Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Now I’ll leave you to judge how this evidence struck on the ears of old Jacobson. He leaped to the conclusion that Sam had been going all sorts of ways, as he supposed he went when in London, and might be owing, the mischief only knew how much money; and he shook his fist at Sam across the justice-room.

  Mr. Standup next called young Chance, quite to young Chance’s surprise; perhaps also to his father’s. He was questioned upon no end of things — whether he did not know that the accused was owing a great deal of money, and whether the accused had shown any guinea to him when he was in Edgar Street on the Tuesday night. Austin answered that he believed Mr. Dene owed a little money, not a great deal, so far as he knew; and that he had not seen the guinea or heard of it. And in saying all this, Austin’s tone was just as resentfully insolent to Mr. Standup as he dared to make it.

  Well, it is of no use to go on categorically with the day’s proceedings. When they came to an end, the magistrates conferred pretty hotly in a low tone amongst themselves, some apparently taking up one opinion, as to Sam’s guilt, or innocence, and some the other. At length they announced their decision, and it was as follows.

  “Although the case undoubtedly presents grave grounds of suspicion against the accused, Samson Reginald Dene— ‘Very grave indeed,’ interjected Mr. Whitewicker, solemnly — we do not consider them to be sufficient to commit him for trial upon; therefore, we give him the benefit of the doubt, and discharge him. Should any further evidence transpire, he can be brought up again.”

  “It was Maria Parslet’s testimony about the guinea that cleared him,” whispered the crowd, as they filed out.

  And I think it must have been. It was just impossible to doubt her truth, or the earnestness with which she gave it.

  Mr. Jacobson “interviewed” Sam, as the Americans say, and the interview was not a loving one. Being in the mood, he said anything that came uppermost. He forbade Sam to appear at Elm Farm ever again, as “long as oak and ash grew;” and he added that as Sam was bent on going to the deuce head foremost, he might do it upon his own means, but that he’d never get any more help from him.

  The way the Squire lashed up Bob and Blister when driving home — for, liking Sam hitherto, he was just as much put out as old Jacobson — and the duet they kept together in abuse of his misdeeds, was edifying to hear. Tod laughed; I did not. The gig was given over this return journey to the two grooms.

  “I do not believe Sam took the box, sir,” I said to old Jacobson, interrupting a fiery oration.

  He turned round to stare at me. “What do you say, Johnny Ludlow? You do not believe he took the box?”

  “Well, to me it seems quite plain that he did not take it. I’ve hardly ever felt more sure of anything.”

  “Plain!” struck in the Squire. “How is it plain, Johnny? What grounds do you go upon?”

  “I judge by his looks and his tones, sir, when denying it. They are to be trusted.”

  They did not know whether to laugh or scoff at me. It was Johnny’s way, said the Squire; always fancying he could read the riddles in a man’s face and voice. But they’d have thrown up their two best market-going hats with glee to be able to think it true.

  V.

  Samson Reginald Dene was relieved of the charge, as it was declared “not proven;” all the same, Samson Reginald Dene was ruined. Worcester said so. During the following week, which was Passion Week, its citizens talked more of him than of their prayers.

  Granted that Maria Parslet’s testimony had been honestly genuine, a theory cropped up to counteract it. Lawyer Standup had been bold enough to start it at the Saturday’s examination: a hundred tongues were repeating it now. Sam Dene, as may be remembered, was present at the finding of the box on Tuesday; he had come up the passage and touched the golden guineas in it with the tips of his fingers; those fingers might have deftly extracted one of the coins. No wonder he could show it to Maria when he went home to tea! Captain Cockermuth admitted that in counting the guineas subsequently he had thought he counted sixty; but, as he knew there were (or ought to be) that number in the box, probably the assumption misled him, causing him to reckon them as sixty when in fact there were only fifty-nine. Which was a bit of logic.

  Still, popular opinion was divided. If part of the town judged Sam to be guilty, part believed him to be innocent. A good deal might be said on both sides. To a young man who does not know how to pay his debts from lack of means, and debts that he is afraid of, too, sixty golden guineas may be a great temptation; and people did not shut their eyes to that. It transpired also that Mr. Jacobson, his own uncle, his best friend, had altogether cast Sam off and told him he might now go to the dogs his own way.

  Sam resented it all bitterly, and defied the world. Far from giving in or showing any sense of shame, he walked about with an air, his head up, and that brazen guinea dangling in front of him. He actually had the face to appear at college on Good Friday (the congregation looking askance at him), and sat out the cold service of the day: no singing, no organ, and the little chorister-boys in black surplices instead of white ones.

  But the crowning act of boldness was to come. Before Easter week had lapsed into the past, Sam Dene had taken two rooms in a conspicuous part of the town and set-up in practice. A big brass plate on the outer door displayed his name: “Mr. Dene, Attorney-at-law.” Sam’s friends extolled his courage; Sam’s enemies were amazed at his impudence. Captain Cockermuth prophesied that the ceiling of that office would come tumbling down on its crafty occupant’s head: it was his gold that was paying for it.

  The Cockermuths, like the town, were divided in opinion. Mr. Cockermuth could not believe Sam guilty, although the mystery as to where the box could be puzzled him as few things had ever puzzled him in this life. He would fain have taken Sam back again, had it been a right thing to do. What the captain thought need not be enlarged upon. While Miss Betty felt uncertain; veering now to this belief, now to that, and much distressed either way.

  There is one friend in this world that hardly ever deserts us — and that is a mother. Mrs. Dene, a pretty little woman yet, had come flying to Worcester, ready to fight everybody in it on her son’s behalf. Sam of course made his own tale good to her; whether it was a true one or not he alone knew, but not an angel from heaven could have stirred her faith in it. She declared that, to her positive knowledge, the old uncle had given Sam the guinea.

  It was understood to be Mrs. Dene who advanced the money to Sam to set up with; it was certainly Mrs. Dene who bought a shutting-up bed (at old Ward’s), and a gridiron, and a tea-pot, and a three-legged table, and a chair or two, all for the back-room of the little office, that Sam might go into housekeeping on his own account, and live upon sixpence a-day, so to say, until business came in. To look at Sam’s hopeful face, he meant to do it, and to live down the scandal.

  Looking at the thing impartially, one might perhaps see that Sam was not swayed by impudence in setting-up, so much as by obligation. For what else lay open to him? — no firm would engage him as clerk with that doubt sticking to his coat-tails. He paid some of his debts, and undertook to pay the rest before the year was out. A whisper arose that it was Mrs. Dene who managed this. Sam’s adversaries knew better; the funds came out of the ebony box: that, as Charles Cockermuth demonstrated, was as sure as heaven.

  But now there occurred one thing that I, Johnny Ludlow, could not understand, and never shall: why Worcester should have turned its back, like an angry drake, upon Maria Parslet. The school, where she was resident teacher, wrote her a cool, polite note, to say she need not trouble herself to return after the Easter recess. That example was followed. Pious individuals looked upon her as a possible story-teller, in danger of going to the bad in Sam’s defence, nearly as much as Sam had gone.

  It was just a craze. Even Charles Cockermuth said there was no sense in blaming Maria: of course Sam had deceived her (when pretending to show the guinea as his own), just as he deceived other people. Next the town called her “bold” for sta
nding up in the face and eyes of the Guildhall to give her evidence. But how could Maria help that? It was not her own choice: she’d rather have locked herself up in the cellar. Lawyer Chance had burst in upon her that Saturday morning (not ten minutes after we left the house), giving nobody warning, and carried her off imperatively, never saying “Will you, or Won’t you.” It was not his way.

  Placid Miss Betty was indignant when the injustice came to her ears. What did people mean by it? she wanted to know. She sent for Maria to spend the next Sunday in Foregate Street, and marched with her arm-in-arm to church (St. Nicholas’), morning and evening.

  As the days and the weeks passed, commotion gave place to a calm; Sam and his delinquencies were let alone. One cannot be on the grumble for ever. Sam’s lines were pretty hard; practice held itself aloof from him; and if he did not live upon the sixpence a-day, he looked at every halfpenny that he had to spend beyond it. His face grew thin, his blue eyes wistful, but he smiled hopefully.

  “You keep up young Dene’s acquaintance, I perceive,” remarked Lawyer Chance to his son one evening as they were finishing dinner, for he had met the two young men together that day.

  “Yes: why shouldn’t I?” returned Austin.

  “Think that charge was a mistaken one, I suppose?”

  “Well I do, father. He has affirmed it to me in terms so unmistakable that I can but believe him. Besides, I don’t think Dene, as I have always said, is the sort of fellow to turn rogue: I don’t, indeed.”

  “Does he get any practice?”

  “Very little, I’m afraid.”

  Mr. Chance was a man with a conscience. On the whole, he felt inclined to think Sam had not helped himself to the guineas, but he was by no means sure of it: like Miss Betty Cockermuth, his opinion veered, now on this side, now on that, like a haunted weathercock. If Sam was not guilty, why, then, Fate had dealt hardly with the young fellow — and what would the end be? These thoughts were running through the lawyer’s mind as he talked to his son and sat playing with his bunch of seals, which hung down by a short, thick gold chain, in the old-fashioned manner.

  “I should like to say a word to him if he’d come to me,” he suddenly cried. “You might go and bring him, Austin.”

  “What — this evening?” exclaimed Austin.

  “Ay; why not? One time’s as good as another.”

  Austin Chance started off promptly for the new office, and found his friend presiding over his own tea-tray in the little back-room; the loaf and butter on the table, and a red herring on the gridiron.

  “Hadn’t time to get any dinner to-day; too busy,” was Sam’s apology, given briefly with a flush of the face. “Mr. Chance wants me? Well, I’ll come. What is it for?”

  “Don’t know,” replied Austin. And away they went.

  The lawyer was standing at the window, his hands in the pockets of his pepper-and-salt trousers, tinkling the shillings and sixpences there. Austin supposed he was not wanted, and shut them in.

  “I have been thinking of your case a good bit lately, Sam Dene,” began Mr. Chance, giving Sam a seat and sitting down himself; “and I should like to feel, if I can, more at a certainty about it, one way or the other.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Sam. And you must please to note that manners in those days had not degenerated to what they are in these. Young men, whether gentle or simple, addressed their elders with respect; young women also. “Yes, sir,” replied Sam. “But what do you mean about wishing to feel more at a certainty?”

  “When I defended you before the magistrates, I did my best to convince them that you were not guilty: you had assured me you were not: and they discharged you. I believe my arguments and my pleadings went some way with them.”

  “I have no doubt of it, sir, and I thanked you at the time with all my heart,” said Sam warmly. “Some of my enemies were bitter enough against me.”

  “But you should not speak in that way — calling people your enemies!” reproved the lawyer. “People were only at enmity with you on the score of the offence. Look here, Sam Dene — did you commit it, or did you not?”

  Sam stared. Mr. Chance had dropped his voice to a solemn key, his head was pushed forward, gravity sat on his face.

  “No, sir. No.”

  The short answer did not satisfy the lawyer. “Did you filch that box of guineas out of Cockermuth’s room; or were you, and are you, as you assert, wholly innocent?” he resumed. “Tell me the truth as before Heaven. Whatever it be, I will shield you still.”

  Sam rose. “On my sacred word, sir, and before Heaven, I have told nothing but the truth. I did not take or touch the box of guineas. I do not know what became of it.”

  Mr. Chance regarded Sam in silence. He had known young men, when under a cloud, prevaricate in a most extraordinary and unblushing manner: to look at them and listen to them, one might have said they were fit to be canonized. But he thought truth lay with Sam now.

  “Sit down, sit down, Dene,” he said. “I am glad to believe you. Where the deuce could the box have got to? It could not take flight through the ceiling up to the clouds, or down to the earth through the floor. Whose hands took it?”

  “The box went in one of two ways,” returned Sam. “If the captain did not fetch it out unconsciously, and lose it in the street, why, somebody must have entered the parlour after I left it and carried off the box. Perhaps the individual who looked into the room when I was sitting there.”

  “A pity but you had noticed who that was.”

  “Yes, it is. Look here, Mr. Chance; a thought has more than once struck me — if that person did not come back and take the box, why has he not come forward openly and honestly to avow it was himself who looked in?”

  The lawyer gave his head a dissenting shake. “It is a ticklish thing to be mixed up in, he may think, one that he had best keep out of — though he may be innocent as the day. How are you getting on?” he asked, passing abruptly from the subject.

  “Oh, middling,” replied Sam. “As well, perhaps, as I could expect to get on at first, with all the prejudice abroad against me.”

  “Earning bread-and-cheese?”

  “Not quite — yet.”

  “Well, see here, Dene — and this is what I chiefly sent for you to say, if you could assure me on your conscience you deserved it — I may be able to put some little business in your hands. Petty matters are brought to us that we hardly care to waste time upon: I’ll send them to you in future. I dare say you’ll be able to rub on by dint of patience. Rome was not built in a day, you know.”

  “Thank you, sir; I thank you very truly,” breathed Sam. “Mr. Cockermuth sent me a small matter the other day. If I can make a bare living of it at present, that’s all I ask. Fame and fortune are not rained down upon black sheep.”

  Which was so true a remark as to need no contradiction.

  May was nearing its close then, and the summer evenings were long and lovely. As Sam went forth from the interview, he thought he would take a walk by the river, instead of turning in to his solitary rooms. Since entering upon them he had been as steady as old Time: the accusation and its attendant shame seemed to have converted him from a heedless, youthful man into a wise old sage of age and care. Passing down Broad Street towards the bridge, he turned to the left and sauntered along beside the Severn. The water glittered in the light of the setting sun; barges, some of them bearing men and women and children, passed smoothly up and down on it; the opposite fields, towards St. John’s, were green as an emerald: all things seemed to wear an aspect of brightness.

  All on a sudden things grew brighter — and Sam’s pulses gave a leap. He had passed the grand old red-stoned wall that enclosed the Bishop’s palace, and was close upon the gates leading up to the Green, when a young lady turned out of them and came towards him with a light, quick step. It was Maria Parslet, in a pretty summer muslin, a straw hat shading her blushing face. For it did blush furiously at sight of Sam.

  “Mr. Dene!”

  “Maria!
”

  She began to say, hurriedly, that her mother had sent her with a message to the dressmaker on the Parade, and she had taken that way, as being the shortest — as if in apology for having met Sam.

  He turned with her, and they paced slowly along side by side, the colour on Maria’s cheeks coming and going with every word he spoke and every look he gave her — which seemed altogether senseless and unreasonable. Sam told her of his conversation with Austin Chance’s father, and his promise to put a few things in his way.

  “Once let me be making two hundred a-year, Maria, and then — —”

  “Then what?” questioned Maria innocently.

  “Then I should ask you to come to me, and we’d risk it together.”

  “Risk what?” stammered Maria, turning her head right round to watch a barge that was being towed by.

  “Risk our luck. Two hundred a-year is not so bad to begin upon. I should take the floor above as well as the ground-floor I rent now, and we should get along. Any way, I hope to try it.”

  “Oh, Mr. Dene!”

  “Now don’t ‘Mr. Dene’ me, young lady, if you please. Why, Maria, what else can we do? A mean, malicious set of dogs and cats have turned their backs upon us both; the least we should do is to see if we can’t do without them. I know you’d rather come to me than stay in Edgar Street.”

  Maria held her tongue, as to whether she would or not. “Mamma is negotiating to get me a situation at Cheltenham,” she said.

  “You will not go to Cheltenham, or anywhere else, if I get any luck,” he replied dictatorially. “Life would look very blue to me now without you, Maria. And many a man and wife, rolling in riches at the end, have rubbed on with less than two hundred a-year at the beginning. I wouldn’t say, mind, but we might risk it on a hundred and fifty. My rent is low, you see.”