Johnny Ludlow Fourth Series Part 36

"Yes. _I_ think so. But, it seems to me there's little else but injustice in the world," added Tom, with a light smile. "You would say so if you were in a lawyer's office and had to dive into the cases brought there. Good-bye, mother mine."

Pretty nearly a year went on after this, bringing no change. "Jacob Chandler and Son, Solicitors, Conveyancers, and Land Agents," flourished in gilt letters on the front-door at Islip, and Jacob Chandler and Son flourished inside, in the matter of business. But never a move was made to take in Tom. And when Jacob was asked about it, as he was once or twice, he civilly shuffled the topic off.

But, before the year had well elapsed, Jacob was stricken down. To look at him you would have said he had been growing thinner all that while, only that it seemed impossible. This time it was for death. He had not much grace given him, either: just a couple of days and a night.

He went to bed one night as well as usual, but the next morning did not get up, saying he felt "queer," and sent for Cole. Jacob Chandler was a rare coward in illness. That fining-down process he had been going through so long had not troubled him: he thought it was only his natural const.i.tution: and when real illness set in his fears sprang up.

"You had better stay in bed to-day," said Cole. "I will send you a draught to take."

"But what is it that's the matter with me?" asked Jacob.

"I don't know," said Cole.

"Is it ague? Or intermittent fever coming on? See how I am shaking."

"N--o," hesitated Cole, either in doubt, or else because he would not say too much. "I'll look in again by-and-by."

Towards midday Jacob thought he'd get up, and see what that would do for him. It seemed to do nothing, except make him worse; and he went to bed again. Cole looked in three times during the day, but did not say what he thought.

In the middle of the night a paroxysm of illness came on again, and a servant ran to knock up the doctor. Jacob was shaking the very bed, and seemed in awful fear.

And in the morning he appeared to know that he had not many hours to live. Knew it by intuition, for Cole had not told him. An express went flying to Worcester for Dr. Malden: but Cole knew--and told it later--that all the physicians in the county could not save him.

And the state of mind that Jacob Chandler went into with the knowledge, might have read many a careless man a lesson. It seemed to him that he had a whole peck of suddenly-recollected sins on his head, and misdeeds to be accounted for. He remembered Tom Chandler then.

"I have not done by him as I ought; it lies upon me with an awful weight," he groaned. "Valentine, you must remedy the wrong. Take him in, and give him his proper share. I should like to see Tom. Some one fetch him."

Tom had to be fetched from Islip. He came at once, his long legs skimming over the ground quickly; and he entered the sick-chamber with the cordial smile on his open face, and took his uncle's hand.

"It shall all be remedied, Tom; all the injustice; and you shall have your due rights. I see now how unjust it was: I don't know what G.o.d's thinking of me for it. I wanted to make a good provision for my old age, you see; to be able to live at ease; and now there is no old age for me: G.o.d is taking me before it has come on."

"Don't distress yourself, Uncle Jacob; it will be all right. And I'm sure I have not thought much about it."

"But others have," groaned Jacob. "Your mother; and Mary Ann; and--and Squire Todhetley. They have all been on at me at times. But I shut my ears. Oh dear! I wish G.o.d would let me live a few years over again! I'd try and be different. What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?"

And that was how he kept on the best part of the day. Then he called out that he wanted his will altered. Valentine brought in pen and ink, but his father motioned him away and said it must be done by Paul. So Paul the lawyer was got over from Islip, and was shut up alone with the sick man for a quarter-of-an-hour. Next the parson came, and read some prayers. But Jacob still cried out his piteous laments, at having no time to redeem the past, until his voice was too weak to speak. At nine o'clock in the evening all was over.

The disease that killed him must have been making silent progress for a good while, Cole said, when the truth was ascertained: but he had never seen it develop itself with so little warning, or prove fatal so quickly as in the case of Jacob Chandler.

II.

Jacob Chandler, solicitor, conveyancer, and land-agent, had died: and his son Valentine (possibly taking a leaf out of the history of Jonas Chuzzlewit) determined that he should at least be borne to the grave with honours, if he had never had an opportunity to specially bear them in life. Crabb churchyard was a show of mutes and plumes, and Crabb highway was blocked up with black coaches. As it is considered a compliment down with us to get an invitation to a funeral, and a great slight on the dead to refuse it, all cla.s.ses, from Sir John Whitney, down to Ma.s.sock, the brickmaker, and little Farmer Bean, responded to Valentine Chandler's notes. Some people said that it was Valentine's mother, the new widow, who wished for so much display; and probably they were right.

It took place on a Sat.u.r.day. I can see the blue sky overhead now, and the bright sun that shone upon the scene and lighted up the feathers. It was thought he must have died rich, and that the three daughters he left would have good portions. His son Valentine had the practice: so, at any rate, _he_ was provided for. Tom Chandler, the nephew, made one of the mourners: and the spectators talked freely enough in an undertone, as he pa.s.sed them in his place when the procession walked up the churchyard path. It seemed but the other day, they said, that his poor father was buried, killed by that lamentable accident. Time flew. Years pa.s.sed imperceptibly. But Jacob--lying so still under that black and white pall, now slowly disappearing within the church--had not done the right thing by his dead brother's son. The practice had been made by Thomas, the elder brother. Thomas took Jacob into full partnership without fee or recompense; and there was an understanding entered into between them later (but no legal agreement) that if the life of either failed his son should succeed to his post. If Thomas, the elder, died, his son Tom was to take his father's place as senior partner in due time. Thomas did die; died suddenly; but from that hour to this, Jacob had never attempted to carry out the agreement: he had taken his own son, Valentine, into partnership, but not Tom. And Crabb knew, both North and South, for such things get about curiously, that the injustice had troubled Jacob when he was dying, and that he had charged Valentine to remedy it.

Sunday morning was not so fine: leaden clouds, threatening rain, had overshadowed the summer sky. But all the family mourners came to church, Valentine wearing his long c.r.a.pe hatband and shoulder scarf (for that was our custom); the widow in her costly mourning, and the three girls in theirs. The mourning was furnished, Miss Timmens took the opportunity of whispering to Mrs. Todhetley, from a fashionable black shop at Worcester: and, to judge by the frillings and furbelows, very fashionable indeed the shop must have been. Mrs. Chandler and her son Tom sat together in their own pew, Mrs. Cramp, Jacob's sister, with them. It chanced that we were staying at Crabb Cot at the time of Jacob's death, just as we had been at Thomas's, and so saw the doings and heard the sayings, and the Squire was at hand for both funerals.

The next morning, Monday, Valentine Chandler took his place in the office as master for the first time, and seated himself in his late father's chair in the private room. He and his mother had already held some conversation as to arrangements for the future. Valentine said he should live at the office at Islip: now that there was only himself he should have more to do, and did not want the bother of walking or driving to and fro morning and evening. She would live entirely at North Villa.

Valentine took his place in his father's room; and the clerks, who had been hail-fellow-well-met with him hitherto, put on respect of manner, and called him Mr. Chandler. Tom had an errand to do every Monday morning connected with the business, and did not enter until nearly eleven o'clock. Before settling to his desk, he went in to Valentine.

They shook hands. In times of bereavement we are apt to observe more ceremony than at others. Tom sat down: which caused the new master to look towards him inquiringly.

"Valentine, I want to have a bit of talk with you. Upon what footing am I to be on here?"

"How do you mean?" asked Valentine: who was leaning back in the green leather chair with the air of his new importance full upon him, his elbows on the low arms, and an ivory paper-knife held between his fingers.

"My uncle Jacob told me that from henceforth I was to a.s.sume my right place here, Valentine. I suppose it will be so."

"What do you call your right place?" cried Valentine.

"Well, my right place would be head of the office," replied Tom, speaking, as he always did, cordially and pleasantly. "But I don't wish to be exacting. Make me your partner, Valentine, and give me the second place in the firm."

"Can't do it, old fellow," said Valentine, in tones which seemed to say he would like to joke the matter off. "The practice was my father's, and it is now mine."

"But you know that part of it ought to have been mine from the first, Valentine. That is, from the time I have been of an age to succeed to it."

"I don't know it, I'm sure, Tom. If it 'ought' to have been yours, I suppose my father would have given it to you. He was able to judge."

Tom dropped his voice. "He sent for me that last day of his life, you know, Valentine. It was to tell me he had not done the right thing by me, but that it should be done now: that he had charged _you_ to do it."

"Ah," said Valentine, carelessly, "worn-out old men take up odd fancies--fit for a lunatic asylum. My poor father must have been spent with disease, though not with age: but we did not know it."

"Will you make me your partner?"

"No, Tom, I can't. The practice was all my father's, and the practice must be mine. Look here: on that same day you speak of he sent for John Paul to add a codicil to his will. Now it stands to reason that if he had wished me to take you into the firm, he would have mentioned it in that codicil and bound me down to do it."

"And he did not?"

"Not a word of it. You are quite welcome to read the will. It is a very short and simple one: leaving what property he had to my mother, and the business and office furniture to me. The codicil Paul wrote was to decree that I should pay my mother a certain sum out of the profits.

Your name is not mentioned in the will at all, from beginning to end."

Tom made no reply. Valentine continued.

"The object of his tying me down to pay over to my mother a portion of the profits is, because she has not enough to live on without it. There need be no secret about it. I am to give her a third of the income I make, whatsoever it may be."

"One final word, Valentine: will you be just and take me in?"

"No, Tom, I cannot. And there's another thing. I don't wish to be mean, I'm sure; it's not in my nature: but with all my own expenses upon me and this third that I must hand over to my people, I fear I shall not be able to continue to give your mother the hundred and fifty a-year that my father has allowed her so long."

"You cannot help yourself, Valentine. That much is provided for in the original partnership deed, and you are bound by it."

"No," dissented Valentine, flicking a speck off the front of his black coat. "My father might have been bound by it, but I am not. Now that the two original partners are dead, the deed is cancelled, don't you see. It is not binding upon me."

"I think you are mistaken: but I will leave that question for this morning. Is your decision, not to give me a share, final?"

"It is."