Chapter XVI: John Tincroft Still Under a Cloud

A LONG half-year after the events recorded in the foregoing chapter, John Tincroft received a visit from his lawyer.

"I am going to London to-morrow," he said.

"I hope you will have a pleasant journey," John responded.

"Well, yes, I hope so too. I think I shall," said Mr. Roundhand.

"If it is about my affairs—" John began.

"It is about your affairs. The cause comes on the day after to-morrow. That is, it is down for hearing then."

"You know," said John, hastily, "that I have wiped my hands of it long ago."

"Oh yes, I know; and you have left us poor lawyers to take our chances of victory or defeat at our own cost. Come now; what shall I pay you down for the Tincroft estate in nubibus?—win or lose."

John shook his head. "I never gamble," said he.

"And you are wise. Look here, Tincroft; since we last talked about this business, and that was a good while ago, some changes have been going on in the world."

"No doubt; but I don't see the papers now," said stolid John.

"You ought to see them. But I suppose you think that because the old Greeks and Romans did without newspapers you can do without them too. But you are wrong. By the way, you have heard of the Augean stables, no doubt?"

John thought he had—was sure he had.

"And of the labours of Hercules?"

"Yes," John had heard of them too—strange if he hadn't.

"Well, Hercules is come to life again, and has got a new broom, and our Augean stables are being swept out. But I am talking Greek to you, I suppose."

"Worse than Greek. I don't understand you a bit, Mr. Roundhand."

"Ah! You'll see. By the way, do you happen to know who is Lord Chancellor now?"

John did not know even that.

"I don't suppose you do. He is the new broom I was telling you of, and he is sweeping out the Augean stables—our Augean stables—with a vengeance. There will be nothing left for us lawyers to fatten on soon, they say. But it is an ill wind that blows no one any good; and you will be all the better for it—you'll see. You won't go with me to Westminster, I suppose?"

"I do not understand you, Mr. Roundhand," John reiterated; "only that you seem in high spirits," he added.

"And you are not so infected. Well, I'll go. You shall hear from me again soon."

"I am always pleased to see you, you know, Mr. Roundhand," said John.

"Ah! You'll have reason to say so this day week, perhaps. We shall see."

And so he departed, leaving Tincroft in a brown study. For John had lately become more addicted to brown studies than ever. And not altogether without reason. At any rate he had more than one source of disquietude. The first was in the unprofitable nature of his engagements. Do what he might, he had found that grinding mathematics and classics in boarding schools at so much an hour (with frequent gaps between), is about on a par with brickmaking. To supplement this occupation, he had lately tried his hand (as his father Josiah had done before him) at literary composition, but thus far had failed in making any impression on stony-hearted editors. So, if the truth must be told, he was more than ever under a cloud, for his small reserve fund was melting slowly away.

Next, our friend was under much concern regarding the health and comfort of the poor girl who was now his wife. He had conscientiously performed his promises, he had sought to make her happy; and he had found, if not happiness, yet a degree of quiet repose in this union, which perhaps compensated in some measure for the absence of more congenial companionship, which he might have found in a more intellectual and cultivated help-meet. I believe he was even proud of his young wife, and though her bloom was somewhat faded, John loved, as of yore, to sit by her side (not now on a knobby chair, though a cheap one) and contemplate the charms which had first enthralled him. Be this as it might, I know that he cherished her as a thing of price, and would not allow, so far as he could prevent, his own anxious cares for the future to disturb her mind.

And Sarah seemed grateful to her John, and desirous of pleasing him; very submissive, too, to his little whims, she would have been, I think, and very indulgent to his peculiarities, if there had been any need for submission and indulgence. But, notwithstanding all this, poor Sarah pined. She missed the fresh air and the freedom, perhaps, of her native place, and of High Beech Farm, with all its drawbacks. John had watchfully noticed this almost from the first; and now, of late, during the last six months—dating, let us say, from the evening of the fireworks—she had more manifestly fallen off in health and spirits, giving way sometimes to tears on very slight occasions, as John thought, which perplexed him mightily.

In truth, on looking back, John remembered that on that very evening just mentioned, on their return from the pyrotechnics, Sarah was suddenly seized with violent shakings and tremblings, which terminated in hysterics as soon as they reached their own little parlour. And he had reproached himself at the time, as he still did, for having kept his tender little wife too long standing on the damp ground and in the miasmatic air of the river-side meadow. Perhaps Tom Grigson could have better accounted for this sudden affection; but he was a good fellow, and he did not.

Another of Tincroft's worries was in the increasing necessity felt by his mother-in-law for those afternoon "lyings down" which used to excite his sympathy, as well as puzzle him, but the too obvious cause of which began slowly to dawn on John's unsuspicious and unimaginative mind.

With all these cares, however, John was not unhappy. To a considerable degree they were counteracted by the Mens conscia recti, which, at any rate, lightened his burden. Then his friend Grigson was constant.

And, lastly, if he wanted a little good solid talk, was not there his old friend Mrs. Elizabeth Barry, with her cheerful, old-fashioned piety (old-fashioned, I mean, in her way of expressing it), and her favourite hymn-book, of which John became at last positively enamoured. He was ever a welcome guest at the Barrys; and in virtue of his family relationship to the obese old lady, Sarah was admitted into her presence-chamber, not altogether without a beneficial effect. And this connection was advantageous in obtaining for Sarah the sometimes help and sometimes sympathy and sometimes cheering companionship of little Mrs. Barry the younger, when John was away on his professional engagements, or racking his brains (alas, in vain it seemed!) in a small closet about nine feet square, which he called his study.

But a change was impending; and to show how "great events from little causes spring" (am I right in my quotation?), his gracious Majesty of Great Britain and Ireland was little aware how he was helping of John Tincroft's fortunes when, on a certain trivial occasion, he changed his Cabinet Ministers, and, of necessity, appointed a new Lord Chancellor.

"Tincroft v. Tincroft.—This suit is at last ended in favour of the Sussex branch of the family. His lordship, in giving judgment, remarked that whatever doubts or uncertainties in relation to the legitimate heirship of John Tincroft, the claimant of that branch, might formerly have been entertained, had been entirely removed by the latest evidence produced in his favour." So the newspapers report.

"I congratulate you with all my heart," said Mr. Roundhand when next they met. "You won't be a rich man, you know; but there is the estate, such as it is, unencumbered; and though the funded property has been pretty considerably reduced, and may be more so before affairs are finally wound up, there will be something to patch up the old house with, and to give you a fixed income, if a small one."

"And I congratulate you too with a 'Hip, hip, hurrah!'" shouted Tom Grigson, who had come in with the lawyer. "And won't Dick be pleased? I tell you what, we must have another picnic for this, only it must be in the Tincroft grounds this time."

"It shall be as you please, Tom," said John, faintly, and with a bewildered air, for the news had come upon him suddenly and unexpectedly. He had never less believed in the breaking of the cloud under which he had lain all his life, notwithstanding all his lawyer had said, than at the very moment when, looking up, he saw that the cloud was gone.

On the whole, however, John Tincroft conducted himself with tolerable composure as soon as he clearly understood his altered circumstances.

"I am glad of it for Sarah's sake," he said. "Poor dear Sarah! She will rally now, I hope. It will be pleasant for her to live in the country again."

And so, after a while, they went to live in the country, John Tincroft and his Sarah, and Sarah's mother. And they had, instead of a picnic, what they called a "house-warming," at which were present Mr. Richard Grigson and his brother Tom, Mr. Rubric, Mr. Rackstraw, Mr. Roundhand, and his confidential clerk Mr. Foster, with sundry others. It took time to bring this about, however, for the old dilapidated house first had to be made habitable, and its grounds presentable to strangers. And after all, as the lawyer had predicted, Tincroft's means of keeping up appearances and entertaining visitors were limited within narrow bounds.

Great expectations were excited around Tincroft House, and in the not far-off town of Trotbury, when it was known that a real Tincroft—the Tincroft—was coming to enjoy his own again. Tradesmen of all degrees, from the showy upholsterer of Trotbury to the indispensable butcher, baker, and grocer of the immediate village, looked forward to an accession of custom, and left their cards at the door. The cards were graciously received; but little came of it. A family of three, living in a few rooms in a large mansion, the rest being shut up, was not likely to make the fortunes of many tradespeople. So they drew off disgusted, as their way too often is.

In truth it was a quiet recluse kind of life that John began to lead in his new home. He cultivated no friendships, and was soon dropped by the few wealthier neighbours who at first made some advances towards his acquaintance. In a short space of time, therefore, Tincroft House seemed to have returned almost to its former condition.

Nevertheless, this way of life suited John Tincroft perhaps better than any other would have done. He could study if and when he pleased. He could put pen to paper without caring much about the "declined with thanks" which had formerly damped his ardour; for if the editors would not print his lucubrations, he could read them in manuscript to his young wife, though poor Sarah was no wiser when he had done than she had been before; and this served his purpose. And, finally, he could cultivate his own cabbages and gather his own apples, and that privilege, he did not count as nothing.

At times, too, he received visitors. Now that he had obtained the estate, such as it was, his London relative, Mr. Rackstraw, found it pleasant enough to run down into the country for a few days in the autumn, under pretence Of shooting, when he took up free quarters at Tincroft House, and talked somewhat boastfully of the hand he had had in John's fortunes; or would have had if the dear fellow had gone out to India, as he had planned. John made him welcome enough; he would not have known how to do otherwise.

But more welcome guests were Richard and Tom Grigson, who, sometimes together and sometimes apart, periodically and for some years gave John the benefit and pleasure of their society. And on occasion of Tom's marriage to Kate Elliston of the Mumbles, a part of their honeymoon was spent at Tincroft House, the unused state apartments being prepared and hospitably thrown open to them for that auspicious occasion. But respecting this matrimonial event, we shall have something to tell in a future chapter.

Mr. Rubric also sometimes found his way to Tincroft House. And it is to be expressly stated that this gentleman, as well as those above mentioned, made themselves agreeable to Mrs. Tincroft by the respectful gallantry with which they treated her.

John would fain have extended his hospitality to excellent Mrs. Barry, to whom he was, on more than one account, indebted. But she laughingly declined the invitation.

"When I travel the country in a showman's van, as the fat woman of Oxford, I'll be sure to give you a call," said she; "but till then, I think you must come and see me sometimes, Mr. John."

Which he did.

Once the Tincrofts received an unexpected call from Ralph Burgess, out of the far north, whose professional engagements in connection with a projected railroad (for it was at the time when railroads began to be surveyed) carried him southward.

On this occasion, John was taken aside by his visitor.

"You have heard nothing of Walter Wilson of late, I suppose!"

"Nothing," said John, "except that he went to Australia soon after—not long after—"

"Not long after your marriage. True. You will not be sorry to hear that he is not doing badly out there, I hope?"

"Sorry!" Why should John be sorry? He was very glad, and so would Sarah be, when she heard it.

"But perhaps you will be surprised to hear that he is married?"

"Better news still," said John. "It makes me uncommonly happy to hear it."

And now, having made a sort of hero of one who became so without intending it, and in spite of himself, we here make our bow to John Tincroft, to bring him forward again after many years. Before taking this stride, however, it will be incumbent on us to leave him some little time to repose under his laurels, while we glance at the fortunes of two or more of the dramatis personæ of this history.