It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 111

Meadows did not resume his visits at Gra.s.smere without some twinges of conscience and a prudent resolve not to anchor his happiness upon Susan Merton. "That man might come here any day with his thousand pounds and take her from me," said he. "He seems by his letters to be doing well, and they say any fool can make money in the colonies. Well, if he comes home respectable and well to do--I'll go out. If I am not to have the only woman I ever loved or cared for, let thousands and thousands of miles of sea lie between me and that pair." But still he wheeled about the flame.

Ere long matters took a very different turn. The tone of George's letters began to change. His repeated losses of bullocks and sheep were all recorded in his letters to Susan, and these letters were all read with eager anxiety by Meadows a day before they reached Gra.s.smere.

The respectable man did not commit this action without some iron pa.s.sing through his own soul--_Nemo repente turp.i.s.simus._ The first letter he opened it was like picking a lock. He writhed and blushed, and his uncertain fingers fumbled with another's property as if it had been red-hot. The next cost him some shame, too, but the next less, and soon these little spasms of conscience began to be lost in the pleasure the letters gave him. "It is clear he will never make a thousand pounds out there, and if he doesn't the old farmer won't give him Susan. Won't? He shan't! He shall be too deep in my debt to venture on it even if he was minded." Meadows exulted over the letters; and as he exulted they stabbed him, for by the side of the records of his ill fortune the exile never failed to pour out his love and confidence in his Susan and to acknowledge the receipt of some dear letter from her, which Meadows could see by George's must have a.s.sured him of undiminished or even increased affection.

Thus did sin lead to sin. By breaking a seal which was not his and reading letters which were not his, Meadows filled himself with the warmest hopes of possessing Susan one day, and got to hate George for the stabs the young man innocently gave him. At last he actually looked on George as a sort of dog in the manger, who could not make Susan happy, yet would come between her heart and one who could. All weapons seemed lawful against such a mere pest as this--a dog in the manger.

Meadows started with nothing better nor worse than a commonplace conscience. A vicious habit is an iron that soon sears that sort of article. When he had opened and read about four letters, his moral nature turned stone-blind of one eye. And now he was happier (on the surface) than he had been ever since he fell in love with Susan.

Sure now that one day or another she must be his, he waited patiently, enjoyed her society twice a week, got everybody into his power, and bided his time. And one frightful thing in all this was that his love for Susan was not only a strong but in itself a good love. I mean it was a love founded on esteem; it was a pa.s.sionate love, and yet a profound and tender affection. It was the love which, under different circ.u.mstances, has often weaned men, ay, and women, too, from a frivolous, selfish, and sometimes from a vicious life. This love Meadows thought and hoped would hallow the unlawful means by which he must crown it. In fact, he was mixing vice and virtue. The snow was to whiten the pitch, not the pitch blacken the snow. Thousands had tried this before him and will try it after him. Oh, that I could persuade them to mix fire and gunpowder instead! Men would bless me for this when all else I have written has been long, long forgotten.

He felt good all over when he sat with Susan and thought how his means would enable that angel to satisfy her charitable nature, and win the prayers of the poor as well as the admiration of the wealthy. "If ever a woman was cherished she shall be! If ever a woman was happy she shall be!" And as for him, if he had done wrong to win her, he would more than compensate it afterward. In short, he had been for more than twenty years selling, buying, swapping, driving every conceivable earthly bargain--so now he was proposing one to Heaven.

At last came a letter in which George told Susan of the fatal murrain among his sheep, of his fever that had followed immediately, of the further losses while he lay ill, and concluded by saying that he had no right to tie her to his misfortunes, and that he felt it would be more manly to set her free.

When he read this, Meadows' exultation broke all bounds. "Ah ha!" cried he, "is it come to that at last? Well, he is a fine fellow after all, and looks at it the sensible way, and if I can do him a good turn in business I always will."

The next day he called at Gra.s.smere. Susan met him all smiles and was more cheerful than usual. The watchful man was delighted. "Come, she does not take it to heart." He did not guess that Susan had cried for hours and hours over the letter, and then had sat quietly down and written a letter and begged George to come home and not add separation to their other misfortunes; and that it was this decision, and having acted upon it, that had made her cheerful. Meadows argued in his own favor, and now made sure to win. The next week he called three times at Gra.s.smere instead of twice, and asked himself how much longer he must wait before he should speak out. Prudence said, "A little more patience;" and so he still hid in his bosom the flame that burned him the deeper for this unnatural smothering. But he drank deep, silent draughts of love, and reveled in the bright future of his pa.s.sion.

It was no longer hope, it was certainty. Susan liked him; her eye brightened at his coming; her father was in his power. There was nothing between them but the distant shadow of a rival; sooner or later she must be his. So pa.s.sed three calm, delicious weeks away.

CHAPTER LIV.

MEADOWS sat one day in his study receiving Crawley's report.

"Old Mr. Merton came yesterday. I made difficulties as instructed. Is to come to-morrow."

"He shall have the eight hundred."

"That makes two thousand four hundred; why, his whole stock won't cover it."

"No!"

"Don't understand it, it is too deep for me. What is the old gentleman doing?"

"Hunting Will-o'-the-wisp. Throwing it away in speculations that are colored bright for him by a man that wants to ruin him."

"Aha!" cackled Crawley.

"And do him no harm."

"Augh! How far is it to the bottom of the sea, sir, if you please? I'm sure you know? Mr. Levi and you."

"Crawley," said Meadows, suddenly turning the conversation, "the world calls me close-fisted, have you found me so?"

"Liberal as running water, sir. I sometimes say how long will this last before such a great man breaks Peter Crawley and flings him away and takes another?" and Crawley sighed.

"Then your game is to make yourself necessary to me."

"I wish I could," said Peter, with mock candor. "Sir," he crept on, "if the most ardent zeal, if punctuality, secrecy, and unscrupulous fidelity--"

"Hold your gammon! Are we writing a book together! Answer me this in English. How far dare you go along with me?"

"As far as your purse extends: only--"

"Only what? Only your thermometer is going down already, I suppose."

"No, sir; but what I mean is, I shouldn't like to do anything too bad."

"What d'ye mean by too bad?"

"Punishable by law."

"It is not your conscience you fear, then?" asked the other gloomily.

"Oh, dear, no, sir, only the law."

"I envy you. There is but one crime punishable by law, and that I shall never counsel you to."

"Only one--too deep, sir, too deep. Which is that?"

"The crime of getting found out."

"What a great man! how far would I go with you? To the end of the earth.

I have but one regret, sir."

"And what is that?"

"That I am not thought worthy of your confidence. That after so many years I am still only a too--I mean an honored instrument, and not a humble friend."

"Crawley," said Meadows, solemnly, "let well alone. Don't ask my confidence, for I am often tempted to give it you, and that would be all one as if I put the blade of a razor in your naked hand."

"I don't care, sir! You are up to some game as deep as a coal-pit; and I go on working and working all in the dark. I'd give anything to be in your confidence."

"Anything is nothing; put it in figures," sneered Meadows, incredulously.

"I'll give twenty per cent off all you give me if you will let me see the bottom."

"The bottom?"

"The reason, sir--the motive!--the why!--the wherefore--the what it is all to end in. The bottom!"

"Why not say you would like to read John Meadows' heart?"

"Don't be angry, sir; it is presumption, but I can't help it. Deduct twenty per cent for so great a honor."

"Why, the fool is in earnest."