I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife oh how like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom[5]. To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them for instance, the large and well-modelled statue, Sarah no; I should be a bad husband, under such circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.
When I had declined my uncles offers they asked me What I intended to do? I said I should reflect[6]. They reminded me that I had no fortune, and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord Tynedale demanded sternly, Whether I had thoughts of following my fathers steps and engaging in trade? Now, I had had no thoughts of the sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedales countenance as he pronounced the word TRADE such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone that I was instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered then, with haste and warmth, I cannot do better than follow in my fathers steps; yes, I will be a tradesman. My uncles did not remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of Tynedales patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the reception of another burden one which might be more intolerable, and which certainly was yet untried.
I wrote instantly to Edward you know Edward my only brother, ten years my senior, married to a rich mill-owners daughter, and now possessor of the mill and business which was my fathers before he failed. You are aware that my father once reckoned a Croesus[7] of wealth became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth, the shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for her.
My fathers relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood for it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their sisters orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances against Mr. Seacombes election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race; they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X ; and, making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during which space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune. Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded without some expression of determined enmity against the house of Seacombe, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against my father of the sufferings of my mother of all the wrongs, in short, of our house then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother[8]. It was by these feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe, and the union with one of my patrician cousins.
An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself, I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my conduct, but he said I might come down to shire, if I liked, and he would See what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work[9]. I repressed all even mental comment on his note packed my trunk and carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.
After two days travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X . I had always understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that it was only Mr. Crimsworths mill and warehouse which were situated in the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his residence lay four miles out, in the country.
It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the habitation designated to me as my brothers. As I advanced up the avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy mists which deepened those shades, that the house was large, and the grounds surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the lawn in front, and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the centre, I gazed with interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.
Edward is rich, thought I to myself. I believed him to be doing well[10] but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this. Cutting short all marvelling; speculation, conjecture, etc., I advanced to the front door and rang. A man-servant opened it I announced myself he relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a room furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles burning on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet returned from X market, but that he would certainly be at home in the course of half an hour.
Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain I was in no danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of fraternal tenderness; Edwards letters had always been such as to prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still, as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager very eager I cannot tell you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand, clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain have shaken it.
I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether Edwards indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached the house; Mr. Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some minutes[11], and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the hall, his tread drew near the library door that tread alone announced the master of the house.