Part 66 (2/2)
”Then, look here, Beth,” he said, putting his arm round her. ”I don't think I can do better than take you away with me. You've a head on your shoulders, and an original way with you that would be sure to bring people about the house, and you're well connected and look it;--all of which would be good for my practice. Besides, a young doctor must marry. I'm over thirty, though you might not think it.
Come, what do you say? You'd have a very good time of it as my wife, I can tell you. All your own way, and no nagging. You know what _I_ am, a cheery fellow, never put out by anything. Now, what do you say?”
”Are you asking me to marry you?” said Beth, breaking into a smile.
The position struck her as comical rather than serious.
”Why, what else?” he replied, smiling also. ”I see you are recovering your spirits. You'll be as happy as the day is long when we're married. You'd never get on with anybody else as you'd do with me. I don't think anybody else would understand you.”
Beth laughed. She liked him, and she liked to be caressed. Why not marry him and be independent of every one? She hadn't the slightest objection at the moment; far from it, for she saw in the offer the one means of escape she was likely to have from the long dull dreary days, and the loneliness, which was all the life she could have to look forward to when he had gone. And he was good-looking, too, and nice--everybody said so. Besides, they would all be pleased if she accepted him, her mother especially so. Now that she came to think of it, she perceived that this was what they had been suggesting to her ever since her return.
”It is settled then?” he said, stooping forward to look into her face.
She looked at him shyly and laughed again. For the life of her she could not keep her countenance, although she felt she was behaving in the silly, giggling-girl sort of way she so much despised.
”That's all right,” he exclaimed, looking extremely well pleased; and at that moment Mrs. Caldwell walked into the room, just in time to witness a lover-like caress. Beth jumped up, covered with confusion.
Mrs. Caldwell looked from one to the other, and waited for an explanation.
”We've just come to the conclusion that we cannot live apart,” Dan said deliberately, rising at the same time and taking Beth's hand.
”My dear child!” Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed, embracing Beth with happy tears in her eyes. ”This _is_ a joy! I _do_ congratulate you.”
Beth became suddenly serious. The aspect of the affair had changed. It was no longer a game of the moment, but a settled business, already irrevocable. She wanted to explain that she had not actually pledged herself, that she must take time to consider; but her heart failed her in view of her mother's delight. It was Beth's great weakness that, as a rule, she could neither spoil pleasure nor give pain to save herself in an emergency.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
When Dan came to see her the next morning, he found her in a mixed mood. Half-a-dozen times during the night she had declined to marry him in a painful scene, but just as often her imagination would run on into the unknown life she would have to lead with him. She saw herself in white satin and lace and pearls, a slender figure at the head of a long dining-table, interesting to everybody, and Dan was at the foot, looking quite distinguished in evening dress, with his glossy black hair and wonderful clear skin. She had gathered the nicest people in the neighbourhood about her, and on her right there was a shadowy person, a man of mark, and knightly, who delighted in her conversation.
When she came downstairs to receive Dan she was coughing, and he showed his devotion by being greatly concerned about her health. He said she must have port wine and a tonic, and be out in the air as much as possible, and suggested that they should go for a walk at once as it was a lovely day, though still wet under foot.
”I would not ask you to walk if I had a carriage to offer you,” he said, ”for I hate to see a delicate lady on foot in the mud. But you shall have your carriage yet, please G.o.d, all in good time!”
”Where shall we go?” said Beth when they left the house.
”Oh, anywhere,” he answered. ”Take me to one of your own favourite haunts.”
She thought of the Fairholm cliffs for a moment, but felt that they were sacred to many recollections with which she would not care to a.s.sociate this new experience. ”I'll show you the chalybeate spring,”
she said.
They turned out of Orchard Street, and went down the hill to the Beck, a broad, clear, shallow rivulet, that came round a sharp green curve between high banks, well wooded with old trees, all in their heavy, dark-green, summer foliage. As they crossed the rustic wooden bridge Beth paused a little to look up at the trees and love them, and down into the clear water at the scarlet sticklebacks heading up stream.
Her companion looked at her in surprise when she stopped, and then followed the direction of her eyes. All he saw, however, was a shallow stream, a green bank, and some trees.
”This is not very interesting,” he observed.
Beth made no reply, but led the way up the hill on the other side, and, to the right, pa.s.sed a row of cottages with long gardens at the back running down to the brow of the bank that overhung the Beck. In most of these cottages she was an object of suspicion because of her uncanny words and ways, and she knew it, and the thought of it was a grief to her. She wanted the people to like her as she would have liked them had they let her. The wish to win them fired her imagination. She looked on ahead into futurity, and was a beautiful lady, driving a pair of ponies down a wooded lane, with a carriage full of good things for the cottagers, and they all loved her, and were very glad to see her.
”What are you thinking about?” Dan asked.
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