An Old Man's Love
to whom it falls should be able to accommodate themselves to it
with contentment and self-respect. I think that I may say of myself
that, even as my wife, you will stand higher than you would do as a
companion."
"I am sure of it."
"Not on that account should you accept any man that you cannot love."
Had she not told him that she did not love him;--even that she loved
another? And yet he spoke to her in this way! "You had better tell
Mrs Baggett to come to me."
"There is the memory of that other man," she murmured very gently.
Then the scowl came back upon his face;--or not a scowl, but a
look rather of cold displeasure. "If I understand you rightly, the
gentleman never addressed you as a lover."
"Never!"
"I see it all, Mary. Mrs Baggett has been violent and selfish, and
has made you think thoughts which should not have been put in your
head to disturb you. You have dreamed a dream in your early life,--as
girls do dream, I suppose,--and it has now to be forgotten. Is it not
so?"
"I suppose it was a dream."
"He has passed away, and he has left you to become the happiness of
my life. Send Mrs Baggett to me, and I will speak to her." Then he
came up to her,--for they had been standing about a yard apart,--and
pressed his lips to hers. How was it possible that she should prevent
him?
She turned round, and slowly left the room, feeling, as she did
so, that she was again engaged to him for ever and ever. She hated
herself because she had been so fickle. But how could she have done
otherwise? She asked herself, as she went back to her room, at what
period during the interview, which was now over, she could have
declared to him the real state of her mind. He had, as it were, taken
complete possession of her, by right of the deed of gift which she
had made of herself that morning. She had endeavoured to resume the
gift, but had altogether failed. She declared to herself that she
was weak, impotent, purposeless; but she admitted, on the other hand,
that he had displayed more of power than she had ever guessed at
his possessing. A woman always loves this display of power in a man,
and she felt that she could have loved him had it not been for John
Gordon.
But there was one comfort for her. None knew of her weakness. Her
mind had vacillated like a shuttlecock, but no one had seen the
vacillation. She was in his hands, and she must simply do as he bade
her. Then she went down to Mrs Baggett's room, and told the old
lady to go up-stairs at her master's behest. "I'm a-going," said Mrs
Baggett. "I'm a-going. I hope he'll find every one else as good at
doing what he tells 'em. But I ain't a-going to be a-doing for him or
for any one much longer."
CHAPTER VI.
JOHN GORDON.
Mrs Baggett walked into her master's room, loudly knocking at the
door, and waiting for a loud answer. He was pacing up and down the
library, thinking of the injustice of her interference, and she was
full of the injury to which she had been subjected by circumstances.
She had been perfectly sincere when she had told Mary Lawrie that
Mr Whittlestaff was entitled to have and to enjoy his own wishes as
against both of them. In the first place, he was a man,--and as a
man, was to be indulged, at whatever cost to any number of women. And
then he was a man whose bread they had both eaten. Mary had eaten
his bread, as bestowed upon her from sheer charity. According to
Mrs Baggett's view of the world at large, Mary was bound to deliver
herself body and soul to Mr Whittlestaff, were "soul sacrifice"
demanded from her. As for herself, her first duty in life was to look
after him were he to be sick. Unfortunately Mr Whittlestaff never
was sick, but Mrs Baggett was patiently looking forward to some
happy day when he might be brought home with his leg broken. He had
no imprudent habits, hunting, shooting, or suchlike; but chance might
be good to her. Then the making of all jams and marmalades, for which
he did not care a straw, and which he only ate to oblige her, was a
comfort to her. She could manage occasionally to be kept out of her
bed over some boiling till one o'clock; and then the making of butter
in the summer would demand that she should be up at three. Thus
she was enabled to consider that her normal hours of work were
twenty-two out of the twenty-four. She did not begrudge them in the
least, thinking that they were all due to Mr Whittlestaff. Now Mr
Whittlestaff wanted a wife, and, of course, he ought to have her.
His Juggernaut's car must roll on its course over her body or Mary
Lawrie's. But she could not be expected to remain and behold Mary
Lawrie's triumph and Mary Lawrie's power. That was out of the
question, and as she was thus driven out of the house, she was
entitled to show a little of her ill humour to the proud bride. She
must go to Portsmouth;--which she knew was tantamount to a living
death. She only hated one person in all the world, and he, as she
knew well, was living at Portsmouth. There were to her only two
places in the world in which anybody could live,--Croker's Hall and
Portsmouth. Croker's Hall was on the whole the proper region set
apart for the habitation of the blest. Portsmouth was the other
place,--and thither she must go. To remain, even in heaven, as
housekeeper to a young woman, was not to be thought of. It was
written in the book of Fate that she must go; but not on that account
need she even pretend to keep her temper.
"What's all this that you have been saying to Miss Lawrie?" began Mr
Whittlestaff, with all the dignity of anger.
"What have I been saying of to Miss Mary?"
"I am not at all well pleased with you."
"I haven't said a word again you, sir, nor not again nothing as you
are likely to do."
"Miss Lawrie is to become my wife."
"So I hears her say."
There was something of a check in this--a check to Mr Whittlestaff's
pride in Mary's conduct. Did Mrs Baggett intend him to understand
that Mary had told the whole story to the old woman, and had boasted
of her promotion?
"You have taught her to think that she should not do as we have
proposed,--because of your wishes."
"I never said nothing of the kind,--so help me. That I should put
myself up again you, sir! Oh no! I knows my place better than that. I
wouldn't stand in the way of anything as was for your good,--or even
of what you thought was good,--not to be made housekeeper to-- Well,
it don't matter where. I couldn't change for the better, nor wages
wouldn't tempt me."
"What was it you said about going away?"
Here Mrs Baggett shook her head. "You told Miss Lawrie that you
thought it was a shame that you should have to leave because of her."
"I never said a word of the kind, Mr Whittlestaff; nor yet, sir, I
don't think as Miss Lawrie ever said so. I'm begging your pardon for
contradicting you, and well I ought. But anything is better than
making ill-blood between lovers." Mr Whittlestaff winced at being
called a lover, but allowed the word to pass by. "I never said
nothing about shame."
"What did you say?"
"I said as how I must leave you;--nothing but that. It ain't a matter
of the slightest consequence to you, sir."
"Rubbish!"
"Very well, sir. I mustn't demean me to say as anything I had said
wasn't rubbish when you said as it was-- But for all that, I've got
to go."
"Nonsense."
"Yes, in course."
"Why have you got to go?"
"Because of my feelings, sir."
"I never heard such trash."
"That's true, no doubt, sir. But still, if you'll think of it, old
women does have feelings. Not as a young one, but still they're
there."
"Who's going to hurt your feelings?"
"In this house, sir, for the last fifteen years I've been top-sawyer
of the female gender."
"Then I'm not to marry at all."
"You've gone on and you haven't,--that's all. I ain't a-finding no
fault. But you haven't,--and I'm the sufferer." Here Mrs Baggett
began to sob, and to wipe her eyes with a clean handkerchief, which
she must surely have brought into the room for the purpose. "If you
had taken some beautiful young lady--"
"I have taken a beautiful young lady," said Mr Whittlestaff, now
becoming more angry than ever.
"You won't listen to me, sir, and then you boil over like that. No
doubt Miss Mary is as beautiful as the best on 'em. I knew how it
would be when she came among us with her streaky brown cheeks, ou'd
make an anchor wish to kiss 'em." Here Mr Whittlestaff again became
appeased, and made up his mind at once that he would tell Mary about
the anchor as soon as things were smooth between them. "But if it had
been some beautiful young lady out of another house,--one of them
from the Park, for instance,--who hadn't been here a'most under my
own thumb, I shouldn't 've minded it."
"The long and the short of it is, Mrs Baggett, that I am going to be
married."
"I suppose you are, sir."
"And, as it happens, the lady I have selected happens to have been
your mistress for the last two years."
"She won't be my missus no more," said Mrs Baggett, with an air of
fixed determination.
"Of course you can do as you like about that. I can't compel any one
to live in this house against her will; but I would compel you if I
knew how, for your own benefit."
"There ain't no compelling."
"What other place have you got you can go to? I can't conceive it
possible that you should live in any other family."
"Not in no family. Wages wouldn't tempt me. But there's them as
supposes that they've a claim upon me." Then the woman began to cry
in earnest, and the clean pocket-handkerchief was used in a manner
which would soon rob it of its splendour.
There was a slight pause before Mr Whittlestaff rejoined. "Has he
come back again?" he said, almost solemnly.
"He's at Portsmouth now, sir." And Mrs Baggett shook her head sadly.
"And wants you to go to him?"
"He always wants that when he comes home. I've got a bit of money,
and he thinks there's some one to earn a morsel of bread for him--or
rayther a glass of gin. I must go this time."
"I don't see that you need go at all; at any rate, Miss Lawrie's
marriage won't make any difference."
"It do, sir," she said, sobbing.
"I can't see why."
"Nor I can't explain. I could stay on here, and wouldn't be afraid of
him a bit."
"Then why don't you stay?"
"It's my feelings. If I was to stay here, I could just send him my
wages, and never go nigh him. But when I'm alone about the world and
forlorn, I ain't got no excuse but what I must go to him."
"Then remain where you are, and don't be a fool."
"But if a person is a fool, what's to be done then? In course I'm
a fool. I knows that very well. There's no saying no other. But I
can't go on living here, if Miss Mary is to be put over my head in
that way. Baggett has sent for me, and I must go. Baggett is at
Portsmouth, a-hanging on about the old shop. And he'll be drunk as
long as there's gin to be had with or without paying. They do tell
me as his nose is got to be awful. There's a man for a poor woman
to go and spend her savings on! He's had a'most all on 'em already.
Twenty-two pound four and sixpence he had out o' me the last time he
was in the country. And he don't do nothing to have him locked up.
It would be better for me if he'd get hisself locked up. I do think
it's wrong, because a young girl has been once foolish and said a
few words before a parson, as she is to be the slave of a drunken
red-nosed reprobate for the rest of her life. Ain't there to be no
way out of it?"
It was thus that Mrs Baggett told the tale of her married
bliss,--not, however, without incurring the censure of her master
because of her folly in resolving to go. He had just commenced a
lecture on the sin of pride, in which he was prepared to show that