Aaron the Jew: A Novel. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

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      "To marry her!" exclaimed Dr. Spenlove.

      "To marry her," repeated Mr. Gordon. "She is not a married woman, and her real name need not be divulged. When you hear the story I am about to relate, when you hear the conditions, the only conditions, upon which I will consent to lift her from the degraded depths into which she has fallen, you will understand why I desire your assistance. You will be able to make clear to her the effect of her consent or refusal upon her destiny and the destiny of her child; you will be able to use arguments which are in my mind, but to which I shall not give utterance. And remember, through all, that her child is a child of shame, and that I hold out to her the only prospect of that child being brought up in a reputable way and of herself being raised to a position of respectability."

      He paused a moment or two before he opened fresh matter.

      "I was a poor lad, Dr. Spenlove, without parents, without a home; and when I was fourteen years of age I was working as an errand-boy in London, and keeping myself upon a wage of four shillings a week. I lost this situation through the bankruptcy of my employer, and I was not successful in obtaining another. One day, I saw on the walls a bill of a vessel going to Australia, and I applied at the agent's office with a vague idea that I might obtain a passage by working aboard ship in some capacity or other. I was a strong boy-starvation agrees with some lads-and a willing boy, and it happened that one of my stamp was wanted in the cook's galley. I was engaged at a shilling a month, and I landed in Melbourne with four shillings in my pocket.

      "How I lived till I became a man is neither here nor there; but when gold was discovered I lived well, for I got enough to buy a share in a cattle station, which now belongs entirely to me. In 1860, being then on the high road to fortune, I made the acquaintance of a man whom I will call Mr. Charles, and of his only child, a girl of fourteen, whom I will call Mary. I was taken with Mr. Charles, and I was taken in by him as well, for he disappeared from the colony a couple of years afterwards, in my debt to the tune of a thousand pounds. He had the grace to write to me from London, saying he would pay me some day; and there the matter rested for seven years more, which brings me to two years ago.

      "At that time I had occasion to visit England on business; and in London I hunted up my debtor, and we renewed our acquaintance. Mary was then a young woman of twenty-one; and had it not been for her, it is more than likely I might have made things unpleasant for her father, who was leading the disreputable life of a gambler on racecourses, and in clubs of a low character.

      "Dr. Spenlove, you must have gathered from the insight I have given you into my character that I am not a man of sentiment, and you will probably consider it all the more strange that I should have entertained feelings towards Mary which caused me to consider whether she would not make me a creditable wife. Of these feelings I prefer not to speak in a warmer strain, but shall leave you to place your own construction upon them. While I was debating with myself as to the course I should pursue, the matter was decided for me by the death of Mr. Charles. He died in disgrace and poverty, and Mary was left friendless and homeless.

      "I stepped in to her rescue, and I made a proposal of marriage to her. At the same time, I told her that I thought it advisable, for her sake and mine, that a little time should elapse before this proposal was carried into effect. I suggested that our marriage should take place in two years; meanwhile, I would return to Australia, to build a suitable house and to prepare a home for her, and she would remain in England to fit herself for her new sphere of duties. She accepted me, and I arranged with a lady of refinement to receive her. To this lady both she and I were utter strangers, and it was settled between Mary and myself that she should enter her temporary home under an assumed name. It was my proposal that this pardonable deceit should be practised; no person was wronged by it, and it would assist towards Mary's complete severance from old associations. Our future was in our own hands, and concerned nobody but ourselves.

      "I returned to Australia, and made my preparations. We corresponded once a month, and some few months ago I informed her of the date of my intended arrival in England. To that letter I received no reply; and when I landed and called at the lady's house, I learned that she had fled. I set to work to discover the truth, and I have discovered it; I set to work to track her, and I have succeeded. Her story is a common story of betrayal and desertion, and I am not inclined to trouble you with it. She has not the remotest hope of assistance from the man who betrayed her; she has not the remotest hope of assistance from a person in the world with the exception of myself.

      "Dr. Spenlove, notwithstanding what has occurred I am here in Portsmouth this night with the intention of carrying out the engagement into which I entered with her; I am here, prepared to marry her, on express conditions. The adoption of assumed names, the obscurity she has courted, the absolute silence which is certain to be observed by her, by me, by you, by the man who betrayed her, render me safe. It is known that I have come to England to be married, and she will be accepted as I present her when I return with her as my wife. I will have no discussion as to my motives for taking what the world would consider an unwise step; but you will understand that my feelings for the woman who has played me false must be of a deep and sincere nature, or I should not dream of taking it.

      "It now only remains for me to state the conditions under which I am prepared to save her from even a more shameful degradation than that into which she has already fallen. I speak plainly. You know as well as I the fate that is in store for her if my offer is rejected."

      CHAPTER III

      DR. SPENLOVE UNDERTAKES A DELICATE MISSION

      Mr. Gordon had spoken throughout in a cold, passionless tone, and with no accent of emotion in his voice. If anything could have been destructive of the idea that he loved the woman he wished to marry, it was his measured delivery of the story he had related; and yet there could be no question that there was some nobility in the nature of the sacrifice he was prepared to make for her sake. The contrast between the man and the woman struck Dr. Spenlove very forcibly. The man was hard and cold, the woman was sensitive and sympathetic. Had their circumstances been equal, and had Dr. Spenlove been an interested adviser, he would have had no hesitation in saying to her: "Do not marry this man: there is no point of union between you; you can never kindle in his heart the fire which burns within your own; wedded to him, a dull routine of years will be your portion." But he felt that he dared not encourage himself to pursue this line of argument. Although the most pregnant part of Mr. Gordon's errand had yet to be disclosed, it seemed to him that he would very likely presently be the arbiter of her destiny. "You will be able," Mr. Gordon had said, "to make clear to her the effect of her consent or refusal upon her destiny and the destiny of her child." Whatever the conditions, it would be his duty to urge her to accept the offer that would be made to her; otherwise, he might be condemning her to a course of life he shuddered to contemplate. The responsibility would be too solemn for mere sentimental consideration. These were the thoughts that flashed through his mind in the momentary pause before Mr. Gordon spoke again.

      "I believe," his visitor then said, "that I am in possession of the facts relating to Mrs. Turner" – he reverted to the name by which she was generally known-"but you will corroborate them perhaps. She is in want."

      "She is in the lowest depths of poverty."

      "Unless she pays the arrears of rent she will be turned into the streets to-morrow."

      "That is the landlord's determination."

      "She would have been turned out to-day but for your intervention."

      "You are well informed, I see," observed Dr. Spenlove, rather nettled.

      "I have conversed with the landlord and with others concerning her. She lives among the poor, who have troubles enough of their own to grapple with, and are unable, even if they were inclined, to render her the assistance of which she stands in need. She seems to have kept herself aloof from them, for which I commend her. СКАЧАТЬ