Volume Two—Chapter Five.
Sir Gordon Bourne Asks Questions.
“I want a few words with you, Bayle,” said Sir Gordon, as the pair walked back towards the town.
“Shall we talk here, or will you come to my rooms?” and he indicated Mrs Pinet’s house, to which he had moved when Hallam married.
“Your rooms! No, man; I never feel as if I can breathe in your stuffy lodgings. How can you exist in them?”
“I do, and very happily,” said Bayle, laughing. “Shall we go to your private room at the bank?”
“Bless my soul! no, man!” cried Sir Gordon hastily. “The very last place. Let’s get out in the fields, and talk there. More room, and no tattling, inquisitive people about. No Gemps.”
“Very good,” said Bayle, wondering, and very anxious at heart, for he knew the baronet’s proclivities.
They turned off on to one of the footpaths, chatting upon indifferent matters, till all at once Sir Gordon exclaimed:
“’Pon my honour, I don’t think I like you, Bayle.”
“I’m very sorry, Sir Gordon, because I really do like you. I’ve always found you a true gentleman at heart, and—”
“Stuff, sir! Silence, sir! Egad, sir, will you hold your tongue? Talking such nonsense to a confirmed valetudinarian with a soured life, and—pish! I don’t want to talk about myself. I was going to say that I did not like you.”
“You did say so,” replied the curate, smiling.
“Ah! well, it’s the truth. Why do you stop here?”
“To annoy you, perhaps,” said Bayle laughing. “Well, no: I like my people, and I’m vain enough to think I am able to do a little good.”
“You do, Bayle, you do,” said Sir Gordon, taking his arm and leaning upon him in a confidential way. “You’re a good fellow, Bayle; and Castor here would miss you horribly, if you left.”
“Oh, nonsense!”
“It is not nonsense, sir. Why, you do more good among the people in one year than I have done in all my life.”
“Well, I think I have amerced you pretty well lately for my poor, Sir Gordon.”
“Yes, man, but it was your doing. I shouldn’t have given a shilling. But look here, I was going to say, why is it that I come to you, and make such a confidant of you?”
“Do you wish to confide something to me now?”
“Yes, of course; one can’t go to one’s solicitor, and I’ve no friends. Plenty of club acquaintances: but no friends. There, don’t shake your head like that, man. Well, only a few. By-the-way, charming little girl that.”
“What, little Julie?” cried Bayle, with his cheeks flushing with pleasure.
“Yes; and your prime favourite, I see. I don’t like her, though. Too much of her father.”
“She has his eyes and hair,” said Bayle thoughtfully; “but there is the sweet grave look in her face that her mother used to wear when I first came to Castor.”
“Hush! Silence! Hold your tongue!” cried Sir Gordon impatiently. “Look here—her father—I want to talk about him.”
“About Mr Hallam?”
“Yes. What do you think of him now?”
Bayle laid his hand upon Sir Gordon’s.
“We are old friends, Sir Gordon; I know your little secret; you know mine. Don’t ask me that question.”
“As a very old trusty friend I do ask you. Bayle, it is a duty. Look here, man; I hold an important trust in connection with that bank. I’m afraid I have not done my duty. It is irksome to me, a wealthy man, and I am so much away yachting. Let me see; you never have had dealings with us.”
“No, Sir Gordon, never.”
“Well, as I was saying, I am so much away. You are always feeling the pulses of the people. Now, as you are a great deal at Hallam’s, tell me as a friend in a peculiar position, what do you think of Hallam?”
“Do you mean as a friend?”
“I mean as a business man, as our manager. What do the people say?”
“I cannot retail to you all their little tattle, Sir Gordon. Look here, sir, what do you mean? Speak out.”
Sir Gordon grew red and was silent for a few minutes.
“I will be plain, Bayle,” he said at last. “The fact is I am very uneasy.”
“About Hallam?”
“Yes. He occupies a position of great trust.”
“But surely Mr Trampleasure shares it.”
“Trampleasure shares nothing. He’s a mere dummy: a bank ornament. There, I don’t say I suspect Hallam, but I cannot help seeing that he is living far beyond his means.”
“But you have the books—the statements?”
“Yes; and everything is perfectly correct. I do know something about figures, and at our last audit there was not a penny wrong.”
Bayle drew a breath full of relief.
“Every security, every deed was in its place, and the bank was never in a more prosperous state.”
“Then of what do you complain?”
“That is what I do not know. All I know, Bayle, is that I am uneasy, and dissatisfied about him. Can you help me?”
“How can I help you?”
“Can you tell me something to set my mind at rest, and make me think that Hallam is a strictly honourable man, so that I can go off again yachting. I cannot exist away from the sea.”
“I am afraid I can tell you nothing, Sir Gordon.”
“Not from friend to friend?”
“I am the trusted friend of the Hallams’. I am free of their house. They have entrusted a great deal of the education of their child to me!”
“Well, tell me this. You know the people. What do they say of Hallam in the town?”
“I have never heard an unkind word respecting him unless from disappointed people, to whom, I suppose from want of confidence in their securities, he has refused loans.”
“That’s praising him,” said Sir Gordon. “Do the people seem to trust him?”
“Oh! certainly.”
“More praise. But do they approve of his way of living? Hasn’t he a lot of debts in the town?”
Bayle was silent.
“Ah! that pinches. Well, now does not that seem strange?”
“I know nothing whatever of Mr Hallam’s private affairs. He may perhaps have lost his own money, and his indebtedness be due to his endeavours to recoup himself.”
“Yes,” said Sir Gordon, dryly. “What a lovely day!”
“It is delightful,” said the curate, with a sigh of relief, as they turned back.
“I was going to start to-morrow for a run up the Norway fiords.”
“Indeed; so soon?”
“Yes,” said Sir Gordon, dryly; “but I am not going now.”
They parted at the entrance of the town, and directly after the curate became aware of the fact that old Gemp was looking at him very intently.
He forgot it the next moment as he entered his room, to be followed directly after by his landlady, who drew his attention to a note upon the chimney-piece in Thickens’s formal, clerkly hand.
“One of the school children brought this, sir; and, begging your pardon,” cried the woman, colouring indignantly, “if it isn’t making too bold to ask such a thing of you, sir, don’t you think you might say a few words next Sunday about Poll-prying, and asking questions?”
“Really,” said Bayle, smiling; “I’m afraid it would be very much out of place, Mrs Pinet.”
“Well, I’m sorry you say so, sir, for the way that Gemp goes on gets to be beyond bearing. He actually stopped that child, took the letter from him, read the direction, and then asked the boy who it was from, and whether he was to wait for an answer.”
“Never mind, Mrs Pinet; it is very complimentary of Mr Gemp to take so much interest in my affairs.”
“It made me feel quite popped, sir,” cried the woman; “but of course it be no business of mine.”
Bayle read the letter, and changed colour, as he connected it with Sir Gordon’s questions, for it was a request that the curate would come up and see Thickens that evening on very particular business.