Mr Edward Morgan arrived on the following afternoon. Prudence watched
him from the window disentangling himself from the carriage rugs, and
fussing with the muffler which he wore wound carefully about his throat.
The wind was in the north-east, and he was subject to bronchitis.
Swathed in wraps he did not cut a romantic figure: he looked what he
was, a prosperous, middle-aged man who valued his health and refrained
from taking liberties with it. Prudence told herself that he was wise
to be cautious, at the same time she wished that he was of an age at
which such caution was unnecessary.
He mounted the steps, and was welcomed in the hall by Mr Graynor and
taken to the library for purposes of refreshment stronger than tea after
his cold and tedious journey. Later, he made his appearance in the
drawing-room, divested of his outdoor wear and improved on that account.
A subtle blending of whisky and cigar smoke emanated from his person,
of which Prudence was critically aware as she shook hands and replied to
his inquiries as to her health. He was in immense spirits, as became a
successful lover; also he was a little shy and nervously anxious to
please.
He talked about his journey and discussed politics and business and the
weather; and Prudence listened, taking no part in the conversation, and
feeling grateful to him for refraining from addressing her directly. He
was, while intensely alive to her presence, seemingly unmindful of it.
He credited her, not without reason, with sharing his shyness; and was
anxious to give her time to get used to him and feel her way back to
their former easy relations. Miss Agatha received the greater part of
his attention, and in return pressed the hot scones on him hospitably.
He refused these on the plea that they gave him indigestion; but he
accepted cake, and a cup of the eighteenpenny tea, which he pronounced
excellent.
"Mrs Morgan is well, I hope?" Miss Agatha inquired conversationally,
filling in one of those abrupt, unaccountable, and disconcerting pauses
in the talk, which flowed with even dulness between the hitches.
"Thank you, yes. My mother enjoys excellent health. Henry's wife has
been laid up; they had to operate for appendicitis. She's about again
now. Henry and the boys are flourishing."
There followed polite expressions of regret for Mrs Henry Morgan's
indisposition, broken into by the arrival of William, whose greeting of
Mr Morgan overflowed with cordiality.
"Been looking to see you in these parts for months," he said. "Beastly
weather for travelling; the wind is cutting. Are those hot scones,
Prudence?"
William was so accustomed to being waited upon by the different members
of his family that it never occurred to him to attend to his own needs.
He did not observe the flush of annoyance that overspread Prudence's
face, nor the reluctance with which she rose to fetch the scones in
question; Mr Morgan observed it, however, and was before her in
reaching the fireplace where the scones lay on a hot plate inside the
fender. He stooped for the plate; and the stiffness of his movements,
while apparent to Prudence, passed uncriticised on this occasion.
William protested loudly.
"Oh, come!" he said. "You shouldn't do that. I can't allow a visitor
to wait on me. One of the girls will do it."
Mr Morgan disregarded the remonstrance, refusing to relinquish the dish
of scones.
"My mother brought me up to wait upon her," he said, smiling. "It comes
natural to me."
Prudence felt pleased; but she had no faith in the lesson proving
beneficial to William; he would assuredly miss the point.
"Well, you're a younger man than I," said William jocularly. "I
shouldn't show such energy after a long journey."
Which speech, delivered for Prudence's benefit, William considered
particularly tactful. He had in mind his sister's reflections on Mr
Morgan's age. But Mr Morgan was not helpful.
"I'm forty-three to-day," he acknowledged, with, in William's opinion,
quite unnecessary candour. "I decided on this date for making the
journey from sentimental reasons; it occurred to me as an altogether
agreeable way of celebrating the occasion."
He did not look in Prudence's direction while he spoke, for which
consideration she was obliged to him: she felt the eyes of the rest
focussed upon herself, and guessed what was in their thoughts in
connection with these confidences. It did not in the least surprise her
to hear William playfully observe that they would have to contrive
something special in the way of entertainment to mark the event and make
this birthday a memorable one. He looked meaningly at Prudence, and
slyly at Mr Morgan, and remarked that birthdays conferred peculiar
privileges and gave a right to indulgence. But Mr Morgan repudiated
this.
"At my age one doesn't insist on those prerogatives," he said. "The
only advantage I take of the day is to give myself pleasure. I have
done that."
From which Prudence gathered to her relief that he did not intend to
press his suit that day. Nor did he. He rather skilfully evaded the
_tete-a-tetes_ with her, which every member of the household seemed in
conspiracy to bring about. He was giving her time to commit to heart
the lesson which he had told her he wanted her to learn. It was a
lesson which she could not master with him for teacher; but she came to
feel a very warm friendship for him, which in lieu of anything better
seemed not insufficient to begin with.
Mr Morgan had been at Court Heatherleigh a week before he broached the
question of marriage with her; and Prudence, lulled into a sense of
security by his avoidance of the subject, doubted whether he intended to
propose to her, and was divided between a state of mortification and
relief. The proposal when it came startled her the more by reason of
this adaptation of Mr Morgan from the role he had been cast for to the
less romantic role of friend. It found her immensely unprepared, as the
delayed falling of anything long expected is apt to do when launched
suddenly and with irrelevant haste. She was altogether unaware of what
was in his mind at the moment when he sprung the thing upon her.
They were playing billiards together after dinner, with Mary acting as
marker and making a third in the conversation that confined itself
almost exclusively to the game. Prudence, in the interest of making a
brake, did not observe when Mary left the room; she became aware of her
absence for the first time on looking round to call the score. Mr
Morgan marked for her. When he approached the table, instead of
playing, he laid his cue on the cloth and took Prudence's hand.
"Come and sit down," he said, drawing her to the settee. "We'll finish
the game presently."
Prudence relinquished her cue to him and sat down. He put the cue away
in the rack and seated himself beside her.
"I've been a long time coming to my point," he said, coming to it rather
abruptly now that he was once started; "but I think you must have
understood my reason for delay. I did not want to hurry you. You know
why I came down... Prudence, will you marry me?"
Prudence gave a little sigh, and sat perfectly still, staring with
amazed eyes at the neglected balls on the green cloth. Oddly, the
thought which struck her at the moment was that it was unnecessary to
break off in the middle of a game to ask her that. There was no need to
make opportunities; they were thrust at him.
"Let me think," she said. "Give me time. You--startled me."
"But you knew that I meant to ask you that question?" He took her hand
again and pressed it gently. "When you sent that letter, wasn't it
intended for permission to speak? I interpreted it that way."
"I--don't--know." She was still for a moment; then she turned to him
and looked him uncertainly in the eyes. "I was very miserable when I
wrote that letter. Yes; I suppose that was what I meant--then."
She broke off, and her gaze wandered away and came to rest again on the
balls.
"It's silly of me," she said, speaking very low. "I feel a little
afraid."
"Just shyness," he said reassuringly, stroking the hand which lay limply
in his. "I am old for you; but you will find me the more gentle,
possibly the more understanding, on that account. My darling, I love
you very dearly. You are so young--you don't know yet what love is. I
did not know either until recently. I come to it rather late. But my
feeling for you is very deep. Prudence, my dear, I want you. I love
you. If you give yourself to me I will do everything in my power to
make your life happy. Will you marry me, dear?"
It seemed to Prudence that there was only one possible answer. She had
understood when she invited him to come down the significance of what
she did. She had no right to encourage him to hope and then fail in her
part. He was too good a man to play with. She kept her face averted
while she answered him, staring fixedly at the shining balls, lying
where her last stroke had left them placed conveniently, she realised
with grim appreciation of her mistake, for him to score off.
"I want to be quite frank with you," she said, her breathing fast
through sheer nervousness, an earnest expression on her face, which he
thought very modest and gentle. "I don't love you, Mr Morgan,--not in
that way--not, I mean, as you love me. I've thought--I should like to
marry you. I think that still--only I'm afraid sometimes,--afraid that
you'll find me disappointing."
He placed his arm very gently round her shoulders and held her so
without attempting any warmer caress. He smiled into her troubled eyes.
"There is only one thing that could possibly disappoint me," he said,
"and that is if I fail to make you happy. Trust me, and all will be
well."
And so Prudence secured her passage through the door which it seemed he
alone could open for her into those wider spaces where she imagined
freedom was to be found. But emerging with Edward Morgan at her side,
it gradually became clear to her that she was doubly fettered. In
blindly groping for her freedom she had given herself to a new and more
complete bondage. She would leave the old tyranny behind her, only to
pass to another condition of fresh and more pressing obligations. The
certainty of these things came to her with the realisation of her
distaste for her new responsibility.