An Old Man's Love
all the evils which she could receive from the red-nosed veteran at
Portsmouth would be due to her own stiff-necked obstinacy, when he
was stopped suddenly by the sound of a knock at the front door. It
was not only the knock at the door, but the entrance into the hall of
some man, for the hall-door had been open into the garden, and the
servant-girl had been close at hand. The library was at the top of
the low stairs, and Mr Whittlestaff could not but hear the demand
made. The gentleman had asked whether Miss Lawrie was living there.
"Who's that?" said Mr Whittlestaff to the housekeeper.
"It's not a voice as I know, sir." The gentleman in the meantime was
taken into the drawing-room, and was closeted for the moment with
Mary.
We must now go down-stairs and closet ourselves for a few moments
with Mary Lawrie before the coming of the strange gentleman. She had
left the presence of Mr Whittlestaff half an hour since, and felt
that she had a second time on that day accepted him as her husband.
She had accepted him, and now she must do the best she could to suit
her life to his requirements. Her first feeling, when she found
herself alone, was one of intense disgust at her own weakness. He had
spoken to her of her ambition; and he had told her that he had found
a place for her, in which that ambition might find a fair scope. And
he had told her also that in reference to John Gordon she had dreamed
a dream. It might be so, but to her thinking the continued dreaming
of that dream would satisfy her ambition better than the performance
of those duties which he had arranged for her. She had her own ideas
of what was due from a girl and to a girl, and to her thinking her
love for John Gordon was all the world to her. She should not have
been made to abandon her thoughts, even though the man had not spoken
a word to her. She knew that she loved him; even though a time might
come when she should cease to do so, that time had not come yet. She
vacillated in her mind between condemnation of the cruelty of Mr
Whittlestaff and of her own weakness. And then, too, there was some
feeling of the hardship inflicted upon her by John Gordon. He had
certainly said that which had justified her in believing that she
possessed his heart. But yet there had been no word on which she
could fall back and regard it as a promise.
It might perhaps be better for her that she should marry Mr
Whittlestaff. All her friends would think it to be infinitely better.
Could there be anything more moonstruck, more shandy, more wretchedly
listless, than for a girl, a penniless girl, to indulge in dreams of
an impossible lover, when such a tower of strength presented itself
to her as was Mr Whittlestaff? She had consented to eat his bread,
and all her friends had declared how lucky she had been to find a
man so willing and so able to maintain her. And now this man did
undoubtedly love her very dearly, and there would be, as she was well
aware, no peril in marrying him. Was she to refuse him because of a
soft word once spoken to her by a young man who had since disappeared
altogether from her knowledge? And she had already accepted him,--had
twice accepted him on that very day! And there was no longer a hope
for escape, even if escape were desirable. What a fool must she be to
sit there, still dreaming her impossible dream, instead of thinking
of his happiness, and preparing herself for his wants! He had told
her that she might be allowed to think of John Gordon, though not to
speak of him. She would neither speak of him nor think of him. She
knew herself, she said, too well to give herself such liberty. He
should be to her as though he had never been. She would force herself
to forget him, if forgetting lies in the absence of all thought.
It was no more than Mr Whittlestaff had a right to demand, and no
more than she ought to be able to accomplish. Was she such a weak
simpleton as to be unable to keep her mind from running back to the
words and to the visage, and to every little personal trick of one
who could never be anything to her? "He has gone for ever!" she
exclaimed, rising up from her chair. "He shall be gone; I will not be
a martyr and a slave to my own memory. The thing came, and has gone,
and there is an end of it." Then Jane opened the door, with a little
piece of whispered information. "Please, Miss, a Mr Gordon wishes to
see you." The door was opened a little wider, and John Gordon stood
before her.
There he was, with his short black hair, his bright pleasant eyes,
his masterful mouth, his dark complexion, and broad, handsome, manly
shoulders, such as had dwelt in her memory every day since he had
departed. There was nothing changed, except that his raiment was
somewhat brighter, and that there was a look of prosperity about him
which he had lacked when he left her. He was the same John Gordon
who had seemed to her to be entitled to all that he wanted, and who
certainly would have had from her all that he had cared to demand.
When he had appeared before her, she had jumped up, ready to rush
into his arms; but then she had repressed herself, and had fallen
back, and she leant against the table for support.
"So I have found you here," he said.
"Yes, I am here."
"I have been after you down to Norwich, and have heard it all. Mary,
I am here on purpose to seek you. Your father and Mrs Lawrie are
both gone. He was going when I left you."
"Yes, Mr Gordon. They are both gone, and I am alone,--but for the
kindness of a most generous friend."
"I had heard, of course, of Mr Whittlestaff. I hope I shall not be
told now that I am doing no good about the house. At any rate I am
not a pauper. I have mended that little fault." Then he looked at
her as though he thought that there was nothing for him but to begin
the conversation where it had been so roughly ended at their last
meeting.
Did it not occur to him that something might have come across her
life during a period of nearly three years, which would stand in his
way and in hers? But as she gazed into his face, it seemed as though
no such idea had fallen upon him. But during those two or three
minutes, a multitude of thoughts crowded on poor Mary's mind. Was it
possible that because of the coming of John Gordon, Mr Whittlestaff
should withdraw his claim, and allow this happy young hero to walk
off with the reward which he still seemed to desire? She felt sure
that it could not be so. Even during that short space of time, she
resolved that it could not be so. She knew Mr Whittlestaff too well,
and was sure that her lover had arrived too late. It all passed
through her brain, and she was sure that no change could be effected
in her destiny. Had he come yesterday, indeed? But before she could
prepare an answer for John Gordon, Mr Whittlestaff entered the room.
She was bound to say something, though she was little able at
the moment to speak at all. She was aware that some ceremony was
necessary. She was but ill able to introduce these two men to each
other, but it had to be done. "Mr Whittlestaff," she said, "this is
Mr John Gordon who used to know us at Norwich."
"Mr John Gordon," said Mr Whittlestaff, bowing very stiffly.
"Yes, sir; that is my name. I never had the pleasure of meeting you
at Norwich, though I often heard of you there. And since I left the
place I have been told how kind a friend you have been to this young
lady. I trust I may live to thank you for it more warmly though not
more sincerely than I can do at this moment."
Of John Gordon's fate since he had left Norwich a few words must be
told. As Mrs Lawrie had then told him, he was little better than a
pauper. He had, however, collected together what means he had been
able to gather, and had gone to Cape Town in South Africa. Thence he
had made his way up to Kimberley, and had there been at work among
the diamond-fields for two years. If there be a place on God's earth
in which a man can thoroughly make or mar himself within that space
of time, it is the town of Kimberley. I know no spot more odious
in every way to a man who has learned to love the ordinary modes
of English life. It is foul with dust and flies; it reeks with bad
brandy; it is fed upon potted meats; it has not a tree near it. It is
inhabited in part by tribes of South African niggers, who have lost
all the picturesqueness of niggerdom in working for the white man's
wages. The white man himself is insolent, ill-dressed, and ugly.
The weather is very hot, and from morning till night there is no
occupation other than that of looking for diamonds, and the works
attending it. Diamond-grubbers want food and brandy, and lawyers and
policemen. They want clothes also, and a few horses; and some kind of
education is necessary for their children. But diamond-searching is
the occupation of the place; and if a man be sharp and clever, and
able to guard what he gets, he will make a fortune there in two years
more readily perhaps than elsewhere. John Gordon had gone out to
Kimberley, and had returned the owner of many shares in many mines.
CHAPTER VII.
JOHN GORDON AND MR WHITTLESTAFF.
Mr Gordon had gone out to South Africa with the settled intention of
doing something that might enable him to marry Mary Lawrie, and he
had carried his purpose through with a manly resolution. He had not
found Kimberley much to his taste, and had not made many dear friends
among the settled inhabitants he had found there. But he had worked
on, buying and selling shares in mines, owning a quarter of an eighth
there, and half a tenth here, and then advancing till he was the
possessor of many complete shares in many various adventures which
were quite intelligible to him, though to the ordinary stay-at-home
Englishman they seem to be so full of peril as not to be worth
possessing. As in other mines, the profit is shared monthly, and the
system has the advantage of thus possessing twelve quarter-days in
the year. The result is, that time is more spread out, and the man
expects to accomplish much more in twelve months than he can at home.
In two years a man may have made a fortune and lost it, and be on his
way to make it again. John Gordon had suffered no reverses, and with
twenty-four quarter-days, at each of which he had received ten or
twenty per cent, he had had time to become rich. He had by no means
abandoned all his shares in the diamond-mines; but having wealth
at command, he had determined to carry out the first purpose for
which he had come to South Africa. Therefore he returned to Norwich,
and having there learned Mary's address, now found himself in her
presence at Croker's Hall.
Mr Whittlestaff, when he heard John Gordon's name, was as much
astonished as had been Mary herself. Here was Mary's lover,--the very
man whom Mary had named to him. It had all occurred on this very
morning, so that even the look of her eyes and the tone of her voice,
as those few words of hers had been spoken, were fresh in his memory.
"He used to come to our house at Norwich,--and I loved him." Then she
had told him that this lover had been poor, and had gone away. He
had, since that, argued it out with himself, and with her too, on
the theory, though not expressed, that a lover who had gone away now
nearly three years ago, and had not been heard of, and had been poor
when he went, was of no use, and should be forgotten. "Let there
be no mention of him between us," he had intended to say, "and the
memory of him will fade away." But now on this very day he was back
among them, and there was Mary hardly able to open her mouth in his
presence.
He had bowed twice very stiffly when Gordon had spoken of all that
he had done on Mary's behalf. "Arrangements have been made," he said,
"which may, I trust, tend to Miss Lawrie's advantage. Perhaps I ought