The Wings of Icarus Part 10

LETTER x.x.x.

GRAYSMILL, February 19th.

Beloved, we wrote you a few lines together this afternoon, but I must write again, I alone, to thank you for your letter and tell you all you ask to know. Yet, indeed, I know not what to tell you. I am happy; the sun is in my heart. I tried to write to you before, but the words failed me; besides--my own self is a stranger to me. This marvel of marvels, a perfectly happy woman, has nothing in common with Emilia Fletcher, as you and I have known her.

I believe that Lethe was Joy's well. The past has floated from me like a bank of mist, I stand flooded in light. And if I look behind me I see nothing. Two phantoms merely,--my love for my mother, my love for you,--all else is gone. Where are they now, the clouds that pressed so close upon me? Three words, and lo! the sky is clear. I have even forgotten what it felt like to stand there in the gloom with breaking heart.

We have made no plans yet; that is to say, we have made so many that choice between them is impossible. Still, although we build fresh castles in the air each time we meet, they all float towards Italy, in the springtime, halting a while where Constance is. If, indeed, there be a cloud remaining in my heaven, it is that you two, my soul's monarchs, know each other only through the medium of my love.

My eyes long to hold you both; I want to walk in the body, as I do in the spirit, clasping a hand of each.

And to think that she is dead! Shall I tell you something very strange, almost inconceivable? I cannot help feeling as if she knew.

Surely, Death cannot wholly part a mother from her child.

Good night, my dear little one.

EMILIA.

LETTER x.x.xI.

GRAYSMILL, February 24th.

I showed some parts of your letter to Gabriel, and we laughed very much. What a bird she is, my Constance! He is ever so much taller than I. We compared our height with the utmost care, this morning, for your especial benefit. Do you remember--what should I do to you, by the way, if you didn't?--that when your head is on my shoulder, my chin just makes a little roof for your curls, so that you always used to say, "How nicely we _fit_!" Well, there is just about the same difference between Gabriel and me, as between me and you. I call that very nice.

Now, as to the rest of the world. My two old dears are very sweet to me, and to Gabriel also. Indeed, every one is pleasant to us, and if it does come to my ears that I am looked upon by Graysmill generally in the light of a harmless lunatic, why, what of that? I take joy in the thought that none but myself knows the value of the treasure that is mine. One good soul said to me yesterday: "We think it very nice of you, very nice and modest. Such a rich young lady as you are, you might have had any one you pleased!"

We went on Sunday to pay a formal visit to Uncle George. That was a terrible ordeal, but we got some fun out of it.

I went to fetch Gabriel, for Uncle George lives just beyond Miltonhoe. I found him in the study, sitting with his head in his hands, a picture of misery.

"Emilia," said he, "you dare not be so cruel as to expect this of me. I cannot go and see your uncle, indeed, I cannot."

"You must," said I; "I am very good to you on the whole; this is the only call I expect you to pay, but this one must be. Up with you, and make yourself look respectable."

So off he went, with despair in his eye, and Jane and I waited for him in the kitchen. At the end of half an hour he reappeared. He had merely put on a horrible black coat; for the rest, I could see no improvement.

There he stood, without hat or gloves.

"I am ready," said he.

"You imp!" I cried; "you've been playing about! What have you been at all this time? Do you suppose I can present such a scarecrow to my relations?"

"Emilia," answered the poor dear, very solemnly, "I have washed!"

There was nothing for it but to make him fetch the clothes-brush, and other implements of torture. Jane and I marched him out into the hall, and there we prepared the victim. We brushed his clothes, and straightened his necktie. Even Richard Norton was so excited by the scene that he fetched the blacking-bottle and polished Gabriel's boots, whilst Jane acted hairdresser and I held him down by both hands. This in the midst of so much laughter that the tears stood in our eyes.

When at last we turned him round for inspection, smooth-haired and stiff with the consciousness of his respectability, I could have wept at my own handiwork.

"You poor dear!" I cried. "Oh, Jane, doesn't he look horrible!"

But Gabriel went into the parlour to look at himself in the mirror, and declared that he pleased himself mightily.

The visit itself was comparatively uneventful. They have asked us to dine next Friday, but I doubt whether we shall go. Gabriel suggests that we should get married at once and fly from such terrors.

Good-bye now, my sweet one.

Yours more than ever, in spite of all,

EMILIA.

LETTER x.x.xII.

GRAYSMILL, March 3d.

I don't know how it comes, but it is a positive effort to me to write a letter, even to you. If I had not been reminded by the calendar that a new month is already on the growth, I should not perhaps have written to-day.

There is nothing to tell you, I am too happy; and how it comes I know not, but joy is difficult to express. Perhaps because it is so rare that we have hardly learned its language.

And yet, how soon one gets accustomed to the greatest marvels! At first, I was filled with doubt and wonder at the miracle that had transformed me; now, I take it all as a matter of course. That's the worst of it; a clay-fed mortal is lifted to Elysium and forgets at the end of a week that he ever tasted coa.r.s.er food than ambrosia! I am spoilt for life; if ever any grief falls upon me in the future, I shall be beaten to earth.

The other night, as I lay in bed, there came to me, for the first time in my remembrance, that horror of death of which you sometimes spoke to me. I thought to myself: I shall lie thus in the dark, only this heart will be still, this blood will be cold, and there will be no dawn for me,--yet the world will spin on as before, and those who loved me will smile again. I feared death for the first time, because, for the first time, life is dear to me. It is the outcome of my great content; I cling to my happiness, and Death is my only enemy, the only power that could knock this cup of bliss out of my hands. Oh, Constance, to die before one has drunk that full measure, how horrible!

Another shadow there is that flits from time to time across my eyes.

Why, if such content can be, is it not universal? Why is not every face I meet stamped with a similar joy? I lay awake long last night, thinking of you. I do not look upon you as actually unhappy, that is not in your nature, you sunbeam, yet you lack in your dear life the best light, that of another's shedding. Now that I know what it is to be loved, I look upon the blankness of your existence with dismay.

No more to-day, but I shall write again soon, I promise.

Yours ever and always, EMILIA.

LETTER x.x.xIII.

GRAYSMILL, March 5th.

Thank you, sweet one, for the eight dear pages. I feel ashamed of the sc.r.a.p I sent you the day before yesterday. I never felt so lazy in my life as I feel now. One thing is certain, happiness is not altogether good. Blake says somewhere, "d.a.m.n braces, bless relaxes."