"It ought to be my own office in part, as it was my father's before me.
But Valentine cannot see that, sir. He tells me he will not take me into
partnership; that I ought not to expect it. I refuse to remain on any
other terms; and so I have left him for good. These are my rattletraps.
Odds and ends of things that I am bringing away."
Mr. Paul continued to look at Tom in silence for a minute or two. Tom
thought he was considering what he should next say. It was not that,
however. "How well he would suit me! How I should like to take him! What
a load of work he'd lift off my shoulders!" Those were the thoughts that
were running rapidly through Mr. Paul's mind.
But he did not speak them. In fact, he had no intention of speaking
them, or of taking on Tom, much as he would have liked to do it.
"When Jacob Chandler lay dying only yesterday, as it were, he told me
you would join his son; that the two of you would carry on the practice
together."
"Yes, he said the same thing to me," replied Tom. "But Valentine refuses
to carry it out. So I told him I would not be a servant where I ought to
be a master, and came away."
"And what are you going to do, young man?"
Tom smiled. He was just as much a lawyer as Mr. Paul was. "I should like
to set up in practice for myself," he answered; "but I do not yet see
my way sufficiently clear to do so. There may be a chance for me at
Worcester, as managing clerk. I have written to ask if the place is
filled up. May I join your party to the concert to-night, sir?" he
asked.
"I don't mind--if you are going to it," said the old lawyer: "but I
can't see what young men want at concerts?"
Tom caught Miss Emma's eye and her blushes, and gave her a glance that
told her he should be sure to come.
But, before the lapse of twenty-four hours, in spite of his
non-intention, Mr. Paul had taken on Tom Chandler and, looking back in
later years, it might be seen that it had been on the cards of destiny
that Tom should be taken.
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."
Lawyer Paul was still in his dining-room that evening in his handsome
house just out of Islip, and before any of his expected guests had come,
when Tom arrived to say he could not make one, and was shown into the
drawing-room. Feasting his eyes with Miss Emma's charming dress, and
shaking her hand longer than was at all polite, Tom told her why he
could not go.
"My mother took me to task severely, Emma. She asked me what I could be
thinking of to wish to go to a public concert when my uncle was only
buried the day before yesterday. The truth is, I never thought of that."
"I am so sorry," whispered Emma. "But I am worse than you are. It was
I who first asked whether you meant to go. And it is to be the nicest
concert imaginable!"
"I don't care for the concert," avowed Tom. "I--I should like to have
gone to it, though."
"At least you--you will stay and take some tea," suggested Emma.
"If I may."
"Would you please loose my hand?" went on Emma. "The lace has caught in
your sleeve-button."
"I'll undo it," said Tom. "What pretty lace it is! Is it Valenciennes?
My mother thinks there's no lace like Valenciennes."
"It is only pillow," replied Emma, bending her face over the lace and
the buttons. "After you left this morning, papa said he wished he
had remembered to ask you where he could get a prospectus of those
water-works. He----"
"Mrs. and Miss Maceveril," interrupted a servant, opening the door to
show in some ladies.
So the interview was over; and Tom took the opportunity to go to the
lawyer's dining-room, and tell him about the water-works.
"You have come over from Crabb to go to this fine concert!" cried Mr.
Paul, sipping his port wine; which he always took out of a claret-glass.
Though never more than one glass, he would be half-an-hour over it.
"I have come to say I can't go to it," replied Tom. "My mother thinks it
would not be seemly so soon after Uncle Jacob's death."
"Quite right of her, too. Why don't you sit down? No wine? Well, sit
down all the same. I want to talk to you. Will you come into my office?"
The proposal was so sudden, so unexpected, that Tom scarcely knew what
to make of it. He did not know that Mr. Paul's office wanted him.
"I have been thinking upon matters since I saw you this morning, Tom
Chandler. I am growing elderly; some people would say old; and the
thought has often crossed me that it might be as well if I had some one
about me different from an ordinary clerk. Were I laid aside by illness
to-morrow the conduct of the business would still lie upon me; and lie
it must, unless I get a confidential manager, who is a qualified lawyer:
one who can act in my place without reference to me. I offer you the
post; and I will give you, to begin with, two hundred a-year."
"I should like it of all things," cried Tom in delight, eyes and face
sparkling. "I am used to Islip and don't care to leave it. Yes, sir, I
will come with the greatest pleasure."
"Then that's settled," said old Paul.
* * * * *
Just about two years had gone on, and it was hot summer again. In the
same room at North Villa where poor Thomas Chandler had died, sat
Valentine Chandler and his mother. It was evening, and the window was
open to the garden. In another room, its window also open, sat the three
girls, Georgiana, Clementina, and Julietta; all of them singing and
playing and squalling.
"Not talk about business on a Sunday night! You must have grown
wonderfully serious all on a sudden!" exclaimed Mrs. Chandler, tartly.
"I never get to see you except on a Sunday: you know that, Valentine."
"It is not often I can get time to come over on a week-day," responded
Valentine, helping himself to some spirits and water, which had been
placed on the table after supper. "Business won't let me."
"If all I hear be true, it is not business that hinders you," said Mrs.
Chandler. "Be quiet, Valentine: I _must_ speak. I have put it off and
off, disliking to do it; but I must speak at last. Your business, as I
am told, is falling off alarmingly; that a great deal of it has gone
over to John Paul."
"Who told you?"
"That is beyond the question, Valentine, and I am not going to make
mischief. Is it true, or is it not true?"
"A little of the practice went over to Paul when Tom left me. It was not
much. Some of the clients, you see, had been accustomed to Tom at our
place, and they followed him. That was a crafty move of John
Paul's--getting hold of Tom."
"I am not alluding to the odds and ends of practice that left you then,
Valentine. I speak chiefly of this last year. Hardly a week has passed
in it but some client or other has left you for Paul."
"If they have, I can't help it," was the careless reply. "How those
girls squall!"
"I suppose there is no underhand influence at work, Valentine?" she said
dubiously. "Tom Chandler does not hold out baits for your clients, and
so fish them away from you?"
"Well, no, I suppose not," repeated the young lawyer, draining his
glass. "I accused Tom of it one day, and for once in his life he flew
into a passion, asking me what I had ever seen in him to suspect he
could be guilty of such a thing."
"No. I fear it is as I have been given to understand, Valentine: that
the cause lies with you. You spend your time in pleasure instead of
being at business. When clients go to the office, three times out of
every five they do not find you. You are not there. You are over at the
Bell, playing at billiards, or drinking in the bar."
"What an unfounded calumny!" exclaimed Valentine.
"I have been told," continued Mrs. Chandler, sinking her voice, "that
you are getting to drink frightfully. It is nothing for clients now to
find you in a state incapable of attending to them."
"Now, mother, I insist upon knowing who told you these lies," spluttered
Valentine, getting up and striding to the window. "Let anybody come
forward and prove that he has found me incapable--if he can."
"I heard that Sir John Whitney went in the other day and could make
neither top nor tail of what you said," continued his mother,
disregarding his denial. "You are agent for the little bit of property
he owns here: he chanced to come over from Whitney Hall, and found you
like that."
"I'll write to Sir John Whitney and ask what he means by saying it."
"He did not say it--that I know of. Others were witnesses of your state
as well as he."
"If my clerks tell tales out of my office, I'll discharge them from it,"
burst forth Valentine, too angry to notice the tacit admission his words
gave. "Not the clerks, you say? Then why don't you----"
"Do be still, Valentine. Putting yourself out like this will do no good.
I hope it is not true: if you assure me it is not, I am ready to believe
you. All I spoke for was, to caution you, and to tell you what is being
said, that you may be on your guard. Leave off going to the Bell; stick
to business instead: people will soon cease talking then."
"I dare say they will!" growled Valentine.
"If you are always at your post, ready to confer with clients, they
would have no plea for leaving you and going to Paul. For all our sakes,
Valentine, you must do this."
"And so I do. If----"
"Hush! The girls are coming in. I hear them shutting the piano."
Valentine dashed out a second supply, and drank it, not caring whether
it contained most brandy or water. We are never so angry as when
conscience accuses us: and it was accusing him.
In came the young ladies, laughing, romping, and pushing one another;
Georgiana, Clementina, and Julietta, arrayed in all the colours of
the rainbow. The chief difference Sunday made to them was, that their
smartest clothes came out.
Mrs. Chandler's accusations were right, and Valentine's denials wrong.
During the past two years he had been drifting downwards. The Bell was
getting to possess so great a fascination for him that he could not
keep away from it more than a couple of hours together. It was nothing
for him to be seen playing billiards in the morning, or lounging in
the parlour or the bar-room, drinking. One of his clerks would come
interrupting him with news that some client was waiting at the office,
and Valentine would put down his cue or his glass, and go flying over.
But clients, as a rule, don't like this kind of reception: they expect
to find their legal advisers cool and ready on the spot.
The worst of all was the drink. Valentine had made a friend of it so
long now, that he did not attempt to do without it. Thought he could
not. Where he at first drank one glass he went on to drink two glasses,
and the two gave place to three, or to more. Of course it told upon
him. It told now and then upon his manner in the daytime: which was
unfortunate. He could leave his billiards behind him and his glass, but
he could not leave the effects of what the glass had contained; and it
was no uncommon thing now for his clients, when he did go rushing in
to them, to find his speech uncertain and his brains in a muddle. As a
natural result, the practice was passing over to John Paul as fast as it
could: and Tom, who was chief manager at Paul's now, had been obliged to
take on an extra clerk. Every day of his life old Paul told himself how
lucky his move of engaging Tom had turned out. And this, not for the
extra business he had gained: a great deal of that might have come
to him whether Tom was with him or not: but because Tom had eased his
shoulders of their hard work and care, and because he, the old man, had
grown to like him so much.
But never a word had Mr. Paul said about raising Tom's salary. Tom
supposed he did not intend to raise it. And, much as he liked his post,
and, for many reasons, his stay at Islip, he entertained notions of
quitting both. Valentine had stopped the income his father had paid to
Mrs. Chandler; and Tom's two hundred a-year, combined with the trifle
remaining to her out of her private income, only just sufficed to keep
the home going.
It chanced that on the very same Sunday evening, when they were talking
at North Villa of Valentine's doings, Tom broached the subject to his
mother. They were sitting out of doors in the warm summer twilight,
sniffing the haycocks in the neighbouring field. Tom spoke abruptly.
"Should you mind my going to London, mother?"
"To London!" cried Mrs. Chandler. "What for?"
"To live."
"You--you are not leaving Mr. Paul, are you?"
"I am thinking of it. You see, mother mine, there is no prospect of
advancement where I am. It seems to me that I may jog on for ever at two
hundred a-year----"
"It is enough for us, Tom."
"As things are, yes: but nothing more. If--for instance--if I wanted to
set up a home of my own, I have no means of doing it. Never shall have,
at the present rate."
Mrs. Chandler turned and looked at Tom's face. "Are you thinking of
marrying, Tom?"
"No. It is of no use to think of it. If I thought of it ever so, I
could not do it. Putting that idea aside, it occurs to me sometimes to
remember that I am eight-and-twenty, and ought to be doing better for
myself."
"Do you fancy you could do better in London?"
"I am sure I could. Very much better."
Opening the Bible on her lap, Mrs. Chandler took out the spectacles that
lay between the leaves, and put them into their case with trembling
fingers.
"Do whatever you think best, Tom," she said at length, having waited to
steady her voice. "Children leave their parents' home for one of their
own; this Book tells us that they should do so. Had Jacob Chandler done
the right thing by you, you would never have needed to leave Islip: had
his son done the right thing by me, I should not be the burden to you
that I am. But now that George has taken to sending me money over from
Canada----"
"Burden!" interrupted Tom, laughingly. "Don't you talk treason, Mrs.
Chandler. If I do go to London, you will have to come with me, and see
the lions."
That night, lying awake, Tom made his mind up. He had been offered a
good appointment in London to manage a branch office for a large legal
firm--four hundred a-year salary. And he would never for a moment have
hesitated to take it, but for not liking to leave old Paul and
(especially) old Paul's daughter.
Walking to Islip the next morning, he thought a bit about the best way
of breaking it to Mr. Paul--who would be sure to come down upon him with
a storm. By midday he had found no opportunity of speaking: people were
perpetually coming in: and in the afternoon Tom had to go a mile or two
into the country. In returning he overtook Emma. She was walking along
the field-path under the hedge, her hat hanging on her arm by its
strings.
"It is so warm," said she, in apology, as Tom shook hands. "And the
trees make it shady here. I went over to ask Mary Maceveril to come back
with me and dine: but they have gone to Worcester for the day."
"So much the better for me," said Tom. "I want to tell you, Emma, that
I am going to leave."
"To leave!"
"I have had a very good place offered me in London. Mr. Paul knows
nothing about it yet, for I did not make up my mind till last night, and
I could not get a minute alone with him this morning."
She had turned her face suddenly to the hedge, seemingly to pick a wild
rose. Tom saw that the pink roses on her cheek had turned to white ones.
"I shall be very sorry to leave Islip, Emma. But what else can I do?
Situated as I am now, I cannot even glance at any plans for the future.
By making this change, I may be able to do so. My salary will be a good
one and enable me to put by: and the firm I am going to dropped me a
hint of a possible partnership."
"I wish these dog-roses had no thorns! And I wish they would grow
double, as the garden roses do!"
"So that I--having considered the matter thoroughly--believe I shall
do well to make the change. Perhaps then I may begin to indulge dreams
of a future."
"There! all the petals are off!"
"Let me gather them for you. What is the matter, Emma?"
"Matter? Nothing, sir. What should there be?"
"Here is a beauty. Will you take it?"
"Thank you. I never thought you would leave papa, Mr. Chandler."
"But--don't you perceive my reasons, Emma? What prospect is there for me
as long as I remain here? What hope can I indulge, or even glance at,
of--of settling in life?"
"I dare say you don't want to settle."
"I do not put the question to myself, because it is so useless."
"I shall be late for dinner. Good-bye."
She took a sudden flight to the little white side-gate of her house,
which opened to the field, ran across the garden, and disappeared within
doors. Tom, catching a glimpse of her face, saw that it was wet with
tears.
"Yes, it's very hard upon her and upon me," he said to himself. "And all
the more so that I cannot in honour speak, even just to let her know
that I care for her."
Continuing his way towards the office, he met Mr. Paul, who was just
leaving it. Tom turned with him, having to report to him of the business
he had been to execute.
"I expected you home before this, Chandler."
"Willis was out when I arrived there, and I had to wait for him. His
wife gave me some syllabub."
"Now for goodness' sake don't mix up syllabubs with law!" cried the old
gentleman, testily. "That's just you, Tom Chandler. Will Willis do as I
advise him, or will he not?"
"Yes, he is willing; but upon conditions. I will explain to-morrow
morning," added Tom, as Mr. Paul laid his hand upon the handle of his
front-gate, to enter.
"You can come in and explain now: and take some dinner with me."
Emma did not know he was there until she came into the dining-room. It
gave her a sort of pleasant shock. They were deep in conversation about
Willis, and she sat down quietly.
"I am glad he has asked me," thought Tom. "It will give me an
opportunity of telling him about myself after dinner."
Accordingly, when the port wine was on the table and Emma had gone, for
she never stayed after the cloth was removed, Tom spoke. Old Paul was
pouring out his one large glass. The communication was over in a few
words, for Tom did not feel it a comfortable one to make.
"Oh!" said old Paul, after listening. "Want to better yourself, do you?
Going to London to get four hundred a-year, with a faint prospect of
partnership? Have had it in your mind some time to make a change? No
prospects here at Islip? Can only just keep your mother? Perhaps you
want to keep a wife as well, Tom Chandler?"
Tom flushed like a school-girl. As the old gentleman saw, peering at him
from under his bushy grey eyebrows.
"I should very much like to be able to do it, sir," boldly replied Tom,
playing with his wine-glass. "But I can't. I can't as much as think of
it under present circumstances."
"Who is the young lady? Your cousin Julietta?"