Yes: Jonathan had heard it.
‘I haven’t forgotten you, Jonathan. I’ve remembered you in both; but I haven’t left you so much in the one as in the other. You see, I’d got Davidina in my mind, then: and there was Caroline, too.... I should be leaving you more, Jonathan, if it wasn’t for Caroline. But now, she’s lived with me all these last years, I’ve got to provide for her—differently to what I meant.’
He spoke slowly, picking his words a little. Mr. Trimblerigg listened to them without disappointment or dismay. He had no objection to Caroline being provided for on a generous scale; and as his own share was apparently to be increased, Davidina was now evidently the one who would have to give way.
‘And then,’ said his uncle, ‘there was the chapel to think about. Now that you’ve accepted the Lord’s word I know what to do.’
With quavering hand he drew out a key, and directed his nephew to a drawer with certain contents.
Under instruction Mr. Trimblerigg brought him the two documents. He looked them through, and separating the one from the other had it returned to the drawer and locked back into safety. He then did something which convinced Mr. Trimblerigg that at last he trusted him. He put into his hands the remaining document.
‘When you go downstairs, Jonathan, put that into the fire,’ he said, ‘and see that it burns. It’s not wanted now.’ And as he heard those words Mr. Trimblerigg felt that his future was assured (and incidentally Caroline’s also). His anxieties were all over, but curiosity remained.
When Uncle Phineas dismissed him he went downstairs with spirits quietly elated; and seeing that his future wife was then busily occupying the kitchen, he went into the parlour to consider matters. First he opened and read the discarded will; its contents were not sensational, but they would, had they outlived the testator, have disappointed him. His uncle had left him an income of a hundred pounds, and his books. The chapel went to Trustees with a small stipend for the ministry of the Word according to the tenets of True Belief. The residue of his property, real and personal, was divided in equal portions between Caroline and Davidina; Caroline’s share including the house he lived in. This meant that Caroline and Davidina would have each got an income of over two hundred a year, of rising value.
When Caroline went up aloft at the ringing of Uncle Phineas’s handbell, Mr. Trimblerigg went into the kitchen and without reluctance put the document into the fire according to his instructions. And when Caroline came down again to go on with the cooking, he proposed to her and was accepted.
This was the beginning of quite the happiest three weeks in his life, for as soon as Mr. Trimblerigg made up his mind to marry Caroline, he also made up his mind to be in love with her. He did not find any more difficulty in this swift embrace of new affections than in the equally swift embrace of new convictions as soon as they suited him. Circumstances had provided him with sufficient reasons for making Caroline his wife; and as love made the proposal so much more palatable, he bestowed upon her that extra gift with the demonstrative ardour that was his nature; and in the extended opportunities afforded by courtship he continued to find her very pleasant to the touch: a little unemotional perhaps, but good-tempered, contented, and an excellent cook; and it was clear that in her quiet, half-motherly way she very much admired him.