Book Two—Chapter Eighteen.
The young Bainbridges were not slow in coming to a conclusion in regard to the condition of affairs between Hallam and their aunt. John pronounced Hallam as being “all right”; Mary thought him old. But then her aunt was rather old also; aunts are not girls. Mary viewed this mature romance with feminine curiosity. She thought it odd, but immensely interesting. She dogged their footsteps.
“I believe Mr Hallam is in love with Auntie,” she confided to John, who probably unaided would not have discovered this surprising fact.
“I wonder!” John said, and pondered the announcement. “I think I’ll ask him,” he added.
He took an early opportunity of doing so. He waylaid the pair, returning from their morning walk, and planted himself in front of Hallam, looking squarely up at him, with his hands in his pockets, in an attitude so reminiscent of his father as to move Esmé to merriment. Her laugh ended in a strangled gurgle when John spoke.
“Are you going to marry Auntie, Mr Hallam?” John asked with a directness that would have disconcerted most people, but at which Hallam only smiled.
“I am,” he answered. “I hope you don’t object?”
“No; that’s all right,” John said amiably. “I only wanted to know.”
And then he wandered off to join Mary and impart the result of his inquiries to her. Hallam looked at Esmé, and turned about abruptly, and proceeded to walk with her away from the hotel.
“I think,” she said hesitatingly, “that I ought to go in.”
“Not yet,” he said. “I want to talk to you. You may think that that was an odd sort of proposal; but the little chap forced my hand. It is amazing how sharp children are. Did you mind?”
“No,” she replied, confused but extraordinarily happy. “I was a little unprepared though.”
They had both taken things so much for granted that she had not noticed that he had never definitely asked her to marry him. That part of it did not seem to matter.
“You knew,” he said, “how things were? I think we both assumed it from the moment you arrived. But John has put matters on a businesslike footing. I said I meant to marry you. I do—if you’ll take me. You know what I am. I think you know more about me than any one. Any good that is in me is of your making—”
“No,” she interrupted quickly. But he took no heed of that, and went on as if she had not spoken.
“When I met you I was drifting. No other influence, I believe, could have pulled me up. It was not merely that you made me realise the folly of wasting my life; you opened my mind to more than that. I have come to see that man has a duty towards his fellow-men; that he has got to serve the community: if he serve it ill, he plays a mean part; if his service be good he doesn’t merit praise, he is simply doing his job. You have pulled me out of the mire; now that I have cleaned some of the mud off I want you to take me by the hand and continue the journey with me. There isn’t any need for me to say in words that I love you. I think you guessed that long ago.”
He looked down and saw her face all flushed and confused, with eyes, too shy to meet his own, lowered till the lashes touched her cheeks. He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her; but the open road was ill suited to his purpose, and he decided to wait.
“Dear, will you marry me?” he asked.
For one fleeting moment she lifted her eyes to his face, and her look was so sweet and so gravely tender when it met his that his longing increased. Then she looked away again and answered softly:
“Yes.”
Bald little monosyllable, which was all her lips could utter though her heart was filled with love for him; but it sufficed for Hallam. He pressed closer to her and bent down over her and touched her hand.
“I want to kiss you,” he muttered. “I’m longing to kiss your lips.”
She looked up, startled, and moved a little away from him. The passionate urgency in his voice was so altogether unexpected and unfamiliar that she felt disquieted. She was afraid of being seen from the hotel.
“Not now,” she faltered. “Wait, I haven’t got used to the idea yet. Not now.”
He laughed quietly.
“Little duffer!” he said. “Do you suppose I am going to make love to you in front of the windows of the hotel? I’ll wait—until we are alone. Then...”
Voice and eyes were eloquent. There was an air of confident mastery about him. She felt increasingly shy of him. He seemed suddenly to loom bigger, to express qualities of a virile and dominating nature which she had not suspected were in him. It was as though he put out a hand and took her heart in it and held it in a firm grasp. It frightened her just a little. Her breath came quicker and her pulses beat fast. They turned about and started to walk back.
“I think we had better go and have some breakfast,” he said, with an amused look at her confused face. “If we delay any longer we shall be faced with more awkward questions from young John. After breakfast we will go in search of solitude and have our talk. There are endless things I want to say to you.”
They entered the hotel, separating at the door to meet again at the breakfast-table. It was a silent meal so far as they were concerned, as silent as those meals through which they had sat in the early days of their acquaintance, when the man had maintained a moody aloofness painfully embarrassing to his companion. She felt no embarrassment any longer when he did not talk at table, and the chatter of the children made conversation difficult.
She was glad on that particular occasion that she had the children to distract her attention. She felt so extraordinarily shy of the man beside her, shy of the accepted position of their new relations. She felt that she must drag out the meal indefinitely: she wanted to postpone that walk. But Hallam held altogether different views; and presently he got up and prepared to leave the table.
“Hurry up!” he said. “You’ll find me waiting for you on the stoep.”
Then he went out, and she found herself confronted with the problem of disposing of John and Mary for the morning. They were desirous of accompanying her. The situation held an absorbing interest for them.
“I am going to be your bridesmaid, Auntie,” Mary said, fascinated with the prospect of a wedding looming in the near future. “And wear a blue dress,” she added.
John’s face became grimly resolute.
“Mr Hallam needn’t count on me for best man,” he announced. “I’m off that.”
Esmé left them to the discussion of these weighty matters under the sympathetic guardianship of a visitor at the hotel, who had children of her own and did not mind an addition to the party, and joined Hallam. They set out together on their first walk since their engagement.
For a time they walked in silence, both of them a little impressed with the strangeness of the new situation. Hallam’s face was grave and thoughtful, and every now and again he turned to the girl with a curious eagerness in his eyes, and an added tenderness in the look he gave her.
It was altogether a memorable and wonderful occasion. He liked the shyness of her mood. It surprised and amused him to see her eyes droop before his gaze, and the colour come and go in her cheeks. He had known her before only as a very self-possessed young woman; but she revealed to him that morning, as he revealed to her, new and unexpected qualities that were profoundly interesting. Again there came over him the longing to take her in his arms and hold her close against his heart.
He took her hand when they were well away from the hotel, and they walked along together thus and talked disjointedly and a trifle self-consciously of trivial things. Presently Hallam said:
“I am going back with you when you leave. I have to make the acquaintance of your people. That is a necessary preliminary. Afterwards we will speed matters, and get married without undue delay. There isn’t any object in waiting, is there? I don’t feel that I can wait. I want you so.”
“I’ll have to resign my position as music teacher,” she said. “There is nothing else to consider. You know, I can’t quite realise it yet. It all seems so strange and wonderful.”
“It is wonderful,” he answered gravely. “It’s wonderful to me that you should love me. It seems more wonderful still that you trust me. Your belief in me has been more helpful than any sermon. It is a sermon. It’s a sort of religion. I’ve leaned on you... you little thing, whom I could pick up and toss over my shoulder! Dear, you’ll never know how much I love you. I can’t put it into words.”
She squeezed his hand understandingly. It was the same with her. She could never have told him all that was in her heart.
“There isn’t any need for words,” she said softly.
“No.” He looked at her quickly. “You do understand,” he said. “You’ve always understood. From the first we seemed to strike the same thoughts instinctively. We get at one another somehow. I feel as if I had known you all my life.”
“And I,” she answered with a shy little laugh, “feel that I am only beginning to know you. Each time I am with you something fresh and unexpected leaps to the surface, and I’ve got to start again from the beginning and reconstruct all my ideas of you. I wonder if it will always be like that?”
“You will find me consistent in one respect anyhow,” he answered.
He drew her into the shadow of some trees towards which their steps had been directed, and came to a halt facing her, and dropped her hand and put his arms around her.
“Now...” he said.
He held her closely and for the first time kissed her lips.