Toilers of Babylon: A NovelFarjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
General
Toilers of Babylon: A Novel
Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
"My Beloved Kingsley,--It is night, and I am writing in my little room
in the caravan. Father is asleep, and everything around is still and
peaceful. It is the best of all time to write to you and think of you,
but indeed you are never out of my thoughts. It is a beautiful night,
and I have made up my mind not to go to sleep till I have heard the
nightingale, so how can I employ my time better than in the way I am
doing? All the day long I have been thinking of you. 'Now he is in the
train,' I said, 'now he is so much nearer London, now he is in London,
now he is at home and talking to his father.' Of me? I could not
decide that. Perhaps you will wait till to-morrow, but I am with you
in spirit, Kingsley, as you are with me. Yes, I am sure of that, and
it makes me very, very happy. Kingsley is at home, in his father's
house. Is he really at home? My home is with you; there is no home for
me without you. How ungrateful it sounds, with my father so close to
me; but I cannot help it; it is the truth. And then this caravan--can
one call it a home? Though there are people, father says, who are very
happy in caravans--as I should be with you; or anywhere, Kingsley.
Indeed it is so; it will not matter to me so long as we are together.
"I am writing cheerfully and hopefully, am I not? And yet my father
has been uneasy in his mind to-day. He has been speaking a great deal
of your father, and he fears that he will not approve of our marriage.
'For your sake, Nansie,' father said, 'I wish Kingsley's father was a
poor man.' Kingsley dear, I wish that too; but then your father was
once as poor as we are, and perhaps that will make a difference. I
hope with all my heart I have not done you wrong by marrying you; but
how could I help it, loving you as I did and do, and how could I help
it when you persuaded me so? Oh, my dear love, I will do all that a
woman can do to make you happy! I can do no more. To me it does not
matter how we live, but will it matter to you if your father is angry
and will not receive me? I cannot bear to think of it; my heart grows
cold, and I stretch forth my hands imploring an angel to come and help
me. But that is not needed, is it, Kingsley? and you have good reason
to be angry with me, for what I have written is almost like a doubt,
and to doubt you is to doubt that there is any goodness in the world.
No, Kingsley, I will not doubt; it would be treason to love. . . .
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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