Page 8 of Mr Collins in Love
“Yes, itisa long time.We are men now, are we not?”
“Aye, sir.”
He gave me a curious look.I thought he would speak more but he did not.Bees buzzed sleepily in the dog-rose that grew about the stable fence and in the scarlet geraniums that glowed in the pot by the water trough.Somewhere off in the coppice, a nightingale sang.
Now we had caught up with our news, so to speak, I thought his next words would be about money.But he did not seem to know how to ask.He simply stood there, so red in the face he put the geraniums to shame, twisting his cap almost apart.
I understood his reluctance, for I was familiar with his situation.One longs to ask—for bread or money or a friend—and yet one cannot.It is not pride, exactly, or not pride alone.It is the knowledge that, afterwards, they will know you are a person who had to ask, and they could use that information against you, if they wished.
I should have to help him.
“Jem.”I used the gentlest tone I could muster.“Do you remember the day we went to Branley Chase and I fell in the eel pond.We were ten, I think.Or perhaps eleven.Do you remember?”
He glanced up, a smile lighting his eyes and lifting his heavy brows.“I do!It were that cold!And you slipped into that pond like a duckling.”
“I was too afraid to go home afterwards, remember?Because I was so wet.”
“Ah.Your Pa would have made a hem stink.”He frowned, remembering.“Where did we go?Weren’t the old boat shed.Happen it were Ilford’s byre?”
“Behind it, I think.And you made a fire so I could dry my jacket.”
“You were that cold you couldn’t talk.Your lips were blue.Like a dead man.”
“I wore your jacket while we waited.Remember?”
“And soon I couldn’t talk either.”He chattered his teeth and rubbed his arms in mimicry, smiling there in the summer heat.“Thought we should both catch our deaths.”
“So did I.But do you remember, Jem?You took off your jacket and gave it to me.I didn’t have to ask.”
“Did I?”He shrugged, not really attending.“But how did we get the fire alight?Jack must’ve been home on leave, I suppose.Must’ve taken his tinderbox.I were lucky if I got away withthatwithout him a-flaying me good and proper.Curious, ain’t it?Remember all of it with you, clear as day, but I disremember what came after.”
“I don’t remember either.But, Jem, don’t you see what I mean?I’ll give you anything you want.You don’t have to ask.Or, at least, you do, but only because I don’t know how much you need.”
He looked at me, eyes widening.“Oh.No.No, no, no.No, Master Willie, sir.That ain’t…it’s not…that ain’t what I…”
“Will a pound do it, Jem?”
I blinked, suddenly cognisant of the most likely reason a man of Jem’s type might ask me for money.He probably wanted to get married.My gut gave a very queer twist and a feeling almost of desolation swept through me.It was probably because once he had the money he would go.
“Or two pounds, perhaps?”I added.“And a new suit of clothes?”
“No, no, sir.It’s very kind, but honest that ain’t what I…I mean, there is something I wanted to ask of you, sir, begging your pardon, but that ain’t it.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh.Then what, Jem?Would you like me to write you a letter of recommendation?”
“Er…well…perhaps if you would write it to yourself, sir.”
“I don’t quite…”
“Well, it’s this, sir.I hope you’ll beg pardon for my asking, but I was hoping as how you might be willing to take me on.I’ll doanything, sir, that I will.And I hope as how the scrapes we got into as boys won’t make you think I’m not a hard worker, for I have learned my lesson at sea and I am not a lad any longer, and I will work all the hours God sends and do anything you ask of me and that’s a promise, sir.And it’s true I don’t know much of cows, sir, or pigs, but I know a little of sheep and of cabbages and potatoes, as you know, and of raspberries, for I learned that under Mr Scatcherd.And…and that is what I was wondering, sir, and why I came.”
I blinked, so surprised my mind went blank.“I thought you wanted money.To get married, probably.”
“No, sir.”His expression was almost reproving.“Ain’t the marrying type.”
