Chapter XXXI: Young Tom Grigson

THE record of every man's life is necessarily mixed up and interwoven with that of many other lives; and to discourse on the one with any degree of interest, not to say intelligibly and coherently, it is absolutely necessary to include some portions of those other histories. For instance, how could my readers have known anything worth knowing of John Tincroft, apart from his friend Tom Grigson?

And our introduction to Tom led us in the most natural way to the bachelor brother at the Manor House. Then we could not have followed out our friend's matrimonial adventures unless we had accompanied him to High Beech Farm, and seen how he became engulfed or influxed, so to speak, in the vortex of that great maelstrom of which I have elsewhere spoken. High Beech led us to Low Beech, just as the Manor House and its surroundings conducted us to the Mumbles.

Then, without intending it in the first instance, a needs-be gradually forced itself upon the present chronicler to lightly sketch certain other characters and scenes, so as to make, as far as lay in his power, a harmonious and congruous whole, of which, as a matter of course, John Tincroft should be the central point of interest, but without which other characters and scenes the picture would have presented an unpleasant confusion of impalpable shadows.

Above all, it has been the writer's design and study and earnest labour to give the colouring of truth to every subordinate as well as principal character in this picture of life, so that, in the end, at least one useful lesson may have been presented to each reader of this story, who, without intending it, or even expecting to be instructed, has taken up these pages to pass away an idle day or to amuse a leisure hour.

Not many more chapters remain to be written; and this immediate one must be given up to one or more of those subordinate actors to whom I have referred.

A few days after that which witnessed the funeral of Walter Wilson, and also the reading of his will, Tom Grigson and his son took their departure homewards, John Tincroft and Sarah and the young Helen accompanying them—Mr. Fawley, the lawyer, having already taken his leave of the hospitable master of the Manor House, and the woodland glades of which he had become enamoured.

Tincroft and his following passed a day or two at their friend's villa on the banks of the Thames, and then returned to their home near Trotbury, where he and his Sarah devoted themselves to comforting their darling ward, and to puzzling themselves in laying plans for her unknown future. Thus occupied we must at present leave them, our business being, in the first place, with Tom Grigson the younger.

It was not, after all, an uncongenial life on which he was about to enter. It may be thought, at first sight, perhaps, that an active, enterprising lad of sixteen could find little interest in the monotonous and wearying details of a London house of business, especially if he should be the possessor of what is called a correct and classical taste, improved by education. I take leave to say, however, to those who argue thus, that they are very little acquainted with the subject on which they think themselves competent to pass a judgment.

The details of business, in London or elsewhere, are neither monotonous nor wearying to properly constituted minds; nor are they inconsonant with good taste and good education. There are men, old and young, and in every proper sense of the word true gentlemen, who belong to houses of business all the world over, and who yet have more true taste for the beautiful in nature and art, more cultivation of mind, and greater scientific and literary acquirements, than are to be found in one half of the frequenters of fashionable salons. And yet these same persons are energetic men of business, and possess talents which, if need were, would qualify them for conducting the affairs of a nation almost as easily, and quite as successfully, as those of a mercantile firm.

Such a person as this was the principal partner in the house with which Elliston and Grigson were connected; and this gentleman—who had by this time become a member of Parliament—took a strong fancy to young Tom, almost on his first entrance into the house. Under his auspices, the lad was not only pushed forward in the higher departments Of business, but was introduced to some circles in society, intercourse with which gave a zest to the everyday and more prosaic details of London life.

It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that, after a short time, the young man was sufficiently satisfied with his present position to desire no change. In other words, his visions of university life gradually faded away, and nothing more was said or thought of entering him at Oxford.

To compensate—if compensation were needed—for this deprivation, which cannot be called a disappointment, Tom was indulged, at the end of his second year's experience in business life, with a long holiday ramble on the Continent, whence he returned full of enthusiastic admiration for Alpine scenery and adventures, but with more energy than ever for the common concerns and ordinary duties of his worldly calling.

Nor were the attractions of home very feeble for young Grigson. A pleasant villa, a good-tempered father, who did not draw the cords of discipline over tightly, an indulgent mother, a tolerably harmonious brood of younger brothers and sisters, a select circle of friends, occasional visitors, serviceable domestics, a horse to ride when he pleased, a sailing-boat on, if not one of the loveliest rivers in the world, yet a very passable one as rivers go, and time enough to enjoy these luxuries of existence, and not too much, so as to breed ennui. If with all these acquisitions any young fellow overflowing with bodily health and animal spirits could not be reasonably happy, that young fellow was not our young Tom.

There was only one little ingredient in this cup of happiness which now and then gave a slight flavour to it which was not altogether to young Grigson's taste.

"I wish they had left me to choose for myself," said Tom, one day, to his sister Catherine, who was only a year, or a little more, younger than himself.

They were having a quiet sail on the river one summer's evening, and were seated side by side at the stern, Tom with the sail under his management.

"But you like Blanche, don't you, Tom?"

"Oh, don't I?" Tom rejoined, lightly.

"Well, but you do, you know, Tom."

"Oh yes; Cousin Blanche is so charming, you know, Kitty, that I ought to be the happiest young fellow in the world. Everybody tells me so; and what everybody says must be true. But for all that, Kitty—" and then Kitty's brother came to a full stop.

"Well, Tom?" This after a long pause.

"Suppose we change the subject, Kitty."

"With all my heart; only we have not begun it yet, and mamma wanted me to say just a word—may I? She thinks I can do it better than she can."

"Say away, then, darling; but wait a bit: I'll just hitch this line round the bolt, and take the rudder strings, There—so; now."

It is as well to say that two years had passed away since we fell in with Tom the younger at the Manor House. He is consequently eighteen years old, or a little over, and a strange sensation sometimes creeps over him, when he reminds himself that in three years' time he is to be a married man, will-he, nil-he; and the "nil-he" is at present uppermost in his mind.

"And now," said he, settling himself soberly to hear what his sister (who at seventeen is, in some respects, older than her brother at eighteen) has to say.

"Mamma thinks you don't pay quite proper attentions to Blanche."

"Pho! Pho! Kitty. Not proper attentions! Why, don't I go to see her once a week? If that is not often enough, I don't know what would be."

"I shouldn't think so, Tom, if I were Blanche. Besides, when you do go to see her—or, rather, when you go to dinner at Uncle Elliston's—you stay so long in the dining-room that Blanche has very little of your company, she says."

"I wonder what she would have," grumbled Tom. "She'll have enough of it by-and-by, I'll be bound," he added.

"That depends. Do you know, mamma is afraid—" It was Catherine's turn to come to a full stop now.

"Well, Kitty?" This after another pause.

"Mamma is afraid that you are running a risk of losing Blanche, after all."

"You don't say so, Kitty?" cried Tom, with an odd expression of alarm, too readily put on to be quite real, his sister thought.

"Mamma says so," answered Kitty, demurely; adding, "She says she is mistaken if—if somebody else, never mind who—"

"Oh, I don't mind. Well?"

"Isn't trying to step into your shoes. That's what mamma says, Tom."

"I hope the old shoes won't pinch the feet," said Tom, laughing.

"But seriously, Tom."

"To be sure; yes, seriously, Kitty," returned the brother, composing his countenance.

"You don't want to lose Cousin Blanche, do you?"

"I have never thought much about it, Kitty. What do you think about it?"

"I think, Tom, that you will be sorry to lose her."

"Um! Well?"

"You know it was all settled so long ago."

"That's true enough," said Tom.

"And then when you marry you are to come into a partnership."

"Nobody ever married without coming into that," said Tom.

"Tom, you are incorrigible. A partnership in the house, I mean. You know what I mean."

"Yes, I know what you mean, darling Kitty; and it will all come right, don't be afraid; and tell mamma not to worry herself about it. I am agreeable. Only I wish it hadn't been all planned out so nicely. If only they had left it for me to choose for myself," he added, returning to his starting-point.

"And if they had, you would have chosen Blanche, don't you think?"

"Possibly. Blanche is a charming girl, of course. Oh, Kitty, Kitty! Why didn't they leave me and Cousin Blanche to set about it in the good old fashion? As it is, I feel as if Blanche had been my wife and I her husband ever since we were babies; and that I am an old married man."

"An old married man of eighteen!" and Kitty laughed merrily.

"Just so," said Tom, grimly. "I wonder whether anybody took the trouble to plan in this way for father and mother before they were really married."

"Their case was different," argued the sister; "but what does that signify? You say you are fond of Blanche, don't you?"

"Why, of course. What a young infidel you are, Kitty."

"Then you should be a good boy, and take care she doesn't slip through your fingers. That's what mamma says."

"Tell mamma, then, that I will behave better in future. Heigh-ho! And now let us talk about something else. Aren't you sorry you have left school for good?"

"No, I don't think I am. There's only one thing makes me sorry. Helen Wilson is to stay at Miss G—'s another half, and she is my dearest friend. Poor dear Helen! You have heard me speak of her, Tom?"

"I should think so. Where were my ears else?"

"And you remember her, don't you?"

"Yes; of course. I remember her—down at Uncle Dick's when I was there, and came home with us—she and dear old Tincroft and Mrs. T. Yes, I remember her."

"I like her so much," continued Kitty; "and I wanted to bring her home with me these holidays, but Mr. Tincroft wouldn't hear of it. He couldn't spare her, he said. Ill-natured, wasn't it?"

And then from this topic of conversation, the brother and sister passed on to another, till it was time to finish their cruise.

Tom did "behave better in future." That is to say, he begun from this time to pay greater attentions to the young lady, who, without any choice on his part, or hers either, was marked out to be his future wife; that is to say, he went twice a week instead of once to her father's house at Camberwell, and devoted more time when he was there to her special society.

And, not to flatter Blanche, she was not unworthy of these attentions. She had made good use of her time since, two years before, our friend Tincroft had passed, in his own mind, so unfavourable a judgment respecting her. The rather pert and conceited and affected schoolgirl had changed into an attractive and well-behaved young woman; while her pale face and unformed figure had ripened, if not into a perfect Hebe, yet into a sufficiently blooming and graceful piece of humanity. Whether or not it was wise in this instance—or whether it is wise in any instance—for such an alliance as has been spoken of to be contracted by other parties as sponsors for those most deeply interested, remains to be proved.

The wisdom of this arrangement, however, seemed manifest to one, at any rate, of these contracting parties, when a certain event of importance occurred.

"Did you ever know anything like this?" Mrs. Tom Grigson wished to be told, holding up her hands in sheer astonishment, when she had made herself acquainted with the purport of a letter which her husband had handed to her across the breakfast-table.

"Yes, my dear, I have known a good many things so exactly like it as to be identically the same," responded our old friend Tom.

"What a—what a—moon-calf he must be, Tom," the lady went on.

"Rather tough to digest, Kate," returned the husband, drily.

"But they do say there's no fool like an old fool," continued Mrs. Grigson.

"My dear!" remonstrated Tom.

"To think that he should ever think of doing such a thing!" said the lady. "'Tis dreadful!" she added.

"Is it so dreadful, Kate?" asked the gentleman, looking up. "That's a new light cast on the subject," he added.

"Nonsense, Tom! You know what I mean. Of course it isn't always dreadful, nor yet dreadful in itself; but, as you say sometimes, 'circumstances alter cases.'"

"Alters, you should say, Kate, to give the proper roll to the aphorism."

"That isn't grammar, Tom."

"Never mind about grammar when you want to produce effect. And I say, circumstances alters cases. And then, again—"

"There's no accounting for opinions;
Some likes apples, some likes inions."

"And Dick likes matrimony, it seems. Why shouldn't he?"

"Wasn't he always railing against it?"

"None the less likely to fall into it, for all that, Kate. And when he had our example set before him to follow, with the benefit of our experience—"

"Nonsense, Tom! Why, we have been man and wife any time these twenty years."

"Is it so long, Kate?" Tom asked.

"Of course it is; and here's Dick pretty near old enough to be your father—"

"Which he isn't," interposed the gentleman.

"You put me out, and make me forget what I was going to say, Tom, when you interrupt me like that," remonstrated the lady. "But what I mean is that at his age your brother Richard ought to be above such folly."

"Ought not to be above such wisdom, you should say, Kate. He sees his folly, no doubt, and argues that it is never too late to mend."

"To mend, indeed! An old man like him to be marrying a girl of twenty! He ought to be ashamed of himself."

It was quite true that Mr. Richard Grigson had so far committed himself. Having lived a single life till his hair had turned grey, and all the while declaring against matrimony, he had suddenly and violently become enamoured of a young lady from London who, while visiting a friend in the country, not far from the Manor House, accidentally fell in with and was introduced to the Manor House's owner.

It was a storm of wind and rain that brought about the introduction. The young lady and the old gentleman, in whose house she was a guest were out walking one fine May day, when suddenly the sky became overcast, and a heavy dark cloud from the west began to discharge its contents. The old gentleman was two or three miles away from his own house; he was afraid of rheumatism; he had not an umbrella; and the nearest shelter was the Manor House, whose gates he and his young friend were passing as the shower came on. He was slightly acquainted with Richard Grigson, though on no familiar terms with him. But, driven by the exigencies of the case, the storm-attacked pedestrians rushed at once through the gateway, scudded across the lawn, and presented themselves at the hospitable doors of the Manor House, suppliants for shelter.

They received shelter and something more; and the next day Richard bethought himself that it would be only proper for him to ride over to the old gentleman's house to give expression to his hope that the young lady had not taken cold.

The young lady had not taken cold, thanks to Mr. Grigson; but the old gentleman had, and was confined to his chamber by its effects. And so, perforce, the elderly bachelor and the juvenile maiden had to entertain each other in the drawing-room. The entertainment lasted longer than was calculated on; for, strange to say, while they were thus engaged, another heavy shower came on; and Richard, who never till now had minded being wet to the skin, felt an unconquerable repugnance to facing the rain. Before the shower was over, he had secretly made up his mind to pay another visit—which he did, and this time it was to Miss Hardcastle.

There is no need to multiply words in describing the progress of a rapid thaw of frozen-up passions. It is enough to say that before three weeks had passed away, Mr. Richard's determination never to marry had melted away beneath the influence of Miss Hardcastle's charms. In another week, he was her accepted lover.

It was rather awkward—at least, kind-hearted Richard Grigson felt it to be so—to make known to his brother the change which had come over him, and the engagement on which he had entered.

"It will be a little hard upon brother Tom," he thought within himself, "and if not upon brother Tom, it will fall heavy upon nephew Tom (bless his young heart!) to know that the old family estate may have to keep in a straight line after all. But they are good fellows, both of them, and I am sure they won't make a quarrel of it, and I must make it as easy for young Tom as I can. And, after all, it may come to him all the same," he added, by way of salvo, or salve to his conscience.

"Besides," continued he, in his thoughts, "there's no law that I know of, in the Bible or out of it, to keep a man from marrying because he has a fair estate on the one hand, and a fair nephew on the other."

The result of this soliloquy was the letter which had so disturbed the equanimity of Mrs. Tom Grigson at the breakfast-table; and, to tell the truth, it also took Mr. Tom a little aback. But he soon recovered himself.

"Dick has as much right to please himself by taking a wife as ever I had," said he; "and I'll go down to his wedding," he added.

It could not be denied, however, that this new move (as it was called) of Dick's sent all, or a good many, previous calculations to the right-about. And our friend Tom congratulated himself more than ever on having brought up his son to business instead of sending him to Oxford.

"As it isn't at all likely our boy will come to the estate now," he said to his wife, when they were by themselves, "it is a good thing to have put him in the way of being independent without it, which he mightn't have been if we had made a scholar of him."

There was another source of congratulation also—namely, that the young fellow's match with his cousin had been made so long ago, and was progressing without any palpable hitch.

"I wish Tom was a little more in earnest about it," the father went on; "but, as he says, it will come on in time. And then, when they are married, Tom will have got a snug nest, anyhow."

Tom the elder did go down to his brother's wedding, and so did Tom the younger. Mrs. Tom Grigson was also prevailed upon to dispose of her chagrin and go also. Richard Grigson was profoundly touched by this almost unlooked-for kindness on their part.

"I always knew you were a good fellow, dear old Tom!" said Dick. "But I was half afraid you would turn rusty."

"Nonsense, Richard! The world's wide enough for us all, isn't it? And there's no one wishes you all sorts of happiness in your married life more heartily than I do. All sorts of happiness, mind," he added.