He that will not when he may; vol. I

by Mrs. Oliphant

This statement was received by her companion with laughter, which disconcerted Alice. She drew herself up. She was not so polite as her mother.

“I don’t see what there is to laugh at,” she said. “Age does not go only by years—when you have a great deal to think of——”

“You darling!” cried Mrs. Lenny. “Did the old woman laugh? But I’d laugh just the same if your dear mamma herself was to talk of feeling old. There’s what I call a lovely woman! Lenny never told me half what a dear she was. Old! but don’t you gloom at me, my pretty pet; I was once seventeen myself, though you wouldn’t think it. The birds now on the trees, I daresay they feel old between one Valentine’s day and another. It is not years that does it, as you say. When we come to my time of life the days go on one after another as fast as they can pelt: they’re all flyin’, flyin’, like the echoes in the song. But at your age they’re longer—they pass more slow—and when there’s much to think about did you say? Ah, but that’s true! When I was your age I had a great deal to think about. We were a large family, six girls of us, and not a penny among the lot. We were just ruined with the emancipation in the West Indies, and all that our parents said to us was, ‘Get married! There’s the officers,’ they said, ‘a set of simpletons! What’s the good of them but to marry the poor girls that know how to play their cards.’ Ah! I thought when I was after Lenny that to be married meant to be well off, and have everything that heart could desire. And so we all thought. We weren’t bad girls, don’t you think it; but that was how were brought up. Get married! and you’ll be well off directly. You never had anything like that said to you to make you old with thinking—”

“Oh, no, no,” said Alice, horrified. She scarcely knew whether to be offended by the familiarity of the stranger or interested in her talk. It was an experience altogether different from anything Alice knew of life.

“No, I should think not,” said the lady of the pink bonnet, nodding that article vigorously. “Just figure to yourself, my dear, what you would feel if you had to leave this beautiful place, and live down in a house in the town, and have that said to you. You would be shocked, wouldn’t you? But it did not shock us. That was how we were brought up. We had to marry by hook or by crook; and we all did marry. Well, there’s Lenny, he has made me a very good husband; but marrying him wasn’t like coming into a fortune, was it now?—though we’ve always been the best of friends. It was lucky in one way that we never had any children; it left us free to look after ourselves. Nowadays we live a great deal among our friends. We don’t interfere with each other, but we’re always glad to come together again. When I’m comfortable anywhere I send him word, and when he’s comfortable he sends me word. You mustn’t think my coming means more than that, and you must tell your dear mamma so. We’ve not come to do her any harm or her pretty family. Your papa is startled to see us, but he won’t mind in the end. I daresay you have often heard him talk of Barbadoes and the Gavestons? We were six handsome girls, though I say it that shouldn’t. You must have heard of us by name.”

Alice, whom this speech had filled with wonder, shook her head. “I never heard the name in my life,” she said.

“Well, that is odd,” said Mrs. Lenny. “I couldn’t believe it even though Lenny said so. That’s thorough,” she added, with a little laugh. A flush came over her brown cheek. “Never mind, my dear, it is not your fault,” she said.

Alice was more and more mystified. She could not imagine what this strange woman could mean. If she had been at first disposed to resent her familiarity, that offence had altogether evaporated. Mrs. Lenny looked and spoke as if she had something to do with the family; her eyes and her tone were full of kindness even when she evidently resented the fact that Alice had never heard of her. She spoke of herself without any kind of effort, as if it were natural that the girl should be interested; and Alice could not but wish to hear more. It was like a new story, original and out of the common. The momentary pause that ensued alarmed her lest it should be coming to an end.

“Did you all marry officers?” she asked at last.

“Did we all marry officers? We did that, every one—except the one that one that married—— Ah! I mean Gussy, that was the youngest. She married—a civilian—and died, poor girl. The rest of us all took the shilling. Ah! some of the girls are dead, and the rest are scattered—one in Australia, two out in India, me, wandering about the world as you see me, Lenny and I; most likely I’ll never see one of them again. We had but one brother; all the little the family had, he got it. It was he that took Gussy’s boy—did I tell you she left a boy? Poor Gussy! she died at twenty. It is like as if she never had married or been more than a child. When I think of the past it’s always she that comes uppermost—the little one, you know, the pet—and she never lived to get parted from us like the rest.”