"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 promotion9?
"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 tempt10 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 winced11 at being called a lover, but allowed the word to pass 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 gender12."
"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 sob13, 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 appeased14, 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 fixed15 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 morsel16 of bread for him—or rayther a glass 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, sobbing17.
"I can't see why."
"Nor I can't explain. I could stay on here, and wouldn't be afraid of him a bit."
"Then why don't you stay?"
"It's my feelings. If I was to stay here, I could just send him my wages, and never go nigh him. But when I'm alone about the world and forlorn, I ain't got no excuse but what I must go to him."
"Then remain where you are, and don't be a fool."
"But if a person is a fool, what's to be done then? In course I'm a fool. I knows that very well. There's no saying no other. But I can't go on living here, if Miss Mary is to be put over my head in that way. Baggett has sent for me, and I must go. Baggett is at Portsmouth, a-hanging on about the old shop. And he'll be drunk as long as there's gin to be had with or without paying. They do tell me as his nose is got to be awful. There's a man for a poor woman to go and spend her savings18 on! He's had a'most all on 'em already. Twenty-two pound four and sixpence he had out o' me the last time he was in the country. And he don't do nothing to have him locked up. It would be better for me if he'd get hisself locked up. I do think it's wrong, because a young girl has been once foolish and said a few words before a parson, as she is to be the slave of a drunken red-nosed reprobate19 for the rest of her life. Ain't there to be no way out of it?"
It was thus that Mrs Baggett told the tale of her married bliss,—not, however, without incurring20 the censure21 of her master because of her folly22 in resolving to go. He had just commenced a lecture on the sin of pride, in which he was prepared to show that all the evils which she could receive from the red-nosed veteran at Portsmouth would be due to her own stiff-necked obstinacy23, when he was stopped suddenly by the sound of a knock at the front door. It was not only the knock at the door, but the entrance into the hall of some man, for the hall-door had been open into the garden, and the servant-girl had been close at hand. The library was at the top of the low stairs, and Mr Whittlestaff could not but hear the demand made. The gentleman had asked whether Miss Lawrie was living there.
"Who's that?" said Mr Whittlestaff to the housekeeper.
"It's not a voice as I know, sir." The gentleman in the meantime was taken into the drawing-room, and was closeted for the moment with Mary.
We must now go down-stairs and closet ourselves for a few moments with Mary Lawrie before the coming of the strange gentleman. She had left the presence of Mr Whittlestaff half an hour since, and felt that she had a second time on that day accepted him as her husband. She had accepted him, and now she must do the best she could to suit her life to his requirements. Her first feeling, when she found herself alone, was one of intense disgust at her own weakness. He had spoken to her of her ambition; and he had told her that he had found a place for her, in which that ambition might find a fair scope. And he had told her also that in reference to John Gordon she had dreamed a dream. It might be so, but to her thinking the continued dreaming of that dream would satisfy her ambition better than the performance of those duties which he had arranged for her. She had her own ideas of what was due from a girl and to a girl, and to her thinking her love for John Gordon was all the world to her. She should not have been made to abandon her thoughts, even though the man had not spoken a word to her. She knew that she loved him; even though a time might come when she should cease to do so, that time had not come yet. She vacillated in her mind between condemnation24 of the cruelty of Mr Whittlestaff and of her own weakness. And then, too, there was some feeling of the hardship inflicted25 upon her by John Gordon. He had certainly said that which had justified26 her in believing that she possessed27 his heart. But yet there had been no word on which she could fall back and regard it as a promise.
It might perhaps be better for her that she should marry Mr Whittlestaff. All her friends would think it to be infinitely28 better. Could there be anything more moonstruck, more shandy, more wretchedly listless, than for a girl, a penniless girl, to indulge in dreams of an impossible lover, when such a tower of strength presented itself to her as was Mr Whittlestaff? She had consented to eat his bread, and all her friends had declared how lucky she had been to find a man so willing and so able to maintain her. And now this man did undoubtedly29 love her very dearly, and there would be, as she was well aware, no peril30 in marrying him. Was she to refuse him because of a soft word once spoken to her by a young man who had since disappeared altogether from her knowledge? And she had already accepted him,—had twice accepted him on that very day! And there was no longer a hope for escape, even if escape were desirable. What a fool must she be to sit there, still dreaming her impossible dream, instead of thinking of his happiness, and preparing herself for his wants! He had told her that she might be allowed to think of John Gordon, though not to speak of him. She would neither speak of him nor think of him. She knew herself, she said, too well to give herself such liberty. He should be to her as though he had never been. She would force herself to forget him, if forgetting lies in the absence of all thought. It was no more than Mr Whittlestaff had a right to demand, and no more than she ought to be able to accomplish. Was she such a weak simpleton as to be unable to keep her mind from running back to the words and to the visage, and to every little personal trick of one who could never be anything to her? "He has gone for ever!" she exclaimed, rising up from her chair. "He shall be gone; I will not be a martyr32 and a slave to my own memory. The thing came, and has gone, and there is an end of it." Then Jane opened the door, with a little piece of whispered information. "Please, Miss, a Mr Gordon wishes to see you." The door was opened a little wider, and John Gordon stood before her.
There he was, with his short black hair, his bright pleasant eyes, his masterful mouth, his dark complexion33, and broad, handsome, manly34 shoulders, such as had dwelt in her memory every day since he had departed. There was nothing changed, except that his raiment was somewhat brighter, and that there was a look of prosperity about him which he had lacked when he left her. He was the same John Gordon who had seemed to her to be entitled to all that he wanted, and who certainly would have had from her all that he had cared to demand. When he had appeared before her, she had jumped up, ready to rush into his arms; but then she had repressed herself, and had fallen back, and she leant against the table for support.
"So I have found you here," he said.
"Yes, I am here."
"I have been after you down to Norwich, and have heard it all. Mary, I am here on purpose to seek you. Your father and Mrs Lawrie are both gone. He was going when I left you."
"Yes, Mr Gordon. They are both gone, and I am alone,—but for the kindness of a most generous friend."
"I had heard, of course, of Mr Whittlestaff. I hope I shall not be told now that I am doing no good about the house. At any rate I am not a pauper35. I have mended that little fault." Then he looked at her as though he thought that there was nothing for him but to begin the conversation where it had been so roughly ended at their last meeting.
Did it not occur to him that something might have come across her life during a period of nearly three years, which would stand in his way and in hers? But as she gazed into his face, it seemed as though no such idea had fallen upon him. But during those two or three minutes, a multitude of thoughts crowded on poor Mary's mind. Was it possible that because of the coming of John Gordon, Mr Whittlestaff should withdraw his claim, and allow this happy young hero to walk off with the reward which he still seemed to desire? She felt sure that it could not be so. Even during that short space of time, she resolved that it could not be so. She knew Mr Whittlestaff too well, and was sure that her lover had arrived too late. It all passed through her brain, and she was sure that no change could be effected in her destiny. Had he come yesterday, indeed? But before she could prepare an answer for John Gordon, Mr Whittlestaff entered the room.
She was bound to say something, though she was little able at the moment to speak at all. She was aware that some ceremony was necessary. She was but ill able to introduce these two men to each other, but it had to be done. "Mr Whittlestaff," she said, "this is Mr John Gordon who used to know us at Norwich."
"Mr John Gordon," said Mr Whittlestaff, bowing very stiffly.
"Yes, sir; that is my name. I never had the pleasure of meeting you at Norwich, though I often heard of you there. And since I left the place I have been told how kind a friend you have been to this young lady. I trust I may live to thank you for it more warmly though not more sincerely than I can do at this moment."
Of John Gordon's fate since he had left Norwich a few words must be told. As Mrs Lawrie had then told him, he was little better than a pauper. He had, however, collected together what means he had been able to gather, and had gone to Cape31 Town in South Africa. Thence he had made his way up to Kimberley, and had there been at work among the diamond-fields for two years. If there be a place on God's earth in which a man can thoroughly36 make or mar3 himself within that space of time, it is the town of Kimberley. I know no spot more odious37 in every way to a man who has learned to love the ordinary modes of English life. It is foul38 with dust and flies; it reeks39 with bad brandy; it is fed upon potted meats; it has not a tree near it. It is inhabited in part by tribes of South African niggers, who have lost all the picturesqueness40 of niggerdom in working for the white man's wages. The white man himself is insolent41, ill-dressed, and ugly. The weather is very hot, and from morning till night there is no occupation other than that of looking for diamonds, and the works attending it. Diamond-grubbers want food and brandy, and lawyers and policemen. They want clothes also, and a few horses; and some kind of education is necessary for their children. But diamond-searching is the occupation of the place; and if a man be sharp and clever, and able to guard what he gets, he will make a fortune there in two years more readily perhaps than elsewhere. John Gordon had gone out to Kimberley, and had returned the owner of many shares in many mines.
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1
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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2
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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3
mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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4
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5
begrudge
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| vt.吝啬，羡慕 | |
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6
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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7
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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8
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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9
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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10
tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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11
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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12
gender
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| n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性 | |
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13
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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14
appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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15
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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16
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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17
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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18
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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19
reprobate
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| n.无赖汉；堕落的人 | |
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20
incurring
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| 遭受，招致，引起( incur的现在分词 ) | |
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21
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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22
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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23
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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24
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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25
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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27
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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28
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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29
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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30
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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31
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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32
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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33
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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34
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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35
pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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36
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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37
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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38
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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39
reeks
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| n.恶臭( reek的名词复数 )v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的第三人称单数 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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40
picturesqueness
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41
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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