Chapter Thirty Six.
How Hawkesbury and I came across one another rather seriously.
It took a great effort to appear before Hawkesbury next morning as if I was not aware of his meanness. Now Jack was away, he once again put on an air of friendliness towards me which was particularly aggravating. Had he only made himself disagreeable, and given me an opportunity of venting my wrath, I should have been positively grateful. But to stand by all day and be simpered to, and even cringed to, was galling in the extreme.
I did once venture on a mild protest.
He was speaking to me about the coming holidays, and begging me in a most humble manner to choose what time I should like to take mine, assuring me that any time would do for him.
I suggested, curtly, that as Doubleday had not yet had his holiday I considered he had first choice.
“Oh,” he said, “I don’t think so. Besides, Batchelor, Doubleday and I could both be away at the same time; but I really would hardly feel comfortable in going unless you could take charge of the petty-cash while I am away.”
“Smith will be back,” I said; “he could do that for you.”
As I expected, his face clouded.
“I can’t agree with you there, Batchelor. But don’t let us talk of that. I hope you will choose the time you would like best. I can easily arrange for any time.”
“I don’t know what makes you so wonderfully civil,” said I, losing patience at all this soft soap. “After all that has happened, Hawkesbury, I should have thought you might have spared yourself this gush, as far as I was concerned.”
“I would like bygones to be bygones between us, Batchelor. I know quite well I have been to blame in many things! I am sorry for them now, if it prevents our being friends.”
And he smiled sweetly.
I gave it up in disgust, and let him say what he liked. It was not worth the trouble of preventing him, unless I was prepared for an open rupture, which just then I felt would be unwise, both on Jack’s account and my own.
So he had the satisfaction of believing his sweetness had made its due impression on my savage breast, and of scoring to himself a victory in consequence.
As I had found it before, hard work proved now to be the best specific for dull spirits, and during the next few days I gave the remedy a full trial.
It seemed ages before any letter came from Packworth, and I was dying to hear. For meanwhile all sorts of doubts and fears took hold of me. How had that strange family meeting gone off? Had it been marred by Masham’s cruel letter? or was the poor lost father once more finding happiness in the sight of one whom he had last seen an infant beside his dead wife? Surely if sympathy and common interest were to count for kinship, I was as much a member of that little family as any of them!
At last the letter came. It was from Jack:
“Dear Fred,—We got down on Wednesday. Father went that night to the hotel, as his heart failed him at the last moment. I went on to Mrs Shield’s, and found your telegram on my arrival. I was horrified, but hardly surprised at what it told me. Happily, Mary was in bed, as I had not been expected till the morning, so I was able to explain all to Mrs Shield. She knew all about it before I told her; for the enclosed letter had arrived by the post in the morning, addressed to Mary. Mercifully, seeing it was in a strange hand, and, as I have often told you, being most jealously careful of Mary, Mrs Shield took it into her head to open the letter and read it before giving it to Mary, and you may imagine her utter horror. She of course did not let her see it, and thus saved the child from what would have been a fearful shock; and I was able to break it all to her gradually. Father is to come this evening—I am thankful it is all so well over.
“How are you getting on? Anything fresh at Hawk Street? I don’t envy Hawkesbury or his friend their feelings just now; but I am determined to take no notice of this last brutal plot. Good-bye now.
“Yours ever,—
“J.S.”
The enclosure, written in an evidently disguised hand, was as follows:—
“An unknown admirer thinks it may interest Mary Smith to know that her father is a common thief and swindler, who has just come back from fourteen years’ penal servitude among the convicts. He is now living in London with his son, Mary’s brother, who, Mary may as well know, is following close in his dear father’s footsteps, however pious he may seem to others. This is the truth, or the writer would not have taken the trouble to send it. The best thing, if Mary wants to prevent the whole affair being made public, is to make her brother leave his place in London at once, and go somewhere in the country where he will be a nuisance to nobody.”
My first feeling on reading this was one of devout thankfulness for the Providence which had kept it from falling into the hands for which it was designed. But my wrath soon drove out every other feeling—wrath ten times the more fierce because it was helpless.
I could do nothing. I might go and attempt to thrash Masham, or I might thrash Hawkesbury, who was equally to blame, if not more. But what good would it do? It would only make bad worse. Jack’s secret, instead of being the private property of a few, would become common talk. I should be unable to bring positive proof of my charges, and even if I could, I should only be putting myself in the wrong by using force to redress my wrongs. No, after all, the only punishment was to take no notice of the affair, to let the two blackguards flatter themselves their plot had succeeded, and to leave them to find out as best they could that they had failed.
So I kept my hands resolutely in my pockets when next I met Hawkesbury, and consoled myself by picturing what his feelings would have been, had he known that that letter of his and his friend’s was in my pocket all the time.
However, my resolution to have nothing to do with him was upset very shortly, and in an unexpected manner.
Since the eventful morning when Jack and I had had that unlucky conversation at Hawk Street, I had not again put in an appearance there before the stated time. Now, however, that I was all by myself in town, with very few attractions towards a solitary walk, and a constant sense of work to catch up at Hawk Street, it occurred to me one fine morning—I should say one wet morning—when the streets were very uninviting, to seek shelter at the unearthly hour of half-past eight in Messrs Merrett, Barnacle, and Company’s premises.
The housekeeper, greatly to my satisfaction, was engaged in clearing out the offices below ours, so that I was able to ascend without challenge and establish myself at my desk. I had not been there five minutes when another footstep sounded on the stairs and Hawkesbury entered.
I had thought it quite possible he might be there when I arrived, and was therefore not nearly so surprised to see him as he appeared to see me.
“What, Batchelor!” he exclaimed, “are you here?”
“Yes,” I replied, “are you?”
Why should he express such surprise, I wondered, at my doing just what he was doing?
“What brings you here at this hour?” he demanded, dropping for a moment the coaxing tone with which I had become so familiar the last day or two.
“What brings you here, for the matter of that?” I retorted.
If he thought I was going to clear out to please him, he was mistaken.
“Don’t address me like that,” he replied, with as great a tone of authority as he could assume. “I have a right to be here. You have none.”
“Until I am told so by some one better than yourself I sha’n’t believe it,” I replied.
I was losing my temper fast. Masham’s letter burned in my pocket, and the sight of this fellow giving himself airs to me was as much as I could stand.
Fortunately for us both, however, he did not prolong the discussion, but went to his desk.
It was evident, despite his assumed displeasure, he was very much put out about something. That something, I could not help thinking, must be my presence. He fidgeted about uneasily, looking now at the clock, now at me, now opening his desk, now shutting it, now scribbling on the paper before him, now tearing it up.
All this I saw as I tried to proceed steadily with my work. At last he brought me an envelope he had just addressed, and said in a rather more persuasive manner than he had yet assumed—
“Batchelor, would you kindly take this note round to Hodge and Company’s? It is very important; they should have had it yesterday.”
“Hodge’s are never open till ten,” I said.
“Oh yes, indeed they are. At least they expect this letter by nine o’clock. It’s a bill of lading for their goods.”
“If that’s so,” replied I, “the mail went out yesterday—you know that—and there’s not another till Monday.”
“Oh, but there’s a letter with it that has to be attended to immediately.”
“It’s not been copied,” said I, who had charge of the letter-book, and was responsible for copying everything that went out.
“I’ve kept a copy. I’ll see to that. It’s only to ask them to call round,” he said, with evident confusion.
I did not believe a word he said. And more than that, I strongly suspected all this was a device to get me out of the office—and that was what I had no intention of submitting to.
“If it’s to ask them to call round,” I said, “it will do when the commissionaire comes at half-past nine.”
“But I tell you it must be there at nine,” he exclaimed.
“Then,” said I, “you had better take it yourself.”
I had ceased to be afraid of Hawkesbury, or the look with which he returned to his desk might have made me uneasy.
I could see that as the time went on he became still more uneasy.
Once more he came to me.
“Will you go with the letter?” he demanded angrily.
“No, I won’t go with the letter,” I replied, in decided tones.
“You’ll be sorry for it, Batchelor,” he said, in a significant way.
“Shall I?”
“You would not like my uncle and Mr Barnacle to be told of your early visits here without leave.”
“They are quite welcome to know it.”
“And of my catching you and Smith going into their private room.”
“Where we found you,” I replied, laughing, “busy at nobody knows what?”
He looked at me hard as I drew this bow at a venture, and then said, “You must know, Batchelor, that I have a right to sit in that room when I choose. And,” he added, dropping his voice to a whisper and looking at me in a most significant way—“and if the door happens to be open, and if you and Smith happen to talk secrets, there’s every chance of their being overheard!”
This was his trump card! If anything was to settle the question of my obeying him and taking Hodge and Company’s letter, this was to do it.
“Then you did hear what was said?” I asked.
“Yes, I did,” he said.
“And you mean to say—”
“I mean to say,” said he, with a glance up at the clock, “that you had better take this letter at once, Batchelor.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t, your friend Smith shall smart for it.”
Before I could make up my mind what to do—whether to feign alarm and take the letter, leaving him to suppose he still had the whip-hand over us, or whether to undeceive him at once, and defy him point-blank—before I could reply at all, the door suddenly opened, and Masham entered.
If anything was still wanted to decide me, this sufficed. I felt certain now that there was mischief on foot somewhere, and the appearance of this bird of ill-omen was sufficient to account for Hawkesbury’s eagerness to get me out of the way.
What could have brought these two to arrange a meeting here, at the office, and at an hour when in the ordinary course of things no one else would be present?
I determined to stay where I was at all risks.
Masham on seeing me started, and looked inquiringly at Hawkesbury.
“What’s he doing here?” he said. The very sound of his voice made my blood boil.
“He is going to take a letter to the Borough for me,” said Hawkesbury, bestowing a meaning glance on me.
“I’m not going to take it,” said I.
“What?” exclaimed Hawkesbury, in sudden fury.
“I’m not going to take it. I’m going to stay where I am.”
“You know the consequences?” he muttered between his teeth.
“Yes.”
“You know what it means for your friend Smith?”
“Yes.”
He looked perplexed, as well he might. That I should defy him in the face of his threat against Jack Smith was the last thing he had expected, “Batchelor,” said he, altering his tone suddenly to one of entreaty, “I have very important business to arrange with Masham. Would you mind leaving us for half an hour? I would not ask you, only I shall get into awful trouble if I can’t talk to him alone for a little.”
It passed my comprehension how, after threatening me with Jack’s ruin, he should now turn round with such an appeal. And he put on such a beseeching manner that in the midst of my wrath I half pitied him. However, I was not to be moved. “If you want to see him so privately as all that,” said I, “take him up to the sample-room. No one will disturb you there.”
He gave me one look of hatred and menace, and then said to Masham, “We must fix another time, Masham; we can’t go into the matter now.”
“Eh?” said Masham, who had hitherto stood by in silence. “What do you say? If we can’t do it now, we won’t do it at all, my boy.”
Hawkesbury went up to him and whispered something.
“Oh, we’ll soon settle that!” said the other, laughing. “He won’t go, won’t he! We’ll help him, that’s all? Whereabouts is the coal-hole?”
So saying he made a grab at my arm, and before I could resist Hawkesbury had secured the other.
I struggled all I could, but unavailingly. Between them I was dragged up stairs to the sample-room, into which I were ignominiously thrust, and the door locked behind me. At first my rage and indignation were too great to allow me to think of anything but kicking at the door and shouting to my captors to release me. But this I soon discovered was fruitless, and in due time I gave it up, and resolved to wait my time and make the best of my lot.
That some mischief was afoot I now felt certain, and whatever it was, I felt equally sure it was being enacted during my imprisonment. Yet what could I do? I could only listen to the sound of voices below and speculate as to what was going on. Suddenly, however, it flashed across me that the room in which I was was not over the office, but over the partners’ room, and that therefore the sounds I heard must proceed from thence.
What could they be up to? I heard a door open and shut, and a noise of what might have been keys, followed by a heavy slamming-to of something which, for the thud it gave, might have been the iron safe itself.
I felt very uncomfortable, but I was forced to remain chafing where I was for nearly half an hour, when the lock of my prison turned and the two entered the room. They both seized me as before.
“Now you can come down,” said Masham.
“Not till he promises to say nothing about this,” said Hawkesbury.
“He knows what to expect if he doesn’t!” said Masham.
“After all,” said Hawkesbury, “we didn’t mean to hurt you; Masham and I only wanted to settle some horse-racing and other scores, and as the papers were all in my desk, we were bound to use the office, and of course I couldn’t ask him round any other time. If you’d been half a gentleman, Batchelor, you would have left us at once.”
“I don’t believe you,” I replied. “What did you want in the partners’ room, I should like to know, eh?”
“What!” exclaimed Hawkesbury, in a rage. “We were never there, were we, Masham?”
“Never knew there was a partners’ room,” said Masham, “and if there had been, what if we had been in it?”
“We were in the counting-house all the time,” said Hawkesbury. Then he added, “But come down now, and take my advice, Batchelor, and don’t ruin yourself.”
“Ruin myself!” cried I, with a scornful laugh; “I don’t see how letting the partners know your goings on would ruin me.”
“You’ll see!” was the reply.
He doubtless considered the threat enough, but, knowing as I did that Jack had told the partners everything Hawkesbury could possibly tell, I could afford to treat it with contempt.
Masham took his departure, and I returned with Hawkesbury to the counting-house, where we were soon joined by our fellow-clerks.
I was very uncomfortable, and hardly knew how to act. That it was my duty to tell the partners what had happened I had no doubt; but how much to tell them, and when, I could not make up my mind. I determined to take Doubleday into my confidence, and get the advantage of his good advice and clear head.
But it was easier said than done. Almost as soon as he came in Doubleday had to go down to the docks, and the opportunity of consulting him was thus delayed. Every moment that passed I felt more and more uneasy. Mr Barnacle had already arrived, and Mr Merrett was due in a few minutes. What right had I to delay even for a moment a matter which affected the credit of the whole house?
Yet suppose, after all, I had found a mare’s-nest! Suppose Hawkesbury’s explanation of what had occurred should by any chance have been correct—suppose the sounds I heard during my confinement had not been caused by those two at all, but by the housekeeper sweeping out the room and putting it in order? If that was so, what a fool I should make of myself!
No; I resolved, for all the difference it would make, I would wait till I could consult Doubleday.
Hawkesbury was very busy that morning; he was constantly fidgeting in and out of his little box, giving vague directions to one clerk and another, and keeping a special eye on me and all I did.
When Mr Merrett arrived he went as usual to say good-morning to his uncle, and as usual followed him into the partners’ room, to receive such letters as might require answering.
I wished Doubleday had not been called down to the docks this morning of all others. He would have told me in a moment what I ought to do, or, which came to the same thing, what he would have done in my place. Anything would be better than this suspense. I was tempted even then to break in upon the partners and tell them what had happened, and what my suspicions were. But I could not do it while Hawkesbury was there. When he came out—
By the way, what an unconscionable lot of letters there must be to keep him in there all this time! He was usually there about five minutes, but this morning he had been half an hour at the very least.
The thought suddenly occurred to me, could he be telling the partners about Jack Smith’s antecedents? In the midst of all my uneasiness I almost smiled to think how sold he would be when he discovered they had heard it all already!
Ah! here he was at last.
No. It was Mr Merrett who appeared at the door with an extremely long face; and looking round the office, fixed his eyes on me, and said, “Batchelor—come in here!”
I obeyed.
Instead of going in as usual before me, he waited till I had entered, and then followed me, closing the door behind him.
What on earth does it all mean?
Mr Barnacle sat looking straight before him through his spectacles. Hawkesbury also sat at the table, twisting a quill pen backwards and forwards with his fingers.
“Hawkesbury,” said Mr Merrett, as he re-entered, “you might leave us, please. I will call you when you are wanted.”
Hawkesbury, without looking at me, rose to obey. As he reached the door, Mr Merrett stepped after him, and whispered something. At ordinary times I should not have heard what he whispered, or thought of listening for it. But there was such a silence in the room, and my nerves were strung up to such a pitch, that I distinctly caught the words.
What I heard was this—
“Fetch a policeman!”