"THE NEW BERTH."
Mr. Hinchford scarcely maintained an equable demeanour until Sidney's return; the burden of good news was almost too much for him, and just to wile away the time, and experience the blessed privilege of telling a good story twice, he found out Ann Packet and enlightened her as to the new chance that was presented to Sid.
When Sidney returned, and informed his father that there was no news, Mr. Hinchford bade him not despair, for good luck was sure to turn up in one direction or another.
"Despair!" cried Sidney, cheerfully; "why, I haven't dreamed of despairing yet! Is it likely?"
"Shall I tell you some bad news, Sid?"
"Out with it!"
Mr. Hinchford detailed his dismissal from service at the builder's office. Sidney looked a little discomfited at first, but clapped his father on the shoulder heartily.
"We can bear it—you and I together. You'll be better away from business, and have your health better. I shall be strong enough for the two of us, sir."
"Good lad—but if nothing turns up."
"Oh! but it will!"
"And, oh! but it has!" cried the father; "now for the good news, Sid, which I have been keeping back till it has nearly burst me."
Mr. Hinchford exploded with his confession, and Sidney listened not unmoved at it. In his heart he had grown dispirited, though not despondent, and the news was grateful to him, and took a load therefrom which had seemed to become a little heavier every day. He would have preferred a clerkship away from his relation's office; but his pride was not so great as his common sense, and he saw the advantages which might accrue to him from an earnest application to business. He remembered, with a slight feeling of discomfort, his past hauteur to the man from whom he now accepted service; but he had had a fall since then, and the hopes of that time—with one bright exception—had been bubble-blown, and met the fate of bubbles. He had been too sanguine; now he was matter-of-fact, and must proceed coolly to work. He had ten years to work in—what would be the end of them? His heart had sunk a little; upon cool reflection he began to doubt whether he had acted well in confiscating the affections of one to whom he might never be able to offer a home.
Still he judged Harriet Wesden by himself, and judged her rightly. If she loved him for himself, she would not care what money he brought her; and if his affection were selfish, knowing what an end to a love story his life must be, he had concealed nothing from her, and the truth had only drawn her closer to him. He felt that that was his one hope, and he could not be magnanimous enough to insist upon its dissolution, and of the unfitness of his prospects to her own. When the time came round and left him penniless; or when he saw, three or four years hence, that there was no chance of saving money, and he remained still the clerk with an income that increased not, it would be time to resign her—not now, when she loved him, and he was happy in her smiles, and understood her, as he thought, so well.
He entered upon his novitiate at his uncle's banking-house; his father had not reiterated the hint which Geoffry Hinchford had given him about relationship, but Sid was a young man who knew his place, and who kept it, and rather shunned his relations than forced himself upon them.
Uncle and nephew proved themselves very different beings to what Sidney had imagined; they were kind to him in their way—they were even anxious he should do the family name credit; they watched his progress, and were quick enough to see that he would prove a valuable and energetic auxiliary.
Geoffry Hinchford was pleased at his nephew's reticence, and took note of it as he had taken note of most things during his earthly pilgrimage. He even condescended to give him a little advice in the shape of a warning one day.
"Sidney," he said, when chance brought them together in that bank back parlour, "how do you like your cousin Maurice for a master?"
"He is very kind to me."
"Ah! that's it—that's his fault. When I'm gone, I have a fear that he will make a muddle of the bank with his easiness. He's the best son that ever lived, I think, but he's too easy."
Sidney did not consider himself warranted in replying to this.
"So take my advice, Sidney, and steer clear of him as much as you can," he said.
"I don't think that the advice is needed, sir. Our position—"
"Fiddle-de-dee—he never cared for position, and, unfortunately, he's taken a fancy to you. The scamp wanted to double your salary yesterday, without any rhyme or reason, only relationship. Foolish, wasn't it?"
"Well, I don't deserve any increase of salary yet, sir—it has not been fairly earned," was the frank answer.
"Exactly—now listen to me. I think it is just possible that Mr. Maurice may forget that your salary is small, and that you have a father to keep. Let me tell you that he is an expensive acquaintance, and a little removed from your sphere."
"I know it, sir."
"Some day it may be different—we can't tell what may happen, but take care of him for awhile. A noble young fellow, a good business man in business hours, but not calculated to improve your mercantile abilities by a closer acquaintance."
Sidney Hinchford considered the warning somewhat of a strange one, and even for awhile did his uncle the half-injustice to believe that he spoke more in fear of Maurice "lowering" himself, than on account of his nephew forming expensive acquaintances. But Sid soon found the warning worth attending to. It happened, at times, that Sidney Hinchford had extra work after the bank was closed, and the majority of clerks had departed. His cousin Maurice, who always remained long after his father had gone—he rented apartments in London, whilst his father went off by train every afternoon to Red-Hill—did occasionally, in the early days of their acquaintance, come to Sid's desk and watch his labours for a few minutes, very intently.
"What are you going to do with yourself to-night, Sidney?"
"I am going home, Mr. Maurice."
"Come and dine with me at my club, and take pity upon my loneliness."
"Thank you—but my father will be expecting me home."
"Oh! the governor can't expect you, at your age, to be always turning up to five o'clock teas."
"You must excuse me, if you please."
"Well, if you'll give me one plain answer to the next question, I won't press it."
"I'll give it you."
"Isn't there a young lady your way, as well as the governor?"
"Yes," was the quick answer.
"By Jove! if I didn't think so. Ah! you're a gay deceiver, Sidney, after the bank doors have closed upon you."
On another occasion, and under similar circumstances, he said, in a quick, abrupt way, that almost bordered on embarrassment—
"Has your father any property of his own?"
"No."
"Your salary supports yourself and him entirely?"
"Yes, and leaves something to spare."
Maurice whistled, took up a lead pencil on Sidney's desk, and began scribbling with it on his finger nails. Suddenly he laid the pencil down, saying—
"Oh! that's a thundering sight too bad, old fellow!—we're all Hinchfords, and must alter that. How are you going to marry?—and when?"
"In the usual fashion—and in ten years' time."
"That's an engagement that will never come to anything, then."
"How do you know?"
"Because long engagements seldom do—and no man, to my fancy, has a right to tie a girl down to such horrible agreements."
"It can't be helped, Maurice," said Sid, a little sadly.
"I'd start in some business. Are you too proud for trade?"
"I don't care about retail—selling ha'porths of something across the counter, wearing white aprons, and so on," replied Sidney; "it's very wrong of me, but it's the Hinchford pride that bars the way, I suppose."
"Try wholesale on a small scale, as a start—the old tea business, for instance."
"Don't you think that I am fit for this, Mr. Maurice?"
"Yes, but it takes time to rise, and you mean marrying. Now, to my fancy, you are a man who would do better in commerce."
"Ah! but then there's capital to sink by way of a beginning."
"I can lend you a thousand pounds—a couple of thousands. I'm a very saving man, Sidney—I'm as certain that you would pay me back again as that I'm standing here."
"You're very kind," murmured Sidney, taken aback by this liberal offer; "but—but, it can't be done."
"Borrow it from my father and me—as your bankers, if you will. My father will not say no to it, I fancy—and if he does, why, there's the other resource just alluded to."
Sidney was still bewildered, and at a loss to account for the offer. For an instant he was even tempted; there rose before him the one chance of his life, the happiness of his life with Harriet, forestalled by years—and then he put his hands out, as though to push all dangerous thoughts away.
"Thank you—thank you—" he said; "but when I speculate, it must be with my own money. I will not start in life burdened by a heavy debt. You're very kind—far too kind to me, sir."
"A Hinchford—I never forget that. You don't know how proud I am of my family, and all its belongings. And, joking apart, Sidney, we really are a fine family, every one of us! And you'll not—well, subject postponed, sine die; the bank isn't such a bad place, and we shall give a lift to your salary when you deserve it. Not before, mind," he added, with a seriousness that made Sidney smile, who remembered the anecdote related by the senior partner.
Sidney Hinchford was touched by his rich cousin's efforts to promote his interests, by his frankness, his bonhomie. Though he held himself aloof from him, yet he respected, even admired him. There was not a man in the banking-office who did not admire Mr. Maurice Hinchford; he had a good word for even the porter; he treated his servants liberally; he was always ready to promote their interests; the cares of money-making, and taking care of other people's money, had never soured his temper, or brought a dark look to his face.
This was the father's anxiety, that Maurice was too easy—that nothing put him out of temper, or chased away the smiles from his good-looking countenance; the banker was glad to see his son happy, but he did wish now and then that Maurice had looked at life less frivolously, and been more staid and sober in his ways. The banker was glad to see him generous—although, if the fit seized him, Maurice was a trifle too liberal with his cheques, for natural wants, bequests, and monuments; but he was not a spendthrift, and even put money by, from the princely share of the profits which he received twice a year.
Certainly it would have been difficult for a single man to run through it without sheer gambling at green tables, or on green turfs; and Maurice Hinchford never betted on the red and black, and hated horsy people. He spent all the money a man could honestly get through; he fared sumptuously every day, and dressed figuratively in purple and fine linen; it was his boast that he had the best of everything around him, and anything second-rate had been his abomination from a child; he was a Sybarite, to whom luck had been wafted, and he enjoyed life, and cared not for the morrow, on the true Sybarite principle. But he was not a proud man; he was fastidious in a few things—young ladies of his circle generally, and the mothers of those young ladies especially, thought him much too fastidious—but he was a man whom men and women of all classes liked, and whom his servants idolized.
It was no wonder that his pleasant manners had their effect upon Sidney, who had found few of his own sex to admire in the world, and who knew that the man of whose energy everyone spoke well was of his own kith and kin. He held himself aloof, knowing that his ways were not Maurice's ways. When the rich cousin once asked why he so rigidly refused every offer to join him at his club, to make one of a little party at the opera, sharing his box with him, and put to no expense save a dress-coat and white choker, he confessed the reason in his old straightforward manner.
"You're too well-off for me—I can't be your companion, and I'll not be patronized and play the toady. It looks bad in business here, and it will look worse apart from it."
"You're a regular stoic!"
After awhile Mr. Geoffry Hinchford again asked his nephew what he thought of Maurice.
"A warm-hearted and a generous man, whom I am proud to think is a cousin of mine."
"Yes—just as you say. And very proud I am, too, to think that this dashing handsome young fellow is a son of mine. He has all the virtues except one, under heaven, Sidney."
"We're not all perfect, sir," said Sidney, laughing.
"Oh! but you are, according to my brother James—he won't see even a flaw in your armour," said the old banker, acrimoniously; "but then he always was aggravating me with something or other—and now it's you."
"I hope not, sir."
"Well, well, only in one sense of the word. And Maurice has, after all, but a little foible, which the world—the real, material world—always makes allowance for. He will grow out of it. Good evening."
Sidney did not inquire concerning Maurice Hinchford's foibles, little or otherwise—he knew that foibles were common to humanity, and that humanity is lenient respecting them. He did not believe that there was any great wrong likely to affect the brilliancy of Maurice Hinchford's character—he would be content to resemble his cousin, he thought, if he were ever a rich man like unto him, an honest, amiable English gentleman.
Sidney did not covet his cousin's riches, however; he knew that fortune was not reserved for him, and if he were scarcely content with his lot in life, he was at least thankful for all mercies that had been vouchsafed to him, though he kept his thanks to himself for the greater part.
"If he were scarcely content!" we have said, for Sidney was ambitious of rising by his own merits in the world; a laudable ambition, for which we need not upbraid him. He was careful of his money, a characteristic from his boyhood, a trait that his father, who had been never careful, took great pains to develop. He sank his pride completely for the sake of saving money, and he did save a little, despite the small income, the housekeeping expenditure, and his father to support. On Saturday nights he toiled home from the cheapest market with a huge bag of groceries, to the disgust of the suburban tea-dealer—who wanted a hundred per cent. profit on an indifferent article—and walked with his head rather higher in the air than usual when heavily laden.
"When I can afford it, the goods shall be brought to my door," he said, when his father once urged a faint remonstrance; "but I can't study appearances on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Those fellow-clerks of mine can drop my acquaintance on a Saturday night, and pass by on the other side, if they are inclined. I shall carry my big parcels and exult in my independence all the same."
"Yes, but the look of the thing, Sid."
"We'll study that some day, if we have the chance. We must keep our eyes open, till the chance comes."
"I did think once that you had all the Hinchford pride in you, Sid."
"I have a fair share, sir," was the answer, "and I never feel prouder than when I am carrying my plethoric bag under my arm. Proud of myself, and of the property I have invested in."
"Then I don't see why I should complain."
"You—to be sure not. Put on your hat, and let us go round to Mr. Wesden's, and make up our whist party."
And in this quiet way—winding up the evenings with whist-playing and love-making—the time stole on.