The Wings of Icarus Part 3

LETTER XI.

GRAYSMILL, October 5th.

Three several times have I begun to write to you, but I came to the conclusion that it is better not to write at all than to give vent to such feelings as mine. Besides, I had nothing, positively nothing, to tell you. Furthermore, you did not deserve a letter.

However, as it is all too long since you honoured me with a communication, Mrs. Norris, I feel I must write and remind you of my existence. I am well, thank you, but the world's a dull place.

Grandmamma and Aunt Caroline--perhaps myself, who knows?--are in a great state of excitement to-day because a niece of theirs is coming here on a visit. I heard of her existence for the first time last week, and immediately decided to invite her to Fletcher's Hall. For, Constance, let me whisper it, the old ladies--bless their hearts!--are killing me. This person, Ida Seymour by name, is a spinster of some forty winters, a kind of roving, charitable star, from what I gather, who spends her life visiting from place to place with a trunkful of fancy work, pious books, and innocent sources of amus.e.m.e.nt,--a fairy G.o.dmother to old ladies, pauper children, and bazaars. My vanity has run its course, and I shall gladly yield the place of honour to this worthy soul. May she stay long!

That is absolutely all the news I have for you, and, indeed, it is more than you deserve; for you are about as lazy as you are sweet, which is saying a good deal. If I don't get a letter to-morrow, I shall be on the brink of despair. At the approach of post time, I am nearly ill with antic.i.p.ation, and afterwards fall headlong into deepest melancholy.

Your ill-used EMILIA.

LETTER XII.

GRAYSMILL, October 10th.

Sweet, your letter of Thursday comforted me wondrous much; but I have something to tell you, and my impatience will not even let me dwell on the joy it was to read words of yours again. Well; yesterday was a dull day, the sky was covered all the morning, and at dinner-time it began to rain. I sat in my room in the afternoon and read "Richard Feverel" until, looking up from my book, I saw that the rain had ceased. The wind had risen, and, in the west, a hole had been poked through the grey mantle, showing the gilded edge of a snowy cloud against a patch of blue. Out I ran, across the garden and the little park that touches the heath, then through my dear beechwood until I reached a certain clearing where the ground goes sheer down at one's feet and where one may behold, over the tree-tops, stretches of wood and meadow in the plain below. I sprang on to a knoll, and there stood breathless, watching the rout of the tumbled clouds.

Something started beside me,--I started also, for these woods are always very lonely,--and, to my surprise, I saw a young man. Imagine a very tall slight fellow, carelessly dressed, at one and the same time graceful and ungainly,--I have come to the conclusion that he is physically graceful, but that a certain shyness and nervousness of temperament produce at times self-consciousness and awkwardness of bearing. It is difficult to describe his face; I don't know whether he is merely interesting or actually beautiful; here again there is some discrepancy between flesh and spirit, for the features are not regular, but the expression exquisite. I suppose he might be considered plain; his nose is large, rather thin, and not straight; his mouth is large but finely shaped; I think he smiles a little crookedly. Anyway, his eyes are beautiful; they are set far apart, and are strangely expressive. For the rest, he is more freckled than any one I ever saw, and his hair--which is of no particular colour--is rather long and thrown off the temples, save for one lock that continually falls forward. You will think I am in love with the apparition, to judge by the way in which I dwell on his description; indeed, I am almost inclined to think so myself!

Well! I stood and stared at him; his hat was off, an open book was in his hand, and he gazed at me as one not well awake, that has been roused from dreams; with something in his looks, too, of the startled animal that would run away and dare not. There is no knowing how long we might have stood there staring at each other, but for a sudden gust of wind that whisked off my hat, whereupon the young man and I both started downhill in pursuit. The wind was playful, and led us a fine dance; we were obliged to laugh. When at last he caught and handed back to me my property, we were thoroughly exhausted and sat down at the foot of the hill on the mossy tree-roots. I am sure we must have looked very silly, for we were so out of breath that we could not leave off laughing,--my young man has the heartiest laugh I ever heard. When we had somewhat recovered, I said:

"I wonder why one always laughs when something blows away?"

"It is," he replied, with mock gravity, "what people call a wise dispensation of Providence. There is nothing between laughter and tears."

It never entered my head to get up and go my way; his shyness, too, seemed vanished; we were quite at ease.

"Have you ever noticed," asked he, "how many different kinds of moss there are in these woods?"--and we began to count the varieties as we sat. At last I looked up and saw that the heavens were blue.

"I'm going uphill again," said I, "to see the sunset. How quickly the sky has cleared! It almost seems as if some invisible broom had made a clean sweep of the clouds." To which the young man answered:

"It was a birch-broom. I see the marks of it."

We climbed the hill side by side; it did not seem at all strange at the time. When we reached the summit, the sun was setting in fullest glory, and we were silent. Suddenly he cried:

"Let us be fire-worshippers! There is more of G.o.d in that great light than in all the gospels of mankind."

"What a queer, comforting thing," said I, "to hear from a stranger in a wood."

It struck me afterwards that perhaps I, too, had said a queer thing; but we seemed to understand each other. Presently we sat down again, and he talked to me about the Pa.r.s.ees; he appears to know a great deal about them.

We narrowly escaped a second run downhill; again the wind seized my hat, but he nimbly caught it on the wing.

"Why don't you do as I do?" he asked, pa.s.sing his fingers through his hair. "It's a great mistake to wear a hat, especially if one has a turn for trespa.s.sing."

"Who tells you," laughed I then, "that I am trespa.s.sing? For aught you know, this may be my own ground."

The young man looked at me curiously.

"Are you, then, Emilia Fletcher?" he cried.

I nodded a.s.sent; whereupon he held out his hand and jerked his head forward; it was evidently an attempt at courtesy. I took the hand and laughed outright: he looked so funny with his bright eyes twinkling beneath the tangled forelock.

"I have heard of you," he said, "and I am glad to meet you. The other day I asked to whom the land belonged, and was told that you were half Italian and rather eccentric. You seem to be a human being. I am glad to have met you. My name is Gabriel Norton."

Here the big bell rang out from the house, summoning me to tea,--it had rung once already. So the apparition and I parted company.

I wonder if he has caught cold; I am sure that I have; I have been sneezing all the evening.

It may be very pleasant and romantic to sit on the moss with a wood-sprite after a shower, but perhaps it is not very wise.

I must go and say good night downstairs. I left Miss Seymour reading sentimental ballads on pauper childhood to the old ladies; it must now be close upon their bed-time.

Good night, beloved.

Your EMILIA.

P.S. I forgot to say that he has one really fine point: his hands are quite beautiful. I keep on wondering what you would think of him. O dio! how good it was to laugh again.

LETTER XIII.

GRAYSMILL, October 18th.

Very dear, I hope this letter will reach Vienna before you do, and welcome you there. The words we write in one mood are read when another has taken its place; perhaps you are as merry as a bird in spring by this time,--perhaps not. My poor little dear. I know myself what it is to sink into a bottomless pit of senseless misery, but I must tell you that it nearly always happens when I am idle.

A woman that is debarred from woman's best profession--wifehood and motherhood--must find some other work to do; idleness, uselessness--above all, idleness--are the hotbed of all manner of follies. The stupidest man in existence, working day by day at the worldliest work, has the better of us in this, that he is weighted, so to speak, and cannot flutter to and fro with every breeze that blows. You say that you cannot work, that you have heard all this at least a thousand times; well, never mind, hear it once more!

Take German lessons, your German is very bad; go on with your singing, your sweet voice is very ignorant; read, make some study, however unprofitable, of the French Revolution, the Renaissance, the Conquest of Peru, anything, anything you like; or buy a sewing-machine at least, and make flannel petticoats for the poor; anything, Constantia, only don't for Heaven's sake sit there with your hands in your lap, listening to the gabble of fools, while Mrs.

Rayner touches up a curl here and a frill there, from morning till night, for ever and ever.

But now to other things, for indeed I am not in the fault-finding mood you might suppose. Only, as you know well, I can always worry about you, at any time.

Well, I have seen my wood-sprite again, this very morning. I could not sleep after six, although I twice covered up my head with the bed-clothes and made believe I was not awake; so I got up, and the young sun was so beautiful, driving the mists out of the valley, that I went out.

Between the flower garden and the park, there lies a shrubbery; green paths wind in and out between high walls of box and laurel, leading one at length to a little blue door in an old wall. Well, I was stepping along between the evergreens as fast as the moss on the pebbles would let me, swinging my hat round as I went, and singing loudly, when I thought I heard footsteps round the bend of the path.

I turned the corner--n.o.body; only a little scrambling sound, and the treacherous flutter of a branch in the laurel hedge. Of course I immediately thought of poachers, and in my imagination already saw Emilia Fletcher stretched a lifeless corpse upon the ground. I took three backward steps, then paused. Silence and stillness reigned.