An Old Man's Love
Blake, and of course introduced himself. "Don't you remember Gordon
at Exeter?"
"John Gordon! Gracious me! Of course I do. What a good fellow you are
to come and look a fellow up! Where have you come from, and where are
you going to, and what brings you to Alresford, beyond the charitable
intention of dining with me? Oh, nonsense! not dine; but you will,
and I can give you a bed too, and breakfast, and shall be delighted
to do it for a week. Ordered your dinner? Then we'll unorder it. I'll
send the boy in and put that all right. Shall I make him bring your
bag back?" Gordon, however, though he assented to the proposition as
regarded dinner, made his friend understand that it was imperative
that he should be at the inn that night.
"Yes," said Blake, when they had settled down to wait for their
dinner, "I am parson here,--a sort of a one at least. I am not only
curate, but live in expectation of higher things. Our squire here,
who owns the living, talks of giving it to me. There isn't a better
fellow living than Mr Furnival, or his wife, or his four daughters."
"Will he be as generous with one of them as with the living?"
"There is no necessity, as far as I am concerned. I came here
already provided in that respect. If you'll remain here till
September, you'll see me a married man. One Kattie Forrester intends
to condescend to become Mrs Montagu Blake. Though I say it as
shouldn't, a sweeter human being doesn't live on the earth. I met her
soon after I had taken orders. But I had to wait till I had some sort
of a house to put her into. Her father is a clergyman like myself, so
we are all in a boat together. She's got a little bit of money, and
I've got a little bit of money, so that we shan't absolutely starve.
Now you know all about me; and what have you been doing yourself?"
John Gordon thought that this friend of his had been most
communicative. He had been told everything concerning his friend's
life. Had Mr Blake written a biography of himself down to the
present period, he could not have been more full or accurate in his
details. But Gordon felt that as regarded himself he must be more
reticent. "I intended to have joined my father's bank, but that came
to grief."
"Yes; I did hear of some trouble in that respect."
"And then I went out to the diamond-fields."
"Dear me! that was a long way."
"Yes, it is a long way,--and rather rough towards the end."
"Did you do any good at the diamond-fields? I don't fancy that men
often bring much money home with them."
"I brought some."
"Enough to do a fellow any good in his after life?"
"Well, yes; enough to content me, only that a man is not easily
contented who has been among diamonds."
"Crescit amor diamonds!" said the parson. "I can easily understand
that. And then, when a fellow goes back again, he is so apt to
lose it all. Don't you expect to see your diamonds turn into
slate-stones?"
"Not except in the ordinary way of expenditure. I don't think the
gnomes or the spirits will interfere with them,--though the thieves
may, if they can get a hand upon them. But my diamonds have, for the
most part, been turned into ready money, and at the present moment
take the comfortable shape of a balance at my banker's."
"I'd leave it there,--or buy land, or railway shares. If I had
realised in that venture enough to look at, I'd never go out to the
diamond-fields again."
"It's hard to bring an occupation of that kind to an end all at
once," said John Gordon.
"Crescit amor diamonds!" repeated the Reverend Montagu Blake, shaking
his head. "If you gave me three, I could easily imagine that I should
toss up with another fellow who had three also, double or quits, till
I lost them all. But we'll make sure of dinner, at any rate, without
any such hazardous proceeding." Then they went into the dining-room,
and enjoyed themselves, without any reference having been made as yet
to the business which had brought John Gordon into the neighbourhood
of Alresford.
"You'll find that port wine rather good. I can't afford claret,
because it takes such a lot to go far enough. To tell the truth, when
I'm alone I confine myself to whisky and water. Blake is a very good
name for whisky."
"Why do you make a ceremony with me?"
"Because it's so pleasant to have an excuse for such a ceremony.
It wasn't you only I was thinking of when I came out just now, and
uncorked the bottle. Think what it is to have a prudent mind. I had
to get it myself out of the cellar, because girls can't understand
that wine shouldn't be treated in the same way as physic. By-the-by,
what brought you into this part of the world at all?"
"I came to see one Mr Whittlestaff."
"What! old William Whittlestaff? Then, let me tell you, you have come
to see as honest a fellow, and as good-hearted a Christian, as any
that I know."
"You do know him?"
"Oh yes, I know him. I'd like to see the man whose bond is better
than old Whittlestaff's. Did you hear what he did about that
young lady who is living with him? She was the daughter of a
friend,--simply of a friend who died in pecuniary distress. Old
Whittlestaff just brought her into his house, and made her his own
daughter. It isn't every one who will do that, you know."
"Why do you call him old?" said John Gordon.
"Well; I don't know. He is old."
"Just turned fifty."
"Fifty is old. I don't mean that he is a cripple or bedridden.
Perhaps if he had been a married man, he'd have looked younger. He
has got a very nice girl there with him; and if he isn't too old to
think of such things, he may marry her. Do you know Miss Lawrie?"
"Yes; I know her."
"Don't you think she's nice? Only my goose is cooked, I'd go in for
her sooner than any one I see about."
"Sooner than your own squire's four daughters?"
"Well,--yes. They're nice girls too. But I don't quite fancy one out
of four. And they'd look higher than the curate."
"A prebendary is as high as a squire," said Gordon.
"There are prebendaries and there are squires. Our squire isn't a
swell, though he's an uncommonly good fellow. If I get a wife from
one and a living from the other, I shall think myself very lucky.
Miss Lawrie is a handsome girl, and everything that she ought to be;
but if you were to see Kattie Forrester, I think you would say that
she was A 1. I sometimes wonder whether old Whittlestaff will think
of marrying."
Gordon sat silent, turning over one or two matters in his mind. How
supremely happy was this young parson with his Kattie Forrester and
his promised living,--in earning the proceeds of which there need
be no risk, and very little labour,--and with his bottle of port
wine and comfortable house! All the world seemed to have smiled
with Montagu Blake. But with him, though there had been much
success, there had been none of the world's smiles. He was aware
at this moment, or thought that he was aware, that the world would
never smile on him,--unless he should succeed in persuading Mr
Whittlestaff to give up the wife whom he had chosen. Then he felt
tempted to tell his own story to this young parson. They were alone
together, and it seemed as though Providence had provided him with a
friend. And the subject of Mary Lawrie's intended marriage had been
brought forward in a peculiar manner. But he was by nature altogether
different from Mr Blake, and could not blurt out his love-story with
easy indifference. "Do you know Mr Whittlestaff well?" he asked.
"Pretty well. I've been here four years; and he's a near neighbour. I
think I do know him well."
"Is he a sort of man likely to fall in love with such a girl as Miss
Lawrie, seeing that she is an inmate of his house?"
"Well," said the parson, after some consideration, "if you ask me, I
don't think he is. He seems to have settled himself down to a certain
manner of life, and will not, I should say, be stirred from it very
quickly. If you have any views in that direction, I don't think he'll
be your rival."
"Is he a man to care much for a girl's love?"
"I should say not."
"But if he had once brought himself to ask her?" said Gordon.
"And if she had accepted him?" suggested the other.
"That's what I mean."
"I don't think he'd let her go very easily. He's a sort of dog whom
you cannot easily persuade to give up a bone. If he has set his heart
upon matrimony, he will not be turned from it. Do you know anything
of his intentions?"
"I fancy that he is thinking of it."
"And you mean that you were thinking of it, too, with the same lady."
"No, I didn't mean that." Then he added, after a pause, "That is
just what I did not mean to say. I did not mean to talk about myself.
But since you ask me the question, I will answer it truly,--I have
thought of the same lady. And my thoughts were earlier in the field
than his. I must say good-night now," he said, rising somewhat
brusquely from his chair. "I have to walk back to Alresford, and must
see Mr Whittlestaff early in the morning. According to your view of
the case I shan't do much with him. And if it be so, I shall be off
to the diamond-fields again by the first mail."
"You don't say so!"
"That is to be my lot in life. I am very glad to have come across you
once again, and am delighted to find you so happy in your prospects.
You have told me everything, and I have done pretty much the same to
you. I shall disappear from Alresford, and never more be heard of.
You needn't talk much about me and my love; for though I shall be out
of the way at Kimberley, many thousand miles from here, a man does
not care to have his name in every one's mouth."
"Oh no," said Blake. "I won't say a word about Miss Lawrie;--unless
indeed you should be successful."
"There is not the remotest possibility of that," said Gordon, as he
took his leave.
"I wonder whether she is fond of him," said the curate to himself,
when he resolved to go to bed instead of beginning his sermon that
night. "I shouldn't wonder if she is, for he is just the sort of man
to make a girl fond of him."
CHAPTER X.
JOHN GORDON AGAIN GOES TO CROKER'S HALL.
On the next morning, when John Gordon reached the corner of the road
at which stood Croker's Hall, he met, outside on the roadway, close
to the house, a most disreputable old man with a wooden leg and a red
nose. This was Mr Baggett, or Sergeant Baggett as he was generally
called, and was now known about all Alresford to be the husband of
Mr Whittlestaff's housekeeper. For news had got abroad, and tidings
were told that Mr Baggett was about to arrive in the neighbourhood
to claim his wife. Everybody knew it before the inhabitants of
Croker's Hall. And now, since yesterday afternoon, all Croker's Hall
knew it, as well as the rest of the world. He was standing there
close to the house, which stood a little back from the road, between
nine and ten in the morning, as drunk as a lord. But I think his
manner of drunkenness was perhaps in some respects different from
that customary with lords. Though he had only one leg of the flesh,
and one of wood, he did not tumble down, though he brandished in the
air the stick with which he was accustomed to disport himself. A lord
would, I think, have got himself taken to bed. But the Sergeant did
not appear to have any such intention. He had come out on to the
road from the yard into which the back-door of the house opened, and
seemed to John Gordon as though, having been so far expelled, he was
determined to be driven no further,--and he was accompanied, at a
distance, by his wife. "Now, Timothy Baggett," began the unfortunate
woman, "you may just take yourself away out of that, as fast as your
legs can carry you, before the police comes to fetch you."
"My legs! Whoever heared a fellow told of his legs when there was