“Did I say I would dearly like it? That was strong. But it’s a bonnie place, there is little doubt of that.”
“I think it is a sweet place; and a house that would just do for——I’ve something more to say to you, Miss Joan, if you will have the patience to listen. A wandering life is very pleasant for a time, but as a man gets on in years he wants to settle down. But,” said Selby, lifting his hand to stop her, for she was just about to interrupt him—and putting a great emphasis upon the word, “but—not by himself. He must have somebody to settle down with him, or it’s no settling at all.”
“That’s true,” said Joan, with great external sobriety, though the demon of laughter with which she had fought so severe a battle during their last interview had sprung again into life within her, “That’s very true. You’ll have to get a wife; but you cannot be at much loss about that, Mr. Selby, for women are plenty—more’s the pity. There’s no place you can go but you’ll find them in dozens. Men are real well off nowadays, they have nothing to do but to pick and choose.”
“That would be very nice if anyone would do,” said Selby, with a countenance the gravity of which contrasted strangely with the twinkle in Joan’s eye and the quiver about the corner of her mouth, “but I should not be content to pick and choose. The thing is, there is only one that I want. If I cannot get her, another will not serve my purpose, which is what you seem to think. Miss Joan, I know yours is a fine old family, much above mine, though the Selbys have always been respectable. You may think it presumptuous in me to ask you, but to tell the plain truth it’s you I want.”
“Me you want?” she cried, a little confused—for though she had seen what was coming, and had been quite prepared to make a joke of it, and even now scarcely dared to meet his eye lest she should laugh, the seriousness of the actual proposal bewildered her a little when it was made. She did not think it would have been half such a serious business. Joan, though she was not shy, and had treated the whole matter as a great joke up to this moment, cast down her eyes in spite of herself, and was confused, and for a moment did not know what to say.
“It’s just you I want,” said Selby; “you are the one I’ve had my eye on since ever I came into the Fell-country. When first I saw your face, I said to myself, ‘That’s the woman for me.’ You see, I was on the look out,” he added, with a smile. “I have put by a little money, and I had some from those that went before me. There’s enough to be comfortable upon, especially if the wife had a little of her own. And neither you nor me would like to be idle. You could set up your dairy, with all the last improvements, at Heatonshaw, and there would be plenty for me to do on the farm. I think we could make a very good thing out of it, and yet keep up a very pleasant position. I would never be against seeing friends, and you would have no need to exert yourself, but only to be the head of everything, and keep all going. I could see my way to a neat little carriage for you, or even a riding horse if you would like that—and as to allowances and so forth, even if you had nothing of your own——”
“I’m thinking you’re going too fast, Mr. Selby,” said Joan. The laughing spirit was exorcised. She no longer felt any inclination to burst forth into that fou rire which comes at the most inappropriate moments. He had sobered her by his own perfect sobriety. Joan felt that this was a grave business affair, and not a frivolous piece of nonsense inappropriate to her serious years. Some lingering wish, perhaps, to hear a real love tale in her own person had been lurking in her mind along with the certainty that she would laugh at it if it were told. And many ludicrous pictures had come before her when she first espied Mr. Selby’s “intentions.” She had wondered, with a comical mixture of inexperienced faith and cynicism, whether he would go down on his knees and call her by all sorts of endearing names. She was bursting with laughter at the sentimental personage who intended to make a divinity of Joan Joscelyn. Nevertheless, perhaps, she was a little conscious, secretly and underneath all, though she never acknowledged it to herself, that this was the way in which a woman had a right to be addressed once in her life—Joan Joscelyn as well as another. But that was a very great secret, and deep down; so deep that she had never confessed it even to herself. And now she was out in all her calculations, and there was nothing sentimental to laugh at. It was a very sensible sort of bargain that was proposed to her, and she did not know where to find a word against it. Her laugh came to an entire end. “I’m thinking,” she said, “that you’re going too fast.”
“It lies with you to say that,” said Selby; “but, Joan, remember” (he had given up the Miss, and she perceived it), “that what I am saying I’m ready to do, and it’s only for you to say the word. I’ve thought of it since ever I saw you. ‘That’s the woman for me,’ I said, and you know how we agreed about the colt. We agree, too, about the place. I went to look at it because you said you would like it, and I like it, too. And we’re both partial to the same kind of life. If we couldn’t get on together I don’t know who should. And in everything else I’ll do whatever you please.”
“You miss out one thing, Mr. Selby,” said Joan, “we ought to be partial to each other as well as to the kind of life.”
“Well, I am,” said Selby, fervently; “that’s the truth. I can’t speak for you; but I am. I’m partial to your looks and your ways, and everything about you. I like the way you sit still and knit, and I like you in your dairy and out here. You’re just all I want as far as I can see. I like you when you’re scolding. I was a little bit frightened at first; but afterwards I liked that as well as the rest.”