Roland Yorke / A Sequel to "The Channings"

by Mrs. Henry Wood

PART THE SECOND.

The Story.

[CHAPTER VII.]

IN THE OFFICE.

The morning sun was shining on the house of Greatorex and Greatorex. It was a busy day in April. London was filling; people were flocking to town; the season was fairly inaugurated, the law courts were full of life.

The front door stood open; the inner door, closed, could be pushed back at will. It bore a brass plate with the inscription, "Greatorex and Greatorex, Solicitors," and it had a habit, this inner door, of swinging-to upon clients' heels as they went out, for the spring was sharp. In the passage which the door closed in, was a room on either hand. The one on the left was inscribed outside, "Clerks' Office "; that on the right, "Mr. Bede Greatorex."

Mr. Bede Greatorex was in his room today: not his private room; that lay beyond. It was a moderate-sized apartment, the door in the middle, the fireplace opposite to it. On the right, between the door and the near window, was the desk of Mr. Brown; opposite to it, between the fireplace and far window, stood Mr. Bede Greatorex's desk; two longer desks ran along the walls towards the lower part of the room. At the one, in a line with that of Mr. Bede Greatorex, the fireplace being between them, sat Mr. Hurst, a gentleman who had entered the house for improvement; at the one on the other side the door, in a line with Mr. Brown's, sat little Jenner, a paid clerk. Sundry stools and chairs stood about; a huge map hung above the fireplace; a stone bottle of ink, some letter-scales, and various other articles more useful than ornamental, were on the mantel-shelf: altogether, the room was about as bare and dull as such offices usually are. The door at the end, marked "Private," opened direct to the private room of Mr. Bede Greatorex, where he held consultations with clients.

And he generally sat there also. It was not very often that he came to his desk in the front office: but he chose to be there on occasions, and this was one. This side of the house was understood to comprise the department of Mr. Bede Greatorex; some of the clients of the firm were his exclusively; that is, when they came they saw him, not his father; and Mr. Brown was head-clerk and manager under him.

Bede Greatorex (called generally in the office, "Mr. Bede," in contradistinction to his father, Mr. Greatorex) sat looking over some papers taken out of his locked desk. Four years have gone by since you saw him last, reader; for that prologue to the story with its sad event, was not enacted lately. And the four years have aged him. His father was wont to tell him that he had not got over the shock and grief of John Ollivera's death; Bede's private opinion was that he never should get over it. They had been as close friends, as dear brothers; and Bede had been a changed man since. Apart from this grief and regret and the effect it might have left upon him, suspicions had also arisen latterly that Bede Greatorex's health was failing; in short there were indications, fancied or real, that the inward complaint of which his mother died, might, unless great care were used, creep upon him. Bede had seen a physician, who would pronounce no very positive opinion, but believed on the whole that the fears were without foundation, certainly they were premature.

Another cause that tended to worry Mr. Bede Greatorex, lay in his domestic life. More than three years ago now, he had married Miss Joliffe; and the world, given you know to put itself into everybody's business and whisper scandal of the best of us, said that in marrying her, Bede Greatorex had got his pill. She was wilful as the wind; spent his money right and left; ran him in debt; plunged into gaiety, show, whirl, all of which her husband hated: she was in fact a perfect, grave exemplification of that undesirable but expressive term that threatens to become a household word in our once sober land--"fast." Three parts of Bede's life--the life that lay apart from his profession, his routine of office duties--was spent in striving to keep from his father the extravagance of his wife, and the sums of money he had to draw for personal expenditure. Bede had chivalric ideas upon the point; he had made her his wife, and would jealously have guarded her failings from all: he would have denied, had he been questioned, that she had any. So far as he was able he would indulge her whims and wishes; but there was one of them that he could not and did not: and that related to their place of dwelling. Bede had brought his wife to the home that had been his mother's, to be its sole mistress in his late mother's place. It was a large, convenient, handsome residence (as was previously seen), replete with every comfort; but after a time Mrs. Bede Greatorex grew discontented. She wanted to be in a more fashionable quarter; Hyde Park, Belgrave Square; anywhere amidst the great world. After their marriage Bede had taken her abroad; and they remained so long there that Mr. Greatorex began to indulge a private opinion that Bede was never coming back again. They sojourned in Paris, in Switzerland, in Germany; and though, when they at length did return, Bede laughingly said he could not get Louisa home, he had in point of fact been as ready to linger away from it as she was. The Bedford Square house had been done up beautifully, and for two years Mrs. Bede found no fault with it; she had taken to do that lately, and it seemed to grow upon her like a mania.