How It All Came Round

by L. T. Meade

"I will sit here," said Charlotte, and she drew a chair near the table. The room abounded in easy-chairs of all sizes and descriptions, but she chose one hard and made of cane, and she sat upright upon it, her hands folded on her lap. "Now, Uncle Jasper," she said, "I am ready to hear your reasons."

"They go a good way back, my dear, and I am not clever at telling a story; but I will do my best. Your grandfather made his money in trade; he made a good business, and he put your father and me both into it. It is unnecessary to go into particulars about our special business; it was small at first, but we extended it until it became the great firm of which your father is the present head. We both, your father and I, showed even more aptitude for this life of mercantile success than our father did, and he, perceiving this, retired while scarcely an old man. He made us over the entire business he had made, taking, however, from it, for his own private use, a large sum of money. On the interest of this money he would live, promising, however, to return it to us at his death. The money taken out of the business rather crippled us, and we begged of him to allow us to pay him the interest, and to let the capital remain at our disposal; but he wished to be completely his own master, and he bought a place in Hertfordshire out of part of the money. It was a year or two after, that he met his second wife and married her. I don't pretend," continued Uncle Jasper, "that we liked this marriage or our stepmother. We were young fellows then, and we thought our father had done us an injustice. The girl he had chosen was an insipid little thing, with just a pretty face, and nothing whatever else. She was not quite a lady. We saw her, and came to the conclusion that she was common—most unsuited to our father. We also remembered our own mother; and most young men feel pain at seeing any one put into her place.

"We expostulated with our father. He was a fiery old man, and hot words passed between us. I won't repeat what we all said, my dear, or how bitter John and I felt when we rode away from the old place our father had just purchased. One thing he said as we were going off.

"'My marrying again won't make any money difference to you two fellows, and I suppose I may please myself.'"

"I think my grandfather was very unjust," said Charlotte, but nevertheless a look of relief stole over her face.

"We went back to our business, my dear, and our father married; and when we wrote to him he did not answer our letters. After a time we heard a son had been born, and then, shortly after the birth of this child, the news reached us, that a lawyer had been summoned down to the manor-house in Hertfordshire. We supposed that our father was making provision for the child; and it seemed to us fair enough. Then we saw the child's death in the Times, and shortly after the news also came to us that the same lawyer had gone down again to see our father.

"After this, a few years went by, and we, busy with our own life, gave little heed to the old man, who seemed to have forgotten us. Suddenly we were summoned to his deathbed. John, your father, my dear, had always been his favorite. On his deathbed he seemed to have returned to the old times, when John was a little fellow. He liked to have him by his side; in short, he could not bear to have him out of his sight. He appeared to have forgotten the poor, common little wife he had married, and to live his early days over again. He died quite reconciled to us both, and we held his hand as he breathed his last.

"To our surprise, my dear, we found that he had left us every penny of his fortune. The wife and baby girl were left totally unprovided for. We were amazed! We thought it unjust. We instantly resolved to make provision for her and her baby. We did so. She never wanted to the day of her death."

"She did not starve," interrupted Charlotte, "but you shut her out, her and her child, from yourselves, and from me. Why did you do this?"

"My dear, you would scarcely speak in that tone to your father, and it was his wish as well as mine—indeed, far more his wish than mine. I was on the eve of going to Australia, to carry on a branch of our trade there; but he was remaining at home. He was not very long married. You don't remember your mother, Charlotte. Ah! what a fine young creature she was, but proud—proud of her high birth—of a thousand things. It would have been intolerable to her to associate with one like my stepmother. Your father was particular about his wife and child. He judged it best to keep these undesirable relations apart. I, for one, can scarcely blame him."