Jacob, in the midst of those pleasant activities necessitated by his
change of fortunes, found time to write a letter. He wrote it with
great care and after many revisions, and not until after it was
dispatched did he realise with how much anxiety he awaited the reply.
The Cottage,
Marlingden.
Dear Miss Bultiwell,
I am venturing to write these few lines to assure you of my
very deep sympathy with you in the loss which you have
sustained, and I beg also to express the earnest hope that
you will not associate me in any way with those misfortunes
of your father which I was powerless to avert or lighten.
I have a further object in writing to you, which I hesitate
to touch upon for fear I should give you offence, but I do
beg, Miss Bultiwell, that you will accept my offer in a
kind and generous spirit, and believe that it is entirely
dictated by feelings of friendship for you. I gather that
your father's affairs are so much involved that a
considerable interval may elapse before any substantial sum
can be collected from his estate for the benefit of
yourself and your mother. I beg, therefore, as a person
into whose hands great wealth has come quite unexpectedly,
that you will, if it is the slightest convenience to you,
permit me to offer to make any advance necessary for your
comfort. At a word from you, it will give me the greatest
pleasure to place a thousand pounds, or any such sum, in
any bank you may name, for your use until the estate is
wound up.
If I have expressed myself crudely, please forgive me, Miss
Bultiwell. I have a sincere desire to be of service to you,
and I would like very much to be able to sign myself
Your friend,
Jacob Pratt.
The reply came by return of post. It was dated from the late Mr.
Bultiwell's house, a few miles farther down the line than Marlingden.
Dear Mr. Pratt,
The offer contained in your letter, which I received this
morning, may possibly have been kindly meant, but I wish
you to know that I consider it an insult. My father took
his life after an interview with you, during which I
understand that you rejected a business proposition of his
in terms which I cannot help suspecting, from your attitude
while I was present, were unnecessarily brutal. Under those
circumstances, you can scarcely wonder that I, his
daughter, feel the greatest resentment at your offer and
decline without the slightest hesitation your proposal of
friendship.
Yours truly,
Sybil Bultiwell.
Jacob read the letter as he sat out amongst his roses, with the engine
of his motor-car purring in the street, waiting to take him to town.
For a few moments all the joy of his new prosperity seemed to slip
away from him. The perfume of his cherished flowers lost its
sweetness; the pleasant view of spreading meadows, with their
background of dim blue hills, faded from before his eyes. He
remembered the girl's face as he had first seen and afterwards dreamed
of it, the eyes shining with kindliness, the proud lips smiling
encouragement, her tone purposely softened, leading him on to talk
about himself, his pleasant hobbies, his dawning ambitions. And then
again he thought of her as she must have looked when she sat down
to write that letter, amidst the discomfort of a dismantled home,
embittered and saddened by the sordid approach of ignominious poverty.
He shivered a little and looked up as Dauncey approached.
"I almost wish," he declared, "that I had bought that old swindler's
business. It wouldn't have cost me a tenth part of what I am worth."
"Has the girl been unkind?" his friend asked.
Jacob showed him the letter.
"She's not generous," was Dauncey's comment, as he returned it.
"She's loyal, at any rate," Jacob replied.
Dauncey's face suddenly softened. His wife was leaning over the gate
waving her hand. His eyes watched her retreating figure until she
disappeared.
"Somehow or other," he ventured a little hesitatingly, as he turned
back to Jacob, "I can't help thinking that the tone of that letter
isn't altogether womanly. She must know the truth about her father's
position. It doesn't seem fair to blame you for your perfectly
reasonable attitude."
"Why, even you thought I was hard at the time," Jacob reminded him.
"You were hard but you were just, and your offer to the young lady and
her mother should certainly have evoked some feeling of gratitude. I
don't like a woman to be too independent."
"You've never seen her," Jacob groaned.
"Not to speak to, but I've seen her once or twice on the platform with
her father. She is very good-looking, of course," Dauncey continued
hesitatingly, "although she always reminded me of one of the
conventional pictures of the birth or purse-proud young women which
adorn the illustrated papers."
"You've never seen her smile," Jacob said gloomily, as he rose to his
feet. "However, she may get more reasonable after the first shock has
passed away.... Time we started for the City, eh, Dick?"
They motored through the old-fashioned villages and along the quiet
country lanes, towards where the wide-flung arms of the great city
crept out like tentacles of hideous brick and mortar, to gather in her
children. This morning ride was to both of them a never-ending source
of delight. Jacob especially had the air of a schoolboy when he
remembered the punctual train, his punctual appearance at the dingy
warehouse in Bermondsey Street, his inevitable sallying forth,
half-an-hour later, with a list of names in his pocket, a few samples
of leather in his bag, and the stock phrases of the market packed into
his head by the never-satisfied Mr. Smith.
"A free man, Dick," he observed, taking his cigar from his mouth and
drawing a long breath of content. "A free man at thirty-four years of
age. It's wonderful!"
"If it only lasts!" Dauncey muttered, with a touch of his old
pessimism.
"You can cut that out, old fellow," Jacob insisted firmly. "I gave
Pedlar a cheque for thirty-eight thousand pounds yesterday, and that
left me fifty-five thousand of the original hundred thousand. Since
then I have received bonds to the registered par value of four hundred
thousand pounds, which are being sold to-day in New York at eight
times their par value. Then there was a quarterly dividend cheque
yesterday for nine thousand pounds. You'll admit the money's there."
"Can't deny facts," Dauncey agreed, with returning cheerfulness.
"As regards your personal position," Jacob went on, "I made my will
yesterday and I left you five hundred a year."
"Jacob!"
Jacob patted his friend on the shoulder.
"I've only told you this, old chap," he went on, "because I want you
to lift up your head when you walk, remember that you owe nobody
anything, and that, whatever measure of bad luck you may have, you are
outside all risk of financial trouble for the rest of your life. It's
a wonderful feeling, that, Dick. Half the men you meet in life admit
that they have their fits of depression, their dark days, their
anxieties. If you analyse these, you will find that nearly every one
of them is financial. The man who is free from all financial cares for
himself and his family should walk about with a song on his lips the
whole of the day. You and I are in that position, Dick, and don't let
us forget it."
Dauncey drew in a deep breath of realisation, and his face for a
moment glowed.
"Jacob," he confided, "I don't feel that I could ever be unhappy
again. I have what I always dreamed of--Nora and the kids and freedom
from anxiety. But you--where will life lead you, I wonder? I have
reached the summit of my ambitions. I'm giddy with the pleasure of it.
But you--it would be horrible if you, with all your money, were to
miss happiness."
Jacob smiled confidently.
"My dear Dick," he said, "I am happy--not because I have twelve suits
of clothes coming home from Savile Row to-day, not because of this
Rolls-Royce car, my little flat at the Milan Court, my cottage at
Marlingden, with Harris there for gardener now, and Mrs. Harris with
not a worry in the world except how to make me comfortable. I am happy
not because of all these things, but because you and I together are
going to test life. I have the master key to the locked chambers. I am
ready for adventures."
"I have about as much imagination as an owl," Dauncey sighed.
Jacob's eyes were fixed upon the haze which hung over the city.
"When I speak of adventures," he went on, "I do not mean the
adventures of romance. I mean rather the adventures of the pavement.
Human beings interest me, Dick. I like to see them come and go, study
their purposes, analyse their motives, help them if they deserve help,
stand in their way if they seek evil. These are the day-by-day
adventures possible to the man who is free from care, and who mixes
without hindrance with his fellows."
"I begin to understand," Dauncey admitted, "but I still don't quite
see by what means you are sure of coming into touch with interesting
people."
Jacob knocked the ash from his cigar.
"Dick," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, "you are a very
superficial student of humanity. A story such as mine attracts the
imagination of the public. Every greedy adventurer in the world
believes that the person who has acquired wealth without individual
effort is an easy prey. I expect to derive a certain amount of
amusement from those who read of my good fortune and seek to profit
by it. That is why I had no objection to telling my story to the
reporters, why I let them take my photograph, why I gave them all the
information they wanted about the payment of my creditors in full and
my sudden wealth. All that we need now is the little West End office
which I am going to take within the next few days, and a brass plate
upon the door. The fly will then sit still and await the marauding
spiders."
Dauncey smiled with all the enthusiasm of his new-found sense of
humour.
"Five hundred a year," he murmured, "to be henchman to a bluebottle!"