away from everything?
I can't bear even to think of Ainswick, do you understand? You mean well, Edward, but you're cruel! Saying things-just saying things…'
They faced each other, seriously incommoding the lunchtime crowd in Shaftesbury Avenue. Yet they were conscious of nothing but each other. Edward was staring at her like a man suddenly aroused from sleep.
He said, 'All right then, damn it. You're coming to Ainswick by the 2:15!'
He raised his stick and hailed a passing taxi. It drew into the curb. Edward opened the door and Midge, slightly dazed, got in.
Edward said 'Paddington Station' to the driver and followed her in.
They sat in silence. Midge's lips were set together. Her eyes were defiant and mutinous.
Edward stared straight ahead of him.
As they waited for the traffic lights in Oxford Street, Midge said disagreeably:
'I seem to have called your bluff.'
Edward said shortly:
'It wasn't bluff.'
The taxi started forward again with a jerk.
It was not until the taxi turned left in Edgware Road into Cambridge Terrace that Edward suddenly regained his normal attitude to life.
He said, 'We can't catch the 2:15,' and tapping on the glass he said to the driver, 'Go to the Berkeley.'
Midge said coldly, 'Why can't we catch the 2:15? It's only twenty-five past one now.'
Edward smiled at her.
'You haven't got any luggage, little Midge. No nightgowns or toothbrushes or country shoes. There's a 4:15, you know.
We'll have some lunch now and talk things over.'
Midge sighed.
'That's so like you, Edward. To remember the practical side. Impulse doesn't carry you very far, does it? Oh, well, it was a nice dream while it lasted.'
She slipped her hand into his and gave him her old smile.
'I'm sorry I stood on the pavement and abused you like a fishwife,' she said. 'But you know, Edward, you were irritating.'
'Yes,' he said, 'I must have been.'
They went into the Berkeley happily side by side. They got a table by the window and Edward ordered an excellent lunch.
As they finished their chicken. Midge sighed and said, 'I ought to hurry back to the shop. My time's up.'
'You're going to take decent time over your lunch today, even if I have to go back and buy half the clothes in the shop!'
'Dear Edward, you are really sweet.'
They ate crepes suzette and then waiter brought them coffee. Edward stirred his sugar in with his spoon.
He said gently: 'You really do love Ainswick, don't you?'
'Must we talk about Ainswick? I've sirvived not catching the 2:15-and I quite realize that there isn't any question of the 4:15-but don't rub it in.'
Edward smiled.
'No, I'm not proposing that we catch the 4:15. But I am suggesting that you come to Ainswick, Midge. I'm suggesting that you come there for good-that is, if you can put up with me.'
She stared at him over the rim of her coffee cup-put it down with a hand that she managed to keep steady.
'What do you really mean, Edward?'
'I'm suggesting that you should marry me. Midge. I don't suppose that I'm a very romantic proposition. I'm a dull dog, I know that, and not much good at anything-I just read books and potter around. But although I'm not a very exciting person, we've known each other a long time and I think that Ainswick itself would-well, would compensate I think you'd be happy at Ainswick, Midge. Will you come?'
Midge swallowed once or twice-then she said:
'But I thought-Henrietta-' and stopped.
Edward said, his voice level and unemotional:
'Yes, I've asked Henrietta three times to marry me. Each time she has refused. Henrietta knows what she doesn't want.'
There was a silence, and then Edward said:
'Well, Midge dear, what about it?'
Midge looked up at him. There was a catch in her voice. She said:
'It seems so extraordinary-to be offered heaven on a plate as it were, at the Berkeley!'
His face lighted up. He laid his hand over hers for a brief moment.
'Heaven on a plate,' he said. 'So you feel like that about Ainswick… Oh, Midge, I'm glad.'
They sat there happily. Edward paid the bill and added an enormous tip.
The people in the restaurant were thinning out. Midge said with an effort:
'We'll have to go…I suppose I'd better go back to Madame Alfrege. After all, she's counting on me. I can't just walk out.'
'No, I suppose you'll have to go back and resign, or hand in your notice, or whatever you call it. You're not to go on working there, though. I won't have it. But first I thought we'd better go to one of those shops in Bond Street where they sell rings.'
'Rings?'
'It's usual, isn't it?'
Midge laughed.
In the dimmed lighting of the jeweller's shop. Midge and Edward bent over trays of sparkling engagement rings, whilst a discreet salesman watched them benignantly.
Edward said, pushing away a velvet-covered tray:
'Not emeralds.'
Henrietta in green tweeds-Henrietta in an evening dress like Chinese jade…
No, not emeralds…
Midge pushed away the tiny stabbing pain at her heart.
'Choose for me,' she said to Edward.
He bent over the tray before them. He picked out a ring with a single diamond. Not a very large stone, but a stone of beautiful colour and fire.
'I like this.'
Midge nodded. She loved this display of Edward's unerring and fastidious taste.
She slipped it on her finger as Edward and the shopman drew aside.
Edward wrote out a check for three hundred and forty-two pounds and came back to Midge smiling.
He said, 'Let's go and be rude to Madame Alfrege…'
Chapter XXV
'But, darlings, I am so delighted!'
Lady Angkatell stretched out a fragile hand to Edward and touched Midge softly with the other.
'You did quite right, Edward, to make her leave that horrid shop and to bring her right down here. She'll stay here, of course, and be married from here-St. George's, you know, three miles by the road, though only a mile through the woods, but then one doesn't go to a wedding through woods. And I suppose it will have to be the Vicar-poor man, he has such dreadful colds in the head every Autumn-the Curate, now, has one of those high Anglican voices, and the whole thing would be far more impressive-and more religious, too, if you know what I
