17
“No Proposals, I Say!”
We must now direct our attention to a part of our
story that we have neglected, for the very simple reason that
nothing of any consequence has seemed to be taking place. Or if it
has, we’re not privy to it—which often happens, you know. A story
can’t include every single detail, or we would be reading forever.
By necessity, a great many things are left out because they don’t
seem immediately important, such as the color of the shirtwaist
Miss Potter was wearing when she went out this morning (it was pale
green, with a darker green ruffle down the front), or the
whereabouts of the vicar when Miss Potter arrived at the vicarage
(he had gone to call on Mrs. Taylor, who was ill with pneumonia).
What’s more, a great many important things (some of them
very important) are left out for the simple reason that we
don’t know about them. Much goes on in this busy world that we
don’t learn about until somebody chooses to let us in on the
secret. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. Maybe we’ll be in the
dark forever.
I think, however, that we are about to witness
something important. It is just now getting on to four o’clock, and
today is the day that Caroline Longford has agreed to walk with
Jeremy Crosfield in the garden at Tidmarsh Manor. Lady Longford, as
usual, has not withheld her opinion of this agreement. She has told
Caroline, in a sour tone and several times over, that it is not
seemly for her to consort with this young village person, who is
not of her social class and must not be encouraged to think that he
might be permitted to become a suitor. But I suspect—or at least, I
hope—that this is just talk, and that her ladyship learnt her
lesson when her son left: it is no good trying to make people do
what you want them to do.
And Caroline (who I am happy to say has become
quite willful now that she has become a young lady and spent some
months in London, where all young ladies are by definition quite
willful) has told her grandmother very sweetly that she intends to
see whomever she likes and that if her grandmama wishes, she may
spy on them out the window and see that they are behaving
circumspectly.
Now, I am a little puzzled by this, and perhaps you
are, too. Earlier, when Caroline told Miss Potter about her plans,
she did not mention having a particular inclination toward a
certain young man, let alone Jeremy Crosfield. She said that
she expected to finish her musical studies and then take a trip to
Europe and perhaps to America and New Zealand, and then return to
Tidmarsh Manor and settle down to pursue her dearest love, musical
composition. She is free to do this, and to do whatever else she
likes, wherever she chooses to do it, because she is an heiress and
will inherit not only her father’s small fortune but also her
grandmother’s much larger one. She will never have to work to get
her living, unlike her friend Deirdre Malone, who keeps the
accounts for Mr. Sutton’s veterinary practice and helps Mrs. Sutton
manage the eight Sutton children at Courier Cottage—two big jobs
that Deirdre performs very capably, I must say.
But perhaps Caroline didn’t mention her feeling to
Miss Potter because she wanted to keep it secret. After all, one
does not tell one’s grownup friends all one’s private thoughts,
does one? Moreover, she had not seen Jeremy for some time. He had
gone off to school and then she had gone off to study music at the
Academy, and their paths had not recently crossed. But not seeing
him did not keep her from thinking longingly of him, or saving in
her scrapbook the few casual cards and notes she had received from
him over the years. Or treasuring his photograph, which she herself
had taken on the top of Holly How, one splendid afternoon of blue
skies and bright sunshine when they were students together at the
village school. That photograph, too, was hidden in her scrapbook,
and the page was dog-eared and limp from being looked at so often,
and touched, and—yes—kissed.
And now you and I have teased out Caroline’s
secret, which she has never confessed to anyone. She had long ago
fallen into love with Jeremy, and had never fallen out. And when
they met again at the Tower Bank Arms, where the villagers came to
discuss their concerns with Mr. Baum’s aeroplane, she fell even
more deeply into love with him, and was overjoyed when he asked if
he might call.
And why not? Jeremy Crosfield is even handsomer
than he was when she took his photograph, tall and well built, with
the most appealing of features and the dearest red-brown hair that
Caroline has ever seen on a boy. (She has not, I must observe, seen
a great many boys, but of course, that’s neither here nor there.)
He is clearly very intelligent. He did exceedingly well at Kelsick
Grammar School and is greatly admired in his current position as
teacher of the junior class at Sawrey School, where he is spoken of
as a potential headmaster, should he choose to stay on. His
botanical drawings are really quite remarkable, and Caroline—who
believes that Jeremy has an extraordinary talent (she is, after
all, in love with him)—hopes that he will be able to pursue the
artistic career for which he is so clearly destined.
In fact, in her romantic dreams, Caroline cannot
help picturing herself as Jeremy’s loyal patron, her financial
support enabling him to draw and paint unfettered by any obligation
to earn a living in the ordinary way. From there, it is only a
hop-skip-and-a-jump to picturing herself as his beautiful bride,
all in white, with an armful of white roses. And then as his loving
wife and the mother of his adorable babies, of whom there will
certainly be as many as possible, since she will hire a nanny to
take care of them.
When she thinks about this, she thinks that her
friend Deirdre Malone would make a splendid nanny, and the two of
them together—she and Deirdre—would have such delightful romps with
the children. And there would be a nanny’s helper and a laundress
and a cook to make the nursery milk puddings and a nursery maid to
sweep the nursery floors and iron the babies’ ribbons and laces, so
that they looked sweet and pretty when Deirdre fetched them down
for Caroline and Jeremy to give them kisses before bedtime. And
again, why not? After all, Jeremy has a great deal of talent and
Caroline has (or will have, which amounts to the same thing, at
least when you are dreaming) a great deal of money. And since she
has grown into a confident and willful young lady who is accustomed
to having things her way, she sees no reason why her dreams can’t
become a reality.
Well, you and I know that this is not always
possible, and that the world has a habit of getting in the way of
what we would like to do and putting up such road blocks that we
are forced to go stumbling around in the dark. But a young girl’s
fancy turns quite easily to ardent thoughts of love and a husband
and babies—even a young girl who is ardently pursuing her own
musical interests. And this particular young girl sees no conflict
at all between her passion for music and her passion for Jeremy and
his passion for drawing. In her imagination, it has already worked
itself out, and the third floor of Tidmarsh Manor has already been
converted into a nursery, with a sleeping room for Deirdre, so that
she can get up with the babies when they cry in the night.
Oh, and an artist’s studio has been built for
Jeremy in the back garden, with clever curtains at the windows and
its own dear little patch of flowers in front, and an awning over a
sweet little table where they will take their tea, with the
children all in white pinafores and ribbons, pink for the girls,
blue for the boys, playing around their feet. She will wear a pale
yellow dress the color of daffodils and Jeremy will wear a blue
frock coat and one of those wonderfully floppy artist’s ties, and
he will tell her that he would love to paint her, instead of
climbing the fells to paint those rare wild flowers. “You, my
sweet,” he might say, “are my dearest flower, my very own.”
And so it is with a great deal of pleasure and
anticipation that Caroline dresses this afternoon in her most
stylish blue woolen suit, which has one of those modern
ankle-length hobble skirts (so narrow at the hem that walking is an
uncomfortable challenge). She buttons up the close-fitting jacket
with its blue velvet piping and clever blue buttons, brushes her
hair until it gleams, and tops her pretty head with a pretty blue
velvet cloche decorated with a cluster of pretty blue feathers, and
pauses to admire herself in the mirror, thinking that she is very
glad to be pretty and have enough money to dress attractively and
hoping that Jeremy will think she is pretty, too.
And the masculine object of Caroline’s unconfessed
feminine affections? Jeremy Crosfield? What is he thinking
as he shuts the door on his classroom at Sawrey School, puts on his
Norfolk jacket and tweed cap, and strides purposefully in the
direction of Tidmarsh Manor?
I wish we could see into Jeremy’s head, but he
(because he is a boy, I suppose) is not as transparent as Caroline.
We can, however, hear him whistling and see by his jaunty,
arm-swinging walk that he is mightily pleased with himself. In
fact, he is so pleased that he puts me in mind of Peter Pan, who
(when he thinks that he has cleverly reattached his shadow), crows
“How clever I am. Oh, the cleverness of me!”
Perhaps Jeremy is feeling pleased because his day
in the classroom has gone well. He is, after all—and I say this
objectively, and not as one who is romantically smitten—a gifted
teacher who is able to inspire in his pupils the same love of
learning that so inspires him.
Or perhaps he is whistling because he has just sold
(for a guinea! a whole guinea!) a watercolor he has painted of a
rare wild orchid, the Dark-red Helleborine, that grows on the
remote limestone screes of Coniston Old Man. Or because the
collector who bought the painting was quite taken with his work and
has assured him that he will look for more of Jeremy’s paintings in
the future.
Or because—and surely this is the reason—he is
thinking of the young lady whom he loves, which should come as no
surprise to us. After all, we have seen Jeremy and Caroline
together since Miss Potter came to the village and made friends of
both of them, Jeremy first and then Caroline. We were there when
they first met on Holly How, when Caroline was so desperately
unhappy after the deaths of both her parents and her arrival at the
gloomy and forbidding Tidmarsh Manor. We went along with Jeremy and
Caroline and Deirdre Malone on their fairy-hunting expedition in
Cuckoo Brow Wood, where they found fairies and much, much else. We
watched them become friends and then fast friends, and speaking for
myself, I have wondered if perhaps their friendship might not ripen
into something more enduring.
And perhaps it has. I confess to hoping so, for it
does seem to be a very good match. Jeremy will not have to struggle
to support his wife, for she can support both of them. Caroline’s
musical talents will be complemented by her husband’s creative
gifts and the two of them can move together in artistic circles,
both in London and in the Lakes. And surely Lady Longford will be
reconciled to the match once she understands that these two young
people are determined to be together and that nothing she can do
will stop them. But now I am being as romantic as Caroline herself,
and should rein in my imagination until . . . well, until we see
what happens.
Which it is just about to, for Jeremy is ringing
the bell at the front door, and Caroline is flying down the stairs
(as fast as that ridiculous hobble skirt will allow her to move) so
that she can reach the door before the maid. She is opening the
door, and Jeremy is taking off his cap and smiling at her, and she
is slipping out before her grandmother can raise her voice from the
drawing room and tell her not to. And now she is tucking her arm
through Jeremy’s and leading him off in the direction of the
garden, trying not to show how happy she is to be with him at last,
and alone, for she doesn’t really think that her grandmother will
spy on them through the window.
“You are looking very pretty today, Caroline,”
Jeremy says, which is exactly the right thing for a young man to
say when he is alone with a young woman. “That’s an attractive
suit.” He looks down at the skirt and then blurts out the wrong
thing. “I say, Caroline, I’m glad we’re not climbing Holly How.
You’d never make it in that silly skirt. Why do girls wear such
things?”
Caroline tosses her head, accepting his compliment
and ignoring his rude question. But she forgives him, of course,
because she loves him and because she is finding that he is right.
The skirt is really very confining. It feels as though she has a
rope looped around her ankles. “Thank you, Jeremy,” she says
sweetly. “And how was school today?”
He tells her—at length and with enormous
enthusiasm, for he loves teaching and his pupils, especially the
boys, some of whom will be leaving at the end of the year for work
in the charcoal pits or the stone quarries or (if they are very
lucky) the retail trade. He particularly enjoys teaching drawing,
and often takes his young charges on walks through the countryside,
drawing the plants they see and then reading about them when they
return to the schoolroom.
Then he asks, “How are your studies progressing,
Caroline? You’re between terms, are you? Are you going back to
London soon? Do you like living in the city?”
Now it’s her turn. She tells him that she will be
going back to the Academy in another few days, and is enjoying the
concerts and museums and the theatre in London, but that she plans
to return home to Tidmarsh Manor after her studies are complete.
She does not tell him that she is thinking of a trip to Europe,
America, and perhaps New Zealand because . . . well, because.
Perhaps she is hoping that he will want her to come back to the
Lakes just as soon as possible, in which case she might decide that
Europe, America, and New Zealand are not so enticing after all, and
that a husband and babies and a third-floor nursery provide a much
more delightful prospect.
Then she asks, in a proper, somewhat proprietary
tone, “And what of your art, Jeremy? I very much hope you are
spending all your spare time drawing. You are, aren’t you?”
Well, he isn’t quite, for like any other young man,
he has other urgent interests to look after. But with that
encouragement, and knowing how much it will please her, he tells
her about the sale of his watercolor painting of the Dark-red
Helleborine (for a whole guinea!) and the promise of more work to
come, and of the other drawings and water-colors he has added to
his portfolio, one or two a week, as he has time.
Naturally, she is delighted to hear this, and heaps
him with compliments until he blushes quite pink. Then she tells
him about the piano concerto she has composed, which is to be
performed in a fortnight by one of the Academy’s leading pianists.
He is very pleased and tells her that she must play at least a part
of the concerto for him. He confesses that he does not have a
musical ear, but he will be delighted to listen because she plays
so beautifully.
By now, arm in arm and keeping up this lively
chatter, the two friends have walked all the way to the back of the
garden, away from the drawing room windows and behind the shrubbery
and the rosebushes, where Lady Longford can’t see them, even if she
takes the trouble to look. There is a stone bench in a corner
there, overseen by a pair of flirtatious stone cherubs and a little
stone lamb, and Caroline demurely sits down. Jeremy joins her, and
they sit in silence for a moment as the March twilight falls around
them. Caroline is content simply to be sitting beside Jeremy, for
his presence beside her on the bench is testimony enough to her
that he cares for her in the same way that she cares for him.
But he seems uncharacteristically nervous and
uncertain. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees, then sits
up straight. He starts to say something and then falls silent, then
begins again, and again can’t quite manage to find the words for
which he is so clearly searching. Sensing his unease, Caroline
smiles a little to herself and waits. Clearly, she thinks, he wants
to tell her that he loves her, but he fears that she will reject
him, either because she does not love him or because her
grandmother disapproves. Nothing else could account for such an
obvious, un-Jeremy-like unease.
At last, visibly gathering his courage, he
straightens his shoulders, sucks in his breath, and blurts out, “I
say, Caroline, I have something to tell you. Something very
important.”
She lowers her gaze. “Yes?” she murmurs
expectantly.
“I wanted to write this to you. In fact, I tried,
but it didn’t really seem to be the sort of thing a fellow says in
a letter.” He gulps and kneads his fingers together. “I mean, I
wrote it down but it didn’t sound the way I wanted it to, and I
gave it another go but finally decided I needed to say this face to
face. So now I really have to tell you, Caroline. That is, I’ve
been wanting to say that I—” He flounders again, and is lost again,
and she feels she must help him out.
“Whatever it is, Jeremy,” she says gently, putting
her hand over his, “you know you can tell me.” She glances down and
sees that her hand looks delicate and lovely, the nails pink and
shaped into ovals, and thinks that soon she may be wearing his
ring. By this time, her breath is coming faster, and she is certain
that he is going to say that he loves her. That he can’t live
without her. That he wishes she would not go to London, but if she
goes, that she will come back here to the Lakes just as soon as
possible, so they can be together. Forever and ever.
“You can tell me anything,” she adds encouragingly,
and leans toward him with a smile. “Anything in the world, dear
Jeremy. It doesn’t matter what it is.”
“Oh, I am so glad to hear you say that, Caroline!”
He squeezes her hand and lets it go as the words tumble out in a
rush. “What a brick you are! I knew you would understand and be as
happy for me as I am. You see, I am to be married.”
“M-m-married?” She stares at him, not quite
believing what she has heard. Her heart seems suddenly frozen in
her breast. “Married?”
“Yes!” he exclaims. He jumps up from the bench and
begins to pace back and forth on the gravel path. “It happened just
a fortnight ago, and I have been bursting to shout it out to the
heavens, but I’ve waited to tell you first of all, since you are my
oldest, dearest friend. Except for her,” he adds tenderly.
“Of course.”
Stricken, she says, “Of course.” She swallows,
finding it very hard to breathe. “Except for . . . who? Who is she,
Jeremy?”
“Who?” He stops in front of her, blinks. “Why, you
don’t know? You haven’t guessed?”
“No,” she says, swallowing a sob. “I haven’t . . .
I haven’t guessed.” Her voice quavers and breaks. “Who is
she?”
“It’s Deirdre, Caroline. Dear, dear, dearest
Deirdre.” He throws back his head and laughs richly, the image of a
young man who is beside himself with delight. “Deirdre has made me
the happiest of men. We’re to be married in June, right after
school is out.”
Deirdre? Deirdre Malone? Oh, my goodness! I must
confess that I am completely and totally and entirely surprised. I
thought . . . that is, I expected . . . Why, I had no idea that
Jeremy was going to marry Deirdre! Although there was that little
bit about a secret, when Deirdre and the Sutton crocodile met Miss
Potter in the lane. Perhaps we should have guessed then that
something romantic was afoot, although I don’t know how we could
have supposed that it had anything to do with Deirdre and
Jeremy. I still find it very hard to believe.
And so does Caroline. “Deirdre?” Up comes a sob she
cannot swallow. “Deirdre Malone? You and Deirdre are to be . . .
married?”
At last Jeremy comprehends that something is
dreadfully wrong. He pulls off his tweed cap and drops to one knee
in front of her as she sits on the bench. He seizes her hand.
“Caroline? Caroline, what’s amiss? I thought you would be happy for
me, and for Deirdre, too! I thought—”
“Then you don’t love me?” Caroline
wails.
Jeremy stares at her, speechless. And then, just as
he is beginning to fathom what has happened and attempt to find the
words to answer her question (as if it could be answered!),
he is interrupted.
“Up!” cried a loud, angry voice. “On your feet,
young man! There will be no proposals at Tidmarsh Manor! Not as
long as I am alive!” It was Lady Longford, fierce as a fiend and
all in black, brandishing her ebony cane like a club. “Be gone,
churl!”
“But I wasn’t—” Jeremy scrambled to his feet,
clutching his cap. “I swear, Lady Longford, I didn’t—”
“No proposals, I say!” the old lady screeched,
advancing on the pair. “Leave, rogue! Out of my sight, you wretched
rascal!”
“But, Grandmama—” Caroline wailed disconsolately.
“You’re wrong. You don’t understand! It’s not what you
think.”
“Be gone, scoundrel!” And with that, her ladyship
whacked Jeremy smartly across the shoulder blades with her cane,
once, twice, three times. She raised her voice. “Beever, I want
you. Come and eject this insolent, impertinent rogue from the
premises. Immediately, Beever!”
For a moment, Jeremy stood, stunned. And then,
understanding that nothing he could say would remedy this terrible
situation, he picked up Caroline’s hand and kissed it gently.
“Thank you for being my friend,” he said, and turned on his
heel.
Caroline collapsed on the bench and began to cry in
earnest, huge, wracking sobs that shook her slight frame.
Lady Longford bent over her, hands on hips, chin
thrust out. “And you, you disrespectful, disobedient young miss,”
she hissed, “you have deliberately deceived me! You knew that I
consider this young man entirely unsuitable as a husband, and yet
you entertained his suit. You are confined to your room until
further notice. I do not want to see your face at table. Do you
hear?”
Oh, cruelty heaped upon terrible cruelty! Jeremy’s
heartless rejection, followed by Lady Longford’s spiteful
misunderstanding. What a wretched outcome to Caroline’s romantic
dreams of babies in white smocks and a nanny (Deirdre, of all
people!) and a third-floor nursery and an artist’s studio in the
garden.
Well, all love affairs do not end happily, as
perhaps you know from your own experience. Young girls’ hearts are
as fragile as the most delicate crystal goblet, and no doubt
Caroline’s will be broken once or twice more before it is safe in
the hands of someone who will cherish it and promise never to let
it be broken again (which promise will not, of course, be any
guarantee, for life itself is utterly unpredictable).
But it does seem appallingly cruel for her to be
punished twice in the space of a minute or two: once by the young
man who has just told her that he has proposed to and been accepted
by another; and then by her grandmother, who wrongly assumes that
this same young man is proposing to her. And cruel, as well,
that this second punishment falls on her at this moment, when her
tender spirit and her loving heart are both so broken. Oh, if only
Miss Potter were here. I am sure that she could set things to
rights! Lady Longford would surely listen to her.
But Miss Potter is not here, and Lady Longford is
in no mood to listen to anyone. I am afraid that Caroline will just
have to linger in limbo until her grandmother learns that she has
made a terrible mistake. Which she will, tomorrow, when Mrs. Beever
visits her sister-in-law in the village and brings home the latest
village news: that Jeremy Crosfield and Deirdre Malone are to be
married.
Then her ladyship will realize that she has wronged
poor Caroline and will find herself doing something that does not
at all come naturally to her. She will confess that she acted
hastily. She will beg Caroline’s pardon. But will she beg Jeremy’s
pardon, as well? I very much hope so, although I’m not holding my
breath. If it happens, I hope we are present to witness it. It
would certainly be something to see.
And there are one or two other things I should like
to know about. I should like to know how long Jeremy has been
courting Deirdre, how it all came about, and what the Suttons—who
stand in loco parentis for Deirdre, since she is an
orphan—think about it. As I said at the beginning of this chapter,
a great many important events are left out of stories for the
simple reason that we aren’t let in on the secret. What happened
between Jeremy and Deirdre was one of those things, and I suppose
they had some very good reasons for behaving as they did, and for
telling no one, including us.