The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds [79]
‘Out? Where to?’
‘North. To Northampton.’
‘North is the Enfield road.’
‘How would I find that then?’
‘We can leave you signs if you like, before we go. Ties on branches to show you the way.’
‘You will do it?’
‘If you like.’
‘I do. Our secret, though?’
‘Our secret? We are secret. We don’t talk.’
‘And I’ll find them?’
‘You’ll find ’em, no fear.’
‘There’s every chance, I suppose.’
‘You suppose?’
‘Well,’ Thomas Rawnsley shifted in his chair, ‘your husband has entered a marketplace which is new to everybody.’
‘So, he can’t know,’ Fulton said and stared into his mother’s worried eyes.
‘No, he can’t know precisely. None of us can. But that’s not to say . . .’
‘If it were your company, would you have proceeded in the same manner?’
‘Fulton, don’t interrogate out guest.’
‘But would you?’
‘I . . .’ Rawnsley raised his hands, glanced across at the silent Hannah. ‘Broadly, yes, I suppose I would.’
‘So, why are you a success and . . .’
‘Fulton!’
‘Your father is a very ingenious man, of that I have no doubt.’
The doubts he did have sat in the air. Fulton stared at the carpet, thinking.
‘But it wasn’t especially to discuss Dr Allen that I came.’
‘Oh, no?’ Eliza enquired.
‘No. I wanted, if I may, to speak to Hannah.’
‘I see.’
Hannah felt all their eyes on her and blushed painfully. Why did he have to announce it and make this public show? Now her mother and brother were getting up to leave them alone, as though she were about to be examined by a doctor and required privacy.
‘We shall leave you two alone, then,’ her mother said.
Hannah glanced up and met her mother’s gaze. She had her tongue tip between her teeth in that idiotic expression. Hannah looked down again quickly, clenched her teeth, felt her lips harden into a line.
The door closed behind them.The room was silent. They were alone.
‘Well,’ Rawnsley began, and stopped. He placed one hand emphatically on the table as though about to begin again, but didn’t. He drummed his fingers.
Why did he have to do this now? Why not when he was more alive and engaging? He could be, she knew that. Instead, he looked in Hannah’s direction, but not at her, and drummed his fingers. Eventually he said, ‘Why don’t we go for a walk? It would be nice to be outside, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, it would.’
So now they too went out and left the room empty. The fact that nobody was now in the room felt like another awkwardness to Hannah, although she couldn’t have said why. She thought of its silence and empty stillness as they went into the hall.
Thomas Rawnsley helped her into her coat, waited while she buttoned her gloves.
The breeze was cool, but not strong. There were small leaves on half of the trees and clouds in the sky. An ordinary day. It gave no sign that anything special, any event, was occurring.
Rawnsley, clasping his hands in the small of his back, led away from the house. Then at a certain distance, perhaps with a particular view onto the lane and forest in mind, he stopped.
‘You know that I have come to admire you very much, Hannah,’ he began.
‘Of course,’ she snapped back. ‘The flowers. The visits.’
He shook his head, as if interrupted, muttering to himself. He started again. ‘You know that I have come to admire you very much, Hannah.’ Hannah could see that he had it all rehearsed in his mind, this spot, these words, and that his seriousness, his apparent lack of pleasure, was because he wanted it very much to happen in exactly the right way. She had the power, evidently, to conform to his dream, to allow his imaginings to be realised. She, who’d wasted so many of her own fantasies, could grant him that, and suddenly she very much wanted to.
‘I would like your permission to ask your father for his permission,’ he blinked, as if unsure whether the sentence made sense,‘for his permission to ask for your hand in marriage.’
‘Yes.’
‘Hannah.Would you consent to becoming my wife?’
Hannah smiled, answering honestly, ‘I would.’
‘Ah!’ he smiled, raised two fists, then controlled himself. Apparently