Still She Wished for Company

by Margaret Irwin

  “Mr. Daintree make an offer of marriage!” she exclaimed. “Mamma never told me and I do not wonder. How preposterous! The man must be at least forty.”

  “Thirty-eight,” said Lucian judicially.

  “That is twenty years older than I. And a widower!”

  “He has been one for twelve years.”

  “Exactly,” cried Juliana, as though that made it worse. “To think of marrying an inconsolable widower!”

  “Then the prospect of the match does not please you?”

  “Please me! How could it? An old man—well, middle-aged—and a widower—and someone I have known all my life!”

  He chuckled at this last, but Juliana did not notice it, for his reticence had begun to alarm her.

  “Surely,” she said, catching closer at his velvet sleeve, “surely mamma does not approve it?”

  “She most surely does,” said Lucian.

  She gasped and would have dropped her hand, but his arm held it tight against his side.

  “You seem to forget,” he said, “who is the head of the house.”

  “Lucian! you would oppose mamma?”

  “I did not say so. I said that my consent would be necessary,”

  “And you will withhold it?”

  “I have withheld it.”

  The muscles of his arm tightened again as he said it. Juliana wondered if this had been the reason of his anger when he had first met her. Had there been a quarrel? And why had he ridden over to give Mr. Daintree his answer first and not told her about it until afterwards? If he were acting only in accordance with her wishes, he might have found out more certainly beforehand what those wishes were.

  For undoubtedly in every other way it was a most suitable match. Mr. Daintree was of very good family, and wealthy; the estates joined, the families had always known each other, and there was no one else at all eligible for miles round. And then he had always been very kind—a good man, oh yes, only dull; but a nice way of looking at one.

  “I hope his feelings were not hurt,” she said.

  Lucian suddenly laughed. “You would have liked the opportunity of refusing him yourself, would you not?”

  Indeed she would not. It would have been most painful. And she could not see why Lucian was laughing at her. She asked a trifle coldly.

  “What reason, brother, did you give for your refusal, as you had not then inquired into my wishes?”

  “My own wishes,” said he. “I have other plans for your future.”

  She naturally longed to ask what they were. But he had become remote, forbidding. And an unmistakable call in Molly’s tones rang out suddenly from the steps of the house—” Miss, Miss, are you still in the garden? You will be catching cold. Come, Miss.”

  “I must go,” whispered Juliana. “The others all went in long ago. I expect she is waiting to put me to bed. Good night, brother.”

  “Good night, little sister.”

  Juliana ran towards the house. Lucian turned on his heel and walked away from it.

  Chapter X

  Lucian did not ask Juliana again what it was she had to tell him. She did not know if this were out of consideration for the reluctance she had shown to speak of it. But certainly, as the days went past and he did not press her confidence in any way, not even by seeming to wait for it, she thought more frequently of the loose pages of writing she had found in the park, and wondered the more what he would say if she told him of them and the events of that strange morning.

  But there was something else she wished, and that was to ask him what were those “other plans for her future” that he had made. It seemed that she could not do one without the other, and fear of the latter held her back. She could not have said why, for surely she had every reason to be curious as to her own future.

  But there was singularly little opportunity for a talk with Lucian these last few days. He was never in the library when she looked in now in the mornings, and when she saw him he appeared busy and preoccupied. Mamma, too, was frequently distraite, and a most unwonted cloud sat on that usually unruffled brow.

  Vesey, in a moment of expansion, remarked to her that mamma and Lucian had been at it hammer and tongs, and he supposed she knew what all the to-do was about; for his part he thought Richard Daintree as good a match as any in the county, but no doubt Lucian had a mighty fine alliance up his sleeve for her—they would see her an archduchess or a princess one of these days.

  With this he gave her an affectionate pinch on the ear that caused it to glow as deeply as the ruby earring that dangled from it. He was interested in marriages just now, even to the extent of feeling a trifle sentimental at the thought of his little sister’s match. If only those two old bachelors, his elder brothers, would marry, it could be decided how much money he would have for that purpose and which of the dower houses to live in. Or—better still—Lucian would have to marry, of course, but what did a low old brute likd George, with his perpetual taste for village girls, want with a wife? Himself, he was as fond of a wench as anyone, but, damme, he was capable of knowing what a sweet girl was like. The “sweet girl” of his imagination was, in fact, remarkably like his cousin Sophia.

  Juliana’s entries in her journal were sadly meagre at this time.

  “I attempted a Study of Cottagers before their Door at evening, but found the subject too difficult.”

  “I tried unsuccessfully to make a Pail Work-bag, for the Cardboard was too small.”

  The drawings of ancient and gnarled oaks in the park that would appear like bunches of wool on her paper, seemed a dull and trivial occupation; she even began to wonder what was the purpose of it. But that was an absurd thought and must be on account of her bad performance.

  Of the adventures that she found so disturbing, yet so interesting, there is not a word in her journal. She found them too strange to write of, even in a book that was never to be seen by a soul beside herself. She wrote instead of Madame de Sévigné’s letters, and an account of the reign of King John, summarizing a chapter of Goldsmith’s history.

  Among these sparsely covered pages is a loose sheet of paper inscribed with some verses in a small, neat, firm handwriting— not her own.

  Juliana found them late one morning when she had returned, after receiving a brief morning call, to the seat by the lake, where she had been studying Goldsmith. She had left the book open on the seat, and on her return found it closed but with a paper protruding from its pages to mark the place. She quickly opened it, to find, in the middle of the reign of King John, a copy of verses in Mr. Daintree’s writing. He must have placed it there in her absence, only a few minutes before.

  She leaned in her accustomed lazy posture along the seat, and, as so often before, the sunlit lake danced hazily in front of her half-closed eyes. She had not yet read the verses; she was prolonging the delectable sensation of her discovery that Mr. Daintree—dull, quiet, elderly Mr. Daintree, that inconsolable widower—had become a poet for her sake and written verses to her. That anyone should write verses to her was bewildering, dazzling; but that Mr. Daintree should do so seemed in the nature of a miracle and to invest her indeed with the powers of a goddess.

  Her eyes closed altogether as she played again the old game of imagining what she might see when she opened them again. But this time she did not imagine a page in scarlet, nor a king, nor a cavalcade of horses and gallant gentlemen with a Tudor prince in their midst. Instead, she pictured to herself a familiar figure in a brown suit coming over the grass towards her and looking at her with the intent and kindly gaze she knew so well.

  But when she opened her eyes she saw only the lake and the lilies on its surface, and the slow swans passing to and fro; and on the opposite shore, the tall, twisted chimneys and turrets and irregular red roofs of Chidleigh House rising from the trees.

  “It is always the same,” she said to herself, “it will always be precisely the same.”

  She was not thinking the words, they were mechanical, the effect of that habitual rever
ie. Her eyes fell again on the paper in her hands, and she began to read the verses.

  Ah, Chloris that I now could sit

  As unconcern’d as when

  Your infant Beauty could beget

  No pleasure nor no Pain.

  When I the Dawn used to admire,

  And praised the coming Day,

  I little thought the growing Fire

  Must take my Rest away.

  Your Charms in harmless childhood lay,

  Like Metals in the Mine :

  Age from no Face took more away,

  Than Youth conceal’d in thine.

  But as your Charms insensibly

  To their Perfection press’d,

  Fond Love as unperceiv’d did fly,

  And in my Bosom rest.

  She stopped at this point, just half way through the poem. She was lost in an admiration that was mere than half at her own “Charms.” How little she had dreamed they possessed such power! She went back to the second verse and read it again, twice over.

  “And praised the coming Day.”

  She remembered how she had once heard Mr. Daintree observe to mamma that her youngest daughter would be a notable addition to the phalanx of rising belles, and had wondered what it meant. Since she had known she had thought it merely one of those necessary compliments, like the “elegant little creature” that the lady visitors had all bestowed on her.

  Was it indeed possible that her “growing Fire” should have taken Mr. Daintree’s rest away? Enchanting possibility! Her hands trembled slightly as she held the paper before her eyes again and finished reading the verses in a delicious agitation that left her little room for understanding. Something about Cupid and “his Mother,” “flaming Dart,” and “Chains.” The ardent passion of such words overcame her; they danced over the sunlit page in front of her like actual tiny flames.

  And now she heard a familiar step on the grass, and knew that for once in her life she would see what she had imagined she would see when she looked up. But she did not look up. She looked more and more closely at the page before her and saw nothing.

  The steps ceased close beside her and still she did not look up. She could not, dared not look up.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Daintree’s low voice above her, “for thus intruding on you.”

  It was not the remark of a poet. For that reason, probably, it recalled her to herself. She rose and curtseyed and saw that it was the Mr. Daintree she had always known, who stood before her and bowed. He had a grave air, but then he was always rather grave. No, he was not altogether grave; his eyes looked as though he were smiling, in spite of those deep lints in his broad sunburnt forehead and round his mouth, which shut closely with a stern expression. If it were not for those lines he would not look so old, she decided, for his eyes were clear and his figure was well-knit—not, indeed, as massive as Vesey’s.

  And there was certainly a smile in them as he regarded her now, a smile that made her lower her own eyes after that hurried glance, for it seemed to her to reflect that fire that had taken his rest away, and the thought of Mr. Daintree’s wakeful passion for her was something too unfamiliar, too—almost—indelicate to be easily confronted. How could she have looked at him so uncomprehendingly all these years and not known him for a poet?

  “May I dare hope,” he said, “that Sedley has met with any small success as my ambassador?”

  “Sedley—” she faltered stupidly.

  “You have read the verses? I took the liberty of leaving them in your book, as I knew you must soon return for it, and so waited and watched until you did.”

  “Sedley!” said she again. “Sir Charles Sedley—the poet!”

  “Did you not know them to be his verses?”

  “No—I do not remember to have read them before—I had thought——”

  Her disappointment was too acute for her to proceed further.

  His eyes twinkled again, but this time she perceived no reflection in them of “growing fire.”

  “Those verses,” he said, “have expressed my feelings for you so exactly these two years now—I have read them so often, and thought of you as I read—almost I could have made your mistake and fancied that I had written them myself. But even you, Juliana, could not make me a poet.”

  “I had thought——” began Juliana again, and again was unable to go further. In fact she was very near tears. Not her charms had inspired those ardent words, but Sir Charles Sedley’s Chloris, dead these fifty years. And she had believed herself capable of creating a poet out of “dull, good, worthy men like Mr. Daintree.” Viciously she recalled Sophia’s slighting words which, at the time, had given her a faint prick of pain.

  And with them, she recalled much else that she had forgotten or ignored until she had heard of Sedley’s authorship. Mr. Daintree had no right to present himself to her since Lucian had refused her hand. Was it possible that in spite of that refusal mamma had sent him to her? What an intolerable situation!

  She waited, not choosing to do or say anything to put him at his ease. Her silence did not seem to embarrass him. He appeared to be considering her under a very close scrutiny. At last he said simply and without apparently any sense of its obviousness, “I wished to see you.”

  Politeness decreed that she should speak by now.

  “No doubt my mamma——” she began.

  But he, with very little politeness, broke in upon her.

  “No, Lady Chidleigh has not sent me to you. Is that what you imagined? You thought I would use her consent to force my suit on you?”

  “I did not see how else you came to be here.”

  She became troubled by the silence that followed, looked up and was the more troubled by his face. He had never looked at her like that before. But then she had never spoken to him like that before. Oh dear, oh dear, what in the world was about to happen now, and what was she to do?

  It was all the fault of those tiresome verses and that great bloated creature who wrote them—she remembered Sedley’s portrait now in a book in the library—if only she had not known the verses to be his.

  “I am very sorry,” she said, “but I do not know precisely—mamma has not spoken to me——”

  He suddenly smiled at her, not merely with his eyes, but a frank wide smile of tender amusement that lit up his whole face. She remembered his smiling at her like that when she was a child; perhaps he had done so when she was thanking him for that doll, and she need not have been afraid to look higher than the watch-fob on his waistcoat.

  “Then,” he said, “let us for a moment not speak of Lady Chidleigh. I want to speak of you and of myself. Dare I do so, though I am not a poet, nor romantic?”

  “Oh, sir,” she cried, convicted of her own ungraciousness, “indeed your compliment of the verses pleased me infinitely—I was put about only because you discovered such ignorance in me.”

  He did not attend to her and seemed to be thinking what he should say. When he spoke it was not quite as calmly as before, and his agitation increased as he proceeded.

  “I have no right, I know, to ask you to speak with me in this irregular fashion. I have asked for the honour of your hand, and your mother and brother have answered—their answers do not agree. I wish to know what you—no, pray do not speak yet. I do not think you can know my reasons for wishing, as I do, to marry you. You will, I beg, pardon me if I speak much of myself.”

  He paused and then said slowly, “You know that I was married—a long time ago.” Here he stopped completely. Juliana was much distressed.

  “I know, I know,” she said as he still kept silence. “Indeed you need not try to tell me. You must have been very happy to remain so long unmarried since.”

  “No,” he said at last, “I was not happy, nor was my wife.”

  He was speaking now as though the very words caused him difficulty, and his voice was gruff, even harsh.

  “I found soon after my marriage that she did not love me. I soon ceased to love her. The two
years we were together were years of utter wretchedness for both of us. That was— for a long time—why I could not bear to marry again. I wished never to do so. I was still fond of children, I wished for heirs, but I decided that I would rather leave my inheritance to my cousins than incur a risk of the repetition of that misery.”

  He stopped again, but this time he seemed to be remembering something, and with pleasure, rather than considering painfully what he should say.

  “You were almost an infant then, and I had never seen a child such as you. When you smiled—it was wrong to say

  ‘Your infant Beauty could beget

  No pleasure nor no Pain,’

  for that strange, dazzling smile of yours gave pleasure so exquisite, it was almost pain. I used to think it the smile of one who saw a vision.”

  The effect of this was almost as great as if it had been in verse. So, then, his compliment to mamma on the notable addition of her youngest daughter to the phalanx of rising belles, had not been just the same as the stale and perfunctory “elegant little creature” of the lady visitors. She would have given the world to receive such a compliment gracefully, but though she could have taken or ignored one with the greatest ease from gallant Mr. Chalmers or facetious Mr. Bolsover, yet now she could not think what to say.

  Mr. Daintree, however, did not seem to expect her to say anything, and was speaking again himself.

  “I am thirty-eight and you are seventeen. You could have been my daughter. In those days you stood to me for that— for what I had missed in children. But not that chiefly, not chiefly. I loved you for yourself, the loveliest of children. I have always loved you. But now it has changed. For some time I have felt——” He broke off, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentle and pleading. “Juliana, I want you to be my wife. I want to make you happy, I would like to give you everything you could desire, to shield you from every trouble. I am much older than you, I am not gay nor young nor handsome—do you feel it is impossible that I should ever do it?”