VISITORS FOR MRS. JONES.
When the exigencies of a story require that two parts of it should be
related at once, the difficulty is, which to take first; or rather
which may be delayed with the least inconvenience: and very often, as
is the case with other things in life we choose the wrong.
Mrs. Jones sat in her parlour at the twilight hour and a very dark
twilight, too, but light enough for the employment she was so busy
over--knitting. Not woollen socks this time, but some complicated
affair of silk, more profitable than the stockings. Roland Yorke had
just started on that visit, already told of, to Gerald's chambers,
after enjoying a sumptuous tea and toasted muffin in Mrs. Jones's
parlour, where, for the sake of company, his meals were sometimes
taken. Miss Rye was out at work; Mr. Ollivera had an evening service;
and so the house was quiet, and Mrs. Jones at leisure to pursue her
occupation.
Not for very long. A double knock at the street door gave forth its
echoes, and the servant-maid came in, after answering it.
"A gentleman wants to know if there's not a room to let here, ma'am."
Mrs. Jones looked up as if she meant to snap the girl's nose off. "How
should he know any room's to let? There's no bill up."
"I've asked him into Mr. Yorke's parlour," said the girl, aware that
it was worse than profitless to contend with her mistress. "He has got
spectacles on, and he says his name's Mr. Brown."
Mrs. Jones shook out her gown and went to the visitor: a tall
gentleman with those slightly-stained glasses on that are called smoke
coloured. He generally took them off indoors, wearing them in the
street to protect his eyes from the sun, but on this occasion he kept
them on. It was the Mr. Brown who belonged to the house of Greatorex
and Greatorex; Mrs. Jones had heard his name, but did not know him
personally and he had to introduce himself as well as his business.
Mr. Roland Yorke, in his confidential communications to Josiah Hurst
and the office generally, touching other people's concerns as well as
his own--for gossiping, as an agreeable interlude to his hard work,
still held its sway over Roland--had told of the departure of the
scripture reader for another district, and the vacancy, in
consequence, in Mrs. Jones's household. Mr. Brown, listening to all
this, but saying nothing, had come to the conclusion that the room
might suit himself; hence his visit tonight. He related these
particulars quite candidly, and asked to see the room if it were not
already let. He should give very little trouble, he said, took nothing
at home but his breakfast and tea, and had his boots cleaned out of
doors.
Mrs. Jones marshalled him to the room: the back-parlour, as the reader
may remember: and the bargain was concluded at once, without a
dissentient voice on the stranger's part. Mrs. Jones remembered
afterwards that when she held the candle aloft for him to see its
proportions and furniture, he scarcely gave a single glance before
saying it would do, and laid the first week's rent down in lieu of
references.
"Who asked for references?" tartly demanded Mrs. Jones, not a whit
more courteous to him, her lodger in prospective, than she was to
others. "Time enough to speak of references when you're told they're
wanted. Little Jenner has often talked of you. Take up the money, if
you please."
"But I prefer to pay my rent in advance," said Mr. Brown. "It has been
my custom to do so where I am."
He spoke decisively, in a tone that admitted of no appeal, and Mrs.
Jones caught up the money with a jerk and put it loose in her pocket.
Saying he would let her know the time of his entrance, which might
probably be on the following evening, he wished her goodnight, and
departed: leaving an impression on his future landlady that his voice
was in some way not altogether unfamiliar to her.
"I'm not as 'cute in remembering faces as Alletha is," acknowledged
Mrs. Jones to herself, while she watched him down the street from the
front door, "but I'll back my ears against hers for voices any day.
Not lately; I hardly think that; it's more like a remembrance of the
far past. Still I don't remember his face. Heard him speak perhaps in
some railway train; or----Goodness heart alive! Is it _you?_"
This sudden break was occasioned by the appearance of another
gentleman, who seemed to have sprung from nowhere, until he halted
close before her. It was the detective officer, Butterby: and Mrs.
Jones had not seen him since she quitted her country home.
"I thought it looked like you," cried Mr. Butterby, giving his hand.
"Says I to myself, as I strolled along, 'If that's not the exact image
of my old friend, Mrs. Jones, it's uncommon like her. It _is_ you,
ma'am! And how are you? So you are living in this quarter!"
Crafty man! Mrs. Jones had assuredly dealt him a box on the ear could
she have divined that he was deceiving her. He had been watching her
house for some minutes past, knowing just as well as she did that it
was hers. Mrs. Jones invited him indoors, and he went under protest,
not wishing, he said, to intrude: but the going indoors was what he
intended doing all along.
They sat gossiping of old times and new. Mr. Butterby took a friendly
glass of beer and a biscuit; Mrs. Jones, knitting always, took none.
Without seeming to be at all anxious for the information, he had
speedily gathered in every particular about Roland Yorke that there
was to gather. Not too charitably disposed to the world in general, in
speech at any rate, Mrs. Jones yet spoke well of Roland.
"He is no more like the proud, selfish aristocrat he used to be than
chalk's like cheese," she said. "In his younger days Roland Yorke
thought the world was made for him and his pleasure, no matter who
else suffered: he doesn't think it now."
"Sowed his wild oats, has he?" remarked Mr. Butterby.
"For the matter of wild oats, I never knew he had any particular ones
to sow," retorted Mrs. Jones. "Whether or not, he has got none left,
that I can see."
"Wouldn't help himself to another twenty-pound note," said Mr.
Butterby carelessly, stretching out his hand to take a second biscuit.
"No, that he would not," emphatically pronounced Mrs. Jones. "And I
know this--that there never was an act repented of as he repents of
that. His thoughts are but skin-deep; he's not crafty enough to hide
them, and those that run may read. If cutting off his right hand would
undo that past act, he'd cut it off and be glad, Mr. Butterby."
"Shouldn't wonder," assented the officer. "Many folks is in the like
case. Have you ever come across that Godfrey Pitman?"
"Not I. Have you?"
The officer shook his head. Godfrey Pitman had hitherto remained a
dead failure.
"The man was disguised when he was at your house at Helstonleigh, Mrs.
Jones, there's no doubt of that; and the fact has made detection
difficult, you see."
The assumption as reflecting disparagement on her and her house,
mortally offended Mrs. Jones. She treated Mr. Butterby to a taste of
the old tongue he so well remembered, and saw him with the barest
civility to the door on his departure. Miss Rye happened to be coming
in at the time, and Mr. Butterby regarded her curiously with his green
eyes in saluting her. Her face and lips turned white as ashes.
"What brings _him_ here? she asked under her breath, when Mrs. Jones
came back to her parlour from shutting the door.
"His pleasure, I suppose," was Mrs. Jones's answer, a great deal too
much put out to say that he had come (as she supposed) accidentally.
Disguised men lodging in her house, indeed! "What's the matter with
_you?_"
Alletha Rye had sat down on the nearest chair, and seemed labouring to
get her breath. The ghastly face, the signs of agitation altogether,
attracted the notice of Mrs. Jones.
"I have got that stitch in my side again; I walked fast," was all she
said.
Mrs. Jones caught up her knitting.
"Did Butterby want anything in particular?" presently asked Miss Rye.
"No, he did not. He is in London about some business or other, and saw
me standing at the door this evening as he passed by. Have you got
your work finished?"
"Yes," replied Alletha, beginning to unfasten her mantle and
bonnet-strings.
"I've let the back-parlour," remarked Mrs. Jones; "so if there's any
of your pieces in the room, the sooner you fetch them out the better.
Brown, the managing clerk to Mr. Bede Greatorex, has taken it."
"Who?" cried Alletha, springing out of her seat.
"It's a good thing there's no nerves in this house; you'd startle
them," snapped Mrs. Jones. "What ails you tonight?"
Alletha Rye turned her back, apparently searching for something in the
sideboard drawer. Her face was growing paler, if possible, than
before; her fingers shook; the terror in her eyes was all too
conspicuous. She was silently striving for composure, and hiding
herself while she did so. When it had in a degree come she faced Mrs.
Jones again, who was knitting furiously, and spoke in a quiet tone.
"Who did you say had taken the room, Julia? Mr. Brown? Why should _he_
take it?"
"You can go and ask him why."
"I would not let it to him," said Alletha, earnestly. "Don't; pray
don't."
Down went the knitting with a fling. "Now just you explain yourself,
Alletha Rye. What has the man done to you, that you should put in your
word against his coming in?"
"Nothing."
"Oh! Then why should he _not_ come pray? His worst enemy can't say
he's not respectable--after being for years confidential clerk to
Greatorex and Greatorex. Do you hear?--what have you to urge against
his coming?"
Alletha Rye was at a loss for an answer. The real reason she dared not
give; and it was difficult to invent one. But the taxed brain is
wonderfully apt.
"It may not be agreeable to Mr. Yorke."
Mrs. Jones was never nearer going into a real passion: and, in spite
of her sharp tongue, passion with her was exceedingly rare. She gave
Alletha what she called a taste of her mind and it was rather a
bitter one while it lasted. Mrs. Jones did not drop it easily, and it
was she who broke the ensuing silence.
"Don't bring up Mr. Yorke's name under any of your false pretences,
Alletha Rye. _You_ have taken some crotchet in your head against the
man, though I don't know how or when you can have seen him, just as
you did against Parson Ollivera. Anyway, I have accepted Brown as
tenant, and he comes into possession tomorrow night."
"Then I may as well move my work out at once," said Alletha, meekly,
taking up a candle.
She went into the back parlour, and caught hold of an upright piece of
furniture, and pressed her aching head upon it as if it were a refuge.
The candle remained on the chest of drawers; the work, lying about,
was ungathered but she stood on, moaning out words of distress and
despair.
"It is the hand of fate. It is bringing all things and people together
in one nucleus; just has it has been working to do ever since the
death of John Ollivera."
But the events of the evening were not entirely over, and a word or
two must be yet given to it. There seemed to be nothing but encounters
and re-encounters. As Mr. Butterby was walking down the street on his
departure, turning his eyes (not his head) from side to side in the
quiet manner characteristic of him observing all, but apparently
seeing nothing, though he had no object in view just now, there came
up a wayfarer to jostle him; a tall, strong young man, who walked as
if the street were made for him, and nearly walked over quiet Mr.
Butterby.
"Halloa!" cried Roland, for it was nobody else. "It's you, is it! What
do you do up here?"
Roland's tone was none of the pleasantest, savouring rather of the
haughty assumption of old days. His interview with Gerald, from which
he was hastening, had not tended to appease him, and Mr. Butterby was
as much his bête noire as he had ever been. The officer did not like
the tone: he was a greater man than he used to be, having got up some
steps in the official world.
"Looking after you, perhaps," retorted Mr. Butterby. "The streets are
free for me, I suppose."
"It would not be the first time you had looked after the wrong man.
How many innocent people have you taken into custody lately?"
"Now you just keep a civil tongue in your month, Mr. Roland Yorke.
You'd not like it if I took you."
"I should like it as well as Arthur Channing liked it when you took
him," said bold Roland. "There's been a grudge lying on my mind
against you ever since that transaction, Butterby, and I promise you
I'll pay it off if I get the chance."
"Did you make free with that cheque yesterday, Mr. Yorke--as you did
by the other money?" asked Mr. Butterby, slightly exasperated.
"Perhaps I did and perhaps I didn't," said Roland. "Think so, if you
like. You are no better than a calf in these matters, you know,
Butterby. Poor meek Jenkins, who was too good to stop in the same
atmosphere that other folks breathed, was clearer-sighted than you.
'It's Arthur Channing, your worships, and I've took him prisoner to
answer for it,' says you to the magistrates. 'It never was Arthur
Channing,' says Jenkins, nearly going down on his knees to you in his
honest truth. 'Pooh, pooh,' says you, virtuously indignant, 'I know a
thief when I see him----'"
"Now I vow, Mr. Roland Yorke----"
"Don't interrupt your betters Butterby; wait till I've done," cried
aggravating Roland, over-bearing the quieter voice. "You took up
Arthur Channing, and moved heaven and earth to get him convicted. Had
the wise king, Solomon, come express down from the stars on a frosty
night, to tell you Arthur was innocent, you'd have pooh-poohed him as
you did poor Jenkins. But it turned out not to be Arthur, you know,
old Butterby; it was me. And now if you think you'd like to go in for
the same mistake again, _go_ in for it. You would, if you took me up
for this second thing."
"I can tell you what, Mr. Roland Yorke--you'd look rather foolish if I
walked into Mr. Greatorex's office tomorrow morning, and told him of
that past mistake."
"I don't much care whether you do or don't," said candid Roland. "As
good let it come out as not, for somebody or other is always casting
it in my teeth. Hurst does; my brother Gerald does--I've come now
straight from hearing it. I thought I should have lived that down at
Port Natal; but it seems I didn't."
"You'll not live it down by impudence," said Mr. Butterby.
"Then I must live it up," was the retort, "for impudence is a fault of
mine. I've heard you say I had enough for the devil. So good night to
you, Butterby. I am to be found at my lodgings, if you'd like to come
after me there with a pair of handcuffs."
Roland went striding off, and the officer stood to look after him.
In spite of the "impudence" received, a smile crossed his face; it
was the same impulsive, careless, boyish Roland Yorke of past days,
good-natured under his worst sting. But whatever other impression
might have been left upon Mr. Butterby's mind by the encounter, one
lay very clear--that it was not Roland who was guilty this time, and
he must look elsewhere for the purloiner of the cheque.