Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green Part 11

With each letter that comes from him, similar foolish rhapsodies are written down, but these letters of his, I gather, as I turn the pages, grow after a while colder and fewer, and a chill fear that dare not be penned creeps in among the words.

"March 12th. Six weeks and no letter from Chris, and, oh dear! I am so hungry for one, for the last I have almost kissed to pieces. I suppose he will write more often when he gets to London. He is working hard, I know, and it is selfish of me to expect him to write more often, but I would sit up all night for a week rather than miss writing to him. I suppose men are not like that. O G.o.d, help me, help me, whatever happens! How foolish I am to-night! He was always careless. I will punish him for it when he comes back, but not very much."

Truly enough a conventional story.

Letters do come from him after that, but apparently they are less and less satisfactory, for the diary grows angry and bitter, and the faded writing is blotted at times with tears. Then towards the end of another year there comes this entry, written in a hand of strange neatness and precision:--

"It is all over now. I am glad it is finished. I have written to him, giving him up. I have told him I have ceased to care for him, and that it is better we should both be free. It is best that way. He would have had to ask me to release him, and that would have given him pain. He was always gentle. Now he will be able to marry her with an easy conscience, and he need never know what I have suffered. She is more fitted for him than I am. I hope he will be happy. I think I have done the right thing."

A few lines follow, left blank, and then the writing is resumed, but in a stronger, more vehement hand.

"Why do I lie to myself? I hate her! I would kill her if I could. I hope she will make him wretched, and that he will come to hate her as I do, and that she will die! Why did I let them persuade me to send that lying letter? He will show it to her, and she will see through it and laugh at me. I could have held him to his promise; he could not have got out of it.

"What do I care about dignity, and womanliness, and right, and all the rest of the canting words! I want him. I want his kisses and his arms about me. He is mine! He loved me once! I have only given him up because I thought it a fine thing to play the saint. It is only an acted lie. I would rather be evil, and he loved me. Why do I deceive myself? I want him. I care for nothing else at the bottom of my heart--his love, his kisses!"

And towards the end. "My G.o.d, what am I saying? Have I no shame, no strength? O G.o.d, help me!"

And there the diary closes.

I looked among the letters lying between the pages of the book. Most of them were signed simply "Chris." or "Christopher." But one gave his name in full, and it was a name I know well as that of a famous man, whose hand I have often shaken. I thought of his hard-featured, handsome wife, and of his great chill place, half house, half exhibition, in Kensington, filled constantly with its smart, chattering set, among whom he seemed always to be the uninvited guest; of his weary face and bitter tongue.

And thinking thus there rose up before me the sweet, sad face of the woman of the miniature, and, meeting her eyes as she smiled at me from out of the shadows, I looked at her my wonder.

I took the miniature from its shelf. There would be no harm now in learning her name. So I stood with it in my hand till a little later my landlady entered to lay the cloth.

"I tumbled this out of your book-case," I said, "in reaching down some books. It is someone I know, someone I have met, but I cannot think where. Do you know who it is?"

The woman took it from my hand, and a faint flush crossed her withered face. "I had lost it," she answered. "I never thought of looking there.

It's a portrait of myself, painted years ago, by a friend."

I looked from her to the miniature, as she stood among the shadows, with the lamplight falling on her face, and saw her perhaps for the first time.

"How stupid of me," I answered. "Yes, I see the likeness now."

THE MAN WHO WOULD MANAGE

It has been told me by those in a position to know--and I can believe it--that at nineteen months of age he wept because his grandmother would not allow him to feed her with a spoon, and that at three and a half he was fished, in an exhausted condition, out of the water-b.u.t.t, whither he had climbed for the purpose of teaching a frog to swim.

Two years later he permanently injured his left eye, showing the cat how to carry kittens without hurting them, and about the same period was dangerously stung by a bee while conveying it from a flower where, as it seemed to him, it was only wasting its time, to one more rich in honey- making properties.

His desire was always to help others. He would spend whole mornings explaining to elderly hens how to hatch eggs, and would give up an afternoon's black-berrying to sit at home and crack nuts for his pet squirrel. Before he was seven he would argue with his mother upon the management of children, and reprove his father for the way he was bringing him up.

As a child nothing could afford him greater delight than "minding" other children, or them less. He would take upon himself this hara.s.sing duty entirely of his own accord, without hope of reward or grat.i.tude. It was immaterial to him whether the other children were older than himself or younger, stronger or weaker, whenever and wherever he found them he set to work to "mind" them. Once, during a school treat, piteous cries were heard coming from a distant part of the wood, and upon search being made, he was discovered p.r.o.ne upon the ground, with a cousin of his, a boy twice his own weight, sitting upon him and steadily whacking him. Having rescued him, the teacher said:

"Why don't you keep with the little boys? What are you doing along with him?"

"Please, sir," was the answer, "I was minding him."

He would have "minded" Noah if he had got hold of him.

He was a good-natured lad, and at school he was always willing for the whole cla.s.s to copy from his slate--indeed he would urge them to do so.

He meant it kindly, but inasmuch as his answers were invariably quite wrong--with a distinctive and inimitable wrongness peculiar to himself--the result to his followers was eminently unsatisfactory; and with the shallowness of youth that, ignoring motives, judges solely from results, they would wait for him outside and punch him.

All his energies went to the instruction of others, leaving none for his own purposes. He would take callow youths to his chambers and teach them to box.

"Now, try and hit me on the nose," he would say, standing before them in an att.i.tude of defence. "Don't be afraid. Hit as hard as ever you can."

And they would do it. And so soon as he had recovered from his surprise, and a little lessened the bleeding, he would explain to them how they had done it all wrong, and how easily he could have stopped the blow if they had only hit him properly.

Twice at golf he lamed himself for over a week, showing a novice how to "drive"; and at cricket on one occasion I remember seeing his middle stump go down like a ninepin just as he was explaining to the bowler how to get the b.a.l.l.s in straight. After which he had a long argument with the umpire as to whether he was in or out.

He has been known, during a stormy Channel pa.s.sage, to rush excitedly upon the bridge in order to inform the captain that he had "just seen a light about two miles away to the left"; and if he is on the top of an omnibus he generally sits beside the driver, and points out to him the various obstacles likely to impede their progress.

It was upon an omnibus that my own personal acquaintances.h.i.+p with him began. I was sitting behind two ladies when the conductor came up to collect fares. One of them handed him a sixpence telling him to take to Piccadilly Circus, which was twopence.

"No," said the other lady to her friend, handing the man a s.h.i.+lling, "I owe you sixpence, you give me fourpence and I'll pay for the two."

The conductor took the s.h.i.+lling, punched two twopenny tickets, and then stood trying to think it out.

"That's right," said the lady who had spoken last, "give my friend fourpence."

The conductor did so.

"Now you give that fourpence to me."

The friend handed it to her.

"And you," she concluded to the conductor, "give me eightpence, then we shall be all right."

The conductor doled out to her the eightpence--the sixpence he had taken from the first lady, with a penny and two halfpennies out of his own bag--distrustfully, and retired, muttering something about his duties not including those of a lightning calculator.

"Now," said the elder lady to the younger, "I owe you a s.h.i.+lling."

I deemed the incident closed, when suddenly a florid gentleman on the opposite seat called out in stentorian tones:--

"Hi, conductor! you've cheated these ladies out of fourpence."

"'Oo's cheated 'oo out 'o fourpence?" replied the indignant conductor from the top of the steps, "it was a twopenny fare."

"Two twopences don't make eightpence," retorted the florid gentleman hotly. "How much did you give the fellow, my dear?" he asked, addressing the first of the young ladies.

"I gave him sixpence," replied the lady, examining her purse. "And then I gave you fourpence, you know," she added, addressing her companion.