Mrs. Molesworth

“ She sat for a moment or two gazing at the address before she closed the envelope, as if the familiar words had a sort of fascination for her.
“I wonder if it is the last time I shall ever write to him,” she said to herself. “When—when he is Geneviève’s husband, there can surely never be any necessity for our coming in contact with each other. Yet people grow accustomed to such things I have heard, and my suffering cannot be unprecedented. Ah, what a sad thing life becomes when one’s trust is broken! ”

“ The girl rose slowly. “Ah! well, it must be, I suppose,” she said. “But why take Eudoxie, Mathurine? She is so tiresome when we are out, always wanting to run up the banks and pick flowers. I would much rather—”
“Mais c’est madame qui le veut,” interrupted Mathurine hastily, with a slight gesture of warning; and, turning in the direction of the maid-servant’s eyes, Geneviève caught sight of her mother coming out of the doorway just behind them.
Madame Casalis was tall and thin, with still glossy black hair and bright dark eyes. She looked as if she might once have been pretty and graceful. ”

“ Geneviève looked still more bewildered. “Oh! yes,” she said slowly, “there was a message. I did not understand.”
“Well, don’t look so frightened about it, my dear child,” exclaimed her aunt, half inclined to laugh at her, “tell me the message. No one is vexed with you when you don’t understand.”
Geneviève looked relieved—the little discussion had given her time to collect her wits; she must tell that her mother had received Mrs. Methvyn’s letter, otherwise her aunt would be expecting an immediate direct acknowledgment of it which would not come. ”

“ Like the mysterious “rats of Paris,” ever watching their opportunity, they come to the surface, as if by magic, whenever the tocsin of misfortune sounds; but, unlike that very undesirable community, these evil newsmongers remain in visible, even when hardest at work. We know of their existence but by the unfailing promptitude with which they fulfil their rôle; like will-o’-the-wisp, they are never to be caught.
Some of these mysterious beings were of course on the spot to carry to Lingthurst without delay the news of poor Colonel Methvyn’s death, and full details of its manner and cause. ”

“ An earnest questioning stole into her blue eyes, and, as she spoke she looked up into her companion’s face without a shadow of embarrassment. They had reached the front of the house by now, and were standing just within the old grey porch. The dark leaves of the thick-growing ivy creeping round its entrance seemed to make a frame for the girl’s fair quiet face, and to throw out in relief the delicate features and pure complexion. For a moment Mr. Guildford forgot, in looking at her, what they had been talking about. ”

“ I am well punished for my presumption in thinking I was stronger than other men, or that in such strength there was nobility. Here am I at thirty with powers already curtailed, thankful now not to be threatened with a future of utter dependence. Here am I who despised and depreciated woman’s influence—feeling that without the love of a woman who will never love me, life, in no one direction, can be other than stunted and imperfect. ”

“ Oh! mother, I wish there were no such thing as marrying in the world!”
“What is it, dear? Is there anything wrong between you and Trevor? Is he disappointed at your wishing to put off your marriage?” asked Mrs. Methvyn, anxiously.
“Yes,” replied Cicely. “He is more than disappointed. He has spoken very cruelly to me. He is cruel. And I don’t deserve it. I have not put off our marriage, mother. It is Trevor that wished to hurry it on in a way that had never been thought of. It is inconsiderate in the extreme of him. I don’t understand him; he is quite, quite changed.” ”

“ Gone, dead; her sweet face blotted out of existence; her loving, gentle voice hushed for ever. “For even if it be all true,” cried Cicely in her agony, “even if it be true that I shall meet her again, will she ever be the very same mother? I cannot believe it. If God loved and pitied us, He would not torture us so. Life is no gift to be grateful for, since it is made up of such anguish. Better far, never to have been born.”
And for a time, through a crisis of intense suffering, the girl’s spirit sank within her, her very heart failed her. ”

“ Guildford did not smile.
“You have a good memory, Miss Methvyn,” he said rather coldly. “If you remember so much, don’t you remember a little more? By what you call my ideal woman, you mean the sort of woman I should choose for a wife; don’t you? But I have had a higher ideal woman—a woman whom I would choose for a friend—don’t you remember my telling you that?”
“Yes,” said Cicely with interest. “I remember. But what about it?”
“I have made a mistake—that’s all.” said the young man drearily. “I have thought I was wiser than other men, and I find I am a greater fool than any man I ever knew. ”

“ It is all Cicely you want to-day, not Geneviève. There is no Geneviève; she has gone. It is Miss Casalis.”
Mr. Fawcett’s fair face deepened in colour as he listened to her childish words. At first he seemed on the point of answering hastily, but on second thoughts he checked himself. When he did speak, it was very quietly.
“You have mistaken me, Geneviève,” he said. “Why should my mention of Cicely make you think I don’t care for you? Can’t one care for more than one person in the world? Suppose you and Cicely had been my sisters, couldn’t I have cared for you both?” ”

“ She sat down on the stone at the foot of the sun-dial in a very unusual mood of self pity—Cicely, whom at this very moment Geneviève was thinking of as the very happiest girl in all the world! So little do we know of the fit of each other’s garments.
From where she was sitting, Cicely could see the drive almost all the way to the lodge. And in the light dress she wore, she herself was easily to be distinguished, by quick eyes at least, belonging to any one approaching, the Abbey by this front road. ”

“ So Cicely slept.
Who does not know the awful agony of the first waking after some overwhelming sorrow has befallen us? The shuddering glimmer of recollection that something has happened, the frantic clutch at the blessed unconsciousness of the sleep that is leaving us, the wild refusal to recall the truth! And, oh! the unutterable loathing at life, at existence even when at last we realize the whole and find that another day has dawned, that the heartless sunshine is over the world again, that we ourselves must eat and drink and clothe ourselves, and live! ”

“ The pastor’s daughter was looking so bright and so very pretty, she seemed so wonderfully at home among the luxuries and splendours of Lingthurst, that Cicely found it difficult to realise the novelty and strangeness of the girl’s position. They all made so much of her; Sir Thomas was evidently struck by her beauty, and Lady Frederica, who prided herself a good deal on her “foreign travels,” and smattering of French and Italian, kept up a constant, gentle chatter about Hivèritz and Paris, and the charms of continental life, as if Geneviève were a little princess travelling incognita. ”