A TALE OF TWO KNAVERIES.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAP. II.
Tom and Lucy Wedlake were two young people who had loved one another well enough, and had had sufficient courage to marry on two hundred pounds a year in the teeth of their respective families, both of which were highly respectable, extremely proud, but very poor. Tom was a Civil Service clerk, aged twenty-eight, whose salary had reached the above annual sum; and it was insisted by all their relations that the young people ought to wait until he should get his first class—which he might hope to do about forty—and be in receipt of three hundred a year; that being the smallest income upon which any lady and gentleman could contrive to support existence together. The pair declined to accept this view; so they got married; and Tom took his pretty gentle wife to live in a little house on the north-east of the Regent’s Park, which he had furnished with money lent him, free of interest, by a well-to-do friend. For the rest, they were content to trust to youth, health, and determination to keep from absolute destitution themselves and any little folks who might hereafter come.
They did not, after all, find the struggle so terrible as it had been described to them. They were not blessed—or burdened—with children until they had been some time married, nor until circumstances had put it into their power to maintain and educate them without difficulty; and they had no expensive tastes. They were extremely fond of one another, and lived in great happiness for one year. Then Uncle Franklin took up his abode with them, and their happiness was for a time considerably clouded. Mr Franklin was Lucy’s maternal uncle. In his business—that of a wine-merchant—he had made money, which he had increased by successful speculation. But in proportion as his purse grew bulky, his manners deteriorated. The latter fact was forgiven in consideration of the former; and by the time he retired, the master of a moderate fortune, the family toleration of him had developed into positive affection. Yet he was as we have seen him—rough, harsh, coarse, selfish, and overbearing; faults which were easily overlooked by the half-dozen sets of brothers and sisters, plentifully garnished with nephews and nieces, who remembered only that Uncle Franklin was old, rich, and a bachelor, and forgot the wine-merchant’s business, and the continual snubs and insults which it had always been the old gentleman’s pleasure to inflict upon his affectionate relatives. So that, when he began to lament the loneliness of his age, and to hint at his longings for the comforts and pleasures of family life, quite a number of hospitable doors flew open to him on the instant. Uncle Franklin entered all those doors, and left each of them before many weeks were over, shaking the dust off his feet against the inhabitants. In every house which he honoured with a brief sojourn, he comported himself more like a fiend than a human being. His selfishness, his ill-temper, his insolence, his coarseness, his tyranny, his general powers of exasperation, would have been unendurable by any save possible legatees, whose meekness, however, instead of disarming the old savage, seemed to incite him to yet greater cruelties. The end was the same in every case. He would fasten some perfectly unreasonable quarrel upon his hosts, and fling out of the house in a furious passion; subsequently amusing himself by inditing from his next abode injurious replies to the petitions for pardon and reconciliation which pursued him.
One day a cab drove up to Tom Wedlake’s door, and Uncle Franklin, alighting therefrom, walked into the parlour, plumped himself into the most comfortable armchair, and announced his intention of remaining, adding that his luggage would arrive shortly. Lucy, in consternation, entertained him as well as she could, which did not appear to be very well, until her husband came home and they were able to take counsel together.
Tom was at first entirely opposed to the whole thing; and being himself of a somewhat fiery temper, hinted at forcible expulsion as a means of solving the difficulty. But Lucy begged him to do nothing hastily, and suggested that the self-invited guest might at all events remain for a few days, until they should be able to see for themselves whether he were in reality so black as he had been painted. And whether it was the excellence of the little dinner which Lucy dished up, or the bright though homely comfort around him, or certain indications in Tom’s look and manner, the dreadful uncle, having come in like a lion, seemed disposed to remain in the character of a lamb. He actually tried, in the course of the evening, to pay Lucy a compliment on her good looks, which only missed fire because no one could possibly have understood it.
Before he went to bed, Uncle Franklin repeated his proposal, offering very liberal terms; and he lamented his lonely old age and the evident disposition of all his relatives to quarrel with him, in a way which went to Lucy’s soft heart. Even Tom, than whom there was no better fellow breathing, was taken in so far that he forgot much that he had heard of the woes attending Uncle Franklin’s irruption into any household. It so happened that he had never troubled Lucy’s own family circle, who alone of all his relatives lived at some distance from London. The young couple sat late that night, discussing the matter from all sides, and at last determined to make the trial. Lucy was influenced partly by pity, partly by the hope, which had in it little indeed of the mercenary element, that her uncle might leave her some small legacy, so that her darling husband might not, after all, have an altogether undowered bride. Tom, on his side, thought only of the wife he loved; the additional income would enable her to keep another servant, would relieve her from hard and menial labour, and would even afford her some few little feminine luxuries which had hitherto been beyond her reach. So each, for the other’s sake, was willing to bow the back for the burden.
For a time all went well. The old man seemed to have made a sudden and vast amendment. True, he was generally irritable, always selfish, and sometimes expressed himself in rather odd language. But these, after all, were mere eccentricities, failings of old age, results of a life apart from all refining influences. They were not insupportable by two people who had youth, health, and good spirits to their aid. And it was evident that Uncle Franklin had taken a fancy to his niece. He liked to have her sitting near him at work; and she made an exemplary listener while he fought over again the battles of business, or indulged in tirades against the baseness and ingratitude of mankind in general and his other relations in particular. To Tom he was civil, and even friendly after his fashion; altogether, he was an endurable inmate; and his entertainers began to believe that the tales which they had heard must at least have been highly coloured.
But after a month of this, Tom and Lucy began to discover that very little present advantage was likely to result to them from the arrangement, which was also irksome in many ways. Uncle Franklin paid well; but then his ideas on the subjects of eating and drinking and minor luxuries were on an even more liberal scale. In fact, after his requirements in this way were provided for, and the expense of the necessary additional servant met, there was little or no margin of profit remaining. And the demands upon Lucy’s time and energies were considerable. Uncle Franklin liked attention, and was unsparing in exacting it; he was, in truth, something of an invalid, which perhaps partly accounted for his temper and other peculiarities; so that Tom began to think seriously of hinting to his guest that it was hardly convenient to entertain him longer; when one evening the old man, being alone with his host and in an unusually equable frame of mind, made an explicit declaration of his intentions. Having first anathematised all his other relations in a general but very hearty manner, he vowed that his niece and her husband were so far the only people with whom he had been able to get on; that he found himself more comfortable with them than he had ever been in his life; and that, with their permission, he proposed to end his days in their company. Tom looked a little awkward; but Mr Franklin, as if guessing at what was in his mind, went on to say that on this condition he should make Lucy his sole legatee; there being, as he considered, no one who had a better claim upon him, or to whom he would willingly leave a fraction of his wealth. Of course Tom could only express his grateful acknowledgments. He was too poor, his prospects were too uncertain for him to be justified in standing in the light of his wife and possible children; so Uncle Franklin was given to understand that his proposal was accepted.
Lucy was full of delight when her husband told her what had passed; but Tom himself was by no means disposed to be sanguine.
‘It’s all very well, little woman,’ said he; ‘and so far he has behaved with tolerable decency. But I don’t think he’s exactly a person to be trusted. You see, he is very comfortable here, thanks to you, and he is undeniably selfish. Naturally, he would like to stay; and some men will say or promise anything to get what they want at the moment. Let him stay, by all means; we must not throw away such a chance. But don’t allow yourself to build too much on his promises, my dear. I, for my part, shall not be at all surprised if he gets tired of us, and quarrels with us, as he has with the rest; nor even if we find, after he has ended his days here and got all he can out of us, that his money is left elsewhere.’
Lucy said little, but she could not bring herself to believe in the existence of such duplicity, and in her heart she was convinced of her uncle’s bona fides. She even felt a little shocked that her husband, whom she so loved and admired, could entertain such narrow and unworthy suspicions; and she resolved that, so far as it depended on her, the old man should have no just cause to reconsider his testamentary intentions.
But it is to be feared that this attack of amiability, coupled with the repression of the past few weeks, had put a strain upon Uncle Franklin which he was unable to bear. Perhaps he thought that his munificent promise entitled him to relax a little; perhaps he considered that he had now made his footing in the house absolutely safe. However that may have been, within a very few days after this conversation, the old Adam began to appear in him once more. In Tom’s presence, he was still on his good behaviour, having an instinctive fear of him, as one not likely to submit tamely to oppression. But Tom was absent all day at his office; and when Uncle Franklin had no one to withstand him but a woman, and a very timid and gentle one to boot, he began to ‘let himself out.’ His powers of fault-finding were perfectly microscopic; he passed his time in devising vexations and enjoying them with the keenest relish. As for his language, it daily increased in majesty and ornament. He spoke to the servants in such a manner that one of them—the new one—threatened to give warning, and was with difficulty persuaded to remain; and Lucy was obliged to keep them as much as possible from contact with her guest. He would begin with a grumble at some trifle, round which he would gradually crystallise his grievances, and work himself up by their contemplation into a condition of insane rage, in which he would amble about the room like an angry baboon, knocking down chairs and scattering verbal brimstone all around. On these occasions, his liking for Lucy seemed to disappear altogether, and he would indulge in the most unpleasant criticisms on her appearance, her intellect, and her housekeeping abilities. Neither would he spare her husband, whom he was accustomed to sum up with similarly uncomplimentary results, inviting Lucy to report his comments to their object—a course which, he understood very well, nothing would induce her to take.
She bore it all heroically. She knew what the consequence would be if the slightest hint of the treatment to which she was subjected should ever reach Tom’s ears; so she contented herself with uncomplaining good-temper so long as that was possible, and tears—which added fuel to her uncle’s wrath—when endurance was pushed beyond its limits. Of her own profit she thought little; or rather, the loss of her expectations would have seemed to her humble and contented nature but a small price to pay for release from her sufferings. But for Tom’s sake—in the hope of seeing him relieved of that anxiety for her future which she knew to be always present to his mind—for the sake of those who might hereafter cling around her knees—she was prepared to endure silently the worst that Uncle Franklin could do to her.
This state of things, however, came to a sudden end in a manner to her most unwelcome. Her husband came home one afternoon much earlier than usual. He had thought of late that his wife looked rather pale and worn, and had resolved to treat her to a little dinner at a restaurant, and to take her afterwards to the theatre, in the hope that the outing might give her a much-needed fillip. The consequence was that he met her unexpectedly, as she came out of the dining-room. Could she have had a few moments’ time, she would have utilised it in sponging her eyes and generally smoothing down her ruffled plumage, for this was one of the days on which she had given way under Uncle Franklin’s inflictions; her face was all blurred with tears, and she was sobbing so that she could not immediately stop. All that he had heard of the old man rushed into Tom’s mind, and he suspected at once the state of the case. He took her up-stairs, and then and there had it all out of her, with that gentle and perfectly unbending firmness which she could never resist. He said no more than to bid his little wife dry her eyes and be comforted, kissed her, and went down-stairs, quite deaf to her feeble efforts to excuse the offender. Uncle Franklin had a bad half-hour of it that afternoon; he probably heard more solid truth than he had been favoured with for many years. It was never exactly known what Tom said to him; but before bedtime that night, it was quite understood by all the household that their guest was under orders to quit within a week. Uncle Franklin did not utter a word all the evening, but sat in his armchair, blinking furtively at his host, feeling guilty and detected, but yet unrepentant. Before he went to bed, he announced his intention of keeping to his own room for the remainder of his stay, and requested that a fire might be lit there in the morning. Also, he wrote a letter, and sent a servant to post it. This letter it was which occasioned Mr Blackford’s visit.
That worthy solicitor prepared the will, which was very short and simple, with the care demanded by a document of such importance to his own interests. He even took the precaution to fair-copy it for signature himself, so as to pay strict regard to the desire of the testator that no inkling of its purport should leak out prematurely; and with it he next day repaired to Camden Town, taking with him, as requested, two witnesses—his own clerk, and a writer in the employ of his law-stationer.
Mr Franklin chuckled a great deal as he wrote his name. ‘You can take it away and keep it yourself, Blackford,’ said he, after the witnesses had done their part and retired; ‘I’ll warrant you to take good care of it.—By the way, I don’t think the date’s inserted.’
The solicitor began to unbutton the greatcoat, in an inner pocket of which he had buried the precious piece of paper.
‘Oh, bother that! Do it when you get back. It’s your concern—not mine. I’ve had enough of you for one while; and I feel confoundedly queer. I suppose this business has upset me, though I don’t know why it should. It wouldn’t have done so, once on a time.—Good-day.’ And, nothing loth, Mr Blackford took himself off with his treasure.
The prize was his; but only conditionally. This unreliable testator might alter his mind at any moment and undo his freak. Mr Blackford, with all his faults, was not murderously inclined; but it is to be feared that if some burglar in the pursuit of his calling had found it necessary to eliminate Mr Franklin that night, and had confided his intentions beforehand to the solicitor, something would have happened to prevent that gentleman from warning the police. He re-entered his office with a sigh. Never had it appeared to him so gloomy as at this moment, when, with the possibility of future wealth in his pocket, he found himself still confronted with the necessity of solving that difficult and importunate bread-and-cheese problem.
Uncle Franklin had rightly estimated his chances of remaining an inmate of the Wedlake nest. On the morning after the execution of his will, he came down to the dining-room at breakfast-time, and then and there ate humble-pie with the best grace he could assume. He apologised formally to Lucy, and promised never to repeat his behaviour. He pleaded to Tom his failing health and increasing age, and drew a moving picture of himself as an outcast upon the world, at the mercy of landladies; and he did this with a certain rough pathos which produced its effect. Tom was very short and stern in his replies, and would commit himself to nothing definite, but promised to think the matter over during the day. And when he returned at night, Lucy the soft-hearted met him with an appeal, before which he gave way.
‘He has been very humble and quiet all day,’ said she. ‘I think, my boy—so savage about his little wife!—has quite broken the poor old man’s spirit. I don’t think we ought to send him away. Of course, there is the money; and it’s nonsense to pretend that we shouldn’t be glad if he were to leave us a little. We can’t afford to despise it, Tom. I am sure he likes me, though he is so cross; and I am not much afraid that this affair will make any difference in the end. But besides all that, he is so friendless and alone, rich as he is.—We will try to keep him, won’t we, Tom dear?’
‘He must be on his good behaviour, then,’ said Tom, only half mollified. ‘I’ll stand no more nonsense, let him be as rich as Crœsus.’
‘Leave him to me,’ said Lucy; ‘there will be no more trouble with him. It was my own fault for giving way so much. I shall be wiser now, and so will he.’
‘As you like, dear,’ said her husband. ‘I have no right to oppose you in this matter, if you are willing to sacrifice yourself. I am very much afraid you will be disappointed. Forgiveness of injuries is not in your dear uncle’s nature, or I am much mistaken. He hates me like poison now, of course; and he can’t benefit you without doing the same by me, to some extent.’
‘I don’t know,’ returned Lucy thoughtfully. ‘I think you will find him very different in future. He seems to me as if he had had a shock. No one has ever stood up to him before, you know; and the treatment may have a good effect.’
It did not occur to either of them to attach any importance to the visits of Mr Blackford, of whose profession they were ignorant. Uncle Franklin, though he had retired from trade, continued his speculative investments; and the calls of gentlemen of unmistakable ‘business’ appearance were of such common occurrence, that they had almost ceased to attract notice in the household, the master and mistress of which were two of the least curious people in the world.
The old man certainly was altered, suddenly and strangely. His ill-temper had disappeared; he even refrained from swearing when, on one occasion, a mishap in the kitchen ruined his lunch. He became remarkably silent; he gave up his morning walk, seldom read his paper, and moped all day in his armchair, following Lucy about the room with his eyes whenever she was present. She was rather anxious about him, and did her best, by redoubled kindness and attention, to soothe what she supposed to be his mortification under the sharp rebuke which he had received. For a long time he scarcely noticed her efforts, remaining sullen and unresponsive; but after a while she found that he still liked her to be near him, and got restless and uneasy if she were long absent. He seemed to have something on his mind, and would gaze into the fire and mutter anxiously to himself for hours together. For Tom he entertained a hearty and unconcealed aversion, never speaking to him unless obliged to do so, and glaring at him with no doubtful expression whenever his back was turned. Of this Tom was almost oblivious, and entirely careless; for no ‘expectations,’ however important to himself or to others, could have enabled him to dissemble his real feelings towards any one whom he either loved or disliked.