The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [310]
When most of the food was finished, someone proposed a toast to Alfred and Aliena. Alfred beamed with pleasure as he acknowledged it. After that the singing began, and Aliena started to wonder how soon she could slip away.
Alfred said to her: “We did well, together.”
Aliena smiled. “Let’s see how many of them are still paying sixpence a week this time next year.”
Alfred did not want to hear about misgivings or qualifications today. “We did well,” he repeated. “We’re a good team.” He raised his cup to her and drank. “Don’t you think we’re a good team?”
“We certainly are,” she said, to humor him.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” he went on. “Doing this with you—the guild, I mean.”
“I’ve enjoyed it, too,” she said politely.
“Have you? That makes me very happy.”
She looked at him more carefully. Why was he laboring the point? His speech was clear and precise, and he showed no signs of real drunkenness. “It’s been fine,” she said neutrally.
He put a hand on her shoulder. She hated to be touched, but she had trained herself not to flinch, because men became so offended. “Tell me something,” he said, lowering his voice to an intimate level. “What are you looking for in a husband?”
Surely he’s not going to ask me to marry him, she thought dismally. She gave her standard answer. “I don’t need a husband—my brother is trouble enough.”
“But you need love,” he said.
She groaned inwardly.
She was about to reply when he held up a hand to stop her—a masculine habit she found particularly maddening. “Don’t tell me you don’t need love,” he said. “Everybody needs love.”
She gazed at him steadily. She knew there was something peculiar about her: most women were keen to get married; and if they were still single, as she was, at the age of twenty-two, they were more than keen, they were desperate. What’s wrong with me? she thought. Alfred was young, fit and prosperous: half the girls in Kingsbridge would like to marry him. For a moment she toyed with the idea of saying yes. But the thought of actually living with Alfred, eating supper with him every night and going to church with him and giving birth to his children, was appalling. She would rather be lonely. She shook her head. “Forget it, Alfred,” she said firmly. “I don’t need a husband, for love or anything else.”
He was not to be discouraged. “I love you, Aliena,” he said. “Working with you, I’ve been truly happy. I need you. Will you be my wife?”
He had said it now. She was sorry, for it meant she had to reject him formally. She had learned that there was no point in trying to do this gently, either: they took a kindly refusal as a sign of indecision, and pressed her all the more. “No, I won’t,” she said. “I don’t love you and I haven’t much enjoyed working with you, and I wouldn’t marry you if you were the only man on earth.”
He was hurt. He must have thought his chances were strong. Aliena was sure she had done nothing to encourage him. She had treated him as an equal partner, listened to him when he spoke, talked to him frankly and directly, fulfilled her responsibilities and expected him to fulfill his. But some men took that for encouragement. “How can you say that?” he spluttered.
She sighed. He was wounded, and she felt sorry for him; but in a moment he would be indignant, and act as if she had made an unfair accusation against him; then finally he would convince himself that she had gratuitously insulted him, and he would become offensive. Not all rejected suitors behaved like that, but a certain type did, and Alfred was that type. She was going to have to leave.
She stood up. “I respect your proposal, and I thank you for the honor you do me,” she said. “Please respect my refusal, and don’t ask me again.”
“I suppose you’re running off to see my snotnosed little stepbrother,” he said nastily. “I can’t imagine he gives you much of a ride.”
Aliena flushed with embarrassment. So people were beginning to notice