The Railway Man and His Children. Mrs. Oliphant
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you say?” she asked with a startled look: but the engineer did not repeat those words.
“I am sure I for one am very much obliged to him,” he said, getting up and walking about the room. “I’m not the man to object. He did the best thing he could have done for me. And you nursed your poor father till he died; and then you came from one trouble to another.”
“Oh, do not speak of that! My poor Harry—my darling brother! to lose his home and his inheritance, and to be banished away from all he loved; and then just when life was beginning to smile a little, to die! I cannot speak of that!”
Mr. Rowland walked about the room more quickly than ever. She had covered her face with her hands, and the hot heavy tears were falling upon her dress like rain. After many hesitations he came up to her, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Is that so bad,” he said, “if we really believe that the other life is the better life? We say so, don’t we? and no doubt he’s got something better to do there than railroads, and likes it better, now he’s there.”
She looked up at him startled, though the sentiment was common enough. It is a fine thing to be matter of fact on such a subject, and gives faith a solid reality which is denied to a more poetical view.
“I’m not sorry for him,” said Rowland. “I’ll hope to know him some day. I’ve always heard he was a fine fellow, incapable of anything that was—shoddy.” Our engineer used very good English often, but now and then he knew nothing so forcible as the jargon which has got so much into all talk now-a-days, and is a pitfall for a partially educated man. “But,” he said, pressing his hand upon her shoulder, in a way which perhaps a finer gentleman would not have used to call her attention, “There is this to be said, my dear lady. You’ve had a great deal of trouble, but if I live you shall have no more. No more if I can help it! As long as James Rowland is to the fore nothing shall get at you, my dear, but over his body.”
He said it with fervour and with a momentary gleam as of moisture in his eyes; and she, looking up to him with a certain surprise in hers in which the tears were not dry, held out her hand. And thus their bargain was made: with as true emotion, perhaps, as if they had been lovers of twenty rushing into each other’s arms. No trouble to get at her but over his body! it was a curious touch of romance and hyperbole in the midst of the matter of fact. And how true it turned out! and how untrue!—as if any one living creature could ever come between another and that fate to which we are born as the sparks fly upwards. But the idea of being thus taken care of, and of some one interposing his body between her and every assailant, was so new to Evelyn that she could not but smile. She was the one that had taken care of everybody and interposed her delicate body between them and fate.
“And now,” said he, “it’s my turn. I was ready when you began. I’ve more to say, and less; for nobody has ever done me wrong. I am a widower to start with. I don’t know if you had heard that——”
“Yes—I heard it—”
“That’s all right then; you did not get to know me under false pretences. But you must know that I wasn’t always what I am now. I am not very much to brag of, you will say now—but I’m a gentleman to what I was,” he said, with a little harsh emotional laugh.
“Don’t please talk in that way, you offend me,” she said; “you must always have been a gentleman, Mr. Rowland, in your heart.”
“Do you think you could say Rowland plain out? No? Well after all it would not be suitable for a lady like you—it’s more for men.”
“I will say ‘James,’ if you prefer it,” she said with a moment’s hesitation.
“Would you? Yes, of course I prefer it—above all things: but don’t worry yourself. Well, I was saying—Yes I’ve been a married man. She lived for five years. She was as good a little thing as ever lived, an engineer’s daughter, just my own class. We worked at the same foundry, he and I. Nothing could be more suitable. Poor Mary! it’s so long since: I sometimes ask myself was there ever a Mary? did I ever live like that, getting up in the dark winter mornings, coming home to the clean kitchen and the tidy place, bringing her my week’s wages. It’s like a story you read in a book, not like me. But I went through it all. She was the best little wife in the world, keeping everything so nice; and when she had her first baby, what an excitement it was!” The honest middle-aged engineer fixed his eyes on space and went on with his story, smiling a little to himself, emphasizing it a little by the pressure of Evelyn’s hand which he held in his own. Curiously enough, as it seemed to her looking on, not much understanding a man’s feelings, wondering at them—he was more or less amused by his recollections. She felt her heart soft for the young wife whose life must have been so short: but he smiled at the far-off, touching, pleasing recollection. “She was a pretty creature,” he said, “nice blue eyes, pretty light hair with a curl in it over her forehead.” He gave Evelyn’s hand another pressure, and looked at her suddenly with a smile. “Not like you,” he said.
She had a feeling half of shocked amazement at his lightness: and yet it was so natural. Such a long time ago: a picture in the distance: a story he had read: the little fair curls on her forehead and the clean fireside and the first baby. He was by no means sure that it had all happened to himself, that he was the man coming in with his fustian suit all grimy, and his week’s wages to give to his wife. It was impossible not to smile at that strange condition of affairs with a sort of affectionate spectatorship. Mr. Rowland seemed to remember the young fellow too, who had a curly shock of hair as well, and, when he had washed himself, was a well looking lad. With what a will he had hewed down the loaf, and eaten the bacon and consumed his tea—very comfortable, more comfortable perhaps than the well known engineer ever was at a great dinner. He had his books in a corner, and after Mary had cleared the table, got them out and worked at diagrams and calculations all the evening to the great admiration of his wife. He half wondered, as he told the story, what had become of that promising young man.
“Not like you,” he said again, “but much more suitable. If I had met you in those days, I should have been afraid to speak to you. I would have admired you all the same, my dear, for I always had an eye for a lady, with every respect be it said. But she, you know, poor thing, was just my own kind. Well, well! there’s always a doubt in it how much a man is the happier for changing out of his natural born place. But I don’t think I should like to go back: and now that you don’t seem to mind consorting with one who was only a working man——”
Evelyn was a little confused what to say. She was very much interested in his picture of his past life, but a little disturbed that he too should seem no more than interested, telling it so calmly as if it were the story of another: and she had not the faculty of making pretty speeches or saying that a working man was her deal and the noblest work of God. So she, on her side, pressed his hand a little to call him out of his dream. “You said—the first baby?”
“Oh yes, I should have said that at once. There are two of them, poor little things. Oh they have been very well looked after. I left them with her sister, a good sort of woman, who treats them exactly like her own—which has been a great thing both for them and for me. I was very heart-broken, I assure you, when she died, poor thing. I had always been a dreadful fellow for my books, and the firm saw I suppose that I was worth my salt, and made a proposal to me to come out here. There was no Cooper’s Hill College or that sort of thing then. We came out, and we pushed our way as we could. It comes gradually that sort of thing—and I got accustomed to what you call society by degrees, just as I came to the responsibility of these railroads. I could not have ventured to take that upon me once, any more than to have dined at mess. I do both now and never mind. The railroad is an affair of calculation and of keeping your wits about you. So is the other. You just do as other men do, and all goes well.”
“But,” she said, pressing the question, “I want you to tell me about the children.”
“To be sure! there are two of them, a boy and a girl. I have got their photographs somewhere, the boy is the eldest. I’ll look them up and show them to you: poor little things! Poor May was very proud of them. But you must make allowance for me. I have been a very busy man, and beyond