What your heart is full of your mouth talks about.
After being invited to the shooting and dinner at Brancaster by the people who had rented it, Bertie couldn't stop talking about it.
Or rather - he couldn't stop talking about Lady Edith Crawley.
...
The first week or so, after they had met at Brancaster, Bertie was trying to build up enough courage to call Lady Edith and ask her out. He was going to London in a month, and if he was lucky she would be there at the same time. But he didn't know what to say to her on the phone, he'd better rehearse it or he risked getting tongue-tied.
But what could he say? "I'm Bertie Pelham. We met at Brancaster. Can I ask you out for a drink?" That wouldn't sound important enough even to make a phone-call about.
But if he asked her out for dinner she would probably not accept.
So what could he say to her? He couldn't very well tell her that he was thinking about her all the time. Every moment since he last saw her.
He wasn't even certain that she would remember him.
...
Bertie's mother listened to him with a great deal of amusement when he visited her some days later. He was going on and on about Lady Edith.
She had never seen her son so enthusiastic about a woman before. It was obvious that he had fallen in love. Although he didn't seem to be fully aware of that himself.
But Bertie's mother felt she had to warn him, or else he would be in for a big disappointment. It seemed that he was aiming far too high. An Earl's daughter who was also the owner of a magazine - how could a woman like that ever be happy living with Bertie in his cottage at Brancaster?
Lady Edith had probably enjoyed Bertie's company that day. But that was all there was to it, in his mother's opinion. The lady had most likely forgotten all about Bertie Pelham as soon as he was out of sight.
...
So, after listening to Bertie's Lady Edith this and Lady Edith that for almost an hour, his mother put in a small warning.
"Bertie, please", she said. "I don't want to put a damper on things, and you are obviously very fond of this Lady Edith. But she is an Earl's daughter. I don't want you to be hurt. Just remember that you don't have much to offer. Not to a woman like that."
Bertie just looked at his mother. She was right, of course. He didn't have much to offer Edith. He knew that, that was probably the reason that it was so difficult for him to contact her.
Edith had treated him as an equal when they were together at Brancaster. But he knew perfectly well that he wasn't one.
...
After that Bertie never managed to get over his mother's comment. So he had never dared to make that phone call.
It was lucky that he bumped into Edith in London half a year later.
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