Ayala's Angel Part 47

"I have seen old Faddle's name and yours on the same prospectus together, Sir."

"What has that to do with it? You never saw him inside our counter.

What a name to appear along with yours in such an affair as this! If it hadn't been for that, you might have got over it. Young men will be young men. Faddle! I think you will have to go abroad for a time, till it has been forgotten."

"I should like to stay, just at present, Sir," said Tom.

"What good can you do?"

"All the same, I should like to stay, Sir."

"I was thinking that, if you were to take a tour through the United States, go across to San Francisco, then up to j.a.pan, and from thence through some of the Chinese cities down to Calcutta and Bombay, you might come back by the Euphrates Valley to Constantinople, see something of Bulgaria and those countries, and so home by Vienna and Paris. The Euphrates Valley Railway will be finished by that time, perhaps, and Bulgaria will be as settled as Hertfordshire. You'd see something of the world, and I could let it be understood that you were travelling on behalf of Travers and Treason. By the time that you were back, people in the City would have forgotten the policeman, and if you could manage to write home three or four letters about our trade with j.a.pan and China, they would be willing to forget Faddle."

"But, Sir--"

"Shouldn't you like a tour of that kind?"

"Very much indeed, Sir;--only--"

"Only what, Tom?"

"Ayala!" said Tom, hardly able to suppress a sob as he uttered the fatal name.

"Tom, don't be a fool. You can't make a young woman have you if she doesn't choose. I have done all that I could for you, because I saw that you'd set your heart upon it. I went to her myself, and then I gave two hundred and fifty pounds for that bauble. I am told I shall have to lose a third of the sum in getting rid of it."

"Ricolay told me that he'd take it back at two hundred and twenty,"

said Tom, whose mind, prostrate as it was, was still alive to consideration of profit and loss.

"Never mind that for the present," said Sir Thomas. "Don't you remember the old song?--'If she will, she will, you may depend on't.

And if she won't she won't; and there's an end on't.' You ought to be a man and pluck up your spirits. Are you going to allow a little girl to knock you about in that way?" Tom only shook his head, and looked as if he was very ill. In truth, the champagne, and the imprisonment, and Ayala together, had altogether altered his appearance. "We've done what we could about it, and now it is time to give it over. Let me hear you say that you will give it over." Tom stood speechless before his father. "Speak the word, and the thing will be done,"

continued Sir Thomas, endeavouring to encourage the young man.

"I can't," said Tom, sighing.

"Nonsense!"

"I have tried, and I can't."

"Tom, do you mean to say that you are going to lose everything because a chit of a girl like that turns up her nose at you?"

"It's no use my going while things are like this," said Tom. "If I were to get to New York, I should come back by the next ship. As for letters about business, I couldn't settle my mind to anything of the kind."

"Then you're not the man I took you to be," said the father.

"I could be man enough," said Tom, clenching his fist, "if I could get hold of Colonel Stubbs."

"Colonel who?"

"Stubbs! Jonathan Stubbs! I know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to America, nor China, nor anything else, till I've polished him off. It's all very well your abusing me, but you don't know what it is I have suffered. As for being called a man I don't care about it. What I should like best would be to get Ayala on one side and Stubbs on the other, and then all three to go off the Duke of York's Column together. It's no good talking about Travers and Treason. I don't care for Travers and Treason as I am now. If you'll get Ayala to say that she'll have me, I'll go to the shop every morning at eight and stay till nine; and as for the Mountaineers it may all go to the d---- for me." Then he rushed out of the room, banging the door after him.

Sir Thomas, when he was thus left, stood for awhile with his hands in his trousers' pockets, contemplating the condition of his son. It was wonderful to him that a boy of his should be afflicted in this manner. When he had been struck by the juvenile beauties of Emmeline Dosett he had at once asked the young lady to share his fortunes with him, and the young lady had speedily acceded to his request. Then he had been married, and that was all he had ever known of the troubles of love. He could not but think, looking back at it as he did now from a distance, that had Emmeline been hard-hearted he would have endured the repulse and have pa.s.sed on speedily to some other charmer. But Tom had been wounded after a fashion which seemed to him to have been very uncommon. It might be possible that he should recover in time, but while undergoing recovery he would be ruined;--so great were the young man's sufferings! Now Sir Thomas, though he had spoken to Tom with all the severity which he had been able to a.s.sume, though he had abused Faddle, and had vindicated the injured dignity of Travers and Treason with all his eloquence; though he had told Tom it was unmanly to give way to his love, yet, of living creatures, Tom was at this moment the dearest to his heart. He had never for an instant entertained the idea of expelling Tom from Travers and Treason because of the policeman, or because of Faddle.

What should he do for the poor boy now? Was there any argument, any means of persuasion, by which he could induce that foolish little girl to accept all the good things which he was ready to do for her?

Could he try yet once again himself, with any chance of success?

Thinking of all this, he stood there for an hour alone with his hands in his trousers' pockets.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

ISADORE HAMEL IN LOMBARD STREET.

In following the results of Tom's presentation of the necklace we have got beyond the period which our story is presumed to have reached. Tom was in durance during the Christmas week, but we must go back to the promise which had been made by her uncle, Sir Thomas, to Lucy about six weeks before that time. The promise had extended only to an undertaking on the part of Sir Thomas to see Isadore Hamel if he would call at the house in Lombard Street at a certain hour on a certain day. Lucy was overwhelmed with grat.i.tude when the promise was made. A few moments previously she had been indignant because her uncle had appeared to speak of her and her lover as two beggars,--but Sir Thomas had explained and in some sort apologised, and then had come the promise which to Lucy seemed to contain an a.s.surance of effectual aid. Sir Thomas would not have asked to see the lover had he intended to be hostile to the lover. Something would be done to solve the difficulty which had seemed to Lucy to be so grave. She would not any longer be made to think that she should give up either her lover or her home under her uncle's roof. This had been terribly distressing to her because she had been well aware that on leaving her uncle's house she could be taken in only by her lover, to whom an immediate marriage would be ruinous. And yet she could not undertake to give up her lover. Therefore her uncle's promise had made her very happy, and she forgave the ungenerous allusion to the two beggars.

The letter was written to Isadore in high spirits. "I do not know what Uncle Tom intends, but he means to be kind. Of course you must go to him, and if I were you I would tell him everything about everything. He is not strict and hard like Aunt Emmeline. She means to be good too, but she is sometimes so very hard. I am happier now because I think something will be done to relieve you from the terrible weight which I am to you. I sometimes wish that you had never come to me in Kensington Gardens, because I have become such a burden to you."

There was much more in which Lucy no doubt went on to declare that, burden as she was, she intended to be persistent. Hamel, when he received this letter, was resolved to keep the appointment made for him, but his hopes were not very high. He had been angry with Lady Tringle,--in the first place, because of her treatment of himself at Glenbogie, and then much more strongly, because she had been cruel to Lucy. Nor did he conceive himself to be under any strong debt of grat.i.tude to Sir Thomas, though he had been invited to lunch.

He was aware that the Tringles had despised him, and he repaid the compliment with all his heart by despising the Tringles. They were to him samples of the sort of people which he thought to be of all the most despicable. They were not only vulgar and rich, but purse-proud and conceited as well. To his thinking there was nothing of which such people were ent.i.tled to be proud. Of course they make money,--money out of money, an employment which he regarded as vile,--creating nothing either useful or beautiful. To create something useful was, to his thinking, very good. To create something beautiful was almost divine. To manipulate millions till they should breed other millions was the meanest occupation for a life's energy.

It was thus, I fear, that Mr. Hamel looked at the business carried on in Lombard Street, being as yet very young in the world and seeing many things with distorted eyes.

He was aware that some plan would be proposed to him which might probably accelerate his marriage, but was aware also that he would be very unwilling to take advice from Sir Thomas. Sir Thomas, no doubt, would be coa.r.s.e and rough, and might perhaps offer him pecuniary a.s.sistance in a manner which would make it impossible for him to accept it. He had told himself a score of times that, poor as he was, he did not want any of the Tringle money. His father's arbitrary conduct towards him had caused him great misery. He had been brought up in luxury, and had felt it hard enough to be deprived of his father's means because he would not abandon the mode of life that was congenial to him. But having been thus, as it were, cast off by his father, he had resolved that it behoved him to depend only on himself. In the matter of his love he was specially p.r.o.ne to be indignant and independent. No one had a right to dictate to him, and he would follow the dictation of none. To Lucy alone did he acknowledge any debt, and to her he owed everything. But even for her sake he could not condescend to accept Sir Thomas's money, and with his money his advice. Lucy had begged him in her letter to tell everything to her uncle. He would tell Sir Thomas everything as to his income, his prospects, and his intentions, because Sir Thomas as Lucy's uncle would be ent.i.tled to such information. But he thought it very improbable that he should accept any counsel from Sir Thomas.

Such being the condition of Hamel's mind it was to be feared that but little good would come from his visit to Lombard Street. Lucy had simply thought that her uncle, out of his enormous stores, would provide an adequate income. Hamel thought that Sir Thomas, out of his enormous impudence, would desire to dictate everything. Sir Thomas was, in truth, anxious to be good-natured, and to do a kindness to his niece; but was not willing to give his money without being sure that he was putting it into good hands.

"Oh, you're Hamel," said a young man to him, speaking to him across the counter in the Lombard Street office. This was Tom, who, as the reader will remember, had not yet got into his trouble on account of the policeman.

Tom and Hamel had never met but once before, for a few moments in the Coliseum at Rome, and the artist, not remembering him, did not know by whom he was accosted in this familiar manner. "That is my name, Sir," said Hamel. "Here is my card. Perhaps you will do me the kindness to take it to Sir Thomas Tringle."

"All right, old fellow; I know all about it. He has got Puxley with him from the Bank of England just at this moment. Come through into this room. He'll soon have polished off old Puxley." Tom was no more to Hamel than any other clerk, and he felt himself to be aggrieved; but he followed Tom into the room as he was told, and then prepared to wait in patience for the convenience of the great man. "So you and Lucy are going to make a match of it," said Tom.

This was terrible to Hamel. Could it be possible that all the clerks in Lombard Street talked of his Lucy in this way, because she was the niece of their senior partner? Were all the clerks, as a matter of course, instructed in the most private affairs of the Tringle family?

"I am here in obedience to directions from Sir Thomas," said Hamel, ignoring altogether the impudent allusion which the young man had made.

"Of course you are. Perhaps you don't know who I am?"

"Not in the least," said Hamel.

"I am Thomas Tringle, junior," said Tom, with a little accession of dignity.

"I beg your pardon; I did not know," said Hamel.

"You and I ought to be thick," rejoined Tom, "because I'm going in for Ayala. Perhaps you've heard that before?"

Hamel had heard it and was well aware that Tom was to Ayala an intolerable burden, like the old man of the sea. He had heard of Tom as poor Ayala's pet aversion,--as a lover not to be shaken off though he had been refused a score of times. Ayala was to the sculptor only second in sacredness to Lucy. And now he was told by Tom himself that he was--"going in for Ayala." The expression was so distressing to his feelings that he shuddered when he heard it. Was it possible that any one should say of him that he was "going in" for Lucy? At that moment Sir Thomas opened the door, and grasping Hamel by the hand led him away into his own sanctum.

"And now, Mr. Hamel," said Sir Thomas, in his cheeriest voice, "how are you?" Hamel declared that he was very well, and expressed a hope that Sir Thomas was the same. "I am not so young as I was, Mr. Hamel.

My years are heavier and so is my work. That's the worst of it. When one is young and strong one very often hasn't enough to do. I daresay you find it so sometimes."