I shall continue asking her.
That’s my future for you.”
We came to the church door. I opened it and we stood in the porch again.
A blackbird, heedless of the rain, was singing from the tree by the church gate, and a butcher’s boy, his tray upon his shoulder, went past it whistling for company, his apron over his head.
“When was the first time that you asked her?” said Louise.
The warmth was with me once again, the candlelight, the laughter. And suddenly no light, and suddenly no laughter.
Only Rachel and myself.
Almost in mockery of midnight, the church clock struck twelve of noon.
“On the morning of my birthday,” I told Louise.
She waited for the final stroke of the bell that sounded so loud above our heads.
“What did she answer you?” she said.
“We spoke at cross purposes,” I answered;
“I thought that she meant yes, when she meant no.”
“Had she read the document at that time?”
“No.
She read that later.
Later, the same morning.”
Below the church gate I saw the Kendall groom and the dogcart.
He raised his whip, at sight of his master’s daughter, and climbed down from the trap.
Louise fastened her mantle and pulled her hood over her hair.
“She lost little time in reading it, then, and driving out to Pelyn to see my father,” said Louise.
“She did not understand it very well,” I said.
“She understood it when she drove away from Pelyn,” said Louise.
“I remember perfectly, as the carriage waited and we stood upon the steps, my father said to her
‘The remarriage clause may strike a little hard.
You must remain a widow if you wish to keep your fortune.’
And Mrs. Ashley smiled at him, and answered,
‘That suits me very well.’ ”
The groom came up the path, bearing the big umbrella.
Louise fastened her gloves.
A fresh black squall came scudding across the sky.
“The clause was inserted to safeguard the estate,” I said, “to prevent any squander by a stranger.
If she were my wife it would not apply.”
“That is where you are wrong,” said Louise.
“If she married you, the whole would revert to you again.
You had not thought of that.”
“But even so?” I said.
“I would share every penny of it with her.
She would not refuse to marry me because of that one clause. Is that what you are trying to suggest?”
The hood concealed her face, but the blue eyes looked out at me, though the rest was hidden.
“A wife,” said Louise, “cannot send her husband’s money from the country, nor return to the place where she belongs.
I suggest nothing.”
The groom touched his hat, and held the umbrella over her head.
I followed her down the path and to the trap, and helped her to her seat.
“I have done you no good,” she said, “and you think me merciless and hard.
Sometimes a woman sees more clearly than a man.
Forgive me for hurting you.
I only want you to be yourself again.”
She leaned to the groom.
“Very well, Thomas,” she said, “we will go back to Pelyn,” and he turned the horse and they went away up the hill to the high road.