Getting On In The World.
"Mr. Compton wishes to speak with you, Weston," said Mr. Sanders, the manager, to George one morning, during the visit of Mrs. Weston in the country.
"Good morning, Weston," said Mr. Compton; "I want to have a few minutes' conversation with you: sit down. You have been in my office now more than a twelvemonth, and I promised that you should have an increased salary at the expiration of that time. Your services have been very valuable to me during the past year, and I am in every way satisfied with you. As a tangible proof of this, I beg your acceptance of this little present," (handing him a ten-pound note,) "and during this year on which you have entered, I shall have much pleasure in giving you a salary of two guineas a week."
"I am exceedingly obliged to you sir," George stammered out, for he was flabbergasted at the kindness of his employer; "I hope I may always continue to do my duty in your office, and deserve your approbation."
"I hope so, too;" said Mr. Compton, "both for your sake and for my own. If you continue as you have begun, there is a fair field before you, and I will advance you as opportunity occurs. Now, apart from business, I want one word with you. I kept you purposely last year upon a low salary, because I have found that sometimes it is beneficial to young men to have only a small income. With your increased salary, you will have increased means for entering that style of life which is, unfortunately, too universal with young men—I mean the gaieties and dissipations of a London life are now more open to you than they were before. But what is termed a 'fast' young man never makes a good clerk, and I do hope you will not allow yourself to fail into habits which will be obstacles to your future promotion."
"I will endeavour, sir, always to maintain my position in your office," said George; "and I feel very grateful to you for the interest you take in my personal welfare."
George was in high spirits with his good fortune. He had not expected more than a guinea, or at the utmost thirty shillings a week increase for his second year, and had never dreamt of receiving so handsome a present as £10. By that night's post he sent off a long letter to his mother, giving her an account of the interview, and of his future prospects.
But George had different ideas about his future now, to those he cherished a twelvemonth back. Then he thought only of himself and his mother; how happy they would be together, and how much he would endeavour to contribute to her enjoyment. Now he congratulated himself that he would be upon a footing with his friends, that he could do as they did, and that he had the means to follow up those recreations which were becoming habitual to him. For since Mrs. Weston had been away, George had gone step by step further on unhallowed ground. Even Ashton said, "Weston, you are coming it pretty strong, old fellow!" and Hardy had declared that he could not keep pace with him. Night after night, as he had no one at home to claim his presence there, he had been to theatres and other places of amusement. Sunday after Sunday he had attended the lectures at the Hall of Science, and abandoning himself to the tide which was hurrying him along, he floated down the dangerous stream.
The principles of infidelity which had been inculcated, appealed to him with a voice so loud as to drown the appeals from a higher source. The one approved his conduct, the other condemned it—the one pointed to the world as a scene of enjoyment, the other as at enmity with God. George felt that if he would hold one he must resign the other. He had not that moral courage, or rather he had not the deep-rooted conviction of sin, or the earnest love and fear of God, to enable him to burst through the entanglements of the world and the world's god, and choosing whom he would serve: he loved darkness rather than light.
When Mrs. Weston returned, after a month's absence, she could not but observe an alteration in George. Although he never told her of his attendance at the lectures on Sunday, or the arguments he had had with friends who held infidel opinions, she soon perceived that George's feelings were undergoing a rapid and dangerous change. Those subjects on which he was once in the habit of conversing with her, he now carefully shunned. He was affectionate and kind to his mother still, and loved her with all his old intense love, but that ingenuous confidence which he had always reposed in her was gone. Things that were dear to him now he could not discuss with her; instead of telling her how he spent his time, and what were his amusements, he avoided any mention of them. The deception which he first practised on that night when he yielded to Ashton's persuasion, was now a system. He reasoned the matter over with himself: there could be no good in telling her; their opinions were different; he would take his course, independently of hers.
Uncle Brunton noticed the change; for to those who saw him seldom the change was sudden. But to George, every day there seemed an epoch, and he was unconscious of the rapidity with which old associations and ideas cherished from childhood were thrown down and trampled upon by the new feelings which had taken possession of him.
"George," said Mr. Brunton to him one day, "I am growing uneasy about you. I feel that I am not the same to you, nor you to me, we used to be, only a few months back. I cannot tell the reason—cannot tell when the difference commenced or how—but for some months past—ever since your mother's visit to the country—there has been a want of that old confidential, affectionate intercourse between us there used to be."
"I was younger then," said George, "and the freshness of youthful feeling and attachment may die away as we advance in years; but I am not aware that I have ever given you occasion to say I do not love you sincerely still, uncle. Your kindness to me never can, and never will be forgotten."
"Well, George, I cannot explain what I mean. I have a kind of feeling about you that something is wrong which I cannot put into words. I fancy that if I offer you a word of counsel, you do not receive it as you once did; if I talk seriously with you, it does not make the same impression, or touch the spring of the same feelings. You do not talk to me with the old frankness and candour which made my heart leap, when I thanked God I had got some one in the world to love, and who loved me. But perhaps I wrong you, and expect too much from you."
"No, not that, uncle. Frankness, candour, and love are due to you, and while I have them they shall always be yours; and to prove it, I will tell what I have never told any one before, what I have hardly spoken to my own heart. I think of the George Weston you brought away from Dr. Seaward's, who stood with you beside a father's deathbed, and who, eighteen months ago, went into Mr. Compton's office; then I think of George Weston of to-day, and I feel amazed at the change a few years has made. I have asked myself a hundred times, am I really the same? Oh, uncle! you do not know what I would give to be that boy again—to live once more in that old world of sunshine."
Tears started to George's eyes as he spoke, and Mr. Brunton could only squeeze his hand, and say, "God bless you, my boy! God bless you!"
A few days later Mr. Brunton and Mrs. Weston were one whole evening together talking about George. Both hearts were heavy, but Mr. Brunton's was the lighter of the two.
"I tell you what I think will be the very best thing for you and for George," he said, "It is now the early spring, and the country is beginning to look fresh and green. Leave this house and take one in the country. I think George can easily be made to accede to this proposition—he was always fond of country life and recreations. He can have a season ticket on the railway, and come down every night. This will wean him from his associates, and induce him to keep earlier hours, and give us, too, a better opportunity to lure him back to his old habits of life."
The arrangements were made. Mrs. Weston, with that loving self-denial which only a mother can exercise, gave up the house, and her circle of friends, and took up her residence in the country, about twenty miles from London. George was pleased with the change, and acquiesced in all the plans which were made.
About this time, an event happened of considerable importance in the family history. An old relative of Mrs. Weston's, from whom she had monetary expectations, died; and upon examination of the will, it was found that a legacy had been left her of about three thousand pounds, which was safely invested, and would bring to her an income of nearly a hundred and fifty pounds a year.
This was a cause of fear and rejoicing to Mrs. Weston—fear, lest it should be a snare to George, as he would now have the whole of his salary at his own disposal, there being no longer any necessity for her to share it; rejoicing, that she should be able to give him that start in life which had always been the desire and ambition of Mr. Weston.
A few months' trial of Mr. Brunton's plan for weaning George from the allurements of society in London, by taking a house in the country, proved it to be a failure. For the first month, George went down almost immediately after leaving business, but it was only for the first month. Gradually it became later and later, until the last train was generally the one by which he travelled. Then it sometimes occurred that he lost the last train, and was obliged to stay at an hotel in town for the night. At length, this occurred so frequently, that sometimes for three nights out of the week he never went home at all. On one of these occasions, a party of gentlemen in the commercial room of the hotel where he was staying proposed a game of cards, and asked George to make one at a rubber of whist. George had often played with his own friends, but never before with total strangers. However, without any hesitation, he accepted the invitation, and yielded to the proposition that they should play sixpenny points. The game proceeded, rubber after rubber was lost and won, and when George rose from the card-table at a late hour he was loser to the amount of thirty shillings.
"There is no playing against good cards," said George; "and the run of luck has been in your favour to-night; but I will challenge you to another game to-morrow evening, if you will be here?"
The next night George played again, and won back a pound of the money he had lost on the preceding evening. This was encouraging. "One more trial," said George to himself, "and nobody will catch me card-playing for money again with strangers." But that one more trial was the worst of all. George lost three pounds! He could ill afford it; as it was he was living at the very extent of his income, and three pounds was a large sum. He was obliged to give an I O U for the amount, and in the meantime borrow the sum from one of his friends.
"Hardy, have you got three pounds to lend me?" he asked, next morning; "you shall have it again to-morrow."
"I have not got that sum with me," said Hardy, "but I can get it for you. Is it pressing?"
"Yes; I had a hand at cards last night, and lost."
"What! with Ashton?"
"No; with some strangers at the hotel where I have hung out for the last night or two."
"You shall have that sum early this evening, George; and twice that amount, if you will make me one promise. I ask it as an old friend, who has a right to beg a favour. Give up card-playing, don't try to win back what you have lost; no good can possibly come of it"
"Is Saul among the prophets?" asked George, with something like a sneer.
"No, George Weston: but a looker-on at chess sees more of the game than the player; and I have been looking at your last few moves in the game of life, without taking part with you, and I see you will be checkmated soon, if you do not alter your tactics. I can't blame you, nor do I wish to, if I could; but when I first heard you had taken to card playing, I did feel myself among the prophets then, and prophesied no good would come of it."
"When you first heard of my card playing?" asked George. "When did you hear of it?"
"A few days since. My father came up from the country by a late train one night, and stayed at the hotel you patronize. There he saw you, and told me about it."
"Confound it! a fellow can't do a thing, even in this great city, without somebody ferretting it out. But I don't mean to play again. I have made a fool of myself too many times already; and it serves me right that I have lost money."
That evening, while George was making his way to the hotel, a lady was journeying towards the railway station. An hour later, she was at the house of Mrs. Weston, and was shown into the drawing-room.
"I must apologise," said Mrs. Hardy, for it was she, "in calling upon you at this hour: but I am very anxious to have some conversation with you."
"It is strange," said Mrs. Weston, "that as our sons have been intimate so long, we should have continued strangers; but I am very delighted to see you, Mrs. Hardy, for I have heard much of you."
"It is with regard to the intercourse between your son and mine that I have called. I do not wish to alarm you; but I feel it right that you should be in possession of information I have of your son."
Mrs. Hardy then narrated the circumstances connected with her husband's visit to the hotel on the evening when he found George there card playing.
"This evening," she continued, "my son returned home earlier than usual, and went to his drawer, where I saw him take out some money—two or three sovereigns. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and after some difficulty I ascertained he intended lending it to your son. It occurred to me at once that George Weston was in trouble with those men; and I thought it only right that you should know."
It was kind of Mrs. Hardy to shew this interest, and Mrs. Weston esteemed her for it. But had they stood beside the table at which George was seated while they were talking, or could they have seen the flush of excitement as he threw down the cards, exclaiming, "By Jove! I've lost again!" and have watched the flashing eye and heaving breast, they would have felt, even more keenly than they did, how futile were words or sympathies to check the evil.