“It isn’t that I want to keep you waiting, you know,” she said quite gently. “But it is my whole life that I have to consider.”
“I know.” His expression changed, and he took her hand, touching her for the first time, she realised with surprise, since he had made his extraordinary proposal. “I’ll be good to you, Jessica, within the limits of my disposition. And I promise you I will be good to the twins too.”
Not every man. Jessica knew, would be willing to take on a couple of schoolchildren as well as herself. But Ford Onderley — shrewd assessor of a situation that he was — knew that through the twins lay his likeliest chance of getting what he wanted. A secure and luxurious life for herself might represent a minor temptation to Jessica, as to most girls. But the thought of providing for the happiness and security of the twins was something infinitely more valuable.
The eager impulse to thank him for his generosity was immediately checked by the cool reflection that, in this case at least, generosity and policy probably went hand in hand. So Jessica simply said, gravely and quite sincerely:
“I’m sure you would be very good to us all — Ford.”
Perhaps he thought the use of his Christian name indicated a hopeful concession, because he flushed slightly — a rare thing with him — and said:
“How long will you want, to make up your mind?”
“You mustn’t try to tie me down.” Jessica spoke earnestly. “I promise not to take very long, but I refuse to be kept to a time limit.”
“Very well.”
She thought he was not at all used to having anyone say, “I refuse.” to him, but, judging from his faint, grim smile, he found a certain astringent novelty about it.
Then Aunt Miriam came in, with tea and a general air of intending to speed up things a little. And as she remained to see that the visitor did not outstay his permitted length of visit, there was no opportunity for further conversation of anything but a superficial character.
It was curious, and a little disconcerting, to have Aunt Miriam’s remarks all tending to show that they would soon be gone from The Mead, and be making a fresh life for themselves elsewhere. No doubt she thought that by talking about the approaching change, she would reconcile Jessica to the idea more quickly. But, with the incredible alternative now fixed in her consciousness, Jessica found it difficult to speak as though she too thought departure inevitable.
Consequently, conversation rather took the form of statements by Aunt Miriam, noncommittal murmurs from Jessica, and polite attention on Ford Onderley’s part. But it was heavy going, and all three of them were glad when the party broke up.
After escorting their visitor downstairs, Aunt Miriam returned to collect the tea things and, glancing over her spectacles at her niece, she said severely:
“I hope you haven’t been allowing that young man to put some other unsuitable suggestion before you, Jessica. You sounded to me as though you were still toying with some alternative to your uncle’s very sensible plans for you.”
“Ford Onderley didn’t put any unsuitable suggestion before me,” Jessica stated categorically. For surely even Aunt Miriam would regard marriage as a suitable suggestion.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” her aunt said, though still a little sceptically. “I don’t like him very much.”
“Don’t you, Aunt Miriam? Well, I do,’ Jessica replied dryly.
“Not such a good type as young David Forrest,” Aunt Miriam asserted confidently. “Now, that’s a really nice man, Jessica. The kind of man I should like to see you marry.”
“Oh, Aunt Miriam!” Jessica laughed protestingly. But she felt unaccountably distressed as well. Perhaps because Aunt Miriam’s remark, following so closely on Ford’s proposal, threw into sharp relief the fact that David was indeed much more the stuff of which good husbands are made than Ford would ever be.
Not that she had ever entertained romantic hopes of David. At least, hardly any at all.
She had been too busy and too much occupied with immediate problems during the last few months to think along those lines. She had known that she liked having David in the house, that she was inordinately pleased about his wish to paint her, and that, in some indefinable way, she had regarded him as a friendly ally in any emergency.
But had she gone any further than that?
It was difficult to say now. And Aunt Miriam’s inopportune comment only made her feel restless and troubled. For there was quite enough to make her decision difficult, as it was, without the introduction of the disturbing element of “It might have been.”
“You’ve been up quite long enough,” Aunt Miriam declared. “You’re beginning to look tired and peaky, and the sooner you get back to bed, the better. I was afraid Mr. Onderley’s visit might be too much for you.”
“No, it wasn’t too much for me,” Jessica insisted. But she was glad to go back to bed, because, once she had installed her there (presumably, out of mischief), Aunt Miriam would be willing to go away and leave her to her own thoughts.
The moment the door closed behind Aunt Miriam’s retreating figure, Jessica’s thoughts — released from the necessity of dealing with Aunt Miriam’s presence — fled back to the tremendous and significant fact of Ford Onderley’s proposal.
Jessica knew that, until this moment, she had been deliberately putting off considering it. She had pretended to herself that the really important thing was to conclude his visit without her committing herself, to ensure that Aunt Miriam suspected nothing unusual, to secure for herself an opportunity for solitary thought.
Well, all those small, immediate necessities had been attended to. She now had her opportunity for solitary thought. And nothing stood between her and the momentous question: What was she to do about Ford Onderley’s proposal?
The material advantages were, of course, so obvious that it was hardly necessary to go over them. He was rich, he was a man of known integrity, he was probably indulgent — in the way that dictators are sometimes indulgent, thought Jessica shrewdly — he was prepared to be a conscientious guardian to the twins, and, on his own admission, he loved her.
At least — Jessica paused and frowned as she tried to recall his exact words.
No, there had not been any exact declaration of love, now she came to think of it. He had merely said — almost reluctantly — that she was “a very easy person to fall in love with.”
“It means the same thing,” thought Jessica impatiently. But she was not absolutely certain that it did.
She lay watching the evening sunlight throw a slowly moving pattern across the bedroom carpet, and for a moment or two her thoughts wandered. Then the sound of Uncle Hector clearing his throat loudly in some other part of the house made her bite her lip with the easy irritation of the convalescent.
To have to live for months and months within sound of Uncle Hector clearing his throat! It was an unbearable thought.
Not, of course, that one decided life-and-death issues on trifles of that kind. But — how did one put up with the constant irritation of it?
“Don’t be silly!” Jessica admonished herself quickly. “And, in any case, as soon as you get better, you’ll start some training for earning your own living, and they’ll be just as glad to see the back of you as you will be to escape.”
Escape into what? she thought idly the next moment.
A girls’ club? Lodgings? A bed-sitting-room of her own? Possibly a very tiny flat, if she were lucky. And that would be home.
Never again to know the exquisite relaxation of wandering through a rambling house. Never to have a garden of one’s own. Never to know that, within call, were the two dearest people in the world — Judy and Tom.
“I suppose that escapade at the tarn will be the last expedition we shall have together,” thought Jessica. “By the time I’ve made a success of things” — because her innate optimism allowed no real thought of failure — “and we can be together again, they won’t be children any longer. They’ll be just as dear, but
they’ll be different people and we’ll have grown away from each other. Time doesn’t stand still, and their years as children are so short.”
With a pang, she remembered that, from their point of view too, the years as children were so short. They were not the kind to take kindly to boarding school, interspersed with holidays with Uncle Hector and Aunt Miriam. They would adapt themselves to that regime, of course, because they were good and cheerful children. But the lovely, carefree years they could have had would be gone and could never be called back.
But, if she married Ford Onderley . . .
Deliberately, Jessica tried to imagine herself running Oaklands for Ford — as his wife. And, as she did so, she recalled, for the first time, another significant figure in the picture: Angela.
Angela, she thought, would not be very pleased to welcome her as a sister-in-law. Nor, come to that, would Jessica have much pleasure in the relationship. But one had to bridge these differences in a marriage. And, presumably, however little she liked to abdicate, Angela would not expect to remain at Oaklands if her brother married.
But, absent or present, she would, Jessica guessed instinctively, be something of an enemy. That overheard conversation in the car had been a significant pointer to that. Angela would undoubtedly consider her an outsider who had had the effrontery to break into a tightly closed family circle.
“But I shouldn’t be marrying Ford’s relations. I should be marrying him — if I did take him on.” thought Jessica. And then she wondered what other members of the family there might be, to approve or disapprove of her intrusion.
Since Angela had run Oaklands until now, she was presumably his nearest — or perhaps his only near — relation. That would simplify things.
But, in any case, all these considerations were merely minor ones. Jessica knew that she was weighing them carefully and with exaggerated attention because she was instinctively shirking the fundamental issue. Leaving the question of inlaws and an entirely new standard of life and even the twins out of account, what did she really feel about being the wife of Ford Onderley?
That was the real point. What would it be like to link her life and her personality to his in the strongest and most intimate bond that existed?
She moved restlessly against the pillows which Aunt Miriam had piled up so carefully, and thought, “How little I know about him, when it comes down to thinking of him as a life companion. And how little he knows of me, in spite of his air of certainty.”
For a moment, panic overwhelmed her — as though the marriage were already an accomplished fact and there was no escape from sharing her life with a comparative stranger. Then she reminded herself firmly that nothing had yet been decided, and that the decision lay entirely with herself. No one was over-persuading her. No one would exercise undue pressure. It was for her to decide whether she were willing to take this incalculable risk for the sake of the twins and, to a lesser extent, her own material welfare.
“Many girls have married for less,” she told herself, “and been very happy.”
But what were “many girls” — or any other generalisation — when it came to considering one’s own personal life?
No help at all. And advice would be of very little help, too. Whom could she ask for advice? Aunt Miriam? Unthinkable, quite apart from the fact that Aunt Miriam looked at life from an angle entirely different from one’s own. Mary? No. Though Mary’s advice would probably be well-balanced and affectionately sincere, it was impossible to put so much of Ford Onderley’s private affairs before a near neighbour.
Whether she accepted his proposal or refused it, no one in the neighbourhood ought to be in full possession of the circumstances.
“She wasn’t in love with Ford Onderley, you know, but she took him because he could do so much for her and the children.”
Mary would never actually tell anyone that. But it would be disloyal to Ford if she gave anyone the power to think just that whenever meeting him.
No. It was something she would have to think out for herself, unassisted by any advice.
But, although she thought and thought until she fell asleep that night, Jessica arrived at no definite conclusion.
In the next few days, however, life was very much brightened for Jessica by one of those sudden accesses of health and strength which mark the real turning-point in any convalescence. Even the doctor — a cautious man — agreed that a trained nurse was no longer necessary. And, with the support — and under the elaborate direction — of Uncle Hector, Jessica was able to come downstairs and sit in the garden during the afternoons.
It was difficult not to feel that, with the return of strength, there might also come the return of old plans and hopes, now cast aside. But Jessica knew that, much better though she was, the point when she could support herself and the twins was still immeasurably far off.
Tom came every day to see her and, on the hospital’s visiting day, Judy too put in an appearance. Somewhat to Jessica’s relief, it was Mary, and not Ford, who brought her in the car.
“I can’t stay, dear. I have to do a duty call for my papa,” Mary explained. “But I’ll call back later for the infant, and I dare say there will be time for a short chat then.”
“Very well.” Jessica smiled. And, as she watched Mary drive away, she thought: “I should lose Mary’s companionship, too, if we went away from here.”
“Do you think I ought to go into the house and say how d’you do to Aunt Miriam first?” enquired Judy, breaking in on these melancholy reflections.
“Yes. It would be best,” Jessica agreed. While Tom said, without enthusiasm:
“I’ll come and keep you company, if you like, though I’ve already seen her and Uncle Hector once to-day.”
Judy, however, seemed to think she was quite capable of dealing with Aunt Miriam alone. So Tom withdrew temporarily to oil the garden roller with the aid of an oil can specially borrowed from Mary’s sympathetic gardener. And Jessica was left alone to enjoy the sunshine and the mingled scent of the flowers and the hundred little sounds which go to make up a summer afternoon.
It was all very peaceful, and she felt faintly drowsy, as well as contented. Indeed, she had actually closed her eyes, when she suddenly became aware of an alien sound which had nothing to do with the peaceful pattern of the afternoon.
Hurrying, uneven steps announced the rapid and agitated return of Judy, while, mingled with them, were the unmistakable sounds of ill-suppressed sobs.
“Judy!”
Jessica opened her eyes as her little sister rushed up to her and almost literally flung herself upon her in a paroxysm of distress.
“It isn’t true about our going away from here, is it, Jess?” Judy wailed. “It can’t be true. Aunt Miriam says it is and that Tom and I have to go to boarding school. Oh, do say it isn’t true!”
Inwardly cursing Aunt Miriam for having sprung this on her, Jessica hugged Judy tightly.
“Stop crying like that, darling. It — it isn’t quite decided yet, and there’s no need to get into this state.”
“But there is need, if we’re going away from here,” cried the literal Judy. “What do you mean about its not being quite decided yet? Oh, Jess, I’ve been so looking forward to coming home. It’s been nice at the hospital and they’ve been kind, but I wanted to come home all the time, only I wouldn’t make any fuss, because you were ill. But it was so lovely now you were getting better. And then Aunt Miriam has to say this about our going away. And boarding school too! That means being separated from Tom, as well as you and home, because no one ever had the sense to have a boarding school for both boys and girls, did they?”
Jessica wilted a little under this spate of words — every one of which seemed to throw into sharper relief the grey changes which were to come upon them all if Uncle Hector’s proposals were to be followed out.
“Judy, we should have the holidays together,” she began rather feebly.
“Where?” asked Judy quickly.
“Well �
�� well, at Uncle Hector’s home and —”
“Oh, Jess, how awful!”
“It’s very kind of them to want us,” Jessica pointed out, while she felt that “want” was being used in a comparative sense in this case.
Judy seemed to think so too, because she said candidly:
“They wouldn’t want us at all. And why should they, anyway? People don’t want each other just because they’re relations. It’s kind of them to have us because they don’t want us. But being kind doesn’t make things less awful.”
The profound truth of this reduced Jessica to distressed silence for a moment, and at that point Tom came up to join them, wiping his hands on an oily rag, with every appearance of absorbed enjoyment as he did so.
But Judy swept him into the vortex of her own woe.
“Oh, Tom! There’s Aunt Miriam saying we’ve got to go away from The Mead, and you and I are to go to boarding school, and Jess will live with them, and we’ll only see each other in the holidays — at their horrid home, which is just a house in a street,” finished Judy, arriving at the final detail of misery.
Tom, who took both his pleasures and his griefs more composedly than Judy, looked questioningly at Jessica.
“Oh, Jess! Is that true?” he said, and the one appalled question shook Jessica as much as Judy’s flood of distracted eloquence.
“It — it isn’t quite settled yet,” she stammered, as she had to Judy. And Judy caught that up again.
“You said that before. What do you mean, Jess? What could prevent it? What could prevent it?”
Jessica looked from one painfully anxious little brown face to the other.
“Look here, children. It’s perfectly true that we can’t go on living at The Mead, but it’s possible—” She drew a deep breath, found that she was trembling, and resolutely suppressed the fact. “How would you like to live at Oaklands?”
“Live—at Oaklands?” they gasped in chorus. And Judy added, “With Mr. Onderley, do you mean?”
Jessica meant so exactly that, that for a moment she could only nod. Then, realising that she had gone too far now to beat any sort of retreat, she said, as composedly as she could:
The Brave In Heart Page 10