“Impossible! It can’t be!” exclaimed Hodmadod.
“My dear friend, I will not suffer myself to tell you how this falsehood is propped—buttressed up I may say—by other lies. I heard it avowed—malignantly avowed—that if you should, even now, marry Miss Pennibacker, the young lady will be indebted for a husband, not to his own choice, but entirely to a stomach-pump.”
“But it isn’t true, you know,” said the Baronet.
“What matters truth to a scoffing world? I must, however, say that some—indeed a great many—excellent people were most kind, most sympathetic. They entirely believed in the innocence of your mistake: they kindly attributed your swallowing a double dose to the unreflecting fervour of a lover. But at the same time, they one and all declared, that in their opinion, the finger of fate was in it.”
“When you say the finger of fate you mean,—I was sent to sleep by the kindness of Providence?”
“Exactly so. In a word, it is evident”—say reflecting people—“it is evident that Sir Arthur was not to marry Miss Pennibacker.”
And—to be brief—the people were right. For, in a few days, Sir Arthur wedded with Miss Candituft. And, when Agatha most needed the protection of a husband! For never had Mr. Jericho shown himself such a ruthless and intolerable tyrant. The servants began to declare he was mad, and such sad belief every hour gained ground with Jericho’s family. Mrs. Jericho thought she would seek counsel of Basil; and then she feared to discover all her bodings to him. Again; it might be only another of the frantic fits that had of late shaken her helpmate; although this time, the insanity took a more terrible development.
The Man of Money, though he had controlled his indignation, quitted St. Shekel’s church an enraged and wounded individual. Yes; wounded in his delicate sense of money. Sir Arthur Hodmadod had shown to the world his contempt of the alliance—had proclaimed his indifference, his scorn of Solomon Jericho! The slight, the insult put upon the bride, was of little account—the blow was aimed at the father-in-law through the daughter. Already the Man of Money thought of pistols; and then, the risk of another hole through his monetary heart made him at once resolve upon peace. For two days Jericho considered with himself; brooded in silence over his new design. At length he was resolved. At length, he had made the true discovery of the true value of wealth. The value was power—not show. Now this great and original discovery, as his disordered brain believed it, worked on him with the rage of madness. It was now his fond conviction that the money he bore about him, carried with it an immortal principle: if he ceased to exhaust his heart—his bank of life—he should live for ever. He would, therefore, not draw another note; no; not another. He would live upon what he had. He would turn the foolish superfluities about him into hard, tangible money. He would enjoy avarice; for avarice was power. The miser was the ragged king, and the finest of fools were his merest subjects. And with this thought, Jericho wandered throughout his house; now muttering, now talking, and now threatening the types and shows of wealth about him. He would no longer feed the eyes of the world—a perilous waste—but govern men with a golden sceptre. “Why, it was a vanity—a miserable vanity—the stupid pride of the peacock—to spread before the world a splendid show! Now, the magpie was a wiser creature that concealed its treasures.” And then he—the Man of Money—had had enough of public homage. He would therefore turn miser, and make men look upon his outside wretchedness with wonder; make them bow and simper to his very tatters. Again, mystery ever hung about the miser; for it was the serf-like weakness of the poor to multiply his riches.
“Mrs. Jericho,” said the Man of Money. The trembling wife had been summoned to receive her husband’s orders. She had scarcely power to meet the eyes of her helpmate. In two days, twenty years seemed to have gathered upon him. His face looked brown, thin, and withered as the last year’s leaf. His whole body bent and swayed like a piece of paper, moved by the air. As he held his hand aloof, the light shone through it. Basil’s words again sounded in the woman’s ears: it was plain, there was some horrid compact between her lord and the infernal powers; or—it was all as one—the tyranny of conscience had worn him to his present condition.
“Mrs. Jericho, madam, you will instantly bring me all your diamonds—jewellery—all. Give the like orders to your daughters; the mincing harpies that eat me.”