The Hollow - Agatha Christie [81]
Edward smiled. ‘No, I’m not proposing that we catch the 4.15. But I am suggesting that you come to Ainswick, Midge. I’m suggesting that you come there for good–that is, if you can put up with me.’
She stared at him over the rim of her coffee cup–put it down with a hand that she managed to keep steady.
‘What do you really mean, Edward?’
‘I’m suggesting that you should marry me, Midge. I don’t suppose that I’m a very romantic proposition. I’m a dull dog, I know that, and not much good at anything. I just read books and potter around. But although I’m not a very exciting person, we’ve known each other a long time and I think that Ainswick itself would–well, would compensate. I think you’d be happy at Ainswick, Midge. Will you come?’
Midge swallowed once or twice, then she said:
‘But I thought–Henrietta–’ and stopped.
Edward said, his voice level and unemotional:
‘Yes, I’ve asked Henrietta to marry me three times. Each time she has refused. Henrietta knows what she doesn’t want.’
There was a silence, and then Edward said:
‘Well, Midge dear, what about it?’
Midge looked up at him. There was a catch in her voice. She said:
‘It seems so extraordinary–to be offered heaven on a plate as it were, at the Berkeley!’
His face lighted up. He laid his hand over hers for a brief moment.
‘Heaven on a plate,’ he said. ‘So you feel like that about Ainswick. Oh, Midge, I’m glad.’
They sat there happily. Edward paid the bill and added an enormous tip. The people in the restaurant were thinning out. Midge said with an effort:
‘We’ll have to go. I suppose I’d better go back to Madame Alfrege. After all, she’s counting on me. I can’t just walk out.’
‘No, I suppose you’ll have to go back and resign or hand in your notice or whatever you call it. You’re not to go on working there, though. I won’t have it. But first I thought we’d better go to one of those shops in Bond Street where they sell rings.’
‘Rings?’
‘It’s usual, isn’t it?’
Midge laughed.
In the dimmed lighting of the jeweller’s shop, Midge and Edward bent over trays of sparkling engagement rings, whilst a discreet salesman watched them benignantly.
Edward said, pushing away a velvet-covered tray:
‘Not emeralds.’
Henrietta in green tweeds–Henrietta in an evening dress like Chinese jade…
No, not emeralds.
Midge pushed away the tiny stabbing pain at her heart.
‘Choose for me,’ she said to Edward.
He bent over the tray before them. He picked out a ring with a single diamond. Not a very large stone, but a stone of beautiful colour and fire.
‘I’d like this.’
Midge nodded. She loved this display of Edward’s unerring and fastidious taste. She slipped it on her finger as Edward and the shopman drew aside.
Edward wrote out a cheque for three hundred and forty-two pounds and came back to Midge smiling.
He said: ‘Let’s go and be rude to Madame Alfrege.’
Chapter 25
But, darling, I am so delighted!’
Lady Angkatell stretched out a fragile hand to Edward and touched Midge softly with the other.
‘You did quite right, Edward, to make her leave that horrid shop and bring her right down here. She’ll stay here, of course, and be married from here. St George’s, you know, three miles by the road, though only a mile through the woods, but then one doesn’t go to a wedding through woods. And I suppose it will have to be the vicar–poor man, he has such dreadful colds in the head every autumn. The curate, now, has one of those high Anglican voices, and the whole thing would be far more impressive–and more religious, too, if you know what I mean. It is so hard to keep one’s mind reverent when somebody is saying things through their noses.’
It was, Midge decided, a very Lucyish reception. It made her want to both laugh and cry.
‘I’d love to be married from here, Lucy,’ she said.
‘Then that’s settled, darling. Off-white satin, I think, and an ivory prayer-book–not a bouquet. Bridesmaids?’
‘No. I don’t want a fuss. Just a very quiet wedding.’
‘I know what you mean, darling,