Part 14 (2/2)
”I reckon I know more about it than you think. I've been goin' over things since last night--and goin' back to old things too--about the old gentleman and Nancy.”
”It seems so awfully--Lord, it seems everything that's bad and rotten, Jack.”
”No, it don't,” said old Jack quietly. ”It's a bit of a facer for me--I tell you that straight--but it don't seem unnatural in you. Only I'm sorry like.”
”If there was anything in the world I could do, Jack! But there it is--there isn't.”
”I'm not so sure about that.” He was smoking very slowly, and seemed to be thinking hard. Andy lit a cigarette. His joy was quenched in sympathy with Jack.
”You've given me a disappointment, Andy. I'm not denyin' it. But there, I can't expect you to feel about the business as I do. Comin' to me from my father, and havin' been the work o' the best years of my life! And no better business in any town of the size o' Meriton all the country through--I'll wager that! No, you can't feel as I do. And you've a right to choose your own life. There's one thing you might do for me, Andy, though.”
”Well, if there's anything else in the world--”
”I loved Nancy better than anybody, and the old gentleman--well, as I've told you, he never let me see a difference. I've got no kin--unless I can call you kin, Andy. If you want to make up for givin' me this bit of--of a facer, as I say, I'll tell you what you can do. There's times in a young chap's life when bein' able to put up a bit o' the ready makes all the difference, eh? If so be as you should find yourself placed like that, I want you to promise to ask me for it. Will you, lad?” Jack's voice faltered for a moment. ”No call for you to go back across half the world for it. It's here, waitin' for you in Martin's bank in High Street. If you ever want to enter for an event, let me put up the stakes for you, Andy. Promise me that, and we'll say no more about the shop.”
Andy was touched to the heart. ”I promise. There's my hand on it, Jack.”
”You'll come to me first--you won't go to any one before me?” old Jack insisted jealously.
”I'll come to you first--and last,” said Andy.
”Aye, lad.” The old fellow's eyes gleamed again. ”Then it'll be our race. We'll both be in it, won't we, Andy? And if you pa.s.s the post first, I shall have a right to throw up my hat. And why shouldn't you?
The favourite don't always win.”
”I'm not expecting to do anything remarkable, Jack. I'm not such a fool as that.”
”You're no fool, or you'd never have been put to the trouble of refusin'
my shop,” observed Jack with emphasis. ”And in the end I'm not sure but what you're right. I've never tried to rise above where I was born; but I don't know as there's any call for you to step down. I don't know as I did my duty by the old gentleman in temptin' you. I'm not sure he'd have liked it, though he'd have said nothing; he'd never have let me see--not him!” He sighed and smiled over his reverential memories of the old gentleman, yet his eyes twinkled rather maliciously as he said to Andy, ”Dinin' at Halton again to-night?”
”No,” laughed Andy, ”I'm not. I'm coming to supper with you if you'll have me. What have you got?”
”Cold boiled aitch-bone, and apple-pie, and a Ches.h.i.+re in good condition.”
”Oh, that's prime! But I must go and change first. I've walked fifteen or sixteen miles, and I must get into a clean s.h.i.+rt.”
”We don't dress for supper--not o' Sundays,” Jack informed him gravely.
”Oh, get out, Jack!” called Andy from the door.
”Supper at nine precise, carriages at eleven,” Jack called after him, pursuing his joke to the end with keen relish.
Andy walked back to his lodgings, in the old phrase ”happy as a king,”
and infinitely the happier because old Jack had taken it so well, had understood, and, though disappointed, had not been hurt or wounded.
There was no breach in their affection or in their mutual confidence.
And now, he felt, he had to justify himself in Jack's eyes, to justify his refusal of a safe five hundred pounds a year. The refusal became, as he thought over it, a spur to effort, to action. ”I must put my back into it,” said Andy to himself, and made up his mind to most strenuous exertions to develop that rather shy and coy timber business of his in London.
Yet, after he had changed, as he sat listening to the church bells ringing for evening service, a softer strain of meditation mingled with these stern resolves. Memories of his ”Sat.u.r.day-off” glided across his mind, echoes of this evening's encounter with Harry and Vivien sounded in his ears. There was, as old Jack Rock himself had ended by suggesting, no call for him to step down. He could take the place for which he was naturally fit. He need not renounce that side of life of which he had been allowed a glimpse so attractive and so full of interest. The shop in Meriton would have opened the door to one very comfortable little apartment. How many doors would it not have shut? All doors were open now.
<script>