An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy) (38 page)

They had reached the lodge that marked the entrance to Belvoir House by now, and passed through the gates into the grounds. Mr Staveley steered Maggie gently down one of the winding footpaths which led between stands of tropical timber to one of several little benches overlooking the sea.

‘So what
do
you admire in a young lady, Mr Staveley?’

Freddy stopped and looked squarely at her for a moment.

‘What do I admire?’ he repeated, slowly. ‘What
do
I admire? Do you know, M...Miss Owens – I have never really thought of it until this m...moment. Had I thought of it at all I should have said – well – I should have said exactly the kind of things that M...Miss Brewer possesses – b...beauty, intelligence, self
-
possession – and I suppose I do still admire those things. B...but I see now that they are not enough – not enough to – I see that they are not of overriding im...importance after all. I am quite surprised about it, to be sure. I do not really know what I adm...admire any more. What is it that
you
admire in a gentleman?’

Maggie could feel herself blushing. She was glad that it was getting dark.

‘Perhaps, like you, I have been a little confused,’ she confessed, looking steadfastly at the ground. ‘Not three months ago I should have pointed to – well, to someone like
Mr Wright
 
-
suave, manly, powerful, attractive....those sort of things are what I would have said.
But all tho
se things – attractive though they may be – are not really important. I know that now. They are but a mask – a veneer – something that can enhance the beauty within. But if that beauty is flawed, if it does not really exist at all – well, the veneer itself is worthless. It will peel away as certainly as night follows day. It is not important at all. So now – just as you have done – I am slowly starting to realise what it is that is
actually
important to me in a gentleman – genuineness, respect, gentleness, consideration – a deep capacity to love a woman, and,’ here she managed to look at him and smile, ‘a little bit of fun
.
’

They had reached one of the benches by now and, without needing to say a word, they sat down together as one and gazed out at th
e darkness of the vast black ocean
before them
. It was a still, cool October evening. The white moon, that moment just starting to peep through a thin veil of grey cloud, was casting a long train of gently rippling reflections across the waters of the bay. A robin was singing his wistful autumn song, the notes hanging softly in the air like so many snowflakes. The fronds of the tropical trees, gently crackling together as a light breeze caught them for a moment, acted like a picture frame, delineating a view which Maggie and Freddy both
gazed at, and of which they
themselves formed a part.

‘Are – are you quite ha...happy, would you say, M...Miss Owens? You have ob...obtained a situation here with M...Mr and Mrs Berkeley that m...most young ladies in your position could only dream about, I suppose, but still – still it is not quite the lifestyle you would have chosen for yourself.’

‘Happy? Well, yes, I should say so,’ she answered, pensively. ‘I am feeling very happy just at this moment, though I know I shall feel very sad tomorrow.’

‘Shall you? Do you – do you think that you will m...miss me ever such a little whilst I am away?’

‘Miss you?’ If Maggie sounded surprised at this suggestion it was not because the suggestion itself was so ridiculous, but rather because Mr Staveley could even feel the need to ask it. ‘Miss you? Of course I shall miss you. I missed you when you were away for only those few days in London – look what happened, after all!’ She thought
that she should add this
comment in case her companion should consider her previous admission a little too forward for comfort. She tried to follow it up with a little laugh, though even she realised that it
must have sounded quite hollow.
‘I dread to think what might happen once you are away from here for months!’

Mr Staveley looked at her intently. Maggie was so sensible of the power in his look that, like it or not, she felt forced to look back at him in return, though she could not quite look him in the eye.

‘You try to m...make fun of it. I can see why you might want to do so. B...but tell me, p...please, M...Miss Owens – and what ever you say to me, I p...prom...promise I shall not hold it against you, or allow it to change what I think about you one iota – tell m...me
-
would – could you tell m...me what you really feel? I need to know, you see.’

Freddy was still looking directly at her and despite the shadowy light Maggie was aware that he must be able to see in the redness of her cheeks and her inability to look him directly in the eye the very real agitation that his questions were eliciting within her.

‘I ....oh dear, I really do not know how to answer you, Mr Staveley, I really do not know at all. It is such a – well, such a....it....it is not for me to say how I feel, you see. It is not
a thing
for me to say at all.’

‘Will you let m...me kiss you, p...please, M...Miss Owens?’

Maggie was so taken aback by this totally unexpected question that she was finally surprised into looking him directly in the eye. And then she found that she was not looking at him at all, as she felt him envelop her in his arms and kiss her on the lips so very tenderly that her eyes closed of their own accord and she felt immersed in a glorious sensation of being carried away on a warm, gentle breeze to an island paradise far away. It was such a kiss that she had never experienced in her life before. Not this time the hard, demanding kisses that William had forced upon her – not this time the sensation of being needed purely to satisfy some insistent lusts of his own. Oh no. Freddy’s kiss was not like William’s had been. Freddy’s kiss was not like that at all. Freddy’s kiss was soft and tender. It made her feel like a tiny bird, nestled safely and securely, precious in his hands.

It was over at last and her eyes opened. She found that his eyes, filled with an eager love for her, were gazing intently and apprehensively at her face.
And at that instant Maggie could see that he had finally realised that it was her – Maggie – whom he had been in love with almost from the very beginning and that Miss Brewer, indeed, had been just an inconsequential dream.
The joy that she felt when she realised
this
was almost too much for her to bear
.

‘I...I’m so sorry, M...Miss Owens,’ he was saying. ‘I did not m...mean to allow myself to kiss you in quite that way.’

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Maggie felt an overpowering urge to giggle.

‘And how did you mean to kiss me, Mr Staveley?’ she asked him.

‘Freddy,’ he said. ‘P...please, M...Miss Owens. P...please call m...me Freddy.’

‘Then you must call me Maggie,’ said Maggie. ‘After all, it’s only fair.’

‘M...M...Mag....’ Freddy looked at her despairingly. ‘Damn it – of all the b...bad luck, for your na...name to begin with an ‘em’! I shall take so long in saying it that you’ll have wandered away b...before ever I get to the p...point!’

Maggie had to acknowledge the truth in this and it was therefore quite fortunate that a resolution came readily to hand.

‘My father, when he was feeling particularly affectionate, would sometimes call me Aggie,’ she told him. ‘I rather liked it. It showed me that he cared. Perhaps you would like to do the same, Freddy?’

Freddy looked most relieved.

‘Aggie? Yes, that’s m...much b...better. I can cope with Aggie,’ he said.

‘Then Aggie it must be,’ she agreed.

‘And you – you will m...marry me, will you, Aggie?’ – said so hopefully that Maggie had to smile. ‘Only – well, I haven’t really asked you yet. I don’t want any m...mistakes.’

She looked up at him in such a way that, instead of allowing her the time to reply, Freddy felt obliged to kiss her once again. And once again his kiss had so much affection – so much reverence – so much raw love in it that she was instantly transported once again to that magical island paradise that she had quitted only a very few moments before. She felt, at that moment, that there was nothing more that either of them could possibly want from their lives  – that she could never be happier than she felt just then, snuggled in Freddy’s arms in the stillness of the dark October night – and by the look on Freddy’s face, and the devoted way in which he was holding her, it was apparent that Freddy felt exactly the same way as she did.

‘Oh Freddy,’ she heard herself murmur. It was as if she were watching the scene from  above, from somewhere just beneath the surface of the softly gathering clouds. Surely this was not her – Maggie Owens
-
  basking in his love for her, telling him what she had wanted to tell him for so many a long week just passed – feeling so deliriously happy that she could hardly engage her brain? ‘Oh Freddy, how I love you. I cannot believe just how happy I am just now. Yes, I will marry you. Of course I will marry you. I cannot think of anything I would rather do in this world than to marry you. I am sure we will make each other exquisitely happy.’

Freddy clasped her even more tightly than he had clasped her before.

‘I love you so very m...much, too,’ he said. ‘Looking back, I think I must have loved you for a lifetime b...but I am so very p...pudding
-
headed that I didn’t realise for a while. I’m so devilish glad now that I’ve discovered that I do.’

He rocked her gently, staring out to sea. The sound of the waves – the taste of the salt on his lips – reminded him forcibly of the demands that it would all too soon be making on him once again – demands which, even in the normal course of events, he found unappealing enough but which, in the very moment of securing his love, were as singularly unwelcome as they were totally inevitable.

‘Write to me, Aggie – p...please write to me whilst I am away,’ he begged her, sounding desperate. ‘I can hardly b...bear the thought of tearing m...myself away from you just now. Never has it b...been so difficult for me to return to that wretched ocean. Write to me as often as you can. I need to hear that you are happy and that you love and want me still.’

She nodded glumly, sensing his desperation. Of course she would write to him. She would write to him every day if it was at all in her power to do so.

They were still sitting quietly on the little bench and by now, the night having drawn quite in, it was beginning to feel more than a little chilly. Maggie shivered. Freddy felt it immediately.

‘Here, M...M...Aggie, take my coat,’ he offered, releasing her from the arms which still held her close as a prelude to taking it off. ‘I cannot b...bear to think of you getting cold.’

The coat in question being a somewhat voluminous Prussian
-
style greatcoat, Maggie found that she had a better idea than to rob him of it entirely.

‘Perhaps we could share it?’ she suggested.

Now Freddy was a self effacing young man. He was not the sort of young man always to insist on getting his way. He was always open to other people’s suggestions which would, he felt, have so much more merit to them than any ideas of his own. So he was more than happy to accept that Maggie’s idea was better by far than his had been. After all, would it not enable them to return to the house together, with his arm and coat clasped carefully around her, whilst both were well protected from the prying wind and any equally prying eyes?

‘Will you wait for m...me, Aggie?’ he asked her, as they wandered slowly along the path. ‘We will have to wait for a while b...before we can marry. I will work night and day to make so...some money for us.
I will try to win some prizes.
Cap...
Captain Wright
is just as keen as I am to win some
and
I’m sure that we
’
ll get a rated ship quite soon. It will give us so m...much more of a chance of getting some. I am ho...hoping that we shall not need too m...much. I have some inc...income from my inheritance already, and I am saving it all at p...present. I think that one good p...prize will do it. It should not take too long.’

‘Yes, I will wait for you, my love,’ she
assured him quietly
. They reached the steps to the front door and Maggie gently released herself from the folds of his greatcoat. ‘I will wait for you for as long as it takes.
I hope that I am not an extravagant
person. T
hough I am most comfortable here I know that I will be
perfectly
happy with somewhere a little
more modest
than Belvoir to live in! A very mode
rate
income will quite satisfy me, as long as we
can be
together.
We have both been misled, we have both been misguided before.
We are both familiar with what it feels like not to be loved.
So when .... well,
now we
have the privilege of experiencing the real thing –
of knowing what love really feels like –
of be
ing secure in ourselves and
with
each other for the very first time in our lives
-
it is most strange,
but
to wait a while
,
assured of
our affections
– we may not want to wait but
I know
perfectly well
that
it can be done
.
A
nd once we have the money – once we are able to marry and take a place of our own – well,
when
that happens I know that we shall look back on
the months
apart and
appreciate
our time together
all the more
through knowing just how much
it is worth
, and how easy it is to get things wrong
.
I know
full well
that I shall love you for ever. So
, even
should
it t
ake a lifetime, Freddy, I shall
be perfectly happy to wait.’