose hands one had rather not touch. He kissed me, Constantia, but he certainly will not do so again. Fortunately, I like my two old ladies; things might be worse.

To-morrow my lawyer comes from London to speak to me on business. I shall be glad when the interview is over, for I understand nothing at all about business matters. I can indeed barely grasp the fact that I have come into possession of land and money. Heaven only knows what I am to do with it all.

Write to me; write soon. You seem further away from me to-day than you did last night; and yet I should miss you more if I could realise my own existence. Can you make your way through these contradictions? It seems to me this evening that I, Emilia, am still beside you, that some one else sits here in exile with nothing written on the page of her future, not even by the finger of Hope. Good night, dearest.

Yours ever and always, Emilia.

LETTER III.

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.

LETTER IV.

Graysmill, August 2d.

Now that’s the kind of letter I like to have! Only my heart sickens for thee. At each word I hear your voice; at every pause, the little ripples that run away with it so sweetly. I cannot even find it in me to scold you for your many follies. Young woman, I don’t approve of you, but you are the sweetest creature that ever walked this earth. Thanks be where thanks are due that I am a woman; you would have been my bane had I been born a man!

But, to be serious, I have been thinking things out; you must leave your mother, Constance, and come to me. You have lived this kind of life long enough; and—believe me, my dearest—you are not strong enough to bear it longer unharmed.

Shall I be a little cruel to you? Well, my own, I think that if you looked into your heart, searchingly and truly, as you always declare you know not how, you would find that it is more cowardice than duty binds you to Mrs. Rayner. She bore you, you say, she brought you up—Good Lord! and how! If you were not a pearl among women, what would you be by this time? No, you know as well as I do that it is cowardice, not duty, prevents you from taking this step.

I shall never forget what you said to me once, when first I knew you; it was in Florence, and we were leaning out of window in my room. I remember it the better because it was during this conversation that I ventured to put my arm round your waist for the first time.

“Now I call this pleasant!” you said. “Here am I looking out of window with a nice girl’s arm round my waist, and right away from my mother. She doesn’t even know where I am!”

I loved my mother so much that this shocked me extremely, and I told you so. You flushed, I remember, and cried:—

“Oh, but you don’t know what my life is! You don’t know what it is to long with all your might to get away from somebody, somebody who has hung over you ever since you were born, so that she seemed to stand between you and the very air you breathed.” And then you told me about your marriage; how, in order to be free from her, you took the husband, rich and infamous, into whose arms she threw you in your innocence; how, at the end of a few months, you returned home doubly a slave, to be crushed, year in, year out, by love that showed itself almost as hate; bound now in such a way that if any other love were offered you, you could not take it.

And how old are you now? Twenty-four. Still her puppet, her doll, for that is what you are; she dresses and undresses you from morning till night, then struts up and down the streets of Europe, showing her pretty plaything. You say she has no thought but you, loves you so much that it would break her heart if you left her. Look here, Constance: you knew my mother; you know then what it means to live nobly and truly in the light of a greater goodness than the world yet understands. God, or whoever made you, made your soul very white; how dare you let the smuts fall upon it? How dare you tread among falsehoods, you that have heard of Truth?

Try, my dearest, try to be brave; surely it is the duty of each one of us to live the noblest life he can. The world is so beautiful! It is only ourselves and our mistakes that lie foul upon it. When the most holy of human ties, defying nature, becomes the bane of those it binds, it is better to break it than to let one’s life cast a daily blot, as it were, on the sanctity of motherhood and the love of the child.

Come to me; live with me in peace awhile! We will think and read together, master ourselves, and find some path to tread. I, too, am in need of resolution. Whilst my dear mother lived, she held me by the hand. You know how, when two walk together, the weaker unconsciously leaves it to the stronger to lead the way? Well, so it was with me; and now I must learn to find my path alone. I know now what she meant when she said that the first use to which a man must put his courage is to being himself.

All good be with you, dear heart.

Emilia.

LETTER V.

Graysmill, August 7th.

Dearest, I wrote you such a stern letter the other day, that I feel I must write again before the week comes round. It was, after all, a silly promise we made each other to write just once a week, neither more nor less. This time I write at odds with myself. It’s all very well to talk about sincerity, it baffles one completely at times; there isn’t a greater liar under the sun at this moment than Emilia Fletcher. My outward life is all out of tune with my inward self. Perhaps if you saw me with my old ladies, you would say: “Quite right; please them by all means, sit with them, drive with them, make small talk, listen to their little tales. It pleases them, and it doesn’t harm you.” But I answer: Is it right? Is it not rank hypocrisy? Is affection won by false pretences worth the having? I tell you, I am playing a part all day long. I read to them out of books that I either despise or abhor; I play to them music unworthy of the name; I nod my head in acquiescence when my very soul cries no. Nor is that all; I take my

place each morning in the centre of the room, open the Bible, and in pious voice, I, Infidel, read forth the prayers that are to strengthen the household through the day. When, at a given point, all the maid-servants rise, whirl round in their calico gowns and turn their demure backs to me as they kneel in a row, I know not whether to laugh or cry. O Constance, it is infamous of me! And why do I do it? Out of consideration for them? out of kind-heartedness? Not a bit of it! Vanity, my dear; sheer vanity. If they cared for me less, if I did not feel that they almost worship me, holding out their old hands to me for all the pleasure that their day still may bring, would I do it? No; for then I should not care, as I feel I do now, to keep their good opinion, even at the expense of making myself appear better, according to their lights, than I really am. I am a worm; I never thought I could sink so low. It was so easy to live in tune with Truth beside my mother; but she was Truth’s high-priestess; she never swerved from the straight path.

I went to church last Sunday; there’s a confession! Another such act of cowardice, and I am lost. It never entered my head, of course, to go the first Sunday I was here; and as it so happened that I had a headache that day, no comment was made upon my absence. But on Saturday the vicar said something about “to-morrow”; Uncle George invited himself to dinner after service; and when Aunt Caroline asked me, at breakfast on Sunday, what hat I was going to put on, I replied, “The small one,” and followed her like a lamb. I don’t know what to do now. This afternoon, the good little old lady asked me to call with her on a friend whose father died last week, and I went, Heaven knows why. I was well served out. There they sat a mortal hour, blowing their noses and praising their God, until I could have shrieked. When I had safely seen Aunt Caroline home, I set off for a long walk in the gloaming; the silent earth was stretched in peace beneath the deepening sky, the moon rose among great clouds that floated like dragons’ ghosts upon the blue. And I cried

out within myself for very pain that I who had perception of these things should live so lying and so false a life. Perhaps I am not quite myself yet; so much sorrow came to me at once that all my strength has left me. But it is cowardly to make excuses.

I hear you: “There you go, old wise-bones! Here’s a storm in a tea-cup! It’s much better to behave properly outside anyway, than to hurt people’s feelings and make them think worse of you than they need, by showing them what a wicked infidel you are. Besides, what does it matter?”

Little one, do you remember how we shocked each other that Christmas morning in Florence, when we made a round of the churches together? I can see you still, you pretty thing, crossing yourself at the door of Santa Maria Novella. With all the strictness of my nineteen years I was simply horrified.

“Constance!” I cried, “what on earth are you doing?”

“I don’t like to be left in the cold,” you replied; “if there are any blessings going, I may as well have my share.”

“But, dearest,” said I, “you don’t believe in it!”

“Of course I don’t, but it may be true, for all that; how do we know? Do let me enjoy myself, you dear old granny! The stale water may not do me any good, but it won’t do me any harm either, now will it?”

Oh, dear, how the smell of the church comes back with the remembered words! It was a long time ago. Dear and sweet one, I must not think of you too much, I long for you so.

Yours in endless love, Emilia.

LETTER VI.

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.