Love's Way Read Online Free Page A

with it, Chloe.”
    “Beetham? Why should I think anything of the sort?”
    “Well, Beetham used to work for Berkens, and when he left him he went to Leroy, so it might look like a connection, but he was in the tavern at Wingdale Hause the night Leroy’s wool was burned, so it could not have been his doing.”
    “I had not realized such rumours were running around town. We’ll have to be a good deal more careful, if Wingdale is causing these fires and accidents,” I said, feeling a strong sense of alarm.
    The afternoon was unpleasant enough, with the news of our old neighbour losing his farm. It soon deteriorated even further when I spotted Tom Carrick jiggling down the road in his whisky. He often comes to court me on a Sunday afternoon. The rest of the week he is busy, thank goodness. The wooing has taken on an even stronger flavour of distaste since the proposal. I would have refused him by now were it not for Nora’s constant singing of his praises, and my own fears for our future.
    “Why, here is Tom!’’’ she said, glancing up as she stopped to turn the mesh in her netting. How she could imbue one monosyllable with so much approval is a wonder. She drew it out, in a sing-song way, going up and down in tones. The two lovers (Edward and Emily, I mean) turned warm, conspiratorial smiles on me. Soon their gaze reverted to each other. A silent agreement being reached between them, they arose to wander off towards Barwick Pike. As Emily was wearing patent slippers, I trusted they did not have in mind climbing it.
    Tom dismounted and tethered the reins to a tree, then came towards me. He was carrying an ominous bundle, newspaper-wrapped, which was the manner in which he brought his edible offerings of fish and fowl, and an occasional rabbit. “Don’t leave us, Nora,” I said before he got within hearing range. She was unhappy, but obedient.
    I really don’t know why it is I cannot love Tom, or at least like him better than I do, for I am hardly in the springtime of life, where love is all to me. There is nothing amiss in either his appearance or character. He is tall enough (five feet, nine inches), handsome enough (dark hair, fair skin, not deformed in either face or body), rich enough (five thousand per annum), and old enough (thirty-three years). There is just some little je ne sais quoi lacking. Maybe I do sais quoi, but hesitate to relate it. The man is possessed of no single atom of that element whose excess I have been lamenting all these pages in my brother—romance. Like everything else, it is wanted in the proper degree, which is to say in this case, sparingly. When Tom proposed, for example, he complimented me on my good character, my hard work at keeping Ambledown running, my economy, my interest in the local charity work, and my family’s old origins. He mentioned that I would be a useful helpmate to him. Not in just those words, of course, but that was the gist of it.
    I do not denigrate that he took account of these matters, but that it was these and no others he chose to mention at such a time. I did not expect to hear him say, as Captain Wingdale once did, that I was “the prettiest little lady in town”. I am not, but I hope I am not quite an offence to the eyes either. If my brown hair would only turn black, my blue eyes green, my few freckles fade, and my chin shrink about an inch, I think I might be said to possess some claims to beauty.
    Tom was upon us, making his bows and asking permission to take up the chair vacated by Edward, while he looked at his soggy newspaper and his hands and my hands, feeling, I suppose, that he should be making some more formal greeting. He is a little inclined to formality.
    “Have a chair, Tom,” Nora said.
    “Pity about Ronald Leroy,” he commented, sitting down, still holding his bundle. The sun was shining, blackbirds wheeled overhead, and I was wearing a new fichu on my best gown. The man had come courting, but his first words after being seated