Читать книгу Period Piece - Gwendolyn Raverat - Страница 9

Aunt Cara writes: 'Why is there something always queer about the legs of those attractive creatures, which catches straight the eyes of the indifferent and makes them think our heroes common?' [Mr. G., you remember, had crooked legs, too.] 'T. is very manly, a good shot, Alpine climber, tennis player, has an income of, I fancy, about £2000 a year'—and Aunt C. here goes into details of what a very good match it would be. But Maud was quite clear that it would not do, even though Mr. T. had rashly bought a large house, hoping to live there with her. George was consulted at once; it must have been difficult for him. Maud writes: 'Dick [Jebb] asked G. D. to find out something about Arcturus [the star] which Dick wished to write in his book. So G.D. came after dinner.... They retired to Dick's study. To my great amusement, instead of talking about Arcturus, they talked about me and Mr T.; G. D. thought Dick had been told. Dick said, "Why it is a splendid match. He is rich, and is a very able man." Age did not make any difference to him evidently.' But George need not have been worried by all this, for Maud writes again: 'Speaking truthfully I am nearly a half-head taller than he is. He is rather stout. His hair is a beautiful wavy dark brown, and he has a nice soft brown beard; I like him as a friend, but nothing more. He is too little; imagine me marrying a man shorter than myself. A short man though will be my fate, as it is only that kind that like me.'

So Aunt Cara wrote a beautiful letter of refusal for Maud to copy; only it must have been rather too beautiful, for Mr. T. did not take it seriously. Aunt Cara writes: 'He admires her frankness and candour (I wrote the letter myself) and he thinks her answer encouraging! Heaven save the mark! Can't any man understand a "NO" unless it is shouted at him? The answer to this [second] letter can't be misunderstood. Still I don't believe he will give it up, unless Maud becomes engaged to someone else. Englishmen are given to take these things more seriously than Americans.... His legs are perfectly straight, which is so much to the good, and his head and shoulders are fine.' Aunt Cara obviously still thought it a pity to throw away such a good bargain; she thinks Maud 'might get to like him', but Maud (as usual) was firm, not to say obstinate. She writes: 'Now don't think I am going to marry Mr T. for I have no idea of so doing. In the first place I do not want to marry over here, in the second I do not like him enough, in the third he is too little, and lastly I should fulfil my predestination and be an old maid, which I intend to do.... That is all, and I have probably refused the only offer I shall ever have.'

So Maud copied out a second refusal; but still Aunt Cara did not give up hope for Mr. T. She writes: 'He is by no means a brilliant match, but I do think he is superior to anyone you are likely to meet in America. As a husband, I believe he would make a woman happier than would G.D. for instance, whose health would always be a very serious drawback. Still, the match is not brilliant; but then think how rarely brilliant matches come in one's way. "Sure, the world is askew", where matrimony is concerned.' She followed this later with a reminder: 'I do pity N. in West Philadelphia, and you too, if you have to go there. It must be awful to see year after year slip by and to live in a place where nothing can happen. Mr T. would be better than that.' Aunt Cara clearly thought that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, for she was not yet sure how serious George might be, though she was very fond of George, and in discussing him had written: 'George has by nature the straightest of lines, a very well-proportioned figure, and a really beautiful forehead. Nobody could call him ugly.' And again: 'Gerald [Balfour] says he has the sweetest, most unspoilt nature.' But she was also rather afraid of appearing to press his claims, in case—as she wrote to George himself, just after his engagement had actually taken place—'the Darwin family might think this was a match of my making. And it wasn't one bit, mind that.... If there is a suspicion I utterly and entirely repudiate, it is that of being a match maker.'

But Maud's views of marriage were less business-like than Aunt Cara's; she had begun to care for George, and Mr. T.'s chance was gone. So poor Mr. T. never married at all, and lived for the rest of his life alone in the large house he had bought.

It is always a fascinating problem to consider who we would have been, if our mother (or our father) had married another person; it is, however, too large a subject to enter into properly here; and I must merely remark that if our father had been Mr. T. we should certainly have had magnificent beards. But then beards are very little use nowadays, especially to females; and we should have lost over the roundabouts—I mean the legs—which are now very important indeed. So no doubt things were all for the best.

After this stirring event the summer ended, and Maud went away and travelled on the Continent, with a different and highly irritating aunt—(whose portrait can be seen on page 114). And my father pursued her; and though he was barely three years younger than Mr. T. and of only medium height, they got engaged at Florence in March 1884. And I must hasten to add that my father's legs were perfectly straight and that he was two or three inches taller than she was. Though, by that time, I believe she would have married him, even if his legs had been crooked.