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Page 7
'John,' she said, as soon as the first greetings were over, 'do you
remember the last words that I said to you before you went away?' Now,
for myself, I much admire Miss Le Smyrger's heartiness, but I do not
think much of her discretion. It would have been better, perhaps, had
she allowed things to take their course.
'I can't say that I do,' said the Captain. At the same time the Captain
did remember very well what those last words had been.
'I am so glad to see you, so delighted to see you, if--if--if--,' and
then she paused, for with all her courage she hardly dared to ask her
nephew whether he had come there with the express purport of asking Miss
Woolsworthy to marry him.
To tell the truth--for there is no room for mystery within the limits of
this short story,--to tell, I say, at a word the plain and simple truth,
Captain Broughton had already asked that question. On the day before he
left Oxney Colne he had in set terms proposed to the parson's daughter,
and indeed the words, the hot and frequent words, which previously to
that had fallen like sweetest honey into the ears of Patience
Woolsworthy, had made it imperative on him to do so. When a man in such
a place as that has talked to a girl of love day after day, must not he
talk of it to some definite purpose on the day on which he leaves her?
Or if he do not, must he not submit to be regarded as false, selfish,
and almost fraudulent? Captain Broughton, however, had asked the
question honestly and truly. He had done so honestly and truly, but in
words, or, perhaps, simply with a tone, that had hardly sufficed to
satisfy the proud spirit of the girl he loved. She by that time had
confessed to herself that she loved him with all her heart; but she had
made no such confession to him. To him she had spoken no word, granted
no favour, that any lover might rightfully regard as a token of love
returned. She had listened to him as he spoke, and bade him keep such
sayings for the drawing-rooms of his fashionable friends. Then he had
spoken out and had asked for that hand,--not, perhaps, as a suitor
tremulous with hope,--but as a rich man who knows that he can command
that which he desires to purchase.
'You should think more of this,' she had said to him at last. 'If you
would really have me for your wife, it will not be much to you to return
here again when time for thinking of it shall have passed by.' With
these words she had dismissed him, and now he had again come back to
Oxney Colne. But still she would not place herself at the window to look
for him, nor dress herself in other than her simple morning country
dress, nor omit one item of her daily work. If he wished to take her at
all, he should wish to take her as she really was, in her plain country
life, but he should take her also with full observance of all those
privileges which maidens are allowed to claim from their lovers. He
should curtail no ceremonious observance because she was the daughter of
a poor country parson who would come to him without a shilling, whereas
he stood high in the world's books. He had asked her to give him all
that she had, and that all she was ready to give, without stint. But the
gift must be valued before it could be given or received. He also was to
give her as much, and she would accept it as being beyond all price. But
she would not allow that that which was offered to her was in any degree
the more precious because of his outward worldly standing.
She would not pretend to herself that she thought he would come to her
that afternoon, and therefore she busied herself in the kitchen and
about the house, giving directions to her two maids as though the day
would pass as all other days did pass in that household. They usually
dined at four, and she rarely, in these summer months, went far from the
house before that hour. At four precisely she sat down with her father,
and then said that she was going up as far as Helpholme after dinner.
Helpholme was a solitary farmhouse in another parish, on the border of
the moor, and Mr. Woolsworthy asked her whether he should accompany her.
'Do, papa,' she said, 'if you are not too tired.' And yet she had
thought how probable it might be that she should meet John Broughton on
her walk. And so it was arranged; but, just as dinner was over, Mr.
Woolsworthy remembered himself.
'Gracious me,' he said, 'how my memory is going! Gribbles, from
Ivybridge, and old John Poulter, from Bovey, are coming to meet here by
appointment. You can't put Helpholme off till tomorrow?'
Patience, however, never put off anything, and therefore at six o'clock,
when her father had finished his slender modicum of toddy, she tied on
her hat and went on her walk. She started forth with a quick step, and
left no word to say by which route she would go. As she passed up along
the little lane which led towards Oxney Colne she would not even look to
see if he was coming towards her; and when she left the road, passing
over a stone stile into a little path which ran first through the upland
fields, and then across the moor ground towards Helpholme, she did not
look back once, or listen for his coming step.
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