An Old Man's Love
lady," said he, "is supposed to be in the ascendant just at the
present moment. She can't be married above two or three times at the
most. I say this to excuse myself to Miss Lawrie, who ought perhaps
to have the post of honour." To this some joking reply was made,
and they all sat down to their dinner. Miss Lawrie was at Mr Hall's
left hand, and at her left hand John Gordon was seated. Mary could
perceive that everything was arranged so as to throw herself and John
Gordon together,--as though they had some special interest in each
other. Of all this Mr Whittlestaff saw nothing. But John Gordon did
perceive something, and told himself that that ass Blake had been at
work. But his perceptions in the matter were not half as sharp as
those of Mary Lawrie.
"I used to be very fond of your father, Gordon," said Mr Hall, when
the dinner was half over. "It's all done and gone now. Dear, dear,
dear!"
"He was an unfortunate man, and perhaps expected too much from his
friends."
"I am very glad to see his son here, at any rate. I wish you were not
going to settle down so far away from us."
"Kimberley is a long way off."
"Yes, indeed; and when a fellow gets out there he is apt to stay, I
suppose."
"I shall do so, probably. I have nobody near enough to me here at
home to make it likely that I shall come back."
"You have uncles and aunts?" said Mr Hall.
"One uncle and two aunts. I shall suit their views and my cousins'
better by sending home some diamonds than by coming myself."
"How long will that take?" asked Mr Hall. The conversation was kept
up solely between Mr Hall and John Gordon. Mr Whittlestaff took no
share in it unless when he was asked a question, and the four girls
kept up a whisper with Miss Forrester and Montagu Blake.
"I have a share in rather a good thing," said Gordon; "and if I could
get out of it so as to realise my property, I think that six months
might suffice."
"Oh, dear! Then we may have you back again before the year's out?"
Mr Whittlestaff looked up at this, as though apprised that the
danger was not yet over. But he reflected that before twelve months
were gone he would certainly have made Mary Lawrie his wife.
"Kimberley is not a very alluring place," said John Gordon. "I don't
know any spot on God's earth that I should be less likely to choose
as my abiding resting-place."
"Except for the diamonds."
"Except for the diamonds, as you remark. And therefore when a man has
got his fill of diamonds, he is likely to leave."
"His fill of diamonds!" said Augusta Hall.
"Shouldn't you like to try your fill of diamonds?" asked Blake.
"Not at all," said Evelina. "I'd rather have strawberries and cream."
"I think I should like diamonds best," said Mary. Whereupon Evelina
suggested that her younger sister was a greedy little creature.
"As soon as you've got your fill of diamonds, which won't take
more than six months longer," suggested Mr Hall, "you'll come back
again?"
"Not exactly. I have an idea of going up the country across the
Zambesi. I've a notion that I should like to make my way out
somewhere in the Mediterranean,--Egypt, for instance, or Algiers."
"What!--across the equator? You'd never do that alive?"
"Things of that kind have been done. Stanley crossed the continent."
"But not from south to north. I don't believe in that. You had better
remain at Kimberley and get more diamonds."
"He'd be with diamonds like the boy with the bacon," said the
clergyman; "when prepared for another wish, he'd have more than he
could eat."
"To tell the truth," said John Gordon, "I don't quite know what I
should do. It would depend perhaps on what somebody else would join
me in doing. My life was very lonely at Kimberley, and I do not love
being alone."
"Then, why don't you take a wife?" said Montagu Blake, very loudly,
as though he had hit the target right in the bull's-eye. He so spoke
as to bring the conversation to an abrupt end. Mr Whittlestaff
immediately looked conscious. He was a man who, on such an occasion,
could not look otherwise than conscious. And the five girls, with all
of whom the question of the loves of John Gordon and Mary Lawrie had
been fully discussed, looked conscious. Mary Lawrie was painfully
conscious; but endeavoured to hide it, not unsuccessfully. But in
her endeavour she had to look unnaturally stern,--and was conscious,
too, that she did that. Mr Hall, whose feelings of romance were not
perhaps of the highest order, looked round on Mr Whittlestaff and
Mary Lawrie. Montagu Blake felt that he had achieved a triumph.
"Yes," said he, "if those are your feelings, why don't you take a
wife?"
"One man may not be so happy as another," said Gordon, laughing. "You
have suited yourself admirably, and seem to think it quite easy for a
man to make a selection."
"Not quite such a selection as mine, perhaps," said Blake.
"Then think of the difficulty. Do you suppose that any second Miss
Forrester would dream of going to the diamond-fields with me?"
"Perhaps not," said Blake. "Not a second Miss Forrester--but somebody
else."
"Something inferior?"
"Well--yes; inferior to my Miss Forrester, certainly."
"You are the most conceited young man that I ever came across," said
the young lady herself.
"And I am not inclined to put up with anything that is very
inferior," said John Gordon. He could not help his eye from glancing
for a moment round upon Mary Lawrie. She was aware of it, though no
one else noticed it in the room. She was aware of it, though any one
watching her would have said that she had never looked at him.
"A man may always find a woman to suit him, if he looks well
about him," said Mr Hall, sententiously. "Don't you think so,
Whittlestaff?"
"I dare say he may," said Mr Whittlestaff, very flatly. And as he
said so he made up his mind that he would, for that day, postpone the
task of telling Mr Hall of his intended marriage.
The evening passed by, and the time came for Mr Whittlestaff to
drive Miss Lawrie back to Croker's Hall. She had certainly spent a
most uneventful period, as far as action or even words of her own was
concerned. But the afternoon was one which she would never forget.
She had been quite, quite sure, when she came into the house; but she
was more than sure now. At every word that had been spoken she had
thought of herself and of him. Would he not have known how to have
chosen a fit companion,--only for this great misfortune? And would
she have been so much inferior to Miss Forrester? Would he have
thought her inferior to any one? Would he not have preferred her to
any other female whom the world had at the present moment produced?
Oh, the pity of it; the pity of it!
Then came the bidding of adieu. Gordon was to sleep at Little
Alresford that night, and to take his departure by early train on the
next morning. Of the adieux spoken the next morning we need take no
notice, but only of the word or two uttered that night. "Good-bye,
Mr Gordon," said Mr Whittlestaff, having taken courage for the
occasion, and having thought even of the necessary syllables to be
spoken.
"Good-bye, Mr Whittlestaff," and he gave his rival his hand in
apparently friendly grasp. To those burning questions he had asked he
had received no word of reply; but they were questions which he would
not repeat again.
"Good-bye, Mr Gordon," said Mary. She had thought of the moment
much, but had determined at last that she would trust herself to
nothing further. He took her hand, but did not say a word. He took it
and pressed it for a moment, and then turned his face away, and went
in from the hall back to the door leading to the drawing-room. Mr
Whittlestaff was at the moment putting on his great-coat, and Mary
stood with her bonnet and cloak on at the open front door, listening
to a word or two from Kattie Forrester and Evelina Hall. "Oh, I wish,
I wish it might have been!" said Kattie Forrester.
"And so do I," said Evelina. "Can't it be?"
"Good-night," said Mary, boldly, stepping out rapidly into the
moonlight, and mounting without assistance to her place in the open
carriage.
"I beg your pardon," said Mr Hall, following her; but there came not
a word from her.
Mr Whittlestaff had gone back after John Gordon. "By-the-by," he
said, "what will be your address in London?"
"The 'Oxford and Cambridge' in Pall Mall," said he.
"Oh, yes; the club there. It might be that I should have a word to
send to you. But I don't suppose I shall," he added, as he turned
round to go away. Then he shook hands with the party in the hall, and
mounting up into the carriage, drove Mary and himself away homewards
towards Croker's Hall.
Not a word was spoken between them for the first mile, nor did a
sound of a sob or an audible suspicion of a tear come from Mary. Why
did those girls know the secret of her heart in that way? Why had
they dared to express a hope as to an event, or an idea as to a
disappointment, all knowledge of which ought to be buried in her own
bosom? Had she spoken of her love for John Gordon? She was sure that
no word had escaped her. And were it surmised, was it not customary
that such surmises should be kept in the dark? But here these young
ladies had dared to pity her for her vain love, as though, like some
village maiden, she had gone about in tears bewailing herself that
some groom or gardener had been faithless. But sitting thus for the
first mile, she choked herself to keep down her sobs.
"Mary," at last he whispered to her.
"Well, Mr Whittlestaff?"
"Mary, we are both of us unhappy."
"I am not unhappy," she said, plucking up herself suddenly. "Why do
you say that I am unhappy?"
"You seem so. I at any rate am unhappy."
"What makes you so?"
"I did wrong to take you to dine in company with that man."
"It was not for me to refuse to go."
"No; there is no blame to you in it;--nor is there blame to me. But
it would have been better for us both had we remained away." Then he
drove on in silence, and did not speak another word till they reached
home.
"Well!" said Mrs Baggett, following them into the dining-room.
"What do you mean by 'well'?"
"What did the folks say to you at Mr Hall's? I can see by your face
that some of them have been saying summat."
"Nobody has been saying anything that I know of," said Mr
Whittlestaff. "Do you go to bed." Then when Mrs Baggett was gone,
and Mary had listlessly seated herself on a chair, her lover again
addressed her. "I wish I knew what there is in your heart." Yet she
would not tell him; but turned away her face and sat silent. "Have
you nothing to say to me?"
"What should I have to say to you? I have nothing to say of that of
which you are thinking."
"He has gone now, Mary."
"Yes; he has gone."
"And you are contented?" It did seem hard upon her that she should be
called upon to tell a lie,--to say that which he must know to be a
lie,--and to do so in order that he might be encouraged to persevere
in achieving his own object. But she did not quite understand him.
"Are you contented?" he repeated again.
Then she thought that she would tell the lie. If it was well that
she should make the sacrifice for his sake, why should it not be
completed? If she had to give herself to him, why should not the gift
be as satisfactory as it might be made to his feelings? "Yes; I am
contented."
"And you do not wish to see him again?"
"Certainly not, as your wife."
"You do not wish it at all," he rejoined, "whether you be my wife or
otherwise?"
"I think you press me too hard." Then she remembered herself, and the
perfect sacrifice which she was minded to make. "No; I do not wish
again to see Mr Gordon at all. Now, if you will allow me, I will
go to bed. I am thoroughly tired out, and I hardly know what I am
saying."