They had gone down the path and reached the garden gate before Miss Brigmore said, ‘He has come this morning to ask Constance to be his wife, and your uncle has consented.’
She had taken three steps into the road before she stopped and looked back to where Barbara was clutching the top of the gatepost, and for a moment she thought that the stricken expression on her face had been brought about by the shock of the news, but when Barbara put her hand tightly across her mouth and closed her eyes in order to suppress the tears that were attempting to gush from them she clutched at her, whispering, ‘Oh no, no! Oh, my dear, my dear…you didn’t expect him…not you? You’re so sensible, if only you could see through him; he cares for nobody but himself, he’s a ruthless creature. Oh, not you, not you, Barbara.’
When she was pushed aside she made no complaint, but walked slowly after the hurrying figure. And she had thought she knew what went on in both their minds.
From the sitting-room window Constance saw Barbara going down the road with Miss Brigmore following, and she turned to Donald saying, ‘They’ve gone, what’s the matter? Where’s Uncle?’ She was making for the door when Donald said, ‘He’s in his study. Don’t go for a minute, I’ve got something I want to say to you.’
‘Oh.’ She turned and looked towards him, her face straight.
He had noticed that she wasn’t her merry self this morning, it was as if she’d had a quarrel with someone, but with whom he couldn’t imagine, for they all adored her and she them. Even that stiff-necked old cow held her in affection.
He went passed her now and closed the door. Then having walked slowly towards her again, he stood in front of her, his back very straight, his head held high, and he said, ‘Your uncle has given me permission to speak to you.’
She had asked, ‘What? What about?’ before the meaning of the phrase struck her, and then she wanted to laugh. For months she had been imagining how she would respond to Will Headley when he came from the study and said, ‘Your uncle has given me permission to speak to you.’ Those words could only have one meaning, and here was Donald saying them to her. It was funny, very, very funny; Donald was saying ‘Your uncle has given me permission to speak to you;’ he would next say, ‘Will you be my wife, Constance?’ But she was wrong, at least in the form of the proposal, for he did not make it as a request but as a statement. ‘I want to marry you,’ he said.
‘Marry? Marry me?’ You…you want to marry me?’
‘That’s what I said.’ His face was straight now.
She was laughing at him; he couldn’t bear to be laughed at. ‘Is there anything funny about it?’
‘No, no.’ She closed her eyes and bowed her head and she wagged it as she murmured, ‘No, no, Donald, there’s nothing funny about it, only,’—she was looking at him again—‘I’m…I’m surprised, amazed. Why…why, you can’t really be serious?’
‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I be serious?’
‘Well—’ She put her fingers to her lips now and patted them. ‘Well, what I mean is…oh!’ As Miss Brigmore had done a few minutes earlier, she sat down abruptly on a chair, but her manner was quite unlike that of Miss Brigmore’s, for she was laughing again. ‘Well, for one thing I would never make a farmer’s wife, I’d be useless at milking and making butter and such, I wouldn’t know how.’
‘You could learn if you wanted to; but there would be no necessity for you to make butter and such.’ He did not say his mother saw to that but added, ‘That’s already seen to. You’d be asked to do nothing you didn’t want to do.’
Of a sudden she stopped laughing, she even stopped smiling, and she looked down at her hands which were now joined tightly on her lap. Yesterday the man she loved and had thought one day to marry had written her a letter, which by its very charm had seared the delicate vulnerable feelings of her first love as if she had been held over the blacksmith’s fire, and definitely the letter had forged her whole conception of life into a different pattern.
‘Well!’
She rose to her feet, her arms thrust out now to each side of her as if pushing away invisible objects, and, her body swaying slightly, she walked from him to the farthest corner of the room, saying, ‘I…I can’t take it in, Donald. Why…why, you’ve never given any sign. You’ve always talked to Barbara more than to me. Why should you want me?’ She now turned swiftly and, all animation gone from her body, she stood still, her arms hanging by her sides, staring at him.
He didn’t move from where he was, nor did he speak for a time, his words seemed wedged in his throat, and when finally he uttered them they came like an echo from deep within him. ‘I love you,’ he said.
There was a long pause before either of them moved. During it she looked at him as if she had never seen him before. He was a man, a good-looking, stern-faced young man; he was thin and tall, with jet-black hair that had a white streak running down the side of it; his eyes were dark, bluey-black; he was her uncle’s natural son, and because of this he had an opinion of himself. She did not blame him for that; he was hard-working and had gained the title of respectability even with the stigma that lay on him. She had heard her uncle say that his judgment was respected in the cattle markets and that men did not speak lightly of him. He would, she felt, make someone a good husband—would he make her a good husband? He had said he loved her. She didn’t love him, and she had never thought about him in that connection; she liked him, she was amused by him. Oh yes, he amused her. His austere and bumptious manner had always amused her; she had teased him because of it. But love; could she ever grow to love anyone again? She looked him over from head to foot. He was very presentable; in a way he was much more presentable than Will Headley. Change their stations and what would have been her reactions then?
She said, ‘But I don’t love you, Donald…I…I’ve never thought of you in that way.’
‘That will come. I’ll see it comes.’ He moved towards her now and he reached out and took her hand. ‘Give me the chance and I’ll see that it comes. You will love me, I know you will.’
She gave a small laugh as she said, ‘You are as you ever were, so confident, Donald; nothing can shake your confidence in yourself and your ability, can it?’
‘I know my own value.’
‘And you think you can make me love you?’
‘I don’t think, I know I can. It may sound like bragging, and I suppose it is when I say I could have married five times over these last few years, and that’s not heightening or lessening the number; five times over, I say, and to one the daughter of a man who had nearly enough cash stacked away here and there to buy the Hall. I’d just to lift me finger, but no, I knew who I wanted, there was only one for me, and that was you.’
‘Oh, Donald!’ She didn’t know now whether she wanted to laugh at his cocksuredness, or to cry at his devotion.
When he lifted her hand and rubbed it against his cheek she detected a new softness in him and she said haltingly, ‘Will…will you give me time, time to think it over?’
‘All the time in the world…a year.’
‘But you said all the time in the…’
‘I know but a year is all the time in the world that I’m going to give you. At the end of a year we’ll be married, you’ll see.’ When he put his arm about her she remained still and stiff and something recoiled in her while she thought: ‘Is this in the plan for me?’ and her mind gabbled rapidly: ‘No, no.’ Yet when his mouth touched hers she did not resist him, she even experienced a shiver of excitement as she felt the strength of him and smelt the strange odour that emanated from the mixture of soap, rough tweed, and the farm smell that she always associated with him. He was a man, and he wanted her—and Will Headley didn’t.
PART THREE
CONSTANCE
One
There were periods during the following year when Miss Brigmore’s feelings towards Constance’s suitor softened and she was forced, even if grudgingly, to show her admiration for him. These were the times when although the hills and mountains we
re impassable with snow, he would appear as usual for his Sunday visit; that he accompanied these feats with an element of bravado was visible to all, but that he accomplished them at all she was forced to admit was due not only to his physical strength but also to his sheer tenacity.
Of course there were other times when he had to admit defeat. On these Sundays—once there had been three in succession—she had observed Constance’s reactions closely. The first Sunday she had taken as a matter of course and even shown some relief, but when he hadn’t appeared on the second and third Sundays, she had shown concern, and when the day came that he finally arrived she greeted him warmly.
Constance had been three times over the hills to the farm. Her first visit had not turned out to be a complete success. Its failure had nothing to do with the farm or its inhabitants; she had spoken highly of his parents and their reception of her, stating only that the farmhouse seemed a little bare after the cluttered homeliness of the cottage. What had actually spoilt the visit for her was the storm; she had a horror of storms. Thunder and lightning terrified her. Since she was a child she had always sought the darkest corner during a storm, and its approach always made her nervy and apprehensive. On this occasion she was actually sick and had to delay her return until quite late in the evening; and Donald, although he couldn’t understand her fear, had been concerned for her.
Constance could not herself pinpoint the time when she had specifically said to Donald that she would marry him, but the date had been fixed within six months of the particular Sunday when he amazed her with his declaration of love.
As the weeks passed her reactions had varied from excitement to fear bred of doubt. But the latter she always tried to laugh off, even as she laughed at the man who was the cause of it. The questions ‘What is there to fear from Donald?’ and ‘And if I don’t marry him who then?’ would nearly always dispel the fear.
For the past two days the weather had been sultry owing to the unusual heat that had continued daily for over a week now, and Constance had been on edge as she often was with an impending storm. Added to this, Miss Brigmore did not discount the nerves that frequently attended marriage preparations, not that the preparations for this wedding were anything elaborate, but nevertheless there were the usual things to be seen to, such as the clothes she would take with her, the linen, and what was more important and what had been causing a great deal of discussion, the amount of money she would retain.
At first Constance had insisted that she transfer her hundred pounds a year income to Barbara; for, as she stated plainly, were the house deprived of it they would find great difficulty in managing. What was more, she had insisted that Donald would confirm her opinion on the matter.
But Donald hadn’t confirmed her opinion; when the question was put to him he had remained silent for a time before saying, ‘It’s a good thing for everyone to have a little money of their own, it makes them sort of independent.’
Thomas had wholeheartedly endorsed this, while at the same time Miss Brigmore knew that he was only too well aware that the household strings were already pulled as tight as was possible for them to be without actual discomfort. She, herself, had taken no salary from the day they had come to the cottage in order that he might have the little luxuries of cigars and wine that made life more bearable for him. As for Mary, she was on a mere pittance; it was only her devotion to the girls that had made her suffer it all these years.
The question of the money had not, as yet, been resolved. Constance had said only that morning she would have none of it. She had got into a tantrum, which was unusual for her, and said that unless she could do as she pleased with her allowance she wouldn’t marry at all. She had made quite a scene in front not only of Donald but of Matthew too.
It wasn’t often that Matthew came to visit them now. He hadn’t been more than half a dozen times during the past year. Matthew always aroused a feeling of sorrow in Miss Brigmore. Why was it, she asked herself, that a person with such a nice nature as Matthew’s should suffer such a crippling disease, while Donald, with his arrogance, be given enough health for two men?
Matthew’s speech and manner had always pleased her, and she had thought secretly that if the half-brothers could have exchanged places she would have welcomed her match without reservation.
She looked at the young man now sitting opposite her. They had the room to themselves. Thomas had retired to the study for his after-dinner nap; Barbara was in the garden reading. Barbara read a lot these days, but now she didn’t discuss what she read. Instead, she had become very withdrawn over the past year. Deep in her heart she was sorry for Barbara; and here again she wished that the roles could be changed, for she would have been less unhappy about the situation if Barbara had been marrying Donald, because there was a firm adultness in Barbara that was, as yet, lacking in her sister. Yet she felt that perhaps she was not quite right in this surmise, for Constance too had changed during the past year: only at intervals now did her gay girlish self appear; for most of the time she wore a thoughtful expression.
She brought her whole attention to Matthew as she said, ‘I have not had time to ask you yet, but how have you been feeling of late? We haven’t seen you for such a long time.’
‘Oh, about as usual, Miss Brigmore, thank you. No worse, no better.’ He shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘I’ll be quite content if I continue like this. And I could,’—he now nodded at her as he smiled—‘if we had this weather through the winter.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ she laughed with him, ‘if we had this weather through the winter. It really has been remarkably warm of late, too warm some days I would have said. Yet in another month or so we shall have forgotten about it, and be shivering once again.’
He said now, ‘It’s very cold this side in the winter, I think we’re more fortunate over our side.’
‘I’m sure you are. And Constance tells me it’s very pleasant in your valley.’
‘You must come over and see it. Don…Father is going to get a horse and trap or some such, he’s going into Hexham for the sales next Friday. My mother suggested, as we were using the horses we come over by the waggon today, but Donald would have none of it.’ He now pulled a face at her and they both exchanged smiles. ‘Besides the fact it would have to be cleaned up for the journey, it’s big and lumbering and has no style about it whatever.’
There was a slight mocking note to his last words, and Miss Brigmore brought her lips together tightly while her eyes smiled back at him with a knowing smile.
There followed a companionable silence between them now, as if each were waiting for the other to speak, and Miss Brigmore wanted to speak, she wanted to ask him so many questions: How did his mother and father view the alliance, particularly his mother? How did Donald act in his own home? Did he still keep up his authoritative manner amidst his own people? Was he kind? Of course he had shown his kindness for years in bringing the commodities of the farm on his Sunday visits. But that wasn’t the kindness she meant. There appeared no softness in him, no gentleness. A man could appear arrogant and bumptious in public, she knew only too well, but in private he could become a different creature. It was strange but she couldn’t imagine Donald becoming a different creature in private. But there was only one person who would ever know if he changed character, and that was Constance. She had often wondered how he acted towards her when they were alone for his manner in public gave off the impression that he already possessed her. She turned her gaze towards the window from where she knew, if she rose, she’d be able to see them going towards the curve in the road, taking the same walk they did every Sunday, because Donald liked that walk, for at the end of it were the gates of the Hall…
It would have surprised Miss Brigmore at this moment if she could have overheard the conversation between the two people who were deep in her thoughts, for the subject was the same as that in her own mind, kindness.
Walking with a slow, almost prim step, Constance was saying, ‘He appears to have such a kindl
y nature.’
‘He has.’
‘You’re very fond of him.’
‘Aye, I’m very fond of him. There’s nobody I like better except—’ he turned his head towards her and paused before he said, ‘you. If I were speaking the truth there are only two people I care about in the world, the rest could sink, burn, or blow up for me.’
His words brought no change in her attitude, but she asked, ‘What about Uncle?’
‘Oh.’ He nodded his head once or twice, then repeated, ‘Uncle? Funny, but I can’t explain what I think about him. Pride, hate, grudging admiration, loathing, oh, I could put a name to all the vices and very few of the virtues that go to make up my feelings with regard to him.’
She had paused for a moment in her walking and stared at him as she said, ‘But I thought you liked him?’
‘I do, an’ I don’t. I don’t an’ I do.’ His head wagged from side to side with each word. ‘Aw, don’t let’s talk about—Uncle, for I wouldn’t be able to speak the truth about my feelings for him if I tried, ’cos I don’t know them myself. There’s only two things I’m sure of, as I’ve told you, and the main one is I love you.’ His voice dropped to a mere whisper as he stopped and turned towards her. ‘I love you so much that I’m afraid at times, and that’s proved to me the strength of my feelings, for fear and me have been strangers up till now. Now, every time I leave you I fear something’ll happen to you. But once I have you safe over the hills, it’ll be different. I’ll know peace, an’ I’ll be whole. You know that’s something I’ve never really felt—whole; but once we’re married you’ll make me whole—won’t you?…Aw, Constance, Constance.’
Her lips fell slightly apart and she looked at him in something of surprise, for in this moment she was seeing him as never before, and she felt stirring in her an emotion she hadn’t experienced before. It wasn’t love—or was it? She couldn’t tell, for it had no connection with the feeling she had felt towards Will Headley. Was it pity? But how could she pity him, he was the last person one could pity; if he were dressed in rags and begging on the road he would not evoke pity. And yet, when she came to consider it, she could not give to this feeling any other name. She realised that he had allowed her to see beneath the surface of his arrogance wherein she had glimpsed a depth of loneliness. She herself had no understanding of loneliness, never once having been lonely. There came into her mind the fact that she had never been alone in her life except in the privacy of the water closet; sleeping or waking there had always been someone, Barbara, Anna, Mary, or her uncle.
The Mallen Streak Page 14
