|I continue these letters, having hitherto been made aware of no
reason why they should cease. If that reason comes, they shall cease
at once, and for ever; and these now existing be burnt immediately,
by my own hand, as I did those of my sick friend in the Crimea. Be
satisfied of that.
You will learn to-morrow morning, what, had an opportunity offered, I
meant to have told you on New Year's Day--my appointment as surgeon
to the gaol, where I shall shortly enter upon my duties. The other
portion of them, my private practice in the neighbourhood, I mean to
commence as soon as ever I can, afterwards.
Thus, you see my “Ishmaelitish wanderings” as you once called them,
are ended. I have a fixed position in one place. I begin to look on
this broad river with an eye of interest, and am teaching myself to
grow familiar with its miles of docks, forests of shipping, and its
two busy, ever-growing towns along either shore, even as one accustoms
one's self to the natural features of the place, wherever it be, that
we call “home.”
If not home, this is at least my probable sphere of labour for many
years to come: I shall try to take root here, and make the best of
everything.
The information that will reach you tomorrow, comes necessarily
through Treherne. He will get it at the breakfast-table, pass it on to
his wife, who will make her lively comments on it, and then it will
be almost sure to go on to you. You will, in degree, understand, what
they will not, why I should give up my position as regimental surgeon
to establish myself here. For all else, it is of little moment what my
friends think, as I am settled in my own mind--strengthened by certain
good words of yours, that soft, still, autumn day, with the haze over
the moorland and the sun setting in the ripples of the pool.
You will have discovered by this time a fact of which, so far as I
could judge, you were a week since entirely ignorant--that you have
a suitor for your hand. He himself informed me of his intentions with
regard to you--asking my advice and good wishes. What could I say?
I will tell you, being unwilling that in the smallest degree a nature
so candid and true as yours could suppose me guilty of doubledealing.
I said, “that I believed you would make the best of wives to any man
you loved, and that I hoped when you did marry, it would be under
those circumstances. Whether he himself were that man, it rested with
your suitor alone to discover and decide.” He confessed honestly
that on this point he was as ignorant as myself, but declared that he
should “do his best.” Which implies that while I have been occupied
in this gaol business, he has had daily, hourly access to your sweet
company, with every opportunity in his favour--money, youth, consent
of friends,--he said you have been his mother's choice for years.
With, best of all, an honest heart, which vows that, except a passing
“smite” or two, it has been yours since you were children together.
That such an honest heart should not have its fair chance with you,
God forbid.
Though I will tell you the truth; I did not believe he had any chance.
Nothing in you has ever given me the slightest indication of it. Your
sudden blush when you met him surprised me, also your exclamation--I
was not aware you were in the habit of calling him by his Christian
name. But that you love this young man, I do not believe.
Some women can be persuaded into love, but you are not of that sort,
so far as I can judge. Time will show. You are entirely and absolutely
free.
Pardon me, but after the first surprise of this communication I
rejoiced that you were thus free. Even were I other than I am--young,
handsome, with a large income and everything favourable, you should
still, at this crisis, be left exactly as you are, free to elect
your own fate, as every woman ought to do. I may be proud, but were I
seeking a wife, the only love that ever would satisfy me would be that
which was given spontaneously and unsought:--dependent on nothing I
gave, but on what I was. If you choose this suitor, my faith in you
will convince me that your feelings was such, for him, and I shall be
able to say, “Be happy, and God bless you.”
Thus far, I trust, I have written with the steadiness of one who,
in either case, has no right to be even surprised--who has nothing
whatever to claim, and who accordingly claims nothing.
Treherne will of course answer--and I shall find his letter at the
camp when I return, which will be the day after to-morrow. It may
bring me--as, indeed, I have expected day by day, being so much the
friend of both parties--definite tidings.
Let me stop writing here. My ghosts of old have been haunting
me, every day this week; is it because my good angel is
vanishing--vanishing--far away? Let me recall your words, which
nothing ever can obliterate from my memory--and which in any case I
shall bless you for as long as I live.
“_I believe that every sin, however great, being repented of and
forsaken, is by God, and ought to be by men, altogether forgiven,
blotted out and done away?_”
A truth, which I hope never to forget, but to set forth continually--I
shall have plenty of opportunity, as a gaol-surgeon. Ay, I shall
probably live and die as a poor gaol-surgeon.
And you?=
````"The children of Alice call Bartrum father."=
This line of Elia's has been running in my head all day. A very quiet,
patient, pathetically sentimental line. But Charles Lamb was only a
gentle dreamer--or he wrote it when he was old.
Understand, I do _not_ believe you love this young man. If you
do--marry him! But if, not loving him, you marry him--I had rather you
died. Oh, child, child, with your eyes so like my mother and Dallas--I
had rather, ten thousand times, that you died.