“And how is—is—is she?” I said. “She is not unfavourable, I hope, towards my suit?”
“She is only too much blessed!” Miss Simms replied, with a smile, in which archness blended with sympathy. “Can you doubt it for a moment?”
At last I managed to reach the drawing-room door. Miss Simms would have me enter without her, for what reason I could not understand, but she professed to be too bashful, and said:
“It would look so odd for us to enter together.”
I was certainly very nervous. It cannot be expected that I should now relate accurately all that was said to me, and all that I said in return, when at the time itself I had no very clear notion of that same.
I stammered some sort of vague thanks and gratitude to Lotty’s papa; and he said something about congratulating me in return, and then by mutual consent we suffered the conversation to turn on indifferent subjects. Lotty’s mamma helped me out of the difficulties of conversation as only a woman’s fluent tongue can.
Lotty was not in the room.
Soon Miss Simms entered; and afterwards Lotty.
The expression of Lotty’s face surprised me—and her manner still more. There was an angry flush upon her cheeks, a flashing fire in her eyes, an obstinate firmness about her red lips—very different from the signs I had expected to read upon that fair face. When I shook hands with her, she just gave me the tips of her fingers for the fraction of a moment, and pulled them away with a jerk.
“I hope, Lotty,” I whispered, “that you have no objection to receive me in the new character which I take upon me here for the first time?”
“Me?” Lotty said. “Why, on earth, should I have any objection? I wish you joy, I’m sure.”
Lotty carried her little nose high in the air, she tossed her head, she gave utterance to a short, sharp laugh, and looked very much as if she were going to cry. Her manner was most perplexing. Who can interpret the signs of a woman’s face, or predicate the way in which she will act under any given circumstances?
“Henry,” said a mild, purring, sugary voice; “Mr. Jones, I mean—I beg your pardon.”
I crossed over to Miss Simms. She motioned to me to take the chair beside her. I sat down. Lotty remained at the window. Her papa and mamma entered into private and engrossing conversation. Miss Simms and I were, to all intents and purposes, alone together.
Dinner was announced.
Even while I was looking round for Lotty, Miss Simms had seized my arm.
I went down the stairs in a hideous dream—that clinging, angular hand was a special nightmare upon me.
My place at the dinner-table was changed. From the time when Lotty used to appear at dessert-time in a clean white frock and blue sash, her place had always been by me. Now, I and Miss Simms were placed together on one side of the table, and Lotty alone on the other side.
I was perplexed and miserable. Some shadow of the truth—not as yet the terrible truth itself—began to fall upon me.
How I got through that dinner I cannot tell. The chief remembrance I have of it, is of the expression of Lotty’s face. It was precisely the same look that I had seen on it half-a-dozen years before, when a new doll which I had presented to Lotty had been taken away from her in punishment of some childish peccadillo.
I remember that we had champagne, as upon some gala occasion. Lotty’s papa drank Miss Simms’ health and my health together in a humorous manner.
I was in a ghastly dream. Whether I knew the truth or did not know it I cannot tell. The dinner was over at length—the wine was put on. The ladies drank their one glass and left us.
As I opened the door for them Miss Simms whispered: “Do not be long.”
We filled our glasses with claret.
“My dear fellow,” said my host, “this little affair has given me the most entire satisfaction. I had not a suspicion of it. My sister Sarah, though I say it, who shouldn’t, is a most estimable person, a capital housewife, good-tempered, and you and she have always got on very well together in your tastes for poetry and so forth. Ages not unsuitable. You are no longer a chicken, my dear fellow, and if she has a year or two the advantage of you, why that is your affair not mine. That is a matter of taste. Of course you know that her little property amounts to a mere nothing. She has lived with us now for a number of years, and, upon my soul, I shall be sorry to lose her. But we must not be selfish in this world. Yes, I am convinced that Sarah will make you an excellent wife.”
“Sir!” I gasped, “there is some terrible and fatal mistake!”
“Mistake, sir?” cried my host, fiercely; “what do you mean?”
“Your sister is a very respectable person,” I stammered; “but I never had the remotest idea of—of—”
“Of what, sir?”
“The remotest idea of asking her to be my wife.”
“Jones!” he said, solemnly, “I always took you to be a man of honour. The feelings and affections of a woman are not to be played with in this atrocious manner . . . .”
Everything swam before my eyes, the room turned round—the world was resolving itself again into chaos—the final collapse of all things was at hand.
Like Shylock, flung from the height of my certain hopes to ruin irretrievable and blank despair, I turned sick and faint.
“I pray you give me leave to go from hence.
I am not well.”
I rushed from the room—from the house.
That same night I took my passage on board an Ostend steamboat, and floated in the darkness down the Thames, an exile from my native land.
