Chapter Forty Eight.
An Invitation.
“Hallo, young Grace,” said Mr Jabez Rowle, as I was shown up one evening into his room, to find him, snuff-box on the table and pen in hand, reading away at his paper, and, as I entered, smiling with satisfaction as he pounced upon a literal error, and marked it in the margin. “How are you?”
I said I was quite well, and he pointed to several pen marks at the side of the column.
“There’s reading,” he said contemptuously. “I’m ashamed of these daily papers, that I am. Well, how are wheels and lathes and steam-engines, eh? Bah! what a contemptible young sneak you were to leave so good a business for oil and steam and steel-filings. I give you up now. Glad to see you, though; sit down. Have a pinch or snuff?”
“No, thanks,” I said, smiling.
“Humph! how you grow, you young dog; why, you’ll soon be a man. Better have a pinch; capital bit of snuff.”
I shook my head, and he went on, smiling grimly at me the while.
“No business to have left me, Grace. I should have made a man of you. Well, how are you getting on?”
“Capitally,” I said.
“Don’t believe it. Better have stopped with me. Heard from Peter?”
“No,” I said eagerly. “Have you?”
“Yes. Just the same as usual. Down at Rowford still, smoking himself to death. Hah! capital pinch of snuff this,” he added, regaling himself again. “Sent his love to you, and said I was to tell you—tell you—where the dickens did I put that letter?” he continued, pulling a bundle of dip-proofs out of his breast-pocket, and hunting them over—“said I was to tell you—ah, here it is—to tell you—Ah—‘Tell young Grace I shall come up to town and see him some day, and I’ll give you a look up too.’ Bah! Don’t want him: won’t have him. We should be sure to quarrel. He’d come here, and sit and smoke all day—where’s my—oh, here it is.”
He took a couple of pinches of snuff in a queer, excited way, and snapped his fingers loudly.
“I shall be very, very glad to see him when he does come,” I said warmly.
“Ah, yes, of course you will. He’s got some papers or something, he says, for you.”
“Has he?”
“So he says. Hang Peter! I don’t like him, somehow.”
There was a comical look of chagrin in the old man’s face as he spoke; but it was mingled with a dry, humorous air that refused to be concealed, and I seemed to feel in my heart that if the brothers met, Mr Jabez would be thoroughly cordial.
“Well, I’m glad you did condescend to call, young engine-driver,” he said at last; “as it happens, I’m not busy to-night. You won’t take a pinch of snuff?”
I shook my head.
“What will you have, then? Have some almonds and raisins? Figs? Some oranges? Well, some sweetstuff? They’ve got some capital cocoa-nut candy downstairs! No? Well, have some candied peel?”
“No, thank you, Mr Jabez,” I said, laughing. “Why, what a baby you do think me.”
“Well, so you are,” he growled. “You don’t want me to ask you to have beer, or grog, or cigars, do you?”
“Oh no!” I said, laughing.
“Good job, too, because you wouldn’t catch me giving them to you. Well, how’s your policeman?”
“Quite well.”
“Ever see Hallett now?”
“Every day nearly.”
“Humph! Decent fellow, Hallett; sorry he left us. Cleanest proofs I ever had. That man always read his stick, Grace. You always read yours?”
“But you forget I am not a printer now, Mr Jabez.”
“No, I don’t, stupid. Can’t you see I was speaking in metaphors? Always read your stick, boy, through life. When you’ve done a thing, go over it again to see if it’s right; and then, at the end, you’ll find your proof-sheets of life are not half so foul. Tell Hallett, when you see him again, to give me a look up. I rather liked him.”
“Why, you never seemed to like him, Mr Jabez,” I said.
“Well, what of that, boy? Can’t a man like anybody without always going about and grinning?”
He took another pinch of snuff, and then nodded and tapped his box.
“How’s Mr Grimstone?” I said, smiling.
“Oh, hard as a nut, and as awkward. Gives me a deal of trouble.”
“And is Jem Smith with you still?”
“With me? No; but he’s in a house close by, the great stupid lout! He’s got whiskers now, and grown more thick-headed than ever. Grimstone had a sharp illness, though, over that affair.”
“What affair?” I asked.
“Why, when the partnership was broken up—you know?”
“No,” I said, wonderingly.
“Why, you must have heard. When John Lister was bankrupt. He was dead in with the money-lenders, and he had to give up, you know.”
“What! was he ruined?”
“Ruined? yes, a gambling fool; and if Mr Ruddle hadn’t been pretty firm, the rascal would have ruined him too—pulled the house down.”
“This is news,” I said.
“Yes, and bad news, too,” said the old fellow. “Five hundred pounds of my savings went—lent money—for him to make ducks and drakes!”
“Oh, Mr Jabez,” I said: “I am very sorry.”
“Don’t deserve it,” he said, taking another pinch; “served me right for being such a fool. I don’t mind now; I never cry over spilt milk, but it nearly broke poor old Grim’s heart. Five hundred of his went, too, and it was very nearly being more.”
“I remember something about it,” I said. “You were speaking on the subject once before me.”
“Ah, so we were. Well, it was a warning to me, Grace. Temptation, you know.”
“Temptation?”
“Yes, to get bonus and high interest. Playing usurer, my boy. Serve us both right. Don’t you ever be led on to lending money on usury.”
“I’m not likely ever to have any to lend,” I said, laughing.
“I don’t know that,” he said, making another reference to his snuff-box. “Peter said in one of his letters that he thought there was some money that ought to come to you.”
“I’m afraid not,” I said, laughing. “I’ve a long debt to pay yet.”
“You!—you in debt, you young rascal!” he exclaimed angrily.
“I always said I would some day pay off my father’s debts, Mr Jabez,” I said; and then my words brought up such a flood of sad recollections, that I was about to eagerly change the subject, when Mr Jabez leaned over to me and took my hand.
“Good lad,” he said, shaking it up and down. “Good lad. I like that. I don’t believe you ever will pay them, you know; but I like the sound of it all the same.”
He kept on shaking my hand some time, and only left it to take another pinch of snuff.
“And has Mr Lister quite gone from the firm?”
“Oh, yes, quite, my lad. He was up to his eyes in debt, and when he didn’t marry that girl, and get her money to pay himself off clear, he went smash at once. Lucky escape for her. I’m afraid he was a bad one.”
“And what is he doing now?”
“What, Lister? Set up a rival shop on borrowed money; doing all he can to cut down his old partner, but he’ll do no good. Can’t get on. Hasn’t got a man on the premises who can read.”
“Indeed!” I said.
“Not a soul, Grace. Why, you wouldn’t believe it, my lad,” he continued, tapping me in the shirt-front with his snuff-box, “but I had one of their Chancery-bills in the other day—big quarto, you know, pica type—and there were two turned n’s for u’s in the second page.”
“Never?” I said, to humour him.
“Fact, sir, fact,” he said, taking another pinch of snuff and snapping his fingers triumphantly. “Why, I’d hardly forgive that in a daily paper where there’s a rush on, and it’s got up in the night; but in a thing like a Chancery-bill it’s inexcusable. Well, now about yourself, Grace. I’m glad you are getting on, boy. Never mind what I said; it’s better than being a reader, and growing into a snuffy cantankerous old scarecrow like me. Read your stick well, my boy, and I hope—no, I’m sure you’ll get on. But I say, what will you have to eat?”
“I’m not hungry, Mr Jabez,” I said; “and, look here, I haven’t delivered my message to you.”
“Message? To me?”
“Yes, sir. Miss Carr wished me to ask you if you would come and dine with her to-morrow.”
“Me? Dine with Miss Carr—Carr—Carr? Why, that’s the girl Lister was to have married.”
“Yes—Miss Carr,” I said.
“But me dine with her! Why, she hasn’t fallen in love with me now, has she?”
“Oh no,” I said, laughing. “She wants to see you on business.”
“See me on business? why, Grace,” he said excitedly, “I was to be paid my five hundred out of her money, and wasn’t paid. Is she repenting, and going to give it to me?”
“No,” I said; “I don’t think it’s that.”
“No, of course not,” he said thoughtfully. “Couldn’t take it if were. What does she want, then? Do you know?”
I nodded.
“What is it, then?”
“I am in Miss Carr’s confidence,” I said; “and I do not feel at liberty to speak about the matter till after you have seen her.”
“Let me see,” said the old man; “she’s very pretty, isn’t she?”
“Beautiful?” I exclaimed enthusiastically.
“Humph! Then I don’t think I shall go, Grace.”
“Not go? Why not?”
“These handsome women can wheedle a man out of anything. I’ve lost five hundred over Lister, and I don’t want to be wheedled out of any more.”
“You needn’t be afraid, Mr Jabez,” I said, laughing.
“Think not?”
“I’m sure not. Miss Carr wants to advance some money to help some one.”
“Well, then, let her do it.”
“She cannot well do it herself, and she asked me if I knew anyone, and I named you.”
“Hang your impudence, then,” he said, taking snuff fiercely. “You know I was fool enough to advance money to Lister, so you recommend me as an easy one to do it again.”
“No, no, Mr Jabez; you don’t understand me,” I said, laughing. “Miss Carr wishes to find the money, but she wants it to seem as if it came through you.”
“Oh!”
Here he refreshed himself with his snuff, looking at me suspiciously the while.
“Look here, young Grace,” he said; “I’m not fond of doing things in the dark; so, as we are old friends, suppose you make a clean breast of what all this means. You know, I suppose?”
“Yes, I know everything,” I replied.
“Well, then, out with it.”
“That I cannot do without being guilty of a breach of confidence, Mr Rowle,” I replied. “If you will come up to Miss Carr’s to-morrow evening at half-past six, you may be sure of a warm welcome, and I shall be there to meet you.”
“Phee-ew!” he whistled, “how fine we have got to be, Grace. Do we dine late every day, sir?”
“No; nonsense,” I said, laughing. “Miss Carr is very kind to me, though: and she wished me to be there to meet you.”
“Well, but, Grace, you know,” said the old man, “I’m such a queer, rough sort of a fellow. I’m not used to that sort of thing. I’ve read about it often enough; but I suppose—oh, you know, I couldn’t come?”
“I shall tell Miss Carr you will,” I said, rising; and after a few more words, the old man promised, and I went away.