"Then I may congratulate you, Mr. Tribbledale."
"Yes;—and not only that, my lord. But Crocker is nowhere. You must own that there is a triumph in that. There was a time! Oh! how I felt it. There was a time when he triumphed; when he talked of 'my Clara,' as though I hadn't a chance. He's up a tree now, my lord. I thought I'd just tell you as you are so friendly, coming among us, here, my lord!" Lord Hampstead again congratulated him, and expressed a hope that he might be allowed to send the bride a small present.
"Oh, my lord," said Tribbledale, "it shall go with the clock and the harmonium, and shall be the proudest moment of my life."
When Miss Demijohn heard that the salary of Pogson and Littlebird's clerk,—she called it "Dan's screw" in speaking of the matter to her aunt,—had been raised to £160 per annum, she felt that there could be no excuse for a further change. Up to that moment it had seemed to her that Tribbledale had obtained his triumph by a deceit which it still might be her duty to frustrate. He had declared positively that those fatal words had been actually written in the book, "Dismissal—B. B." But she had learned that the words had not been written as yet. All is fair in love and war. She was not in the least angry with Tribbledale because of his little ruse. A lie told in such a cause was a merit. But not on that account need she be led away by it from her own most advantageous course. In spite of the little quarrel which had sprung up between herself and Crocker, Crocker, still belonging to Her Majesty's Civil Service, must be better than Tribbledale. But when she found that Tribbledale's statement as to the £160 was true, and when she bethought herself that Crocker would probably be dismissed sooner or later, then she determined to be firm. As to the £160, old Mrs. Demijohn herself went to the office, and learned the truth from Zachary Fay. "I think he is a good young man," said the Quaker, "and he will do very well if he will cease to think quite so much of himself." To this Mrs. Demijohn remarked that half-a-dozen babies might probably cure that fault.
So the matter was settled, and it came to pass that Daniel Tribbledale and Clara Demijohn were married at Holloway on that very Thursday which saw completed the alliance which had been so long arranged between the noble houses of Powell and De Hauteville. There were two letters written on the occasion which shall be given here as showing the willingness to forget and forgive which marked the characters of the two persons. A day or two before the marriage the following invitation was sent;—
Dear Sam,—
I hope you will quite forget what is past, at any rate what was unpleasant, and come to our wedding on Thursday. There is to be a little breakfast here afterwards, and I am sure that Dan will be very happy to shake your hand. I have asked him, and he says that as he is to be the bridegroom he would be proud to have you as best man.
Your old sincere friend,
Clara Demijohn,—for the present.
The answer was as follows:—
Dear Clara,—
There's no malice in me. Since our little tiff I have been thinking that, after all, I'm not the man for matrimony. To sip the honey from many flowers is, perhaps, after all my line of life. I should have been happy to be Dan Tribbledale's bottle-holder, but that there is another affair coming off which I must attend. Our Lady Amaldina is to be married, and I must be there. Our families have been connected, as you know, for a great many years, and I could not forgive myself if I did not see her turned off. No other consideration would have prevented me from accepting your very kind invitation.
Your loving old friend,
Sam Crocker.
There did come a pang of regret across Clara's heart, as she read this as to the connection of the families. Of course Crocker was lying. Of course it was an empty boast. But there was a savour of aristocracy even in the capability of telling such a lie. Had she made Crocker her husband she also would have been able to drag Castle Hautboy into her daily conversations with Mrs. Duffer.
At the time of these weddings, the month of August, Æolus had not even yet come to a positive and actual decision as to Crocker's fate. Crocker had been suspended;—by which act he had been temporarily expelled from the office, so that his time was all his own to do what he pleased with it. Whether when suspended he would receive his salary, no one knew as a certainty. The presumption was that a man suspended would be dismissed,—unless he could succeed in explaining away or diminishing the sin of which he had been supposed to be guilty. Æolus himself could suspend, but it required an act on the part of the senior officer to dismiss,—or even to deprive the sinner of any part of his official emoluments. There had been no explanation possible. No diminishing of the sin had been attempted. It was acknowledged on all sides that Crocker had,—as Miss Demijohn properly described it,—destroyed Her Majesty's Mail papers. In order that unpardonable delay and idleness might not be traced home to him, he had torn into fragments a bundle of official documents. His character was so well known that no one doubted his dismissal. Mr. Jerningham had spoken of it as a thing accomplished. Bobbin and Geraghty had been congratulated on their rise in the department. "Dismissal—B. B." had been recorded, if not in any official book, at any rate in all official minds. But B. B. himself had as yet decided nothing. When Crocker attended Lady Amaldina's wedding in his best coat and gloves he was still under suspension; but trusting to the conviction that after so long a reprieve capital punishment would not be carried out.