An Old Man's Love
I would trust you. Why should not I go in your place?"
"I don't think you are the man who ought to go there."
"I am too old? I'm not a cripple, if you mean that. I don't see why I
shouldn't go to the diamond-fields as well as a younger man."
"It is not about your age, Mr Whittlestaff; but I do not think you
would be happy there."
"Happy! I do not know that my state of bliss here is very great. If I
had bought your shares, as you call them, and paid money for them, I
don't see why my happiness need stand in the way."
"You are a gentleman, Mr Whittlestaff."
"Well; I hope so."
"And of that kind that you would have your eyes picked out of your
head before you had been there a week. Don't go. Take my word for it,
that life will be pleasanter to you here than there, and that for you
the venture would be altogether dangerous. Here is Mr Tookey." At
this point of the conversation, Mr Tookey entered the hall-door, and
some fashion of introduction took place between the two strangers.
John Gordon led the way into a private room, and the two others
followed him. "Here's a gentleman anxious to buy my shares, Tookey,"
said Gordon.
"What! the whole lot of the old Stick-in-the-Mud? He'll have to
shell down some money in order to do that! If I were to be asked my
opinion, I should say that the transaction was hardly one in the
gentleman's way of business."
"I suppose an honest man may work at it," said Mr Whittlestaff.
"It's the honestest business I know out," said Fitzwalker Tookey;
"but it does require a gentleman to have his eyes about him."
"Haven't I got my eyes?"
"Oh certainly, certainly," said Tookey; "I never knew a gentleman
have them brighter. But there are eyes and eyes. Here's Mr Gordon
did have a stroke of luck out there;--quite wonderful! But because he
tumbled on to a good thing, it's no reason that others should. And
he's sold his claim already, if he doesn't go himself,--either to me,
or else to Poker & Hodge."
"I'm afraid it is so," said John Gordon.
"There's my darling wife, who is going out with me, and who means
to stand all the hardship of the hard work amidst those scenes of
constant labour,--a lady who is dying to see her babies there. I am
sure, sir, that Mr Gordon won't forget his promises to me and my
wife."
"If you have the money ready."
"There is Mr Poker in a hansom cab outside, and ready to go with you
to the bank at once, as the matter is rather pressing. If you will
come with him, he will explain everything. I will follow in another
cab, and then everything can be completed." John Gordon did make an
appointment to meet Mr Poker in the city later on in the day, and
then was left together with Mr Whittlestaff at the club.
It was soon decided that Mr Whittlestaff should give up all idea of
the diamond-fields, and in so doing he allowed himself to be brought
back to a state of semi-courteous conversation with his happy rival.
"Well, yes; you may write to her, I suppose. Indeed I don't know
what right I have to say that you may, or you mayn't. She's more
yours than mine, I suppose." "Turn her out! I don't know what makes
you take such an idea as that in your head." John Gordon had not
suggested that Mr Whittlestaff would turn Mary Lawrie out,--though
he had spoken of the steps he would have to take were he to find
Mary left without a home. "She shall have my house as her own till
she can find another. As she will not be my wife, she shall be my
daughter,--till she is somebody else's wife." "I told you before that
you may come and marry her. Indeed I can't help myself. Of course
you may go on as you would with some other girl;--only I wish it
were some other girl. You can go and stay with Montagu Blake, if you
please. It is nothing to me. Everybody knows it now." Then he did say
good-bye, though he could not be persuaded to shake hands with John
Gordon.
Mr Whittlestaff did not go home that day, but on the next, remaining
in town till he was driven out of it by twenty-four hours of absolute
misery. He had said to himself that he would remain till he could
think of some future plan of life that should have in it some better
promise of success for him than his sudden scheme of going to the
diamond-fields. But there was no other plan which became practicable
in his eyes. On the afternoon of the very next day London was no
longer bearable to him; and as there was no other place but Croker's
Hall to which he could take himself with any prospect of meeting
friends who would know anything of his ways of life, he did go down
on the following day. One consequence of this was, that Mary had
received from her lover the letter which he had written almost as
soon as he had received Mr Whittlestaff's permission to write. The
letter was as follows:--
DEAR MARY,--I do not know whether you are surprised by
what Mr Whittlestaff has done; but I am,--so much so that
I hardly know how to write to you on the matter. If you
will think of it, I have never written to you, and have
never been in a position in which writing seemed to be
possible. Nor do I know as yet whether you are aware of
the business which has brought Mr Whittlestaff to town.
I suppose I am to take it for granted that all that he
tells me is true; though when I think what it is that I
have to accept,--and that on the word of a man who is not
your father, and who is a perfect stranger to me,--it does
seem as though I were assuming a great deal. And yet it is
no more than I asked him to do for me when I saw him at
his own house.
I had no time then to ask for your permission; nor, had
I asked for it, would you have granted it to me. You had
pledged yourself, and would not have broken your pledge.
If I asked for your hand at all, it was from him that I
had to ask. How will it be with me if you shall refuse to
come to me at his bidding?
I have never told you that I loved you, nor have you
expressed your willingness to receive my love. Dear Mary,
how shall it be? No doubt I do count upon you in my very
heart as being my own. After this week of troubles it
seems as though I can look back upon a former time in
which you and I had talked to one another as though we had
been lovers. May I not think that it was so? May it not be
so? May I not call you my Mary?
And indeed between man and man, as I would say, only that
you are not a man, have I not a right to assume that it
is so? I told him that it was so down at Croker's Hall,
and he did not contradict me. And now he has been the most
indiscreet of men, and has allowed all your secrets to
escape from his breast. He has told me that you love me,
and has bade me do as seems good to me in speaking to you
of my love.
But, Mary, why should there be any mock modesty or
pretence between us? When a man and woman mean to become
husband and wife, they should at any rate be earnest in
their profession. I am sure of my love for you, and of my
earnest longing to make you my wife. Tell me;--am I not
right in counting upon you for wishing the same thing?
What shall I say in writing to you of Mr Whittlestaff? To
me personally he assumes the language of an enemy. But he
contrives to do so in such a way that I can take it only
as the expression of his regret that I should be found to
be standing in his way. His devotion to you is the most
beautiful expression of self-abnegation that I have ever
met. He tells me that nothing is done for me; but it is
only that I may understand how much more is done for you.
Next to me,--yes, Mary, next to myself, he should be the
dearest to you of human beings. I am jealous already,
almost jealous of his goodness. Would that I could look
forward to a life in which I would be regarded as his
friend.
Let me have a line from you to say that it is as I would
wish it, and name a day in which I may come to visit you.
I shall now remain in London only to obey your behests. As
to my future life, I can settle nothing till I can discuss
it with you, as it will be your life also. God bless you,
my own one.--Yours affectionately,
JOHN GORDON.
We are not to return to the diamond-fields. I have
promised Mr Whittlestaff that it shall be so.
Mary, when she received this letter, retired into her own room to
read it. For indeed her life in public,--her life, that is, to which
Mrs Baggett had access,--had been in some degree disturbed since the
departure of the master of the house. Mrs Baggett certainly proved
herself to be a most unreasonable old woman. She praised Mary Lawrie
up to the sky as being the only woman fitted to be her master's wife,
at the same time abusing Mary for driving her out of the house were
the marriage to take place; and then abusing her also because Mr
Whittlestaff had gone to town to look up another lover on Mary's
behalf. "It isn't my fault; I did not send him," said Mary.
"You could make his going of no account. You needn't have the young
man when he comes back. He has come here, disturbing us all with his
diamonds, in a most objectionable manner."
"You would be able to remain here and not have to go away with that
dreadfully drunken old man." This Mary had said, because there had
been rather a violent scene with the one-legged hero in the stable.
"What's that to do with it? Baggett ain't the worst man in the world
by any means. If he was a little cross last night, he ain't so
always. You'd be cross yourself, Miss, if you didn't get straw enough
under you to take off the hardness of the stones."
"But you would go and live with him."
"Ain't he my husband! Why shouldn't a woman live with her husband?
And what does it matter where I live, or how. You ain't going to
marry John Gordon, I know, to save me from Timothy Baggett!" Then
the letter had come--the letter from Mary's lover; and Mary retired
to her own room to read it. The letter she thought was perfect, but
not so perfect as was Mr Whittlestaff. When she had read the letter,
although she had pressed it to her bosom and kissed it a score of
times, although she had declared that it was the letter of one who
was from head to foot a man, still there was room for that jealousy
of which John Gordon had spoken. When Mary had said to herself
that he was of all human beings surely the best, it was to Mr
Whittlestaff and not to John Gordon that she made allusion.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AGAIN AT CROKER'S HALL.
About three o'clock on that day Mr Whittlestaff came home. The
pony-carriage had gone to meet him, but Mary remained purposely out
of the way. She could not rush out to greet him, as she would have
done had his absence been occasioned by any other cause. But he had
no sooner taken his place in the library than he sent for her. He had
been thinking about it all the way down from London, and had in some
sort prepared his words. During the next half hour he did promise
himself some pleasure, after that his life was to be altogether a
blank to him. He would go. To that only had he made up his mind. He
would tell Mary that she should be happy. He would make Mrs Baggett
understand that for the sake of his property she must remain at
Croker's Hall for some period to which he would decline to name an
end. And then he would go.
"Well, Mary," he said, smiling, "so I have got back safe."
"Yes; I see you have got back."
"I saw a friend of yours when I was up in London."
"I have had a letter, you know, from Mr Gordon."
"He has written, has he? Then he has been very sudden."
"He said he had your leave to write."
"That is true. He had. I thought that, perhaps, he would have taken
more time to think about it."