“No, I’ll not trust it to you, Marks,” he said: “you might never deliver it. Catch an old bird with chaff!”
To this letter there came no answer at all; and Mr. Marks did not come back. The Squire relieved his mind by calling Brown and Co. thieves and wretches—and so it passed. It must be remembered that I am writing of past years, when holidays were not so universal for any class, clerk or master, as they are at present. Not that I am aware whether financiers’ clerks get them now.
The next scene in the drama I can only tell by hearsay. It took place in London, where I was not.
It was a dull, rainy day in February, and Mrs. Marks sat in her parlour in Pimlico. The house was one of a long row, and the parlour just about large enough to turn in. She sat by the fire, nursing a little two-year-old girl, and thinking; and three other children, the eldest a boy of nine, were playing at the table—building houses on the red cloth with little wooden bricks. Mrs. Marks was a sensible woman, understanding proper management, and had taken care to bring up her children not to be troublesome. She looked about thirty, and must have been pretty once, but her face was faded now, her grey eyes had a sad look in them. The chatter at the table and the bricks fell unheeded on her ear.
“Mamma, will it soon be tea-time?”
There was no answer.
“Didn’t you hear, mamma? Carry asked if it would soon be tea-time. What were you thinking about?”
She heard this time, and started out of her reverie. “Very soon now, Willy dear. Thinking? Oh, I was thinking about your papa.”
Her thoughts were by no means bright ones. That her husband’s health and powers were failing, she felt as sure of as though she could foresee the ending that was soon to come. How he went on and did his work was a marvel: but he could not give it up, or bread would fail.