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Updated: May 6, 2025
In order that he might in truth make up his mind on the subject, he went out with his hat and stick into the long walk, and there thought out the matter to its conclusion. The letter which he held in his pocket ran as follows: ST. TAWELL'S, NORWICH, February 18 . MY DEAR MR WHITTLESTAFF, Poor Mrs Lawrie has gone at last.
Mrs Baggett, who knew well all the symptoms as her master displayed them, became angry with Mary Lawrie. Who was Mary Lawrie, that she should take upon herself to deny Mr Whittlestaff anything? No doubt it would, as she told herself, be better for Mrs Baggett in many respects that her master should remain unmarried.
"You're a young man's darling, which is the next thing to it." "How are you, Whittlestaff?" said Mr Hall. "Wonderful weather, isn't it? I'm told that you've been in trouble about that drunken husband which plagues the life out of that respectable housekeeper of yours." "He is a trouble; but if he is bad to me, how much worse must he be to her?" "That's true. He must be very bad, I should think.
And Mr Whittlestaff had been made to perceive by what had passed at Little Alresford that the Little Alresford people all took the side of John Gordon, and were supposed to be taking the side of Mary at the same time. There was not one of them, he said to himself, that had half the sense of Mrs Baggett. And there was a vulgarity about their interference of which Mrs Baggett was not guilty.
To this John Gordon could make no answer, but left his friend, and went away about his own business. He had to decide between Tennessee, Thibet, and Buenos Ayres, and wanted his time for his own purposes. When he got to dinner at his club, he found a letter from Mr Whittlestaff, which had come by the day-mail.
They were alone together, and it seemed as though Providence had provided him with a friend. And the subject of Mary Lawrie's intended marriage had been brought forward in a peculiar manner. But he was by nature altogether different from Mr Blake, and could not blurt out his love-story with easy indifference. "Do you know Mr Whittlestaff well?" he asked. "Pretty well.
They were all very kind to him, and sitting after dinner, Mr Hall suggested that Mr Whittlestaff and Miss Lawrie should be asked over to dine on the next day. John Gordon had already promised to stay until the third, and had made known his intention of going back to South Africa as soon as he could arrange matters.
Late in life he had married a second wife, a woman who was hard, sharp, and possessed of an annuity. The future condition of his only daughter had been a terrible grief to him; but from Mr Whittlestaff he had received assurances which had somewhat comforted him. "She shan't want. I can't say anything further." Such had been the comfort given by Mr Whittlestaff.
So he had accepted her promise, and allowed himself for one hour to be a happy man. Then John Gordon had come to his house, falling upon it like the blast of a storm. He had come at once instantly as though fate had intended to punish him, Whittlestaff, utterly and instantly.
The suggestion had been made quite in the other way, and Mrs Baggett was prepared altogether to obliterate herself. Mary did feel that Mr Whittlestaff ought to be made a god, as long as another woman was willing to share in the worship with such absolute self-sacrifice. At last the moment came, and the question was asked without a minute being allowed for consideration. It was in this wise.
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