"Master's in the garden feeding his fish," said the girl, as she
admitted Bayle. "I'll go and tell him you're here, sir."
"No; let me go to him," said Bayle quietly.
The girl led the way down a red-bricked floored passage, and opened a
door, through which the visitor passed, and then stood looking at the
scene before him.
There was not much garden, but James Thickens was proud of it, because
it was his own. It was only a strip, divided into two beds by a narrow
walk of red bricks--so many laid flat with others set on edge to keep
the earth from falling over, and sullying the well-scrubbed path, which
was so arranged by its master that the spigot of the rain-water butt
could be turned on now and then and a birch broom brought into
requisition to keep all clean.
Each bed was a mass of roses--dwarf roses that crept along the ground by
the path, and then others that grew taller till the red brick wall on
either side was reached, and this was clambered, surmounted, and almost
completely hidden by clusters of small blossoms. No other flower grew
in this patch of a garden; but, save in the very inclement weather,
there were always buds and blossoms to be picked, and James Thickens was
content.
From where Bayle stood he could just see Thickens at the hither side of
the great bricked and cemented tank that extended across the bottom of
his and the two adjoining gardens, while beyond was the steam-mill,
where Mawson the miller had introduced that great power to work his
machinery. He it was who had contrived the tank for some scheme in
connection with the mill, and had then made some other plan after
leading into it through a pipe the clear water of the dam on the other
side of the mill, and arranging a proper exit when it should be too
full. Then he had given it up as unnecessary, merely turning into it a
steam-pipe, to get rid of the waste, and finally had let it to Thickens
for his whim.
There was a certain prettiness about the place seen from the bank
clerk's rose garden. Facing you was the quaintly-built mill, one mass
of ivy from that point of view, while numberless strands ran riot along
the stone edge of the tank, and hung down to kiss the water with their
tips. To the left there was the great elder clump, that was a mass of
creamy bloom in summer, and of clustering black berries in autumn, till
the birds had cleared all off.
As Bayle stood looking down, he could see the bank clerk upon his knees,
bending over the edge of the pool, and holding his fingers in the water.
Every now and then he took a few crumbs of broken well-boiled rice from
a basin at his side, and scattered them over the pool, while, when he
had done this, he held the tips of his fingers in the water.
He was so intent upon his task, that he did not hear the visitor's
approach, so that when Bayle was close up, he could see the limpid water
glowing with the bright scales of the golden-orange fish that were
feeding eagerly in the soft evening light. Now quite a score of the
brilliant metallic creatures would be making at the crumbs of rice.
Then there would be as many--quite a little shoal--that were of a soft
pearly silver, while mingled with them were others that seemed laced
with sable velvet or purple bands.
The secret of the hand-dipping was plain too, for, as Thickens softly
placed his fingers to the surface, first one and then another would swim
up and seem to kiss the ends, taking therefrom some snack of rice, to
dart away directly with a flourish of the tail which set the water all a
ripple, and made it flash in the evening light.
Thickens was talking to his pets, calling them by many an endearing name
as they swam up, kissed his finger tips, and darted away, till, becoming
conscious of the presence of some one in the garden, he started to his
feet, but stooped quickly again to pick up the basin, dip a little
water, rinse out the vessel, and throw its contents far and wide.
"I did not hear you come, Mr Bayle," he said hastily.
"I ought to have spoken," replied the curate gravely. "How tame your
fishes are!"
"Yes, sir, yes. They've got to know people from being petted so. Dip
your fingers in the water and they'll come."
The visitor bent down and followed the example he had seen, with the
result that fish after fish swam up, touched a white finger tip with its
soft wet mouth, and then darted off.
"Strange pets, Mr Thickens, are they not?"
"Yes, sir, yes. But I like them," said Thickens with a droll sidewise
look at his visitor. "You see the water's always gently warmed from the
mill there, and that makes them thrive. They put one in mind of gold
and silver, sir, and the bank. And they're nice companions: they don't
talk."
He seemed then to have remembered something. A curious rigidity came
over him, and though his visitor was disposed to linger by the pool
where, in the evening light, the brightly-coloured fish glowed like
dropped flakes of the sunset, Thickens drew back for him to pass, and
then almost backed him into the house.
"Sit down, please, Mr Bayle," he said, rather huskily; and he placed a
chair for his visitor. "You got my note, then?"
"Yes, and I came on. You want my--"
"Help and advice, sir; that's it. I'm in a cleft stick, sir--fast."
"I am sorry," said Bayle earnestly, for Thickens paused. "Is it
anything serious?"
Thickens nodded, sat down astride a Windsor chair, holding tightly by
the curved back, and rested his upper teeth on the top, tapping the wood
gently.
Bayle waited a few moments for him to go on; but he only began rubbing
at the top of the chair back, and stared at his visitor.
"You say it is serious, Mr Thickens."
"Terribly, sir."
"Is it--is it a monetary question?"
Thickens raised his head, nodded, and lowered it again till his teeth
touched the chair back. "Some one in difficulties?"
Thickens nodded.
"Not you, Mr Thickens? You are too careful a man."
"No: not me, sir."
"Some friend?"
Thickens shook his head, and there was silence for a few moments, only
broken by the dull sound of the clerk's teeth upon the chair.
"Do you want me to advance some money to a person in distress?"
Thickens raised his head quickly, and looked sharply in his visitor's
eye; but only to lower his head again.
"No. No," he said.
"Then will you explain yourself?" said the curate gravely.
"Yes. Give me time. It's hard work. You don't know."
Bayle looked at him curiously, and waited for some minutes before
Thickens spoke again.
"Yes," he said suddenly and as if his words were the result of deep
thought; "yes, I'll tell you. I did think I wouldn't speak after all;
but it's right, and I will. I can trust you, Mr Bayle?"
"I hope so, Mr Thickens."
"Yes, I can trust you. I used to think you were too young and boyish,
but you're older much, and I didn't understand you then as I do now."
"I was very young when I first came, Mr Thickens," said Bayle smiling.
"It was almost presumption for me to undertake such a duty. Well, what
is your trouble?"
"Give me time, man; give me time," said Thickens fiercely. "You don't
know what it is to be in my place. I am a confidential clerk, and it is
like being torn up by the roots to have to speak as I want to speak."
"If it is a matter of confidence ought you to speak to me, Mr
Thickens?" said Bayle gravely. "Do I understand you to say it is a bank
matter?"
"That's it, sir."
"Then why not go to Mr Dixon?"
Thickens shook his head.
"Mr Trampleasure? or Sir Gordon Bourne?"
"They'll know soon enough," said Thickens grimly. A curious feeling of
horror came over Bayle, as he heard these words, the cold, damp dew
gathered on his brow, his hands felt moist, and his heart began to beat
heavily.
He could not have told why this was, only that a vague sense of some
terrible horror oppressed him. He felt that he was about to receive
some blow, and that he was weak, unnerved, and unprepared for the shock,
just when he required all his faculties to be at their strongest and
best.
And yet the clerk had said so little--nothing that could be considered
as leading up to the horror the hearer foresaw. All the same though,
Bayle's imagination seized upon the few scant words--those few dry bones
of utterance, clothed them with flesh, and made of them giants of terror
before whose presence he shook and felt cowed.
"Tell me," he said at last, and his voice sounded strange to him, "tell
me all."
There was another pause, and then Thickens, who looked singularly
troubled and grey, sat up.
"Yes," he said, "I'll tell you all. I can trust you, Mr Bayle. I
don't come to you because you are a priest, but because you are a man--a
gentleman who will help me, and I want to do what's right."
"I know--I believe you do, Thickens," said the curate huskily, and he
looked at him almost reproachfully, as if blaming him for the pain that
he was about to give.
He felt all this. He could not have explained why, but as plainly as if
he had been forewarned, he knew that some terrible blow was about to
fall.
Thickens sat staring straight before him now, gnawing hard at one of his
nails, and looking like a man having a hard struggle with himself.
It was a very plainly-furnished but pleasant little room, whose wide,
low window had a broad sill upon which some half-dozen flowers bloomed,
and just then, as the two men sat facing each other, the last glow of
evening lit up the curate's troubled face, and left that of Thickens
more and more in the shade.
"That's better," he said with a half laugh. "I wish I had left it till
it was dark. Look here, Mr Bayle, I've been in trouble these five
years past."
"You?"
"Yes, sir. I say it again: I've been in trouble these six or seven
years past, and it's been a trouble that began like a little cloud as
you'd say--no bigger than a man's hand; and it grew slowly bigger and
bigger, till it's got to be a great, thick, black darkness, covering
everything before the storm bursts."
"Don't talk riddles, man; speak out."
"Parables, Mr Bayle, sir, parables. Give me time, sir, give me time.
You don't know what it is to a man who has trained himself from a boy to
be close and keep secrets, to have to bring them out of himself and lay
them all bare."
"I'll be patient; but you are torturing me. Go on."
"I felt it would, and that's one of the things that's kept me back, sir;
but I'm going to speak now."
"Go on."
"Well, sir, a bank clerk is trained to be suspicious. Every new
customer who comes to the place is an object of suspicion to a man like
me. He may want to cheat us. Every cheque that's drawn is an object of
suspicion because it may be a forgery, or the drawer may not have a
balance to meet it. Then money--the number of bad coins I've detected,
sir, would fill a big chest full of sham gold and silver, so that one
grows to doubt and suspect every sovereign one handles. Then, sir,
there's men in general, and even your own people. It's a bad life, sir,
a bad life, a bank clerk's, for you grow at last so that you even begin
to doubt yourself."
"Ah! but that is a morbid feeling, Thickens."
"No, sir, it's a true one. I've had such a fight as you couldn't
believe, doubting myself and whether I was right: but I think I am."
"Well," said the curate, smiling a faint, dejected smile; "but you are
still keeping me in the dark."
"It will be light directly," said Thickens fiercely, "light that is
blinding. I dread almost to speak and let you hear."
"Go on, man; go on."
"I will, sir. Well, for years past I've been in doubt about our bank."
"Dixons', that every one trusts?"
"Yes, sir, that's it. Dixons' has been trusted by everybody. Dixons',
after a hundred years' trial, has grown to be looked upon as the truth
in commerce. It has been like a sort of money mill set going a hundred
years ago, and once set going it has gone on of itself, always grinding
coin."
"But you don't mean to tell me that the bank is unsafe? Man, man, it
means ruin to hundreds of our friends!"
He spoke in an impassioned way, but at the same time he felt more
himself; the vague horror had grown less.
"Hear me out, sir; hear me out," said Thickens slowly. "Years ago, sir,
I began to doubt, and then I doubted myself, and then I doubted again,
but even then I couldn't believe. Doubts are no use to a man like me,
sir; he must have figures, and figures I couldn't get to prove it, sir.
I must be able to balance a couple of pages, and then if the balance is
on the wrong side there's something to go upon. It has taken years to
get these figures, but I've got them now."
"Thickens, you are torturing me with this slow preamble."
"For a few minutes, sir," said the clerk pathetically, "for an hour. It
has tortured me for years. Listen, sir. I began to doubt--not Dixons'
stability, but something else."
The vague horror began to increase again, and Christie Bayle's hands
grew more damp.
"I have saved a little money, and that and my writings were in the bank.
I withdrew everything. Cowardly? Dishonest? Perhaps it was; but I
doubted, sir, and it was my little all. Then you'll say, if I had these
doubts I ought to have spoken. If I had been sure perhaps I might; but
I tell you, sir, they were doubts. I couldn't be false to my friends
though, and where here and there they've consulted me about their little
bits of money I've found out investments for them, or advised them to
buy house property. A clergyman for whom I changed a cheque one day,
said it would be convenient for him to have a little banking account
with Dixons', and I said if I had an account with a good bank in London
I wouldn't change it. Never change your banker, I said."
"Yes, Thickens, you did," said the curate eagerly, "and I have followed
your advice. But you are keeping me in suspense. Tell me, is there
risk of Dixons' having to close their doors?"
"No, no, sir; it's not so bad as that. Old Mr Dixon is very rich, and
he'd give his last penny to put things straight. Sir Gordon Bourne is
an honourable gentleman--one who would sacrifice his fortune so that he
might hold up his head. But things are bad, sir, bad; how bad I don't
know."
"But, good heavens, man! your half-yearly balance-sheets--your books?"
"All kept right, sir, and wonderfully correct. Everything looks well in
the books."
"Then how is it?"
"The securities, sir," said Thickens, with his lip quivering. "I've
done a scoundrelly thing."
"You, Thickens? You? I thought you were as honest a man as ever trod
this earth!"
"Me, sir?" said the clerk grimly. "Oh, no! oh, no! _I'm_ a gambler, I
am."
The vague horror was dissolving fast into thin mist. "You astound me!"
cried Bayle, as he thought of Sir Gordon's doubts of Hallam. "You, in
your position of trust! What are you going to do?"
The grim smile on James Thickens's lips grew more saturnine as he said:
"Make a clean breast of it, sir. That's why I sent for you."
"But, my good man!--oh, for heaven's sake! go with me at once to Sir
Gordon and Mr Hallam. I ought not to listen to this alone."
"You're going to hear it all alone," said James Thickens, growing still
more grim of aspect; "and when I've done you're going to give me your
advice."
Bayle gazed at him sternly, but with the strange oppression gone, and
the shadow of the vague horror fading into nothingness.
"I'm confessing to you, sir, just as if I were a Roman Catholic, and you
were a priest."
"But I decline to receive your confession on such terms, James
Thickens," cried Bayle sternly. "I warn you that, if you make me the
recipient of your confidence, I must be free to lay the case before your
employers."
"Yes, of course," said Thickens with the same grim smile. "Hear me out,
Mr Bayle, sir. You'd never think it of me, who came regularly to
church, and never missed--you'd never think I had false keys made to our
safe; but I did. Two months ago, in London."
Bayle involuntarily drew back his chair, and Thickens laughed--a little
hard, dry laugh.
"Don't be hard on the man, Mr Bayle, who advised you not to put your
money and securities in at Dixons'."
"Go on, sir," said the curate sternly.
"Yes: I will go on!" cried Thickens, speaking now excitedly, in a low,
harsh voice. "I can't carry on that nonsense. Look here, sir," he
continued, shuffling his chair closer to his visitor, and getting hold
of his sleeve, "you don't know our habits at the bank. Everything is
locked up in our strong-room, and Hallam keeps the key of that, and
carefully too! I go in and out there often, but it's always when he's
in the room, and when he is not there he always locks it, so that,
though I tried for years to get in there, I never had a chance."
"Wretched man!" cried Bayle, trying to shake off his grip, but
Thickens's fingers closed upon his arm like a claw.
"Yes, I was wretched, and that's why I had the keys made, and altered
again and again till I could get them to fit. Then one day I had my
chance. Hallam went over to Lincoln, and I had a good examination of
the different securities, shares, deeds--scrip of all kinds--that I had
down on a paper, an abstract from my books."
"Well, sir?"
"Well, sir? Half of them are not there. They're dummies tied up and
docketed."
"But the real deeds?"
"Pledged for advances in all sorts of quarters. Money raised upon them
at a dozen banks, perhaps, in town."
"But--I don't understand you, Thickens; you do not mean that you--"
"That I, Mr Bayle!" cried the clerk passionately. "Shame upon you!--do
you think I could be such a scoundrel--such a thief?"
"But these deeds, and this scrip, what are they all?"
"Valuable securities placed in Dixons' hands for safety."
"And they are gone?"
"To an enormous amount."
"But, tell me," panted Bayle, with the horror vague no longer, but
seeming to have assumed form and substance, and to be crushing him down,
"who has done this thing?"
"Who had the care of them, sir?"
"Thickens," cried Bayle, starting from his chair, and catching at the
mantelpiece, for the room seemed to swim round, and he swept an ornament
from the shelf, which fell with a crash, "Thickens, for heaven's sake,
don't say that."
"I must say it, sir. What am I to do? I've doubted him for years."
"But the money--he has lived extravagantly; but, oh! it is impossible.
It can't be much."
"Much, sir? It's fifty thousand pounds if it's a penny!"
"But, Thickens, it means felony, criminal prosecution, a trial."
He spoke hoarsely, and his hands were trembling. "It means
transportation for one-and-twenty years, sir--perhaps for life."
Bayle's face was ashy, and with lips apart he stood gazing at the grim,
quiet clerk.
"Man, man!" he cried at last; "it can't be true."
"Do you doubt too, sir? Well, it's natural. I used to, and I tried to
doubt it; a hundred times over when I was going to be sure that he was a
villain, I used to say to myself as I went and fed my fish, it's
impossible, a man with a wife and child like--"
"Hush! for God's sake, hush!" cried Bayle passionately, and then with a
burst of fury, he caught the clerk by the throat. "It is a lie; Robert
Hallam could not be such a wretch as that!"
"Mr Bayle, sir," said Thickens calmly, and in an appealing tone; "can't
you see now, sir, why I sent to you? Do you think I don't know how you
loved that lady, and how much she and her bright little fairy of a child
are to you? Why, sir, if it hadn't been for them I should have gone
straight to Sir Gordon, and before now that scoundrel would have been in
Lincoln jail."
"But you are mistaken, Thickens. Man, man, think what you are saying.
Such a charge would break her heart, would brand that poor innocent
child as the daughter of a felon. Oh, it cannot be!" he cried
excitedly. "Heaven would not suffer such a wrong."
"I've been years proving it, sir; years," said Thickens slowly; "and
until I was sure, I've been as silent as the dead. Fifty thousand
pounds' worth of securities at least have been taken from that safe, and
dummies filled up the spaces. Why, sir, a score of times people wanted
these deeds, and he has put them off for a few days till he could go up
to London, raise money on others, and get those wanted from the banker's
hands."
"But you knew something of this, then?"
"Yes, I knew it, sir--that is, I suspected it. Until I got the keys
made, I was not sure."
"Does--does any one else know of this?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ah!" ejaculated Bayle, with quite a moan.
"Robert Hallam, sir."
"Ah!" ejaculated Bayle, drawing a breath full of relief. "You have not
told a soul?"
"No, sir. I said to myself there's that sweet lady and her little
child; and that stopped me. I said to myself, I must go to the
trustiest friend they have, sir, and that was you. Now, sir, I have
told you all. The simple truth. What am I to do?"
Christie Bayle dropped into a chair, his eyes staring, his blanched face
drawn, and his lips apart, as he conjured up the scene that must take
place--the arrest, the wreck of Mrs Hallam's life, the suffering that
would be her lot. And at last, half maddened, he started up, and stood
with clenched hands gazing fiercely at the man who had fired this train.
"Well, sir," said Thickens coldly, "will you get them and the old people
away before the exposure comes?"
"No," cried Bayle fiercely, "this must not--shall not be. It must be
some mistake. Mr Hallam could not do such a wrong. Man, man, do you
not see that such a charge would break his wife's heart?"
"It was in the hope that you would do something for them, sir, that I
told you all this first."
"But we must see Mr Dixon and Sir Gordon at once."
"And they will--you know what."
"Hah! the matter must be hushed up. It would kill her!" cried Bayle
incoherently. "Mr Thickens, you stand there like this man's judge;
have you not made one mistake?"
Thickens shook his head and tightened his lips to a thin line.
"Do you not see what it would do? Have you no mercy?"
"Mr Bayle, sir," said Thickens slowly, "this has served you as it
served me. It's so stunning that it takes you off your head. Am I, the
servant of my good masters, knowing what I do, to hide this from them
till the crash comes first--the crash that is only a matter of time? Do
you advise--do you wish me to do this?"
Christie Bayle sat with his hands clasping his forehead, for the pain he
suffered seemed greater than he could bear. He had known for long
enough that Hallam was a harsh husband and a bad father; but it had
never even entered his dreams that he was other than an honest man. And
now he was asked to decide upon this momentous matter, when his decision
must bring ruin, perhaps even death, to the woman he esteemed, and
misery to the sweet, helpless child he had grown to love.
It was to him as if he were being exposed to some temptation, for even
though his love for Millicent had long been dead, to live again in
another form for her child, Christie Bayle would have gone through any
suffering for her sake. As he bent down there the struggle was almost
greater than he could bear.
And there for long he sat, crushed and stunned by the terrible stroke
that had fallen upon him, and was about to fall upon the helpless wife
and child. His mind seemed chaotic. His reasoning powers failed, and
as he kept clinging to little scraps of hope, they seemed to be snatched
away.
It was with a heart full of grief mingled with rage that he started to
his feet at last, and faced Thickens, for the clerk had again spoken in
measured tones. "Mr Bayle, what am I to do?"
The curate gazed at him piteously, as he essayed to speak; but the words
seemed smothered as they struggled in his breast.
Then, by a supreme effort, he mastered his emotion, and drew himself up.
"Once more, sir, what am I to do?"
"Your duty," said Christie Bayle, and with throbbing brain he turned and
left the house.