An Old Man's Love Part 30

"Not in the least, my dear. I, at any rate, shall have no wishes,--except what may be best for your welfare. Of course I must see him, and settle some matters that will have to be settled. There will be money matters."

"I have no money," said Mary,--"not a shilling! He knows that."

"Nevertheless there will be money matters, which you will have the goodness to leave to me. Are you not my daughter, Mary, my only child? Don't trouble yourself about such matters as these, but do as you're bid. Now it is time for you to start, and Hayonotes will be ready to go with you." Having so spoken, Mr Whittlestaff put her into the carriage, and she was driven away to Little Alresford.

It then wanted a week to the Blake-c.u.m-Forrester marriage, and the young clergyman was beginning to mix a little serious timidity with his usual garrulous high spirits. "Upon my word, you know I'm not at all sure that they are going to do it right," he said with much emphasis to Miss Lawrie. "The marriage is to be on Tuesday. She's to go home on the Sat.u.r.day. I insist upon being there on the Monday. It would make a fellow so awfully nervous travelling on the same day.

But the other girls--and you're one of them, Miss Lawrie--are to go into Winchester by train on Tuesday morning, under the charge of John Gordon. If any thing were to happen to any of you, only think, where should I be?"

"Where should we be?" said Miss Lawrie.

"It isn't your marriage, you know. But I suppose the wedding could go on even if one of you didn't come. It would be such an awful thing not to have it done when the Dean is coming." But Mary comforted him, a.s.suring him that the Halls were very punctual in all their comings and goings when any event was in hand.

Then John Gordon came, and, to tell the truth, Mary was subjected for the first time to the ceremony of spooning. When he walked up to the door across from the Parsonage, Mary Lawrie took care not to be in the way. She took herself to her own bedroom, and there remained, with feverish, palpitating heart, till she was summoned by Miss Hall.

"You must come down and bid him welcome, you know."

"I suppose so; but--"

"Of course you must come. It must be sooner or later. He is looking so different from what he was when he was here before. And so he ought, when one considers all things."

"He has not got another journey before him to South Africa."

"Without having got what he came for," said Miss Hall. Then when they went down, Mary was told that John Gordon had pa.s.sed through the house into the shrubbery, and was invited to follow him. Mary, declaring that she would go alone, took up her hat and boldly went after him. As she pa.s.sed on, across the lawn, she saw his figure disappearing among the trees. "I don't think it very civil for a young lady's young man to vanish in that way," said Miss Hall. But Mary boldly and quickly followed him, without another word.

"Mary," he said, turning round upon her as soon as they were both out of sight among the trees. "Mary, you have come at last."

"Yes; I have come."

"And yet, when I first showed myself at your house, you would hardly receive me." But this he said holding her by the hand, and looking into her face with his brightest smile. "I had postponed my coming almost too late."

"Yes, indeed. Was it my fault?"

"No;--nor mine. When I was told that I was doing no good about the house, and reminded that I was penniless, what could I do but go away?"

"But why go so far?"

"I had to go where money could be earned. Considering all things, I think I was quick enough. Where else could I have found diamonds but at the diamond-fields? And I have been perhaps the luckiest fellow that has gone and returned."

"So nearly too late!"

"But not too late."

"But you were too late,--only for the inexpressible goodness of another. Have you thought what I owe--what you and I owe--to Mr Whittlestaff?"

"My darling!"

"But I am his darling. Only it sounds so conceited in any girl to say so. Why should he care so much about me?--or why should you, for the matter of that?"

"Mary, Mary, come to me now." And he held out both his hands. She looked round, fearing intrusive eyes, but seeing none, she allowed him to embrace her. "My own,--at last my own. How well you understood me in those old days. And yet it was all without a word,--almost without a sign." She bowed her head before she had escaped from his arms. "Now I am a happy man."

"It is he that has done it for you."

"Am I not thankful?"

"How can I be thankful as I ought? Think of the grat.i.tude that I owe him,--think of all the love! What man has loved as he has done?

Who has brought himself so to abandon to another the reward he had thought it worth his while to wish for? You must not count the value of the thing."

"But I do."

"But the price he had set upon it! I was to be the comfort of his life to come. And it would have been so, had he not seen and had he not believed. Because another has loved, he has given up that which he has loved himself."

"It was not for my sake."

"But it was for mine. You had come first, and had won my poor heart.

I was not worth the winning to either of you."

"It was for me to judge of that."

"Just so. But you do not know his heart. How p.r.o.ne he is to hold by that which he knows he has made his own. I was his own."

"You told him the truth when he came to you."

"I was his own," said Mary, firmly. "Had he bade me never to see you again, I should never have seen you. Had he not gone after you himself, you would never have come back."

"I do not know how that might be."

"It would have been to no good. Having consented to take everything from his hands, I could never have been untrue to him. I tell you that I should as certainly have become his wife, as that girl will become the wife of that young clergyman. Of course I was unhappy."

"Were you, dear?"

"Yes. I was very unhappy. When you flashed upon me there at Croker's Hall, I knew at once all the joy that had fallen within my reach. You were there, and you had come for me! All the way from Kimberley, just for me to smile upon you! Did you not?"

"Indeed I did."

"When you had found your diamonds, you thought of me,--was it not so?"

"Of you only."

"You flatterer! You dear, bonny lover. You whom I had always loved and prayed for, when I knew not where you were! You who had not left me to be like Mariana, but had hurried home at once for me when your man's work was done,--doing just what a girl would think that a man should do for her sake. But it had been all destroyed by the necessity of the case. I take no blame to myself."

"No; none."

"Looking back at it all, I was right. He had chosen to want me, and had a right to me. I had taken his gifts, given with a full hand.

And where were you, my own one? Had I a right to think that you were thinking of me?"

"I was thinking of you."

"Yes; because you have turned out to be one in a hundred: but I was not to have known that. Then he asked me, and I thought it best that he should know the truth and take his choice. He did take his choice before he knew the truth,--that you were so far on your way to seek my hand."

"I was at that very moment almost within reach of it."