Friends I Have Made

Only a month! only a month! my pulses seemed to beat; and as it happened we were all busy upon a large wedding order, and I was stitching away at the white satin skirt intended for the bride.

I tried so hard to bear it, but I could not, the rush of feelings was too great. Another month, and he was to have fetched me to be his wife, and I had not had an answer to my last fond and loving letters.

As I said, I tried so hard to bear it, but I could not, and stifling a sob, I hurried out of the work-room to reach my attic, threw myself upon my knees by the bed, and burying my face in my hands, I sobbed as if my heart would break.

For the terrible thought would come now, fight against it as I would – “Jack has grown tired of waiting, and has married another.”

I fought so hard with the disloyal thought, but it would come, and I was sobbing passionately, when I felt a soft arm steal round my neck, a tender cheek laid to mine, and I found my poor tear-dewed face drawn down upon the bosom of Mary Sanders, who had stolen out of the work-room, and come up to try and comfort me.

“Pray, pray, don’t fret, my darling,” she whispered. “Madame will be so cross. Those wedding things must be in by to-night, and they want you to help try them on.”

I don’t know how I got through that day and night, but I believe I did such duties as were expected from me mechanically, or as if I had been in a dream, and at night I lay wakeful and weary, with aching eyes and heart, thinking of that dreadful idea that was trying to force itself upon me.

I waited till the three years had expired, and then, with what anguish of heart no words could tell, I wrote to Jack again – my fourth letter – begging him, imploring him to answer me, if but to tell me he was weary of his promise, and wished to be set free; and then, making a superhuman effort over myself, I waited, waited, month by month, for an answer, though I knew that it must be at least six months before one could come.

I had given up expecting one in the interim, and I was too proud to send to his relatives – distant ones, whom I had never seen, and who had probably never heard of me. The thought had taken root now, and grown to a feeling of certainty: but I waited for my answer.

Three months – six months – nine months passed away, and hope was dead within my heart. They said I had grown much older and more careworn. Madame said I worked too hard, and the sharp business woman became quite motherly in her attentions to me. It was then I learned for the first time how good and true a woman was she whom I served. Her battle with the world had made her keen and firm in her dealings with her work-girls, for hers was no life of ease. The ladies she had to toil for were exacting and thoughtless to a degree, and constant business worries had made her at times most cold and strict, but she was always a lady, and more than once I felt that she must have moved in a sphere superior to my own. She had of late become most kind to me and pressed me to have a holiday. But I would not take any change, for work was like balm, it blunted my thoughts; and knowing that I was daily growing pale and thin, I still waited.

I knew the girls used to whisper together about me, and think me strange, but no one knew my secret – not even Madame, who had more than once sought my confidence; and so twelve months passed away – four years since Jack had left me.

It was not to a day, but very nearly to the time when he had parted from me, and it was almost two years since I had heard from him. I was trying hard to grow patient and contented with my lot, for Madame Grainger had gradually taken to me, and trusted me, making me more and more her companion, when one glorious spring morning, as I was coming out of the breakfast-room to go upstairs to work, she called me into her little room, where she sat as a rule and attended to her customers’ letters, for she had an extensive clientèle, and carried on business in a large private mansion in Welbeck Street.

“Grace, my dear,” she said, taking me in her arms, and kissing me, “it worries me to see you look so ill. Now, what do you say to a fortnight in the country?”

A fortnight in the country! and at her busiest time, with the London season coming on.

I thought of that, and then, as I glanced round at the flowers and inhaled their scents, the bright fields near Templemore Grange floated before my dimming eyes, a feeling of suffocation came upon me, and the room seemed to swing round. I believe that for the first time in my life I should have fainted, so painful were the memories evoked by her words, when a sharp knock and ring at the door echoed through the house, following instantly upon the dull fall of a letter, and the sharp click of the letter-box.

It was like an electric shock to me, and without a word I darted into the hall, panting with excitement, and my hand at my throat to tear away the stifling sensation.

But it was a letter. I could see it through the glass in the letter-box, and I seized it with trembling hands, inspired as it were by some strange power.

“Jack! dear Jack at last!” I gasped as I turned it over, and saw it was a strange, blue, official-looking letter, formally directed to me.

Even that did not surprise me. It was from Jack, I knew, and I tore open the blue envelope.

Yes, I knew it! The inner envelope was covered with Australian post-marks, and, ignorant as I might be of its contents, I was raising it to my lips to cover it with passionate kisses, when I saw it was open.

Then a mist came over my mental vision for a time, but only to clear away as, half stupefied, I turned the missive over and over, held it straight for a moment; and then, with a sigh of misery and despair, I stood mute, and as if turned to stone.

“Grace, my child! In mercy’s name tell me – ”

It was Madame, who passed her arm round me, and looked horror-stricken at my white face and lips. The next moment I dimly remember she had caught the letter – his letter – my letter – from my hand, and read it aloud: “Mr John Braywood, Markboro, R. County Melbourne,” and then, in her excitement, the great official sentence-like brand upon it – “Dead!”

Chapter Two.

The Sorrows of Madame Grainger

I tried so hard to bear up, to keep secret my loss, but it was all in vain. My long days of waiting for that answer had weakened and undermined my constitution, so that I had not strength to bear up against the shock, and the result was a very serious illness during which I was given over by the doctors, but somehow they were wrong. The change was long in coming, but it came, and by degrees I was convalescent, but only the shadow of my former self.

Poor Madame, as we always called her, the French title as she laughingly used to tell me, bringing her ten times as many customers as would have fallen to her lot had she called herself Mrs Grainger, she tended me through my long illness as if she had been my mother, and I believe she loved me dearly. At times I had hinted at being sent away; at the expense and trouble I must be, but she used to lay her hand upon my lips and kiss my forehead.

“Don’t be silly, my child,” she said. “You know I make money fast, and how could I spend what little you cost better than in taking care of you.

“Grace, my child,” she said one night, after a feeble protest on my part, “sorrow brings people closer together. You are a widow now like I am, although you never were a wife. We two, my dear, must never part.”

I could only kiss her hand and cry silently, as I lay back in my easy chair, thankful that if I could live my lot would be made less hard to bear. For all through my weak and weary illness, when I was not thinking of dear Jack, the thought that I must be up and doing was for ever intruding itself, and that thought of going out to battle with the world once more seemed to keep me back.

I need not have troubled about my future, for that was to be my home. With returning health came greater intimacy, and by degrees I learned that Madame Grainger’s troubles had been greater, perhaps, than mine, for after a brief spell of married happiness her husband, a clergyman, had succumbed to poverty and overwork, leaving her almost penniless, to drift at last into the life she had led and become a busy thriving woman.

“Yes,” she said to me more than once, “I have often regretted the society in which I used to move, but it is better to depend upon oneself, Grace, than to be a burden upon one’s friends. I offended many by taking to this life, but I should have ceased to respect myself had I remained a poverty-stricken widow existing on the charity of those who blame me the most for my course.”

“You must have had a hard fight,” I said.

“I did, my child,” she replied, “a very hard fight, and it was at a time when I used to think that it would have been better to have lain down and died, as just one year before, my poor husband had closed his eyes.”

“How well lean recall it all,” she said dreamily, “long as it is ago. You told me your little life Grace, let me tell you mine. Did I ever say to you that Mr Grainger was a clergyman?”

“Yes,” I said, watching her intently, “you told me so.”

“Poor fellow!” she said with a sigh, “he asked me quite suddenly one day to be his wife.

“I was astounded, and yet pleased, and in a moment I had said quietly that it was impossible.

“Mr Grainger rose from his seat, looking inexpressibly pained, and walked slowly up and down the room, while I sat back in my chair by the window, with my heart beating violently, and a sense of suffocation upon me that was absolutely painful. But I was pained, too, for him: grieved that he should ever have asked me – more than grieved to have caused him sorrow. For in his suffering he looked so calm and gentle – he, the tall, stalwart man, with his fast-greying hair, and countenance marked with the lines printed by maturing age and thought. He had been so kind and friendly, too, ever since he had been at the parsonage, and in our daily work we had been drawn so imperceptibly together, that I had hoped ours was to be a firm and lasting friendship; and now this meeting seemed to have brought it to an abrupt conclusion. Suddenly he stopped before me again, and stood looking down, while I crouched there almost fascinated by his gaze.

“‘Miss Denison – Laura,’ he said, in a low soft voice, ‘you must forgive me, and if you cannot accede to my proposal, let us be as we have been during the past happy year.’

“I tried to speak, but he held up his hand.

“‘Hear me out, dear friend,’ he said, ‘and let me speak again, for I still hope that I may have taken you by surprise. I have known you now for a year.’

“I tried to speak once more – to beg of him that he would let me leave the room – that he would bring our interview to an end; but my heart went on still with its heavy beat, and the suffocating sensation was still at my throat, so that I half lay there with my eyes closed, listening to his words, every one of which seemed to wake an echo, and increase the heavy throbbing of my heart.

“‘I had a love-dream once,’ he said; and his voice became very rich and soft. ‘I was tutor in a noble house. There was a daughter there whom I could have loved, had I but dared. Honour, position, all forbade it. She was heiress to thirty thousand pounds, and I was the young tutor to whose care the education of her brother had been trusted. She never knew my fancy, and I saw her married to a nobleman – happily, I hoped – while I – I returned to my books.’

“He paused again, and I sat up watching his half-averted face, as in those few words – so few but so pregnant of meaning – he laid bare to me his heart; and as he sighed, the heavy throbbing in my breast began to subside, and a strange feeling of pity for him to grow.

“‘I thought it but fair to tell you this,’ he said sadly, ‘to show you that I have no youthful first love to lay before you; but I felt that here, in this village, if your lot were joined to mine, the down-hill of life would be made happy for me, as God knows I would try to make it ever green and pleasant for you, while those around us should be taught to bless us for the help we gave. It is no romantic offer,’ he said, more cheerfully. ‘It is very matter-of-fact, I know, but it was upon these grounds, dear friend, that I asked you to be my wife.’

“He looked down at me once again, and as our eyes met, something within me seemed to say, ‘Withdraw your refusal, and lay those trembling hands in his, for he is a man that you could love.’ But I only shook my head sadly, as I murmured —

“‘No, it could never be!’

“‘You are agitated,’ he said tenderly, as he took my hand and reverently kissed it. ‘I will leave you now. Mine is too solemn a proposal for us both to be replied to without consideration. Let all be as it was for a month, and then I will renew my suit. If, after this lapse of time, you shall think as you do now, believe me, I will never pain the woman whom I hope to retain as my best and dearest friend, by the faintest allusion to that which we will agree to bury in the past.’

“‘No,’ I said, with a firmness which surprised myself. ‘Stay Mr Grainger. Let me speak.’