The clouds that had made the night so dark were all gone the next
morning, and the sun shone brightly as Aleck called at the doctor’s
to get Thorndyke over to the store early; he wanted to look over some
papers preparatory to the new business arrangement, and he knew evening
was no time for Thorndyke to undertake extra work.
Old Joan’s face glowed with pride and delight at what was going on, but
she tried her best to conceal it.
“It’s no favorin’ the wee bairn,” she said, “to fling a’ the doors
wide, and tak him into the very heart o’ the establishment. Ilka
customer that casts a shadow inside kens he has been the heart and soul
o’ it a’ for years, an’ it’s only acknowledging the truth before the
world, to put his name where a’ can read it. And I’m persuaded it is
ower muckle to bring upon a pair o’ shoulders like his the whole burden
o’ sic a house, wi’ the lives and health o’ half the city, and a’ the
wisest o’ the doctors dependin’ on him to fill their needs, and Mr.
Aleck steppin’ aside, and offerin’ nae muir help, whatever the pinch
may be!”
“Well, well, Joan, his head will make up for his shoulders, you know
that very well, and he must have all the help he needs, let Aleck go
when he will. Perhaps he’ll be picking up a junior partner for himself
after he comes to be owner of the whole thing, and that wont take so
many years either, eh, little man?” and the doctor gave Thorndyke a
look that wasn’t at all ashamed to show how he felt about the matter,
at least.
Business hours were early at the Fenimores’, too, and Tom was at his
post as usual, other people would have said, but for himself, he could
hardly have been sure whether he was there or not; he seemed to be
walking in a maze, some terrible dream of perplexity and desperate
resolve, and it grew darker and heavier as the hours wore on.
“Mixed up” with Davis and his associates? One of them to all intents
and purposes? Did Davis dare say that? And if Davis could pretend to a
claim on him he would push it to the utmost, Tom knew.
Then why shouldn’t he let them have the signature if they wanted it,
and if that was the only way out of trouble on every side? A whole life
in that store was worse than a hundred deaths, and if Davis should
give him shares in a “handsome thing,” as he called it, he might go to
the ends of the earth, and have money to send back to those that needed
it. And after all, could a real thief feel much more miserable and low
than Hal had always kept him since they first came together?
He passed heavily by the counting-room as the hours drew to a close,
and started as he heard the senior Fenimore’s voice calling “Haggarty!”
Was the truth discovered? Was there any way in which Davis would dare
play him false and betray him as “mixed up” with his own companions?
“Why, what is the matter with you?” asked Mr. Fenimore, as Tom’s white
face answered the summons. “Are you sick to-day?”
“No, I am not sick,” said Tom. “I was up rather late last night, it is
true.”
“Well, take care of yourself to-night, then; you don’t look right; but
just step in here a moment, if you please. I want to be out for perhaps
a quarter of an hour, if you can remain here. Perhaps you can finish
looking over these letters, and make some minutes of them.”
Tom sat down and leaned his head upon his hands. What was the matter
with it? It throbbed and whirled strangely.
“Yes, I can do it,” he said drearily, as if trying to rouse himself.
“I should despise myself for ever; but I have always had somebody to
despise me. I wonder if it would be a very different thing.”
He glanced at a scrap of paper fallen near him, on which “Fenimore &
Co.” had been trying a new pen half a dozen times. He looked at it
again, and then started wildly to his feet.
“Yes, it would be a different thing! They cannot make me do it, Hal
Fenimore and the whole set of them together! I haven’t the stuff to
make a man of in me, of course, or Hal would never have twitted and
crowded me all my life as he has; but I’ve always been able to declare
to myself he lied when he said I did not do my best, and I always will!
But oh, why do I have to fight like a man, and a brave one too, if I
never was given the soul of one to begin with?”
He seized the letters and began to look them over. Black, white, or
gray were they? He could not tell. He only saw one question written all
over them. Would Davis dare, would he be able to get him into trouble?
He had meant that ugly phrase “mixed up” as a threat, Tom knew very
well; could he manage to bring it to the ears of Fenimore & Co.? It
would be an end to the partnership, drawing pretty near now, if he
should. And what then?
A sudden thought flashed into his mind. If any mercy, even in a dark
disguise, should set him free from Fenimore’s, there was Carter! He
had heard Aleck talk of what Carter was to the meanest man he had on
board. He would go before the mast with him, if he could but find him.
Thorndyke always knew when he came in. He would ask Thorndyke.
“I wont keep you any longer, Haggarty,” said Mr. Fenimore’s voice
behind him; “and indeed I would advise you to call hours ended and take
care of yourself. You’re not well to-day, I am sure.”
Tom turned and left the store. He would go to Halliday’s. The sooner he
got a promise from Thorndyke to let him know when Carter came in, the
better.
Halliday’s was a place where every one seemed to like an excuse to drop
in; there was always some one there enjoying the light and warmth and
comfortable feeling he could hardly have explained to himself.
The early twilight had fallen, and the outside air was bitterly cold as
Tom opened the door, and the feeling of comfort reached even his heavy
heart for an instant, as he stepped inside.
Thorndyke was busy with a solitary customer, and two heavy-coated
policemen stood with their backs to Tom, taking a moment’s respite from
the cold outside, and “warming up” for the next hour’s duty.
“Anything lively in your beat to-day?” asked one of them listlessly, as
he stretched his hands toward the glowing fire.
“Well, not a great deal,” replied the other. “We came down on a nest of
pretty dark-feathered birds, up in ---- street, but we’ve had an eye on
them for some time.”
“Do they belong here?” asked the first.
“No, not more than one of them at least, but there’s a young shoot of
one of the best houses in the city that I’ve had my suspicions they
were trying to make friends with, of late. Can’t quite vouch for it,
though, and wouldn’t if I could, for I don’t think they’ve got any harm
out of him yet, and doubt if they ever would.”
The policemen left the fire, and passed out by an opposite door, the
customer followed, and Thorndyke looked up at Tom. One look was
enough. Tom’s face had told Thorndyke the secret, and Tom knew he had
read it.
“For heaven’s sake, Tom,” said Thorndyke, “don’t stand there looking
like that! There will be some one in in another moment. Here, come into
my office, there’s some one coming this instant. See if this glass of
water will make you look like a live man again, and wait there till I
come.”
The customer wanted a prescription that took time; hours the minutes
seemed to Tom, and then Thorndyke came. Tom looked up at him with a
white, hopeless face.
“_You_ will despise me now,” he said slowly. “Of course you never
thought much of me; you couldn’t, kind as you were, though I _did_ mean
to do as well as I could. But you _were_ kind, and I had rather all the
world knew I had disgraced myself, than that you should have found it
out.”
“Tom,” said Thorndyke, in a low pitying tone that thrilled him through,
“tell me what is the matter here! Are you in trouble about money?”
“No,” said Tom, “or at least, not much; it is worse than that! Those
fellows seemed to be friends, they wanted me with them, and I wanted
friends so much! They never let me see any harm, and it always seemed
so light-hearted and gay when they were; but I knew there _was_ harm,
and I ought to have loathed it all, as I really did in my soul all the
time! They wanted me to forge Fenimore & Co.’s name for them; that was
all their friendliness was aimed at from the beginning, I suppose.
They did not get it, thank Heaven, but they came too near it, nearer
than I ever dreamed they could. And now, if they’ve got into trouble
themselves, and my name is going to be whispered along with theirs, who
is ever going to know how far I went with them? Who’s going to believe
that they kept me half-blinded till the last moment, and that then I
had determined to refuse what they wanted, though I couldn’t see a
bright spot before me for half my life in any other track!”
“Oh why didn’t you come to me?” cried Thorndyke bitterly, and then,
with a sudden check upon himself--“but, Tom, you never would have
turned to friends like these if you hadn’t been in trouble to begin
with. Something has gone wrong with you longer than that, for I have
seen it.”
Tom looked in his face with a troubled cry.
“Hal Fenimore drove me desperate!” he said. “Of course he wouldn’t have
dared if I had had the man in me the rest of you had. I suppose I
hadn’t. I don’t know, but I _had_ to stand up like one, and try to fill
my father’s place, and he never could say I didn’t before; but now he
will know this, and all the rest of the world will hear it from him.”
“How will he know this?” said Thorndyke, a sharp look of pain passing
over his face. “Do you think I would tell him or any other one on the
face of the earth?”
“You wont?” and Tom looked wonderingly but still drearily at him.
“Get into that easy chair,” said Thorndyke. “Don’t stand leaning
against the wall as if a blow had struck you.”
Tom stepped mechanically towards the chair, and sat down in it.
Thorndyke stood before him a moment, and then came closer and put his
arms round his shoulders with a yearning tenderness that sent another
thrill through Tom’s heart.
“Tom,” he said, “Come into my store to-morrow! I want you, and have
wanted you a long time, but I couldn’t say so before. I’ve seen how
things were going with you and Hal, and have longed to put something
between you, if I only could. Of course I couldn’t, so long as you
were with him, but it is time for you to leave there now. Come to me,
and you shall find out whether you are a man! I tell you, Tom, there
isn’t one in a thousand who would have stuck to the ship, and fought
as you have, all these years; and not one in all the thousands I know
who could help me as you can. I need you, and the Fenimores have enough
without you. It will be hard for you to begin all over again, but if
you learn as fast as you did at the professor’s, you shall have your
share in the business at the end of the year. And I’ll see that you
have all you need to keep things easy at home, from the day you come.
Only Tom, why, oh why, couldn’t you have trusted me long ago?”
Changes seem very rapid to passers who only give a glance now and then,
as they hurry by, and the customers at Halliday’s remarked that “the
young people seemed to be rushing things a little,” as they saw Aleck
less and less in the store and Tom behind the counter; then Aleck sent
sometimes in Dr. Thorndyke’s place to a patient, and at last the name
of “Dr. Halliday” making its appearance just below the bell handle over
which “Dr. Thorndyke” had been read so long, and the sign of Halliday
& Thorndyke, which they still considered new, coming down to make room
for “Halliday, Thorndyke & Co.”
“Rushing things!” repeated Tom to Thorndyke one day with a laugh.
“Why it seems to me as if my life at Fenimore’s was somewhere away
back in the dark ages! There’s been more peace and comfort, in these
later days, more steady standing up with the feeling that I was a man,
in every one of them, than I’d had in my whole life together before.
But even peace and comfort don’t tell the whole of it. There’s more
blessedness than that, by a long shot, in feeling that I have got a
close hold on a fellow like you and another like Aleck. There’s no use
saying much about it, though. Words don’t seem to do the business.”
No, they do not. And Thorndyke only gave Tom a look in reply; but
that said “God bless you, old fellow, as you’ve blessed us a thousand
times;” and then Thorndyke himself said, “There goes Aleck again with
that fine turnout of his. He’s getting more practice than he knows how
to turn his hand to, already!”