Ford was a long time coming; he had some business of his own on hand, which though not half so important, was, on the whole, more interesting to him than Mr. Trevor’s business; and then he had a little argumentation with Mrs. Ford before he could get away.
“What is it now?” Mrs. Ford said fretfully, “what does he make such a fuss about? Sure there’s nothing so very wonderful in making a will. I’d say, ‘I leave all I have to my two children,’ and there would be an end of it. He makes as much of it as if it was a book that he was writing. Many a book has been written with less fuss.”
“My dear,” said Ford, “there are many people who can write books and can not make a will; indeed the most of them have no need to, if all we hear is true. And you don’t give a thought to the interests— I may say the colossal interests—that are involved.”
“Pooh!” said Mrs. Ford, “I think of our own interests if you please, which are all I care for. Is he going to leave us anything? that is what I want to know.”
“I am sorry you are so mercenary, my dear.”
“I am not mercenary, Mr. Ford; but I like to see an inch before me, and know what is to become of me. He’s failing fast, any one can see that; and if we’re left with the lease of a big house on our hands—” This was the danger that afflicted Mrs. Ford at all moments, and robbed her of her peace.
“Stuff!” Ford said. He knew a great deal about the important literary composition which the old gentleman was concocting; but “he was not at liberty” to mention what he knew. Sometimes it made him laugh secretly within himself to think how differently she would talk if she too knew. But then that is the case in most matters. He went upstairs at last deliberately, counting (as it seemed) every step, while Mr. Trevor sat impatient in his great chair, full of the enthusiasm of his own work, and thinking every minute an hour till he could show his friend, who was entirely in his confidence, who almost seemed like his collaborateur, the last stroke he had made. It was the magnum opus of Mr. Trevor’s life, the work by which he hoped to be remembered, to attain that immortality in the recollection of other men which all men desire. For a long time he had been working at it, a little bit at a time as it occurred to him. He was not like the thriftless literary persons to whom Ford compared him, who write whether they have anything to say or not, whether the fountain is welling forth freely or has to be pumped up drop by drop. Mr. Trevor composed his great work under the most favorable conditions. He had it by him constantly, night and day, and when something occurred to him, if it were in the middle of the night, he would get up and wrap his dressing-gown round his shrunken person and put it down. He did not forget it either sleeping or waking. It was a resource for his imagination, an occupation for his life. Also it was likely to prove a considerable source of occupation to others after his death, if nobody stepped in to nick it into shape.
When he heard Ford’s step on the stairs he began to chuckle again, already enjoying the surprise and admiration which he felt his last new idea must call forth. Ford was a very good literary confidant. He would find fault with a trifle now and then, which made his general approbation all the more valuable, as showing that there was discrimination in it. Mr. Trevor put away the “Times” from his knees, and drew the blotting-book with its precious contents a little nearer. He waited with as much impatience as a lover would show for the appearance of his love. And he had time to take off his spectacles, clean them carefully, rubbing them with his handkerchief, and put them on again with great deliberation before Ford, after very carefully and audibly closing the door behind him, appeared at last on the inner side of the screen which kept out the draught, that draught which rushed up the narrow ravine of the staircase as up an Alpine couloir white with snow.
CHAPTER II.
OLD JOHN TREVOR.
John Trevor had been a school-master for the greater part of his life. How he acquired so well sounding a name nobody knew. He had no relations, he always said, in the male line, and his friends on his mother’s side were people of undistinguished surnames. And for the first fifty years of his life he had maintained a very even tenor of existence, always respectable, always a man who kept his engagements, paid his way, gave his entire attention, as his circulars said, to the pupils confided to his care; but even in his schoolmastership there was nothing of a remarkable character. After passing many obscure years as an usher, he attained to an academy of his own, in which a sound religious and commercial education was insured, as the same circular informed the parents and guardians of Farafield, by the employment of most competent masters for all the branches included in the course, and by his own unremitting care. But often the masters at Mr. Trevor’s academy were represented solely by himself, and the number of his pupils never embarrassed or overweighted him. The good man, however, worked his way all the same; he kept afloat, which so many find it impossible to do. If the number of scholars diminished he lived harder, when it increased he laid by a little. He was never extravagant, never forgot that his occupation was a precarious one, and thus—turning out a few creditable arithmeticians to fill up the places in the little “offices” of Farafield, the solicitor’s, the auctioneer’s, the big builder’s, and even in the better shops, where they were the best of cashiers, never wrong in a total—he lived on from year to year. His house was but a dingy one, with a large room for his pupils, and two upstairs, shabby enough, in which he lived; but, by dint of sheer continuance and respectability, John Trevor, by the time he was fifty, was as much respected in Farafield as a man leading such a virtuous, colorless, joyless, unblamable existence has a right to be.