He approached the great merchant's bedside with looks of sorrowful concern; and Mr. Scriven, after shaking hands with him kindly, said--
"I have sent for you, my young friend, to give you a little testimony both of my gratitude for various services, and of my confidence in your character. I am dying, Hayley, though the surgeons say not; and if I die at present, Henry, my son, is not yet old enough to manage entirely such large concerns as must fall into his hands. You are acquainted with all the details. I owe you a good deal for your care, attention, and zeal in my service; and I do not think I can either recompense you better, or do my son a greater service, than by leaving you an eighth share of the business, which was that portion bestowed upon me at my marriage. There is only one observation I have to make, and do not suppose it to imply censure, but merely warning. Though born of a race of gentlemen, it is very necessary for you to remember that you are especially a merchant. To that consideration you should sacrifice much, and it you should sacrifice to nothing. Your education at a public school has given you several acquaintances of a higher class of society than our own, and some of very expensive habits, I am told. Friendships are too valuable to be given up; but no examples are worthy of being followed but those of honour, virtue, and truth."
"I can assure you, sir," replied Hayley, "I have preserved none of my school acquaintances of a higher rank than my own, except that of Lord Mellent, son of the Earl of Milford. We were first at a private school together, then at Eton, in the same form; and it would, I acknowledge, be a most painful sacrifice to give up his friendship. With greater means than myself, he is of course able to maintain a much more expensive style of living; but I trust you have never observed anything in me which should induce you to suppose I affect to rival him, or even to join him, in any extravagance. However, I feel as deeply indebted to you for your advice as even for your kind intentions towards me. The one shall be remembered as a guide to my conduct; and I do still hope and pray that it may be long, very long, before the latter receives execution."
Perhaps, had Mr. Scriven been at all a suspicious man, he might have thought his protégé's reply too neat and rounded; but ill as he was, and by nature generous in his appreciation of other men's motives, he was well satisfied. His anticipations, however, regarding his own fate, were but too surely realized. Three days after this conversation his eyes were closed for ever; and his son succeeded to a large property, and found himself at the head of a firm hardly rivalled by any in the world. With the habits of thought which he had acquired, the possession of so much wealth, and of such vast means of increasing it, served to close rather than open the heart.
He felt an awful responsibility of getting money upon him, and of preserving what he had got; and all his first acts indicated sufficiently what would be his future course. Those who were observers of human nature remarked, "If young Scriven is so close and grasping as a mere lad, what will he be as age creeps upon him?" And those who had perhaps calculated upon gaining some advantages over the son which they had not been able to obtain over the father, soon gave up the attempt and regretted the change.
Henry Scriven's first step was to discharge all his father's old servants, and to pay all legacies, though he did not scruple to say that he thought his sisters had been somewhat too liberally provided for. He then sold the house in St. James's Square, as requiring a larger establishment than was necessary for a young man; and he retired to a lodging in Brook Street, comfortable enough, but greatly within his means. He was much annoyed at the bequest of an eighth share of his father's business to Mr. Hayley; but he took advantage of all that gentleman's knowledge; and Hayley, soon by mild, almost timid manners, and active services, contrived to ingratiate himself as far as possible with a not very generous person.
In the mean time Margaret, viewing with wonder and disapproval all her brother's conduct, retired for three months to the house of her sister Isabella, and then went for some time on a visit to a friend. Before she returned, a letter announced to Mr. Scriven and Lady Monkton, that their sister was about to bestow her hand upon Sir John Fleetwood; and as soon as she came back to London, the baronet pressed eagerly for the consummation of his happiness. Isabella, with knowledge of the world and strong good sense, saw, as her father had seen, unanswerable objections to the marriage, and she urged them strongly, though kindly, upon her sister's attention; but she soon found that to urge them was labour in vain. Margaret admitted that she knew her lover had been what was then, and still is, called a gay man, and, moreover, an extravagant one; but she assured her friends that he was reformed in both respects and that she looked upon it as a duty to aid as far as was in her power to complete the happy change. Lady Monkton wisely abandoned the task of opposition, and hoped, but did not believe, that the reformation would last. Mr. Scriven attached himself to one object: to ensure that his sister's large fortune should be settled upon herself; and in this he would probably have succeeded, if Margaret would have consented even for a few short days not to see her lover, or would have steadily referred all matters of business to her brother. Unfortunately, however, Margaret had lost confidence in him who was now really striving for her good; and she would not trust to his generosity, while she was inclined to place the fullest reliance on one whose selfishness was only of a more sparkling kind. All that Mr. Scriven could accomplish was to have seven hundred a-year and a house settled upon his sister, though she brought her husband three thousand per annum; but that small sum he took care so to tie up, that no after weakness on her own part could deprive her of at least a moderate independence. Sir John Fleetwood, after the deed was signed, laughed with a gay companion, and observed, that Harry Scriven was the best man of business in England; and on the following day Margaret became his wife. The after fate of all the family shall be briefly told in the succeeding chapter.
CHAPTER II.
Where is the family in which the retrospect of ten years will not present a sad and chilling record--with the open tomb, around whose verge we play, and the yawning gulf of fate, which stands ever ready to swallow up the bright hopes and joys of early life? Maturity and decay shake hands.
In the family of Mr. Scriven many changes had taken place during that space of time: flowers had blossomed and been blighted; expectations had passed away which were once fair; sorrow had shadowed some happy faces; death had not spared them any more than others. But I must trace the history of each, though it shall be very briefly.