He had now summoned courage to acknowledge to Belinda all that had happened, and was proceeding, with difficulty, down stairs, when he was suddenly struck by the sound of a voice which he little expected at this moment; a voice he had formerly been accustomed to hear with pleasure, but now it smote him to the heart:—it was the voice of Mr. Percival. For the first time in his life, he wished to deny himself to his friend. The recollection of the E O table, of Mrs. Luttridge, of Mr. Percival as his guardian, and of all the advice he had heard from him as his friend, rushed upon his mind at this instant; conscious and ashamed, he shrunk back, precipitately returned to his own room, and threw himself into a chair, breathless with agitation. He listened, expecting to hear Mr. Percival coming up stairs, and endeavoured to compose himself, that he might not betray, by his own agitation, all that he wished most anxiously to conceal. After waiting for some time, he rang the bell, to make inquiries. The waiter told him that a Mr. Percival had asked for him; but, having been told by his black that he was just gone out, the gentleman being, as he said, much hurried, had left a note; for an answer to which he would call at eight o’clock in the evening. Vincent was glad of this short reprieve. “Alas!” thought he, “how changed am I, when I fear to meet my best friend! To what has this one fatal propensity reduced me!”
He was little aware of the new difficulties that awaited him.
Mr. Percival’s note was as follows:—
“My dear friend!
“Am not I a happy man, to find a friend in my ci-devant ward? But I have no time for sentiment; nor does it become the character, in which I am now writing to you—that of a DUN. You are so rich, and so prudent, that the word in capital letters cannot frighten you. Lady Anne’s cousin, poor Mr. Carysfort, is dead. I am guardian to his boys; they are but ill provided for. I have fortunately obtained a partnership in a good house for the second son. Ten thousand pounds are wanting to establish him—we cannot raise the money amongst us, without dunning poor Mr. Vincent. Enclosed is your bond for the purchase-money of the little estate you bought from me last summer. I know that you have double the sum we want in ready money—so I make no ceremony. Let me have the ten thousand this evening, if you can, as I wish to leave town as soon as possible.
“Yours most sincerely,
“HENRY PERCIVAL.”
Now Mr. Vincent had lost, and had actually paid to Mrs. Luttridge, the ready money which had been destined to discharge his debt to Mr. Percival: he expected fresh remittances from the West Indies in the course of a few weeks; but, in the mean time, he must raise this money immediately: this he could only do by having recourse to Jews—a desperate expedient. The Jew, to whom he applied, no sooner discovered that Mr. Vincent was under a necessity of having this sum before eight o’clock in the evening than he became exorbitant in his demands; and the more impatient this unfortunate young man became, the more difficulties he raised. At last, a bargain was concluded between them, in which Vincent knew that he was grossly imposed upon; but to this he submitted, for he had no alternative. The Jew promised to bring him ten thousand pounds at five o’clock in the evening, but it was half after seven before he made his appearance; and then he was so dilatory and circumspect, in reading over and signing the bonds, and in completing the formalities of the transaction, that before the money was actually in Vincent’s possession, one of the waiters of the hotel knocked at the door to let him know that Mr. Percival was coming up stairs. Vincent hurried the Jew into an adjoining apartment, and bid him wait there, till he should come to finish the business. Though totally unsuspicious, Mr. Percival could not help being struck with the perturbation in which he found his young friend. Vincent immediately began to talk of the duel, and his friend was led to conclude that his anxiety arose from this affair. He endeavoured to put him at ease by changing the conversation. He spoke of the business which brought him to town, and of the young man whom he was going to place with a banker. “I hope,” said he, observing that Vincent grew more embarrassed, “that my dunning you for this money is not really inconvenient.”
“Not in the least—not in the least. I have the money ready—in a few moments—if you’ll be so good as to wait here—I have the money ready in the next room.”
At this instant a loud noise was heard—the raised voices of two people quarrelling. It was Juba, the black, and Solomon, the Jew. Mr. Vincent had sent Juba out of the way, on some errand, whilst he had been transacting his affairs with the Jew; but the black, having executed the commission on which he had been sent, returned, and went into his master’s bedchamber, to read at his leisure a letter which he had just received from his wife. He did not at first see the Jew, and he was spelling out the words of his wife’s letter.