Lucius, like an honest man, had proposed to go at once to Mr. Furnival when he was accepted; but to this Sophia had objected, “The peculiar position in which my father stands to your mother at the present moment,” said she, “would make it very difficult for him to give you an answer now.” Lucius did not quite understand the reasoning, but he yielded. It did not occur to him for a moment that either Mr. or Miss Furnival could doubt the validity of his title to the Orley Farm property.
But there was no reason why he should not write to her. “Shall I address here?” he had asked. “Oh yes,” said Sophia; “my letters are quite private.” And he had written very frequently, and she had answered him. His last letter before the trial I propose to publish, together with Sophia’s answer, giving it as my opinion that the gentleman’s production affords by no means a good type of a lover’s letter. But then his circumstances were peculiar. Miss Furnival’s answer was, I think, much better.
Orley Farm, ⸻ — ⸺.
My own Sophia,
My only comfort—I may really say my only comfort now—is in writing to you. It is odd that at my age, and having begun the world early as I did, I should now find myself so much alone. Were it not for you, I should have no friend. I cannot describe to you the sadness of this house, nor the wretched state in which my mother exists. I sometimes think that had she been really guilty of those monstrous crimes which people lay to her charge, she could hardly have been more miserable. I do not understand it; nor can I understand why your father has surrounded her with lawyers whom he would not himself trust in a case of any moment. To me she never speaks on the subject, which makes the matter worse—worse for both of us. I see her at breakfast and at dinner, and sometimes sit with her for an hour in the evening; but even then we have no conversation. The end of it is I trust soon coming, and then I hope that the sun will again be bright. In these days it seems as though there were a cloud over the whole earth.
I wish with all my heart that you could have been here with her. I think that your tone and strength of mind would have enabled her to bear up against these troubles with more fortitude. After all, it is but the shadow of a misfortune which has come across her, if she would but allow herself so to think. As it is, Mrs. Orme is with her daily, and nothing I am sure can be more kind. But I can confess to you, though I could do so to no one else, that I do not willingly see an intimacy kept up between my mother and The Cleeve. Why was there that strange proposition as to her marriage; and why, when it was once made, was it abandoned? I know that my mother has been not only guiltless, but guileless, in these matters as to which she is accused; but nevertheless her affairs will have been so managed that it will be almost impossible for her to remain in this neighbourhood.
When all this is over, I think I shall sell this place. What is there to bind me—to bind me or you to Orley Farm? Sometimes I have thought that I could be happy here, devoting myself to agriculture—
“Fiddlesticks!” Sophia exclaimed, as she read this,
—and doing something to lessen the dense ignorance of those around me; but for such work as that a man should be able to extend himself over a larger surface than that which I can influence. My dream of happiness now carries me away from this to other countries—to the sunny south. Could you be happy there? A friend of mine whom I well knew in Germany, has a villa on the Lake of Como—
“Indeed, sir, I’ll do no such thing,” said Sophia to herself,
—and there I think we might forget all this annoyance.
I shall not write again now till the trial is over. I have made up my mind that I will be in court during the whole proceedings. If my mother will admit it, I will remain there close to her, as her son should do in such an emergency. If she will not have this, still I will be there. No one shall say that I am afraid to see my mother in any position to which fortune can bring her, or that I have ever doubted her innocence.
God bless you, my own one.
Taking this letter as a whole perhaps we may say that there was not as much nonsense in it as young gentlemen generally put into their love-letters to young ladies; but I am inclined to think that it would have been a better love-letter had there been more nonsense. At any rate there should have been less about himself, and more about the lady. He should have omitted the agriculture altogether, and been more sure of his loved one’s tastes before he suggested the sunny south and the Como villa. It is true that he was circumstanced as few lovers are, with reference to his mother; but still I think he might have been less lachrymose. Sophia’s answer, which was sent after the lapse of a day or two, was as follows:—
Harley Street, ⸻ — ⸺.
My dear Lucius,
I am not surprised that you should feel somewhat low-spirited at the present moment;
