Chapter Thirty Five.
How Jack and I talked louder than we need have done.
About a week after the experiences narrated in the last chapter, my friend Smith and I went down one morning early to Hawk Street.
We usually took a short walk on our way when we happened to be early, and I don’t exactly know why we did not do so this time. But certain it is that instead of reaching the office at half-past nine, we found ourselves there a few minutes before nine.
The housekeeper was sweeping the stairs and shaking the mats on the pavement as we arrived.
She naturally looked surprised to see us, and said she had the office yet to sweep out, and we had better take a walk.
But, being lazily disposed, we declined the invitation, and determined to brave the dust and go up.
The office was certainly not very tempting for work. The windows were wide open, and the din of omnibuses and other traffic from the street below was almost deafening. Stools and chairs were stacked together in the middle of the floor, and the waste-paper of yesterday littered the whole place. Even our own desks were thick with dust.
Under these depressing circumstances we were forced to admit that possibly the housekeeper was right, and that we had better take a walk.
“It’s a nuisance,” said I, “for I had to leave one or two things unfinished yesterday.”
“I’ve a good mind to try,” said Jack. “Unless I can catch up my work I shall have to stay late to-night, and I don’t want to do that, as father is going to try to get away early.”
So we dusted our desks as best we could, shut the windows to keep out the noise, recovered our stools from the assortment in the middle, and prepared to make the best of it.
“Do you know, Jack,” said I, as I was getting out my papers, “it is so queer to hear you talking of Mr Smith as father? I can hardly realise it yet.”
“No more can I, often,” said Jack, “though I am getting more used to the idea.”
“When are you going to take him to Packworth?” I asked.
“I’m not quite sure. He thinks he can get a week at the end of this month, and I shall try to get the partners to let me take my holiday at the same time.”
“I hope you’ll be able to manage it.”
“So do I. Poor father is in very low spirits at the prospect of meeting Mary, I think. You know we shall have to tell her everything.”
“Will you? Is it necessary?”
“Oh, yes. At least father says it is. If she were to hear of his story from any other source, he says he would never dare see her again. It will be far better to tell her. But I wish it was over.”
“So do I,” I said. “Poor Mary!”
I had got quite into the way of talking of her to Jack by her Christian name, as if she were my sister as well as his.
“I suppose,” said I, “she will still live with Mrs Shield at Packworth?”
“Oh, yes, for the present. There’s no place to bring her to in London till we get a little better off.”
“I hope that won’t be very long,” said I.
“I’m afraid father’s situation on the staff of the Banner is not a very—”
“Hush!” I exclaimed, suddenly.
We had remained, so far, in undisturbed possession of the office, and there was no chance of any new-comer entering without our knowing. But while Jack was speaking I thought I heard a sound, not on the stairs outside, but in the partners’ room, which opened out of the counting-house.
Suppose one of the partners had been there all the while, and heard all we had said.
Jack stopped dead in his talk, and with pale face looked inquiringly at me.
“I thought I heard a noise in there,” said I, pointing to the door.
“What?” said Jack, with a gasp. The same thought was evidently crossing his mind which had crossed mine.
“It can’t be either of the partners,” whispered he, “at this hour.”
“We’d better see,” said I; “it may be a thief.”
We went quietly to the door. All was silent as we listened; and yet I felt I could not have been mistaken about the noise. The door was closed to, but not fastened. Jack opened it softly.
There, sitting at the partners’ table, with his head on his hands, apparently absorbed in work, and unconscious of everything else, sat—Hawkesbury!
A spectre could not have startled and horrified us more!
At first he did not seem to be aware of our presence, and it was not till Jack advanced a step, and involuntarily exclaimed “Hawkesbury!” that he looked up in a flurried way.
“Why, Smith!” he exclaimed, “and Batchelor! What a start you gave me! What are you doing here at this hour, and in this room?”
“We’ve been here a quarter of an hour,” said Jack, solemnly.
“Have you? How quiet you’ve been!”
This, at any rate, was a relief. He could hardly have heard our conversation.
“But what are you doing in here?” he added, in an important voice. “You must know this room is private, and not for the clerks.”
“We heard a noise,” said I, “and did not know who was here.”
Hawkesbury smiled incredulously.
“All I can say is,” said he, “I hope you are not in the habit of coming in here when you are by yourselves in the office. But kindly leave me now—I am busy.”
He had a lot of papers spread out on the table before him, which he was gathering together in his hand while he spoke. Whether they were accounts, or letters, or what, we could not tell; but as there was nothing more to be said we withdrew to the counting-house. He followed us out in about five minutes, carrying the papers to his desk. Then, informing the housekeeper in an audible voice that he would just go and get breakfast, he left us to ourselves.
“What a mercy,” said I, “he doesn’t seem to have heard what we were talking about!”
Jack smiled bitterly.
“Unless I’m mistaken, he’s heard every word!”
“Surely, Jack,” I exclaimed, stunned by the very idea, “you don’t mean that?”
“I’m sure of it.”
Our feelings during the remainder of that day may be more easily imagined than expressed. If there was one person in the world more than another we would have wished not to hear what had been said, it was Hawkesbury. Thanks to my folly and meanness, he had known far too much as it was, before, and trouble had fallen on Jack in consequence. Now, if Jack’s surmise was true, to what use might he not put the knowledge just obtained?
No one quite understood Hawkesbury. But I knew enough of him to see that jealousy of my friend Smith mixed up with all the motives for his conduct at Hawk Street. His tone of superiority, his favouring one clerk above another, his efforts to assert his influence over me had all been part of a purpose to triumph over Jack Smith. And yet, in spite of it all, Jack had held on his way, rising meanwhile daily in favour and confidence with his employers, and even with some of his formerly hostile fellow-clerks.
But now, with this new secret in his hand, Hawkesbury once more had my friend in his power, and how he would use it there was no knowing.
All that day he was particularly bland and condescending in his manner to me, and particularly pompous and exacting in his manner to Jack, and this, more than anything else, convinced me the latter was right in his suspicion.
Our discussion as we walked home that night was dismal enough. The brighter prospects which had seemed to dawn on Jack and his father appeared somehow suddenly clouded, and a sense of trouble hung over both our minds.
“One thing is certain,” said Jack, “I must tell the partners everything now.”
“Perhaps you are right—if there is any chance of his telling them. But he could surely hardly act so shamefully.”
“It may be too late, even now,” said Jack. “You know, when I was taken on at Hawk Street, and they asked me about my father, I said simply he was abroad. I’ve thought since it was hardly straightforward, and yet it didn’t seem necessary to tell them all about it.”
“Certainly not. Why should your prospects be ruined because your father—”
“Because my father,” said Jack, taking me up quietly, “had lost his? That’s what I thought. But perhaps they will think differently. At any rate, I will tell them.”
“If you do,” said I, “and they take it kindly, as I expect they will, I don’t see what more harm he can do you.”
“Unless,” said Jack, “he thinks it his duty to tell the proprietors of the Banner.”
“What possible good could that do him?” I asked.
“Why, he might as well think it his duty to tell Mary.”
Jack said nothing, and we walked on, very uneasy and depressed.
When we arrived at our lodgings we found Billy, whose recovery was now almost complete, sitting up in the bed with a jubilant face.
“You’re a-done it, governor,” cried he, as we entered. “You are a-done it.”
“Done what?” said Jack.
“Why, that there sam.”
“What about it?” we cried, eagerly.
“Oh, that there flashy bloke, Flanikin, ’e comes up, and says ’e, ‘Jack Smith in?’ says he—meanin’ you, governor. ‘Ain’t no concern of yourn,’ says I—not ’olding with them animals as comes to see yer. ‘Yes it is,’ says ’e, a blowin’ with the run he’d ’ad. ‘Tell ’im the moment ’e comes in that ’e’s fust in the sam,’ says he.”
“Hurrah!” I cried, forgetting everything in this good news. “Old man, how splendid!”
Jack too for a moment relaxed his grave face as he answered my greeting.
“I can hardly believe it,” said he.
“Oh, there ain’t no error, so I tells you,” cried Billy, “the cove ’ad been up to the shop, he says, and copied it down. He was nigh off ’is ’ead, was that there Flanikin, and ’e’s a-comin’ in to see you ’imself, he says, afore eight o’clock.”
And before eight Flanagan turned up and confirmed the glorious news with a printed list, in which sure enough “Smith” stood out distinctly in the first place.
“You know, I thought it might be another Smith,” said Flanagan, laughing; “there are one or two of the same name in the world, I know. But there’s not another in the list, so it’s all right. I say, wouldn’t old Henniker be proud of you now, my boy—eh, Fred? She’d let you sneeze without pulling you up for it, I do believe.”
A letter by the evening post to Jack brought the official confirmation of the news from the examiners, and announced further that the distinction carried with it a scholarship worth £50 a year for three years.
In the midst of our jubilation, Mr Smith came in, and that evening, but for the morning’s cloud which still hung over us, our happiness would have been complete.
The next day Jack took an early opportunity of seeking an interview with the partners, and making a clean breast to them of his birth and position. He gave me an account of the interview afterwards, and said that while Mr Merrett, as usual, took everything kindly and even sympathetically, Mr Barnacle was disposed to regard Jack’s representation of himself on first coming to the office as not candid, and so blameworthy. However, they both agreed that he had done the proper thing in speaking out now, and willingly agreed to let him take his holiday at the time proposed, so as to accompany his father to Packworth.
So a great weight was taken off our minds, and the consciousness that now nothing remained concealed from our employers enabled us to bear Hawkesbury’s lofty manner with comparative indifference.
I even yet had my doubts whether he could really have overheard our talk that morning. Nothing certainly that he said or did gave colour to the suspicion; only his almost deferential manner to me, and his almost scornful manner to Jack, seemed to hint that it might be so.
Jack’s opinion, however, on the point was unshaken.
An uneventful fortnight passed. Billy was up again and back at his work as usual, except that he was strictly forbidden to walk about on his hands any more—a terrible hardship for the lad.
The first half-year’s cheque of Jack’s scholarship had come, and had been proudly deposited in the bank, as a nucleus of a fund in which father, son, and daughter were some day to participate.
And now the long-looked-for time had arrived when Jack and his father were to pay their promised visit to Packworth. I had seen them both half rejoicing in, half dreading the prospect; and now that I saw them actually start, I scarcely knew whether most to pity or envy them.
It was a lonely evening for me, the evening after I had seem them off. They had promised to write and tell me how they fared; but meanwhile I felt very desolate. Even Billy’s company failed altogether to raise my spirits.
However, as it happened, that youth had some news to give me which at any rate tended to divert my mind for a time from my bereaved condition.
“I seen that Mashing agin,” he said, abruptly.
“Did you? Where?”
“Down Trade Street. I was on a pal’s beat there, for a change, and he comes and wants his boots blacked. I knows the animal, but he don’t twig me, bein’ off my beat. I would a-liked to give the beauty a topper, so I would; but, bless you, where’s the use!”
“So you blacked his boots for him?”
“I did so. An’ ’e got a pal along of him, and they was a-jawin’ about a parson’s son as owed Mashing fifteen pound, and saying as they’d crack him up if he didn’t pay up. And then they was a-jawin’ about the shine up here that night, and the pal was a-chaffin’ Mashing cos of the wipin’ my bloke give ’im, and Mashing he says he reckons he’s quits with the prig—meaning the governor—by this time, he says. And t’other one say ‘’Ow?’ And Mashing says as the governor’s a conwex son, and he knows who Mr Conwex is, he says, and he are writ a letter to Miss Conwex, he says, down in the country, that’ll open ’er goggle eyes, he says.”
“What!” I exclaimed, starting from my seat, “he’s written to Mary, the brute!”
“Dunno so much about your Mary, but that’s what he says,” replied Billy, composedly.
“When—when did he write—eh?” I cried.
“’Ow do I know?” retorted Billy, who evidently misunderstood and failed to appreciate my agitated manner.
“I aren’t arsked ’im. Arst ’im yourself if you want to know.”
And he drew himself up in evident dudgeon.
I didn’t know what to do. It was no time to denounce or lament. The thought of the poor innocent girl receiving such a letter as Masham would be likely to write was too much to endure. If only I could prevent her seeing it!
“When did you hear all this?” I said to Billy.
“Find out. ’Tain’t no concern of yourn,” said the offended hero.
“But, Billy,” said I, “it’s most important. Do you, know that what Masham has done will make your Mr Smith miserable?”
Billy started at this.
“If I’d a known that, I’d a wrung his leg off,” said he.
“But when was it? This morning?”
“No, last night.”
Last night! Then the letter would already have reached Packworth, and long before Jack and his father arrived the happiness of her life would have been dashed.
It seemed no use attempting anything. I determined, however, to send a telegram to meet Jack on his arrival, so as to warn him, in case the letter should still be undelivered. I worded it carefully, for fear it might be opened before Jack arrived.
“Hawkesbury did hear our talk. He told Masham, who has written a letter to some one we both care for.”
This I flattered myself was sufficiently unintelligible to any one but Jack.
I spent the rest of the evening in fighting against the tumult of my own feelings. My impulse had been to rush at once to Hawkesbury and charge him with his infamy. But what good would that do? And who was I, to prefer such a charge against another? My next was to find out Masham, and take some desperate revenge on him. But, after all, my only authority was Billy’s report of a conversation overheard by him; and, though it might be all true, I had no right, I felt, without further proof, even if then, to do anything.
On the whole, I came to the conclusion I had better go to bed, which I did. But whether I slept or not the reader may guess.