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Why, I know the whole country, half-a-dozen of the languages, oh, if I could get some secret-service work! Go I must. At worst I can turn my hand to doctoring Bashi-bazouks." "My dear Tom, when will you settle down like other men?" cries Claude. "I would now, if there was an opening at Whitbury, and low as life would be, I'd face it for my father's sake. But here I cannot stay."
At last when full four years were passed and gone since Tom started for South America, he descended from the box of the day-mail at Whitbury, with a serene and healthful countenance, shouldered his carpet-bag, and started for his father's house. He walked in, and hung up his hat in the hall, just as if he had come in from a walk.
What did this unaccustomed bit of bluster mean? for unaccustomed it was; and Tom knew well that Mary Armsworth had her own way, and managed her father as completely as he managed Whitbury. "Humph! It is impossible; and yet it must be. This explains his being so anxious that Lord Minchampstead should approve of me.
How often, in Whitbury of old, had Elsley done the same! Half amused, he watched the lad, and wondered how he spent his evenings, and what works he read, and whether he ever thought of writing poetry.
This very misery is a comfort, for it will kill me all the sooner." "If you really mean to go to Whitbury, my poor dear fellow," said Tom at last, "I will start with you to-morrow morning. For I too must go; I must see my father." "You will really?" asked Elsley, who began to cling to him like a child. "I will indeed. Believe me, you are right; you will find friends there, and admirers too.
"Lucia Vavasour! your Lucia!" Elsley slowly raised himself upon his elbow, and looked into her face with a sad inquiring gaze. "Elsley darling Elsley! don't you know me?" "Yes, very well indeed; better than you know me. I am not Vavasour at all. My name is Briggs John Briggs, the apothecary's son, come home to Whitbury to die." She did not hear, or did not care for those last words. "Elsley!
None knew, meanwhile, why the old man needed not to talk of Tom to his friends and neighbours; it was because he and Grace never talked of anything else. So they had lived, and so they had waited, till that week before last Christmas-day, when Mellot and Stangrave made their appearance in Whitbury, and became Mark Armsworth's guests. The week slipped on.
To tell my story I must go back sixteen years to the days when the pleasant old town of Whitbury boasted of forty coaches a day, instead of one railway, and set forth how there stood two pleasant houses side by side in its southern suburb. In one of these two houses lived Mark Armsworth, banker, solicitor, land agent, and justice of the peace.
I can show you as thorough gentlemen and ladies, people round Whitbury, living on ten shillings a week, as you will show me in Belgravia living on five thousand a year." "I don't doubt it," said Campbell.... "So 'she couldn't go without he, drunken dog as he is! Thus it is with them all the world over." "So much the worse for them," said Tom cynically, "and for the men too.
"You put your crocodile foot in here, and I'll hit the hot water over the both of you!" and she caught up the pan of soapsuds. "My dear soul! I am a doctor belonging to the hospital which your husband goes to; and have known him since he was a boy, down in Berkshire." "You?" and she looked keenly at him. "My name is Thurnall. I was a medical man once in Whitbury, where your husband was born."
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