I'll Never Marry! by Juliet Armstrong

Author:Juliet Armstrong [Armstrong, Juliet]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

Whatever Catherine felt about the “surprise” so carefully planned for her—and her emotions were decidedly mixed—she had no time for comment of any kind.

Andrew’s long, deliberate stride—the characteristic stride of a farmer, she had often thought, brought him abreast with them now; and taking her hand in his, he smiled down at her, an air of school-boyish mischief on his tanned features, and wished her, “Many happy returns.”

“But I’ve an apology to make,” he went on, forgetting, it seemed, to free her hand. “Queer how I always seem to be apologizing to you, isn’t it! This time it is because, having accepted the invitation to your party, I find I can’t stay.”

Now she discovered that her feelings were not mixed at all. A sharp sense of disappointment pervaded her, and her smile, as she disengaged her hand, was cool.

“It was absurd of Ruth to ask you,” she said lightly, able to speak freely since the children had already scattered, leaving her alone with Andrew. “When she sprang it on me just now I was horrified.”

The laughter died out of his blue eyes. “That’s a pretty unfriendly word to use,” he observed abruptly “You wouldn’t have been so dismayed, I suppose, had they invited Geoffrey Barbin along.”

She flushed, her thoughts going at once to Hilda, and her sharp jealousy. “Indeed I should,” she declared ingenuously. “More so, in fact.”

The glance he bent on her now was bewildered. “What a funny child you are!” he remarked. “I can’t make head or tail of you, sometimes.”

Just for a second she was swept by a secret, irrational delight. If he could use that word “child” to her, surely she was not the hopelessly dull, foredoomed spinster she had felt herself to be of recent years at Hilliton; surely he found her—likeable.

The next instant, however, common sense made her shrug the compliment aside and, forced by her uncompromising honesty, she flashed back at him “Child! Do you realize that I’m twenty-eight today?”

Oddly enough he showed no signs of discomfiture at this painful revelation. “Heavens, how ancient,” he mocked. “But I’m even more of a Methuselah. I was seven when you made your bow to the world. Of course, by using a hair-restorer every morning and lacing myself well into my clothes—”

She broke into a gust of laughter at his nonsense, and he went on then, impetuously. “Listen! I’m frightfully sorry I can’t stop and picnic with you and the kids. I’d have loved it. But I have to go and give a hand with a sick cow—a very Valuable Friesian. Can you make it all right with the children—and incidentally see they don’t spoil my trees? I don’t preserve any game round here, so there’s no need to worry on that account.”

“I’m sorry you can’t stay, too.” Somehow as she smiled up at him she felt more at ease with him than ever before. “You don’t know what you’re missing—lemonade and doughnuts—”

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