A Duet

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Transcribed from the 1899 Grant Richards edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

A DUET
WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS

TO MRS. MAUDE CROSSE

Dear Maude,--All the little two-oared boats which put out into the
great ocean have need of some chart which will show them how to lay
their course. Each starts full of happiness and confidence, and yet
we know how many founder, for it is no easy voyage, and there are
rocks and sandbanks upon the way. So I give a few pages of your own
private log, which tell of days of peace, and days of storm--such
storms as seem very petty from the deck of a high ship, but are
serious for the two-oared boats. If your peace should help another
to peace, or your storm console another who is storm-tossed, then I
know that you will feel repaid for this intrusion upon your privacy.
May all your voyage be like the outset, and when at last the oars
fall from your hands, and those of Frank, may other loving ones be
ready to take their turn of toil--and so, bon voyage!

Ever your friend,
THE AUTHOR.
Jan. 20, 1899.

CHAPTER I--THE OVERTURE--ABOUT THAT DATE

These are the beginnings of some of the letters which they wrote
about that time.

Woking, May 20th.

My Dearest Maude,--You know that your mother suggested, and we
agreed, that we should be married about the beginning of September.
Don't you think that we might say the 3rd of August? It is a
Wednesday, and in every sense suitable. Do try to change the date,
for it would in many ways be preferable to the other. I shall be
eager to hear from you about it. And now, dearest Maude . . . (The
rest is irrelevant.)

St. Albans, May 22nd.

My Dearest Frank,--Mother sees no objection to the 3rd of August, and
I am ready to do anything which will please you and her. Of course
there are the guests to be considered, and the dressmakers and other
arrangements, but I have no doubt that we shall be able to change the
date all right. O Frank . . . (What follows is beside the point.)

Woking, May 25th.

My Dearest Maude,--I have been thinking over that change of date, and
I see one objection which had not occurred to me when I suggested it.
August the 1st is Bank holiday, and travelling is not very pleasant
about that time. My idea now is that we should bring it off before
that date. Fancy, for example, how unpleasant it would be for your
Uncle Joseph if he had to travel all the way from Edinburgh with a
Bank-holiday crowd. It would be selfish of us if we did not fit in
our plans so as to save our relatives from inconvenience. I think
therefore, taking everything into consideration, that the 20th of
July, a Wednesday, would be the very best day that we could select.
I do hope that you will strain every nerve, my darling, to get your
mother to consent to this change. When I think . . . (A digression
follows.)

St. Albans, May 27th.

My Dearest Frank,--I think that what you say about the date is very
reasonable, and it is so sweet and unselfish of you to think about
Uncle Joseph. Of course it would be very unpleasant for him to have
to travel at such a time, and we must strain every nerve to prevent
it. There is only one serious objection which my mother can see.
Uncle Percival (that is my mother's second brother) comes back from
Rangoon about the end of July, and will miss the wedding (O Frank,
think of its being OUR wedding!) unless we delay it. He has always
been very fond of me, and he might be hurt if we were married so
immediately before his arrival. Don't you think it would be as well
to wait? Mother leaves it all in your hands, and we shall do exactly
as you advise. O Frank . . . (The rest is confidential.)

Woking, May 29th.

My Own Dearest,--I think that it would be unreasonable upon the part
of your Uncle Percival to think that we ought to have changed the
date of a matter so important to ourselves, simply in order that he
should be present. I am sure that on second thoughts your mother and
yourself will see the thing in this light. I must say, however, that
in one point I think you both show great judgment. It would
certainly be invidious to be married IMMEDIATELY before his arrival.
I really think that he would have some cause for complaint if we did
that. To prevent any chance of hurting his feelings, I think that it
would be far best, if your mother and you agree with me, that we
should be married upon July 7th. I see that it is a Thursday, and in
every way suitable. When I read your last letter . . . (The
remainder is unimportant.)

St. Albans, June 1st.

Dearest Frank,--I am sure that you are right in thinking that it
would be as well not to have the ceremony too near the date of Uncle
Percival's arrival in England. We should be so sorry to hurt his
feelings in any way. Mother has been down to Madame Mortimer's about
the dresses, and she thinks that everything could be hurried up so as
to be ready by July 7th. She is so obliging, and her skirts DO hang
so beautifully. O Frank, it is only a few weeks' time, and then . .
.

Woking, June 3rd.

My Own Darling Maude,--How good you are--and your mother also--in
falling in with my suggestions! Please, please don't bother your
dear self about dresses. You only want the one travelling-dress to
be married in, and the rest we can pick up as we go. I am sure that
white dress with the black stripe--the one you were playing tennis
with at the Arlingtons'--would do splendidly. You looked simply
splendid that day. I am inclined to think that it is my favourite of
all your dresses, with the exception of the dark one with the light-
green front. That shows off your figure so splendidly. I am very
fond also of the grey Quaker-like alpaca dress. What a little dove
you do look in it! I think those dresses, and of course your satin
evening-dress, are my favourites. On second thoughts, they are the
only dresses I have ever seen you in. But I like the grey best,
because you wore it the first time I ever--you remember! You must
NEVER get rid of those dresses. They are too full of associations.
I want to see you in them for years, and years, and years.

What I wanted to say was that you have so many charming dresses, that
we may consider ourselves independent of Madame Mortimer. If her
things should be late, they will come in very usefully afterwards. I
don't want to be selfish or inconsiderate, my own dearest girlie, but
it would be rather too much if we allowed my tailor or your
dressmaker to be obstacles to our union. I just want you--your
dainty little self--if you had only your 'wee coatie,' as Burns says.
Now look here! I want you to bring your influence to bear upon your
mother, and so make a small change in our plans. The earlier we can
have our honeymoon, the more pleasant the hotels will be. I do want
your first experiences with me to be without a shadow of discomfort.
In July half the world starts for its holiday. If we could get away
at the end of this mouth, we should just be ahead of them. This
month, this very month! Oh, do try to manage this, my own dearest
girl. The 30th of June is a Tuesday, and in every way suitable.
They could spare me from the office most excellently. This would
just give us time to have the banns three times, beginning with next
Sunday. I leave it in your hands, dear. Do try to work it.

St. Albans, June 4th.

My Dearest Frank,--We nearly called in the doctor after your dear old
preposterous letter. My mother gasped upon the sofa while I read her
some extracts. That I, the daughter of the house, should be married
in my old black and white tennis-dress, which I wore at the
Arlingtons' to save my nice one! Oh, you are simply splendid
sometimes! And the learned way in which you alluded to my alpaca.
As a matter of fact, it's a merino, but that doesn't matter. Fancy
your remembering my wardrobe like that! And wanting me to wear them
all for years! So I shall, dear, secretly, when we are quite quite
alone. But they are all out of date already, and if in a year or so
you saw your poor dowdy wife with tight sleeves among a roomful of
puff-shouldered young ladies, you would not be consoled even by the
memory that it was in that dress that you first . . . you know!

As a matter of fact, I MUST have my dress to be married in. I don't
think mother would regard it as a legal marriage if I hadn't, and if
you knew how nice it will be, you would not have the heart to
interfere with it. Try to picture it, silver-grey--I know how fond
you are of greys--a little white chiffon at neck and wrists, and the
prettiest pearl trimming. Then the hat en suite, pale-grey lisse,
white feather and brilliant buckle. All these details are wasted
upon you, sir, but you will like it when you see it. It fulfils your
ideal of tasteful simplicity, which men always imagine to be an
economical method of dressing, until they have wives and milliners'
bills of their own.

And now I have kept the biggest news to the last. Mother has been to
Madame, and she says that if she works all night, she will have
everything ready for the 30th. O Frank, does it not seem incredible!
Next Tuesday three weeks. And the banns! Oh my goodness, I am
frightened when I think about it! Dear old boy, you won't tire of
me, will you? Whatever should I do if I thought you had tired of me!
And the worst of it is, that you don't know me a bit. I have a
hundred thousand faults, and you arc blinded by your love and cannot
see them. But then some day the scales will fall from your eyes, and
you will perceive the whole hundred thousand at once. Oh, what a
reaction there will be! You will see me as I am, frivolous, wilful,
idle, petulant, and altogether horrid. But I do love you, Frank,
with all my heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and you'll count
that on the other side, won't you? Now I am so glad I have said all
this, because it is best that you should know what you should expect.
It will be nice for you to look back and to say, 'She gave me fair
warning, and she is no worse than she said.' O Frank, think of the
30th.

P.S.--I forgot to say that I had a grey silk cape, lined with cream,
to go with the dress. It is just sweet!

So that is how they arranged about the date.

CHAPTER II--THE OVERTURE CONTINUED--IN A MINOR KEY

Woking, June 7th.

My Own Dearest Maude,--How I wish you were here, for I have been
down, down, down, in the deepest state of despondency all day. I
have longed to hear the sound of your voice, or to feel the touch of
your hand! How can I be despondent, when in three weeks I shall be
the husband of the dearest girl in England? That is what I ask
myself, and then the answer comes that it is just exactly on that
account that my wretched conscience is gnawing at me. I feel that I
have not used you well; I owe you reparation, and I don't know what
to do.

In your last dear letter you talk about being frivolous. YOU have
never been frivolous. But I have been frivolous--for ever since I
have learned to love you, I have been so wrapped up in my love, with
my happiness gilding everything about me, that I have never really
faced the prosaic facts of life or discussed with you what our
marriage will really necessitate. And now, at this eleventh hour, I
realise that I have led you on in ignorance to an act which will
perhaps take a great deal of the sunshine out of your life. What
have I to offer you in exchange for the sacrifice which you will make
for me? Myself, my love, and all that I have--but how little it all
amounts to! You are a girl in a thousand, in ten thousand--bright,
beautiful, sweet, the dearest lady in all the land. And I an average
man--or perhaps hardly that--with little to boast of in the past, and
vague ambitions for the future. It is a poor bargain for you, a most
miserable bargain. You have still time. Count the cost, and if it
be too great, then draw back even now without fear of one word or
inmost thought of reproach from me. Your whole life is at stake.
How can I hold you to a decision which was taken before you realised
what it meant? Now I shall place the facts before you, and then,
come what may, my conscience will be at rest, and I shall be sure
that you are acting with your eyes open.

You have to compare your life as it is, and as it will be. Your
father is rich, or at least comfortably off, and you have been
accustomed all your life to have whatever you desired. From what I
know of your mother's kindness, I should imagine that no wish of
yours has ever remained ungratified. You have lived well, dressed
well, a sweet home, a lovely garden, your collie, your canary, your
maid. Above all, you have never had anxiety, never had to worry
about the morrow. I can see all your past life so well. In the
mornings, your music, your singing, your gardening, your reading. In
the afternoons, your social duties, the visit and the visitor. In
the evening, tennis, a walk, music again, your father's return from
the City, the happy family-circle, with occasionally the dinner, the
dance, and the theatre. And so smoothly on, month after month, and
year after year, your own sweet, kindly, joyous nature, and your
bright face, making every one round you happy, and so reacting upon
your own happiness. Why should you bother about money? That was
your father's business. Why should you trouble about housekeeping?
That was your mother's duty. You lived like the birds and the
flowers, and had no need to take heed for the future. Everything
which life could offer was yours.

And now you must turn to what is in store for you, if you are still
content to face the future with me. Position I have none to offer.
What is the exact position of the wife of the assistant-accountant of
the Co-operative Insurance Office? It is indefinable. What are my
prospects? I may become head-accountant. If Dinton died--and I hope
he won't, for he is an excellent fellow--I should probably get his
berth. Beyond that I have no career. I have some aspirations after
literature--a few critical articles in the monthlies--but I don't
suppose they will ever lead to anything of consequence.

And my income, 400 pounds a year with a commission on business I
introduce. But that amounts to hardly anything. You have 50 pounds.
Our total, then, is certainly under 500 pounds. Have you considered
what it will mean to leave that charming house at St. Albans--the
breakfast-room, the billiard-room, the lawn--and to live in the
little 50 pounds a year house at Woking, with its two sitting-rooms
and pokey garden? Have I a right to ask you to do such a thing? And
then the housekeeping, the planning, the arranging, the curtailing,
the keeping up appearances upon a limited income. I have made myself
miserable, because I feel that you are marrying me without a
suspicion of the long weary uphill struggle which lies before you. O
Maude, my darling Maude, I feel that you sacrifice too much for me!
If I were a man I should say to you, 'Forget me--forget it all! Let
our relations be a closed chapter in your life. You can do better.
I and my cares come like a great cloud-bank to keep the sunshine from
your young life. You who are so tender and dainty! How can I bear
to see you exposed to the drudgery and sordid everlasting cares of
such a household! I think of your graces, your pretty little ways,
the elegancies of your life, and how charmingly you carry them off.
You are born and bred for just such an atmosphere as the one which
you breathe. And I take advantage of my good-fortune in winning your
love to drag you down, to take the beauty and charm from your life,
to fill it with small and vulgar cares, never-ending and soul-
killing. Selfish beast that I am, why should I allow you to come
down into the stress and worry of life, when I found you so high
above it? And what can I offer you in exchange?' These are the
thoughts which come back and back all day, and leave me in the
blackest fit of despondency. I confessed to you that I had dark
humours, but never one so hopeless as this. I do not wish my worst
enemy to be as unhappy as I have been to-day.

Write to me, my own darling Maude, and tell me all you think, your
very inmost soul, in this matter. Am I right? Have I asked too much
of you? Does the change frighten you? You will have this in the
morning, and I should have my answer by the evening post. I shall
meet the postman. How hard I shall try not to snatch the letter from
him, or to give myself away. Wilson has been in worrying me with
foolish talk, while my thoughts were all of our affairs. He worked
me up into a perfectly homicidal frame of mind, but I hope that I
kept on smiling and was not discourteous to him. I wonder which is
right, to be polite but hypocritical, or to be inhospitable but
honest.

Good-bye, my own dearest sweetheart--all the dearer when I feel that
I may lose you.--Ever your devoted

FRANK.

St. Albans, June 8th.

Frank, tell me for Heaven's sake what your letter means! You use
words of love, and yet you talk of parting. You speak as if our love
were a thing which we might change or suppress. O Frank, you cannot
take my love away from me. You don't know what you are to me, my
heart, my life, my all. I would give my life for you willingly,
gladly--every beat of my heart is for you. You don't know what you
have become to me. My every thought is yours, and has been ever
since that night at the Arlingtons'. My love is so deep and strong,
it rules my whole life, my every action from morning to night. It is
the very breath and heart of my life--unchangeable. I could not
alter my love any more than I could stop my heart from beating. How
could you, could you suggest such a thing! I know that you really
love me just as much as I love you, or I should not open my heart
like this. I should be too proud to give myself away. But I feel
that pride is out of place when any mistake or misunderstanding may
mean lifelong misery to both of us. I would only say good-bye if I
thought your love had changed or grown less. But I know that it has
not. O my darling, if you only knew what terrible agony the very
thought of parting is, you would never have let such an idea even for
an instant, on any pretext, enter your mind. The very possibility is
too awful to think of. When I read your letter just now up in my
room, I nearly fainted. I can't write. O Frank, don't take my love
away from me. I can't bear it. Oh no, it is my everything. If I
could only see you now, I know that you would kiss these heart-
burning tears away. I feel so lonely and tired. I cannot follow all
your letter. I only know that you talked of parting, and that I am
weary and miserable.

MAUDE.

(COPY OF TELEGRAM)
From Frank Crosse, to Miss Maude Selby,
The Laurels, St. Albans
Coming up eight-fifteen, arrive midnight.

June 10th.

How good of you, dear old boy, to come racing across two counties at
a minute's notice, simply in order to console me and clear away my
misunderstandings. Of course it was most ridiculous of me to take
your letter so much to heart, but when I read any suggestion about
our parting, it upset me so dreadfully, that I was really incapable
of reasoning about anything else. Just that one word PART seemed to
be written in letters of fire right across the page, to the exclusion
of everything else. So then I wrote an absurd letter to my boy, and
the dear came scampering right across the South of England, and
arrived at midnight in the most demoralised state. It was just sweet
of you to come, dear, and I shall never forget it.

I am so sorry that I have been so foolish, but you must confess, sir,
that you have been just a little bit foolish also. The idea of
supposing that when I love a man my love can be affected by the size
of his house or the amount of his income. It makes me smile to think
of it. Do you suppose a woman's happiness is affected by whether she
has a breakfast-room, or a billiard-board, or a collie dog, or any of
the other luxuries which you enumerated? But these things are all
the merest trimmings of life. They are not the essentials. YOU and
your love are the essentials. Some one who will love me with all his
heart. Some one whom I can love with all my heart. Oh the
difference it makes in life! How it changes everything! It
glorifies and beautifies everything. I always felt that I was
capable of a great love--and now I have it.

Fancy your imagining that you had come into my life in order to
darken it. Why, you ARE my life. If you went out of it, what would
be left? You talk about my happiness before I met you--but oh, how
empty it all was! I read, and played, and sang as you say, but what
a void there was! I did it to please mother, but there really seemed
no very clear reason why I should continue to do it. Then you came,
and everything was changed. I read because you are fond of reading
and because I wanted to talk about books with you. I played because
you are fond of music. I sang in the hope that it might please you.
Whatever I did, you were always in my mind. I tried and tried to
become a better and nobler woman, because I wanted to be worthy of
the love you bore me. I have changed, and developed, and improved
more in the last three months than in all my life before. And then
you come and tell me that you have darkened my life. You know better
now. My life has become full and rich, for Love fills my life. It
is the keynote of my nature, the foundation, the motive power. It
inspires me to make the most of any gift or talent that I have. How
could I tell you all this if I did not know that your own feeling was
as deep. I could not have given the one, great, and only love of my
life in exchange for a half-hearted affection from you. But you will
never again make the mistake of supposing that any material
consideration can affect our love.

And now we won't be serious any longer. Dear mother was very much
astounded by your tumultuous midnight arrival, and equally
precipitate departure next morning. Dear old boy, it was so nice of
you! But you won't ever have horrid black humours and think
miserable things any more, will you? But if you must have dark days,
now is your time, for I can't possibly permit any after the 30th.--
Ever your own

MAUDE.

Woking, June 11th.

My Own Dearest Girlie,--How perfectly sweet you are! I read and re-
read your letter, and I understand more and more how infinitely your
nature is above mine. And your conception of love--how lofty and
unselfish it is! How could I lower it by thinking that any worldly
thing could be weighed for an instant against it! And yet it was
just my jealous love for you, and my keenness that you should never
be the worse through me, which led me to write in that way, so I will
not blame myself too much. I am really glad that the cloud came, for
the sunshine is so much brighter afterwards. And I seem to know you
so much better, and to see so much more deeply into your nature. I
knew that my own passion for you was the very essence of my soul--oh,
how hard it is to put the extreme of emotion into the terms of human
speech!--but I did not dare to hope that your feelings were as deep.
I hardly ventured to tell even you how I really felt. Somehow, in
these days of lawn-tennis and afternoon tea, a strong strong passion,
such a passion as one reads of in books and poems, seems out of
place. I thought that it would surprise, even frighten you, perhaps,
if I were to tell you all that I felt. And now you have written me
two letters, which contain all that I should have said if I had
spoken from my heart. It is all my own inmost thought, and there is
not a feeling that I do not share. O Maude, I may write lightly and
speak lightly, perhaps, sometimes, but there never was a woman,
never, never in all the story of the world, who was loved more
passionately than you are loved by me. Come what may, while the
world lasts and the breath of life is between my lips, you are the
one woman to me. If we are together, I care nothing for what the
future may bring. If we are not together, all the world cannot fill
the void.

You say that I have given an impulse to your life: that you read
more, study more, take a keener interest in everything. You could
not possibly have said a thing which could have given me more
pleasure than that. It is splendid! It justifies me in aspiring to
you. It satisfies my conscience over everything which I have done.
It must be right if that is the effect. I have felt so happy and
light-hearted ever since you said it. It is rather absurd to think
that _I_ should improve you, but if you in your sweet frankness say
that it is so, why, I can only marvel and rejoice.

But you must not study and work too hard. You say that you do it to
please me, but that would not please me. I'll tell you an anecdote
as a dreadful example. I had a friend who was a great lover of
Eastern literature, Sanskrit, and so on. He loved a lady. The lady
to please him worked hard at these subjects also. In a month she had
shattered her nervous system, and will perhaps never be the same
again. It was impossible. She was not meant for it, and yet she
made herself a martyr over it. I don't mean by this parable that it
will be a strain upon your intellect to keep up with mine. But I do
mean that a woman's mind is DIFFERENT from a man's. A dainty rapier
is a finer thing than a hatchet, but it is not adapted for cutting
down trees all the same.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15