Green Girl by Sara Seale Page A

warmth and friendliness of the snug was welcoming, Harriet thought, aware now that the chill of the lofty, inadequately heated dining-room had penetrated to her very bones. She curled up on the rug beside the dogs.
    “ Have you felt cheated? ” Duff asked suddenly, and she looked up at him in surprise.
    “ How do you mean—cheated? ” she temporised.
    “ Well, it ’ s a big day in a girl ’ s life, I ’ ve alway s understood, and you ’ ve had none of the traditional fripperies and fuss to mark the occasion. ”
    “ It was scarcely that kind of occasion, was it? ” she answered carefully, and saw him frown again.
    “ No. Still, I could, with a little forethought, have supplied a few extra trimmings to satisfy those day-dreams of yours. ”
    “ Well, ” she said, with a valiant attempt to meet him - on his own ground, “ the right clothes might have boosted my morale and done you more credit, but I hadn ’ t allowed for a wedding when I bought them, so it ’ s just as well you didn ’ t plan the conventional rejoicings, isn ’ t it? ”
    Her reaction was new to him and his eyes were faintly troubled. She had seemed so incredibly naive with her absurd dreams and expectations, so eminently suitable to his needs because what he had to offer must surely compensate for those arid years in an orphanage, but he had not, perhaps, allowed for the natural hopes and dreams of any young girl.
    “ Harriet ... ” he began, feeling hesitantly for the-right words, “ our marriage, though one of convenience, doesn ’ t have to stay that way always, you know. Should you ever come to think of me more kindly, I wouldn ’ t condemn you to a life of sterility. ”
    He knew at once, as he saw her eyes widen and her lips part like a surprised child, that he had merely confused her, but her reply was composed enough.
    “ But can one, without love, drift into that kind of relationship? ”
    “ Well, a man certainly can, ” he said with more harshness than he felt because he was b eginning to wish he had never embarked on such dangerous topics with this mere child who had just become his wife with, apparently, no possible conceptions of the demands which, despite their agreement, he still had every right to make. “ Few men are celibate by nature and I no less than others, so love, you see, isn ’ t as important as you think. ”
    She sat on the rug in silence for a minute or so, her head bent so that the long thick hair fell forward, hiding her face from him. He was, she supposed with a prosaic acceptance that might have surprised him, trying to warn her that for all his insistence on a platonic relationship, there might come a time when natural inclinations could get the better of him. Harriet had simple concepts of love and passion derived largely from sentimental novels, but she was not ignorant. The fact that Duff could divorce one emotion from the other might chill, but did not shock her, for orphanage training had insisted from the start that men ’ s needs were different from women ’ s, and should never be confused with more serious declarations.
    Unaware of such composed reactions to his effort to reassure rather than to warn, he sat and watched her, observing the tender little hollow at the base of her neck and wishing quite suddenly to explore it. He experienced that same uncomfortable stirring of compunction he had felt on reflecting that he should have adopted her instead of marrying her. It was not, he realised immediately, a notion that could have been of any possible use to him in the circumstances, and it was too late now to have regrets.
    “ Does Mrs. Dwight live near here? ” she asked suddenly.
    “ No. She ’ s staying with her aunt, Miss Docherty, the other side of the lough. She rather startled you, didn ’ t she , Harriet? ”
    “ Only for the moment because I ’ d thought the portrait was of your wife. She ’ s very lovely, isn ’ t she? ”
    “ Oh, yes—very lovely, and very dangerous.