Penny Plain/Chapter 16

HE day before Pamela and her brother left Priorsford for their visit to Champertoun was a typical December day, short and dark and dirty.

There was a party at Hopetoun in honour of David's home-coming, and Pamela and her brother were invited, along with the entire family from The Rigs.

They all set off together in the early darkening, and presently Pamela and the three boys got ahead, and Jean found herself alone with Lord Bidborough.

Weather had little or no effect on Jean's spirits, and to-day, happy in having David at home, she cared nothing for the depressing mist that shrouded the hills, or the dank drip from the trees on the carpet of sodden leaves, or the sullen swirl of Tweed coming down big with spate, foaming against the supports of the bridge.

"As dull as a great thaw," she quoted to her companion cheerfully. "It does seem a pity the snow should have gone away before Christmas. Do you know, all the years of my life I've never seen snow on Christmas. I do wish Mhor wouldn't go on praying for it. It's so stumbling for him when Christmas comes mild and muggy. If we could only have it once as you see it in pictures and read about it in books——"

She broke off to bow to Miss Watson and her sister, Miss Teenie, who passed Jean and her companion with skirts held well out of the mud, and eyes, after the briefest glance, demurely cast down.

"They are going out to tea," Jean explained to Lord Bidborough. "Don't they look nice and tea-partyish? Fur capes over their best dresses and snow boots over their slippers. Those little black satin bags hold their work, and I expect they have each a handkerchief edged with Honiton lace and scented with White Rose. Probably they are going to Mrs. Henderson's. She gives wonderful teas, and they will be taken to a bedroom to take off their outer coverings, and they'll stay till about eight o'clock and then go home to supper."

Lord Bidborough laughed. "I begin to see what Pam means when she talks of the lovableness of a little town. It is cosy, as she says, to see people go out to tea and know exactly where they are going, and what they'll do when they get there."

"I should think," said Jean, "that it would rather appeal to you. Your doings have always been on such a big scale—climbing the highest mountains in the world, going to the very farthest places—that the tiny and the trivial ought to be rather fascinating by contrast."

Lord Bidborough admitted that it was so, and silence fell between them.

"I wonder," said Jean politely, having cast round in her mind for a topic that might interest—"I wonder what you will attempt next? Jock says you want to climb Everest. He is frightfully excited about it, and wishes you would wait a few years till he is grown up and ready."

"Jock is a jewel, and he will certainly go with me when I attempt Everest, if that time ever comes."

They had reached the entrance to Hopetoun: the avenue to the house was short. "Would you mind," said Lord Bidborough, "walking on with me for a little bit?…"

"But why?" asked Jean, looking along the dark, uninviting road. "They'll wonder what's become of us, and tea will be ready, and Mrs. Hope doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"Never mind," said Lord Bidborough, his tone somewhat desperate. "I've got something I want to say to you, and this may be my only chance. Jean, could you ever—I mean, d'you think it possible—oh, Jean, will you marry me?"

Jean backed away from him, her mouth open, her eyes round with astonishment. She was too much surprised to be anything but utterly natural.

"Are you asking me to marry you? But how ludicrous!"

The answer restored them both to their senses.

Lord Bidborough laughed ruefully and said, "Well, that's not a pretty way to take a proposal," while Jean, flushed with shame at her own rudeness, and finding herself suddenly rather breathless, gasped out, "But you shouldn't give people such frights. How could I know you were going to say anything so silly? And it's my first proposal, and I've got on goloshes!"

"Oh, Jean! What a blundering idiot I am! I might have known it was a wrong moment, but I'm hopelessly inexperienced, and, besides, I couldn't risk waiting; I so seldom see you alone. Didn't you see, little blind Jean, that I was head over ears in love with you? The first night I came to The Rigs and you spoke to me in your singing voice I knew you were the one woman in the world for me."

"No," said Jean. "No."

"Ah, don't say that. You're not going to send me away, Penny-plain?"

"Don't you see," said Jean, "I mustn't let myself care for you, for it's quite impossible that I could ever marry you. It's no good even speaking about such a thing. We belong to different worlds."

"If you mean my stupid title, don't let that worry you. A second and the Socialists alter that! A title means nothing in these days."

"It isn't only your title: it's everything—oh, can't you see?"

"Jean, dear, let's talk it over quietly. I confess I can't see any difficulty at all—if you care for me a little. That's the one thing that matters."

"My feelings," said Jean, "don't matter at all. Even if there was nothing else in the way, what about Davie and Jock and the dear Mhor? I must always stick to them—at least until they don't need me any longer."

"But Jean, beloved, you don't suppose I want to take you away from them? There's room for them all…. I can see you at Mintern Abbas, Jean, and there's a river there, and the hills aren't far distant—you won't find it unhomelike—the only thing that is lacking is a railway for the Mhor."

"Please don't," said Jean. "You hurt me when you speak like that. Do you think I would let you burden yourself with all my family? I would never be anything but a drag on you. You must go away, Richard Plantagenet, and take your proper place in the world, and forget all about Priorsford and Penny-plain, and marry someone who will help you with your career and be a fit mistress for your great houses, and I'll just stay here. The Rigs is my proper setting."

"Jean," said Lord Bidborough, "will you tell me—is there any other man?"

"No. How could there be? There aren't any men in Priorsford to speak of."

"There's Lewis Elliot."

Jean stared. "You don't suppose Lewis wants to marry me, do you? Men are the stupidest things! Don't you know that Lewis…."

"What?"

"Nothing. Only you needn't think he ever looks the road I'm on. What a horrid conversation this is! It's a great mistake ever to mention love and marriage. It makes the nicest people silly. I simply daren't think what Jock would say if he heard us. He would be what Bella Bathgate calls 'black affrontit.'"

"Jean, will it always matter to you more than anything in the world what David and Jock and Mhor think? Will you never care for anyone as you care for them?"

"But they are my charge," Jean explained. "They were left to me. Mother said, before she went away that last time, 'I trust you, Jean, to look after the boys,' and when father didn't come back, and Great-aunt Alison died, they had only me."

"Can't you adopt me as well? Do you know, Penny-plain, I believe it is all the fault of your Great-aunt Alison. You are thinking that on your death-bed you will like to feel that you sacrificed yourself to others——"

"Oh," cried Jean, "did Pamela actually tell you about Great-aunt Alison? That wasn't quite fair."

"She wasn't laughing. She only told me because she knew I was interested in every detail of your life, and Great-aunt Alison explains a lot of things about her grand-niece."

Jean pondered on this for a little and then said:

"Pam once said I was on the verge of being a prig, and I'm not sure that she wasn't right, and it's a hateful thing to be. D'you think I'm priggish, Richard Plantagenet? Oh no, don't kiss me. I hate it…. Why do you want to behave like that? It isn't nice."

"I'm sorry, Jean."

"And now your voice sounds as if you did think me a prig … Here we are at last, and I simply don't know what to say kept us."

"Don't say anything: leave it to me. I'll be sure to think of some lie. Do you realise that we are only ten minutes behind the others?"

"Is that all?" cried Jean, amazed. "It seems like hours."

Lord Bidborough began to laugh helplessly.

"I wonder if any man ever had such a difficult lady," he said, "or one so uncompromisingly truthful?"

He rang the bell, and as they stood on the doorstep waiting, the light from the hall-door fell on his face, and Jean, looking at him, suddenly felt very low. He was going away, and she might never see him again. The fortnight he had been in Priorsford had given her an entirely new idea of what life might mean. She had not been happy all the time: she had been afflicted with vague discontents and jealousies such as she had not known before, but at the back of them all she was conscious of a shining happiness, something that illuminated and gave a new value to all the commonplace daily doings. Now, as in a flash, while they waited for the door to open, Jean knew what had caused the happiness, and realised that with her own hand she was shutting the door on the light, shutting herself out to a perpetual twilight.

"If only you hadn't been a man," she said miserably, "we might have been such friends."

A servant opened the door and they went in together.