Oddsfish!, Robert Hugh Benson [best books to read for women .txt] 📗

then a kind of tenderness came over me as I thought how courageous she was, and good and simple, and I put these other thoughts away, and turned to her where she sat with the firelight on her chin and brows and hair, very rigid and still.

"Dolly, my dear," I said, "I think you know what I have to say to you. It is that I love you very dearly, as you must have seen--"

She made a little quick movement as if to speak.

"Wait, cousin," I said, "till I have done. I tell you that I love you very dearly, and honor you, and can never forget what you did for me. And I am a man of a very considerable estate and a Catholic; so there is nothing to think of in that respect. And your father too will be pleased, I know; and we are--"

Again she made that little quick movement; and I stopped.

"Well, my dear?"

She looked up at me very quietly.

"Well, Cousin Roger; and what then?"

That confused me a little; for I had thought that she had understood. And then I thought that perhaps she too was confused.

"Why, my dear," I said very patiently as I thought, as one would speak to a child, "I am asking you if you will be my wife."

I turned away from the fire altogether, and faced her, thinking I should have her in my arms. But at first she said nothing at all, but sat immovable, scrutinizing me, I thought, as if to read all that was in my head and heart. But it was all new to me, for what did I know of love except that it was very strange and sweet? So I waited for her answer. That answer came.

"Cousin Roger," she said in a very low voice, "I am very sorry you have spoken as you have--"

I straightened myself suddenly and looked at her more closely. She had not moved at all, except her face. A kind of roaring murmur began to fill my ears.

"Because," said she--and every word of hers now was pain to me--"because there is but one answer that I can give, which is No."

"Why--" cried I.

"You have spoken very kindly and generously. But--" and at this her voice began to ring a little--"but I am not what you think me--a maid to be flung at the head of any man who will choose to take her."

"Cousin!" cried I; and then she was on her feet too, her face all ablaze.

"Yes, Cousin!" cried she; "and never any more than that. You have acted very well, Cousin Roger; and I thank you for that compliment--that you thought it worth while to play the part--and for your great kindness to a poor country maid. I had thought it to be all over long ago--before you went away; or I would not have behaved as I have. But since you have considered it again carefully, and chosen to--to insult me after all; I have no answer at all to give, except No, a thousand times over."

"Why, Cousin--" I began again.

She stamped her foot. I could not have imagined she could be so angry.

"Wait till I have done," she said--"I do not know what my father thinks of me; but I suppose that you and he have designed all this; and led me on to make a fool of myself--Oh! Let me go! let me go!"

Oh! the triple fool that I was! Yet who had ever taught me the ways of love, or what women mean, or what their hearts are like? If I had been one half the man that I thought myself, I would have seized her there, and forced back her foolishness with kisses, and vowed that, conspirator or not, she must have me; that we knew one another too well to play false coin like this. Or I should have blazed at her in return; and told her that she lied in thinking I was as base as that. Why, I should have just borne myself like a lover to whom love is all, and dignity and wounded pride nothing; for what else is there but love, sacred or profane, in the whole world that God has made? If I had done that! If only I had done that then! But I suppose that I was no lover then.

So I drew back, smarting and wounded; and let her go by; and a minute later I heard the door of her chamber slam behind her, and the key turn.

* * * * *


For myself I went out very slowly, five minutes after, and upstairs to my own chamber, and began to consider what things I must take with me on the morrow; for I would not stay another day in the house where I had been so insulted and denied.


CHAPTER VIII

Pride is a very good salve, when one has no humility; and it was Pride that I applied to myself to heal the wounds I had.

I came down again to the Great Chamber, half an hour later, very cold and dignified, and danced again, like the solemn fool that I was, first with one and then with another; and all the while I told myself, like the prophet that "I did well to be angry"; and that I would shew her that no man, of my ability, could depend upon any mere woman for his content. Yet the pain at my heart was miserable.

It is very near incredible to me now how I, who truly knew something of the world, and of men and of affairs, could be so childish and ignorant in a matter of this sort. In truth this was what I was; I knew nothing of true love at all; how therefore should I be a proper lover? I saw my Cousin Tom, who mopped himself a great deal, eyeing me now and again; and he presently came up and asked me where Dolly was.

"In her chamber, I think," said I, with my nose in the air; and with such a manner that he said no more.

It was enough to break my heart to continue dancing; but it was the task I had set myself upstairs; and till near ten o'clock we continued to dance--but no Dolly to help us. I had even determined how I should bear myself if she came--and how superb should be my dignity; but she did not come to see it. We ended with singing "Here's a health unto His Majesty"; and I took care that my voice should be loud so that she should hear it. (I had even, poor fool that I was! walked heavily past her chamber-door just now, that she might hear me go.)

When all were gone away at last, I waited for my Cousin Tom, and then went with him into the parlour; where I told him very briefly all that had passed, with the same dignity that I had set myself to preserve. I even spoke in a high sort of voice, to shew my self-command and detachment. My Cousin Tom appeared as if thunderstruck.

"Good God!" said he. "The minx! to behave like that!"

"It is no longer any concern of mine," I said. "For myself I shall go back to town to-morrow."

"But--" began he.

"My dear Cousin," I said, "it is the only thing that I can do--to set to work again. Mistress Dorothy must recover herself alone. I could not expect her to tolerate such a personage as I must appear in her eyes."

"But you will came back again," said Tom. "And I'll talk to the chit as she deserves."

I preserved my lofty attitude.

"That again," said I, "is no concern of mine. And as for coming back, when Mistress Dorothy has found her a husband whom she can respect--we may perhaps consider it."

He sat very silent for a while after that; and I know now, though I did not know then, what was the design he was considering--at least I suppose it was then that he saw it clear before him. At the time I thought he was giving his attention to myself; and I wondered a little that he did not press me again to stay, though I would not have done so.

It was a very desolate morning when I awakened next day, and knew what had happened, and that I must go away again from the house I had learned so much to love; but there was no help for it; and, as I put on my clothes, I put on my pride with them; and came down very cold and haughty to get my "morning" as we called it, in the dining-room before riding; and there in the dining-room was my Cousin Dolly, whom I had thought to be in her chamber, as the door was shut when I came past it.

We bade one another good morning very courteously indeed; but we gave no other salute to one another. She knew last night that I was going, as my Cousin Tom had told her maid to tell her; and I was surprised that she was there. Presently I had an explanation of it.

"Cousin Roger," said she, "I was very angry last night; and I wished to tell you I was sorry for that, and for the hard words I used, before you went away."

I bowed my head very dignifiedly.

"And I, too," I said, "must ask your pardon for so taking you by surprise. I thought--" and then I ceased.

She had looked a little white and tired, I thought; but she flushed again with anger when I said that.

"You thought it would be no surprise," she said.

"I did not say so, Cousin," said I. "You have no right to interpret--"

"But you thought it."

I drank my ale.

"Oh! what you must think of me!" she cried in a sudden passion; and ran out of the room.

* * * * *


I think that was the most disconsolate journey I have ever taken. It was a cold morning, with a fine rain falling: my man James was disconsolate too (and I remembered the dairy-maid, when I saw it), and I was leaving the one place I had begun to think of as my home, and her who had so much made it home to me. I had not even seen her again before I went; and our last words had been of anger; and of that chopping kind of argument that satisfies no one.

I tried to distract myself with other thoughts--of what I was going to; for I had determined to go straight to Whitehall and ask for some employment; yet back and back again came the memories, and little scenes of the house, and the appearance of the Great Chamber when it was all lit up, and of the figure of that little maid who had so angered me, and the way she carried her head, and the turns of her hand--and how happy we all were yesterday about this time.