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 he was full of fun and the life of the party. Then there was Mr. Baron, a languid young swell whom I had met at some balls in New York, so of course he felt in duty bound to come to life and honor me with his attention when he wasn’t asleep, which was generally. His mother and sister were with him, but Mrs. Baron was too overcome with mal-du-mer to make her appearance, and I did not care for Miss Baron, who was quite a flirt and apparently did not care much for ladies’ society. I think the gentlemen were much nicer than the ladies on the ship; and, by the time the trip was over, we felt as if we had known each other for years, for our vessel was a slow one—as Mr. Thompson said, “An old donkey could go faster.” But the days slipped by like magic, although we were all so idle—indeed, the gentlemen seemed to have left all thoughts of business on shore, and the abandon of the ladies was complete. Sometimes in the evenings we would have jolly games of “Ruth and Jacob” with everybody joining in, and sometimes just sit up in the bow of the boat, looking at the foam and trying to look into the future. I think my companions would have been surprised if they had known where my thoughts were leading me, Victor!
And here we are in very nice, though rather dark, lodgings, in London! Just think! I can hardly believe it. It looks very dirty, and I know I will be terrified on the streets, and I suppose they will be full of those dreadful people Dickens writes about. The floor is going up and down, just like the deck of the good ship “Hiawatha”—I hope it stops before this evening, when Mother and I are going to the theatre with Mr. Thompson to see Geneviéve Ward in a play called, I think, “Forget-me-not.” Mr. Baron has been here too, in lavender kid gloves, with a big bouquet (already!) to ask us to the opera tomorrow night, to hear Patti sing. Aren’t people kind, and ain’t it fun?
This is the longest letter I ever wrote in my life. I put the spray of lilies-of-the-valley you sent me into my prayerbook, and guess where it just happened to fall—in the marriage service, where the woman says “I will”!!!
Hans Crescent, London,
Dear Victor:
I love getting your letters, but really you mustn’t write so often—you really, really mustn’t. Mother said I must tell you.
Victor, how can you think that I could forget you? You hurt me so when you say things like that. I think of you all the time, and I only don’t tell you what I think because I don’t want to make you vain.
I like London now, it is full of interesting sights, but still I think it is pretty dirty and old looking. The gold on the Albert Memorial certainly needs rubbing up. We (Mother, Carter Thompson, Percy Baron, and Ethel Baron, whom I like much better now) went to Saint Paul’s, and got through our sightseeing in time to join in the choral service, with a large choir of men and boys. I think it would be better if they were given dusters and sent round to dust off the statues which are in every corner. We also attended choral service at Westminster Abbey, where the boys’ voices were simply angelic but the intoning of the minister almost put us to sleep—much too High Church in my humble opinion. You will think we are very pious, but we have been to other places of interest too, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Works, where Carter simply convulsed us by taking the doorkeeper of the Chamber of Horrors for one of the figures, and the British Museum. We spent this afternoon at the latter place, but it will take fully another day to see all the wonders it contains.
I don’t know what you mean, Victor, by saying you feel as if I had forgotten you and home. I would die if I thought I was going to spend my life over here. I don’t think things here are nearly as nice as at home, and the British public amuses me very much; for while the gentlemen are very handsome, the ladies are dowdy and dress about a year behind our fashions. Mother and I haven’t seen any bustles as big as ours, and as for the “aesthetes” they simply don’t wear any, and look perfectly ridiculous, going around in slinky sage green and brick red. The men aesthetes don’t cut their hair, and the women apparently never comb theirs, and they all sort of gasp at you. I was telling Carter Thompson about a tea in an artist’s studio Mother and I went to, and he said, “Oh, yes, they hug their knees and stick their chins out and yearn towards a sunflower or a blue china pot!” I nearly died laughing, as it really was a perfect description! Carter pretended to be astonished that we had anything to eat (we had heaps of things, and the most heavenly strawberries, and cream so thick you had to take it with a ladle). He said, “I thought they always just lunched on a lily.” He really is a perfect pickle. One afternoon when, needless to say, it rained, we went to an exhibition of Whistler’s paintings that he calls nocturnes; and Carter made us all laugh by saying “In my humble opinion Daubs on Blotting Paper would be a more appropriate name!” I must say they were all Greek to me, including a sort of insect he paints in the corner of each one.
I am longing to ride in a hansom cab, but ladies don’t do it, alas! Promise not to be shocked to death and don’t breathe it to a soul, and I’ll tell you something awful Ethel and I did with the boys. Mother thought Mrs. Baron was going to matronize us, and Mrs. Baron thought Mother was going to play propriety, so we four went off for an afternoon of sightseeing, all alone! But that isn’t the worst, for we decided to come home in an omnibus just for a lark, but all the omnibuses going our way were full. We hesitated, but the boys’ saying we didn’t dare ride on top gave us courage; and we mounted amid the smiles of the bystanders, who evidently thought we were plucky little women to brave the criticisms of the people. Don’t tell a soul, for if Mother ever heard a word of it she’d lock me up on bread and water.
You’ll get tired of reading these long epistles. Don’t forget me, Victor! I think of you every single second.
Hans Crescent, London,
Victor dear, I cried when I read your letter. I love to have you feel that way about me, but I’m not worthy of it.
I did wish for you yesterday. We went to Hampton Court, which is very historical, but the flowers are lovely. I saw a brown butterfly on a blue Canterbury bell, they were just the colors of that old dress I was wearing the first day we met, when you pretended you thought some bows of ribbon on it were butterflies—do you remember? But I know you don’t.
You needn’t be jealous of Mr. Thompson, for I never was so disappointed in anyone in my whole life. He is not a gentleman. Yesterday at Hampton Court he made an excuse to get me away from the others, to feed the swans, he said, and then proposed, apparently taking it for granted that my answer would, of course, be “yes.” When I said, which was true, that I was completely taken by surprise, he said “Tell us another one!” and that I had led him on! I never want to see him again as long as I live, and I cried myself to sleep last night.
Oh, Victor, I do miss you so! And I do love you!
Hans Crescent, London,
Dear Victor:
I wrote you a dreadfully silly letter yesterday, which you mustn’t pay any attention to. I was tired and nervous, and got somewhat hysterical.
We leave tomorrow for Windermere. I am looking forward very much to seeing the Lakes. We will be travelling about so much that I’m afraid I won’t be able to write very often, the days are so full and I am so tired when evening comes. But even if I haven’t time to write I will often be thinking of all my friends at home.
London,
Oh, Victor, what made me post such a horrible letter to you this morning? Can you ever forgive me and love me again? I didn’t mean one word of it! Victor, if you ever stop loving me I will die.
Old Waverley Hotel, Edinburgh,
Dear Victor:
I’m so ashamed of not having written for such ages, but we have been on the go so hard. If I wrote a letter every time I thought of you, you would be swamped, and anyway I cannot write about the beautiful and quaint and wonderful things I see in a way that will convey any idea of their loveliness. Sir Walter Scott has described “Bonny Scotland” much better than I can, and then so many things over here are remarkable for nothing else than their oddness. But how often I wish you were here to see everything with me!
We are seeing things under the very best auspices, as a very nice young man, the Honorable Ronald Marcy-Prince, who is travelling with his tutor, has practically attached himself to us, and is most kind about escorting the Mater and me on sightseeing expeditions when the Pater prefers a nap (which I must confess is most of the time.) The Honorable Ronald is the son of Lord Burketter, if you please, so we have the greatest attention wherever we go! I must say the importance the English attach to a title amuses me intensely!
Scotland is adorable but so misty it is hard to keep your bangs looking like anything, and for the last two days we have been enjoying (?) a pouring rain storm. I am too sleepy to keep my eyes open any longer, but will write a real letter soon.