AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But there was no one else in the room. James crept away, puzzled and slightly disturbed.
~~~~~
Thomas found him hunched over the brandy bottle in the rectory drawing room late in the afternoon.
“Ah. She turned you down again, then?” Thomas said, fetching another glass from the sideboard and pouring a large measure for himself.
“And who would blame her for that? Not I,” James said, with unaccustomed seriousness. “I should dislike it extremely if I were told to marry purely because a vicious woman was spreading rumours about me. False rumours, at that. Mrs Reynell is such an unpleasant woman, and it is all jealousy. How ironic — the woman I want despises me, and yetshe—You were supposed to seduce Mrs Reynell away from me, Thomas.”
“I beg your pardon, but it could not be done. Even if she had deigned to look my way, she would be impossible to live with, fortune or no fortune. Did Miss Fletcher give you no hope at all?”
“None, but she was magnificent, Thomas,” he went on, his head lifting at the thought. “She said we should face up to the lies.‘Judge me if you dare’,she said. Is that not wonderful?”
“But the world will indeed judge her,” Thomas said softly. “You know it as well as anyone, James.”
“As to that, I cannot say, for the world is fickle and unpredictable, but she has such courage! Who could not love a woman like that?”
“Is this the time to remind you of your own words, my friend?” Thomas said, with a wry smile. “You were the one, after all, who said that love is for fools. Yet here you are, so deep in love you cannot even see the irony.”
James refilled his brandy glass and took a long draught while he reordered his thoughts. It was true that he had chosen Julia dispassionately, because she amused him and relieved the boredom that sapped his spirits, and he had never intended to fall in love with her. Yet he had been drawn to her from the first moment he had seen her sitting on the gate, jauntily swinging one leg. She made him smile, always, and was that not the very foundation of love?
“The principle holds, I think,” he said, “although whether a man must be a fool to fall in love or it is the falling in love which makes him so is more than I can say. Perhaps a little of both. I was a fool to fall in love, and I am still a fool for persisting even when there is but little hope of success.”
“Ah, unrequited love,” Thomas said with a satisfied smile. “The purest kind there is.”
“Thomas? Are you a sufferer also? But who has won your affection? Not Mrs Reynell?”
The curate almost choked on his brandy. “Heaven forfend! No, not that perfidious woman. I have met someone so far above her in every way that I cannot quite believe it.”
“Who is it? Come, Thomas, you must tell me. You know all my secrets, after all, so you cannot keep your own, not in an affair of the heart.”
“You will not mock me?”
“I promise I will not.”
“It is Miss Violetta Crabtree.”
“The governess? Isabella’s governess, who walks around the estate with her nose in a book? But Violetta — what a frivolous name for such a serious lady.”
“She is not serious at all, James,” Thomas said indignantly. “She has the most glorious sense of humour, quite subversive at times. And she knows LatinandGreek, for her father was a clergyman and a man of some learning, who did not hesitate to educate his daughters to the same high standard as his sons.”
“But there is no hope of a future together.”
“Oh, no. Certainly not. I have a hundred pounds a year, and she has savings of some two hundred pounds, that is all. Unless I can somehow obtain a living, there is no possibility of marriage. But we meet occasionally, mostly accidentally but occasionally by my contrivance, and I treasure such times, James. It is the greatest comfort to me to know that there is one woman in this world who does not despise me for my humble station in life, who talks to me as an equal, who sees me asmyselfand not just the curate.”
“Then I wish you the greatest joy of your unrequited love,” James said. “For myself, I still hope that mine will not always be unrequited.”
“You are an optimist, my friend.”
“I must be, for to surrender all hope would plunge me into a very dark place. I have no expectation that she will ever love me as I love her, but we are so perfectly matched in every way that it would be madness to give up now. No one will ever suit me so well. One day she will understand it, on that I am determined, and I shall not retreat until I have won her.”
“How many times have you offered for her?”
“Formally, twice, but she was aware of my intentions before that.”
“And she has refused you twice, but has she given you the smallest sign that she may one day change her mind? Any hint whatsoever?”
James was about to assert it staunchly, but honesty made the words die on his lips. Sighing, he said, “Thomas, it puzzles me why I maintain my friendship with you, for surely your rôle now is to encourage me, not chip away at the foundations of all my hopes. No, she has given me no sign, quite the reverse, and yet it is impossible for me to accept. Now, do not mistake me, for I have no illusions about myself. I am no great catch, either in my person or in my rank in society. A second son and a clergyman, and with her dowry she could do much better, if she wished. But she doesnotwish. She likes me, we get along excessively well, and I flatter myself she enjoys my company above that of any other — yet she rejects me. She rejects the very idea of marriage, and that must be overcome. What else should a woman do with her life but marry, and create a new family? How can she bear to contemplate a life of spinsterhood? It is a mystery to me. Women are strange creatures, Thomas. I understand them not.”
