“MR. ROWLAND,” said Evelyn with a little tremor, “the first thing I would like to say to you is that we are neither of us very young.”
“Miss Ferrars,” said the engineer, “you are just as young as it is best and most beautiful to be.”
There came a light like the reflection of a sudden flame over a face which she at least thought to be a faded face. She had never at her youngest and fairest received such a compliment, and how it could have come from a plain man who had so little appearance of any poetry about him was bewildering. It was indeed difficult to resume the middle-aged matter-of-fact tone after such an unexpected break.
“I am forty-two,” she said, “and I have not been without experiences in my life. I want you to know what my past has been, before—”
“Whatever you please to tell me,” he said with an air of deep respect—“but I must say it is not necessary. I am quite satisfied; your experiences may have been painful—the world isn’t over good to people like you. If you will give me your companionship for the rest of our lives, that is enough for me, and far more than I can ever deserve. I have had my experiences too—”
“I must tell you, however, my story,” she said. Women, especially those who have lived in the virginal age for so long, are very conscientious in these matters. They have a much greater respect for love than ordinary people, and think it dishonourable to keep back the knowledge from a future husband of how they have been affected in this way during their past. The love that may have touched them years before they had even heard his name, seems to their over delicacy as if it must be a drawback to them in his eyes—a really guilty secret of which a clean breast must be made before the new and real history is allowed to begin.
“I was,” she said with a little hesitation, “engaged to be married at the usual age. It is a long time ago. My father had not met with any misfortunes then. We were living at home. That makes so great a difference in every way. We were of course well known people, friendly with everybody; everything about us was well known. You know in a county people are acquainted with everything about each other—you can’t conceal it when anything happens to you, even if you wished to conceal it.”
“I never had anything to do with a county,” he said, with a sort of respectful acquiescence, interested but not curious—“but I can understand what you mean.”
“Well: when my father speculated and was so unfortunate (it was really more for my sake than for any other reason that he speculated—and then he was drawn on) it became impossible to carry my engagement out. The gentleman I was engaged to, was not very well off then. We had to think what was best for both of us. We agreed that it would be best to break it off. I should only have been a sort of millstone round his neck. People might have expected him to help papa. And his own means were quite limited then. He had not been supposed a good match for me in my wealthy days—and when the tables were turned in this way, we both thought it was better to part.”
“And did the fellow let you go—did he give you up? The wretched cad!” cried James Rowland, adding this violent expression of opinion under his breath.
“You must not speak so, Mr. Rowland; it was a mutual agreement. We both, I need hardly say, felt it very much. I—for a long time. Indeed, it has had an influence upon all my life. Don’t think I have regretted it,” she said eagerly, “for if we had not done it by mutual agreement as we did, with a sense of the necessity—we should have been forced to do it. For as it turned out, I could not have left my father. He was very much shattered. It cost him a great deal to give up his home. He had been born there, and all his people before him.”
“And you, I suppose, were born there too, and all your people before you?”
“I? Oh! that was nothing! Wherever one is with one’s own belongings, there is home. It doesn’t matter for anything else. But it was more sad than words can say for poor papa. He had to move into the village to a little house. He bore it like a hero, thinking that it was best not to hide himself as if he had done any wrong. Misfortune and loss are not wrong. I want you,” she said, gently, having raised her head for that one profession of faith, but dropping into the usual quiet tone again, “to know exactly all about us before—”
“And did you ever see that—man again?”
The adjectives that were implied in the pause James Rowland made before he brought out the word “man” were lost upon Evelyn, who probably could not have imagined anything so forcible, not to say profane.
“Yes,” she said quietly, “often. We could not help it, to go anywhere he had to go through our village. He removed very soon, which was the kindest thing he could have done.”
“The vile cad!” said James Rowland between his teeth.
“What did you say?” she asked with a startled look: but the engineer did not repeat those words.
“I am sure I for one am very much obliged to him,” he said, getting up and walking about the room. “I’m not the man to object. He did the best thing he could have done for me. And you nursed your poor father till he died; and then you came from one trouble to another.”
“Oh, do not speak of that! My poor Harry—my darling brother! to lose his home and his inheritance, and to be banished away from all he loved; and then just when life was beginning to smile a little, to die! I cannot speak of that!”
Mr. Rowland walked about the room more quickly than ever. She had covered her face with her hands, and the hot heavy tears were falling upon her dress like rain. After many hesitations he came up to her, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Is that so bad,” he said, “if we really believe that the other life is the better life? We say so, don’t we? and no doubt he’s got something better to do there than railroads, and likes it better, now he’s there.”
She looked up at him startled, though the sentiment was common enough. It is a fine thing to be matter of fact on such a subject, and gives faith a solid reality which is denied to a more poetical view.
“I’m not sorry for him,” said Rowland. “I’ll hope to know him some day. I’ve always heard he was a fine fellow, incapable of anything that was—shoddy.” Our engineer used very good English often, but now and then he knew nothing so forcible as the jargon which has got so much into all talk now-a-days, and is a pitfall for a partially educated man. “But,” he said, pressing his hand upon her shoulder, in a way which perhaps a finer gentleman would not have used to call her attention, “There is this to be said, my dear lady. You’ve had a great deal of trouble, but if I live you shall have no more. No more if I can help it! As long as James Rowland is to the fore nothing shall get at you, my dear, but over his body.”
He said it with fervour and with a momentary gleam as of moisture in his eyes; and she, looking up to him with a certain surprise in hers in which the tears were not dry, held out her hand. And thus their bargain was made: with as true emotion, perhaps, as if they had been lovers of twenty rushing into each other’s arms. No trouble to get at her but over his body! it was a curious touch of romance and hyperbole in the midst of the matter of fact. And how true it turned out! and how untrue!—as if any one living creature could ever come between another and that fate to which we are born as the sparks fly upwards. But the idea of being thus taken care of, and of some one interposing his body between her and every assailant, was so new to Evelyn that she could not but smile. She was the one that had taken care of everybody and interposed her delicate body between them and fate.
“And now,” said he, “it’s my turn. I was ready when you began. I’ve more to say, and less; for nobody has ever done me wrong. I am a widower to start with. I don’t know if you had heard that——”
“Yes—I heard it—”
“That’s all right then; you did not get to know me under false pretences. But you must know that I wasn’t always what I am now. I am not very much to brag of, you will say now—but I’m a gentleman to what I was,” he said, with a little harsh emotional laugh.
“Don’t please talk in that way, you offend me,” she said; “you must always have been a gentleman, Mr. Rowland, in your heart.”
“Do you think you could say Rowland plain out? No? Well after all it would not be suitable for a lady like you—it’s more for men.”
“I will say ‘James,’ if you prefer it,” she said with a moment’s hesitation.
“Would you? Yes, of course I prefer it—above all things: but don’t worry yourself. Well, I was saying—Yes I’ve been a married man. She lived for five years. She was as good a little thing as ever lived, an engineer’s daughter, just my own class. We worked at the same foundry, he and I. Nothing could be more suitable. Poor Mary! it’s so long since: I sometimes ask myself was there ever a Mary? did I ever live like that, getting up in the dark winter mornings, coming home to the clean kitchen and the tidy place, bringing her my week’s wages. It’s like a story you read in a book, not like me. But I went through it all. She was the best little wife in the world, keeping everything so nice; and when she had her first baby, what an excitement it was!” The honest middle-aged engineer fixed his eyes on space and went on with his story, smiling a little to himself, emphasizing it a little by the pressure of Evelyn’s hand which he held in his own. Curiously enough, as it seemed to her looking on, not much understanding a man’s feelings, wondering at them—he was more or less amused by his recollections. She felt her heart soft for the young wife whose life must have been so short: but he smiled at the far-off, touching, pleasing recollection. “She was a pretty creature,” he said, “nice blue eyes, pretty light hair with a curl in it over her forehead.” He gave Evelyn’s hand another pressure, and looked at her suddenly with a smile. “Not like you,” he said.
She had a feeling half of shocked amazement at his lightness: and yet it was so natural. Such a long time ago: a picture in the distance: a story he had read: the little fair curls on her forehead and the clean fireside and the first baby. He was by no means sure that it had all happened to himself, that he was the man coming in with his fustian suit all grimy, and his week’s wages to give to his wife. It was impossible not to smile at that strange condition of affairs with a sort of affectionate spectatorship. Mr. Rowland seemed to remember the young fellow too, who had a curly shock of hair as well, and, when he had washed himself, was a well looking lad. With what a will he had hewed down the loaf, and eaten the bacon and consumed his tea—very comfortable, more comfortable perhaps than the well known engineer ever was at a great dinner. He had his books in a corner, and after Mary had cleared the table, got them out and worked at diagrams and calculations all the evening to the great admiration of his wife. He half wondered, as he told the story, what had become of that promising young man.
“Not like you,” he said again, “but much more suitable. If I had met you in those days, I should have been afraid to speak to you. I would have admired you all the same, my dear, for I always had an eye for a lady, with every respect be it said. But she, you know, poor thing, was just my own kind. Well, well! there’s always a doubt in it how much a man is the happier for changing out of his natural born place. But I don’t think I should like to go back: and now that you don’t seem to mind consorting with one who was only a working man——”
Evelyn was a little confused what to say. She was very much interested in his picture of his past life, but a little disturbed that he too should seem no more than interested, telling it so calmly as if it were the story of another: and she had not the faculty of making pretty speeches or saying that a working man was her deal and the noblest work of God. So she, on her side, pressed his hand a little to call him out of his dream. “You said—the first baby?”
“Oh yes, I should have said that at once. There are two of them, poor little things. Oh they have been very well looked after. I left them with her sister, a good sort of woman, who treats them exactly like her own—which has been a great thing both for them and for me. I was very heart-broken, I assure you, when she died, poor thing. I had always been a dreadful fellow for my books, and the firm saw I suppose that I was worth my salt, and made a proposal to me to come out here. There was no Cooper’s Hill College or that sort of thing then. We came out, and we pushed our way as we could. It comes gradually that sort of thing—and I got accustomed to what you call society by degrees, just as I came to the responsibility of these railroads. I could not have ventured to take that upon me once, any more than to have dined at mess. I do both now and never mind. The railroad is an affair of calculation and of keeping your wits about you. So is the other. You just do as other men do, and all goes well.”
“But,” she said, pressing the question, “I want you to tell me about the children.”
“To be sure! there are two of them, a boy and a girl. I have got their photographs somewhere, the boy is the eldest. I’ll look them up and show them to you: poor little things! Poor May was very proud of them. But you must make allowance for me. I have been a very busy man, and beyond knowing that they were well, and providing for them liberally, I have not paid as much attention as perhaps I ought to have done. You see, I was full of distress about her when I left England; and out here a man is out of the way of thinking of that sort of thing, and forgets: well no, I don’t mean forgets—”
“I am sure you do not,” she said, “but are you not afraid they may have been brought up differently from what you would wish?”
“Oh, dear no,” he said cheerfully, “they have been brought up by her sister, poor thing, a very good sort of woman. I am sure their mother herself could not have done better for them than Jane.”
“But,” said Miss Ferrars, “you are yourself so different, as you were saying, from what you were when you came to India first?”
“Different,” he said with a laugh. “I should think so, indeed—oh, very different! things I never should have dreamt of aspiring to then, seem quite natural to me now. You may say different. When I look at you—”
She did not wish him to look at her, at least from this point of view, and it was very difficult to secure his attention to any other subject; which, perhaps, was natural enough. The only thing she could do without too much pertinacity was to ask, which was an innocent question, how long it was since he had come to India first.
“A long time,” he said, “a long time. I was only a little over thirty. It was in the year——, seventeen years ago. I am near fifty now.”
“Then your son?” she said, with a little hesitation.
“The little fellow? Well, and what of him?”
“He must be nearly twenty now.”
He looked at her with an astonished stare for a moment. “Twenty!” he said, as if the idea was beyond his comprehension. Then he repeated with a puzzled countenance, “Twenty! you don’t say so! Now that you put it in that light, I suppose he is.”
“My little girl—” he rubbed his head in a bewildered way. “You are very particular in your questions. Are you afraid of them? You may be sure I will never let them be a subject of annoyance to you.”
“Indeed, you mistake me altogether,” said Evelyn. “It will be anything but annoyance. It will be one of the pleasures of my life.” She was very sincere by nature, and she did pause a moment before she said pleasures. She was not so sure of that. They had suddenly become her duty, her future occupation, but as to pleasures she was far from certain. Children brought up without any knowledge of their father, in the sphere which he had left so long ago, and which he was so conscious was different, very different from all he was familiar with now. It was curious to hear him enlarge upon the difference, and yet take so little thought of it in this most important particular. Her seriousness moved him at last.
“I see,” he said regretfully, “that you think I have been very indifferent to them, very negligent. But what could a man do? I could not have them here, to leave them in the charge of servants. I could not drag them about with me from one province to another. What could I have done? And I knew they were happy at home.”
“You must not think I am blaming you. I see all the difficulty, but now—now you will have them with you, will you not, and take them back into your life?”
He looked at her with eyes full of admiration and content. “Is that the first thing you want me to do,” he said, “the first thing you have at heart?”
“Yes,” she said simply, “and the most natural thing. Your children. What could they be but my first interest? They are old enough—that is one good thing—to come to India without pause.”
He rose from her side again and returned to his habitual action of walking about the room. “I knew,” he said, “from the first moment, that I was a lucky man, indeed, to meet with you. I have always been a lucky man; but never so much as when you made up your mind to have me, little as I deserve a woman like you. I’ve that good in me that I know it when I see it: a good woman from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot. There’s nothing in the world so good as that. Now, I’ll tell you something, and I hope it will please you, for it’s chiefly meant to please you. I am very well off. I can settle something very comfortable on you, and I can provide for the young ones. If it pleases you, my dear, we’ll turn our backs on this blazing India altogether, and go home.”
“Go home!” she said, with startled eyes.
“You’d like it? A country place in England or Scotland—better still, a house that would be your own—that you could settle in your own way, with all the things that please ladies now-a-days. I’ll bring you home a cartload of curiosities that will set you up in that way. And then you could have the children, and put them through their facings. Eh, my lady dear? You’d like that? Well, I can afford it,” he said with subdued exultation, with his hands in those pockets which metaphorically contained all that heart of man could desire. His eyes glowed with pleasure, with triumph, with a consciousness that he was making her happy. Yes! this was what every English lady banished in India must desire. A house in her own country, with every kind of greenness round, and every comfort within—with beautiful Indian stuffs and carpets, and curious things—and the children to pet and guide as she pleased. He was again the spectator, so to speak, of a picture of life, which rose before him, more beautiful than that of old—himself, indeed, the least lovely part of it, yet not so much amiss for an old fellow who had made all the money, and who could give her everything that could please her, everything her heart could wish for. His eyes, though they were not in themselves remarkable, grew liquid and lustrous in the pleasure of that thought.
As for Evelyn, she sat startled holding her hands clasped in her lap, with many things beyond the satisfaction he imagined in her eyes. Home in England meant something to her which could never be again. She said somewhat faintly—“In Scotland, if you would please me most of all.” At which words, for Rowland was a Scotsman, he came to her in a glow of pleasure and took both her hands and ventured, for the first time, to touch her forehead with his lips. The touch gave this elderly pair a little shock, a surprise, which startled her still more.