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Authors: Francis King
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their light. If you knew how lonely I feel! If you would answer this—tenderly, gently! If I knew that you accepted my sacrifice! That would be sufficient.
You must forgive the reproaches in this letter. They are unworthy of you. I must learn the complete resignation—to resign everything, even my grief—to make it all yours. I am not afraid of doing that. I put my soul into your hand. Do what you will with it, my dearest, for I am yours, yours only. Yours always. Even this intolerable anguish is yours, these tears.
I shall put out the light now. I shall try to sleep.
SHIRLEY.
PHANTOMS
WHEN Hugh Weigh first met Lucy Korrance at a dance at the Collector’s bungalow (he ripped the train of her evening-dress and she was angry with him) it was said that she was ‘wild’. For one thing, Mrs. Meakins, her aunt, had a story of how on their last visit to England she had spent a night on the river at Oxford with an undergraduate—and without a chaperone (Mrs. Meakins being the chaperone provided); and for another she had an irrepressible sense of humour. On one occasion at a dinner party, she offered a raw young subaltern a concoction of vinegar and epsom salts with the words: "Do try this liqueur. It’s supposed to be terribly, terribly old." "Hm, excellent," he murmured to the giggled derision of Lucy and her friends. But the more stuffy of her mother’s guests thought that she might be going too far...
Such were her idiosyncracies: and it was these, rather than certain more formidable traits—a tendency to lose her temper, be self-willed, strike the native servants—that really worried Mumsie. (Lady Korrance was always Mumsie to her girl: to her husband she was Memsie.) But everyone knew that she was young; she would learn; she would grow up.
Lucy had one other characteristic—one more endearing, conventional; she was a snob. There was the occasion when her father had just been promoted and a dinner was given in his honour. After the ladies had gone into the drawing-room, Mrs. Meakins, who was pleased with her sister and wished to show it, said: "Tell me, dear. I suppose a knighthood goes with this new job?” and the then Mrs. Korrance, being habitually untruthful, replied: "Well, really, Beatrice, I haven’t thought about it." Then her voice tinkled upwards in nervous laughter and she added: "In any case I don’t care a ha’penny whether I’m Lady Korrance or not."
It was at this point that Lucy intervened. "I do," she said staunchly. "I shall be proud to be the daughter of Sir Basil Korrance." And she blushed in anticipation.
People agreed that this was the right spirit.
Not unnaturally, therefore, she decided to marry Hugh Weigh. He was, Mrs. Meakins had told her, heir to a baronetcy; and when this advantage was coupled with good looks and the ability to ride, Lucy thought it sufficient. She had always wanted to be one of the aristocracy; and, regardless of the fact that old Sir Humbert Weigh had been given his title by Queen Victoria and spoke with a Lancashire accent, this wish seemed at last attainable.
Mumsie repeatedly asked the young subaltern to bridge, tennis, and dinner; Papa, when he carved, gave him the breast and wing; and Mrs. Meakins contrived to ‘leave the young people alone’—as far as propriety permitted.
It was in the garden that the first step was taken. "I just exist for my garden," Mumsie was in the habit of saying to enthusiastic visitors, as though she identified herself with the half-dozen coolies whose lives were devoted to its irrigation. It was certainly beautiful, flowering at the centre of parched roads, maidans , compounds. "It’s like England," Mumsie would also say on occasions; and this was the highest praise that anyone could bestow. There were lush lawns with sundials, bird-baths, and statuary; there was a sunken garden; there was even topiary, Fantastic monsters, created out of the mind of one of the Indian gardeners. And all this was irrigated by a delightful
You must forgive the reproaches in this letter. They are unworthy of you. I must learn the complete resignation—to resign everything, even my grief—to make it all yours. I am not afraid of doing that. I put my soul into your hand. Do what you will with it, my dearest, for I am yours, yours only. Yours always. Even this intolerable anguish is yours, these tears.
I shall put out the light now. I shall try to sleep.
SHIRLEY.
PHANTOMS
WHEN Hugh Weigh first met Lucy Korrance at a dance at the Collector’s bungalow (he ripped the train of her evening-dress and she was angry with him) it was said that she was ‘wild’. For one thing, Mrs. Meakins, her aunt, had a story of how on their last visit to England she had spent a night on the river at Oxford with an undergraduate—and without a chaperone (Mrs. Meakins being the chaperone provided); and for another she had an irrepressible sense of humour. On one occasion at a dinner party, she offered a raw young subaltern a concoction of vinegar and epsom salts with the words: "Do try this liqueur. It’s supposed to be terribly, terribly old." "Hm, excellent," he murmured to the giggled derision of Lucy and her friends. But the more stuffy of her mother’s guests thought that she might be going too far...
Such were her idiosyncracies: and it was these, rather than certain more formidable traits—a tendency to lose her temper, be self-willed, strike the native servants—that really worried Mumsie. (Lady Korrance was always Mumsie to her girl: to her husband she was Memsie.) But everyone knew that she was young; she would learn; she would grow up.
Lucy had one other characteristic—one more endearing, conventional; she was a snob. There was the occasion when her father had just been promoted and a dinner was given in his honour. After the ladies had gone into the drawing-room, Mrs. Meakins, who was pleased with her sister and wished to show it, said: "Tell me, dear. I suppose a knighthood goes with this new job?” and the then Mrs. Korrance, being habitually untruthful, replied: "Well, really, Beatrice, I haven’t thought about it." Then her voice tinkled upwards in nervous laughter and she added: "In any case I don’t care a ha’penny whether I’m Lady Korrance or not."
It was at this point that Lucy intervened. "I do," she said staunchly. "I shall be proud to be the daughter of Sir Basil Korrance." And she blushed in anticipation.
People agreed that this was the right spirit.
Not unnaturally, therefore, she decided to marry Hugh Weigh. He was, Mrs. Meakins had told her, heir to a baronetcy; and when this advantage was coupled with good looks and the ability to ride, Lucy thought it sufficient. She had always wanted to be one of the aristocracy; and, regardless of the fact that old Sir Humbert Weigh had been given his title by Queen Victoria and spoke with a Lancashire accent, this wish seemed at last attainable.
Mumsie repeatedly asked the young subaltern to bridge, tennis, and dinner; Papa, when he carved, gave him the breast and wing; and Mrs. Meakins contrived to ‘leave the young people alone’—as far as propriety permitted.
It was in the garden that the first step was taken. "I just exist for my garden," Mumsie was in the habit of saying to enthusiastic visitors, as though she identified herself with the half-dozen coolies whose lives were devoted to its irrigation. It was certainly beautiful, flowering at the centre of parched roads, maidans , compounds. "It’s like England," Mumsie would also say on occasions; and this was the highest praise that anyone could bestow. There were lush lawns with sundials, bird-baths, and statuary; there was a sunken garden; there was even topiary, Fantastic monsters, created out of the mind of one of the Indian gardeners. And all this was irrigated by a delightful
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