"Who is the young lady? Your cousin Julietta?"
Tom burst into laughter. "No, that it is not, sir."
"Perhaps it is Miss Maceveril? Well, the Maceverils are exclusive people. But faint heart, you know, never won fair lady."
Tom shook his head. "I should not be afraid of winning _her_." But it was not Miss Maceveril he was thinking of.
"What should you be afraid of?"
"Her friends. They would not listen to me."
"Thinking you are not rich, I suppose?"
"Knowing I am not, sir."
"The young lady may have money."
"There"s the evil of it," said Tom, impulsively. "If she had none, it would be all straight and smooth for us. I would very soon make a little home for her in London."
"It is the first time I ever heard of money being an impediment to matrimony," observed old Paul, taking the first sip at his wine.
"Not when the money is on the wrong side, sir."
"Has she much?"
"I don"t know in the least. She will be sure to have some: she is an only child."
"Then it _is_ Mary Maceveril!" nodded the old man. "You look after her, Tom, my boy. She will have ten thousand pounds."
"Miss Maceveril would not look at me, if I wanted her ever so. She is as proud as a peac.o.c.k."
"Tut, tut! Try. Try, boy. Why, what could she want? As my partner, you might be a match for even Miss Maceveril."
"Your what, sir?" cried Tom, in surprise, lifting his eyes from the blue-and-red checked table-cover.
"I said my partner, Tom. Yes, that is what I intend to make you: have intended it for some time. We will have no fly-away London jaunts and junkets. Once my partner, of course the world will understand that you will be also my successor: and I think I shall soon retire."
Tom had risen from his seat: for once in his life he was agitated. Mr.
Paul rose and put his hand on Tom"s shoulder.
"With this position, and a suitable income to back it, Tom, you are a match for Mary Maceveril, or for any other good girl. Go and try her, boy; try your luck."
"But--it is of no use," spoke Tom. "You don"t understand, sir."
"No use! Go and try,"--pushing him towards the door. "My wife was one of the proud Wintertons, you know: how should I have gained her but for trying? _I_ did not depreciate myself, and say I"m not good enough for her: I went and asked her to have me."
"But suppose it is not Mary Maceveril, sir?--as indeed it is not.
Suppose it is somebody nearer--nearer home?"
"No matter. Go and try, I say."
"I--do--think--you--understand--me, sir," cried Tom, slowly and dubiously. "I--hope there is no mistake!"
"Rubbish about mistake!" cried old Paul, pushing him towards the door.
"Go and do as I bid you. Try."
He went to look for Emma, and saw her sitting under the acacia tree on the bench, which faced the other way. Stepping noiselessly over the gra.s.s, he put his arms on her shoulders, and she turned round with a cry. But Tom would not let her go.
"I am told to come out and _try_, Emma. I want a wife, and your father thinks I may gain one. He is going to make me his partner; and he says he thinks I am a match for any good girl. And I am not going to London."
She turned pale and red, red and pale, and then burst into a fit of tears and trembling.
"Oh, Tom, can it be true! Oh, Tom, Tom!"
And Tom kissed her for the first time in his life. But not for the last.
The news came out to us in a lump. Tom Chandler was taken into partnership and was to marry Emma. We wished them good luck. She was not to leave her home, for her father would not spare her: she and Tom were to live with him.
"I had to do it, you know, Squire," said old Paul, meeting the Squire one day. "Only children are apt to be wilful. Not that I ever found Emma so. Had I not allowed it, I expect she"d have dutifully saddled herself, an old maid, upon me for life."
"She could not have chosen better," cried the Squire, warmly. "If there"s one young fellow I respect above another, it"s Tom Chandler.
He is good to the back-bone."
"He wouldn"t have got her if he were not; you may rely upon that,"
concluded old Paul, emphatically.
So the wedding took place at Islip in the autumn, and old Paul gave Tom a month"s holiday, and told him he had better take Emma to Paris; as they both seemed, by what he could gather, red-hot to see it.
Drizzle, drizzle, drizzle, came down the rain, dropping with monotonous patter on the decaying leaves that strewed the garden. Not the trim well-kept garden it used to be, but showing signs of neglect. What with the long gra.s.s, and the leaves, and the sloppy roads, and the November skies, nothing could well look more dreary than the world looked to-day, as seen from the windows of North Villa.
Time had gone on, another year, bringing its events and its changes; as time always does bring. The chief change, as connected with this little record, lay in Valentine Chandler. He had gone to the dogs. That was Islip"s expression for it, not mine. A baby had come to Tom and Emma.
Little by little, step by step, Valentine had gone down lower and lower.
Some people, who are given to bad habits, make spasmodic efforts to reform; but, so far as Islip could see, Valentine never made any. He pa.s.sed more time at the Bell, or at less respectable public-houses, and drank deeper: and at last neglected his business almost entirely.
Enervated and good for nothing, he would lie in bed till twelve o"clock in the day. To keep on the office seemed only a farce. Its profits were not enough to pay for its one solitary clerk. Valentine was then pulled up by an illness, which confined him to his bed, and left him in a shaky state. The practice had quite gone then, and the clerk had gone; and Valentine knew that, even though he had had sufficient energy left to try to bring them back, no clients would have returned to him.
He was going to emigrate to Canada. His friends hoped he would be steady there, and redeem the past: he gave fair promises of it. George Chandler (Tom"s brother, who was doing very well there now, with a large farm about him, and a wife and children) had undertaken to receive Valentine and help him to employment. So he would have to begin life over again.
It was all so much gall and bitterness to his mother and sisters, and had been for a long while. The tears were dropping through the fingers of Mrs. Chandler now, as she leaned on her hand and watched the dreary rain on the window-panes. With all his faults, she had so loved Valentine. She loved him still, above all the trouble he had brought; and it seemed, this afternoon, just as though her heart would break.
When the business fell off, of course her income fell off also.
Valentine was to have paid her a third of the profits, but if he did not make any profits, he could not pay her any. She had the private income, two hundred a-year, which Jacob had secured to her: but what was that for a family accustomed to live in the fashion? There is an old saying that necessity has no law: and Mrs. Jacob Chandler and her daughters had proved its truth. One of the girls had gone out as a governess; one was on a prolonged visit to her aunt Cramp; and Julietta and her mother were to move into a smaller house at Christmas. The practice and the other business, once Valentine"s, and his father"s before him, had all gone over to the other firm, Paul and Chandler.
"I"m sure I don"t know what Georgiana means by writing home for money amidst all our troubles!" cried Mrs. Chandler, fretfully. "She has fifteen pounds a-year salary, and she must make that do."
"She says her last quarter"s money is all spent, and she can"t possibly manage without a new mantle for Sunday," returned Julietta.