I have no desire to look at anybody’s daughter.”
“There is heavy betting upon Louise,” she said; “quite a number say that she will get you in the end.
And the third Miss Pascoe has a sporting chance.”
“Great heaven!” I exclaimed.
“Belinda Pascoe?
I’d as soon marry Katie Searle, who does the washing.
Really, cousin Rachel, you might protect me.
Why not tell these gossips I’m a recluse and spend all my spare time scribbling Latin verses?
That might shake them.”
“Nothing will shake them,” she answered.
“The thought that a good-looking young bachelor should like solitude and verse would make you sound all the more romantic.
These things whet appetite.”
“Then they’ll feed elsewhere,” I replied.
“What staggers me is the way in which the minds of women in this part of the world—perhaps it’s the same everywhere—run perpetually upon marriage.”
“They haven’t much else to think about,” she said; “the choice of fare is small.
I do not escape discussion, I can tell you.
A list of eligible widowers has been given me.
There is a peer down in west Cornwall declared to be the very thing.
Fifty, an heir, and both daughters married.”
“Not old St. Ives?” I said in tones of outrage.
“Why, yes, I believe that is the name.
They say he’s charming.”
“Charming, is he?” I said to her.
“He’s always drunk by midday, and creeps around the passages after the maids.
Billy Rowe, from the Barton, had a niece in service there.
She had to come back home, she grew so scared.”
“Who’s talking gossip now?” said cousin Rachel.
“Poor Lord St. Ives, perhaps if he had a wife he wouldn’t creep about the passages.
It would, of course, depend upon the wife.”
“Well, you’re not going to marry him,” I said with firmness.
“You could at least invite him here to dinner?” she suggested, her eyes full of that solemnity that I had learned now spelled mischief.
“We could have a party, Philip.
The prettiest young women for you, and the best-favored widowers for me.
But I think I have made my choice.
I think, if I am ever put to it, I will take your godfather, Mr. Kendall.
He has a fair direct way of speaking, which I much admire.”
Maybe she did it on purpose, but I rose to the bait, exploding.
“You cannot seriously mean it?” I said.
“Marry my godfather?
Why damn it, cousin Rachel, he’s nearing sixty; and he’s never without a chill or some complaint.”
“That means he doesn’t find warmth or comfort inside his house as you do,” she answered me.
I knew then that she was laughing, so laughed with her; but afterwards I wondered about it with mistrust.
Certainly my godfather was most courteous when he came on Sundays, and they got on capitally together.
We had dined there once or twice, and my godfather had sparkled in a way unknown to me.
But he had been a widower for ten years.
Surely he could not entertain so incredible an idea as to fancy his chance with my cousin Rachel?
And surely she would not accept?
I went hot at the thought.
My cousin Rachel at Pelyn. My cousin Rachel, Mrs. Ashley, becoming Mrs. Kendall.
How monstrous!