'You will be quite safe in laying out Clem's money, or a portion of it, in the West Corks. Indeed, I don't know how you could well do better with it. You will find Figgs a mere shadow. I think we can pull through in this manner. If not we must get—to take our joint bill. He would sooner do that than have the works stopped. But then we should have to pay a tremendous price for it.
'So we were well out of the Mary Janes at last. The take last month was next to nothing, and now she's full of water. Manylodes hung on till just the last, and yet got out on his feet after all. That fellow will make a mint of money yet. What a pity that he should be such a rogue! If he were honest, honest enough I mean to be trusted, he might do anything.
'I shall leave this on Wednesday night, take the oaths on Thursday, and will see you in the evening. M'Carthy Desmond will at once move that I be put on the West Cork Committee, in place of Nogo, who won't act. My shares are all at present registered in Val's name. It will be well, however, to have them all transferred to you.
'Yours ever,
'U.S.
'M'Cleury has pledged himself to put me in again without further expense, if I have to stand before the next general election, in consequence of taking place under Government. I earnestly hope his sincerity may be tried.'
During the month of July, Alaric was busy enough. He had to do the work of his new office, to attend to his somewhat critical duties as director of the West Cork Railway, to look after the interests of Miss Golightly, whose marriage was to take place in August, and to watch the Parliamentary career of his friend Undy, with whose pecuniary affairs he was now bound up in a manner which he could not avoid feeling to be very perilous.
July passed by, and was now over, and members were looking to be relieved from their sultry labours, and to be allowed to seek air and exercise on the mountains. The Ballydehob branch line had received the sanction of Parliament through the means which the crafty Undy had so well understood how to use; but from some cause hitherto not sufficiently fathomed, the shares had continued to be depressed in value in spite of that desirable event. It was necessary, however, that calls should be paid up to the amount of £5 a share, and as Undy and Alaric held nearly a thousand shares between them, a large amount of money was required. This, however, was made to be forthcoming from Miss Golightly's fortune.
On the first of August that interesting young lady was married to the man—shall we say of her heart or of her feet? The marriage went off very nicely, but as we have already had one wedding, and as others may perhaps be before us, we cannot spare much time or many pages to describe how Miss Golightly became Madame Jaquêtanàpe. The lady seemed well pleased with everything that was done, and had even in secret but one care in the world. There was to be a dance after she and her Victoire were gone, and she could not join in it!
We, however, are in the position, as regards Clementina, in which needy gentlemen not unfrequently place themselves with reference to rich heiresses. We have more concern with her money than herself. She was married, and M. Jaquêtanàpe became the happy possessor of an income of £800 a year. Everybody conceived him to behave well on the occasion. He acknowledged that he had very little means of his own—about 4,000 francs a year, from rents in Paris. He expressed himself willing to agree to any settlement, thinking, perhaps with wisdom, that he might in this way best make sure of his wife's income, and was quite content when informed that he would receive his quarterly payments from so respectable a source as one of Her Majesty's Commissioners for the regulation of the Civil Service. The Bank of France could not have offered better security.