What Is It Now?
"Any message for your son, ma'am?" Mr. Gibbon inquired one night at
supper-time of the widow, and announced that business called him to
Ingleby on the next morning.
He did not add that he went with special instructions to inquire into
complaints again made of Bernard Day by the manager of the branch shop,
and to bring back a report on which George Boult could act.
"The boy will have to be removed from Ingleby," the draper said. "I want
to know if I am justified in discharging him on the spot, or whether I may
risk giving him another chance."
Mr. Boult had stayed his hand from dealing summarily with the young man,
as it had been his instinct to do. After all, he was William Day's son;
the son of the one friend whom, in all his life, he had made. The son of
the widow of Bridge Street, also; and he, George Boult, had been the
arbiter of her destiny, of the destiny of her children, and was proud of
the fact. The result had not been altogether satisfactory. No amount of
teaching or of bullying would ever make a business woman of the mother;
but then he knew that he had enjoyed the teaching and bullying. He felt
a glow of satisfaction, when he read her name in the small white letters
on a black ground above the shop door, "Lydia Day, licensed to sell tobacco
and snuff," and remembered it was he who had caused that legend to be
written there. It pleased him to recall the handsome woman in her silks
and laces, who had extended a patronising hand to him, now and again, on
those Sunday afternoons he had spent with her husband--the haughty-looking,
dark-skinned, dark-eyed beauty, as he conjured her to his mind's eye--and
then to enter the gloomy little shop, and to see this same woman--was it
in truth the same?--her black gown covered by a large white, bibbed apron,
white sleeves to her elbows, standing behind the counter, to weigh treacle
into a customer's jar, or to descant on the merits of various scrubbing
soaps.
"My doing," George Boult said to himself, and was pleased.
His mother had many messages for Bernard, of course. A parcel of a couple
of shirts for him too, which she and the girls had made for him, stitching
busily together after the day's work was done. He was to write oftener. He
was to send her his socks to mend. To take long walks into the country;
and not by any means to be tempted to spend his evenings at the horrid
hotel which Mr. Boult had complained to his mother he frequented.
In the morning a little parcel was put into the boarder's hand, with the
request that he would give it to Bernard. It contained a sovereign the
poor woman, who had not a penny to spare, had taken from a sum due to meet
a certain account, that day. The boy's salary was so very, very small; the
wholesale house must wait for payment.
When Deleah arrived home from her school on the afternoon of that day, she
found the shop in charge of Mr. Pretty alone, a state of things never
permitted except at meal-times. Deleah went into the house and ran
upstairs with a foreboding mind. Reaching the dark landing upon which the
sitting-room opened, her heart sank within her at the sound of loud
weeping proceeding from that room. Her mother was dying, or dead, bemoaned
by Bessie, she decided, her thoughts leaping to the worst that could
befall.
It was a relief to her, therefore, to see Mrs. Day seated in her
accustomed chair, grey and stricken of face, but alive, and as she
maintained an upright position, presumably well. The mother was looking
straight before her with blindly staring eyes, paying no heed to Bessie,
stretched upon the sofa, uttering howl upon howl.
"What is it now?" Deleah asked, standing in the doorway as if struck
there. "Tell me quickly what it is." Her mind flew afield in search of
awful possibilities. "Is Bernard dead?" she asked.
"Oh, I wish he were! I wish he were!" Bessie cried, and flung herself into
a sitting position. "I wish he were. Bernard is worse, far worse than
dead. Bernard has enlisted for a soldier!"
Deleah shut the door and came forward into the room. "Is that all?" she
asked. Her poor little face was white, her eyes wild with fear. That
Bernard was in prison had been what she dreaded to hear. "Oh, mama, if
that is all, it is not so terrible."
Then there came a knock at the door and Charles Gibbon came in. Deleah
turned upon him: "You should not have told them; you should have told me,"
she reproached him.
"I don't think so," he said bluntly. "Why should you bear the brunt of
everything?"
Mrs. Day was incapable of speech, her poor lips shaking, the hands
twitching which lay helpless on her lap.
Bessie looked at her. "Poor mama! Poor mama!" she moaned. "This will kill
mama! The disgrace will kill her!"
"Hush!" said the Honourable Charles, and turned upon her, shocking her
into silence. "You should have more control over yourself, Miss Bessie.
Hysterics never helped any one in the world, yet."
"Hysterics!" repeated Bessie, but was so astonished that she ceased to
moan.
"Mrs. Day," the boarder went on, "I told you the news about your son a
little abruptly perhaps, but I did not consider I was telling you bad
news. Many"--he was going to say "better men" but changed it into--"many
better off than he have done the same thing, and it has been the making of
them. I tell you straight, under all the circumstances, I think he has
done the best thing he could."
"I must buy him off, of course," Mrs. Day said, paying no heed. "Do you
know how to set about it, Mr. Gibbon; and what it costs?"
If Mr. Gibbon knew he did not say.
"To think of Bernard being a common soldier--a private!" Bessie began
again, and shook once more with sobs. "If he comes here, Deleah, do you
think he will expect us to walk out with him? We can never be seen with
Bernard again--never! Never! Never!"
She had quarrelled continually with Bernard, but she had been fond of him,
and proud of his good looks. Poor Bessie's grief was selfishly shown, but
it was genuine grief all the same.
"Discipline will be the best thing in the world for him," the boarder
promised. "A friend of mine who also went to the b---- who also enlisted,
for certain reasons, is an officer now."
"Bernard will have no luck," Bessie declared. "No luck ever comes our
way."
"There's no good waiting for luck, Miss Bessie--"
"Will Mr. Boult buy him off?" the widow interrupted. No argument weighed
with her. She listened to no attempt at comfort. "I must go to Mr. Boult
at once, and ask him to do it."
"If you take my advice, you won't, ma'am. If you ask him ever so, he
won't."
"I will beg him, on my knees," the poor lady said.
Deleah followed Gibbon to the landing. "Is there anything you are keeping
back?" she whispered to him. "You can tell me. I am not Bessie."
"The boy's been a fool--but there's nothing that can't be hushed up."
Her eyes full of fear clung to his face; she was determined to hear the
worst. "You must tell me," she persisted.
"A couple of bills were paid over the counter; only for small amounts.
Your brother did not--did not--"
"You mean he took the money for himself?"
How white her face was! The sound of Bessie's sighs and moans came from
the sitting-room. Deleah opened another door on the landing. It was that
of her mother's bedroom, but she cared nothing for that. With a hand on
the boarder's arm she led him in there, and shut the door.
"Bernard stole the money?" she whispered. She had no thought of herself,
or of who it was she held by the arm, had forgotten that he loved her. To
know the worst, and to know it at once, so that in some way her mother
might be spared the knowledge, was what she wanted.
She had no pity on herself, but he had pity for her--abounding,
overwhelming pity; the brave little white-faced girl, who did not moan,
nor fling herself about, nor talk nonsense; who had courage, who faced
things.
"Your brother gave the receipts all right," he said slowly, "but he
omitted to enter the accounts as paid in the ledger."
"And the money? What did he do with the money?"
"The money is all right. The firm loses nothing."
"How do you mean? Tell me."
"The money was found in his room."
"Who found it?"
"I found it. It was only for a small amount."
"And paid it in? So that they lose nothing? So that they all know that
Bernard had only been careless? That he was not a thief?"
"It's all right," he assured her. "There's nothing for you to worry
about--now."
"You are sure you are keeping nothing back? You would not deceive me?
There is nothing more?"
Gibbon hesitated; he was not a man who told lies; and there was something
more. "It seems he made debts--debts that out of his salary it was
impossible for your brother to pay."
"Yes?"
"But he did pay them."
"He did? Then--?"
"You see, Miss Deleah, they're wishful to know where he got the money from
to pay with."
She looked at him with knit brows anxiously for a minute, then her face
cleared and a glad light was in her eyes. "Why, I can tell them!" she
said, "I sent him the money to pay the debts."
"It was fifty pounds--about. _You_ sent it?"
"Oh, the money was not mine. It was Sir Francis Forcus's money. I asked
him for it. You can tell them I sent it, Mr. Gibbon; but tell them no
more. Sir Francis wished it to be a secret between him and me."
"Oh!" Gibbon said, and roughly shook her hand from his arm.
"You don't believe me?"
"I believe you fast enough; oh, yes."
"Then why are you angry?"
"You might have come to me. Why didn't you come to me?"
"Oh, I don't know," Deleah said. The several reasons she could have given
it seemed kinder to withhold.
He pounced upon her, his eyes blazing. "I don't like these '_secrets_'
between a man and a girl."
Deleah drew back with a little offence. "If you knew at all what Sir
Francis is like you would not say such a thing as that, Mr. Gibbon."
"What is he like?"
"Infinitely--infinitely above everything that is not kind and
generous--and noble."
"He is just like any other man, except that he has more money."
Deleah put on her little air of dignity. "I thank you for telling me
everything about my brother," she said. "I am so relieved that there was
nothing worse to hear."
He watched her as she walked across the gloomy little square of landing
and entered the other room. When she held her small head so poised on its
long graceful throat, when the corners of her lips were ever so little
turned down, the small rounded chin turned up, and the wonderful black
eyelashes swept her cheeks he was afraid of her, little bit of a girl of
less than half his age as she was; a girl who had been a child but two
years ago, when he had come to the house. A girl whose lips as far as he
had ever heard had never spoken one ungentle word; a girl who had pity on
drowning flies, and carefully turned away her foot from the abject worm.
But then he was always trembling before her, either with love or fear.
The impulse to tell her that the purse-proud brewer was not the only man
who had done the wretched brother a service for her sake possessed him.
The few pounds he had put, in order that he might find them there, in
Bernard's room, had been infinitely more to him than the fifty pounds to
Sir Francis Forcus. And he was one who saved his money anxiously for the
end he had in view. Would she call him "kind and generous and noble" if he
told her? He more than doubted it.
"We can't possibly walk about with Bernard in the dress of a private
soldier," Bessie was saying when Deleah returned to the sitting-room. "We
have come down, mama, I know, but we have not come down so low as that;
and Bernard can't expect it of us."
"I shall buy him off, if I have to sell the clothes off my back," Mrs. Day
said, oblivious of the fact that her wardrobe in the market might perhaps
have fetched the sum of thirty shillings.
"I would not be in too great a hurry, mama."
"You think nothing about the sufferings of your poor brother, Deleah. My
darling son."
"I do think of him. I think he will be very angry if this is done at once.
You must wait until he has had time to get sick of it."
"As soon as the shop is closed I shall go to Mr. Boult and beg of him to
help me to buy him off," Mrs. Day persisted.
She rose up stiffly from her chair and stood beside it, her hand grasping
its back, waiting for the strength to come to her to take up the burthen
of business again. Ah, if only she had leisure for grieving, if she might
lie on the sofa and cry, as Bessie was doing, what a luxury it would have
been!
The assistant had been left to "get up" an order for her most important
customer in her absence. He had put the wrong sugars into parcels, and the
wrong tea. In reaching the tin of "foy grass" from the top shelf, he had
knocked down and broken a bottle of piccalilli, catching its contents in
the crystallised sugar drawer. Mrs. Day was very gentle with him, who was
younger even than poor Bernard.