The Fallen Leaves. Wilkie Collins

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      CHAPTER 4

      Amelius looked at his companions, in some doubt whether they would preserve their gravity at this critical point in his story. They both showed him that his apprehensions were well founded. He was a little hurt, and he instantly revealed it. “I own to my shame that I burst out laughing myself,” he said. “But you two gentlemen are older and wiser than I am. I didn’t expect to find you just as ready to laugh at poor Miss Mellicent as I was.”

      Mr. Hethcote declined to be reminded of his duties as a middle-aged gentleman in this backhanded manner. “Gently, Amelius! You can’t expect to persuade us that a laughable thing is not a thing to be laughed at. A woman close on forty who falls in love with a young fellow of twenty-one—”

      “Is a laughable circumstance,” Rufus interposed. “Whereas a man of forty who fancies a young woman of twenty-one is all in the order of Nature. The men have settled it so. But why the women are to give up so much sooner than the men is a question, sir, on which I have long wished to hear the sentiments of the women themselves.”

      Mr. Hethcote dismissed the sentiments of the women with a wave of his hand. “Let us hear the rest of it, Amelius. Of course you went on to the fishing-house? And of course you found Miss Mellicent there?”

      “She came to the door to meet me, much as usual,” Amelius resumed, “and suddenly checked herself in the act of shaking hands with me. I can only suppose she saw something in my face that startled her. How it happened, I can’t say; but I felt my good spirits forsake me the moment I found myself in her presence. I doubt if she had ever seen me so serious before. ‘Have I offended you?’ she asked. Of course, I denied it; but I failed to satisfy her. She began to tremble. ‘Has somebody said something against me? Are you weary of my company?’ Those were the next questions. It was useless to say No. Some perverse distrust of me, or some despair of herself, overpowered her on a sudden. She sank down on the floor of the fishing-house, and began to cry—not a good hearty burst of tears; a silent, miserable, resigned sort of crying, as if she had lost all claim to be pitied, and all right to feel wounded or hurt. I was so distressed, that I thought of nothing but consoling her. I meant well, and I acted like a fool. A sensible man would have lifted her up, I suppose, and left her to herself. I lifted her up, and put my arm round her waist. She looked at me as I did it. For just a moment, I declare she became twenty years younger! She blushed as I have never seen a woman blush before or since—the colour flowed all over her neck as well as her face. Before I could say a word, she caught hold of my hand, and (of all the confusing things in the world!) kissed it. ‘No!’ she cried, ‘don’t despise me! don’t laugh at me! Wait, and hear what my life has been, and then you will understand why a little kindness overpowers me.’ She looked round the corner of the fishing-house suspiciously. ‘I don’t want anybody else to hear us,’ she said, ‘all the pride isn’t beaten out of me yet. Come to the lake, and row me about in the boat.’ I took her out in the boat. Nobody could hear us certainly; but she forgot, and I forgot, that anybody might see us, and that appearances on the lake might lead to false conclusions on shore.”

      Mr. Hethcote and Rufus exchanged significant looks. They had not forgotten the Rules of the Community, when two of its members showed a preference for each other’s society.

      Amelius proceeded. “Well, there we were on the lake. I paddled with the oars, and she opened her whole heart to me. Her troubles had begun, in a very common way, with her mother’s death and her father’s second marriage. She had a brother and a sister—the sister married a German merchant, settled in New York; the brother comfortably established as a sheep-farmer in Australia. So, you see, she was alone at home, at the mercy of the step-mother. I don’t understand these cases myself, but people who do, tell me that there are generally faults on both sides. To make matters worse, they were a poor family; the one rich relative being a sister of the first wife, who disapproved of the widower marrying again, and never entered the house afterwards. Well, the step-mother had a sharp tongue, and Mellicent was the first person to feel the sting of it. She was reproached with being an encumbrance on her father, when she ought to be doing something for herself. There was no need to repeat those harsh words. The next day she answered an advertisement. Before the week was over, she was earning her bread as a daily governess.”

      Here Rufus stopped the narrative, having an interesting question to put. “Might I inquire, sir, what her salary was?”

      “Thirty pounds a year,” Amelius replied. “She was out teaching from nine o’clock to two—and then went home again.”

      “There seems to be nothing to complain of in that, as salaries go,” Mr. Hethcote remarked.

      “She made no complaint,” Amelius rejoined. “She was satisfied with her salary; but she wasn’t satisfied with her life. The meek little woman grew downright angry when she spoke of it. ‘I had no reason to complain of my employers,’ she said. ‘I was civilly treated and punctually paid; but I never made friends of them. I tried to make friends of the children; and sometimes I thought I had succeeded—but, oh dear, when they were idle, and I was obliged to keep them to their lessons, I soon found how little hold I had on the love that I wanted them to give me. We see children in books who are perfect little angels; never envious or greedy or sulky or deceitful; always the same sweet, pious, tender, grateful, СКАЧАТЬ