Part 52 (1/2)

Mrs. Hastings did not immediately reply. She appeared to have fallen into thought. Presently she raised her head and looked at Maria.

”My dear, I have long thought of mentioning to you a certain subject; and I think I will do so now. Strictly speaking, it is, as I say, no business of mine, but I cannot help being anxious for your interests.”

Maria felt somewhat alarmed. It appeared a formidable preamble.

”I and your papa sometimes talk it over, one with another. And we say”--Mrs. Hastings smiled, as if to disarm her words of their serious import--”that we wish we could put old heads upon young shoulders. Upon yours and your husband's.”

”But why?--in what way?” cried Maria.

”My dear, if you and he had old heads, you would, I think, see how very wrong it is--I speak the word only in your interests, Maria--to maintain so great and expensive an establishment. It must cost you and George, here, far more than it costs them at Ashlydyat.”

”Yes, I suppose it does,” said Maria.

”We do not know what your husband's income is----”

”I do not know, either,” spoke Maria, for Mrs. Hastings had paused and looked at her, almost as though she would give opportunity for the information to be supplied. ”George never speaks to me upon money matters or business affairs.”

”Well, whatever it is,” resumed Mrs. Hastings, ”we should judge that he must be living up to every farthing of it. How much better it would be if you were to live more moderately, and put something by!”

”I dare say it would,” acquiesced Maria. ”To tell you the truth, mamma, there are times when I fall into a thoughtful mood, and feel half frightened at our expenditure. But then again I reflect that George knows his own affairs and his own resources far better than I do. The expense is of his inst.i.tuting: not of mine.”

”George is proverbially careless,” significantly spoke Mrs. Hastings.

”But, mamma, if at the end of one year, he found his expenses heavier than they ought to be, he would naturally retrench them the next. His not doing it proves that he can afford it.”

”I am not saying, or thinking, that he cannot afford it, Maria, in one sense; I do not suppose he outruns his income. But you might live at half your present expense and be quite as comfortable, perhaps more so.

Servants, carriages, horses, dress, dinner-parties!--I know you must spend enormously.”

”Well, so we do,” replied Maria. ”But, mamma, you are perhaps unaware that George has an equal share with Thomas. He has indeed. When Mr.

Crosse retired, Thomas told George it should be so for the future.”

”Did he? There are not many like Thomas G.o.dolphin. Still, Maria, whatever may be your income, I maintain my argument, that you keep up unnecessary style and extravagance. Remember, my dear, that you had no marriage settlement. And, the more you save, the better for your children. You may have many yet.”

”I think I will talk to George about it,” mused Maria.

Of course the past seven years had not been without their changes. Mr.

Crosse had retired from the Bank, and Thomas G.o.dolphin, in his generosity, immediately const.i.tuted his brother an equal partner. He had not been so previously. Neither had it been contemplated by Sir George in his lifetime that it was so to be, yet awhile. The state maintained at Ashlydyat took more to keep it up than the quiet way in which it was supposed George would live at the Bank, and Thomas was _the_ representative G.o.dolphin. But Thomas G.o.dolphin was incapable of any conduct bordering in the remotest degree upon covetousness or meanness: they were the sons of one father; and though there was the difference in their ages, and he was chief of the G.o.dolphins, he made George's share equal to his own.

It was well perhaps that he did so. Otherwise George might have plunged into shoals and quicksands. He appeared to have no idea of living quietly; had he possessed the purse of Fortunatus, which was always full of gold, we are told, he could not have been much more careless of money. Rumour went, too, that all Mr. George's wild oats (bushels of which, you may remember to have heard, Prior's Ash gave him credit for) were not yet sown; and wild oats run away with a great deal of money.

Perhaps the only person in all Prior's Ash who believed George G.o.dolphin to be a saint, or next door to one, was Maria. Best that she should think so! But, extravagant as George was, a suspicion that he lived beyond his income, was never glanced at. Sober people, such as the Rector of All Souls' and Mrs. Hastings, would say in private what a pity it was that George did not think of saving for his family. Ample as the income, present and future, arising from the Bank might be, it could not be undesirable to know that a nest-egg was acc.u.mulating. Thomas might have suggested this to George: gossips surmised that he did so, and that George let the suggestion go for nothing. They were wrong. Whatever lectures Janet may have seen well to give him, Thomas gave him none.

Thomas was not one to interfere, or play the mentor: and Thomas had a strong silent conviction within him, that ere very long George would come into Ashlydyat. The conviction was born of his suspected state of health. He might be wrong: but he believed he was not. Ashlydyat George's; the double income from the Bank George's--where was the need to tell him to save now?

The Reverend Mr. Hastings had had some trouble with his boys: insomuch as that they had turned their faces against the career he had marked out for them. Isaac, the eldest, destined for the Church, had declined to qualify himself for it when he came to years of discretion. After some uncertainty, and what Mr. Hastings called ”knocking about”--which meant that he was doing nothing when he ought to have been at work: and that state of affairs lasted for a year or two--Isaac won Maria over to his side. Maria, in her turn, won over George: and Isaac was admitted into the Bank. He held a good post in it now: the brother of Mrs. George G.o.dolphin was not left to rise by chance or priority. A handsome young man of three and twenty was he; steady; and displaying an apt.i.tude for business beyond his years. Many a one deemed that Isaac Hastings, in a worldly point of view, had done well in quitting the uncertain prospects offered by the Church, for a clerks.h.i.+p in the house of G.o.dolphin. He might rise some time to be a partner in it. Reginald had also declined the career marked out for him. Some government appointment had been promised him: in fact, had been given him: but Reginald would hear of nothing but the sea. It angered Mr. Hastings much. One of the last men, was he, to force a boy into the Church; nay, to allow a boy to enter it, unless he showed a special liking for it; therefore Isaac had, on that score, got off pretty freely; but he was not one of the last men to force a boy to work, who displayed a taste for idleness. Reginald argued that he should lead a far more idle life in a government office, than he should have a chance of doing if he went to sea. He was right, so far.

Mrs. Hastings had a special horror of the sea. Mothers, as a general rule, have. She set her face--and Mr. Hastings had also set his--against Reginald's sea visions; which, truth to say, had commenced with his earliest years.

However, Reginald and inclination proved too strong for opposition. The government post had to be declined with thanks; and to sea he went. Not into the navy: the boy had become too old for it: but into the merchant service. A good service, the firm he entered: but an expensive one. The premium was high; the outfit was large; the yearly sum that went in expenses while he was what is called a mids.h.i.+pman was considerable. But he quitted that service in a pique, and had since been trying different s.h.i.+ps on his own account. Altogether, Mr. Hastings had trouble with him.

Harry was keeping his first term at College. He had chosen the Church of his own free will: and was qualifying for it. Grace was married. And Rose was growing up to be as pretty as Maria.