The Light Heart (4 page)

Disturbed by emotions he had thought permanently shelved, Miles went for a walk on the Lawn at Charlottesville in the late afternoon shadows and sunlight, and faced things he had shirked with impunity too long. Was he to go on like this, he asked himself desolately, for the rest of his life, losing girl after girl into limbo, or was he going to put his foot down before it was too late and have a wife like other people? The family expected him to marry, he knew. Fitz had married, and then Bracken had taken to himself the younger sister of Virginia’s English husband. Miles was the last, and it was his turn.

Pacing slowly under the old green trees across the closely mown grass between the classic pavilions, Miles contemplated marriage for himself and found himself, as always, shrinking back into his shell. He liked his life as it was. He had his own room in his parents’ spacious house—a rather Spartan, monkish room, with a plain white coverlet on the bed, plain white curtains at the windows, a writing-table in the best light, books all along one wall and all across the mantelpiece. He could read
in bed—read all night, when he was having one of his bad times….

The life-force in Miles had flickered very low. The possible introduction of a woman into his tidy, self-centred days and nights presented to him mainly problems and unwelcome readjustments—even a woman so familiar to him, so
well-versed
in his ways, and so eager to please as his Cousin Phoebe Sprague. He viewed the ensuing loss of his bachelor privacy almost as squeamishly as a girl. A wife would always be there, morning, noon and night; at breakfast when he wanted to read the newspaper, at luncheon when he was allowed to bring a book to the table, at dinner when he supposed it would become necessary to make a change of dress. She would be in his room when he went to bed and wanted to read before turning out the light—in his bed when he woke up in the morning. Would he ever be alone again, and how did married people bear it? What would you talk about with a woman, shut up with her seven days in the week, three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year? Even with Phoebe, who had an educated, serious mind, for a woman, what would you talk about all that time?

Walking up and down in the lengthening shadows of the lovely grounds, his tall body stooping a little, his hands behind his back like an old man, Miles tried to think how his mother and father managed. He knew they were happy together, for it was plain to see. His mother was a notorious chatterer, and always had been. It amused his father, a smiling, silent man on whom the perpetual patter of her words fell like the gentle rain from heaven. Apparently his father dearly loved to hear her and was endlessly diverted. Miles wondered if she ever stopped, even when the door closed behind them in their own room at night—and was embarrassed at his own thoughts.

Phoebe could be silent, he knew. Perhaps if he and Phoebe lived with his parents after they were married his mother would be company for her and he wouldn’t have to—have to what? Entertain her? She would share his room. Everyone
would think it very odd if she didn’t. The room where now, if he closed the door on himself, no one had any right to intrude. And there was another thing—he faced that too, reluctantly. There might be children, crying and making a noise, running about getting into things—his sister Belle’s babies were an awful nuisance, she said so herself. Phoebe’s child and his—what would it be like? Could it be trained to behave, and not yell?

By now Miles was very near to begging the whole question, as he had done many times before. Let Phoebe go to England—let her stay there, if she wanted to, and have some other man’s babies, as Virginia was doing. Let her leave him in peace with his books and his irregular hours, reading till dawn, sleeping after lunch, foraging for milk and ginger-bread alone at
midnight
. No woman could fit herself into his erratic, selfish habits. No woman was worth the effort it would be to him to change them now. No woman—except possibly Phoebe Sprague.

Last summer when they went to Williamsburg for Aunt Sue’s birthday, which was in August, and the fever came back on him in the hot weather and he had to go to bed in his father’s old room in Grandfather Ransom’s house and miss the party—Phoebe had made iced drinks for him, and came up in her party dress and sat with him most of the evening so he wouldn’t feel out of things—her hands were so cool—he had begged for her hands on his face…. That time he ate the plum pudding at Cousin Sedgwick’s at Christmas and couldn’t eat anything for a week afterwards but milk and eggs—couldn’t get out of bed, even, to come home, till after New Year’s—Phoebe had read to him; Carlyle, they were reading then, and her voice sent him to sleep when nothing else could…. The touching way she always handed over to him her little manuscripts, anxious and embarrassed while he read them … the pretty way she flushed and sparkled when he praised them … the earnestness with which she listened to his judicious criticisms….

With him to help her, Phoebe might become a successful novelist like Aunt Sue. That would be something to talk about together, wouldn’t it? Perhaps they might collaborate on a book. His step quickened on the grass. They got on so well together, never any quarrels or misunderstandings. Phoebe was much too sensible to quarrel. They understood each other. She would never find anyone in England who understood her as he did. They were such old friends, lifelong friends—surely friends would be happy together, married? If he was going to marry at all, it would have to be Phoebe, she never got on his nerves, never raised her voice, never took offence. He thought of her honest, shining eyes, waiting for his smile, and the cleft in her funny little chin—he thought of her cool, quiet hands on his hot face….

Miles had bought a seven-volume edition of Fanny d’Arblay’s diaries bound in blue moire, for Phoebe’s birthday present. Before the shop closed that evening he returned it and got his money back. Then he walked three doors down the street to a jeweller’s and bought a garnet ring, set in gold, with chip diamonds. It cost him more than the books. It cost him all the cash money he had saved up. It even cost him his peace of mind for a long time to come.

P
HOEBE
was glad that her Aunt Eden Murray arrived in Williamsburg before Miles did and was there to back her up. (Trust Bracken’s mother, who had been Cabot Murray’s wife, never to betray by the flick of an eyelash that the idea of Phoebe’s going abroad with them had been Sue’s and not her own.) Phoebe was not sure what she felt the need of protection
from
—she did not flatter herself that Miles would care very much whether she was in England or Williamsburg. But she had decided to go without asking his opinion first, and she had some dim idea that for this Miles might be reproachful.

He wasn’t, though. He was smiling broadly and she thought he looked uncommonly well when he bent his lean height to give her the customary cousinly kiss. And, “That’s a pretty dress,” he said of her last year’s pink lawn, freshened up with black velvet ribbon, which he had never noticed at all when it was new. Phoebe’s eyes were very bright. Perhaps Miles was actually limbering up. And she had a new dress for the party—hyacinth-blue foulard with white spots, trimmed with lace medallions and white satin ribbon—the sleeves were deeply belled at the wrist above pointed lace cuffs. It was a present from Mother, who had money of her own which she was always afraid of using for fear of hurting Father’s feelings, because she had inherited more than he could ever earn. Mother said she didn’t care about the money, let it rot in the bank—but at times like birthdays she cheated a little. Phoebe suspected that Father knew.

Miles didn’t wait for the new dress. The same evening he got there they went for a walk down the Jamestown Road past the College, and he listened with genuine interest to what she had to tell him about the proposed trip—how unexpected it was, and how good it would be for her writing, and how they all said she was sure to see the King—and of course, Phoebe added with some diffidence, she would see Virginia too.

“I wonder if having a baby has sobered her up some,” said Miles in his slow, smiling drawl, and Phoebe laughed.

“I don’t think
twins
would have any effect on Virginia,” she said without malice, and added casually, “It will be interesting to see what kind of man she married.”

“If he’s anything like his sister Dinah, I reckon he’s all right,” said Miles, for the whole family had given Bracken’s Dinah its heartiest approval, even if she was a ladyship with another brother who was an earl.

“Can I—give Virginia a message from you?” Phoebe asked, bracing herself invisibly against whatever his reply might be.

“Nope,” said Miles placidly. “I’ve nothing to say to Virginia,
nor she to me.” They walked along in silence, while the sunset faded behind them—they were on the homeward lap now, and dusk was drawing in as they approached the campus of William and Mary College. Easter vacation had emptied the lawns under the high, spreading trees. It was a setting towards which Miles instinctively gravitated, and when they came to the gate in the low brick wall he turned her into it, saying, “Let’s have a look round—wish I could get a job here, don’t you?”

“Oh, Miles, that would be wonderful! We could really see
something
of each other then, and get some reading done together!”

“Would you like that?” he asked gravely, looking down at her from his great height as they moved side by side into the shadow of the trees.

“Well, of course I would! It’s much more fun reading with you than alone, and—and—” The words drifted away rather breathlessly.

“Reckon you won’t have much time for reading this summer,” he suggested, but without reproach.

“I hope to,” she insisted seriously. “I want to do some sightseeing, and know what I’m looking at. It’s not going to be all new clothes and parties, Miles. I am going to learn a lot in England, to help my writing.”

“I bet Virginia hasn’t even seen the Tower of London yet!” he remarked ruefully with a shake of his head.

“Then I’ll make her go with me and be educated!” she laughed, falling in with his mood as she always did, pleased that he was taking everything so easily to-night, for that was a sign that he felt well, and wouldn’t have to leave the party and go and lie down. “I’ll show her the spot where Anne Boleyn died, and the cell they kept Raleigh in!” she boasted gaily. “I’ve got a guidebook of Aunt Sue’s, and she said I could mark things like that, that were really important.”

“It wouldn’t be any use trying to educate Virginia,” he murmured. “She hasn’t got that kind of brains. Reckon
Virginia was mostly made to be looked at. A fellow can talk to you, though, with some hope of bein’ understood—part of the time, anyway.”

It was a left-handed sort of compliment, but Phoebe lapped it up gratefully—even with its implication that she wasn’t much to look at herself. And then, having thought it over, Miles made an amendment.

“I don’t mean you aren’t pretty too, because you are,” he added gravely. “In a different sort of way.”

“Why—thank you, Miles.” Phoebe’s cheeks were pink in the dusk.

“You know, all of this has got me pretty scared,” Miles went on, and their steps slowed to a stroll. “Never you mind about Virginia—that’s all in the past. I never—never got far with Virginia, you know, and I reckon it’s just as well, she wouldn’t have cared much for Charlottesville. Do you suppose she has ever read a book since she stopped doing lessons?” he queried with a slanting, confidential look.

“I’ll find out and let you know,” Phoebe promised. Her heart had begun to beat rather fast.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Miles. “What matters now is you. I worried myself a good deal about your birthday present, because I know you like diary books, and I thought I’d found just the thing. And then at the last minute I changed my mind. I’m kind of scared now maybe I was wrong.”

“You mean I don’t get a book from you this time?” She tried not to sound disappointed.

“Well, that depends. If you—if you don’t like what I got instead, I can still get you the books.” Miles hesitated, put his hand into his pocket, and took it out again. “Phoebe, I think you’re right to go abroad with Aunt Eden, I wouldn’t try to stop you for the world. But before you go I’d like to say—to sort of stake out a claim.”

“To
what,
Miles?” Her heart was pounding in
her ears now. They stood still in the dusk under the elms, facing each other, while Miles sought for words.

“I—don’t know what I’d do without you, Phoebe—and I thought maybe this would remind you to come back home.”

It was still light enough for her to see that in the palm of his hand, held out to her, was a small square box—the kind that rings came in. She took it with a gasp and opened it on the little garnet set with its circle of chip diamonds. Something like pity for Miles engulfed her in a paralyzing wave. It was so pathetic a gift beside Bracken’s magnificent pendant—and beside the intrinsic dignity and value of any book.

“Will it fit?” he was asking anxiously above her, and she hesitated, holding the box—which finger was it meant to fit? Rather clumsily Miles took the ring from the box and reached for her left hand. “It’s an engagement ring,” he said simply. “If you’re willing to marry me when you get back from England.”

Phoebe stood still in the dusk and felt the ring slide on to her third finger. Her throat had closed, her eyelids stung. For some foolish reason, new that the thing she had dreamed of for years was happening she only wanted to cry. Having placed the ring on her finger, Miles put an arm around her waist, and drew her diffidently a little nearer.

“Is it all right?” he was saying in a worried sort of way. “It does fit, doesn’t it? Will you marry me, Phoebe—along about Christmas time, maybe?”

“Oh, Miles—I’ve loved you all my life, you know I have!” She put out a hand to his shoulder, looking up at him. They were kissing kin, she had felt his lips a thousand times before now, briefly, at his arrivals and departures in Williamsburg. His first lover’s kiss was quick and shy and undemanding, and over too soon. She leaned against him, shaken, swirling with her own delight, and felt the heavy beat of his heart beneath his jacket.