An Old Man's Love
nothing down at Alresford. Therefore, when he got back to London, he
meant to make all his arrangements--and did so far settle his affairs
as to take a berth on board one of the mail steamers.
He had come over in company with a certain lawyer, who had gone out
to Kimberley with a view to his profession, and had then, as is the
case with all the world that goes to Kimberley, gone into diamonds.
Diamonds had become more to him than either briefs or pleadings. He
had been there for fifteen years, and had ruined himself and made
himself half-a-dozen times. He had found diamonds to be more pleasant
than law, and to be more compatible with champagne, tinned lobsters,
and young ladies. He had married a wife, and had parted with her,
and taken another man's wife, and paid for her with diamonds. He had
then possessed nothing, and had afterwards come forth a third-part
owner of the important Stick-in-the-Mud claim, which at one time
was paying 12 per cent per month. It must be understood that the
Stick-in-the-Mud claim was an almost infinitesimal portion of soil
in the Great Kimberley mine. It was but the sixteenth part of an
original sub-division. But from the centre of the great basin, or
rather bowl, which forms the mine, there ran up two wires to the
high mound erected on the circumference, on which continually two
iron cages were travelling up and down, coming back empty, but going
up laden with gemmiferous dirt. Here travelled the diamonds of
the Stick-in-the-Mud claim, the owner of one-third of which, Mr
Fitzwalker Tookey, had come home with John Gordon.
Taking a first general glance at affairs in the diamond-fields, I
doubt whether we should have been inclined to suspect that John
Gordon and Fitzwalker Tookey would have been likely to come together
as partners in a diamond speculation. But John Gordon had in the
course of things become owner of the other two shares, and when
Fitzwalker Tookey determined to come home, he had done so with the
object of buying his partner's interest. This he might have done at
once,--only that he suffered under the privation of an insufficiency
of means. He was a man of great intelligence, and knew well that no
readier mode to wealth had ever presented itself to him than the
purchase of his partner's shares. Much was said to persuade John
Gordon; but he would not part with his documents without seeing
security for his money. Therefore Messrs. Gordon and Tookey put the
old Stick-in-the-Mud into the hands of competent lawyers, and came
home together.
"I am not at all sure that I shall sell," John Gordon had said.
"But I thought that you offered it."
"Yes; for money down. For the sum named I will sell now. But if I
start from here without completing the bargain, I shall keep the
option in my own hands. The fact is, I do not know whether I shall
remain in England or return. If I do come back I am not likely to
find anything better than the old Stick-in-the-Mud." To this Mr
Tookey assented, but still he resolved that he would go home. Hence
it came to pass that Mr Fitzwalker Tookey was now in London, and
that John Gordon had to see him frequently. Here Tookey had found
another would-be partner, who had the needed money, and it was
fervently desired by Mr Tookey that John Gordon might not go back to
South Africa.
The two men were not at all like in their proclivities; but they had
been thrown together, and each had learned much of the inside life of
the other. The sort of acquaintance with whom a steady man becomes
intimate in such a locality often surprises the steady man himself.
Fitzwalker Tookey had the antecedents and education of a gentleman.
Champagne and lobster suppers--the lobster coming out of tin
cases,--diamonds and strange ladies, even with bloated cheeks and
strong language, had not altogether destroyed the vestiges of the
Temple. He at any rate was fond of a companion with whom he could
discuss his English regrets, and John Gordon was not inclined to shut
himself up altogether among his precious stones, and to refuse the
conversation of a man who could talk. Tookey had told him of his
great distress in reference to his wife. "By G----! you know, the
cruellest thing you ever heard in the world. I was a little tight one
night, and the next morning she was off with Atkinson, who got away
with his pocket full of diamonds. Poor girl! she went down to the
Portuguese settlement, and he was nabbed. He's doing penal service
now down at Cape Town. That's a kind of thing that does upset a
fellow." And poor Fitzwalker began to cry.
Among such confidences Gordon allowed it to escape from him that were
he to become married in England, he did not think it probable that he
should return. Thus it was known, at least to his partner, that he
was going to look for a wife, and the desire in Mr Tookey's breast
that the wife might be forthcoming was intense. "Well!" he said,
immediately on Gordon's return to London.
"What does 'well' mean?"
"Of course you went down there to look after the lady."
"I have never told you so."
"But you did--did you not?"
"I have told you nothing about any lady, though you are constantly
asking questions. As a fact, I think I shall go back next month."
"To Kimberley?"
"I think so. The stake I have there is of too great importance to be
abandoned."
"I have the money ready to pay over;--absolute cash on the nail. You
don't call that abandoning it?"
"The claim has gone up in value 25 per cent, as you have already
heard."
"Yes; it has gone up a little, but not so much as that. It will come
down as much by the next mail. With diamonds you never can stick to
anything."
"That's true. But you can only go by the prices as you see them
quoted. They may be up 25 per cent again by next mail. At any rate, I
am going back."
"The devil you are!"
"That's my present idea. As I like to be on the square with you
altogether, I don't mind saying that I have booked a berth by the
_Kentucky Castle_."
"The deuce you have! And you won't take a wife with you?"
"I am not aware that I shall have such an impediment."
Then Fitzwalker Tookey assumed a very long face. It is difficult to
trace the workings of such a man's mind, or to calculate the meagre
chances on which he is too often driven to base his hopes of success.
He feared that he could not show his face in Kimberley, unless as
the representative of the whole old Stick-in-the-Mud. And with that
object he had declared himself in London to have the actual power of
disposing of Gordon's shares. Gordon had gone down to Hampshire, and
would no doubt be successful with the young lady. At any rate,--as
he described it to himself,--he had "gone in for that." He could see
his way in that direction, but in no other. "Upon my word, this, you
know, is--what I call--rather throwing a fellow over."
"I am as good as my word."
"I don't know about that, Gordon."
"But I do, and I won't hear any assertion to the contrary. I offered
you the shares for a certain price, and you rejected them."
"I did not do that."
"You did do that,--exactly. Then there came up in my mind a feeling
that I might probably wish to change my purpose."
"And I am to suffer for that."
"Not in the least. I then told you that you should still have the
shares for the price named. But I did not offer them to any one else.
So I came home,--and you chose to come with me. But before I started,
and again after, I told you that the offer did not hold good, and
that I should not make up my mind as to selling till after I got to
England."
"We understood that you meant to be married."
"I never said so. I never said a word about marriage. I am now going
back, and mean to manage the mine myself."
"Without asking me?"
"Yes; I shall ask you. But I have two-thirds. I will give you for
your share 10 per cent more than the price you offered me for each of
my shares. If you do not like that, you need not accept the offer;
but I don't mean to have any more words about it."
Mr Fitzwalker Tookey's face became longer and longer, and he did in
truth feel himself to be much aggrieved within his very soul. There
were still two lines of conduct open to him. He might move the stern
man by a recapitulation of the sorrow of his circumstances, or he
might burst out into passionate wrath, and lay all his ruin to his
partner's doing. He might still hope that in this latter way he could
rouse all Kimberley against Gordon, and thus creep back into some
vestige of property under the shadow of Gordon's iniquities. He would
try both. He would first endeavour to move the stern man to pity. "I
don't think you can imagine the condition in which you are about to
place me."
"I can't admit that I am placing you anywhere."
"I'll just explain. Of course I know that I can tell you everything
in strictest confidence."
"I don't know it at all."
"Oh yes; I can. You remember the story of my poor wife?"
"Yes; I remember."
"She's in London now."
"What! She got back from the Portuguese settlement?"
"Yes. She did not stay there long. I don't suppose that the
Portuguese are very nice people."
"Perhaps not."
"At any rate they don't have much money among them."
"Not after the lavish expenditure of the diamond-fields," suggested
Gordon.
"Just so. Poor Matilda had been accustomed to all that money could
buy for her. I never used to be close-fisted with her, though
sometimes I would be tight."
"As far as I could understand, you never used to agree at all."
"I don't think we did hit it off. Perhaps it was my fault."
"You used to be a little free in your way of living."
"I was. I confess that I was so. I was young then, but I am older
now. I haven't touched a B. and S. before eleven o'clock since I have
been in London above two or three times. I do mean to do the best I
can for my young family." It was the fact that Mr Tookey had three
little children boarding out in Kimberley.
"And what is the lady doing in London?"
"To tell the truth, she's at my lodgings."
"Oh--h!"
"I do admit it. She is."
"She is indifferent to the gentleman in the Cape Town penal
settlement?"
"Altogether, I don't think she ever really cared for him. To tell the
truth, she only wanted some one to take her away from--me."
"And now she trusts you again?"
"Oh dear, yes;--completely. She is my wife, you know, still."
"I suppose so."
"That sacred tie has never been severed. You must always remember
that. I don't know what your feelings are on such a subject, but
according to my views it should not be severed roughly. When there
are children, that should always be borne in mind. Don't you think
so?"
"The children should be borne in mind."
"Just so. That's what I mean. Who can look after a family of young
children so well as their young mother? Men have various ways of
looking at the matter." To this John Gordon gave his ready consent,
and was anxious to hear in what way his assistance was to be asked
in again putting Mr and Mrs Tookey, with their young children,
respectably on their feet. "There are men, you know, stand-off sort
of fellows, who think that a woman should never be forgiven."
"It must depend on how far the husband has been in fault."
"Exactly. Now these stand-off sort of fellows will never admit that
they have been in fault at all. That's not my case."
"You drank a little."
"For the matter of that, so did she. When a woman drinks she gets
herself to bed somehow. A man gets out upon a spree. That's what I
used to do, and then I would hit about me rather recklessly. I have
no doubt Matilda did get it sometimes. When there has been that kind
of thing, forgive and forget is the best thing you can do."
"I suppose so."
"And then at the Fields there isn't the same sort of prudish life