Lettice

Late, very late that evening, a lady in mourning got out of the train at a junction far away in the north.

“This is Merton Junction, is it not?” she said timidly. “It is here that one changes for Greenwell, is it not?”

“Greenwell,” said the porter questioningly; “that is on the other side of Middleham, is it not?” For Greenwell was a very little town.

“I don’t know,” said Lettice – for Lettice of course it was – “I thought everybody would know it here. They told me in London to take my ticket to Merton, and then get another.”

The porter looked confused and rather bothered. He was on the point of leaving the station for the night. There were no more trains for an hour or two. He did not know what to do with this unfortunate traveller, and yet, not being of a surly nature, did not like to throw her off.

It ended in the poor man’s giving himself a good deal of trouble to find out that there was no train for Greenwell till four o’clock in the morning. There was nothing for it but for Lettice to spend the night in the desolate waiting-room of the station, for the junction was some distance from the small town of the name. Even had she felt able to walk there, Lettice could hardly have had a couple of hours’ sleep before she would have had to come back again.

It was not a cheerful prospect – four or five hours at a railway station in the middle of the night in January. The porter poked up the fire, and told her she’d no need to be “afeard;” he would speak to the night-porters, there’d be a couple of them there, and at four o’clock there’d be some one to give her her ticket. And with a friendly “good night,” none the less so for the fee which Lettice gave him, he went off.

She was a little frightened. In vain she told herself she had no need to be so. All the horrible stories she had ever heard of in such circumstances returned to her mind. She tried to sleep on the hard horsehair sofa, and succeeded in dozing uncomfortably, to be startled awake by one of the night-porters coming in to stir up the fire. Then she dozed again, to wake shivering with cold, the fire out, the faint gaslight sufficing but to make darkness visible. She started up; there was light enough to see the time by her watch. With the greatest relief, she saw that it was half-past three!

Half an hour later, she had got her ticket, and was stepping into a first-class carriage of the train, which had come in from the south, and was going on to Middleham.

“Now at last,” thought Lettice, “my troubles are over. In a few hours more I shall be with Arthur.”

As she settled herself in her place, she saw by the feeble lamp-light that there were two other persons in the carriage – two gentlemen. She glanced at them, but with no interest curiosity, and she distinguished neither of their faces. One, an elderly man, got out at the first station they stopped at. The little bustle of handing him some of his belongings brought Lettice face to face with the remaining passenger. Both started, both gave vent to an exclamation; but Lettice’s was of dismay, her companion’s of relief.

“Mr Auriol!”

“Lettice – Miss Morison, how thankful I am to have found you!”

Lettice’s face, cold as it was, burned.

“Found me!” she repeated. “Have you been sent after me to look for me? There was no need for anything of the kind. I telegraphed yesterday to say I was coming on to – ” She hesitated, not sure if she would, to him, say whither she was bound. But her tone was full of resentment.

Godfrey gave a sigh that was half a groan, of something very like despair.

“Will you always misunderstand me?” he said.

“What can I say? What can I do? You seem to think I have a mission in life of annoying and insulting you. What can a man do to prove that he does not deserve to be so thought of?”

Lettice looked at him in amazement, not unmixed with compunction. Was this the calm, stately Mr Auriol? Did he so care for her opinion? She could hardly take it in; and then, by a quick revulsion, she remembered how only the night before she had called him, and felt that he deserved to be called, generous.

“I am sorry for being so hasty,” she said. “But I don’t see why you or any one need have followed me. I wanted,” she went on, and her eyes filled with tears – “I wanted to have done it all myself. It – it was my fault Arthur went away; I wanted to be the one to bring him back.”

Godfrey moved away. He could hardly help smiling, and yet he was so sorry for her. What a child she was! What a mixture of gentleness and obstinacy, of generosity and devotion and self-will!

“Lettice,” he said very, very gently, but very seriously nevertheless, “there are some things in which you must yield to those older and more experienced than you. It is not right for a young creature like you – so – now, you must not be angry – so lovely, and so sure to be remarked, to go running about the country, however good your motive may be. You don’t know, you can hardly imagine, the anxiety they – we have all been in!” – and he hesitated – “I, I do believe, the most of all.”

“You,” said Lettice, and the tears in her eyes began slowly to trickle down her face. “You hate me, I know. Why should you mind what I do? It is I that have caused you all the trouble.”

“I hate you?” he repeated. “Lettice, are you saying that on purpose? Yes, you have caused me more trouble than any one else has ever done, because, from the first moment I ever saw you, from that first evening at Esparto, I have loved you, Lettice. And everything has been against me. I am mad to tell you this; I meant never to have let it pass my lips.”

Lettice’s face was burning, but not with anger. She herself could not have defined her own feelings. She tried to speak, but the words were all but inaudible.

“You make me ashamed,” she said. “I can’t understand it.”

But at that moment the train slackened. The faint morning light was struggling in the cold wintry sky. Mr Auriol sprang from his seat.

“We get out here,” he said. “This is Middleham;” and, submissive at last, Lettice allowed him to help her out of the carriage. He took her at once to the best hotel of the place, and then, having ordered some breakfast, of which she was sorely in need, for she had eaten almost nothing the day before, he gave her Arthur’s letter to read, and explained to her what he intended to do. Her plans had been of the simplest.

“I meant just to go to the address at Greenwell and ask for him,” she said; and she quickly saw that Mr Auriol’s intention of telegraphing to Arthur at once to come over to see him at Middleham was much better.

“It will involve him in no awkwardness,” he said, “nor will it lead to his blaming Dawson, poor fellow. For I,” he added, with a smile, “am armed with his own credentials;” and he touched the letter as he spoke.

“You don’t think Arthur will be angry with Dawson,” said Lettice, “or,” she went on, and the idea struck Mr Auriol as very comical, “with me? I made Dawson tell me.”

An hour later Mr Auriol returned to the sitting-room, where he had left Lettice, with an open telegram in his hand.

“This is from Arthur,” he said, “or rather from ‘John Morris,’” he added, with a slight smile, as he handed it to Lettice.

“Thousand thanks. Will be with you by twelve,” was the telegram.

“I don’t think there is much fear of his being angry with anybody,” observed Mr Auriol.

“Thanks to you. It was so much better to send for him than to go there,” said Lettice impulsively.

Godfrey’s face flushed. He half turned away; then, taking courage, he came nearer again.

“Lettice,” he said, “are you not angry with me? I forgot myself. It is very good of you not to resent it.”

“Resent it!” said Lettice simply. “How could I do so? I can’t quite believe that you knew what you were saying. I think you must be so sorry for me, for all the trouble I have brought on myself and on other people, that – that – just that you are very sorry for me. For one thing,” and her voice grew very low and her face very red, “I thought you cared for Nina.”

“You, too!” he exclaimed. “How extraordinary! It is a good thing I do not, not in that way, for I should have had no chance of success. I met Philip Dexter at the Winthrops’, where I stayed a night; and – I think he would not mind my telling you – in talking together rather confidentially, I found out that he, too, has had that idea, and has been very unhappy. But I put it all right, and he’s back in London by this time. We may hear some news on our return.”

“Did he tell you what gave him the idea?” asked Lettice, almost in a whisper.

“Some chance words of mine at Esparto,” said Godfrey.

“It is very generous of him to have said so. But it was not only that,” said Lettice, her eyes filling with tears.

But, somehow or other, the confession she made of this new offence did not lower her in Mr Auriol’s eyes as hopelessly as she had expected.

A few days later a happily reunited family were assembled in Mr Morison’s house. How easy it was for Lettice to convince Arthur of the complete change in her feelings, when she told him of the little-hoped-for reconciliation with their uncle, may be imagined! How more than ready to forgive her unfortunate influence in their affairs she found Philip and Nina! How her uncle and aunt promised to forget the anxiety she had caused them, on condition of her never again thus setting aside the judgment and experience of her natural protectors! How more than amazed was everybody when, a few weeks later, by which time Lettice had learnt to believe that Godfrey Auriol did mean what he said, her engagement to him was announced! All these “hows” I must also leave to my reader’s imagination.

The old farmer and his family, whose honest kindliness had so fortunately intervened to save poor Arthur from taking some really foolish step, were not forgotten. And in after-days, when his wish was fulfilled, and he had replaced his uncle at the head of his firm, he would sometimes recall with a smile the days when he had measured grey flannel and wrapped up parcels of tapes and ribbons for the dames of Greenwell.

There are many ways in which life’s lessons are taught. Some have to go through hard and sorrowful experiences – harder, it often seems, than they merit; others, like Lettice, learn true humility and sacrifice of self-will by gentler discipline. As she often said to herself —

“How can I ever be good enough to show my gratitude? How little have I deserved such happiness – I who might have ruined not merely my own life, but those of others, by my foolish obstinacy!”

And “prejudice” was a word and a sentiment which Lettice Auriol’s children were never allowed to know the meaning of.