BUT IT was years before I saw Allgood Newton again, for when I got to
Blackstable I found a letter from Mrs. Barton Trafford (who had taken
the precaution to note my address) asking me, for reasons that she would
explain when she saw me, not to come to her flat but to meet her at six
o’clock in the first-class waiting room at Victoria Station. As soon
then as I could get away from the hospital on Monday I made my way
there, and after waiting for a while saw her come in. She came toward me
with little tripping steps.
“Well, have you anything to tell me? Let us find a quiet corner and sit
down.”
We sought a place and found it.
“I must explain why I asked you to come here,” she said. “Edward is
staying with me. At first he did not want to come, but I persuaded him.
But he’s nervous and ill and irritable. I did not want to run the risk
of his seeing you.”
I told Mrs. Trafford the bare facts of my story and she listened
attentively. Now and then she nodded her head. But I could not hope to
make her understand the commotion I had found at Blackstable. The town
was beside itself with excitement. Nothing so thrilling had happened
there for years and no one could talk of anything else. Humpty-dumpty
had had a great fall. Lord George Kemp had absconded. About a week
before he had announced that he had to go up to London on business, and
two days later a petition in bankruptcy was filed against him. It
appeared that his building operations had not been successful, his
attempt to make Blackstable into a frequented seaside resort meeting
with no response, and he had been forced to raise money in every way he
could. All kinds of rumours ran through the little town. Quite a number
of small people who had entrusted their savings to him were faced with
the loss of all they had. The details were vague, for neither my uncle
nor my aunt knew anything of business matters, nor had I the knowledge
to make what they told me comprehensible. But there was a mortgage on
George Kemp’s house and a bill of sale on his furniture. His wife was
left without a penny. His two sons, lads of twenty and twenty-one, were
in the coal business, but that, too, was involved in the general ruin.
George Kemp had gone off with all the cash he could lay hands on,
something like fifteen hundred pounds, they said, though how they knew I
cannot imagine; and it was reported that a warrant had been issued for
his arrest. It was supposed that he had left the country; some said he
had gone to Australia and some to Canada.
“I hope they catch him,” said my uncle. “He ought to get penal servitude
for life.”
The indignation was universal. They could not forgive him because he had
always been so noisy and boisterous, because he had chaffed them and
stood them drinks and given them garden parties, because he had driven
such a smart trap and worn his brown billycock hat at such a rakish
angle. But it was on Sunday night after church in the vestry that the
churchwarden told my uncle the worst. For the last two years he had been
meeting Rosie Driffield at Haversham almost every week and they had been
spending the night together at a public house. The licensee of this had
put money into one of Lord George’s wildcat schemes, and on discovering
that he had lost it blurted out the whole story. He could have borne it
if Lord George had defrauded others, but that he should defraud him who
had done him a good turn and whom he looked upon as a chum, that was the
limit.
“I expect they’ve run away together,” said my uncle.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said the churchwarden.
After supper, while the housemaid was clearing away, I went into the
kitchen to talk to Mary-Ann. She had been at church and had heard the
story too. I cannot believe that the congregation had listened very
attentively to my uncle’s sermon.
“The vicar says they’ve run away together,” I said. I had not breathed a
word of what I knew.
“Why, of course they ’ave,” said Mary-Ann. “He was the only man she ever
really fancied. He only ’ad to lift ’is little finger and she’d leave
anyone no matter who it was.”
I lowered my eyes. I was suffering from bitter mortification; and I was
angry with Rosie: I thought she had behaved very badly to me.
“I suppose we shall never see her again,” I said. It gave me a pang to
utter the words.
“I don’t suppose we shall,” said Mary-Ann cheerfully.
When I had told Mrs. Barton Trafford as much of this story as I thought
she need know, she sighed, but whether from satisfaction or distress I
had no notion.
“Well, that’s the end of Rosie at all events,” she said. She got up and
held out her hand. “Why will these literary men make these unfortunate
marriages? It’s all very sad, very sad. Thank you so much for what
you’ve done. We know where we are now. The great thing is that it
shouldn’t interfere with Edward’s work.”
Her remarks seemed a trifle disconnected to me. The fact was, I have no
doubt, that she was giving me not the smallest thought. I led her out of
Victoria Station and put her into a bus that went down the King’s Road,
Chelsea; then I walked back to my lodgings.