“As serious as that?”

He nodded and looked grave.

“Edwin,” I began.

“Yes, it concerns Edwin.”

“Carleton, is something wrong?”

“By no means. It could be right … very right …”

“Then pray tell me. Why do you beat about the bush?”

“It is you who are beating about bushes … rosebushes. Come and sit down and I’ll tell you at once.”

He had alarmed me, and I allowed myself to be led to the stone seat sheltered by the weeping willow trees.

“Well?” I said.

“I want you to marry me.”

“Marry you!”

“Why not? I’m free now and so are you. It would be the best possible answer to everything.”

“Everything! I’m afraid I don’t …”

He had seized me suddenly so that I was taken off my guard. He was kissing my face and caressing me in a way in which no one but Edwin ever had.

I tried to hold him back, but his strength was greater than mine and clearly he meant to remain in charge of the situation.

I whipped up my anger.

“How dare you!”

“I would dare everything for you,” he said. “Don’t be prudish, Arabella. You know you want me as I want you. Why make a secret of something so obvious?”

“Obvious?” I cried. “To whom?”

“To me, and that’s the one it should be obvious to. I sense it every time we meet. You’re crying out for me. You want me.”

“You have the most extraordinarily high opinion of your charms. I can assure you I want nothing so much at this moment as to be out of your sight.”

He looked at me, his mouth turned down in mock dismay and his eyes alight with mischief.

“Not true,” he said.

“Absolutely true. How dare you take me away from my …”

“Roses,” he supplied.

“From what I want to do to bring me here under false pretences.”

“What false pretences?”

“That something was wrong with Edwin.”

“Something is wrong with Edwin. He’s rapidly become a spoilt child tied to Mama’s apron strings.”

“How dare you! …”

“Speak the truth? The boy needs a guiding hand. Mine. And he’s going to get it. He has to learn that there is something more in the world than love and kisses.”

“From what I’ve heard these things play quite a part in your life.”

“You are speaking of my reputation, which interests you. There is never smoke without fire, so they say, and it is true that I am a man of experience. …”

“Not in bringing up a child.”

“But I am. But for me, your late husband would not have been the man he was. I was the one who brought him up. I was the one who made a man of him.”

“I wonder what his father would say to that.”

“He would confirm my story. He was away from home and Edwin’s mother doted on him just as you do on his namesake.”

“In any case Edwin left England when he was ten years old, I believe, and your shining influence must then have been removed from his life.”

“It is the formative years that are important … from five until ten.”

“How is it that you are so knowledgeable on these matters?”

“It can’t have escaped you that I am knowledgeable on many matters.”

“It has not escaped me that that is your opinion of yourself.”

“It is always better to believe the best of oneself. After all, there are so many people to believe the worst. But enough of this. I want to marry you. You are too young to live as you do. You need a husband. You need me. I have wanted this for a long time, but now that I am free to make the proposal there is no need for further delay.”

“No delay is necessary. Your proposal is declined.”

“Arabella, I am going to marry you.”

“You have forgotten that it takes two to agree to marry.”

“You will agree. I promise you.”

“Don’t be so lavish with your promises. This one is certainly going to be broken.”

He caught my chin in his hand and forced me to look at him. “I can make yet another promise. Once you are mine you will never want to leave me.”

I laughed. A wild excitement had taken possession of me. If I were honest, I would admit that I hadn’t enjoyed anything so much for a long time. It was so wonderful to be able to deflate his pride, to let him know that I had no intention of letting him tell me what I should do.

“Then … I shall never be yours, as you put it.”

“Don’t be too sure of that.”

“I am completely sure of it.”

“You are making a mistake, Arabella.”

“In refusing your offer?”

“No, in thinking that I shall not take you.”

“You talk as though I’m a pawn on a chess board.”

“More important than that. A very important piece, in fact. My queen.”

“Still to be used at your will.”

“Yes,” he said, “at my will.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” I rose.

“I have not,” he said, and rising with me placed both his hands on my shoulders and forced me down on the seat.

“I see that you would make a rough-mannered husband,” I said.

“When the occasion demands it, but on every occasion you will find me just the right husband for you.”

I said seriously: “There has only been one who can be that and I thank God that he was, even briefly.”

He raised his eyes to the sky. “The sainted Edwin,” he said.

“Pray do not mock him.”

“You are like everyone else, Arabella. You disappoint me. I always thought you were different. As soon as a man’s heart ceases to beat he becomes a saint.”

“I did not say Edwin was a saint. I said he was the most wonderful man I ever knew or ever shall know and no one else can take his place with me.”

“It’s a mistake to deify human beings, Arabella.”

“I loved Edwin,” I said seriously. “I still love Edwin. Can’t you understand? No one … no one … can take his place with me.”

“You’re wrong. Someone will supplant him. That is what you are going to discover when you marry me.”

“I want to hear no more.”

“You shall hear more. I am going to talk to you …”

He was silent suddenly and I looked at him in amazement. His mood had changed. He said: “Do you think I am afraid of the dead? I am afraid of no one, Arabella. Certainly not saints with feet of clay. They can topple so easily.”

“Stop sneering at Edwin. You are unworthy to unlatch his boots.”

“Boots are no longer unlatched and that remark would be considered highly irreverent by Jasper.”

“I am not concerned with Jasper.”

“But you should be concerned with truth.”

“I am going back to my roses,” I said. “Your wife is so recently dead …”

“Barbary would laugh at that if she heard you. You know what our marriage was like.”

“All the more reason why I should refuse you. She has set an example of what not to do.”

“But you are not Barbary.”

“You would never be faithful to any woman.”

“A challenge, my dearest Arabella. Just think how exciting it would be for her to make me.”

“She might not think it worth the trouble. Barbary didn’t.”

“Poor Barbary. She knew it would be hopeless. But why do we constantly talk of the dead? I’m alive. You’re alive. We’re two vital people. You’ve been only half alive for many years, it’s true. Come out of your shell and live.”

“My life has been full and interesting. I have had my child.”

“Oh, come. You have shut yourself in with the dead. You have built a shrine and worshipped at it. It’s a false shrine. Edwin is dead. You are alive. You have a child. You need me. I can make you happy. I can help bring up your son. We’ll have our own … sons and daughters. I want you, Arabella. From the moment I saw you, I wanted you. All this time I have been patient. But I can stand aside no longer. I’m going to wake you up … show you what you have been missing. You’re a woman, Arabella, not a romantic girl.”

“I know exactly what I am, Carleton. I know what I want and that it is not to marry you. Now … good afternoon.”

I stood up and started to stalk away, but as I did so I tripped over the rose basket. He caught me and his arms were round me. I felt him tilt back my head and kiss my throat. I was overcome by horror because I wanted him to go on. He had aroused memories of lovemaking with Edwin and I felt ashamed of my feelings.

I forced myself back from him and he looked at me mockingly, still holding me.

“Pride goeth before a fall,” he said. “If I had not been here to rescue you, you would have slipped. You see, it’s symbolic. You need me to protect you.”

“I never needed anything less.”

“One thing I insist on in my wife is truthfulness.”

“And I hope when you find one you will give her the same in return.”

“Why fight the inevitable?”

“I think you are the most arrogant man I have ever met.”

“I confess you are not the first to have told me this.”

I wrenched myself free and turned away. I broke into a run, but he was beside me, the rose basket on one arm, the other he thrust through mine and held it tightly against him.

“Now, dearest Arabella, you will go into the house and think over what I have said. Remember again how delightful it was when I held you in my arms. Brood on the pleasures that await us both. Then you can think of Edwin … the living one, I mean. Let us forget that other. He is dead and gone and best not brought back to live in your thoughts. You are better without him. Forget the past, Arabella. Perhaps it wasn’t quite what you thought. Pictures are different when seen from afar. It is wise not to look too closely at them. So look ahead. Just think what this would mean. This our home for the rest of our lives. So many problems are solved.”

“I begin to see your motives.”

“It is very agreeable when so many things are in our favour.”

“You have always wanted Eversleigh, haven’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“And it will come to Edwin. You want to control it …”

“I control Eversleigh now, Arabella. I have since I was of an age to do so. My uncle being in the King’s army cannot give his estates the attention they need. We have always realized that.”

“But there will come a time when Edwin is of age …”

“We have much to enjoy before that day. Let us make the best of life.”

I wrenched myself free from him. “I shall certainly not do that with you,” I said.

I ran into the house, leaving him standing there holding the rose basket.

I did not miss it until much later, which showed to what a state he had reduced me. I could not stop thinking of him, and I tried hard to think of Edwin and how much I had loved him and how wonderful our life would have been. As if anything could ever be like that again, even with a kind and gentle man like Geoffrey.

I avoided Carleton. This seemed to amuse him. When we were together in the company of others, I would find his eyes on me, mocking. What arrogance, I thought. He really believes I shall find him irresistible.

There was a great deal of anxiety over the Dutch war and we were constantly hearing disturbing news. Everyone was talking about the chain shot which the Dutch had invented and which was doing such harm to our ships, and orders were given that cattle must be driven off Romney Marsh in case the Dutch should come in and steal them. In July we won a victory over them, but there were great losses on both sides.

However it was decided in August that there should be a thanksgiving service and Lord Eversleigh thought we should go to London to take part in it.

Geoffrey came down to Eversleigh to tell us about the service and what was going on in London. The weather had been much cooler and there was great relief that there had been no return of the plague that summer. There was a serenity about Geoffrey as though he had come to some conclusion. I guessed what it was, and I was right, because during that visit he asked me to marry him.

It seemed strange that I should have had two proposals of marriage within a few weeks of each other, but perhaps not so strange. I was sure Carleton had suspected Geoffrey would ask me soon and wanted to get in first. That amused me. At the same time I did not want Geoffrey to ask me … yet. I had been considering marriage with him for some time, and there had been occasions when I had almost convinced myself that it would have been perhaps the best thing. Now I was very uncertain.

He had brought new kites for the boys, and they were very eager to try them so we took them out-of-doors and I watched Geoffrey with the children and noticed how they shouted to him and treated him as though he were an elder brother—young enough to play with them and yet older to have special knowledge and give them help when needed.