The Bank Note
Sir Bale brushed by the housekeeper as he strode into her sanctuary, and
there found Philip Feltram awaiting him dejectedly, but with no signs of
agitation.
If one were to judge by the appearance the master of Mardykes presented,
very grave surmises as to impending violence would have suggested
themselves; but though he clutched his cane so hard that it quivered in
his grasp, he had no notion of committing the outrage of a blow. The
Baronet was unusually angry notwithstanding, and stopping short about
three steps away, addressed Feltram with a pale face and gleaming eyes.
It was quite plain that there was something very exciting upon his mind.
"I've been looking for you, Mr. Feltram; I want a word or two, if you
have done your--your--whatever it is." He whisked the point of his stick
towards the modest tea-tray. "I should like five minutes in the
library."
The Baronet was all this time eyeing Feltram with a hard suspicious
gaze, as if he expected to read in his face the shrinkings and
trepidations of guilt; and then turning suddenly on his heel he led the
way to his library--a good long march, with a good many turnings. He
walked very fast, and was not long in getting there. And as Sir Bale
reached the hearth, on which was smouldering a great log of wood, and
turned about suddenly, facing the door, Philip Feltram entered.
The Baronet looked oddly and stern--so oddly, it seemed to Feltram, that
he could not take his eyes off him, and returned his grim and somewhat
embarrassed gaze with a stare of alarm and speculation.
And so doing, his step was shortened, and grew slow and slower, and came
quite to a stop before he had got far from the door--a wide stretch of
that wide floor still intervening between him and Sir Bale, who stood
upon the hearthrug, with his heels together and his back to the fire,
cane in hand, like a drill-sergeant, facing him.
"Shut that door, please; that will do; come nearer now. I don't want to
bawl what I have to say. Now listen."
The Baronet cleared his voice and paused, with his eyes upon Feltram.
"It is only two or three days ago," said he, "that you said you wished
you had a hundred pounds. Am I right?"
"Yes; I think so."
"_Think_? you know it, sir, devilish well. You said that you wished to
get away. I have nothing particular to say against that, more especially
now. Do you understand what I say?"
"Understand, Sir Bale? I do, sir--quite."
"I daresay quite" he repeated with an angry sneer. "Here, sir, is an odd
coincidence: you want a hundred pounds, and you can't earn it, and you
can't borrow it--there's another way, it seems--but I have got it--a
Bank-of-England note of £100--locked up in that desk;" and he poked the
end of his cane against the brass lock of it viciously. "There it is,
and there are the papers you work at; and there are two keys--I've got
one and you have the other--and devil another key in or out of the house
has any one living. Well, do you begin to see? Don't mind. I don't want
any d----d lying about it."
Feltram was indeed beginning to see that he was suspected of something
very bad, but exactly what, he was not yet sure; and being a man of that
unhappy temperament which shrinks from suspicion, as others do from
detection, he looked very much put out indeed.
"Ha, ha! I think we do begin to see," said Sir Bale savagely. "It's a
bore, I know, troubling a fellow with a story that he knows before; but
I'll make mine short. When I take my key, intending to send the note to
pay the crown and quit-rents that you know--you--you--no matter--you
know well enough must be paid, I open it so--and so--and look _there_,
where I left it, for my note; and the note's gone--you understand, the
note's _gone_!"
Here was a pause, during which, under the Baronet's hard insulting eye,
poor Feltram winced, and cleared his voice, and essayed to speak, but
said nothing.
"It's gone, and we know where. Now, Mr. Feltram, _I_ did not steal that
note, and no one but you and I have access to this desk. You wish to go
away, and I have no objection to that--but d--n me if you take away that
note with you; and you may as well produce it now and here, as hereafter
in a worse place."
"O, my good heaven!" exclaimed poor Feltram at last. "I'm very ill."
"So you are, of course. It takes a stiff emetic to get all that money
off a fellow's stomach; and it's like parting with a tooth to give up a
bank-note. Of course you're ill, but that's no sign of innocence, and
I'm no fool. You had better give the thing up quietly."
"May my Maker strike me----"
"So He will, you d----d rascal, if there's justice in heaven, unless you
produce the money. I don't want to hang you. I'm willing to let you off
if you'll let me, but I'm cursed if I let my note off along with you;
and unless you give it up forthwith, I'll get a warrant and have you
searched, pockets, bag, and baggage."
"Lord! am I awake?" exclaimed Philip Feltram.
"Wide awake, and so am I," replied Sir Bale. "You don't happen to have
got it about you?"
"God forbid, sir! O, Sir--O, Sir Bale--why, Bale, _Bale_, it's
impossible! You _can't_ believe it. When did I ever wrong you? You know
me since I was not higher than the table, and--and----"
He burst into tears.
"Stop your snivelling, sir, and give up the note. You know devilish well
I can't spare it; and I won't spare you if you put me to it. I've said
my say."
Sir Bale signed towards the door; and like a somnambulist, with dilated
gaze and pale as death, Philip Feltram, at his wit's end, went out of
the room. It was not till he had again reached the housekeeper's door
that he recollected in what direction he was going. His shut hand was
pressed with all his force to his heart, and the first breath he was
conscious of was a deep wild sob or two that quivered from his heart as
he looked from the lobby-window upon a landscape which he did not see.
All he had ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire
paroxysm. Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real
capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain
intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and
consequence, in his torture.
Sir Bale, in the meantime, had walked out a little more excited than he
would have allowed. He was still convinced that Feltram had stolen the
note, but not quite so certain as he had been. There were things in his
manner that confirmed, and others that perplexed, Sir Bale.
The Baronet stood upon the margin of the lake, almost under the evening
shadow of the house, looking towards Snakes Island. There were two
things about Mardykes he specially disliked.
One was Philip Feltram, who, right or wrong, he fancied knew more than
was pleasant of his past life.
The other was the lake. It was a beautiful piece of water, his eye,
educated at least in the excellences of landscape-painting,
acknowledged. But although he could pull a good oar, and liked other
lakes, to this particular sheet of water there lurked within him an
insurmountable antipathy. It was engendered by a variety of
associations.
There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout
and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.
His boding was made-up of omens, dreams, and such stuff as he most
affected to despise, and there fluttered at his heart a presentiment and
disgust.
His foot was on the gunwale of the boat, that was chained to its ring at
the margin; but he would not have crossed that water in it for any
reason that man could urge.
What was the mischief that sooner or later was to befall him from that
lake, he could not define; but that some fatal danger lurked there, was
the one idea concerning it that had possession of his fancy.
He was now looking along its still waters, towards the copse and rocks
of Snakes Island, thinking of Philip Feltram; and the yellow level
sunbeams touched his dark features, that bore a saturnine resemblance to
those of Charles II, and marked sharply their firm grim lines, and left
his deep-set eyes in shadow.
Who has the happy gift to seize the present, as a child does, and live
in it? Who is not often looking far off for his happiness, as Sidney
Smith says, like a man looking for his hat when it is upon his head? Sir
Bale was brooding over his double hatred, of Feltram and of the lake. It
would have been better had he struck down the raven that croaked upon
his shoulder, and listened to the harmless birds that were whistling all
round among the branches in the golden sunset.