DAVID
COPPERFIELD
PART 45
CHAPTER 45. MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT'S PREDICTIONS
It was
some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his neighbourhood, I saw
him frequently; and we all went to his house on two or three occasions to
dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in permanent quarters under the Doctor's
roof. She was exactly the same as ever, and the same immortal butterflies
hovered over her cap.
Like some
other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my life, Mrs. Markleham was
far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was. She required a great deal of
amusement, and, like a deep old soldier, pretended, in consulting her own
inclinations, to be devoting herself to her child. The Doctor's desire that
Annie should be entertained, was therefore particularly acceptable to this
excellent parent; who expressed unqualified approval of his discretion.
I have no
doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor's wound without knowing it. Meaning
nothing but a certain matured frivolity and selfishness, not always inseparable
from full-blown years, I think she confirmed him in his fear that he was a
constraint upon his young wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling
between them, by so strongly commending his design of lightening the load of
her life.
'My dear
soul,' she said to him one day when I was present, 'you know there is no doubt
it would be a little pokey for Annie to be always shut up here.'
The
Doctor nodded his benevolent head. 'When she comes to her mother's age,' said
Mrs. Markleham, with a flourish of her fan, 'then it'll be another thing. You
might put ME into a Jail, with genteel society and a rubber, and I should never
care to come out. But I am not Annie, you know; and Annie is not her mother.'
'Surely,
surely,' said the Doctor.
'You are
the best of creatures—no, I beg your pardon!' for the Doctor made a gesture of
deprecation, 'I must say before your face, as I always say behind your back,
you are the best of creatures; but of course you don't—now do you?—-enter into
the same pursuits and fancies as Annie?'
'No,'
said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone.
'No, of
course not,' retorted the Old Soldier. 'Take your Dictionary, for example. What
a useful work a Dictionary is! What a necessary work! The meanings of words!
Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that sort, we might have been at this
present moment calling an Italian-iron, a bedstead. But we can't expect a
Dictionary—especially when it's making—to interest Annie, can we?'
The
Doctor shook his head.
'And
that's why I so much approve,' said Mrs. Markleham, tapping him on the shoulder
with her shut-up fan, 'of your thoughtfulness. It shows that you don't expect,
as many elderly people do expect, old heads on young shoulders. You have
studied Annie's character, and you understand it. That's what I find so
charming!'
Even the
calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some little sense of pain, I
thought, under the infliction of these compliments.
'Therefore,
my dear Doctor,' said the Old Soldier, giving him several affectionate taps,
'you may command me, at all times and seasons. Now, do understand that I am
entirely at your service. I am ready to go with Annie to operas, concerts,
exhibitions, all kinds of places; and you shall never find that I am tired.
Duty, my dear Doctor, before every consideration in the universe!'
She was
as good as her word. She was one of those people who can bear a great deal of
pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance in the cause. She seldom
got hold of the newspaper (which she settled herself down in the softest chair
in the house to read through an eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but she
found out something that she was certain Annie would like to see. It was in
vain for Annie to protest that she was weary of such things. Her mother's
remonstrance always was, 'Now, my dear Annie, I am sure you know better; and I
must tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the
kindness of Doctor Strong.'
This was
usually said in the Doctor's presence, and appeared to me to constitute Annie's
principal inducement for withdrawing her objections when she made any. But in
general she resigned herself to her mother, and went where the Old Soldier would.
It rarely
happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Sometimes my aunt and Dora were
invited to do so, and accepted the invitation. Sometimes Dora only was asked.
The time had been, when I should have been uneasy in her going; but reflection
on what had passed that former night in the Doctor's study, had made a change
in my mistrust. I believed that the Doctor was right, and I had no worse
suspicions.
My aunt
rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with me, and said she
couldn't make it out; she wished they were happier; she didn't think our
military friend (so she always called the Old Soldier) mended the matter at
all. My aunt further expressed her opinion, 'that if our military friend would
cut off those butterflies, and give 'em to the chimney-sweepers for May-day, it
would look like the beginning of something sensible on her part.'
But her
abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently an idea in his head,
she said; and if he could only once pen it up into a corner, which was his
great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in some extraordinary manner.
Unconscious
of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy precisely the same ground in
reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed neither to advance nor to
recede. He appeared to have settled into his original foundation, like a
building; and I must confess that my faith in his ever Moving, was not much
greater than if he had been a building.
But one
night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put his head into the
parlour, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone out with my aunt to take
tea with the two little birds), and said, with a significant cough:
'You
couldn't speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, Trotwood, I am afraid?'
'Certainly,
Mr. Dick,' said I; 'come in!'
'Trotwood,'
said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his nose, after he had shaken
hands with me. 'Before I sit down, I wish to make an observation. You know your
aunt?'
'A
little,' I replied.
'She is
the most wonderful woman in the world, sir!'
After the
delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself as if he were
loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity than usual, and looked
at me.
'Now,
boy,' said Mr. Dick, 'I am going to put a question to you.'
'As many
as you please,' said I.
'What do
you consider me, sir?' asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms.
'A dear
old friend,' said I. 'Thank you, Trotwood,' returned Mr. Dick, laughing, and reaching
across in high glee to shake hands with me. 'But I mean, boy,' resuming his
gravity, 'what do you consider me in this respect?' touching his forehead.
I was
puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word.
'Weak?'
said Mr. Dick.
'Well,' I
replied, dubiously. 'Rather so.'
'Exactly!'
cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. 'That is, Trotwood,
when they took some of the trouble out of you-know-who's head, and put it you
know where, there was a—' Mr. Dick made his two hands revolve very fast about
each other a great number of times, and then brought them into collision, and
rolled them over and over one another, to express confusion. 'There was that
sort of thing done to me somehow. Eh?'
I nodded
at him, and he nodded back again.
'In
short, boy,' said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, 'I am simple.'
I would
have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me.
'Yes, I
am! She pretends I am not. She won't hear of it; but I am. I know I am. If she
hadn't stood my friend, sir, I should have been shut up, to lead a dismal life
these many years. But I'll provide for her! I never spend the copying money. I
put it in a box. I have made a will. I'll leave it all to her. She shall be
rich—noble!'
Mr. Dick
took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He then folded it up with
great care, pressed it smooth between his two hands, put it in his pocket, and
seemed to put my aunt away with it.
'Now you
are a scholar, Trotwood,' said Mr. Dick. 'You are a fine scholar. You know what
a learned man, what a great man, the Doctor is. You know what honour he has
always done me. Not proud in his wisdom. Humble, humble—condescending even to
poor Dick, who is simple and knows nothing. I have sent his name up, on a scrap
of paper, to the kite, along the string, when it has been in the sky, among the
larks. The kite has been glad to receive it, sir, and the sky has been brighter
with it.'
I
delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the Doctor was deserving of our
best respect and highest esteem.
'And his
beautiful wife is a star,' said Mr. Dick. 'A shining star. I have seen her
shine, sir. But,' bringing his chair nearer, and laying one hand upon my
knee—'clouds, sir—clouds.'
I
answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by conveying the same
expression into my own, and shaking my head.
'What
clouds?' said Mr. Dick.
He looked
so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious to understand, that I took great
pains to answer him slowly and distinctly, as I might have entered on an
explanation to a child.
'There is
some unfortunate division between them,' I replied. 'Some unhappy cause of
separation. A secret. It may be inseparable from the discrepancy in their
years. It may have grown up out of almost nothing.'
Mr. Dick,
who had told off every sentence with a thoughtful nod, paused when I had done,
and sat considering, with his eyes upon my face, and his hand upon my knee.
'Doctor
not angry with her, Trotwood?' he said, after some time.
'No.
Devoted to her.'
'Then, I
have got it, boy!' said Mr. Dick.
The
sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the knee, and leaned back in his
chair, with his eyebrows lifted up as high as he could possibly lift them, made
me think him farther out of his wits than ever. He became as suddenly grave
again, and leaning forward as before, said—first respectfully taking out his
pocket-handkerchief, as if it really did represent my aunt:
'Most
wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood. Why has she done nothing to set things
right?'
'Too
delicate and difficult a subject for such interference,' I replied.
'Fine
scholar,' said Mr. Dick, touching me with his finger. 'Why has HE done
nothing?'
'For the
same reason,' I returned.
'Then, I
have got it, boy!' said Mr. Dick. And he stood up before me, more exultingly
than before, nodding his head, and striking himself repeatedly upon the breast,
until one might have supposed that he had nearly nodded and struck all the
breath out of his body.
'A poor
fellow with a craze, sir,' said Mr. Dick, 'a simpleton, a weak-minded
person—present company, you know!' striking himself again, 'may do what
wonderful people may not do. I'll bring them together, boy. I'll try. They'll
not blame me. They'll not object to me. They'll not mind what I do, if it's
wrong. I'm only Mr. Dick. And who minds Dick? Dick's nobody! Whoo!' He blew a
slight, contemptuous breath, as if he blew himself away.
It was
fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mystery, for we heard the coach stop
at the little garden gate, which brought my aunt and Dora home.
'Not a
word, boy!' he pursued in a whisper; 'leave all the blame with Dick—simple
Dick—mad Dick. I have been thinking, sir, for some time, that I was getting it,
and now I have got it. After what you have said to me, I am sure I have got it.
All right!' Not another word did Mr. Dick utter on the subject; but he made a
very telegraph of himself for the next half-hour (to the great disturbance of
my aunt's mind), to enjoin inviolable secrecy on me.
To my
surprise, I heard no more about it for some two or three weeks, though I was
sufficiently interested in the result of his endeavours; descrying a strange
gleam of good sense—I say nothing of good feeling, for that he always
exhibited—in the conclusion to which he had come. At last I began to believe,
that, in the flighty and unsettled state of his mind, he had either forgotten
his intention or abandoned it.
One fair
evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and I strolled up to the
Doctor's cottage. It was autumn, when there were no debates to vex the evening
air; and I remember how the leaves smelt like our garden at Blunderstone as we
trod them under foot, and how the old, unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the
sighing wind.
It was
twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs. Strong was just coming out of the
garden, where Mr. Dick yet lingered, busy with his knife, helping the gardener
to point some stakes. The Doctor was engaged with someone in his study; but the
visitor would be gone directly, Mrs. Strong said, and begged us to remain and
see him. We went into the drawing-room with her, and sat down by the darkening
window. There was never any ceremony about the visits of such old friends and
neighbours as we were.
We had
not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually contrived to be in
a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her newspaper in her hand, and
said, out of breath, 'My goodness gracious, Annie, why didn't you tell me there
was someone in the Study!'
'My dear
mama,' she quietly returned, 'how could I know that you desired the
information?'
'Desired
the information!' said Mrs. Markleham, sinking on the sofa. 'I never had such a
turn in all my life!'
'Have you
been to the Study, then, mama?' asked Annie.
'BEEN to
the Study, my dear!' she returned emphatically. 'Indeed I have! I came upon the
amiable creature—if you'll imagine my feelings, Miss Trotwood and David—in the
act of making his will.'
Her
daughter looked round from the window quickly.
'In the
act, my dear Annie,' repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the newspaper on her
lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it, 'of making his last Will
and Testament. The foresight and affection of the dear! I must tell you how it
was. I really must, in justice to the darling—for he is nothing less!—tell you
how it was. Perhaps you know, Miss Trotwood, that there is never a candle
lighted in this house, until one's eyes are literally falling out of one's head
with being stretched to read the paper. And that there is not a chair in this
house, in which a paper can be what I call, read, except one in the Study. This
took me to the Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with
the dear Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with the law,
and they were all three standing at the table: the darling Doctor pen in hand.
"This simply expresses then," said the Doctor—Annie, my love, attend
to the very words—"this simply expresses then, gentlemen, the confidence I
have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all unconditionally?" One of the
professional people replied, "And gives her all unconditionally."
Upon that, with the natural feelings of a mother, I said, "Good God, I beg
your pardon!" fell over the door-step, and came away through the little
back passage where the pantry is.'
Mrs.
Strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, where she stood
leaning against a pillar.
'But now
isn't it, Miss Trotwood, isn't it, David, invigorating,' said Mrs. Markleham,
mechanically following her with her eyes, 'to find a man at Doctor Strong's
time of life, with the strength of mind to do this kind of thing? It only shows
how right I was. I said to Annie, when Doctor Strong paid a very flattering
visit to myself, and made her the subject of a declaration and an offer, I
said, "My dear, there is no doubt whatever, in my opinion, with reference
to a suitable provision for you, that Doctor Strong will do more than he binds
himself to do."'
Here the
bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors' feet as they went out.
'It's all
over, no doubt,' said the Old Soldier, after listening; 'the dear creature has
signed, sealed, and delivered, and his mind's at rest. Well it may be! What a
mind! Annie, my love, I am going to the Study with my paper, for I am a poor
creature without news. Miss Trotwood, David, pray come and see the Doctor.'
I was
conscious of Mr. Dick's standing in the shadow of the room, shutting up his
knife, when we accompanied her to the Study; and of my aunt's rubbing her nose
violently, by the way, as a mild vent for her intolerance of our military
friend; but who got first into the Study, or how Mrs. Markleham settled herself
in a moment in her easy-chair, or how my aunt and I came to be left together
near the door (unless her eyes were quicker than mine, and she held me back), I
have forgotten, if I ever knew. But this I know,—that we saw the Doctor before
he saw us, sitting at his table, among the folio volumes in which he delighted,
resting his head calmly on his hand. That, in the same moment, we saw Mrs.
Strong glide in, pale and trembling. That Mr. Dick supported her on his arm.
That he laid his other hand upon the Doctor's arm, causing him to look up with
an abstracted air. That, as the Doctor moved his head, his wife dropped down on
one knee at his feet, and, with her hands imploringly lifted, fixed upon his
face the memorable look I had never forgotten. That at this sight Mrs.
Markleham dropped the newspaper, and stared more like a figure-head intended for
a ship to be called The Astonishment, than anything else I can think of.
The
gentleness of the Doctor's manner and surprise, the dignity that mingled with
the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern of Mr. Dick, and the
earnestness with which my aunt said to herself, 'That man mad!' (triumphantly
expressive of the misery from which she had saved him)—I see and hear, rather
than remember, as I write about it.
'Doctor!'
said Mr. Dick. 'What is it that's amiss? Look here!'
'Annie!'
cried the Doctor. 'Not at my feet, my dear!'
'Yes!'
she said. 'I beg and pray that no one will leave the room! Oh, my husband and
father, break this long silence. Let us both know what it is that has come
between us!'
Mrs.
Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and seeming to swell
with family pride and motherly indignation, here exclaimed, 'Annie, get up
immediately, and don't disgrace everybody belonging to you by humbling yourself
like that, unless you wish to see me go out of my mind on the spot!'
'Mama!'
returned Annie. 'Waste no words on me, for my appeal is to my husband, and even
you are nothing here.'
'Nothing!'
exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. 'Me, nothing! The child has taken leave of her
senses. Please to get me a glass of water!'
I was too
attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give any heed to this request; and it
made no impression on anybody else; so Mrs. Markleham panted, stared, and
fanned herself.
'Annie!'
said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. 'My dear! If any unavoidable
change has come, in the sequence of time, upon our married life, you are not to
blame. The fault is mine, and only mine. There is no change in my affection,
admiration, and respect. I wish to make you happy. I truly love and honour you.
Rise, Annie, pray!'
But she
did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she sank down closer to
him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head upon it, said:
'If I
have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for my husband in this
matter; if I have any friend here, who can give a voice to any suspicion that
my heart has sometimes whispered to me; if I have any friend here, who honours
my husband, or has ever cared for me, and has anything within his knowledge, no
matter what it is, that may help to mediate between us, I implore that friend
to speak!'
There was
a profound silence. After a few moments of painful hesitation, I broke the
silence.
'Mrs. Strong,'
I said, 'there is something within my knowledge, which I have been earnestly
entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, and have concealed until tonight. But, I
believe the time has come when it would be mistaken faith and delicacy to
conceal it any longer, and when your appeal absolves me from his injunction.'
She
turned her face towards me for a moment, and I knew that I was right. I could
not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance that it gave me had been less
convincing.
'Our
future peace,' she said, 'may be in your hands. I trust it confidently to your
not suppressing anything. I know beforehand that nothing you, or anyone, can
tell me, will show my husband's noble heart in any other light than one.
Howsoever it may seem to you to touch me, disregard that. I will speak for
myself, before him, and before God afterwards.'
Thus
earnestly besought, I made no reference to the Doctor for his permission, but,
without any other compromise of the truth than a little softening of the
coarseness of Uriah Heep, related plainly what had passed in that same room
that night. The staring of Mrs. Markleham during the whole narration, and the
shrill, sharp interjections with which she occasionally interrupted it, defy
description.
When I
had finished, Annie remained, for some few moments, silent, with her head bent
down, as I have described. Then, she took the Doctor's hand (he was sitting in
the same attitude as when we had entered the room), and pressed it to her
breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick softly raised her; and she stood, when she
began to speak, leaning on him, and looking down upon her husband—from whom she
never turned her eyes.
'All that
has ever been in my mind, since I was married,' she said in a low, submissive,
tender voice, 'I will lay bare before you. I could not live and have one
reservation, knowing what I know now.'
'Nay,
Annie,' said the Doctor, mildly, 'I have never doubted you, my child. There is
no need; indeed there is no need, my dear.'
'There is
great need,' she answered, in the same way, 'that I should open my whole heart
before the soul of generosity and truth, whom, year by year, and day by day, I
have loved and venerated more and more, as Heaven knows!'
'Really,'
interrupted Mrs. Markleham, 'if I have any discretion at all—'
('Which
you haven't, you Marplot,' observed my aunt, in an indignant whisper.) —'I must
be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite to enter into these
details.'
'No one
but my husband can judge of that, mama,' said Annie without removing her eyes
from his face, 'and he will hear me. If I say anything to give you pain, mama,
forgive me. I have borne pain first, often and long, myself.'
'Upon my
word!' gasped Mrs. Markleham.
'When I
was very young,' said Annie, 'quite a little child, my first associations with
knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher—the
friend of my dead father—who was always dear to me. I can remember nothing that
I know, without remembering him. He stored my mind with its first treasures,
and stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, I think,
as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from any other hands.'
'Makes
her mother nothing!' exclaimed Mrs. Markleham.
'Not so
mama,' said Annie; 'but I make him what he was. I must do that. As I grew up,
he occupied the same place still. I was proud of his interest: deeply, fondly,
gratefully attached to him. I looked up to him, I can hardly describe how—as a
father, as a guide, as one whose praise was different from all other praise, as
one in whom I could have trusted and confided, if I had doubted all the world.
You know, mama, how young and inexperienced I was, when you presented him before
me, of a sudden, as a lover.'
'I have
mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody here!' said Mrs.
Markleham.
('Then
hold your tongue, for the Lord's sake, and don't mention it any more!' muttered
my aunt.)
'It was
so great a change: so great a loss, I felt it, at first,' said Annie, still
preserving the same look and tone, 'that I was agitated and distressed. I was
but a girl; and when so great a change came in the character in which I had so
long looked up to him, I think I was sorry. But nothing could have made him
what he used to be again; and I was proud that he should think me so worthy,
and we were married.' '—At Saint Alphage, Canterbury,' observed Mrs. Markleham.
('Confound
the woman!' said my aunt, 'she WON'T be quiet!')
'I never
thought,' proceeded Annie, with a heightened colour, 'of any worldly gain that
my husband would bring to me. My young heart had no room in its homage for any
such poor reference. Mama, forgive me when I say that it was you who first
presented to my mind the thought that anyone could wrong me, and wrong him, by
such a cruel suspicion.'
'Me!'
cried Mrs. Markleham.
('Ah!
You, to be sure!' observed my aunt, 'and you can't fan it away, my military
friend!')
'It was
the first unhappiness of my new life,' said Annie. 'It was the first occasion
of every unhappy moment I have known. These moments have been more, of late,
than I can count; but not—my generous husband!—not for the reason you suppose;
for in my heart there is not a thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any
power could separate from you!'
She
raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful and true, I
thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her, henceforth, as steadfastly as
she on him.
'Mama is
blameless,' she went on, 'of having ever urged you for herself, and she is
blameless in intention every way, I am sure,—but when I saw how many
importunate claims were pressed upon you in my name; how you were traded on in
my name; how generous you were, and how Mr. Wickfield, who had your welfare
very much at heart, resented it; the first sense of my exposure to the mean
suspicion that my tenderness was bought—and sold to you, of all men on
earth—fell upon me like unmerited disgrace, in which I forced you to
participate. I cannot tell you what it was—mama cannot imagine what it was—to
have this dread and trouble always on my mind, yet know in my own soul that on
my marriage-day I crowned the love and honour of my life!'
'A
specimen of the thanks one gets,' cried Mrs. Markleham, in tears, 'for taking
care of one's family! I wish I was a Turk!'
('I wish
you were, with all my heart—and in your native country!' said my aunt.)
'It was
at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin Maldon. I had liked
him': she spoke softly, but without any hesitation: 'very much. We had been
little lovers once. If circumstances had not happened otherwise, I might have
come to persuade myself that I really loved him, and might have married him,
and been most wretched. There can be no disparity in marriage like
unsuitability of mind and purpose.'
I
pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to what
followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some strange application
that I could not divine. 'There can be no disparity in marriage like
unsuitability of mind and purpose'—'no disparity in marriage like unsuitability
of mind and purpose.'
'There is
nothing,' said Annie, 'that we have in common. I have long found that there is
nothing. If I were thankful to my husband for no more, instead of for so much,
I should be thankful to him for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse
of my undisciplined heart.'
She stood
quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an earnestness that thrilled me.
Yet her voice was just as quiet as before.
'When he
was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so freely bestowed for my
sake, and when I was unhappy in the mercenary shape I was made to wear, I
thought it would have become him better to have worked his own way on. I
thought that if I had been he, I would have tried to do it, at the cost of
almost any hardship. But I thought no worse of him, until the night of his
departure for India. That night I knew he had a false and thankless heart. I
saw a double meaning, then, in Mr. Wickfield's scrutiny of me. I perceived, for
the first time, the dark suspicion that shadowed my life.'
'Suspicion,
Annie!' said the Doctor. 'No, no, no!'
'In your
mind there was none, I know, my husband!' she returned. 'And when I came to
you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and grief, and knew that I
had to tell that, underneath your roof, one of my own kindred, to whom you had
been a benefactor, for the love of me, had spoken to me words that should have
found no utterance, even if I had been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought
me—my mind revolted from the taint the very tale conveyed. It died upon my
lips, and from that hour till now has never passed them.'
Mrs.
Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy-chair; and retired
behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any more.
'I have
never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him from that time; then,
only when it has been necessary for the avoidance of this explanation. Years
have passed since he knew, from me, what his situation here was. The kindnesses
you have secretly done for his advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my
surprise and pleasure, have been, you will believe, but aggravations of the
unhappiness and burden of my secret.'
She sunk
down gently at the Doctor's feet, though he did his utmost to prevent her; and
said, looking up, tearfully, into his face:
'Do not
speak to me yet! Let me say a little more! Right or wrong, if this were to be
done again, I think I should do just the same. You never can know what it was
to be devoted to you, with those old associations; to find that anyone could be
so hard as to suppose that the truth of my heart was bartered away, and to be
surrounded by appearances confirming that belief. I was very young, and had no
adviser. Between mama and me, in all relating to you, there was a wide
division. If I shrunk into myself, hiding the disrespect I had undergone, it
was because I honoured you so much, and so much wished that you should honour
me!'
'Annie,
my pure heart!' said the Doctor, 'my dear girl!'
'A little
more! a very few words more! I used to think there were so many whom you might
have married, who would not have brought such charge and trouble on you, and
who would have made your home a worthier home. I used to be afraid that I had
better have remained your pupil, and almost your child. I used to fear that I
was so unsuited to your learning and wisdom. If all this made me shrink within
myself (as indeed it did), when I had that to tell, it was still because I
honoured you so much, and hoped that you might one day honour me.'
'That day
has shone this long time, Annie,' said the Doctor, and can have but one long
night, my dear.'
'Another
word! I afterwards meant—steadfastly meant, and purposed to myself—to bear the
whole weight of knowing the unworthiness of one to whom you had been so good.
And now a last word, dearest and best of friends! The cause of the late change
in you, which I have seen with so much pain and sorrow, and have sometimes
referred to my old apprehension—at other times to lingering suppositions nearer
to the truth—has been made clear tonight; and by an accident I have also come
to know, tonight, the full measure of your noble trust in me, even under that
mistake. I do not hope that any love and duty I may render in return, will ever
make me worthy of your priceless confidence; but with all this knowledge fresh
upon me, I can lift my eyes to this dear face, revered as a father's, loved as
a husband's, sacred to me in my childhood as a friend's, and solemnly declare
that in my lightest thought I have never wronged you; never wavered in the love
and the fidelity I owe you!'
She had
her arms around the Doctor's neck, and he leant his head down over her,
mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses.
'Oh, hold
me to your heart, my husband! Never cast me out! Do not think or speak of
disparity between us, for there is none, except in all my many imperfections.
Every succeeding year I have known this better, as I have esteemed you more and
more. Oh, take me to your heart, my husband, for my love was founded on a rock,
and it endures!'
In the
silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick, without at all
hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss. And it was very
fortunate, with a view to his credit, that she did so; for I am confident that
I detected him at that moment in the act of making preparations to stand on one
leg, as an appropriate expression of delight.
'You are
a very remarkable man, Dick!' said my aunt, with an air of unqualified
approbation; 'and never pretend to be anything else, for I know better!'
With
that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and we three stole
quietly out of the room, and came away.
'That's a
settler for our military friend, at any rate,' said my aunt, on the way home.
'I should sleep the better for that, if there was nothing else to be glad of!'
'She was
quite overcome, I am afraid,' said Mr. Dick, with great commiseration.
'What!
Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?' inquired my aunt.
'I don't
think I ever saw a crocodile,' returned Mr. Dick, mildly.
'There
never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn't been for that old
Animal,' said my aunt, with strong emphasis. 'It's very much to be wished that
some mothers would leave their daughters alone after marriage, and not be so
violently affectionate. They seem to think the only return that can be made
them for bringing an unfortunate young woman into the world—God bless my soul,
as if she asked to be brought, or wanted to come!—is full liberty to worry her
out of it again. What are you thinking of, Trot?'
I was
thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running on some of the
expressions used. 'There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of
mind and purpose.' 'The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.' 'My
love was founded on a rock.' But we were at home; and the trodden leaves were
lying under-foot, and the autumn wind was blowing.
To be continued
