I wonder which of my suppositions is correct? Perhaps neither. Perhaps, indeed, I malign the second fellow. Yet there was a certain look in his eye. Not that I think him alone in his inclinations towards such a young woman as Mag!
Now, my dearest Lizzie, I send this, my second letter, to you. As of this moment, you will not have received one. But, when you do, how sweet your replies will be to your own adoring,
Charles
LETTER 3
Greystones, 28 April 1904My own Lizzie,
What a fool! What a fool he is, I hear you say. To procure such pleasure for Maggie and her admirers, but never to taste it for himself. Believe me, my dearest, you could not think worse of me than I did myself in that respect. I groaned all night at my folly in having let slip the opportunity to enjoy an evening with Maggie. It shall not happen again, I said to myself. For now it was clear that I was lord and master of the young women whom Miss Martinet-or rather my Uncle Brandon-had provided for me. I could do anything I chose, to whatever girl I chose.
Now the trouble about that state of affairs is that it rather spoils a fellow for choice. I might have spent the next six months making up my mind and changing it again. If there was one young woman who unwittingly saved me from this, she was Noreen.
Yesterday, after two days of remorse and indecision, I went down to the stable-block again. The harness had been polished, and Noreen was rubbing up the tiles with a damp cloth, toiling away in her white singlet and working trousers.
Picture her, Lizzie! A firmly made, quite tall girl of nineteen. Unlike Maggie's easy sluttiness, there was a hard defiance in Noreen's clear, pale features and insolent brown eyes. The dark-brown hair, cut at the collar, fell about her face as she knelt there polishing. From time to tune, she flicked her fringe and shook the straight, dark hair into place.