THE DAY AFTER THE GHOST
When Mr. Dering arrived at his office next morning he observed that his table had not been arranged for him. Imagine the surprise of the housewife should she come down to breakfast and find the ham and the toast and the tea placed upon the table without the decent cloth! With such eyes did Mr. Dering gaze upon the pile of yesterday's letters lying upon his blotting-pad, the pens in disorder, the papers heaped about anyhow, the dust of yesterday everywhere. Such a thing had never happened before in his whole experience of fifty-five years. He touched his bell sharply.
'Why,' he asked, hanging up his coat without turning round, 'why is not my table put in order?' He turned and saw his clerk standing at the open door.—'Good Heavens! Checkley, what is the matter?'
For the ancient servitor stood with drooping head and melancholy face and bent shoulders. His hands hung down in the attitude of one who waits to serve. But he did not serve. He stood still and he made no reply.
He understood now. Since the apparition of South Square he had had time to reflect. He now understood the whole business from the beginning to the end. One hand there was, and only one, concerned with the case. Now he understood the meaning of the frequent fits of abstraction, the long silences, this strange forgetfulness which made his master mix up days and hours, and caused him to wonder what he had done and where he had been on this and that evening. And somebody else knew. The girl knew. She had told her lover. She had told her brother. That was why the new Partner laughed and defied them. It was on his charge that young Arundel had been forced to leave the country. It was he who declared that he had seen him place the stolen notes in the safe. It was he who had charged young Austin and whispered suspicions into the mind of Sir Samuel. Now the truth would come out, and they would all turn upon him, and his master would have to be told. Who would tell him? How could they tell him? Yet he must be told. And what would be done to the jealous servant? And how could the old lawyer, with such a knowledge about himself, continue to work at his office? All was finished. He would be sent about his business. His master would go home and stay there—with an attendant. How could he continue to live without his work to do? What would he do all day? With whom would he talk? Everything finished and done with. Everything——
He stood, therefore, stricken dumb, humble, waiting for reproof.
'Are you ill, Checkley? asked Mr. Dering. 'You look ill. What is the matter?
'I am not ill,' he replied in a hollow voice, with a dismal shake of the head. 'I am not exactly ill. Yes, I am ill. I tried to put your table in order for you this morning, but I couldn't, I really couldn't. I feel as if I couldn't never do anything for you—never again. After sixty years' service, it's hard to feel like that.'
He moved to the table and began mechanically laying the papers straight.
'No one has touched your table but me for sixty years. It's hard to think that another hand will do this for you—and do it quite as well, you'll think. That's what we get for faithful service.' He put the papers all wrong, because his old eyes were dimmed with unaccustomed moisture. Checkley had long since ceased to weep over the sorrows of others, even in the most moving situations, when, for instance, he himself carried off the sticks instead of the rent. But no man is so old that he cannot weep over his own misfortunes. Checkley's eye was therefore dimmed with the tear of Compassion, which is the sister of Charity.