Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Try as he would, he could not get to sleep; try as he would, he could not put these half-insane visions from him. His mind became wrought up to its very highest pitch; he could have found it in his heart to get up, make his way to the Bank, knock up George Godolphin, and demand his money back again. He registered a silent resolve that he would go there with the first glimmer of daylight. Yesterday he was a free man, a man at his ease, it may be said a prosperous man; to-morrow, should that money be beyond his reach, he would be ruined for ever; broken down under his weight of care. What if he were too late! — if he went to the Bank, and was told, “The Bank is in embarrassment, and we cannot refund!” Oh, how supinely careless had he been, to suffer a whole day to slip by since Isaac’s warning! Any hour of that past day he might have withdrawn the money; might now have had it securely in the chest by his bedside. When another day dawned, it might be too late.

  Torments such as these — and they were all the more intolerable from the fact of his not being used to them — haunted him throughout the night. They have haunted us: they, or similar ones. Towards morning he dropped into a heavy sleep, awaking later than his usual hour. Those dark visions had gone then; but their effect remained sufficient to keep the Rector to his resolve of drawing out the money. “I’ll go the first thing after breakfast,” said he, as he dressed himself.

  But, when breakfast was over, and the business of the day was fairly entered upon, Mr. Hastings felt half ashamed of his resolution. The visions of the night appeared to him to be simply fantastic follies, diseased creations of the brain: should there be really no cause for his withdrawal of the money, how worse than foolish he would look! — nay, how unjustifiable would such a procedure be!

  What ought he to do? He leaned over the gate while he took counsel with himself. He had put on his hat and taken his stick, and gone forth; and there he stopped, hesitating. A strange frame of mind for Mr. Hastings, who was not of a vacillating nature. Suddenly he flung the gate open and went through with a decisive step; his determination was taken. He would steer a middle course, present himself to his son-in-law, George Godolphin, and ask him frankly, as a friend and relative, whether the money was safe.

  Many a one would have decided that it was a safe and proper course to pursue. Mr. Hastings deemed it to be such, and he proceeded to the Bank. The fresh air, the bright sun, the pleasant bustle of daily life, had well-nigh dissipated any remaining fears before he got there.

  “Can I see Mr. George Godolphin?” he inquired.

  “Mr. George is engaged at present, sir,” replied the clerk to whom he had addressed himself. “He will be at liberty soon. Would you like to take a seat?”

  Mr. Hastings sat down on the chair handed him, and waited; watching at his leisure the business of the Bank. Several people were there. Some were paying money in, some drawing it out. There appeared to be no hesitation, either in paying or receiving: all seemed as usual. One man brought a cheque for nine hundred and odd pounds, and it was counted out to him. “I feel sure it is all right,” was the conclusion come to by Mr. Hastings.

  About ten minutes, and George Godolphin came forward. “Ah! is it you?” said he, with his sunny smile. “You are here early this morning.”

  “I want to say just a word to you in private, Mr. George.”

  George led the way to his room, talking gaily. He pushed a chair towards Mr. Hastings, and took his own. Never a face more free from care than his; never an eye less troubled. He asked after Mrs. Hastings; asked after Reginald, who was daily expected home from a voyage — whether he had arrived. “Maria dreamt last night that he had returned,” said he, laughing, “and told her he was never going to sea again.”

  Mr. Hastings remembered his dreams — if dreams they could be called. He was beginning to think that he must have had nightmare.

  “Mr. George, I have come to you upon a strange errand,” he began. “Will you for a few moments regard me as a confidential friend, and treat me as one?”

  “I hope it is what I always do, sir,” was the reply of George Godolphin.

  “Ay; but I want a proof of your friendship this morning. But for my being connected with you by close ties, I should not have so come. Tell me, honestly and confidentially, as between man and man — Is that trust-money safe?”

  George looked at Mr. Hastings, his countenance slightly changing. Mr. Hastings thought he was vexed.

  “I do not understand you,” he said.

  “I have heard a rumour — I have heard, in fact, two rumours — that —— The long and the short of it is this,” more rapidly continued Mr. Hastings, “I have heard that there’s something doubtful arising with the Bank.”

  “What on earth do you mean?” exclaimed George Godolphin.

  “Is there anything the matter? Or is the Bank as solvent as it ought to be?”

  “I should be sorry to think it otherwise,” replied George. “I don’t understand you. What have you heard?”

  “Just what I tell you. A friend spoke to me in private yesterday, when I was at Binham, saying that he had heard a suspicion of something being wrong with the Bank here. You will not be surprised that I thought of the nine thousand pounds I had just paid in.”

  “Who said it?” asked George. “I’ll prosecute him if I can find out.”

  “I dare say you would. But I have not come here to make mischief. I stopped his repeating it, and I, you know, am safe, so there’s no harm done. I have passed an uneasy night, and I have come to ask you to tell me the truth in all good faith.”

  “The Bank is all right,” said George. “I cannot imagine how such a report could by any possibility have arisen,” he continued, quitting the one point for the other. “There is no foundation for it.”

  George Godolphin spoke in all good faith when he said he could not tell how the report could have arisen. He really could not. Nothing had transpired at Prior’s Ash to give rise to it. Possibly he deemed, in his sanguine temperament, that he spoke in equally good faith, when assuring Mr. Hastings that the Bank was all right: he may have believed that it would so continue.

  “The money is safe, then?”

  “Perfectly safe.”

  “Otherwise, you must let me have it out now. Were it to be lost, it would be ruin to me, ruin to the little Chisholms.”

  “But it is safe,” returned George, all the more emphatically, because it would have been remarkably inconvenient, for special reasons, to refund it then to Mr. Hastings. I repeat, that he may have thought it was safe: safe in so far as that the Bank would get along somehow, and could repay it sometime. Meanwhile, the use of it was convenient — how convenient, none knew, except George.

  “A packet of deeds has been mislaid; or is missing in some way,” resumed George. “They belong to Lord Averil. It must be some version of that which has got abroad — if anything has got abroad.”

  “Ay,” nodded Mr. Hastings. The opinion coincided precisely with what he had expressed to the agent.

  “I know of nothing else wrong with the Bank,” spoke George. “Were you to ask my brother, I am sure he would tell you that business was never more flourishing. I wish to goodness people could be compelled to concern themselves with their own affairs instead of inventing falsehoods for their friends!”

  Mr. Hastings rose. “Your assurance is sufficient, Mr. George: I do not require your brother’s word to confirm it. I have asked it of you in all good faith, Maria being the link between us.”

  “To be sure,” replied George; and he shook Mr. Hastings’s hand as he went out.

  George remained alone, biting the end of his quill pen. To hear that any such rumour was abroad vexed and annoyed him beyond measure. He only hoped that it would not spread far. Some wiseacre must have picked up an inkling about the deeds, and converted it into a doubt upon the Bank’s solvency. “I wish I could hang the fools!” muttered George.

  His wish was interrupted. Some one came in and said that Mr. Barnaby desired to see him.

  “Let him come in,”
said George.

  Mr. Barnaby came in. A simple-looking man of quiet manners, a corn-dealer, who kept an account at the Bank. He had a canvas bag in his hand. George asked him to take a seat.

  “I was going to pay in two thousand pounds, sir,” said he, slightly lifting the bag to indicate that the money was there. “But I should like, first of all, to be assured that it’s all right.”

  George sat and stared at him. Was Prior’s Ash all going mad together? George honestly believed that nothing yet had transpired, or could have transpired, to set these doubts afloat. “Really, Mr. Barnaby, I do not understand you,” he said, with some hauteur: just as he had answered Mr. Hastings.

  “I called in at Rutt’s, sir, as I came along, to know what had been done in that business where I was chiselled out of that load of barley, and I happened to mention that I was coming on here to pay in two thousand pounds. ‘Take care that it’s all right,’ said Rutt. ‘I heard the Bank talked about yesterday.’ Is it all right, sir?”

  “It is as right as the Bank of England,” impulsively answered George. “Rutt shall be brought to account for this.”

  “Well, I thought it was odd if there was anything up. Then I may leave it with safety?”

  “Yes, you may,” replied George. “Have you not always found it safe hitherto?”

  “That’s just it: I couldn’t fancy that anything wrong had come to it all of a sudden. I’ll go and pay it in then, sir. It won’t be for long, though. I shall be wanting it out, I expect, by the end of next week.”

  “Whenever you please, Mr. Barnaby,” replied George.

  The corn-dealer retired to leave his money, and George Godolphin sat on alone, biting his pen as before. Where could these rumours have had their rise? Harmlessly enough they might have fallen, had nothing been rotten at the core of affairs: George alone knew how awfully dangerous they might prove now, if they got wind.

  CHAPTER XVI. MR. LAYTON “LOOKED UP.”

  If the mysterious loss of the deeds disturbed Thomas Godolphin, it was also disturbing, in no slight degree, the faithful old clerk, Mr. Hurde. Never, since he had entered the house of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin — so many years ago now, that he had almost lost count of them — had any similarly unsatisfactory incident occurred. Mr. Hurde thought and thought and thought it over: he turned it about in his mind, and looked at it in all its bearings. He came to the conclusion that it must be one of two things: either that George Godolphin had inadvertently misplaced it, or that it had been stolen out and out. George Godolphin said that he had not misplaced it: indeed, George did not acknowledge to any recollection of having visited at all Lord Averil’s box, except when he went to make the search: and Mr. Godolphin had now looked in every box that the safe contained, and could not find it. Therefore, after much vacillating between opinions, the head clerk came to the conclusion that the deeds had been taken.

  “Who could have done it?” he asked himself over and over again. Some one about them, doubtless. He believed all the clerks were safe; that is, honest; except Layton. Until this happened, he would have said Layton was safe: and it was only in the utter absence of any other quarter for suspicion that he cast a doubt upon Layton. Of the clerks, he felt least sure of Layton: but that was the utmost that could be said: he would not have doubted the man, but that he was seeking for some one to lay it on. The deeds could not have gone without hands, and Mr. Hurde, in his perplexity, could only think that Layton’s hands were less unlikely hands than others’.

  The previous evening he had gone home thinking of it. And there he pondered the affair over, while he digested his dry toast and his milkless tea. He was a man of spare habits: partly that his health compelled him to be so; partly from a parsimonious nature. While seated at it, composedly enjoying the ungenerous fare near the open window, who should he see go by, but the very man on whom his thoughts were fixed — Layton. This Layton was a young, good-looking man, an inveterate dandy, with curls and a moustache. That moustache, sober, clean-shaved Mr. Hurde had always looked askance upon. That Layton had been given to spend more than was wise, Prior’s Ash knew well enough; but for that fact, he would not now have been a banker’s clerk. His family were respectable — wealthy in a moderate way; but he had run through too much of their money and tired them out. For the last two or three years he had settled down to sobriety. Thomas Godolphin had admitted him to a clerkship in his house, and Layton had married, and appeared contented to live quietly.

  Quietly for him — as compared to what he had been accustomed to; too extensively in the opinion of Mr. Hurde. Mrs. Layton had a piano, and played and sang very much, for the benefit of the passers-by; and Layton hired gigs on a Sunday and drove her out. Great food for Mr. Hurde’s censure; and he was thinking of all this when Layton passed. Starting up to look after him, he almost upset his tea-table.

  He, Layton, was walking arm in arm with a Mr. Jolly: a great sporting character. Mr. Hurde gave a groan of dissatisfaction. “Much good it will bring him if he gets intimate with him!”

  In the darkness of the evening, when it had grown quite late and Mr. Hurde had taken his frugal supper, he went out, and bent his steps towards the residence of Layton. In his present uncertain frame of mind, touching Layton, it seemed expedient to Mr. Hurde to take a walk past his place of abode; haply he might come upon something or other to confirm his suspicions.

  And he did so. At least, it appeared to Mr. Hurde that he did so. Never a shade of doubt rested upon him that night that the thief was Layton.

  On the high-road, going towards Ashlydyat, there had been a good deal of building of late years. Houses and terraces had sprung up, almost as by magic, not only along the road, but branching off on either side of it. Down one of these turnings, a row of dwellings of that class called in the local phraseology “genteel,” had been erected by a fanciful architect. He had certainly not displayed any great amount of judgment in building them. They contained eight rooms, had glittering white fronts and green porticos of trellis-work. White houses are very nice, and there’s nothing objectionable in green porticos; but they need not abut right upon the public pathway. Walking in front of the terrace, the porticos looked like so many green watch-boxes, and the bow-windows appeared to be constructed on purpose that you should see what was inside them. In the last house of this row dwelt the clerk, Layton. He and his wife had lodgings there: the bow-windowed sitting-room, and the bedroom over it.

  Mr. Hurde strolled past, in the deliberate manner that he might have done had he been out for only an evening airing, and obtained full view of the interior of the sitting-room. He obtained the pleasure of a very full view indeed. In fact, there appeared to be so much to look at, that his vision at first could only take it in confusedly.

  The Laytons were entertaining a party. Two or three ladies, and two or three gentlemen. A supper-tray was at one end of the table, and at this end next the window, were two decanters of wine, some fruit and biscuits. There was a great deal of talking and laughing, and there was plenty of light. Four wax candles Mr. Hurde counted as he stood there; two on the table, two on the mantelpiece. He, the old clerk, stood there, unseen and unsuspected, and took it all in. The display of glass looked profuse, and he almost groaned aloud when he caught sight of the silver forks: silver or imitation, he did not know which, but it appeared all one to Mr. Hurde. He had never overstepped the respectable customs of his forefathers — had never advanced beyond the good old-fashioned two-pronged steel fork. They were sitting with the window open: no houses were as yet built opposite, and the road was not invaded, except by persons coming to these houses, from one hour’s end to another. Mr. Hurde could stand there, and enjoy the sight at leisure. If ever a man felt conviction rush to his heart, he did then. Wine, and wax candles, and silver forks, and supper, and visitors! — who but Layton could have taken the deeds?

  He stood there a little too long. Falling into a reverie, he did not notice a movement within, and suffered himself to be all but dropped upon. He could h
ave made an excuse, it is true; for Layton was a civil fellow, and had several times asked him to go up there; but he preferred not to make it, and not to be seen. The street door opened, and Mr. Hurde had just time to dart past the portico and take shelter round the corner. From his position he was within hearing of anything that might be said.

  The sporting character with whom he had seen Layton walking early in the evening, and who made one of the guests, had come forth to depart. Layton had attended him to the door; and they stood inside the portico talking. In Mr. Hurde’s fluster, he did not at first catch the sense of the words: but he soon found it related to horse-racing.

  “You back Cannonbar,” said the sporting man. “You can’t be far out then. He’s a first-rate horse: will beat the whole field into next week. You were in luck to draw him.”

  “I have backed him,” replied Layton.

  “Back him again: he’s a little gold mine. I’d spend a fifty-pound note on him. I really would.”

  Layton answered with a laugh. They shook hands and the sporting friend, who appeared to be in a hurry, set off rapidly in the direction of Prior’s Ash. Mr. Layton went in again, and shut the door.

  Then Mr. Hurde came out of his corner. All his suspicions were strengthened. Strengthened? nay; changed into certainties. Plate, glass, wax candles, wines, supper and friends, had been doubtful enough; but they were as trifles compared with this new danger; this betting on the turf. Had he seen Layton take Lord Averil’s deeds with his own eyes, he could not have been more certain of his guilt, than he felt now.