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I believe you are in love with her, Mike, just as I am. It's that
which makes you so grumpy. But then you never do fall in love.
It's a pity; you miss a lot of jolly trouble."
Michael felt a sudden overwhelming desire to make Francis stop this
maddening twaddle; also the events of the morning were beginning to
take on an air of reality, and as this grew he felt the need of
sympathy of some kind. Francis might not be able to give him
anything that was of any use, but it would do no harm to see if his
cousin's buoyant unconscious philosophy, which made life so
exciting and pleasant a thing to him, would in any way help.
Besides, he must stop this light banter, which was like drawing
plaster off a sore and unhealed wound.
"You're quite right," he said. "I am in love with her.
Furthermore, I asked her to marry me this morning."
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This certainly had an effect.
"Good Lord!" said Francis. "And do you mean to say she refused
you?"
"She didn't accept me," said Michael. "We--we adjourned."
"But why on earth didn't she take you?" asked Francis.
All Michael's old sensitiveness, his self-consciousness of his
plainness, his awkwardness, his big hands, his short legs, came
back to him.
"I should think you could see well enough if you look at me," he
said, "without my telling you."
"Oh, that silly old rot," said Francis cheerfully. "I thought you
had forgotten all about it."
"I almost had--in fact I quite had until this morning," said
Michael. "If I had remembered it I shouldn't have asked her."
He corrected himself.
"No, I don't think that's true," he said. "I should have asked
her, anyhow; but I should have been prepared for her not to take
me. As a matter of fact, I wasn't."
Francis turned sideways to the table, throwing one leg over the
other.
MICHAEL
106
"That's nonsense," he said. "It doesn't matter whether a man's
ugly or not."
"It doesn't as long as he is not," remarked Michael grimly.
"It doesn't matter much in any case. We're all ugly compared to
girls; and why ever they should consent to marry any of us awful
hairy things, smelling of smoke and drink, is more than I can make
out; but, as a matter of fact, they do. They don't mind what we
look like; what they care about is whether we want them. Of
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course, there are exceptions--"
"You see one," said Michael.
"No, I don't. Good Lord, you've only asked her once. You've got
to make yourself felt. You're not intending to give up, are you?"
"I couldn't give up."
"Well then, just hold on. She likes you, doesn't she?"
"Certainly," said Michael, without hesitation. "But that's a long
way from the other thing."
"It's on the same road."
Michael got up.
"It may be," he said, "but it strikes me it's round the corner.
You can't even see one from the other."
"Possibly not. But you never know how near the corner really is.
Go for her, Mike, full speed ahead."
"But how?"
"Oh, there are hundreds of ways. I'm not sure that one of the best
isn't to keep away for a bit. Even if she doesn't want you just
now, when you are there, she may get to want you when you aren't.
I don't think I should go on the mournful Byronic plan if I were
you; I don't think it would suit your style; you're too heavily
built to stand leaning against the chimney-piece, gazing at her and
dishevelling your hair."
Michael could not help laughing.
"Oh, for God's sake, don't make a joke of it," he said.
"Why not? It isn't a tragedy yet. It won't be a tragedy till she
marries somebody else, or definitely says no. And until a thing is
proved to be tragic, the best way to deal with it is to treat it
like a comedy which is going to end well. It's only the second act
now, you see, when everything gets into a mess. By the merciful
decrees of Providence, you see, girls on the whole want us as much
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as we want them. That's what makes it all so jolly."
MICHAEL
107
Michael went down next day to Ashbridge, where Aunt Barbara and
Francis were to follow the day after, and found, after the freedom
and interests of the last six months, that the pompous formal life
was more intolerable than ever. He was clearly in disgrace still,
as was made quite clear to him by his father's icy and awful
politeness when it was necessary to speak to him, and by his utter
unconsciousness of his presence when it was not. This he had
expected. Christmas had ushered in a truce in which no guns were
discharged, but remained sighted and pointed, ready to fire.
But though there was no change in his father, his mother seemed to
Michael to be curiously altered; her mind, which, as has been
already noticed, was usually in a stunned condition, seemed to have
awakened like a child from its sleep, and to have begun vaguely
crying in an inarticulate discomfort. It was true that Petsy was
no more, having succumbed to a bilious attack of unusual severity,
but a second Petsy had already taken her place, and Lady Ashbridge
sat with him--it was a gentleman Petsy this time--in her lap as
before, and occasionally shed a tear or two over Petsy II. in
memory of Petsy I. But this did not seem to account for the
wakening up of her mind and emotions into this state of depression
and anxiety. It was as if all her life she had been quietly dozing
in the sun, and that the place where she sat had passed into the
shade, and she had awoke cold and shivering from a bitter wind.
She had become far more talkative, and though she had by no means
abandoned her habit of upsetting any conversation by the extreme
obviousness of her remarks, she asked many more questions, and, as
Michael noticed, often repeated a question to which she had
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received an answer only a few minutes before. During dinner
Michael constantly found her looking at him in a shy and eager
manner, removing her gaze when she found it was observed, and when,
later, after a silent cigarette with his father in the smoking- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]