The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [266]
Out of the side of his eye he saw Florence leaving with Geraint. There would be another time. Or another woman.
Florence and Geraint walked along a footpath by the Military Canal. Dragonflies skimmed the water. Moorhens paddled, and a rat slid out of a hole and swam busily away. The sun was still bright, though going down. Footsteps hurried after them. Geraint turned, irritably. It was Frank Mallett.
“I won’t keep you, I just wanted to ask you—”
He joined them.
“Yes?” said Geraint.
“Have you spoken to your father recently?”
“Not for some days. He hasn’t been around since his lecture last week. He tends to go into hiding after things like that. I was going to Purchase House when I’ve walked Miss Cain back to Rye.”
There was a silence. Geraint said
“Have you seen him?”
“Not for some days, also.” He strode along, looking at the water, and seemed to come to a decision. “No matter. No matter. When you do see him, please tell him I was asking after him.”
He turned back. Geraint said to Florence
“Something is worrying that man. My father does worry people.”
“I know.”
There was a long silence. They moved on, companionably, walking at the same pace. Geraint said, not looking at Florence,
“I am probably an idiot to choose this moment. When we are going on calmly, that is. You needn’t answer this, now, yet. But—I want you to be my wife. Don’t speak. I have wanted it for years, you know that, I think. I don’t have much to offer, yet—but I shall, for certain. I am doing well in the City, and Mr. Wellwood treats me as a son, almost. I am saving money. Also, I love you. I do love you. Don’t speak for a moment. It couldn’t be for a year or two. I ought not to tie you down. It may be only my fantasy. I have never seen—never—anyone like you. I think of you—you don’t know how much of the time.”
“May I speak now?”
“If you think it is even possible—I will ask again—later—if you—”
“May I speak? I was going to say—yes. Yes I will marry you. There.” They stopped walking and turned and looked at each other. Geraint said
“I haven’t just worn you out, with waiting and watching?”
“I said, yes. I do know my own mind.”
“I want you to be happy. You haven’t been looking happy, lately. I want—more than I want anything—for you to have what you want. Of course, I should like it to be me.”
“I haven’t been happy, it’s true. We can be happier together, I do think.” She gave a small smile. “We can try. Stop worrying.”
Very gently, he put his arms around her. She stiffened. He wished she had not, but he had learned patience.
“May I speak to your father?”
She gave a strange little laugh. “I shall be very happy for you to do that, yes. Then we can make plans.”
Dorothy Wellwood had set off alone, for a walk across the marshes. She had given herself a sick headache, with studying anatomy, and told herself that it was for the good of her own health that she was going out. She had been having trouble with willpower. She wanted to be with the German father and the German brothers, who were making intricate things in the barn, and laughing together. She was somehow hurt that Griselda could laugh with them, in German, and make clever suggestions for scenes in the puppet play, whilst she could not. She did not want to, of course—somewhere inside her there was a puritanical rejection of imaginary worlds, that was tough and largely unquestioned. Nerves and tendons, veins and arteries, were both more real and more mysterious than wired joints and dangling strings. She knew Griselda was far from trying to steal her new family—she was, on the contrary, hurt when Dorothy went off to do her hours of study, angry as much because she, Griselda, had no calling of her own, as because Dorothy was abandoning her. She walked faster and faster, running over the articulations of her body in her head. She found herself at Purchase House, looking up the avenue of trees beside the shabby drive.
She suddenly thought it would be good to see Philip Warren. She walked into the drive.