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JOHN CALDIGATE
dark; but their eyes had become used to the gloom, and each
could see the other’s face. ‘Love you!’ she repeated, looking up
at him, speaking in a very low voice, but yet, oh so clearly,
so that not a fraction of a sound was lost to his ears, with no
special emotion in her face, with no contortion, no grimace,
but with her eyes fixed upon his. ‘How should it be possible
that I should not love you? For two months we have been together as people seldom are in the world — as they never can
be without hating each other or loving each other thoroughly.
You have been very good to me who am all alone and desolate.
And you are clever, educated — and a man. How should I not
love you? And I know from the touch of your hand, from your
breath when I feel it on my face, from the fire of your eye, and
from the tenderness of your mouth, that you, too, love me.’
‘I do,’ he said.
‘But as there may be marriage without love, so there may
be love without marriage. You cannot but feel how little you
know of me, and ignorant as you are of so much, that to marry
me might be — ruin.’ It was just what he had told himself over
and over again, when he had been trying to resolve what he
would do in regard to her. ‘Don’t you know that?’
‘I know that it might have been so among the connections of home life.’
‘And to you the connections of home life may all come
back. That woman talked about your “roll of ancestors.” Coming from her it was absurd. But there was some truth in it.
You know that were you to marry me, say to-morrow, in Melbourne, it would shut you out from — well, not the possibility
but the probability of return.’
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
‘I do not want to go back.’
‘Nor do I want to hinder you from doing so. If we were alike
desolate, alike alone, alike cast out, oh then, what a heaven of
happiness I should think had been opened to me by the idea of
joining myself to you! There is nothing I could not do for you.
But I will not be a millstone round your neck.’
She had taken so much the more prominent part in all
this that he felt himself compelled by his manliness to say
something in contradiction to it — something that should
have the same flavour about it as had her self-abnegation and
declared passion. He also must be unselfish and enthusiastic.
‘I do not deny that there is truth in what you say.’
‘It is true.’
‘Of course I love you.’
‘It ought to be of course — now.’
‘And of course I do not mean to part from you now, as
though we were never to see each other again.’
‘I hope not quite that.’
‘Certainly not. I shall therefore hold you as engaged to me,
and myself as engaged to you — unless something should occur to separate us.’ It was a foolish thing to say, but he did
not know how to speak without being foolish. It is not usual
that a gentleman should ask a lady to be engaged to him ‘ —
unless something should occur to separate them!’ ‘You will
consent to that,’ he said.
‘What I will consent to is this, that I will be yours, all yours,
whenever you may choose to send for me. At any moment
I will be your wife for the asking. But you shall go away first,
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JOHN CALDIGATE
and shall think of it, and reflect upon it — so that I may not
have to reproach myself with having caught you.’
‘Caught me?’
‘Well, yes, caught you. I do feel that I have caught you — almost. I do feel — almost — that I ought to have had nothing to
do with you. From the beginning of it all I knew that I ought to
have nothing to say to you. You are too good for me.’ Then she
rose from her place as though to leave him. ‘I will go down
now,’ she said, ‘because I know you will have many things to
do. To-morrow, when we get up, we shall be in the harbour,
and you will be on shore quite early. There will be no time for
a word of farewell then. I will meet you again here just before
we go to bed — say at half-past ten. Then we will arrange, if we
can arrange, how we may meet again.’
And so she glided away from him, and he was left alone,
sitting on the spar. Now, at any rate, he had engaged himself.
There could not be any doubt about that. He certainly could
not be justified in regarding himself as free because she had
told him that she would give him time to think of it. Of course
he was engaged to marry her. When a man has been successful in his wooing he is supposed to be happy. He asked himself
whether he was proud of the result of this intimacy. She had
told him — she herself — that she had ‘caught him’, meaning
thereby that he had been taken as a rabbit with a snare or
a fish with a baited hook. If it had been so, surely she would
not herself have said so. And yet he was aware how common
it is for a delinquent to cover his own delinquency by declaring it. ‘Of course I am idle,’ says the idle one, escaping the disgrace of his idleness by his honesty. ‘I have caught you!’ There
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
is something soothing to the vanity in such a declaration from
a pretty woman. That she should have wished to catch you
is something; — something that the net should itself be so
pleasant, with its silken meshes! But the declaration may not
the less be true and the fact unpleasant. In the matter of matrimony a man does not wish to be caught; and Caldigate, fond
as he was of her, acknowledged that what she said was true.
He leant back in a corner that was made by the hatchway,
and endeavoured to think over his life and prospects. If this
were a true engagement, then must he cease altogether to
think of Hester Bolton. Then must that dream be abandoned.
It is of no use to the most fervid imagination to have a castle
projected in Spain from which all possible foundation has been
taken away. In his dreams of life a man should never dream
that which is altogether impossible. There had been something in the thought of Hester Bolton which had taken him
back from the roughnesses of his new life, from the doubtful
respectability of Mrs. Smith, from the squalor of the secondclass from the whisky-laden snores of Dick Shand, to a sweeter, brighter, cleaner world. Till this engagement had been absolutely spoken he could still indulge in that romance, distant
and unreal as it was. But now — now it seemed to be brought in
upon him very forcibly that he must rid his thoughts of Hester
Bolton — or else rid his life of Mrs. Smith.
But he was engaged to marry Mrs. Smith. Then he got up,
and walked backwards and forwards along the deck, asking himself whether this could really be the truth. Was he
bound to this woman for his life? And if so, had he done
a thing of which he already repented himself? He tried to per-
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JOHN CALDIGATE
suade himself that she was admirably fitted for the life which
he was fated to lead. She was handsome, intellectual, a most
delightful companion, and yet capable of enduring the hardships of an adventurous uncertain career. Ought he not to
think himself peculiarly lucky in having found for himself so
eligible a companion? But there is something so solemn, so sacred, in the name of wife. A man brought up among soft things
is so imbued with the feeling that his wife should be something
better, cleaner, sweeter, holier than himself that he could not
but be awe-struck when he thought that he was bound to marry this all but nameless widow of some drunken player — this
woman who, among other women, had been thought unfit for
all companionship!
But things arrange themselves. How probable it was
that he would never be married to her. After all, this might
be but an incident, and not an unpleasant incident, in his life.
He had had his amusement out of it, and she had had hers. Perhaps they would part to meet no more. But when he thought
that there might be comfort in this direction, he felt that he
was a scoundrel for thinking so.
‘And this is to say good-bye?’ ’Twas thus she greeted him
again that night. ‘Good-bye — ’
‘Good-bye, my love.’
‘My love! my love! And now remember this; my address will
be, Post-office, Melbourne. It will be for you to write to me.
You will not hear from me unless you do. Indeed I shall know
nothing of you. Let me have a line before a month is over.’ This
he promised, and then they parted.
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
At break of day on the following morning the Goldfinder
rode over the Rip into Hobson’s Bay. There were still four
hours before the ship lay at her moorings; but during all
that time Mrs. Smith was not seen by Caldigate. As he got into
the boat which took him and Shand from the ship to the pier
at Sandridge she kissed her hand to him over the side of
the vessel. Before eleven o’clock Dick Shand and his companion were comfortably put up at the Miners’ Home in
Flinders Lane.
CHAPTER IX
NOBBLE
During the two days which Dick and Caldigate spent
together in Melbourne Mrs. Smith’s name was not mentioned between them. They were particularly civil each to
the other and went to work together, making arrangements
at a bank as to their money, taking their places, despatching
their luggage, and sorting their belongings as though there
had been no such woman as Mrs. Smith on board the Goldfinder. Dick, though he had been inclined to grumble when
his mystery had been taken out of his hands — who had, of
course, been jealous when he saw that the lady had discarded her old hat and put on new ribbons, not for him, but for
another — was too conscious of the desolation to which he
would be subjected by quarrelling with his friend. He felt
himself unable to go alone, and was therefore willing that
the bygones of the ship should be bygones. Caldigate, on
the other hand, acknowledged to himself that he owed
some reparation to his companion. Of course he had not
bound himself to any special mode of life; — but had he, in
his present condition, allied himself more closely to Mrs.
Smith, he would, to some extent, have thrown Dick over.
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
And then, as soon as he was on shore, he did feel somewhat ashamed of himself in regard to Mrs. Smith. Was it not
manifest that any closer alliance, let the alliance be what it
might, must be ruinous to him? As it was, had he not made
an absolute fool of himself with Mrs. Smith? Had he not
got himself already into a mess from which there was no
escape? Of course he must write to her when the month was
over. The very weight of his thoughts on this matter made
him tamer with Dick and more observant than he would
otherwise have been.
They were during those two days frequently about the town,
looking at the various streets and buildings at the banks and
churches and gardens — as is usual with young men when they
visit a new town; but, during it all, Caldigate’s mind was more
intent on Mrs. Smith than he was on the sights of the place.
Melbourne is not so big but that she might easily have thrown
herself in his way had she pleased. Strangers residing in such
a town are almost sure to see each other before twenty-four
hours are gone. But Mrs. Smith was not seen. Two or three
times he went up and down Collins Street alone, without
his friend, not wishing to see her — aware that he had better
not see her — but made restless by a nervous feeling that he
ought to wish to see her, that he should, at any rate, not keep
out of her way. But Mrs. Smith did not show herself. Whatever
might be her future views, she did not now take steps to present herself to him. ‘I shall be so much the more bound to present myself to her,’ he said to himself. ‘But perhaps she knows
all that,’ he added in the same soliloquy.
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JOHN CALDIGATE
On the Wednesday morning they left Melbourne by
the 6 A.M. train for Albury, which latter place they reached
the same day, about 2 P.M., having then crossed the Murray river, and passed into the colony of New South Wales.
Here they stayed but a few hours and then went on by coach
on their journey to Nobble. From one wretched vehicle they
were handed on to another, never stopping anywhere long
enough to go to bed — three hours at one wretched place
and five at another — travelling at the rate of six miles
an hour, bumping through the mud and slush of the bush
roads, and still going on for three days and three nights.
This was roughing it indeed. Even Dick complained, and
said that, of all the torments prepared for wicked mortals
on earth, this Australian coaching was the worst. They went
through Wagga-Wagga and Murrumburra, and other places
with similar names, till at last they were told that they had
reached Nobble. Nobble they thought was the foulest place
which they had ever seen. It was a gold-digging town, as such
places are called, and had been built with great rapidity to
supply the necessities of adjacent miners. It was constructed
altogether of wood, but no two houses had been constructed
alike. They generally had gable ends opening on to the street,
but were so different in breadth, altitude, and form, that it
was easy to see that each enterprising proprietor had been
his own architect. But they were all alike in having enormous
advertisement-boards, some high, some broad, some sloping,
on which were declared the merits of the tradesmen who administered within to the wants of mining humanity. And they
had generally assumed most singular names for themselves
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
‘The Old Stick-in-the-Mud Soft Goods Store.’ ‘The Polyeuka
Stout Depot,’ ‘Number Nine Flour Mills,’ and so on — all of
which were very unintelligible to our friends till they learned
that these were the names belonging to certain gold-mining
claims which had been opened in the neighbourhood of
Nobble. The street itself was almost more perilous to vehicles
than the slush of the forest-tracks, so deep were the holes and
so uncertain the surface. When Caldigate informed the driver that they wanted to be taken as far as Henniker’s hotel,
the man said that he had given up going so far as that for
the last two months, the journey being too perilous. So they
shouldered their portmanteaus and struggled forth down
the street. Here and there a short bit of wooden causeway,
perhaps for the length of three houses, would assist them;
and then, again, they would have to descend into the roadway and plunge along through the mud.
‘It is not quite as nice walking as the old Quad at Trinity,’
said Caldigate.
‘It is the beastliest hole I ever put my foot in since I was
born,’ said Dick, who had just stumbled and nearly came to
the ground with his burden. ‘They told us that Nobble was
a fine town.’
Henniker’s hotel was a long, low wooden shanty, divided
into various very small partitions by thin planks, in most of
which two or more dirty-looking beds had been packed
very closely. But between these little compartments there
was a long chamber containing a long and very dirty table,
and two long benches. Here were sitting a crowd of miners,
drinking when our friends were ushered in through the bar
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