A to Z Classics - Bram Stoker - The Complete Novels

“But, Norah, shall I not be always by your side to ask?” I felt very superior and very strong, as well as very loving, as I spoke.

“Yes, yes; but oh, Arthur, can you not understand? I love you so that I would like to be, even in the eyes of others, all that you could wish. But, dear, you must understand and help me here. I cannot reason with you. Even now I feel my lack of knowledge, and it makes me fearful. Even now” — her voice died away in a sob, and she hid her beautiful eyes with her hand.

“My darling, my darling!” I said to her passionately, all the true lover in me awake, “tell me what it is that you wish, so that I may try to judge with all my heart.”

“Arthur, I want you to let me go to school — to a good school for a while — a year or two before we are married. Oh, I should work so hard! I should try so earnestly to improve, for I should feel that every hour of honest work brought me higher and nearer to your level!”

My heart was more touched than even my passion gave me words to tell; and I tried, and tried hard, to tell her what I felt, and in my secret heart a remorseful thought went up: “What have I done in my life to be worthy of so much love?”

Then, as we sat hand in hand, we discussed how it was to be done, for that it was to be done we were both agreed. I had told her that we should so arrange it that she should go for awhile to Paris, and then to Dresden, and finish up with an English school. That she could learn languages, and that among them would be Italian; but that she would not go to Italy until we went together — on our honey-moon. She bent her head and listened in silent happiness; and when I spoke of our journey together to Italy, and how we would revel in old-world beauty — in the softness and light and colour of that magic land — the delicate porcelain of her shell-like ear became tinged with pink, and I bent over and kissed it. And then she turned and threw herself on my breast, and hid her face.

As I looked I saw the pink spread downward and grow deeper and deeper, till her neck and all became flushed with crimson. And then she put me aside, rose up, and with big brave eyes looked me full in the face through all her deep embarrassment, and said to me:

“Arthur, of course I don’t know much of the great world, but I suppose it is not usual for a man to pay for the schooling of a lady before she is his wife, whatever might be arranged between them afterwards. You know that my dear father has no money for such a purpose as we have spoken of, and so if you think it is wiser, and would be less hardly spoken of in your family, I would marry you before I went — if — if you wished it. But we would wait till after I came from school to — to — to go to Italy,” and while the flush deepened almost to a painful degree, she put her hands before her face and turned away.

Such a noble sacrifice of her own feelings and her own wishes — and although I felt it in my heart of hearts I am sure none but a woman could fully understand it — put me upon my mettle, and it was with truth I spoke:

“Norah, if anything could have added to my love and esteem for you, your attitude to me in this matter has done it. My darling, I shall try hard all my life to be worthy of you, and that you may never, through any act of mine, decline for a moment from the standard you have fixed. God knows I could have no greater pride or joy than that this very moment I should call you my wife. My dear, my dear, I shall count the very hours until that happy time shall come! But all shall be as you wish. You will go to the schools we spoke of, and your father shall pay for them. He will not refuse, I know, and what is needed he shall have. If there be anyway that he would prefer — that suits your wishes — it shall be done. More than this, if he thinks it right, we can be married before you go, and you can keep your own name until my time comes to claim you.”

“No, no, Arthur! When once I shall bear your name I shall be too proud of it to be willing to have any other. But I want, when I do bear it, to bear it worthily — I want to come to you as I think your wife should come.”

“My dear, dear Norah — my wife to be — all shall be as you wish.”

Here we heard the footsteps of Joyce approaching.

“I had better tell him,” she said.

When he came in she had his dinner ready. He greeted me warmly.

“Won’t ye stay?” he said. “Don’t go unless ye wish to.”

“I think, sir, Norah wants to have a chat with you when you have had your dinner.”

Norah smiled a kiss at me as I went out. At the door I turned and said to her:

“I shall be in the Cliff Fields in case I am wanted.”

I went there straightway, and sat on the table rock in the centre of the fields, and thought and thought. In all my thoughts there was no cloud. Each day, each hour, seemed to reveal new beauties in the girl I loved, and I felt as if all the world were full of sunshine, and all the future of hope; and I built new resolves to be worthy of the good fortune which had come upon me.

It was not long before Norah came to me, and said that she had told her father, and that he wished to speak with me. She said that he quite agreed about the school, and that there would be no difficulty made by him on account of any false pride about my helping in the task. We had but one sweet minute together on the rock, and one kiss; and then, hand in hand, we hurried back to the cottage, and found Joyce waiting for us, smoking his pipe.

Norah took me inside, and, after kissing her father, came shyly and kissed me also, and went out. Joyce began:

“Me daughter has been tellin’ me about the plan of her goin’ to school, an’ her an’ me’s agreed that it’s the right thing to do. Of coorse, we’re not of your class, an’ if ye wish for her it is only right an’ fair that she should be brought up to the level of the people that she’s goin’ into. It’s not in me own power to do all this for her, an’ although I didn’t give her the schoolin’ that the quality has, I’ve done already more nor min like me mostly does. Norah knows more nor any girl about here. An’ as ye’re to have the benefit of yer wife’s schoolin’, I don’t see no rayson why ye shouldn’t help in it. Mind ye this, if I could see me way to do it meself, I’d work me arms off before I’d let you or any one else come between her an’ me in such a thing. But it’d be only a poor kind of pride that’d hurt the poor child’s feelin’s, an’ mar her future; an’ so it’ll be as ye both wish. Ye must find out the schools an’ write me about them when ye go back to London.”

I jumped up and shook his hand.

“Mr. Joyce, I am more delighted than I can tell you; and I promise, on my honor, that you shall never in your life regret what you have done.”

“I’m sure of that — Mr. — Mr. —”

“Call me Arthur.”

“Well — I must do it some day — Arthur. An’ as to the matther that Norah told me ye shpoke of — that, if I’d wish it, ye’d be married first. Well, me own mind an’ Norah’s is the same: I’d rather that she come to you as a lady at wance, though, God knows, it’s a lady she is in all ways I iver see one in me life — barrin’ the clothes.”

“That’s true, Mr. Joyce; there is no better lady in all the land.”

“Well, that’s all settled. Ye’ll let me know in good time about the schools, won’t ye? An’ now I must get back to me work,” and he passed out of the house, and went up the hillside.

Then Norah came back, and with joy I told her that all had been settled; and somehow, we seemed to have taken another step up the ascent that leads from earth to heaven, and that all feet may tread which are winged with hope.

Presently Norah sent me away for a while, saying that she had some work to do, as she expected both Dick and myself to come back to tea with them; and I went off to look for Dick.