“My dear Minella, we’d overcome all that in a week.”
“I shouldn’t want to be accepted on sufferance.”
“If that is the only reason why you hesitate …”
“It is not,” I replied.
Then why . “
“In a case like ours where the marriage would be considered unsuitable…”
“Unsuitable! That’s nonsense! Your parents did not seem to think so. Let’s face it, Joel. We should go back to the small community in which I lived for some years as the schoolmistress’s daughter. I was even teacher to the children of your friends and neighbours. Don’t let us shut our eyes to that. In a small community it persists for ever. I am better educated than your sisters simply because I was able to assimilate knowledge better than they were-but that doesn’t count.
They are the daughters of Sir John Derringham, Baronet, Squire of the Manor. I am the daughter of the schoolmistress. In a society like that it is an unbridgeable gulf. “
“Do you mean to tell me that a woman of your spirit would allow such a silly convention to deter her from what she wanted?”
“If she wanted it enough it wouldn’t, of course.”
“You mean that you don’t love me.”
“You make it sound unfriendly. I like you very much. It’s a great pleasure to see you again, but marriage is a serious matter … a lifelong affair. I think you are rushing into this. You see me as a damsel in distress. I am stranded here and revolution creeps nearer.
Where can I go? You would rescue me like a medieval knight. It’s very commendable but not enough to build a marriage on. “
“You can’t forget that I went away. If I had stayed .. i. defied my parents … it would have been different.”
“Who can say? So much has happened since then.”
‘you were sorry when I went? “
“Yes, I was sorry. I was a little hurt, but it was not a deep wound.”
“I am going to suggest that you and I are married here, now … in France. Then we shall go back to England … husband and wife.”
“That’s very bold of you, Joel. How would you face your parents?”
“You are trying to hurt me. I understand. I hurt you when I went away.
But believe me, I regretted it. I regretted it deeply. Look at it my way, Minella. I had lived with my parents all my life except when I was at the university. We are an amicable family. We always try to please each other and consider what the others want. It is second nature to us. When my father implored me to go away and consider for a while, I naturally obeyed him even though my deepest inclination was to stay. When you know my father, you will understand. Now when I take you back as my wife he will welcome you, because that is what will make me happy. He already admires you. He will learn, to love you. Minella, please don’t let the past influence you. Forgive me for what I did. You think it is weakness . and so it is, but what happened has made me sure of what I want now and I know that without you I can never be really happy again. There are things in my life which you will find irritating. I am cautious . over-cautious. I rarely act without thinking. It’s my nature. So when I fall in love, because it is the first time -and it will be the last-I am unsure of my emotions. It was only when I went away and communed with myself that I understood. Now I know that more than anything I want to marry you. I want to take you back to Derringham, I want us to be together there for the rest of our lives. “
White he was speaking it was as though my mother had come to stand beside him. I could almost see the joy in her eyes, the tears falling down her cheeks.
“Well, Minella?” he asked gently.
“It can’t be,” I said.
“It’s too late.”
“What do you mean… too late?”
I mean that it is not the same as it was. “
If I had asked you before I left . it would have been different, you mean? “
“Life is not static, is it? I have grown away from Derringham. A few days ago I had no idea that I should ever see you again. Then you come back and say marry me. You ask me to decide to change my life in a few minutes.”
I see,” he said. T. should have waited. I should have let you become accustomed to seeing me again. All right, Minella, we’ll wait. Take a few days. Think of all it would mean. Remember those walks and rides we had together and all the things we talked of. Do you recall them?”
“Yes, they were good times.”
There will be many good times, my dear. Well go back where we both belong. Well be together. Well watch the seasons come and go and each year we’ll grow closer to each other. Do you remember how we got along right from the first? Our minds fitted, didn’t they? I’ve never been so stimulated by anyone as I was during our walks together. Minella, it is what your mother would have liked more than anything. “
I was deeply moved at that moment. He was right. She, who had always wanted the best for me, had wanted this desperately. I thought of her plundering the dower chest to buy clothes for me. I could almost hear her gleeful whisper: “It was not in vain after all For her sake I should consider this.
He could see that I was hesitating and he cried triumphantly: “Yes, Minella, we must have time to think of this. But, my dearest, don’t be too long. We are on the edge of a volcano here. I shall not feel safe until we are aboard the packet and alight on English soil.”
I was relieved that I had not to give an immediate answer. I wanted to be alone to think.
I was not in love with Joel. I liked him, respected him, trusted him, understood him and could see ahead of me to the kind of life I would have with him. He was eminently eligible. He was the man my mother would have chosen for me.
And the Comte? Did I love him? I didn’t know. All I did know was that I was more excited by him than I had ever been in my life. Did I trust and respect him? How could I trust and respect a man whom I suspected of murdering his wife? Did I understand him? How could I know what was going on in that devious mind? And the life I might have with him? I thought of his wife’s words. He had an obsession for me, but how long would it last? I thought of his mistress waiting like a spider to catch her fly. And the background of our lives -this tortured country where the holocaust was likely to break forth at any moment. And then what would happen to people like the Comte and his family?
I thought of the peaceful green meadows of England, the woods where in early summer the bluebells were a blue mist under the trees. I thought of the primroses and violets in the hedges and gathering cob nuts in the autumn; and a wave of nostalgia came over me. I thought of picking pussy willows and filling vases with them and how I had taken the pupils for rambles in the country so that they might have a lesson in simple botany.
Joel was bringing back these memories and it seemed to me that my mother was with me more vividly than ever.
Joel pressed my hand.
“Dear Minella, think about it
Think what it would mean to us both. “
I looked at him and saw the kindliness in his face and I thought how like his father he was. I knew then that if he took me home as his wife. Sir John and Lady Derringham would not let the fact that I was not the bride they would have chosen for him stand in the way of their welcome. I knew that I would have the power to win their love and that I could without much difficulty overcome all the obstacles between myself and the happy life my mother had longed for me to have.
There was, of course, the Comte.
If I had never known him there could have been no hesitation. But having known him nothing could ever be the same again.
For the next two days I was constantly in Joel’s company. He did not speak of marriage he was the most tactful of men. We walked a good deal together; we talked of all sorts of subjects on which he was knowledgeable: The illness of the King of England; the wildness of his son, the Prince of Wales;