“Not to-day,” said Joan, briskly, “I never let anybody see my dairy but when it is in prime order; and we are busy to-day.”
“I am sure no dairy of yours is ever in anything but prime order,” he said, with another look that completely overpowered Joan’s gravity. She almost pulled the door from his hand, shutting it quickly between them, and ran off, not to the dairy, as she had said, but to her own room, giving forth suppressed chokes of sound at spasmodic intervals as she flew upstairs. Joan’s was no fairy foot, but a firm substantial tread, which made the old stairs creak. When she got into the shelter of her own chamber, she threw herself into a chair, and laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. “The lasses have been true prophets after all; I believe I have gotten a lad at last,” she said to herself. But even when her fit of laughter was over, she did not venture downstairs, or near the dairy, until she was certain that Philip Selby must have taken himself away. She bustled about the room, looking over clothes that wanted mending, and “tidying” drawers which wanted no tidying, still pausing now and then to give vent to another laugh; nothing so laughable had occurred before in Joan’s career. She had been asked in marriage by an enterprising “vet” when she was a girl, a poor fellow who had not considered the daughter of a man who was an evident horse-dealer to be so very far above him, but who was all but kicked out of the house by Ralph Joscelyn, and his long-legged sons. Joan had never heard of it even, till after the episode was over, and though she was duly indignant at his presumption, she had felt rather an interest in the man himself, hoping to hear for some time that his disappointment had not affected his health, or interfered with his career. But the “vet” had found a more suitable match, and all had gone well with him, which utterly ended any little bit of romance she might have had a capacity for. Since that time Joan had not had any “lad.” Everybody who was good enough for a Joscelyn to marry, was too good for Ralph Joscelyn’s daughter, and though she was homely she was proud. She could work like a dairy-maid, but she would not have married beneath her. Besides, she was not a marrying woman. There is such a variety of the species, just as there is a non-marrying man; and the more independent women get to be, no doubt the more this class will increase, though it is in a very small minority now. Joan was not at all independent in means, but she was independent in her character, and her work. There was no one to interfere with her in her share of the labours of the establishment. Her mother did not even understand what that work was, and her father, though he was a bold man, did not venture to interfere. She had everything her own way, and guided the house in general according to her will, notwithstanding an occasional outburst, which she soon quieted, on her father’s part. Having thus a great deal to do, a position of weight, and domestic authority, an absolute sovereignty so far as it went, why should she have wanted to marry? She did not; and it was the sentimental consciousness of Selby’s looks that was too much for her gravity. “Just like a dog when it’s singing music,” said Joan to herself. When she went down to the dairy Selby was gone, and Mrs. Joscelyn all uncomprehending seated alone in the parlour. Her mending (which she was always doing; never was a man who wore out his under-clothing so!) required her eyes and her full attention, not like Joan’s knitting; she had never even seen those looks which Joan called “sheep’s eyes.” But Joan herself was much on the alert afterwards, and fully foresaw what was going to happen if she did not take care; and, indeed, notwithstanding all her care, something did happen, as will be seen, within the short space of two days.
CHAPTER XIII.
A PROPOSAL.
THE White House had begun to be slightly agitated by the expectation of letters from Harry, when Mr. Selby came again. There was no immediate acknowledgment of the arrival of the boxes, or reply to the letter which Mrs. Joscelyn had written instantly, as soon as they heard that he had returned to Liverpool; but this both mother and daughter thought was natural enough. Harry no doubt would be sulky; even his mother and sister would be included in his anger against the house, though they had done nothing which he ought to have taken in ill part. He was not a great letter-writer, however, and they were both indulgent to Harry, and willing to give him a little time to get over his “pet,” as Joan called it. Joan took the whole matter cheerily. He was only “in a pet.” He had been “in a pet” before now, and had kept his mother uneasy, refusing to write; but it had gone off, and all had come right again. No doubt it would be the same now: only this time he had some reason for his “pet,” and might be excused if he was a little sulky. “You know, mother,” said Joan, “Harry’s terrible young for his age. He’s just a baby for his age, and he has a deal of you in him. We must let him get over his pet.”
“Oh, Joan, do you think I would keep anybody anxious that was fond of me?” said Mrs. Joscelyn, “but,” she added, with a sigh, “nobody would care very much if it was only me. It is this that gives you all the pull over me, that I care, and you don’t.”
Joan could not contradict this; and there gleamed over her a momentary compassion for her mother, whose lot it seemed to be always to “care,” while nobody cared for her. “You must try and not care so much, mother. We’re none of us worth it,” she said, “but, as for Harry, he’s just in a pet. Leave him alone, and he’ll soon come to himself. My fine ham! I wouldn’t have wasted it on a person that didn’t deserve it. If he don’t write within the week, I will say he’s not worth the salt it’s cured with; but we’ll give him a week; by that time he’ll come round, if he’s a bit sulky just at first. I don’t blame him, for my part.”
Mrs. Joscelyn’s hands had crept together, and clasped each other, with that earnest appeal she was always making to earth and heaven: but they slid asunder hastily when she met Joan’s eyes. She was thankful to allow that it was quite reasonable that Harry should be sulky. “Though he might have thought a little upon me. He might have thought I would suffer most of all. He might have remembered how little I can do, and that I must support everything,” she said to herself, with a few quiet tears. She did not venture to say it even to Joan, though Joan was so much more sympathetic than she could have hoped. Nobody ever thought of anything she might have to suffer. Perhaps on the whole she was supposed to enjoy it. “Making a fuss,” was one of her specialities in everybody’s opinion. Her children were all disposed to think it did not matter very much what the object of “the fuss” was. And thus she was left in her parlour with her mending, a woman surrounded with people belonging to her by nature and the dearest ties, yet altogether alone, as lonely as any poor old maiden in her garret. Nor is this any unusual thing; a fact in which the solitary may find a little uncomfortable alleviation of their special woes.
Mr. Selby came back while the house was in this state of expectation, not anxious as yet, but on the eve of becoming so. He did not send in his card now, but usually presumed so far as to go straight to the parlour door by himself, where he always knocked, however, before entering. This time, he came in the morning, when he knew Joan was not likely to be in the parlour. He was a little nervous, though perhaps it would be too much to say that his heart beat. After forty, a man’s heart requires a very strong inducement to make it beat, that is to say, in any violent manner. But he was a little nervous, and half ashamed at what he was about to do. He went doubtfully to the dairy door, which was standing wide open. Inside Joan could be seen moving briskly about, and her voice was very audible in not very gentle tones. Selby paused a little, and listened to it with a comical concern upon his face. His brow contracted a little with anxious care, though his mouth laughed. Joan was scolding, nothing more or less. “Talk to me about not having time!” she said, “You have time to dress yourself up, and go out to court your lad, night after night. Is that what you call your duty to your neighbour? My word, if your lads were your neighbours, you would keep the commandments easy. Did ever any mortal see such bowls, to be in a Christian person’s dairy? Woman! where do you expect to go? A dairy’s not a dairy if the Queen of England might not eat her dinner off every shelf in it, and give a prize for every brick. That’s what makes the butter sweet, not your lads, or the tricks that you play. Get out of my sight! I could take my hands to you, if I did not think too much of myself.”
Philip Selby stood in the yard with a comical look on his face, and listened. Was it fright? There could not be the least doubt that Joan was scolding violently, and even using threats of personal violence, to the lass, who, half in sorrow, but more than half in anger, was sobbing in the background. The very sound of her foot and its rapid tap upon the floor, was angry, and scolded too. He paused, and a look of alarm came over his face. The Joscelyns were known for hot tempers all over the county. Ralph Joscelyn was a man whom people avoided any sort of argument with on this account, and all his sons shared, more or less, his disposition. What if Joan shared it too? It was alarming to a man bent on the special errand which had brought Selby here. Perhaps the doubt was not romantic, but, on the whole, neither was the errand. If she should say to him, “Get out of my sight!” if she should threaten to “take her hands” to him in any domestic difficulty, it would not be agreeable. He stopped short in the yard, where old Simon was cleaning his milk-pails; through the dairy window the milk-bowls were visible, ranged in perfect order, and a glimpse of Joan’s trim substantial figure, passing and re-passing, with no sort of languor about her, such as is supposed to encourage love. The would-be lover had a visible movement of doubt. He caught old Simon’s eye and blushed, though he had long supposed himself to be past blushing, and gave an uneasy laugh, which sounded shy, though it was twenty years, Mr. Selby thought, since he knew what the word meant. Old Simon was a man with a very wandering eye, an eye to be spoken of in strict correctness in the singular number. One of them he always kept upon his work, the other moved about, finding out everything that was unwilling to be seen; this time he perceived Mr. Selby’s sentiment at the first glance.
“Ye needn’t be feared,” he said, taking one hand from his pail to wave it in the direction of the dairy, “ye needn’t be feared. She’s not a lass to be feared for, our Miss Joan. Her bark’s worse than her bite. Bless you, not the hundredth part of that she don’t mean.”