Clare reflected also as he went, how much he owed Ann’s sister for letting him have the little one. She had always spoken to him kindly too, and never seemed, like the clerks, to look down upon him because he had been a page-boy—though, he thought, if they were to be as often hungry as he had been, they would be glad to be page-boys themselves! For himself, he liked to be a page-boy! He would do anything for Miss Tempest! And he must do what he could for Miss Shotover! It would be wicked to let her marry a man that was wicked! He had himself seen him drunk! Would it be fair, knowing she did not know, not to tell? Would it not be helping to hurt her? Was he to be a coward and fear being called bad names? Was he, for the sake of the good opinion of rascals, to take care of the rascal, and let the lady take care of herself? There was this difficulty, however, that he could assert nothing beyond having seen him drunk!
He carried Ann to the nursery, and set out for the menagerie. When he knocked at the door of the house-caravan, Mrs. Halliwell opened it, stared hardly an instant, threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him.
“Come in, come in, my boy!” she said. “It makes me a happy woman to see you again. I’ve been just miserable over what might have befallen you, and me with all that money of yours! I’ve got it by me safe, ready for you! I lie awake nights and fancy Gunn has got hold of you, and made away with you; then fall asleep and am sure of it. He’s been gone several times, a looking for you, I know! I think he’s afraid of you; I know he hates you. Mind you keep out of his sight; he’ll do you a mischief if he has the chance. He’s the same as ever, a man to make life miserable.”
“I’ve never done him wrong,” said Clare, “and I’m not going to keep out of his way as if I were afraid of him! I mean to come and see the animals to-morrow.”
A great deal more passed between them. They had their tea together. Mr. Halliwell, who did not care for tea, came and went several times, and now the night was dark. Then they spoke again of Gunn.
“Well, I don’t think he’ll venture to interfere with you,” said Mrs. Halliwell, “except he happens to be drunk.—But what’s that talking? We’re all quiet for the night. Listen.”
For some time Clare had been conscious of the whispered sounds of a dialogue somewhere near, but had paid no attention. The voices were now plainer than at first. When his mother told him to listen, he did, and thought he had heard one of them before. It was peculiar—that of an old Jew whom he had seen several times at the bank. As the talking went on, he began to think he knew the other voice also. It was that of Augustus Marway. The two fancied themselves against a caravan full of wild beasts.
Marway was the son of the port-admiral, who, late in life, married a silly woman. She died young, but not before she had ruined her son, whose choice company was the least respectable of the officers who came ashore from the king’s ships.
He had of late been playing deeper and having worse luck; and had borrowed until no one would lend him a single sovereign more. His father knew, in a vague way, how he was going on, and had nearly lost hope of his reformation. Having yet large remains of a fine physical constitution, he seldom failed to appear at the bank in the morning—if not quite in time, yet within the margin of lateness that escaped rebuke. Mr. Shotover was a connection by marriage, which gave Marway the privilege of being regarded by Miss Shotover as a cousin—a privilege with desirable possibilities contingent, making him anxious to retain the good opinion of his employer.
Clare heard but a portion here and there of the conversation going on outside the wooden wall; but it was plain nevertheless that Marway was pressing a creditor to leave him alone until he was married, when he would pay every shilling he owed him.