Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  “If you can ask yourself for a moment, Do I love? then it is certain that you do not....”

  Lily did not want to think that it was certain that she did not love Nicholas Aubray.

  There were times when she did love him, she felt convinced. She was less certain whether she was “in love” with him.

  Oddly enough, the memory of the boy Colin Eastwood recurred to her again and again, not by value of his own personality, but as the object round which certain infinitely vague and delicate emotions had centred.

  “But they were such little things,” Lily murmured to herself, frowning. It had mattered whether or no Colin had the place next to hers at the picnics — whether, in exchanging good-nights at the end of a moonlight walk, his last “good-night” had been for her — whether they were partners in the tennis tournament or not — whether they danced the last waltz of the evening together. If he was in the garden while the rest of them were clustered round Lily at the piano, she acknowledged a slight feeling of restlessness that consciously vanished at his footstep — which she could always distinguish — on the threshold of the French window.

  It had, somehow, been an incident in the day, if he touched her hand in helping her up some steep bank, or in handing her a tennis ball. Philip’s unspecified, but thoroughly understood, condemnation of the whole slight episode had relegated it to the extreme background of Lily’s consciousness. It had become foolish, something to be slightly despised — on account, she supposed of Colin’s youthfulness and the negative property described by her father as “leading to nothing.”

  Nicholas Aubray, so much her senior, “led to” something. In some ways, Lily felt that he understood her, and like all young and over-sensitive souls, she craved to be understood.

  Nicholas had understood about her liking childish things — he had even appeared to share her tastes. She knew, instinctively, that they had, mentally, much in common.

  It was impossible to imagine everyday life lived with Colin Eastwood; but with Nicholas Aubray she could picture to herself a life of companionship, of books and theatres, and friends shared by them both.

  “I might have a baby,” Lily reflected, after deciding that she would like to live in London.

  It pleased her to reflect how fond Nicholas was of children, and it was quite easy to picture him with the blue-eyed baby of Lily’s own most private fancies.

  Whereas the thought of Colin Eastwood as a husband and father seemed absurd — almost indecent. He belonged to a dream world.

  The little things that had seemed to matter so much belonged to the dream world too.

  It had certainly never seemed important whether or no Nicholas sat next to her at tea-time, nor had she any particular recollection of ever distinguishing his footfall from that of the Marchese della Torre, or her father’s or Cousin Charlie Hardinge’s.

  The new and mysterious instincts, conjured momentarily into being during a midsummer holiday, had nothing to do with Real Life.

  For a moment, Lily visualized strange possibilities, of that dream world inextricably interwoven with Real Life, in such fashion as could never be realized through the medium either of Colin’s personality or of Nicholas Aubray’s.

  “Body, soul and spirit.”

  Words, somewhere read, floated across her mind, implying something of union scarcely apprehended, to the very existence of which she had no clue, save only that most deep-rooted instinct which she had been taught to ignore and to distrust. Like a clarion call across the faint stirrings of an all but extinguished breath of life, came the rousing echo of Miss Melody’s teaching, impressed by many repetitions:

  “No day-dreams, childie! Beware of that imagination of yours — don’t let yourself get morbid...

  Morbid! That was the word — the terrible, degrading word, that was never analyzed, which was applied to private thought and the construction of private ideals. They were morbid.

  Lily regarded it as a sign of grace that this timely recollection caused her to feel ashamed. She rallied to the call of Miss Melody’s wisdom.

  “I shan’t decide anything in a hurry. I ought to make sure, and so I’ll ask him to let me give him an answer in a little while. And perhaps I’ll go and stay at Bridgecrap and see Miss Melody and talk to her — it will help me to get my thoughts thoroughly clear, if I put them into words. There’s nothing to be at all frightened of — I needn’t do anything I don’t like — I’m a free agent. I mustn’t be morbid.”

  Lily felt braced and relieved, when she had thus discovered that a line of least resistance still existed, and that the facing of a direct issue might still be postponed, and perhaps almost altogether avoided, by shifting the onus of decision on to Miss Melody’s advice.

  She trembled very much when Nicholas, late in the afternoon, came and joined her, standing over the great armchair into which she had sunk back.

  It seemed to her, that he, too, was nervous as she looked up at him speechlessly.

  “I’ve had a — a very nice talk with your father,” he said at last. “I’ve been talking to him about something which is more important to me than anything else in the world, just now.”

  Nicholas paused and Lily saw that he, also, was shaking a little.

  At the same moment he dropped on to one knee beside her and laid his hand over hers.

  “Lily dear,” said Nicholas Aubray, speaking with great simplicity, “you know that I’m very much in love with you. Could you care for me enough to be my wife?”

  Instead of the exultation of mind she had expected to experience on hearing this, her first proposal, Lily felt an odd inclination to tears. She looked down at Nicholas.

  “Do you really want me to?” she asked him falteringly, and like a child.

  A sudden laugh flickered in his gaze as it met hers.

  “You dear child! Of course I do. Do you think I don’t mean it? Why, Lily, I’ve thought of nothing else since those very first days in Italy.”

  He looked at her wistfully.

  “Do I seem to you too old, my dear? I do love you so much. I think I could make you very happy.”

  “But you — could I ever — you must think of your happiness too—” said Lily incoherently. “Oh, please, will you let me think it over for a little while and write to you?”

  “Then you’d like me to go away to-morrow, back to London?” said Nicholas slowly.

  Lily felt ashamed and sorry as she saw the disappointment in his face, but she nodded an assent.

  “It must be just as you like, my dear, of course. I could hardly have hoped for anything else, perhaps.” He rose to his feet again.

  His face was very much overcast as he stood silent, in front of the fire.

  Suddenly he threw back his head and squared his shoulders with the gesture she had so often seen, and gave a little laugh.

  “Never say die, eh, Lily? You know, I shan’t take no for an answer very easily. Tell me, dear, you do like me a little, don’t you?”

  “Very, very much.”

  “Then won’t you trust me to look after you, and make you happier than you’ve ever been? I believe I could, Lily.”

  “I do trust you. Only — it’s too serious,” said Lily timidly. “I want to make sure that — that I care, too.”

  There was a silence. Then Nicholas Aubray said abruptly:

  “You’re right, my dear. You shall have time, all the time you want. But can’t you give me a little hope, meanwhile?”

  His response to her appeal had moved Lily to that intensity of gratitude and admiration that his chivalry could always evoke in her. The sudden, warm recognition of his generosity roused the like impulses in herself.

  “I think it will be all right,” she said naively.

  “You little darling!”

  On the instant all his gravity had vanished and he wore the aspect of buoyancy that contrasted so effectively with his grizzled head and broad shoulders.

  “There’s something I want now, Lily. I wonder if I shall get i
t — just to send me back to town happy?”

  She looked at him rather apprehensively.

  “Please, please don’t look so frightened, dear! It wouldn’t mean anything you don’t want, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Mayn’t I kiss you, Lily — once?”

  The first impulse of a coquetry in reality foreign to her nature stirred in Lily.

  “No one ever has, yet,” she said, and smiled.

  “I know that, my dear. I was sure of it. You’re like your name — a little, untouched flower.”

  A tiny thrill shot through her at the words, the first approach to direct love-making that she had ever heard addressed to herself. She felt sorry when the characteristic British reaction against an open expression of sentiment came swiftly from Nicholas.

  “You see, you’re actually making me poetical!” he exclaimed, with a hastiness that obviously covered a certain confusion, and if his ensuing laugh was jerky and over- prolonged, it needed but little intuition this time to attribute it to scarcely disguised nervousness.

  “What did Father say?” Lily asked, in reality speaking almost at random so that he should stop that unamused, spasmodic laughter.

  “He was very kind to me, and gave me leave to come down here whenever I like. So you see, I can come for my answer as soon as you like to send for me. But you’re a little fraud, my dear, to turn the conversation like that! Will you let me have one thing to remember?”

  He was looking full at her with ardent and yet kindly eyes.

  Lily nodded faintly.

  As he bent over her she raised her head a little and turned her face sideways to him, closing her eyes. For the fraction of a second Nicholas Aubray hesitated, and then stooped and kissed her very softly on the cheek.

  She wondered why, as he straightened himself again, he laughed — this time very low and gently.

  XII

  “My little pet, you must decide for yourself.”

  Philip Stellenthorpe was deeply moved.

  “My little pet!” he repeated. “It only seems the other day that you were playing with your toys on the nursery floor. I can’t deny, my child, that it would make me very, very happy to give you to such a man — one whom I could trust so absolutely. He would make you very happy, Lily.”

  “That’s what he said,” answered Lily, with no ironical intent.

  “You must study your own feelings, Lily. Remember that it’s a responsibility.... Aubray is a very able man, my child, with a career before him. It’s a great honour to be asked to share the life of such a man. You do feel that?”

  “Oh yes, Father.”

  “That’s right, darling, that’s right. I don’t wish to persuade you in any way. At the same time it would make me happier than anything else in the world, now, to see my little Lily married to such a man. It’s — it’s a wonderful opportunity, Lily. My little motherless girl, living quietly at home, to marry a distinguished man of Aubray’s standing, before she’s twenty!”

  The triumph in Philip’s voice, of which he himself seemed to be half ashamed, touched Lily acutely.

  He might say, in all sincerity, that he did not wish to persuade her, but he could have found no more effective means of so doing than by his very forbearance.

  His wistful pride in the opportunity that he so obviously was longing to see her accept, and the restraint that he put upon himself in order to leave her free, filled Lily with a passionate wish to please him.

  She knew that, were she to disappoint him in this, he would not reproach her. Only the mute pathos of a deepened silence, a more constant melancholy, would do that.

  “He wants me to be happy, after all,” reflected Lily, knowing also that Philip would only see happiness for her in just such a marriage, in just such a life, incapable of believing in the reality of any happiness that he could not personally apprehend.

  Nor, indeed, had Lily any specific alternative interpretation of the term to submit to him. Marriage, in spite of Miss Melody, had always appeared to her as the natural goal of woman, and she was young enough to tell herself very seriously that this, her first offer of marriage, might perhaps also prove to be her last. The dread of perpetual maidenhood, in fact, possessed Lily so firmly that she almost found herself urging it to Miss Melody herself, as a reason for accepting Nicholas Aubray. For Miss Melody, interested and incisive as ever, had spoken.

  “Childie dear, listen to me. You must weigh the pros and the cons very, very carefully. I’m very glad you take this question seriously, Lily, very glad indeed. Now, dearie, do you know what I recommend? Write it all down. Lily, put it all on to paper. Write down the For and Against, just as though it were one of the old school exercises. There’s nothing like method, dearie — you know that’s what I always say. Do you think me very unromantic?”

  In truth, Lily did think so, and she looked apologetically at Miss Melody.

  Her old schoolmistress laughed heartily.

  “Well, well, it’s very natural you should think so, but you must beware of that romantic little head of yours. Do you remember, Lily, when you were leaving school, that I warned you against letting your imagination run away with you? Oh, you’ve improved since those days, I know — I know. But now, my dear child, you have come to cross-roads, and there must be no mistake here. It’s too important. Tell me, what does your father say to you about this?”

  “He has been very kind. He hasn’t said much. I know he wants me to feel quite free. But, of course, I can’t help knowing that he would like it very much, and I should like to please him.”

  “He would like it very much, would he?” repeated Miss Melody reflectively. “Well, childie, that seems to me a very big item on the side of the Pros. Not as a sole reason for marrying, you understand, or even as a chief one — but simply because your father’s judgment of this man is likely to be a very, very sound one. If he likes him so much, and trusts him well enough to want to give you to him, why, then, Lily, I think we may safely take it for granted that he must be a very admirable person. A man is a better judge of another man than we women can ever be, you know.”

  If Lily, in some undefined way, felt that Miss Melody had failed to touch upon the real point at issue, which in no way concerned the intrinsic worth of Nicholas Aubray — she had too much faith in the voice of external authority, and too little in her own convictions, to pause upon the thought.

  “Then there’s another thing, you know, dearie. You say he is a good deal older than you are. Well, childie, that seems to me in your case to be a real advantage. You lack backbone, Lily — you know I’ve always told you so. I should be frightened to think of you at the head of a household without a very, very steady hand behind you, childie. Don’t you feel that yourself?”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  Miss Melody shot out a plump forefinger almost triumphantly.

  “There you are, again! I think I do. You must know, childie dear, not think! Oh, Lily, Lily!”

  Miss Melody shook her head and dropped her deep voice. There was humour in her kindly, penetrating eyes.

  “It seems to me that a clever, strong-minded man, older than yourself, is the very husband you need, Lily. Tell me — you trust this man?”

  “Oh.-yes.”

  “That’s the great thing — absolute trust. Rut there’s another question too, dearie — one that only you can answer. Do you care for him?”

  Had Lily replied in accordance with her state of mind, she would once more have said, “I think I do.”

  But she felt that this formula of uncertainty was now barred to her.

  “Sometimes I do,” she remarked finally.

  “Sometimes, sometimes!” repeated Miss Melody in melancholy impatience. “What a half-hearted little person it is! Lily, Lily, either you care for this man or you don’t care for him, surely. How can you say ‘Sometimes’?”

  “There are times when — when he’s nicer, and I like him better, than other times,” Lily confusedly tried to explain.


  Miss Melody’s brow cleared.

  She laughed.

  “And are there no times when you are ‘nicer’ as you call it, than at other times? We’re all human, you know, dearie. You mustn’t look for perfection.”

  Lily had often told herself the same thing, and illogically derived reassurance in hearing from somebody else the truism that had failed to impress her from within by any applicability to her especial need.

  “I’m not certain that I’m in love with him,” she said timidly.

  “You mustn’t confuse being ‘in love’ with loving, childie dear,” said Miss Melody.

  They looked at one another in silence.

  Apparently Miss Melody had no further assistance to give to Lily. Her subsequent counsel was merely repetition, and she concluded it by telling Lily gravely and kindly that nobody could really advise her, or had any right to try to influence her. She must decide for herself.

  Lily left Bridgecrap with the complete certainty that the wise and experienced Miss Melody was strongly biased in favour of her pupil’s immediate marriage with Nicholas Aubray.

  “I shall expect to get news from you soon,” said Miss Melody significantly in farewell.

  It in no way mitigated the significance, that she should add with an inscrutable smile:

  “One way or the other.”

  It would fall extremely flat, Lily reflected ruefully, if her news were to be “the other,” after all.

  The novel sense of her own importance was so agreeable that she felt no more than a passing shock at the discovery that the Hardinges were perfectly aware of Nicholas’s proposal.

  Ethel Hardinge, after a few brisk preliminaries as to the disadvantages of being motherless, sought candidly to advise Lily.

  “There’s nothing like first love,” said Ethel in a hearty sort of way. “They say nobody marries their first love, but I did, and no two people could be happier than we are, of that I’m certain.”

  “Then it does last?” said Lily tentatively.