One evening, Lilian came to me in great grief, and covered with wounds and contusions. Our intrigue was discovered, and her father had beaten her unmercifully, being drunk with absinthe. He had knocked her down, jumped upon her ribs, and bodily cast her out.
I took her to live with me. I shall never forget our initial attempts at house-keeping. We hired a small unfurnished apartment, and our first acquisition was a mattress stuffed with dried seaweed. This cost five francs. It was laid upon the floor, and one end propped up by a traveling bag served as a bolster and pillow all combined. But circumstances improved, and from odds and ends of furniture, picked up in the lowest salerooms, I was able in time to make a pretty little home for Lilian, full of quaint curios, fine ancient furniture, and pictures which I routed out of strange holes and corners in my travels.
Every summer, we went away on a pleasure trip. I took her to England, Italy, and Switzerland, where together we climbed mountains and explored glaciers. Her health then gradually failed her, and I became a sick nurse. She was alone in the world now. Her mother was dead. Her sisters and brothers did not recognize her. From time to time, her drunken, dissolute father cropped up, and begged some old clothes and a little silver. Times out of number, has she saved the unworthy author of her being from ruin, dishonor, and starvation.
She had no one but me to look after her. I passed one whole winter at her bedside, when she went through the acute sufferings of articular rheumatism, and she knew no one half the time. She would take nothing but from my hand, and for three months, I never let the fire go out by night or day. I was perfectly happy in nursing her. My own health was good; I had never been ill in my life.
But in the summer of 1895, she developed signs of heart disease, inherited from her mother, and was a confirmed invalid ever since. I could see her great beauty leaving her by degrees; all changed for the worst. Her temper became soured. I never complained. I hoped against the doctors who gave me no hope. I tried to nurse her, and pet her, and spoil her, and make her forget how ill she was.
Such was my life in the winter of 1897: business at a standstill, my devoted mistress suffering from a mortal malady, nearly always in bed, and I casting about, ready to try anything to make money, and hard at work on my new chemicals.
ERIC ARVEL TO JACKY.
Sonis-sur-Marne. December 23, 1897.
My dear Jacky,
I have been so busy writing Christmas letters, that I have not had time to write and thank you for your magnificent donation of books, the majority of which are new to me, and will be read with the greatest interest. Lilian promises herself a treat with them when she gets to Nice, so you see you have given pleasure to more than one.
I am pleased to inform you that mercury in the shape of blue pill, cascara, and podophyllin have proved admirable remedies for the canine species, and if you like, I will give you all the details, which will enable you to cure distemper with lightning-like celerity.
We want to know if you have any particular engagement on Saturday next? If not, will you come and spend the day with us, as we are anxious that you should sample the Christmas pudding. We should not, however, like to interfere with any family arrangements.
Again thanking you, believe me to remain with every good and seasonable wish for you and yours,
Yours very truly,
ERIC ARVEL.
No news from Lilian privately, only this invitation to their Christmas dinner. I resolved not to go, although I was perfectly free to do so, and I wrote a polite letter of excuse. They were off to Nice all three of them and I supposed I should never “have” Lilian again. As for the reason why she did not communicate with me that winter, after our first meeting, I have never known from that day to this, but I can make a shrewd guess now.
I made up my mind not to trouble the girl, but on the thirtieth of December, I took a present for the mother and daughter to Arvel's bureau in the rue Vissot, and sent Mamma the following letter. In preceding years, I had only given bonbons.
JACKY TO MADAME ARVEL.
Paris. December 30, 1897.
My dear Madam,
Let me be the first, or at any rate one of the first, to come and wish you health, prosperity, and all you can desire of happiness for yourself and all those you love during the coming year, without counting numberless years afterwards.
In gratitude for your frank hospitality and to prove that I have not forgotten your good, little (big) dinners, I take the liberty of offering you a slight present-a little umbrella.
Mademoiselle, your charming daughter has always been so kind to me every time I visited your house, that I wish to show the esteem I hold her in by begging her to accept a smelling-bottle, which will come in useful when she breaks the bank at Monte-Carlo.
And I wish her a happy new year, too, and the realization of all her wishes in 1898.
If I have badly selected my gifts, please excuse me in favor of the intention.
Now I am sure you will pardon me for not having come on Christmas Day, but we have the habit of making a family day of it at home in Paris.
I shake hands with Monsieur Arvel, and wish him all the compliments of the season also, without saying more, as he knows the feelings of sympathy I have for him.
I have sent the two little articles to his bureau, rue Vissot.
Yours devotedly,
John S.
Please let me know Mr. Arvel's address and the date of your return, so that I may send him his papers and magazines to Nice.
But I have forgotten the dogs! How could I forget the blood of Smike and Sally Brass-my own flesh and blood-I have no heart!
Therefore, gravely, I wish a happy new year to Lili, Blackamoor, and all the others, on my behalf and on the part of my own kennel. So be it!
LILIAN TO JACKY.
Sonis-sur-Marne. January 2, 1898.
My dear Mr. S.,
Mamma and I are delighted with the two pretty presents you have had the kindness to send to us.
I hope to have to use my silver smelling-salts for the purpose for which you have given it to me. I do not believe it will be wanted in this way, I am not lucky enough for that, and besides, I am no gambler.
We thank you from the bottom of our hearts, and also for your good wishes. We form such a quantity for your happiness, that I will not even seek to enumerate them. It would be vain trouble; all this sheet of paper would not suffice. Papa begs me to tell you that he does not yet know where we shall put up, but as soon as we arrive in the sunny South, he will wire to you. As for our return, we will write as soon as the date is fixed. Mamma begs you to accept a slice of her famous Christmas pudding, which she sends you this day.
Our doggies are all restored to health. They have begun the New Year well. They send their caresses to you as well as to their parents, relations, and all the others.
My dear Mr. S., I pray you to receive the assurance of all my friendship,
Yours very devotedly,
LILIAN ARVEL.
Why not a word of love or passion? I never knew. I tried not to think of her and sought refuge in hard work. My days were spent during this dull winter, with manufacturers and patent agents, and my nights were passed in the sick room of my poor ailing Lily.
A worthy Dutch bookseller, Mynheer Vanderpunk, who had frequently procured old and curious works for me, now wrote from his dusty old shop at Rotterdam, and begged me to be kind enough to correct the text and revise the proofs of a voluptuous volume he intended to bring out under the rose, and which he called: The Horn Book; or, the Girl's Guide to Knowledge. The manuscript was amusing and the task not a displeasing one for me.