CHAPTER XXIV.
CONCLUSION.
The day came at last on which Mary's visit to Little Alresford was to
commence. Two days later John Gordon was to arrive at the Parsonage,
and Mary's period of being "spooned" was to be commenced,--according
to Mr Blake's phraseology. "No, my dear; I don't think I need go
with you," said Mr Whittlestaff, when the very day was there.
"Why not come and call?"
"I don't much care about calling," said Mr Whittlestaff. This was
exactly the state of mind to which Mary did not wish to see her
friend reduced,--that of feeling it to be necessary to avoid his
fellow-creatures.
"You think Mr Blake is silly. He is a silly young man, I allow; but
Mr Hall has been very civil. As I am to go there for a week, you
might as well take me." As she spoke she put her arm around him,
caressing him.
"I don't care particularly for Mr Blake; but I don't think I'll go
to Little Alresford." Mary understood, when he said this the second
time, that the thing was fixed as fate. He would not go to Little
Alresford. Then, in about a quarter of an hour, he began again--"I
think you'll find me gone when you come back again."
"Gone! where shall you have gone?"
"I'm not quite comfortable here. Don't look so sad, you dear, dear
girl." Then he crossed the room and kissed her tenderly. "I have a
nervous irritable feeling which will not let me remain quiet. Of
course, I shall come for your marriage, whenever that may be fixed."
"Oh, Mr Whittlestaff, do not talk in that way! That will be a year
to come, or perhaps two or three. Do not let it disturb you in that
way, or I shall swear that I will not be married at all. Why should I
be married if you are to be miserable?"
"It has been all settled, my dear. Mr Gordon is to be the lord of
all that. And though you will be supposed to have fixed the day, it
is he that will really fix it;--he, or the circumstances of his life.
When a young lady has promised a young gentleman, the marriage may be
delayed to suit the young gentleman's convenience, but never to suit
hers. To tell the truth, it will always be felt convenient that she
shall be married as soon as may be after the promise has been given.
You will see Mr Gordon in a day or two, and will find out then what
are his wishes."
"Do you think that I shall not consult your wishes?"
"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-cum-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 Saturday. 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,
assuring 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 passed 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 passed 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 gratitude 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 prone 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."
"But still it had become his. He did not toss it from him then as a
thing that was valueless. With the truest, noblest observance, he
made me understand how much it might be to him, and then surrendered
it without a word of ill humour, because he told himself that in
truth my heart was within your keeping. If you will keep it well,
you must find a place for his also." It was thus that Mary Lawrie
suffered the spooning that was inflicted upon her by John Gordon.
* * * * * *
The most important part of our narrative still remains. When the day
came, the Reverend Montagu Blake was duly married to Miss Catherine
Forrester in Winchester Cathedral, by the Very Reverend the Dean,
assisted by the young lady's father; and it is pleasant to think that
on that occasion the two clergymen behaved to each other with extreme
civility. Mr Blake at once took his wife over to the Isle of Wight,
and came back at the end of a month to enjoy the hospitality of Mr
Hall. And with them came that lady's maid, of whose promotion to
a higher sphere in life we shall expect soon to hear. Then came a
period of thorough enjoyment for Mr Blake in superintending the work
of Mr Newface.
"What a pity it is that the house should ever be finished!" said
the bride to Augusta Hall; "because as things are now, Montagu is
supremely happy: he will never be so happy again."
"Unless when the baby comes," said Augusta.
"I don't think he'll care a bit about the baby," said the bride.
The writer, however, is of a different opinion, as he is inclined
to think that the Reverend Montagu Blake will be a pattern for all
fathers. One word more we must add of Mr Whittlestaff and his future
life,--and one word of Mrs Baggett. Mr Whittlestaff did not leave
Croker's Hall. When October had come round, he was present at Mary's
marriage, and certainly did not carry himself then with any show
of outward joy. He was moody and silent, and, as some said, almost
uncourteous to John Gordon. But before Mary went down to the train,
in preparation of her long wedding-tour, he took her up to his
bedroom, and there said a final word to her. "Give him my love."
"Oh, my darling! you have made me so happy."
"You will find me better when you come back, though I shall never
cease to regret all that I have lost."
Mrs Baggett accepted her destiny, and remained in supreme dominion
over all women-kind at Croker's Hall. But there was private pecuniary
arrangement between her and her master, of which I could never learn
the details. It resulted, however, in the sending of a money-order
every Saturday morning to an old woman in whose custody the Sergeant
was left.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's notes:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Specific
changes in wording of the text are listed below.