Johnny Ludlow, Second Series

by Mrs. Henry Wood

My best love to you and Elizabeth, dearest mother, in which Richard begs to join; and believe me, your affectionate daughter,

Susan Layne.

P.S.—I have never before written openly on these private matters: we have been content tacitly to ignore them to each other, but somehow my pen has run on incautiously. Please, therefore, to burn this letter when you and Elizabeth shall have read it.[1]

[From Miss Mary Layne’s Journal, about two years yet later.]

October 9th.—I quite tremble at the untoward turn things seem to be taking. To think that a noble gentleman should be casting his thoughts on me! And he is a gentleman, and a noble one also, in spite of that vain young adjutant, St. George’s, slighting remark when Mr. McAlpin came in last night—“Here’s that confounded old warehouseman!” It was well the major did not hear him. He has to take St. George to task on occasion, and he would have done it then with a will.

Andrew McAlpin is not an ordinary man. Head of a wealthy house, whose integrity has never been questioned; himself of unsullied honour, of handsome presence, of middle age, for surely, in his three-and-fortieth year, he may be called it—owner of all these solid advantages, he has actually turned his attentions upon me. Me! Oh, if he did but know!—if he could but see the humiliation it brings to this already too humiliated heart.

Has a glamour been cast over his sight—as they say in his own land? Can he not see how I shrink from people when they notice me by chance more than is usual? Does he not see how constantly I have tried to shrink from him? If I thought that this had been brought about by any want of precaution on my part, I should be doubly miserable. When I was assistant-teacher at school in England, the French governess, poor old Madame de Visme, confided to me something that she was in the habit of doing; it was nothing wrong in itself, but totally opposed to the arbitrary rules laid down, and, if discovered, might have caused her to be abruptly dismissed. “But suppose it were found out, madame?” I said. “Ah non, mon enfant,” she answered; “je prends mes précautions.” Since then I have often thought of the words: and I say to myself, now as I write, have I taken precautions—proper ones? I can hardly tell. For one thing, I was at first, and for some time, so totally unprepared; it would no more have entered my mind to suppose Mr. McAlpin would think of paying attention to me, than that the empty-headed Lieutenant St. George—who boasts that his family is better than anybody’s in India, and intends to wed accordingly if he weds at all—would pay it.

When it first began—and that is so long ago that I can scarcely remember, nearly a year, though—Mr. McAlpin would talk to me about the children. I felt proud to answer him, dear little things; and I knew he liked them, and Allan is his brother’s godchild, and Robert is Eleanor’s. I am afraid that is where I was wrong: when he came talking, evening after evening, I should have been on my guard, and begged Susan to excuse me from appearing as often as she would. The great evil lies in my having consented to appear at all in company. For two years after I came out—oh, more than that; it must have been nearly three—I resolutely refused to join them when they were not alone. It was Major Layne’s fault that the rule was broken through. One day, when invitations were out for an evening party, Susan came to me and said that the major particularly requested I would appear at it. “The fact is, Mary,” she whispered, “there has been some talk at the mess: you are very much admired—your face, I mean—and some of them began wondering whether there was any reason for your never appearing in society; and whether you could really be my sister. Richard was not present—that goes without saying—the colonel repeated it to him afterwards in a joking way. But what the major says is this, Mary—that he knows India and gossiping tongues better than you do, and he desires for all our sakes, for yours of course especially, that you will now and then show yourself with us. You are to begin next Tuesday evening. Richard begs you will. And I have been getting you a black net dress, with a little white lace for the body—you cannot say that’s too fine.” The words “for all our sakes” decided it; and I said I would certainly obey Major Layne. What else could I do?

That was the beginning of it. Though I go out scarcely ever with the major and Susan, declining invitations on the plea of my duties as governess, it has certainly grown into a habit with me to spend my evenings with them when they are at home.

But I never supposed anything like this would come of it. It has always seemed to me as if the world could see me a little as I see myself, and not think of me as one eligible to be chosen. As soon as I suspected that Mr. McAlpin came here for me, I strove to show him as plainly as I might that he was making a mistake. And now this proves, as it seems to me, how wrong it was not to tell my sad story to Eleanor, but to let her think of me as one still worthy. Susan knows how averse I was to its suppression; but she overruled me, and said Richard thought with her. Eleanor would have whispered it to her husband, and he might have whispered to his brother Andrew, and this new perplexity have been spared. It is not for my own sake I am so sorry, but for his: crosses and vexations are only my due, and I try to take them patiently; but I grow hot with shame every time I think how he is deceived. Oh, if he would only speak out, and end it! that I might thank him and tell him it is impossible: I should like to say unfit. Susan might give him a hint; but when I urge her to do so, she laughs at me and asks, How can she, until he has spoken?