A few evenings after the awkward discovery recorded in the last chapter
Mr Hawkesbury himself called at our lodgings. He looked troubled and
constrained, but as kind as usual.
He came to tell us how sorry he was to have been deprived of our company
that evening, and to offer a sort of apology for his son's conduct.
"I fear from what he tells me that you do not all get on very happily
together at the office. I am so sorry, for I would have liked you all
to be friends."
It was hardly possible to tell the father frankly what we thought of his
son, so I replied, vaguely, "No, we don't get on very well, I'm sorry to
say."
"The fact is," said Jack, "we never have been friends."
"He told me so, greatly to my sorrow."
"I suppose he also told you why?" asked Jack, glancing sharply at the
clergyman.
The latter looked disturbed and a trifle confused as he replied, "Yes,
he did tell me something which--"
"He told you I was a convict's son," said Jack, quietly.
"What!" exclaimed the clergyman, with an involuntary start--"what! No,
he didn't tell me that, my poor boy: he never told me that!"
"I am," quietly said Jack.
I was amazed at the composure with which he said it, and looked the
visitor in the face as he did so.
The face was full of pity and sympathy. Not a shade of horror crossed
it, and for all he was Hawkesbury's father, I liked him more than ever.
"Do you mind telling me what he did say about me?" asked Jack,
presently.
"We will not talk about that," said the clergyman.
Jack looked disposed for a moment to persevere in his demand, but the
father's troubled face disarmed him.
"Poor Edward has had great disadvantages," he began, in a half-
apologetic, half-melancholy way, "and I often fear I am to blame. I
have thought too much of my work out of doors, and too little of my duty
to him. I have not been to him all that a father should be."
He said this more in the way of talking to himself than of addressing
us. But I saw Jack colour up at the last reference, and hastened to
change the subject.
We felt quite sorry for him when he rose to go. He evidently knew his
son's failings only too well, and with a father's love tried to cover
them. And I could see how in all he said he was almost pleading with us
to befriend his boy.
To me it was more than painful to hear him talk thus--to speak to me as
if I was a paragon of virtue, and to apologise to _me_ for the defects
of his own son. It was more than I could endure; and when he started to
go I asked if I might walk with him.
He gladly assented, and then I poured into his ears the whole story of
my follies and struggles and troubles in London.
I shall never forget the kind way in which he listened and the still
kinder way in which he talked when he had heard all.
I am not going to repeat that talk here; the reader may guess for
himself what a simple Christian minister would have to say to one in my
case, and how he would say it. He neither preached nor lectured, and he
broke out into no exclamations. Had he done so, I should probably have
been flurried and frightened away. But he talked to me as a father to
his son--or rather as a big brother to a young one--entering into all my
troubles and difficulties, and even claiming a share in them himself.
It was a long time since I had had such a talk with any one, and it did
me good.
An uneventful week or two followed. We occasionally saw Mr Hawkesbury
at our lodgings, for Smith could never bring himself to the point of
again visiting the rectory. Indeed, he was now so busily engaged in the
evenings preparing for his coming examination that he had time for
nothing, and even the education of the lively Billy temporarily devolved
on me.
It was not till after a regular battle royal that that young gentleman
could be brought to submit to be "larned" by any one but his own special
"bloke," and even when he did yield, under threats of actual expulsion
from the school, he made such a point of comparing everything I did and
said with the far superior manner in which Smith did and said it, that
for a time it was rather uphill work. At length, however, he quieted
down, and displayed no small aptitude for instruction, which was
decidedly encouraging.
At the office Hawkesbury, ever since the uncomfortable meeting at his
father's, had been very constrained in his manner to Jack and me,
attempting no longer to force his society on us, and, indeed, relapsing
into an almost mysterious reserve, which surprised more of those who
knew him than our two selves.
As Doubleday said--who had never quite got over his sense of injury--"he
had shut himself up with his petty-cash, and left us to get on the best
we could without him."
Smith and I would both, for his father's sake, have liked if possible to
befriend him or do him a good turn. But he seemed studiously to avoid
giving us the opportunity, and was now as distant to us as we had once
been to him.
However, in other respects our life at Hawk Street proceeded pleasantly
enough, not the least pleasant thing being a further rise in both our
salaries, an event which enabled me to set aside so much more every week
to repay Flanagan his generous loan, as well as to clear myself finally
of debt.
Things were going on thus smoothly, and it was beginning to seem as if
the tide of life was set calm for both of us, when an event happened
which once more suddenly stirred us to excitement and perturbation.
It was a Sunday evening, the evening preceding Jack's examination. He
had been working hard, too hard, night after night for weeks past, and
was now taking a literal day of rest before his ordeal. We were in our
room with Mr Smith the elder, who was a regular Sunday visitor. He had
devoted whatever spare time he could give of late to Jack's
preparations, "coaching" him in Latin and Greek, and reading with him
Ancient History. And now he was almost as excited and anxious about the
result as either of us two.
Indeed, Jack himself took the whole matter so coolly that it seemed he
must either have been perfectly confident of success, or perfectly
indifferent to it, and this evening he was doing quite as much to keep
up our spirits as we his.
The examination, which was to last two days, was to begin at nine next
morning, and Jack had received a gratifying permission from the partners
to absent himself for those two days accordingly.
"It will be a pretty hard grind while it lasts," Jack said, "for the
examination goes on eight hours each day."
"When is the _viva-voce_ portion?" asked Mr Smith.
"To-morrow. They begin with it, and I shall be glad when it is over. I
don't mind the writing nearly so much."
"Hadn't you better go to bed now," suggested I, "and get a good-night?"
"So I will," said he, "presently. But I must first write to Mrs
Shield."
I happened to be looking towards Mr Smith the elder as Jack said this.
He gave a quick involuntary start, which, however, he instantly turned
off into a fit of coughing as his eyes met mine.
Mr Smith had had a racking cough ever since I had known him, but I
don't think I ever remembered his having a spasm of this kind before.
"The fact is," said Jack, whose back was turned, as he looked for some
note-paper on the shelf, "I ought to have written last week, but I was
so busy. And if I put it off any longer they will both think something
is wrong."
I only heard what he said mechanically, for my eyes were fixed on Mr
Smith.
His face had turned deadly white, and the old frightened look about his
eyes came out now with startling intensity. He certainly must be ill or
in pain.
"Are you--" I began.
But with a sudden effort he rose to his feet, and with a glance at Jack
motioned to me to be silent, and leave the question unasked.
"What?" said Jack, turning round to me.
"Are you--going to write a long letter?" I asked.
"I can't say till I begin," said Jack, laughing, and sitting down to
write.
"I'll say good-night," said Mr Smith, in a hoarse but otherwise
composed voice.
"Good-night," said Jack. "I wish you'd get rid of your cold. All that
night work must be bad for you."
Mr Smith shook hands with me in silence and quitted the room. I heard
his footsteps go strangely down the stairs, and his door shut behind him
in the room below.
I didn't feel comfortable. I was afraid he was ill--more ill than he
wished either of us to suspect. It was the only way in which I could
account for the spasm which preluded that last fit of coughing.
If it was so, he would be naturally anxious to conceal the fact from
Jack on the eve of his examination, and that would account for his
abrupt interruption of my question.
However, I had no examination to-morrow, and I was determined if
possible to know the truth about our friend that very evening.
I sat by while Jack wrote his letter, thinking it interminable, and
wondering what he could have to say to fill two sheets. When it was
done I insisted on taking it to the post.
"It's after ten now," said I, "and you really ought to be in bed."
"You're precious careful of me, old boy," he said. "However, you shall
have your own way for once."