by Ellen Wood
“It’s a rum go, this,” quoth he, making his comments. “He meant his wife, he did; I’d a great mind to say so. Hush it up? of course they must. And Madam keeps the forty-four pounds. But now — does he suspect it might have been one of the clerks helped her to it, or was it only a genteel way of stopping my questions as to how the ‘member of the family’ could have got indoors to the desk? She grabbed his key, she did, and took out the cheque herself: leastways I should say so. Stop a bit, though. Who cashed it at the bank? Perhaps one of ’em did help her. ’Twasn’t Hurst, I know; nor little Jenner, either. Don’t think it was young Yorke, in spite of that old affair at Galloway’s. T’other, Brown, I don’t know. Any way,” concluded Mr. Butterby, his thoughts recurring to Bede Greatorex, and his wife, “he has got his torment in her; and he shows it. Never saw a man so altered in all my life: looks, spirits, manners: it’s just as though there was a blight upon him.”
That the presence of the police-agent in the office had not been agreeable to the clerks, will be readily understood. It had to be accepted for an evil; as other evils must be for which there is no help. Roland Yorke felt inclined to resent it openly, and thought the fates were against him still, as they had been at Port Natal. What with that unlucky question of Hurst’s and the appearance of Butterby on the scene, both recalling the miserable escapade of years ago that he would give all the world to forget, Roland, alike hotheaded and hot-hearted, was in a state of mind to do any mad thing that came uppermost. And the morning wore away.
“Why don’t you go to dinner, Mr. Yorke?”
The question came from the manager. Roland in his perplexity of mind and feelings, had unconsciously let the usual time slip by. Catching up his hat, he tore through the street at speed until he reached the bank, into which he went with a burst.
“I want to see one of the principals.”
What with the haste, the imperative demand, and the imposing stature and air, Roland was at once attended to, and a gentleman, nearly as little as Jenner, came forward.
“Look here,” said Roland. “Just you bring me face to face with the fellow who cashed that cheque yesterday. The clerk, you know.”
“Which cheque?” came the very natural question from the little gentleman, as he gazed at the applicant.
“The one there’s all this shindy over at Greatorex and Greatorex’s. Drawn out in favour of old Dick Yorke.”
Of course it was not precisely the way to go about things. Before Roland’s request was complied with, a little information was requested as to what his business might be, and who he was.
“I am Mr. Roland Yorke.”
“Any relation to Sir Richard Yorke?”
“His nephew by blood; none at all by friendliness. Old Dick — but never mind him now. If you’ll let me see the clerk, sir, you will hear what I want with him.”
The clerk, standing at elbow behind the counter, had heard the colloquy. Roland dashed up to him so impulsively that the little gentleman could with difficulty keep pace.
“Now, then,” began Roland to the wondering clerk, “look at me — look well. Am I the man who presented that cheque yesterday?”
“No, sir, certainly not,” was the clerk’s reply. “There’s not the least resemblance.”
“Very good,” said Roland, a little calming down from his fierceness. “I thought it well to come and let you see me; that’s all.”
“But why so?” asked the principal, thinking Sir Richard Yorke’s nephew, though a fine man, must be rather an eccentric one.
“Why! why, because I am in Bede Greatorex’s office, and we’ve had a policeman amongst us this morning, looking us up. They say the cheque was brought here by a tall fellow with black whiskers. As that description applies to me, and to none of the others, I thought I’d come and let you see me. That’s all. Good morning.”
Dashing out in the same commotion that he had entered, Roland, still neglecting his dinner, went skimming back to the house of Greatorex and Greatorex. Not to enter the office, but to pay a visit to Mrs. Bede’s side of it.
Not very long before this hour, Mr. Bede Greatorex, all the cares of his business on his shoulders, not the least of them (taking it in all its relations) being the new one connected with the abstracted cheque, went up stairs for luncheon and a few minutes’ relaxation. He found his wife full of her cares. Mrs. Bede Greatorex had cards out for that afternoon, bidding the great world to a Kettle-drum; and she was calculating what quantity of ices and strawberries to order in, with sundry other momentous questions.
The rooms were turned upside-down. A vast crowd was expected, and small articles of impeding furniture, holding fragile ornaments, were being put out of the way, lest they should come to grief in the turmoil.
“Yes, that quantity of ice will be sufficient; and be sure take care that you have an abundance of strawberries,” concluded Mrs. Bede Greatorex to the attendant, who had been receiving her orders. “Chocolate? Of course. Where’s the use of asking senseless questions? Bede,” she added, seeing her husband standing there, “I know how you detest the smell of chocolate, saying it makes you as sick as a dog, and brings on headaches; but I cannot dispense with it in my rooms. Other people give it, and so must I.”
“Give what you like,” he said wearily. “What is it you are going to hold? A ball?”
“A ball in the afternoon! Well done, Bede! It’s a drum.”
“The house is never free from disturbance, Louisa,” he rejoined, as a man pushed by with a table.
“You should let me live away from it. And then you’d not smell the chocolate. And the doors would not be impeded for ever with carriages, as you grumble they are. With a house in Hyde Park—”
“Hush!” said Bede in a whisper. “What did I tell you the other day? — That our expenses are so large, I could not live elsewhere if I would. Don’t wear me out with this everlasting theme, Louisa.”
It was not precisely the hearth for a man, oppressed with the world’s troubles, to find refuge in; neither was she the wife. Bede sighed in very weariness, and turned to go away, thinking how welcome to him, if he could but get transplanted to it, would be the corner of some far-off desert, never before trodden by the foot of man.
A great noise on the stairs, as if a coach-and-six were coming up in fierce commotion, followed by a smart knocking at the room door. Bede turned to escape, thinking it might possibly be the advance guard of the Drum. Nobody but Mr. Roland Yorke. And Roland (who had come up on a vain search after Miss Channing) seeing his master there, at once began to tell of where he had just been and for what purpose. To keep his own counsel on matter whatever, would have been extremely difficult to Roland.
“It is said, you know, Mr. Bede Greatorex, that the man, who cashed the cheque and got the money, was a tall fellow with black whiskers; so I thought it well to go and show myself. I am tall,” drawing up his head; “I’ve got black whiskers,” pushing one side forward with his hand; “and nobody else in your room answered to the description.”
“It was very unnecessary, Mr. Yorke. You were in Port Natal.”
“In Port Natal!” echoed Roland, staring. “What has Port Natal to do with this?”
Bede Greatorex slightly laughed. In his selfabsorption, he had suffered his mind to run on other things.
“As to unnecessary — I don’t think so, after what that ill-natured Hurst said. And perhaps you’d not, sir, if you knew all,” added simple Roland, thinking of Mr. Galloway’s bank-note. “Any way, I have been to the bank to show myself.”
“What did the bank say to you?” questioned Bede Greatorex, his tone one of light jest.
“The bank said I was not in the least like the fellow; he was tall, but not as tall as me, and they are nearly sure he had a beard as well as whiskers. I thought I’d tell you, sir.”
Mrs. Bede Greatorex, listening to this with curious ears, enquired what the trouble was, and heard for the first time of the loss of the cheque, the probable loss of the forty-four pounds. Had Mr.
Butterby been present to mark her surprise, he might have put away his opinion that she was the recipient alluded to by Bede Greatorex, and perhaps have mentally begged her pardon for the mistaken thought.
“Will you come to my kettle-drum, Mr. Roland?”
“No, I won’t,” said Roland. “Thank you all the same,” he added a minute after, as if to atone for the bluntness of the reply. “I’ve been put out to-day uncommonly, Mrs. Bede Greatorex; and when a fellow is, he does not care for drums and kettles.”
However, when the Kettle-drum was in full swing about five o’clock in the afternoon, and the stairs were crowded with talkers and trains, Roland, thinking better of it, elbowed his way up amidst. People who did not know him, thought he must be from the Court at least; the Lord Chamberlain, or some such great man, for Roland had a way of holding his own and tacitly asserting himself, like nobody else. He caught sight of Gerald, who averted his head at once; he saw Mrs. Hamish Channing, and she was the only guest he talked to. Roland was again looking for Annabel. He found her presently in the refreshment room, seeing that Miss Jane did not make herself ill with strawberries and cream.
Into her ear, very much as though it had been a rock of refuge, Roland confided his wrongs: Mr. Hurst’s semi-accusation of him in regard to the loss, his errand to the bank, and in short all the events of the morning.
“I couldn’t have done it by him” said Roland. “Had he made a fool of himself when he was young and wicked, I could no more have flung it in his teeth in after-years, to twist his feelings, than I could twist yours, Annabel. When I’ve been repenting of the mad act ever since; never going to my bed at night or rising in the morning, without thinking of it and — dashing it: but I was going to say another word: and hoping and planning how best to recompense every soul that suffered by it! It was too bad of him.”
“Yes it was,” warmly answered Annabel, her cheeks flushing with the earnestness of her sympathy. “Roland, I never liked that Josiah Hurst.”
CHAPTER XIV.
Gerald Yorke in Dilemma.
MR. GERALD YORKE stood in his chambers — as he was pleased to style the luxurious rooms he occupied in a most fashionable quarter of London. Gerald liked both luxury and fashion, and went in for both. He was occupied very much as Mrs. Bede Greatorex had been earlier in the day — namely, casting a glance round his rooms, and the supplies of good things just brought into them. For Gerald was to give a wine and supper party that night.
Running counter to the career planned for him — the Church — Gerald had embarked on one of his own choosing. He determined to be a public man; and had private ambitious visions of a future premiership. He came to London, got introductions through his family connections, and hoped to be promoted to some government appointment to start with. As a preliminary step, he plunged into society and high living; going out amidst the great world and receiving men in return. This requires some amount of cash, as everybody who has tried it knows, however unlimited the general credit may be; and Gerald Yorke laboured under the drawback of possessing none. A handsome present from Lord Carrick when his lordship was in funds, of a five-pound note, screwed out of his mother’s shallow purse, constituted his resources. So Gerald did as a vast many more do — he took to writing as a temporary means of living. Of genius he had none; but after a little practice he became a sufficiently ready writer. He tried political articles, he wrote short stories for periodicals, he obtained a post on one or two good papers as a reviewer. Gerald liked to review works of fiction best: they gave him the least trouble: and no one could cut and slash a rival’s book to shreds, more effectively than he. Friendly with a great many of the literary world, and with men belonging to the press, Gerald found plenty of work put into his hands, for which he was well paid. At last he began to try his hand at a book himself. If he could only get through it, he thought, and it made a hit and brought him back money, what a glorious thing it would be!
As the time went on, so did Gerald’s hopes. The book progressed towards completion (in spite of sundry stumbling blocks, where he had seemed stuck), and success, with its attendant golden harvest, drew almost as near to his view, as its necessity was in reality. For the ready money earned by his stray papers and reviews, was verily but as a drop of water in the great ocean of Gerald’s needs.
Look at him as he stands there with his back to the fire-place; the tall, fine man in his evening dress. But there is a savage frown of perplexity and temper on his generally cynical face, for something has occurred to annoy him.
And yet, that had been in its earlier part such a red-lettered day! In the morning Gerald had put the finishing conclusion to his book, and complacently written the title. In the afternoon he had been introduced to a great literary don at Mrs. Bede Greatorex’s drum, who might prove of use in the future. Calling in later upon a friend, he had taken some dinner with him, and then returned home and dressed for the opera, his supper guests being bidden for twelve o’clock. He was just going out on his way to the opera, when two letters met his eye, which he had overlooked on entering. The one, he saw, was in the handwriting of a creditor who was becoming troublesome; the other in that of his wife and marked “Immediate.”
Gerald Yorke had been guilty of one imprudent act, for which there was no cure. When only twenty-one, he had married. The young lady, Winnifred Eales, was of no family, so to say, and did not possess a fraction of money. Gerald was taken by her pretty face, and was foolish enough to marry her offhand; saddling himself with a wife without having the wherewithal to keep one. Little did Gerald Yorke’s acquaintances in London suspect that the fast and fashionable young man, (only in his twenty-sixth year now, though looking older) had a wife and three children! Had the question been put to Gerald “Are you married?” he would have briefly acknowledged it; but he never volunteered the information. His wife was his wife; he did not wish to repudiate either her or the children; but he had long ago found them an awful incumbrance, and kept them in the background. To do so was less cost. Had Gerald come into two or three thousand a year, he would have set up his tent grandly, have had his family home to it forthwith, and introduced them to the world: until that desirable time should arrive, he had meant them to remain in the little country cottage-home in Gloucestershire, where he had placed them, and where they knew nobody. But that his wife was tolerably patient and very persuadable, she would have struck long before. She did grumble; when Gerald visited her she was fretful, tearful, fractious, and complaining. In fact, she was little better than a child herself, and not by any means a strong-minded one.
But the crisis had come. Gerald tore open the letter, with its ominous word Immediate, and found unwelcome news. For two or three blissful moments, he did not believe his eyesight, and then the letter was dashed down in vehement passion.
“Winny’s mad!”
Winny (as Gerald’s wife was generally called) tired of her lonely home, of the monotonous care of her children, tired above all of waiting month after month, year after year, for the fulfilment of his promises to put matters upon a more satisfactory footing, had taken the initiative into her own hands. She informed her husband that she had given up the cottage, sold off its furniture by auction, and should arrive with the children in London (Paddington terminus) at three o’clock the next day, where he must meet her if he could: if not, they should drive at once to him at his chambers, or to his club, the Young England. A slight concluding hint was annexed that he need not attempt to stop her by telegraph, for the telegraph people had received orders not to bring her up any messages that might arrive.
A pretty announcement, that, for a man in society to get! Gerald stood very much as if he had received a blow that blinded him. What was he to do with them when they came? Never in all his life had he been so pushed into a comer. The clock went ticking on, on; but Gerald did not heed it.
His servant came in, under pretence of bringing a dish of fruit, and ventured to remind him of the engagement at the opera, truly thinking his master must have fo
rgotten it. Gerald sent the opera very far away, and ordered the man to shut the door.
In truth he was in no mood for the opera now. Had there been a possibility of doing it, he would have put off his supper-party. The other letter, which he opened in a kind of desperation, contained threats of unpleasant proceedings, unless a debt, long sued for, was paid within twenty-four horns. Money, Gerald must have, and he did not know where to get it. His literary pay had been forestalled wherever it could be. He had that day applied to young Richard Yorke (or Vincent, as Gerald generally called him, being the finer name of his cousin’s two baptismal ones) for a loan, and been refused. Apart from the future difficulties connected with Winny and the children, it would take some cash in pocket to establish them in lodgings.
“Winny wants a good shaking for causing me this trouble,” earnestly soliloquised Gerald in his dilemma, that fashionable drawl of his, kept for the world, not being discernible in private life. “Suppose she should turn restive, and insist on coming here? Good heavens! a silly, untidy wife, and three ill-kept children!”
He walked to the side-board, dashed out a glass of some cordial with his shaking hand, and drank it, for the picture unnerved him.
“If I could get my book accepted by a publisher, and an advance made upon it,” thought Gerald, resuming his place on the hearthrug, “I might get along. Some of those confounded publishers are so independent; they’ll keep a manuscript for twelve months and never look at it.”
A short while before this, Gerald had tried his hand at a play, which ill-natured managers had hitherto refused to accept. Gerald of course thought the refusal arose from nothing but prejudice, as some others do in similar cases. He went on with his soliloquy.
“I think I’ll get some fellow to look over my novel and give me an opinion upon it — which I can repeat over to a publisher. Write it down if necessary. That’s what I ought to have done by the drama: one is apt to be overlooked in these days without a special recommendation. Let’s see? Who is there? Hamish Channing. Nobody so good. His capabilities are first-rate, and I’ll make him read it at once. If Vincent Yorke—”