Sprig Muslin

He had taken her hand in his, and he could feel how wildly her pulse was fluttering. He drew her towards the morning-room, and gently obliged her to enter it. It was lit only by an oil lamp, a circumstance for which Hester disjointedly apologized.

‘But, Hester, what is it?’ he asked, his eyes searching her face. ‘Why do you tremble so? Surely you are not shy of me, such old friends as we are!’

‘Oh, no! If we can but remain just that!’

‘I think you must know that it is my very earnest wish to become more than your friend.’

‘I do know it, and indeed I am very much obliged to you, and truly sensible of the honour you do me –’

‘Hester!’ he expostulated. ‘Must you talk such nonsense?’

‘Not nonsense! Oh, no! You have paid me a great compliment, and journeyed all this distance, which quite sinks me with shame, for I daresay it was m

ost inconvenient – yet how could I write to you? I am aware that it should have been done – it makes it so excessively disagreeable for you! But indeed I told Papa at the outset that I didn’t wish for the match!’

He was perfectly silent for a moment, a tiny crease between his brows. Perceiving it, she said despairingly: ‘You are very angry, and I cannot wonder at it.’

‘No, I assure you! Only very much disappointed. I had hoped that you and I might have been happy together.’

‘We should not suit,’ she said faintly.

‘If that were so, it must be my fault – and I would do my best to mend it,’ he replied.

She looked startled, and exclaimed: ‘Oh, no! Pray do not – I did not mean – Sir Gareth, indeed you must not press me! I am not the wife for you.’

‘Of that you must let me be the judge. Are you trying to tell me civilly that I am not the husband for you? But I would do my best to make you happy.’

She slid away from the question, saying only: ‘I don’t think of marriage.’

He came up to her, and again possessed himself of her hand. ‘Think of it now! If I don’t remotely resemble the man you dreamed you would marry, how many of us marry our dreams? Not many, I think – yet we contrive to be happy.’

She said mournfully: ‘So very few! Alas, my dear friend, you did not!’

His clasp tightened on her hand, but he did not answer her immediately. When he spoke again, it was with a little difficulty. ‘Hester, if you are afraid that – if you are afraid of a ghost – you need not be! It is all so long ago! Not forgotten, but – oh, like a romantic tale, read when one was very young! Indeed, my dear, I haven’t come to you, dreaming of Clarissa!’

‘I know – oh, I know!’ she said, in a shaking voice. ‘But you don’t care for me.’

‘You are mistaken: I have a very great regard for you.’

‘Ah, yes! And I for you,’ she said, with a pitiful attempt at a smile. ‘I think – I hope – that you will meet someone one day whom you will be able to love with all your heart. I beg of you, say no more!’

‘I am not taking my rejection as I should, am I?’ he said wryly.

‘I am so very sorry! It is dreadfully mortifying for you!’

‘Good God, what does that signify? But there is one thing I must say before we leave this. We are such old friends that you will let me speak frankly, I believe. Do you not think that even though we haven’t tumbled into love, headlong, as we did when we were very young, we might yet be very comfortable together? If I can’t give you romance, there are other things I can give you. No, I don’t mean riches: I know they would not weigh with you. But your situation is not happy. Forgive me if this gives you pain! You are not valued as you should be; neither your comfort nor your sensibility is a matter of concern to any member of your family. Indeed, it has frequently seemed to me that your sisters regard you as a convenient drudge! As for your sister-in-law, the tone of her mind is such that I am tolerably convinced that to live under the same roof with her must be a severe penance! Well! I can offer you a position of the first consequence. You would be at no one’s beck and call, you would be your own mistress – with a husband who, I promise you, would not make unreasonable demands of you. You may be sure that I should always attend to your wishes, and hold you in respect as well as affection. Would that not mean a happier life than the one you now lead?’

Her face was very white; she pulled her hand away, saying in a stifled voice: ‘No – anguish!’

This seemed so strange a thing for her to have said that he thought he could not have heard her aright. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said blankly.

She had moved away from him in some agitation, and said now, with her back turned to him: ‘I didn’t mean it – don’t heed it! I say such foolish things! Pray forgive me! I am so deeply grateful to you! Your wife will be the happiest of females, unless she is a monster, and I do hope you won’t marry a monster! If only I could find my handkerchief!’

He could not help smiling at this, but he said soothingly: ‘Take mine!’

‘Oh, thank you!’ she said, clutching it gratefully, and drying her cheeks with it. ‘Pray forgive me! I can’t think what should possess me to behave like a watering-pot. So inconsiderate of me, when I daresay there is nothing you dislike more!’

‘I dislike very much to see you in distress, and still more do I dislike the knowledge that it is my fault.’