Chapter Eighteen.
Clive.
Clive’s shyness and depression made it no easy matter to get at the facts, even when he had begun to tell them. He was cast down by this failure of what he had set his heart upon, slow to believe that he was trusted, and on his side suspicious of the other man’s intentions, until Jack grew angry. It is difficult for those who all their life long have been accustomed to have unhesitating credit given to their word, to understand the doubts, the fears of those less fortunate in trust, though perhaps not less deserving of it. And yet as Clive sat in the coffee room, with his elbows on the table, his misery was so apparent that Jack resolved to do his best to pull him through. He worked his questions patiently backwards and forwards.
“All that’s clear enough,” he said, leaning back and clasping his hands round his knee. “You owed a little money, and that means of escape—though destruction would be the better word—always is placed conveniently near at hand. Don’t tell me any more about that part of the business. The other half is the most important. You had scraped together the money, principal and interest?”
“Every penny,” said Clive looking up quickly. “How could you manage that?”
“I’m sure I hardly know,” he said with a half laugh. Then he added, with more confidence than he had yet shown—“You wouldn’t understand my shifts. I sold some things, and the rest I got out of myself somehow. I wonder now I didn’t break down.”
“I expect you did,” muttered Ibbetson, glancing at the hollow cheeks, and reflecting that this foolish attempt at escape was probably the outcome of broken-down nerves resulting from a life of semi-starvation. And Trent had looked on pitilessly! Clive went on with his story in a dull voice, making no attempt to appeal to his hearer’s sympathies:
“I was sent down to Birmingham a day or two before it became due, and I left the money with a man I knew—Smith. I didn’t hear anything, but I never doubted its being all right till I got back and found that he had bolted and that the money had never been paid. From that day to this I haven’t heard a word of him. I dare say you don’t believe me.”
“But I do,” said Ibbetson impatiently. “My dear fellow, for pity’s sake, pluck up a little spirit! Why shouldn’t I believe you?”
“Nobody does, that’s all.”
“Well, we’ll make them. Now, why don’t you trace this man?”
“I can’t.”
“How have you tried?”
“I went to his lodgings of course, and made no end of a row. There they said that he went out one day—the day after I left, it must have been—with a bag, and has never come back. I’ve been there again and again and never got anything new. Then, you see, I can’t afford detectives and all that sort of thing—”
“They’ll soon get hold of him,” said Ibbetson, looking at his watch.
“No, they won’t, for Oliver Trent was awfully good, and undertook to set them to work.”
“And paid the money for you besides?”
“The fifty pounds? Yes. I owe it to him, and if you’d let me go, I’d have paid it back one of these days.”
“Then I can’t see why you shouldn’t have stopped on and worked steadily. I don’t suppose he’d have pressed you.”
“I would, if I’d only thought he believed me. But he didn’t, not a bit more than the rest of them. It takes all the spirit out of a fellow. And now, they’ll taunt me about this—I tell you, Mr Ibbetson, it’s no use. I can’t face it all again.”
“Nonsense,” said Jack sharply. “Don’t let your troubles drive you into being a coward. It seems to me, though I don’t pretend to preach, that there are one or two things you might have remembered, Masters, which would have tided you over. Not face it? Face it, and clear it up.”
“That’s very fine to say,” groaned Clive.
“Well, we’ll see. It’s time now to be off. And remember as to this affair, if you keep your own counsel, nobody but Davis need know anything about it. It’s a pity you haven’t made more of a friend of old Davis.”
When they reached London, Ibbetson took his companion to his own lodgings. He had intended to have gone down to his father’s for Christmas, but that was out of the question if he was to follow up Clive’s affairs, and indeed the hurrying events of the last few days made him glad of some hours of leisure. Two letters were waiting for him—one, a kind, warm, rather shy letter from his stepmother, which he tossed more impatiently aside than it deserved; the other from Miss Cartwright. This he read eagerly. Excepting herself, they were all well, she said; the weather mild, Rome not yet full. She was a good deal confined to the house, but sometimes was able to take a drive on the Pincio, and when this was the case nothing would tempt Cartouche away from accompanying her, though she was sure he found it very dull to be shut into a carriage, and certainly presented a comical appearance, for the people stared at him with great astonishment. For Cartouche’s sake, she almost wished they had not gone to Rome. Phillis was much with her. She was well, and found the Peningtons comfortable acquaintances, keen on seeing what they could, and apparently delighted to have Phillis with them. Of course that made it more pleasant for her. There was a good deal more of the same sort in the letter, gentle loving little remarks falling here and there, and leaving no sting.
No sting? Jack extracted something very like one from the innocent words. Was this man going to make love to Phillis? He read the letter over and over again, each time with increasing dissatisfaction. Yet what was it to him? Were they not separated? Did he even love her? He was not sure. He only hated Mr Penington, and indulged in some expression of his feelings.
Altogether it was an odd sort of Christmas Day which followed. He had a strange unreasonable impression as if he were shut out of the homes which were his by right; thoroughly unreasonable when it came to be sifted, since it was very certain that there was not one at which he would not have been welcome. Perhaps he nursed this notion, to account for the cloud which seemed to have grown up since he read his Roman letter with all Miss Cartwright’s kind messages, but the impression of banishment and disgrace ever after haunted his remembrance of the day.
In the afternoon he took Clive to the lodgings of the man who had absconded, asking some questions by the way; the lad seldom opening his heart sufficiently to speak without being questioned. Yet every now and then Jack caught a glimpse which showed him he was not ungrateful.
“Was Smith a steady fellow?” he asked. “Did he seem in want of money?”
“Oh, he wanted money, of course. Most of my friends do,” said Clive with a laugh. “But he was steady enough. The last man in the world I should have expected to serve me so. This is the street.”
“Well, keep well out of sight,” directed Jack. “We’ll see if I can’t make an impression on the landlady.”
He found her voluble over her wrongs—“To have gone off quite unexpected without by your leave or with your leave, and not a word of notice, nor to have heard nothing from that day to this, and the rent owing, and—”
“It seems strange to me that he did not take his things,” hazarded Jack.
The woman gave him a quick glance.
“Things! There was little enough he had. He took his carpet bag, and in that there was everything he had of value, that you may be sure of, and me such a loser and quite unsuspecting; and as for the bits he left behind, well, sir, if you wish for an inventory, there’s a bootjack and a clothes-brush, and—”
“Never mind the things,” said Ibbetson pleasantly. “I quite understand, as you say, that they’re not likely to be worth much. It’s Mr Smith himself that I’m anxious to find. Don’t you think he mentioned where he was going, and that it may have slipped your memory?”
“Oh, my memory is good enough I’m not of that age to be growing forgetful,” said the woman with a toss of her head. But she was evidently mollified.
“That’s exactly what I should have thought, only I couldn’t make it out; for I am sure when I go away for a day or two I always tell my landlady, and Mr Smith would probably have valued you sufficiently to do the same, so that I should have expected him to say something.”
“Well, sir, he did mention a name.”
“I was certain he would. But I dare say you naturally thought, when he didn’t make his appearance the next day or afterwards, that it was only intended to put you on a wrong scent?”
“Well, I don’t deny it. And you see, sir, they came bothering me so with questions, one young gentleman in particular, I’m sure fit to tear the place down; and there’s so many unpleasant things as happens on the papers, and my sister Mrs Walker, says she, ‘Mary Jane, don’t you go mixing yourself up with you don’t know what,’ and another gentleman as come, he as good as said the same.”
“Yes, I can quite understand,” said Ibbetson quietly. But he was really a good deal startled. “This other gentleman, I think I know him, tall, with a reddish face, and a soft voice?”
“Yes, sir,” said the woman, staring.
“Then you mentioned the name to him?”
“Well, I did. And he advised me, very serious like, not to let it out, particularly not to the young gentleman. There were unpleasantnesses about, and I might get into a good deal of trouble—that’s what he said, in his very words.”
Jack was reflecting how much Trent had paid by way of impressing his advice. He took out a sovereign, and saw that she saw it.
“There’s no chance of that any longer, I give you my word,” he said. “I’m afraid the name of the place won’t go far towards finding him, but I should like to have it.”
She hesitated. Ibbetson kicked a stone under his feet.
“You’re sure I shan’t get into trouble?”
“Certain.”
“You don’t look like one to deceive. Well, it was Worthing, as he spoke of.”
“Any street?”
“No, only somewhere near a church. But that gentleman couldn’t find him there.”
“Thank you. That doesn’t at all signify. I’m very much obliged to you, and I hope, after taking up your time, you’ll allow me to offer you this very small remuneration.”
Jack said it with his finest manner, and the woman was delighted—more even with the manner than the sovereign. Then he rejoined Clive, who was waiting for him.