PENNILESS.
As Grey drove home he thought: "Was ever man so lucky as I! She did not
denounce me. She did not give her name. She did not mention mine. She
did not tell the nature of the injury she had been the innocent cause
of, and I was in time to prevent surprise being aroused by the contents
of that packet. Was ever man so lucky as I!
"I think I half convinced Maud the scene between her and me was a
rehearsal. If I have not, I am sure to be able to do so later on. Maud
had no suspicion that woman was my mother; and if she had she could in
no way trace my manner to the presence of my mother. Even if she
discovers later on it was my mother, I shall be able to find out some
back door, some means of escape. It is time enough to say good-day to
the devil when you meet him; so I will not waste time in providing for
what may never arise.
"This parcel is money, of course. It is a large slice out of the sales
of the annuity, house, and furniture. I don't know what the gross sum
was, but I should not be surprised if she left half of it with Maud. Let
me see."
He cut the cord, and opened out the parcel. There were two or three
folds of brown paper; then came a bundle of notes, and in the middle one
note doubled up, and in this innermost note four sovereigns, seven
shillings, and a fourpenny-piece. There were seven one thousand pound
notes, three one hundred, and eight tens, making seven thousand three
hundred and eighty pounds in notes, and four pounds seven shillings and
fourpence in coin; in all, seven thousand three hundred and eighty-four
pounds, seven shillings and fourpence.
Grey knit his brows, counted the money over again, twisted the gold and
silver inquisitively through his fingers, and uttered an exclamation of
dissatisfaction.
"Of course," he thought, "they could have traced these notes to her as
easily as though her name was written on the back of each. I can now cut
off their history as long as I like. I cannot understand how she got so
much for the lot. Double this would be a thing far above my estimate. At
the very outside I don't think the three things were worth more than ten
thousand. It might have gone to eleven thousand. I should not have
thought so much, certainly not a penny more. This would be about
two-thirds of eleven thousand--a trifle more than two-thirds. Can this
woman have given Maud two-thirds of what the property brought, and left
herself with short of four thousand pounds, when she may live ten or a
dozen years yet? Monstrous!
"My mother, upwards of seventy years of age, with a bankrupt son and
four thousand pounds--a hundred and fifty pounds a year! Monstrous! I'll
go to Evans and find out the facts of the case, and relieve myself of
this heavy suspicion."
He drove to Evans's. The solicitor was in an outer office among his
clerks. Grey was too impatient to wait until they could reach the
private room, and too cautious to allow Evans to answer his question
aloud. He took up a sheet of paper and wrote on it:
"What were the net proceeds of my mother's sale?"
He handed this to Evans.
The solicitor wrote some figures, and returned the paper to Grey.
The banker turned down the side of paper with the figures, and went to
the window. With his back to the attorney and clerks he read the
figures. The paper fell from his hand. He raised his face against the
thin winter light. He folded his arms tightly across his chest. A
convulsive movement began at the shoulders and descended throughout his
body. He swayed to and fro violently.
Evans raised his head, and saw something was wrong. He stole softly
behind the banker, and placed his hand on the other's arm.
"Come this way. Come to my private room," whispered the solicitor
gently.
Grey moved away mechanically. Even with the attorney's assistance he
walked unsteadily.
When he had reached the private room Evans pressed Grey into a chair,
locked the door, and said:
"Rest a while. Rest a while, and then tell me."
Grey rose to his feet laboriously, as if his joints were frozen. He
placed a hand on each shoulder of Evans, and said, in a heavy husky
voice:
"Evans--my God! Evans--do you know what has happened?"
"No."
"My mother, upwards of seventy years of age, has left Daneford and gone
I don't know where; and she has not a roof to cover her, a meal to eat,
or a shilling in her pocket."
The sum Evans had written on that piece of paper was seven thousand
three hundred and eighty-four pounds, seven shillings and fourpence.
"Evans, she hasn't kept a copper. By this time she may be without a
shilling."
Half an hour elapsed before Grey found himself able to command himself
sufficiently to face the public eye.
Evans offered to do anything in his power. He undertook to find Mrs.
Grey and ascertain her condition; but Grey refused all help. He felt
perfectly convinced his mother would allow nothing to be done for her by
him. If she beggared herself to pay some of the stolen money, it was not
likely she would accept money from him who had committed the theft.
When he left Evans's office he walked slowly and sadly towards the Bank.
It was now dusk. He went to his private-room, and, flinging himself into
a chair, sat long gazing at the fire.
He had, he had fancied, banished all thought of his mother from his
mind for ever. He had flattered himself he had cast off all his old
affection, so that it might be no longer a stumbling-stone in the path
of his ambition. But this horrible discovery of the old woman's absolute
destitution could not be resisted.
His mother a homeless wanderer among strange people in the winter time!
Unendurable thought! She to whom he had looked up with love and
reverence all his life, who had soothed and cheered him in the little
griefs of his boyhood and the trials of his manhood, now without a
fireside of her own!
He had himself never known what poverty, actual poverty, was; but he had
heard and read of it, and had come in contact with it as a man connected
with the treasurership held by him. There were people in the world at
this moment who were hungry and had not a penny to buy bread. Had not a
penny such as this.
He had taken a coin out of his pocket, and now held it in his left hand.
He was bent forward; his right elbow rested on his knee; his head
drooped over the left palm, in which lay the coin.
People who starved for want of such a coin as this! Under privation it
was the children and the old people succumbed first. People of middle
life like him lived through sieges and famines when the young and the
old died.
To think of people being hungry for want of such a coin as this!
He had seen the old hungry. As president of the Coal Fund he had visited
poor old people. He had seen their dropped jaws, their dim eyes, their
feeble gait, their degraded humanity. He had seen women, old women who
had once occupied comfortable positions, hobbling along the frozen
streets with tickets for coal in their hands, while boys followed
jeering at them. He had heard these respectable old women utter words of
gratitude so humiliating to themselves, that he had felt to listen was
more the punishment of a crime than the reward of a humane action.
Once at a Christmas-time he went to see a poor widow on behalf of whom
application had been made to the fund. Her husband had been a well-to-do
tradesman of Daneford. He found the poor creature in a most pitiable
plight. She had nothing but a bundle of straw for a bed, and the ragged
remains of an old patchwork counterpane. There were two broken chairs, a
delf cup, and no saucer. This was a full inventory of the widow's goods.
The old woman said she did not feel hunger half so much as cold. She was
used to hunger all the year round, now and then; but the winter cold
was terrible. When hungry and cold, you were tortured from within and
without. For twelve months she had not tasted hot meat, and for six
months neither eggs nor butter. Sprats were then three-halfpence for two
pounds, and bread three-halfpence a pound. Two pounds of sprats, two
pounds of bread, and the use of a neighbour's fire, carried her over two
days very nicely, but that came to fourpence-halfpenny; and when she had
paid eighteenpence a week for the room, it was not easy to find
fourpence-halfpenny every two days for living. In coming away he gave
her half-a-sovereign. She threw herself down on her knees to him, and
thanked him and Providence that she should now have warm stockings and
taste meat once more before she died. That thin old woman had thrown
herself on her knees to _him_ because she was hungry and cold, and he
had given her half-a-sovereign! Thrown herself on her knees to him! When
he came home he told Bee, and Bee had wept and sent the old woman
clothes. He told his mother, too, about this old woman, and his mother
had gone to see her and sat with her, and never lost sight of her until
the poor woman died.
What changes since then! Bee had gone, and his mother was a pauper
fugitive.
His stately keen-minded mother a penniless fugitive! Intolerable! There
must be some mistake. Fancy for a moment his proud high-spirited mother
being obliged to stoop and accept help! Fancy such a thing, she who had
always had a full larder and purse at the service of royal generosity!
The mere idea was preposterous on the face of it. And yet there were the
figures of Evans. His mother prostrate at the feet of a stranger,
thanking him for food!
"Oh, God, who is our master, and who is the master of our joys and our
woes, afflict me with what Thou wilt, but take away that vision! Take
away that vision from before my eyes! Give me all other pains but that
sight, the result of my misdoings."
He had risen, and was praying with all the might of his soul, his face
and hands thrown up, and the tones of terrible beseeching in his voice.
Suddenly he sank to his knees and drew his arms swiftly and strongly
across his eyes; swaying his body to and fro, he moaned out in piteous
entreaty:
"Oh, God of mercy, show mercy to me, and turn away from me my mother's
eyes!"
There was a knock at the door.
He staggered feebly to his feet, and took a few hasty inspirations
before asking:
"Who's there?"
"I, sir."
"What do you want?"
"The mail is going out, sir."
"Well?"
"Have you any letters to go?"
"No, Doughty."
"But there's the Castle bag, sir. I want the letters out of that."
"True; thank you for reminding me of them." He opened the door. "Here is
the key." He handed it through the door, adding: "I am most particularly
engaged. Let no one come to me."
He retired from the door feebly. He went back to the fire and sat down.
In half an hour he rang his bell. The porter entered.
"Are the letters posted?"
"Yes, sir."
"All gone?"
"Yes, sir."
"That will do." To himself he thought with his hand on his brow: "I
forgot something about the Castle letters. I forget still what it was. I
should have--I remember now. Well, it does not make much difference."