“Did Lucy look nice? What did she wear?”
“Oh, white, I think, or blue—something, anyway.”
“Well, I should hope so!”
“What was the entertainment? Just salad and ice-cream, or did you have lobster? Do tell us!”
And as he answered he became confident, self-possessed, a man of the world kindly amused at all this feminine flutter. They saw him the center of the ball, the master of ceremonies, the strong oak for those three ivies, Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorn and Miss Hawthorn, to cling to. He almost saw himself so, through their eyes.
XX
Twice Lucy came to visit the Leafs’, and each time Victor loved her more. He thought of her all the summer, all the autumn, all the winter. Well, not quite all. Not when he was enjoying biscuits like little puffs of summer cloud, with the golden honey from the row of beehives along the grape-house, nor when he was wishing Maggie wouldn’t have mutton hash so often. Not when he was scratching mosquito bites, or blowing on cold fingers to warm them, not when he was brushing his teeth, putting Rowland’s Macassar Oil where his mustache should be but wasn’t, or discovering on Market Street that his sock had a hole in its heel. Not when he and Pip Grant and Tommy Holly, heads together, were singing at the top of their lungs:
Miss Judy O’Connor lived frinst me
And tinder lines to her I wrote,
If you dare say one hard word agin her
I’ll—thread on the tail of your mush, mush, mush,
toorily addy
Mush, mush, mush, toorily aye—’ ”
But as much as most of us do when we say with all our hearts to the beloved, “I think of you every minute.”
And with the lilies-of-the-valley Lucy came again to the Leafs’, but only to say goodbye before she went abroad, to make the Grand Tour.
Victor wrote to her.
Dear dearest Lucy:
I wanted to tell you something while you were here, but I couldn’t. But now I can’t hold in any longer. I love you. I love you so much. Darling, darling Lucy, do you think you can ever love me? I come to you stained and scarred—I’m not worthy of you, but no man could be that, for you are like an angel, so lovely and innocent and good, I want to cry when I think about you.
It means asking you to wait for me, Lucy. I haven’t anything to offer you except all my love, but I have accepted a position in Wilmington with a real estate company—it is rather a small beginning, but it is my belief there is a big future in it, and I’ll work so hard for you, Lucy! Perhaps, I ought to have written to Mr. Hawthorn first, but I couldn’t until I knew whether you could care for me a little. How I will watch the mail for your answer! It nearly kills me when I think that soon the ocean will be between us, but I can stand anything if you send me word before you go that there is any hope for me.
Lucy—when I think how lovely you were to me the night before you left here, I feel so happy and I do love you so! I will keep your precious little handkerchief forever, and ever, and ever. Do you remember the moonlight on the river, and the way the lilies-of-the-valley smelled? They are “lilies-of-the-valley” to other people, but they are always “Lucy’s flowers” to me. I enclose a spray to remind you of me when you are far away.
I love you.
Lucy wrote to Victor.
Hans Crescent, London,
Dear Victor:
I was so surprised by your letter, I never had an idea you felt that way about me. I feel very much touched, and I really do love you as if you were my brother, but we are both much too young to talk of anything else. For goodness sake don’t think of writing to Father, for ever so long anyway, he and Mother would die, as they still consider me a babe in arms.
You must excuse me for not answering your kind letter before we sailed, but really I hadn’t a minute. Any woman would understand the hubbub and confusion of getting ready for a trip like this, the trips to the modiste’s and milliner’s, as Mother and I both discovered we literally hadn’t a stitch to our names, goodbyes to friends, etc., etc., etc., though I don’t suppose a mere man would!
We had a delightful trip, though at first I suffered from mal-du-pays as I thought of home and friends—perhaps one friend in particular, as I looked at the lights on the water, and thought of the way the moon shone on the river that last evening at the Leafs’. But I resolved to be “awfully jolly,” as a Mr. Thompson on board was always saying, and not shed a tear (I didn’t quite keep that resolution!) and I made lots of pleasant acquaintances.
Well, it was awful at first! The ship went up and down so! But after two days it was lovely. I had my new blue sailor costume, and we saw a whale and a homeward bound vessel (I couldn’t keep back a little sigh as I looked at that, I wonder if you can guess why!) and the little whitecaps seemed to be frolicking about the bow of our stately ship—indeed, the wind blew so one day that the sailors had to climb the rigging to reef sail. (Don’t I sound nautical?) I found life at sea made everyone very hungry, and ready to do full justice to the four meals they had on the ship, breakfast at half past eight, lunch at twelve, dinner at four, and supper at eight.
There were some desperate flirtations on board, of course. Everyone said Mr. Thompson ought to be named Mr. Spoony, but
