Meanwhile, simple-hearted John Brancker and his equally simple-hearted sister looked on complacently happy in the happiness of the young people, and leaving the future, if they ever took it into consideration at all, to solve its own problems.
One morning Frank awoke to the fact that he was of age; he also about the same time awoke to the knowledge of another pleasant fact, to wit, that he was in love with Hermia Rivers. He was quite persuaded that Hermy was necessary to his happiness. Still, he was in no hurry to declare his passion. There was a vein of cool calculation under his laughing, happy-go-lucky exterior, the existence of which few people except his mother were aware of, or even suspected.
He could afford to bide awhile, he told himself. Hermy was safe, there was no other Romeo in the field; he had but to speak the word in order at once, as with a harlequin's wand, to change her placid, bread-and-butter, sisterly liking into a feeling infinitely more passionate and delightful, of which he was to be the centre and focus, and which was to render his life beautiful with the incense it would never tire of showering round his path. What he was to give in return for all this he did not condescend to explain even to himself. The awkwardness of it was that his present salary at the Bank was only ninety pounds a year. From that sum it would rise by yearly increments of ten pounds till it reached a hundred and fifty pounds, at which point it would stop until the chance should offer itself of his stepping into some senior clerk's shoes; a chance, however, which might not come to him for an indefinite number of years.
After all, a hundred and fifty pounds a year was a beggarly amount on which to marry, and to secure even that limited happiness he would have six years still to wait. Of course, considering the relationship between them, Mr. Avison ought to do something more for him--ought to shove him on specially over the heads of some of the other fellows, or, in any case, give him a thumping advance in place of a paltry ten pounds. It was an awful shame that he, a blood relation, should be treated no differently from the veriest stranger, and that he should even have to knuckle under, as far as position in the office went, to that cad of an Ephraim Judd!
Among Frank's manifold acquaintances was a young man of the name of Winton, who had at one time been a clerk in Avison's Bank, but had since accepted a better-paid situation in Umpleby's Bank at Dulminster. Winton came over once or twice a month to Ashdown to see his relatives, on which occasions he and Derison generally contrived to have an hour or two together at their favorite billiards.
Said Winton on one occasion, nearly a year before the time of which we are now writing:
"I'm going to tell you a secret, old man, which you may or may not make use of to your own advantage. That will be for you to decide when you've heard it; only, you must first give me your sacred word of honor never to mention it to a soul."
Frank gave the required promise without difficulty.
"I know you often visit at John Brancker's," resumed the other, "and report has it that you're sweet on that pretty niece of his. Small blame to you, if you are, say I. However, if you're not, perhaps you'll think it advisable to be so when I whisper to you that in our books at Umpleby's the very nice little sum of twelve hundred pounds is at the present moment standing to the credit of Miss Hermia Rivers."
"Winton, you must be dreaming," was all Derison could say, so extreme was his astonishment.