That night I could not sleep. I was afraid. Life was blackening my mind like the mould of a graveyard. I could think of nothing but one face, one voice—that scorn and longing, thought and fantasy. What if he did love me a little? I might at least have been kind to him. Had I so many friends that I could afford to be harsh and ungrateful? How dreadfully ill he had looked when I scoffed at him. And now what might not have happened to him? I seemed lost to myself. No wonder Fanny. … My body grew cold at a thought; the palms of my hands began to ache.
Half-stifled, I leapt out of bed, and without the least notion of what I was doing, hastily dressed myself, and fled out into the night. I must find him, talk to him, plead with him, before it was too late. And in the trickling starlight, pressed against my own gatepost—there he was.
“Oh,” I whispered at him in a fever of relief and shame and apprehensiveness, “what are you doing here? You must go away at once, at once. I forgive you. Yes, yes; I forgive you. But—at once. Keep the letter for me till I come again.” His hand was wet with the dew. “Oh, and never say it again. Please, please, if you care for me the least bit in the world, never, never say what you did again.” I poured out the heedless words in the sweet-scented quiet of midnight. “Now—now go”; I entreated. “And indeed, indeed I am your friend.”
The dark eyes shone quietly close to mine. He sighed. He lifted my fingers, and put them to my breast again. He whispered unintelligible words between us, and was gone. No more stars for me that night. I slept sound until long after dawn. …
Softly as thistledown the days floated into eternity; yet they were days of expectation and action. April was her fickle self; not so Mrs. Monnerie. Her letter to Mrs. Bowater must have been a marvel of tact. Apartments had been engaged for us at a little watering-place in Dorsetshire, called Lyme Regis. Mrs. Bowater and I were to spend at least a fortnight there alone together, and after our return Mrs. Monnerie herself was to pay me a visit, and see with her own eyes if her prescription had been successful. After that, perhaps, if I were so inclined, and my landlady agreed with Mr. Pellew that it would be good for me, I might spend a week or two with her in London. What a twist of the kaleidoscope. I had sown never a pinch of seed, yet here was everything laughing and blossoming around me, like the wilderness in Isaiah.
Indeed my own looking-glass told me how wan and languishing a Miss M. was pining for change of scene and air. She rejoiced that Fanny was enjoying herself, rejoiced that she was going to enjoy herself too. I searched Mrs. Bowater’s library for views of the sea, but without much reward. So I read over Mr. Bowater’s Captain Maury—on the winds and monsoons and tide-rips and hurricanes, freshened up my Robinson Crusoe, and dreamed of the Angels with the Vials. In the midst of my packing (and I spread it out for sheer amusement’s sake), Mr. Crimble called again. He looked nervous, gloomy, and hollow-eyed.
I was fast becoming a mistress in affairs of the sensibilities. Yet, when, kneeling over my open trunk, I heard him in the porch, I mimicked Fanny’s “Dash!” and wished to goodness he had postponed his visit until only echo could have answered his knock. It fretted me to be bothered with him. And now? What would I not give to be able to say I had done my best and utmost to help him when he wanted it? Here is a riddle I can find no answer to, however long I live: How is it that our eyes cannot foresee, our very hearts cannot forefeel, the future? And how should we act if that future were plain before us? Yet, even then, what could I have said to him to comfort him? Really and truly I had no candle with which to see into that dark mind.
In actual fact my task was difficult and delicate enough. In spite of her vow not to write again, yet another letter had meanwhile come from Fanny. If Mr. Crimble’s had afforded “a ray of hope,” this had shut it clean away. It was full of temporizings, wheedlings, evasions—and brimming over with Fanny.
It suggested, too, that Mrs. Bowater must have misread the name of her holiday place. The half-legible printing of the postmark on the envelope—fortunately I had intercepted the postman—did not even begin with an M. And no address was given within. I was to tell Mr. Crimble that Fanny was overtired and depressed by the term’s work, that she simply couldn’t set her “weary mind” to anything, and as for decisions:—
“He seems to think only of himself. You couldn’t believe, Midgetina, what nonsense the man talks. He can’t see that all poor Fanny’s future is at stake, body and soul. Tell him if he wants her to smile, he must sit in patience on a pedestal, and smile too. One simply can’t trust the poor creature with cold, sober facts. His mother, now—why, I could read it in your own polite little description of her at your Grand Reception—she smiles and smiles. So did the Cheshire Cat.
“ ‘But oh, dear Fanny, time and your own true self, God helping, would win her over.’ So writes H. C. That’s candid enough, if you look into it; but it isn’t sense. Once hostile, old ladies are not won over. They don’t care much for mind in the young. Anyhow, one look at me was enough for her—and it was followed by a sharp little peer at poor Harold! She guessed. So you see, my dear, even
