by Ellen Wood
Heard him speak perhaps in some railway train; or —
Goodness heart alive! Is it you?”
This sudden break was occasioned by the appearance of another gentleman, who seemed to have sprung from nowhere, until he halted close before her. It was the detective officer, Butterby: and Mrs. Jones had not seen him since she quitted her country home.
“I thought it looked like you,” cried Mr. Butterby, giving his hand. “Says I to myself, as I strolled along, ‘If that’s not the exact image of my old friend, Mrs. Jones, it’s uncommon like her.’ It is you, ma’am! And how are you? So you are living in this quarter!”
Crafty man! Mrs. Jones had assuredly dealt him a box on the ear could she have divined that he was deceiving her. He had been watching her house for some minutes past, knowing just as well as she did that it was hers. Mrs. Jones invited him indoors, and he went under protest, not wishing, he said, to intrude: but the going indoors was what he intended doing all along.
They sat gossiping of old times and new. Mr. Butterby took a friendly glass of beer and a biscuit; Mrs. Jones, knitting always, took none. Without seeming to be at all anxious for the information, he had speedily gathered in every particular about Roland Yorke that there was to gather. Not too charitably disposed to the world in general, in speech at any rate, Mrs. Jones yet spoke well of Roland.
“He is no more like the proud, selfish aristocrat he used to be than chalk’s like cheese,” she said. “In his younger days Roland Yorke thought the world was made for him and his pleasure, no matter who else suffered: he doesn’t think it now.”
“Sowed his wild oats, has he?” remarked Mr. Butterby.
“For the matter of wild oats, I never knew he had any particular ones to sow,” retorted Mrs. Jones. “Whether or not, he has got none left, that I can see.”
“Wouldn’t help himself to another twenty pound note,” said Mr. Butterby carelessly, stretching out his hand to take a second biscuit.
“No, that he would not,” emphatically pronounced Mrs. Jones. “And I know this — that there never was an act repented of as he repents of that. His thoughts are but skin-deep; he’s not crafty enough to hide them, and those that run may read. If cutting off his right hand would undo that past act, he’d cut it off and be glad, Mr. Butterby.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” assented the officer. “Many folks is in the like case. Have you ever come across that Godfrey Pitman?”
“Not I. Have you?”
The officer shook his head. Godfrey Pitman had hitherto remained a dead failure.
“The man was disguised when he was at your house at Helstonleigh, Mrs. Jones, there’s no doubt of that; and the fact has made detection difficult, you see.”
The assumption, as reflecting disparagement on her and her house, mortally offended Mrs. Jones. She treated Mr. Butterby to a taste of the old tongue he so well remembered, and saw him with the barest civility to the door on his departure. Miss Rye happened to be coming in at the time, and Mr. Butterby regarded her curiously with his green eyes in saluting her. Her face and lips turned white as ashes.
“What brings him here?” she asked under her breath, when Mrs. Jones came back to her parlour from shutting the door.
“His pleasure, I suppose,” was Mrs. Jones’s answer, a great deal too much put out to say that he had come (as she supposed) accidentally. Disguised men lodging in her house, indeed! “What’s the matter with you?”
Alletha Rye had sat down on the nearest chair, and seemed labouring to get her breath. The ghastly face, the signs of agitation altogether, attracted the notice of Mrs. Jones.
“I have got that stitch in my side again; I walked fast,” was all she said.
Mrs. Jones caught up her knitting.
“Did Butterby want anything in particular?” presently asked Miss Rye.
“No, he did not. He is in London about some business or other, and saw me standing at the door this evening as he passed by. Have you got your work finished?”
“Yes,” replied Alletha, beginning to unfasten her mantle and bonnet-strings.
“I’ve let that back parlour,” remarked Mrs. Jones; “so if there’s any of your pieces in the room, the sooner you fetch them out, the better. Brown, the managing clerk to Mr. Bede Greatorex, has taken it.”
“Who?” cried Alletha, springing out of her seat.
“It’s a good thing there’s no nerves in this house; you’d startle them,” snapped Mrs. Jones. “What ails you to-night?”
Alletha Rye turned her back, apparently searching for something in the sideboard drawer. Her face was growing paler, if possible, than before; her fingers shook, the terror in her eyes was all too conspicuous. She was silently striving for composure, and hiding herself while she did so. When it had in a degree come, she faced Mrs. Jones again, who was knitting furiously, and spoke in a quiet tone.
“Who did you say had taken the room, Julia? Mr. Brown? Why should ht take it?”
“You can go and ask him why.”
“I would not let it to him,” said Alletha, earnestly. “Don’t; pray don’t.”
Down went the knitting with a fling. “Now just you explain yourself, Alletha Rye. What has the man done to you, that you should put in your word against his coming in?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh! Then why should he not come, pray? His worst enemy can’t say he’s not respectable — after being for years confidential clerk to Greatorex and Greatorex. Do you hear? — what have you to urge against his coming?”
Alletha Rye was at a loss for an answer. The real season she dared not give; and it was difficult to invent one. But the taxed brain is wonderfully apt.
“It may not be agreeable to Mr. Yorke.”
Mrs. Jones was never nearer going into a real passion: and, in spite of her sharp tongue, passion with her was exceedingly rare. She gave Alletha what she called a taste of her mind; and it was rather a bitter one while it lasted. Mrs. Jones did not drop it easily, and it was she who broke the ensuing silence.
“Don’t bring up Mr. Yorke’s name under any of your false pretences, Alletha Rye. You have taken some crotchet in your head against the man, though I don’t know how or when you can have seen him, just as you did against Parson Ollivera. Any way, I have accepted Brown as tenant, and he comes into possession to-morrow night.”
“Then I may as well move my work out at once,” said Alletha, meekly, taking up a candle.
She went into the back parlour, and caught hold of an upright piece of furniture, and pressed her aching head upon it as if it were a refuge. The candle remained on the chest of drawers; the work, lying about, was ungathered: but she stood on, moaning out words of distress and despair.
“It is the hand of fate. It is bringing all things and people together in one nucleus; just as it has been working to do ever since the death of John Ollivera.”
But the events of the evening were not entirely over, and a word or two must be yet given to it. There seemed to be nothing but encounters and reencounters. As Mr. Butterby was walking down the street on his departure, turning his eyes (not his head) from side to side in the quiet manner characteristic of him, observing all, but apparently seeing nothing, though he had no object in view just now, there came up a wayfarer to jostle him; a tall, strong young man, who walked as if the street were made for him, and nearly walked over quiet Mr. Butterby.
“Halloa!” cried Roland, for it was nobody else. “It’s you, is it! What do you do up here?”
Roland’s tone was none of the pleasantest, savouring rather of the haughty assumption of old days. His interview with Gerald, from which he was hastening, had not tended to appease him, and Mr. Butterby was as much his bête noire as he had ever been. The officer did not like the tone: he was a greater man than he used to be, having got up some steps in the official world.
“Looking after you, perhaps,” retorted Mr. Butterby. “The streets are free for me, I suppose.”
“It would not be the first time you had l
ooked after the wrong man. How many innocent people have you taken into custody lately?”
“Now you just keep a civil tongue in your mouth, Mr. Roland Yorke. You’d not like it if I took you.”
“I should like it as well as Arthur Channing liked it when you took him,” said bold Roland. “There’s been a grudge lying on my mind against you ever since that transaction, Butterby, and I promise you I’ll pay it off if I get the chance.”
“Did you make free with that cheque yesterday, Mr. Yorke — as you did by the other money?” asked Mr. Butterby, slightly exasperated.
“Perhaps I did and perhaps I didn’t,” said Roland. “Think so, if you like. You are no better than a calf in these matters, you know, Butterby, Poor meek Jenkins, who was too good to stop in the same atmosphere that other folks breathed, was clearer-sighted than you. ‘It’s Arthur Channing, your worships, and I’ve took him prisoner to answer for it,’ says you to the magistrates. ‘It never was Arthur Channing,’ says Jenkins, nearly going down on his knees to you in his honest truth. ‘Pooh, pooh,’ says you, virtuously indignant, ‘I know a thief when I see him — —’”
“Now I vow, Mr. Roland Yorke—”
“Don’t interrupt your betters, Butterby; wait till I’ve done,” cried aggravating Roland, over-bearing the quieter voice. “You took up Arthur Channing, and moved heaven and earth to get him convicted. Had the wise king, Solomon, come express down from the stars on a frosty night, to tell you Arthur was innocent, you’d have pooh-poohed him as you did poor Jenkins. But it turned out not to be Arthur, you know, old Butterby; it was me. And now if you think you’d like to go in for the same mistake again, go in for it. You would, if you took me up for this second thing.”
“I can tell you what, Mr. Roland Yorke — you’d look rather foolish if I walked into Greatorex’s office to-morrow morning, and told them of that past mistake.”
“I don’t much care whether you do or don’t,” said candid Roland. “As good let it come out as not, for somebody or other is always casting it in my teeth. Hurst does; my brother Gerald does — I’ve come now straight from hearing it. I thought I should have lived that down at Port Natal; but it seems I didn’t.”
“You’ll not live it down by impudence,” said Mr. Butterby.
“Then I must live it up,” was the retort, “for impudence is a fault of mine. I’ve heard you say I had enough for the devil. So good-night to you, Butterby. I am to be found at my lodgings, if you’d like to come after me there with a pair of handcuffs.”
Roland went striding off, and the officer stood to look after him. In spite of the “impudence” received, a smile crossed his face; it was the same impulsive, careless, boyish Roland Yorke of past days, good-natured under his worst sting. But whatever other impression might have been left upon Mr. Butterby’s mind by the encounter, one lay very dear — that it was not Roland who was guilty this time, and he must look elsewhere for the purloiner of the cheque.
CHAPTER XVI.
Winny.
FIVE minutes past three at the Paddington station, and all the bustle and confusion of a train just in. Gerald Yorke stood on the platform, welcoming a pretty little fair-haired woman, whose unmeaning doll’s face was given to dimple with smiles one minute, and to pout the next. Also three fair-haired children, the eldest three years old, the youngest just able to walk. Mrs. Gerald Yorke was not much better than a child herself. To say the truth, she was somewhat of a doll in intellect as well as face; standing always in awe of big, resolute, clever Gerald, yielding implicitly to his superior will. But for a strong-minded sister, who had loudly rebelled against Winny’s wrongs, in being condemned to an obscure country cottage, while he flourished in high life in London, and who managed privately the removal for her, she had never dared to venture on the step; but this was not to be confessed to her husband. She felt more afraid than ever of the consequences of having taken it, now that she saw him face to face.
“How many packages have you, Winny?”
“Nineteen.”
“Nineteen!”
“But they are not all large, Gerald. Some of them are small bundles, done up in kitchen towels and pillow-cases.”
Gerald bit his lip to avoid an ugly word: to anybody but his wife on this her first arrival in London, he would have flung it out.
“Have you brought no nursemaid, Winny?”
“Good gracious, no! How could I tell I might afford to bring one, Gerald? You know I had but one maid for everything, down there.”
Hurrying them into a cab, Gerald went in search of the luggage, suppressing a groan, and glancing over his shoulder on all sides. Bundles done up in kitchen towels and pillow-cases! If Gerald Yorke had never before offered up a prayer, he did then: that no ill-chance might have brought any of his fashionable friends to the station that unlucky afternoon.
“Drive through the obscurest streets,” he said in the cabman’s ear on his return, as he mentioned Hamish Channing’s address. “Never mind taking a round; I’ll pay you.” And the man put his whip to the bridge of his nose, and gave a confidential nod in answer: for which Gerald could have knocked him down.
“And now, Winny, tell me how you came to do this mad thing,” he said sternly, when he was seated with them.
For answer, Mrs. Yorke broke into a burst of sobs. It was coming, she thought. But Gerald had no mind for a scene there; and so held his tongue to a better opportunity. But the tears continued, and Gerald angrily ordered her not to be a child.
“You’ve never kissed one of us,” sobbed Winny. “You’ve not as much as kissed baby.”
“Would you have had me kiss you on the platform?” he angrily demanded. “Make a family embracing of it, for the benefit of the public! I’ll kiss you when we get in. You are more ridiculous than ever, Winny.”
The three little things, sitting opposite, were still as mice, looking shyly at him with their timid blue eyes. Gerald took one upon his knee for a moment and pressed its face to his own, fondly enough. Fortune was very unkind to him he thought, in not giving him a fine house for these children, and a thousand or two per annum to keep them on.
“Are we going to your chambers, Gerald?”
“That is another foolish question, Winny! My chambers are hardly large enough for me. I have taken lodgings for you this morning; the best I could at a minute’s notice. London is full of drawbacks and inconveniences: if you have to put up with some, you must remember that you have brought them on yourself.”
“Will there be any dinner for us?” asked Winny timidly. “The poor little girls are very hungry.”
“You are going to Mrs. Hamish Channing’s until to-night. I daresay she’ll have dinner ready for you. Afterwards you can call at the rooms, and settle with the landlady what you will want got in.”
The change in Mrs. Yorke’s face was like magic; a glad brightness overspread it. Once when she was ill in lodgings at Helstonleigh, before her husband removed her into Gloucestershire, her eldest child being then an infant, Hamish Channing’s wife had been wonderfully kind to her. To hear that she was going to her seemed like a haven of refuge in this wilderness of a London, which she had never until now visited. “Oh, thank you, Gerald. I am so glad.”
“I suppose you have brought some money with you,” said Gerald.
“I think I have about sixteen shillings,” she answered, beginning to turn out her purse.
“Where’s the rest?”
“What rest?”
“The money for the furniture. You wrote me word you had sold it.”
“But there were the debts, Gerald. I sold the furniture to pay them. How else could I have left? — they’d not have let me come away. It was not enough to pay all; there’s six or seven pounds unpaid still.” An exceedingly blank look settled on Gerald’s face. The one ray of comfort looming out of this checkmating step of his wife’s, reconciling him to it in a small degree, had been the thought of the money she would receive for the furniture. But what he might have said was stopped by
a shriek from Winny, who became suddenly aware that the cab, save for themselves, was empty.
“The luggage, Gerald, the luggage! O Gerald, the luggage!”
“Hold your tongue, Winny,” said Gerald angrily, pulling her back as she was about either to spring out or to stop the driver. “The luggage is all right. It will be sent to the lodgings.”
“But we want some of the things at once,” said Winny piteously. “What shall we do without them?”
“The best you can,” coolly answered Gerald. “Did you suppose you were going to fill Hamish Channing’s hall with boxes and bundles?”
Mrs. Channing stood ready to receive them with her face of welcome, and the first thing Winny did was to burst into tears and sob out the grievance about the luggage in her arms. If Gerald Yorke had married a pretty wife, he had also married a silly and incapable one: and Gerald had known it for some years now. Just waiting to hand them over to Mrs. Channing’s care, and to give the written address of the lodgings, Gerald left. He was engaged that afternoon to dine with a party at Richmond, and would not see his wife again before the morrow.
“Don’t — you — mean — to live with us? “ she ventured to ask, on hearing him say this, her face growing white with dismay.
“Of course I shall live with you,” sharply answered Gerald. “But I have my chambers, and when engagements keep me out, shall sleep at them.”
And Gerald, lightly vaulting into a passing hansom, was cantered off. Winny turned to her good friend Ellen Channing for consolation, who gave her the best that the circumstances admitted of.
Hamish, beyond his bright welcome, saw Very little of Winny that evening; he was shut up with her husband’s manuscript. He took her home at night. The lodgings engaged by Gerald consisted of a sitting-room and two bed-chambers, the people of the house to cook and give attendance. Hamish paid the cab and accompanied her indoors. The first thing Mrs. Gerald Yorke did, was to sit down on the lowest chair, and begin to cry. Her little girls, worn out with the day’s excitement and the happy play in Nelly Channing’s nursery, were fit to drop with fatigue, and put themselves quietly on the carpet.
