Atlas Nightshade

Day 12

"My dearest Lucy,--

"Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed

with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying.

I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together

freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard

lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have

been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall

be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I

can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for

him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He

and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a

stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I

shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those

two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a

sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not

suppose there will be much of interest to other people; but it is not

intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it

anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try

to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing

descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with

a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears

said during a day. However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little

plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan

from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I

am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice to see strange

countries. I wonder if we--I mean Jonathan and I--shall ever see them

together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Good-bye.

"Your loving

"MINA.

"Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for

a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome,

curly-haired man???"

_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray_.

"_17, Chatham Street_,

"_Wednesday_.

"My dearest Mina,--

"I must say you tax me _very_ unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I

wrote to you _twice_ since we parted, and your last letter was only your

_second_. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing

to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a good deal

to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the

tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the

last Pop. Some one has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr.

Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mamma get on very well

together; they have so many things to talk about in common. We met some

time ago a man that would just _do for you_, if you were not already

engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent _parti_, being handsome, well

off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He

is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under

his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to

see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men

I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I

can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has

a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to

read one's thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter

myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do

you ever try to read your own face? _I do_, and I can tell you it is not

a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you

have never tried it. He says that I afford him a curious psychological

study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient

interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a

bore. That is slang again, but never mind; Arthur says that every day.

There, it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other

since we were _children_; we have slept together and eaten together, and

laughed and cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I would like

to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess? I love him. I am blushing

as I write, for although I _think_ he loves me, he has not told me so in

words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There, that

does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire

undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel.

I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop,

or I should tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I _do_ so

want to tell you all. Let me hear from you _at once_, and tell me all

that you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your

prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness.

"LUCY.

"P.S.--I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again.

"L."

_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray_.

"_24 May_.

"My dearest Mina,--

"Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so

nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.

"My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are.

Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a

proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three.

Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day! Isn't it awful! I feel sorry,

really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so

happy that I don't know what to do with myself. And three proposals!

But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would be

getting all sorts of extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injured

and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at

least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and

are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can

despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep

it a secret, dear, from _every one_, except, of course, Jonathan. You

will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell

Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything--don't you think

so, dear?--and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to

be quite as fair as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always

quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just

before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum

man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool

outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling

himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he

almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do

when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept

playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to

me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him,

though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to

help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I

did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a brute

and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if

I could love him in time; and when I shook my head his hands trembled,

and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one

else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my

confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman's heart was

free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to

tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he

stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my

hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever

wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can't

help crying: and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being

proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at

all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know

loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken-hearted, and to

know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing

quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so

miserable, though I am so happy.

"_Evening._

"Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left

off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number Two

came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and

he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he

has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise

with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her

ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that

we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now

what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I

don't, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never

told any, and yet---- My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P.

Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl

alone. No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to _make_ a chance, and I

helping him all I could; I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you

beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speak slang--that is to say,

he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well

educated and has exquisite manners--but he found out that it amused me

to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there

was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my

dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he

has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall

ever speak slang; I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never

heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked

as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was

very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly:--

"'Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your

little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you

will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't

you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road

together, driving in double harness?'

"Well, he did look so good-humoured and so jolly that it didn't seem

half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward; so I said, as

lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I

wasn't broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in

a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so

on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He

really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn't help

feeling a bit serious too--I know, Mina, you will think me a horrid

flirt--though I couldn't help feeling a sort of exultation that he was

number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he

began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very

heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall

never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest,

because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face

which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of

manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free:--