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AYALA’S ANGEL
the magistrate. There had been half-an-hour, he said, in which
he had hung dubious between this world and the next, so great
had been the violence of the blow, and so deadly its direction!
The magistrate was one of those just men who find a pleasure and a duty in protecting the police of the metropolis.
It was no case, he declared, for a fine. What would be a fine to
such a one as Thomas Tringle, junior! And Tom, — Tom Tringle, the only son of Sir Thomas Tringle, the senior partner in
the great house of Travers and Treason, — was ignominiously
locked up for a week. Faddle, who had not struck the blow, was
allowed to depart with a fine and a warning. Oh, Ayala, Ayala,
this was thy doing!
When the sentence was known Sir Thomas used all his influence to extricate his unfortunate son, but in vain. Tom went
through his penalty, and, having no help from champagne,
doubtless had a bad time of it. Ayala, Stubbs, the policeman,
and the magistrate, seemed to have conspired to destroy him.
But the week at last dragged itself out, and then Tom found
himself confronted with his father in the back-parlour of
the house in Queen’s Gate. “Tom,” he said, “this is very bad!”
“It is bad, Sir,” said Tom.
“You have disgraced me, and your mother, and yourself.
You have disgraced Travers and Treason!” Poor Tom shook
his head. “It will be necessary, I fear, that you should leave
the house altogether.” Tom stood silent without a word.
“A young man who has been locked up in prison for a week
for maltreating a policeman can hardly expect to be entrusted with such concerns as those of Travers and Treason. I and
your poor mother cannot get rid of you and the disgrace which
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
you have entailed upon us. Travers and Treason can easily get
rid of you.” Tom knew very well that his father was, in fact,
Travers and Treason, but he did not yet feel that an opportunity had come in which he could wisely speak a word. “What
have you got to say for yourself, Sir?” demanded Sir Thomas.
“Of course, I’m very sorry,” muttered Tom.
“Sorry, Tom! A young man holding your position in Travers and Treason ought not to have to be sorry for having been
locked up in prison for a week for maltreating a policeman!
What do you think must be done, yourself?”
“The man had been hauling me about in the street.”
“You were drunk, no doubt.”
“I had been drinking. I am not going to tell a lie about it.
But he needn’t have done as he did. Faddle knows that, and
can tell you.”
“What can have driven you to associate with such a young
man as Faddle? That is the worst part of it. Do you know what
Faddle and Company are, — stock jobbers, who ten years ago
hadn’t a thousand pounds in the way of capital among them!
They’ve been connected with a dozen companies, none of
which are floating now, and have made money out of them
all! Do you think that Travers and Treason will accept a young
man as a partner who associates with such people as that?”
“I have seen old Faddle’s name and yours on the same prospectus together, Sir.”
“What has that to do with it? You never saw him inside
our counter. What a name to appear along with yours in such
an affair as this! If it hadn’t been for that, you might have got
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AYALA’S ANGEL
over it. Young men will be young men. Faddle! I think you will
have to go abroad for a time, till it has been forgotten.”
“I should like to stay, just at present, Sir,” said Tom.
“What good can you do?”
“All the same, I should like to stay, Sir.”
“I was thinking that, if you were to take a tour through
the United States, go across to San Francisco, then up to Japan,
and from thence through some of the Chinese cities down to
Calcutta and Bombay, you might come back by the Euphrates
Valley to Constantinople, see something of Bulgaria and those
countries, and so home by Vienna and Paris. The Euphrates
Valley Railway will be finished by that time, perhaps, and
Bulgaria will be as settled as Hertfordshire. You’d see something of the world, and I could let it be understood that you
were travelling on behalf of Travers and Treason. By the time
that you were back, people in the City would have forgotten
the policeman, and if you could manage to write home three
or four letters about our trade with Japan and China, they
would be willing to forget Faddle.”
“But, Sir — “
“Shouldn’t you like a tour of that kind?”
“Very much indeed, Sir; — only — “
“Only what, Tom?”
“Ayala!” said Tom, hardly able to suppress a sob as he uttered the fatal name.
“Tom, don’t be a fool. You can’t make a young woman have
you if she doesn’t choose. I have done all that I could for you,
because I saw that you’d set your heart upon it. I went to her
myself, and then I gave two hundred and fifty pounds for that
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
bauble. I am told I shall have to lose a third of the sum in getting rid of it.”
“Ricolay told me that he’d take it back at two hundred and
twenty,” said Tom, whose mind, prostrate as it was, was still
alive to consideration of profit and loss.
“Never mind that for the present,” said Sir Thomas. “Don’t
you remember the old song? — ‘If she will, she will, you may
depend on’t. And if she won’t she won’t; and there’s an end
on’t.’ You ought to be a man and pluck up your spirits. Are
you going to allow a little girl to knock you about in that
way?” Tom only shook his head, and looked as if he was very
ill. In truth, the champagne, and the imprisonment, and Ayala
together, had altogether altered his appearance. “We’ve done
what we could about it, and now it is time to give it over. Let
me hear you say that you will give it over.” Tom stood speechless before his father. “Speak the word, and the thing will be
done,” continued Sir Thomas, endeavouring to encourage
the young man.
“I can’t,” said Tom, sighing.
“Nonsense!”
“I have tried, and I can’t.”
“Tom, do you mean to say that you are going to lose
everything because a chit of a girl like that turns up her
nose at you?”
“It’s no use my going while things are like this,” said Tom.
“If I were to get to New York, I should come back by the next
ship. As for letters about business, I couldn’t settle my mind to
anything of the kind.”
“Then you’re not the man I took you to be,” said the father.
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AYALA’S ANGEL
“I could be man enough,” said Tom, clenching his fist, “if
I could get hold of Colonel Stubbs.”
“Colonel who?”
“Stubbs! Jonathan Stubbs! I know what I’m talking about.
I’m not going to America, nor China, nor anything else, till
I’ve polished him off. It’s all very well your abusing me, but
you don’t know what it is I have suffered. As for being called
a man I don’t care about it. What I should like best would
be to get Ayala on one side and Stubbs on the other, and then
all three to go off the Duke of York’s Column together. It’s
no good talking about Travers and Treason. I don’t care for
Travers and Treason as I am now. If you’ll get Ayala to say
that she’ll have me, I’ll go to the shop every morning at eight
and stay till nine; and as for the Mountaineers it may all go to
the d — — for me.” Then he rushed out of the room, banging
the door after him.
Sir Thomas, when he was thus left, stood for awhile with his
hands in his trousers’ pockets, contemplating the condition of
his son. It was wonderful to him that a boy of his should be afflicted in this manner. When he had been struck by the juvenile
beauties of Emmeline Dosett he had at once asked the young
lady to share his fortunes with him, and the young lady had
speedily acceded to his request. Then he had been married,
and that was all he had ever known of the troubles of love.
He could not but think, looking back at it as he did now from
a distance, that had Emmeline been hard-hearted he would
have endured the repulse and have passed on speedily to some
other charmer. But Tom had been wounded after a fashion
which seemed to him to have been very uncommon. It might
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
be possible that he should recover in time, but while undergoing recovery he would be ruined; — so great were the young
man’s sufferings! Now Sir Thomas, though he had spoken to
Tom with all the severity which he had been able to assume,
though he had abused Faddle, and had vindicated the injured
dignity of Travers and Treason with all his eloquence; though
he had told Tom it was unmanly to give way to his love, yet, of
living creatures, Tom was at this moment the dearest to his
heart. He had never for an instant entertained the idea of expelling Tom from Travers and Treason because of the policeman, or because of Faddle. What should he do for the poor boy
now? Was there any argument, any means of persuasion, by
which he could induce that foolish little girl to accept all
the good things which he was ready to do for her? Could he
try yet once again himself, with any chance of success?
Thinking of all this, he stood there for an hour alone with
his hands in his trousers’ pockets.
CHAPTER XXXIII
ISADORE HAMEL IN LOMBARD
STREET
In following the results of Tom’s presentation of the necklace we have got beyond the period which our story is presumed to have reached. Tom was in durance during the Christmas week, but we must go back to the promise which had been
made by her uncle, Sir Thomas, to Lucy about six weeks before
that time. The promise had extended only to an undertaking on the part of Sir Thomas to see Isadore Hamel if he would
call at the house in Lombard Street at a certain hour on a certain
day. Lucy was overwhelmed with gratitude when the promise
was made. A few moments previously she had been indignant
because her uncle had appeared to speak of her and her lover
as two beggars, — but Sir Thomas had explained and in some
sort apologised, and then had come the promise which to Lucy
seemed to contain an assurance of effectual aid. Sir Thomas
would not have asked to see the lover had he intended to be
hostile to the lover. Something would be done to solve the difficulty which had seemed to Lucy to be so grave. She would not
any longer be made to think that she should give up either her
lover or her home under her uncle’s roof. This had been terribly distressing to her because she had been well aware that on
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
leaving her uncle’s house she could be taken in only by her
lover, to whom an immediate marriage would be ruinous. And
yet she could not undertake to give up her lover. Therefore
her uncle’s promise had made her very happy, and she forgave
the ungenerous allusion to the two beggars.
The letter was written to Isadore in high spirits. “I do
not know what Uncle Tom intends, but he means to be kind.
Of course you must go to him, and if I were you I would tell
him everything about everything. He is not strict and hard like
Aunt Emmeline. She means to be good too, but she is sometimes
so very hard. I am happier now because I think something will
be done to relieve you from the terrible weight which I am to
you. I sometimes wish that you had never come to me in Kensington Gardens, because I have become such a burden to you.”
There was much more in which Lucy no doubt went on to
declare that, burden as she was, she intended to be persistent.
Hamel, when he received this letter, was resolved to keep
the appointment made for him, but his hopes were not very
high. He had been angry with Lady Tringle, — in the first
place, because of her treatment of himself at Glenbogie, and
then much more strongly, because she had been cruel to Lucy.
Nor did he conceive himself to be under any strong debt of
gratitude to Sir Thomas, though he had been invited to lunch.
He was aware that the Tringles had despised him, and he repaid the compliment with all his heart by despising the Tringles. They were to him samples of the sort of people which he
thought to be of all the most despicable. They were not only
vulgar and rich, but purse-proud and conceited as well. To his
thinking there was nothing of which such people were enti-
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tled to be proud. Of course they make money, — money out of
money, an employment which he regarded as vile, — creating
nothing either useful or beautiful. To create something useful
was, to his thinking, very good. To create something beautiful was almost divine. To manipulate millions till they should
breed other millions was the meanest occupation for a life’s
energy. It was thus, I fear, that Mr. Hamel looked at the business carried on in Lombard Street, being as yet very young in
the world and seeing many things with distorted eyes.
He was aware that some plan would be proposed to him
which might probably accelerate his marriage, but was aware
also that he would be very unwilling to take advice from Sir
Thomas. Sir Thomas, no doubt, would be coarse and rough,
and might perhaps offer him pecuniary assistance in a manner
which would make it impossible for him to accept it. He had
told himself a score of times that, poor as he was, he did not
want any of the Tringle money. His father’s arbitrary conduct towards him had caused him great misery. He had been
brought up in luxury, and had felt it hard enough to be deprived of his father’s means because he would not abandon
the mode of life that was congenial to him. But having been
thus, as it were, cast off by his father, he had resolved that it
behoved him to depend only on himself. In the matter of his
love he was specially prone to be indignant and independent.
No one had a right to dictate to him, and he would follow
the dictation of none. To Lucy alone did he acknowledge any
debt, and to her he owed everything. But even for her sake he
could not condescend to accept Sir Thomas’s money, and with
his money his advice. Lucy had begged him in her letter to tell
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
everything to her uncle. He would tell Sir Thomas everything
as to his income, his prospects, and his intentions, because Sir
Thomas as Lucy’s uncle would be entitled to such information.
But he thought it very improbable that he should accept any
counsel from Sir Thomas.
Such being the condition of Hamel’s mind it was to be
feared that but little good would come from his visit to Lombard Street. Lucy had simply thought that her uncle, out of his
enormous stores, would provide an adequate income. Hamel
thought that Sir Thomas, out of his enormous impudence,
would desire to dictate everything. Sir Thomas was, in truth,
anxious to be good-natured, and to do a kindness to his niece;
but was not willing to give his money without being sure that
he was putting it into good hands.
“Oh, you’re Hamel,” said a young man to him, speaking to
him across the counter in the Lombard Street office. This was
Tom, who, as the reader will remember, had not yet got into
his trouble on account of the policeman.
Tom and Hamel had never met but once before, for a few
moments in the Coliseum at Rome, and the artist, not remembering him, did not know by whom he was accosted in this
familiar manner. “That is my name, Sir,” said Hamel. “Here is
my card. Perhaps you will do me the kindness to take it to Sir
Thomas Tringle.”
“All right, old fellow; I know all about it. He has got Puxley with him from the Bank of England just at this moment.
Come through into this room. He’ll soon have polished off
old Puxley.” Tom was no more to Hamel than any other clerk,
and he felt himself to be aggrieved; but he followed Tom into
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