Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

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СКАЧАТЬ compliments that I shall be more spoiled than ever! But you will not have to wait long, I promise you.” “No waiting can be very long while I am privileged to enjoy your companionship,” said Lord Breton, rising to the moment triumphantly. “Oh, for shame! Worse & worse!” cried Georgie. “But I think Mamma is in the study. Won’t you come in & see her?”

      —————

III.

      Jilted.

      ——“There can be no reason

      Why, when quietly munching your dry-toast & butter

      Your nerves should be suddenly thrown in a flutter

      At the sight of a neat little letter addressed

      In a woman’s handwriting.”

      Robert Lytton: Lucile.

      Guy Hastings was finishing an unusually late breakfast at his favourite resort in London, Swift’s Club, St. James St., on the morning after his parting with Georgie, when a note addressed in her well-known hand, with its girlish affectation of masculiness, was handed to him by a Club servant. Although he was surprised that she should have written so soon, (she seldom, during his trips to London, wrote to him at all) he was not excited by any stronger emotion than surprise & slight curiosity, for the words that passed between them the day before had appeared to him nothing more than a lover’s quarrel developed by bad weather & ennui & he was too well accustomed to unaccountable phases in his cousin’s April character to imagine that anything serious could be its consequence. A man, however, who is as deeply in love as Guy was, does not have a letter in the beloved one’s handwriting long unopened; & though a pile of other envelopes “To Guy Hastings Esqr.” were pushed aside until fuller leisure after breakfast, he broke Georgie’s seal at once. One glance at the hurriedly written lines sufficed to change the aspect of life completely. At first there came a sense of blank bewilderment, followed, upon reflection, by indignation at this undeserved slight; & these emotions combined were enough to make him turn from the breakfast-table, thrusting the package which contained the ring into his breast-pocket, to escape from the clatter & movement of the breakfast room. One might have supposed that every member of the club would be off shooting, fishing, hunting or travelling at this unfashionable time, but of course, as Guy went down to take refuge in the reading-room he was fastened upon by a veteran club bore, who talked to him for half an hour by the clock, while all the time Georgie’s note was burning in his pocket. At last the bore discovered that he had an engagement, & with deep regret (more for Guy’s sake than his own) was obliged to break off in the midst of an Indian anecdote; but he was replaced almost immediately by Capt. Doublequick of the __^th, who always had a new scandal to feast his friends on, & now for dearth of listeners, came to tell Guy the fullest details of “that affair with young Wiggins & the little French Marquise.” This delectable history, embellished with the Capt.’s usual art, lasted fully another half hour; & Guy was in the last stages of slow torture when the unconscious Doublequick espied a solitary man at the other end of the room who had not heard all about “young Wiggins.” Left to himself, Guy, with the masculine instinct of being always as comfortable as possible, settled himself in an armchair, & reread Georgie’s note, slowly, carefully & repeatedly, as though he fancied it might be an optical delusion after all. But it was one of Georgie’s virtues to write a clear hand. The cruel words were there, & remained the same, read them as he would. At last, as he sat half-stupidly staring at the few lines, a purpose formed itself within him to write at once & ask the meaning of them. Think as he would, he could not remember having, by word or act, justified Georgie in sending him such a letter; & he concluded that the best thing & the simplest he could do, was to demand an explanation. He loved her too deeply & reverently to believe that she could mean to throw him over thus; he thought he knew the depths & shallows of her character, & though he was not blind to her faults, he would never have accused her, even in the thought, of such unwarranted heartlessness. Having determined, then, on this first step, he called for pen & paper, & after tearing up several half-written sheets, folded & sealed this letter.

      What have I done to deserve the note I got from you this morning? Why do you send the ring back? God knows I love you better than anyone on earth, & if I am at fault, it is ignorantly. If you have found out you don’t care for me, tell me so—but for Heaven’s sake don’t throw me over in this way without a word of explanation. G.H.

      Miss Rivers. Holly Lodge, Morley-near-W. Adamsbro.

      Every one of those few words came straight from Guy’s heart; for Georgie Rivers had been his one “grande passion,” & his love for her perhaps the noblest, strongest feeling he was capable of. Indeed, I am disposed to think that the life of “a man about town” (the life which Guy had led since his college days five years before) is apt to blunt every kind of feeling into a well-bred monotone of ennui, & it is a wonder to me that he had preserved so strong & intact the capacity of really “falling in love.” Of course, he had had a dozen little affaires de coeurs here & there before his heart was really touched; a man who lives as fast & free as Guy Hastings had done, seldom escapes without “the least little touch of the spleen”—but he had outgrown them one after another as people do outgrow those inevitable diseases, until the fatal malady seized him in the shape of his pretty cousin. His love for her had influenced his whole life, & blent itself into his one real talent, for painting, so that he sketched her bewitching little head a thousand & one times, & looked forward in the future, after his marriage, to turning his brush to account, selling his pictures high, &, in the still dimmer To-be becoming an R.A. How many an idle amateur has dreamed in this fashion! Meanwhile, he had enjoyed himself, made love to her, & lived neither better nor worse than a hundred other young men of that large class delightful for acquaintance, but dangerous for matrimony, whom susceptible young ladies call “fascinating” & anxious mothers “fast.” Now, though like takes to like, it is seldom that two people of the same social tastes fall in love with each other; Mr. Rapid, who has been in all the escapades going, & connected with a good many of the most popular scandals, is attracted by Miss Slow, just out of a religious boarding-school, with downcast eyes & monosyllabic conversation; Miss Rapid, who has always been what Punch calls “a leetle fast,” settles down to domesticity with good, meek-minded Mr. Slow. Such is the time-honoured law of contrasts. But Guy Hastings & Georgie were one of those rare exceptions said to prove the rule which they defy. If Guy had tasted the good things of life generously, his cousin was certainly not wanting in a spice of fastness. Yet these two sinners fell mutually in love at first sight, & remained in that ecstatic condition until Georgie’s unaccountable note seemed to turn the world temporarily upside-down. That unaccountable note! After answering it & calling for a servant to post his answer, he thrust it away in his pocket, & since “there was no help for it,” resolved to make the best of the matter by forgetting it as quickly as possible. There are few young men who do not turn with an instinct of abhorrence from the contemplation of anything painful; & some possess the art of “drowning dull care” completely. Guy, however, could not shake his disagreeable companion off; & he must have shewed it in his face, for as he was leaving the club, in the forlorn hope of finding some note or message from Georgie at his rooms, a familiar voice called out “Hullo, Guy Fawkes, my boy! I didn’t know you were in town! Had a row? What makes your mustachios look so horridly dejected?” “Jack Egerton!” exclaimed Guy, turning to face the speaker, a short, wiry-built little man with reddish whiskers & honest gray eyes, who laid a hand on his shoulder, & gravely scanned him at arm’s length. Guy laughed rather uneasily. No man likes to think that another has guessed his inmost feelings at first sight. “Yes,” said Egerton, slowly, “your Fortunatus purse has run out again, & Poole has too much sense to send that blue frock coat home, or you’ve had a row about some pretty little votary of the drama, & been O jolly thrashed—or—Araminta, or Chloe or Belinda (we won’t say which) СКАЧАТЬ