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He came in at that moment, on the pretext of bringing her back a book she had lent him, though he hadn’t read it and didn’t mean to, for it was what he, being a plain man, called high-falutin. He didn’t tell her this, because when a man is courting he cannot be candid, and he well knew that he was courting. What he wasn’t sure of was whether she knew. You never could tell with women; the best of them were artful.
He came in that evening, then, to make it finally clear to her. She was a charming woman, and much younger, he imagined, than her age, which couldn’t, he calculated, with a son of twenty-two be far short of forty-two, and he had always greatly admired the pluck with which she faced what seemed to him sheer destitution. She was the very woman, too, to have at the head of one’s table when one had friends to dinner,—good-looking, knowing how to dress, able to talk about any mortal thing, and a perfect lady. And after the friends had gone, and it was time to go to bye-bye—such were the words his thoughts clothed themselves in,—she would still be a desirable companion, even if—again his words—a bit on the thin side. That, however, would soon be set right when he had fed her up on all the good food she hadn’t ever been able to afford, and anyhow she was years and years younger than poor Annie, who had been the same age as himself, which was all right to begin with, but no sort of a show in the long run. Also, Annie had stayed common.
So the neighbour, whose name was Mr. Thorpe, arrived on Jocelyn’s wedding night about nine o’clock in the restrained sitting-room of Almond Tree Cottage, determined to make his purpose clear. That he should be refused didn’t enter his head, for he had much to offer. He was far the richest man in the parish, his two daughters were married and out of the way, his house and cars were bigger than anybody’s, and he grew pineapples. He couldn’t help thinking, he couldn’t help knowing, that for a woman of over forty he was a catch, and he went into the room, past the reverent-eyed small maid who held the door open, expanding his chest. A poverty-stricken little room, he always considered, with nothing in it of the least account, except the lady.
Yes; except the lady. But what a lady. Not a grey hair in her head, which he had carefully examined when she wasn’t looking, nor, he would wager, any tooth that wasn’t exclusively her own. And a trim ankle; and a pretty wrist. Ruffles, too. He liked ruffles at a woman’s wrist. And able to talk about any mortal thing. Annie, poor creature, had made him look like a fool when he had his friends to dinner. This one would be the finest of the feathers in a cap which, he too gratefully acknowledged, was stuck full of them.
‘All alone, eh?’ he said cheerily. ‘That’s bad.’
‘I’m used to it,’ said Mrs. Luke, smilingly holding out her slender hand, on which a single ruby—or was it a garnet? probably a garnet—caught the light. She had on a wine-coloured, soft woollen dress that Jocelyn liked, and the ring and the dress went very well together.
A pretty picture; a perfect lady. Mr. Thorpe, determined to waste no time in making his purpose clear, bent his head and kissed the hand.
‘Being used to a bad thing doesn’t make it better, but worse,’ he said, drawing up the only other really comfortable chair—Jocelyn’s—and sitting down close to her.
And he was about to embark then and there on his proposal, for he hated waste of anything, including time, and Mrs. Luke was already drawing up her shoulders to her ears in an instinctive movement of defence, for she would have liked to have had longer to turn the thing over in her mind, and discover really whether his splendid illiteracy—it was so immense as to appear magnificent—would be a source of pleasure to her or suffering, whether the pleasure of filling up his mind’s emptiness would be greater than the pains of such an exertion, whether, in short, she hadn’t better refuse him, when the little maid came in with the silver salver she had been trained to present letters on, and held it out before her mistress.
‘Letters, eh?’ said Mr. Thorpe, nettled by this interruption. ‘I should give orders they’re to be left in the—well, you can’t call it a hall, can you, so let’s say passage.’
The little maid, alarmed, sidled out of the room.
‘I would indeed, if it weren’t that I can’t bear to wait a minute when it’s a letter from Jocelyn,’ said Mrs. Luke, holding the letter tight, for she saw it was from him. ‘You wouldn’t be able to wait either, would you,’ she went on, smiling more brightly even than usual, for the mere touch of the letter made her more bright, ‘for anything you loved.’
‘No,’ said Mr. Thorpe sturdily, seizing this opening. ‘No. I wouldn’t. And that’s why I’ve come round——’
But she didn’t hear. ‘You’ll forgive me, won’t you my dear friend,’ she murmured, slitting the envelope with an enamelled paper-knife lest she should harm the dear contents, ‘but I haven’t heard from that boy for over a fortnight, and I’ve been beginning to wonder——’
‘Oh, certainly, certainly. Don’t mind me,’ said Mr. Thorpe, aggrieved. ‘Mark my words, though,’ he added, sitting up very square and broad in his chair, and giving the knees of his trousers a twitch each, ‘one shouldn’t overdo the son business.’
She didn’t hear. Her eyes were running down the lines of the letter, while she muttered something about just wanting to see if he were well.
‘Damned stuck up young prig,’ Mr. Thorpe was in the act of saying to himself, resentfully watching this absorption, when he was interrupted by a complete and alarming change in the lady.
She gave a violent shudder; she dropped the letter on the floor, as though her shaking hands couldn’t hold it; and then, fixing her large grey eyes on his, opened her mouth and moaned.
He stared at her. He couldn’t think what was the matter.
‘Sick, eh?’ he asked, staring.
‘Oh, oh——’ was all she said, turning her face from him, and burying it in the cushion.