“I am damned, if I do!” said Barty Burgess, rising up from his chair.
But before he had left the room he had agreed to consider the proposition. Miss Stanbury had of course known that any such suggestion coming from her without an adequate reason assigned, would have been mere idle wind. She was prepared with such adequate reason. If Mr. Burgess could see his way to make the proposed transfer of his share of the bank business, she, Miss Stanbury, would hand over to him, for his life, a certain proportion of the Burgess property which lay in the city, the income of which would exceed that drawn by him from the business. Would he, at his time of life, take that for doing nothing which he now got for working hard? That was the meaning of it. And then, too, as far as the portion of the property went—and it extended to the houses owned by Miss Stanbury on the bank side of the Close—it would belong altogether to Barty Burgess for his life. “It will simply be this, Mr. Burgess;—that Brooke will be your heir—as would be natural.”
“I don’t know that it would be at all natural,” said he. “I should prefer to choose my own heir.”
“No doubt, Mr. Burgess—in respect to your own property,” said Miss Stanbury.
At last he said that he would think of it, and consult his partner; and then he got up to take his leave. “For myself,” said Miss Stanbury, “I would wish that all animosities might be buried.”
“We can say that they are buried,” said the grim old man—“but nobody will believe us.”
“What matters—if we could believe it ourselves?”
“But suppose we didn’t. I don’t believe that much good can come from talking of such things, Miss Stanbury. You and I have grown too old to swear a friendship. I will think of this thing, and if I find that it can be made to suit without much difficulty, I will perhaps entertain it.” Then the interview was over, and old Barty made his way downstairs, and out of the house. He looked over to the tenements in the Close which were offered to him, every circumstance of each one of which he knew, and felt that he might do worse. Were he to leave the bank, he could not take his entire income with him, and it had been long said of him that he ought to leave it. The Croppers, who were his partners—and whom he had never loved—would be glad to welcome in his place one of the old family who would have money; and then the name would be perpetuated in Exeter, which, even to Barty Burgess, was something.
On that night the scheme was divulged to Dorothy, and she was in ecstasies. London had always sounded bleak and distant and terrible to her; and her heart had misgiven her at the idea of leaving her aunt. If only this thing might be arranged! When Brooke spoke the next morning of returning at once to his office, he was rebuked by both the ladies. What was the Ecclesiastical Commission Office to any of them, when matters of such importance were concerned? But Brooke would not be talked out of his prudence. He was very willing to be made a banker at Exeter, and to go to school again and learn banking business; but he would not throw up his occupation in London till he knew that there was another ready for him in the country. One day longer he spent in Exeter, and during that day he was more than once with his uncle. He saw also the Messrs. Cropper, and was considerably chilled by the manner in which they at first seemed to entertain the proposition. Indeed, for a couple of hours he thought that the scheme must be abandoned. It was pointed out to him that Mr. Barty Burgess’s life would probably be short, and that he—Barty—had but a small part of the business at his disposal. But gradually a way to terms was seen—not quite so simple as that which Miss Stanbury had suggested; and Brooke, when he left Exeter, did believe it possible that he, after all, might become the family representative in the old banking-house of the Burgesses.
“And how long will it take, Aunt Stanbury?” Dorothy asked.
“Don’t you be impatient, my dear.”
“I am not the least impatient; but of course I want to tell mamma and Priscilla. It will be so nice to live here and not go up to London. Are we to stay here—in this very house?”
“Have you not found out yet that Brooke will be likely to have an opinion of his own on such things?”
“But would you wish us to live here, aunt?”
“I hardly know, dear. I am a foolish old woman, and cannot say what I would wish. I cannot bear to be alone.”
“Of course we will stay with you.”
“And yet I should be jealous if I were not mistress of my own house.”
“Of course you will be mistress.”
“I believe, Dolly, that it would be better that I
