TEA, TALK, AND MUSIC.
Avison's Bank had been built about twenty years. It had been erected
on the site of a much older building which dated from the period of
William and Mary, and, after serving for several generations as the
family mansion of the Colvilles, had been converted into a bank. The
present structure was a plain but substantial building of red brick
with freestone facings. It was entered from the street through large
folding inner doors which swung easily to-and-fro on their well-oiled
hinges. On the right a glazed swing-door led into the public office,
where sundry clerks behind a long counter were prepared to honor your
cheques, or to receive at your hands whatsoever sums you might be
desirous of entrusting to the safe keeping of the Bank. This outer
office was divided from an inner one by a half-glass partition. In the
inner office John Brancker and Ephraim Judd were generally to be seen
busily engaged on the Bank ledgers; John, as the senior official next
to Mr. Hazeldine, being there to be referred to in case of any dispute
or doubtful point cropping up in the outer office. This inner office
had a second door which opened into the main corridor, and a third
door into a fireproof room where books and securities could be safely
lodged. On the left, as you entered from the street, were also two
doors, both of which bore the word "Private." The first of them opened
into Mr. Hazeldine's office, the second into that of Mr. Avison. In
the former was the entrance to the strong room in which were the
bullion safes, together with other things of scarcely less importance.
In this room there was no window, and during business hours the gas
was kept constantly alight in it, ventilation being supplied by means
of a small grated opening in the outer wall. Finally, there was a door
of communication between Mr. Hazeldine's office and that of Mr.
Avison.
As Sweet, the night-watchman, had informed Mr. Hazeldine, John
Brancker and Ephraim Judd were at work this evening in the inner
office. It was no unusual thing for them to work overtime at
certain periods of the month. John Brancker had been in the service
of the Bank for between sixteen and seventeen years. He was a
homely-featured, plainly-dressed man of five-and-forty, with no
pretentions to style or fashion. It was this very unpretentiousness,
in conjunction with a certain simplicity of character and a
cheerfulness of disposition that never varied, which combined to make
him such a universal favorite; everybody in the town knew John
Brancker and everybody liked him.
Ephraim Judd was twenty years younger than his fellow-clerk. Mr.
Avison the elder had brought him to the Bank when a boy, and there he
had been ever since. He was lame, the result of an accident in
childhood, and he made use of a stout stick when walking to and from
business, although he never seemed to need it when passing from one
part of the Bank to another, but got over the ground with a sort of
hop and skip which had rather a comical effect in the eyes of
strangers. He was a tall, narrow-chested young man, with long,
straight, black hair, a sallow complexion, and thin, eager,
hungry-looking features. His ears were abnormally large and stuck out
prominently from his head, and it was a matter of common report among
his fellow clerks that Ephraim could move them backward or forward,
after the fashion of certain animals, at will. Like John Brancker, he
dressed very plainly, almost shabbily, presenting thereby a marked
contrast to some of the juniors, with their chains and rings and
elaborate display of collar and cuffs. Mr. Judd's chest was delicate,
and when the weather was at all bad he wore a respirator, and at other
times he generally muffled himself up carefully about the throat in a
long, worsted comforter of many colors. It might be for the same
reason, perhaps, that he nearly always wore india rubber overshoes;
but that could hardly be the reason why his stick should be shod with
the same material. By means of his galoshes Ephraim was enabled to
move noiselessly about from place to place, and he sometimes quite
startled Sweet, who was pursy and scant of breath, by going up behind
him and touching him suddenly on the shoulder when he had no idea that
anyone was near him.
"Drat that Mr. Judd with his ingy-rubber shoes!" the night-watchman
would say to his wife. "I wish he wouldn't shake one's narves so. He
steals about the building like a ghost, or--or as if he was going to
commit a burglary; and one never knows whether he's behind one, or in
front of one, or where he is."
It was somewhat singular that Ephraim should be so little of a
favorite among his fellow clerks--but so it was. He was a man not much
given to talking; he kept his own counsel, making friends of nobody,
giving offence to none, and seemingly trying to efface himself as much
as possible; yet everybody seemed to have a vague distrust of him;
everybody had the feeling that he was a man who hid more than he
showed on the surface--everybody, that is, except simple-hearted John
Brancker, who was proud of Ephraim's cleverness at figures, and proud
of his handwriting, which was the best of anyone's in the Bank.
Sweet put his head into the office where the two men were at work.
"Mr. Hazeldine has come, sir," he said, addressing himself to Mr.
Brancker. "I thought you might perhaps have something you wanted to
see him about."
"I don't think I shall trouble him to-night," answered John; "he will
be tired, and what matters I have to see him about will keep till
morning."
Sweet disappeared and shut the door.
"If I were in Mr. H.'s place, I'd take care not to work as hard as he
does," remarked Ephraim.
"When a man's heart is in what he does, as Mr. Hazeldine's is, hard
work becomes a pleasure."
"What a pretty girl his daughter is!" resumed Ephraim, after a few
moments' silence. "Just the sort of young lady I should like to make
up to, if I were in a position to do so."
John laughed.
"Yes, Miss Hazeldine is pretty--nobody can deny that; but whether she
would make the sort of wife to suit a man like you may be open to
doubt."
"Oh, you are a confirmed old bachelor, Mr. B., and are not supposed to
know anything about the ladies."
A shadow flitted across John's face for a moment.
"May it not be because we old bachelors know so much about the ladies
that we remain bachelors?" he asked, with a smile. "Have you any idea,
Ephraim, of making up to Miss Hazeldine?"
"Now you are poking fun at me, Mr. B. As if she would condescend to
look at a poor beggar like me!"
John shut up his inkstand and began to put away his books.
"Are you going to stay much longer?" he asked.
"I shall finish this ledger and then be off. I've had about enough of
figures for one day."
John presently bade the other good-night, leaving him still perched on
his high stool. A sharp walk of ten minutes carried him home. He lived
in a pleasant little semi-detached cottage in the suburbs. There was a
small garden in front of his house and a larger one behind, with
wide-stretching meadows beyond, and a low range of hills crowning the
horizon.
John halted for a moment with his hand on the garden gate. A sound of
music reached him from the cottage. His niece--Hermia Rivers--and
Clement Hazeldine were playing a duet on the piano and violin.
"What capital time they keep!" he said to himself. "They are playing
something I've never heard before. I suppose Mr. Clement has been
having some new music from London."
John's terrier heard its master's footsteps on the gravel, and began
to bark a welcome; the duet ceased in the middle of a bar; Hermia ran
to the door, greeted her uncle with a kiss, and relieved him of his
hat and coat, the cat came and purred round his legs, its tail erect
in the air; his sister met him with that cheery smile without which
home would not have seemed like home; and Clement Hazeldine gave him a
hearty grip of the hand.
"We were missing your flute sadly," said the latter. "I have brought
two or three fresh pieces this evening, and we were trying one of them
over."
"You are very late, dear; but I have kept the teapot in the cosy for
you," said Miss Brancker.
"And there's a fire which plainly says, 'Why don't you let me toast
you some muffins,'" added Hermia.
"Sweet brought me up some tea about six o'clock," said John; "but I
daresay I can manage another cup."
"Of course you can, uncle," rejoined Hermia. "Why, I have known you
drink four cups many a time, and then ask for more."
"That must have been when I was very thirsty indeed; but little girls
should never tell tales out of school."
Presently Hermia was on her knees toasting a couple of muffins at the
sitting-room fire, for at Nairn Cottage the kitchen fire was allowed
to go out after the early two o'clock dinner, when the girl, who came
to do the rough work in the morning, was dismissed for the day.
"I left your father at the office," remarked John to Clement. "He has
been to London, and I fancy that he did not get back till the seven
o'clock train."
"I wish he would not stay so late, night after night," answered
Clement. "Have you not noticed how care-worn he has been looking of
late?"
"I can't say that I have remarked much difference in him, but that may
be because I see him every day."
Clement shook his head.
"He has certainly aged very much of late. I was quite pained the other
day to see him so worn and anxious-looking. I wish he would take a
couple of months' rest right away from business."
John smiled.
"I know him better than you do, Mr. Clement. He would be miserable
away from the Bank. But when Mr. Avison returns there will be no
necessity for him to work so hard; and you must talk to him seriously
about his health."
When John had finished his modest cup of tea he took up the poker and
gave four loud taps with it on the back of the grate. Presently there
came four taps in response, and a few minutes later Mr. Kittaway,
John's next door neighbor, came in, followed by a servant girl
carrying his violoncello in its case.
Mr. Kittaway was a retired wine merchant. He was a little, high-dried,
bald old gentleman, with gold-rimmed spectacles, and an enormously
high and stiff white cravat, above which his puckered face peered out
as though he were gazing at one over a wall.
"What can have become of Frank?" queried John, presently. "It must be
more than a week since he was here last. He's not ill, or I should
have missed him from the office."
No one save Clement noticed the vivid blush that dyed Hermia's
cheek. Fortunately the question was addressed to Miss Brancker.
"When he was here last he was all agog to join the New Spanish class
at the Institute," responded the latter. "He has a great idea about
reading 'Don Quixote' in the original."
"Frank is always agog after something new," said John, with a laugh,
"which more often than not comes to nothing in the end. He's as
changeable as the moon, as I've told him many a time. Still, he might
have given us a look-in before now."
"If you were to walk as far as the 'Crown and Cushion'--not that it
would be worth anyone's while to do so," remarked Mr. Kittaway, in his
dryest manner--"I have no doubt you would find Master Frank at the
present moment practising the spot-stroke, with the stump of a cigar
between his teeth, and his hat very much at the back of his head."
It was known to all those present that there was no love lost between
the ex-wine merchant and Frank Derison.
"There are four of us--just a comfortable quartete," resumed the
little man--"which, in my opinion, is much preferable to a quintete;
more especially when one of the five happens to keep execrable time."
This was another hit at the absent Frank.
"Come, come, friend Nathan," said John, slapping him lightly on the
knee. "Frank's not quite so bad as you try to make out. He may be fond
of a game of billiards--nowadays most young men seem to be--but
where's the harm? I've often wished I could handle a cue; but I don't
think I could if I were to try for a hundred years. And as for the bad
time Frank keeps when he plays, I put that down to pure carelessness."
"There ought to be no carelessness where music is in question,"
interrupted the little man, hotly. "Music calls forth, and will be
content with nothing less than the highest faculties of a man's
nature; and where those are not given ungrudgingly, the result is a
farce, sir--a wretched farce." He emphasized his last words with a
vicious twang of one of the strings of his 'cello.
John laughed, but said nothing. He was too accustomed to his friend's
tirades to attempt any confutation of them.
And so the little concert began. Hermia sat down to the piano, John
brought out his beloved flute, Clement screwed up the strings of his
fiddle, while Mr. Kittaway settled his spectacles and gave a
preliminary scrape or two on his 'cello. Miss Brancker fixed herself
in a corner near the fire with her knitting and a kitten on her lap.
Charlotte Brancker was two years younger than John, and was a feminine
copy of him. She had the same homely features, somewhat softened in
their outlines, but charged with goodness in one case as in the other.
There was the same pleasant smile, the same ever-cheerful manner, the
same thoughtfulness for the comfort of others. Two more thoroughly
unselfish people than John Brancker and his sister it would have been
hard to find.
Hermia Rivers, their orphan niece, had lived with them since she was
three years old. She was now turned twenty, and was a very lovely
girl. Her hair was the color of ripe corn in sunlight; her eyes were
of the hue of violets when they first open their dewy lids to the
morn; her face was instinct with thought and refinement.
It is almost needless to say that Clement Hazeldine was very much in
love with her, although he had grave reasons for fearing that her
heart was already given to Frank Derison. That there was some secret
understanding between the two, his eyes, rendered keen by love, had
not failed to convince him; and a secret understanding between two
young people can, as a rule, have but one termination. Greatly he
feared the worst; but there was a stubbornness of disposition about
him which would not allow him to give up while a grain of hope was
left to sustain him.
Meanwhile, he found it impossible to keep away from Nairn Cottage. Two
or three evenings a week found him there, and he was always made
welcome. The ostensible object of his visits was to form one in the
little musical gatherings which, every Monday and Thursday evenings,
wooed "the heavenly maid" in Miss Brancker's sitting-room.