While Ethelberta during the next few days was dismissing that evening
journey from her consideration, as an incident altogether foreign to the
organized course of her existence, the hidden fruit thereof was rounding
to maturity in a species unforeseen.
Inferences unassailable as processes, are, nevertheless, to be suspected,
from the almost certain deficiency of particulars on some side or other.
The truth in relation to Neigh's supposed frigidity was brought before
her at the end of the following week, when Dan and Sol had taken Picotee,
Cornelia, and the young children to Kew for the afternoon.
Early that morning, hours before it was necessary, there had been such a
chatter of preparation in the house as was seldom heard there. Sunday
hats and bonnets had been retrimmed with such cunning that it would have
taken a milliner's apprentice at least to discover that any thread in
them was not quite new. There was an anxious peep through the blind at
the sky at daybreak by Georgina and Myrtle, and the perplexity of these
rural children was great at the weather-signs of the town, where
atmospheric effects had nothing to do with clouds, and fair days and foul
came apparently quite by chance. Punctually at the hour appointed two
friendly human shadows descended across the kitchen window, followed by
Sol and Dan, much to the relief of the children's apprehensions that they
might forget the day.
The brothers were by this time acquiring something of the airs and
manners of London workmen; they were less spontaneous and more
comparative; less genial, but smarter; in obedience to the usual law by
which the emotion that takes the form of humour in country workmen
becomes transmuted to irony among the same order in town. But the fixed
and dogged fidelity to one another under apparent coolness, by which this
family was distinguished, remained unshaken in these members as in all
the rest, leading them to select the children as companions in their
holiday in preference to casual acquaintance. At last they were ready,
and departed, and Ethelberta, after chatting with her mother awhile,
proceeded to her personal duties.
The house was very silent that day, Gwendoline and Joey being the only
ones left below stairs. Ethelberta was wishing that she had thrown off
her state and gone to Kew to have an hour of childhood over again in a
romp with the others, when she was startled by the announcement of a male
visitor--none other than Mr. Neigh.
Ethelberta's attitude on receipt of this information sufficiently
expressed a revived sense that the incidence of Mr. Neigh on her path
might have a meaning after all. Neigh had certainly said he was going to
marry her, and now here he was come to her house--just as if he meant to
do it forthwith. She had mentally discarded him; yet she felt a shock
which was scarcely painful, and a dread which was almost exhilarating.
Her flying visit to Farnfield she thought little of at this moment. From
the fact that the mind prefers imaginings to recapitulation, conjecture
to history, Ethelberta had dwelt more upon Neigh's possible plans and
anticipations than upon the incidents of her evening journey; and the
former assumed a more distinct shape in her mind's eye than anything on
the visible side of the curtain.
Neigh was perhaps not quite so placidly nonchalant as in ordinary; still,
he was by far the most trying visitor that Ethelberta had lately faced,
and she could not get above the stage--not a very high one for the
mistress of a house--of feeling her personality to be inconveniently in
the way of his eyes. He had somewhat the bearing of a man who was going
to do without any fuss what gushing people would call a philanthropic
action.
'I have been intending to write a line to you,' said Neigh; 'but I felt
that I could not be sure of writing my meaning in a way which might
please you. I am not bright at a letter--never was. The question I mean
is one that I hope you will be disposed to answer favourably, even though
I may show the awkwardness of a fellow-person who has never put such a
question before. Will you give me a word of encouragement--just a hope
that I may not be unacceptable as a husband to you? Your talents are
very great; and of course I know that I have nothing at all in that way.
Still people are happy together sometimes in spite of such things. Will
you say "Yes," and settle it now?'
'I was not expecting you had come upon such an errand as this,' said she,
looking up a little, but mostly looking down. 'I cannot say what you
wish, Mr. Neigh.
'Perhaps I have been too sudden and presumptuous. Yes, I know I have
been that. However, directly I saw you I felt that nobody ever came so
near my idea of what is desirable in a lady, and it occurred to me that
only one obstacle should stand in the way of the natural results, which
obstacle would be your refusal. In common kindness consider. I daresay
I am judged to be a man of inattentive habits--I know that's what you
think of me; but under your influence I should be very different; so pray
do not let your dislike to little matters influence you.'
'I would not indeed. But believe me there can be no discussion of
marriage between us,' said Ethelberta decisively.
'If that's the case I may as well say no more. To burden you with my
regrets would be out of place, I suppose,' said Neigh, looking calmly out
of the window.
'Apart from personal feeling, there are considerations which would
prevent what you contemplated,' she murmured. 'My affairs are too
lengthy, intricate, and unpleasant for me to explain to anybody at
present. And that would be a necessary first step.'
'Not at all. I cannot think that preliminary to be necessary at all. I
would put my lawyer in communication with yours, and we would leave the
rest to them: I believe that is the proper way. You could say anything
in confidence to your family-man; and you could inquire through him
anything you might wish to know about my--about me. All you would need
to say to myself are just the two little words--"I will," in the church
here at the end of the Crescent.'
'I am sorry to pain you, Mr. Neigh--so sorry,' said Ethelberta. 'But I
cannot say them.' She was rather distressed that, despite her
discouraging words, he still went on with his purpose, as if he imagined
what she so distinctly said to be no bar, but rather a stimulant, usual
under the circumstances.
'It does not matter about paining me,' said Neigh. 'Don't take that into
consideration at all. But I did not expect you to leave me so entirely
without help--to refuse me absolutely as far as words go--after what you
did. If it had not been for that I should never have ventured to call. I
might otherwise have supposed your interest to be fixed in another
quarter; but your acting in that manner encouraged me to think you could
listen to a word.'
'What do you allude to?' said Ethelberta. 'How have I acted?'
Neigh appeared reluctant to go any further; but the allusion soon became
sufficiently clear. 'I wish my little place at Farnfield had been
worthier of you,' he said brusquely. 'However, that's a matter of time
only. It is useless to build a house there yet. I wish I had known that
you would be looking over it at that time of the evening. A single word,
when we were talking about it the other day, that you were going to be in
the neighbourhood, would have been sufficient. Nothing could have given
me so much delight as to have driven you round.'
He knew that she had been to Farnfield: that knowledge was what had
inspired him to call upon her to-day! Ethelberta breathed a sort of
exclamation, not right out, but stealthily, like a parson's damn. Her
face did not change, since a face must be said not to change while it
preserves the same pleasant lines in the mobile parts as before; but
anybody who has preserved his pleasant lines under the half-minute's peer
of the invidious camera, and found what a wizened, starched kind of thing
they stiffen to towards the end of the time, will understand the tendency
of Ethelberta's lovely features now.
'Yes; I walked round,' said Ethelberta faintly.
Neigh was decidedly master of the position at last; but he spoke as if he
did not value that. His knowledge had furnished him with grounds for
calling upon her, and he hastened to undeceive her from supposing that he
could think ill of any motive of hers which gave him those desirable
grounds.
'I supposed you, by that, to give some little thought to me
occasionally,' he resumed, in the same slow and orderly tone. 'How could
I help thinking so? It was your doing that which encouraged me. Now,
was it not natural--I put it to you?'
Ethelberta was almost exasperated at perceiving the awful extent to which
she had compromised herself with this man by her impulsive visit. Lightly
and philosophically as he seemed to take it--as a thing, in short, which
every woman would do by nature unless hindered by difficulties--it was no
trifle to her as long as he was ignorant of her justification; and this
she determined that he should know at once, at all hazards.
'It was through you in the first place that I did look into your
grounds!' she said excitedly. 'It was your presumption that caused me to
go there. I should not have thought of such a thing else. If you had
not said what you did say I never should have thought of you or Farnfield
either--Farnfield might have been in Kamtschatka for all I cared.'
'I hope sincerely that I never said anything to disturb you?'
'Yes, you did--not to me, but to somebody,' said Ethelberta, with her
eyes over-full of retained tears.
'What have I said to somebody that can be in the least objectionable to
you?' inquired Neigh, with much concern.
'You said--you said, you meant to marry me--just as if I had no voice in
the matter! And that annoyed me, and made me go there out of curiosity.'
Neigh changed colour a little. 'Well, I did say it: I own that I said
it,' he replied at last. Probably he knew enough of her nature not to
feel long disconcerted by her disclosure, however she might have become
possessed of the information. The explanation was certainly a great
excuse to her curiosity; but if Ethelberta had tried she could not have
given him a better ground for making light of her objections to his suit.
'I felt that I must marry you, that we were predestined to marry ages
ago, and I feel it still!' he continued, with listless ardour. 'You seem
to regret your interest in Farnfield; but to me it is a charm, and has
been ever since I heard of it.'
'If you only knew all!' she said helplessly, showing, without perceiving
it, an unnecessary humility in the remark, since there was no more reason
just then that she should go into details about her life than that he
should about his. But melancholy and mistaken thoughts of herself as a
counterfeit had brought her to this.
'I do not wish to know more,' said Neigh.
'And would you marry any woman off-hand, without being thoroughly
acquainted with her circumstances?' she said, looking at him curiously,
and with a little admiration, for his unconscionably phlegmatic treatment
of her motives in going to Farnfield had a not unbecoming daring about it
in Ethelberta's eye.
'I would marry a woman off-hand when that woman is you. I would make you
mine this moment did I dare; or, to speak with absolute accuracy, within
twenty-four hours. Do assent to it, dear Mrs. Petherwin, and let me be
sure of you for ever. I'll drive to Doctors' Commons this minute, and
meet you to-morrow morning at nine in the church just below. It is a
simple impulse, but I would adhere to it in the coolest moment. Shall it
be arranged in that way, instead of our waiting through the ordinary
routine of preparation? I am not a youth now, but I can see the bliss of
such an act as that, and the contemptible nature of methodical
proceedings beside it!'
He had taken her hand. Ethelberta gave it a subtle movement backwards to
imply that he was not to retain the prize, and said, 'One whose inner
life is almost unknown to you, and whom you have scarcely seen except at
other people's houses!'
'We know each other far better than we may think at first,' said Neigh.
'We are not people to love in a hurry, and I have not done so in this
case. As for worldly circumstances, the most important items in a
marriage contract are the persons themselves, and, as far as I am
concerned, if I get a lady fair and wise I care for nothing further. I
know you are beautiful, for all London owns it; I know you are talented,
for I have read your poetry and heard your romances; and I know you are
politic and discreet--'
'For I have examined your property,' said she, with a weak smile.