MR WHITTLESTAFF MEDITATES A JOURNEY.
The next day was Sunday, and was passed in absolute tranquillity.
Nothing was said either by Mr Whittlestaff or by Mary Lawrie; nor,
to the eyes of those among whom they lived, was there anything to
show that their minds were disturbed. They went to church in the
morning, as was usual with them, and Mary went also to the evening
service. It was quite pleasant to see Mrs Baggett start for her slow
Sabbath morning walk, and to observe how her appearance altogether
belied that idea of rags and tatters which she had given as to her
own wardrobe. A nicer dressed old lady, or a more becoming black silk
gown, you shall not see on a Sunday morning making her way to any
country church in England. While she was looking so pleasant and
demure,--one may say almost so handsome, in her old-fashioned and
apparently new bonnet,--what could have been her thoughts respecting
the red-nosed, one-legged warrior, and her intended life, to be
passed in fetching two-penn'orths of gin for him, and her endeavours
to get for him a morsel of wholesome food? She had had her breakfast
out of her own china tea-cup, which she used to boast was her own
property, as it had been given to her by Mr Whittlestaff's mother,
and had had her little drop of cream, and, to tell the truth, her
boiled egg, which she always had on a Sunday morning, to enable her
to listen to the long sermon of the Rev Mr Lowlad. She would talk
of her hopes and her burdens, and undoubtedly she was in earnest. But
she certainly did seem to make her hay very comfortably while the sun
shone.
Everything on this Sunday morning was pleasant, or apparently
pleasant, at Croker's Hall. In the evening, when Mary and the
maid-servants went to church, leaving Mrs Baggett at home to look
after the house and go to sleep, Mr Whittlestaff walked off to the
wooded path with his Horace. He did not read it very long. The bits
which he did usually read never amounted to much at a time. He would
take a few lines and then digest them thoroughly, wailing over them
or rejoicing, as the case might be. He was not at the present moment
much given to joy. "Intermissa, Venus, diu rursus bella moves? Parce,
precor, precor." This was the passage to which he turned at the
present moment; and very little was the consolation which he found
in it. What was so crafty, he said to himself, or so vain as that an
old man should hark back to the pleasures of a time of life which was
past and gone! "Non sum qualis eram," he said, and then thought with
shame of the time when he had been jilted by Catherine Bailey,--the
time in which he had certainly been young enough to love and be
loved, had he been as lovable as he had been prone to love. Then he
put the book in his pocket. His latter effort had been to recover
something of the sweetness of life, and not, as had been the poet's,
to drain those dregs to the bottom. But when he got home he bade Mary
tell him what Mr Lowlad had said in his sermon, and was quite cheery
in his manner of picking Mr Lowlad's theology to pieces;--for Mr
Whittlestaff did not altogether agree with Mr Lowlad as to the uses
to be made of the Sabbath.
On the next morning he began to bustle about a little, as was usual
with him before he made a journey; and it did escape him, while he
was talking to Mrs Baggett about a pair of trousers which it turned
out that he had given away last summer, that he meditated a journey
to London on the next day.
"You ain't a-going?" said Mrs Baggett.
"I think I shall."
"Then don't. Take my word for it, sir,--don't." But Mr Whittlestaff
only snubbed her, and nothing more was said about the journey at the
moment.
In the course of the afternoon visitors came. Miss Evelina Hall with
Miss Forrester had been driven into Alresford, and now called in
company with Mr Blake. Mr Blake was full of his own good tidings,
but not so full but that he could remember, before he took his
departure, to say a half whispered word on behalf of John Gordon.
"What do you think, Mr Whittlestaff? Since you were at Little
Alresford we've settled the day."
"You needn't be telling it to everybody about the county," said
Kattie Forrester.
"Why shouldn't I tell it to my particular friends? I am sure Miss
Lawrie will be delighted to hear it."
"Indeed I am," said Mary.
"And Mr Whittlestaff also. Are you not, Mr Whittlestaff?"
"I am very happy to hear that a couple whom I like so well are soon
to be made happy. But you have not yet told us the day."
"The 1st of August," said Evelina Hall.
"The 1st of August," said Mr Blake, "is an auspicious day. I am sure
there is some reason for regarding it as auspicious, though I cannot
exactly remember what. It is something about Augustus, I think."
"I never heard of such an idea to come from a clergyman of the Church
of England," said the bride. "I declare Montagu never seems to think
that he's a clergyman at all."
"It will be better for him," said Mr Whittlestaff, "and for all
those about him, that he should ever remember the fact and never seem
to do so."
"All the same," said Blake, "although the 1st of August is
auspicious, I was very anxious to be married in July, only the
painters said they couldn't be done with the house in time. One is
obliged to go by what these sort of people say and do. We're to have
a month's honeymoon,--only just a month, because Mr Lowlad won't
make himself as agreeable as he ought to do about the services; and
Newface, the plumber and glazier, says he can't have the house done
as Kattie would like to live in it before the end of August. Where do
you think we're going to, Miss Lawrie? You would never guess."
"Perhaps to Rome," said Mary at a shot.
"Not quite so far. We're going to the Isle of Wight. It's rather
remarkable that I never spent but one week in the Isle of Wight since
I was born. We haven't quite made up our mind whether it's to be
Black Gang Chine or Ventnor. It's a matter of dresses, you see."
"Don't be a fool, Montagu," said Miss Forrester.
"Well, it is. If we decide upon Ventnor, she must have frocks and
things to come out with."
"I suppose so," said Mr Whittlestaff.
"But she'll want nothing of the kind at Black Gang."
"Do hold your tongue, and not make an ass of yourself. What do you
know what dresses I shall want? As it is, I don't think I shall go
either to the one place or the other. The Smiths are at Ryde, and the
girls are my great friends. I think we'll go to Ryde, after all."
"I'm so sorry, Mr Whittlestaff, that we can't expect the pleasure
of seeing you at our wedding. It is, of course, imperative that
Kattie should be married in the cathedral. Her father is one of the
dignitaries, and could not bear not to put his best foot foremost on
such an occasion. The Dean will be there, of course. I'm afraid the
Bishop cannot come up from Farnham, because he will have friends with
him. I am afraid John Gordon will have gone by that time, or else we
certainly would have had him down. I should like John Gordon to be
present, because he would see how the kind of thing is done." The
name of John Gordon at once silenced all the matrimonial chit-chat
which was going on among them. It was manifest both to Mr
Whittlestaff and to Mary that it had been lugged in without a cause,
to enable Mr Blake to talk about the absent man. "It would have been
pleasant; eh, Kattie?"
"We should have been very glad to see Mr Gordon, if it would have
suited him to come," said Miss Forrester.
"It would have been just the thing for him; and we at Oxford
together, and everything. Don't you think he would have liked to be
there? It would have put him in mind of other things, you know."
To this appeal there was no answer made. It was impossible that Mary
should bring herself to talk about John Gordon in mixed company.
And the allusion to him stirred Mr Whittlestaff's wrath. Of course
it was understood as having been spoken in Mary's favour. And Mr
Whittlestaff had been made to perceive by what had passed at Little
Alresford that the Little Alresford people all took the side of John
Gordon, and were supposed to be taking the side of Mary at the same
time. There was not one of them, he said to himself, that had half
the sense of Mrs Baggett. And there was a vulgarity about their
interference of which Mrs Baggett was not guilty.
"He is half way on his road to the diamond-fields," said Evelina.
"And went away from here on Saturday morning!" said Montagu Blake.
"He has not started yet,--not dreamed of it. I heard him whisper to
Mr Whittlestaff about his address. He's to be in London at his club.
I didn't hear him say for how long, but when a man gives his address
at his club he doesn't mean to go away at once. I have a plan in my
head. Some of those boats go to the diamond-fields from Southampton.
All the steamers go everywhere from Southampton. Winchester is on the
way to Southampton. Nothing will be easier for him than to drop in
for our marriage on his way out. That is, if he must go at last."
Then he looked hard at Mary Lawrie.
"And bring some of his diamonds with him," said Evelina Hall. "That
would be very nice." But not a word more was said then about John
Gordon by the inhabitants of Croker's Hall. After that the visitors
went, and Montagu Blake chaperoned the girls out of the house,
without an idea that he had made himself disagreeable.
"That young man is a most egregious ass," said Mr Whittlestaff.
"He is good-natured and simple, but I doubt whether he sees things
very plainly."
"He has not an idea of what a man may talk about and when he should
hold his tongue. And he is such a fool as to think that his idle
chatter can influence others. I don't suppose a bishop can refuse to
ordain a gentleman because he is a general idiot. Otherwise I think
the bishop is responsible for letting in such an ass as this." Mary
said to herself, as she heard this, that it was the most ill-natured
remark which she had ever known to fall from the mouth of Mr
Whittlestaff.
"I think I am going away for a few days," Mr Whittlestaff said to
Mary, when the visitors were gone.
"Where are you going?"
"Well, I suppose I shall be in London. When one goes anywhere, it is
generally to London; though I haven't been there for more than two
months."
"Not since I came to live with you," she said. "You are the most
stay-at-home person by way of a gentleman that I ever heard of." Then
there was a pause for a few minutes, and he said nothing further.
"Might a person ask what you are going for?" This she asked in the
playful manner which she knew he would take in good part.
"Well; I don't quite know that a person can. I am going to see a man
upon business, and if I began to tell you part of it, I must tell it
all,--which would not be convenient."
"May I not ask how long you will be away? There can't be any dreadful
secret in that. And I shall want to know what to get for your dinner
when you come back." She was standing now at his elbow, and he was
holding her by the arm. It was to him almost as though she were
already his wife, and the feeling to him was very pleasant. Only if
she were his wife, or if it were positively decided among them that
she would become so, he would certainly tell her the reason for which
he might undertake any journey. Indeed there was no reason connected
with any business of his which might not be told, other than that
special reason which was about to take him to London. He only
answered her now by pressing her hand and smiling into her face.
"Will it be for a month?"
"Oh dear, no! what should I do away from home for a month?"
"How can I tell? The mysterious business may require you to be absent
for a whole year. Fancy my being left at home all that time. You
don't think of it; but you have never left me for a single night
since you first brought me to live here."
"And you have never been away."
"Oh, no! why should I go away? What business can a woman have to move
from home, especially such a woman as I am."
"You are just like Mrs Baggett. She always talks of women with
supreme contempt. And yet she is just as proud of herself as the
queen when you come to contradict her."
"You never contradict me."
"Perhaps the day may come when I shall." Then he recollected himself,
and added, "Or perhaps the day may never come. Never mind. Put up
my things for one week. At any rate I shall not be above a week
gone." Then she left him, and went away to his room to do what was
necessary.
She knew the business on which he was about to travel to London, as
well as though he had discussed with her the whole affair. In the
course of the last two or three days there had been moments in which
she had declared to herself that he was cruel. There had been moments
in which she had fainted almost with sorrow when she thought of the
life which fate had in store for her. There must be endless misery,
while there might have been joy, so ecstatic in its nature as to make
it seem to her to be perennial. Then she had almost fallen, and had
declared him to be preternaturally cruel. But these moments had been
short, and had endured only while she had allowed herself to dream
of the ecstatic joy, which she confessed to herself to be an unfit
condition of life for her. And then she had told herself that Mr
Whittlestaff was not cruel, and that she herself was no better than a
weak, poor, flighty creature unable to look in its face life and all
its realities. And then she would be lost in amazement as she thought
of herself and all her vacillations.
She now was resolved to take his part, and to fight his battle to
the end. When he had told her that he was going up to London, and
going up on business as to which he could tell her nothing, she knew
that it behoved her to prevent him from taking the journey. John
Gordon should be allowed to go in quest of his diamonds, and Mr
Whittlestaff should be persuaded not to interfere with him. It was
for her sake, and not for John Gordon's, that he was about to make
the journey. He had asked her whether she were willing to marry him,
and she had told him that he was pressing her too hard. She would
tell him now,--now before it was too late,--that this was not so. His
journey to London must at any rate be prevented.