JACOB NOWELL.
The days went by, and brought Gilbert Fenton no reply to his
advertisement. He called at the post-office morning and evening, only to
find the same result; and a dull blank feeling, a kind of deadness of
heart and mind, began to steal over him with the progress of the days.
He went through the routine of his business-life steadily enough, working
as hard as he had ever worked; but it was only by a supreme effort that
he could bring his mind to bear upon the details of business--all
interest in his office-work was gone.
The advertisement had appeared for the sixth time, and Gilbert had framed
a second, offering a reward of twenty pounds for any direct evidence of
the marriage of Marian Nowell; when a letter was handed to him one
evening at the post-office--a letter in a common blue envelope, directed
in a curious crabbed hand, and bearing the London post-mark.
His heart beat loud and fast as he tore open this envelope. It contained
only a half-sheet of paper, with these words written upon it in the
cramped half-illegible hand which figured on the outside:
"The person advertising for Marian Nowell is requested to call at No. 5,
Queen Anne's Court, Wardour Street, any evening after seven."
This was all. Little as this brief note implied, however, Gilbert made
sure that the writer must be in a position to give him some kind of
information about the object of his search. It was six o'clock when he
received the communication. He went from the post-office to his lodgings
with his mind in a tumult of excitement, made a mere pretence of taking a
hasty dinner, and set off immediately afterwards for Wardour Street.
There was more than time for him to walk, and he hoped that the walk
might have some effect in reducing the fever of his mind. He did not want
to present himself before strangers--who, no doubt, only wanted to make a
barter of any knowledge they possessed as to Marian's whereabouts--in a
state of mental excitement. The address to which he was going mystified
him beyond measure. What could people living in such a place as this know
of her whom he sought?
He was in Wardour Street at a quarter before seven, but he had
considerable trouble in finding Queen Anne's Court, and the clocks of the
neighbourhood were striking the hour as he turned into a narrow alley
with dingy-looking shops on one side and a high dead wall on the other.
The gas was glimmering faintly in the window of No. 5, and a good deal of
old silver, tarnished and blackened, huddled together behind the
wire-guarded glass, was dimly visible in the uncertain light. There was
some old jewellery too, and a little wooden bowl of sovereigns or gold
coins of some kind or other.
On a brass plate upon the door of this establishment there appeared the
name of Jacob Nowell, silversmith and money-changer.
Gilbert Fenton stared in amazement at this inscription. It must needs be
some relative of Marian's he was about to see.
He opened the door, bewildered a little by this discovery, and a shrill
bell gave notice of his entrance to those within. A tall lanky young man,
with a sallow face and sleek black hair, emerged quickly from some door
in the obscure background, and asked in a sharp voice what the visitor
pleased to want.
"I wish to see Mr. Nowell, the writer of a letter addressed to the
post-office in Wigmore Street."
The sallow-faced young man disappeared without a word, leaving Gilbert
standing in the dimly lighted shop, where he saw more old silver crowded
upon shelves behind glass doors, carved ebony cabinets looming out of the
dusk, and here and there an old picture in a tarnished frame. On the
counter there was a glass case containing foreign bank-notes and gold,
some curious old watches, and other trinkets, a baby's coral, a battered
silver cup, and a gold snuff-box.
While Gilbert waited thus he heard voices in a room at the back--the
shrill tones of the sallow young man and a feeble old voice raised
querulously--and then, after a delay which seemed long to his impatience,
the young man reappeared and told him Mr. Nowell was ready to see him.
Gilbert went into the room at the end of the shop--a small dark parlour,
more crowded with a heterogeneous collection of plate, pictures, and
bric-a-brac of all kinds than the shop itself. Sultry as the July evening
was, there was a fire burning in the pinched rusty grate, and over this
fire the owner of the room bent affectionately, with his slippered feet
on the fender, and his bony hands clasping his bony knees.
He was an old man, with long yellowish-white hair streaming from beneath
a velvet skull-cap, and bright black eyes deep set in a pale thin face.
His nose was a sharp aquiline, and gave something of a bird-like aspect
to a countenance that must once have been very handsome. He was wrapped
in a long dressing-gown of some thick grey woollen stuff.
The sallow-faced young man lingered by the half-glass door between the
parlour and the shop, as if he would fain have remained a witness to the
interview about to take place between his master and the stranger; but
the old man looked round at him sharply, and said,--
"That will do, Tulliver; you can go back to the shop. If Abrahams brings
that little lot again to-night, tell him I'll give five-and-nine an
ounce, not a fraction more."
Mr. Tulliver retired, leaving the door ajar ever so little; but the
penetrating black eyes of the master were quick to perceive this
manoeuvre.
"Will you be so good as to shut that door, sir, quite securely?" he said
to Gilbert. "That young man is very inquisitive; I'm afraid I've kept him
too long. People talk of old servants; but half the robberies in the
world are committed by old servants. Be seated, if you please, sir. You
find this room rather close, perhaps. Some people do; but I'm old and
chilly, and I can't live without a fire."
"I have come to you in great anxiety of mind," said Gilbert, as he seated
himself upon the only disengaged chair in the room, "and with some hope
that you may be able to set my mind at ease by affording me information
about Miss Marian Nowell."
"I can give you no information about her."
"Indeed!" cried Gilbert, with a bitter pang of disappointment; "and yet
you answered my advertisement."
"I did, because I have some reason to suppose this Marian Nowell may be
my granddaughter."
"That is quite possible."
"Can you tell me her father's name?"
"Percival Nowell. Her mother was a Miss Lucy Geoffry."
"Right," said the old man. "Percival Nowell was my only son--my only
child of late years. There was a girl, but she died early. He was my only
son, and his mother and I were foolish enough to be proud of his good
looks and his clever ways; and we brought him up a gentleman, sent him to
an expensive school, and after that to the University, and pinched
ourselves in every way for his sake. My father was a gentleman; and it
was only after I had failed as a professional man, through circumstances
which I need not explain to you now, that I took to this business. I
would have made any sacrifice in reason for that boy of mine. I wanted
him to be a gentleman, and to make his way in one of the learned
professions. After a great deal of chopping and changing, he fixed upon
the Bar, took chambers in the Temple, made me pay all the fees, and
pretended to study. But I soon found that he was leading a wild
dissipated life, and was never likely to be good for anything. He got
into debt, drew bills upon me, and behaved altogether in a most shameful
manner. When I sent for him, and remonstrated with him upon his
disgraceful conduct, he told me that I was a miser, that I spent my life
in a dog-kennel for the sake of hoarding money, and that I deserved
nothing better than his treatment of me. I may have been better off at
this time than I had cared to let him know, for I had soon found out what
a reckless scoundrel I had to deal with; but if he had behaved decently,
he would have found me generous and indulgent enough. As it was, I told
him to go about his business, and never to expect another sixpence from
me as long as he lived. How he managed to exist after this, I hardly
know. He was very much mixed up with a disreputable lot of turf-men, and
I believe he made money by betting. His mother robbed me for him, I found
out afterwards, and contrived to send him a good deal of money at odd
times. My business as a dealer in second-hand silver was better then than
it is now, and I had had so much money passing through my hands that it
was pretty easy for my wife to cheat me. Poor soul! she has been dead and
gone these fifteen years, and I have freely forgiven her. She loved that
young man to distraction. If he had wanted a step to reach the object of
his wishes, she would have laid herself down in the dust and let him walk
over her body. I suppose it is in the nature of mothers to love their
sons like that. Well, sir, I never saw my gentleman after that day. I had
plenty of letters from him, all asking for money; threatening letters,
pitiful letters, letters in which he swore he would destroy himself if he
didn't receive a remittance by return of post; but I never sent him a
shilling. About a year after our last meeting, I received the
announcement of his marriage with Miss Geoffry. He wrote to tell me that,
if I would allow him a decent income, he would reform and lead a steady
life. That letter I did answer: to the effect that, if he chose to come
here and act as my shopman, I would give him board and lodging for
himself and his wife, and such wages as he should deserve. I told him
that I had given him his chance as a gentleman, and he had thrown it
away. I would give him the opportunity now of succeeding in a humbler
career by sheer industry and perseverance as I had succeeded myself. If
he thought that I had made a fortune, there was so much the more reason
for him to try his luck. This was the last letter I ever wrote to him. It
was unanswered; but about a year and a half afterwards there came a few
lines to his mother, telling her of the birth of a daughter, which was to
be called Marian, after her. This last letter came from Brussels."
"And did you hear no more of your son after this?" Gilbert asked.
"Nothing. I think his mother used to get letters from him in secret for
some time; that these failed suddenly at last; and that anxiety about her
worthless son--anxiety which she tried to hide from me--shortened her
life. She never complained, poor soul! never mentioned Percy's name until
the last, when she begged me to be kind to him if he should ever come to
throw himself upon my kindness. I gave her my promise that, if that came
to pass, he should find me a better friend to him than he deserved. It is
hard to refuse the last prayer of a faithful wife who has done her duty
patiently for nearly thirty years."
"Have you any reason to suppose your son still living?"
"I have no evidence of his death. Often and often, after my poor wife was
gone, I have sat alone here of a night thinking of him; thinking that he
might come in upon me at any moment; almost listening for his footstep in
the quiet of the place. But he never came. He would have found me very
soft-hearted at such times. My mind changed to him a good deal after his
mother's death. I used to think of him as he was in his boyhood, when
Marian and I had such great hopes of him, and would sit and talk of him
for hours together by this fireside. An old man left quite alone as I was
had plenty of time for such thoughts. Night after night I have fancied I
heard his step, and have looked up at that door expecting to see him open
it and come in; but he never came. He may be dead. I suppose he is dead;
or he would have come to make another attempt at getting money out of
me."
"You have never taken any measures for finding him?" inquired Gilbert.
"No. If he wanted me, he knew where I was to be found. _I_ was a fixture.
It was his business to come to me. When I saw the name of Marian Nowell
in your advertisement a week ago, I felt curious to know whether it could
be my grandchild you were looking for. I held off till this morning,
thinking it wasn't worth my while to make any inquiries about the matter;
but I couldn't get it out of my head somehow; and it ended by my
answering your advertisement. I am an old man, you see, without a
creature belonging to me; and it might be a comfort to me to meet with
some one of my own flesh and blood. The bit of money I may leave behind
me when I die won't be much; but it might as well go to my son's child as
to a stranger."
"If your son's child can be found, you will discover her to be well
worthy of your love. Yes, though she has done me a cruel wrong, I believe
her to be all that is good and pure and true."
"What is the wrong that she has done you?"
Gilbert told Jacob Nowell the story of his engagement, and the bitter
disappointment which had befallen him on his return from Australia. The
old man listened with every appearance of interest. He approved of
Gilbert's notion of advertising for the particulars of a possible
marriage, and offered to bear his part in the expenses of the search for
his granddaughter.
Gilbert smiled at this offer.
"You do not know what a worthless thing money is to me now," he said, "or
now lightly I hold my own trouble or loss in this matter."
He left Queen Anne's Court soon after this, after having promised Jacob
Nowell to return and report progress so soon as there should be anything
worth telling. He went back to Wigmore Street heavy-hearted, depressed by
the reaction that followed the vain hope which the silversmith's letter
had inspired. It mattered little to him to know the antecedents of
Marian's father, while Marian's destiny remained still hidden from him.