British -- France -- Fiction; Diary fiction; Epistolary fiction; Household employees -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
Not that much harm is done this time. I suppose Ruddington will go
silly over the flower. He’ll kiss it, and wear it next his heart by day,
and lay it under his pillow by night, and worship it as a symbol of
fresh mysticalities and exquisitenesses in his divine Susan. But he
won’t ring for the kitchen-maids and request the kind loan of a Language
of Flowers. He won’t so much as think of it that way. Even if he does,
he will know that it is the letter and not the flower that he must obey.
I wonder what flower it is that means "Viens?"
_Monday night_.
I have been reading Ruddington’s last letter over again. And although I
began it with prejudice (being still nettled by Georgette’s prank), it
has affected me strangely.
Seen whole, I know the situation is farcical. It is a farce that may end
in a tragedy. But as Ruddington sees it, with the wrong notion of Susan
that I have helped to give him, it is a most high and sweet romance, all
rose and gold.
Life can be most hideously cruel. Better no beautiful dreams at all
when there must be such an awakening. And that poor lad Gibson is to be
soured for ever in order that Ruddington may go through life with a
millstone of disenchantment round his neck. Something is here for
tears.
_Tuesday, three o’clock_.
Ruddington remains quiet, like a good boy; so the flower has done no
harm. Susan has been quite brightened up by suddenly remembering that
the flower was only a French one.
This morning there was a wedding at Sainte Véronique. I have seen
country weddings in France before, but this is the first one that hasn’t
offended me. The bride was a pink-and-white, almost English looking
girl, and the bridegroom was a tanned, honest, handsome young fisherman.
When Susan and I saw them, it was after the wedding. They were standing
side by side, hand in hand at a door, while the guests were bustling for
places at an open-air breakfast-table. You could not say that they were
not taking in the scene. Indeed, they laughed more than once at the
horse-play of the youths. Yet it was plain that while their eyes
recognized friends, and while their minds were lightly engaged with the
outer world, their spirits had built a little hidden shrine of peace.
Never before have I seen on human faces such a serene yet delicate
fulness of perfect happiness. Below the rattle of plates and the shouts
and the laughter, my ear caught a rich undersong of love.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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