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DISSOLUTION.
It was now Mary's turn to feel that she was, for the first time
in her life, about to be cut adrift--adrift, that is, as a world
is adrift, on the surest of paths, though without eyes to see.
For ten days or so, she could form no idea of what she was likely
or would like to do next. But, when we are in such perplexity,
may not the fact be accepted as showing that decision is not
required of us--perhaps just because our way is at the moment
being made straight for us?
Joseph called once or twice, but, for Letty's sake, they had no
music. As they met so seldom now, Mary, anxious to serve him as
she could, offered him the loan of some of her favorite books. He
accepted it with a gladness that surprised her, for she did not
know how much he had of late been reading.
One day she received an unexpected visit--from Mr. Brett, her
lawyer. He had been searching into the affairs of the shop, and
had discovered enough to make him uneasy, and indeed fill him
with self-reproach that he had not done so with more thoroughness
immediately on her father's death. He had come to tell her all he
knew, and talk the matter over with her, that they might agree
what proceedings should be taken.
I will not weary myself or my readers with business detail, for
which kind of thing I have no great aptitude, and a good deal of
incapacitating ignorance; but content myself with the briefest
statement of the condition in which Mr. Brett found the affairs
of Mr. Turnbull.
He had been speculating in several companies, making haste to be
rich, and had periled and lost what he had saved of the profits
of the business, and all of Mary's as well that had not been
elsewhere secured. He had even trenched on the original capital
of the firm, by postponing the payment of moneys due, and
allowing the stock to run down and to deteriorate, and things out
of fashion to accumulate, so that the business had perceptibly
fallen off. But what displeased Mary more than anything was, that
he had used money of her father's to speculate with in more than
one public-house; and she knew that, if in her father's lifetime
he had so used even his own, it would have been enough to make
him insist on dissolving partnership.
It was impossible to allow her money to remain any longer in the
power of such a man, and she gave authority to Mr. Brett to make
the necessary arrangements for putting an end to business
relations between them.
It was a somewhat complicated, therefore tedious business; and
things looked worse the further they were searched into. Unable
to varnish the facts to the experience of a professional eye, Mr.
Turnbull wrote Mary a letter almost cringing in its tone, begging
her to remember the years her father and he had been as brothers;
how she had grown up in the shop, and had been to him, until
misunderstandings arose, into the causes of which he could not
now enter, in the place of a daughter; and insisting that her
withdrawal from it had had no small share in the ruin of the
business. For these considerations, and, more than all, for the
memory of her father, he entreated her to leave things as they
were, to trust him to see after the interests of the daughter of
his old friend, and not insist upon measures which must end in a
forced sale, in the shutting up of the shop of Turnbull and
Marston, and the disgracing of her father's name along with his.
Mary replied that she was acting by the advice of her father's
lawyer, and with the regard she owed her father's memory, in
severing all connection with a man in whom she no longer had
confidence; and insisted that the business must be wound up as
soon as possible.
She instructed Mr. Brett, at the same time, that, if it could be
managed, she would prefer getting the shop, even at considerable
loss, into her own hands, with what stock might be in it, when
she would attempt to conduct the business on principles her
father would have approved, whereby she did not doubt of soon
restoring it to repute. While she had no intention, she said, of
selling so well as Mr. Turnbull would fain have done, she
believed she would soon be able to buy to just as good advantage
as he. It would be necessary, however, to keep her desire a
secret, else Mr. Turnbull would be certain to frustrate it.
Mr. Brett approved of her plan, for he knew she was much
respected, and had many friends. Mr. Turnbull would be glad, he
said, to give up the whole to escape prosecution--that at least
was how Mary interpreted his somewhat technical statement of
affairs between them.
The swindler wrote again, begging for an interview--which she
declined, except in the presence of her lawyer.
She made up her mind that she would not go near Testbridge till
everything was settled, and the keys of the shop in Mr. Brett's
hands; and remained, therefore, where she was--with Letty, who to
keep her company delayed her departure as long as she could
without giving offense at Thornwick.
A few days before Letty was at last compelled to leave, Jasper
called, and heard about as much as they knew themselves of their
plans. When Mary said to him she would miss her pupil, he smiled
in a sort of abstracted way, as if not quite apprehending what
she said, which seemed to Mary a little odd, his manners in
essentials being those of a gentleman, as judged by one a little
more than a lady; for there is an unnamed degree higher than the
ordinary lady. So Mary was left alone--more alone than she
had ever been in her life. But she did not feel lonely, for the
best of reasons--that she never fancied herself alone, but knew
that she was not. Also she had books at her command, being one of
the few who can read; and there were picture-galleries to go to,
and music-lessons to be had. Of these last she crowded in as many
as her master could be persuaded to give her--for it would be
long, she knew, before she was able to have such again.
Joseph Jasper never came near her. She could not imagine why, and
was disappointed and puzzled. To know that Ann Byrom was in the
house was not a great comfort to her--she regarded so much that
Mary loved as of earth and not of heaven. God's world even she
despised, because men called it nature, and spoke of its
influences. But Mary did go up to see her now and then. Very
different she seemed from the time when first they were at work
together over Hesper's twilight dress! Ever since Mary had made
the acquaintance of her brother, she seemed to have changed
toward her. Perhaps she was jealous; perhaps she believed Mary
was confirming him in his bad ways. Just where they were all
three of one mind--just there her rudimentary therefore
self-sufficient religion shut them out from her sympathy and
fellowship.
Alone, and with her time at her command, Mary was more inclined
than she had ever been, except for her father's company, to go to
church. The second Sunday after Letty left her, she went to the
one nearest, and in the congregation thought she saw Joseph. A
week before, she would have waited for him as he came out, but,
now that he seemed to avoid her, she would not, and went home
neither comforted by the sermon nor comfortable with herself. For
the parson, instead of recognizing, through all defects of the
actual, the pattern after which God had made man, would fain have
him remade after the pattern of the middle-age monk--a being far
superior, no doubt, to the most of his contemporaries, but as far
from the beauty of the perfect man as the mule is from that of
the horse; and she was annoyed with herself that she was annoyed
with Joseph. It was the middle of summer before the affairs of
the firm were wound up, and the shop in the hands of the London
man whom Mr. Brett had employed in the purchase.
Lawyer as he was, however, Mr. Brett had not been sharp enough
for Turnbull. The very next day, a shop in the same street, that
had been to let for some time, displayed above its now open door
the sign, John Turnbull, late--then a very small of--
Turnbull and Marston; whereupon Mr. Brett saw the
oversight of which he had been guilty. There was nothing in the
shop when it was opened, but that Turnbull utilized for
advertisement: he had so arranged, that within an hour the goods
began to arrive, and kept arriving, by every train, for days and
days after, while all the time he made public show of himself,
fussing about, the most triumphant man in the town. It made
people talk, and if not always as he would have liked to hear
them talk, yet it was talk, and, in the matter of advertisement,
that is the main thing.
When it was told Mary, it gave her not the smallest uneasiness.
She only saw what had several times seemed on the point of
arriving in her father's lifetime. She would not have moved a
finger to prevent it. Let the two principles meet, with what
result God pleased!
Whether he had suspected her design, and had determined to
challenge her before the public, I can not tell; but his wife's
aversion to shopkeeping was so great, that one who knew what sort
of scene passed because of it between them, would have expected
that, but for some very strong reason, he would have been glad
enough to retire from that mode of gaining a livelihood. As it
was, things appeared to go on with them just as before. They
still inhabited the villa, the wife scornful of her surroundings,
and the husband driving a good horse to his shop every morning.
How he managed it all, nobody knew but himself, and whether he
succeeded or not was a matter of small interest to any except his
own family and his creditors. He was a man nowise beloved,
although there was something about him that carried simple people
with him--for his ends, not theirs. To those who alluded to the
change, he represented it as entirely his own doing, to be rid of
the interference of Miss Marston in matters of which she knew
nothing. He knew well that a confident lie has all the look of
truth, and, while fact and falsehood were disputing together in
men's mouths, he would be selling his drapery. The country people
were flattered by the confidence he seemed to put in them by this
explanation, and those who liked him before sought the new shop
as they had frequented the old one.
Unlike most men, not to say lawyers, Mr. Brett was fully
recognizant to Mary of his oversight, and was not a little
relieved to be assured she would not have had the thing
otherwise: she would gladly meet Mr. Turnbull in a fair field--
not that she would in the least acknowledge or think of him as a
rival; she would simply carry out her own ideas of right, without
regard to him or any measures he might take; the result should be
as God willed. Mr. Brett shook his head: he knew her father of
old, and saw the daughter prepared to go beyond the father.
Theirs were principles that did not come within the range of his
practice! He said to himself and his wife that the world could
not go on for a twelvemonth if such ways were to become
universal: whether by the world he meant his own profession, I
will not inquire. Certainly he did not make the reflection that
the new ways are intended to throw out the old ways; and the
worst argument against any way is that the world can not go on
so; for that is just what is wanted--that the world should not go
on so. Mr. Brett nevertheless admired not only Mary's pluck, but
the business faculty which every moment she manifested: there is
a holy way of doing business, and, little as business men may
think it, that is the standard by which they must be tried; for
their judge in business affairs is not their own trade or
profession, but the man who came to convince the world concerning
right and wrong and the choice between them; or, in the older
speech-to reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment.
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