Some Tame Gazelle (13 page)

‘Unfortunately my work demands that I should go back this afternoon, or tomorrow at the latest,’ he said, gaining courage from her manner. ‘But before I went I hoped I should be able to have a talk with you.’ He looked at her plump, handsome profile expectantly.

Very much what I expected, thought Harriet complacently, but she was pleased and flattered to discover that she had been right. It was gratifying to feel that such a Man of the World as Mr Mold obviously was should want to marry her. But should she accept him? When it came to the point, Harriet found herself surprisingly undecided, considering how well she had spoken of Mr Mold to Belinda. She began to see that there were many reasons why she should refuse his offer when it came. To begin with she had known him for such a short time; indeed, this morning was only their third meeting. Harriet was not the kind of person to believe with Marlowe that

Where both deliberate, the love is slight:

Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?

Obviously that was quite ridiculous. How could one possibly know all the things that had to be known about a person at first sight? Belinda had said she believed Mr Mold had a very nice house, but then poor Belinda was so vague, and for all that the house might be semi-detached and not at all in an advantageous position. If Mr Mold were very much in love with her it might be unkind to hurt his feelings – Harriet did not stop to consider how many times she must have hurt the feelings of her faithful admirer Count Bianco – but a smart and floridly handsome admirer in the Prime of Life would be much more acceptable to her than a husband of the same description. In her girlhood imaginings Harriet had always visualized a tall, pale man for her husband, hence her partiality for the clergy. People of Mr Mold’s type could never look well in a pulpit. And finally, who would change a comfortable life of spinsterhood in a country parish, which always had its pale curate to be cherished, for the unknown trials of matrimony? Harriet remembered Belinda once saying something about people preferring to bear those ills they had, rather than flying to others that they knew not of, or something like that. It had been quite one of Belinda’s most sensible observations.

Thus Harriet’s mind was practically made up to refuse Mr Mold’s offer when it came. In the meantime, she waited for him to declare himself. He was nearly as slow as poor Ricardo, who always took so long to come to the point that Harriet sometimes found herself helping him out.

There was a pause. Harriet sighed. Perhaps even Mr Mold needed to be helped a little; she had thought he might be better at coming to the point than Ricardo.

‘How I envy you living in that lovely town,’ she said, looking at him rather intensely. ‘Your house is in the Woodbury road, isn’t it? I always think that’s the very nicest part.’

‘Yes, it is pleasant. My house is on a corner, so it has a rather larger garden than the others.’ Again there was a short pause, then Mr Mold burst out with rather forced joviality, ‘You know, I feel that you and I have so much in common…’

Harriet said nothing. She was going rapidly over her own interests and comparing them with those that Mr Mold might be supposed to have. A certain standard of living, comfort, good food, all these they might share, but as before her mind went back to what was undoubtedly her greatest interest – curates. Perhaps she did not define it in that one simple word, but the idea was there, and with it the suspicion that Mr Mold was the kind of person who was not entirely at his ease with the clergy.

Encouraged by her silence Mr Mold went on: ‘What I mean to say is, that I think we should be very happy if we married. My house is large and comfortable and my financial position is sound … and,’ he added, rather as an afterthought, ‘I loved you the moment I saw you.’

Harriet almost laughed when she remembered their first meeting in the village, when she had been wearing that awful old tweed coat, too! It was really amazing how blind love made people. Nevertheless, she was disappointed. Proposals from Ricardo several times a year had accustomed her to passionate pleadings, interspersed with fine phrases from the greater Italian poets. Besides, Ricardo never proposed sitting down. Always standing or even kneeling, indeed, his courtly manners had often caused Harriet some amusement. Compared with Ricardo, Mr Mold sounded so prosaic and casual. He didn’t sound as if he really
cared
at all. She glanced at him hastily; little beads of sweat were glistening on his forehead and his face was crimson. Harriet could not help remembering that Ricardo always looked pale, and although these differences were rather trivial, they seemed somehow to add themselves to the list of reasons why she should not accept Mr Mold’s proposal.

‘Dear Mr Mold,’ she began, not quite as certain of herself as usual, for she was not yet used to rejecting him, and did not know how he would take it. ‘It is really charming of you to say such kind things, and I am deeply honoured by your proposal, but I feel I cannot accept it. It would not be fair to
you
,’ she added hastily, not wishing to appear unkind.

Mr Mold looked genuinely disappointed. ‘Of course I know this must be a shock to you,’ he ventured. ‘Perhaps you would like to wait a few days and decide after thinking it over?’

But Harriet didn’t think she would like to do that. Thinking things over was so tiring, and really there was nothing to think about. The more she considered it, the less attractive the prospect of this marriage seemed to be. He had been so jolly last night, that was what she had liked. Perhaps that was because he had been a little drunk? And somehow he didn’t look so handsome at close quarters. Was it possible that he was just
past
the Prime of Life? she wondered.

So she smiled at him very charmingly and repeated that although she was flattered and deeply touched by his proposal she thought it would be kinder to give him his answer now.

‘I’m afraid my sister and I are
very
confirmed spinsters,’ she added, in a lighter vein.

Mr Mold felt like saying that he had not intended to marry her sister as well, for he was now annoyed rather than hurt at her refusal, and did not consider that she had sufficiently realized the compliment he had paid her in asking her to be his wife. He muttered something about it being a great pity, and then Harriet said she hoped that he would have a pleasant journey back; the afternoon train was a very convenient one and she believed there was a restaurant car on it. Dr Parnell would be staying a little longer, perhaps? It was such a real pleasure for them to see visitors as they lived such uneventful lives in this quiet village. She did hope that Mr Mold would come and see them again next time he was in the neighbourhood.

As he stood on the front doorstep, Mr Mold extended a cordial invitation to her to come and visit him some time. ‘You’ll always find me in the Library,’ he added jovially, almost his old self again.

‘Reading
Stitchcraft
, I suppose,’ said Harriet, on a teasing note.

As he went out of the gate, he even waved one of his new gloves at her. Perhaps after all the Librarian was right when he said that marriage was a tiresome business and that he and Mold were lucky not to have been caught. He looked at his watch. There would be plenty of time for a chat with the landlord of the Crownwheel and Pinion before lunch. Marriage might put a stop to all that kind of thing.

While Mr Mold’s proposal was being rejected in the drawing-room, Belinda was in the dining-room, writing a letter to Agatha. ‘We have had remarkably mild weather lately,’ she wrote, ‘and I have been able to do a lot of gardening, in fact I have just been putting in the last of the bulbs. I have noticed your pink chrysanthemums showing buds, which is very early for them, isn’t it?

‘The Archdeacon preached a very fine sermon on Sunday, about the Judgment Day. We were all very much impressed by it. You will be glad to hear that he is looking well and has a good appetite.’

Here Belinda paused and laid down her pen. Was this last sentence perhaps a little presumptuous? Ought an archdeacon to be looking well and eating with a good appetite when his wife was away? And ought Belinda to write as if she knew about his appetite?

She turned to the letter again and added ‘as far as I know’ to the sentence about the appetite.

‘It was so nice to see Nicholas Parnell again, and I think he enjoys coming here for a quiet holiday. He brought the deputy Librarian, Mr Mold, with him. I don’t know whether you have met him? Personally, his type does not appeal to me very much. He is supposed to be a great ladies’ man, and is too fond of making jokes not always in the best of taste. Harriet saw him coming out of the Crownwheel and Pinion in the morning, which I thought a pity.’

Here Belinda laid down her pen again. Was she being quite fair to Mr Mold? She had allowed herself to get so carried away by her own feelings about him that she had rather forgotten she was writing to Agatha, in whom she did not normally confide.

‘Still, I daresay he is a very nice man,’ she went on, ‘when one really knows him.’

This last sentence reminded Belinda that he had now been closeted in the drawing-room with Harriet for some considerable time. Belinda had not yet been able to decide why he had come, indeed, she had rather forgotten about the whole thing. Nothing was further from her mind than a proposal of marriage, and had she known what was going on, she would probably have rushed into the drawing-room, even if she had still been wearing her old gardening mackintosh and galoshes, and tried her best to stop it, for one was never quite sure what Harriet would do. Especially after her apparent admiration of Mr Mold and her continual harping on the Prime of Life. Belinda went so far as to go into the hall, but could not bring herself to listen at the drawing-room door. From where she stood she could hear a low murmur of voices. It was no use being impatient, and the last thing she wanted was to see Mr Mold herself, so she went back to her letter. Writing to Agatha was not easy, more of a duty than a pleasure, but Belinda felt that she might like to hear some of the details of the parish life which the Archdeacon probably would not give her, so she wrote about the autumn leaves and berries they had used to decorate the church, the organist’s illness and Miss Smiley’s brave attempt to play at Evensong, the success of the Scouts’ Jumble Sale and other homely matters.

At last she heard the sound of a door opening, then conversation and laughter. Harriet and Mr Mold had come out of the drawing-room. Belinda waited until she judged him safely out of the front door and then went eagerly into the hall to hear the result of his visit.

She found Harriet standing in front of the mirror, rubbing her hands together and looking pleased with herself. Her face was rather red and she looked more elegant than was usual at such an early hour of the day.

‘Well,’ she said, with a hint of triumph in her voice, ‘that’s that.’

‘Yes,’ said Belinda, ‘but what? I hope you didn’t promise him anything for the Library Extension Fund. There are far more deserving causes in the parish.’

‘But, Belinda, surely you guessed why he had come?’ said Harriet patiently, for really her sister was very stupid. ‘He came to ask me to marry him,’ she declared, smiling.

‘Oh,
Harriet
…’ Belinda was quite speechless. She might have known that something dreadful like this would happen. As if he would bother to come and ask for a subscription to the Library funds! Her supposition seemed very vain and feeble now. Still, as Belinda would not have to live with them, perhaps she need not see very much of her over-jovial brother-in-law – that would be some consolation, though it would hardly make up for the loss of her sister. Of course, she supposed, she could always have a companion to live with her, some deserving poor relation like Connie Aspinall, or she might advertise in the
Church Times
; somebody with literary interests and fond of gardening, a churchwoman, of course. Belinda shuddered as she thought of the applications and the task of interviewing them; she was sure she would never have the strength to reject anyone, however unsuitable. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to live alone.

‘Of course, I couldn’t accept him,’ said Harriet, rather loudly, for she had expected Belinda to show real interest, instead of just standing and staring at the floor.

The look of relief that brightened Belinda’s face was pathetic in its intensity.

‘Oh,
Harriet
…’ again she was speechless. However could she have thought for a moment that her sister would do such a thing?

‘Indeed I couldn’t,’ said Harriet calmly. ‘Why I hardly know him, and you remember what Shakespeare said about when lovely woman stoops to folly …’ she made a significant gesture with her hand.

Belinda frowned. ‘I don’t think it was
Shakespeare
, dear,’ she said absently. ‘I must ask Henry. I have an idea it may be Pope.’ But what did it matter? Belinda was so overcome with joy and relief at Harriet’s news that she kissed her impulsively and suggested that they should have some meringues for tea, as Harriet was so fond of them.

Together they went into the dining-room, where Harriet with many ludicrous and exaggerated imitations, gave a demonstration of how Mr Mold had proposed to her.

‘Oh, Harriet, you mustn’t be so unkind!’ protested Belinda, in the intervals of laughing, for her sister was really much funnier than Mr Mold could possibly have been. They laughed even more when the corsets were discovered under a cushion.

‘Just imagine if Emily had brought him in here and he had discovered them while he was waiting. Or if the Archdeacon had when he came the other day,’ chortled Harriet.

‘Oh, Harriet,’ said Belinda faintly. There was a vulgar, musichall touch about it all that one could associate with Mr Mold but hardly with the Archdeacon.

‘I expect he’s consoling himself in the Crownwheel and Pinion,’ said Harriet, ‘so we needn’t really pity him.’

She was perfectly right; so much so that, when he arrived at the vicarage rather late for lunch, Dr Parnell was constrained to whisper to his friend the Archdeacon, ‘I fear poor Nathaniel is not entirely sober.’