AN EXPLOSION.
The whole ground under Thomas's feet was honey-combed and filled with
combustible matter. A spark dropped from any, even a loving hand, might
send everything in the air. It needed not an enemy to do it.
Lucy Burton had been enjoying a delightful season of repose by the
sea-side. She had just enough to do with and for the two children to
gain healthy distraction to her thinking. But her thinking as well as
her bodily condition grew healthier every day that she breathed the
sea air. She saw more and more clearly than ever that things must not
go on between her and Thomas as they were now going on. The very scent
of the sea that came in at her bed-room window when she opened it in
the morning, protested against it; the wind said it was no longer
endurable; and the clear, blue autumn sky said it was a shame for his
sake, if not for her own. She must not do evil that good might come;
she must not allow Thomas to go on thus for the sake even of keeping
a hold of him for his good. She would give him one chance more, an
if he did not accept it, she would not see him again, let come of it
what would. In better mood still, she would say, "Let God take care of
that for him and me." She had not written to him since she came: that
was one thing she could avoid. Now, she resolved that she would write
to him just before her return, and tell him that the first thing she
would say to him when she saw him would be--had he told his father? and
upon his answer depended their future. But then the question arose,
what address she was to put upon the letter; for she was not willing
to write either to his home or to the counting-house for evident
reasons. Nor had she come to any conclusion, and had indeed resolved
to encounter him once more without having written, when from something
rather incoherently expressed in her grandmother's last letter, which
indeed referred to an expected absence of Mr. Stopper, who was now the
old lady's main support, she concluded, hastily, I allow, that Mr.
Worboise was from home, and that she might without danger direct a
letter to Highbury.
Through some official at the Court of Probate, I fancy that Mr.
Worboise had heard of a caveat having been entered with reference to
the will of Mr. Richard Boxall, deceased. I do not know that this was
the case, but I think something must have occurred to irritate him
against those whom he, with the law on his side, was so sorely tempted
to wrong. I know that the very contemplation of wrong is sufficient
to irritate, and that very grievously, against one thus contemplated;
but Lucy would have been a very good match, though not equal to Miss
Hubbard, even in Mr. Worboise's eyes. On the other hand, however, if he
could but make up, not his mind, but his conscience, to take Boxall's
money, he would be so much the more likely to secure Miss Hubbard's;
which, together with what he could leave him, would make a fortune over
two hundred thousand--sufficient to make his son somebody. If Thomas
had only spoken in time, that is, while his father's conscience still
spoke, and before he had cast eyes of ambition toward Sir Jonathan's
bankers! All that was wanted on the devil's side now was some personal
quarrel with the rightful heirs; and if Mr. Worboise did not secure
that by means of Mr. Sargent's caveat, he must have got it from
what had happened on the Monday morning. Before Thomas came down to
breakfast, the postman had delivered a letter addressed to him, with
the Hastings postmark upon it.
When Thomas entered, and had taken his seat, on the heels of the usual
cool _Good-morning_, his father tossed the letter to him across the
table, saying, more carelessly than he felt:
"Who's your Hastings correspondent, Tom?"
The question, coming with the sight of Lucy's handwriting, made the
eloquent blood surge into Tom's face. His father was not in the way of
missing anything that there was to see, and he saw Tom's face.
"A friend of mine," stammered Tom. "Gone down for a holiday."
"One of your fellow-clerks?" asked his father, with a dry significance
that indicated the possible neighborhood of annoyance, or worse. "I
thought the writing of doubtful gender."
For Lucy's writing was not in the style of a field of corn in a
hurricane: it had a few mistakable curves about it, though to the
experienced eye it was nothing the less feminine that it did not affect
feminity.
"No," faltered Tom, "he's not a clerk; he's a--well, he's a--teacher of
music."
"Hm!" remarked Mr. Worboise. "How did you come to make his
acquaintance, Tom?" And he looked at his son with awful eyes, lighted
from behind with growing suspicion.
Tom felt his jaws growing paralyzed. His mouth was as dry as his hand,
and it seemed as if his tongue would rattle in it like the clapper of a
cracked bell if he tried to speak. But he had nothing to say. A strange
tremor went through him from top to toe, making him conscious of every
inch of his body at the very moment when his embarrassment might have
been expected to make him forget it altogether. His father kept his
eyes fixed on him, and Tom's perturbation increased every moment.
"I think, Tom, the best way out of your evident confusion will be to
hand me over that letter," said his father, in a cool, determined tone,
at the same time holding out his hand to receive it.
Tom had strength to obey only because he had not strength to resist.
But he rose from his seat, and would have left the room.
"Sit down, sir," said Mr. Worboise, in a voice that revealed growing
anger, though he could not yet have turned over the leaf to see the
signature. In fact, he was more annoyed at his son's pusillanimity than
at his attempted deception. "You make a soldier!" he added, in a tone
of contempt that stung Tom--not to the heart, but to the backbone. When
he had turned the leaf and saw the signature, he rose slowly from his
chair and walked to the window, folding the letter as he went. After
communing with the garden for awhile, he turned again to the table and
sat down. It was not Mr. Worboise's way to go into a passion when he
had anything like reasonable warning that his temper was in danger.
"Tom, you have been behaving like a fool. Thank heaven, it's not
too late! How could you be such a fool? Believe me, it's not a safe
amusement to go trifling with girls this way."
With a great effort, a little encouraged by the quietness of his
father's manner, Tom managed to say, "I wasn't trifling."
"Do you mean to tell me," said his father, with more sternness than Tom
had ever known him assume--"do you mean to tell me," he repeated, "that
you have come under any obligation to this girl?"
"Yes, I have, father."
"You fool! A dress-maker is no fit match for you."
"She's not a dress-maker," said Tom, with some energy, for he was
beginning to grow angry, and that alone could give a nature like his
courage in such circumstances; "she's a lady, if ever there was one."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said his father. "Don't get on your high horse
with me. She's a beggar, if ever there was one."
Tom smiled unbelievingly, or tried to smile; for now his tremor, under
the influence of his wholesome anger, had abated, and his breath began
to come and go more naturally. A little more, and he would feel himself
a hero, stoutly defending his lady-love, fearless of consequences to
himself. But he said nothing more just yet.
"You know better than I do, you think, you puppy! I tell you she's not
worth a penny--no, nor her old witch of a grandmother, either. A pretty
mess you've made of it! You just sit down and tell the poor girl--it's
really too bad of you, Tom!--that you're sorry you've been such a
confounded fool, but there's no help for it."
"Why should I say that?"
"Because it's true. By all that's sacred!" said Mr. Worboise, with
solemn fierceness, "you give up that girl, or you give up me. Not that
your father is anything to you: but I swear, if you carry on with that
girl, you shall not cross my door as long as you do; and not a penny
you shall have out of my pocket. You'll have to live on your salary, my
fine fellow, and perhaps that'll bring down your proud stomach a bit.
By Jove! You may starve for me. Come, my boy," he added with sudden
gentleness, "don't be a fool."
Whether Mr. Worboise meant all he said, I cannot tell, but at least
he meant Thomas to believe that he did. And Thomas did believe it.
All the terrible contrast between a miserable clerkship, with lodging
as well as food to be provided, and a commission in the army with
unlimited pocket-money, and the very name of business forgotten, rose
before him. A conflict began within him which sent all the blood to the
surface of his body, and made him as hot now as he had been cold just
before. He again rose from his seat, and this time his father, who saw
that he had aimed well, did not prevent him from leaving the room. He
only added as his son reached the door, "Mark what I say, Tom: _I mean
it_; and when I mean a thing, it's not my fault if it's not done. You
can go to the riding-school to-night, or you can look out for a lodging
suitable to your means. I should recommend Wapping."
Thomas stood on the heel of one foot and the toes of the other, holding
the handle of the door in his hand till his father had done speaking.
He then left the room, without reply, closed the door behind him, took
his hat and went out. He was half way to London before he remembered
that he had left Lucy's letter in his father's hands and had not even
read it. This crowned his misery. He dared not go back for it; but the
thought of Lucy's words to him being at the mercy of his hard-hearted
father moved him so, that he almost made up his mind never to enter
the house again. And then how Lucy must love him when he had given up
everything for her sake, knowing quite well, too, that she was not
going to have any fortune after all? But he did not make up his mind;
he never had made up his mind yet; or, if he had, he unmade it again
upon meeting with the least difficulty. And now his whole "state of
man" was in confusion. He went into the counting-house as if he had
been walking in a dream, sat down to his desk mechanically, droned
through the forenoon, had actually only a small appetite for his
dinner, and when six o'clock arrived, and the place was closed, knew no
more what he was going to do than when he started out in the morning.
But he neither went to the riding-school in Finsbury, nor to look for a
lodging in Wapping.