John Gordon writes A letter.
When they parted in the park, Mr Whittlestaff
trudged off to his own hotel, through the heat and
sunshine. He walked quickly, and never looked
behind him, and went as though he had fully accomplished
his object in one direction, and must hurry to get
it done in another. To Gordon he had left no
directions whatever. Was he to be allowed to go
down to Mary, or even to write her a letter? He
did not know whether Mary had ever been told of this
wonderful sacrifice which had been made on her behalf.
He understood that he was to have his own way, and
was to be permitted to regard himself as betrothed
to her, but he did not at all understand what steps
he was to take in the matter, except that he was not
to go again to the diamond-fields. But Mr Whittlestaff
hurried himself off to his hotel, and shut himself
up in his own bedroom, and when there,
he sobbed, alas! like a child.
The wife whom he had won for himself
was probably more valuable to him than if he had simply
found her disengaged and ready to jump into his arms.
She, at any rate, had behaved well. Mr Whittlestaff
had no doubt proved himself to be an angel, perfect
all round, such a man as you shall not
meet perhaps once in your life. But Mary, too,
had so behaved as to enhance the love of any man who
had been already engaged to her. As he thought
of the whole story of the past week, the first idea
that occurred to him was that he certainly had been
present to her mind during the whole period of his
absence. Though not a word had passed between
them, and though no word of absolute love for each
other had even been spoken before, she had been steady
to him, with no actual basis on which to found her
love. He had known, and she had been sure, and
therefore she had been true to him. Of course,
being a true man himself, he worshipped her all the
more. Mr Whittlestaff was absolutely, undoubtedly
perfect; but in Gordon’s estimation Mary was
not far off perfection. But what was he to do
now, so that he might approach her?
He had pledged himself to one thing,
and he must at once go to work and busy himself in
accomplishing it. He had promised not to return
to Africa; and he must at once see Mr Tookey, and learn
whether that gentleman’s friends would be allowed
to go on with the purchase as arranged. He knew
Poker & Hodge to be moneyed men, or to be men, at
any rate, in command of money. If they would not
pay him at once, he must look elsewhere for buyers;
but the matter must be settled. Tookey had promised
to come to his club this day, and there he would go
and await his coming.
He went to his club, but the first
person who came to him was Mr Whittlestaff. Mr
Whittlestaff when he had left the park had determined
never to see John Gordon again, or to see him only
during that ceremony of the marriage, which it might
be that he would even yet escape. All that was
still in the distant future. Dim ideas as to
some means of avoiding it flitted through his brain.
But even though he might see Gordon on that terrible
occasion, he need not speak to him. And it would
have to be done then, and then only. But now
another idea, certainly very vague, had found its way
into his mind, and with the object of carrying it
out, Mr Whittlestaff had come to the club. “Oh,
Mr Whittlestaff, how do you do again?”
“I’m much the same as
I was before, thank you. There hasn’t happened
anything to improve my health.”
“I hope nothing may happen to injure it.”
“It doesn’t much matter.
You said something about some property you’ve
got in diamonds, and you said once that you must go
out to look after it.”
“But I’m not going now.
I shall sell my share in the mines. I am going
to see a Mr Tookey about it immediately.”
“Can’t you sell them to me?”
“The diamond shares, to you!”
“Why not to me? If the
thing has to be done at once, of course you and I
must trust each other. I suppose you can trust
me?”
“Certainly I can.”
“As I don’t care much
about it, whether I get what I buy or not, it does
not much matter for me. But in truth, in such
an affair as this 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.