"I want you to understand about the property."
"I don't want to know. Do what you like with it. I'll leave it to you."
Aunt Phœbe promptly vacated her seat, and impatiently rang the bell and ordered tea. George thereupon, for the twenty-fifth time that day, consulted a note-book in which a confused mass of scribble spread itself over many pages. He was obliged to confess to himself that for the first time within his remembrance his brain was in a chaotic state. On confiding this intelligence to Aunt Phœbe, her ruffled feelings became smooth, for the most unintelligent person would have seen at once that this simple fact had revealed in George the common failing of the ordinary man.
George Early and Miss Fairbrother were married, and it is sufficient for our purpose to say that they went on the Continent for a fortnight, and met with the usual discomforts familiar to other travellers, and faced them with the heroic fortitude common in other honeymoon couples. If George was in any way different from another man in a similar position, it lay in the fact of his not waking up and wondering if his good fortune were a dream. George Early always met windfalls with a familiar nod, and took them as a matter of course; which is, after all, not a bad idea, if you can bring yourself to it, and if you happen to be one who runs in the way of good fortune. He did not, as may be supposed, allow his thoughts to run immediately on the prospect before him, nor form any notions of having "a high old time when he got his hands on the cash." You can never tell how marriage and good fortune will affect a man, and I don't suppose there was a person in Upper Thames Street who could give a near guess as to how it would affect George Early. Nobody, not even George himself, could have told you, though he could probably have guessed nearer than other people. But that it changed his fortunes and those of other members of the firm, will be seen as the history progresses. Some evidences of change in Upper Thames Street were already apparent, even before Mr. and Mrs. Early had returned from the honeymoon.
Three men had watched the growing friendship of the two with absorbing interest, and read the marriage announcement with some approval. They did so from motives of selfishness. In this change of affairs they saw relief from irritation that had tried their tempers and touched their pockets.
Parrott watched his increasing hoard with miserly satisfaction, and had already begun to weigh the merits of Streatham and Upper Tooting as suburban retreats, where, in company with the economical wife of his choice, he might enjoy the fruits of married life, and be free from the harassing demands of the blackmailer. George Early single was a source of increasing danger, but George Early married to a rich wife might be put out of his reckoning.
Upon reflection, a man might well assume at this stage that Old Fairbrother's legacies bid fair to effect the purpose for which they were instituted. Here were three men who might have been led away from faults that were eating into the soul of each, had not an impudent blackmailer stepped in at the beginning and torn from their clutches the healing medicine. Who knows but that they now might be well on the way to reform; that Parrott might be cheerfully handing crisp bank-notes to needy friends, Busby speaking the clarion voice of truth, and Gray quaffing copious draughts of bright sparkling water in place of the noxious intoxicant of his habit?
At the time of George Early's marriage, it must be admitted no evidence of reform had appeared, although nearly a month had elapsed since the hush-money had been asked for and paid. Parrott had successfully resisted the appeals of those who sought to relieve him of sundry half-crowns and pieces of gold; and Busby, as of yore, deceived all who came in his way, with a tongue that had lost none of its cunning. If the truth must be told, the head clerk had grown closer than ever, and had gone so far as to turn a deaf ear to an urgent request for a shilling.
Mrs. Gray noticed with regret that her husband's fondness for whisky had suddenly revived, and sighed deeply as she thought of the splendid lodger she had lost.