Read Online The girl in the blue dress by Mary Burchell - Free Book Online Page B

any rate in
time for you to wear it at the dance."
    Her eyes sparkled. "Shall we, keep the news
of our engagement to ourselves until then?" she suggested. For suddenly. she felt nervous at the
thought of having to mention her news perhaps at Huntingford Grange on the morrow.
    "If you like. Except that I think we should
tell your mother."
    "Oh, of course!"
Beverley agreed.
    And so presently they
strolled back to Beverley's home together, to break the happy news to her mother
and her aunt.
    Mrs. Farman had, of course, known
-Geoffrey well for
years. And, looking at her daughter's "flushed and happy face, she expressed the
utmost pleasure over the engagement. And even Aunt Ellen, though she looked unsuitably glum, produced
some delicious home-made wine, in which to drink a toast to the occasion.
    For half an hour Geoffrey stayed, while they talked
happy generalities. Then he said goodnight and went away, leaving Beverley to
the more particular ques tions and comments
of her mother and her aunt.
    "I suppose, " Mrs. Farman said pensively,
"that I ought to have asked him if he
could provide properly for you, and so on. Since your father is no longer here,
maybe that was my business. But, it seems out of date, somehow, to ask these
things nowadays, when young people make up their minds first, very properly, and
tell their parents afterwards."
    "Oh, it's very out of date, " Beverley
assured her hastily.
    "It is, however, very practical and to the
point, " said Aunt Ellen. "Can he provide properly for you?"
    "I suppose it depends what you mean by
providing for someone, " Beverley replied dryly.
    "I mean what the expression has always meant, " Aunt Ellen stated obstinately. "Can he
assure you a home and an income on which you can both live in reasonable comfort,
according to what you've been used
to?"
    "He has a home, as you know, " Beverley
said rather coldly.
    "That tumbledown cottage?" Aunt Ellen
sniffed eloquently. "I wouldn't want to live there."
    Beverley was sorely tempted to observe that no one had invited her to do so. But she bit her lip,
in order to keep silent, and her mother said pacifically,
    "It will be wonderful to "have you so
near, darling. Have you made any plans
yet about, about when you intend
to marry?"
    "Oh, no!" To Beverley the idea of being
engaged to Geoffrey was, in itself, so
difficult to believe that she could not yet go on confidently to contemplate the
particular circumstances of married life with him.
    "Will you go on working?" enquired Aunt
Ellen, who had a great talent for asking the things that were better left
unasked.
    "I suppose so. In fact, yes, of course I
shall. Why not?"
    Aunt Ellen did not answer that in words, but she shook her head and sighed, which Beverley found
so exasperating that, if she had not caught her mother's amused and sympathetic
glance, she would probably have been really rude to her aunt at that moment.
    However, nothing could cloud her spirits for long. Not even the faint undefined sensation of worry which
lingered still in the background of her mind because of what Toni Wayne had
said. With all her common sense and determination she suppressed that occasional quiver of anxiety. For
in what way could the melodramatic confidences of an imaginative little
girl count against the solid, wonderful fact that Geoffrey had asked her to
marry him?
    She slept, dreamlessly that
night, and woke to a glorious morning
which seemed a fitting accompaniment to the radiant discovery which broke
afresh upon her as she rose to consciousness.
    "I'm engaged to Geoffrey!" she thought, as
she opened her eyes to the sunlight which
was pouring in through the bedroom window:" "He asked me to marry
him. There is nothing to worry about any more. "I'm engaged, to Geoffrey."
    Oddly enough, she had no special urge to share this wonderful fact with anyone, no special temptation
to tell anyone she knew who was with her on the bus that morning. It was enough
that she knew about it herself, and could hug to her