At the same time he hoped he had concealed his relief, which was great. His youngest sister's girl was not going to be snapped up by a fortune-hunter after all. That had always been his anxiety. Seventy-five pounds a year (certain) remained a considerable fortune to this Victorian. In his valley quite a large house, with a nice bit of garden, too (running steeply up a mountain-side), was to be had for a rent of sixteen pounds. He would have thought of that himself.... But the leggy, fair-haired boy who was now smiling across the oval hotel table at his Gwenna had meant only what he had said. The older man realised that. So, waiving for the present the question of means, the Reverend Hugh went on, in rather a modified tone, to ask other questions.
Asking questions of the newly accepted suitor seems to be all that remains for the parent or guardian of our times. It is the sole survival of that potent authority which once disposed (or said it disposed) of the young lady's hand. Clearing his throat with the same little sound that so often heralded the words of some text from his pulpit, the Reverend Hugh began by inquiring where Gwenna, after her short honeymoon, was supposed to be going to live.
Nowhere new, it appeared! She had her berth at the Aircraft Factory, her room at Mrs. Crewe's cottage for when young Dampier was away. (Yes; from his tone when he spoke of it, evidently that parting was to be kept in the background and evaded as much as possible for the present.) And if he were in London, he had his rooms in Camden Town. Do for them both, perhaps.... His bachelor digs.; not bad ones....
Well, but no house? Dear me. That was a gipsyish sort of plan, wasn't it? That was a new idea of setting up housekeeping to Uncle Hugh. He, himself, was an old bachelor. But he could see that this was all very different from the ideas of all the young couples in his time. When Gwenna's father, now, was courting Gwenna's mother, well! he, Hugh Lloyd, had never heard such a lot of talk about Mahoggani. And tebbel-linen. And who was to have the three feather-beds from the old Quarry-house; Gwenna's mother, or Gwenna's mother's sister——
(All this the Reverend Hugh declaimed in his most distinct Chapel voice, but still with his searching eyes upon the face of the husband-to-be.)
The idea of most young girls, in getting married, he thought, was to get a nice home of their own, as soon as possible. A comfortable house——
("I hate comfortable houses. So stuffy. Just like a tea-cosy. They'd smother me!" from Gwenna.)
But the House, her Uncle Hugh had Olwês understood, was the Woman's fetish. Spring-cleaning, now; the yearly rites! And that furniture. "The Lares," he went on in an ever-strengthening Welsh accent. "The Pen—nates——!"
"Oh, those!" scoffed the girl in love. "Those——!"
So Gwenna didn't seem to think she would miss these things? She was willing to marry without them? Yes? Strange!... Well, well!