Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  “Being in love? Well, no, dear, not in the same way, of course. One must look at these things sensibly, and yet at the same time without being foolish,” said Mrs. Hardinge with clarity. “I’m speaking to you as I should speak to one of my own girlies. You mustn’t expect to remain in love for ever and ever.”

  Lily felt that Cousin Ethel was taking too much for granted.

  “But Cousin Ethel, I don’t know that I am in love at all, yet.”

  “Oh! Well, of course, dear — just hand me the white cotton, dear — Sylvia is so hard on her knickers, always But you do like him very much?”

  “Yes very much.”

  “He certainly is charming — so utterly unlike most clever people. He’s a good deal older than you are — perhaps that’s what you’re thinking of? Dorothy never looks at them if they’re over twenty-five, but then you and she are very different.”

  “Yes,” said Lily dejectedly.

  She had an undefined feeling that any possible vestige of romance was being eliminated from her love-affair by all these bright and kindly discussions. She felt more at a loss than ever.

  “But, after all, Lily, nobody can make up your mind for you. It’s a thing you must really decide entirely for yourself. The scissors, if you wouldn’t mind, dear. I should hardly feel justified in talking to you at all, if I wasn’t so fond of you, and then you’ve no mother, poor dear! But I shouldn’t dream of influencing you, one way or the other.”

  There was a pause, and Lily picked up a reel of cotton and handed Mrs. Hardinge the scissors.

  “It would give your father the greatest happiness, of course, and he’s had a sad life, Lily. He never got over the loss of your mother, as Charlie says. And then if anything happened to him, well, of course, there’d be a home for you and for Kenneth and someone to look after you both. Not that you couldn’t always count on us for anything we could do, but nothing can be the same as one’s very own belongings. With a husband, you see, there’s always somebody there.”

  “That’s just what I’m afraid of, in a way,” said Lily, at last gathering courage. “I mean that it would be so dreadful if one found one didn’t care enough, and yet one was permanently tied.”

  “But, my dear child,” said Mrs. Hardinge earnestly, “there is a love that comes after marriage, you know. Not the same thing as being in love, but something that really lasts. Many a girl who hasn’t known whether she was in love or not, or who really isn’t in love with the man at first, finds everything quite different once she’s really married to him.”

  Lily listened believingly. Nothing seemed to her more probable than that the married state, about which there hung many mysterious reticences, should operate some startling change of outlook by means unguessed at by the uninitiated.

  “Perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Hardinge hopefully, “you’re more in love than you think you are. Very often girls don’t realize things — and then before they know where they are, it’s too late, and may mean a life-time of regret.”

  Thinking this over, it appeared to Lily that Cousin Ethel, who was so kind and knew so much about young girls, held that if one was in love, very likely one didn’t know it until after one had married the man and that if one wasn’t, it was still worth while marrying him because there was something better than being in love, that came after marriage.

  The only remaining alternative seemed to be the lifetime of regret.

  Having derived no stable satisfaction from the advice that she had already received, Lily began to consider where she could seek for more advice, and involved herself further and further in the endeavour to sec truth through the vision of others.

  Dorothy Hardinge was crudely positive.

  “I wouldn’t have him, Lily, if you aren’t in love with him. There are sure to be heaps of other men who’ll want to marry you. They even want to marry me, and you’re a million times prettier than I am, and heaps of men don’t care a bit about games. I mean whether one’s good at them or not. Of course that’s one thing in Mr. Aubray’s favour, I suppose — as he’s frightfully clever and rather old and lives in London, he wouldn’t mind about your being rather bad at games, would he?”

  “He doesn’t mind at all; he’s told me so.”

  “That’s all right then. I suppose you wouldn’t tell me what he said when he proposed? I can’t imagine him doing it, somehow.” Dorothy giggled. “I bet he was very grand and formal.”

  Lily raised her chin slightly.

  She had no desire to hear Dorothy’s wit, the elementary form of which was well known to her, expend itself in this direction.

  But it was never difficult to change the trend of Dorothy’s thoughts.

  “You’ve had a great many people in love with you, haven’t you, Dorothy?”

  “We hardly ever see a new man down here,” said Dorothy discontentedly. “But I must say, I generally have somebody or other to make things amusing — one meets them at tennis, and so on. But of course you know, they don’t all propose, or anything like that.”

  “What happens, then?”

  “Well,” said Dorothy, in a candid and interested voice, “there are generally what I call the three stages: eyesie-pysie, handy-pandy and footy-wootie. First, one just looks at each other and sort of gets going that way, then they squeeze one’s hand whenever they can, and try and get hold of it in the dark, coming home from dances and that sort of thing, and then they stick out their foot under the table or somewhere, and press yours, and you go on talking to other people all the time and looking as if nothing was happening. It’s sort of fun in a way, though I wouldn’t dare tell Mother about it. She’d say it was vulgar, I suppose.”

  The same unpleasing adjective also appeared to Lily to be highly applicable.

  “No one’s ever done that kind of thing with me,” she said, without emphasis of any kind.

  “I suppose you’re not the sort, or else you haven’t met enough men. That’s what I mean, Lily. I do think it would be a frightful pity to get married right away, before you’ve had any fun at all. Of course, one couldn’t go on with that sort of fooling about after one was married, it wouldn’t be playing the game. But I must say it’s fun, and I can’t see any harm in it, so long as one doesn’t take it too seriously. Of course, I shouldn’t let things go too far.”

  “What would you call too far?”

  “Well, there are girls who say that a dance isn’t any fun, unless one gets — well, kissed, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh!” said Lily disgustedly.

  “I know it’s rather awful, when one says it in cold blood like that; and mind you, I don’t go in for it myself, Lily, I really don’t. I won’t say that no one ever has, but it was a sort of accident, truly it was.”

  “Didn’t you mind?”

  “No,” said Dorothy, “I can’t say I did. Afterwards I sort of felt ashamed of myself because I knew Mother would think it so awful if she ever knew — which God forbid! But it sort of seemed natural, kind of, at the time.”

  “I don’t believe I should ever like it,” said Lily with finality.

  “I think you ought to give yourself a chance of finding out. It’s all very well,” said Dorothy argumentatively, “if one’s frantically in love with anyone, I suppose one’s mad enough to want to be tied up to him for ever and ever. But personally I don’t want to fall seriously in love for ages yet. Just have a good time while I’m young and have heaps of great friends, and then perhaps, later on, a real, proper grande passion or whatever they call it, and get married.”

  “I think one might be rather sorry, then, that there had been other people first,” said Lily shyly.

  “I think that’s sentimental tosh,” said Dorothy Hardinge with simple finality.

  The verdict disquieted Lily but slightly; nevertheless, Dorothy’s wisdom had its effect upon her decision. If eyesie-pysie, handy-pandy and footy-wootie constituted happiness in youth, then better far be married, and to relinquish youth.

  Lily felt certain that she
had no talent for such a form of enjoyment, and she thought that it must be on this account that no such overtures as those described by Dorothy had ever fallen to her lot. The daughter of Philip Stellenthorpe knew no regret, however, for the deprivation.

  She could never afterwards recall with any definite certainty the moment in which she took her final decision. When she found herself betrothed to Nicholas Aubray, it seemed natural enough, and the sense of irrevocability that thenceforth encompassed her, Lily almost welcomed.

  No one gave her any advice now. They all congratulated her, and even Dorothy Hardinge, after she saw Lily and Nicholas together, and when Lily, herself awestruck, displayed an emerald and diamond ring and a diamond pendant, said cordially:

  “Well, I must say you were right in a way, Lily. The trousseau and the presents and all this fuss about you must be simply too heavenly!”

  Lily herself derived unforeseen excitement and pleasure from all these accessories to her engagement, her father’s intense gratification and pride in her, the warmly- worded congratulations that she received, and the admiring welcome that her youth and prettiness met with from the bewildering number of new friends and relations to whom Nicholas presented her, even the trousseau frocks and the jewels and the wedding presents, all gave her a dream-like feeling of astonished delight.

  She did not doubt any more whether she was in love. There was a glamour over her days that could only mean happiness, and happiness and love were still, to Lily’s way of thinking, synonymous.

  Sometimes she realized with surprise how impossible it would be now to disappoint all this kindness, and saw herself as much bound to Nicholas as though she were already married to him. And she felt with a certain joyful astonishment, that any lingering doubt must be dispelled by the discovery that the personality of Nicholas Aubray seemed to be far more in harmony with her own as a lover than as a friend.

  XIII

  The person of whom Lily seemed to see least during the period of her engagement was the man whom she was to marry.

  Jests about placing them beside one another at the many hospitable tables to which they were invited seemed to be inevitable, but each was obviously expected to talk and make acquaintance with the friends or relations of the other.

  Everyone congratulated Lily whole-heartedly.

  “He’s awfully nice, Lily — he’s got such a nice twinkle,” said Dorothy Hardinge.

  Now that Lily was really engaged, with a ring, and presents arriving every day, and a trousseau imminent, Dorothy was full of excitement, and appeared to have forgotten all her previous strictures.

  Perhaps there was something infectious about the glamour surrounding a wedding.

  Lily reflected naively that she had never before realized how impossible it would be to break off an engagement once it had been made known. Would one have to return all these glittering, shining presents, countermand all the things that had been ordered, write explanations to everybody, and an announcement to the papers so that one’s change of mind should be made public? Surely nothing could be more utterly impossible. She had a strong suspicion that the mere imagining of such a contingency would unhesitatingly have been labelled as morbid by Miss Melody.

  She abandoned it willingly.

  A letter from Miss Melody, the reading of which was very like listening to Miss Melody’s own deep voice, did much to confirm the surmise.

  “Well, Lily dear, and so the die is cast! Shall you think me quite a witch, childie, if I confess that I wasn’t altogether astonished at the news, although very, very much pleased?

  “The love of a good man is a great thing. I am glad you look upon the responsibility that it entails upon you as a serious one. At the same time, however, don’t let your thoughts dwell too much upon that side of it. Remember that ‘the burden is fitted to the back!’ Perhaps not very complimentary to Mr. Aubray, but you’ll understand what I mean, dear child.”

  Lily could almost hear the low, rich laugh with which Miss Melody repudiated any uncomplimentary intent in the not very felicitous expression that she had selected.

  Many other letters reached her, some of them from relations whom she had scarcely seen. Most of the writers seemed to have heard of Nicholas Aubray as a distinguished and clever man, some of them had even met him, and those who had not done so were as enthusiastic as those who had, since hearsay had endowed him so plentifully.

  It was all very like a dream.

  Nicholas urged an early wedding, and was rather timidly seconded by Philip.

  “I am in favour of early marriages,” said Philip, with His habitual air of affirming a theory in the hope of making himself believe in it.

  “Yes, yes, yes — for the girl, certainly,” said Charlie Hardinge.

  Even without Cousin Charlie’s tactful implication, it was evident that no one could suggest that Nicholas was making an early marriage.

  “He isn’t a widower, is he?” said Sylvia to Lily with an air of horrified apprehension.

  “Oh no! How could you think so?” Lily was equally horrified.

  “I thought he might be, as he’s so old — and I must say I should hate to think of your doing anything like that!”

  “So should I,” said Lily with perfect sincerity. “I should want to be the only person that my — my husband had ever loved.”

  She was innocently consequential, and Janet Hardinge’s scoffing laugh jarred on and surprised her.

  “All that is stuff out of books. Nobody ever loves only one person, I don’t believe. Not in a long life, anyway—”

  “Of course, one cares for a lot of people,” said Sylvia indignantly, “but Lily and I mean the falling-in-love sort of love. I should hope she was the only girl he’d ever been in love with! I wouldn’t marry a man unless I was.”

  “Mother herself says that very few people ever marry their first love,” said Janet quite firmly.

  This led to a serious conversation with Cousin Ethel.

  Lily did not exactly seek it, but she was ready to resign herself to what she supposed to be a necessity.

  “You have no mother, poor child.”

  Ethel spoke the time-honoured cliché very kindly.

  “I am glad you are going to be married, Lily. After my own girls, I don’t know that any engagement could have given me so much pleasure. Not only for your father’s sake — though I’m delighted to see how happy it makes him — but for your own. Oh, my dear, make the most of your time. It’s so wonderful to be young, and happy, and in love.”

  Lily tried to appear responsive, and was angry at the slight self-consciousness that alone possessed her as she tried to contemplate the causes for rejoicing enumerated by Mrs. Hardinge.

  “You’re a very, very lucky child. He’s a man in a thousand, and it’s a wonderful thing to have found one another in time. All the nicest men are generally married long before they’re anywhere near his age.”

  “I suppose,” said Lily, remembering Janet, “that I oughtn’t to expect, perhaps, to be his first love?”

  She looked at Mrs. Hardinge, hoping for reassurance. “My dear child! Of course, there’s love and love, you know. Men have their fancies, but it’s the woman they want to marry who really counts. Has he ever told you about — about anything of that sort, in his life?”

  “He told me he’d never asked anyone to marry him before.”

  “There!” cried Ethel in a tone of relief. “What more can you want? I think that’s marvellous, at his age. And. Lily dear, let me give you a word of advice. You’ve no mother, poor child! Now that he’s so generously and frankly told you that, you’ll be content, won’t you? I mean, don’t go on and on asking him about the time before he knew you. Some girls are so foolish and wreck all their own happiness with that sort of thing. But I don’t think you’re like that, are you?”

  Lily was puzzled, and also rather distressed. Was married life to contain merely a fresh series of those silences and reticences that had made life at home a thing of eternal difficulties?


  It did not seem characteristic of Nicholas.

  At last she said: “I should like us to tell one another everything, I think, Cousin Ethel.”

  Mrs. Hardinge burst into a rather nervous laugh.

  “Oh, my dear little girl! Now I’m going to talk to you just as though it were Dorothy or Janet. You see, dear, men aren’t the same as women and we mustn’t expect it. Nicholas is — is a good man, you know, or your father wouldn’t let you marry him. But no man can be expected to tell his wife everything, as you call it — especially when there is a difference in age.”

  Lily began to feel as though they were talking at cross-purposes.

  “You must trust your husband, you know, dear,” said Cousin Ethel.

  “We do trust one another.”

  “I’m sure of it. And remember, Lily, that men know a great many things that women aren’t expected to understand, and so you mustn’t be disappointed if Nicholas has interests in which you can’t altogether share. It’s bound to be so, even in the very happiest marriages.”

  Lily felt vaguely disappointed. Her ideal of companionship had been otherwise, and no doubt Cousin Ethel would have joined with Miss Melody in apostrophizing it with that disparaging adjective. Romantic.

  “You young things are always so romantic,” cried Mrs. Hardinge causing Lily to start guiltily. “Of course it’s natural and right that you should be so, and one’s glad of it. Dorothy is just like you, Lily, and so is even little Sylvia. Goodness knows I don’t want any of you to be old before your time. I’m often worried about Janet, and the things she says. But you know, dear, it wouldn’t be fair not to warn you that there’s always something to put up with in marriage. There must be give and take on both sides. And it’s a great change for a girl, too — naturally it is.”

  “What did you feel like when you were first married, Cousin Ethel?”

  “I was very much in love,” declared Mrs. Hardinge, “and so was Cousin Charlie. And we’ve been as happy as the day is long together. But of course there were things to put up with. I was one of a very large family. We lived in London at first, and my home was in Ireland and we were much too poor to go there and pay them visits as I should have liked to do. I remember at first, when Charlie was at the office all day, I used to wonder how I could bear the loneliness. The housekeeping didn’t take any time at all, and I couldn’t shop much, because we hadn’t a penny to spare, and we couldn’t afford a library subscription even, or a piano. I used to do a lot of sewing, and when it got dark, and I wanted to economize and save the gas bill, I used to sit and do nothing, and think about them all at home having a jolly time in the old schoolroom, and I don’t mind telling you now, Lily, what no one ever knew, that I used sometimes to cry my eyes out with home-sickness.”