IV.
The letter of Miss Polly Forsythe to Mrs. Arthur Selbourne, Innasittie, Col.
Pride’s Crossing, July 24, 1892.
My dearest Lucie:—I have the most delightful and most disgusting things to tell you. First to the first. Of course you know all about poor Nannie Simms’s trouble and about her husband’s death a month ago, at St. Luke’s Hospital. Perhaps you do not know, however, the only gleam of comfort in the whole sad affair—that she has a very comfortable fortune. Old Mr. Dupuy left her thirty thousand dollars, and when poor Jack died it was found that his life was insured for ten thousand dollars. It is so fortunate, for she is all alone in the world, and not a bit strong. Of course she’s perfectly heartbroken, but she’s just as brave and sweet as you might know she would be. She says she can never be sufficiently thankful for this year they’ve had together. You know at one time there was talk of postponing the marriage for a year, and when Jack was taken ill he reminded her of that. She sent for me immediately, and Carrie was quite well, so I came right on. I really think it’s better now that she and Billy and the babies should be by themselves. They have a very good servant, and a nice motherly woman for a nurse. But this is a digression. Jack’s family dote on Nannie, and they all want her to go and live with them, but she says she couldn’t bear it just yet, and so she has asked me to be her companion for a year, until she feels able to decide on her future.
Dr. Ellis, an awfully nice young surgeon, and a college classmate of Jack’s, has been just as kind as he could be to Nannie. He says she mustn’t stay North this winter, but we haven’t yet decided where we are going; perhaps to Florida, and perhaps abroad. We came down here a week ago, and it is perfectly enchanting, but we are going away to-morrow on account of the horridest thing that happened this afternoon. Now, Lucie, before you read another line you must promise not to breathe a word of this to Arthur. Well, this afternoon Nannie and I walked down to the West Manchester rocks. We sat with our backs against a nice ledge and looked off over the quiet sea and talked for hours. When we got up to go I had an experience before which Robinson Crusoe’s footprint on the sand sinks into nothingness. Right on the other side of the ledge against which we had been leaning I saw, not a footprint, but a foot. Two feet, in fact, and attached to them two legs. All, evidently, the property of a man. I felt as if every drop of blood in my body flew into my face, but I never said a word to Nannie until we got back to the road. Then she looked around, very carefully, of course, and there was that disgusting creature looking over the ledge at us. Did you ever know anything so horrid? If I’d only his legs to judge by—that was all of him I saw, because the rest of him was hidden by a rock—I should have thought him a gentleman, for he wore fine russet shoes and blue trousers. I never want to see that combination again as long as I live. But no gentleman could have done so rude a thing as to listen to a long conversation like ours. I dare say you will think this is funny, but I’m sure you won’t laugh when you hear the rest of the story.
What made it so perfectly dreadful was that Lennox has proposed to me again—for the sixth time, my dear,—and I was telling Nannie all about it. Of course, Lennox Vandewater’s name is as well known here as Jay Gould’s or George Washington’s, and you know how perfectly horrid men are, and how they always think girls boast of their offers. And you know, too, Lucie, that you and Nannie are the only living souls that know about that affair, and that Lennox told Nannie himself. And you, dear thing, never would have known it at all if you hadn’t overheard his first proposal, and that ridiculous declaration that he was going to repeat it annually until I accepted him or married some one else. Dear me! I never imagined then he’d keep his word. I do really think the constancy of man is awful.
Of course, now you’ll want to hear how it happened, and I suppose you might as well know. Lennox had something to do with the company in which Jack’s life was insured, and he came to see Nannie several times on business. Of course he saw me, but somehow his manner was different, and I really thought he meant to be just nice and friendly. Once or twice I saw him alone, but he never even looked at me in a way to make me suspicious, and always before that when we’ve been alone together—well it has been
“The embrace of pining eyes,”
all the time. The last afternoon he called—with some papers and things for Nannie—she was in bed with a headache. He explained the business matters to me, and then we actually talked politics—not a word of anything else, I assure you—for half an hour. Then he told me he was going to Boston that night by the Fall River Line, and bade me good-by. But just as he reached the door he turned around as if he’d forgotten something, shut the door, put his back against it, and said, “Polly, will you be my wife?”
I was utterly taken aback. “Lennox,” I said, “how long do you mean to keep up this absurd performance?”
“It isn’t a complimentary way of alluding to my offers of marriage,” he replied calmly, “but I intend to repeat them until you are engaged.”
“Then,” I said desperately, “I will be engaged to the very next man that offers himself to me.”
“How good of you,” said he, “to afford me such unexpected encouragement. I will be that happy man, Polly.” And with that he dropped on his knees and said, “Polly, will you be my wife?”
Now, Lucie, of course, this was perfectly ridiculous, and who could imagine Lennox Vandewater behaving so? I don’t know what made me do what I did, except that I had been under a severe strain with Nannie, and was rather unstrung, but instead of laughing I burst into a fit of hysterical crying. Lennox came to his senses—and his feet—immediately. When I got myself pulled together again I thought we might as well “have it out” then and there, and I prayed that I might say the right thing. I told him how much I admired him, and valued his friendship, and that I had really, honestly tried to love him, but I couldn’t—in that way. I told him about the imaginary scenes I had gone through with him, in which he announced his proposed departure to South Africa as a missionary (only I really think Lennox isn’t an ideal missionary), and that I had always gone through the parting without a pang. I told him I longed to hear of his marriage; and I was going on to use further arguments to convince him that I didn’t love him, but at this point he said, “Well, I guess you needn’t rub it in any more, Polly,” and I looked up and saw that his face was quite white. I can’t tell you the rest, but—I don’t think Lennox will propose to me again, though we—well, we “parted friends.”
Now, my dear Lucie, THAT was the tale I told to those russet shoes.... Was ever anything so—oh, words fail!
And Nannie, you know, has always believed I some day would marry Lennox, so it was about as hard to convince her that I couldn’t love him as it had been to convince him. Luckily, it didn’t take six years in her case; though, if it had, those russet shoes would have starved to death instead of living to tell the tale. That would have been some comfort. After all this conversation Nannie was so “low in her mind” about my affairs that I put forth my best efforts at entertaining her, and actually made her laugh telling her about Billy’s and my experiences on the ranch. And then the whole day was spoiled by this awful discovery. I’m sure I know now exactly how a woman feels when she finds the long-looked-for man under the bed. This, my dear, is the end of the tale of woe. And quite time, too. It will make a hole in my salary to pay the postage.
I’ll send you a postal when we are settled in some secluded spot where shoes and trousers are unknown—and the wearers of those articles.
Meantime, I am thinking more about myself than ever before in my life. Every morning when I unfold the paper I expect to see in enormous headlines:
Discovery of L—n—x V—d—r’s
Best Girl,
or
Did P—y F—s—e
Refuse Him Six Times or Seven?
Good-by, you dear, sweet, patient, long-suffering woman. Arthur little imagines how much I’ve contributed towards making you a model wife.
Your dejected
Polly.