"Robin McKinley - Water" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

being beautiful at his parentsтАЩ expense, and that it was time that he put his beauty to what he had always
known was its purpose: to find himself a wife who would keep him comfortably.
He had known about Jenny for as long as she had known about him, for it was his habit to ask about
every girl he saw, and he had asked about her on the very day she had first seen him. But, vain as he
was, he did not know that she loved him, for she was that clever at hiding it. He found her such a dreary,
dim little thing that even though he did not forget about her, in the four years since he had first been told
about her parentsтАЩ farm and the fact that she was the only and much beloved child, he had not been able
to bring himself to flirt with her. There were other, prettier, livelier girls that pleased him better. But this
year, the year that she was eighteen and he twenty, he decided the time had come, and he had steeled
himself to do what he had by this time convinced himself was his duty; and, looking for her at the harvest
fair, had been astonished at the change in her, at the sparkle in her eye and the straight, elegant way she
carried herself. Without inquiring about the source of the change, either to her or to himself, he found that
his duty was not quite as dreadful as he had expected. He flirted with her and she, hesitantly, responded.
She had seen him flirt with other girls. And he had to admit, by her response, that she might be dim but
she was not unintelligent. And so to keep her interest he had to ... put himself out a little.
He came to call on her at her parentsтАЩ farm, and was charming to her parents. She had told him that
she was being sent off to stay a season with her parentsтАЩ relatives in the city, and while she did not tell
him why, he could guess. She told him that they were due to leave in a fortnightтАЩs time. The day before
they would have left, he asked her to marry him.
The warmth of her kiss when she answered him yes startled him; and again he thought that perhaps
doing his duty would not be so dreadful after all, for if she was not as pretty as some, still the armful of
her was good to hold, and she loved him, of course, as he expected her to.
She did love him. And she believed that he loved her, for he had told her so. She thought she would
have knownтАФfor such was her acuteness about anything to do with him, and her mother had many
friends who came joking and gossiping around, and she always listenedтАФif he had ever proposed
marriage to any of the other girls he had been seen with over the last four years. And if he did not love
her, why else would he have proposed? For marriage was for life, and a husband and wife must come
first with each other for all the days of it.
She knew, for she was not unintelligent, about the pragmatic facts of being a third son; but she was
also innocent, and in love. She could not believe that any man would take a wife wholly on account of her
inheritance.
Her parents saw that she was in love, and rejoiced for her, or they tried to, for they could not rejoice
in her choice, and they were put to some difficulty not to let her know their misgivings. Their guess of the
likeliest inspiration for his proposal was not clouded with love or innocence; and they too knew about his
position as third son. But, they comforted themselves, they knew nothing against him, but that he was a
bit over-merry in a way that they perhaps were wrong to dislike, for they were old and he was young;
and they knew also that he was not much given to hard work; but this too might be on account of his
youth, and his undeniable beauty, which had encouraged people to spoil him a little. Naught had ever
been said truly against him. He was only twenty; perhaps he had realised it was time to settle down, and
had made choice of their daughter by recognising her real worth, including that she might settle a husband
she lovedтАФperhaps he did love her, for that reason. Not for the sake of her parentsтАЩ farm. Not only for
the sake of her parentsтАЩ farm, for they never tried to tell themselves that the farm had no place in his
calculations. Many marriages, they said to each other, are built on less; and she loved him enough for
both, and perhaps he would grow to love her as much, for he wasтАФhe was good-natured enough, they
thought. There was no meanness in him, just carelessness and vanity.
But when he sat in their kitchen or sitting-room with them and their daughter, they did not like it that
he did not seem to notice when she smiled, he did not seem to love that bright look of gentleness and
humour and intelligence; he did not seem to see it. He petted her, as he might a little dog that sat
adoringly at his feet, and her parents tried not to like him less for enjoying that their daughter adored him
in such a way.