The tontine. If the reader only knew how important a share the tontine--with its results--holds in this little history, he would enter on it with interest.
Tontines may be of different arrangement. In fact they are so. This one was as follows. It had been instituted at Whitborough. Ten gentlemen put each an equal sum into a common fund, and invested the whole in the joint names of ten children all under a year old. This money was to accumulate at compound interest, until only one of these children should be living: the last survivor would then receive the whole of the money unconditionally.
Of these ten children whose names were inscribed on the parchment deed, Oliver Rane and Bessy North alone survived. Mr. North had been wont to call it an unlucky tontine, for its members had died off rapidly one after another. For several years only three had been left; and now one of them, George Massey, had followed in the wake of those who were gone. Under ordinary circumstances, the tontine would have excited no comment whatever, but have gone on smoothly to the end: that is, until one of the two survivors had collapsed. The other would have had the money paid him; and nothing would have been thought about it, except that he was a fortunate man.
But this case was exceptional. The two survivors were man and wife. For the good fortune to lapse to one of them, the other must die. It was certainly a curious position, and it excited a great deal of comment in the neighbourhood. Dallory, as prone to gossip as other places, made of it that oft-quoted thing, a nine-days\' wonder. In the general stagnation caused by the strike, people took up the tontine as a source of relief.
Practically the tontine was of no further use to the two remaining members: that is, to the two combined. They were one, so to say; and so long as they continued to be so, the money could not lapse to either. If Bessy died, Dr. Rane would take it; if Dr. Rane died, she would take it. Nothing more could be made of it than this. It had been accumulating now just one-and-thirty years; how much longer it would be left to accumulate none could foresee. For one-and-thirty years to come, in all human probability; for Dr. Rane and his wife appeared to possess sound and healthy constitutions. Nay, they might survive ten or twenty years beyond that, and yet not be very aged. And so, there it was; and Dallory made the matter its own, with unceremonious freedom.
But not as Dr. and Mrs. Rane did. They had need of money, and this huge sum--huge to them--lying at the very threshold of their door, but forbidden to enter, was more tantalizing than pen can describe. Richard North had not been far wrong in his computation: and the amount, as it stood at present, was considerably over two thousand pounds. The round sum, however, was sufficient to reckon by, without counting the odds and ends. Two thousand pounds! Two thousand pounds theirs of right, and yet they might not touch it because both of them were living!
How many hours they spent discussing the matter with each other could never be told. As soon as twilight came on, wherever they might be and whatever the occupation, the theme was sure to be drifted into. In the dining-room when it grew too dark for Dr. Rane to pursue his writing; in the drawing-room, into which Bessy would wile him, and sing to him one of her simple songs; walking together, arm within arm, in the garden paths, the stars in the summer sky above them, the waving trees round about them, the subject of the tontine would be taken up: the tontine; nothing but the tontine. No wonder that they grew to form plans of what they would do if the money were theirs: we all know how apt we are to let imagination run away with us, and to indulge visions that seem to become almost realities. Dr. Rane sketched a bright future, With two thousand pounds in hand, he could establish himself in a first-rate metropolitan locality, set up well, both professionally and socially; and there would be plenty of money for him and his wife to live upon whilst the practice was growing. Bessy entered into it all as eagerly as he. Having become accustomed to the idea of quitting Dallory, she never glanced at the possibility of remaining there. She thought his eager wish, his unalterable determination to leave it, was connected only with the interests of his profession; he knew that the dread of a certain possible discovery, ever haunting his conscience, made the place more intolerable to him day by day. At any cost he must get away from it: at any cost. There was a great happiness in these evening conversations, in the glowing hopes presented by plans and projects. But, where was the use of indulging in them, when the tontine money--the pivot on which all was to turn--could never be theirs? As often as this damping recollection brought them up with a check, Dr. Rane would fall into gloomy silence. Gradually, by the very force of thinking, he saw a way, or thought he saw a way, by which their hopes might be accomplished. And that was to induce the trustees to advance the money at once to him and his wife jointly.
Meanwhile the strike continued with unabated force. Not a man was at work; every one refused to do a stroke unless he could be paid for it what he thought right, and left off his daily labour! when he chose. One, might have supposed, by the independence of the demands, that the men were the masters, North and Gass the servants. Privation was beginning to reign, garments grow scanty, faces pale and pinched. There was not so much as a sixpence for superfluities: and under that head in troubled times must be classed the attendance of a medical man. It will readily be understood, therefore, that this state of affairs did not contribute to the income of Dr. Rane.
One day, Mr. North, sitting on the short green bench in front of his choicest carnation bed, found two loving hands put round his neck from behind. He had been three parts asleep, and woke up slightly bewildered.
"Bessy, child, is it you?"
It was Mrs. Rane. Her footfall on the grass had not been heard. She wore a cool print dress and a black silk mantle; and her plain straw bonnet looked charming, around the pretty falling curls. Bessy looked quiet and simple at all times: and always a lady.
"Did I startle you, papa?"
"No, my dear. When I felt the arms, I thought it was Mary Dallory. She comes upon me without warning sometimes. Here\'s room, Bessy."
She sat down beside him. It was a very hot morning, and Bessy unfastened the strings of her bonnet. There was a slight look of weariness on her face as if she were just a little worried with home cares. In truth she felt so: but all for Oliver\'s sake. If the money did not come in so freely as to make matters easy, she did not mind it for herself, but for him.
"Papa, I have come to talk to you," she began, laying one of her hands affectionately on his knee. "It is about the tontine money. Oliver thinks that it might be paid to us conjointly; that it ought to be."
"I know he does," replied Mr. North. "It can\'t be done, Bessy."
Her countenance fell a little. "Do you think not, papa?"
"I am sure not, child."
"Papa, I am here this morning to beg you to use your interest with Sir Thomas Ticknell. Oliver knows nothing about my coming. He said last night, when we were talking, that if you could be induced to throw your influence into the scale, the bank might listen to you. So I thought that I would come to you in the morning and ask."
"The bank won\'t listen to me, or to any one else, in this matter, Bessy. It\'s illegal to pay the tontine money over while two of you are living, and the Ticknells are too strict to risk it. I shouldn\'t do it myself in their places."
"What Oliver says is this, papa. The money must, in the course of events, come to either him or me, whichever of us survives the other. We have therefore an equal interest in it, and possess at present an equal chance of succeeding to it. No one else in the wide world, but our two selves, has the smallest claim to it, or ever can have. We are the only survivors of the ten; the rest are all dead. Why, then, should the trustees not stretch a point and let us have the money while it can be of use to us conjointly? Oliver says they ought to do it."
"I know he does," remarked Mr. North.
"Has Oliver spoken to you, papa?"
"No," said Mr. North. "I heard about it from Dick. Dick happened to be at the bank yesterday, and Thomas Ticknell mentioned to him that Dr. Rane had been urging this request upon them. Dick said Sir Thomas seemed quite horrified at the proposition; they had told Dr. Rane, in answer, that if they could consent to such a thing it would be no better than a fraud."
"So they did," replied Bessy. "When Oliver was relating it to me after he came home, he could not help laughing--in spite of his vexation. The money is virtually ours, so where would the fraud lie?"
"To be virtually yours is one thing, Bessy; to be legally yours is another. You young women can\'t be expected to understand business problems, my dear; but your husband understands them. Of course it would be a great boon to get the two thousand pounds whilst you are both together; but it would not be legal for the bankers to do it, and they are right in refusing it."
"Then--do you think there is no chance for us, papa?"
"Not the least chance, child."
A silence ensued. Mr. North sat watching his carnations, Bessy watching, with far-off gaze, the dark-blue summer sky. In spite of her father\'s opinion, she thought the brothers, Thomas and William Ticknell, unduly hard.
The Ticknells were the chief bankers of Whitborough. Upon the institution of the tontines, the two brothers, then in their early prime, had been made trustees to it, in conjunction with a gentleman named Wilson. In the course of time, Mr. Wilson died: and Thomas and William Ticknell grew into tolerably aged men; they wanted now not much of the allotted three score years and ten. The elder brother had gone up to court with some great local matter, and he came back Sir Thomas. These two gentlemen had full power over the funds of the tontine. They were straightforward, honourable men; of dispositions naturally cautious; and holding very strict opinions in business. Increasing years had not tended to lessen caution, or to soften strict tenets: and when Dr. Rane, soliciting a private interview with the brothers, presented himself before them with a proposition that they should pay over the tontine money to him and his wife conjointly, without waiting for the death of either, the few hairs remaining on the old gentlemen\'s white heads rose up on end.
Truly it had seemed to them, this singular application, as touching closely upon fraud. Dr. Rane argued the matter with them, putting it in the most feasible and favourable light: and it must be acknowledged that, to his mind, it appeared a thing not only that they might do, but that it would be perfectly right and honest to do. All in vain; they heard him with courtesy, but were harder than adamant. Richard North happened to go in upon some business soon after the conclusion of the interview, and the brothers--they were the bankers of North and Gass--told him confidentially of the application. Richard imparted it to his father: hence Mr. North heard Bessy without surprise.
Regarded from the narrow, legal point of view, of course the Messrs. Ticknell might be ............