THE BREAKING OF THE NEWS.
Harry was in three minds in as many seconds: he would hide, he would
rush out and learn the truth, he would first see who it was that had
followed him at such an hour. The last impulse prevailed, and the study
was the room from which to peep. Harry crept in on tiptoe, past the
bookshelves eloquently bare, to the bow-window with the drawn Venetian
blinds. Slightly raising one of the laths, he could see everything as
the cab drew up at the steps.
The cab-door was flung open and out sprang an utter stranger to Harry
Ringrose. This was a middle-aged man of the medium height, wearing a
somewhat shabby tall hat and a frock-coat which shone unduly in the
strong sunlight. He had a fresh complexion, a reddish moustache
streaked with grey, a sharp-pointed nose, and a very deep chin which
needed shaving; but what struck Harry first and last were the keen,
decisive eyes, twinkling behind glasses with gold rims, which went
straight to the broken window and surveyed it critically before their
owner had set foot on the steps. It seemed that the cabman saw it too
and made some remark; for the fare turned upon him, paid him and
slammed his door, and ordered him off in a very peremptory voice which
Harry heard distinctly. The cab turned in the sweep and disappeared
among the trees. Then the stranger came slowly up the steps, with his
eyes once more fixed upon the broken window. In another moment they had
run like lightning over the face of the house, and, before Harry had
time to move, had met his own.
The stranger raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and pointed to the
front door. Harry went to it, shot the bolts back, turned the key, and
flung the door wide open. He was trembling now with simple terror. His
tongue would not ask what had happened. It was like standing to be
shot, and having to give the signal to the firing party.
The other seemed to feel it almost equally: his fresh face was pale,
and his quick eyes still with sorrow and compunction. It was evident he
knew the worst. If only he would tell it unasked!
"My name is Lowndes," he began at last. "Gordon Lowndes--you must have
heard of me?"
"I--I don't remember it," stammered Harry at the second attempt.
"I stayed here several times while you were in Africa. I was here in
February."
"Yes, now I remember your name: it was in the last letter I had."
He could say this calmly; and yet his lips could not frame the question
whose answer would indeed be life or death.
"Two years ago I did not know your people," resumed the other. "But for
two years I have been their most intimate friend."
"Tell me," at length whispered Harry: "is--either of them--dead?" And
he awaited the worst with a sudden fortitude.
Mr. Lowndes shook his head.
"Not that I know of," said he.
"Thank God!" the boy burst out, with the first break in his voice.
"Nothing else matters--nothing--nothing! I made sure it was that! Can
you swear that my father is all right?"
The other winced. "To the best of my knowledge," said he almost
sharply.
"And my mother?"
"Yes, yes, I was with her three days ago."
"Where?"
"In London."
"London! And I passed through London last night! You saw her, you say,
three days ago, and she was all right then?"
"I never knew her look better."
"Then tell me the worst and let us have it over! I can see that we have
lost our money--but that doesn't matter. Nothing matters if they are
all right; won't you come in, sir, and tell me all?"
Harry did not know it, for in his deep emotion he had lost sight of
self; but there was something infinitely touching in the way the young
man stood aside and ushered his senior into the hall as though it were
still his home. Mr. Lowndes shook his head at the unconscious air, and
he entered slowly, with it bent. Harry shut the doors behind them, and
they turned into the first room. It was the room with the empty
bookshelves; and it still smelt of Harry's father's cheroots.
"You may wonder at my turning up like this," said Lowndes; "but for
those fools at the shipping-office I should have met you at the docks.
I undertook to do so, and to break the news to you there."
"But how could you know my ship?"
The other smiled.
"Cable," said he; "that was a very simple matter. But if your shipping
fellows hadn't sworn you'd be reported from the Lizard, in lots of time
for me to get up from Scotland to meet you, I should never have run
down there as I was induced to do on business the night before last. I
should have let the business slide. As it was the telegram reached me
last night in Glasgow, when I knew it was too late to keep you out of
this. Still, I timed myself to get here five minutes before you, and
should have done it if my train hadn't been forty minutes late. It--it
must have been the devil's own quarter-of-an-hour for you, Ringrose!
Have a drop of this before we go on; it'll do you good."
He took a flask from his pocket and half filled the cup with raw
whisky, which Harry seized gratefully and drained at a gulp. In truth,
the shock of the morning, after the night's excitement, had left him
miserably faint. The spirit revived him a little.
"You are very kind to me," he said, returning the cup. "You must be a
great friend of my parents for them to give you this job, and a good
friend to take it on! Now, if you please, tell me every mortal thing;
you will tell me nothing I cannot bear; but I am sure you are too kind
to keep anything back."
Lowndes was gazing with a shrewd approval upon the plucky young fellow,
in whom, indeed, disappointment and disaster had so far awakened only
what was best. At the last words, however, the quick eyes fell behind
the gold-rimmed glasses in a way that made Harry wonder whether he had
indeed been told the worst. And yet there was already more than enough
to account for the other's embarrassment; and he determined not to add
to it by unnecessary or by impatient questions.
"You are doubtless aware," began Lowndes, "that the iron trade in this
country has long been going from bad to worse? You have heard of the
bad times, I imagine, before to-day?"
Harry nodded: he had heard of the bad times as long as he could
remember. But because the happy conditions of his own boyhood had not
been affected by the cry, he had believed that it was nothing else. He
was punished now.
"The times," proceeded Lowndes, "have probably been bad since your
childhood. How old are you now?"
"Twenty-one to-day."
"To-day!"
"Go on," said Harry, hoarsely. "Don't be sorry for me. I deserve very
little sympathy." His hands were in the pockets he had wilfully emptied
of every coin.
"When you were five years old," continued Lowndes, "the pig-iron your
father made fetched over five pounds a ton; before you were seven it
was down to two-pounds-ten; it never picked up again; and for the last
ten years it hasn't averaged two pounds. Shall I tell you what that
means? For these ten years your father has been losing a few shillings
on every ton of pig-iron produced--a few hundred pounds every week of
his life!"
"And I was enjoying myself at school, and now in Africa! Oh," groaned
Harry Ringrose, "go on, go on; but don't waste any pity on me."
"You may be a very rich man, but that sort of thing can't last for
ever. The end is bound to come, and in your father's case it came,
practically speaking, several years ago."
"Several years? I don't follow you. He never failed?"
"It would have been better for you all if he had. You have looked upon
this place as your own, I suppose, from as far back as you can remember
down to this morning?"
"As my father's own--decidedly."
"It has belonged to his bankers for at least five years."
"How do you know?" cried Harry hotly.
"He told me himself, when I first came down here, now eighteen months
ago. We met in London, and he asked me down. I was in hopes we might do
business together; but it was no go."
"What sort of business?"
"I wanted him to turn the whole thing into a Limited Liability
Company," said Gordon Lowndes, reeling off the last three words as
though he knew them better than his own name; "I mean those useless
blast-furnaces! What good were they doing? None at all. Three bob a ton
on the wrong side! That's all the good they'd done for years, and
that's all they were likely to do till times changed. Times never will
change--to what they were when you were breeched--but that's a detail.
Your father's name down here was as sweet as honey. All he'd got to do
was to start an extra carriage or two, put up for Parliament on the
winning side, and turn his works into a Limited Liability Company. I'd
have promoted it. I'd have seen it through in town. The best men would
have gone on the board, and we'd have done the bank so well in shares
that they wouldn't have got out of it if they could. We'd have made a
spanking good thing of it if only the governor would have listened to
reason. He wouldn't; said he'd rather go down with the ship than let in
a lot of shareholders. 'Damn the shareholders!' says I. 'Why count the
odds in the day of battle?' It's the biggest mistake you can make,
Ringrose, and your governor kept on making it! It was in this very
room, and he was quite angry with me. He wouldn't let me say another
word. And what happens? A year or so later--this last February--he
wires me to come down at once. Of course I came, but it was as I
thought: the bank's sick of it, and threatens to foreclose. I went to
see them; not a bit of good. Roughly speaking, it was a case of either
paying off half the mortgage and reconstructing the whole bag of
tricks, or going through the courts to beggary. Twenty thousand was the
round figure; and I said I'd raise it if it was to be raised."
This speech had barely occupied a minute, so rapidly was it spoken; and
there was much of it which Harry, in his utter ignorance of all such
matters, would have found difficult to follow at a much slower rate of
utterance. As it was, however, it filled him with distrust of his
father's friend, who, on his own showing, had made some proposal
dishonourable in the eyes of a high-principled man. Moreover, it came
instinctively to Harry that he had caught a first glimpse of the real
Gordon Lowndes, with his cunning eyes flashing behind his _pince-nez_,
the gestures of a stump orator, and this stream of unintelligible
jargon gushing from his lips. The last sentences, however, were plain
enough even to Harry's understanding.
"You said you'd raise it," he repeated dryly; "yet you can't have done
so."
"I raised ten thousand."
"Only half; well?"
"It was no use."
"My father would refuse to touch it?"
"N-no."
"Then what did he do?"
Lowndes drew back a pace, saying nothing, but watching the boy with
twitching eyelids.
"Come, sir, speak out!" cried Harry, "He will tell me himself, you
know, when I get back to London."
"He is not there."
"You said he was!"
"I said your mother was."
"Where is my father, then?"
"On the Continent--we think."
"You think? And the--ten thousand pounds?"
"He has it with him," said Lowndes, in a low voice. "I'm sorry to say
he--bolted with the lot!"