THE MASTER CRAFTSMAN
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
ON
THE MASTER CRAFTSMAN
‘There is always a touch of the fairy-tale in Sir Walter Besant’s
romances.... He steeps the workaday world in a transfigurating
medium, and eerie incidents, impossible coincidences, fine and subtle
sentiments, beautiful love stories of pure passion, all appear in
keeping.... In “The Master Craftsman” Sir Walter Besant’s admirers
will find no cause for disappointment.... It is charming, it is
informed with the healthiest spirit, and it is optimistic, chivalrous,
picturesque.’--_Daily News._
‘“The Master Craftsman” opens with a brilliant prologue, not the
less enjoyable because it recalls the opening chapter of “Treasure
Island.”... The story contains romance, a sort of ethical adaptability
to the social conditions of the present time, a ripe humour in the
delineation of character, and a pervading poetry or eloquence that
makes the prose of the book seem modulated by the inflections of a
living voice. The book reveals no new development of its author’s
powers, but shows them undiminished and fresh; and it will be read with
enjoyment and admiration by everyone who takes it up.’--_Scotsman._
‘What we ask of Sir Walter Besant are pleasant and inspiriting hours
of wholesome entertainment. These he never fails to provide. He has
provided them once again in “The Master Craftsman,” and we are grateful
accordingly, and know that his book will have all the success of its
predecessors.’--_Daily Chronicle._
‘In “The Master Craftsman” Sir Walter Besant has a subject to his
heart’s desire.... He has a bit of old London to describe, and he does
it in a very lifelike and workmanlike fashion. Here the permanent value
of the book comes in.... To write a novel like “The Master Craftsman”
must be to enjoy oneself. It fairly beams on its readers.’--_Sketch._
‘Sir Walter Besant is, in one respect at least, a worthy successor
to Charles Dickens, for he knows London in all its picturesque nooks
and corners, and how to invest tales of mean streets with romantic
interest. He knows human nature also--the wholesome, sweet, sturdy
human nature which is not troubled with neurotic moods, or intent on
the solution of doubtful problems in morals.... This well-written,
quite improbable, but not on that account less fascinating,
romance.’--_Leeds Mercury._
‘... This sense of a living and kindly voice addressing you doubles
the charm of the story. This charm you feel particularly in Sir Walter
Besant’s last delightful romance, where only the living voice could
hold you hypnotically spell-bound till you accept unquestioningly the
wonderful Wapping idyll.’--_Illustrated London News._
‘Life in the East End among the working bees and life in the West
among the drones and butterflies of Society are pictured with equal
skill, the characters are vigorously drawn, the incidents are always
interesting and occasionally exciting. In a word, “The Master
Craftsman” is a fresh, picturesque, wholesome bit of fiction, full of
interest.’--_Court Journal._
‘In “The Master Craftsman” Sir Walter Besant is revealed in his very
sunniest mood.... The story is throughout a delightful one, rich in
character-drawing.’--_Lady._
‘In Sir Walter Besant’s pleasant romance of Wapping-on-the-Wall, the
hundred-year old mystery of the bag of jewels makes a delightful
background of fairy-tale to a plot and motive thoroughly modern and
realistic.’--_Spectator._
‘Sir Walter Besant has not been able to resist the attraction of the
jewel-treasure story, and we are glad he has succumbed to it, for he
has written one of the very best of the many romances whose hearts are
the sparkling futile things.’--_World._
‘There is about the story a touch of quixotism and romance which gives
it a charm of its own, and in the hands of an experienced writer the
tale is plausibly and agreeably told.’--_Westminster Gazette._
‘“The Master Craftsman” is certainly as pleasant a story as any Sir
Walter Besant has yet given to the world, and pleasantness is a quality
none too common in the fiction of the day.... Sir Walter Besant’s
optimism is always enjoyable, and often, as we know, truly beneficent
to a world over-given to pessimism.’--_Queen._
‘With a great deal of skill in the telling, and with much delightful
description of London as it now is and as it was last century, Sir
Walter Besant records ... the triumph of will and nothing over
incapacity and everything.... The story is charmingly told, with a kind
of artless optimism that is well-nigh captivating.’--_Academy._
THE
MASTER CRAFTSMAN
BY
WALTER BESANT
AUTHOR OF
‘BEYOND THE DREAMS OF AVARICE,’ ‘ARMOREL OF LYONESSE,’
‘ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN,’ ETC.
[Illustration]
A NEW EDITION
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1897
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PROLOGUE 1
I. ‘MARRY MONEY’ 22
II. ‘TRY POLITICS’ 34
III. THE COUSIN 44
IV. WAPPING 54
V. THE FAMILY HOUSE 65
VI. ‘TEA IS READY’ 76
VII. A BARGAIN 85
VIII. IN THE YARD 96
IX. IN THE EVENING 103
X. THE CHURCHYARD 111
XI. AN ADDRESS 122
XII. THE PHYSICIAN 140
XIII. IN THE FIELDS 149
XIV. MORE LESSONS 160
XV. MUTINY 169
XVI. DISSOLUTION 178
XVII. GENERAL ELECTION 195
XVIII. IN THE HOUSE 205
XIX. LADY FRANCES AT HOME 215
XX. AT THE YARD 223
XXI. THE SECOND SPEECH 231
XXII. A SURPRISE 248
XXIII. A MAN OF SOCIETY 265
XXIV. AN EXPLANATION 275
XXV. THE PROUD LOVER 284
XXVI. RELEASE 301
XXVII. CONCLUSION 307
THE MASTER CRAFTSMAN
PROLOGUE.
On a certain evening of July, in the year of grace 1804, old John
Burnikel sat in his own chair--that with arms and a high back--his own
chair in his own place during the summer--not his winter place--on
the terrace outside the Long Room of the Red Lion Tavern. This old
tavern, which, they say, was once visited by King Charles the First,
when he hunted a deer across the Whitechapel meadows, and afterwards
took a drink on the steps of this hostelry, was built of wood, like
most of the houses on the River Wall. It had a tumble-down and rickety
appearance; the upper windows projected, and were either aslant or
askew; the gables stood out high above the red-tiled roof, which had
sunk down in the middle, and for a hundred years had threatened to fall
down; there were odds and ends of buildings projecting over the river,
which also had looked for a hundred years as if they were falling into
it; the place had never got as much painting as it should have; the
half-obliterated sign hung creaking on rusty iron hinges. As it was in
1704, so it was in 1804, tottering, but never falling; ready to drop
to pieces, but never actually dropping to pieces.
The red blinds in the window looked warm and comforting on a cold
winter’s night; and from many a ship homeward bound making its slow way
up the river there were wafted signs of satisfaction that Wapping and
the Red Lion Tavern and old John Burnikel could be seen once more.
The Long Room was on the first-floor, a room running right through
the whole depth of the house, with one great window on the north, and
another opening from floor to ceiling on the south. From the window on
the north side could be seen in spring a lovely view of the trees and
hedges of Love Lane and the broad orchards, all white and pink with
blossoms of apple, pear and plum, which stretched away to the ponds and
fields of Whitechapel, and to the tall buildings of the London Hospital.
The tavern, from that window, seemed to be some rural retreat far from
the noisy town. In the winter, when the company was gathered round the
roaring fire, with shutters close, drawn blinds, and candles lit, there
was no pleasanter place for the relaxation of the better sort, nor any
place where one could look for older rum or neater brandy, not to speak
of choice Hollands, which some prefer to rum. For summer enjoyment
there was a broad balcony or terrace overhanging the river where the
company might sit and enjoy the spectacle of the homeward-bound ships
sailing up, and the outward-bound sailing down, and the loading and
unloading, with lighters and barges innumerable, in midstream.
The tavern stood beside Execution Dock, and the company of drinkers
might sometimes, if they pleased, witness a moving spectacle of justice
done on the body of some poor sailor wretch--murderer, mutineer, or
pirate--who was tied to a stake at low tide and was then left to expect
slow Death; for the grim Finisher dragged cruel feet and lingered,
while the tide slowly rose, and little by little washed over the chin
of the patient and gently lapped over his lips, and so crept higher and
higher till, with relentless advance, it flowed over his nostrils, and
then, with starting eyes of agony and horror, the dying man was dead.
Then the tide rose higher still, and presently flowed quite over his
head, and left no sign of the dreadful Thing below.
There had been, however, no execution on this day. John Burnikel sat
on the terrace, the time being eight in the evening, before a table on
which was a bowl of punch, his nightly drink. With him, one on each
side, sat his two grand-nephews, first cousins, partners in the firm of
Burnikel and Burnikel, boat-builders, of Wapping High Street--Robert
and George Burnikel. The rest of the company consisted of certain
reputable tradesmen of Wapping, and one or two sea-captains.
At this time John Burnikel was an extremely ancient person. His birth,
in fact, as recorded in the register of St. John’s Church, Wapping,
took place in the year 1710. It was not everybody who knew that date,
but everybody knew that he had far surpassed the limits accorded to
man. Nobody in the parish, for instance, could remember any time when
John Burnikel was not visible, and walking about, an old man as it
seemed, in a time when, to this riverside people, greatly addicted as
they were to rum, a man of fifty was accounted old. Nor could anybody
remember the time when John Burnikel was not to be found every evening
in the Long Room of the Red Lion, or on the terrace overlooking the
river.
Old or not, he walked erect and briskly; he looked no more than sixty;
his features were not withered or shrunken or sharpened; he had no look
of decrepitude; he had preserved his teeth and his hair; the only sign
of age was the network of wrinkles which time had thrown over his face.
And when he walked home at night he brandished his trusty club with so
much resolution, and in his old arm there was still so much strength,
that although the place was lawless, and robberies and assaults were
common, and although he walked through the street every night alone,
at ten o’clock, nobody ever molested him. Such is the virtue of a
thick stick, which is far better than sword or pistol, if a man hath a
reputation for readiness in its handling.
The old man lived in one of the small houses of Broad Street, in an
old cottage with four rooms, with diamond panes in the window, and
a descent of a foot or so from the street into the front-room. The
house at the back looked out upon the open expanse of orchards and
market-gardens, with a distant prospect of Whitechapel Mount. He lived
quite alone, and he ‘did’ for himself, scrubbing his floors, personally
conducting the weekly wash, and cooking his own food. This was simple,
consisting almost entirely of beefsteaks, onions, and bread, with beer
by the gallon. When he had cooked and served and eaten his breakfast
or dinner, and when he had cleaned up his frying-pan and his plates,
the old man would sit down in his armchair and go to sleep, in winter
by the fire, in summer outside, in his back-yard. He had no books,
and he wanted none; he had no friends except at the tavern, and was
cheerful without them. At the tavern, however, whither John Burnikel
repaired at nightfall, or about six o’clock, every evening, he was
friendly, hospitable, and full of talk, drinking, taking his tobacco,
and conversing with the other frequenters of the house; and since he
was generous, and often called for bowls of punch, grog around, and
drams, so that many an honest fellow was enabled to go home drunk
who would otherwise have gone home sober, he was allowed, and even
encouraged, to talk and to tell his adventures over and over again as
much as he pleased. To do him justice, he was always ready to take
advantage of this license, and never tired of relating the perils he
had encountered, the heroism he had displayed, and the romantic manner
in which he had acquired his riches.
For the old man boasted continually of his great riches, and in moments
of alcoholic uplifting he would declare that he could buy up the whole
of the company present, and all Wapping to boot, if he chose, and be
none the worse for it. These were vapourings; but a man who could
afford to spend every day from five to ten shillings at the tavern,
drinking the best and as much as he could hold of it, treating his
friends, freely ordering bowls of punch, must needs possess means
far beyond those of his companions. For the village of Wapping,
though there were in it many substantial boat-builders, rope-makers,
block-makers, sail-makers, instrument-makers, and others connected with
the trade and shipping of the Port of London, was not in those days a
rich quarter.
The wealthy London merchants, who had houses at Mile End, Hoxton, Bow,
Ham, and even Ratcliffe, never chose Wapping for a country residence;
and, indeed, the riverside folk from St. Katherine’s by the Tower
as far as Shadwell were, as a whole, a rough, rude, and dishonest
people, without knowledge, without morals, without principle, without
religion. The mob, however, found not their way to the Long Room of the
Red Lion Tavern.
The old man was always called John Burnikel; not Captain Burnikel, as
was the common style and title of ancient mariners, nor Mr. Burnikel,
as belonged to business men, but plain John Burnikel without any title
at all. And so he had been called, I say, during the whole length of
time remembered by the oldest inhabitants, except himself, of Wapping,
and this was nearly seventy years.
It was a romantic history that the old man had to tell. He was the
son of a boat-builder--a Wappineer--that was well known and certain;
the business was still conducted by those two grand-nephews. At an
early age he had run away to sea; this was also perfectly credible,
because all the lads of Wapping who possessed any generous instincts
always did run away to sea, or became apprentices on board ship. No
one doubted that John Burnikel was an old sailor. He said that he had
risen to command an East Indiaman; this may have been true, but the
statement wanted confirmation. His manner and habits spoke perhaps
of the f’o’ksle rather than the quarter-deck, but, then, there are
quarter-decks where the manners are those of the f’o’ksle. However, in
the year 1804 nobody cared whether this part of his history was true or
not, and at the present moment, ninety years after, it is of still less
importance.
On the visit of a stranger, or on any holiday or on any festive
occasion, John Burnikel was wont to relate at great length, and with
many flourishes and with continually new embroideries, the series of
adventures which enabled him to return to England at an early age--not
more than five-and-twenty--the possessor of a handsome fortune. It
would take too long to relate this history entirely in the old man’s
words. Besides, which history--told on which evening--should be
selected? Suffice it to say that while it was in progress the company
finished one bowl, ordered another, and sometimes finished that while
the narrative proceeded. For listening without talking is thirsty work,
and a thirsty man must drink or die. And since the punch was paid for
by the old man, ’twould be the neglecting of chances and opportunities
not to take as much of it as the rest of the company allowed.
The substance of the earlier part of the story was this: John Burnikel
was on board the East Indiaman, the _Hooghly_, bound from the Port
of London to Calcutta. She had a goodly company of passengers, and
was laden with a miscellaneous cargo. They fell into a hurricane in
the Indian Ocean. The ship was dismasted, and lost her rudder and her
boats; she drifted helpless for many days, and at last struck on a
rock. When, after dangers and difficulties of the most extraordinary
kind, John Burnikel found himself on shore at last, he was alone,
naked, destitute and helpless on a hostile coast, the people of which
he declared were notorious cannibals.
They did not, however, proceed to eat him; on the contrary, they
clothed him, fed him, and presently took him up country as a present,
presumably, to the kitchen of their King, ‘or, as in their jargon they
call him, gentlemen, their Rajah.’
Here he would break off to reflect upon the situation. Every
storyteller loves to take advantage of the reflections suggested by
a situation. ‘Gentlemen,’ he would say, ‘’tis a melancholy thing to
find yourself growing every day fatter and more ready for the spit;
even the distinction of being reserved for the private larder of His
Majesty could not make me cheerful. What, I ask you, is the idle honour
of being served at the table of royalty when one thinks of what you
must go through in order to get there? I would compare, gentlemen, in
my own mind, that portion of me which might be on the Royal dish--a
sirloin or a brisket or saddle--with a leg or a loin of roast pork
on our own table; and I would remember that in order for us to get
that toothsome loin the animal must first be stuck. ’Twas, I confess,
mortifying to reflect that sticking must be undergone.
‘Gentlemen, with the utmost joy I discovered that this Prince was too
great and too high-minded to be a cannibal. Children of tender years,
indeed, as we take sucking pig, he might welcome at his table, but not
a sailor grown up and tough. He received me, on the other hand, with a
gracious kindness which I cannot forget; he gave me an important office
about his person--that of Hereditary Grand Mixer of the Royal Punch--a
most responsible office, with a uniform of red silk, and a turban stuck
all over with diamonds. This, gentlemen, is the Court uniform of that
country. Here we know not what uniform means for splendour.’
The story at this point varied from day to day. Let us select the
version most in use. He rendered some signal service to His Majesty,
the nature of which was differently told; in fact, it was impossible
to reconcile the various narratives, for he discovered a conspiracy,
revealed the conspirators at their work, and saved the King and the
Dynasty; or he rescued the King’s daughter from a fierce man-eating
tiger; or he captured the kidnappers who were running off with that
daughter; or he snatched the whole of the Harem from a consuming
fire; or he healed them all of a dangerous sickness by administering
tar-water. In fact, John Burnikel had a most lively imagination, and
used it freely. Choose, therefore, the kind of service which you think
most worthy of a great reward.
‘For this service, Gentlemen, the Great Mogul showed the gratitude of a
Christian. He sent for me, and when I fell upon my knees, which is the
only way in which His Majesty can be approached, he stepped down from
his golden throne and bade me graciously to rise. Then he created me
on the spot, a Duke, or a Lord Mayor--I forget which. This done, they
gave me a splendid cloak to wear. And then--for the best was yet to
come--the Emperor bade me prepare for something unexpected. Ah!’--here
he drew a long breath--‘unexpected indeed! With that he led me through
the golden halls of his Palace, crowded with dancing girls, till we
came to a place where there was a heavy door. “Unlock it,” says the
King. So the door was opened, and we went down a few steps till we came
to an underground hall. If you’ll believe me, gentlemen, that hall
hadn’t need of candles to light it up. It was full of light; it dazzled
one’s eyes only to stand there and look around; full of its own light,
for it was full of precious stones--heaps of ’em, boxes of ’em, shelves
of ’em, strings of ’em; there they were--diamonds, rubies, pearls,
emeralds, opals--every kind of precious stone that grows anywhere in
the world. Gentlemen, there was a sight! The diamonds came from the
Emperor’s own diamond ground--Golconda they call it--where I’ve been.
I will tell you some day about Golconda. The rubies were brought by
the King’s armies from Burmah. I’ve been to Burmah, and I’ll tell
you about the people there some day; cruel torturers they are. The
pearls came from Ceylon, where they are got by diving. I’ve been a
famous diver myself, and I’ll tell you, if you ask me to-morrow, how
I fought the shark under water; you don’t know what a fight is like
till you tackle a shark under water, with the conger and the cuttle
and the codfish looking on! As for the emeralds, I don’t rightly know
how they got there. I have heard of a mountain in South America which
is just one great emerald, and at certain times the natives go with
hammers and chop off little bits. I’ll go out there next year to see
it. However, gentlemen, there we were, the Great Mogul and me, standing
in the middle of these treasures. “Jack,” says he, “you shan’t say
that the King of India is ungrateful. For the service you have done
me, I say--help yourself. Fill your pockets. Carry out all you can!”
And I did. Gentlemen, it is seventy years ago and more, and still I
could cry only to think that my pockets were not sacks. However, I did
pretty well--pretty well; weigh me against any Lord Mayor of London you
like, and you would say that I did very well. Better still, I brought
these stones home with me. Best of all, I’ve got ’em still. When I want
money I take one of my diamonds or a handful of pearls. Aha! You would
like to know where I keep these jewels? Trust me; they are in safe
keeping--all that’s left of ’em--and that’s plenty--in right, good,
safe keeping.’
Was not this a splendid, a romantic story to be told in Whitechapel
by a simple old sailor? Nobody believed it, which mattered nothing so
long as the punch held out. Yet the old man most certainly did have
money, as he showed by his nightly expenditure alone, let alone the
fact that for seventy years he had lived among them all at Wapping,
and had done no single stroke of work. Among his hearers there sat
every night those two grand-nephews of his; they were cousins, I have
said, and partners in the boat-building business. They came, moved by
natural affection--who would not love an uncle who might be telling
the truth, or something like the truth, about these jewels? They also
came to learn what the old man might reveal, which would be a clue to
finding more; and they came out of jealousy, because each suspected
the other of trying to supplant him in the favour of the uncle. They
sat, therefore, and endured the story night after night, and endured
the company, which was not always of their own rank and station as
respectable tradesmen; but still they got nothing for their trouble,
because the old man told them no more than he told the rest of the
world. Nor did he show the least sign of affection for either. Every
evening, when the cousins left the tavern, which was not until the old
man had first departed, one would say to the other: ‘Cousin George,
our uncle ages; he ages visibly. I greatly fear that he is breaking.’
And the other would reply: ‘Cousin Robert, I greatly fear it, too. Yet
it is the way of all flesh.’ It was a time when every event had to be
received in a spirit and with words proper to the occasion. ‘We must
resign ourselves to the impending blow.’
‘Heaven grant’--the tribute to religion having been duly paid, they
became natural again--‘heaven grant that we find the truth about these
jewels. The story cannot be true.’
‘Yet how has he lived for seventy years in idleness?’
‘I know not, nor can I so much as surmise.’
‘Consider, cousin. He lays out from eight shillings to ten or even
twelve shillings every evening at the Tavern. And there are his meals
and his rent besides. Say that he spends twelve shillings a day, or
eighty-four shillings a week, which is two hundred and eighteen pounds
eight shillings a year. In seventy years this makes the prodigious sum
of fifteen thousand two hundred and eighty-eight pounds. Where did he
get all that money? Cousin, he has either a secret hoard somewhere, or
he has property--houses, perhaps, of which we know nothing.’
‘When he dies I suppose we shall learn. A man cannot have his property
buried with him.’
* * * * *
Now, on this night, as the company at the Tavern parted at ten o’clock,
instead of shouldering his club and marching off, the old sailor turned
to his nephews. ‘Boys,’ he said--he had never called them ‘boys’
before--‘I have something to say. I had better say it at once, because,
look you, I think I am getting old, and in a few score years, more or
less, it may be too late to say it. Come with me, then, to my poor
house in Broad Street.’
The nephews, greatly astonished and marvelling much, followed him. They
were going to be told something. What? The truth about the jewels? The
nature of the property?
The old man led the way, brandishing his stick, stout and erect. He
took them to his house, opened the door, closed it and barred it; got
his tinder-box, and obtained a light for a thick ship’s tallow candle.
Then he barred the window-shutter. His nephews looked round the room.
It was the first time they had stood within those walls. There was a
table; there was an armchair, a high armchair in which one could sit
protected from the draughts by the fireside; there was a tobacco-box,
with two or three churchwarden pipes; there was a cupboard with
plates. A kettle was on one side of the hob, and a gridiron on the
other. There was no other furniture in the room. But the door and the
window-shutters were both of oak, thick and massive. And on the wall
were hung a cutlass and a brace of pistols.
‘Wait here a bit,’ said the old man. He took the candle and carried it
into the other room, leaving them in the dark. After a few minutes he
returned, bearing a small canvas sack.
‘Nephews,’ he said, laying the bag on the table, and keeping both hands
upon it, ‘you come every night to the Red Lion in hopes of finding out
something about my property. It is your inheritance; why shouldn’t you
come? Sometimes you think it is much, then your spirits rise. Sometimes
you think it is little, then your spirits sink. When I begin to talk
you prick up your ears; but you never hear anything. Then you go home
and you wonder how long the old man will last, eh? and how much money
he has got, eh? and what he will do with it, eh? Well, now, you shall
have your curiosity satisfied.’
‘Sir,’ said one of the nephews, ‘our spirits may well sink at the
thought of your falling into poverty.’
‘And,’ said the other, ‘they may well be expected to rise at the
thought of your prosperity.’
‘I have told you many stories of travel and of profit. Sometimes you
believe, in which case you show signs of satisfaction. Sometimes you
look glum when you think that you are wasting your evenings.’
‘Oh, sir,’ said one of the nephews, ‘sure one cannot waste one’s time
in such good and improving company as yourself.’
‘We come,’ said the other, ‘for instruction. Your talk is more
instructive than any book of travel.’
‘The time has now arrived’--the old man paid no attention to these
fond assurances--‘to tell you what I have, and to show you what you
will have. I am now grown old, so old that I must expect before many
years are over’--he was already, as you have seen, ninety-four--‘to
die’--he sighed heavily--‘and to give my substance to those who come
after. Look you! I bear no manner of affection to you. When a man gets
to ninety, he cares no longer about anything but himself. That is the
beauty and excellence of being old. Then a man gets everything for
himself, no sharing, no giving. I shall give you nothing--not even if
you are bankrupt--in my lifetime. But I mean not to defraud my heirs.
You shall see, therefore, all I have got. Many a rich merchant living
in his great house would be glad to change places with you when I am
gone--many a merchant? All the merchants of London Town!’
He took up the bag. It was a long narrow bag of brown canvas, quite two
feet long, and shaped like a purse of the period.
I know not what they expected, but at the sight of the treasure which
he poured out upon the table these two respectable boat-builders
gasped; they looked on with amazement unspeakable, with open mouths,
with starting eyes, with flaming cheeks, with quivering hands and
trembling knees. They could not look at each other; they dared not
speak. It was like the opening of the gates of Paradise, with a full
view of the interior arrangements.
They had never dreamed of such a sight. Five hundred pounds all in gold
would have seemed to these worthy tradesmen a treasure, five thousand
pounds great wealth, ten thousand pounds an inexhaustible sum, for
this old man poured out upon the table a pile, not of guineas, but of
precious stones. Why, then, his stories about the countless treasures
of the Great Mogul must be true. There they were--diamonds, emeralds,
rubies, pearls, all the stones which he described, hundreds of them,
thousands of them; there were precious stones, large, splendid, worth
immense sums, with smaller ones, with strings of pearls, enough to fill
quart pots. And now they understood what was meant by all those stories
concerning precious stones over which they had grown as incredulous as
Didymus.
The old man bent over his heap and ran his fingers into it, and caught
a handful and dropped it back again. ‘See my beauties!’ he cried. ‘Look
at the colours; the sunshine in them and the green and the red. Saw you
ever the like? Oh, if a man could but live long enough to work through
this heap! Why, ’tis seventy years since I first came home, with this
bag in my hand for all my fortune, and there’s no difference in it yet.
It grows no less; I sometimes think it grows bigger. No man, live as
long as he could wish, would work through this heap.’
‘May we humbly ask, sir,’ said one of them, taking heart, ‘how much
money is represented by this bag of jewels?’
‘I know not. Take this stone; ’tis a ruby. Look at it, weigh it; I
sold one like it three months ago for fifty pounds. There are hundreds
bigger. Well’--he began to put the stones back into the bag--‘I have
shown these treasures to you because the time will come--not yet, I
hope--it must come, I suppose’--he spoke as if there was still a chance
of an exception being made in his favour--‘when I must give the bag
to you two and go away. I shall have to go aboard a strange ship and
join a strange company, as bo’s’n, maybe, or able seaman, or cook--who
knows?--and sail away in strange waters on a new cruise where there are
no charts.’
‘Not for many years,’ murmured one of the nephews fervently.
‘Not if our prayers, our daily prayers, can keep you here!’ added the
other, clasping his hands.
‘Thank ye,’ said John Burnikel, tying up his bag.
‘I trust, sir,’ said one of the nephews, ‘that you keep this precious
treasure in a safe place. A whisper, a suspicion, would fly through
Wapping like wild-fire, and you would be robbed and murdered.’
‘Devil a whisper will there be,’ said John. ‘You won’t start a whisper,
that’s certain. And I won’t. And as for the place where I keep it, no
one will see me put it there, and no one would think of looking there.
And now, nephews, good-night. Say nothing--but of course you will
not--and be as patient as you can. I believe you will have to wait a
dozen years or so before you get the bag.’
They stepped out into the street, and heard him, to their satisfaction,
bolting and barring the door behind them.
‘Cousin,’ said one, ‘this has been a wonderful evening. Who could have
believed it? We are now rich men--oh, rich beyond our dreams! We can
leave Wapping, and court the society of the Great.’
‘Unless his bag is stolen, which may happen. I tremble only to think of
keeping such a treasure in such a mean little cottage among all these
rogues and villains! It ought to be in a strong-room such as merchants
use.’
‘I think--I fear--we shall not have to wait long. Methinks the old
man’s voice is breaking. He seemed feebler to-night than I remember to
have seen him. Ninety-four is a great, a very great, age.’
‘Ah! he may not have many weeks--many days--to live. His voice, I also
observed, was weak. It is a happiness, cousin, to reflect that an
uncle who now entertains a disposition of so much justice towards his
nephews, can hardly fail of Abraham’s bosom.’
This anxiety proved prophetic. Exactly a week afterwards John Burnikel
did not appear at the tavern at six o’clock, nor at half-past six. The
nephews hurried round to Broad Street. The door was open; there was no
one in the front-room. In the room behind they found their uncle lying
on his bed, his face drawn as with pain, and with the gray look which
often falls upon those who are about to die.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I thought you wouldn’t be long. Come in, boys. Shut the
door and come in. I’ve had a kind of fit; my legs don’t seem right.
Get me a drink; the barrel of beer is in the other room. I shall be
better to-morrow--much better.’ He drank a copious draught of beer,
which refreshed him. He tried to sit up, but could not. It was a day
in August, when it gets dusk about eight. At nightfall they found the
tinder-box and got a light, and sat down one on each side of the bed.
So they sat all night till three in the morning without saying a word
to each other. The old man seemed sleeping. At daybreak he began to
murmur, rambling in his speech.
‘The man’s mad. He won’t know; he won’t find out. He will die mad. No
one will know--no one will know. Boys’--he opened his eyes--‘you both
know where the bag is hidden away. I think this is the end. Well, Eve
left you rich--half as rich, each of you, as myself.’ He closed his
eyes. Presently one of the watchers bent over him.
‘Cousin,’ he said, ‘the breath has gone out of the body. Our excellent,
wealthy uncle is no more. Nothing remains but to weep for him.’
‘Let us find the bag and divide the property,’ said the other, ‘before
we call in the neighbours.’
‘It is our sorrowful duty to do so, as his heirs, and quickly, before
the thing gets wind.’
It was the custom to construct at the head of the great wooden bed of
the period a secret box, drawer, or repository. Everybody knew the
secret place at the head of the bed. It was an open secret, yet it was
commonly used in every house for the concealment, as in a place of
perfect safety, of the silver and the valuables.
They searched in this receptacle. The bag was not there.
‘It is in this room, because he brought it out of this room. Let us
look again.’
Again they searched every corner and cranny for the secret
hiding-place. It was not there. There might be some other hiding-place
in the bed. It could only be at the head. They tapped and hammered. In
vain. Was it on the head of the bed? They climbed up and looked. No; it
was not there. Was it under the bed? They looked, but it was not there.
Could it be in the mattress? in the feather-bed? in the bolster? under
the bolster? under the mattress? They lifted the dead man on to the
floor, and they examined those places and other constituent portions of
the bed. In vain. They lifted their great-uncle back again to the bed,
and gazed at each other with anxious eyes.
‘It must be in this room,’ they repeated. ‘He brought it from this
room; he took it back.’
They looked round. There was a three-legged stool leaning against the
wall, because one of its legs was broken off. There was a sea-chest
in the corner--a big, heavy box with a lock, and bound strongly with
iron. Ah! the sea-chest. They dragged it out and threw open the lid.
Within was a curious collection of miscellaneous property: a big silver
watch, a knife, a dirk, an ugly Malay creese, an old pistol, a bo’s’n’s
whistle, a mariner’s compass, a bundle of charts, a few trifles in
carved wood from India, two or three broken figures from India, a dead
flying-fish, together with a bundle of decayed or decaying clothes,
which filled up the bottom of the chest. They pulled everything out
with eager haste, each man looking jealously at the other for fear he
should secretly convey the bag into his own pockets. Everything lay on
the floor, and the bag was not in the chest. It was divided into two
compartments, a larger and a smaller. They held it up to the light. No,
there was nothing in the chest. They looked again about the room. There
was a cupboard in the wall. Both discovered it at the same moment and
rushed at it. They threw open the door. It was a spacious cupboard; but
there was nothing in it at all. Old John Burnikel had never used that
cupboard.
‘Let us lift the hearthstone,’ said one of them. Everybody knows that
the hearthstone was often the family bank where money was stowed away
for safety when there was no secret hiding-place at the head of the
bed. And the family continued to put faith in the hearthstone long
after the secret was perfectly well known to those persons who break in
and steal.
They did lift the hearthstone. Nothing was under it. The earth had
never been disturbed since the stone was laid.
Their faces were now haggard. Could the bag be stolen?
They then prized up the boards of the floor; they tore down the
wainscoting; they searched the little back-yard for signs of recent
disturbance; they remembered that there were two rooms upstairs; they
were empty and unfurnished, but they tore up the boards; they searched
in the roof; they searched in the chimneys. Heavens! there was no sign
of the bag anywhere. Where was it?--where was it? All that day they
searched. The next day--which was indecent in haste--they buried the
old man, neither of them attending the funeral for fear of the bag
being found in their absence. And then they began again. They wrecked
the house; they reduced it to its bare walls of brick; they pulled the
bed to pieces; they left, as they thought, nothing unturned. But the
bag was not in the house.
Then they began to think that, while the old man lay unconscious, the
door open, the bag might have been stolen. But it must have been hidden
away, and nobody knew that it was there, or had thought of it----
Then another suspicion entered the heads of both at the same moment.
One of them, when it had taken shape with the firm outline of moral
certainty, put it into words:
‘His last words, George--his dying words--were: “You know where I’ve
put the bag”; and he looked at you--at you. What did he look at you
for? Because you know where he put the bag.’
‘He looked at you, Robert, not at me. Why? Because he had told you
where it was. You wormed his secret out of him.’
‘And now you try to turn it off on me. You’ve taken the bag; you’ve got
it somewhere; you think to take it all for yourself.’
‘This impudence passes everything. Do you think I am simple enough not
to see through this villainy? ’Tis you--you--you who have taken the
bag.’
It is sad to relate that these recriminations became more and more
bitter; that the two boat-builders of Wapping--churchwardens, jurymen,
most respectable and responsible persons, partners and cousins--did,
in the agony of their disappointment, call each other rogue, thief,
villain; that they proceeded, being beyond and beside themselves with
bitterness, to shake their fists at each other; that they next--it
was a fighting age--fell upon and mauled each other; that they only
desisted when exhaustion, not satisfaction, compelled them to separate;
and that they parted with threats, curses, and promises of Newgate Gaol
and the Condemned Cell.
To conclude, the bag could not be found. The agonies endured by those
two disappointed men were terrible. To have these treasures just
shown to them, dangled before them, and then withdrawn! Heard one
ever the like? To conclude, they dissolved partnership. One of them
left Wapping altogether, to enjoy at a distance, the other said, his
ill-gotten wealth; the other remained to conceal, the first said, the
fact of his stolen property. And as for the few remaining goods of
John Burnikel--the table, the bed, and the household gear--they were
conveyed to the boat-builder’s house, and after one more final search
the old man’s cottage in Broad Street was abandoned.
But the cousins were wrong. Neither of them had the bag, and it
remained undiscovered. You shall see how, in the course of this
history, it came to be discovered.
CHAPTER I.
‘MARRY MONEY.’
‘Yes, Sir George,’ said the lawyer, looking mighty serious.
‘We have at length ascertained how you stand. Your father
conducted--misconducted--his affairs without consulting us--and we knew
nothing of what was going on--nothing at all.’
I inclined my head. I had already heard certain things which had led me
to expect something unpleasant. Now I was to learn the whole truth.
My father, the second Baronet, and son of the well-known judge and
lawyer, had died five weeks or so before this interview. He died at the
age of fifty-two, having led a perfectly quiet and apparently harmless
life. Harmless! You shall see. I was twenty-five, and after the usual
run of Eton and Cambridge, I had my chambers in Piccadilly, and my
club, and led the life customary among young men of fortune. I knew
nothing, and learned nothing, and could do nothing, except play with a
lathe. I was not bookish, or artistic, or scientific, or musical, or
literary, or anything. Therefore the intelligence that I was about to
receive was even more delightful than it would have been to a man who
could do things, write things, and sell things.
‘You know already,’ the lawyer continued, ‘that your father met with
serious losses on the Stock Exchange?’
‘I know so much, certainly.’
‘I have here everything ready for you. Before you look at it, Sir
George, be prepared for a very--a most painful surprise.’
‘Tell me all--at once.’
‘Then, Sir George--it is a most distressing communication to make--but
you are young, which is the only consolation--young and strong--and, I
doubt not, a philosopher----’
‘I am especially and above all things a philosopher. But pray get on.’
‘Your grandfather, with his magnificent, his unequalled practice,
and the habits of prudence which guided all his investments, rolled
up what we call, in the profession, a colossal fortune--not colossal
in the City sense, but in our sense. It was over a quarter of a
million, which your father, then forty years of age, inherited. When
he died, five weeks ago, at the age of fifty-two, he had managed by
those speculations of his to get through the whole of it--the whole
of it--with his country house and his town house. Ah! Sir George,
why--why--why did not the Judge entail the whole? It maddens me only to
think of it! He has lost all--everything.’ The lawyer rubbed it in with
resolution. ‘You have no longer any fortune left; you have no house; my
poor young friend, you have nothing but a few scraps and crumbs left of
that splendid fortune that seemed to be yours two months ago.’
‘Lost the whole of the fortune? In ten years? He could not.’
‘Everything is possible on the Stock Exchange. He has lost it all.’
‘You mean that I have nothing. Say it again.’
‘Your father, in ten years, lost the whole of his fortune. You have got
left, practically, nothing.’
‘Thank you. I have got nothing. I shall realize it presently. It makes
one feel chilly. I have got nothing.’ I put my fingers in my waistcoat
pocket. ‘Here are some coins. They are mine, I suppose. There are two
or three hundred pounds standing to my account at the Bank; are they
mine, too?’
‘Yes. And to speak of crumbs and scraps, I think I may save a little
something for you out of the wreck. But it will be a mere trifle. I
estimate it at the most as three thousand pounds.’
‘Oh! I have three thousand pounds. You are quite sure you have done
your very worst?’
‘I can do nothing worse than this for you.’
I got up and stood over the empty fireplace. ‘I suppose,’ I said
slowly, ‘that it is very bad. I am not a person of imagination, you
know, and I cannot feel, all at once, how bad it is. A thing like this
cannot be appreciated all at once. It takes time--it has to get into
the system.’
‘There is, at all events, something--a solid something, though small,’
said the lawyer, watching me with some curiosity to see how I took it.
‘Yes, a kind of nugget. It promises to become exciting. I shall become
the penniless adventurer of fiction. Should I, do you think, begin to
practise billiards? Or does écarté offer a better opening?’
‘You must consider, Sir George, when you come to take this business
seriously, that many a man with less than that has got on in the
world, and made a name for himself, and even amassed a fortune. Your
grandfather certainly began with less.’
‘The men who get on in the world are the men who start with twopence.
Reduce me to twopence, with an introduction to the Lord Mayor, and no
doubt I shall get on.’
‘Nonsense. Take the thing seriously: think over what can be done
with three thousand pounds. It is quite enough, with prudence, to
keep you while you are qualifying for a profession, and to start you
afterwards--law, medicine, the church, which will you have? Or there
are the new fangled professions which used to be trades--science, art,
engineering, architecture: you may take up any one of these and qualify
for practice with three thousand pounds. Or you might start a horse or
cattle farm--there is an opening they tell me, and the rent of land in
some places is very low. Or you might buy a partnership in a house of
business--three thousand pounds would go a long way in many houses.
There are a hundred ways in which a prudent man might invest that sum
of money. I assure you, Sir George, that there are thousands of young
fellows, as well educated as yourself, who, if they had three thousand
pounds to begin with, would feel that all the wealth of Lombard Street
was well within their reach. And they’d manage to get a good slice of
it, too.’
‘Very likely. I don’t feel that way at all myself. I am quite certain
that, whatever I did, I should get none of the wealth of Lombard
Street.’
‘I am only pointing out the possibilities of things.’
‘You see, I am not that kind of young man at all. And that is not the
kind of life that I desire. Money-making--I suppose it is natural to
one whose money has been made for him--seems an ignoble pursuit, at the
best.’
‘Well--well, but permit me, you haven’t yet got the true feeling
of your poverty. You don’t quite understand yet what it means--the
difference it makes. When it really gets into your blood and your
bones, and you see rising up walls between you and the old world of
enjoyment, with prohibitions, and exclusions, and limitations, then,
my dear young friend, you will feel stimulated to make an effort in a
way that as yet you cannot understand. How should you understand all
these evils in a moment? Let me tell you, Sir George, poverty is a
terrible thing--a terrible thing. It deprives a young man like you of
the chief pleasures of his age; it denies a middle-aged man what most
he desires at that time of life, consideration and authority; and it
robs an old man of those comforts and attentions and cares which alone
can solace his infirmities. I have been poor myself, Sir George, and
I speak with full and bitter knowledge. Never say that money-making
is ignoble; the methods may be ignoble, but the pursuit is natural,
laudable, honourable. Money, my friend, is the only thing--the only
thing--that makes life tolerable. Without it there can be no happiness,
no independence, no authority, no self-respect. Get money somehow.’
The old man spoke with sincerity and conviction. Of course, he was
quite right. Yet, as I afterwards reflected, in the possession of money
there are degrees. Many an old man with two hundred a year is as happy
as another old man with ten thousand a year. Yet some money must be
made. Wherefore let every man calculate what he wants for comfort, and
money-make up to that standard, and no more.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I will think it over. At this moment you cannot expect
me to have any coherent ideas on the subject. I really do think,
however, that there is no one in the world less able to make money than
myself.’
‘Wait--be patient--and consider what things mean. Heavens! If we could
only make young men understand.’
‘Well,’ I took up my hat. ‘If you have really done your worst----’
‘Don’t go just yet, Sir George. I have one or two things still to
say.’ The solicitor, whose face generally had more of keenness than of
benevolence in it, leaned back and assumed an unwonted expression with
more benevolence in it than keenness. ‘I confess I was somewhat nervous
about this job. To tell a young man that he has no fortune left--a
young man who seemed to inherit so enormous a fortune--was rather a
formidable task. I congratulate you, Sir George, on your pluck. You
take it very well. You might have fallen into a rage, and filled the
room with reproaches of your dead father.’
‘Since he was my father and is dead, that would be impossible.’
‘Quite so. Yet nobody can deny that he has done you a most grievous
injury. You bear this calamity, I say, with a fortitude which is
astonishing. Let us return to what you might do; you are young, you are
well-bred, you are good-looking, you have pleasant manners, you are----’
He lifted his eyebrows into a note of interrogation.
‘Clever? No. Nor bookish. Nor scientific. Nor inclined to any of the
professions. And ignorant to the last degree.’
‘Dear! dear! What a thousand pities this misfortune did not happen
twenty years ago! Then you would have been trained to something.
Whereas now----’ He considered a little. ‘Let us think of a few other
things. Journalism?’
‘I told you, I am not clever.’
‘Pity. Journalism requires no capital and no training. I would not
recommend the stage.’
‘I cannot act.’
‘There is one thing we have forgotten, Sir George. You are a young
man of good family; you have, therefore, family influence. You must
set that to work for you. People think that everything nowadays goes
by competitive examination. Ho! ho! The world is kept in the dark
entirely for the sake of young men like you. There are quantities of
lucky people--commissioners, secretaries, people about the Court,
people everywhere--who get in by family influence, and get on by family
influence. There are colonial appointments, some of them very good
indeed, if you don’t mind going abroad. Or you might begin as a private
secretary to a rising man. Why, there was a private secretary once who
became a peer. The best thing you can do is to go to your own people.’
‘Unfortunately it is no use. I haven’t got any people. My mother was
the daughter of a simple country clergyman, and her relations are
all middle-class professional folk. My grandfather married as soon
as he began to get on at the Bar--his wife belonged strictly to the
middle class. The Judge’s father was a West End builder--originally
an East End boat-builder. I remember that because there is a
romance in the family about an old sailor and a bag of diamonds. My
great-grandfather’s cousin and partner secretly stole that bag of
diamonds. That caused a dissolution of partnership and destruction of
cousinly affection. The real reason why my grandfather was sent to the
Bar was because the old man thought that if there was a lawyer in the
family his cousin might be prosecuted, and so his share of those jewels
might be recovered. But the prosecution never came off.’
‘Odd story. I wonder how much truth there is in it.’
‘Not much, I dare say. But the point is that we are quite a bourgeois
lot, and that I do not possess in reality, though I have got this
trifling handle to my name, either family, friends or influence.’
‘But you do possess your title. And believe me, Sir George, if you are
careful you may find that it is a very valuable possession indeed.
By means of your title you may once more join the wealthy classes.
Thousands of women, rich women, daughters of wealthy men, would give
anything for a title. Find out where these women are--in York, in
Bath, in Birmingham, in Liverpool, in Manchester, here in London. Get
introductions, and you will find your path smoother for you.’
‘Marry money?’ I shuddered.
‘Do not misunderstand me. You are not expected to marry an old woman,
or an ugly woman. There are as many nice girls and pretty girls who
have money as there are old women. Marry money, young man. Marry money.
It is the easiest thing in the world for you to do. And, I am quite
sure, quite the most pleasant. As for love, it is all imagination. And,
besides, why shouldn’t you love a rich girl as well as a poor girl?’
‘No. Not to be thought of.’
‘Well, if you won’t marry money, there is the City. A baronet’s name
still, even after the many rude shocks of these latter years, looks
well on a board of directors. You would find it quite easy to get put
on the Direction somewhere or other. The qualification is not a great
deal. What do you think of that?’
‘Why--as I know nothing whatever of business, it would be a kind of
fraud on the shareholders. I should undertake duties of which I know
nothing.’
‘Generally the interests of the shareholders in the appointment of
directors is the very last thing the promoters consider. They want the
shares taken up.’
‘Then it would be still more a fraud upon the shareholders. That way
won’t do.’
‘Sir George, I fear I cannot help you. These are the existing ways of
making money. Choose. If you will have none of them, then we come back
to the easiest way--marry money--and if you refuse that----’ He spread
his hands, meaning, ‘then you must starve.’
I walked away thoughtfully. About the fortitude and the pluck I
say nothing. One must not, in these days, sit down and cry. At the
same time, it was with a very heavy heart that I mounted to my
chambers--Plantagenet Mansions, eighth floor, about half-way up.
‘Marry money, marry money,’ said the solicitor.
The words kept ringing in my ears like the tolling of a bell.
For, you see, in order to marry money I had no occasion to go to New
York or to Bath or Manchester or Birmingham. The money was actually
waiting for me with the marriage. I had only to reach out my hand and
take it, and with the money, the owner of it. And not an old woman,
at all; nor an ugly woman; nor a woman maimed or halt in mind or in
body; a woman, eminently desirable, beautiful, wealthy, well-born, and
of sweet disposition. Attached to the marriage there would be certain
conditions, but such as most men would consider quite light, easy, and
tolerable conditions.
‘Marry money--marry money--marry money.’ The words rang in my ears like
the ringing of a bell.
So the first effect of the wreck and ruin of my fortune was a great and
strong temptation, a voice urging me to reach out my hand and take
this fortune which lay ready waiting for me.
‘Marry money! Marry money!’ said the man of large experience and of
many years.
I turned mechanically into the room called my study. It was really my
workroom. It was fitted with a lathe and with a bench. On the wall were
hundreds of tools, bright and glittering. There was a shelf of books,
technical books about carpentering, wood-carving, cabinet-making,
fretwork, iron-work, and the like; there were ‘blocks’ ready for use;
there were boxes and other things, finished and unfinished, chased,
rounded, polished. The lathe represented my one talent.
I looked at the machine thoughtfully. ‘If I could only make money out
of you. And now, I am very much afraid, I shall have to sell you for
what you will fetch--tools and block and all. Pity! Pity!’ I laid a
loving hand upon the bright and delicate machinery. I wish it had
sighed, or groaned, or done anything by way of sympathetic response.
But it did not. Even in romance machinery is not responsive.
‘Marry money,’ whispered the voice.
Was there no way by which I could earn a livelihood? You, who have
been carefully taught from childhood that you have your own way to
make in the world; who have served an apprenticeship; who have learned
the mystery of a craft; who have learned the way of work, the ordinary
groove; who have become keen; who have lived in City houses, where they
think of nothing but business--suppose you were thrown into the world
at five-and-twenty, with no special knowledge whatever. Do you think
you would sink or swim?
‘Marry money,’ said the solicitor. ‘Marry money.’
On the walls hung the portraits of ancestors. I had three, which
is one more than most of us can boast. Yet it is not exactly a long
line of ancestry. The portrait of my father hung in the middle--to
the living, reigning Prince belongs the place of honour. It showed
a man of neat and even sleek appearance, clean-shaven, gray-headed,
with mild eyes; a man of no marked character, one would think. The
shallow observer would set him down as a man who could do no harm.
Quite wrong. There is no one so mild and meek that he cannot do harm.
‘To think,’ said his son, addressing the portrait, ‘that you have done
this mischief--you! Why did not the painter give you eager, starting
eyes, and trembling lips, and a flushed cheek? Lying painter!’ But
to reproach a portrait is next door to reproaching the person it
represents. I turned to the next picture, that of my grandfather, the
Judge, in wig and robes, looking very much like Rhadamanthus.
‘All your money is gone, my lord. Do you understand? All the money that
you scraped together. It is gone--lost--wasted--thrown away. You have
doubtless met your son by this time. Perhaps he has explained things.
Don’t be hard on him.’
On the other side hung the portrait of the builder. ‘What do you say?’
I asked. ‘How do you like the fall of the family fortunes? Perhaps you
can advise something practical.’
‘Marry money! Marry money.’ Was it the voice of the builder?
Portraits seldom respond. Spiritualists should look to it. There would
be no need of incarnating a spirit if you could make him speak out
of his own portrait. I turned away from these silent, unsympathetic
effigies and began mechanically to turn the lathe. But my mind was
not with the work; I laid down the block, and sat down. Again the
solicitor seemed to be addressing me.
‘Marry money--marry money.’
I saw letters lying on the table, and tore open the first, the one
whose handwriting I knew. It was a woman’s.
‘DEAR GEORGE’ (I read),
‘I am anxious to learn the result of your talk with the lawyers, and
what you have really lost. Come and see me as soon as you get back.
‘Yours,
‘FRANCES.’
I left the other two letters unread.
‘Marry money--marry money,’ said the solicitor.
I opened a drawer, and took out a dainty case of red velvet bound with
gold. It contained a single photograph. It was the portrait of a girl,
and showed a very striking face--the face of a queen or a princess. Her
name was surely Imperia, certainly a _grande dame de par le monde_. A
most regal face; the brow and cheek ample; the eyes large and steady;
the features clear and regular; the lips firm; the chin rounded;
everything about this woman large, including her mind; a woman whom
the common herd would fear, though they might reverence her. It would
require either a brave man or a presumptuous man to make love to her.
Her eyes looked out of the picture with a kindly light.
‘There is no woman like Frances,’ I thought. ‘And yet----’
When one has been brought up from childhood side by side with a girl,
seeing her every day, a girl a little older than one’s self, and a
great deal cleverer, the affection which one feels for that girl
partakes of the brotherly emotion. Therefore I said, ‘And yet----’
‘Marry money--marry money,’ this importunate solicitor continued.
Yesterday, perhaps--I don’t know--it was possible; to-day, no. My
father, when he threw away my money, threw away that possibility.
Frances vanished from my grasp gradually--in wild cat mines, in gold
reefs, in Central African railways, in Central American bonds.
Again, like a song of rest and happiness, came the temptation:
‘Marry money--marry money.’
‘She is a beautiful woman,’ continued the Tempter; ‘she loves you,
after a fashion. You love her, after a fashion. You know each other.
She is so rich that she will not care about the loss of your fortune.
It is all nonsense about brother and sister. Marry her--marry the Lady
Frances, who is waiting for you.’
I let these voices go on for half an hour or so. It was rather amusing,
I remember, to feel one’s self tempted; but, of course, one had to stop
it some time. So I put down my foot, and said resolutely: ‘No.’ Upon
which the two voices became silent, and spoke no more.