"You don't mind if I write a letter, do you?"
"To whom?"
"Oh, just a letter," I said, and she stared at me coldly.
"I daresay you will write it, whether I consent or not. Leave it on the
hall table, and it will go out with the morning mail."
"I may run out to the box with it."
"I forbid your doing anything of the sort."
"Oh, very well," I responded meekly.
"If there is such haste about it, give it to Hannah to mail."
"Very well," I said.
She made an excuse to see Hannah before she left, and I knew THAT I WAS
BEING WATCHED. I was greatly excited, and happier than I had been for
weeks. But when I had settled myself in the Library, with the paper
in front of me, I could not think of anything to say in a letter. So I
wrote a poem instead.
"To H----
"Dear love: you seem so far away,
I would that you were near.
I do so long to hear you say
Again, `I love you, dear.' "Here all is cold and drear and strange
With none who with me tarry,
I hope that soon we can arrange
To run away and marry."
The last verse did not scan, exactly, but I wished to use the word
"marry" if possible. It would show, I felt, that things were really
serious and impending. A love affair is only a love affair, but Marriage
is Marriage, and the end of everything.
It was at that moment, 10 o'clock, that the Strange Thing occurred which
did not seem strange at all at the time, but which developed into so
great a mystery later on. Which was to actualy threaten my reason and
which, flying on winged feet, was to send me back here to school the
day after Christmas and put my seed pearl necklace in the safe deposit
vault. Which was very unfair, for what had my necklace to do with it?
And just now, when I need comfort, it--the necklace--would help to
releive my exile.
Hannah brought me in a cup of hot milk, with a Valentine's malted milk
tablet dissolved in it.
As I stirred it around, it occurred to me that Valentine would be a good
name for Harold. On the spot I named him Harold Valentine, and I wrote
the name on the envelope that had the poem inside, and addressed it to
the town where this school gets its mail.