[CHAPTER XXX.]
A TERRIBLE TEMPTATION.
THE hospitable Manor House would have held almost any number of guests upon occasion, so, although it entertained at this time Tom Grigson and his son and namesake, John Tincroft and his Sarah, Helen Wilson, and Mr. Fawley, the London lawyer, there was room enough and to spare.
There was sufficient reason, Mr. Fawley thought, to induce him to remain a few days, especially in such good quarters, waiting the event of his client's decease. He had been fully forewarned of the doctor's firmly expressed conviction that Walter could not last long, and his own observations confirmed this prediction. Accordingly, he was prepared with the will, he had drawn up in London those months previously, and with the codicil, which was but a day or two old, and which had been duly witnessed by the Grigsons. Meanwhile, he made the best of his time in mudding through the woods and groves in the surrounding neighbourhood, as well as in taking mental notes of the society into which he was thus fortuitously thrown.
While Mr. Fawley was thus engaged, Tom Grigson and his son divided their time pretty equally between the Manor House and the Mumbles, having at their disposal for these almost daily excursions Richard's fast-trotting Peg and dog-cart. Once or twice young Tom remained at his grandfather's house for the night, but he invariably found his way back on the following day—the charms and attractions of his youthful future bride not being sufficiently powerful, as it seemed, to keep the complaisant, immature, and premature lover from the greater freedom from polite restraints to be found at his uncle's.
As to John Tincroft, in the interval between the death and funeral of Helen's father, he had not much inclination for social intercourse. His Sarah and Helen necessarily secluded themselves in the recess of their ladies' chamber, being understood to be engaged, in conjunction with certain dressmakers and milliners from the next town, in the preparation of mourning attire; or otherwise, the one in giving, and the other in receiving, such solace as under the circumstances was most natural.
John, therefore, was much left to himself, excepting when in the company of his host or his old friend Tom. And strange to say (or perhaps not strange to say) John rather shunned than courted at this time any confidential intercourse with that old friend.
No, it was not strange. John had been both puzzled and shocked at what he considered the inconceivable blindness of his friend in running the risk of sacrificing the happiness of one whom he had confessed to tenderly loving, for the sake of what might be called a convenient family arrangement. Dear hermit-like John! If he had not lived so long—all his life, indeed—shut up in his own shell, so to speak, he might have known how often these convenient family arrangements are entered into in certain classes of society; how many a pair of cousins, or other relatives, are constantly being matched together, without any considerations of fitness or unfitness, likes or dislikes, qualifications or disqualifications; and all for the sake of keeping together a certain number of money-bags, or a capital trade connection; or of perpetuating in the family a desirable estate, or a title, or even (as we have known it and witnessed it) the tenancy of a farm!
But John did not know this; and no wonder, therefore, that his eyes sometimes rested, without his knowing it, with mute compassion and sorrowful interest on the young Tom, who, to tell the truth, seemed to care very little about the matter, one way or other, so long as he was not expected to remain too long at a time in the company of his cousin Blanche.