If you be built on a grand scale, there's always people to feel the
greatness, and though, when you hap to be a knave, their respect is a bit
one-sided, still there it is: greatness will be granted.
In the case of John Warner, he weren't a knave, but his greatness, so to
call it, took the form of such a complete and wondrous selfishness that
you was bound to own a touch of genius in the masterful way he bent all
things to his purpose and came out top over his neighbours. The man was an
only son, and what might have been chastened in his youth was fostered by
a silly mother, who fell in love with his fine appearance and never denied
him a pleasure she could grant. And his father weren't no wiser, so when,
at five-and-twenty, he found himself an orphan and Wych Elm Farm his own,
lock, stock, and barrel, young John Warner come to his kingdom with a
steadfast determination to get the best he could for himself out of life
and make it run to his own pattern so far as unsleeping wit of man could
do.
He married a pretty woman with a bit of money and he altered a good few of
his father's ways and used Jane Slowcombe's dowry to buy up a hundred
acres alongside his own. The land had been neglected and wanted patience
and cash; but where his lasting interests were concerned, John never
lacked for one, nor stinted the other. He was a clever man and a charming
man, and his cleverness and his charm appeared in many ways. Over the
steel hand of sleepless selfishness John drew the velvet glove of good
manners and nice speech. He created the false idea that he never wanted to
do more than give and take in the properest spirit you could wish. He
spoke the comfortablest words ever a farmer did speak to his
fellow-creatures, and many a man was lost afore he knew it when doing
business with John Warner, and never realised, till it came to the turn,
how a bargain which sounded so well had somehow gone against him after
all.
Of course, John prospered exceeding, for amongst his other gifts, he
weren't afraid of work. He knew his business very well indeed, and always
understood that it was worth his while to take pains with a beginner and
paid him in the long run so to do. People felt a good bit interested in
him, and though they knew there was a lot to hate in the man, yet they
couldn't give a name to it exactly. When a fallen foe was furious and
bearded John and shook a fist in his face, as sometimes happened, he'd
look the picture of sorrow and amazement and express his undying regrets.
But he never went back on nothing, and near though he might sail to the
wind, none ever had a handle by which to drag him before the Law. 'Twas
just the very genius of selfishness that sped him on his way victorious
every time.
He never took no hand in public affairs, nor offered for the Borough
Council, nor nothing like that. He might have been a useful man in Little
Silver, where we didn't boast more brains than we needed, nor yet enough;
but John Warner said he weren't one of the clever ones and felt very
satisfied with them that were, and applauded such men as did a bit of work
for nothing out of their public spirit. For praise, though cheap, is
always welcome, and he had a great art to be generous with what cost him
nothing.
He'd pay a man a thought above his market value if he judged him worth it,
and he often said that on a farm like Wych Elm, where everything was
carried out on the highest grade of farming, 'twas money in any young
man's pocket to come to him at all. And nobody could deny that either. And
he never meddled in his neighbour's affairs, or offered advice, or
unfavourably criticised anything that happened outside his own boundaries.
One daughter only John Warner had, and that was all his family, and her
mother struck the first stroke against his happiness and content, for she
died and left him a widower at five-and-forty. She fell in a consumption,
much to his regret, after they'd been wedded fifteen years; and their girl
was called Jane after her, and 'twas noted that though sprung of such
handsome parents, Jane didn't favour either but promised to be a very
homely woman--a promise she fulfilled.
Her father trained her most industrious to be his right hand, and she grew
up with a lively admiration for him and his opinions. Farming interested
her a lot, and men mildly interested her; but among the hopeful young
blades with an eye on the future who offered to keep company and so on,
there was none Jane saw who promised to be a patch on her parent, and
after his worldly wisdom and grasp of life and shrewd sense, she found the
boys of her own age no better than birds in a hedge. Indeed she had no use
for any among 'em, but made John Warner her god, as he meant she should
do; for, as she waxed in strength and wits, he felt her a strong right
hand. In fact, he took no small pains to identify her with himself for his
own convenience, and secretly determined she shouldn't wed if he could
help it. Little by little he poisoned her mind against matrimony, praised
the independent women and showed how such were better off every way, with
no husband and family to fret their lives and spoil their freedom.
Jane was one, or two-and-twenty by now--a pale, small-eyed maiden with a
fine, strong body and a great appetite for manual work. There was no taint
from her mother in her and she lived out of doors for choice and loved a
hard job. She'd pile the dry-built, granite walls with any man, and do so
much as him in a day; and folk, looking on her, foretold that she'd be
rich beyond dreams, but never know how to get a pennyworth of pleasure out
of all her money.
But Jane's one and only idol was her father, and for him she would have
done anything in her power. She counted on him being good to live for
ever, along of his cautious habits, and she'd give over all thought of any
change in the home when the crash came and the even ripple of their lives
was broke for her by a very unexpected happening.
Because, much to his own astonishment, John Warner found his mind dwelling
on a wife once more--the last thing as ever he expected to happen to him.
Indeed the discovery flustered the man not a little, and he set himself to
consider such an upheaval most careful and weigh it, as he weighed
everything, in the scales of his own future comfort and success. He was a
calculating man in all things, and yet it came over him gradual and sure
that Mrs. Bascombe had got something to her which made a most forcible
appeal and awakened fires he thought were gone out for ever when his wife
died. As for Nelly Bascombe, she was a widow and kept a shop-of-all-sorts
in Little Silver and did well thereat, and Bascombe had been dead two
years when his discovery dropped like a bolt out of a clear sky on John
Warner.
It vexed him a bit at first and he put it away, after considering what an
upstore a second wife would make in the snug and well-ordered scheme of
his existence; but there it was and Nelly wouldn't be put away. So John
examined the facts and came to the interesting conclusion that, in a
manner of speaking, his own daughter was responsible for his fix. Because,
being such a wintry fashion of female, she made all others of the sex
shine by contrast, and her father guessed it was just her manly, hard,
bustling way that showed up the feminine softness and charming voice and
general appealing qualities of Nelly Bascombe.
Nelly was a tall, fine woman of forty years old. Her hair was thick and
dark, her eyes a wondrous big pair and so grey as the mist, and her voice
to poor Jane's was like a blackbird against a guinea-fowl. Farmer, he
dropped in the shop pretty often to pass the time of day and measure her
up; and for her part being a man-loving sort of woman, who had lost a good
husband, but didn't see no very stark cause why she shouldn't find
another, she discovered after a bit what was lurking in the farmer's mind.
Then, like the rest of the parish, she wondered, for 'twas never thought
that such an own-self man as Warner, and one so well suited by his
daughter, would spoil his peace with another wife.
But nobody's cleverer to hide his nature than a lover, and Warner found
himself burrowing into Nelly's life a bit and sizing up her character,
though full of caution not to commit himself; and she was very near as
clever as him, and got to weigh up his points, good and bad, and to feel
along with such a man that life might be pleasant enough for a nature like
hers. For she was a good manager with a saving disposition. She liked
John's handsome appearance and reckoned the fifteen year between 'em would
work to suit her. And, more than that, she hated her business, because a
shop-of-all-sorts have got a smell to it like nothing else on earth, and
Nelly found it cast her spirits down a bit as it always had done. She made
no secret of this, and John Warner presently got to see she was friendly
disposed towards him and might easily be had for the asking if he asked
right. He took his time, however, and sounded Jane, where he well knew the
pinch would come.
He gleaned her opinion casual on the subject of a woman here and there,
and he found Jane thought well enough of Mrs. Bascombe, whose shop was
useful and her prices well within reason. But it was a long time before he
made up his mind, the problem being whether to tell Jane of the thing he
was minded to do before he done it, or take the step first and break it to
her after. In the end he reckoned it safer to do the deed and announce it
as an accomplished fact; because he very well knew that she would take it
a good bit to heart and hate with all her might any other female reigning
at Wych Elm but herself.
And meanwhile, all unknown to farmer, Jane chanced to be having a bit of
very mild amusement with a male on her own account.
Martin Ball was known as 'the busy man of Little Silver,' and none but had
a good word for him. He was a yellow-whiskered, stout, red-faced and
blue-eyed chap with enough energy to drive a steamship. The folk marvelled
how he found time for all he undertook. He was Portreeve of the
district--an ancient title without much to it nowadays--and he was
huckster to a dozen farms for Okehampton Market. He also kept bees and
coneys and ran a market-garden of two acres. He served on the Parish
Council and he was vicar's warden. And numberless other small chores with
money to 'em he also undertook and performed most successful. And then, at
forty-two years of age, though not before, he began to feel a wife might
be worked into his life with advantage, and only regretted the needful
time to find and court the woman.
And even so, but for the temper of his old aunt, Mary Ball, who kept house
for him, he would have been content to carry on single-handed.
He knew the Warners very well and Jane had always made a great impression
on him by reason of her fearless ways and great powers and passionate love
of work; and though he came to see very soon that work was her only
passion, beyond her devoted attachment to her father, yet he couldn't but
mark that such a woman would be worth a gold-mine to any man who weren't
disposed to put womanly qualities first. Of love he knew less than one of
his working bees, but maybe had a dim vision at the back of his mind about
it, which showed him clear enough that with Jane Warner, love-making could
never amount to much. He measured the one against t'other, however, and
felt upon the whole that such a woman would be a tower of strength if she
could only be got away from her parent.
And so he showed her how he was a good bit interested, and had speech with
her, off and on, and made it pretty clear in his scant leisure that she
could come to him if she was minded. It pleased her a good bit to find
such a remarkable man as Ball had found time to think upon her, and she
also liked his opinions and his valiant hunger for hard work. She'd even
let herself think of him for five minutes sometimes before she went to
sleep of a night, and what there was of woman in her felt a mild
satisfaction to know there lived a man on earth she'd got the power to
interest. Marriage was far outside her scheme, of course; but there's a
lot that wouldn't marry for a fortune, yet feel a good bit uplifted to
know they might do so and that a male exists who thinks 'em worth while.
So Jane praised Martin Ball and let him see, as far as her nature allowed,
that she thought well of him and his opinions and manner of life; and he
began to believe he might get her.
He touched it very light indeed to John Warner one day when they met
coming home on horse-back, and then he found himself up against a rock,
for when he hinted that Warner would be losing his wonderful daughter some
time, the farmer told him that was the very last thing on earth could ever
happen.
"Never," said John Warner. "The likes of her be her father's child to her
boots. I'm her life, Ball, and there's no thought of marriage in her, nor
never will be so long as I'm above-ground. She ain't that sort anyhow, and
I'm glad of it."
He wanted it both ways, you see. In his grand powers of selfishness, John
had planned to have Nelly for wife by now, and he'd also planned to keep
his daughter, well knowing that no wife would do a quarter of what Jane
did, or be so valuable on a business basis. Jane for business and Nelly
Bascombe for pleasure was his idea.
And then John offered for Mrs. Bascombe, after making it clear to her that
he was going to do so and finding the running good. He put it in his
masterly language and said that he'd be her willing slave, and hinted how,
when he was gathered home, the farm would be her own for life and so on;
and while knowing very well that John weren't going to be her slave or
nothing like that, Mrs. Bascombe reckoned the adventure about worth while,
having took a fancy to him and longing most furious to escape the
shop-of-all-sorts. And so she said "Yes," though hiding a doubt all the
time, and Warner, who hated to have any trouble hanging over him, swore he
was a blessed and a fortunate man, kissed her on the lips, and went home
instanter to tell Jane the news. He broke it when supper was done and they
sat alone--her darning and him mixing his 'nightcap,' which was a drop of
Hollands, a lump of sugar and a squeeze of lemon in hot water.
"I've got glad news for you, Jane," he said. "Long I've felt 'twas a
cheerless life for you without another woman to share your days on a
footing of affection and friendship and--more for your sake than my
own--I've ordained to wed again. Not till I heard you praise her did I
allow my thoughts to dwell on Mrs. Bascombe, but getting better acquaint,
I found her all you said, and more. A woman of very fine character--so
fearless and just such a touzer for work as yourself, and, in a word,
seeing that you did ought to have a fellow-woman to share your labours and
lighten your load, I approached her and she's took me. And I thank God for
it, because you and her will be my right and left hand henceforward; and
the three of us be like to pull amazing well together. 'Tis a great
advancement for Wych Elm in my judgment, and I will that the advantage
shall be first of all for you."
She heard him out with her little eyes on his face and her darning dropped
and her jaw dropped also, as if she'd been struck dead. But he expected
something like that, because he very well knew Jane would hate the news
and make a rare upstore about it. He was all for a short battle and very
wishful to go to bed the conqueror. But he did not. Jane hadn't got his
mellow flow of words, nor yet his charming touches when he wanted his way
over a job; but she shared a good bit of his brain-power and she grasped
at this fatal moment, with the future sagging under her feet, that she'd
never be able to put up no fight nor hold her own that night. In fact, she
knew, as we all do, that you can't do yourself justice after you've been
knocked all ends up by a thunderbolt. But she kept her nerve and her wits
and looked at him and shut her mouth and put up her work in her
workbasket.
"Good night, father," she said. "Us'll talk about it to-morrow, if you
please."
Then she rose up and went straight to her chamber.
He was sorry for himself, though not at all surprised; and he finished his
liquor, locked the house and retired. An hour had passed before he went to
bed, and he listened at Jane's door and ordained that if by evil chance he
heard her weeping he'd go in and say comforting words and play the loving
father and advance his own purpose at the same time. But Jane weren't
weeping; she was snoring, and John Warner nodded and went on. He couldn't
help admiring her, however, even at that moment.
"She's saving all her powers for to-morrow," thought Jane's parent; and
she was. She slept according to her custom, like a dormouse, and woke
refreshed to put up the fight of her life. They got to it after breakfast,
when the house-place was empty, and Warner soon found that, if he were to
have his will, 'twould be needful to call on Heaven to help him.
Jane didn't waste no time, and if her father had astonished her, she had
quite so fine a surprise for him after she'd thought it all over and
collected herself.
"'Tis in a nutshell," she said. "All my life I've put you afore everything
on earth but my Maker, and I was minded so to continue. I've been
everything any daughter ever was to a father, and you have stood to me for
my waking and sleeping thought ever since I could think at all. And now
you want me to go under in my home and see another take my place. Well,
dad, that's your look-out, of course, and if you think Mrs. Bascombe will
be more useful to you than me, then take her. But I'll say here and now,
please, that if you be going to marry, I shall leave Wych Elm for good and
all, because I couldn't endure for another woman to be over me and closer
to your interests than what I am. Never, never could I endure it. Is that
quite clear?"
He looked at her and filled his tobacco pipe while he done so.
"So clear as can be, Jane," he said. "'Tis like your fine courage and
affection to feel so. But I make bold to believe you haven't weighed this
come-along-of-it same as I have, and find yourself getting up in the air
too soon. I could no more see Wych Elm without you than I could see myself
without you, and the affection I feel for Mrs. Bascombe is on a different
footing altogether. Love of a wife and love of a daughter don't clash at
all. They be different things, and she would no more come between me and
you and our lifelong devotion than love of man would come between you and
me."
He flowed on like that, so clever as need be, and she listened with a face
that didn't show a spark of the thought behind it. But he failed to move
her an inch, because, unknown to him, she'd got a fine trump card up her
sleeve, of course.
He saw presently that he wasn't making no progress and sighed a good bit
and turned on a pathetic note, which he had at command, and blew his nose
once or twice; but these little touches didn't move Jane, so he ventured
to ask her what her future ideas might be away from Wych Elm, if such a
fearful thing was thinkable.
"God, He knows," said John Warner, "as I never thought to be up against
life like this, and find myself called to choose by you, who was the apple
of my very eye, between a wife and an only child; but since you can have
the heart to come between me and a natural affection towards Mrs.
Bascombe, may I venture to ask, dear Jane, what your own plans might be if
you could bring yourself to do such a deed as to leave me?"
"That's easy," she answered. "If your love for me was not strong enough to
conquer your love for Nelly Bascombe, then I'm very much afraid, father,
my love for you might go down in its turn, before my feelings for another
man. In a word, dad, if I felt I wasn't the queen of your home no more, I
should turn my attention to being queen of another."
He stared at that.
"Never heard anything more interesting, dear child," he said. "'Tis a
wonderful picture to see you reigning away from Wych Elm. But though I'm
sure there's a dozen men would thank their stars for such a wife as you, I
can't but feel in these hard times that few struggling bachelors would be
equal even to such a rare woman, unless it was in her power to bring 'em
something besides her fine self."
She smiled at that and rather expected it.
"I thought you'd remind me how it stood and I was a pauper if you so
willed," she replied. "But we needn't go into figures, because the man I'm
aiming at knows you very well, and he'll quite understand that if he was
to get me away from you, there won't be no flags flying when I go to him,
nor yet any marriage portion. He ain't what you might call a struggling
bachelor, however, but a pretty snug man by general accounts."
"And who might he be, I wonder?" asked John; because in his heart he
didn't believe for a moment there was any such a man in the world; and
when Jane declined to name Martin Ball, her father was more than ever
convinced that she was bluffing.
"We will suffer a month to pass, Jane," he told her. "Let a full month go
by for us to see where we stand and get the situation clear in our minds.
Certain it is that nought that could happen will ever cloud my undying
affection for you, and I well know I'm the light also to which your fine
daughterly devotions turn. So let this high matter be dead between us till
four weeks have slipped by."
"Like your sense to suggest it," she answered.
And the subject weren't named again between 'em till somebody else named
it.
But meantime John didn't hesitate to take the affair in strict secrecy to
the woman who had promised to wed him; and when the engagement was known,
of course, Martin Ball struck while the iron was hot and felt a great
bound of hope that Jane would now look upon him with very different eyes.
And even while he hoped, his spirit sank a bit now and again in her
company. But he put the weak side away and told himself that love was at
best a fleeting passion.
Jane didn't say much to him herself, because in truth she would have a
thousand times sooner bided at Wych Elm with her parent than wed the busy
man of Little Silver; but Martin screwed himself to the pinch and urged
her to let there be a double wedding. He found her very evasive, however,
for hope hadn't died in Jane, and she knew by a good few signs her father
was hating the thought of losing her. The idea of Jane away from Wych Elm
caused him a lot of deep inconvenience, and Nelly Bascombe seemingly
weren't so much on his side as he had hoped. Of course the woman well knew
that life at Wych Elm would be far more unrestful with Jane than without
her, and so she rather took the maiden's view and tried to make John see
it might be better if his girl was to leave 'em. And this she did because
it happened, after a week had passed, she knew a lot more about the truth
than Mr. Warner could. He still clung to the hope that Jane was lying and
that no man wanted her; and even if such man existed, John, well
understanding that his daughter was not the sort to fill the male eye in
herself, doubted not that the lover would soon cry off if he heard Jane's
prospects were gone. He voiced this great truth to Nelly Bascombe, and
he'd have been a good bit surprised to know that on the very day he did
so, she reported his intentions word for word to the man most interested.
Because, when the situation unfolded, Martin Ball had gone to Mrs.
Bascombe in hope to get some useful aid from her.
They were acquaint, because Nelly sold Ball's honey in her shop, but more
than that Martin didn't know of the woman. She had a good name for sense,
however, and when he heard that she had taken Warner, he saw what her
power must now be in that quarter and asked for a tell in private. Which
she was agreeable to give him, and in truth they saw each other a good few
times and traversed over the situation most careful.
Nelly had a way to understand men and she listened to Martin and liked the
frank fashion he faced life. He was honest as the day, though fretting a
bit because Jane Warner wouldn't say "Yes" and be done with it. He'd
wanted to go to her father, too, and let John know his hopes; but that
Jane wouldn't allow at this stage of the affair.
"In fact, she won't let me whisper a word," said Martin to Mrs. Bascombe,
"and 'tis treason to her in a way my coming to you at all; but I feel
terrible sure you can help, and it looks as if it would be all right and
regular and suit everybody if she was to take me and leave the coast clear
for you when you wed her parent."
"It does look like that to a plain sight," admitted Nelly, "but in truth
things be very different. And for your confidence, in strict secrecy, I
can give you mine. Warner don't want her to go. He badly wants me and her
both, while, for her part, she don't want to go and hates the thought;
but, so far, she's determined to do so if I come."
"That ain't love, however," argued Mr. Ball.
"It ain't," admitted Nelly Bascombe, "and you mustn't fox yourself to
think she'll come to you for love. A good helper she'd be to any man in
her own way; but she belongs to the order of women who can't love very
grand as a wife. She do love as a daughter can love a father, however, and
it's very clear to me that John Warner is her life in a manner of
speaking. On the other hand, it would upset her existence to the very
roots if I went to Wych Elm at farmer's right hand, where naturally I
should be."
Mr. Ball listened and nodded, and his blue eyes rested upon Mrs.
Bascombe's grey ones.
"You throw a great light," he said. "In a word, there was deeper reasons
far than any growing affection for me that have made her so on-coming of
late?"
"God forbid as I should suggest such a thing as that," answered Nelly.
"You're a sort of man to please any woman, if I may say so; but I'm only
telling you what lies in her mind. And I'll say more in fairness to the
both of you. Her father don't believe there is a man after her at all.
Jane's just sitting on the fence, in fact, and waiting to see if she can't
shake him off me. And if I'm turned down, then you'll be turned down. 'Tis
rather amusing in a way."
"It may be, but I ain't much one for a joke," he confessed, and then went
on. "Though too busy for love-making and all that, yet I've got my pride,
Mrs. Bascombe, and I shouldn't like to be taken as a last resort--amusing
though it might be."
"No man would," she answered. "And I hope I'm wrong. She may be turning to
you for your qualities. She may be coming for affection after all, knowing
you'd prove a very fine husband."
"I would," declared Mr. Ball. "I can tell you, without self-conceit or any
such thing, that where I loved I'd stick, and the woman as shared my life
would share my all. There's a lot in me only hid because nothing have yet
happened to draw it out. I'm busy and I'm wishful to do my little bit of
work in the world for other people; but if I was married, my home would be
a find thought to me, and my wife would be first always and her comfort
and happiness a lot more to me than my own. 'My home' I call it, but it
have long been borne in upon me that a home is a hollow word with nought
in it but an aunt such as Mary Ball. It may be like blowing my own
trumpet, and I wouldn't say it save in an understanding ear; but I do
think Jane Warner would find I was good enough."
"She certainly would," admitted Nelly; and deep in her heart, such was her
powers of perspection, she couldn't help contrasting Martin's simple
nature and open praise of himself with John Warner's cleverer speechifying
and far more downy and secret mind.
After that Ball and the widow met a good few times unknown to the farmer
and his daughter, and there's no doubt that the more Martin saw of Mrs.
Bascombe, the more impressed he felt with her good sense. They couldn't
advance each other's interests, however, for all Nelly was able to tell
him amounted to nothing. John revealed to her that Jane hadn't taken no
steps to relieve the situation, but that she still asserted that she'd got
a man up her sleeve; while all Martin could say was that Jane held off and
marked time and wouldn't decide for or against.
"At the end of a month," explained Nelly. "John Warner is to get on to
Jane again. He's death on her stopping at Wych Elm; but she's given no
sign that she will stop if I come. I may also tell you that she's been to
see me on the subject and given it as her opinion I'll be doing a very
rash act to go to Wych Elm. She says I'll live to find out a lot about her
wonderful father as might surprise me painfully."
"And for her part to me," replied Martin Ball, "she says I'm still in her
mind as a husband, but there's a good bit to consider and I mustn't name
the thing again till she do. In a word, she's still tore in half between
her father and me. And I don't like it too well, because, little though I
know of love, I feel a screw's loose somewhere still."
Nelly looked at Martin, in doubt whether to tell him something more, or
not. But her woman's mind decided to tell him.
"And another curious fact," she said, "I do believe, at the bottom of his
mind, which is deep as a well, her father's torn in half between me and
her also!"
His blue eyes goggled at that.
"God's goodness!" he cried. "He knows what love is surely--even if she
don't. You must be dreaming, woman."
"No," she answered. "You don't dream much at forty years old. He thinks to
hide it--my John does--so to call him. But I see it very plain indeed. He
knows what amazing gifts his daughter have got, and he knows she's vital
to Wych Elm; but he don't know what gifts I have got to put against 'em,
and so I do believe that deep out of sight he's weighing her parts against
mine."
"That ain't love, however," vowed Martin.
"'Tis one love weighed against another," she told him. "A man over fifty
don't love like a boy."
"The depths of human nature!" cried Mr. Ball. "I never thought that such
things could be. It looks to me, Mrs. Bascombe, as if--However, I'm too
loyal to say it. But you do give one ideas."
"Like father like daughter, I shouldn't wonder," she said thoughtfully.
"Just the same dark fear as was in my mind," he confessed.
He left her then in a mizmaze of deep reflections; but he didn't go until
they'd ordained to meet again. A considerable lot more of each other they
did see afore the fateful month was done, and the more easily they came
together because John Warner began to be very much occupied with Jane at
this season. The fourth week had very near sped and still she remained
firm; while behind the scenes, when he did see her, John found no help
from Nelly Bascombe. In fact he marked that she'd got to grow rather
impatient on the subject and didn't appear to be so interested in her
fate, or yet his, as formerly.
So things came to a climax mighty fast, and while Warner, who didn't know
what it was to be beat where his own comfort was concerned, kept on
remorseless at Jane, she hardened her heart more and more against him and
finally took the plunge and told Martin Ball as she'd wed when he pleased.
He hadn't seen her much for ten days owing to press of business, and when
she made up her mind, 'twas she had to write and bid him go walking with
her. But he agreed at once so to do and came at the appointed evening
hour. And then, afore she had time to speak, he cried out as he'd got a
bit of cheerful news for her.
"And I've got a bit of cheerful news for you," said Jane Warner, though
not in a very cheerful tone of voice. And then, in a dreary sort of way,
she broke her decision.
"Father's going to marry the woman at the shop-of-all-sorts, as you know,"
explained Jane; "and if him, why not me? And, be it as it will, you've
said so oft you could do with me that--"
She stopped to let him praise God and bless her and fall on her neck; but,
a good bit to her astonishment, Martin didn't show no joy at all--far from
it. He was silent as the grave, for a minute, and then he only axed a
question that didn't seem to bear much on the subject.
"Your father haven't seen Mrs. Bascombe to-day, then?" he said.
"Not for a week have he seen her, I believe; but he's been a good bit
occupied and worried. He was going to sup with her to-night," answered
Jane. "And that's why for I asked you to meet me, Martin."
"What a world!" mused Mr. Ball; and he bided silent so long that the woman
grew hot.
"You don't appear to have heard me," she told him pretty sharp, and then
he spoke.
"I heard you only too well," he replied. "If my memory serves me, it's
exactly three weeks now since last I offered for you, Jane, and your
answer was a thought frosty. In fact, you dared me to name the subject
again until you might be pleased to."
"Well, and now I do name it," she told him.
"Why, if I may ask?" he said.
'Twas her turn to be silent now. Of course she saw in a moment that things
had gone wrong, and she instantly guessed, knowing her father, that 'twas
he had made up a deep plot against her behind her back and called the man
off her.
So sure felt she that she named it.
"This be father's work," she said. "You've changed your mind, Ball."
"Minds have been changed," he admitted, "and not only mine. But make no
mistake, Jane. This has got nothing whatever to do with your father so far
as I'm concerned. You've been frank, as you always are, and I'll be the
same. And if Mr. Warner be taking a snack with Nelly this evening he'll
make good every word I'm telling you. In fact I dare say what you have now
got to pretend is bad news, Jane, be really very much the opposite.
There's only one person is called to suffer to-night so far as I know, and
that's John Warner. And even he may not suffer so much as he did ought. He
put Mrs. Bascombe afore you, and so you ordained to keep your threat and
leave him. And you come to me to take you and make good your threat."
"You didn't ought to put it like that--it ain't decent," she said. But she
knew, of course, she'd lost the man.
"It don't matter now," he replied, "because human nature overthrows
decency and delights in surprises--decent and otherwise. What has happened
is this. Me and Nelly Bascombe was equally interested in your family, and
along of that common interest and seeing a lot of each other and unfolding
our opinions, we got equally interested in one another. And then nature
cut the knot, Jane, and, in a word, I darned soon found I liked Nelly
Bascombe a lot better than ever I liked you, if you'll excuse my saying
so; and, what was a lot more to the purpose, she discovered how she liked
me oceans deeper than she liked your father."
"My goodness!" cried Miss Warner. "That's the brightest news I've heard
this longful time, you blessed man! Oh, Martin, can you get her away from
father? I'll love you in real earnest--to my dying day I will--if you
can!"
She sparkled out like that and amazed him yet again.
"I _have_ got her away," he said. "And that's what Mr. Warner's going to
hear from Nelly to-night, so brace yourself against he comes home."
And that's what John Warner did hear, of course, put in woman's nice
language, when he went to sup with his intended. First he was terrible
amused to learn that Ball had come courting Nelly because, when he thought
on Jane, it looked as if he had been right and she was only putting up a
fancied lover to fright him. In fact, he beamed upon Mrs. Bascombe so far,
for it looked as though everything was coming his way as usual after all.
But he stopped beaming when she went on and explained that she was forty
and Martin Ball forty-two, and that she'd come to feel Providence had
planned everything, and how, only too bitter sure, she felt that Martin
was her proper partner, and that John would find his good daughter a far
more lasting consolation and support than ever she could hope to be at her
best.
John Warner had never been known to use a crooked word, and he didn't
then. He made no fuss nor yet uproar, for he was a wonder at never wasting
an ounce of energy on a lost cause. He only asked one question:
"Are you dead sure of what you're saying, Nelly?" he inquired, looking in
her eyes; and she answered that, though cruel grieved to give such a man a
pang, she was yet convinced to the roots of her being it must be so.
Then she wept, and he said 'twas vain to work up any excitement on the
subject, and that he doubted not it would be all much the same a hundred
years hence. And she granted that he was right as usual.
So he left her, and Martin Ball waited, hid behind the hedge, to see him
go; and Jane was home before him. Then John told his daughter word for
word all that had happened at the shop-of-all-sorts; and he wasn't blind
to the joy that looked out of her little eyes. She didn't even say she was
sorry for him, but just answered as straight as he had and confessed how
she'd offered herself within the hour to Martin Ball and found that his
views were very much altered and he didn't want her no more. "And God
knows best, father," finished up Jane.
"So it's generally believed," he answered. "And nobody can prove it ain't
true. For my part, you was always balanced in my mind very tender against
that changeable woman, and nought but a hair turned the balance her way.
'Tis a strange experience for me not to have my will, and I feel disgraced
in a manner of speaking; but, if I've lost her, I've gained you,
seemingly. And I shan't squeak about it, nor yet go courting no more; and
I'll venture to bet, dear Jane, you won't neither."
"Never--never," she swore to him. "I hate every man on earth but you,
dad."
She closed his eyes and tied up his chin twenty years after, and when she
reigned at Wych Elm, she found but one difficulty--to get the rising
generation of men to bide under her rule and carry on.