The Light Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

to—have to what? Entertain her? She would share his room. Everyonewould think it very odd if she didn’t. The room where now, if he closed the door on himself, no one had any right to intrude. And there was another thing—he faced that too, reluctantly. There might be children, crying and making a noise, running about getting into things—his sister Belle’s babies were an awful nuisance, she said so herself. Phoebe’s child and his—what would it be like? Could it be trained to behave, and not yell?
    By now Miles was very near to begging the whole question, as he had done many times before. Let Phoebe go to England—let her stay there, if she wanted to, and have some other man’s babies, as Virginia was doing. Let her leave him in peace with his books and his irregular hours, reading till dawn, sleeping after lunch, foraging for milk and ginger-bread alone at midnight . No woman could fit herself into his erratic, selfish habits. No woman was worth the effort it would be to him to change them now. No woman—except possibly Phoebe Sprague.
    Last summer when they went to Williamsburg for Aunt Sue’s birthday, which was in August, and the fever came back on him in the hot weather and he had to go to bed in his father’s old room in Grandfather Ransom’s house and miss the party—Phoebe had made iced drinks for him, and came up in her party dress and sat with him most of the evening so he wouldn’t feel out of things—her hands were so cool—he had begged for her hands on his face…. That time he ate the plum pudding at Cousin Sedgwick’s at Christmas and couldn’t eat anything for a week afterwards but milk and eggs—couldn’t get out of bed, even, to come home, till after New Year’s—Phoebe had read to him; Carlyle, they were reading then, and her voice sent him to sleep when nothing else could…. The touching way she always handed over to him her little manuscripts, anxious and embarrassed while he read them … the pretty way she flushed and sparkled when he praised them … the earnestness with which she listened to his judicious criticisms….
    With him to help her, Phoebe might become a successful novelist like Aunt Sue. That would be something to talk about together, wouldn’t it? Perhaps they might collaborate on a book. His step quickened on the grass. They got on so well together, never any quarrels or misunderstandings. Phoebe was much too sensible to quarrel. They understood each other. She would never find anyone in England who understood her as he did. They were such old friends, lifelong friends—surely friends would be happy together, married? If he was going to marry at all, it would have to be Phoebe, she never got on his nerves, never raised her voice, never took offence. He thought of her honest, shining eyes, waiting for his smile, and the cleft in her funny little chin—he thought of her cool, quiet hands on his hot face….
    Miles had bought a seven-volume edition of Fanny d’Arblay’s diaries bound in blue moire, for Phoebe’s birthday present. Before the shop closed that evening he returned it and got his money back. Then he walked three doors down the street to a jeweller’s and bought a garnet ring, set in gold, with chip diamonds. It cost him more than the books. It cost him all the cash money he had saved up. It even cost him his peace of mind for a long time to come.
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    P HOEBE was glad that her Aunt Eden Murray arrived in Williamsburg before Miles did and was there to back her up. (Trust Bracken’s mother, who had been Cabot Murray’s wife, never to betray by the flick of an eyelash that the idea of Phoebe’s going abroad with them had been Sue’s and not her own.) Phoebe was not sure what she felt the need of protection from —she did not flatter herself that Miles would care very much whether she was in England or Williamsburg. But she had decided to go without asking his opinion first, and she had some dim idea that for this Miles might be reproachful.
    He