An Old Man's Love
character with the servant. But he was well pleased to hear her thus
described. Of the other woman, of Catherine Bailey, of her who had
falsely given herself up to so poor a creature as Compas, after
having received the poetry of his vows, he could endure no mention
whatever; and though Mrs Baggett knew probably well the whole story,
no attempt at naming the name was ever made.
Such had been the successes and the failures of Mr Whittlestaff's
life when Mary Lawrie was added as one to his household. The same
idea had occurred to him as to Mrs Baggett. He was not a young man,
because he was fifty; but he was not quite an old man, because he
was only fifty. He had seen Mary Lawrie often enough, and had become
sufficiently well acquainted with her to feel sure that if he could
win her she would be a loving companion for the remainder of his
life. He had turned it all over in his mind, and had been now eager
about it and now bashful. On more than one occasion he had declared
to himself that he would be whipped if he would have anything to
do with her. Should he subject himself again to some such agony of
despair as he had suffered in the matter of Catherine Bailey? It
might not be an agony such as that; but to him to ask and to be
denied would be a terrible pain. And as the girl did receive from
his hands all that she had--her bread and meat, her bed, her very
clothes--would it not be better for her that he should stand to her
in the place of a father than a lover? She might come to accept it
all and not think much of it, if he would take before himself the
guise of an old man. But were he to appear before her as a suitor for
her hand, would she refuse him? Looking forward, he could perceive
that there was room for infinite grief if he should make the attempt
and then things should not go well with him.
But the more he saw of her he was sure also that there was room for
infinite joy. He compared her in his mind to Catherine Bailey, and
could not but feel that in his youth he had been blind and fatuous.
Catherine had been a fair-haired girl, and had now blossomed out
into the anxious mother of ten fair-haired children. The anxiety had
no doubt come from the evil courses of her husband. Had she been
contented to be Mrs Whittlestaff, there might have been no such look
of care, and there might perhaps have been less than ten children;
but she would still have been fair-haired, blowsy, and fat. Mr
Whittlestaff had with infinite trouble found an opportunity of seeing
her and her flock, unseen by them, and a portion of his agony had
subsided. But still there was the fact that she had promised to be
his, and had become a thing sacred in his sight, and had then given
herself up to the arms of Mr Compas. But now if Mary Lawrie would
but accept him, how blessed might be the evening of his life!
He had confessed to himself often enough how sad and dreary he was
in his desolate life. He had told himself that it must be so for the
remainder of all time to him, when Catherine Bailey had declared her
purpose to him of marrying the successful young lawyer. He had at
once made up his mind that his doom was fixed, and had not regarded
his solitude as any deep aggravation of his sorrow. But he had come
by degrees to find that a man should not give up his life because of
a fickle girl, and especially when he found her to be the mother of
ten flaxen haired infants. He had, too, as he declared to himself,
waited long enough.
But Mary Lawrie was very different from Catherine Bailey. The
Catherine he had known had been bright, and plump, and joyous, with a
quick good-natured wit, and a rippling laughter, which by its silvery
sound had robbed him of his heart. There was no plumpness, and no
silver-sounding laughter with Mary. She shall be described in the
next chapter. Let it suffice to say here that she was somewhat staid
in her demeanour, and not at all given to putting herself forward in
conversation. But every hour that he passed in her company he became
more and more sure that, if any wife could now make him happy, this
was the woman who could do so.
But of her manner to himself he doubted much. She was gratitude
itself for what he was prepared to do for her. But with her gratitude
was mingled respect, and almost veneration. She treated him at first
almost as a servant,--at any rate with none of the familiarity of a
friend, and hardly with the reserve of a grown-up child. Gradually,
in obedience to his evident wishes, she did drop her reserve,
and allowed herself to converse with him; but it was always as a
young person might with all modesty converse with her superior. He
struggled hard to overcome her reticence, and did at last succeed.
But still there was that respect, verging almost into veneration,
which seemed to crush him when he thought that he might begin to play
the lover.
He had got a pony carriage for her, which he insisted that she should
drive herself. "But I never have driven," she had said, taking her
place, and doubtfully assuming the reins, while he sat beside her.
She had at this time been six months at Croker's Hall.
"There must be a beginning for everything, and you shall begin to
drive now." Then he took great trouble with her, teaching her how to
hold the reins, and how to use the whip, till at last something of
familiarity was engendered. And he went out with her, day after day,
showing her all those pretty haunts among the downs which are to be
found in the neighbourhood of Alresford.
This did well for a time, and Mr Whittlestaff thought that he was
progressing. But he had not as yet quite made up his mind that the
attempt should be made at all. If he can be imagined to have talked
to a friend as he talked to himself, that friend would have averred
that he spoke more frequently against marriage,--or rather against
the young lady's marriage,--than in favour of it. "After all it will
never do," he would have said to this friend; "I am an old man, and
an old man shouldn't ask a young girl to sacrifice herself. Mrs
Baggett looks on it only as a question of butchers and bakers. There
are, no doubt, circumstances in which butchers and bakers do come
uppermost. But here the butchers and bakers are provided. I wouldn't
have her marry me for that sake. Love, I fear, is out of the
question. But for gratitude I would not have her do it." It was thus
that he would commonly have been found speaking to his friend. There
were moments in which he roused himself to better hopes,--when he had
drank his glass of whisky and water, and was somewhat elate with the
consequences. "I'll do it," he would then have said to his friend;
"only I cannot exactly say when." And so it went on, till at last he
became afraid to speak out and tell her what he wanted.
Mr Whittlestaff was a tall, thin man, not quite six feet, with a
face which a judge of male beauty would hardly call handsome, but
which all would say was impressive and interesting. We seldom
think how much is told to us of the owner's character by the
first or second glance of a man or woman's face. Is he a fool, or
is he clever; is he reticent or outspoken; is he passionate or
long-suffering;--nay, is he honest or the reverse; is he malicious
or of a kindly nature? Of all these things we form a sudden judgment
without any thought; and in most of our sudden judgments we are
roughly correct. It is so, or seems to us to be so, as a matter of
course,--that the man is a fool, or reticent, or malicious; and,
without giving a thought to our own phrenological capacity, we pass
on with the conviction. No one ever considered that Mr Whittlestaff
was a fool or malicious; but people did think that he was reticent
and honest. The inner traits of his character were very difficult to
be read. Even Mrs Baggett had hardly read them all correctly. He was
shamefaced to such a degree that Mrs Baggett could not bring herself
to understand it. And there was present to him a manner of speech
which practice had now made habitual, but which he had originally
adopted with the object of hiding his shamefacedness under the veil
of a dashing manner. He would speak as though he were quite free
with his thoughts, when, at the moment, he feared that thoughts
should be read of which he certainly had no cause to be ashamed. His
fellowship, his poetry, and his early love were all, to his thinking,
causes of disgrace, which required to be buried deep within his own
memory. But the true humility with which he regarded them betokened a
character for which he need not have blushed. But that he thought of
those matters at all--that he thought of himself at all--was a matter
to be buried deep within his own bosom.
Through his short dark-brown hair the grey locks were beginning to
show themselves--signs indeed of age, but signs which were very
becoming to him. At fifty he was a much better-looking man than he
had been at thirty,--so that that foolish, fickle girl, Catherine
Bailey, would not have rejected him for the cruelly sensuous face
of Mr Compas, had the handsome iron-grey tinge been then given to
his countenance. He, as he looked at the glass, told himself that a
grey-haired old fool, such as he was, had no right to burden the life
of a young girl, simply because he found her in bread and meat. That
he should think himself good-looking, was to his nature impossible.
His eyes were rather small, but very bright; the eyebrows black and
almost bushy; his nose was well-formed and somewhat long, but not so
as to give that peculiar idea of length to his face which comes from
great nasal prolongation. His upper lip was short, and his mouth
large and manly. The strength of his character was better shown by
his mouth than by any other feature. He wore hardly any beard, as
beards go now,--unless indeed a whisker can be called a beard, which
came down, closely shorn, about half an inch below his ear. "A very
common sort of individual," he said of himself, as he looked in the
glass when Mary Lawrie had been already twelve months in the house;
"but then a man ought to be common. A man who is uncommon is either a
dandy or a buffoon."
His clothes were all made after one pattern and of one colour. He
had, indeed, his morning clothes and his evening clothes. Those for
the morning were very nearly black, whereas for the evening they were
entirely so. He walked about the neighbourhood in a soft hat such as
clergymen now affect, and on Sundays he went to church with the old
well-established respectable chimney-pot. On Sundays, too, he carried
an umbrella, whereas on week-days he always had a large stick; and it
was observed that neither the umbrella nor the stick was adapted to
the state of the weather.
Such was Mr Whittlestaff of Croker's Hall, a small residence
which stood half-way up on the way to the downs, about a mile from
Alresford. He had come into the neighbourhood, having bought a small
freehold property without the knowledge of any of the inhabitants.
"It was just as though he had come out of the sun," said the old
baker, forgetting that most men, or their ancestors, must have come
to their present residences after a similar fashion. And he had
brought Mrs Baggett with him, who had confided to the baker that she
had felt herself that strange on her first arrival that she didn't
know whether she was standing on her head or her heels.
Mrs Baggett had since become very gracious with various of the
neighbours. She had the paying of Mr Whittlestaff's bills, and the
general disposal of his custom. From thence arose her popularity.
But he, during the last fifteen years, had crept silently into the
society of the place. At first no one had known anything about him;
and the neighbourhood had been shy. But by degrees the parsons and