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 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.
