Mrs. Telworthy Receives a Proposal
BUT the absurd love-business was still going on between those two children.
‘Kiss me,’ commanded Dinah, as soon as they were away from the house. Brian kissed her. It was her official defiance, childish if you like, of George’s authority. To their thinking he had betrayed Olivia. By that betrayal they were absolved of their pledge to him. So Brian kissed her. It was not a question now of ‘uncles or no uncles.’ Dinah felt that henceforward she had no uncle. There remained only her guardian, George Marden. He might forbid the marriage until she were twenty-one; so much perhaps the Law allowed him; but meanwhile she owed him no respect, no love, no duty.
‘I suppose the fact is,’ said Brian, ‘he’s never really been in love with her at all, not what we call being in love.’
‘I think he was when he was proposing to her, you know. He was a bit off his food about then. I remember wondering what was the matter with him. Of course, as soon as I saw them together——’ She broke off, and added, ‘Oh yes, he was, Brian, awfully. Not like us, of course, but still, very, very——Brian,’ she turned to him seriously, ‘it is possible isn’t it, to go on being in love with one another always?’
Brian swore that it was. In their case, not only possible, but inevitable.
‘Of course, you were bound to say that,’ she said wistfully.
‘Then why did you ask me?’
‘Oh well, I had to.’
‘What’s the matter, darling?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing. Let’s sit down.’ She curled herself up on the grass, and Brian lay beside her, selecting and nibbling the more succulent stalks.
‘That’s very dangerous,’ she said, after watching him in silence. ‘I know a man—at least, I didn’t know him, but it really happened—and he got all sorts of horrible things inside him by doing that. Eggs and things which grew up.’
‘I expect he did it on Sunday,’ said Brian lazily, ‘when he ought to have been in church. It wouldn’t happen to a really good man like me.’
‘What a little you know about me really,’ she went on. ‘I’m horrid sometimes. . . . And selfish. Oh, selfish!’
‘So am I.’
‘Men are always supposed to be, aren’t they? But it’s a different sort of selfish. . . . Wasn’t it awful what I said to Olivia about nothing ever happening here? Only a beast would have said that.’
‘She understood,’ said Brian. ‘And I shall understand.’
‘Will you?’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I believe you will. I think you’re the most understanding man I’ve ever met.’
This was love only. He acknowledged it with a smile. But was he understanding? Did he understand George, for instance?
Suppose he, Brian, had to choose between Dinah and his art? Impossible! But just suppose? Suppose George were now choosing between Olivia and his God? It was not good enough merely to say that it was a false god. His own art might be false art; certainly was in George’s eyes. The point was that George believed in his God. Then what could he do but fight for Him? Brian’s God was not as George’s; it was, for instance, a betrayal of Brian’s God to paint a picture in which he did not believe. Would Brian so betray Him for Dinah’s sake? It was horrible.
‘What’s the matter, darling?’
‘Matter?’ he asked vacantly.
‘You’re frowning so.’ She put a cool hand on his forehead, and smoothed out the wrinkles. ‘You’re spoiling the face I love.’
He laughed and explained. ‘I was thinking of George.’
‘Oh, well!’
‘No, not like that, Dinah.’ He became very busy with the grass, pulling it up and examining it minutely. ‘I was thinking perhaps I—I hadn’t been—quite fair to him.’
‘Brian!’ Indignant surprise from Dinah.
‘Well, I mean he’s all wrong, of course——’
‘I should think so!’
‘But even if you’re wrong . . . there’s a sort of right way of being wrong. ... I mean, if you do think like that, and I suppose he does——’ He put a piece of grass in his mouth and added, unexpectedly, ‘Or am I only-being a prig?’
‘You could make out anything to be right like that.’
Brian sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose you could.’
‘And why should you be fair to him; he wasn’t fair to you.’
‘No, but then I never mind that.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose he minds what you think.’ She leant over and kissed his hand. ‘Darling, that sounds beastly, but you know what I mean.’
‘Of course. And you’re quite right. He doesn’t mind. But that’s no reason for——’ he left it unfinished, and after a little silence said solemnly. ‘Do you know, Dinah, that there are weak unmanly moments in my life—this is a confession, so make a note of it—weak unmanly moments when I tell myself that it is just possible I am not invariably right about everything.’
‘I expect you’re right about that, anyway,’ smiled Dinah.
‘Thank you. In fact, at this moment I am only certain about one thing.’
‘Which is——?’
He held out his hands to her.
‘That I love you, I love you, I love you.’
Dinah felt suddenly that George didn’t really matter very much.
II
Olivia, not quite knowing how, found her way up to her bedroom and collapsed into a chair. It was difficult to get full control of herself. At one moment she would be calm, at the next a sudden remembrance of George’s Heaven-be-thanked face, of Mr. Pim’s bewilderment, of Lady Marden’s mixed reception of the good news, would set her off again. ‘It isn’t funny, it isn’t funny, it’s very serious,’ she would say to herself, biting her lower lip in a determined effort not to laugh, and then, when that was useless: ‘Anyhow, it isn’t really funny; it’s only like sitting down on your hat.’ But as a relief from tragedy, even from mere drabness, the sight of another sitting on his hat is exquisitely funny, coming with an irresistible force to the subtlest sense of humour.
It was the sight of her face in the glass which turned her thoughts at last to the serious business of life. ‘Oh, my dear, you are plain; no wonder he wanted to get rid of you,’ she murmured, and proceeded to make herself more worth keeping. A powder-puff is a devastating weapon in the hands of a woman. You or I, my dear sir, would powder our noses and merely look foolish. A woman powders her soul. ‘Now I am all right,’ she says, returning the puff, and looks it, and we worship her. ‘Now, I am all wrong,’ we should say with equal conviction, and look it, and be laughed at. For there is no merit in the actual powder. Our masculine noses (to mention them again) get along quite comfortably without it.
Olivia, reassured about herself, went to the window. There was Mr. Pim! She stood against the curtains watching George, the perfect host, speed him from Marden House. ‘Good-bye, Mr. Pim, you will never come into our lives again. But do I thank you for coming into them this once, or don’t I?’
She sat down to think it out. How did she stand with George now? What difference to their relations did the discoveries of this afternoon make?
She knew now the whole truth about him. But was it the whole truth? Is it the whole truth about a man to say that he is a coward, because in one crisis he behaves like a coward? Our life is not made up of crises. For every one of us there is a test too severe; we can only pray that we shall not be called upon to meet it or, meeting it, may fight and lose alone. Most of us are fortunate; we can go on from year to year, hiding the truth about ourselves from our friends; perhaps we are more fortunate still in that the truth about our friends remains hidden from us—if it be the truth. But to some the test comes in the presence of those whom they love the most; their souls are bared to their friends, who turn away, shrinking. Yet is it the real man whom we have seen, or that unworthy substitute who is waiting his chance with all of us?
‘But that won’t do,’ said Olivia to herself. ‘It was not an unexpected George who showed himself this afternoon; it was the real George, the George I married.’
There was one part of her crying out that she was hurt, that her life would never be the same again; there was another part of her insisting that she was only hurt if she allowed herself to be hurt, and that life was always the same again. It rested with her to make the best or the worst of it. Which was she going to do?
How few of us can deny ourselves a grievance! We are prepared to be generous, none more so. In a day, in an hour, even now at this moment we will forgive, we will welcome the offender again to our bosom. But there is one inexorable condition. It must be quite clear to him that he is the offender. If we failed to have our grievance, he would never realize our magnanimity. He would think that we had nothing to forgive; that his offence was not, or had passed unnoticed; even—horrible thought—that the offence was ours, and that it was he who was the magnanimous one, greeting us again without a word of reproach. So, we tell ourselves, it would not be right to give up our grievance. He must see plainly that he has hurt us, before the reconciling embrace. We forgive, he is forgiven—there must be no misunderstanding about our attitudes. The bent head is his; the outstretched reassuring hand is ours.
Olivia saw that this must be so, even with a smile at herself for seeing it. ‘Ah, my dear, thank Heaven you are my wife again! Now we can be happy’—George must not get off as lightly as that. Besides—and here the smile became more pronounced—she was not his wife again. She was Mrs. Telworthy.
She was not fond of grievances, she never sulked, she would not show a hurt reproachful face to George. But she was determined now to take charge. It had been George’s morning; the first part of the afternoon had been his; the rest of the day, the next few days, would be hers. It was to be she now who would say what was to be done or what was not to be done. The engagement between Brian and Dinah should be recognized; the curtains—now the smile was very mischievous—yes, the curtains should be hung.
She told herself now that she was not hurt. George had been George, but he loved her. That moment, just before Mr. Pim came in, when their eyes met, and she called to him, called to him with her whole heart, was the proof of his love. He had been coming to her. In spite of all that was against her—laws, habits, traditions, the gods whom he had set up, all tugging him the other way—she had been winning. His despairing cry, ‘I want to do what’s right,’ had been wrung from him by her eyes. Another moment, and he would have come to her, right or wrong. What higher tribute could he pay her?
She looked at herself in the glass again, smiled at it, and then, the smile still on her lips, walked leisurely down the stairs. What a comedy life was, when once you had realized that you couldn’t play it as tragedy. The laugh trembled on her mouth as she thought again of those last moments with Mr. Pim, but she tucked it firmly away. Now then, George.
III
George jumped up as Olivia came into the room, and bore down upon her with outstretched hands.
‘Olivia!’ he cried.
Just for a moment she faltered, and then, with a magnificent gesture, she motioned him back.
‘Mrs. Tel worthy,’ she said proudly. No actress on the stage, she felt, could have done it with a more superb air.
His surprise was ludicrous.
‘I—I don’t understand,’ he stammered.
She had to laugh then, but she did it very naturally and pleasantly, moving across to the sofa and inviting him with a look to come too.
‘Poor George!’ she said. ‘Did I frighten you rather?’
‘You’re so strange to-day,’ he protested, sitting down next to her and trying to take her hands. ‘I don’t understand you. You’re not like the Olivia I know.’
‘Perhaps you don’t know me very well after all.’
‘Oh, that’s nonsense, old girl. You’re just my Olivia.’
She shot a smile at him and said: ‘And yet it seemed as though I were somebody else’s Olivia half an hour ago.’
He moved uncomfortably at that.
‘Don’t let’s talk about it,’ he said hurriedly. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Ah, no!’ sighed Olivia, eyes to Heaven, and then quickly from Heaven to George, and back to Heaven again.
‘Well, thank God that’s over. And now we can get married again quietly, and nobody will be any the wiser.’
She turned an innocent face to him. ‘Married again?’ she repeated, apparently not understanding.
‘Yes, dear. As you—er—said just now’—he ventured an amused laugh, but only achieved the skeleton of it—‘you are Mrs. Telworthy, just for the moment.’ He patted her hand, and went on soothingly, ‘But we can soon put that right. My idea,’ he went on, elbowing Aunt Julia out of it, ‘was to go up this evening and make arrangements, and if you come up to-morrow afternoon, if we can manage it by then, we could get quietly married at a registry office, and—er—nobody any the wiser.’
He waited for her approval of his extraordinary grip on the situation. She nodded at him.
‘Yes, I see. You want me to marry you at a registry office to-morrow?’
‘Yes, if we can manage it by then. I don’t know how long these things take, but I should imagine—my solicitor would know, of course—I dare say I could see him to-night——’
He hurried on, hoping to keep Olivia’s attention off the dangerous words—‘registry office.’ He had had his own qualms of conscience about this, but they were now subdued. He was persuaded—well, almost persuaded—that his duty as a Christian summoned him to a registry office rather than a church, for the reason that the registry office offered speedier facilities for marriage; well, he supposed they did, but his solicitor would know about that; and, surely the one important thing for both of them was to get married as quickly as possible. True, a registry office was less public than a church, but that was not the point. The point was—well, anyhow, he did not want to argue it with Olivia, who was sometimes obtuse about these things, adorable though she was in other respects.
However, this afternoon Olivia was not arguing about such details as registry offices. She smiled to herself as she listened, understanding him so clearly, but she was challenging the main idea now. To his great relief she agreed carelessly to all that he said; that was all right. But——
‘But what?’ he asked.
‘Well, if you want to marry me to-morrow, oughtn’t you to propose to me first?’
He looked at her in amazement. What on earth did she mean.
‘It is usual, isn’t it,’ she went on calmly, ‘to propose to a person before you marry her? And’—another mischievous little smile was lurking—‘we want to do the usual thing, don’t we?’
Yes, George always wanted to do the usual thing, but he had lost his bearings for the moment. Seeing this, Olivia explained to him very simply just where he was.
‘You see, dear, you’re George Marden, and I’m Olivia Telworthy, and you are—well, you’re attracted by me. You think I would make you a good wife, and you want to marry me to-morrow at a registry office. Well, then’—she held up an admonishing forefinger—‘naturally you propose to me first, and tell me how much you are attracted by me, and what a good wife you think I shall make, and how badly you want to marry me.’
George followed this with open mouth. Gradually, as he began to understand, the mouth went up at the corners, intelligence gleamed in the eyes. There was a broad smile on his face by the time she had finished.
‘The baby!’ He threw his head back and laughed heartily. Then, humorously soothing, ‘Did she want to be proposed to all over again?’
‘Well, she did rather,’ said Olivia, enjoying quite a different joke.
George stood up, still chuckling.
‘She shall, then.’
It was no doubt merely the accident of birth which had deprived the stage of a great actor in George. To a man of his position the arts were just a relaxation for which as yet he had had no opportunity. George was a busy man. He had not the time on his hands which these actor fellows and writing fellows had. Granted the time, the achievements of the popular favourites are within the reach of all of us; those of us, at any rate, who have had the advantage of a public-school education. To doubt this is to concede too much to these artist fellows.
Light-heartedly, then, he sketched his idea of the lover proposing.
‘Mrs. Telworthy,’ he began, hand on heart, ‘I have long admired you in silence, and the time has now come to put my admiration into words.’ Excellent! There should have been an audience. Now how should he go on? ‘Er—er——’
‘Into words,’ Olivia reminded him.
‘Er——’
She continued to wait patiently. Then, with the idea of helping him, she looked bashfully away, and murmured, ‘Oh, Mr. Marden!’
That gave him his cue. ‘May I call you Olivia?’ he asked sternly.
‘Yes, George.’
He took her hand.
‘Olivia—I—er—h’r’m’——’ he announced, and was just getting into the swing of it, when the thoughtless woman broke in:
‘I don’t want to interrupt, but oughtn’t you to be on your knees? It is—usual, I believe. If one of the servants came in, you could say that you were looking for my scissors.’
He threw at her the indignant look of the painter interrupted in the middle of his most delicate brush- work.
‘Really, Olivia,’ he protested, ‘you must allow me to manage my own proposal in my own way.’
‘I’m sorry. Do go on.’
‘Well, then—er——’ No, it was no good. A masterpiece had been ruined. ‘Confound it, Olivia, I love you,’ he burst out. ‘Will you marry me?’
It had come at last, the proposal for which she had been waiting. She bent her head in acknowledgment of it.
‘Thank you, George,’ she said quietly. ‘I will think it over.’
George laughed admiringly. Olivia, it seemed, was a bit of an actress, too. But the play-acting had gone on long enough. They must get back to business.
‘Silly girl,’ he smiled, and touched her cheek. ‘Well, then, to-morrow morning. No wedding-cake, I’m afraid, old girl,’ he laughed again. ‘But we’ll go and have a good lunch somewhere.’
She looked up at him and repeated firmly: ‘I will think it over, George.’
‘Well, give us a kiss while you’re thinking,’ he said, half annoyed at her elaboration of the joke, half amused by it. He bent down to her.
‘I’m afraid you mustn’t kiss me until we are actually engaged,’ she explained, turning her face away.
For the first time something in her manner disturbed him. Was it possible that——No, impossible. He laughed awkwardly, to reassure himself.
‘Oh, we needn’t take it as seriously as all that.’
‘But a woman must take a proposal seriously,’ she said, still quite calm, quite matter-of-fact.
‘What do you mean?’ He was now really alarmed.
‘Well, I mean that the whole question—as I heard somebody say once—demands much more anxious thought than either of us has given it.’ She glanced at him to see if he was recognizing his own words, and went on: ‘These hasty marriages——’
‘Hasty!’ he put in sarcastically.
‘Well, you’ve only just proposed to me, and you want to marry me to-morrow.’
Olivia was now merely being absurd. It was his duty to tell her so.
‘You know, you’re talking perfect nonsense,’ he said. ‘You know quite well that our case is utterly different from’—he hesitated—‘from any other,’ he ended lamely.
Olivia smiled to herself. Yes, he had recognized his own words. He remembered the occasion of them.
‘All the same,’ she answered, ‘one has to ask oneself questions. With a young girl like’—she pulled herself up, just as he had done—‘well, with a young girl,’ she corrected herself, ‘love may well seem to be all that matters. But with a woman of my age it is different. When a man proposes to me I have to ask myself if he can afford to support a wife.’
‘Fortunately, that is a question which you can very easily answer for yourself,’ he said coldly. He didn’t know what she was talking about.
‘Well, but I have been hearing rather bad reports lately. What with—er—taxes always going up, and—er—rents always going down, some of our landowners are getting into rather straitened circumstances. At least,’ she added, wishing to be fair, ‘that’s what I have been told.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he growled. But he did know now.
She looked at him in surprise. ‘Isn’t it true?’ she asked. ‘Of course I may have been misinformed.’ He had nothing to say and she went on, ‘I heard of a case only this morning—a landowner who always seemed to be very comfortably off, but who couldn’t afford an allowance for his favourite niece when she wanted to get married.’ She gave a little sigh for the distressing situation, and proceeded to draw the moral. ‘It made me think,’ she said gravely, ‘that one oughtn’t to judge by appearances.’
George was now thoroughly annoyed. It was damnably unfair to make this use of his few harmless remarks of the morning. It was well known that when a man said that he couldn’t afford this, that or the other, all he meant was that—well, he had another use for his money. And why not?
‘You know perfectly well that I can support a wife as my wife should be supported,’ he said with dignity.
Her brow cleared. She turned to him, all smiles.
‘Oh, I’m so glad, dear. Then your income—you aren’t really getting anxious?’
He reminded her stiffly that she knew quite well what his income was, and what, presumably, it would remain.
‘Then that’s all right,’ she said with relief. ‘We needn’t think about that any more.’
She pushed down the first finger of her left hand, and passed on to the second finger. ‘Well, now there’s another thing to be considered.’
He broke away from her at that, and stalked over to his desk, making indignant noises. What on earth was she up to?
He knew, but he would not confess it to himself. To admit that she was paying him back for his betrayal of her that afternoon was to admit that he had betrayed her. Already he was ashamed of himself, yet refused to allow it. He had a hundred excuses for himself, where no excuses were necessary, and knew in his heart that not one of the hundred would do. He had acted as his conscience had urged him, yet remained conscience-stricken.
‘I can’t make out what you’re up to,’ he muttered uneasily. ‘Don’t you want to get married? Don’t you want to—er—legalize this extraordinary situation in which we are placed?’
She answered seriously. ‘I want to be sure that I am going to be happy.’ And then with a sudden fall from gravity, ‘I can’t just jump at the very first offer I have had since my husband died, without considering the whole question very carefully.’
‘I’m under consideration, eh?’
‘Every suitor is.’
So he was a suitor again! Masters of the House, Lords in our Castles, Keepers of the Purse, we were all suitors once, although we have forgotten it, conveniently enough, now. There was a day when we were on our knees, begging the proud beauty to turn to us, to throw us one kind word, one little smile. Her lightest wish was law to us. Edelweiss or Emeralds, she breathed the desire and we were off in pursuit. Look at us now! Listen to us now! What, this pompous fellow ever a suitor? ‘I am sorry, my dear, but I have said my last word on the subject.’ And once, soul bared before her, he was at her feet, praying her not to say that last word which would send him into the darkness. No wonder that he has forgotten it now; no wonder that she will remember ever.
He was a suitor again. Gone was the lordship, the authority, the word of command; gone the ease and mastery, companions of the knowledge that one belongs—good heavens, yes—to the superior sex. The woman has her hour, and Olivia’s hour was come again.
‘Go on,’ he said gruffly.
She went on.
‘Well, then there’s your niece. You have a niece who lives with you. Of course, Dinah is a delightful girl, but one doesn’t like marrying into a household in which there is another grown-up woman.’ She looked up at him as if an idea had suddenly occurred to her. ‘But perhaps she will be getting married herself soon?’
‘I see no prospect of it,’ announced George.
There was a moment’s silence.
‘I think,’ said Olivia gently, ‘it would make it much easier if she did.’
She did not look at him, but she could feel the comprehension of it creeping over his face, a comprehension which left him speechless.
‘Much easier,’ she repeated.
So that was it! It was not enough that he should fall on his knees to her again; not enough that he should pay—against all precedent, a second time—formal homage to her sovereignty. Something more material was required of him. She was issuing terms.
‘Is this a threat, Olivia?’ he demanded, in the voice which had convicted many a vagrant of impiety after a night in the open. ‘Are you telling me that if I do not allow young Strange to marry Dinah, you will not marry me?’
Put like that, can we be surprised that Olivia quailed before it?
‘A threat? Oh no, George.’
‘Then what does it mean?’
‘Well, I was just wondering if you loved me as much as—well, as much as Brian loves Dinah.’
Confound that fellow Strange! Why did she want to drag him into it.
In answer to his thoughts she let the fellow go and asked instead: ‘You do love me, George?’
Ah, he could answer now.
‘You know I do, old girl,’ he said earnestly.
‘You’re not just attracted by my pretty face?’ Innocently she added, ‘Is it a pretty face?’
Ah, that too he could answer. From his whole heart he cried, ‘It’s an adorable one, my darling.’
Again he tried to kiss it, but, as if not noticing his movement, she turned away.
‘How can I be sure,’ she wondered, ‘that it is not only my face which makes you think that you care for me? Love,’ she mused ‘which only rests upon a mere outward attraction cannot lead to any lasting happiness.’ She sighed, and added a little unkindly, ‘As one of our thinkers has observed.’
Damnably unfair! As if anything which middle- age said to youth ought to be used in evidence against middle-age! Why, it would make life impossible. Education and religion would be handicapped out of existence.
‘What’s come over you, Olivia?’ he asked. ‘I don’t understand what you’re driving at.’ Feebly he added, ‘Why should you doubt my love?’
Ah, why? He knew. She knew that he knew. Hurriedly he went on, lest she should take advantage of that unlucky question, ‘You can’t pretend that we haven’t been happy together. I’ve been a good pal to you, eh? We—we suit each other, old girl.’
‘Do we?’
‘Of course we do,’ he said persuasively.
‘I wonder. When two people of our age think of getting married, one wants to be very sure that there is real community of ideas between them. Whether it is a comparatively trivial matter, like’—she hesitated, trying to think of an illustration for her meaning and glanced round the room for inspiration—‘well, like the right colour for a curtain,’ she threw out innocently, ‘or whether it is some very much more serious question of conduct which arises, one wants to feel that there is some chance of agreement between husband and wife.’
The right colour for a curtain! Was that to be another of the terms?
‘We love each other, old girl,’ he pleaded. What did colours for curtains matter, compared with the great fact that they loved each other? Colours for curtains were nothing; particularly when all the husband had to say was: ‘I won’t have them in my house,’ and all the wife had to say was ‘Very well, George!’ Now love——
‘We love each other now, perhaps,’ said Olivia. ‘But what shall we be like in five years’ time? Supposing that, after we had been married five years, we found ourselves estranged from each other upon such questions as’—she hesitated again, evidently trying to think of possible questions over which they might be estranged in five years’ time—‘well, such questions as Dinah’s future, or the decorations of the drawing-room; even over the advice to give to a friend who had innocently contracted a bigamous marriage. How bitterly then we should regret our hasty plunge into a matrimony which was no true partnership, whether of tastes, or of ideas, or even of—consciences.’ She leant back and sighed to Heaven ‘Ah me!’ It was a long-worded speech to have made, and she hoped that George would appreciate it.
No doubt if he had heard it properly, he would have liked it very much. But as it happened, a brilliant idea had just come to him, which prevented him from following it closely. For he was now about to turn the tables on her.
‘Unfortunately for your argument, Olivia,’ he said, in a voice which foreshadowed his approaching triumph, ‘I can answer you out of your own mouth.’
She looked at him in alarm.
‘You seem to have forgotten,’ he went on, ‘what you said this morning in the case of young Strange.’
‘George!’ she said reproachfully. ‘Is it fair to drag up what was said this morning?’
He reminded her—she had apparently forgotten—that she was the one to begin it.
‘I ?’ she asked in innocent surprise.
He assured her that it was the fact.
‘Well, and what did I say this morning?’
‘You said that it was quite enough that Strange was a gentleman and in love with Dinah for me to let them marry each other.’
‘But is that enough?’ she asked with interest.
‘You said so!’ The triumph rang out clearly now.
‘Well, if you think so, I—perhaps you’re right.’ The meekest of wives was speaking.
‘Aha, my dear!’ he crowed. ‘You see!’ As he had always said, no woman could stand up against a man in argument for long.
‘Then do you think it’s enough?’
‘Well—obviously——’
She went to him then, holding out her arms.
‘My darling one! Then we can have a double wedding. How lovely!’
‘A double one?’ he said frowning.
‘Of course; you and me, Brian and Dinah.’
Quite suddenly George felt that there must be a flaw in his brilliant idea. He stood gaping at her.
‘You and me,’ she murmured again, flipping up two fingers of the right hand, ‘Brian and Dinah,’ and up went two fingers of the left hand.
George was now quite certain that there was either a flaw, or else that he had failed to handle it properly. However, there was only one line to take now.
‘Now, look here, Olivia,’ he said firmly, ‘understand once and for all that I am not to be blackmailed into giving my consent to Dinah’s engagement. Neither blackmailed nor tricked. Our marriage’—he emphasized it with a sweeping gesture of the hand—‘has nothing whatever to do with Dinah’s.’
‘No, dear,’ said Olivia. ‘I quite understand. They may take place about the same time, but they have nothing to do with each other.’
George observed coldly that he saw no prospect of Dinah’s marriage taking place for many years.
‘Yes, dear,’ she agreed. ‘That was what I said.’
‘What you said?’ he asked, amazed.
She nodded. His mouth was just open to explain to her what she had said when the explanation came to him. He closed it and stood looking at her, almost in horror. Could she really mean that? But even if she meant it in theory, in practice it was absolutely impossible. She would soon see that.
‘We had better have this perfectly clear, Olivia. You apparently insist on treating my—er—proposal as serious.’
‘But wasn’t it serious? George,’ she added wickedly, ‘were you trifling with me?’
‘You know quite well what I mean.’ He spoke with dignity. ‘You treat it as an ordinary proposal from a man to a woman who have been no more than acquaintances before. Very well, then. Will you tell me what you mean to do if you decide—er—not to marry me? You do not suggest that we should go on living together unmarried?’
It was her first chance of being shocked.
‘Of course not, George!’ she said indignantly. ‘What would the County—I mean Heaven—I mean the Law—I mean, of course not! Besides,’ she smiled, ‘it’s so unnecessary. If I decide to accept you, of course I shall marry you.’
‘Quite so. But if you—er—decide to refuse me? What will you do then?’
Now he had got her. It was all very well for her to talk as she had talked, but when it came to the point, she would find that she had no choice in the matter. She would have to marry him; to pretend anything else was bluff.
‘What will you do then?’ he repeated.
‘Nothing,’ said Olivia calmly.
‘Meaning by that?’
‘Just that, George. I shall stay here just as before. I like this house. It wants a little redecorating, perhaps, but I do like it, George.’ She looked round at the room, at the view from the windows, with a happy sigh. ‘Yes, I shall be quite all right here,’ she announced.
‘I see. So you will continue to live down here in spite of what you said just now, about the immorality of it?’ Surely she couldn’t mean that!
She looked at him in surprise for a moment, and then leant forward to argue it out.
‘But there’s nothing immoral in a widow living alone in a big country house,’ she assured him, ‘with perhaps the niece of a friend staying with her, just to keep her company.’
‘And what shall I be doing,’ he asked, layers of sarcasm in his voice, ‘when you’ve so kindly taken possession of my house for me?’
‘I don’t know, George. Travelling, I expect.’ Then an idea occurred to her. ‘You could come down sometimes with a chaperon,’ she said brightly. ‘I suppose there would be nothing wrong in that.’
He could stutter out no more than an indignant ‘Thank you.’ She waved it airily away, only too glad to have been of any help to him.
‘And what if I refuse to be turned out of my house?’ he demanded.
‘Then, seeing that we can’t both be in it, it looks as though you would have to turn me out.’ Carelessly she added: ‘I suppose there are legal ways of doing these things. You would have to consult your solicitor again.’
‘Legal ways?’ repeated the amazed George.
‘Well, you couldn’t throw me out, could you?’
No, he couldn’t throw her out. Force is an effective weapon, only so long as it is kept in reserve, so long, that is to say, as it is used morally, not physically. ‘Do this, or I’ll make you,’ says the big man to the little man, the big nation to the little nation, in the hope that the threat will be sufficient having the authority of Force behind it. But if the authority is not recognized, Force itself can do nothing. ‘All right, make me,’ says the little man to the big man, and the big man is powerless.
No, George could not make Olivia leave his house; he could not make her marry him. She ought to have recognized that he was the stronger; that, in addition, he had all the majesty of the Law behind him; and, recognizing these things, she should have obeyed him meekly. But, as she would not recognize them, what could he do?
‘You’ll have to get an injunction against me,’ she suggested cheerfully, ‘or prosecute me for trespass, or something. Your solicitor will know. It would make an awfully unusual case, wouldn’t it?’ she went on in an interested voice. ‘The papers would be full of it.’
The papers! An unusual case! George shuddered. It would be an absolutely impossible case.
Leaning back, her eyes closed, Olivia murmured in the monotonous voice of the newspaper-seller, a few possible headlines.
‘Widow of well-known ex-convict takes possession of J.P.’s house! Popular country gentleman denied entrance to own home! Doomed to travel!’
George turned on her furiously.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he shouted. ‘Do you mean all this nonsense?’
‘I do mean, George,’ she answered seriously, ‘that I am in no hurry to go up to London and get married. I love the country just now; and, after this morning’—she gave a little sigh—‘I am rather tired of husbands.’
‘I’ve never heard so much damned nonsense in all my life,’ exclaimed one of the husbands. He strode to the door. ‘I will leave you to come to your senses.’ A violent slam announced that he had left her.
As soon as he was gone Olivia jumped up to her feet, blew a loving kiss after him, and then, her face all triumphant smiles, stretched out her arms to her curtains. The dear things were really going up now!