JOE PROPOSES.
Betsey was one of the last to come out of church on a Sunday morning
now. She hung behind while her aunt lingered to exchange the news with
her neighbours. Since the day when she had hastened to give the Misses
Stanley "a bit of her mind," relative to Muriel's parentage and
rearing, a something more than coldness had sprung up. Miss Matilda's
words on that occasion had been few, but scorching, and the look of
withering disgust, which accompanied them, had been more than even her
obtuse conceit and forwardness could bear up against. She had not
dared to face the ladies since, and, they being in the heart of the
group of lingerers, Betsey felt constrained to remain outside the
circle, a sort of martyr to the truth, ruminatmg in silence on the
consequences of proclaiming it, at least when the proclamation is
ill-timed or ill-natured.
The circle melted away in time, beginning with Muriel and Gerald
Herkimer--who, in his bankruptcy and the absence of his family,
partook of many dinners and a great deal of delightful sympathy at the
ladies' residence--and ending with Penelope and Matilda, the latter of
whom, though she exhibited fitful outbursts of vivacity, appeared
depressed, and far from in good form. It was observed by those who saw
them drive from the church door that, instead of taking the reins
herself, she let the servant drive, quite contrary to her usual
custom; but then Mr. Considine had been in the habit of returning with
the ladies from church, and his presence at Matilda's elbow may have
been necessary to give her confidence.
Betsey reached the open air at last, feeling unusually meek and
chastened under the lack of notice she had been experiencing; and in
the revulsion of feeling which ensued when Mr. Joe Webb stepped
forward, and, after ceremoniously inquiring for her health, asked if
she would not favour him with her company for a buggy-ride down the
road, while her dinner was "_dishing up_" at home, it is not
remarkable if she "enthused a little," to cull a flower of speech from
the English column of the _Journal de St. Euphrase_.
"Oh! Thank you, Squire! that will be nice"--I fear _bully_ was the
word she used, this sweet Western flower, but it means much the same
thing, only a little more so.
"Then come along! In with you! And we'll be stepping," which was
perhaps a more free-and-easy mode of address than Mr. Joe's wont, for
he prided himself on his fine manners with the ladies; but he was
trying to get up his courage by a little premature audacity for what
was to follow.
Proposing matrimony in cold blood--did you ever try it, my reader?--is
a serious matter, or so Joe Webb thought. His mind had been made up
on the point, the night before; in the morning he saw no reason to
change it, but he observed that the sky looked heavy. If it had drawn
to rain he would not have been sorry, for he could, without loss of
self-respect, have remained at home, and postponed his undertaking.
The weather kept up however, and he went to church; but very few, I
fear, were the prayers he joined in.
What he was intending to do would keep continually rising before his
mind; not as it had done overnight in the comfortable after-phases,
when My Lord Benedict should have entered on his domestic felicity,
with slippers toasting inside the fender against his return from the
field, pipes filled, and tobacco fetched, without his needing to
leave the lounge where he reposed, but in the onerous stage of how to
do it. What should he say? and how would she take it? Should he take
her hand before beginning? It would be establishing a sort of hold
upon her attention. But if she objected to that by an unauthorized
individual?--yet the very objection would give the opening to explain,
which he desired. Only--how about getting hold of the hand? It might
be holding up her parasol. To snatch at it would bring down the
article with a flap, which would frighten the horse! Weil, he did not
mind that. He could quiet _him_ well enough with a cut of the whip.
But how about the lady? How to quiet _her?_ The whip would not do
there, yet a while; though later, he had been credibly informed that
Blackstone authorizes such doings on the part of husbands, provided
the stick be no thicker than their thumbs. But the lady might refuse
to be reassured; she might insist on being let down, or worse, she
might actually say. No. No! The word whistled through his mind like a
gust of icy wind, it was so new and so unexpected an idea. He must
feel tremulous, no doubt, till he should be answered "yes," but he
could not bring himself to contemplate the opposite. It would be so
utter a quencher to--well, if not to love for _her_, which was an
eventuality he could contemplate with some tranquillity, at least to
his self-love, which was too near his heart to be thought of without
dismay. He would be, like a railway guard standing on the roof of a
carriage, and sweeping through space at forty miles an hour, when
unexpectedly there comes a bridge which he has not looked for, or
bowed his head to in time, it catches him between the eyes with a blow
irresistible and swift, which snuffs him out of existence, and casts
him away, and leaves him a lifeless wreck upon the track.
Altogether Joe had not a happy or an edifying service of it that day
in church. A man's own fancies can fret and worry him worse than the
words of others, they hit all the raw places so much more surely. He
hastened from the sacred fane with the very earliest to go, and stood
and watched and waited till Betsey should appear among the other
dispersing worshippers, she was long of appearing, and by-and-by he
began to think, with a very distinct sense of relief, that she was not
there and he must defer the task he had set himself to another day,
when, behold! the very last to come out, she appeared; and, seizing
himself by the collar, as it were, he marched himself into her
presence, and solicited the honour of a drive. Betsey was gracious and
compliant, and did not take long to mount into the buggy; he sprang in
after, and away they went.
The pace was good; Joe kept fast cattle, and knew how to drive them;
but the conversation flagged. How can a man with a purpose--so deadly
to himself, at least--be at his ease, and alive to the trifles which
lead up to untrammelled talk? How can he be otherwise than distraught?
There is a purpose at his breast hanging heavy as lead, and he feels,
poor creature, as though cold water were running down his neck. "Had
it been a dance," he thought, "to which he was leading the girl out,
it would have been different." The music and the rhythm and the motion
of a waltz bring on a gentle enthusiasm, and the sense of support and
protection conduce to the tenderness which a man should feel at such a
moment; but this was only a buggy-ride; the two were perched up
together behind a horse in heat and dust, and for the life of him he
could not make up his mind what he ought to say. He had heard of
fellows proposing in a buggy, but now when he tried it, it was not the
place it was cracked up to be; and he sat in perturbed silence.
Betsey was at her ease, however; she suspected nothing, and she was
elated at being borne off in a cloud of dust before the eyes of the
women who had slighted and ignored her five minutes before. Some
people it seemed--men people, too--thought her worthy of notice. She
felt exultant, and she prattled. She wriggled, too, just a very
little, which is scarcely dignified, perhaps, but comes natural to
some people in moments of exuberance. She talked of the weather till
some other subject should arise, like the rest of us who are born to
speak English, but he answered nothing; and then she asked him if a
shower would not do good to his turnips.
He answered "yes," to that, which is not an easy rejoinder to build
the next observation upon; but then he was busy with his horse at the
moment, for he hit him a cross cut with the whip, and twitched his
nose and eyebrows impatiently. And then there was a lull, and silence
disturbed only by the steady pounding of the horse's feet, and the
rasping of a wheel against an occasional stone.
"We were so sorry to hear," Betsey said at last, after the silence had
lasted some time, and was beginning to grow oppressive; "so very sorry
to hear that you have lost money by those Herkimers. Do you remember,
I told you the very last time we met what I thought of them, and that
it was not much? But that warning came too late to benefit you, I
suppose. Is it not absurd the way that young Gerald goes fooling
around Muriel up the way? It is just what might be expected from a
girl like her, who don't belong to anybody, for all her airs; but I
confess I am sorry to see his infatuation, though perhaps it only
serves the Herkimers right--the stuck-up lot. I always saw through
them--insincere, and all show; though of course I would not have said
it, on account of their relationship to Aunt Judy; but now, really, it
seems downright wrong to hold one's tongue, and looks like
countenancing their on-goins," and Betsey stopped to take breath.
Joe availed himself of the stoppage to take up his parable. "Yes, Miss
Betsey," he said, "it is quite true. I have lost the savings of ten
years, and all the ready money my father left. Quite true."
"Ah!" sighed Betsey very softly.
"But I'm to the fore still; and you just wait and see if I don't make
some more--and more than I have been _euchred_ out of."
"I like to hear a man speak like that! It sounds so strong and
capable."
"Do you think you could like the man himself. Miss Betsey? Mind you,
it ain't all talking with me! It's going to be real, hard, downright
doing--livin' off what my own farm raises, and wearin' homespun off
the backs of my own sheep, like a _habitant_; freezing on to every
copper cent I can scrape, and laying it all by. It will be a hard and
a dull life for the first year or two; but it's a good farm, and
well-stocked, and in three or four years' time, when I have bought a
new reaper, and a few such tricks, and brought in another hundred
acres of useless bush, with my own hard work and the hired boys, I
believe things will be on the road to grow better than ever; for,
though maybe you would not think it, I have thrown away a deal of
money on nonsense in my time. But that's over now. What do you think
of it yourself. Miss Betsey?"
Betsey turned and looked at him with opening eyes, and met a steadfast
gaze more bewildering still, which made her drop them again, and look
away. "Think? I think it sounds brave in you to speak like that. A man
should never lose heart!"
"But it's yourself, I mean. Would you like it yourself?"
"If I were a man, that's how I'd like to be. I'd love to play the man
so."
"But it ain't the _man_ you'd be expected to play. Miss Betsey. It
would be the _wife_."
Betsey coloured and looked a little hurt. "It's too serious a subject
to play with, Mr. Webb."
"But it ain't play. It's good, downright, honest earnest I mean."
"I don't understand you."
"Could you bring yourself to marry a fellow who has lost his money,
and is hard up?"
"I don't know, Mr. Webb," she laughed uncomfortably, and a little
inclined to take offence at such a catechism being pressed on her,
while she sat helpless in the hurrying "trap." "It would depend
altogether on who the 'fellow' was."
"It's me! Miss Betsey. Will you take me? I'm no great match for any
girl now, I know that; but _will_ you take me?"
"I don't like foolin' on such subjects, Mr. Webb; and it wasn't
gentleman-like of you to bring me away in your buggy to talk like
this." Her face was scarlet, as she said it, and looked in his; but
there was no bantering smile there,--and a catch came in her throat,
which sent the blood throbbing down to her finger-tips, as the idea
crossed her mind that the man was in earnest. In that case, however,
he would speak again, so she said no more.
"But this ain't foolin'. Miss Betsey, and I don't know what right you
have to accuse me of sich. Did any one ever know me, man or boy, to
tell a lie? I ask you plainly, Betsey Bunce, will you marry me?"
"Oh, laws! Joe Webb--I never--let me out here! I never--oh! you've
took me all of a heap. Stop the buggy."
Joe drew rein, and stopped the equipage in the middle of the road,
just where the shadow of a tall poplar by the wayside would shelter
them from the sun; and there he sat, looking hot about the temples,
and trying to settle his eyes on the tips of his horse's ears, because
these could not return the look, while he dared not turn elsewhere for
fear a mocking glance should meet him and complete his discomfiture,
as he sat there awaiting his answer, feeling like a fool who has
surrendered his shoulders to the smiters--a trapped animal awaiting
the arrival of the hunters--the man who has put it in a girl's power
to say she refused him. It was a moment of dread and suspense for Joe.
Betsey fanned herself vehemently--what a privilege a fan must be,
sometimes. Since their stoppage she had become less eager to alight.
She made no move, sat perfectly still, and let the perturbation of her
spirits expend itself in fanning. She was coming to herself again.
And, oh! so pleasantly. "What a _puss_ she had been! And that--most
wonderful of all--without suspecting it herself. And there he was on
his knees before her! or what was just the same thing, perched at her
elbow in infinite discomfort, looking all the colours of the rainbow
in his misery." "And should she have him? that was the point. If
she had snared him without knowing it, might there not be others
sighing in secret?" She glanced at him over her fan--that precious
fan!--glanced over it as the timid fawn does over a park paling, and
then is off to hide its head in a bush when the keeper comes in sight.
"And how handsome he was! and how foolish he looked, poor fellow,
getting himself into a state about poor she! It was delightful. And he
so broad-shouldered and manly! She could not find it in her heart to
cause him pain--especially when he had made herself so--happy. And
those old maids she had parted from at church, how she pitied them!
How she should continue to pity them all the rest of her life--her
married life!" She peeped over the fan again, and there was poor Joe
fidgeting worse than ever--for all the world, like a bull at a
bull-baiting--tied to the stake, unable to get away, amid fears and
fancies at his own absurd position, like the yelping curs, which
plague the noble brute. Then she glanced along the road. A cloud of
dust was approaching, a waggon within it, for already she could hear
the rattle of wheels and the clank of harness. Already Joe was rousing
himself and gathering up his reins for a start. Time was up. If she
let this opportunity pass, and allowed matters to fall back into
everyday life, how would she ever bring them up again to this point?
It was provoking, the dalliance was so pleasant, but she could not
risk a slip; so, shutting her eyes, and shutting up her fan, she took
the leap--and just in time, for the buggy was already in motion.
She said it very softly. What she said Joe could not hear for the
noise of the wheels, very likely she did not know precisely herself
what it was; but they both took it to mean consent, and Joe, so soon
as that lumbering waggon was fairly past, stooped down and sealed it
on her lips, as in duty bound.
Then there was a silence of some duration, though both were too busy
with their own thoughts to notice it; till at length Joe remembered
that the purpose of their expedition was fulfilled, and asked his
companion if she did not think they had better return. Betsey was
ready to think whatever her Joe thought, leaning up with an
undesirable closeness that warm day, and softly fanning their joint
countenances with a fond and lingering motion of her fan. In time she
heaved a sigh, deep and full of overflowing enjoyment, and then she
spoke.
"Do you know, Joe dear, you have given me a great surprise to-day?"
Joe's tight-strained feelings had run themselves down now. He
felt--"tired in his inside," I fear, would have been his inelegant
expression, and longed for a glass of beer. He felt incapable of
conversation, and even a little grumpy, perhaps. Such strange and
inconsistent creatures are the men.
Betsey's over-wroughtness was quite of another kind. Her nervous
excitement, once fairly past the turn of the tide, was inclined, as
Hamlet would have had his solid flesh incline, to "melt and dissolve
itself into a dew"--of verbiage and watery talk. It was of a
soliloquizing tendency, too, which, though prone to questionings,
passed on from one to the next, indifferent to non-reply.
"This has been all a great surprise; I never thought that you really
cared for me. Was it not strange?" and she looked up in his face grown
stolid, and beginning to show unmistakable signs of crossness, and
fanned him fondly, smiling into dimples, like the rapturous maidens in
"Patience," when they enthral their poet with garlands.
"I thought it would have been the pretty Miss Savergne, you were so
attentive to----"
"She would not marry a poor man, and a poor man, could not afford to
marry _her_," and then Joe stopped. He would have liked to kick
himself for an unmannerly brute; for alas! the soft impeachment was
all too true. He coughed and spluttered. Fortunately, Betsey was too
full of her own pleasant reflections to heed anything, but he felt he
must get away and calm down, or something worse might escape him which
would not pass unnoticed, so he pulled up by the road-side just on the
outskirts of the village.
"Would you mind if I set you down here, Betsey? It is getting late.
The calves should have been watered an hour ago, and Baptiste and
Laurent are both away."
"To be sure, Joe! A farmer's wife must take an interest in the calves,
and I mean to do my duty," and she sprang gaily out, and stood looking
after the man and outfit as they trotted off, with a sense of
proprietorship which was new and very pleasant.
The rector and his wife delayed their dinner half-an-hour, and then
sat down, wondering what had become of Betsey. They had nearly
finished when she whirled in, a tumultuous arrangement of white muslin
and enthusiasm.
"Oh, auntie! Oh, Uncle Dionysius!" She involved first one and then the
other in her manifold frills and puffings by way of embrace.
"Congratulate me!--do!--Just think!"
"Sit down, Betsey, and calm yourself," remonstrated the rector, "and
then, perhaps, it may be possible to think. Meanwhile you take our
breath away. Have you had your dinner?"
"Well, no. But I don't care--or rather, I dare say I _will_ take just
a morsel. What have you been having? Chickens? Well, I will take just
a bone, and a good plateful of salad, and the rest of that melon.
That's all I want. Such news! Only guess! But you would never think.
Fact is, the squire--Squire Webb--has--what do you think?"
"Why!" cried Aunt Judy, "I saw you go for a drive with
him?--Oh!--Indeed."