_The Gloves Off_
The old grocer was not the man to do things by halves, and as soon as he
found that Albert's engagement to his cousin Lucilla was an accomplished
fact, duly approved by the young woman's father and to be determined by
a speedy marriage, he made up his mind to put his son out of the mouse
stage and make a man of him. Albert should come into full partnership,
with a half-share in the business; he should also have a domicile of his
own under the old roof. There were two big, accommodating rooms on the
first floor of the house, which hitherto had been used as receptacles
for lumber and rubbish. Grice had Bartle and a couple of boys to clear
them of boxes and crates, and that done, handed them over to a painter
and decorator from Sicaster, with full license to do his pleasure on
them. The painter and decorator set his wits to work, and achieved a
mighty bill; and when he had completed his labours he remarked sagely to
old George that the rooms ought to be furnished according-ly, with
emphasis on the last syllable. George rose to the bait, and called in
the best upholsterer available, with the result that when Albert and his
bride came home they found themselves in possession of two brand-new
suites of furniture, solid mahogany in the parlour, and rosewood in the
bedroom, with carpets and hangings in due sympathy with the rest of the
grandeur. The bride also found a new piano, and delighted her
father-in-law by immediately sitting down to it and playing a few show
pieces, with variations. In her new clothes and smart hat she went well
with the rest of the room, and the next morning George took Albert into
town and signed the deed of partnership.
"You're a very different man now, mi lad, fro' what ye were two months
since, remember," observed George, as he and his son sat together in the
"Red Lion" at Sicaster, taking a glass of refreshment before jogging
home again. "You were naught but a paid man then; now you're a full
partner i' George Grice & Son, grocers, wholesale and retail, and
Italian warehousemen, dealers in hay, straw, and horse corn. An' you're
a wed man, too, and wi' brass behind and before, and there's no young
feller i' t'county has better prospects. Foller my example, Albert, and
you'll cut up a good 'un i' t'end!"
Albert grinned weakly, and said that he'd do his best to look after
number one, and George went home well satisfied. It seemed to him that
having steered his ship safely past that perilous reef called Jecholiah
Farnish he would now have plain and comfortable sailing. Instead of
being saddled with a poverty-stricken daughter-in-law and her
undesirable family, he had got his son a wife who had already brought
him a couple of thousand pounds in ready money, and would have more
when death laid hands on the Nottingham draper. So there was now nothing
to do but attend to business during the day, look over the account books
in the evening, and approach sleep by way of gin and water and the
tinkle of Lucilla's piano.
"I were allus a man for doing things i' the right way," mused George
that evening as he smoked his cigar and listened to his new
daughter-in-law singing the latest music-hall songs, "and I done 'em
again this time. Now, if I'd let yon lass o' Farnish's wed our Albert
there'd ha' been nowt wi' her, and I should never ha' had Farnish
his-self off t'doorstep. It 'ud ha' been five pound here, and five pound
there. I should ha' had to keep all t'lot on 'em. An' if there is a
curse i' this here vale o' tears, it's poor relations!"
It was no poor relation who was tinkling the new piano in the fine new
parlour, nor a useless one, either, George thanked Heaven and himself.
Mrs. Albert had already proved an acquisition. She was a capable
housekeeper; she possessed a good deal of the family characteristic as
regards money, and she could keep books and attend to letters. Moreover,
she was no idler. Every morning, as soon as she had settled the
household affairs for the day, she appeared in the shop and took up her
position at the desk. This saved both George and Albert a good deal of
clerical work, for the Grice trade, which was largely with the gentry
and farmers of the district, involved a considerable amount of
book-keeping. Now, George was painfully slow as a scribe, and Albert
had no great genius for figures, though he was an expert at wrapping up
parcels. The bride, therefore, was valuable as a help as well as
advantageous as an ornament. And a certain gentleman who walked into the
shop one afternoon, after leaving a smart cob outside in charge of a
village lad who happened to be hanging about, looked at her with
considerable interest, as if pretty bookkeepers were strange in that
part of the country. Old Grice at that moment was busy down the yard,
examining a cartload of goods with which Bartle was about to set off to
a neighbouring hamlet: Albert was in the warehouse outside,
superintending the opening of a cask of sugar. Mrs. Albert went forward;
the caller greeted her with marked politeness.
"Mr. Albert Grice?" said the caller, with an interrogatory smile. "Is he
in?"
"I can call him in a minute, sir," replied Mrs. Albert. "He's only just
outside. Who shall I say?"
"If you'd be kind enough to ask him if he'd see Mr. Palethorpe of
Sicaster, for a moment," answered the visitor. "He'll know who I am."
Mrs. Albert opened the door at the back of the shop, and ushered
Palethorpe into the room in which Jeckie Farnish had found George Grice
eating his cold beef. She passed out through another door into the yard,
came back in a moment, saying that her husband would be there presently,
and returned to the shop. And upon her heels came Albert, wiping his
sugary hands on his apron and looking very much astonished.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Albert," said Palethorpe, in his pleasantest
manner. "I called to see you on a little matter of business. I would
have sent one of my clerks, but as the business is of a confidential
sort I thought I'd just drive over myself. The fact of the case is I've
got a writ for you--and there it is!"
Before Albert had comprehended matters, Palethorpe had put a folded,
oblong piece of paper into his hand, and had nodded his head, as much as
to imply that now, the writ having slipped into Albert's unresisting
fingers, something had been effected which could never be undone.
"Thought it would be more considerate to serve you with it myself," he
added, with another smile.
"I dare say you prefer that."
Albert looked from Palethorpe to the writ, and from the writ to
Palethorpe. His face flushed and his jaw, a weak and purposeless one,
dropped.
"What's it all about?" he asked, feebly. "I--I don't owe nobody aught,
Mr. Palethorpe. A writ!--for me?"
"Suit of Jecholiah Farnish--breach of promise--damages claimed, two
thousand pounds," answered Palethorpe, promptly. "That's what it is!
Lord, bless me!--do you mean to say you haven't been expecting it!"
He laughed, half sneeringly, and suddenly broke his laughter short.
George Grice had come in, softly, by the back door of the room, and had
evidently heard the solicitor's announcement of the reason of his
visit. Palethorpe composed his face, and made the grocer a polite bow.
It was his policy, on all occasions, to do honour to money, and he knew
George to be a well-to-do man.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Grice!" he said. "Fine day, isn't it--splendid
weather for----" Grice cut him short with a scowl.
"What did I hear you say?" he demanded, angrily. "Summat about yon
Farnish woman, and breach o' promise, and damages? What d'yer mean?"
"Just about what you've said," retorted Palethorpe. "I've served your
son with a writ on Miss Farnish's behalf--you'd better read it
together."
Grice glanced nervously at the curtained door which led into the shop.
Then he beckoned Palethorpe and Albert to follow him, and led them out
of the room and across a passage to a small apartment at the rear of the
house, a dismal nook in which his account books and papers of the last
thirty years had been stored. He carefully closed the door and turned on
the solicitor.
"Do you mean to tell me 'at yon there hussy has had the impudence to
start proceedin's for breach o' promise again my son?" he said. "I never
knew such boldness or brazenness i' my born days! Go your ways back,
young man, and tell her 'at sent you 'at she'll get nowt out o' me!"
Palethorpe laughed--something in his laugh made the grocer look at him.
And he saw decision and confidence in Palethorpe's face, and suddenly
realised that here was trouble which he had never anticipated.
"Nonsense, Mr. Grice!" exclaimed Palethorpe. "I'm surprised at
you!--such a keen and sharp man of business as you're known to be. We
want nothing out of you--we want what we do want out of your son!"
"He has nowt!" growled the grocer. "He's nowt but what I----"
"Nonsense again, Mr. Grice," interrupted Palethorpe. "He's your partner,
with a half-share in the business, as you've announced to a good many of
your neighbours and cronies during the last week or so, and he's also
got two thousand pounds with his wife. Come, now, what's the good of
pretending? Your son's treated my client very badly, very badly indeed,
and he'll have to pay. That's flat!"
Grice suddenly stretched out a hand towards his son.
"Gim'me that paper!" he said.
Albert handed over the writ and his father put on a pair of spectacles
and carefully read it through from beginning to end. Then he flung it on
the desk at which the three men were standing.
"It's nowt but what they call blackmail!" he growled. "I'll none deny
'at there were an arrangement between my son and Farnish's lass. But it
were this here--Farnish were to give five hundred pounds wi' her. Now,
Farnish went brok'--he had no five hundred pound, nor five hundred
pence! So, of course, t'arrangement fell through. That's where it is."
Palethorpe laughed again--and old Grice feared that laugh more than the
other.
"I'm more surprised than before, Mr. Grice," said Palethorpe. "My client
has nothing whatever to do with any arrangement--if there was
any--between you and her father. Her affair is with your son Mr. Albert
Grice. He asked her to marry him--she consented. He gave her an
engagement ring--it was well known all round the neighbourhood that they
were to marry. He wrote her letters, in which marriage is mentioned----"
Grice turned on his son in a sudden paroxysm of fury.
"Ye gre't damned softhead!" he burst out. "Ye don't mean to say 'at you
were fool enough to write letters! Letters!"
"I wrote some," replied Albert sullenly. "Now and then, when I was away,
like. It's t'usual thing when you're engaged to a young woman."
"Quite the usual thing--when you're engaged to a young woman," said
Palethorpe, with a quiet sneer. "And we have the letters--all of 'em.
And the engagement ring, too. Mr. Grice, it's no good blustering. This
is as clear a case as ever I heard of, and your son'll have to pay. It's
no concern of mine whether you take my advice or not, but if you do take
it, you'll come to terms with my client. If this case goes before a
judge and jury--and it certainly will, if you don't settle it in the
meantime--you won't have a leg to stand on, and Miss Farnish will get
heavy damages--heavy!--and you'll have all the costs. And between you
and me, Mr. Grice, you'll not come out of the matter with very clean
hands yourself. We know quite well, for you're a bit talkative, you
know--how you engineered the breaking-off of this engagement and
contrived the marriage of your son to his cousin, and we shall put you
in the witness-box, and ask you some very unpleasant questions. And
you're a churchwarden, eh?" concluded Palethorpe, as he turned to the
door. "Come now--you know my client's been abominably treated by you and
your son--you'd better do the proper thing, and compensate her
handsomely."
Grice had become scarlet with anger during the solicitor's last words,
and now he picked up the writ and thrust it into his pocket.
"I'll say nowt no more to you!" he exclaimed. "I'll see my lawyer in
t'morning, and hear what he's gotten to say to such a piece o'
impidence!"
"That's the first sensible thing I've heard you say," remarked
Palethorpe. "See him by all means--and he'll say to you just what I've
said. You'll see!"
The calm confidence of Palethorpe's tone, and the nonchalant way in
which he left father and son, cost Grice a sleepless night. He lay
turning in his bed, alternately cursing Jeckie for her insolence and
Albert for his foolishness in writing those letters. He had sufficient
knowledge of the world to know that Palethorpe was probably right--yet
it had never once occurred to him that a country lass could have
sufficient sense to invoke the law.
"She's too damned clever i' all ways is that there Jecholiah!" he
groaned. "Very like I should ha' done better if I'd kept in wi' her, and
let her wed our Albert. It's like to cost a pretty penny afore I've done
wi' it if I have to pay her an' all. There were a hundred pounds for
Albert's trip to Nottingham and another hundred for t'weddin' and
t'honeymoon, and I laid out a good three hundred i' doin' up them rooms
and buyin' t'pianner, and now then, there's this here! An' I'd rayther
go and fling my brass into t'sea nor have it go into t'hands o' that
there Jezebel! I wish I'd never ta'en our Albert into partnership, nor
said owt about his wife's two thousand pound--then, when this came on he
could ha' pleaded 'at he wor nowt but a paid man, and she'd ha' got next
to nowt i' t'way o' damages. Damages!--to that there!--it's enough to
mak' me shed tears o' blood!"
Grice was with his solicitor, Mr. Camberley, in Sicaster, by ten o'clock
next morning. He had left Albert at home, judging him to be worse than
an encumbrance in matters of this sort. He himself had sufficient acumen
to keep nothing back from his man of law; he told him all about the ring
and the letters, and his face grew heavier as Mr. Camberley's face grew
longer.
"You'll have to settle, Grice," said the solicitor, an oldish,
experienced man. "It's precisely as Palethorpe said--you haven't a leg
to stand on! You know, I'm a bit surprised at you; you might have
foreseen this."
Grice pulled out a big bandanna handkerchief, and mopped his high
forehead.
"It never crossed my mind 'at she'd be for owt o' this sort!" he
groaned. "I never thowt 'at she'd have as much sense as all that. She's
gotten a spice o' t'devil in her!--that's where it is. And you think
it's no use fightin' t'case?"
"Not a scrap of use!" said the lawyer. "Stop here while I go round to
Palethorpe's and see for myself how things are. They'll show me those
letters."
Grice sat grunting and muttering in Camberley's office until Camberley
returned. One glance at the solicitor's face showed him that there was
no hope.
"Well?" he asked anxiously as Camberley sat down to his desk. "Well,
now?"
"It's just as I expected," said Camberley. "Of course they've a
perfectly good case; they couldn't have a better. I've seen your son's
letters. Excellent evidence--for the plaintiff! Marriage is mentioned in
every one of them--when it was to be, what arrangements were to be made
afterwards, and so on. There's no use beating about the bush, Grice; you
haven't a chance!"
"Then, there's naught for it but payin'?" said the grocer with a deep
sigh. "No way o' gettin' out of it?"
"There's no way of getting out of it," answered Camberley. "Nobody and
nothing can get you out of it. Here's a perfectly blameless,
well-behaved, hard-working young woman, whom you had willingly accepted
as your son's future wife, suddenly flung off like an old glove, for no
cause whatever! What do you suppose a jury would say to that? You'll
have to settle, Grice--and I've done my best for you. They'll take
fifteen hundred pounds and their costs."
Grice's big face turned white, and the sweat burst out on his forehead
and rolled down his cheeks, and over the tight lip and into his beard.
"It's either that, or the case'll go on to trial," said Camberley. "My
own opinion," he added, dryly, "is that if it goes to trial, she'd get
two thousand. You'd far better write out a cheque and have done with it.
It's your own fault, you know."
Grice pulled out his cheque-book and wrote slowly at Camberley's
dictation. When he had attached his signature he handed over the cheque
with trembling fingers, and, without another word, went out, climbed
heavily into his trap, and drove home. He maintained a strange and
curious silence all the rest of that day, and that evening the strains
of the new piano failed to charm him. More than once his cigar went out
unnoticed; once or twice he shed tears into his gin-and-water.