CHAPTER 45 - MR. DICK FULFILLS 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.

Read next: CHAPTER 46 - INTELLIGENCE

Read previous: CHAPTER 44 - OUR HOUSEKEEPING

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