Thomas counselled Maurice to marry and produce some children.
“For damme if I do, my boy! The old man must have lost his faculties to expect a Jettan to live in this hole! I tell ye flat, Maurice, I’ll not have the place. ’Tis you who are the elder, and you must assume the—the responsibilities!” At that he fell a-chuckling, for he was an irrepressible scamp.
“Certainly I shall live here,” answered Maurice. “Three months here, and nine months—not here. What’s to stop me?”
“Does the will allow it?” asked Tom doubtfully.
“It does not forbid it. And I shall get me a wife.”
At that Tom burst out laughing, but checked himself hurriedly as he met his brother’s reproving eye.
“God save us, and the old gentleman but three days dead! Not that I meant any disrespect, y’know. Faith, the old man ’ud be the first to laugh with me, stap me if he wouldn’t!” He stifled another laugh, and shrugged his shoulders. “Or he would before he went crazy-pious over this devilish great barn of a house. You’ll never have the money to keep it, Maurry,” he added cheerfully, “let alone a wife.”
Maurice twirled his eyeglass, frowning.
“My father has left even more than I expected,” he said.
“Oh ay! But it’ll be gone after a week’s play! God ha’ mercy, Maurry, do ye hope to husband it?”
“Nay, I hope to husband a wife. The rest I’ll leave to her.”
Tom came heavily to his feet. He stared at his brother, round-eyed.
“Blister me, but I believe the place is turning you like the old gentleman! Now, Maurry, Maurry, stiffen your back, man!”
Maurice smiled.
“It’ll take more than the Pride to reform me, Tom. I’m thinking that the place is too good to sell or throw away.”
“If I could lay my hand on two thousand guineas,” said Tom, “anyone could have the Pride for me!”
Maurice looked up quickly.
“Why, Tom, all I’ve got’s yours, you know very well! Take what you want—two thousand or twenty.”
“Devilish good of you, Maurry, but I’ll not sponge on you yet. No, don’t start to argue with me, for my head’s not strong enough what with one thing and another. Tell me more of this wife of yours. Who is it to be?”
“I haven’t decided,” replied Maurice. He yawned slightly. “There are so many to choose from.”
“Ay—you’re an attractive devil—’pon my word you are! What d’ye say to Lucy Farmer?”
Maurice shuddered.
“Spare me. I had thought of Marianne Tempest.”
“What, old Castlehill’s daughter? She’d kill you in a month, lad.”
“But she is not—dowerless.”
“No. But think of it, Maurry! Think of it! A shrew at twenty!”
“Then what do you think of Jane Butterfield?”
Thomas pulled at his lip, irresolute.
“I’m not decrying the girl, Maurice, but Lord! could you live with her?”
“I’ve not essayed it,” answered Maurice.
“No, and marriage is so damned final! ’Tisn’t as though ye could live together for a month or so before ye made up your minds. I doubt the girl would not consent to that.”
“And if she did consent, one would not desire to wed her,” remarked Maurice. “A pity. No, I believe I could not live with Jane.”
Thomas sat down again.
“The truth of it is, Maurry, we Jettans must marry for love. There’s not one of us ever married without it, whether for money or no.”
“ ’Tis so unfashionable,” objected Maurice. “One marries for convenience. One may have fifty different loves.”
“What! All at once? I think you’d find that a trifle inconvenient, Maurry! Lord! just fancy fifty loves, oh, the devil! And three’s enough to drive one crazed, bruise me if ’tis not.”
Maurice’s thin lips twitched responsively.
“Gad no! Fifty loves spread over a lifetime, and you’re not bound to one of them. There’s bliss, Tom, you rogue!”
Thomas shook a wise finger at him, his plump, good-humoured face solemn all at once.
“And not one of them’s the true love, Maurry. For if she were, faith, she’d not be one of fifty! Now, you take my advice, lad, and wait. Damme, we’ll not spoil the family record!
“A rakish youth, says the Jettan adage,
Marriage for love, and a staid old age.
“I don’t know that it’s true about the staid old age, though. Maybe ’tis only those who wed for love who acquire virtue. Anyway, you’ll not break the second maxim, Maurry.”
“Oh?” smiled Maurice. “What’s to prevent me?”
Thomas had risen again. Now he slipped his arm in his brother’s.
“If it comes to prevention, old sobersides, I’m game. I’ll make an uproar in the church and carry off the bride. Gad, but ’twould be amusing! Carry off one’s brother’s bride, under his stern nose. Devil take it, Maurry, that’s just what your nose is! I never thought on’t before—stern, grim, old—now, steady, Tom, my boy, or you’ll be laughing again with the old gentleman not yet underground!”
Maurice waited for his brother’s mirth to abate.
“But, Tom, ’tis very well for you to counsel me not to wed without love! I must marry, for ’tis certain you’ll not, and we must have heirs. What’s to be done, I’d like to know?”
“Wait, lad, wait! You’re not so old that you can’t afford to hold back yet awhile.”
“I’m thirty-five, Tom.”
“Then you have fifteen years to run before you need settle down. Take my advice, and wait!”
The end of it was that Maurice did wait. For four years he continued to rove through Europe, amusing himself in the usual way of gentlemen of his day, but in 1729 he wrote a long letter from Paris to his brother in London, declaring himself in love, and the lady an angel of goodness, sweetness, amiability, and affection. He said much more in this vein, all of which Tom had to read, yawning and chuckling by turns. The lady was one Maria Marchant. She brought with her a fair dowry and a placid disposition. So Tom wrote off to Maurice at once, congratulating him, and bestowing his blessing on
