“Let me hear to-morrow.” Wilfrid repeated Emilia's petition in the tone
she had used, and sent a delight through his veins even with that clumsy
effort of imitation. He walked from the railway to Brookfield through
the circle of firs, thinking of some serious tale of home to invent for
her ears to-morrow. Whatever it was, he was able to conclude it--“But
all's right now.” He noticed that the dwarf pine, under whose spreading
head his darling sat when he saw her first, had been cut down. Its
absence gave him an ominous chill.
The first sight that saluted him as the door opened, was a pile of Mrs.
Chump's boxes: he listened, and her voice resounded from the library.
Gainsford's eye expressed a discretion significant that there had been
an explosion in the house.
“I sha'nt have to invent much,” said Wilfrid to himself, bitterly.
There was a momentary appearance of Adela at the library-door; and over
her shoulder came an outcry from Mrs. Chump. Arabella then spoke: Mr.
Pole and Cornelia following with a word, to which Mrs. Chump responded
shrilly: “Ye shan't talk to 'm, none of ye, till I've had the bloom of
his ear, now!” A confused hubbub of English and Irish ensued. The ladies
drew their brother into the library.
Doubtless you have seen a favourite sketch of the imaginative youthful
artist, who delights to portray scenes on a raft amid the tossing
waters, where sweet and satiny ladies, in a pardonable abandonment
to the exigencies of the occasion, are exhibiting the full energy and
activity of creatures that existed before sentiment was born. The ladies
of Brookfield had almost as utterly cast off their garb of lofty reserve
and inscrutable superiority. They were begging Mrs. Chump to be,
for pity's sake, silent. They were arguing with the woman. They were
remonstrating--to such an extent as this, in reply to an infamous
outburst: “No, no: indeed, Mrs. Chump, indeed!” They rose, as she rose,
and stood about her, motioning a beseeching emphasis with their hands.
Not visible for one second was the intense indignation at their fate
which Wilfrid, spying keenly into them, perceived. This taught him that
the occasion was as grave as could be. In spite of the oily words his
father threw from time to time abruptly on the tumult, he guessed what
had happened.
Briefly, Mrs. Chump, aided by Braintop, her squire, had at last hunted
Mr. Pericles down, and the wrathful Greek had called her a beggar. With
devilish malice he had reproached her for speculating in such and
such Bonds, and sending ventures to this and that hemisphere, laughing
infernally as he watched her growing amazement. “Ye're jokin', Mr.
Paricles,” she tried to say and think; but the very naming of poverty
had given her shivers. She told him how she had come to him because
of Mr. Pole's reproach, which accused her of causing the rupture. Mr.
Pericles twisted the waxy points of his moustache. “I shall advise you,
go home,” he said; “go to a lawyer: say, 'I will see my affairs, how zey
stand.' Ze man will find Pole is ruined. It may be--I do not know--Pole
has left a little of your money; yes, ma'am, it may be.”
The end of the interview saw Mrs. Chump flying past Mr. Pericles to
where Braintop stood awaiting her with a meditative speculation on that
official promotion which in his attention to the lady he anticipated.
It need scarcely be remarked that he was astonished to receive a
scent-bottle on the spot, as the only reward his meritorious service was
probably destined ever to meet with. Breathless in her panic, Mrs. Chump
assured him she was a howling beggar, and the smell of a scent was like
a crool blow to her; above all, the smell of Alderman's Bouquet, which
Chump--“tell'n a lie, ye know, Mr. Braintop, said was after him. And
I, smell'n at 't over 'n Ireland--a raw garl I was--I just thought 'm a
prince, the little sly fella! And oh! I'm a beggar, I am!” With which,
she shouted in the street, and put Braintop to such confusion that he
hailed a cab recklessly, declaring to her she had no time to lose, if
she wished to catch the train. Mrs. Chump requested the cabman that as a
man possessed of a feeling heart for the interests of a helpless woman,
he would drive fast; and, at the station, disputed his charge on the
ground of the knowledge already imparted to him of her precarious
financial state. In this frame of mind she fell upon Brookfield, and
there was clamour in the house. Wilfrid arrived two hours after Mrs.
Chump. For that space the ladies had been saying over and over again
empty words to pacify her. The task now devolved on their brother. Mr.
Pole, though he had betrayed nothing under the excitement of the sudden
shock, had lost the proper control of his mask. Wilfrid commenced by
fixedly listening to Mrs. Chump until for the third time her breath had
gone. Then, taking on a smile, he said: “Perhaps you are aware that Mr.
Pericles has a particular reason for animosity tome. We've disagreed
together, that's all. I suppose it's the habit of those fellows to
attack a whole family where one member of it offends them.” As soon as
the meaning of this was made clear to Mrs. Chump, she caught it to
her bosom for comfort; and finding it gave less than at the moment she
required, she flung it away altogether; and then moaned, a suppliant,
for it once more. “The only thing, if you are in a state of alarm about
my father's affairs, is for him to show you by his books that his house
is firm,” said Wilfrid, now that he had so far helped to eject suspicion
from her mind.
“Will Pole do ut?” ejaculated Mrs. Chump, half off her seat.
“Of course I will--of course! of course. Haven't I told you so?” said
Mr. Pole, blinking mightily from his armchair over the fire. “Sit down,
Martha.”
“Oh! but how'll I understand ye, Pole?” she cried.
“I'll do my best to assist in explaining,” Wilfrid condescended to say.
The ladies were touched when Mrs. Chump replied, with something of a
curtsey, “I'll thank ye vary much, sir.” She added immediately, “Mr.
Wilfrud,” as if correcting the 'sir,' for sounding cold.
It was so trustful and simple, that it threw alight on the woman under
which they had not yet beheld her. Compassion began to stir in their
bosoms, and with it an inexplicable sense of shame, which soon threw any
power of compassion into the background. They dared not ask themselves
whether it was true that their father had risked the poor thing's
money in some desperate stake. What hopeful force was left to them they
devoted to her property, and Adela determined to pray that night for its
safe preservation. The secret feeling in the hearts of the ladies was,
that in putting them on their trial with poverty, Celestial Powers would
never at the same time think it necessary to add disgrace. Consequently,
and as a defence against the darker dread, they now, for the first time,
fully believed that monetary ruin had befallen their father. They were
civil to Mrs. Chump, and forgiving toward her brogue, and her naked
outcries of complaint and suddenly--suggested panic; but their pity,
save when some odd turn in her conduct moved them, was reserved
dutifully for their father. His wretched sensations at the pouring of a
storm of tears from the exhausted creature, caused Arabella to rise and
say to Mrs. Chump kindly, “Now let me take you to bed.”
But such a novel mark of tender civility caused the woman to exclaim:
“Oh, dear! if ye don't sound like wheedlin' to keep me blind.”
Even this was borne with. “Come; it will do you good to rest,” said
Arabella.
“And how'll I sleep?”
“By shutting my eye--'peeps,'--as I used to tell my old nurse,” said
Adela; and Mrs. Chump, accustomed to an occasional (though not public)
bit of wheedling from her, was partially reassured.
“I'll sit with you till you do sleep,” said Arabella.
“Suppose,” Mrs. Chump moaned, “suppose I'm too poor aver to repay ye? If
I'm a bankrup'?--oh!”
Arabella smiled. “Whatever I may do is certainly not done for a
remuneration, and such a service as this, at least, you need not speak
of.”
Mrs. Chump's evident surprise, and doubt of the honesty of the change
in her manner, caused Arabella very acutely to feel its dishonesty. She
looked at Cornelia with envy. The latter lady was leaning meditatively,
her arm on a side of her chair, like a pensive queen, with a ready,
mild, embracing look for the company. 'Posture' seemed always to triumph
over action.
Before quitting the room, Mrs. Chump asked Mr. Pole whether he would be
up early the next morning.
“Very early,--you beat me, if you can,” said he, aware that the question
was put as a test to his sincerity.
“Oh, dear! Suppose it's onnly a false alarrm of the 'bomunable Mr.
Paricles--which annybody'd have listened to--ye know that!” said Mrs.
Chump, going forth.
She stopped in the doorway, and turned her head round, sniffing, in a
very pronounced way. “Oh, it's you,” she flashed on Wilfrid; “it's you,
my dear, that smell so like poor Chump. Oh! if we're not rooned,
won't we dine together! Just give me a kiss, please. The smell of ye's
comfortin'.”
Wilfrid bent his cheek forward, affecting to laugh, though the subject
was tragic to him.
“Oh! perhaps I'll sleep, and not look in the mornin' like that
beastly tallow, Mr. Paricles says I spent such a lot of money on,
speculator--whew, I hate ut!--and hemp too! Me!--Martha Chump! Do I want
to hang myself, and burn forty thousand pounds worth o' candles round my
corpse danglin' there? Now, there, now! Is that sense? And what'd Pole
want to buy me all that grease for? And where'd I keep ut, I'll ask ye?
And sure they wouldn't make me a bankrup' on such a pretence as that.
For, where's the Judge that's got the heart?”
Having apparently satisfied her reason with these interrogations, Mrs.
Chump departed, shaking her head at Wilfrid: “Ye smile so nice, ye do!”
by the way. Cornelia and Adela then rose, and Wilfrid was left alone
with his father.
It was natural that he should expect the moment for entire confidence
between them to have come. He crossed his legs, leaning over the
fireplace, and waited. The old man perceived him, and made certain
humming sounds, as of preparation. Wilfrid was half tempted to think he
wanted assistance, and signified attention; upon which Mr. Pole became
immediately absorbed in profound thought.
“Singular it is, you know,” he said at last, with a candid air, “people
who know nothing about business have the oddest ideas--no common sense
in 'em!”
After that he fell dead silent.
Wilfrid knew that it would be hard for him to speak. To encourage him,
he said: “You mean Mrs. Chump, sir?”
“Oh! silly woman--absurd! No, I mean all of you; every man Jack, as
Martha'd say. You seem to think--but, well! there! let's go to bed.”
“To bed?” cried Wilfrid, frowning.
“Why, when it's two or three o'clock in the morning, what's an old
fellow to do? My feet are cold, and I'm queer in the back--can't talk!
Light my candle, young gentleman--my candle there, don't you see it? And
you look none of the freshest. A nap on your pillow'll do you no harm.”
“I wanted to talk to you a little, sir,” said Wilfrid, about as much
perplexed as he was irritated.
“Now, no talk of bankers' books to-night!” rejoined his father. “I can't
and won't. No cheques written 'tween night and morning. That's positive.
There! there's two fingers. Shall have three to-morrow morning--a pen in
'em, perhaps.”
With which wretched pleasantry the little merchant nodded to his son,
and snatching up his candle, trotted to the door.
“By the way, give a look round my room upstairs, to see all right when
you're going to turn in yourself,” he said, before disappearing.
The two fingers given him by his father to shake at parting, had told
Wilfrid more than the words. And yet how small were these troubles
around him compared with what he himself was suffering! He looked
forward to the bittersweet hour verging upon dawn, when he should be
writing to Emilia things to melt the vilest obduracy. The excitement
which had greeted him on his arrival at Brookfield was to be thanked for
its having made him partially forget his humiliation. He had, of
course, sufficient rational feeling to be chagrined by calamity, but his
dominant passion sucked sustaining juices from every passing event.
In obedience to his father's request, Wilfrid went presently into the
old man's bedroom, to see that all was right. The curtains of the bed
were drawn close, and the fire in the grate burnt steadily. Calm sleep
seemed to fill the chamber. Wilfrid was retiring, with a revived anger
at his father's want of natural confidence in him, or cowardly secresy.
His name was called, and he stopped short.
“Yes, sir?” he said.
“Door's shut?”
“Shut fast.”
The voice, buried in curtains, came after a struggle.
“You've done this, Wilfrid. Now, don't answer:--I can't stand talk. And
you must undo it. Pericles can if he likes. That's enough for you to
know. He can. He won't see me. You know why. If he breaks with me--it's
a common case in any business--I'm... we're involved together.” Then
followed a deep sigh. The usual crisp brisk way of his speaking was
resumed in hollow tones: “You must stop it. Now, don't answer. Go to
Pericles to-morrow. You must. Nothing wrong, if you go at once.”
“But, Sir! Good heaven!” interposed Wilfrid, horrified by the thought of
the penance here indicated.
The bed shook violently.
“If not,” was uttered with a sort of muted vehemence, “there's another
thing you can do. Go to the undertaker's, and order coffins for us all.
There--good night!”
The bed shook again. Wilfrid stood eyeing the mysterious hangings, as if
some dark oracle had spoken from behind them. In fear of irritating the
old man, and almost as much in fear of bringing on himself a revelation
of the frightful crisis that could only be averted by his apologizing
personally to the man he had struck, Wilfrid stole from the room.