BUNKER AT BAY.
Harry was thinking a good deal about the old man's strange story of the
houses. There was, to be sure, little dependence to be placed in the
rambling, disjointed statements made by so old a man. But, then, this
statement was so clear and precise. There were so many children--there
were so many houses (three for each child), and he knew exactly what
became of all those houses. If the story had been told by a man in the
prime of life, it could not have been more exact and detailed. But what
were the houses--where were they? And how could he prove that they were
his own?
What did Bunker get when he traded the child away?
Harry had always been of opinion that he got a sum of money down, and
that he was now ashamed of the transaction, and would fain have it
remain unknown. This solution accounted, or seemed to account, for his
great wrath and agitation when the subject was mentioned. Out of a
mischievous delight in making his uncle angry, Harry frequently alluded
to this point; but the story of the houses was a better solution still.
It accounted for Mr. Bunker's agitation as well as his wrath. But his
wrath and his terror appeared to Harry to corroborate very strongly the
old man's story. And the longer he thought about it the more strongly he
believed it.
Harry asked his landlady whether, in her opinion, if Mr. Maliphant made
a statement, that statement was to be accepted as true?
Mrs. Bormalack replied that as he never made any statement, except in
reference to events long since things of the past, it was impossible for
her to say whether they were true or not; that his memory was clean gone
for things of the present--so that of to-day and yesterday he knew
nothing; that his thoughts were always running on the old days; and that
when he could be heard right through, without dropping his voice at
all, he sometimes told very interesting and curious things. His board
and lodging were paid for him by his grandson, a most respectable
gentleman, and a dockmaster; and that as to the old man's business he
had none, and had had none for many years, being clean
forgotten--although he did go every day to his yard, and stayed there
all day long.
Harry thought he would pay him another visit. Perhaps something more
would be remembered.
He went there again in the morning.
The street, at the end of which was the yard, was as quiet as on the
Sunday, the children being at school and the men at work. The great
gates were closed and locked, but the small side-door was unlocked. When
he opened it all the figureheads turned quickly and anxiously to look at
him. At least Harry declares they did, and Spiritualists will readily
believe him. Was he, they asked, going to take one of them away and
stick it on the bow of a great ship, and send it up and down upon the
face of the ocean to the four corners of the world. Ha! They were made
for an active life. They pined away in this inactivity. A fig for the
dangers of the deep! From Saucy Sal to Neptune they all asked the same
question in the same hope. Harry shook his head, and they sighed sadly
and resumed sadly their former positions, as they were, eyes front,
waiting till night should fall and the old man should go, and they could
talk with each other.
"This," thought Harry, "is a strange and ghostly place."
You know the old and creepy feeling caused by the presence, albeit
unseen, of ghosts. One may feel it anywhere and at all times--in church,
at a theatre, in bed at night--by broad daylight--in darkness or in
twilight. This was in the sunshine of a bright December day--the last
days of the year 1881 were singularly bright and gracious. The place was
no dark chamber or gloomy vault, but a broad and open yard, cheerfully
decorated with carved figureheads. Yet, even here, Harry experienced the
touch of ghostliness. The place was so strange that it did not astonish
him at all to see the old man suddenly appear in the door of his doll's
house, waving his hand and smiling cheerily, as one who speeds the
parting guest. The salutations were not intended for Harry, because Mr.
Maliphant was not looking at him.
Presently he ceased gesticulating, became suddenly serious (as happens
to one when his friend's back is turned, or he has vanished), and
returned to his seat by the fire.
Harry softly followed, and stood before him waiting to be recognized.
The old man looked up at last, and nodded his head.
"Been entertaining your friends, Mr. Maliphant?"
"Bob was here, only Bob. You have just missed Bob," he replied.
"That's a pity--never mind. Can you, my ancient, carry your memory back
some twenty years? You did it, you know, last Sunday for me."
"Twenty years? Ay, ay--twenty years. I was only sixty-five or so then.
It seems a long time until it is gone--twenty years! Well, young man,
twenty years--why, it is only yesterday!"
"I mean to the time when Caroline Coppin, you know your old friend
Caroline, was married."
"That was twenty years before, and more; when William the Fourth died
and Queen Victoria (then a young thing) came long to reign over us----"
His voice sank, and he continued the rest of his reminiscence to
himself.
"But Caroline Coppin?"
"I'm telling you about Caroline Coppin, only you won't listen."
There was nothing more to be got out of him. His recent conversation
with Bob's spirit had muddled him for the day, and he mixed up Caroline
with her mother or grandmother. He relapsed into silence, and sat with
his long pipe unfilled in his hand, looking into the fireplace; gone
back in imagination to the past. As the old man made no sign of
conversation, but rather of a disposition to "drop off" for a few
minutes, Harry began to look about the room. On the table lay a bundle
of old letters. It was as if the living and the dead had been reading
them together.
Harry took them up and turned them over, wondering what secrets of long
ago were contained in those yellow papers, with their faded ink. The
old man's eyes were closed--he took no heed of his visitor; and Harry
standing at the table began shamelessly to read the letters. They were
mostly the letters of a young sailor addressed to one apparently a good
deal older than himself--for they abounded in such appellations as "my
ancient," "venerable," "old salt," and so forth. But the young man did
not regard his correspondent with the awe which age should inspire, but
rather as a gay and rollicking spirit who would sympathize with the
high-jinks of younger men, even if he no longer shared in them, and who
was an old and still delighted treader of those flowery paths which are
said by moralists to be planted with the frequent pitfall and the crafty
trap. "The old man," thought Harry, "must have been an admirable guide
to youth, and the disciple was apt to learn."
Sometimes the letters were signed "Bob," sometimes "R. Coppin,"
sometimes "R. C." Harry, therefore, surmised that the writer was no
other than his own uncle Bob, whose ghost he had just missed.
Bob was an officer on board of an East Indiaman, but he spoke not of
such commonplace matters as the face of the ocean or the voice of the
tempest. He only wrote from port, and told what things he had seen and
done, what he had consumed in ardent drink. The letters were brief,
which seemed as well, because if literary skill had been present to
dress up effectively the subjects treated, a literary monument might
have been erected, the like of which the world has never seen.
It is, indeed, a most curious and remarkable circumstance that even in
realistic France the true course of the prodigal has never been
faithfully described. Now the great advantage formerly possessed by the
sailor--an advantage cruelly curtailed by the establishment of "homes,"
and the introduction of temperance--was, that he could be and was a
prodigal at the end of every cruise; while the voyage itself was an
agreeable interval provided for recovery, recollection, and
anticipation.
"Bob, Uncle Bob, was a flyer," said Harry. "One should be proud of such
an uncle. With Bob and Bunker and the bankrupt builder, I am indeed
provided."
There seemed nothing in the letters which bore upon the question of his
mother's property, and he was going to put them down again, when he
lighted upon a torn fragment on which he saw in Bob's big handwriting
the name of his cousin Josephus.
"Josephus, my cousin, that he will ... (here a break in the continuity)
... 'nd the safe the bundle ... (another break) ... for a lark. Josephus
is a square-toes. I hate a man who wont' drink. He will ... (another
break) if he looks there. Your health and song, shipmate.--R. C."
He read this fragment two or three times over. What did it mean? Clearly
nothing to himself.
"Josephus is a square-toes." Very likely. The prodigal Bob was not.
Quite the contrary--he was a young man of extremely mercurial
temperament. "Josephus, my cousin, that he will ... 'nd the safe the
bundle." He put down the paper, and without waking the old man he softly
left the room and the place, shutting the door behind him; and then he
forgot immediately the torn letter and its allusion to Josephus. He
thought next that he would go to Bunker and put the question directly to
him. The man might be terrified--might show confusion--might tell lies.
That would matter little; but if he showed his hand too soon Bunker
might be put upon his guard. Well, that mattered little--what Harry
hoped was, rather to get at the truth than to recover his houses.
"I want," he said, finding his uncle at home, and engaged in his office
drawing up bills--"I want a few words of serious talk with you, my
uncle."
"I am busy; go away--I never want to talk to you. I hate the very sight
of your face."
He looked indeed as if he did--if a flushing cheek and an angry glare of
the eyes are any sign.
"I am not going away until you have answered my questions. As to your
hatred or your affection, that does not concern me at all. Now will you
listen, or shall I wait?"
"To get rid of you the sooner," growled Bunker, "I will listen now. If I
was twenty years younger I'd kick you out."
"If you were twenty years younger, there might, it is true, be a fight.
Now then?"
"Well, get along--my time is valuable."
"I have several times asked you what you got for me when you sold me.
You have on those occasions allowed yourself to fall into a rage, which
is really dangerous in so stout a man. I am not going to ask you that
question any more."
Mr. Bunker looked relieved.
"Because, you see, I know now what you got."
Mr. Bunker turned very pale.
"What do you know?"
"I know exactly what you got when I was taken away."
Mr. Bunker said nothing; yet there was in his eyes a look as if a
critical moment long expected had at last arrived, and he waited.
"When my mother died and you became my guardian, I was not left
penniless."
"It's a lie--you were."
"If I had been, you would have handed me over to your brother-in-law,
Coppin, the builder; but I had property."
"You had nothing."
"I had three houses--one of those houses is, I believe, that which has
been rented from you, by Miss Kennedy. I do not know yet where the other
two are; but I shall find out."
"You are on a wrong tack," said his uncle; "now I know why you wouldn't
go away. You came here to ferret and fish, did you? You thought you were
entitled to property, did you? Ho!--you're a nice sort o' chap to have
house property, ain't you? Ha! ho!" But his laughter was not mirthful.
"Let me point out," Harry went gravely on, "what it is you have done.
The child whom you kept for a year or two was heir to a small estate,
bringing in, I suppose, about eighty or a hundred pounds a year. We will
say that you were entitled to keep that money in return for his support;
but when that child was carried away and adopted you said nothing about
the property. You kept it for yourself, and you have received the rents
year after year, as if the house belonged to you. Shall I go on, and
tell you what judges and lawyers and police people call this sort of
conduct?"
"Where's your proofs?" asked the other--his face betraying his emotion.
"Where's your proofs?"
"I have none yet--I am going to search for those proofs."
"You can't find them--there are none. Now, young man, you have had your
say, and you can go. Do you hear? You can go."
"You deny, then, that the houses were mine?"
"If you'd come to me meek and lowly--as is your humble station in
life--I would ha' told you the history of those houses. Yes, your mother
had them, same as her brothers and her sister. Where are they now? I've
got 'em all--I've got 'em all. How did I get 'em? By lawful and
honorable purchase--I bought 'em. Do you want proofs? You shan't have
any proofs. If you'd behaved humble you should ha' seen those proofs.
Now you may go away and do your worst. Do you hear? You may do your
worst."
He shook his fist in Harry's face. His words were brave, but his voice
was shaky and his lips were trembling.
"I don't believe you," said Harry. "I am certain that you did not buy my
houses. There was no one left to care for my interests, and you took
those houses."
"This is the reward," said Bunker, "for nussin' of this child for nigh
upon three years. Who would take an orphan into his bosom? But it was
right, and I'd do it again. Yes. I'd do it again."
"I don't doubt you," the ungrateful nephew replied, "especially if that
other orphan had three substantial houses, and there was nobody but
yourself to look after him."
"As for your proofs, go and look for them. When you've found 'em, bring
'em to me--you and your proofs."
Harry laughed.
"I shall find them," he said; "but I don't know where or when. Meantime
you will go on as you do now--thinking continually that they may be
found. You won't be able to sleep at night--you will dream of police
courts. You will let your thoughts run on handcuffs--you will take to
drink. You will have no pleasure in your life. You will hasten your end;
you will----" Here he desisted; for his uncle (dropping into his chair)
looked as if he was about to swoon.
"Remember, I shall find these proofs some day. A hundred a year, for
twenty years, is two thousand pounds. That's a large sum to hand over;
and then, there is the interest. Upon my word, my uncle, you will have
to begin the world again."