Marjorie would have preferred that Mr. Magnet should not have decided
with such relentless determination to make his second proposal on the
church tower. His purpose was luminously clear to her from the
beginning of lunch onward, and she could feel her nerves going under the
strain of that long expectation. She tried to pull herself together,
tried not to think about it, tried to be amused by the high spirits and
nonsense of Mr. Wintersloan and Syd and Rom and Theodore; but Mr. Magnet
was very pervasive, and her mother didn't ever look at her, looked past
her and away from her and all round her, in a profoundly observant
manner. Marjorie felt chiefly anxious to get to the top of that
predestinate tower and have the whole thing over, and it was with a
start that she was just able to prevent one of the assiduous waiters
filling her glass with champagne for the third time.
There was a little awkwardness in dispersing after lunch. Mr. Pope, his
heart warmed by the champagne and mellowed by a subsequent excellent
cigar, wanted very much to crack what he called a "postprandial jest" or
so with the great humorist, while Theodore also, deeply impressed with
the discovery that there was more in Mr. Magnet than he had supposed,
displayed a strong disposition to attach himself more closely than he
had hitherto done to this remarkable person, and study his quiet but
enormous possibilities with greater attention. Mrs. Pope with a still
alertness did her best to get people adjusted, but Syd and Rom had
conceived a base and unnatural desire to subjugate the affections of the
youngest waiter, and wouldn't listen to her proposal that they should
take Theodore away into the town; Mr. Wintersloan displayed
extraordinary cunning and resource in evading a _tete-a-tete_ with Mr.
Pope that would have released Mr. Magnet. Now Mrs. Pope came to think of
it, Mr. Wintersloan never had had the delights of a good talk with Mr.
Pope, he knew practically nothing about the East Purblow experiment
except for what Mr. Magnet might have retailed to him, and she was very
greatly puzzled to account for his almost manifest reluctance to go into
things thoroughly. Daffy remained on hand, available but useless, and
Mrs. Pope, smiling at the landscape and a prey to Management within, was
suddenly inspired to take her eldest daughter into her confidence.
"Daffy," she said, with a guileful finger extended and pointing to the
lower sky as though she was pointing out the less obvious and more
atmospheric beauties of Surrey, "get Theodore away from Mr. Magnet if
you can. He wants to talk to Marjorie."
Daffy looked round. "Shall I call him?" she said.
"No," said Mrs. Pope, "do it--just--quietly."
"I'll try," said Daffy and stared at her task, and Mrs. Pope, feeling
that this might or might not succeed but that anyhow she had done what
she could, strolled across to her husband and laid a connubial touch
upon his shoulder. "All the young people," she said, "are burning to
climb the church tower. I never _can_ understand this activity after
lunch."
"Not me," said Mr. Pope. "Eh, Magnet?"
"_I'm_ game," said Theodore. "Come along, Mr. Magnet."
"I think," said Mr. Magnet looking at Marjorie, "I shall go up. I want
to show Marjorie the view."
"We'll stay here, Mummy, eh?" said Mr. Pope, with a quite unusual
geniality, and suddenly put his arm round Mrs. Pope's waist. Her
motherly eye sought Daffy's, and indicated her mission. "I'll come with
you, Theodore," said Daffy. "There isn't room for everyone at once up
that tower."
"I'll go with Mr. Magnet," said Theodore, relying firmly on the
privileges of the day....
For a time they played for position, with the intentions of Mr. Magnet
showing more and more starkly through the moves of the game. At last
Theodore was lured down a side street by the sight of a huge dummy fish
dangling outside a tackle and bait shop, and Mr. Magnet and Marjorie,
already with a dreadful feeling of complicity, made a movement so rapid
it seemed to her almost a bolt for the church tower. Whatever Mr. Magnet
desired to say, and whatever elasticity his mind had once possessed with
regard to it, there can be no doubt that it had now become so rigid as
to be sayable only in that one precise position, and in the exact order
he had determined upon. But when at last they got to that high serenity,
Mr. Magnet was far too hot and far too much out of breath to say
anything at all for a time except an almost explosive gust or so of
approbation of the scenery. "Shor' breath!" he said, "win'ey stairs
always--that 'fect on me--buful sceny--Suwy--like it always."
Marjorie found herself violently disposed to laugh; indeed she had never
before been so near the verge of hysterics.
"It's a perfectly lovely view," she said. "No wonder you wanted me to
see it."
"Naturally," said Mr. Magnet, "wanted you to see it."
Marjorie, with a skill her mother might have envied, wriggled into a
half-sitting position in an embrasure and concentrated herself upon the
broad wooded undulations that went about the horizon, and Mr. Magnet
mopped his face with surreptitious gestures, and took deep restoring
breaths.
"I've always wanted to bring you here," he said, "ever since I found it
in the spring."
"It was very kind of you, Mr. Magnet," said Marjorie.
"You see," he explained, "whenever I see anything fine or rich or
splendid or beautiful now, I seem to want it for you." His voice
quickened as though he were repeating something that had been long in
his mind. "I wish I could give you all this country. I wish I could put
all that is beautiful in the world at your feet."
He watched the effect of this upon her for a moment.
"Marjorie," he said, "did you really mean what you told me the other
day, that there was indeed no hope for me? I have a sort of feeling I
bothered you that day, that perhaps you didn't mean all----"
He stopped short.
"I don't think I knew what I meant," said Marjorie, and Magnet gave a
queer sound of relief at her words. "I don't think I know what I mean
now. I don't think I can say I love you, Mr. Magnet. I would if I could.
I like you very much indeed, I think you are awfully kind, you're more
kind and generous than anyone I have ever known...."
Saying he was kind and generous made her through some obscure
association of ideas feel that he must have understanding. She had an
impulse to put her whole case before him frankly. "I wonder," she said,
"if you can understand what it is to be a girl."
Then she saw the absurdity of her idea, of any such miracle of sympathy.
He was entirely concentrated upon the appeal he had come prepared to
make.
"Marjorie," he said, "I don't ask you to love me yet. All I ask is that
you shouldn't decide _not_ to love me."
Marjorie became aware of Theodore, hotly followed by Daffy, in the
churchyard below. "I _know_ he's up there," Theodore was manifestly
saying.
Marjorie faced her lover gravely.
"Mr. Magnet," she said, "I will certainly promise you that."
"I would rather be your servant, rather live for your happiness, than do
anything else in all the world," said Mr. Magnet. "If you would trust
your life to me, if you would deign--." He paused to recover his thread.
"If you would deign to let me make life what it should be for you, take
every care from your shoulders, face every responsibility----"
Marjorie felt she had to hurry. She could almost feel the feet of
Theodore coming up that tower.
"Mr. Magnet," she said, "you don't understand. You don't realize what I
am. You don't know how unworthy I am--what a mere ignorant child----"
"Let me be judge of that!" cried Mr. Magnet.
They paused almost like two actors who listen for the prompter. It was
only too obvious that both were aware of a little medley of imperfectly
subdued noises below. Theodore had got to the ladder that made the last
part of the ascent, and there Daffy had collared him. "_My_ birthday,"
said Theodore. "Come down! You _shan't_ go up there!" said Daffy. "You
_mustn't_, Theodore!" "Why not?" There was something like a scuffle, and
whispers. Then it would seem Theodore went--reluctantly and with
protests. But the conflict receded.
"Marjorie!" said Mr. Magnet, as though there had been no pause, "if you
would consent only to make an experiment, if you would try to love me.
Suppose you _tried_ an engagement. I do not care how long I waited...."
He paused. "Will you try?" he urged upon her distressed silence.
She felt as though she forced the word. "_Yes!_" she said in a very low
voice.
Then it seemed to her that Mr. Magnet leapt upon her. She felt herself
pulled almost roughly from the embrasure, and he had kissed her. She
struggled in his embrace. "Mr. Magnet!" she said. He lifted her face and
kissed her lips. "Marjorie!" he said, and she had partly released
herself.
"Oh _don't_ kiss me," she cried, "don't kiss me yet!"
"But a kiss!"
"I don't like it."
"I beg your pardon!" he said. "I forgot----. But you.... You.... I
couldn't help it."
She was suddenly wildly sorry for what she had done. She felt she was
going to cry, to behave absurdly.
"I want to go down," she said.
"Marjorie, you have made me the happiest of men! All my life, all my
strength I will spend in showing you that you have made no mistake in
trusting me----"
"Yes," she said, "yes," and wondered what she could say or do. It seemed
to him that her shrinking pose was the most tenderly modest thing he had
ever seen.
"Oh my dear!" he said, and restrained himself and took her passive hand
and kissed it.
"I want to go down to them!" she insisted.
He paused on the topmost rungs of the ladder, looking unspeakable things
at her. Then he turned to go down, and for the second time in her life
she saw that incipient thinness....
"I am sure you will never be sorry," he said....
They found Mr. and Mrs. Pope in the churchyard. Mr. Pope was reading
with amusement for the third time an epitaph that had caught his fancy--
"Lands ever bright, days ever fair,
And yet we weep that _he_ is there."
he read. "You know that's really Good. That ought to be printed
somewhere."
Mrs. Pope glanced sharply at her daughter's white face, and found an
enigma. Then she looked at Mr. Magnet.
There was no mistake about Mr. Magnet. Marjorie had accepted him,
whatever else she had felt or done.