“My darling little girl,—I shall have you in my arms within a few hours of your reading this, and I can think of nothing else. To have and to hold you fills my heart and mind. I can’t add much to that, can I? Indeed, it is difficult to realise that you are really mine, because there is something elusive about you—something, in spite of your fine physical health, which seems to me frail and easily bruised. It is my ardent wish to cherish and protect you——”
Cicely paused. The sincerity of the writer was extraordinarily impressive. That would be his unswerving purpose. He took care of all his possessions. Solicitude, henceforward, would be concentrated upon her.
Tiddy would say, shaking her curls, “Cotton-wool for you, Cis.”
She read on:
“I have been glancing at some houses and flats. I am inclined to the latter—at any rate, until this war is over and the servant question becomes less of a nuisance. My own rooms are not good enough. My poor father had a hideous house full of hideous things. After my mother’s death I sold it. I have the offer of a very fine apartment overlooking the Green Park, and have secured an option on it, pending your final decision. But you won’t be bothered with details, and we shall buy our furniture together—make a jolly lark of it. We may have to spend some time in London, if my Government work becomes, as is likely, more exacting. The apartment I speak of is charmingly furnished, and we could, if you preferred it, buy everything as it stands. That is for you to decide.”
The letter ended curtly: “Yours faithfully, A.”
The “faithfully” was exactly like him. And no word in the letter was written so firmly, with such uncompromising up-and-down strokes of a full pen. Obviously he had intended her to digest its significance.
The letter dropped into her lap; she stared through the reeds at the placid surface of the lake reflecting the cloudless blue and the trees upon the farther shore.
Could life be like that?
Would it be life?