“Oh, nothing, nothing!” she sobbed. “Only I thought—I was afraid—that you might be regretting it! And although I think you ought to, I couldn’t bear it if you did! And I know you haven’t thought how you would like to be married to a female who has only her nurse to support her at the altar!”
His eyes laughed, but his voice was perfectly grave as he replied: “You are very right! I hadn’t thought of it. You wouldn’t care, I suppose, to depend on my support, if your nurse should be unequal to the task?”
She gave a rather watery giggle, and subsided again on to his chest. “Don’t make game of me! You know very well what I mean! What would all your relations think?”
“Of course! That is a serious consideration. I wonder why it should not have occurred to me?” he said, apparently much struck. “Could it have been because what they think doesn’t seem to me to be of consequence?”
“It is of consequence to me,” she said, into his coat.
“Is it? Then there’s only one thing for it! We must be married privately, by special licence!”
“Oh, Philip, as though that would make it any better! Do, do be serious!”
“I am being serious, little wet-goose. I am determined to remove you from Staplewood as soon as may be possible; and since neither of us, I hope, is so lost to all sense of propriety as to consider a flight to the Border to be pardonable in any but extremely ramshackle persons—what one might call the baggagery, you know!—I believe my best course will be to convey you to London, to the protection of your nurse, for just so long as it will take me to procure the special licence, and to send an express to my steward, telling him to make all ready for our homecoming. After which, I mean to carry you off to Broome Hall immediately. Oh, Kate, my dear love, you don’t know how much I long to see you there! Or how much I hope that you will like it!”
“I am very sure I shall,” she replied, with simple conviction. “But it would be quite as ramshackle for me to run away to London with you immediately as to fly with you to the Border, my dear! Consider! Surely you could not wish me to behave with such a want of conduct—so ungratefully? Every feeling must be offended!”
“You have no cause to be grateful to Minerva!”
“Oh, yes, I have!” she said, smiling mischievously up at him. “If she hadn’t brought me here I should never have met you, my dear one!”
His arms tightened round her until she felt her ribs to be in danger of cracking, but he said unsteadily: “That was not her object, you artful little Sophist!”
“No, far from it! What was that you called me?”
“A Sophist, my love—an artful one!”
“What does it mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“One who reasons in a specious way!” he answered, laughing at her.
“Oh, I don’t!” she said indignantly. “How can you be so uncivil?”
“I am not on ceremony with you!” he retorted.
“No, so I collect!” she said, gently disengaging herself. “We must discuss this, you know—and without prejudice, if you please! Come and sit down! We shan’t be disturbed: Torquil and Dr Delabole are going to Market Harborough, and you know my aunt is unwell, don’t you? Which is one of my reasons for not dashing away to London in such an unseemly fashion—as though she had been ill-using me, and I had seized the chance offered by her illness to escape! You should know what sort of gossip that would give rise to! Could anything be more unjust? Whatever her motive was in inviting me here, I have received nothing but kindness from her, and I will not leave Staplewood in such haste as must astonish all those who know that I had the intention of remaining here until the end of the summer, and lead to conjectures which might reflect on me, you know, and that you wouldn’t like!”
It was evident, from the arrested expression on his face, that this possibility had not occurred to him. He said emphatically: “No!”
“Of course you wouldn’t! As a matter of fact, I shouldn’t like it myself. I wish you will not stand there frowning down at me! It puts me in a terrible quake!”
He smiled, and came to sit beside her on the sofa, saying: “Fibster!”
“Not at all! You wouldn’t believe how pudding-hearted I can be!”
“No, that’s true: I wouldn’t! If you were pudding-hearted you wouldn’t remain here!”
I’m not afraid of Torquil,” she said quietly, “but I promise you I dread telling my aunt that I am going to marry you, Philip. I must do so: to go away without telling her would be very much too shabby, don’t you agree?”
“You may leave it to me to tell her!”
“On no account! That would not only be rag-mannered, but it would make it seem as if my conscience was shockingly guilty. It will be your task to break the news to Sir Timothy.”
“That’s easy! I mean to do so at once, and I have a strong notion that he will be pleased.”
“I hope he will be. He invited me to dine with him yesterday, and—and he did me the honour to say that he liked me, and would have wished a daughter to have grown up to resemble me. And I think he was perfectly sincere, because he warned me not to let myself be bullied or cajoled into doing what my heart, and what he called my good sense, told me was wrong. I believe that he did so out of affection, and I know that he shrank from the task. Well, he warned me that I was deceiving myself if I supposed that my aunt had brought me to live with her out of compassion. He said that although he didn’t know what it might be he did know that she must have had a motive—and to say that of her must have been excessively distasteful to him.”
He had listened intently to her, an expression of gathering surprise in his face, and he exclaimed: “Then he must indeed hold you in affection! I believed I enjoyed as much of his confidence as anyone, but he wouldn’t have been so frank in talking to me. I have sometimes wondered whether he is frank with himself—allows himself to take notice of what is unpleasant. It is painful to see how much he shrinks from facing anything that—oh, that must disturb his peace! He was not always so, Kate! If you had known him when my Aunt Anne was alive—in the days of his happiness!—I suppose his can never have been a strong character, but—but even though I can’t now respect him, I can never forget how much I owe to him, or cease to love him! I wish I could explain to you—make you understand—”
She was a good deal moved, and checked him, laying a hand over his hard-clenched ones, and saying gently: “I do understand. I have seen what you describe: his character is not strong, but he is very lovable. I have loved him almost from the moment of first seeing him, and I can readily understand what your feelings must be, and—and why you hold my aunt in such dislike, and your own aunt in such veneration. He told me how it had been: he said she was an angel.”
He nodded, biting his lip. “She wasn’t a beauty, or a clever woman, but so good! In those days, Staplewood was my home, not a—a show-place! And my uncle cared for it as he no longer does! I daresay Minerva improved the gardens, but what he cared for, before his health broke down, was his land! I have been riding about the estate lately, and I can tell you this, Kate: my own land is in better heart! Minerva talks glibly enough, but she knows nothing about agriculture, and thinks, because the fellow that became bailiff When old Whatley was pensioned off flatters her, that he’s first rate. Well, he ain’t! My uncle must know it, for it’s only a few months since he gave up hacking round the estate, but he seems not to care!”