Poor Mr Davenant! This letter, with the enclosed documents (which he
had fondly hoped were cheques for the L.5000)--documents utterly
useless of course to him to aid him in his present difficulties--this
letter drove him to despair. Mrs Davenant and Selina were likewise
confounded: Lucy, by her father's express request, was not informed of
their defeated plans.
But matters now grew worse with Mr Davenant, and bankruptcy was looming
in the distance. His affairs were now more involved than ever; and even
the L.5000, had he obtained it, would not now have availed to restore
his sinking credit. In this dilemma he proposed raising money on the
security of the railway shares, but here Selina showed the result of
her education in _worldly wisdom_.
'Nonsense, papa,' was her dutiful remark in reply to this suggestion;
'it will do you no good, you know, and only render me and Lucy poorer.
I am of age; and as the shares are mine, you can't sell them, you
know,' she added in some confusion; for even her selfishness could not
quite supply her with a proper amount of _nonchalance_ in thus speaking
to her father.
'I can sell them with your permission, of course?' said Mr Davenant,
hardly comprehending the full extent of her meaning.
'Yes, I know. But you see, papa, it's bad enough for me as it is: I
shall not have the fortune I was always taught to expect; and really,
as it wont do you any real good, I think I should be very unwise to let
you sell them.'
'You refuse your permission then?' exclaimed the father. Selina
bowed her head, and left the room. Mr Davenant clasped his hands in
anguish, not at the failure of this last hope, but at the agonizing
ingratitude of his favourite child, and wept; and while he yet groaned
aloud in his misery, Lucy entered the room. It is always a sad thing
to behold a man weep; but to Lucy, who now, for the first time in
her life, beheld her father under the influence of feeling, it was a
great and painful shock. But it is one of the first instincts of woman
to console, and in a moment she was kneeling by his side, her arms
wound about his neck, her tears mingling with his. All his harshness
to her--the little affection he had ever shown her--the many times
her love had been repulsed--all was forgotten; she only remembered
that he was her father, and in trouble, and either of these ties was
sufficient to insure her affectionate sympathy. Mr Davenant felt deeply
the ingratitude of Selina; but yet more intensely did the tenderness
of his youngest child cut him to the soul. It was a lesson which he
never forgot; and from that day he was a better, if not, according
to his former creed, a _wiser_ man. He told Lucy the whole story of
the railway shares, and his impending ruin. Lucy intreated him to use
_her_ portion of the shares immediately; and though his recent grief
had humbled him, and rendered him less selfish--and he was unwilling
to take advantage of her generosity--yet as she assured him that she
would never accept the money which was originally intended for his use,
he at length consented. But the tide of ruin was not to be so easily
stemmed, and the stricken man and his bewildered wife now patiently
listened to their only remaining daughter; for Selina had gone with
some friends, and with her 'shares' in her pocket, to Normandy, there
to join Mr Forde, and be married to him before he became aware that his
bride's father was a ruined man. Lucy advised her father to go to Mr
Atkinson, tell him the _whole truth_, and intreat his assistance. 'He
is so kind-hearted, dear papa, that he _will_ do what you want: he will
lend you sufficient money to relieve you from these embarrassments, and
then you will do very well.'
Mr Davenant clung to this hope like a drowning man to a frail plank. He
set off instantly for Gloucestershire. With what intense anxiety Mrs
Davenant and Lucy awaited his return may be imagined. They received
no letter from him; but three days after his departure he returned,
looking pale, weary, and hopeless.
Mr Atkinson had died a few days before he had arrived at his house.
He had been present at the reading of the will, which was dated only
a month back. In it he bequeathed the bulk of his property to that
same 'candid Cousin John' whose _wisdom_ Mr Davenant had so decried.
'Because,' said the will, 'I have reason to know that he is in
difficulties; and as he has a wife and family depending on him, he
must need the money more than my other nephew, Samuel Davenant, whom
I visited a short time since for the express purpose of seeing if his
affairs were prosperous. I have reason to suppose that they are so, and
that any increase to his means, so far from adding to his prosperity,
would induce him to speculate, and perhaps so lose all he has acquired
by years of industry. Therefore I revoke a former bequest to him of
L.20,000, and bequeath it instead to my third nephew, George Charles
Atkinson,' &c. &c.
'You were right, Lucy!' exclaimed Mr Davenant penitently; 'the truth
_is_ the safest, surest policy.'
Fortitude and perseverance were among the virtues of both Mr Davenant
and his wife. They met their difficulties steadily and firmly, and
got ultimately through them with credit. But they were now too old to
commence life anew, and gladly availed themselves of the affectionate
intreaty of Lucy and her husband--for Arthur Meredith was now a
flourishing barrister--to take up their house with them.
Selina was not happy in her marriage. Her husband's large property was
all imaginary; he was, in fact, a ruined spendthrift; and all they had
to subsist on after they were married was the money arising from those
oft-named railway shares. Selina could not reproach her husband for
deceiving her, for she had deceived him. Not till they had been three
weeks wedded did Mr Forde know that his bride's father was ruined, and
that he need expect no marriage portion further than that she already
had. 'Had you told me the truth,' he said to her, when one day she
reproached him with his poverty, 'I would have told _you_ the truth.
But I thought you would be a rich woman, and that your fortune would be
sufficient to support us both.' Selina could not reply.
Mr and Mrs Davenant, when they contrast the melancholy accounts of
the end of Selina's scheming with the happy married life of their
younger daughter, cannot but own how superior was the _wisdom_ of the
latter; and they now cordially acknowledge the veracity of that golden
sentiment of one of our modern sages--'One who is always _true_ in the
great duties of life is nearly always wise.'