THE MISER'S WIFE.
'I must have money,' said Howel Jenkins as he sat alone with his mother
in their little parlour, the evening after Mrs Prothero had left them.
'My dear, there will be plenty when we can find it, be you sure of that.
I do know well enough that your poor father was having a chest full,
only he was keeping his door locked and barred so that I couldn't see
him at it.'
'But surely, mother, you must have some idea where my father kept his
gold. If I don't pay a man in London by tomorrow's post, I shall be in
jail before a week is over my head.'
'Mercy! Howel, bach! Now don't you be spending the mint o' money that'll
be coming to you, there's a good boy, before you do know what it is.
Remember Netta! You'll be as grand as any of 'em now, if you do only
begin right, and are being study and persevaring, and sticking to your
business. I 'ouldn't wonder if you was to be a councillor some day. Only
to think of me, mother of Councillor Jenkins! You may be looking higher
than Netta, and be marrying a real lady, and be riding in your coach and
four, and be dining with my Lord Single ton, and be in the London
papers; and I 'ouldn't wonder if you was to be visiting the Queen and
Prince Albert again, and behaving your picture taken to put into your
own books and the "'Lustrated." I always was saying I 'ould be making a
gentleman of you, and I have.'
'But, mother, before I can do anything like this I must pay my debts and
make a new beginning. I will marry Netta, now, in spite of the whole
tribe of Davids and Jonathans, and they shall see us as much above them
as--as--money can make us. Now, mother, we must have a search for the
money.'
'Not whilst your father is in the house, Howel; I should be afraid. Be
you sure his spirit'll be looking after the money till the funeral's
over.'
'Nonsense; where are the keys? We'll have a turn at the old bureau
anyhow. Money I must have, at once, and Rowland is as obstinate as a pig
about what the governor told him.'
'Indeet, and indeet, Howel, you had better don't. Suppose it 'ould bring
him to life again?'
'I'll risk that. Give me the keys.'
Mrs Jenkins handed a bunch of keys to her son with trembling fingers.
'Tak you a drop of spirits first. It do show how rich they are thinking
us now. There's Jones, the Red Cow, and Lewis, draper, are letting us
have as much credit as we like; and they 'ouldn't let us have as much as
a dobbin or a yard of tape before poor Griffey died.'
Howel drank a wine-glass of raw brandy and went upstairs with the keys
in his hand. He crept stealthily into that room where the miser breathed
his last, as if fearful of arousing the body within the drawn curtains.
He proceeded to the bureau and tried the various keys of the large bunch
that he now grasped for the first time in his life. At last one key
entered the lock and turned in it. Hush! there is a sound in the room.
He turns very pale as he glances round. He sees no movement anywhere.
The curtains are so still that he almost wishes the wind would stir
them. He opens the bureau and again looks wistfully round. He is almost
sure that the curtains move. 'Coward that I am,' he cries, 'what do I
fear?'
He turns again, and, looking into the bureau, sees that all the open
divisions are filled with papers, and imagines what must be the contents
of the closed and secret compartments. As he touches one of these a
tremor seizes him, and he fancies that a hand is on his shoulder. He
starts and turns, but the curtains are motionless as ever. He goes into
the passage and calls, 'Mother, come here. Quick! I want you directly.'
Mrs Jenkins comes upstairs, looking as pale as her son.
'Just help me out with this bureau, mother; I cannot examine it in this
room, you have put such ridiculous notions into my head.'
'I'm afraid, Howel.'
'Nonsense, come directly, or I must get some one else.'
The pair went into the room and tried to move the bureau that had stood
for nearly fifty years in that corner untouched, save by the husband and
father, now lifeless near them. It was very heavy, and scarcely could
their united strength move it from its resting-place. They finally
succeeded, however, in dragging it towards the door, in doing which they
had to pass the foot of the bed. Unconsciously they pushed the bed with
the corner of the bureau and shook it. They nearly sank to the ground
with terror, expecting, for the moment, to see the miser arise, and
again take possession of his treasures. The mother rushed into the
passage, the son again called himself a coward, and, with a great
effort, pushed the bureau through the door and shut it after him.
'Now, mother, help to get it into my room. One would think we were
breaking into another man's house, instead of taking possession of our
own property.'
With the whole of their joint strength they succeeded in getting the
heavy piece of furniture into Howel's room, where, having first locked
the door, they proceeded to examine its contents. Disappointment awaited
them; they could find nothing but papers. Deeds, mortgages, bills,
letters, accounts, were arranged in every open and shut division. The
drawers contained nothing else, and the little locked cupboard in the
centre, the key of which was found upon the bunch, also enshrined
nothing but a few very particular documents.
'These papers could not have made the bureau so heavy,' said Howel,
biting his nails. 'There must be secret drawers.'
He pulled out the drawers and papers, and threw them on his bed. He
tried to move the bureau, and found it almost as heavy as ever.
'I am thinking, Howel, bach, that cupboard don't go through to the back
of the bureau,' suggested Mrs Jenkins.
Howel seized the poker and aimed a blow at the cupboard; the mahogany
did not give way, but they fancied they heard a chinking sound within.
'I am thinking,' said the mother, 'that it must be a double bureau. It
is looking so much broader than it do seem.'
Howel examined it, and began to think so, too; he took some carpenter's
tools down from the shelf, and set to work to try to pierce the back of
the bureau with a gimlet, in order to see if the gimlet would appear on
the other side.
He worked the implement through a portion of the wood, and then found
its course stopped by some still harder matter. He had recourse to his
penknife, with which he hacked a hole in the wood, large enough to find
that there was an inner back of iron, or some kind of metal. Each new
obstacle served only to inflame his impatience, and to provoke his
temper. He forgot the bed in the next room, and everything else in the
world except the attainment of his object, and running downstairs,
returned with a large sledge-hammer that he found in the coal-hole. With
his strength concentrated in one blow, he swung it against the back of
the bureau, and had the satisfaction of finding his wishes gratified.
The concussion moved some secret spring somewhere, for as the piece of
furniture tottered on its foundation, and fell forwards against the bed,
out rolled such a profusion of gold, as led Howel to believe, the 'El
dorado' was found at last. Mother and son lifted up their hands in
astonishment; gold pieces were in every corner of the room, scattered
here and there like large yellow hail.
The noise of the blow, however, and the subsequent fall of the bureau
had alarmed a neighbour, and before one piece of the tempting gold had
been picked up, there was a loud knock at the door.
'Say the house has fallen in; the inquisitive fools!' exclaimed Howel,
as his mother left the room.
Howel began to fill his pockets with gold pieces, and opening a box,
pushed as many as he could hastily gather up into it also. There were
thousands upon thousands of sovereigns upon the floor.
'It was old Pal, the shop,' said Mrs Jenkins, returning to her golden
harvest, 'she was up nursing next door, and heard the noise. I tell her
it was the table falling down.'
'Now, mother, as soon as all is over, I must go to London and clear off
my debts with some of this money; but I must see Netta first.'
'Why don't you be putting it in the bank, Howel, bach? It will make a
gentleman of you.'
'There's enough besides to make me a gentleman, if I am not one already;
and I promise you, that when I am clear again I will come back and make
all the rich men in the country hang their heads. But I want to see
Netta.'
'Write you a bit of a note, and I will manage to send it.'
'Pick up the money, mother, and I will write the note.' Mrs Jenkins
proceeded to obey her son, whilst he unlocked a desk, and wrote the
following hasty lines:--
'I must be in London next Monday. I must see you before I leave. Meet
me at the old place in the wood by the little Fall, Sunday evening,
during church time.'
He folded the note without signing it, and gave it to his mother,
without adding any address.
'Seal it mother, and deliver it, or rather send it by some one you can
trust.'
'I'll manage that. Now pick you up some of the money. Here's a hundred
pound in my apron now, and gracious me! the lots more!'
'If you will keep the hundred pounds in your apron, mother, and let me
have the rest, I shall be satisfied.'
'But what'll you be doing with all this goold?'
'Preparing to make you the mother of Councillor Jenkins, or of a famous
man of some sort or other. What do you say to a poet or a prime
minister?'
'I 'ould rather you do be a councillor, than anything--like Councillor
Rice, Llandore.'
'Well, I shall perhaps, be a judge with all this money, and I daresay my
father--'
Here a vision of the bed in the next room stopped the young man's
speech, and shuddering slightly, he kicked a heap of sovereigns that lay
near his foot, and sent them rolling into different corners of the room.
'Take away the ill-gotten gain, mother, it will never prosper; you had
better go to bed, and I will do the same. I suppose it would be
impossible to sleep with that yellow usury on the floor. I should have
Plutus at the head of the imps of darkness about my bed, instead of
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," that I used to pray to "bless the bed
that I lie on."'
'Don't talk so fullish, Howel.'
'Why it was you taught me all that Popery.'
'The Lord forgive you, Howel, I never did see the Pope, and 'ould sooner
teach you the Methodist hymn book.'
'Well, never mind, let us go to bed.'
'I'll go down and sit by the fire. Lie you down here. God bless you, my
boy, give your poor mother a kiss.'
'Good-night, mother, or rather good morning,' said the son, bending down
carelessly to be embraced by the parent who would sacrifice her life for
him.
When Mrs Jenkins had left the room, Howel hastily collected the gold
that was scattered about, and tossed it, without counting it, into the
box already mentioned, which he locked, and put the key in his pocket.
He then lay down on the bed without undressing, and tried to sleep. In
vain, no sleep would come to 'steep his senses in forgetfulness.' The
bed in the next room, with its grim, gaunt inmate, was constantly before
his eyes. If he dozed for a moment, the miser, his father, and the gold
he had for years longed to obtain possession of, haunted him, and made
him start like a thief, as if taken in the act of stealing the coin now
by inheritance his own.
'Cursed gold!' he exclaimed at last, jumping from the bed, 'what shall I
do with it? Pay my debts, and turn a sober man? I will try. If 'Netta
will have me, perhaps I may; indeed I am sure I could. We will come here
and cut a dash first, however. I should like to humble some of our Welsh
aristocrats by showing them how the son of Griffey Jenkins can eclipse
their genealogies, by the magic power of the Golden God. I will stay
over the funeral, then off to town and get rid of my pressing debts;
then pay Levi and Moses, and all my debts of honour; then set myself up
in clothes and jewels, and come home and carry off Netta; and, finally,
have a year's pleasure at least. Take Netta to the continent, and teach
her to _parlez-vous_ a little more fluently than she does now, and to
assume more aristocratic manners; in short--in short--'
The soliloquy was interrupted by the sudden explosion of some substance
under his feet, upon which he accidentally trod as he was pacing up and
down the room. He swore an oath that emanated from his fear, and thought
that the lower regions had actually opened to receive the gold he was
meditating upon, since fire and smoke accompanied the noise, together
with a smell of gunpowder. He rushed out of the room, just as his
mother, alarmed by the sound, was running upstairs.
'They will carry him off before the funeral,' he cried, as his mother
asked what was the matter.
Ashamed of his cowardice, he made an effort to return to the room,
followed by his mother. There was such a strong smell of sulphur that
both recoiled.
'What fools we are!' exclaimed Howel, forcing himself to enter. He
stooped to examine the floor, and to his amusement and disgust, found
the remains of a cracker, which had burst beneath his foot-tread. There
were several others scattered about, that had been unnoticed, because
they looked simply like bits of paper. These had evidently been placed
by his father amongst the gold, in the hope of frightening any one who
might wish to finger it, and had rolled out with the treasure they were
intended to protect.
Mother and son again left the room, the latter locking the door as he
did so, and putting the key in his pocket. They descended to the little
parlour below stairs, where they finished the night, alternately dozing
in their chairs, and talking, and occasionally supporting themselves by
draughts of the different liquors that were spread upon the table near
them. In spite of his best efforts to throw aside such thoughts, Howel
could see nothing all that night but the gold, the father who had won
it, and the poor wretches who had been ruined in paying usurious
interest for it.