CHAPTER X.

HOW TOM WINS HIS WIFE.

After Mrs. McDermott’s departure from Pincote, life there slipped back into its old quiet groove—into its old dull groove which was growing duller day by day. The Squire had altogether ceased to see company: when any of his old friends called he was never at home to them; and on the score of ill health he declined every invitation that was sent to him. But it was not altogether on account of his health that these invitations were declined, because three or four times a week he would be seen somewhere about the country roads being driven out by Jane in the basket-carriage. There was another reason for this state of things—a reason to which his friends and neighbours were not slow in giving a name. The Squire in his old age was becoming a miser: that is what the said friends and neighbours averred. But to dub him as a miser was altogether unjust: he was simply becoming penurious for his daughter’s sake, as many other men are penurious for ends much more ignoble. He had, in fact, decided upon carrying out that modest scheme of domestic retrenchment of which mention has been made in a previous chapter, and the mode of living adopted by him now did undoubtedly, to many people, seem miserly in comparison with that lavish hospitality for which Pincote had heretofore been noted. The Squire knew that he could not go much into society without giving return invitations. Now the four or five state dinners which he had been in the habit of giving every year were very elaborate and expensive affairs, and he no longer felt himself justified in keeping them up. Instead of spending so many pounds per annum in entertaining a number of people for whom he cared little or nothing, would it not be better to add the amount, trifling though it might seem, to that other trifling amount—only some few hundreds of pounds when all was told—which he had already managed to scrape together as a little nest-egg for Jane when he should be gone from her side for ever, and Pincote could no longer be her home? “If I had only died a year ago,” he would sometimes say to himself, “then Jenny would have had a handsome fortune to call her own. Now she’s next door to being a pauper.”

Half his journeys into Duxley nowadays were to the bank—not to Sugden’s Bank, we may be sure, but to the Town and County—and he gloated over every five pounds added to the fund invested in his daughter’s name as something more added to the nest-egg; and to be able to put away fifty pounds in a lump now afforded him far more genuine delight than the putting away of a thousand would have done six months previously.

There had been little or no conversation between Jane and her father respecting the loss of her fortune since that memorable night when the Squire himself first heard the fatal tidings, and Jane was far more anxious than he was that the topic should never be broached between them again. She guessed in part what his object might be when he began to cut down the house expenses at Pincote discharging some half dozen of his people; raising his farm rents where it was possible to do so; letting out the whole, instead of a portion only, of the park as pasturage for sheep; selling some of his horses, and the whole of his famous cellar of wines; besides arranging for part of the produce of his kitchen garden to be taken by a greengrocer at Duxley. She guessed, but that was all. Her father said nothing definite as to his reasons for so doing, and she made no inquiry. The sphere of his enjoyment had now become a very limited one. If it gave him pleasure—and she could not doubt that it did—to live penuriously so as to be enabled to put away a few extra pounds per annum, she would not mar the edge of that pleasure by seeming even to notice what was going on, much less make any inquiry as to its meaning. The Squire, on his part, had many a good chuckle in the solitude of his own room. “After I’m gone, she’ll know what it all means,” he would say to himself. “She’s puzzled now—they are all puzzled. They call me a miser, do they? Let ’em call me what they like. Another twenty put away to-day. That makes——” and out would come his passbook and his spectacles.

The fact that the Squire no longer either received company or went into society compelled Jane, in a great measure, to follow his example. There were two or three houses to which, if she chose, she could still go without its being thought strange that there was no return invitation to Pincote; and there were two or three old school friends whom she could invite to a cup of tea in her own little room without their feeling offended that they were not asked to stay to dinner. But of society, in the general sense of the term, Jane now saw little or nothing. To her this was no source of regret. Just now she was far too deeply in love to care very much for company of any kind.

Happy was it for Jane that the only exception to her father’s no-society rule was in favour of the man she loved. The Squire had by no means forgotten Mrs. McDermott’s warning words, nor Tom’s frank confession of his love for Jane; and it had certainly been no part of his intention to encourage Tom’s visits to Pincote after the widow’s abrupt departure. In honour of that departure, there had been, next day, a little dinner of state, at which Mr. Culpepper had made his appearance in a dress coat and white cravat, at which there had been French side dishes, and at which the Squire had drunk Tom’s health in a bumper of the very best port which his cellar contained. But when they parted that night, when the Squire, having hobbled to the front door, shook hands with Tom, and bade him good-night, it was with a sort of half intimation that some considerable time would probably elapse before they should have the pleasure of seeing him at Pincote again. In the first flush of his delight at having got rid of his sister, the Squire thought that he could be content and happy at home of an evening with no company save that of Jane, even as he had been content and happy long before he had known Tom Bristow. But in so thinking he had overlooked one very important point. The Titus Culpepper of six months ago had been a prosperous, well-to-do gentleman, satisfied with himself and all the world, in tolerable health, and excited by the prospect of making a magnificent fortune without trouble or anxiety. The Titus Culpepper of to-day was a broken-down gambler—a gambler who had madly speculated with his daughter’s fortune, and had lost it. Broken-down, too, was he in health, in spirits, and in temper; and, worst sign of all, a man who no longer found any pleasure in the company of his own thoughts, and who began to dislike to sit alone even for half an hour at a time. Of this change in himself the Squire knew and suspected nothing: how few of us do know of such changes! Other people may change—nay, do we not see them changing daily around us, and smile good-naturedly as we note how querulous and hard to please poor Jones has become of late? But that we—we—should so change, becoming a burden to ourselves and a trial to those around us, with our queer, cross-grained ways, our peevish, variable tempers, and our general belief that the sun shines less brightly, and that the world is less beautiful than it was a little while ago—that is altogether impossible. The change is always in others, never in our immaculate selves.

The Squire was a man who, all his life, had preferred men’s company to that of the opposite sex. His tastes were not at all æsthetic. He liked to talk about cattle, and crops, and the state of the markets; to talk a little about imperial politics—chiefly confined to blackguarding “the other side of the House”—and a great deal about local politics. He had been in the habit of talking by the hour together about paving, and lighting, and sewage, and the state of the highways: all useful matters without a doubt, but hardly topics calculated to interest a lady. Though he liked to have Jane play to him now and then—but never for more than ten minutes at any one time—he always designated it as “tinkling;” and as often as not, when he asked her to sing, he would say, “Now, Jenny, lass, give us a squall.” But for all this, in former times Jane and he had got on very well together on the occasions when they had been without company at Pincote. He was moving about a good deal in the world at that time, mixing with various people, talking to and being talked to by different friends and acquaintances, and was at no loss for subjects to talk about, even though those subjects might not be particularly interesting to his daughter. But Jane made a capital listener, and could always give him a good commonplace answer, and that was all he craved—that and three-fourths of the talk to himself.

Of late, however, as we have already seen, the Squire had all but given up going into society, by which means he at once dried up the source from which he had been in the habit of obtaining his conversational ideas. When he came to dine alone with Jane he found himself with nothing to talk about. Under such circumstances there was nothing left for him but grumbling. But even grumbling becomes tiresome after a time, especially when the person to whom such complainings are addressed never takes the trouble to contradict you, and is incapable of being grumbled at herself.

It was after one of these tedious evenings that the Squire said to Jane, “We may as well have Bristow up to-morrow, I think. I want to see him about one or two things, and he may as well stop for dinner. So you had better drop him a line.”

The Squire had nothing of any importance to see Tom about, but he was too stubborn to own, even to himself, that it was the young man’s lively company that he was secretly longing for. The weather next morning happened to be very bad, and Jane smiled demurely to herself as she noted how anxious her father was lest the rain should keep Tom from coming. Jane knew that neither rain nor anything else would keep him away. “Papa is almost as anxious to see him as I am,” she said to herself. “He thought that he could live without him: he now begins to find out his mistake.”

Sure enough, Tom did not fail to be there. The Squire gave him a hearty greeting, and took him into the study before he had an opportunity of seeing Jane. “I’ve heard nothing more from those railway people about the Croft,” he said. “Penfold was here yesterday and wanted to know whether he was to go on with the villas—all the foundations are now in, you know. I hardly knew what instructions to give him.”

“If you were to ask me, sir,” said Tom, “I should certainly say, let him begin to run up the carcases as quickly as possible. I happen to know that the company must have the Croft—that they cannot possibly do without it. They are only hanging fire awhile, hoping to get you to go to them and make them an offer, instead of their being compelled to come to you; which, in a transaction of this nature, makes all the difference.”

“I don’t think you are far wrong in your views,” said Mr. Culpepper. “I’ll turn over in my mind what you’ve said.” Which meant that the Squire would certainly adopt Tom’s advice.

“No lovemaking, you know, Bristow,” whispered the old man, with a dig in the ribs, as they entered the dining-room.

“You may trust me, sir,” said Tom.

“I’m not so sure on that score. We are none of us saints when a pretty girl is in question.”

Tom did not fail to keep the Squire alive during dinner. To the old man his fund of news seemed inexhaustible. In reality, his resources in that line were never put to the test. Three or four skilfully introduced topics sufficed. The Squire’s own long-winded remarks, unknown to himself, filled up three-fourths of the time. Then Tom made a splendid listener. His attention never flagged. He was always ready with his “I quite agree with you, sir;” or his “Just so, sir;” or his “Those are my sentiments exactly, sir.” To be able to talk for half an hour at a time to an appreciative listener on some topic that interested him strongly was a treat that the Squire thoroughly enjoyed.

After the cloth was drawn he decided that instead of remaining by himself for half an hour, he would go with the young people to the drawing-room. He could have his snooze just as well there as in the dining-room, and he flattered himself that his presence, even though he might be asleep, would be a sufficient safeguard against any of that illicit lovemaking respecting which Bristow had been duly cautioned.

As a still further precaution, he nudged Tom again, as they went into the drawing-room, and whispered, “None of your tomfoolery, remember.” Five minutes later he was fast asleep.

They could not play, or sing, or talk much, while the Squire slept, so they fell back upon chess. “There’s to be no lovemaking, you know, Jenny,” whispered Tom, across the table, with a twinkle in his eye.

“None, whatever,” whispered Jane back, with a little shake of the head, and a demure smile.

A mutual understanding having thus been come to, there was no need for any further conversation, except about the incidents of the game, which, truth to tell, was very badly played on both sides. In place of studying the board, as a chess-player ought to do, Jane found her eyes, quite unconsciously to herself, studying the face of her opponent, while Tom’s hand, wandering purposelessly about the board, frequently found itself taking hold of Jane’s hand instead of a knight or a pawn; so that when at last the game did contrive to work itself out to an ineffective conclusion, they could hardly have said with certainty which one of them had checkmated the other. The Squire woke up, smiling and well-pleased. He had not heard them talking to each other, and there could be no harm in their playing a simple game of chess. If he were content, they had no reason to be otherwise.

After this the Squire would insist on having Tom up at Pincote, as often as the latter could possibly contrive to be there. In spite of himself the old man’s heart warmed imperceptibly towards him, and when it so happened that business took Tom away from home for two or three days, then the Squire grew so fretful and peevish that all Jane’s tact and good temper were needed to make life at all endurable. She tried her best to persuade him to invite some of his old friends to come and see him, or go himself and call up on some of them, but in vain. Bristow he wanted, and no one but Bristow would he have. He looked upon himself as a ruined man, as a man whom it behoved to economize in every possible way. To keep company costs money: Tom Bristow was a sensible fellow, with whom it was not necessary to stand on ceremony, or be at any extra expense—a man who was content with a chop and a rice pudding, and a glass of St. Julien. “He doesn’t come here for what he gets to eat and drink. I like his society, and he likes mine. He finds that he can learn a good many things from me, and he’s not above learning.”

All this time the works at Knockley Holt were being pushed busily forward, much to the bewilderment and aggravation of the good people of Duxley. They were aggravated, and they considered they had a right to be aggravated, because they could not understand, and had not been told, what it was that was intended to be done there. In a small town like Duxley, no inhabitant has a right to put before his fellow-citizens a problem which they find incapable of solution, and then when asked to solve it for them decline to do so. Such conduct merits the severest social reprehension.

Surely next to the madness of building a row of villas on Prior’s Croft, was the puzzling folly of digging a hole in Knockley Holt. After much discussion pro and con, amongst the townspeople—chiefly over sundry glasses of whiskey toddy, in sundry bar parlours, after business hours—it seemed to be settled that Culpepper’s Hole, as some wag had christened it, could be intended for nothing else than an artesian well—though what was the exact nature of an artesian well it would have puzzled some of the Duxley wiseacres to tell, and why water should be bored for there, and to what uses it could be put when so obtained, they would have been still more at a loss to say. The Squire could not drive into Duxley without being tackled by one or another of his friends as to what he was about at Knockley Holt. But the old man would only wink and shake his head, and try to look wise, and say, “It doesn’t do to blab everything nowadays, but between you and me and the post—this is in confidence, mind—I’m digging a tunnel to the Antipodes.” Then he would chuckle and give the reins a shake, and Diamond would trot off with him, leaving his questioner angry or amused, as the case might be.

It was not known to any one in Duxley, except the Squire’s lawyer, that Knockley Holt was now the property of Tom Bristow. That the works there were under Tom’s direction was a well-known fact, but he was merely looked upon as Mr. Culpepper’s foreman in the matter. “Gets a couple of hundred or so a year for looking after the Squire’s affairs,” one wiseacre would remark to another. “If not, how does he live? Seems to have nothing to do when he’s not at Pincote. A poor way of getting a living. Serve him right: he should have stopped with old Hoskyns when he had the chance, and not have thought he was going to set the Thames on fire with his six thousand pounds.”

No one could be possessed by a more burning desire than the Squire himself to know the meaning of the works at Knockley Holt, but having asked once and asked in vain, his pride would not allow him to make any further direct inquiry. Not a day passed on which he saw Tom, that he did not try, by one or two vague hints, to lead up to the subject, but when Tom turned the talk into another channel, then the old man would see that the time for him to be enlightened had not yet come.

But it did come at last, and after what was, in reality, no very long waiting. On a certain afternoon—to be precise in our dates, it was the fifth of May—Tom walked over to Pincote, in search of the Squire. He found him in his study, wearying his brain over a column of figures, which would persist in coming to a different total every time it was added up. The first thing Tom did was to take the column of figures and bring it to a correct total. This done, his next act was to produce something from his pocket that was carefully wrapped up in a piece of brown paper. He pushed the parcel across the table to the Squire. “Will you oblige me, sir,” he said, “by opening that paper, and giving me your opinion as to the contents?”

“Why, bless my heart, this is neither more nor less than a lump of coal!” said the Squire, when he had opened the paper.

“Exactly so, sir. As you say, this is neither more nor less than a lump of coal. But where do you think it came from?”

“There you puzzle me. Though I don’t know that it can matter much to me where it came from.”

“But it matters very much to you, sir. This lump of coal came from Knockley Holt.”

The Squire was rather dull of comprehension. “Well, what is there so wonderful about that?” he said. “I dare say it was stolen by some of those confounded gipsies, and left there when they moved.”

“What I mean is this, sir,” answered Tom, with just a shade of impatience in his tone. “This piece of coal is but a specimen of a splendid seam which has been struck by my men at the bottom of the shaft at Knockley Holt.”

The Squire stared at him, and gave a long, low whistle. “Do you mean to say that you have found a bed of coal at the bottom of the hole you have been digging at Knockley Holt?”

“That is precisely what I have found, sir, and it is precisely what I have been trying to find from the first.”

“I see it all now!” said the Squire. “What a lucky young scamp you are! But what on earth put it into your head to go looking for coal at Knockley Holt?”

“I had a friend of mine, who is a very clever mining engineer, staying with me for a little while some time ago. But my friend is not only an engineer—he is a practical geologist as well. When out for a constitutional one day, we found ourselves at Knockley Holt. My friend was struck with its appearance—so different from that of the country around. ‘Unless I am much mistaken, there is coal under here,’ he said, ‘and at no great distance from the surface either. The owner ought to think himself a lucky man—that is, if he knows the value of it.’ Well, sir, not content with what my friend said, I paid a heavy fee and had one of the most eminent geologists of the day down from London to examine and report upon it. His report coincided exactly with my friend’s opinion. You know the rest, sir. I came to you with a view of getting a lease of the ground, and found you desirous of selling it. I was only too glad to have the chance of buying it. I set a lot of men and a steam engine to work without a day’s delay, and that lump of coal, sir, is the happy result.”

The Squire rubbed his spectacles for a moment or two without speaking. “Bristow, that’s an old head of yours on those young shoulders,” he said at last. “With all my heart congratulate you on your good fortune. I know no man who deserves it more than you do. Yes, Bristow, I congratulate you, though I can’t help saying that I wish that I had had a friend to have told me what was told you before I let you have the ground. For want of such a friend I have lost a fortune.”

“That is just what I have come to see you about, sir,” said Tom, as he rose and pushed back his chair. The Squire looked up at him in surprise. “Although I bought Knockley Holt from you as a speculation, I had a pretty good idea when I bought it as to what I should find below the surface. If I had not found what I expected, my bargain would have been a dear one; but having found what I expected, it is just the opposite. In fact, sir, you have lost a fortune, and I have found one.”

“I know it—I know it,” groaned the Squire. “But you needn’t twit me with it.”

“So far the speculation was a perfectly legitimate one, as speculations go nowadays. But that is not the sort of thing I wish to exist between you and me. You have been very kind to me in many ways, and I have much to thank you for. I could not bear to treat you in this matter as I should treat a stranger. I could not bear to think that I was making a fortune out of a piece of ground that but a few short weeks ago was your property. The money so made would seem to me to bring a curse with it, rather than a blessing. I should feel as if nothing would ever prosper with me afterwards. Sir, I will not have this coal mine. There are plenty of other channels open to me for making money. Here are the title deeds of the property. I give them back to you. You shall repay me the twelve hundred pounds purchase-money, and reimburse me for the expenses I have been put to in sinking the shaft. But as for the pit itself, I will have nothing to do with it.”

Tom had produced the title deeds from his pocket and had laid them on the table while speaking. He now pushed them across to the Squire. Then he took the deed of sale tore it across, and threw the fragments into the grate.

It is doubtful whether Titus Culpepper had ever been more astonished in the whole course of his life than he was at the present moment. For a little while he seemed utterly at a loss for words, but when he did speak, his words were not lacking in force.

“Bristow, you are a confounded fool!” he said with emphasis.

“I have been told that many times before.”

“You are a confounded fool—but you are a gentleman.”

Tom merely bowed.

“You propose to give me back the title deeds of Knockley Holt, after having found what may literally be termed a gold mine there—eh?”

“I don’t propose to do it, sir. I have done it already. There are the title deeds,” pointing to the table. “There is the deed of sale,” pointing to the fire-grate.

“And do you think, sir,” said the Squire, with dignity, “that Titus Culpepper is the man to accept such a romantic piece of generosity from one who is little more than a boy! Not so.—It would be impossible for me to forgive myself, were I to do anything of the kind The property is fairly and legally yours, and yours it must remain.”

“It shall not, sir! By heaven! I will not have it. There are the title deeds. Do with them as you will.” He buttoned his coat, and took up his hat, and turned to leave the room.

“Stop, Bristow, stop!” said the Squire, as he rose from his chair. Tom halted with the handle of the door in his hand, but he did not go back to the table.

Mr. Culpepper walked to the window and stood there looking out for full three minutes without uttering a word. Then he turned and beckoned Tom to go to him.

“Bristow,” he said, laying his hand affectionately on Tom’s shoulder, “as I said before, you are a gentleman—a gentleman in mind and feeling. More than that a man cannot be, whether his family be old or new. You propose to do a certain thing which I can only accede to on one condition.”

“Name it, sir,” said Tom briefly.

“I cannot take Knockley Holt from you without giving you something like an equivalent in return. Now, I only possess one thing that you would care to receive at my hands—and that is the most precious thing I have on earth. Exchange is no robbery. I will agree to take back Knockley Holt from you, if you will take in exchange for it—my daughter Jane.”

“Oh! Mr. Culpepper.”

“That you love her, I know already, and I dare say the sly hussy is equally as fond of you. If such be the case, take her. I know no man who so thoroughly deserves her, or who has so much right to her as you have.”