Samson Reginald Dene was relieved of the charge, as it was declared "not
proven;" all the same, Samson Reginald Dene was ruined. Worcester said
so. During the following week, which was Passion Week, its citizens
talked more of him than of their prayers.
Granted that Maria Parslet's testimony had been honestly genuine, a
theory cropped up to counteract it. Lawyer Standup had been bold enough
to start it at the Saturday's examination: a hundred tongues were
repeating it now. Sam Dene, as may be remembered, was present at the
finding of the box on Tuesday; he had come up the passage and touched
the golden guineas in it with the tips of his fingers; those fingers
might have deftly extracted one of the coins. No wonder he could show it
to Maria when he went home to tea! Captain Cockermuth admitted that in
counting the guineas subsequently he had thought he counted sixty; but,
as he knew there were (or ought to be) that number in the box, probably
the assumption misled him, causing him to reckon them as sixty when in
fact there were only fifty-nine. Which was a bit of logic.
Still, popular opinion was divided. If part of the town judged Sam to be
guilty, part believed him to be innocent. A good deal might be said on
both sides. To a young man who does not know how to pay his debts from
lack of means, and debts that he is afraid of, too, sixty golden guineas
may be a great temptation; and people did not shut their eyes to that.
It transpired also that Mr. Jacobson, his own uncle, his best friend,
had altogether cast Sam off and told him he might now go to the dogs his
own way.
Sam resented it all bitterly, and defied the world. Far from giving in
or showing any sense of shame, he walked about with an air, his head up,
and that brazen guinea dangling in front of him. He actually had the
face to appear at college on Good Friday (the congregation looking
askance at him), and sat out the cold service of the day: no singing, no
organ, and the little chorister-boys in black surplices instead of white
ones.
But the crowning act of boldness was to come. Before Easter week had
lapsed into the past, Sam Dene had taken two rooms in a conspicuous part
of the town and set-up in practice. A big brass plate on the outer door
displayed his name: "Mr. Dene, Attorney-at-law." Sam's friends extolled
his courage; Sam's enemies were amazed at his impudence. Captain
Cockermuth prophesied that the ceiling of that office would come
tumbling down on its crafty occupant's head: it was _his_ gold that
was paying for it.
The Cockermuths, like the town, were divided in opinion. Mr. Cockermuth
could not believe Sam guilty, although the mystery as to where the box
could be puzzled him as few things had ever puzzled him in this life. He
would fain have taken Sam back again, had it been a right thing to do.
What the captain thought need not be enlarged upon. While Miss Betty
felt uncertain; veering now to this belief, now to that, and much
distressed either way.
There is one friend in this world that hardly ever deserts us--and that
is a mother. Mrs. Dene, a pretty little woman yet, had come flying to
Worcester, ready to fight everybody in it on her son's behalf. Sam of
course made his own tale good to her; whether it was a true one or not
he alone knew, but not an angel from heaven could have stirred her faith
in it. She declared that, to her positive knowledge, the old uncle had
given Sam the guinea.
It was understood to be Mrs. Dene who advanced the money to Sam to set
up with; it was certainly Mrs. Dene who bought a shutting-up bed (at old
Ward's), and a gridiron, and a tea-pot, and a three-legged table, and a
chair or two, all for the back-room of the little office, that Sam might
go into housekeeping on his own account, and live upon sixpence a-day,
so to say, until business came in. To look at Sam's hopeful face, he
meant to do it, and to live down the scandal.
Looking at the thing impartially, one might perhaps see that Sam was not
swayed by impudence in setting-up, so much as by obligation. For what
else lay open to him?--no firm would engage him as clerk with that doubt
sticking to his coat-tails. He paid some of his debts, and undertook to
pay the rest before the year was out. A whisper arose that it was Mrs.
Dene who managed this. Sam's adversaries knew better; the funds came out
of the ebony box: that, as Charles Cockermuth demonstrated, was as sure
as heaven.
But now there occurred one thing that I, Johnny Ludlow, could not
understand, and never shall: why Worcester should have turned its back,
like an angry drake, upon Maria Parslet. The school, where she was
resident teacher, wrote her a cool, polite note, to say she need not
trouble herself to return after the Easter recess. That example was
followed. Pious individuals looked upon her as a possible story-teller,
in danger of going to the bad in Sam's defence, nearly as much as Sam
had gone.
It was just a craze. Even Charles Cockermuth said there was no sense
in blaming Maria: of course Sam had deceived her (when pretending to
show the guinea as his own), just as he deceived other people. Next
the town called her "bold" for standing up in the face and eyes of the
Guildhall to give her evidence. But how could Maria help that? It was
not her own choice: she'd rather have locked herself up in the cellar.
Lawyer Chance had burst in upon her that Saturday morning (not ten
minutes after we left the house), giving nobody warning, and carried
her off imperatively, never saying "Will you, or Won't you." It was
not his way.
Placid Miss Betty was indignant when the injustice came to her ears.
What did people mean by it? she wanted to know. She sent for Maria
to spend the next Sunday in Foregate Street, and marched with her
arm-in-arm to church (St. Nicholas'), morning and evening.
As the days and the weeks passed, commotion gave place to a calm; Sam
and his delinquencies were let alone. One cannot be on the grumble for
ever. Sam's lines were pretty hard; practice held itself aloof from
him; and if he did not live upon the sixpence a-day, he looked at every
halfpenny that he had to spend beyond it. His face grew thin, his blue
eyes wistful, but he smiled hopefully.
* * * * *
"You keep up young Dene's acquaintance, I perceive," remarked Lawyer
Chance to his son one evening as they were finishing dinner, for he had
met the two young men together that day.
"Yes: why shouldn't I?" returned Austin.
"Think that charge was a mistaken one, I suppose?"
"Well I do, father. He has affirmed it to me in terms so unmistakable
that I can but believe him. Besides, I don't think Dene, as I have
always said, is the sort of fellow to turn rogue: I don't, indeed."
"Does he get any practice?"
"Very little, I'm afraid."
Mr. Chance was a man with a conscience. On the whole, he felt inclined
to think Sam had not helped himself to the guineas, but he was by no
means sure of it: like Miss Betty Cockermuth, his opinion veered, now
on this side, now on that, like a haunted weathercock. If Sam was not
guilty, why, then, Fate had dealt hardly with the young fellow--and what
would the end be? These thoughts were running through the lawyer's mind
as he talked to his son and sat playing with his bunch of seals, which
hung down by a short, thick gold chain, in the old-fashioned manner.
"I should like to say a word to him if he'd come to me," he suddenly
cried. "You might go and bring him, Austin."
"What--this evening?" exclaimed Austin.
"Ay; why not? One time's as good as another."
Austin Chance started off promptly for the new office, and found his
friend presiding over his own tea-tray in the little back-room; the loaf
and butter on the table, and a red herring on the gridiron.
"Hadn't time to get any dinner to-day; too busy," was Sam's apology,
given briefly with a flush of the face. "Mr. Chance wants me? Well,
I'll come. What is it for?"
"Don't know," replied Austin. And away they went.
The lawyer was standing at the window, his hands in the pockets of his
pepper-and-salt trousers, tinkling the shillings and sixpences there.
Austin supposed he was not wanted, and shut them in.
"I have been thinking of your case a good bit lately, Sam Dene," began
Mr. Chance, giving Sam a seat and sitting down himself; "and I should
like to feel, if I can, more at a certainty about it, one way or the
other."
"Yes, sir," replied Sam. And you must please to note that manners in
those days had not degenerated to what they are in these. Young men,
whether gentle or simple, addressed their elders with respect; young
women also. "Yes, sir," replied Sam. "But what do you mean about wishing
to feel more at a certainty?"
"When I defended you before the magistrates, I did my best to convince
them that you were not guilty: you had assured me you were not: and they
discharged you. I believe my arguments and my pleadings went some way
with them."
"I have no doubt of it, sir, and I thanked you at the time with all my
heart," said Sam warmly. "Some of my enemies were bitter enough against
me."
"But you should not speak in that way--calling people your enemies!"
reproved the lawyer. "People were only at enmity with you on the score
of the offence. Look here, Sam Dene--did you commit it, or did you
not?"
Sam stared. Mr. Chance had dropped his voice to a solemn key, his head
was pushed forward, gravity sat on his face.
"No, sir. No."
The short answer did not satisfy the lawyer. "Did you filch that box
of guineas out of Cockermuth's room; or were you, and are you, as you
assert, wholly innocent?" he resumed. "Tell me the truth as before
Heaven. Whatever it be, I will shield you still."
Sam rose. "On my sacred word, sir, and before Heaven, I have told
nothing but the truth. I did not take or touch the box of guineas. I
do not know what became of it."
Mr. Chance regarded Sam in silence. He had known young men, when under
a cloud, prevaricate in a most extraordinary and unblushing manner: to
look at them and listen to them, one might have said they were fit to
be canonized. But he thought truth lay with Sam now.
"Sit down, sit down, Dene," he said. "I am glad to believe you. Where
the deuce could the box have got to? It could not take flight through
the ceiling up to the clouds, or down to the earth through the floor.
_Whose hands took it?_"
"The box went in one of two ways," returned Sam. "If the captain did not
fetch it out unconsciously, and lose it in the street, why, somebody
must have entered the parlour after I left it and carried off the box.
Perhaps the individual who looked into the room when I was sitting
there."
"A pity but you had noticed who that was."
"Yes, it is. Look here, Mr. Chance; a thought has more than once struck
me--if that person did not come back and take the box, why has he not
come forward openly and honestly to avow it was himself who looked in?"
The lawyer gave his head a dissenting shake. "It is a ticklish thing to
be mixed up in, he may think, one that he had best keep out of--though
he may be innocent as the day. How are you getting on?" he asked,
passing abruptly from the subject.
"Oh, middling," replied Sam. "As well, perhaps, as I could expect to get
on at first, with all the prejudice abroad against me."
"Earning bread-and-cheese?"
"Not quite--yet."
"Well, see here, Dene--and this is what I chiefly sent for you to say,
if you could assure me on your conscience you deserved it--I may be able
to put some little business in your hands. Petty matters are brought
to us that we hardly care to waste time upon: I'll send them to you in
future. I dare say you'll be able to rub on by dint of patience. Rome
was not built in a day, you know."
"Thank you, sir; I thank you very truly," breathed Sam. "Mr. Cockermuth
sent me a small matter the other day. If I can make a bare living of it
at present, that's all I ask. Fame and fortune are not rained down upon
black sheep."
Which was so true a remark as to need no contradiction.
May was nearing its close then, and the summer evenings were long and
lovely. As Sam went forth from the interview, he thought he would take a
walk by the river, instead of turning in to his solitary rooms. Since
entering upon them he had been as steady as old Time: the accusation
and its attendant shame seemed to have converted him from a heedless,
youthful man into a wise old sage of age and care. Passing down Broad
Street towards the bridge, he turned to the left and sauntered along
beside the Severn. The water glittered in the light of the setting sun;
barges, some of them bearing men and women and children, passed smoothly
up and down on it; the opposite fields, towards St. John's, were green
as an emerald: all things seemed to wear an aspect of brightness.
All on a sudden things grew brighter--and Sam's pulses gave a leap. He
had passed the grand old red-stoned wall that enclosed the Bishop's
palace, and was close upon the gates leading up to the Green, when a
young lady turned out of them and came towards him with a light, quick
step. It was Maria Parslet, in a pretty summer muslin, a straw hat
shading her blushing face. For it did blush furiously at sight of Sam.
"Mr. Dene!"
"Maria!"
She began to say, hurriedly, that her mother had sent her with a message
to the dressmaker on the Parade, and she had taken that way, as being
the shortest--as if in apology for having met Sam.
He turned with her, and they paced slowly along side by side, the colour
on Maria's cheeks coming and going with every word he spoke and every
look he gave her--which seemed altogether senseless and unreasonable.
Sam told her of his conversation with Austin Chance's father, and his
promise to put a few things in his way.
"Once let me be making two hundred a-year, Maria, and then----"
"Then what?" questioned Maria innocently.
"Then I should ask you to come to me, and we'd risk it together."
"Risk what?" stammered Maria, turning her head right round to watch a
barge that was being towed by.
"Risk our luck. Two hundred a-year is not so bad to begin upon. I should
take the floor above as well as the ground-floor I rent now, and we
should get along. Any way, I hope to try it."
"Oh, Mr. Dene!"
"Now don't 'Mr. Dene' me, young lady, if you please. Why, Maria, what
else can we do? A mean, malicious set of dogs and cats have turned their
backs upon us both; the least we should do is to see if we can't do
without them. I know you'd rather come to me than stay in Edgar Street."
Maria held her tongue, as to whether she would or not. "Mamma is
negotiating to get me a situation at Cheltenham," she said.
"You will not go to Cheltenham, or anywhere else, if I get any luck," he
replied dictatorially. "Life would look very blue to me now without you,
Maria. And many a man and wife, rolling in riches at the end, have
rubbed on with less than two hundred a-year at the beginning. I wouldn't
say, mind, but we might risk it on a hundred and fifty. My rent is low,
you see."
"Ye--es," stammered Maria "But--I wish that mystery of the guineas could
be cleared up!"
Sam stood still, turned, and faced her. "Why do you say _that_? You are
not suspecting that I took them?"
"Oh dear, NO," returned Maria, losing her breath. "I _know_ you did not
take them: could not. I was only thinking of your practice: so much more
would come in."
"Cockermuth has sent me a small matter or two. I think I shall get on,"
repeated Sam.
They were at their journey's end by that time, at the dressmaker's door.
"Good-evening," said Maria, timidly holding out her hand.
Sam Dene took it and clasped it. "Good-bye, my darling. I am going home
to my bread-and-cheese supper, and I wish you were there to eat it with
me!"
Maria sighed. She wondered whether that wonderful state of things would
ever come to pass. Perhaps no; perhaps yes. Meanwhile no living soul
knew aught of these treasonable aspirations; they were a secret between
her and Sam. Mr. and Mrs. Parslet suspected nothing.
Time went on. Lawyer Chance was as good as his word, and put a few small
matters of business into the hands of Sam Dene. Mr. Cockermuth did the
same. The town came down upon him for it; though it let Chance alone,
who was not the sort of man to be dictated to. "Well," said Cockermuth
in answer, "I don't believe the lad is guilty; never have believed it.
Had he been of a dishonest turn, he could have helped himself before,
for a good deal of my cash passed at times through his hands. And, given
that he was innocent, he has been hardly dealt by."
Sam Dene was grateful for these stray windfalls, and returned his best
thanks to the lawyers for them. But they did not amount to much in
the aggregate; and a gloomy vision began to present itself to his
apprehension of being forced to give up the struggle, and wandering out
in the world to seek a better fortune. The summer assizes drew near. Sam
had no grand cause to come on at them, or small one either; but it was
impossible not to give a thought now and again to what his fate might
have been, had he stood committed to take his trial at them. The popular
voice said that was only what he merited.