An Old Man's Love Part 5

CHAPTER VI.

JOHN GORDON.

Mrs Baggett walked into her master's room, loudly knocking at the door, and waiting for a loud answer. He was pacing up and down the library, thinking of the injustice of her interference, and she was full of the injury to which she had been subjected by circ.u.mstances.

She had been perfectly sincere when she had told Mary Lawrie that Mr Whittlestaff was ent.i.tled to have and to enjoy his own wishes as against both of them. In the first place, he was a man,--and as a man, was to be indulged, at whatever cost to any number of women. And then he was a man whose bread they had both eaten. Mary had eaten his bread, as bestowed upon her from sheer charity. According to Mrs Baggett's view of the world at large, Mary was bound to deliver herself body and soul to Mr Whittlestaff, were "soul sacrifice"

demanded from her. As for herself, her first duty in life was to look after him were he to be sick. Unfortunately Mr Whittlestaff never was sick, but Mrs Baggett was patiently looking forward to some happy day when he might be brought home with his leg broken. He had no imprudent habits, hunting, shooting, or suchlike; but chance might be good to her. Then the making of all jams and marmalades, for which he did not care a straw, and which he only ate to oblige her, was a comfort to her. She could manage occasionally to be kept out of her bed over some boiling till one o'clock; and then the making of b.u.t.ter in the summer would demand that she should be up at three. Thus she was enabled to consider that her normal hours of work were twenty-two out of the twenty-four. She did not begrudge them in the least, thinking that they were all due to Mr Whittlestaff. Now Mr Whittlestaff wanted a wife, and, of course, he ought to have her.

His Juggernaut's car must roll on its course over her body or Mary Lawrie's. But she could not be expected to remain and behold Mary Lawrie's triumph and Mary Lawrie's power. That was out of the question, and as she was thus driven out of the house, she was ent.i.tled to show a little of her ill humour to the proud bride. She must go to Portsmouth;--which she knew was tantamount to a living death. She only hated one person in all the world, and he, as she knew well, was living at Portsmouth. There were to her only two places in the world in which anybody could live,--Croker's Hall and Portsmouth. Croker's Hall was on the whole the proper region set apart for the habitation of the blest. Portsmouth was the other place,--and thither she must go. To remain, even in heaven, as housekeeper to a young woman, was not to be thought of. It was written in the book of Fate that she must go; but not on that account need she even pretend to keep her temper.

"What's all this that you have been saying to Miss Lawrie?" began Mr Whittlestaff, with all the dignity of anger.

"What have I been saying of to Miss Mary?"

"I am not at all well pleased with you."

"I haven't said a word again you, sir, nor not again nothing as you are likely to do."

"Miss Lawrie is to become my wife."

"So I hears her say."

There was something of a check in this--a check to Mr Whittlestaff's pride in Mary's conduct. Did Mrs Baggett intend him to understand that Mary had told the whole story to the old woman, and had boasted of her promotion?

"You have taught her to think that she should not do as we have proposed,--because of your wishes."

"I never said nothing of the kind,--so help me. That I should put myself up again you, sir! Oh no! I knows my place better than that. I wouldn't stand in the way of anything as was for your good,--or even of what you thought was good,--not to be made housekeeper to-- Well, it don't matter where. I couldn't change for the better, nor wages wouldn't tempt me."

"What was it you said about going away?"

Here Mrs Baggett shook her head. "You told Miss Lawrie that you thought it was a shame that you should have to leave because of her."

"I never said a word of the kind, Mr Whittlestaff; nor yet, sir, I don't think as Miss Lawrie ever said so. I'm begging your pardon for contradicting you, and well I ought. But anything is better than making ill-blood between lovers." Mr Whittlestaff winced at being called a lover, but allowed the word to pa.s.s by. "I never said nothing about shame."

"What did you say?"

"I said as how I must leave you;--nothing but that. It ain't a matter of the slightest consequence to you, sir."

"Rubbish!"

"Very well, sir. I mustn't demean me to say as anything I had said wasn't rubbish when you said as it was-- But for all that, I've got to go."

"Nonsense."

"Yes, in course."

"Why have you got to go?"

"Because of my feelings, sir."

"I never heard such trash."

"That's true, no doubt, sir. But still, if you'll think of it, old women does have feelings. Not as a young one, but still they're there."

"Who's going to hurt your feelings?"

"In this house, sir, for the last fifteen years I've been top-sawyer of the female gender."

"Then I'm not to marry at all."

"You've gone on and you haven't,--that's all. I ain't a-finding no fault. But you haven't,--and I'm the sufferer." Here Mrs Baggett began to sob, and to wipe her eyes with a clean handkerchief, which she must surely have brought into the room for the purpose. "If you had taken some beautiful young lady--"

"I have taken a beautiful young lady," said Mr Whittlestaff, now becoming more angry than ever.

"You won't listen to me, sir, and then you boil over like that. No doubt Miss Mary is as beautiful as the best on 'em. I knew how it would be when she came among us with her streaky brown cheeks, ou'd make an anchor wish to kiss 'em." Here Mr Whittlestaff again became appeased, and made up his mind at once that he would tell Mary about the anchor as soon as things were smooth between them. "But if it had been some beautiful young lady out of another house,--one of them from the Park, for instance,--who hadn't been here a'most under my own thumb, I shouldn't 've minded it."

"The long and the short of it is, Mrs Baggett, that I am going to be married."

"I suppose you are, sir."

"And, as it happens, the lady I have selected happens to have been your mistress for the last two years."

"She won't be my missus no more," said Mrs Baggett, with an air of fixed determination.

"Of course you can do as you like about that. I can't compel any one to live in this house against her will; but I would compel you if I knew how, for your own benefit."

"There ain't no compelling."

"What other place have you got you can go to? I can't conceive it possible that you should live in any other family."

"Not in no family. Wages wouldn't tempt me. But there's them as supposes that they've a claim upon me." Then the woman began to cry in earnest, and the clean pocket-handkerchief was used in a manner which would soon rob it of its splendour.

There was a slight pause before Mr Whittlestaff rejoined. "Has he come back again?" he said, almost solemnly.

"He's at Portsmouth now, sir." And Mrs Baggett shook her head sadly.

"And wants you to go to him?"

"He always wants that when he comes home. I've got a bit of money, and he thinks there's some one to earn a morsel of bread for him--or rayther a gla.s.s of gin. I must go this time."

"I don't see that you need go at all; at any rate, Miss Lawrie's marriage won't make any difference."

"It do, sir," she said, sobbing.

"I can't see why."