Lilia

“ Lilia’s death—Mercedes’ birth—Lilia’s wild love for him—Mercedes’ feeling that his presence was necessary to her wellbeing.
“Bah! I am trying to justify my passion for that girl—that is what I am doing!” he cried to himself in an excess of self-anger. “I want to justify my unfaithfulness 241to Lilia, whom, if this is love, I never loved! God! I would die a thousand times for this girl—she has me, soul, body, all!” ”

“ The advance of regret can be so gradual that it is impossible to say "yesterday I was happy, today I am not." At no one moment did Lilia realize that her marriage was a failure; yet during the summer and autumn she became as unhappy as it was possible for her nature to be. ”

“ Then I was amazed by the disclosure that this sweet young creature had lived all her life shut up in the Pinewood, 36almost as much a prisoner as a princess in a fairy-tale immured in a high tower. Her only companions and friends had been her nurses, the clergyman and his wife, and her cousin Roderick, the fair young man with a sneer whose portrait I had said to be unlike the Pyms.
Without governesses or tutors, Lilia has managed to learn a great deal. Latin and Greek are not dead languages to her, and she and her father chatter away in Italian like natives. ”

“ Lilias! Lilias!—don’t! Don’t speak like that, darling! My little white girl, don’t turn pleader against me! You are to be my helpmeet, my good angel, the inspiration of my life; don’t begin by wishing me to do less than my best! I am not imagining difficulties—you know I am not—but even if I were, would it not be better to lose something for conscience’ sake, than deliberately to sell myself for gain? I am in great perplexity, Lilias, and need all my courage. ”

“ There she stood, the marvellous, the semi-legendary Lilian, who had captured the aristocratic master, run off with him to the Continent, married him, buried him, inherited all his possessions, and was soon going to have a baby. Her famous beauty was under eclipse, her famous figure had grown monstrous beyond any possible concealment; but she was still marvellous. She was the most romantic figure that those girls had ever seen; she was all picture-paper serials and cinema films rolled together and come to life and reality. Her prestige was terrific. ”

“ A piercing shriek, that startled the furthest recesses of the old and desolate tower, burst from the lips of Lilian; it was one of those deep and wailing cries of pain and horror which, when once heard, are never forgot.
"Villain, unhand me! Oh! spare me, my Lord—spare me for the love of God!"
"Be calm, Lilian—why should you fear me? Do I not adore you? Yes; I prize your love beyond the possession of life. Dear girl, look not on me thus. I am the most devoted of lovers, and by this kiss, dearest——d—nation!" ”

“ May Ford trembled, and started: her attention seemed more intense.
"Lilian! Lilian!" he exclaimed, rising, as if in a vision, as if holding out his arms to a phantom; "a creature of twenty, of rare beauty, all delicacy and grace; a loyal heart, proud and sweet, like a precious treasure opened for me; a loving, pure soul, a flower of freshness and virginity. Purity and candour, love and ardour together—Lilian! Lilian! To me this creature came full of every fascination ”

“ Standing where he has left her, pale as a little colorless ghost, with her lips as white as death, and her great eyes grown black through mingled terror and amazement, Lilian regards him silently. She does not move, she scarcely seems to breathe; no faintest sound of anger escapes her. ”

“ I am not Alone in my house. My daughter, my beloved Lilias, my only and most cherished child, the child of my old age, the legacy of the departed Saint her mother, lives with me. Bless her! she believes not a word of the Lies that are whispered of her old Father. ”

“ Your Lilian is spotless and pure as you deem her, and the fascination, therefore, attempts no lure through a sinful desire; it blends with its attraction no sentiment of affection untrue to yourself. Nay, it is justice to your Lilian, and may be melancholy comfort to you, to state my conviction, based on the answers my questions have drawn from her, that you were never more cherished by her love than when that love seemed to forsake you. ”

“ He is a little distrait, and is following Lilian's movements with his eyes, who has risen, thrown up the window, and is now standing upon the balcony outside, gazing upon the slumbering flowers, and upon the rippling, singing brooks in the distance, the only things in all creation that never seem to sleep. ”

“ To him she is a mystery, a lovely riddle yet unsolved; but with his arm round her, and her face so near his own, he is conscious of feeling an irrepressible gladness. A thrill of happiness, the only touch of it he has known for many days, fills his heart, while with it is a bitter regret that chills it at its birth.
The carriage rattles over some unusually large stone, and Lilian awakes. At first an excessive sense of drowsiness dulls her perception, and then, all at once, it flashes across her mind that she has been asleep, and that now she is encircled, supported by Guy's arm. ”

“ Lilian nodded an affirmative.
"And men say he is brave?"
"Oh, yes! brave as a hero of romance," said Lilian in the same low tone; for there is nothing so pleasing to love as to hear the object of it praised. "And so noble—so generous! If true worth gave a title, my dear Walter would be a belted Earl."
"Instead of being a poor standard-bearer in the ranks of Dunbarton."
"You have seen him then?" said Lilian, her blue eyes beaming, as she almost forgot her present predicament in the thought of her lover. "Is he not handsome, good woman?" ”

“ Rather thank God that bravely in honour and faith, he has been taken home; in the odour and grace of youth, before evil days or stains came upon him. Lilias, there are sorrows harder than yours—you shall find again him whom you have lost. There are those who have lost, and shall find never more, because they are parted not by this faithful and pure death, but by the dark barriers of sin and change. Lilias, my good child! ”

“ I concede to you that Lilian’s character is undeveloped; I concede to you, that amidst the childlike freshness and innocence of her nature, there is at times a strangeness, a mystery, which I have not yet traced to its cause. But I am certain that the intellect is organically as sound as the heart, and that intellect and heart will ultimately—if under happy auspices—blend in that felicitous union which constitutes the perfection of woman. ”

“ He is rather old, nearly forty, I think, and rather delicate, and very grave, and not a bit well off, and he thinks Lilias a miracle of goodness and sweetness, and the nice part is that she really is growing nicer, because she likes him so much, and doesn’t want him to be disappointed. ”

“ She had always understood that when one was in love one knew definitely that one was in love. Whereas she was sure of nothing whatever. Nevertheless she was uplifted into a beatific, irrational and reckless joy. Never had she felt as she felt while Mr. Grig was selecting the Burgundy.
"Now we'd better be getting to business," said he, when the hors d'oeuvre had been removed and the soup served. "I had a letter from my sister this morning. She wrote--wait a minute!" He pulled a letter from his pocket and read out: "'I'm sorry to say I've been compelled to get rid of poor Lilian Share. ”

“ Lilian waited like a cat to pounce upon the slightest sign of familiarity and kill it; for she had understood that men-about-town regarded girl typists as their quarry and as nothing else. But there was no least lapse from deferential propriety; the clubman might have been in colloquy with his sister's friend--and his sister listening in the next room. He pulled a manuscript from his breast-pocket, and, after a loving glance at it, offered it to her.
"I've only just written it," said he. "And I want to take it round to the Evening Standard office myself in the morning before 8.30. ”

“ Lilian plucks a blossom here and there, and scatters far and near the gaudy butterfly in very wantonness of enjoyment, while the wooing wind whistles through her hair, drying it softly, lovingly, until at last some of its pristine gloss returns to it, and its gold shines with redoubled vigor beneath the sun's rays.
As she saunters, reveling—as one from Fairyland might revel—in the warmth and gladness of the great heathen god, she sings; and to Guy in his distant study the sound and the words come all too distinctly,—
"Why shouldn't I love my love? ”

“ She stood in front of Lilian, who rose. She was as flat as Milly Merrislate, and neither tall nor graceful. Every lineament of the pert face so heavily masked in paint and powder, every gesture, the too bright stockings, the gilded shoes, the impudent coiffure, the huge and flashy rings, the square-dialled wrist-watch--all were crudely symptomatic of an ingrained and unalterable vulgarity. Lilian was absolutely unable to understand how any man, however coarse and cynical, could find any charm of any kind in such a girl. ”

“ Lilian says to herself, flinging her hat with a good deal of vehemence on to the bed (where it makes one desperate effort to range itself and then rolls over to the floor at the other side) , and turning two lovely wrathful eyes toward the door, as though the object of her anger were still in sight. "Downright detestable! and quite an old maid; not a doubt of it. Women close on thirty are always so spiteful!" ”

“ Hovering around me in the still watches of night, as it were the guar dian angel of my destiny. Lilian was loved. Time and distance proved it. Loved with a heart that could never for sake never so love another. ”

“ Now—being late in the season—the blossom is more scarce, though still the air is heavy with delicate perfume, and the eyes grow drunk with gazing on the beauty of the autumn flowers. Through them goes Lilian, with Archibald gladly following.
All day long he has had her to himself, and she has been so good to him, so evidently pleased and contented with his society alone, that within his breast an earnest hope has risen, so strongly, that he only waits a fitting opportunity to lay his heart and fortune at her feet. ”

“ Outside everything is bright, and warm, and genial, as should be in the heart of summer; within there is only gloom,—and Lilian clad in her mourning robes. The contrast is dispiriting: there life, here death, or at least the knowledge of it. There joy, here the signs and trappings of woe.
The black gown and funereal trimmings hardly harmonize with the girl's flower-like face and the gay song that trembles on her lips. But, alas! for how short a time does our first keen sorrow last! how swiftly are our dead forgotten! how seldom does grief kill! ”

“ When Lilian should approach thirty, and the blush that shifted now with every word she spoke, almost with every thought, should have paled—when time and tears should perhaps have dimmed the soft eyes—then she might be, to those who love fleshly magnificence alone, of sufficiently commonplace appearance, but just now there was something about her so unique and so attractive that every one when she passed by turned to discover what it was. ”

“ There might be—a hermit, perhaps, in a little cell, who would give them nuts and some milk from his goat—or a charcoal burner, wild but kind, like those Lilias remembered to have seen in the forest with wild locks hanging over their eyes. If only no magician should be there to beguile them into his den, pretending to be kind! Thus Lilias mixed fact and fiction, her own broken remembrances of Italian woods sounding as fictitious among the English elms and beeches as the wildest visions of fancy. ”

“ Passive under her hands, Lilian allowed her great natural beauty to be thus dangerously enhanced, and when she stood up, her rather diminutive stature being increased by her high heeled maroquin shoes, and the grace with which she wore her commode and floating flounces, caused the poor woman, whom so many fair ones had successively supplanted, to utter an exclamation of delight. ”

“ Amid the obscurity of the room Lilian's curved form, lying heaped on its side, and rather like a miniature mountain that sloped softly down towards the head and towards the feet, could be vaguely deciphered in the bed; and hillocks of attire, some pale, others coloured, some fragile and diaphanous, others resistant to the world's peering, lay dimly about on chairs and even on the writing-table. The air, exhausted by the night, had a faint and delicate odour that excited, but did not offend, Felix's nostrils. ”

“ Lilian was fair and beautiful indeed; and (though not one of those magnificent beings that exist only in the brains of romancers) when gifted with all the mystic charms and romantic beauty, with which the glowing fancy of the lover ever invests his mistress, she became in Walter's imagination something more angelic and enchanting than he had previously conceived to exist; for a lover sees everything through the medium of beauty and delight. ”

“ The young man in gray, putting his meerschaum in his pocket as a concession to this unexpected warbler, advances leisurely; and Lilian, feeling vaguely conscious that the top of a wall, though exalted, is not the most dignified situation in the world, trusting to her activity, springs to the ground, and regains with mother earth her self-respect. ”