An Old Man's Love
but people ain't born to have good times of it. You're going to have
a good time. But it ain't for that, but for what your duty tells you.
You that haven't a bit or a sup but what comes from him, and you to
stand shilly-shallying! I can't abide the idea!"
It was thus that Mrs Baggett taught her great lesson,--the greatest
lesson we may say which a man or a woman can learn. And though she
taught it immoderately, fancying, as a woman, that another woman
should sacrifice everything to a man, still she taught it with truth.
She was minded to go to Portsmouth, although Portsmouth to her in the
present state of circumstances was little better than a hell upon
earth. But Mary could not quite see Mr Whittlestaff's claim in the
same light. The one point on which it did seem to her that she had
made up her mind was Mr Gordon's claim, which was paramount to
everything. Yes; he was gone, and might never return. It might be
that he was dead. It might be even that he had taken some other wife,
and she was conscious that not a word had passed her lips that could
be taken as a promise. There had not been even a hint of a promise.
But it seemed to her that this duty of which Mrs Baggett spoke was
due rather to John Gordon than to Mr Whittlestaff.
She counted the days,--nay, she counted the hours, till the week
had run by. And when the precise moment had come at which an answer
must be given,--for in such matters Mr Whittlestaff was very
precise,--John Gordon was still the hero of her thoughts. "Well,
dear," he said, putting his hand upon her arm, just as he had done
on that former occasion. He said no more, but there was a world of
entreaty in the tone of his voice as he uttered the words.
"Mr Whittlestaff!"
"Well, dear."
"I do not think I can. I do not think I ought. You never heard
of--Mr John Gordon."
"Never."
"He used to come to our house at Norwich, and--and--I loved him."
"What became of him?" he asked, in a strangely altered voice. Was
there to be a Mr Compas here too to interfere with his happiness?
"He was poor, and he went away when my step-mother did not like him."
"You had engaged yourself to him?"
"Oh, no! There had been nothing of that kind. You will understand
that I should not speak to you on such a subject, were it not that I
am bound to tell you my whole heart. But you will never repeat what
you now hear."
"There was no engagement?"
"There was no question of any such thing."
"And he is gone?"
"Yes," said Mary; "he has gone."
"And will not come back again?" Then she looked into his face,--oh!
so wistfully. "When did it happen?"
"When my father was on his death-bed. He had come sooner than that;
but then it was that he went. I think, Mr Whittlestaff, that I never
ought to marry any one after that, and therefore it is that I have
told you."
"You are a good girl, Mary."
"I don't know about that. I think that I ought to deceive you at
least in nothing."
"You should deceive no one."
"No, Mr Whittlestaff." She answered him ever so meekly; but there
was running in her mind a feeling that she had not deceived any one,
and that she was somewhat hardly used by the advice given to her.
"He has gone altogether?" he asked again.
"I do not know where he is,--whether he be dead or alive."
"But if he should come back?"
She only shook her head;--meaning him to understand that she could
say nothing of his purposes should he come back. He had made her
no offer. He had said that if he returned he would come first to
Norwich. There had been something of a promise in this; but oh, so
little! And she did not dare to tell him that hitherto she had lived
upon that little.
"I do not think that you should remain single for ever on that
account. How long is it now since Mr Gordon went?"
There was something in the tone in which he mentioned Mr Gordon's
name which went against the grain with Mary. She felt that he was
spoken of almost as an enemy. "I think it is three years since he
went."
"Three years is a long time. Has he never written?"
"Not to me. How should he write? There was nothing for him to write
about."
"It has been a fancy."
"Yes;--a fancy." He had made this excuse for her, and she had none
stronger to make for herself.
He certainly did not think the better of her in that she had
indulged in such a fancy; but in truth his love was sharpened by
the opposition which this fancy made. It had seemed to him that
his possessing her would give a brightness to his life, and this
brightness was not altogether obscured by the idea that she had ever
thought that she had loved another person. As a woman she was as
lovable as before, though perhaps less admirable. At any rate he
wanted her, and now she seemed to be more within his reach than she
had been. "The week has passed by, Mary, and I suppose that now you
can give me an answer." Then she found that she was in his power. She
had told him her story, as though with the understanding that if he
would take her with her "fancy," she was ready to surrender herself.
"Am I not to have an answer now?"
"I suppose so."
"What is it to be?"
"If you wish for me, I will be yours."
"And you will cease to think of Mr Gordon?"
"I shall think of him; but not in a way that you would begrudge me."
"That will suffice. I know that you are honest, and I will not ask
you to forget him altogether. But there had better be no speaking of
him. It is well that he should be banished from your mind. And now,
dearest, dearest love, give me your hand." She put her hand at once
into his. "And a kiss." She just turned herself a little round, with
her eyes bent upon the ground. "Nay; there must be a kiss." Then he
bent over her, and just touched her cheek. "Mary, you are now all my
own." Yes;--she was now all his own, and she would do for him the
best in her power. He had not asked for her love, and she certainly
had not given it. She knew well how impossible it would be that she
should give him her love. "I know you are disturbed," he said. "I
wish also for a few minutes to think of it all." Then he turned away
from her, and went up the garden walk by himself.
She, slowly loitering, went into the house alone, and seated herself
by the open window in her bed-chamber. As she sat there she could see
him up the long walk, going and returning. As he went his hands were
folded behind his back, and she thought that he appeared older than
she had ever remarked him to be before. What did it signify? She had
undertaken her business in life, and the duties she thought would be
within her power. She was sure that she would be true to him, as far
as truth to his material interests was concerned. His comforts in
life should be her first care. If he trusted her at all, he should
not become poorer by reason of his confidence. And she would be
as tender to him as the circumstances would admit. She would not
begrudge him kisses if he cared for them. They were his by all the
rights of contract. He certainly had the best of the bargain, but he
should never know how much the best of it he had. He had told her
that there had better be no speaking of John Gordon. There certainly
should be none on her part. She had told him that she must continue
to think of him. There at any rate she had been honest. But he should
not see that she thought of him.
Then she endeavoured to assure herself that this thinking would die
out. Looking round the world, her small world, how many women there
were who had not married the men they had loved first! How few,
perhaps, had done so! Life was not good-natured enough for smoothness
such as that. And yet did not they, as a rule, live well with
their husbands? What right had she to expect anything better than
their fate? Each poor insipid dame that she saw, toddling on with
half-a-dozen children at her heels, might have had as good a John
Gordon of her own as was hers. And each of them might have sat on a
summer day, at an open window, looking out with something, oh, so far
from love, at the punctual steps of him who was to be her husband.
Then her thoughts turned, would turn, could not be kept from turning,
to John Gordon. He had been to her the personification of manliness.
That which he resolved to do, he did with an iron will. But his
manners to all women were soft, and to her seemed to have been
suffused with special tenderness. But he was chary of his words,--as
he had even been to her. He had been the son of a banker at Norwich;
but, just as she had become acquainted with him, the bank had broke,
and he had left Oxford to come home and find himself a ruined man.
But he had never said a word to her of the family misfortune. He had
been six feet high, with dark hair cut very short, somewhat full
of sport of the roughest kind, which, however, he had abandoned
instantly. "Things have so turned out," he had once said to Mary,
"that I must earn something to eat instead of riding after foxes."
She could not boast that he was handsome. "What does it signify?" she
had once said to her step-mother, who had declared him to be stiff,
upsetting, and ugly. "A man is not like a poor girl, who has nothing
but the softness of her skin to depend upon." Then Mrs Lawrie had
declared to him that "he did no good coming about the house,"--and he
went away.
Why had he not spoken to her? He had said that one word, promising
that if he returned he would come to Norwich. She had lived three
years since that, and he had not come back. And her house had been
broken up, and she, though she would have been prepared to wait for
another three years,--though she would have waited till she had grown
grey with waiting,--she had now fallen into the hands of one who had
a right to demand from her that she should obey him. "And it is not
that I hate him," she said to herself. "I do love him. He is all
good. But I am glad that he has not bade me not to think of John
Gordon."
CHAPTER V.
"I SUPPOSE IT WAS A DREAM."
It seemed to her, as she sat there at the window, that she ought to
tell Mrs Baggett what had occurred. There had been that between them
which, as she thought, made it incumbent on her to let Mrs Baggett
know the result of her interview with Mr Whittlestaff. So she went
down-stairs, and found that invaluable old domestic interfering
materially with the comfort of the two younger maidens. She was
determined to let them "know what was what," as she expressed it.
"You oughtn't to be angry with me, because I've done nothing," said
Jane the housemaid, sobbing.
"That's just about it," said Mrs Baggett. "And why haven't you done
nothing? Do you suppose you come here to do nothing? Was it doing
nothing when Eliza tied down them strawberries without putting in
e'er a drop of brandy? It drives me mortial mad to think what you
young folks are coming to."
"I ain't a-going anywhere, Mrs Baggett, because of them strawberries
being tied down which, if you untie them, as I always intended, will
have the sperrits put on them as well now as ever. And as for your
going mad, Mrs Baggett, I hope it won't be along of me."
"Drat your imperence."
"I ain't imperence at all. Here's Miss Lawrie, and she shall say
whether I'm imperence."
"Mrs Baggett, I want to speak to you, if you'll come into the other
room," said Mary.
"You are imperent, both of you. I can't say a word but I'm taken up
that short that--. They've been and tied all the jam down, so that
it'll all go that mouldy that nobody can touch it. And then, when I
says a word, they turns upon me." Then Mrs Baggett walked out of the
kitchen into her own small parlour, which opened upon the passage
just opposite the kitchen door. "They was a-going to be opened
this very afternoon," said Eliza, firing a parting shot after the
departing enemy.