by Sara Seale
Emily’s eyes were on Dane’s face, and as she watched him she was conscious of that familiar sense of trespass. Was it pain, regret, or merely a cynical tolerance that tightened the muscles about his mouth, she wondered. Did he remember other New Years when he had his sight and looked forward to success, achievement and, perhaps, love?
Emily’s own eyes filled with tears. He was still a stranger but in that moment she felt she knew him; knew him and was powerless to help except to give him the little he might ask, and unbidden to her mind came the lines of one of the old folk songs she had taught to Alice.
Black is the color of my true love’s hair ...
—But Tim’s had been red ...
I love my love and well he knows
I love the ground whereon he goes—
The last note of the hour died away and with the sound of many voices singing the familiar air the little group came to life. Dane raised his glass and gave the traditional toast, they wished each other a happy New Year all round and Mrs. Pride, her glass almost untouched, prepared to take her leave and drink her champagne in the kitchen where etiquette could be relaxed.
“I’ll be waiting to see you into bed, sir,” Shorty said, preparing to follow her, but Dane shook his head.
“I’ll do without you tonight, Shorty,” he said. “In any case it’s an unnecessary, if kindly attention, as I’ve often told you. Now, Alice, off to bed and leave that glass behind you. One sip at this hour of night is quite sufficient at your age.”
“I don’t think I like it very much,” said Alice. She winked at Shorty and handed him her champagne and he went out, grinning, a glass in each hand.
“Shall I come up with you,” asked Emily, watching the child with amusement.
"No, thank you,” Alice said with polite unconcern, then she suddenly flung her arms round Emily’s neck in a rare gesture of affection.
“Good-night, dear Emily—it was a really truly New Year this time, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Emily softly. “May it bring you all your dearest wishes.”
“Good-night, Uncle Dane, and thank you for letting me come down,” Alice said to her guardian, but she did not offer to kiss him and, drawing her dressing-gown closely about her thin little body, walked sedately from the room.
“Have they all gone?” asked Dane.
“Yes,” said Emily. “I hope—I mean I’m afraid I rather thrust this on you.”
“Not at all. I could have gone to bed if I’d wanted to.”
“I suppose so, only—”
“You have an exasperating habit of leaving your sentences in mid-air with the word ‘only’,” he said.
“Have I? Well, sometimes it’s difficult—”
“What is? You sound unsure of yourself tonight. Did the passing of the Old Year raise ghosts?”
“Not for me,” she said. “But I was watching your face.”
“Oh! You thought the ghosts were being raised for me, did you?”
“I wasn’t sure. I think I’d better go to bed now.”
“Oh, no,” he said with a touch of arrogance. “You can’t run away from me like that. I want to drink a private toast to you, Emily Moon.”
She waited uneasily. He seemed in a strange mood and her emotions had already been stirred in a fashion she had not expected. He stood with his back to the fire and raised his glass to her.
“To you— Child Friday,” he said.
She watched, him drink his wine, observing those thin, sensitive fingers on the glass. They were good hands, sure hands, she thought; they were the substitutes for the sight he no longer had.
“Why did you call me that?” she asked.
“Have you forgotten you told me Friday’s child was loving and giving?”
“Oh, I see.”
“No you don’t. I shouldn’t trade on an old tag which may be true—and I think it is. Come here.”
He put down his glass and she moved slowly towards him. His gaze was directed too high above her head and his hands, feeling for her, at first touched her face before they dropped to her shoulders.
“You’re not very tall, are you?” he said. “I must remember. Emily, you’re going to stay with us, aren’t you?”
“The month isn’t up,” she said and knew that she was playing for time, not because she wanted to refuse him, but because she was suddenly afraid of herself.
“I know,” he replied with gentle amusement. “But this is the time for good resolutions, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, do you find me unbearable as an employer?”
“No—of course not, only—”
“That tantalizing little word again! Do you think you could find it bearable to think of me as a husband?”
He had spoken casually, as though his extraordinary suggestion meant no more than a bonus for good behavior. Emily stared at him helplessly.
“Are you serious?” she stammered at last.
“Perfectly. I’ve had it in my mind all along. Louisa Pink was supposed to have given you the hint when she sent you down here.”
“Oh! Then those others—the two who Shorty didn’t like—were—were applicants for marriage!”
“How indignant you sound! Does a business approach to a partnership shock you, then?”
Her indignation died under his prosaic honesty and she was left only with a feeling of defeat.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, and even as she spoke she remembered that first interview, the impression she had received of things left unsaid between them, and his strange observation that Miss Pink had cheated.
“I didn’t feel it was a subject that could be sprung on you at first acquaintance,” he replied with a certain grim humor, “in that you should count yourself exceptional to the two ladies who preceded you.”
“But why—why—”
“It seemed a sensible proposition to me,” he said, sounding suddenly weary. “It’s already been made very plain to me that a man with my affliction cannot expect to pick and choose.”
She heard the bitter note in his voice and exclaimed involuntarily at such injustice:
“But that’s absurd! Blindness doesn’t alter your essential self ... anyone ... any woman would be proud to take you as you are.”
“Do you think so? Then, Emily, perhaps you can bring yourself to accept me.”
Before she could formulate her reply he went on speaking, rounding his phrases with cool deliberation, as if they had been well rehearsed.
“If it’s the accepted aspect of marriage that troubles you, put it out of your mind. Any arrangement you and I came to would naturally be one of convenience.”
“A life contract in return for a home?” she said bleakly.
“If you like to think of it that way. There would be advantages, you know. I’m no longer a poor man, and you would be free within reason.”
“And you?”
“I too, of course.”
She shivered, forgetful of his hands still on her shoulders. His proposition was typical of what she knew of him, she thought, and wanted to weep when, aware of her shudder, he said quietly:
“Don’t you like me to touch you? Things will be no different between us if I’m your husband, my dear. I won’t expect anything of you.”
Emily felt the tears again on her lashes. Yesterday, tomorrow, she could consider matters in the light of a business proposition, but tonight everything was different. She did not answer because the words she might have said would have embarrassed him. His hands travelled to her face, delicately tracing the bone structure as they had on that first evening, and he felt the wetness on her cheeks.
“Surely I haven’t upset you,” he said with a trace of impatience. “My proposition isn’t so horrifying, after all.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, and he raised his dark eyebrows.
“I probably understand more than you think,” he said, taking his hands away and thrusting them into his pockets. “Blind
persons sometimes have an extra insight—by way of compensation, I suppose. I’ve come to know quite a little about you, Emily. I know, for instance, that you’re too gentle to put up a fight for yourself. You’ll admit, I think, that you’re ill-equipped to meet present-day competition, so wouldn’t you be better off married to me? One job is much like another, after all, and this would at least have the advantage of being permanent.”
She felt cold and moved closer to the fire which now was little more than smouldering ash. His arguments no longer moved her. She would do what he wished, of course, but not for the reasons he had put forward.
“Well?” he said, speaking sharply. “You clearly have Alice’s approval, if that was needed, and presumably, Louisa Pink’s, since she sent you down here. You also, for what it’s worth, have mine.”
“You don’t need to persuade me, Mr. Merritt,” said Emily, crouching in a little heap by the fire. “I’ll marry you.” Why not ... she cried within herself ... why not?
“In that case you’d better start using my Christian name,” he said briskly. “Well, now that’s settled I’d like to get matters arranged as quickly as possible. Next week, shall we say? Before, if I can get the special licence through.”
“So soon? But Alice won’t have gone back to school.”
“What difference does she make? I see no point in delaying matters any further.”
His words should have been those of an impatient lover.
To Emily there seemed no reason for such haste.
“Very well,” she said, and he shifted his position impatiently.
“Where are you?” he asked with slight exasperation. “Your voice seems to be coming from the floor.”
“I’m sitting there,” she said. “The fire’s nearly out.”
He stooped to where he imagined her to be.
“Yes, it’s time we went to bed. It must be nearly one o’clock,” he said, and held out a hand vaguely in her direction. She took it, pulling herself to her feet.
“A happy New Year to you again and thank you for falling in with my wishes. Will you see that all the lights are out, please?”
She handed him his stick as she did most nights, and watched him go from the room, his dog at his heels. As she stood for a strange five minutes in the empty room, she could hear his stick tapping in the hall and up the stone staircase until the sound finally ceased and nothing stirred in the silent house. She moved stiffly then, switched off the library lights and went up to bed in the darkness.
II
They were not married, after all, for another fortnight, for Alice succumbed to a mild form of influenza which she passed on to Dane and Mrs. Pride in turn. Mrs. Meeker took over duties in the kitchen, and Emily and Shorty went up and downstairs with trays and kept the house clean between them.
Alice was an easy patient, being content to do as she was told and amuse herself by the hour with books and jigsaw puzzles, but Dane, according to Shorty, was not. He fretted at his enforced confinement to bed and Emily suspected, at the delay to his plans.
“It’s ’ard for ’im, see, lying up there,” Shorty explained. “Can’t read, except that outlandish gibberish that’s too ’eavy to ’old up in bed, and no one to pass the time of day with, except me.”
“I could talk to him, and read, too. The little girl is better now,” Emily said.
“Won’t ’ave you in his room. Afraid you’ll take the ’flu,” said Shorty, but without malice.
“I’m just as likely to catch it from Alice,” said Emily reasonably, and he grinned.
“Well, I don’t suppose he thinks of that.”
Shorty had been much less hostile since he and Emily had run the house between them. If he knew of his master’s future plans he made no direct mention of them, except to warn her not to discuss her affairs with Mrs. Meeker.
“She’s a good sort but she talks,” he said. “Mr. Merritt don’t want his business to go all round the village—not till he’s ready, see?”
Yes, Shorty knew.
“You—you’ll never leave Mr. Merritt, I hope,” she said with an effort, trying to convey to him that she herself would never stand in his way.
“Wot, me?” he exclaimed, looking truculent, then his pugnacious little face softened curiously. “If I spoke out of turn when you first come, miss, I’m sorry,” he said. “You and me’ll get on all right, if you remembers I was ’ere first, see? Shouldn’t wonder if you wasn’t brighter than you look, too.”
It was as handsome an admission as she could expect in the circumstances, she supposed, and wondered if he would ever treat her with proper respect once she was Dane’s wife.
Dane’s wife ... There had been little time to think of the future during the past week, but now with the house returned to normal and Alice going back to school on the morrow, time had caught up with her. She and Dane were to be married in a Plymouth Register Office the day after the child had gone; it was too late to turn back, even if she wished.
She packed Alice’s trunk, more distressed than the child by the coming parting., Alice had, in her way, been an unconscious ally, the small ghost of the unwanted child she, herself, had once been.
Only at the last did the little girl cling to her and whisper urgently:
“You’ll be here when I come back—promise?” she said.
Emily hugged her.
“Yes, I promise, and I’ll tell you something, too. Your guardian has taken your advice and is going to marry me, so that makes it safe, doesn’t it?” she said.
“How very sensible of Uncle Dane,” remarked Alice with surprised approval, and Emily laughed.
“It’s a secret, mind, so don’t tell him I told you first.”
Dane came into the hall at that moment to say goodbye, and Emily watched, with an odd little ache in her throat for him, the child’s unemotional leave-taking.
“Good-bye, Uncle Dane. I enjoyed my holidays,” she said politely.
He thrust a couple of notes into her hand.
“A small tip to start the term with,” he said.
She thanked him, sounding faintly embarrassed, and carefully putting the money into one of her pockets, turned to go.
“Don’t I get a kiss for that?” he asked unexpectedly, and she hesitated, then reached up and pecked him quickly on the cheek.
“You’re very sensible, Uncle Dane, I’m glad,” she said, and ran out to Shorty waiting in the car.
“Sensible! Because I tipped her?” Dane said a little ruefully.
“I don’t think so,” said Emily gently. “I told her we were taking her advice and getting married. Her comment on that was ‘How sensible of Uncle Dane.’ ”
He ran his hand round his chin.
“She’s a queer child,” he observed. “I suppose living with Ben Carey has made her old-fashioned, and I, for some reason, fail to inspire confidence—or is it affection?”
“Alice’s affections are well under control, but so, I think, are yours,” said Emily, and he glanced in the direction of her voice, frowning.
“Did you think I wasn’t fond of her?” he asked.
“I don’t think so now,” she answered. “Next holidays you’ll have to try to make friends with her properly.”
"And with you, too, Emily,” he said tentatively. “In some ways I think you and Alice are rather alike.”
His mood suddenly altered and when he next spoke to her it was in the tones that he would use to any secretary.
“Shorty will bring the car round at ten o’clock tomorrow,” he said. “See that you’re ready on time, please; our appointment with the Registrar is at eleven-thirty. I have some business to attend to after that, so perhaps you can take yourself to a cinema, if you care for them, to fill in time.”
Emily restrained an unseemly impulse to laugh. As plans for a wedding day, the arrangements had a bizarre flavor.
She said automatically: “Yes, Mr. Merritt,” and when he frowned, amended hastily: “I mean, Dane.”
The m
orning was wet, with that depressing mixture of mist and rain peculiar to Dartmoor. Emily surveyed her scanty wardrobe and wondered what to wear. She had nothing remotely suitable for a bride, she thought gloomily, but neither would her bridegroom be conscious of what she wore. She selected a wool frock which had seen better days and a hat that had been one of Rosemary’s cast-offs two years ago.
When she was dressed she stood in front of the long mirror to regard herself for the last time as Emily Moon. The reflection was not encouraging. She was too thin, she thought, pulling in the belt of the dress another hole, and the hat, which on Rosemary had looked gay and provocative, on her looked what it was, cheap and out of date. She snatched it off her head and pulled on the navy-blue felt she had worn to the office.
“You’re drab,” she told her reflection severely. “You have no color, your eyes are too large, and your hair’s a mess. Oh, well, I suppose it doesn’t matter in the circumstances.”
She was the first to get into the car, and Shorty suddenly leaned over the back of the driver’s seat and threw a spray of hothouse carnations into her lap.
“Reckon the governor won’t ’ave thought of that,” he muttered sheepishly. “Can’t be wed without a bokay, can you?”
“Oh, Shorty!”
It was nearly her undoing. So unexpected a gesture from someone who had deeply resented her, took the last of her composure.
“Got a pin too,” he said, handing one over. “’Ere, don’t start blubbing, whatever you do. The governor wouldn’t ’arf be sick.”
She pinned the spray to the lapel of her old camelhair coat, hiding her face for an instant against the flowers with their heady scent.