XXI

Victor, like Lucy’s ship, went up and down, as his angel’s voice called to him from across the sea that she was missing him so that she nearly died, or that the gentlemen of Ireland were the most awful flatterers, but somehow you couldn’t get angry. He was working in the real estate office of Uncle Willie’s friend, Mr. Vernon Johnson. Every morning he yawned down the lane through the morning mists and boarded the 7:17 to Wilmington, carrying a lawyer’s green bag that May had made for him, that held three soda biscuits with ham inside them, three with apple jelly, an orange or a pear, and a volume of Zola in French to read on the train, more to impress his fellow travellers than for his own enjoyment.

He sat at his desk and licked stamps, led prospective customers to small brick houses, and swept out the office when the janitor was drunk, through a pink and gold and forget-me-not blue haze⁠—a rainbow dream of Lucy. Oh, he would think, yawning, gazing through the window, he would be rich some day! Lucy, riding behind prancing, perfectly matched horses and a perfectly matched coachman and footman in livery, and simply covered with rubies and pearls, would drive down to the office every afternoon to take him home. And he saw her more clearly than he saw the guttersnipe sparrows, cellar doors, and ashcans his eyes were resting on. Some day! At present his salary was thirty dollars a month.

All his daily life was a blur, a confused murmur, through which came sweet and clear Lucy’s messages to the effect that Holland was very flat and full of windmills, that the cathedral at Cologne was too magnificent for description, that at the table d’hôtes of Holland and Germany they helped you to ice-cream twice, that the Rhine was too beautiful for description, that thousands of plum trees filled the orchards in Prussia, but there seemed to be more apples in Bavaria, that peasants were quaint, that Milan was fascinating, that the pension at Naples had been horrid but very Italian, that Rome was simply beyond words, that there were mountains in Switzerland and laces in Brussels, and that the men of Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium stared dreadfully.

“We met a charming young American, named Mr. Duncan, in Amsterdam, full of fun but I’m afraid rather fast,” wrote Lucy, “He is always saying the funniest things. The other day he said ‘Did you ever notice that nearly everything here begins or ends with dam? I must say it sounds rather profane!’ I don’t suppose it was quite the thing to say before a lady, but he said it with such a solemn face I simply couldn’t help bursting out laughing!”

Down went Victor’s heart.

“Venice is absolutely beyond the powers of my feeble pen. Mother, Father, and I went out in a gondola in the moonlight last night, and Father teased me for moping. The tears were very near, though I didn’t tell him why⁠—that I simply couldn’t bear being in Venice, in the moonlight, without you!”

Up flew his heart like a bird in the sky.

“Everywhere in Italy there are the most perfect flowers for sale on the streets, and Mr. Duncan, who just happened to turn up in Florence, simply filled our rooms with them, and sent me a bunch of orange blossoms, if you please, which I thought rather saucy to say the least!”

Down went his heart like a stone thrown into the sea.

And longer and longer grew the silences between. But just as Victor would begin to emerge from unhappiness and hurt pride into freedom, she would call him back, lovingly and sweetly, to her side.

“Victor! Here we are in la Belle France! Paris⁠—I can’t believe it. It is all my fancy painted it and much, much more, such a whirl, the darlingest dresses, though I can’t expect your highness to be interested in them, such gloves, such bonbons! Then the Opera, which is divine, I nearly cried my eyes out at ‘Faust’ the other night, and driving in the Bois, and all Mamma’s friends being hospitality itself to us. And yet I am homesick⁠—can you guess why?”

Then a long, long silence, no answer to all his letters, and just as he was getting bitter, sure she had forgotten him, came her photograph from Paul Delahaye in the Rue Lafitte, tinted to show faint pink cheeks and deep blue eyes. Darling little Lucy, so like herself, so unchanged, that he nearly died of love and happiness⁠—Lucy with the biggest bustle in the world, and the sweetest expression, her head a little to one side as if she were listening to the voices of the other angels.

It was too precious to leave out for the girls to see every time they made his bed and filled his pitcher. He kissed it and hid it in a bureau-drawer under his silk muffler, a birthday present from Aunt Priscilla. There were other treasures there, all speaking to him of Lucy⁠—bits of dried vegetation, a slipper bow, a lace pocket-handkerchief, an embossed picture of clasped hands and forget-me-nots from a Christmas cracker, and all her letters.

And then, two years after she had sailed away, and just before she was to sail for home, another letter came.

There it lay on the hall table, white as a feather from an angel’s wing. He couldn’t even wait until he got it upstairs to his room. He tore it open and read:

Rue d’Alger, Paris, June 14.

Dear Victor:

I hate to write this letter, as I am so afraid it will hurt you, but I couldn’t bear to have you hear from anyone but me of my engagement. I am going to marry Count René de la Villeblanche, the son of one of Mamma’s great friends, and I am very happy.

You and I were only children, weren’t we, Victor? I realize that now. But I shall always think of our friendship as one of the sweetest things in my life, and I will be wishing your happiness wherever you are and whatever you do. It is sad to say adieu to all the old times, and I hope you won’t quite forget.

“Is that you, Victor?” asked Maggie, coming up from the cellar, where she had been getting a jar of peach preserves for supper. “There’s a letter for you⁠—oh, you found it. Hurry up if you want to wash your hands, supper’s nearly ready.”

Victor started upstairs. “Oh, by the way,” he called over his shoulders, “Lucy’s going to marry a French count⁠—” and his voice suddenly broke into a loud sound, half squawk, half hiccup.

Maggie ran up the stairs after him. “Why, I thought she was engaged to you!”

“So did I⁠—my mistake, evidently.”

“But Victor⁠—”

“Oh, Maggie!” And he turned his head away, pressing it against the wall, but she could see that he was crying, and she answered his pain out of the depths of her own.

“Oh, my poor little brother, I know!”

“Nobody knows! Nobody can know⁠—”

“Sit down on the stairs a minute⁠—no, the girls won’t come in till I call them, they’re picking currants in the truck patch. Here, take mine, it’s clean, for a wonder⁠—”

“I wish I was dead.”

“The nasty little thing⁠—I’d like to wring her neck!” Maggie thought to herself, her arm tight around his shaking shoulders, and added aloud:

“Don’t, Victor, don’t, she isn’t worth it.”

He looked at her tragically through red eyes.

“You mustn’t say a word against Lucy, Maggie. It isn’t her fault⁠—I must have failed her some way⁠—”

“It’s her mother’s doing, I bet you anything. French count! French no-account more likely. Ambitious old schemer! I never could bear that woman!”

Oh, how could she help him? A passion of pity flooded her. How could she comfort her little brother?

“I only want her to be happy.”

And in the dark night of his unhappiness one little star came out and shone faintly⁠—he couldn’t help knowing that he was “taking it” wonderfully.

“That’s the only thing,” Maggie said, her voice gritty with effort. “Don’t let love turn into bitterness. And pity Lucy because she’s hurt you⁠—you’ve only been hurt, it won’t be so hard for you.”

But Victor, still shaking with sobs, did not hear her, for he was looking at Lucy at the end of a vista of years, a tragic figure saying to him through her tears:

“Ah Victor! If only⁠—”