Читать книгу Those Other Days - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 5

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A dainty blue-eyed little woman was walking restlessly up and down over the thick carpet and amongst the miniature fauteuils and lounges of one of the prettiest morning-rooms in London. The door, as if by design, was standing an inch or two open, and each time as she reached it she bent forward her little head, coroneted with a wavy mass of half-golden, half-auburn hair, and listened intently for a moment or two.

She was certainly a very impatient young lady, for though she had been here alone for barely a quarter of an hour, her piquant face had already commenced to wear a most unbecoming expression of vexed anxiety. Her book and fancy-work had long since slipped on to the carpet, and by degrees her periods of listening at the door grew more frequent and prolonged. At last the sound for which she listened reached her ears. She stepped back into the room and drew a long breath, as if of apprehension. In a very short time a tall, fair young man, with a most woebegone countenance and altogether dejected appearance, pushed open the door and stood on the rug without entering.

"It's all up!" he said, in a tone which exactly matched his downcast looks. "I don't know what'll become of me now, and I don't much care. I'm not to see you again, you'll be pleased to hear."

She laughed cheerfully. It sounded a little forced, but it was very brave.

"Don't talk nonsense, Geoff! Come in and tell me all about it at once," she commanded.

Her cousin looked doubtfully up the broad stairs, down which he had just descended.

"The governor will be down in a minute to see if I have cleared off the premises," he said bitterly. "There'll be no end of a row if he finds me here with you. I think I'd better go."

Perhaps if she had been a very astute young lady she would have discovered from his tone that he had no intention of doing anything of the sort. But she was not; or, if she was, her present anxiety had clouded her wits; and, in her fear lest he should act upon his words, she pulled him gently into the room and shut the door, which was exactly what he desired.

"You booby! You haven't promised not to speak to me, have you? Sit down there, and tell me all about it."

Of course he obeyed his pretty cousin's commands. When had he ever done otherwise since the days of their babyhood? at which period her rule had been even more rigid and his servitude more complete than now. He flung himself into an easy chair and assumed a most lugubrious expression.

"You're not to pull a long face like that, please, Geoff," she exclaimed, drawing a footstool up to the side of his chair and looking very demure. "Now, just begin at the beginning, and go right on. Tell me what you said, and what he said, and all the rest of it. I expect you must have bungled frightfully."

"I expect I did," he assented disconsolately.

"Well, here goes. He didn't seem particularly pleased to see me when James showed me in—just shook hands and never asked me to sit down. Of course I did; and, to make matters worse, plumped down on that inf—— beastly little dog he's always got hanging about him. What are you laughing at, Jennie? It was no joke, I can tell you!"

"I don't suppose it was—for poor Tony. Go on, please."

He let his hand rest for a moment on her head, and commenced stroking her hair, as if he found that rather more entertaining than recapitulating his recent interview with her father. Presently he drew his hand away with a sigh, and continued—

"Well, that made him awfully savage. 'Well, sir, and what do you want?' he said. I thought I might as well go straight at it, so I said that I wanted you. 'What!' he shouted. I repeated that I had come to ask his consent to our engagement; and I was just going to try and explain to him how awfully fond we were of one another, and all that, you know, when he stopped me, and began lecturing away until I thought that I should faint. He wanted to know what my income was, as if he didn't know that I have only that three hundred a year old Howard left me, besides my pay. 'And I suppose that just keeps you in hansoms and cigars?' he said sneeringly. I told him that of course one couldn't expect it to do much more; and that seemed to make him worse than ever. I don't know why, I'm sure. He fumed about for a minute or two, and said all manner of ridiculous things, and then he suddenly cooled down. 'Look here, Geoffrey,' he said. 'I'm not particularly anxious that my daughter should marry a rich man'—('Lucky for me,' I thought)—'but I won't have her marry a spendthrift.' Of course I was going to interrupt him there, but he wouldn't let me. Then he went on to make remarks about those few paltry flowers I've sent you, and the number of horses I keep—as if a fellow wasn't bound to keep a decent animal or two—and about that share in Dermi's moor. Well, I couldn't have got out of that, as I tried to explain to him, but he wouldn't listen; in short, he read me a tremendous lecture. Then he was good enough to say that I had some good points, and of course he didn't forget that I was his nephew, and all that; but he wound up at last by saying that he would not have his daughter marry a selfish and extravagant man. I must be selfish, he said, because I was extravagant. Ridiculous, isn't it? You don't think I'm selfish, do you, Jennie?"

"You know I don't, Geoff," she exclaimed energetically. "But go on. Did he give you no hope at all?"

"Not much. He wanted to know whether I was in debt. Of course I'm in debt. I never remember being out of it since the governor lost the Langton estates, and had to cut off my allowance. But, as it happens, I never was so nearly clear as I am now."

"How's that, Geoff? I don't believe that you have been economizing, for you only bought that—"

"No, Jennie, I haven't been economizing. I can't lay claim to so much virtue," he confessed with a short laugh. "You won't think any the better of me, I'm afraid, when I tell you that Sandown and the Oaks—"

"Oh, that horrid betting! But please finish telling me what papa said.

"Well, when he asked me whether I was in debt, I said I wasn't quite sure how I stood. No more I am, you know. I believe he thought that I was humbugging him then, for he looked awfully savage. 'Well, look here, Geoffrey,' he said, I don't mind my daughter marrying a poor man, but I won't let her marry a man with a cart-load of debts round his neck. If you can come to me in a week's time and tell me that you don't owe a penny, if you haven't a hundred pounds in the world, you shall have Jennie; but not unless.' He wouldn't let me say another word, and he wouldn't say another word himself; so I had to come away."

"Couldn't you get the money from those horrid Jews? It would be the last time, you know!"

"You little goose," he said, smiling dolefully, "shouldn't I owe it all the same? There's only one person in the world whom I could ask to give me money—the governor, of course; and I don't believe he would or could raise a quarter of what I want to save his life. Anyhow, I couldn't even ask him, unless I promised in some way or other to pay him back; and I mustn't do that, or else it would be a loan. I'm afraid it's a hopeless case, Jennie, unless that obdurate parent of yours changes his mind. Now, you silly little woman, what good will crying do? Leave off, please, come; let me wipe your eyes for you."

"Geoff, don't be stupid. I'm not crying; but it does seem very, very horrid, and—and I can't help thinking that you oughtn't to have been quite so extravagant. Do you owe very much money?" she asked pitifully.

He stroked his long mustaches, and looked down at her disconsolately.

"I'm afraid it's a goodish bit," he acknowledged. "I'll tell you what I'll do, though," he added suddenly; "I'll go into my accounts and find out. Can I see you to-morrow anywhere?"

A knock at the door, and a servant announced that his Master would be glad to see Miss Jeanette at once. She sprang up hurriedly.

"I must go, Geoff! I shall be at the Turners' all to-morrow afternoon. Couldn't you call?"

"Of course I can. I'll be there to lunch, and tell you all about it. Good-bye, and—"

"Geoff, don't, you silly boy! My hair isn't fit to be seen already. There! there's just one kiss for you, and now you really must go;" and, laughing, she pushed him out of the room and made her own escape.

The creditors of Mr. Geoffrey Chester (and they were many) were considerably surprised that afternoon by a peremptory request from their distinguished client that their accounts should be made up forthwith and sent in to him. There was a good deal of speculation amongst them as to the reason for this unusual request. Mortnum & Fason's head clerk was afraid that it meant bankruptcy; but Mr. Curshore, the celebrated Bond Street tailor, scented a wedding, and made out his little account with alacrity. Mr. Fogg, the horse-dealer, "ad 'eard as the 17th was down for furrin parts;" while Mr. Abraham Moses, to whom a little interest was due, shook his head, and prophesied a hoax. With all their diverse opinions, however, they one and all did as desired, and accordingly, when Geoffrey Chester sat down to breakfast on the following morning, he found a very formidable pile of blue letters surmounting his Morning Post.

"Shall I bring in the waste basket, sir?" his servant inquired, with just the suspicion of a grin upon his smooth features.

He felt a momentary temptation to say "Yes," the blue envelopes looked so decidedly uninviting, and it seemed so useless to wade through them. He didn't, though. He thought of Jennie, and answered almost apologetically—

"Not this morning, Burditt. I—I'm going to look through them."

The man bowed discreetly and withdrew. It was very dear, he confided to the groom, who was waiting below, that one of two things was going to happen: either their master was going to marry or he was going through the Bankruptcy Court; else why was he going to open those bills? This was an argument which Dick acknowledged to be quite unanswerable; and, being a young man of a cheerful frame of mind, he brought forward evidence in favour of the first proposition. Burditt, on the contrary, being a decided pessimist, adopted the latter view, and talked darkly of the Bankruptcy Court and the Board of Trade, of Boulogne lodgings and suicide, until the protesting words died away on Dick's lips, and he began to feel, as he afterwards acknowledged, "mortal uncomfortable."

Meanwhile Captain Chester, in happy ignorance of these dreary prognostications, was carefully entering in a small memorandum-book the amount at the foot of each document. Then he turned to another part of the book, and from a page headed "Bills" took sundry other amounts. Having added them up, his task was concluded. He owed in round figures a little over six thousand pounds, and all he had towards it was a cheque for two thousand guineas, the proceeds of his recent lucky speculations at Sandown. The case was hopeless. Without borrowing or selling his commission (that also Mr. Durban had barred), how was he to become possessed of four thousand pounds? His father was struggling with a heavily encumbered estate, and every day he expected a summons home to sign away the entail. To him he could not, of course, apply; and, save Mr. Durban, he had no other near relative. If ever a man cursed his poverty, Geoffrey Chester did as he flung the memorandum-book into a corner, and, catching up his hat, hurried out, he cared very little whither.

There had been a little note from his cousin, almost lost amongst the ponderous heap of businesslike epistles, postponing their meeting until tomorrow; so he went to the club to lunch. Afterwards, as he sauntered into the news-room, he was conscious of some great sensation amongst the men present; every one was crowding round a telegram which had just arrived, and there was a pretty general air of astonishment and dismay.

"Anything up?" he inquired laconically. It would take a good deal, he thought, to interest him just then. A little fair man looked round, and recognized him.

"Hullo! here's Chester! Heard the news?"

Geoffrey shook his head.

"Just been asking what it was," he remarked.

"Well, then, what do you think's won the Leicestershire?"

"I Haven't the least idea—Kinsky, I should think."

"The Monk!"

"My God!"

It takes a good deal to upset the equanimity of a captain of Dragoons; but Captain Chester felt for just one moment as though he were going to faint.

"Hit hard?" inquired his friend, compassionately. "We all are."

Geoffrey shook his head.

"I've won two thousand pounds," he said shortly, as he turned on his heel and walked away, amidst a general chorus of "Lucky devil!"

He went into one of the smaller rooms and sat down. It seemed almost past credence. The Monk, a horse which he had backed out of pure bravado at a hundred to one, and which had since been reported to have gone dead lame, to have won a race like this! If only he could raise two thousand pounds now!

He walked down the corridor, and in the entrance-hall ran against the man whom he most wished to see.

"Well, hang it all, Chester, talk about luck!" exclaimed the new-comer. "Do you know you've won two thousand pounds from me?"

Geoffrey was not likely to forget it.

"You can afford it, Darton," he said, smiling; "and, by-the-by, it's just likely I may want a little cash this week. I know settling day isn't—"

"My dear fellow, not another word," said Lord Darton good-humouredly. "I was hard up myself once, you know. Come into the waiting-room, and I'll write you a cheque."

There were more surprises in store for Geoffrey Chester that day. When he returned to his chambers to dress for an evening engagement, he found his solicitor seated in his easy chair, waiting for him.

"Captain Chester, you're a very lucky man," he exclaimed, as they shook hands. "I have a very pleasant surprise for you."

Geoffrey threw himself into a chair and stared at the lawyer. He was quite sure that there was no one who could have died and left him money, and he knew very well that this news could not be about the Monk, for Mr. Scales was not likely to know one horse's name from another.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," he said. "Let's hear all about it."

"Certainly. You once had in your employ a servant named Thomas Gretton. Ah! I see you remember the name. He was a clever fellow, but he used to bet, and of course he lost. To meet his engagements he forged your name to a bill for five hundred and fifty pounds. You found it out; and by some means the fellow worked upon your generosity to such an extent that you not only took up the bill, but started him off to Australia. As it happened you did just about the best thing you possibly could have done. By this morning's post I received a letter from Gretton, and an order for the amount of the bill and interest, amounting altogether to six hundred and twenty pounds one shilling and eightpence, with instructions to place the same to the credit of your account. Here's the order, and I shall be glad 'if you'll give me a receipt at once, as I'm rather in a hurry. Thanks."

A few minutes later Dick was summoned into his master's room.

"Dick, I want you to take all the animals except Ironsides to Tattersall's to-morrow morning in time for the sale. You understand?"

Dick sorrowfully assented.

"And me, sir—am I to go, sir?"

"Go! Go where?"

"I thought that you may be a-wanting me to leave, sir, as you was selling the animals."

"Nonsense! I wouldn't part with you for the world, Dick," exclaimed his master, with a pleasant smile. "There'll be plenty more horses for you soon."

Dick departed to confide to Burditt that there was "summut more in the wind than they knowed of," as indeed there was.

The next day Geoffrey and his cousin met as arranged. This time the positions were reversed. It was she who was pale and despondent, while he looked happy and sanguine. Her father had quite made up his mind that Geoffrey was over head and ears in debt, and that he would not have him for a son-in-law. "She had never known him so determined about anything, she told him piteously, and—and—"

Geoffrey laughed, and stopped her mouth.

"No treason, Jennie. Listen to my news;" and he told her about the Monk and the bank order from Gretton. She listened with sparkling eyes, and presently began to share his hopefulness. Soon other callers arrived, however, and their tête-á-tête had to be abandoned. It was to be renewed, however, on the morrow at the house of another mutual friend.

Geoffrey Chester was known to ride good horses, and his little stud fetched high prices. Still, the proceeds did not come anywhere near fourteen hundred pounds; and even when his dog-cart and phaeton had followed he was still eight hundred pounds short. A few odds and ends of jewellery brought him in two hundred, and he contrived to scrape up a hundred pounds cash. But two more days passed, and nothing fresh had turned up. To raise five hundred pounds without borrowing, and having nothing to sell, is by no means an easy task. It seemed to Geoffrey that he had come to the end of his resources, and that he might as well be five thousand pounds short as five hundred. And yet to fail now would be maddening. He dared not contemplate such a contingency, and yet he hinted at it pretty plainly to his cousin that afternoon.

"Surely," he said, "if your father knows that I owe only five hundred pounds, he won't be so cruel as to refuse?"

She shook her head fearfully.

"You don't know what papa is, Geoffrey. He's so obstinate, and always keeps to what he says. Besides, he says it's the principle, and—and all manner of horrid things. You must get that five hundred pounds somehow."

"Exactly. I've told myself so a thousand times," he said ruefully, "but I'm no nearer getting it."

They were both thoughtful for a while. It was she who broke the silence.

"You know, Geoff," she said slowly, "I haven't much jewellery, but I have one diamond necklace which is worth ten times as much as we want. But then, papa made me promise only the other night that I wouldn't part with it, or anything, else."

"Well, then, that's no good, is it?"

"Well, I don't know. Look here, Geoff, I've got an idea. I'm afraid it isn't right, but—but listen—" And she told it him.

He ridiculed, wondered at, and finally applauded it. A little more discussion and they adopted it, subject to the consent of a third party. The third party consented at once to play his part, and so it was arranged.

That evening Mr. Durban took his daughter to Drury Lane. After the performance they had a little way to walk to their carriage, and if Mr. Durban had not been so very short-sighted, he might have noticed a not unfamiliar face—the face of his nephew's manservant—very close to them several times in the crush, and he might also have observed that his daughter's hands seemed busy unfastening something under her opera cloak. What he did notice just as they reached home was that his daughter's necklace was gone.

"Jennie, where's your necklace?" he exclaimed suddenly.

She put her hand to her throat and started. "Papa, it's gone! I must have lost it in the crush! What are we to do?"

They drove back to the theatre, but in vain; they searched the carriage, but in vain; and finally drove to Scotland Yard. By ten o'clock next morning there were bills out offering five hundred pounds reward for the finder of a diamond necklace, description given; and by midday notes for that amount had found their way into Geoffrey Chester's hands, and Jennie was rejoicing over the return of her necklace. When Mr. Durban returned from the city that evening, he found his nephew awaiting him. Geoffrey was prompt to explain his presence.

"You promised me Jennie, sir, if I could tell you that I was free from debt, and, on my honour, I am."

"And you've not sold your commission?" Mr. Durban asked somewhat dubiously.

"Certainly not, sir."

"Humph. Very well, then; I'm a man of my word. Jennie's in the drawing-room and dinner will be ready in twenty minutes."

Exit Geoffrey.

Five years afterwards they told him all about that last five hundred pounds. It is his favourite after-dinner story now; and Burditt has very good reason to consider that evening which he spent hanging about outside Drury Lane Theatre the most fortunate evening of his life. He is quite the head of the household at Chester Court; and Mr. Durban, a frequent visitor there, never departs without alluding to that little circumstance in a gratifying and stolid manner. He was cheated out of his daughter, he declares; and Geoffrey acknowledges that he only won his wife by luck and a trick—his luck and her trick. But they all seem very happy about it; and amongst the penates at Chester-Court are a handbill, a reward of five hundred pounds for a certain diamond necklace, a soiled yellow letter signed "Thomas Gretton," and an engraving of "The Monk."