Читать книгу The Invisible Foe - Louise Jordan Miln - Страница 12

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One evening, early in the autumn of 1916, Morton Grant passed nervously by the lodge of Deep Dale, and along the carriage drive that twisted and curled to the house.

He had cause enough to be nervous. For the second time in thirty years he was disobeying his chief grossly; and the cause of his present turpitude could scarcely have been more unpleasant or less reassuring.

Under one arm he carried a large book carefully wrapped in brown paper. He carried it as if he feared and disliked it, and yet it and its fellows had been the vessels of his temple and his own dedication for years.

Grant barely came to Deep Dale. Richard Bransby dealt with his subordinates not meanly. A turkey at Christmas, a suitable sum of money on boxing-day, leniency at illness, and a coffin when requisite, were always forthcoming—but an invitation to dinner was unheard and unthought of, and even Grant, in spite of the responsibility and implicit trustedness of his position, and of the intimacy of their boyhood, scarcely once had tasted a brew of his master’s tea.

A nervous little maid, palpably a war-substitute either for the spruce man-servant or the sprucer parlor-maid, one of whom had always admitted him heretofore, answered his ring, and showed him awkwardly into the library. She collided with him as they went in, and collided with the door itself as she went out to announce his presence.

“Tell Mr. Bransby I should be most grateful if he would see me when he is disengaged, and—er—you might add that the matter is—er—urgent—er—that is, as soon as they have quite finished dinner. Just don’t mention my being here until he has left the dining-room—er—in fact, not until he is disengaged—er—alone.”

Left by himself Grant placed his top hat on a table and laid his parcel beside it. He unfastened the string, and partly unwrapped the ledger. Walking to the fireplace, he rolled up the string very neatly and put it carefully in his waistcoat pocket; ready to his hand should he carry the ledger back to London with him; ready to some other service for “Bransby and Co.”—if the ledger remained with his chief.

The clerk glanced about the room—and possibly saw it—but he never turned his back on the big buff book, or his eyes from it long.

It was a fine old-fashioned room, paneled in dark oak. Not in the least gloomy, yet even when, as now, brilliantly lit, fire on the hearth, the electric lamps and wall-lights turned up, it seemed invested with shadows, shadows lending it an impalpable suggestion of mystery. The room was not greatly changed since the spring evening thirteen years ago when Helen had sat on her father’s knee here and grown sleepy at his reading of Dickens. The curtains were new, and two of the pictures. The valuable carpet was the same and most of the furniture. The flowers might have been the same—Helen’s favorite heliotrope and carnations. The dolls were gone. But the banjo on the chesterfield and the box of chocolates on the window-seat scarcely spoke of Bransby, unless they told of a subjugation that had outlasted the dollies.

In the old days the room had been rather exclusively its master’s “den,” more than library, and into which others were not apt to come very freely uninvited. Helen had changed all that, and so had the years’ slow mellowing of Bransby himself. “Daddy’s room” had become the heart of the house, and the gathering-place of the family. But it was his room still, and in his absence, as his presence, it seemed to breathe of his personality.

Grant had waited some minutes, but he still stood nervously, when the employer came in. He eyed Grant rather sourly. Grant stood confused and tongue-tied.

The master let the man wait long enough to grow still more uncomfortable, and then said crisply, “Good-evening, Grant.”

The clerk moved then—one eye in awe on Bransby, one in dread on the ledger. He took a few steps towards Bransby, and began apologetically, “Good—er—ahem—good-evening, Mr. Bransby. I—er—I trust I am not disturbing you, but——”

Bransby interrupted sharply, just a glint of wicked humor in his eye, “Just come from town, eh?”

“Yes, sir—er—quite right——”

“Come straight here from the office, I dare say?” Bransby spoke with a harshness that was a little insolent to so old, and so tried, a servant.

Morton Grant’s pitiful uneasiness was growing. “Well—er—yes, sir, as a matter of fact, I did.”

“I knew it,” Bransby said in cold triumph. It was one of the ineradicable defects of his nature that he enjoyed small and cheap triumphs, and irrespective of what they cost others.

Grant winced. His uneasiness was making him ridiculous, and it threatened to overmaster him. “Er—ahem—” he stammered, “the matter on which I have come is so serious——”

“Grant,” Bransby’s tone was smooth, and so cold that its controlled sneer pricked, “when my health forced me to take a holiday, what instructions did I give you?”

“Why, sir—er—you said that you must not be bothered with business affairs upon any account—not until you instructed me otherwise.”

“And have I instructed you otherwise?” The tone was absolutely sweet, but it made poor Morton Grant’s veins curdle.

“Well, sir,” he said wretchedly—“er—no, sir, you haven’t.”

Bransby looked at his watch. Almost the tyrant was smiling. “There’s a train leaving for town in about forty-five minutes—you will just have time to catch it.” He turned on his heel—he had not sat down—and went towards the door.

Grant began to feel more like jelly than like flesh and bone, but he pulled himself together, remembering what was at stake, and spoke more firmly than he had yet done—more firmly than his employer had often heard him speak. “I beg your pardon,”—he took a step towards Bransby—“sir”—there was entreaty in his voice, and command too—“but you must not send me away like this.”

His tone caught Bransby’s attention. It could not well have failed to do so. The shipbuilder turned and looked at the other keenly. “Why not?” he snapped.

“The thing that brought me here is most important.”

“So important that you feel justified in setting my instructions aside?”

“Yes, sir!” holding his ground now.

Bransby eyed him for a long moment.

Grant did not flinch.

“Sit down.”

Grant did so, and with a sigh of relief—the tension a little eased. What he had before him was hard enough, Heaven knew—but the first point was gained: Bransby would hear him.

“I always thought,” moving towards his own chair beside the writing-table, “that obeying orders was the most sacred thing in your life, Grant. I am anxious to know what could have deprived you of that idea.”

Anxious to know! And when he did know!—Morton Grant began to tremble again, and was speechless.

Bransby studied him thoughtfully. “Well?” he spoke a shade more kindly.

“The matter I—I—I——”

“Yes—yes?” impatience and some sympathy for the other’s distress were struggling.

Well—it had to be told. He had come here to tell it—and to tell it had braved and breasted Bransby’s displeasure as he had never done before. But he could not say it with his eyes on the other’s. He hung his head, ashamed and broken. But he spoke—and without stammer or break: “We’ve been robbed of a large sum of money, sir.”