But before they crossed the threshold they were intercepted. Miss
Peacock, her plumage ruffled, and that which the Squire was wont to
call her “clack” working at high pressure, met them at the door. “Bless
me, sir, here’s a visitor,” she proclaimed, “at this hour! And won’t
take any denial, but will see you, whether or no. Though I told Jane to
tell him——”
“Who is it?”
“Goodness knows, but it’s not my fault, sir! I told Jane—but Jane’s
that feather-headed, like all of them, she never listens, and let him
in, and he’s in the dining-parlor. All she could say, the silly wench,
was, it was something about the bank—great goggle-eyes as she is! And
of course there’s no one in the way when they’re wanted. Calamy with
you, and Josina traipsing out, feeding her turkeys. And Jane says the
man’s got a portmanteau with him as if he’s come to stay. Goodness
knows, there’s no bed aired, and I’m sure I should have been told if——”
“Peace, woman!” said the Squire. “Did he ask to see me, or——” with an
effort, “my nephew?”
“Oh, you, sir! Leastwise that’s what Jane said, but she’s no more head
than a goose! To let him in when she knows that you’re hardly out of
your bed, and can’t see every Jack Harry that comes!”
“I’ll see him,” the Squire said heavily. He bade Calamy take him in.
“But you’ll take your egg-flip, Mr. Griffin? Before you——”
“Don’t clack, woman, don’t clack!” cried the Squire, and made a blow at
her with his stick, but with no intention of reaching her. “Begone!
Begone!”
“But, dear sir, the doctor! You know he said”
“D—n you, I’ll not take it! D’you hear? I’ll not take it! Get out!” And
he went on through the house, the tap of his stick on the stone flags
going before him and announcing his coming. Half-way along the passage
he paused. “Did she say,” he asked, lowering his voice, “that he came
from the bank?”
“Ay, ay,” Calamy said. “And like enough. Ill news has many feet. Rides
apace and needs no spurs. But if your honor will let me see him, I’ll
sort him! I’ll sort him, I’ll warrant! One’d think,” grumbling, “they’d
more sense than to come here about their dirty business as if we were
the bank!” The man was surprised that his master took the matter with
any patience, for, to him, with all the prejudices of the class he
served, it seemed the height of impertinence to come to Garth about
such business. “Let me see him, your honor, and ask what he wants,” he
urged.
But the Squire ruled otherwise. “No,” he said wearily, “I’ll see him.”
And he went in.
The front door stood open. “There’s a po-chay, right enough,” Calamy
informed him. “And luggage. Seems to ha’ come some way, too.”
“Umph! Take me in. And tell me who it is. Then go.”
The butler opened the door, and guided the old man into the room. A
glance informed him who the visitor was, but he continued to give all
his attention to his master, in this way subtly conveying to the
stranger that he was of so little importance as to be invisible. Nor
until the Squire had reached the table and set his hand on it did
Calamy open his mouth. Then, “It’s Mr. Ovington,” he announced.
“Mr. Ovington?”
“Ay, the young gentleman.”
“Ah!” The old man stood a moment, his hand on the table. Then, “Put me
in my chair,” he said. “And go. Shut the door.”
And when the man had done so, “Well!” heavily, “what have you come to
say? But you’d best sit. Sit down! So you didn’t go to London? Thought
better of it, eh, young man? Ay, I know! Talked to your father and saw
things differently? And now you’ve come to give me another dose of fine
words to keep me quiet till the shutters go up? And if the worst comes
to the worst, your father’s told you, I suppose, that I can’t
prosecute—family name, eh? That’s what you’ve come for, I suppose?”
“No, sir,” Clement answered soberly. “I’ve not come for that. And my
father——”
The Squire struck his stick on the floor. “I don’t want to hear from
him!” he cried with violence. “I want no message from him, d’you hear?
I’m not come down to that! And as for your excuses, young gentleman——”
“I am not come with any excuses,” Clement answered, restraining himself
with difficulty—but after all the old man had had provocation enough to
justify many hard words, and he was blind besides. As he sat there,
glaring sightlessly before him, his hands on his stick, he was a
pathetic figure in his anger and helplessness. “I’ve been to town, as I
said I would.”
The Squire was silent for some seconds. “And come back?” he exclaimed.
“Well, yes, sir,” with a smile. “I’m here.”
“Umph? How did you do it?”
“I posted up and came down as far as Birmingham by the Bull and Mouth
coach. I posted on this morning.”
“Well, you’ve been devilish quick!” The Squire admitted it reluctantly.
He hardly knew whether to believe the tale or not. “You didn’t wait
long there, that’s certain. And did as little, I suppose. Bank’s going,
I hear?”
“I hope not.”
“Pooh!” the Squire said impatiently. “You may speak out! Speak out,
man! There is no one here.”
“There’s some danger, I’m afraid.”
“Danger! I should think there was! More than danger, as I hear!” The
Squire drummed for a moment with his fingers on the table. He was
thinking not of the bank, or even of his loss, but of his nephew and
the scandal that would not pass by him. But he would not refer to
Arthur, and after a pause, “Well,” with an angry snort, “if that’s all
you’ve come to tell me, you might have spared yourself—and me. I cannot
say that your company’s very welcome, so if you please, we’ll dispense
with compliments. If that’s all——”
“But that’s not all, sir,” Clement interposed. “I wish I could have
brought back the securities, or even the whole of the money.”
The Squire laughed. “No doubt,” he said.
“But I was too late to ensure that. The stock had already been
transferred.”
“So he was quick, too!”
“And selling for cash in the middle of such a crisis he had to accept a
loss of seven per cent. on the current price. But he suggests that if
you reinvest immediately, a half, at least, of this may be recovered,
and the eventual loss need not be more than three or four hundred. I
ought perhaps to have stayed in town to effect this, but I had to think
of my father, who was alone at the bank. However, I did what I could,
sir, and——”
Clement paused; the Squire had uttered an exclamation which he did not
catch. The old man turned a little in his chair so as to face the
speaker. “Eh?” he said. “Do you mean that you’ve got any of the
money—here?”
“I’ve eleven thousand and a bit over,” Clement explained. “Five
thousand in gold and the rest——”
“What?”
“Sir?”
“Do you mean”—the Squire spoke haltingly, after a pause—he did not seem
to be able to find the right words. “Do you mean that you’ve brought
back the money?”
“Not all. What I’ve told you, sir. There’s six thousand and odd in
notes. The gold is in two bags in the chaise.”
“Here?”
“At the door, sir. I’ll bring it in.”
“Ay,” said the Squire passively. “Bring it in.”
Clement went out and returned, carrying in two small leather bags. He
set them down at the Squire’s feet “There’s the gold, sir,” he said.
“I’ve not counted it, but I’ve no doubt that it is right. It weighs a
little short of a hundred pounds.”
The old man felt the bags, then, standing up, he lifted them in turn a
few inches from the floor. “What does a thousand pounds weigh?” he
asked.
“Between eighteen and nineteen pounds, sir.”
“And the notes?”
“I have them here.” Clement drew a thick packet from the pocket of his
inner vest and put it into the Squire’s hands. “They’re Bank of England
paper. They were short even at the bank, and wanted Bourdillon to take
it in one-pound notes, but he stood out and got these in the end.”
The Squire handled the packet, felt its thickness, weighed it lovingly
in his hand. So much money, so much money in so small a space! Six
thousand and odd pounds! It seemed as if he could not let it go, but in
the end he placed it in the breast pocket of his high-collared old
coat, the shabby blue coat with the large gilt buttons that was his
common wear at home. The money secured, he sat, looking before him,
while Clement, a little mortified, waited for the word of
acknowledgment that did not come. At last, “Did you call at your
father’s?” the old man asked—irrelevantly, it seemed.
Clement colored. He had not expected the question. “Well, I did, sir,”
he admitted. “Bourdillon——”
“He was with you?”
“As far as the town. He was anxious that the money should be seen to
arrive. He thought that it might check the run, and I agreed that it
might do some good, and that we might make that advantage of it. So I
took it through the bank.”
“Pretty full, I expect, eh? Pretty full?”
“Well,” ruefully, “it was, sir.”
“A strong run, eh?”
“I’m afraid so. It looked like it. It was full to the doors. That’s
why,” glancing at his watch as he stood by the window, the table
between him and the Squire, “I must get back to my father. We took it
through the bank and out by the garden, and put it in the chaise again
in Roushill.”
“Umph! He came back to town with you?”
“Bourdillon, sir? Yes—as far as the East Bridge. He left me there.”
“Where is he?”
Clement hesitated. “I hope that he’s gone to the bank, sir,” he said.
He did not add, as he might have, that, after Arthur and he had left
the coach at Birmingham and posted on, there had been a passionate
scene between them. No doubt Arthur had never given up hope, but from
the first had determined to make another fight for it; and there was no
police officer at their elbows now. He had appealed to Clement by all
that he loved to take the money to the bank, and there to deal with it
as his father should decide. Finding Clement firm and his appeals
useless, he had given way to passion, he had stormed and threatened and
even shed tears; and at last, seizing the pistol case that lay at their
feet, he had sworn that he would shoot himself before the other’s eyes
if he did not give way. In his rage he had seemed to be capable of
anything, and there had been a struggle for the pistol, blows had been
exchanged, and worse might have come of it if the noise of the fracas
had not reached the postboy’s ears. He had pulled up, turned in his
saddle, and asked what the devil they would be at; he would have no
murder in his master’s carriage.
That had shamed them. Arthur had given way, had flung himself back,
white and sullen, in his corner, and they had continued the journey on
such terms as may be imagined. But even so, Arthur had proved his
singular power of adaptation. The environs of the town in sight, he had
suggested that at least they should take the money through the bank.
Clement, anxious to make peace, had consented to that, and on the East
Bridge Arthur had called on the postboy to stop, had jumped out, and,
turning his back on his companion, had made off without a word.
Clement said nothing of this to the Squire, though the scene had been
painful, and though he felt that something was due to him, were it but
a word of thanks, or an expression of acknowledgment. It had not been
his fault or his father’s, that the money had been taken; it was
through him that the greater part of it had been recovered, and now
reposed safe in the Squire’s pocket or in the bags at his feet.
At the least, it seemed to him, the old man might remember that his
father was alone and needing him—was facing trouble, and, it might be,
ruin. He took up his hat. “Well, sir, that’s all,” he said curtly. “I
must go now.”
“Wait!” said the Squire. “And ring the bell, if you please.”
Clement stepped to the hearth, and pulled the faded drab cord, which
once had been blue, that hung near it. The bell in the passage had
hardly tinkled before Calamy entered. “Bid your mistress come here,”
said the old man. “Where is she? Fetch her?”
The blood mounted to Clement’s face, and his pulses began to throb, his
ideas to tumble over one another. The old man, who sat before him, his
hands on his stick, stubbornly confronting the darkness, the old man,
whom he had thought insensible, took on another hue, became instead
inscrutable, puzzling, perplexing. Why had he sent for his daughter?
What was in his mind? What was he going to say? What had he—but even
while Clement wondered, his thoughts in a whirl, strange hopes jostling
one another in his brain, the door opened, and Josina came in.
She came in with a timid step, but as soon as her eyes met Clement’s,
the color rose vividly to her cheeks, then left her pale. Her lip
trembled. But her look—fleeting as it was and immediately diverted to
her father—how he blessed her for that look! For it bade him take
confidence, it bade him have no fear, it bade him trust her. Silently
and incredibly, it took him under her protection, it pledged her faith
to him.
And how it changed all for him! How it quelled, in a moment, the
disappointment and anger he was feeling, ay, and even the vague hopes
which the Squire’s action in summoning her had roused in him! How it
gave calmness and assurance where his aspirations had been at best to
the extravagant and the impossible.
But, whatever his feelings, to whatever lover’s heaven that look raised
him, he was speedily brought to earth again. The old man had proved
himself thankless; now, as if he were determined to show himself in the
worst light, he proceeded to prove himself suspicious. “Come here,
girl,” he said, “and count these notes.” Fumbling, he took the parcel
from his pocket and handed it to her. “Ha’ you got them? Then count
them! D’you hear, wench? Count them! And have a care to make no
mistake! Lay ’em in piles o’ ten. They are hundreds, are they?
Hundreds, eh?”
She untied the parcel, and brought all her faculties to bear on the
task, though her fingers trembled, and the color, rising and ebbing in
her cheeks, betrayed her consciousness that her lover’s eyes were upon
her. “Yes, sir, they are hundred-pound notes,” she said.
“All?”
“Yes, all, I think, sir.”
“Bank of England?” He poked at her skirts with his stick. “Bank of
England, eh? Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, so far as I can see.”
“Ay, ay. Well, count ’em! And mind what you are doing, girl!”
Clement did not know whether to smile or to be angry, but a moment
later he felt no bent towards either. For with a certain dignity, “I
ha’ been deceived once,” the Squire continued. “I ha’ signed once and
paid for it. I’m in the dark. But I don’t act i’ the dark again. If I
can’t trust my own flesh and blood, I’ll not trust strangers. No, no! I
don’t know as there’s any one I can trust.”
“I quite understand, sir,” Clement said—though it was the last thing he
had had it in his mind to say a moment earlier.
“I don’t mind whether you understand or not,” the Squire retorted. “Ha’
you done, girl?” after an interval of silence.
“Not quite, sir. I have five heaps of ten.”
“Well, well, get on. We are keeping the young man.”
He spoke as he would have spoken of any young man in a shop, and
Clement winced, and Josina knew that he winced and she reddened. But
she went on with her work. “There are sixty-one, sir,” she said. “That
makes——”
“Six thousand one hundred pounds. Ay, it’s right so far. Right so far.
And the gold”—he paused and seemed to be at a nonplus—“I’m afraid
’twould take too long to count it. Well, let it be. Get some paper and
write a receipt as I tell you.”
“There is no need, sir,” Clement ventured.
“There’s every need, young man. I’m doing business. Ha’ you got the
pen, girl? Then write as I tell you. ‘I, George Griffin of Garth, in
the County of Aldshire, acknowledge that I have this 16th day of
December 1825 received from Messrs. Ovington of Aldersbury, six
thousand one hundred pounds in Bank of England notes, and’—ha’ you got
that? Ha’ you got that?—‘two bags stated by them to contain five
thousand pounds in gold.’ Ha’ you got that down? Then show me the
place, and——”
But as she put the pen in his hand he let it drop. He sat back in his
chair. “Ay, he showed me the place before,” he muttered, his chin on
his breast. “It was he gave me the pen, then, girl. And how be I to
know? How be I to know?”
It came home to them—to them both. In his voice, his act, his attitude
was the pathos of blindness, its helplessness, its dependence, its
reliance on others—on the eyes, the hand, the honesty of others. The
girl leant over him. “Father,” she said, tears in her voice, “I
wouldn’t deceive you! You know I wouldn’t. I would never deceive you!”
“Ha’ you never deceived me? Wi’ that young man?” sternly.
“But——”
“Ay, you have! You have deceived me—with him.”
She could not defend herself, and, suppressing her sobs, “I will call
Calamy,” she said. “He can read. He shall count the notes.”
But he put out his hand and grasped her skirts. “No,” he said. “What’ll
I be the better? Give me the pen. If you deceive me in this, wench—what
matter if the notes be short or not, or what comes of it?”
“I would cut off my hand first!” she cried. “And Clement——”
“Eh?” He sat up sharply.
She was frightened, and she did not continue. “This is the place, sir,”
she said meekly.
“Here?”
“Yes, sir, where you are now.”
He wrote his name. “Dry it,” he said. “And ring the bell. And there,
give it to him. He wants to be off. Odds are the shutters’ll be up
afore he gets there. Calamy!” to the man who had appeared at the door,
“see this gentleman off, and be quick about it. He’s no time to lose.
And, hark you, come back to me when he’s gone. No, girl,” sternly, “you
stay here. I want you.”