[Manchester—Wednesday, 15 August 1866]
Wednesday. A day of rain—walked over the pebbly shore at low water far away towards the point; the clouds were not yet ready to drop upon us but a low soft odor of sea-things filled the air and the still warmth of mid-summer.
After my walk I sat and talked with Lillian the rest of the morning. She has had a strange experience! Thrown into society without much which could be called either education or culture and possessed of beauty and loveliness enough to carry all before it she was early beset by lovers, fortunately however one pure and excellent man who really cared for her was content to let her try the world a little and wait until she should become a woman that she might love him alone. Years passed and she became twenty. She treated this gentleman like a true friend as he was and confided to him everything that occurred. At length however he became excited to jealousy because of the attentions of a General Blair and seeing this jealousy, she like a naughty tricksy child, did all she could to aggravate him until at length he really left her in the belief that her affections were otherwise engaged and that she was concealing something from him. She could not but regret his absence. He had been unselfish and devoted but she did not exactly love him she rather missed his presence. Not long after his departure she heard of his engagement to another lady which gave her a secret pain which did not last long however for in a few months she allowed herself to become engaged to Mr Aldrich telling him however that she believed she still loved Mr Bright. Mr A. was very persistent so she yielded and affairs went on for nearly three months. In the meantime she heard Mr B.’s engagement was broken and he had gone to the war. One spring day when there was to be a political meeting in the park she had gone down to the door of the hotel where she lived to give a message to her seamstress and as she placed her hand upon the door handle Mr Bright turned it from the other side and in a moment stood before her. He followed her up to her room and left her; he saw her the next day, merely spoke and left again but the 3d day he came to her room and asked for a private interview, explanations followed and as it were in a moment she found herself in his arms totally forgetful of other obligations and mindful only of him. “The thought of Mr Aldrich did not cross my mind for two hours” she said, but when it came, alas! Indeed my father and mother brought him first to my mind for I was obliged to tell them of my engagement to Mr Bright.
But now comes the most important part of this somewhat romantic narrative, to me, and the one to which I fear I can by no means do justice in this sketch, not even justice enough to recall the true picture as she painted it for me. However I will set down the facts and try to recall her in my thoughts as she sat pale and like a woman at the confessional while she rehearsed the troublous story.
It seems she became suddenly engaged in this manner to Mr Bright flinging herself towards him with the intense joy in her recovered friend and mistaking that feeling for love. But it was the nearest to love she had ever yet experienced for her time had not yet come. Mr Bright left her at 12 o’clock that night perfectly happy,—in those days Mr Aldrich only came every other night and the next day was fast-day. Before he left, Mr Bright told her that he must return to his family on the river the next day but he could not go without a moving interview and would she see him at ten o’clock in the morning? To this she assented and he took his departure leaving her to disturbed thoughts indeed when she remembered that she was now, though it were only for one night betrothed to two men. The next day at ten she received Mr Bright after a sleepless night but her thoughts were continually occupied with the memory of Mr Aldrich. That night he would come and she must tell him all,—while she stood discoursing with one lover, the accepted one, yet thinking of another, a note came from Mr Aldrich saying “today is a holiday I will be with you at eleven.”
She looked at her watch; it was within a few moments of that time. “You must go,” she said to Mr Bright, “at once.” “No,” he replied “do not send me away, let me sit in the adjoining room till you have told him.” She assented to this for a moment and he left her to sit with her mother but in a moment she followed him and told him he had better not wait. She preferred to have him leave. He arose therefore and went but the door of the music room had scarcely closed upon him before the drawing-room door opened and Mr Aldrich stood before her. He advanced young and happy to kiss her but she drew back—then he observed how pale she was. What is it he asked, there was no reply. Then at once he remembered having met Mr Bright. “I see it all, he said, you need tell me nothing—it is Mr Bright.” She bowed assent. Then he began to unfold to her the depth of his passion and his sincerity. “He did not leave me until 12 o’clock that night, and then for the first time I felt I could love Mr Aldrich.”
For many months the engagement with Mr Bright went on and she never saw Mr A. or heard from him, once she asked him by note if he were well having no clue. When the autumn came she found she did not love Mr Bright and broke the engagement. Very soon after she met Mr A. one night in company and shortly after that they were united for ever.
It is a sad story that a young girl should be so placed and it half leads one to believe in the old idea of the parents coming to the rescue—only in this case the present marriage is a true one. I have seen few people better mated.
I called her Sche[he]razade because of the long tale and threatened to cut off her head like the sultan of old if she did not continue after dinner—then we read Browning after that and felt like the young women in Dis Aliter Visum, who read verses and “thought she understood them”—as Browning somewhat disdainfully says. I deeply enjoyed our reading. At last through this child whom I was too ready to fancy could not tell me what was in books I have learned the true poetic rendering of “Gold Hair” that vanity was the sin and the legend was of transmuted hair, not of buried gold.
Rain rain rain, we sat inside all the afternoon.
