“Dear Nora—I wonder why I write you all these silly things when there is so much else to say—and I know you want to hear it. But it’s horribly difficult to begin.—Well, first of all, Mr. Sorell and Otto Radowitz are about three miles from here, in a little vicarage that has a wide lookout upon the moors and a heavenly air. The aunts have found me a horse, and I go there often. Otto is in some ways very much better. He lives an ordinary life, walks a fair amount, and is reading some classics and history with Mr. Sorell, besides endless books of musical theory and biography. You know he passed his first musical exam last May. For the second, which will come off next year, he has to write a composition in five-part harmony for at least five stringed instruments, and he is beginning work for it now. He writes and writes, and his little study at the vicarage is strewn deep in scribbled music-paper. With his left hand and his piano he does wonders, but the poor right hand is in a sling and quite useless, up to now. He reads scores endlessly, and he said to me yesterday that he thought his intellectual understanding of music—his power of grasping it through the eye—of hearing it with the mind—‘ditties of no tone!’—had grown since his hand was injured. But the pathetic thing is that the sheer pleasure—the joy and excitement—of his life is gone; those long hours of dreaming and composing with the piano, when he could not only make himself blissfully happy, but give such exquisite pleasure to others.
“He is very quiet and patient now—generally—and quite determined to make a name for himself as a composer. But he seems to me extraordinarily frail. Do you remember that lovely French poem of Sully Prudhomme’s I read you one night—‘Le Vase Brisé’? The vase has had a blow. No one knew of it. But the little crack widens and grows. The water ebbs away—the flowers die. ‘Il est brisé—n’y touchez pas!’ I can see it is just that Mr. Sorell feels about Otto.
“What makes one anxious sometimes, is that he has hours of a kind of fierce absent-mindedness, when his real self seems to be far away—as though in some feverish or ugly dream. He goes away and wanders about by himself. Mr. Sorell does not attempt to follow him, though he is always horribly anxious. And after some hours he comes back, limp and worn out, but quite himself again—as though he had gone through some terrible wrestle and escaped.
“Mr. Sorell gave him, a little while ago, a wonderful new automatic thing—a piano-player, I think they call it. It works with a roll like a musical box and has pedals. But Otto can’t do much with it. To get any expression out of it you must use your hands—both hands; and I am afraid it has been more disappointment than joy. But there are rumours of some development—something electric—that plays itself. They say there is an inventor at work in Paris, who is doing something wonderful. I have written to a girl I know at the Embassy to ask her to find out. It might just help him through some weary hours—that’s all one can say.
“The relation between him and Mr. Sorell is wonderful. Oh, what an angel Mr. Sorell is! How can any human being, and with no trouble at all apparently, be so unselfish, so self-controlled? What will any woman do who falls in love with him? It won’t make any difference that he’ll think her so much better than himself—because she’ll know the truth. I see no chance for her. My dear Nora, the best men are better than the best women—there! But—take note!—I am not in love with him, though I adore him, and when he disapproves of me, I feel a worm.
“I hear a good deal of the Fallodens, but nobody sees them. Every one shrinks from pestering them with society—not from any bad feeling—but because every one knows by now that they are in hideous difficulties, and doesn’t want to intrude. Lady Laura, they say, is very much changed, and Sir Arthur looks terribly ill and broken. Aunt Marcia hears that Douglas Falloden is doing all the business, and impressing the lawyers very much. Oh, I do hope he is helping his father!
“I can’t write about him, Nora darling. You would wonder how I can feel the interest in him I do. I know that. But I can’t believe, as Otto does, that he is deliberately cruel—a selfish, hard-hearted monster. He has been a spoilt child all his life. But if some great call were made upon him, mightn’t it stir up something splendid in him, finer things than those are capable of ‘who need no repentance’?
“There—something has splashed on my paper. I have written enough. Now you must tell me of yourselves. How is your father? Does Aunt Ellen like Ryde? I am so delighted to hear that Mr. Pryce is actually coming. Tell him that, of course, I will write to Uncle Langmoor, and Lord Glaramara, whenever he wishes, about that appointment. I am sure something can be done. Give Alice my love. I thought her new photographs charming. And you, darling, are you looking after everybody as usual? I wish I could give you a good hug. Good-bye.”
To which Nora replied, a couple of days later—