Both Miriam and her daughter believed in prayer. Celia’s prayers had been first conscientious and conscious of sin, and later had been spiritual and ascetic. But she never broke herself of her little-girl habit of praying over everything that happened. Celia never went into a ballroom without murmuring: ‘Oh, God, don’t let me be shy. Oh, please God, don’t let me be shy. And don’t let my neck get red.’ At dinner parties she prayed: ‘Please, God, let me think of something to say.’ She prayed that she might manage her programme well and dance with the people she wanted to. She prayed that it might not rain when they started on a picnic.
Miriam’s prayers were more intense and more arrogant. She was, in truth, an arrogant woman. For her darling she did not ask, she demanded things of God! Her prayers were so intense, so burning, that she could not believe they would not be answered. And perhaps most of us, when we say our prayers have been unanswered, really mean that the answer has been No.
She had not been sure whether Johnnie de Burgh was an answer to prayer or not, but she was quite sure that Jim Grant was.
Jim was keen on taking up farming, and his people sent him to a farm near Miriam on purpose. They felt that she would keep an eye on the boy. It would help him to keep out of mischief.
Jim at twenty-three was almost exactly like Jim at thirteen had been. The same good-humoured, high-cheekboned face, the same round, intensely dark blue eyes, the same good-humoured, efficient manner. The same dazzling smile, and the same way of throwing back his head and laughing.
Jim was twenty-three and heart whole. It was spring and he was a strong, healthy young man. He came often to Miriam’s house, and Celia was young and fair and beautiful, and since nature is nature, he fell in love.
To Celia, it was another friendship like her friendship with Peter Maitland, only that she admired Jim’s character more. She had always felt that Peter was almost too ‘slack’. He had no ambition. Jim was full of ambition. He was young and intensely solemn about life. The words ‘life is real, life is earnest’, might have been written for Jim. His desire to take up farming was not rooted in a love of the soil. He was interested in the practical scientific side of farming. Farming in England ought to be made to pay much better than it did. It only needed science and will power. Jim was very strong on will power. He had books about it which he lent to Celia. He was very fond of lending books. He was also interested in theosophy, bimetallism, economics, and Christian Science.
He liked Celia because she listened so attentively. She read all the books and made intelligent comments on them.
If Johnnie de Burgh’s courtship of Celia had been physical, Jim Grant’s was almost entirely intellectual. At this time in his career, he was simply bursting with serious ideas – almost to the point of being priggish. When Celia liked him best was not when he was seriously discussing ethics or Mrs Eddy, but when he threw back his head and laughed.
Johnnie de Burgh’s love-making had taken her by surprise, but she realized Jim was going to ask her to marry him some time before he did.
Sometimes Celia felt life was a pattern: you wove in and out of it like a shuttle, obedient to the design imposed upon you. Jim, she began to suppose, was her pattern. He was her destiny, appointed from the beginning. How happy her mother looked nowadays.
Jim was a dear – she liked him immensely. Some day soon he would ask her to marry him and then she would feel as she had felt with Major de Burgh (she always thought of him as that in her mind, never as Johnnie) – excited and troubled – her heart beating fast …
Jim proposed to her one Sunday afternoon. He had planned to do so some weeks beforehand. He liked making plans and keeping to them. He felt it was an efficient way of living.
It was a wet afternoon. They were sitting in the schoolroom after tea. Celia had been playing and singing. Jim liked Gilbert and Sullivan.
After the singing they sat on the sofa and discussed socialism and the Good of Man. After that, there was a pause. Celia said something about Mrs Besant, but Jim answered rather at random.
There was another pause, and then Jim got rather red and said:
‘I expect you know I am awfully fond of you, Celia. Would you like to be engaged, or would you rather wait a bit? I think we should be very happy together. We’ve got so many tastes in common.’
He was not so calm as he sounded. If Celia had been older she would have realized this. She would have seen the significance of the slight tremble of his lips, the nervous hand that plucked at a sofa cushion.
As it was – well, what was she to say?
She didn’t know – so she said nothing.
‘I think you like me?’ said Jim.
‘I do – oh, I do,’ cried Celia eagerly.
‘That’s the most important thing,’ said Jim. ‘That people should really like each other. That lasts. Passion’ – he got a little pink as he said the word – ‘doesn’t. I think you and I would be ideally happy, Celia. I want to marry young.’ He paused, then said: ‘Look here, I think the fairest thing would be for us to be engaged on trial, as it were, for six months. We needn’t tell anyone except your mother and mine. Then, at the end of six months, you can make up your mind definitely.’
Celia reflected a minute.
‘Do you think that’s fair? I mean, I mightn’t – even then –’
‘If you don’t – then of course we oughtn’t to marry. But you will. I know it’s going to be all right.’
What comfortable assurance there was in his voice. He was so sure. He knew.
‘Very well,’ said Celia and smiled.
She expected him to kiss her, but he didn’t. He wanted to badly, but he felt shy. They went on discussing socialism and man – not perhaps quite so logically as they might have done.
Then Jim said it was time to go, and got up.
They stood for a minute awkwardly.
‘Well,’ said Jim, ‘so long. I’ll be over next Sunday – perhaps before. And I’ll write.’ He hesitated. ‘I – shall – will you give me a kiss, Celia?’
They kissed. Rather awkwardly …
It was exactly like kissing Cyril, Celia thought. Only, she reflected, Cyril never wanted to kiss anybody …
Well, that was that. She was engaged to Jim.
Miriam’s happiness was so overflowing that it made Celia feel quite enthusiastic over her engagement.
‘Darling, I’m so happy about you. He’s such a dear boy. Honest and manly, and he’ll take care of you. And they are such old friends and were so fond of your dear father. It seems so wonderful that it should have come about like this – their son and our daughter. Oh, Celia, I was so unhappy all the time with Major de Burgh. I felt somehow that it wasn’t right … not the thing for you.’
She paused and said suddenly:
‘And I’ve been afraid of myself.’
‘Of yourself?’
‘Yes, I’ve wanted so badly to keep you with me … Not to have you marry. I’ve wanted to be selfish. I’ve said that you would lead a more sheltered life – no cares, no children, no troubles … If it hadn’t been that I could have left you so little – so very little to live upon, I would have been sorely tempted … It’s very hard, Celia, for mothers not to be selfish.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Celia. ‘You would have been dreadfully humiliated when other girls got married.’
She had noted with some amusement her mother’s intense jealousy on her behalf. Were another girl better dressed, more amusing in conversation, Miriam immediately displayed a frenzied annoyance quite unshared by Celia. Her mother had hated it when Ellie Maitland got married. The only girls Miriam would speak kindly of were girls so plain or so dowdy as not in any way to rival Celia. This trait in her mother sometimes annoyed Celia but more often warmed her heart towards her. Darling thing, what a ridiculous mother bird she was with her ruffled plumage! So absurdly illogical … But it was sweet of her, all the same. Like all Miriam’s actions and feelings, it was so violent.
She was glad her mother was so happy. It had indeed all come about in a very wonderful way. It was nice to be marrying into a family of ‘old friends’. And she certainly did like Jim better than anyone else she knew – much, much better. He was just the kind of man she had always imagined having as a husband. Young, masterful, full of ideals.
Did girls always feel depressed when they got engaged? Perhaps they did. It was so final – so irrevocable.
She yawned as she picked up Mrs Besant. Theosophy depressed her too. A lot of it seemed so silly …
Bimetallism was better …
Everything was rather dull – much duller than it had been two days ago.
There was a letter on her plate next morning addressed in Jim’s handwriting. A little flush rose in Celia’s cheek. A letter from Jim. Her first letter since …
She felt, for the first time, a little excited. He hadn’t said much, but perhaps in a letter …
She took it out in the garden and opened it.
Dearest Celia [wrote Jim]: I got back very late for supper. Old Mrs Cray was rather annoyed but old Cray was rather amusing. He told her not to fuss – I’d been courting, he said. They really are awfully nice, simple people – their jokes are good-natured. I wish they were a little more receptive to new ideas – in farming, I mean. He doesn’t seem to have read anything on the subject and to be quite content to run the farm just like his great-grandfather did. I suppose agriculture is always more reactionary than anything else. It’s the peasant instinct rooted in the soil.
I feel I ought, perhaps, to have spoken to your mother before I left last night. However, I have written to her. I hope she won’t mind my taking you away from her. I know you mean a lot to her, but I think she likes me all right.
I might come over on Thursday – it depends on the weather. If not, Sunday next,
Lots of love,
Yours affectionately,
Jim.
After the letters of Johnnie de Burgh, it was not an epistle calculated to produce great elation of spirits in a girl!
Celia felt annoyed with Jim.
She felt that she could love him quite easily – if only he were a little different!
She tore the letter into small pieces and threw it into a ditch.
Jim was not a lover. He was too self-conscious. Besides, he had very definite theories and opinions.
Moreover, Celia was not really the kind of woman to stir in him all that was there to be stirred. An experienced woman, whom Jim’s bashfulness would have piqued, could have made him lose his head – with beneficial results.
As it was, his relations with Celia were vaguely unsatisfactory. They seemed to have lost the easy camaraderie of their friendship and to have gained nothing in exchange.
Celia continued to admire Jim’s character, to be bored by his conversation, to be maddened by his letters, and to be depressed by life in general.
The only thing she found real pleasure in was her mother’s happiness.
She got a letter from Peter Maitland, to whom she had written telling her news under a promise of secrecy.
All the best to you, Celia [wrote Peter]. He sounds a thoroughly sound fellow. You don’t say whether’s he’s got any of the ready. I hope so. Girls don’t think of a thing like that, but I assure you, Celia dear, it matters. I’m much older than you and I’ve seen women trailing round with their husbands fagged out and worried to death over money problems. I’d like you to live like a queen. You’re not the sort than can rough it.
Well, there’s not much more to say. I shall have a squint at your young man when I come home in September and see whether he’s worthy of you. Not that I should ever think anyone was that!
All the best to you, old girl, and may your shadow never grow less.
Yours always,
Peter.
It was a strange fact, yet true nevertheless, that the thing Celia enjoyed most about her engagement was her prospective mother-in-law.
Her old childish admiration for Mrs Grant resumed its sway. Mrs Grant, she thought now as then, was lovely. Grey-haired now, she had still the same queen-like grace, the same exquisite blue eyes and swaying figure, the same well-remembered, clear, beautiful voice, the same dominating personality.
Mrs Grant realized Celia’s admiration for her and was pleased by it. Possibly she was not quite satisfied about the engagement – something may have seemed to her lacking. She quite agreed with what the young people had decided – to be openly engaged at the end of six months and married a year later.
Jim adored his mother, and he was pleased that Celia should so obviously adore her also.
Grannie was very pleased that Celia was engaged but felt constrained to throw out many dark hints as to the difficulties of married life, ranging from poor John Godolphin who developed cancer of the throat on his honeymoon, to old Admiral Collingway who ‘gave his wife a bad disease, and then carried on with the governess, and at last, my dear, she couldn’t keep a maid in the house, poor thing. He used to jump out at them from behind doors – and not a stitch on. Naturally they wouldn’t stay.’
Celia felt that Jim was much too healthy to get cancer of the throat (‘Ah, my dear, but it’s the healthy ones who get it,’ interpolated Grannie), and not even the wildest imagination could picture the sedate Jim as an elderly satyr leaping on maidservants.
Grannie liked Jim but was, secretly, a little disappointed in him. A young man who didn’t drink or smoke and who looked embarrassed when jokes were made – what sort of a young man was that? Frankly, Grannie preferred a more virile generation.
‘Still,’ she said hopefully, ‘I saw him pick up a handful of gravel off the terrace last night, and I thought that pretty – the place where your feet had trodden.’
In vain Celia explained that it had been a matter of geological interest. Grannie would hear of no such explanation.
‘That’s what he told you, dear. But I know young men. Why, young Planterton wore my handkerchief next his heart for seven years, and he only met me once at a ball.’
Through the indiscretion of Grannie the news leaked through to Mrs Luke.
‘Well, child, I hear you’ve fixed things up with a young man. I’m glad you turned Johnnie down. George said I wasn’t to say anything to put you off, as he was such a good match. But I always did think he looked exactly like a codfish.’
Thus Mrs Luke.
She went on:
‘Roger Raynes is always asking about you. I put him off. Of course, he’s quite well off – that’s why he never really does anything with his voice. A pity – because he could be a professional. But I don’t suppose you’d fancy him – he’s such a little roundabout. And he eats steak for breakfast and always cuts himself shaving. I hate men who cut themselves shaving.’
One day in July, Jim came over in a state of great excitement. A very rich man, a friend of his father’s was going on a trip round the world with the special view of studying agriculture. He had offered to take Jim with him.
Jim talked excitedly for some time. He was grateful to Celia for her prompt interest and acquiescence. He had had a half guilty feeling that she might be annoyed at his going.
A fortnight later he started off in boisterous spirits, sending Celia a farewell telegram from Dover:
BEST OF LOVE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF – JIM.
How beautiful an August morning can be …
Celia came out on the terrace in front of the house and looked round her. It was early – there was still dew on the grass – that long green slope that Miriam had refused to have cut up into beds. There was the beech tree – bigger than ever, heavily, deeply green. And the sky was blue – blue – blue like deep sea water.
Never, Celia thought, had she felt so happy. The old familiar ‘pain’ clutched at her. It was so lovely – so lovely – it hurt …
Oh, beautiful, beautiful world! …
The gong sounded. She went in to breakfast.
Her mother looked at her. ‘You look very happy, Celia.’
‘I am happy. It’s such a lovely day.’
Her mother said quietly:
‘It’s not only that … It’s because Jim’s gone away, isn’t it?’
Celia had hardly known it herself till that minute. Relief – wild, joyous relief. She wouldn’t have to read theosophy or economics for nine months. For nine glorious delirious months she could live as she pleased – feel as she pleased. She was free – free – free … She looked at her mother, and her mother looked back at her.
Miriam said gently:
‘You mustn’t marry him. Not if you feel like that … I didn’t know …’
Words poured from Celia.
‘I didn’t know myself … I thought I loved him – yes – he’s so much the nicest person I ever met – and so splendid in every way.’
Miriam nodded sadly. It was the ruin of all her newfound peace.
‘I knew you didn’t love him at first – but I thought that you might grow to love him if you were engaged. It’s been the other way … You mustn’t marry anybody who bores you.’
‘Bores me!’ Celia was shocked. ‘But he’s so clever – he couldn’t bore me.’
‘That’s just what he does do, Celia.’ She sighed and added: ‘He’s very young.’
Perhaps the thought came to her that minute that if only these two had not met until Jim was older all might have been well. She was always to feel that Jim and Celia missed love by a very little – but they did miss it …
And secretly, in spite of her disappointment and her fear for Celia’s future, a little thread ran singing joyfully, ‘She will not leave me yet. She will not leave me yet …’
Once Celia had written to Jim to tell him she could not marry him she felt as though a load of care had slipped off her back.
When Peter Maitland came down in September he was amazed at her good spirits and her beauty.
‘So you gave that young fellow the chuck, Celia?’
‘Yes.’
‘Poor chap. Still, I dare say you’ll soon find someone more to your mind. I suppose people are always asking you to marry them?’
‘Oh, not very many.’
‘How many?’
Celia thought.
There was that funny little man, Captain Gale, in Cairo, and a silly boy on the boat coming back (if that counted), and Major de Burgh, of course, and Ralph and his tea-planter friend (who was married to another girl now, by the way), and Jim – and then there had been that ridiculous business with Roger Raynes only a week ago.
Mrs Luke had no sooner heard that Celia’s engagement was off than she had telegraphed for Celia to come and stay. Roger was coming, and Roger was always asking George to arrange for him to meet Celia again. Things had really looked quite promising. They had sung together in the drawing-room by the hour.
‘If only he could sing his proposal, she might take him,’ thought Mrs Luke hopefully.
‘Why shouldn’t she take him? Raynes is a jolly good chap,’ said George reproachfully.
It was no good explaining to men. They never could understand what women ‘saw’ or did not ‘see’ in a man.
‘A bit of a roundabout, of course,’ admitted George. ‘But looks don’t matter in a man.’
‘A man invented that saying,’ snapped Mrs Luke.
‘Well, come now, Amy, you women don’t want a barber’s block.’
He insisted that ‘Roger should have his chance.’
Roger’s best chance would have been to propose to Celia in song. He had a magnificent, moving voice. Listening to him singing, Celia would easily have thought she loved him. But when the music was over, Roger resumed his everyday personality.
Celia was a little nervous of Mrs Luke’s matchmaking. She saw the look in her eye and carefully manoeuvred not to be alone with Roger. She didn’t want to marry him. Why let him speak at all?
But the Lukes were determined to ‘give Roger his chance’, and Celia found herself being compelled to drive with Roger in the dogcart to a certain picnic.
It had not been an auspicious drive. Roger had talked of the delights of a home life and Celia had said a hotel was more fun. Roger said he had always fancied living somewhere not more than an hour from London – but in country surroundings.
‘Where would you hate living most?’ asked Celia.
‘London. I couldn’t live in London.’
‘Fancy,’ said Celia. ‘It’s the only place I could bear to live.’
She looked at him coolly after uttering this untruth.
‘Oh, I dare say I could do it,’ said Roger, sighing, ‘if I found the ideal woman. I think I have found her. I –’
‘I must tell you something so funny that happened the other day,’ said Celia desperately.
Roger did not listen to the anecdote. As soon as it was over he resumed:
‘Do you know, Celia, ever since I met you the first time –’
‘Do you see that bird? I do believe it’s a goldfinch.’
But there was no hope. Between a man who is determined to propose and a woman who is determined not to let him, the man always wins. The wilder Celia’s red herrings, the more determined Roger became to keep to the point. He was then bitterly hurt by the curtness of Celia’s refusal. She was angry because she had not managed to stave it off and also annoyed with Roger for his genuine surprise at her refusal to marry him. The drive finished in cold silence. Roger said to George that, after all, perhaps he had had a lucky escape – she seemed to have quite a temper …
All this passed through Celia’s mind as she meditated Peter’s question.
‘I suppose seven,’ she said at last doubtfully. ‘But only two real ones.’
They were sitting on the grass under a hedge on the golf course. From there you looked out over a panorama of cliffs and sea.
Peter had let his pipe go out. He was snapping off daisies’ heads with his fingers.
‘You know, Celia,’ he said, and his voice sounded odd and strained, ‘you can – add me to that list any time you like.’
She looked at him in astonishment.
‘You, Peter?’
‘Yes, didn’t you know?’
‘No, I never thought of it. You never – seemed like that.’
‘Well, it’s been that way with me almost since the beginning … I think I knew even at Ellie’s wedding. Only, you see, Celia, I’m not the right sort of fellow for you. You want a go-ahead, brainy chap – oh, yes, you do. I know what your ideal man is like. He’s not a lazy, easygoing fellow like me. I shan’t get on in life. I’m not made that way. I shall amble through the service and retire. No fireworks. And I’ve very little of the ready. Five or six hundred a year – that’s all we’d have to live upon.’
‘I wouldn’t mind that.’
‘I know you wouldn’t. But I mind for you. Because you don’t know what it’s like – and I do. You ought to have the best, Celia – absolutely the best. You’re a very lovely girl. You could marry anybody. I’m not going to have you throw yourself away on a tuppeny halfpenny soldier. No proper home, always packing up and moving on. No, I always meant to keep my mouth shut and let you make the kind of marriage a beautiful girl like you ought to make. I just thought that supposing you didn’t – then – well, some day, there might be a chance for me …’
Very timidly Celia laid her slender pink hand on the brown one. It closed round hers, held it warmly. How nice it felt – Peter’s hand …
‘I don’t know that I ought to have spoken now. But we’re ordered abroad again. I thought I’d like you to know before I go. Supposing Mr Right doesn’t turn up – I’m there – always – waiting …’
Peter – dear, dear Peter … Somehow, Peter belonged to the nursery and the garden and Rouncy and the beech tree. Safety – happiness – home …
How happy she was, sitting here looking out over the sea, with her hand in Peter’s. She would always be happy with Peter. Dear, easygoing, sweet-tempered Peter.
He had never looked at her all this time. His face looked rather grim – rather tense … very brown and dark.
She said:
‘I’m very fond of you, Peter. I’d like to marry you …’
He turned then – slowly, as he did everything. He put his arm around her … those dark, kind eyes looked into hers.
He kissed her – not awkwardly like Jim – not passionate like Johnnie – but with a deep, satisfying tenderness.
‘My little love,’ he said. ‘Oh, my little love …’
Celia wanted to marry Peter at once and go out to India with him. But Peter refused point-blank.
He insisted obstinately that she was still very young – only nineteen now – and that she must still have every chance.
‘I’d feel the most awful swine, Celia, if I went and snatched at you greedily. You may change your mind – you may meet someone you like a lot better than me.’
‘I shan’t – I shan’t.’
‘You don’t know. Lots of girls are keen about a fellow when they’re nineteen and wonder what they could have seen in him by the time they’re twenty-two. I’m not going to rush you. You must have lots of time – you’ve got to be quite sure you’re not making a mistake.’
Lots of time. The Maitland habit of thought – never rushing a thing – plenty of time. And so the Maitlands missed trains and trams and appointments and meals and, sometimes, more important things.
Peter talked in the same way to Miriam.
‘You know how I love Celia,’ he said. ‘You’ve always known, I think. That’s why you trusted me to go about with her. I know I’m not the sort of fellow you thought of her marrying –’ Miriam interrupted.
‘I want her to be happy. I think she would be happy with you.’
‘I’d give my life to make her happy – you know that. But I don’t want to rush her. Some fellow with money might come along and if she liked him –’
‘Money is not everything. It is true that I hoped Celia would not be poor. Still, if you and she are fond of each other – you have enough to live on by being careful.’
‘It’s a dog’s life for a woman. And it’s taking her away from you.’
‘If she loves you –’
‘Yes, there’s an if about it. You feel that. Celia’s got to have every chance. She’s too young to know her own mind. I shall have leave in two years’ time. If she still feels the same –’
‘I hope she will.’
‘She’s so beautiful, you know. I feel she ought to do better. I’m a rotten match for her.’
‘Don’t be too humble,’ said Miriam suddenly. ‘Women don’t appreciate it.’
‘No, perhaps you’re right.’
Celia and Peter were very happy together during the fortnight spent at home. Two years would soon pass.
‘And I promise you I’ll be faithful to you, Peter. You’ll find me waiting for you.’
‘Now, Celia, that’s just what you’re not to do – consider yourself promised to me. You’re absolutely free.’
‘I don’t want to be.’
‘Never mind, you are.’
She said with sudden resentment:
‘If you really loved me, you’d want me to marry you at once and come with you.’
‘Oh, my love, my little love, don’t you understand that it’s because I love you so much?’
Seeing his stricken face she knew that he did indeed love her, with a love that feared to grasp at a treasure much desired.
Three weeks later Peter sailed.
A year and three months later Celia married Dermot.