George, when he had read thus far, was broadly grinning.
Obviously Mrs. Chater was not such a bad sort after
all. If—as no doubt—she
implicitly believed her son’s version of the
incident, then her attitude towards Mary was, on the
whole, not so bad.
But his Mary, when she had written thus far, laid
down her pen, put her pretty head upon the paper and
wept.
“Oh, my dear!” she choked. “There,
that will make you think it was all right. You
shall never know—never—what really
happened. Oh, Georgie, Georgie, come very quick
and take me away! How can I go on living with
these beasts? Oh, Georgie, be quick, be quick!”
Then this silly Mary with handkerchief, with india-rubber,
and with pen-knife erased a stain of grief that had
fallen upon her pretty story; sniffed back her tears;
lifted again her pen.
Now she wrote in an eager scrawl; nib flying.
Had her George not been so very ordinary a young man
he must have perceived the difference between that
first portion so neatly penned—parti-coloured
words showing where the ink had dried while the poor
little brain puzzled and planned at every syllable—and
this where emotion sped the thoughts.
“So that’s all right” (she wrote),
“and now we’ve only got to wait, a few,
few weeks. Dearest, will they fly or will they
drag? What does love do to time, I wonder—whip
or brake?—speed or pull? Georgie mine,
I feel I don’t care. If the days fly I shall
be riding in them— galloping to you, wind
in the face; shouting them on; standing up all flushed
with the swing and the rush of it; waving to the people
we go thundering past and gazing along the road where
soon I will see you— nearer and nearer
and nearer.
“And if the days creep? Well, at first,
after that picture, the thought seems melancholy,
unbearable. But that is wrong. The realisation
will not be unbearable. If they creep, why, then
I shall lie in them, very comfortable, very happy;
dreaming of you, seeing you, speaking with you, touching
you. Yes, touching you. For, my dear, you
are here in the room with me as I write. I look
up just to my right, and there you are, Georgie mine;
sitting on the end of my bed, smiling at me.
You have not left me, my dear, since we parted on the
seat this morning. Why, I cannot even write that
it is only in imagination that I see you. For
me it is not imagination. I do, do see you, Georgie
mine. You are part of me, never to leave me.
“How new, how different, love makes life!
Everything I do, everything I see, everything I hear
has a new interest because it is something to share
with you, something to save up and tell you. I
am in trouble (you understand that I am not, shall
never be again; this is only illustration—you
must read it ’if I were in trouble’).
I am in trouble, and you are sharing it with me, sympathising
so that trouble is an unkind word for what is indeed
but an opportunity acutely to feel the joy of loving
and being loved. I am happy, and the happiness
is a thousandfold increased because it comes to me
warmed through you. I am amused, and it is something
to tell you and to laugh at the more heartily by the
compelling sound of your own laughter.
