Admiral Wenceslaus, having finished the port, tottered off to bed, eye in hand, singing, ‘The more we are together.’
12
After this rather acrimonious dinner, Albert, noticing that there was a very lovely full moon and that the air outside was warm and mellow, suggested to Jane that they should go out for a little walk. She thought that it would be a good idea. The evenings at Dalloch were apt to be rather boring. Lady Prague had introduced a particularly odious form of paper game, called briefly and appropriately ‘Lists’, which consisted in seeing who could make the longest list of boys’ names, fishes, kinds of material, diseases and such things beginning with a certain letter. As Lady Prague herself always chose both the subject and the letter, and as she invariably won, it was felt, no doubt unjustly, that she sat up for hours every night with a dictionary preparing herself for the next game. The only time they had played anything else it had been at Albert’s suggestion – Consequences, but this was not an unqualified success.
For the erotic Lady Prague to meet the sobered-up Admiral Wenceslaus in a bedroom, undressing; for her to say to him, ‘What about it?’; for him to say to her, ‘My eye!’; for the consequence to be that they had nine children in three lots of triplets; and for the world to say, ‘The only compensation for regurgitation is re-assimilation,’ had been considered too embarrassing to risk repetition. (Albert, accused afterwards of cheating, had hotly denied the charge.)
‘I couldn’t have faced “Lists” again,’ said Jane as they walked away from the castle. ‘Somehow, I seem to get worse and worse at it. Last night, for instance, I couldn’t even think of one vegetable beginning with “c”, of course – cabbage. It was too idiotic; all I could think of was brussels sprouts and broccoli; and I knew they were wrong.’
‘Yes; indeed; it is ghastly. The diseases are the most embarrassing, though.’
‘And the vices. I think it’s a horrid game.’
Albert told her of the conversation that had just taken place in the dining-room and asked what her feelings were on the subject.
‘Oh! the same as yours! All young people must surely agree about that except, I suppose, young soldiers, but I don’t count them anyway.’
Jane had once been in love for a short time with an officer in the Guards and had looked upon the army with a jaundiced eye ever since. (She had treated him abominably.)
‘Mr Buggins agrees with us, too. Of course, he had to qualify his approval with the general listening like that, but I could see exactly what he really meant. I think him so charming; at first he seemed a little tiresome with all his culture and folk-lore and good taste, but now I’m becoming very fond of him. He told us a lot about himself after dinner, but never mentioned anything about his wife. I wonder when all that happened?’
‘Poor man! He looks dreadfully sad, I always think. He’s the only nice one among the grown-ups here, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, indeed he is. I don’t know what would have happened this evening if he hadn’t been there. I should probably have insulted General Murgatroyd even more than I did, and then have been obliged to leave the house, the very last thing I wish to do at the moment.’
Jane suddenly began to feel embarrassed. It had come upon her lately with the certainty born of experience that Albert was falling in love with her, and now she began to think from the absent-minded way in which he spoke and his general manner that he was about to make some sort of declaration. This was the very last thing Jane wanted to happen.
She had been considering the situation and had decided that although she liked Albert more than anybody she had ever met, and although she would probably marry him in the end, she was not at present in love with him. On the other hand she did not at all want to lose him entirely, which might happen if he proposed and was refused. She was anxious for things to go on as they were at present. So she kept up a sort of barrage of rather foolish, nervous chatter.
‘Do you know,’ said Albert interrupting her in the middle of a sentence, and standing still, ‘that I’m in love with you, Jane?’
Her heart sank.
‘Are you, Albert?’ she said faintly, wondering what the next move would be.
There was a silence. Albert, taking her hand, kissed her fingers one by one.
‘Well?’
Jane said nothing. He took her in his arms and began kissing her face.
‘Do you love me, darling?’
Jane felt frightened suddenly of committing herself to anything and said in an unnatural way:
‘Albert, I don’t know – I’m not sure.’
He let go of her at once, saying rather coldly: ‘No, I see. Well, if you change your mind you’d better tell me, will you? Let’s go on walking, it’s such a lovely night.’
She thought this would be almost too embarrassing, but soon felt curiously at her ease, as though nothing had happened at all. They were in a wood of little fir trees which reminded her of a German fairy story she had been fond of as a child. She told it to Albert as they walked along. Presently they came out of the wood on to the open moor. The moon, which was enormous, shone in a perfectly empty sky; the moor looked like the sea. There was a very complete silence.
As they stood there for a moment before turning back, Jane suddenly realized with a wave of feeling how much she loved Albert. She passionately hoped now that he would take her in his arms and kiss her, but he did not do so and a strange feeling of shyness prevented her from making an opening for him.
After standing there for some time in silence they returned to the castle, talking quite naturally
