Part 59 (1/2)

”Then what I said belied my thoughts. It seems to me, Mr. Wilkinson, since you drive me to speak out, that the matter is very much in your own hands. You are certainly a free agent. You know better than I can tell you what your duty to your mother and sisters requires.

Circ.u.mstances have made them dependent on you, and you certainly are not the man to disacknowledge the burden.”

”Certainly not.”

”No, certainly not. But, having made up my mind to that, I would not, were I you, allow myself to be a slave.”

”But what can I do?”

”You mean that you would be a poor man, were you--were you to give up your fellows.h.i.+p and at the same time take upon yourself other cares as well. Do as other poor men do.”

”I know no other man situated as I am.”

”But you know men who are much worse situated as regards their worldly means. Were you to give your mother the half of your income, you would still, I presume, be richer than Mr. Young.” Mr. Young was the curate of a neighbouring parish, who had lately married on his curacy.

It will be said by my critics, especially by my female critics, that in saying this, Adela went a long way towards teaching Mr. Wilkinson the way to woo. Indeed, she brought that accusation against herself, and not lightly. But she was, as she herself had expressed it, driven in the cause of truth to say what she had said. Nor did she, in her heart of hearts, believe that Mr. Wilkinson had any thought of her in saying what she did say. Her mind on that matter had been long made up. She knew herself to be ”the poor sequestered stag, left and abandoned by his velvet friend.” She had no feeling in the matter which amounted to the slightest hope. He had asked her for her counsel, and she had given him the only counsel which she honestly could give.

Therefore, bear lightly on her, oh my critics! Bear lightly on her especially, my critics feminine. To the worst of your wrath and scorn I willingly subject the other lovers with whom my tale is burthened.

”Yes, I should be better off than Young,” said Wilkinson, as though he were speaking to himself. ”But that is not the point. I do not know that I have ever looked at it exactly in that light. There is the house, the parsonage I mean. It is full of women”--'twas thus irreverently that he spoke of his mother and sisters--”what other woman would come among them?”

”Oh, that is the treasure for which you have to search”--this she said laughingly. The bitterness of the day was over with her; or at least it then seemed so. She was not even thinking of herself when she said this.

”Would you come to such a house, Adela? You, you yourself?”

”You mean to ask whether, if, as regards other circ.u.mstances, I was minded to marry, I would then be deterred by a mother-in-law and sister-in-law?”

”Yes, just so,” said Wilkinson, timidly.

”Well, that would depend much upon how well I might like the gentleman; something also upon how much I might like the ladies.”

”A man's wife should always be mistress in his own house.”

”Oh yes, of course.”

”And my mother is determined to be mistress in that house.”

”Well, I will not recommend you to rebel against your mother. Is that the station, Mr. Wilkinson?”

”Yes--that's the station. Dear me, we have forty minutes to wait yet!”

”Don't mind me, Mr. Wilkinson. I shall not in the least dislike waiting by myself.”

”Of course, I shall see you off. Dumpling won't run away; you may be sure of that. There is very little of the runaway cla.s.s to be found at Hurst Staple Parsonage; except you, Adela.”

”You don't call me a runaway, I hope?”

”You run away from us just when we are beginning to feel the comfort of your being with us. There, he won't catch cold now;” and so having thrown a rug over Dumpling's back, he followed Adela into the station.

I don't know anything so tedious as waiting at a second-cla.s.s station for a train. There is the ladies' waiting-room, into which gentlemen may not go, and the gentlemen's waiting-room, in which the porters generally smoke, and the refreshment room, with its dirty counter covered with dirtier cakes. And there is the platform, which you walk up and down till you are tired. You go to the ticket-window half a dozen times for your ticket, having been warned by the company's bills that you must be prepared to start at least ten minutes before the train is due. But the man inside knows better, and does not open the little hole to which you have to stoop your head till two minutes before the time named for your departure. Then there are five fat farmers, three old women, and a butcher at the aperture, and not finding yourself equal to struggling among them for a place, you make up your mind to be left behind. At last, however, you do get your ticket just as the train comes up; but hearing that exciting sound, you nervously cram your change into your pocket without counting it, and afterwards feel quite convinced that you have lost a s.h.i.+lling in the transaction.

'Twas somewhat in this way that the forty minutes were pa.s.sed by Wilkinson and Adela. Nothing of any moment was spoken between them till he took her hand for the last time. ”Adela,” he then whispered to her, ”I shall think much of what you have said to me, very much.

I do so wish you were not leaving us. I wonder whether you would be surprised if I were to write to you?” But the train was gone before she had time to answer.