He hesitated. “I am afraid, sir,” he ventured at last, “there’s a difficulty here that I had not foreseen. The certificates——”
“They don’t want the certificates—yet! Don’t they say so? Plain as a pikestaff!”
“Perhaps, sir,” doubtfully. “If Welshes have got them——”
“Welshes have not got them!”
Arthur did not know what to say to that. At last, in a tone as reasonable as he could compass, “I am afraid the difficulty is, sir,” he said, “that they cannot make out a transfer until they have the particulars; which I fancy we can only get from the certificates.”
“Then they may go to blazes!” the Squire replied, and he lay down with his face to the wall. Not he! There might be officials at the India House who knew this or that and Welshes, who had acted for him in making one purchase or another, might know a part. But to no living man had he ever entrusted the secret of his fortune, or the result of those long years of stinting and sparing and saving that had cleared the mortgaged estate, and had been continued because habit was strong and age is penurious. No, to no man living! That was his secret while the breath was in him. Afterwards—but he was not going to give it up yet.
Presently he bade Arthur go, and Arthur went, troubled in his mind, and much less assured of his position than he had been an hour before. He thanked his stars that he had not given way to the temptation to cut loose from the bank. It would never have done, he saw that now. And how was he going to extract his money, his six thousand, from this unreasonable old dotard—for so he styled him in his wrath?
However, the riddle solved itself before many hours had passed.
That afternoon he was absent, and Jos, about whom Miss Peacock was growing anxious, had gone out to take the air. The butler, left on guard, occupied himself with laying the table in the dining-room, where, if the Squire tapped the floor, he could hear him. He heard no summons, but presently as he went about his work he heard someone moving upstairs and he pricked up his ears. Surely the Squire was not getting out of bed? Weak and blind as he was—but again he heard heavy footsteps, and, thoroughly alarmed, the man lost no time. He hurried up the stairs, and entered his master’s room. The Squire was out of bed. He was on his feet, clinging to the post at the foot of the bed, and feeling helplessly about him with the other hand.
“Lord, ha’ mercy!” Calamy cried, eying the gaunt figure with dismay. He hastened forward to support it.