“But I can’t act upon ‘thinking,’ Squire; I must be sure. Tom will just stay on with me at present as he is; so there’s an end of it. His salary is going to be raised: and I—I consider that he is very well off.”
“Well, perhaps he’ll be none the worse for a little longer spell of clerkship,” repeated the Squire, coming wholly round. “And now good-morning. I’m rather in a hurry to-day, but I thought it right to put in a word for Tom’s sake, as I was present when poor Thomas died.”
“Good-morning, Mr. Todhetley,” answered Jacob, as he sat down to his desk again.
But he did not get to work. He bent his head on his neckcloth as before, and set on to think. What had just passed did not please him at all: for Jacob Chandler was not devoid of conscience; though it was an elastic one, and he was in the habit of deadening it at will. It was not his intention to take his nephew into partnership at all; then or later. Almost ever since the day of his brother’s funeral he had looked at matters after his own fashion, and soon grew to think that Tom had no manner of right to a share in the business; that as Thomas was dead and gone, it was all his, and ought to be all his. He and Thomas had shared it between them: therefore it was only just and proper that he, the survivor, should take it. That’s how Jacob Chandler, who was the essence of covetousness, had been reasoning, and his mind was made up.
It was therefore very unpleasant to be pounced upon in this way by two people in one morning. Their application as regarded Tom himself would not have troubled him: he knew how to put disputants off civilly, saying neither yes nor no, and promising nothing: but what annoyed him was the reminiscence they had called up of his dying brother. Jacob intended to get safely into the world above, some day, by hook or by crook; he went to church regularly, and considered himself a model of good behaviour. But these troublesome visitors had somehow contrived to put before his conscience the fact that he might be committing a lifelong act of injustice on Tom; and that, to do so, was not the readiest way of getting to heaven. Was that twelve o’clock? How the morning had passed!
“Uncle Jacob, I am going over to Brooklands about that lease. Have you any particular instructions to give me?”
It was Tom himself who had entered. A tall, good-looking, fresh-coloured young man, who had honesty and kindliness written on every line of his open face.
Jacob lifted his bent head, and drew his chair nearer his table as if he meant to set to work in earnest. But his mouth took a cross look.
“Who told you to go? I said Valentine was to go.”
“Valentine has stepped out. He asked me to go for him.”