Part 98 (1/2)

A little scene took place in the garden next morning, which may astonish some of my readers, but which did not surprise me in the least. I knew it would happen, sooner or later, and when I saw Tom's air, on his arrival the night before, I said to myself, ”It is coming,”

and so sure enough it did. And I got all the circ.u.mstances out of Tom only a few days afterwards.

Mary Hawker was now a very handsome woman, about one and forty. There may have been a grey hair here and there among her long black tresses, but they were few and far between. I used to watch her sometimes of an evening, and wonder to myself how she had come through such troubles, and lived; and yet there she was on the night when Tom arrived, for instance, sitting quite calm and cheerful beside the fire in her half-mourning (she had soon dropped her weeds, perhaps, considering who her husband had been, a piece of good taste), with quite a placid, contented look on her fine black eyes. I think no one was capable of feeling deeper for a time, but her power of resilience was marvellous.

I have noticed that before. It may, G.o.d forgive me, have given me some slight feeling of contempt for her, because, forsooth, she did not brood over and nurse an old grief as I did myself. I am not the man to judge her. When I look back on my own wasted life; when I see how for one boyish fancy I cut myself off from all the ties of domestic life, to hold my selfish way alone, I sometimes think that she has shown herself a better woman than I have a man. Ah! well, old sweetheart, not much to boast of either of us. Let us get on.

She was walking in the garden, next morning, and Tom came and walked beside her; and after a little he said,--

”So you are pretty well contented, cousin?”

”I am as well content,” she said, ”as a poor, desolate, old childless widow could hope to be. There is no happiness left for me in this life!”

”Who told you that?” said Tom. ”Who told you that the next twenty years of your life might not be happier than any that have gone before?”

”How could that be?” she asked. ”What is left for me now, but to go quietly to my grave?”

”Grave!” said Tom. ”Who talks of graves for twenty years to come! Mary, my darling, I have waited for you so long and faithfully, you will not disappoint me at last?”

”What do you mean? What can you mean?”

”Mean!” said he; ”why, I mean this, cousin: I mean you to be my wife--to come and live with me as my honoured wife, for the next thirty years, please G.o.d!”

”You are mad!” she said. ”Do you know what you say? Do you know who you are speaking to?”

”To my old sweetheart, Polly Thornton!” he said, with a laugh,--”to no one else in the world.”

”You are wrong,” she said; ”you may try to forget now, but you will remember afterwards. I am not Mary Thornton. I am an old broken woman, whose husband was transported for coining, and hung for murder and worse!”

”Peace be with him!” said Tom. ”I am not asking who your husband was; I have had twenty years to think about that, and at the end of twenty years, I say, my dear old sweetheart, you are free at last: will you marry me?”

”Impossible!” said Mary. ”All the country-side knows who I am. Think of the eternal disgrace that clings to me. Oh, never, never!”

”Then you have no objection to me? eh, cousin?”

”To you, my kind, n.o.ble old partner? Ah, I love and honour you above all men!”

”Then,” said Tom, putting his arm round her waist, ”to the devil with all the nonsense you have just been talking, about eternal disgraces and so forth! I am an honest man and you're an honest woman, and, therefore, what cause or impediment can there be? Come, Mary, it's no use resisting; my mind is made up, and you MUST!”

”Oh, think!” she said; ”oh, think only once, before it is too late for ever!”

”I have thought,” said Tom, ”as I told you before, for twenty years; and I ain't likely to alter my opinion in ten minutes. Come, Mary. Say, yes!”

And so she said yes.

”Mrs. Buckley,” said Tom, as they came up arm in arm to the house, ”it will be a good thing if somebody was to go up to our place, and nurse Mrs. Sam in her confinement.”

”I shall go up myself,” said Mrs. Buckley, ”though how I am to get there I hardly know. It must be nearly eight hundred miles, I am afraid.”

”I don't think you need, my dear madam,” said he. ”My wife will make an excellent nurse!”