Reluctant Relation (15 page)

He laughed at that, and could not resist a teasing protest. “I won’t be hustled into a proposal,” he declared. “I’ve prepared it in the best phrases I know. But—” suddenly he stopped as she looked up at him, and then he gathered her into his arms. “I’ve forgotten the phrases,” he said, with his lips against her cheek. “When I see your dear, scared little face, I only know that I love you and that you must love me. Please say that you love me, Meg
.
I can’t bear it if you don’t.”

“I love you. I’ve always loved you,” she told him confusedly.

“Nonsense, my inaccurate little darling,” he declared. “You couldn’t stand me in the beginning. Remember?”

“I just loved you without knowing it,” she insisted.

“Perhaps that was it,” he agreed tenderly. “And who am I to argue with you on such a satisfactory conclusion? Only tell
me, sweet ...
was I completely wrong in thinking for a while you were in love with Dick?
”

“In love with Dick Manners?” She sat up indignantly; “Certainly I wasn’t. Whatever made you think such a thing?”

“Seeing you in his arms, for one thing.”

“Oh ...
that.” She cast her mind back with some difficulty. “That wasn’t anything. He’d been nice
and ...
and comforting about something. And he did fancy himself in love with me for a while, you know.”

“And that was all?”

“Yes, of course that was all. What else would there be?”

“Well, why were you in such a state about something you thought I might have overheard on that occasion?”

“Something? Oh!” She stopped and laughed and blushed. “I thought you heard me tell him I love you.”

“Good lord! You confided in him to that extent?”

“I had to,” she said simply. “I was explaining why I couldn’t marry him.”

“Oh—” he laughed on a note of supreme relief “—I adore you. How I wish I had heard you.”

“I thought you had, for quite a while. But then it turned out that you hadn’t heard anything anyway, and I was sick with disappointment. I felt sure you were
going to marry Felicity, after all ... a
nd I just wanted to die.”

“Well, now you can get enthusiastic about living, instead,” he told her tenderly. “Living with me for the rest of your life. How does that sound?”

“Heavenly,” she said, with a deep sigh. “Remind me about it often, Leigh. I can hardly believe it, even now. Oh, how wonderful that Felicity is married to someone else! I can’t think why Dick was so subdued and apologetic about the news.”

“I think he was a bit shattered ... we all were ... at the way she did it. It does leave Pearl high and dry, doesn’t it?”

“Oh ... Pearl!” With remorse Meg recalled the little girl’s existence. “Yes, of course. How long will Felicity be away?”

“No one seems to know. Least of all Felicity. That’s part of the trouble. What stability Pearl has ever known has now been snatched away from her. The one stable thing in her life is boarding school. A pretty dim thought for a little girl of nine.”

“Oh, but we can give her stability!” Meg cried eagerly.

“We can?”

“Of course. She’ll come to us for her vacation. Any time. She’ll be going back to school next week, and we must see to it that we get married and have a home ready for her before next summer and ... what are you laughing about?”

“You,” he said, picking her up in his arms and kissing her as he laughed. “I think you’re only marrying me to provide Pearl with a home.”

“It’s a good secondary reason,” she assured him, but she laughed too as she returned his kisses. “It’s a wonderful thought, isn’t it? The answer to everything she wants, poor little girl. She said that the people she loves are always going away. Now she needn’t feel that way again. And here she comes, just in time for us to tell her,” Meg added excitedly, as the front door banged and light footsteps came running across the hall.

“Break it to her gently,” Leigh murmured warningly, as the door opened and Pearl came in.

But Meg said, “Good news doesn’t need gentle handling,” and she held out her arms to Pearl.

“Come here, darling! We have something wonderful to tell you. Leigh and I are going to be married, and you’ll have a second home and come to us in the holidays whenever you want!”

“Well, I told you that was the best way long ago,” Pearl declared, as she rushed to embrace Meg. “At least, I wanted to tell you, but you kept saying one shouldn’t make plans for grown-up people. I think one should. They so often don’t really know what they want themselves.”

“Profound and chastening thought,” murmured Leigh, but he stooped to kiss her too.

“What about Mommy?” Pearl went on. “I’ll have to go and stay with her too sometimes. Will she live in Spain, now that she’s married a Spaniard? It’ll be rather fun having a Spanish father, but a bore if I have to learn Spanish. Do you think I’ll be able to have some castanets for Christmas?”

There was a stunned silence while Meg and Leigh looked at each other. Then Pearl opened her eyes very wide and said, “Didn’t you know Mommy had married again?”

“Yes,” Meg admitted feebly. “We knew. We were wondering what was the best way of telling you. But it seems—”
She
stopped, and then asked with curiosity, “How did you know?”

“Miss Pettigrew told me at the post office. I went in to get some licorice, and they’d mended the main line so that telegrams could come through, and there was a telegram from Uncle Dick to you. I offered to take it with me, but Miss Pettigrew said that would be against the rules. But she told me what was in the telegram instead, and that was how I knew.”

“I see,” said Meg, and she began to laugh. Almost immediately Leigh joined in and, after a faintly mystified glance from one to the other, Pearl laughed too.

Their combined mirth must have penetrated the kitchen, because a moment later Mrs. Parker put her head around the door and inquired, “What’s the joke?”

“I don’t ...
quite know,” gasped Meg, wiping her eyes.

But Leigh said, “The joke, Mrs. Parker, is that we all think we have our little secrets, but if one lives in a village that’s pure illusion. So, in order to forestall all inspired guessing, I’m going to tell you our special secret immediately. Miss Meg and I are going to be married.”

“That’s no
secret to me,” Mrs. Parker retorted scornfully. “I’ve seen it coming for a couple of weeks or more. You ask Parker. ‘Mark my words,’ I said, ‘Miss Meg was never cut out to be an old maid, and that Mr. Sontigan’s no fool. They’ll run together like two drops of water, they will,’ I said. And very pleased I am to see it, sir. Very pleased indeed.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Parker,” said the two drops of water in unison, and to both of them it seemed that no comparison could have been sweeter or more apt.