A PROPOSAL.
The White House had begun to be slightly agitated by the expectation of
letters from Harry, when Mr. Selby came again. There was no immediate
acknowledgment of the arrival of the boxes, or reply to the letter which
Mrs. Joscelyn had written instantly, as soon as they heard that he had
returned to Liverpool; but this both mother and daughter thought was
natural enough. Harry no doubt would be sulky; even his mother and
sister would be included in his anger against the house, though they had
done nothing which he ought to have taken in ill part. He was not a
great letter-writer, however, and they were both indulgent to Harry, and
willing to give him a little time to get over his “pet,” as Joan called
it. Joan took the whole matter cheerily. He was only “in a pet.” He had
been “in a pet” before now, and had kept his mother uneasy, refusing to
write; but it had gone off, and all had come right again. No doubt it
would be the same now: only this time he had some reason for his “pet,”
and might be excused if he was a little sulky. “You know, mother,” said
Joan, “Harry’s terrible young for his age. He’s just a baby for his age,
and he has a deal of you in him. We must let him get over his pet.”
“Oh, Joan, do you think I would keep anybody anxious that was fond of
me?” said Mrs. Joscelyn, “but,” she added, with a sigh, “nobody would
care very much if it was only me. It is this that gives you all the pull
over me, that I care, and you don’t.”
Joan could not contradict this; and there gleamed over her a momentary
compassion for her mother, whose lot it seemed to be always to “care,”
while nobody cared for her. “You must try and not care so much, mother.
We’re none of us worth it,” she said, “but, as for Harry, he’s just in a
pet. Leave him alone, and he’ll soon come to himself. My fine ham! I
wouldn’t have wasted it on a person that didn’t deserve it. If he don’t
write within the week, I will say he’s not worth the salt it’s cured
with; but we’ll give him a week; by that time he’ll come round, if he’s
a bit sulky just at first. I don’t blame him, for my part.”
Mrs. Joscelyn’s hands had crept together, and clasped each other, with
that earnest appeal she was always making to earth and heaven: but they
slid asunder hastily when she met Joan’s eyes. She was thankful to allow
that it was quite reasonable that Harry should be sulky. “Though he
might have thought a little upon me. He might have thought I would
suffer most of all. He might have remembered how little I can do, and
that I must support everything,” she said to herself, with a few quiet
tears. She did not venture to say it even to Joan, though Joan was so
much more sympathetic than she could have hoped. Nobody ever thought of
anything she might have to suffer. Perhaps on the whole she was supposed
to enjoy it. “Making a fuss,” was one of her specialities in everybody’s
opinion. Her children were all disposed to think it did not matter very
much what the object of “the fuss” was. And thus she was left in her
parlour with her mending, a woman surrounded with people belonging to
her by nature and the dearest ties, yet altogether alone, as lonely as
any poor old maiden in her garret. Nor is this any unusual thing; a fact
in which the solitary may find a little uncomfortable alleviation of
their special woes.
Mr. Selby came back while the house was in this state of expectation,
not anxious as yet, but on the eve of becoming so. He did not send in
his card now, but usually presumed so far as to go straight to the
parlour door by himself, where he always knocked, however, before
entering. This time, he came in the morning, when he knew Joan was not
likely to be in the parlour. He was a little nervous, though perhaps it
would be too much to say that his heart beat. After forty, a man’s heart
requires a very strong inducement to make it beat, that is to say, in
any violent manner. But he was a little nervous, and half ashamed at
what he was about to do. He went doubtfully to the dairy door, which was
standing wide open. Inside Joan could be seen moving briskly about, and
her voice was very audible in not very gentle tones. Selby paused a
little, and listened to it with a comical concern upon his face. His
brow contracted a little with anxious care, though his mouth laughed.
Joan was scolding, nothing more or less. “Talk to me about not having
time!” she said, “You have time to dress yourself up, and go out to
court your lad, night after night. Is that what you call your duty to
your neighbour? My word, if your lads were your neighbours, you would
keep the commandments easy. Did ever any mortal see such bowls, to be in
a Christian person’s dairy? Woman! where do you expect to go? A dairy’s
not a dairy if the Queen of England might not eat her dinner off every
shelf in it, and give a prize for every brick. That’s what makes the
butter sweet, not your lads, or the tricks that you play. Get out of my
sight! I could take my hands to you, if I did not think too much of
myself.”
Philip Selby stood in the yard with a comical look on his face, and
listened. Was it fright? There could not be the least doubt that Joan
was scolding violently, and even using threats of personal violence, to
the lass, who, half in sorrow, but more than half in anger, was sobbing
in the background. The very sound of her foot and its rapid tap upon the
floor, was angry, and scolded too. He paused, and a look of alarm came
over his face. The Joscelyns were known for hot tempers all over the
county. Ralph Joscelyn was a man whom people avoided any sort of
argument with on this account, and all his sons shared, more or less,
his disposition. What if Joan shared it too? It was alarming to a man
bent on the special errand which had brought Selby here. Perhaps the
doubt was not romantic, but, on the whole, neither was the errand. If
she should say to him, “Get out of my sight!” if she should threaten to
“take her hands” to him in any domestic difficulty, it would not be
agreeable. He stopped short in the yard, where old Simon was cleaning
his milk-pails; through the dairy window the milk-bowls were visible,
ranged in perfect order, and a glimpse of Joan’s trim substantial
figure, passing and re-passing, with no sort of languor about her, such
as is supposed to encourage love. The would-be lover had a visible
movement of doubt. He caught old Simon’s eye and blushed, though he had
long supposed himself to be past blushing, and gave an uneasy laugh,
which sounded shy, though it was twenty years, Mr. Selby thought, since
he knew what the word meant. Old Simon was a man with a very wandering
eye, an eye to be spoken of in strict correctness in the singular
number. One of them he always kept upon his work, the other moved about,
finding out everything that was unwilling to be seen; this time he
perceived Mr. Selby’s sentiment at the first glance.
“Ye needn’t be feared,” he said, taking one hand from his pail to wave
it in the direction of the dairy, “ye needn’t be feared. She’s not a
lass to be feared for, our Miss Joan. Her bark’s worse than her bite.
Bless you, not the hundredth part of that she don’t mean.”
Philip Selby felt more alarmed still. That a woman should scold when she
meant it, that was supportable; but when she scolded, not meaning it,
that indeed was something to be frightened for. The smile upon his mouth
became a nervous one. He faltered in spite of himself.
“Lord!” said old Simon, turning his head aside, “six feet high, and na
mair heart than that. Is that what ye ca’ a man?”
“Hist!” said Selby, beckoning him close; he had half-a-crown between his
finger and thumb, “is that, now, a thing that happens very often? Tell
me the truth, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Terrible often,” said Simon, with a grin of derision, “most days--and
twa or three times a day.”
“And how do you manage to live with her?” said the panic-stricken
suitor.
“We cannot bide her out of our sight,” said Simon, his grin growing more
and more disdainful, “naething goes right when she’s--away. You may make
what you like out o’ that. It’s what they ca’ a paradox at the night
school.”
And he went off clashing his pails against each other in a manner which
caught Joan’s keen ear, as she paused for a moment before the open
window. “What are you doing with those pails?” she said; “have all the
folk about the town gone out of their wits to day? Do you not know,
Simon, that you started all the hoops last summer, and brought us in a
bill as long as my arm? Bless me, can nothing be done right in this
house, unless I put to my own hand, and do it myself?”
“Hear to her!” said Simon, tranquilly, taking no other notice of this
energetic address, “you can see for yourself. She’s often like that,
less or more.”
At this moment there came the sound of a laugh from within. “It’s Mr.
Selby, I declare,” said Joan, “to see the dairy! and all in such
disorder, ye lazy, big, soft----I told you I would let nobody in unless
we were tidied up, and we’re not tidied up, not a bit; but you’ll have
to come in, I suppose, as you’re here. Step in; we must not grudge the
welcome, since it’s all you’re likely to get. I’m in a passion; that’s
the fact,” said Joan, with a laugh, “I’m raging like a bull of Bashan.
You heard me as you were coming through the yard, I make no doubt; and
that’s how I have to go on very near every day.”
“Oh no, Miss Joan!” said the lass who had been bearing the brunt of the
storm; and Selby, looking round, saw that this aggrieved personage was
grinning from ear to ear.
“That’s just your deception,” said Joan, “that’s trying to get at my
weak side. When they get a laugh out of me, they think no more about it;
and it’s far too easy,” Joan added, shaking her head with comical
distress, “to get a laugh out of me, far too easy; but don’t you think
it’s fun, for I am as serious as I can be,” she cried, turning round
upon the culprit, who flew to her work with an alacrity which showed
Joan’s admonition to be not without effect, though she was cramming her
apron into her mouth all the time, that she might not laugh. Joan took
Selby all over the dairy, and showed him everything. She was an
enthusiast in all that concerned this portion of rural work. She took
him out to the fields behind the house afterwards to see her pet cows.
It was a breezy spring day, the sun shining, but the wind blowing, and
cold though sunny. Joan went out with the light shining in her trim and
smooth brown hair, and without a thought even of a shawl. “Cold? oh no,
I’m not cold,” she said, “I don’t trouble hats much, if it is not in the
height of summer, when you can really say there’s something like a sun.
This doesn’t count; there is no headache in it,” said Joan, looking
affectionately at the temperate ruler of the day, who makes no
unnecessary show in the North. “But you might catch cold,” suggested the
middle-aged lover. “Bless us,” said Joan, “me catch cold! why, such a
thing was never thought of; I’ve seen a fuss made about Harry for taking
cold; but never me. The air on the Fells never gives cold. It is your
fat damp air in the level, it’s not our hill air that ever does any
harm.”
“I am trying to think that, too. I am tired wandering about the world
with a regiment of navvies,” said Selby; “I’m thinking of settling
down.”
“That’s not a bad thing to do; but you must have led a cheery life
roaming about the world as you say. I don’t know that I would like it
myself; but change is lightsome. You must have seen a deal in your day,”
said Joan, looking at her companion. And as she did so she could not but
allow that he was a very “wise-like man.” It would be difficult to give
in other words the full force of this phrase. It does not mean
good-looking, or respectable, or tall, or wealthy, or well-dressed, or
well-mannered, but it means all of these together. And Philip Selby was
a little more--he was really handsome, though he was no longer young.
“I have seen a great deal in my day,” he said, “and my day has been a
good long one, for I’ve been afloat upon the world for more than twenty
years; but I don’t know that I ever saw anything so much to my mind as I
see to-day--a fine, breezy hillside, and fine cattle, and a thriving
country, not to say somebody by my side that----”
“Oh, you need not reckon me,” said Joan; “there’s women in all
countries. It’s a great pity there’s so many of us; we would be a great
deal more thought of if there were but a few.”
“Perhaps you would be angry,” said Selby, “if I said there were not many
like Miss Joan Joscelyn, wherever a man may go.”
“Oh, no, far from angry,” said Joan, with a laugh. “I should think it
was a very nice compliment; compliments are not common things in our
parts. You that have been about the world you know how to flatter
country folk--but among the Fells they’re but little known. Look at that
beast now,” she said, stroking tenderly the face of a great, soft-eyed
cow, “did you ever see a bonnier creature? There’s not a lady in all
England has such a balmy breath. And she’s better than she’s bonnie.
She’s a small fortune to us. And that little thing, that’s one from
France, of the Brittany kind, small feeders and good milkers; that
belongs to our little Liddy. You have never seen Liddy, Mr. Selby? She’s
the pet of the family; and when she’s not here we make a pet of her
little cow. Some are fond of Alderneys, some like this French breed.
Which do you like best?”
“I have no opinion. I am no judge. I know a horse when I see one, but
not a cow. I like the kind, Miss Joan, that you like best.”
“Well,” said Joan, laughing, “our tastes agree in some things. You
remember that brown colt? The last time I saw him he was just what I
expected--turning out a fine beast, far better than that Sister to
Scythian that father set such store upon. I think you and me were right
there.”
“I am sure we were right,” said Selby; “two heads are better than one.
Do you know, Miss Joan, I think our tastes are very likely to agree. I
have been to see Heatonshaw--which was the place you said you would
dearly like yourself.”
“Did I say I would dearly like it? That was strong. But it’s a bonnie
place, there is little doubt of that.”
“I think it is a sweet place; and a house that would just do for----I’ve
something more to say to you, Miss Joan, if you will have the
patience to listen. A wandering life is very pleasant for a time, but as
a man gets on in years he wants to settle down. But,” said Selby,
lifting his hand to stop her, for she was just about to interrupt
him--and putting a great emphasis upon the word, “_but_--not by himself.
He must have somebody to settle down with him, or it’s no settling at
all.”
“That’s true,” said Joan, with great external sobriety, though the
demon of laughter with which she had fought so severe a battle during
their last interview had sprung again into life within her, “That’s very
true. You’ll have to get a wife; but you cannot be at much loss about
that, Mr. Selby, for women are plenty--more’s the pity. There’s no place
you can go but you’ll find them in dozens. Men are real well off
nowadays, they have nothing to do but to pick and choose.”
“That would be very nice if anyone would do,” said Selby, with a
countenance the gravity of which contrasted strangely with the twinkle
in Joan’s eye and the quiver about the corner of her mouth, “but I
should not be content to pick and choose. The thing is, there is only
one that I want. If I cannot get her, another will not serve my purpose,
which is what you seem to think. Miss Joan, I know yours is a fine old
family, much above mine, though the Selbys have always been respectable.
You may think it presumptuous in me to ask you, but to tell the plain
truth it’s you I want.”
“Me you want?” she cried, a little confused--for though she had seen
what was coming, and had been quite prepared to make a joke of it, and
even now scarcely dared to meet his eye lest she should laugh, the
seriousness of the actual proposal bewildered her a little when it was
made. She did not think it would have been half such a serious business.
Joan, though she was not shy, and had treated the whole matter as a
great joke up to this moment, cast down her eyes in spite of herself,
and was confused, and for a moment did not know what to say.
“It’s just you I want,” said Selby; “you are the one I’ve had my eye on
since ever I came into the Fell-country. When first I saw your face, I
said to myself, ‘That’s the woman for me.’ You see, I was on the look
out,” he added, with a smile. “I have put by a little money, and I had
some from those that went before me. There’s enough to be comfortable
upon, especially if the wife had a little of her own. And neither you
nor me would like to be idle. You could set up your dairy, with all the
last improvements, at Heatonshaw, and there would be plenty for me to do
on the farm. I think we could make a very good thing out of it, and yet
keep up a very pleasant position. I would never be against seeing
friends, and you would have no need to exert yourself, but only to be
the head of everything, and keep all going. I could see my way to a
neat little carriage for you, or even a riding horse if you would like
that--and as to allowances and so forth, even if you had nothing of your
own----”
“I’m thinking you’re going too fast, Mr. Selby,” said Joan. The laughing
spirit was exorcised. She no longer felt any inclination to burst forth
into that _fou rire_ which comes at the most inappropriate moments. He
had sobered her by his own perfect sobriety. Joan felt that this was a
grave business affair, and not a frivolous piece of nonsense
inappropriate to her serious years. Some lingering wish, perhaps, to
hear a real love tale in her own person had been lurking in her mind
along with the certainty that she would laugh at it if it were told. And
many ludicrous pictures had come before her when she first espied Mr.
Selby’s “intentions.” She had wondered, with a comical mixture of
inexperienced faith and cynicism, whether he would go down on his knees
and call her by all sorts of endearing names. She was bursting with
laughter at the sentimental personage who intended to make a divinity of
Joan Joscelyn. Nevertheless, perhaps, she was a little conscious,
secretly and underneath all, though she never acknowledged it to
herself, that this was the way in which a woman had a right to be
addressed once in her life--Joan Joscelyn as well as another. But that
was a very great secret, and deep down; so deep that she had never
confessed it even to herself. And now she was out in all her
calculations, and there was nothing sentimental to laugh at. It was a
very sensible sort of bargain that was proposed to her, and she did not
know where to find a word against it. Her laugh came to an entire end.
“I’m thinking,” she said, “that you’re going too fast.”
“It lies with you to say that,” said Selby; “but, Joan, remember” (he
had given up the Miss, and she perceived it), “that what I am saying I’m
ready to do, and it’s only for you to say the word. I’ve thought of it
since ever I saw you. ‘That’s the woman for me,’ I said, and you know
how we agreed about the colt. We agree, too, about the place. I went to
look at it because you said you would like it, and I like it, too. And
we’re both partial to the same kind of life. If we couldn’t get on
together I don’t know who should. And in everything else I’ll do
whatever you please.”
“You miss out one thing, Mr. Selby,” said Joan, “we ought to be partial
to each other as well as to the kind of life.”
“Well, I am,” said Selby, fervently; “that’s the truth. I can’t speak
for you; but _I_ am. I’m partial to your looks and your ways, and
everything about you. I like the way you sit still and knit, and I like
you in your dairy and out here. You’re just all I want as far as I can
see. I like you when you’re scolding. I was a little bit frightened at
first; but afterwards I liked that as well as the rest.”
“Well, you’re a bold man to be partial to a woman when she’s scolding,”
said Joan, a little mollified; “but I don’t know much about you, Mr.
Selby, and I can’t say I’m partial to you.”
“That’s because you don’t know me,” he said promptly; “make as many
inquiries as you like, I am not afraid of them. You’ll find I have a
good character wherever I’ve been. I don’t see why I shouldn’t make you
happy as well as another. I’ve nothing behind me that I’m ashamed of.
You and I at Heatonshaw, with plenty of beasts in the stables, and the
house furnished to please you, and a bit of a phaeton in the
coach-house: I don’t see why we mightn’t be very snug together,” he
said, and as he spoke he took Joan’s hand, which, though a little red in
the fingers and brown on the back, was a shapely hand notwithstanding
all her work. Then she was seized all at once, and without warning, with
that _fou rire_.
“If you mean courting, Mr. Selby, it’s a bit public here,” she said,
discharging a load from her breast in that peal of laughter. He was a
little offended for the moment; but then he comforted himself that
laughing was near to crying, and that crying would have been a very good
sign indeed. At his age he had a little experience more than falls to
the lot of a youth at the ordinary love-making age.
“I hope you’re not just laughing at me, Joan.”
“I’m laughing at myself as well--and at you too. I’m old to have a lad,
and I never looked for such a thing--and you’re old,” Joan added. “I
think you’re too old for me.”
“I am forty-one; which is not a bad age. Just suitable, I think,” he
said.
Then she looked at him again with the laughter in her eyes. He was a
very “wiselike” man--nothing to be ashamed at, whoever saw him--very
good-looking indeed; more satisfactory in that way than Joan felt
herself to be. And Heatonshaw was a pretty place; and a house all of her
own was better than a house in which her father might interfere
arbitrarily every day, or even her mother change all the arrangements
some fine morning in a fit of absence or compunction. She turned round
and began to walk towards the house, suddenly becoming serious. Selby
turned too and walked with her. He did not say a word as they went over
the fields and through the garden of the White House, but waited her
pleasure in a deferential way which went to Joan’s heart. But she was
not “partial” to him. “We can talk of this some other time” was all that
she said.