The Yellow Book Volume I Part 15

_Harold._ Has Mrs. Duncan got another governess!

_Lucy._ No, but----

_Harold._ Then you can stop on, can't you! They will surely be only too delighted to keep you.

_Lucy._ Yes--I can stop on. [_He tries to kiss her._] No, don't; not now.

_Harold._ And you don't really mind the postponement very much, do you?

_Lucy._ Not if it will a.s.sist you.

_Harold._ I thought you would say that, I knew you would. It will a.s.sist me very much. I shouldn't otherwise suggest it. It does seem too bad though, doesn't it? To have to postpone it after waiting all these years, and just as it was so near, too. I have a good mind not to go, after all--only, if I let this chance slip, I may never have another.

Besides, six months is not so very long, is it? And when they are over, then we won't wait any longer. You will come and see me off, won't you?

It would never do for an engaged man to go away for even six months, without his lady love coming to see him start.

_Lucy._ Yes, I will come. When do you go?

_Harold._ The end of next week, I expect; perhaps earlier if I can manage it. But I shall see you before then. We'll go and have dinner together at our favourite little restaurant. When shall it be! Let me see, I am engaged on--I can't quite remember what my engagements are.

_Lucy._ I have none.

_Harold._ Then that's settled. Good-bye, Luce; you don't mind very much, do you? The time will soon pa.s.s. You are a little brick to behave as you have done. [_Going._] It will be Monday or Tuesday next for our dinner, but I will let you know. Good-bye.

_Lucy._ Good-bye.

Thirty Years elapse between Scene II. and Scene III.

Scene III--Lucy Rimmerton, Agnes Rimmerton (her niece)

_A well-furnished comfortable room in_ Lucy Rimmerton's _house. She is seated in front of the fire, in an easy-chair, reading. The door opens, without her noticing it, and_ Agnes _comes in, closes the door gently, crosses the room, and bends over her_.

_Agnes._ A happy New Year to you, Aunt Luce.

_Lucy._ What! Agnes, is that you? I never heard you come in. I really think I must be getting deaf.

_Agnes._ What nonsense! I didn't intend you should hear me. I wanted to wish you a happy New Year first.

_Lucy._ So as to make your Aunt play second fiddle. The same to you, dear.

_Agnes._ Thank you. [_Warms her hands at the fire._] Oh, it _is_ cold; not here I mean, but out of doors; the thermometer is down I don't know how many degrees below freezing.

_Lucy._ It seems to agree with you, at all events. You look as bright and rosy as though you were the New Year itself come to visit me.

_Agnes._ [_Laughs merrily._] So I ought to. I ran nearly all the way, except when I slid, to the great horror of an old gentleman who was busily engaged lecturing some little boys on the enormity of their sins in making a beautifully long slide in the middle of the pavement.

_Lucy._ And what brought you out so early?

_Agnes._ To see you, of course. Besides, the morning is so lovely it seemed a sin to remain indoors. I do hope the frost continues all the holidays.

_Lucy._ It is all very well for you, but it must be terribly trying for many people--the poor, for instance.

_Agnes._ Yes. [_A pause._] Auntie, you don't know anything, do you, about how--how poor people live?

_Lucy._ Not so much as I ought to.

_Agnes._ I didn't mean _very_ poor people, not working people. I meant a person poor like--like I am poor.

_Lucy._ [_Smiling._] Don't you know how you live yourself?

_Agnes._ Of course I do, but--I was thinking of--of a friend of mine, a governess like myself, who has just got engaged; and I--I was wondering on how much, or, rather, how little, they could live. But you don't know of course. You are rich, and----

_Lucy._ But I wasn't always rich. Thirty years ago when I was your age----

_Agnes._ When you were my age! I like that! why you are not fifty.

_Lucy._ Little flatterer. Fifty-two last birthday.

_Agnes._ Fifty-two! Well, you don't look it, at all events.

_Lucy._ Gross flatterer. When I was your age I was poor and a governess as you are.

_Agnes._ But I thought that your Aunt Emily left you all her money.

_Lucy._ So she did, or nearly all; but that was afterwards. It isn't quite thirty years yet since she came back from India, a widow, just after she had lost her husband and only child. I was very ill at the time--I almost died; and she, good woman as she was, came and nursed me.

_Agnes._ Of course, I know. I have heard father talk about it. And then she was taken ill, wasn't she?

_Lucy._ Yes, almost before I was well. It was very unfair that she should leave everything to me; your father was her nephew, just as I was her niece, but he wouldn't hear of my sharing it with----

_Agnes._ I should think not indeed! I should be very sorry to think that my father would ever allow such a thing. Although, at the same time, it is all very well for you to imagine that you don't share it, but you _do_. Who pays for Lillie's and May's and George's schooling? Who sent Alfred to Cambridge, and Frank to----

_Lucy._ Don't, please. What a huge family you are, to be sure.

_Agnes._ And last, but not least, who gave me a chance of going to Girton? Oh, we are not supposed to know anything about it, I know, but you see we do. You thought you had arranged it all so beautifully, and kept everyone of us entirely in the dark, but you haven't one little bit.

_Lucy._ Nonsense, Agnes, you----

_Agnes._ Oh, you are a huge big fraud, you know you are; I am quite ashamed of you. [Lucy _is going to speak_.] You are not to be thanked, I know; and you needn't be afraid, I am not going to do so; but if you could only hear us when we are talking quietly together, you would find that a certain person, who shall be nameless, is simply wors.h.i.+p----

_Lucy._ Hus.h.!.+ you silly little girl. You don't know what you are saying.

You have nothing to thank me for whatsoever.

_Agnes._ Haven't we just? I know better.

_Lucy._ Young people always do. So you see I do know something of how "the poor" live.