THE ART OF PROPOSING
When Dempster left the library on the entrance of Muriel, he met
Miss Jane at the door of that room. She proposed a turn in the
park as the evening was doing honour to the glorious day. They
went out together and wandered to Muriel's elm. Dempster's suit
was the subject they discussed. She urged him to make a proposal
that night, and promised to procure him an opportunity. Dempster
was willing, but in great straits how to proceed.
'You see,' he said, 'I never did a thing of the kind before. Then
you know Muriel is not aware that I'm in love with her. If she
knew that, then I could go at it like a--professor.'
It is to be feared he intended to say 'nigger,' and only
substituted the more refined but equally enigmatic word by an
exhaustive effort of brain power, whose external manifestation was
the usual wriggle.
Miss Jane said, 'Well it _is_ very difficult to know what to do in
making an offer of marriage. I have had six proposals--that is,
formal proposals--all of which I refused peremptorily, as I think
that I was made for a higher end than to be the wife of any
man--and they were all done differently; but, on the whole, I
prefer the colonel's method; and I think in proposing to Muriel
you had better follow it.'
'Oh, thank you! Tell me exactly what he did, and I'll practise it
just now.'
In his excitement Dempster's body, lithe and lissom as that of the
most poetical maiden, partook in the motion of his head. Miss
Jane, who had often been on the point of speaking to him about
this absurd habit, burst out, 'Don't wriggle that way, as if you
were impaled!'
Dempster shrivelled up, and hung flaccid on his spinal column,
like a hooked worm that has been long in the water.
'I assure you,' continued Miss Jane, less harshly, 'if you are
ever to take a place in the world you must overcome that.'
'Must I! I'm very glad you've told me. It's my natural form.'
'Conquer it, conquer it. Remember Demosthenes, Mr. Dempster.'
'I will, I will,' he cried, almost breaking his back, and causing
a hot shooting pain in his head, as he nipped a sprouting
corkscrew in the bud--a metaphor worthy of himself. Then he made a
sudden plunge into a sea of words, where he had to keep
perpetually rapping on the head an electric eel that tried with
unremitting fervour to run, or rather wriggle, the gauntlet of his
body and escape by his skull through the suture.
'Miss Chartres,' he said, 'I wish you would help me. I have been
wanting to get married for six years now, and I can't. I won't be
caught. They try it, the mothers. They dangle their daughters
before me like--like Mayflies. But I won't bite. I'd sooner
starve, Miss Chartres, starve. Die in a ditch--celibacy, you know.
I'll never marry one of these artificial flies. They may be good
enough; but it's their mothers--O, their mothers! Why, I've read
about them in novels. And then, when I do fall in love with a
nice--with a sweet--a natural--eh--ah--a natural fly--you
understand--I--I can't bite--haven't the courage--don't know how.
I've been in love before several times--though I never loved
anybody before like Muriel--and I couldn't possibly manage to--to
bite. But you'll teach me now, my dear Miss Chartres.'
He emerged, dripping, and the long-repressed eel shot out at the
crown of his head in a rapid spasm, leaving him a mere husk
propped against the elm.
Miss Jane, who had made up her mind that he should marry Muriel,
put his sincerity against his _gaucherie_, and determined to drill
him into some better form; for she judged that if the excitement
of talking about a proposal produced effects of the kind she had
witnessed, that of making one would simply stultify its object.
'I'll help you,' she said. 'Stand there.'
She seated herself on a protruding root of the elm, and pointed to
a sort of alcove in one of the large boughs. Dempster squeezed
himself under the branches, and stood, or rather stooped, at
attention.
'Now, obey my instructions. Imagine this to be a drawing-room.
Come forward on tip-toe, and say very significantly, and in fact
intensely, "Good evening. Miss Chartres," and don't wriggle.'
Dempster, clothed with resolution as with a strait-jacket,
advanced, and whispered between his set teeth, 'Good evening, Miss
Chartres.'
'Good evening, Mr. Dempster; be seated.'
He looked about for as comfortable a knot as possible, but Miss
Jane cried, 'No, no! you must refuse respectfully. The gallant
colonel did. He said something like this:--"Miss Chartres, I will
never sit in your presence until I have got an answer to a
question which my whole being is burning to ask." When you have
said that, go down on one knee and take my hand.'
Dempster was beginning to feel at home. Miss Jane was so
sympathetic, and smiled so benignly. In the heat of the moment,
and to prove himself an apt scholar, he thought he would reproduce
his lesson with variations. So he got down on his knees at the
off-set, and began, 'My adored Miss Chartres, never again in your
enchanting presence----'
'O!' went off among the branches like a sharp tap on a muffled
drum.
Miss Jane looked up in time to catch a glimpse of Muriel's head.
Dempster's strait-jacket snapped, and the released mechanism
hoisted him to his feet, spinning and glaring round in a vortex of
coat-tails.
Miss Jane, also on her feet, said calmly, 'That was Muriel.
There's no harm done. I must just tell her the exact state of the
case. It's always best to tell the truth. If she has any heart at
all it will be touched at the thought of your rehearsing your
proposal. I'll go after her, and explain, and send her to you.
That's the very thing.'
Now Miss Jane was a very shrewd woman. Her mind had been
ingenuously fixed on a marriage between her niece and her
_protege_, up to the moment of the appearance of Muriel's head
among the branches. There and then a sense of the incongruity of
such a union had struck her with most convincing power. Several
forces converged in this blow. One can be mentioned unreservedly,
viz., the sudden intuitive recognition of the fact that Muriel
would never consent to marry Dempster. Another, equally powerful,
must only be hinted:--the lady at that moment had once more,
however strangely, a gentleman at her feet. These are the keys to
her future conduct.
She was about to go after Muriel, but Dempster clutched her dress.
'I can't,' he whimpered.
'Nonsense. You'll be astonished at your own courage.'
'But the proposal. How am I to say it?'
'Keep a good heart, and remember my instructions. I've told you
how to begin. The rest you must do for yourself. Muriel will he
here shortly.'
Dempster resigned himself: and in a few seconds fear wound him up
to a pitch of nervous excitement, abnormal even with him.
'I'll rehearse again,' he said aloud, withdrawing to the alcove.
He got into the strait-jacket once more, and advanced on tip-toe
to an imaginary lady. But the charge did not give him
satisfaction. He retreated and stepped out a second time. He was
too absorbed in his manoeuvres to remember that however perfect he
might become, this mode would be out of the question in the
impending interview.
'Good evening,' he said impressively to the mossy root, and got
down on his knees.
'Miss Chartres'--and persuasion tipped his tongue--'I am burning
to know----'
A silvery ripple glided through the air behind him. 'I beg'
pardon, Mr. Dempster. I was not aware you were so pious a man,'
said Muriel.
A jack-in-the-box when the spring is touched shoots up not more
suddenly than Dempster did. Abashed, he could only stammer,
'Eh--ah--I mean well.'
'I do indeed believe you,' said Muriel in a kindly tone. 'My aunt
has told me that you were about to honour me with an offer of
marriage. I thank you, sir; but I beg you not to put me to the
necessity--the very disagreeable necessity--of refusing you.'
Half-an-hour before she could not have taken such a plain-spoken
initiative; but the interview with Lee had roused her soul to
arms.
Dempster, on the contrary, dimly conscious of his own absurdity
and afraid to trust his nature, stood forth against her in his
strait-waistcoat of formality. He could hardly believe his ears,
accustomed to the lie that no girl could possibly refuse a
millionaire, a false tenet which he had donned with his first pair
of trousers.
'Why should you refuse me? I--I am very rich, and I love you.'
This was still pronounced in his best society tone.
'I am very sorry for you,' said Muriel frigidly. 'If you persist
you will only annoy us both.'
His fear suddenly left him. He felt an underhand attack upon his
wealth, which was _him_--his personality. He threw off the
strait-waistcoat. He turned up the sleeves of his riches, and, in
a raucous tone like that of an aggrieved school bully who wants an
excuse to pommel a small boy, said 'Why do you refuse me? Give me
a reason.'
'A reason!'
'Yes. Is there anything extraordinary in asking for a reason? I
can't be put off in this way, you know. Do you love another?'
'I am very sorry for you; but you are becoming impertinent.'
'But what am I to do if you won't marry me? All my friends know
what I've come here for. It's absurd.'
'You had better desist.'
It is charitable to suppose that Dempster was utterly unaware of
what he was doing. Anger nearly suffocated him. He twisted and
squirmed at every word, writhing with the anticipation of mockery.
'It's shameful,' he cried. 'Here have I been loving you like--like
lava; and to be thrown overboard, ignominiously--yes,
ignominiously'--he fancied he heard the word resounding in
smoking-rooms--'for a poor nobody.'
Muriel started and glared at him. But he was 'fey,' and went on.
'You may well look! A foundling--a charity-boy! You love this
sup--superfluous and probably illegitimate pauper, who----'
'O, you unmanly fool!'
'I say!' and he fell against the tree smitten by Muriel's thunder
and lightning. The storm pealed on.
'I have read of men who spoke such cowardice, but I never thought
to know one. How dare you talk of love? O the shame! Every wealthy
fool can look at us, and love us, as they say, and whine to us--it
_is_ a shame! What right have you to love me or think of me? If
you ever wish to be worth a thought, or fit for his service whom
you've slandered, go and found hospitals, endow
scholarships--fling your wealth in the sea--only get rid of it!
And plough the fields, break stones, dig ditches--some honest work
your scanty brains are suited for; and when that has made you
something of a man, go and beg his pardon. Go away from here, now,
at once. He's waiting for me.'
Dempster limped away. His works were all run down. Youth is cruel,
and Muriel had meant to wound; but she felt a little remorseful at
the sight of the abject creature she had scorched and scotched
with such crude severity, and wished that she had at least spared
him the last savage cut. To be called a fool and a coward--to be
told to get rid of one's personality, is bad; but to be dismissed
in order to make instant room for the other, partakes too much of
hacking and slashing, and might even be put in the category with
vitriol-throwing.
Muriel looked over the wall and called Frank. He was waiting
somewhere near, she knew; and he came and climbed over and kissed
her.
'Where were you hiding?' she asked.
'I sat on a stone by the side of the wall, and meant to sit there
till the voices ceased, or you called me.'
'Did you hear what we said?'
'No.'
'Well, it doesn't matter just now. I'll tell you some other time.'
She sat down on the wall and bade him do the same. Dempster was
forgotten: the stronger impression, that produced by Lee, came out
through the more recent one like the original writing on a
palimpsest.
'When one meets one's father,' she said, 'after a long absence,
whether one knows him well or not, one's heart leaps, and a great
thrill strikes through one.'
'Yes,' said Frank. 'I believe my nerves would ring to the sound of
my father's voice if I were hearing it, though I've never seen
him.'
'Don't imagine it for a moment, dear. When your father comes back
after ten years you shiver in his presence--you feel as if you had
jumped into a frosty sea out of the summer. I did when I went to
him from you.'
She kicked her heels against the wall, and sat on her hands,
looking round and up at Frank like a bird. Then she turned her
gaze into the tree. In the mood that held her, to think was to
resolve. She came to her feet, and stood before her lover.
'What would you think if I were to tell you that my father had
chosen a husband for me?'
'I should think it the height of folly, unless I were his
selection.'
'Come to him now. Say to him that you love me, and that I love
you, and that he may kill me if he likes, but that I will never
marry anybody else.'
'This is encouraging.'
'And you will need courage.'
'What is wrong?'
'You'll know soon enough. Come.' And she led him to the house. She
danced along the path. Her eyes clashed against his.
'I'm in the major key,' she said.
No wonder she was in the major key. She had a vision of the
encounter between her lover and her father; a wordy tournament in
which the former bore off the honours. Her heart was fast melting
down every feeling into a glowing rage at the man who, after ten
years' absence, came to blight her life; and her body, the flames
about that crucible, leapt and trembled. She could move only in
bounds to a measure. Frank, mystified, but flushed by sympathy,
followed her, admiring.
She took him straight to the library. Lee was not there.
'Wait here, and I shall find my father,' she said.
But Miss Jane came into the room.
'How in the name of all the proprieties dare you enter this house,
sir?' she cried.
Frank, as the reader will surmise, had been forbidden the house.
Muriel sat down on the couch and pulled her lover to her side.
Then she rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands,
and looked at her aunt. It was grossly impertinent.
'For shame! What is the meaning of this folly, Muriel?' and the
angry lady crossed the floor, and bristled before the couple with
only a yard between.
Muriel became absolutely but serenely rabid.
'Mr. Hay is going to take supper with us to-night,' she said.
'Ring the bell please, aunt, and order supper to be hastened.'
Miss Jane towered, physically and morally.
'Muriel'--she spoke solemnly, as became her exaltation--'you
wicked girl! You have much greater cause to keep your room and cry
over your misdemeanours, than come here outraging all decency in
this way. Have you no maidenly reserve at all?'
Then she leant towards Frank.
'Mr. Hay, I should think this exhibition of temper and impudence
will make it needless to fear that you will aid further in
thwarting our intentions with regard to Muriel. Indeed, I don't
know at present how it will be possible for me to stand by quietly
and see any young man, however eligible, throw himself away on
such an incorrigible young woman.'
Thoroughly on fire at the imperturbable smile on Muriel's face,
she leaned towards her again, a flaming tower of Pisa.
'Muriel, if ever you wish to regain the place you have lost in my
esteem, you will tell Mr. Hay to leave this house at once, and
never enter it again.'
Muriel fumbled in her pocket, and half-withdrew her hand, but
thought better of it.
Miss Jane again menaced Frank.
'Mr. Hay, the cool effrontery you display in sitting quietly
smiling--don't try to hide it, sir!--while the woman you profess
to love throws to the winds all respect for herself and her
betters, actually and openly defying her aunt----'
Muriel had risen, and was approaching the bell-pull. Her hand was
almost on it, when her aunt, with surprising agility, intercepted
her.
'Not while I live!' she cried, almost hysterically.
Frank rose, and began, 'I shall not----'
'You shall!' cried Muriel.
'Leave the room, Muriel!' said Miss Jane, collecting her dignity,
and posing again as a tower.
Muriel's hand slipped back to her pocket, and she looked straight
into her aunt's eyes. Once more she changed her purpose, and left
the room with a smile, and an airy nod to Frank.
'Did that girl wink just now, sir?' said Miss Jane.
'I didn't observe.'
The excited lady pulled a chair before Frank, and sat down
opposite him. 'Mr. Hay,' she said, 'I wish to be reasonable. I
know myself what it is to be young. Indeed, putting other
circumstances aside, I can almost sympathise with you in your
infatuation for Muriel. She is really a very good-looking girl;
but this scene must have convinced you that her nature is wholly
unregenerate, and I hope----'
What she hoped can only be guessed, for Muriel re-entered the
room.
Miss Jane rose, this time in cathedral-like grandeur. Alas! she
was a very weak-tempered woman. The cathedral brought forth a cat.
'What brings you back?' she cried. 'You are a disgrace to your
sex: you are no lady; you are a shameless minx!'
Muriel came close to her, her hand clutched in her pocket.
'Aunt,' she said, 'you are carrying this a little too far. Did you
really suppose that I had gone at your command?'
'I certainly did; and I repeat it. Go!'
'When I leave this room, Frank goes with me. Supper will be served
in a minute for him and me in my sitting-room.'
'Is it you or I that's dreaming, girl?'
'You have been dreaming, but you're wakening now. You thought you
could mistress me; you can't.'
'If I can't mistress yon, as you vulgarly say, we'll see whom the
servants will obey.'
Miss Jane rang the bell violently.
Muriel's hand was again half-out of her pocket, but a whimsical
expression came over her face, and she returned it.
'They shan't get the chance of disobeying you,' she said, going
out of the room and holding the door shut. Her aunt tried to pull
it open, but did not prosecute her attempt. It was too like a
school-girl. She appealed to Frank tacitly. He shook his head. To
tell the truth, the young man enjoyed it rather than not.
Shortly, a housemaid's voice was heard saying, 'Supper's just
ready, Miss Muriel.'
The answer came, 'Very well; that's all,' and Muriel re-entered.
She put her back against the door in a blaze of triumph, and said
mock-heroically, 'No one shall leave this room till supper's
served.'
Miss Jane was beaten, and Muriel had conquered without it; but now
she held it out, and shook it open, remorselessly, her poor,
little, crumpled letter. Her aunt, who had forgotten all about it,
sank on the couch sobbing hysterically. Youth will exact the
uttermost farthing, knowing not how it will need much mercy
itself. The girl was punished there and then by a shade that
passed over her lover's brow. She felt that he remembered the
scene of the discovery, and contrasted it with this; but before
she had decided what amends to make Lee entered the room. He
looked about him, and immediately appeared to be in a tremendous
passion; Miss Jane sat up; and Muriel, crossing the floor, took
Frank's arm.
'Muriel,' said Lee, 'go to your room.'
She clung to Frank.
'I never bid twice,' and he pulled her away and swung her to the
door.
'This is too much!' cried Frank, stepping towards Lee.
'Mr. Hay, I suppose. I shall speak with you immediately.'
Muriel was about to approach Frank again, but Lee pointed her
sternly to the door. As before, in his presence, and by his
conduct, she was utterly bewildered, and wandered out of the room
as if she had lost her wits.
'Here's a change!' exclaimed Miss Jane, 'What a disgraceful scene
there has been here, brother! I apologise to myself for allowing
my emotions to overcome me.'
'Leave us, please, Jane.'
'Certainly, Henry,' and as she went, she cast a withering look at
Frank.