Читать книгу Elster's Folly - Henry Wood - Страница 2

Had Percival Elster lingered ever so short a time near the clerk's house that morning he would have met that functionary himself; for in less than a minute after he had passed out of sight Jabez Gum's door opened, and Jabez Gum glided out of it.

It is a term chiefly applied to ghosts; but Mr. Gum was a great deal more like a ghost than like a man. He was remarkably tall and thin; a very shadow; with a white shadow of a face, and a nose that might have served as a model for a mask in a carnival of guys. A sharp nose, twice the length and half the breadth of any ordinary nose—a very ferret of a nose; its sharp tip standing straight out into the air. People said, with such a nose Mr. Gum ought to have a great deal of curiosity. And they were right; he had a great deal in a quiet way.

A most respectable man was Mr. Gum, and he prided himself upon it. Mr. Gum—more often called Clerk Gum in the village—had never done a wrong thing in his life, or fallen into a scrape. He had been altogether a pattern to Calne in general, and to its black sheep in particular. Dr. Ashton himself could not have had less brought against him than Clerk Gum; and it would just have broken Mr. Gum's heart had his good name been tarnished in ever so slight a degree. Perhaps no man living had been born with a larger share of self-esteem than Jabez Gum. Clerk of the parish longer than Dr. Ashton had been its Rector, Jabez Gum had lived at his ease in a pecuniary point of view. It was one of those parishes (I think few of them remain now) where the clerk's emoluments are large. He also held other offices; was an agent for one or two companies, and was looked upon as an exceedingly substantial man for his station in life. Perhaps he was less so than people imagined. The old saying is all too true: "Nobody knows where the shoe pinches but he who wears it."

Jabez Gum had his thorn, as a great many more of us have ours, if the outside world only knew it. And Jabez, at odd moments, when the thorn pierced him very sharply, had been wont to compare his condition to St. Paul's, and to wonder whether the pricks inflicted on that holy man could have bled as his own did. He meant no irreverence when he thought this; neither do I in writing it. We are generally wounded in the most vulnerable spot about us, and Jabez Gum made no exception to the rule. He had been assailed in his cherished respectability, his self-esteem. Assailed and scarred. How broad and deep the scar was Jabez never told the world, which as a rule does not sympathise with such scars, but turns aside in its cruel indifference. The world had almost forgotten the scar now, and supposed Clerk Gum had done the same. It was all over and done with years ago.

Jabez Gum's wife—to whom you will shortly have the honour of an introduction, but she is in her bedroom just now—had borne him one child, and only one. How this boy was loved, how tenderly reared, let Calne tell you. Mrs. Gum had to endure no inconsiderable amount of ridicule at the time from her gossiping friends, who gave Willy sundry endearing names, applied in derision. Certainly, if any mother ever was bound up in a child, Mrs. Gum was in hers. The boy was well brought up. A good education was given him; and at the age of sixteen he went to London and to fortune. The one was looked upon as a natural sequence to the other. Some friend of Jabez Gum's had interested himself to procure the lad's admission into one of the great banks as a junior clerk. He might rise in time to be cashier, manager, even partner; who knew? Who knew indeed? And Clerk Gum congratulated himself, and was more respectable than ever.

Better that Willy Gum had remained at Calne! And yet, and again—who knew? When the propensity for ill-doing exists it is sure to come out, no matter where. There were some people in Calne who could have told Clerk Gum, even then, that Willy, for his age, was tolerably fast and forward. Mrs. Gum had heard of one or two things that had caused her hair to rise on end with horror; ay, and with apprehension; but, foolish mother that she was, not a syllable did she breathe to the clerk; and no one else ventured to tell him.

She talked to Willy with many sighs and tears; implored him to be a good boy and enter on good courses, not on bad ones that would break her heart. Willy, the little scapegrace, was willing to promise anything. He laughed and made light of it; it wasn't his fault if folks told stories about him; she couldn't be so foolish as to give ear to them. London? Oh, he should be all right in London! One or two fellows here were rather fast, there was no denying it; and they drew him with them; they were older than he, and ought to have known better. Once away from Calne, they could have no more influence over him, and he should be all right.

She believed him; putting faith in the plausible words. Oh, what trust can be so pure, and at the same time so foolish, as that placed by a mother in a beloved son! Mrs. Gum had never known but one idol on earth; he who now stood before her, lightly laughing at her fears, making his own tale good. She leaned forward and laid her hands upon his shoulders and kissed him with that impassioned fervour that some mothers could tell of, and whispered that she would trust him wholly.

Mr. Willy extricated himself with as little impatience as he could help: these embraces were not to his taste. And yet the boy did love his mother. She was not at all a wise woman, or a clever one; rather silly, indeed, in many things; but she was fond of him. At this period he was young-looking for his age, slight, and rather undersized, with an exceedingly light complexion, a wishy-washy sort of face with no colour in it, unmeaning light eyes, white eyebrows, and ragged-looking light hair with a tawny shade upon it.

Willy Gum departed for London, and entered on his engagement in the great banking-house of Goldsworthy and Co.

How he went on in it Calne could not get to learn, though it was moderately inquisitive upon the point. His father and mother heard from him occasionally; and once the clerk took a sudden and rather mysterious journey to London, where he stayed for a whole week. Rumour said—I wonder where such rumours first have their rise—that Willy Gum had fallen into some trouble, and the clerk had had to buy him out of it at the cost of a mint of money. The clerk, however, did not confirm this; and one thing was indisputable: Willy retained his place in the banking-house. Some people looked on this fact as a complete refutation of the rumour.

Then came a lull. Nothing was heard of Willy; that is, nothing beyond the reports of Mrs. Gum to her gossips when letters arrived: he was well, and getting on well. It was only the lull that precedes a storm; and a storm indeed burst on quiet Calne. Willy Gum had robbed the bank and disappeared.

In the first dreadful moment, perhaps the only one who did not disbelieve it was Clerk Gum. Other people said there must be some mistake: it could not be. Kind old Lord Hartledon came down in his carriage to the clerk's house—he was too ill to walk—and sat with the clerk and the weeping mother, and said he was sure it could not be so bad as was reported. The next morning saw handbills—great, staring, large-typed handbills—offering a reward for the discovery of William Gum, posted all over Calne.

Once more Clerk Gum went to London. What he did there no one knew. One thing only was certain—he did not find Willy or any trace of him. The defalcation was very nearly eight hundred pounds; and even if Mr. Gum could have refunded that large sum, he might not do so, said Calne, for of course the bank would not compound a felony. He came back looking ten years older; his tall, thin form more shadowy, his nose longer and sharper. Not a soul ventured to say a syllable to him, even of condolence. He told Lord Hartledon and his Rector that no tidings whatever could be gleaned of his unhappy son; the boy had disappeared, and might be dead for all they knew to the contrary.

So the handbills wore themselves out on the walls, serving no purpose, until Lord Hartledon ordered them to be removed; and Mrs. Gum lived in tears, and audibly wished herself dead. She had not seen her boy since he quitted Calne, considerably more than two years before, and he was now nearly nineteen. A few days' holiday had been accorded him by the banking-house each Christmas; but the first Christmas Willy wrote word that he had accepted an invitation to go home with a brother-clerk; the second Christmas he said he could not obtain leave of absence—which Mrs. Gum afterwards found was untrue; so that Willy Gum had not been at Calne since he left it. And whenever his mother thought of him—and that was every hour of the day and night—it was always as the fair, young, light-haired boy, who seemed to her little more than a child.

A year or so of uncertainty, of suspense, of wailing, and then came a letter from Willy, cautiously sent. It was not addressed directly to Mrs. Gum, to whom it was written, but to one of Willy's acquaintances in London, who enclosed it in an envelope and forwarded it on.

Such a letter! To read it one might have thought Mr. William Gum had gone out under the most favourable auspices. He was in Australia; had gone up to seek his fortune at the gold-diggings, and was making money rapidly. In a short time he should refund with interest the little sum he had borrowed from Goldsworthy and Co., and which was really not taken with any ill intention, but was more an accident than anything else. After that, he should accumulate money on his own score, and—all things being made straight at home—return and settle down, a rich man for life. And she—his mother—might rely on his keeping his word. At present he was at Melbourne; to which place he and his mates had come to bring their acquired gold, and to take a bit of a spree after their recent hard work. He was very jolly, and after a week's holiday they should go back again. And he hoped his father had overlooked the past; and he remained ever her affectionate son, William Gum.

The effect of this letter upon Mrs. Gum was as though a dense cloud had suddenly lifted from the world, and given place to a flood of sunshine. We estimate things by comparison. Mrs. Gum was by nature disposed to look on the dark side of things, and she had for the whole year past been indulging the most dread pictures of Willy and his fate that any woman's mind ever conceived. To hear that he was in life, and well, and making money rapidly, was the sweetest news, the greatest relief she could ever experience in this world.

Clerk Gum—relieved also, no doubt—received the tidings in a more sober spirit; almost as if he did not dare to believe in them. The man's heart had been well-nigh broken with the blow that fell upon him, and nothing could ever heal it thoroughly again. He read the letter in silence; read it twice over; and when his wife broke out into a series of rapt congratulations, and reproached him mildly for not appearing to think it true, he rather cynically inquired what then, if true, became of her dreams.

For Mrs. Gum was a dreamer. She was one of those who are now and again visited by strange dreams, significant of the future. Poor Mrs. Gum carried these dreams to an excess; that is, she was always having them and always talking about them. It had been no wonder, with her mind in so miserable a state regarding her son, that her dreams in that first twelve-month had generally been of him and generally bad. The above question, put by her husband, somewhat puzzled her. Her dreams had foreshadowed great evil still to Willy; and her dreams had never been wrong yet.

But, in the enjoyment of positive good, who thinks of dreams? No one. And Mrs. Gum's grew a shade brighter, and hope again took possession of her heart.

Two years rolled on, during which they heard twice from Willy; satisfactory letters still, in a way. Both testified to his "jolly" state: he was growing rich, though not quite so rapidly as he had anticipated; a fellow had to spend so much! Every day he expected to pick up a nugget which would crown his fortune. He complained in these letters that he did not hear from home; not once had news reached him; had his father and mother abandoned him?

The question brought forth a gush of tears from Mrs. Gum, and a sharp abuse of the post-office. The clerk took the news philosophically, remarking that the wonder would have been had Willy received the letters, seeing that he seemed to move about incessantly from place to place.

Close upon this came another letter, written apparently in haste. Willy's "fortune" had turned into reality at last; he was coming home with more gold than he could count; had taken his berth in the good ship Morning Star, and should come off at once to Calne, when the ship reached Liverpool. There was a line written inside the envelope, as though he had forgotten to include it in the letter: "I have had one from you at last; the first you wrote, it seems. Thank dad for what he has done for me. I'll make it all square with him when I get home."

This had reference to a fact which Calne did not know. In that unhappy second visit of Clerk Gum's to London, he did succeed in appeasing the wrath of Goldsworthy and Co., and paid in every farthing of the money. How far he might have accomplished this but for being backed by the urgent influence of old Lord Hartledon, was a question. One thing was in his favour: the firm had not taken any steps whatever in the matter, and those handbills circulated at Calne were the result of a misapprehension on the part of an officious local police-officer. Things had gone too far for Goldsworthys graciously to condone the offence—and Clerk Gum paid in his savings of years. This was the fact written by Mrs. Gum to her son, which had called forth the line in the envelope.

Alas! those were the last tidings ever received from Willy Gum. Whilst Mrs. Gum lived in a state of ecstacy, showing the letter to her neighbours and making loving preparations for his reception, the time for the arrival of the Morning Star at Liverpool drew on, and passed, and the ship did not arrive.

A time of anxious suspense to all who had relations on board—for it was supposed she had foundered at sea—and tidings came to them. An awful tale; a tale of mutiny and wrong and bloodshed. Some of the loose characters on board the ship—and she was bringing home such—had risen in disorder within a month of their sailing from Melbourne; had killed the captain, the chief officer, and some of the passengers and crew.

The ringleader was a man named Gordon; who had incited the rest to the crime, and killed the captain with his own hand. Obtaining command of the ship, they put her about, and commenced a piratical raid. One vessel they succeeded in disarming, despoiling, and then leaving her to her fate. But the next vessel they attacked proved a more formidable enemy, and there was a hand-to-hand struggle for the mastery, and for life or death. The Morning Star was sunk, with the greater portion of her living freight. A few, only some four or five, were saved by the other ship, and conveyed to England.

It was by them the dark tale was brought. The second officer of the Morning Star was one of them; he had been compelled to dissemble and to appear to serve the mutinous band; the others were innocent passengers, whose lives had not been taken. All agreed in one thing: that Gordon, the ringleader, had in all probability escaped. He had put off from the Morning Star, when she was sinking, in one of her best boats; he and some of his lawless helpmates, with a bag of biscuit, a cask of water, and a few bottles that probably contained rum. Whether they succeeded in reaching a port or in getting picked up, was a question; but it was assumed they had done so.

The owners of the Morning Star, half paralyzed at the news of so daring and unusual an outrage, offered the large reward of five hundred pounds for the capture of George Gordon; and Government increased the offer by two hundred, making it seven in all.

Overwhelming tidings for Clerk Gum and his wife! A brief season of agonized suspense ensued for the poor mother; of hopes and fears as to whether Willy was amongst the remnant saved; and then hope died away, for he did not come.

Once more, for the last time, Clerk Gum took a journey, not to London, but to Liverpool. He succeeded in seeing the officer who had been saved; but he could give him no information. He knew the names of the first-class passengers, but only a few of the second-class; and in that class Willy had most likely sailed.

The clerk described his son; and the officer thought he remembered him: he had a good deal of gold on board, he said. One of the passengers spoke more positively. Yes, by Clerk Gum's description, he was sure Willy Gum had been his fellow-passenger in the second cabin, though he did not recollect whether he had heard his name. It seemed, looking back, that the passengers had hardly had time to become acquainted with each other's names, he added. He was sure it was the young man; of very light complexion, ready and rather loose (if Mr. Gum would excuse his saying so) in speech. He had made thoroughly good hauls of gold at the last, and was going home to spend it. He was the second killed, poor fellow; had risen up with a volley of oaths (excuses begged again) to defend the captain, and was struck down and killed.

Poor Jabez Gum gasped. Killed? was the gentleman sure? Quite sure; and, moreover, he saw his body thrown overboard with the rest of the dead. And the money—the gold? Jabez asked, when he had somewhat recovered himself. The passenger laughed—not at the poor father, but at the worse than useless question; gold and everything else on board the Morning Star had gone down with her to the bottom of the sea.

A species of savage impulse rose in the clerk's mind, replacing his first emotion of grief; an impulse that might almost have led him to murder the villain Gordon, could he have come across him. Was there a chance that the man would be taken? he asked. Every chance, if he dared show his face in England, the passenger answered. A reward of seven hundred pounds was an inducement to the survivors to keep their eyes open; and they'd do it, besides, without any reward. Moreover—if Gordon had escaped, his comrades in the boat had escaped with him. They were lawless men like himself, every one of them, and they would be sure to betray him when they found what a price was set upon his capture.

Clerk Gum returned home, bearing to his wife and Calne the final tidings which crushed out all hope. Mrs. Gum sank into a state of wild despair. At first it almost seemed to threaten loss of reason. Her son had been her sole idol, and the idol was shattered. But to witness unreasonably violent grief in others always has a counteracting effect on our own, and Mr. Gum soothed his sorrow and brought philosophy to his aid.

"Look you," said he, one day, sharply to his wife, when she was crying and moaning, "there's two sides to every calamity,—a bright and a dark 'un;" for Mr. Gum was not in the habit of treating his wife, in the privacy of their domestic circle, to the quality-speech kept for the world. "He is gone, and we can't help it; we'd have welcomed him home if we could, and killed the fatted calf, but it was God's will that it shouldn't be. There may be a blessing in it, after all. Who knows but he might have broke out again, and brought upon us what he did before, or worse? For my part, I should never have been without the fear; night and morning it would always have stood before me; not to be driven away. As it is, I am at rest."

She—the wife—took her apron from her eyes and looked at him with a sort of amazed anger.

"Gum! do you forget that he had left off his evil ways, and was coming home to be a comfort to us?"

"No, I don't forget it," returned Mr. Gum. "But who was to say that the mood would last? He might have got through his gold, however much it was, and then—. As it is, Nance Gum, we can sleep quiet in our beds, free from that fear."

Clerk Gum was not, on the whole, a model of suavity in the domestic fold. The first blow that had fallen upon him seemed to have affected his temper; and his helpmate knew from experience that whenever he called her "Nance" his mood was at its worst.

Suppressing a sob, she spoke reproachfully.

"It's my firm belief, Gum, and has been all along, that you cared more for your good name among men than you did for the boy."

"Perhaps I did," he answered, by way of retort. "At any rate, it might have been better for him in the long-run if we—both you and me—hadn't cared for him quite so foolishly in his childhood; we spared the rod and we spoiled the child. That's over, and—"

"It's all over," interrupted Mrs. Gum; "over for ever in this world. Gum, you are very hard-hearted."

"And," he continued, with composure, "we may hope now to live down in time the blow he brought upon us, and hold up our heads again in the face of Calne. We couldn't have done that while he lived."

"We couldn't?"

"No. Just dry up your useless tears, Nancy; and try to think that all's for the best."

But, metaphorically speaking, Mrs. Gum could not dry her tears. Nearly two years had elapsed since the fatal event; and though she no longer openly lamented, filling Calne with her cries and her faint but heartfelt prayers for vengeance on the head of the cruel monster, George Gordon, as she used to do at first, she had sunk into a despairing state of mind that was by no means desirable: a startled, timid, superstitious woman, frightened at every shadow.