ISAAC HASTINGS TURNS TO THINKING.
The revelation to Isaac Hastings, that the deeds, missing, belonged to
Lord Averil, set that young gentleman thinking. Like his father, like
his sister Grace, he was an exceedingly accurate observer, given to
taking note of passing events. He had keen perception, a retentive
memory for trifles, great powers of comparison and concentration. What
with one thing and another, he had been a little puzzled lately by Mr.
George Godolphin. There had been sundry odds and ends out of the common
to be detected in Mr. George's manner: not patent to the generality of
people, who are for the most part unobservant, but sufficiently
conspicuous to Isaac Hastings. Anxiety about letters; trifles in the
everyday ordering of the Bank; one little circumstance, touching a delay
in paying out some money, which Isaac, and he alone, had become
accidentally cognizant of; all formed food for speculation. There had
been the somewhat doubtful affair of George Godolphin's secret journey
to London, leaving false word with his wife that he was accompanying
Captain St. Aubyn on the road to Portsmouth, which had travelled to the
knowledge of Isaac through want of reticence in Charlotte Pain. More
than all, making more impression upon Isaac, had been the strange,
shrinking fear displayed by George, that Saturday when he had announced
Lord Averil: a fear succeeded by a confusion of manner that proved his
master must for the moment have lost his presence of mind. Isaac
Hastings had announced the names of other gentlemen that day, and the
announcement, equally with themselves, had been received with the most
perfect equanimity. Isaac had often thought of that little episode
since, and wondered; wondered what there could be in Lord Averil's visit
to scare Mr. George Godolphin. It recurred to him now with double
distinctness. The few words he had overheard, between Lord Averil and
Mr. Godolphin, recurred to him--the former saying that George must have
known of the loss of the deeds when he had asked for them a month ago,
that he judged so by his manner, which was peculiar, hesitating,
uncertain, "as though he had known of the loss then, and did not like to
tell of it."
To the strange manner Isaac himself could have borne witness. Had this
strangeness been caused by the knowledge of the loss of the deeds?--if
so, why did not George Godolphin make a stir about them then? Only on
the previous day, when Lord Averil had again made his appearance, Isaac
had been further struck with George's startled hesitation, and with his
refusal to see him. He had sent out word as the excuse, that he was
particularly engaged. Isaac had believed at the time that George was no
more engaged than he himself was. And now, this morning, when it could
not be concealed any longer, came the commotion. The deeds were gone:
they had disappeared in the most unaccountable manner, no one knowing
how or when.
What did it all mean? Isaac Hastings asked himself the question as he
pursued his business in the Bank, amidst the other clerks. _He could not
help asking it._ A mind, constituted as was that of Isaac Hastings,
thoughtful, foreseeing, penetrating, cannot help entering upon these
speculations, when surrounding circumstances call them forth. Could it
be that George Godolphin had fallen into secret embarrassment?--that he
had abstracted the deeds himself and _used_ them? Isaac felt his cheek
flush with shame at the thought; with shame that he should allow himself
to think such a thing of a Godolphin: and yet, he could not help it. No.
Do as he would, he could not drive the thought away: it remained to
haunt him. And, the longer it remained, the more vivid it grew.
Ought he to give a hint of this to his father? He did not know. On the
one hand there was sober reason, which told him George Godolphin was not
likely to be guilty of such a thing on the other, lay his fancy,
whispering that it _might_ be so. Things as strange had been enacted
lately; as the public knew. Men, in an equally good position with George
Godolphin, were proved to have been living upon fraud for years. Isaac
was fond of newspapers, and knew all they could tell him. What if
anything came wrong to _this_ Bank? Why then, Mr. Hastings would be a
ruined man. It was not only the loss of his own life's savings, that
were in the hands of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin, but there was the
larger sum he had placed there as trustee to the little Chisholms.
Isaac Hastings lingered in the Bank till the last that evening. All had
gone, except Mr. Hurde. The latter was preparing to leave, when Isaac
went up to him, leaning his arms upon the desk.
"It is a strange thing about those deeds, Mr. Hurde!" cried he, in a low
tone.
Mr. Hurde nodded.
"It is troubling me amazingly," went on Isaac.
This seemed to arouse the old clerk, and he looked up, speaking curtly.
"Why should it trouble you? You didn't take them, I suppose?"
"No, I didn't," said Isaac.
"Very well, then. The loss won't fall upon you. There's no need for
_your_ troubling."
Isaac was silent. In truth, he was unable to give any reason for the
"troubling," except on general grounds: he could not say that a doubt
was haunting his mind as to the good faith of Mr. George Godolphin.
"It is a loss which I suppose Mr. George will have to make good, as they
were in his custody," he resumed. "My sister won't like it, I fear."
The observation recalled Mr. Hurde's memory to the fact that Mrs. George
Godolphin was the sister of Isaac Hastings. It afforded a sufficient
excuse for the remarks in the mind of the clerk, and somewhat pacified
him.
"It is to be hoped they'll be found," said he. "_I_ don't see how they
could have gone."
"Nor I," returned Isaac. "The worst is, if they _have_ gone----"
"What?" asked Mr. Hurde, for Isaac had stopped.
"That perhaps money has been made of them."
Mr. Hurde groaned. "They have not been taken for nothing, you may be
sure."
"If they have been taken," persisted Isaac.
"If they have been taken," assented Mr. Hurde. "I don't believe they
have. From the sheer impossibility of anybody's getting to them, I don't
believe it. And I shan't believe it, until every nook and corner between
the four walls have been hunted over."
"How do you account for their disappearance, then?"
"I think they must have been moved inadvertently."
"No one could so move them except Mr. Godolphin or Mr. George," rejoined
Isaac.
"Mr. Godolphin has not moved them," returned the clerk in a testy tone
of reproof. "Mr. Godolphin is too accurate a man of business to move
deeds inadvertently, or to move them and forget it the next moment. Mr.
George may have done it. In searching for anything in the strong-room,
if he has had more than one case open at once, he may have put these
deeds back in their wrong place, or even brought them upstairs."
Isaac considered for a minute, and then shook his head. "I should not
think it," he answered.
"Well, it is the only supposition I can come to," was the concluding
remark of Mr. Hurde. "It is next to an impossibility, Mr. Godolphin
excepted, that any one else can have got to the deeds."
He was drawing on his gloves as he spoke, to depart. Isaac went out with
him, but their roads lay different ways. Isaac turned towards All Souls'
Rectory, and walked along in deep reverie.
The Rectory hours were early, and he found them at tea: his mother,
Rose, and Grace. Grace--Mrs. Akeman by her new name--was spending the
evening with them with her baby. The Rector, who had gone out in the
afternoon, had not yet returned.
Isaac took his tea and then strolled into the garden. Rose and the baby
were making a great noise, and Grace was helping them. It disturbed
Isaac in his perplexed thought, and he made a mental vow that if he was
ever promoted to a home of his own with babies in it, they should be
confined to some top room, out of sight and hearing.
By-and-by, when he was leaning over the gate, looking into the road, Mr.
Hastings came up. Isaac told him that tea was over: but Mr. Hastings
said he had taken a cup with one of his parishioners. He had apparently
walked home quickly, and he lifted his hat and wiped his brow.
"Glorious weather for the haymaking, Isaac!"
"Is it?" returned Isaac abstractedly.
"_Is it!_" repeated Mr. Hastings. "Where are your senses, boy?"
Isaac laughed and roused himself. "I fear they were buried just then,
sir. I was thinking of something that has happened at the Bank to-day. A
loss has been discovered."
"A loss?" repeated Mr Hastings. "A loss of what?"
Isaac explained. He dropped his voice to a low tone, and spoke
confidentially. They were leaning over the gate side by side. Mr.
Hastings rather liked to take recreative moments there, exchanging a nod
and a word with the passers-by. At this hour of the evening, however,
the road was generally free.
"How can the deeds have gone?" exclaimed Mr. Hastings. As every one else
had said.
"I don't know," replied Isaac, breaking off a spray from the hedge, and
beginning to bite the thorns. "I suppose it is all right," he presently
added.
"Right in what way?" asked Mr. Hastings.
"I suppose George Godolphin's all right, I mean."
The words were as an unknown tongue to Mr. Hastings. He did not fathom
them. "You suppose that George Godolphin is all right!" he exclaimed.
"You speak in riddles, Isaac."
"I cannot say I _suspect_ anything wrong, sir; but the doubt has crossed
me. It never would have done so, but for George Godolphin's manner."
Mr. Hastings turned his penetrating gaze on his son, "Speak out," said
he. "Tell me what you mean."
Isaac did so. He related the circumstances of the loss; the confused
manner he had observed in Mr. George Godolphin, on the visits of Lord
Averil, and his reluctance to receive them. One little matter he
suppressed: the stolen visit of George to London, and deceit to Maria,
relative to it. Isaac did not see what that could have had to do with
the loss of the deeds, and his good feeling told him that it was not a
pleasant thing to name to his father. Mr. Hastings did not speak for a
few minutes.
"Isaac, I see no reasonable grounds for your doubts," he said at length.
"The Bank is too flourishing for that. Perhaps you meant only as to
George?"
"I can scarcely tell whether I really meant anything," replied Isaac.
"The doubts arose to me, and I thought I would mention them to you. I
dare say my fancy is to blame: it does run riot sometimes."
A silence ensued. Mr. Hastings broke it. "With a keen man of business,
such as Mr. Thomas Godolphin, at the head of affairs, George could not
go far wrong, I should presume. I think he spends enough on his own
score, mark you, Isaac; but that has nothing to do with the prosperity
of the Bank."
"Of course not. Unless----"
"Unless what? Why don't you speak out?"
"Because I am not sure of my premises, sir," frankly answered Isaac.
"Unless he were to have become irretrievably embarrassed, and should be
using the Bank's funds for his own purposes, I believe I was about to
say."
"Pretty blind moles some of you must be, in that case! Could such a
thing be done without the cognizance of the house? Of Mr. Hurde and of
Thomas Godolphin?"
"Well--no--I don't much think it could," hesitated Isaac, who was not at
all certain upon the point. "At any rate, not to any extent. I suppose
one of my old crotchets--as Grace, used to call them--has taken
possession of me, rendering me absurdly fanciful. I dare say it is all
right: except that the deeds are mislaid."
"I dare say it is," acquiesced the Rector. "I should be sorry to think
it otherwise--for many reasons. Grace is here, is she not?"
"Grace is here, and Grace's son and heir, making enough noise for ten. I
can't think why Grace----"
"What are you taking my name in vain for?" interrupted Grace's own
voice. She had come up to them carrying the very son and heir that Isaac
had been complaining of: a young gentleman with a bald head, just
beginning to exercise his hands in dumb fights; as well as his lungs.
"Papa, mamma says are you not going in to tea?"
Before the Rector could answer, or Isaac extricate his hair from the
unconsciously mischievous little hands which had seized upon it by
Grace's connivance, there came a gay party of equestrians round the
corner of the road. Charlotte Pain, with the two young ladies, her
guests; Lady Sarah and Miss Grame, who sometimes hired horses for a
ride; and three or four gentlemen. Amongst the latter were George
Godolphin and Lord Averil. Lord Averil had met them accidentally and
joined their party. He was riding by the side of Charlotte Pain.
"I say, Grace!" hastily exclaimed Isaac, twitching away his head, "take
that baby in, out of sight. Look there!"
"Take my baby in!" resentfully spoke Grace. "What for? I am not ashamed
to be seen holding it. Keeping only two servants, I must turn nurse
sometimes: and people know it. I am not situated as Maria is, with a
dozen at her beck and call."
Isaac did not prolong the discussion. He thought if he owned an ugly
baby with no hair, he should not be so fond of showing it off. Grace
stood her ground, and the baby stood his, and lifted its head and its
arms by way of greeting. Isaac wondered that it did not lift its voice
as well.
The party exchanged bows as they rode past. George Godolphin--he was
riding by the side of Sarah Anne Grame--withdrew his horse from the
throng and rode up.
"How are you, Grace? How is the baby?"
"Look at him," returned Grace in answer, holding the gentleman up to
him.
"Shall I take him for a ride?" asked George, laughing.
"Not if you paid me his value in gold," answered Grace bluntly.
George's gay blue eyes twinkled. "What may that value be? Your
estimation of it, Grace?"
"Never mind," said Grace. "I can tell you that your Bank would not meet
it. No, not if all its coffers were filled to the brim."
"I see," observed George: "he is inestimable. Do not set your heart too
much upon him, Grace," he continued, his voice changing.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Maria had to lose some, equally dear."
"That is true," said Grace in softened tones. "How is Maria to-day?"
"Quite well, thank you. She went to Ashlydyat this afternoon, and I dare
say has remained there. Famous weather for the hay, is it not, sir?" he
added to the Rector.
"Couldn't be better," replied Mr. Hastings.
George rode off at a canter. The baby burst into a cry; perhaps that he
could not go off at a canter too: and Grace, after a vain attempt to
hush him, carried him into the house. The Rector remained, looking over
the gate.
"Things going wrong with him!--No! He could not be so easy under it,"
was his mental conclusion. "It is all right, depend upon it," he added
aloud to his son.
"I think it must be, sir," was the reply of Isaac Hastings.