Chapter XXVII: To Miss Sarah Harding, The Orphanage, Little Blessington, Dorset

91B HARLEY STREET, W.,
_November_ 7, 1910.

MY DEAR SALLY,

This is going to be a short letter because the news that it contains is probably speeding to you already--from Esther, to whom its greatness is not unmixed with tears; and from Molly, to whom its joy is of the eternal gold. Ten days ago she came back to us from Stoke, where, as she told us, she had been having a good time, but seemed now to have fulfilled her little contract. For the house-party had broken up: Horace had long ago made a late return to Cambridge; Carthew was in the Temple, and Pole in Fleet Street; Hilary and Norah were off to Spain; and the one or two extra guns, just leisurely shooting men, had betaken themselves, at any rate superficially regretful, to other people's houses. Lady Wroxton was better--very nearly her old self, and for the moment wrapped up, heart and soul, in her nephew Rupert. It had been a pleasant visit. She kissed us very tenderly. And now it was high time that she was back again among her girls at Hoxton.

Two days later came a wire from Rupert asking if he might spend a night with us on his way to Yorkshire. And in the evening he duly arrived. Nobody else was dining with us that night, and our little party at the table was perhaps quieter than usual. After dinner we were going to smoke our pipes in the library with Esther and Molly, when Rupert drew me aside and asked me to take him into the consulting-room.

"I want you just to run over me," he said, with his eyes on a dangling stethoscope, "to run over me rather thoroughly."

I glanced at him anxiously. But in his evening clothes he seemed even lither and more bronzed than ever.

"Feeling bad anywhere?" I inquired. But he shook his head.

"Rather fit," he admitted, as he took off his coat and waistcoat. And as I suspected, I could find nothing wrong with him. On the contrary, he appeared to be in the very pink of condition, for all his tropical sojournings.

"Good," he said; "and, as a matter of fact, I saw Manson this morning, and West this afternoon, and they both told me the same thing."

I began to laugh at him, though he was speaking very seriously. "You're surely not becoming a hypochondriac?" I asked.

"No," he said gravely; "I don't think so. But I'm forty-seven, you see. And I want to get married."

I was, perhaps, rather taken aback at this, though I scarcely knew why. And he himself appeared to consider the idea as savouring somewhat of presumption. For he blushed a little as he slowly collected his clothes. Somehow we had neither of us thought of him as being a marrying man. Then, as he began to dress himself again, I congratulated him, and asked him if the lady was known to me. He hesitated for a moment, and then smiled.

"Yes, I think she is," he said; "though I doubt if you'd consider me much of a husband for her."

He filled his pipe thoughtfully.

"For though in some ways she seems to me to be rather old for her years--old-fashioned, you know, and womanly, and all that--she's really rather young."

He seemed to consider this a difficulty. Then he looked at me with a kind of deprecating straightness.

"You'd be giving her," he said, "to a fellow who's old enough to be her father."

I suppose that I looked a little surprised.

"Yes, I do," he said humbly; "I mean Molly."

We sucked our pipes in silence for a minute or two, looking at one another through the tobacco smoke. Then I asked him if he had ever pointed out to Molly her striking lack of modernity. He shook his head.

"Hadn't the pluck," he confessed; "but it's so obvious, isn't it?"

He glanced at me anxiously.

"But you mustn't think I'm against it," he said. "It's so rare nowadays. And I think it's beautiful; and anyway, it's just what I've been wanting all my life."

"You'll let me talk to Esther?" I asked presently.

"I should like to talk to her myself," he answered, "only I'm such a fool at these things."

He lit another match.

"Look here," he went on, "I don't want you to tell me what you both think for a week--till I come back from Yorkshire. I'm too old for her, I know. But I seem to be pretty sound, and I--well, dash it all, Peter, you know her better than I do, although you--d'you know, by the way, that you rather put me off her in that last letter of yours?"

"Did I?" I asked. "Perhaps that was because I don't really know her so well."

"Well, first," he said, "there was that Lynn affair, of course. But that's dead, isn't it?"

"Quite," I told him; "and they've both gone out of mourning."

"And then," he went on, "you made me think of a rather up-to-date young woman, quite nice, of course," he looked at me apologetically, "but perhaps just a little bit self-complacent. Whereas I found in her, instead, everything that I've always worshipped most, you know--from rather a long way off."

* * * * *

That was a week ago. And since he left, as you will imagine, both Esther and I have done a good deal of thinking. For on the one side we couldn't help feeling the absurdity of regarding Rupert as a son-in-law. And on the other we should be giving our daughter--or rather watching her go--into the hands of one of our oldest friends. Given love too, how well should they be mated; both so strong, but he so abidingly simple, so unchallenged by surrounding mysteries, and she so eager, so delicately tuned to each passing subtlety of thought.

Characteristically enough, he had neither told us, before he went, how clearly he had shown Molly his feelings, nor asked us to discuss with her, or to withhold, his announcement to ourselves. And so we said nothing to her about it. But just now, as we were expecting his arrival, I discovered, I think, that our desire for her had been fulfilled. For with a shyness bringing back to me a little girl that I had forgotten, she had perched herself on the arm of my chair; so that when his voice was in the hall there wasn't very far to bend.

"You told me to wait for Heaven, you know," she reminded me. And her eyes confessed that it was standing at the door.

Your affect. brother,
PETER.

P.S.--I can see you pursing those wise lips of yours, and muttering that Heaven has been a little sudden. But I believe that there are precedents for this.