by Ellen Wood
“Ay. I’ll see about it,” replied George.
George had got into the habit of giving the same answer, when asked by his wife for money. She had asked several times lately; but all the satisfaction she received was, “I’ll see about it.” Not a suspicion that his means were running short ever crossed her brain.
She went upstairs and retired to rest, soon falling asleep. Her head was heavy. The household went to bed; George shut himself into the Bank — according to his recent custom; and the house was soon wrapped in quiet — as a sober house should be.
Two o’clock was striking from All Souls’ clock when Maria awoke. Why should she have done so? — there was no noise to startle her. All she knew — and it is all that a great many of us know — was, that she did awake.
To her astonishment, George was not in bed. Two o’clock! — and he had said that he should soon follow her! A vague feeling of alarm stole over Maria.
All sorts of improbable suggestions crowded on her imagination. Imaginations, you know, are more fantastic in the dark, still night, than in the busy day. Had he been taken ill? Had he fallen asleep at his work? Could he — could he have set the books and himself on fire? Had a crown been offered to Maria, she could not have remained tranquil a moment longer.
Slightly dressing herself, she threw on a warm dressing-gown, and stole down the stairs. Passing through the door that divided the dwelling from the Bank, she softly turned the handle of George’s room, and opened it. Secure in the house being at rest, he had not locked the doors against interruption.
The tables seemed strewed with books, but George was not then occupied with them. He was sitting in a chair apart, buried, as it appeared — in thought, his hands and his head alike drooping listlessly. He started up at Maria’s entrance.
“I grew alarmed, George,” she said, trying to explain her appearance. “I awoke suddenly, and finding you had not come up, I grew frightened, thinking you might be ill. It is two o’clock!”
“What made you come down out of your warm bed?” reiterated George. “You’ll catch your death.”
“I was frightened, I say. Will you not come up now?”
“I am coming directly,” replied George. “Go back at once. You’ll be sure to take cold.”
Maria turned to obey. Somehow the dark passages struck on her with a nervous dread. She shrank into the room again.
“I don’t care to go up alone,” she cried. “I have no light.”
“How foolish!” he exclaimed. “I declare Meta would be braver!”
Some nervous feeling did certainly appear to be upon her, for she burst into tears. George’s tone — a tone of irritation, it had been — was exchanged for one of soothing tenderness, as he bent over her. “What is the matter with you to-night, Maria? I’ll light you up.”
“I don’t know what is the matter with me,” she answered, suppressing her sobs. “I have not felt in good spirits of late. George, sometimes I think you are not well. You are a great deal changed in your manner to me. Have I — have I displeased you in any way?”
“You displeased me! No, my darling.”
He spoke with impulsive fondness. Well had it been for George Godolphin had no heavier care been upon him than any little displeasure his wife could give him. The thought occurred to him with strange bitterness.
“I’ll light you up, Maria,” he repeated. “I shall not be long after you.”
And, taking the heavy lamp from the table, he carried it to the outer passage, and held it while she went up the stairs. Then he returned to the room and to his work — whatever that work might be.
Vain work! vain, delusive, useless work! As you will soon find, Mr. George Godolphin.
Morning came. Whether gnawing care or hopeful joy may lie in the heart’s inner dwelling-place, people generally meet at their breakfast-tables as usual.
George Godolphin sat at breakfast with his wife. Maria was in high spirits: her indisposition of the previous evening had passed away. She was telling George an anecdote of Meta, as she poured out the coffee, some little ruse the young lady had exercised, to come over Margery; and Maria laughed heartily as she told it. George laughed in echo: as merrily as his wife. There must have been two George Godolphins surely at that moment! The outer, presented to the world, gay, smiling, and careless; the inner, kept for his own private and especial delectation, grim, dark, and ghastly.
Breakfast was nearly over, when there was heard a clattering of little feet, the door burst open, and Miss Meta appeared in a triumphant shout of laughter. She had eluded Margery’s vigilance, and eloped from the nursery. Margery speedily followed, scolding loudly, her hands stretched forth to seize the runaway. But Meta had bounded to her papa, and found a refuge.
George caught her up on his knee: his hair — the same shade once, but somewhat darker now — mixing with the light golden locks of the child, as he took from her kiss after kiss. To say that George Godolphin was passionately fond of his child would not be speaking too strongly: few fathers can love a child more ardently than George loved Meta. A pretty little lovable thing she was! Look at her on George’s knee! her dainty white frock, its sleeves tied up with blue, her pretty socks and shoes, her sunny face, surrounded by its shower of curls. Margery scolded in the doorway, but Miss Meta, little heeding, was casting her inquisitive eyes on the breakfast-table, to see what there might be especially nice upon it.
“If you’d just please to punish her once for it, sir, she wouldn’t do it, maybe, in future!” grumbled Margery. “Naughty girl!”
“I think I must,” said George. “Shall I whip you, Meta?”
Meta shouted out a joyous little laugh in answer, turned her face round, and clung to him lovingly. She knew what his “whippings” meant.
“But if Margery says so?”
“Margery nobody,” responded Meta, bustling her face round to the table again. “Mamma, may I have some of that?”
Maria hesitated. “That” was some tempting-looking breakfast-dish, very good, no doubt, for George, but very rich for Meta. George, however, drew it towards him, and cut her a little, claiming for his reward as many kisses as Meta’s impatience would accord him. Margery went off in a temper.
“No wonder the child despises her bread and milk in the morning! If I had fed you upon those spiced things, Mr. George, when you were a child, I wonder whether you’d have grown into the strong man you are!”
“Into a stronger,” called out George. He as much liked to give a word of teasing now and then to Margery as he had in the old days she referred to. Margery retorted with some answer, which he did not hear, and George laughed. Laughed loud and merrily, and again bent his face to Meta’s.
But he could not remain all day long in that scene of peace. Oh, if we only could! those who have to go out to battle with the daily world. If there were only a means of closing the door on the woes that turn a man’s hair white before its time!
George took Meta a triumphal ride round the room on his shoulder, and then, having extorted his payment, put her down by Maria. Going into the Bank to his day’s work. His day’s work! rather an embarrassing one, that day, Mr. George Godolphin!
Taking the keys of the strong-room from the cupboard, also certain other keys, as he had done once before within the knowledge of the reader, he proceeded to the strong-room, opened a certain safe in it, and took out the box inscribed “Lord Averil.” This he also opened, and examined its contents. Mr. George Godolphin was searching for certain bonds: or, making believe to search for them. Having satisfied himself that they were not there, he returned the box to its place, made all safe again, went back, and sat down to open the morning letters. Presently he called to a clerk.
“Has Mr. Hurde come?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Desire him to step here.”
The old clerk came, in obedience to the summons, taking off his spectacles as he entered to rub one of their glasses, which had got misty. George leaned his elbow on the table, and, resting
his chin upon his hand, looked him full in the face.
“Hurde,” said he, plunging midway into his communication, which he made in a lone tone, “those bonds of Lord Averil’s are missing.”
The clerk paused, as if scarcely understanding. “How do you mean, sir? Missing in what way?”
“I can’t find them,” replied George.
“They are in Lord Averil’s box in the strong-room, sir, with his other papers.”
“But they are not there,” replied George. “I have searched the papers through this morning. Hurde, we have had some roguery at work.”
Another pause, devoted by Mr. Hurde to revolving the communication. “Roguery!” he slowly repeated. “Have you missed anything else, Mr. George?”
“No. I have not looked.”
“Oh, sir, there’s no fear of anything being wrong,” resumed the old clerk, his good sense repudiating the notion. “Mr. Godolphin must have moved them.”
“That’s just what I thought until last night,” said George. “The fact is, Lord Averil asked me for these bonds some little time ago, while my brother was in London. I opened the box, and, not seeing them there, came to the conclusion that Mr. Godolphin had moved them. Lord Averil said it was of no consequence then, and departed for London: and the thing slipped from my memory. When you spoke to me about it last evening, of course I felt vexed to have forgotten it, and I put off Lord Averil with the best excuse I could.”
“And has Mr. Godolphin not moved them, sir?” demanded the clerk.
“It appears not. He dropped me a line last night, saying I should find the bonds in their place in the box. I suppose Lord Averil was up at Ashlydyat and mentioned it. But I can’t find them in the box.”
“Sir, you know you are not a very good searcher,” observed Mr. Hurde, after some consideration. “Once or twice that you have searched for deeds, Mr. Godolphin has found them afterwards, overlooked by you. Shall I go carefully over the box, sir? I think they must be in it.”
“I tell you, Hurde, they are not.”
He spoke somewhat fractiously. Fully aware that he had occasionally overlooked deeds, in his haste or carelessness, perhaps the contrast between those times and these, gave a sting to his manner. Then, whether the deeds had been found or not, he was innocent: now ——
“But, if they are not in the box, where can they be?” resumed Mr. Hurde.
“There it is,” said George. “Where can they be? I say, Hurde, that some light fingers must have been at work.”
Mr. Hurde considered the point in his mind. It seemed that he could not adopt the conclusion readily. “I should think not, sir. If nothing else is missing, I should say certainly not.”
“They are missing, at any rate,” returned George. “It will put Mr. Godolphin out terribly. I wish there had been any means of keeping it from him: but, now that Lord Averil has mentioned the bonds to him, there are none. I shall get the blame. He will think I have not kept the keys securely.”
“But you have, sir, have you not?”
“For all I know I have,” replied George, assuming a carelessness as to the point, of which he had not been guilty. “Allowing that I had not, for argument’s sake, what dishonest person can we have about us, Hurde, who would use the advantage to his own profit?”
Mr. Hurde began calling over the list of clerks, preparatory to considering whether any one of them could be considered in the least degree doubtful. He was engaged in this mental process, when a clerk interrupted them, to say that a gentleman was asking to see Mr. George Godolphin.
George looked up sharply. The applicant, however, was not Lord Averil, and any one else would be more tolerable to him on that day than his lordship; Mr. Godolphin, perhaps, excepted. As the old clerk was withdrawing to give place to the visitor, George caught sight, through the open door, of Mr. Godolphin entering the office. An im pulse to throw the disclosure off his own shoulders, prompted him to hasten after Mr. Hurde.
“Hurde,” he whispered, catching his arm, “you may as well make the communication to Mr. Godolphin. He ought to know it at once, and I may be engaged some time.”
So George remained shut up, and the old clerk followed Thomas Godolphin to his private room. Mr. Godolphin felt well that morning, and had come unusually early: possibly lest there should be any further blundering over Lord Averil’s bonds. He looked somewhat surprised to see the old clerk approaching him with a long face and mysterious look.
“Do you want me, Hurde?”
“Mr. George has desired me to speak to you, sir, about those bonds of Lord Averil’s. To make an unpleasant communication, in fact. He is engaged himself, just now. He says he can’t find them.”
“They are in the strong-room, in Lord Averil’s case,” replied Mr. Godolphin.
“He says they are not there, sir: that he can’t find them.”
“But they are there,” returned Thomas. “They have not been moved out of the box since they were first placed in it.”
He spoke quietly as he ever did, but very firmly, almost as if he were disputing the point, or had been prepared to dispute it. Mr. Hurde resumed after some deliberation: he was a deliberate man always, both in temperament and in speech.
“What Mr. George says, is this, sir: That when you were in London Lord Averil asked for his bonds. Mr. George looked for them, and found they were not in the box; and he came to the conclusion that you had moved them. The affair escaped his memory, he says, until last night, when he was asked for them again. He has been searching the box this morning, but cannot find the bonds in it.”
“They must be there,” observed Thomas Godolphin. “If George has not moved them, I have not. He has a knack of overlooking things.”
“I said so to him, sir, just now. He — —”
“Do you say he is engaged?” interrupted Thomas Godolphin.
“The secretary of the railway company is with him, sir. I suppose he has come about that loan. I think the bonds can’t be anywhere but in the box, sir. I told Mr. George so.”
“Let me know when he is disengaged,” said Thomas Godolphin. And Mr. Hurde went out.
George Godolphin was disengaged then. Mr. Hurde saw the gentleman, whom he had called the railway company’s secretary, departing. The next minute George Godolphin came out of his room.
“Have you mentioned that to my brother?” he asked of Hurde.
“I have, sir. Mr. Godolphin thinks that you must be mistaken.”
George went in to his brother, shook hands, and said he was glad to see him so early. “It is a strange thing about these bonds,” he continued, without giving Thomas time to speak.
“You have overlooked them,” said Thomas. “Bring me the keys, and I will go and get them.”
“I assure you they are not there.”
“They must be there, George. Bring me the keys.”
George Godolphin produced the key of the strong-room, and of the safe, and Lord Averil’s box was examined by Thomas Godolphin. The bonds in question were not in it: and Thomas, had he missed himself, could scarcely have been more completely astonished.
“George, you must have moved them,” were the first words he spoke.
“Not I,” said George, lightly. “Where should I move them to?”
“But no one has power to get into that room, or to penetrate to the safe and the box after it, except you and myself,” urged Mr. Godolphin. “Unless, indeed, you have allowed the keys to stray from your keeping.”
“I have not done that,” answered George. “This seems to be perfectly unaccountable.”
“How came you to tell Averil last night that the bonds had gone to London?”
“Well, the fact is, I did not know what to tell him,” replied George. “When I first missed the bonds, when you were in London — —”
“Why did you not let me know then that they were missing?” was the interruption.
“I forgot it when you returned home.”
“But you should not have allowed yourself the pos
sibility of forgetting a thing like that,” remonstrated Thomas. “Upon missing deeds of that value, or in fact of any value however slight, you should have communicated with me the very same hour. George,” he added, after a pause, which George did not break: “I cannot understand how it was that you did not see the necessity of it yourself.”
George Godolphin was running his hand through his hair — in an absent manner, lost in thought; in — as might be conjectured — contemplation of the past time referred to. “How was I to think anything but that you had moved the deeds?” he said.
“At all events, you should have ascertained. Why, George, were I to miss deeds that I believed to be in a given place, I could not rest a night without inquiring after them. I might assume — and there might be every probability for it — that you had moved them; but my sleep would be ruined until I ascertained the fact.”
George made no reply. I wonder where he was wishing himself? Mr. Godolphin resumed.
“In this instance, I do not see how you could have come to the conclusion that I had touched the bonds. Where did you think I was likely to move them to?”
George could not tell — and said so. It was not impossible, but Thomas might have sent them to town — or have handed them back to Lord Averil, he continued to murmur, in a somewhat confused manner. Thomas looked at him: he could scarcely make him out, but supposed the loss had affected his equanimity.
“Had you regarded it dispassionately, George, I think you would have seen it in a more serious light. I should not be likely to move the bonds to a different place of keeping, without your cognizance: and as to returning them to Lord Averil, the transaction would have appeared in the books.”
“I am sorry I forgot to mention it to you,” said George.
“That you could have forgotten it, and continued to forget it until now, passes all belief. Has there never been a moment at any time, George, in this last month that it has recurred to your memory?”
“Well, perhaps there may have been; just a casual thought,” acknowledged George. “I can’t be sure.”