“How dare you insult Miss Carr!” I exclaimed.
“Insult! Oh, this is too much!” he muttered. Then, half-raising his hand, he let it fall once more, turned upon his heel, and strode away.
The coachman seemed disposed to speak, but the field being now my own, I walked – very pompously, I’m afraid – into the hall, Miss Carr coming out of the dining-room as soon as the front door was closed, to catch my hand in hers, and look eagerly in my flushed face.
“You have grown brave too, Antony,” she whispered, as she led me upstairs. “Thank you, thank you; I did not know that I could look for a protector in you.”
I had calmed down by the time Miss Carr had dressed; and then followed one of those, to me, delightful evenings. We dined together; she chatted of her life in Southern France, and at last, over our tea in the drawing-room, as she was sitting back in her lounge-chair, with her face in the shade, she said, in what was meant to be a perfectly calm voice:
“Well, Antony, you have not said a word to me about your friends.”
I did not answer directly, for I felt a strange hesitation in so doing; and a similar emotion must have been in my companion’s breast, for she sat there for some minutes in silence, till I said:
“Linny Hallett seems to have quite recovered now, and is bright and happy again, though very much changed.”
Miss Carr did not speak.
“Mrs Hallett is precisely the same. I do not think she has altered in the least since I have known her.”
Miss Carr seemed to turn her face more away from me, or else it was the shadow, and now, instead of speaking of Stephen Hallett, something seemed to prompt me to turn off, and talk of Revitts and Mary, and of how admirably the arrangement had answered of their taking the house in Great Ormond Street.
There seemed to be a slight impatient movement as I prattled on – I can call it nothing else. It was not from a spirit of mischief, but all the time I seemed to feel that she must want to know about Stephen Hallett, and somehow I could not mention his name.
“It is quite droll, Miss Carr,” I said. “Mrs Hallett says that it is such an admirable arrangement, having a police-constable on the premises, and that she has never before felt so safe since she has been in London.”
“You have not spoken to me yet of your friend – Mr Hallett.”
I started, for it did not sound like Miss Carr’s voice, and when I looked up I could not see her face.
“No; not yet,” I said. “He is toiling on still as patiently and enduringly as ever.”
“And the invention, Antony?”
“The invention,” I said bitterly, “lags behind. It is impossible to get on.”
“Is – is it all waste of time, then?”
“Waste? No,” I said. “The invention is one that would carry all before it; but, poor fellow, he is tied and fettered at every turn. He has nearly got it to perfection, but, after months of constant toil, some wretched part breaks down, and the whole thing has to be done again.”
“But is it likely to succeed?”
“Likely?” I said: “it must succeed; but it never can until it has been made and tried. It should be carefully constructed at some large engineering establishment like ours.”
“Yes,” she said, evidently listening intently.
“But how can it be? Poor Hallett earns about two pounds a week, and the demands upon his pocket, through his mother’s and sister’s illness, have been terrible. He is heavily in debt now to the doctors.”
“Why do you not help your friend, then, Antony?” she said in tones of reproach.
“Because he will not let me,” I replied quietly. “He is too proud.”
Miss Carr was silent.
“What amount would it take,” she said at last, in a strange tone, “to perfect the machine?”
“Amount?” I said eagerly; “an awful deal. It is impossible to say how much. Why, the patent would cost nearly a hundred. Poor fellow! I wish sometimes he would give it up.”
“Why?” she exclaimed softly.
“Because,” I said, “it is breaking his heart.”
“Is – is he so constant in his attentions to it?”
“Oh yes, Miss Carr. Whenever he can spare a minute, he is working or dreaming over it; he calls it his love – his mistress, in a half-mocking sort of spirit. Poor fellow, it is a sad life.”
There was again a deep silence in the room.
“Antony,” she said again, “why do you not help your friend?”
“I do,” I said eagerly. “I have worked at it all night with him sometimes, and spent all my pocket-money upon it – though he doesn’t know it. He thinks I have turned some of the wheels and spindles myself, but I set some of our best workmen to do it, and cut me the cogs and ratchets.”
“And paid for them yourself?”
“Yes, Miss Carr. I could not have made them well enough.”
“But why not help him more substantially, Antony? With the money that is required?”
“I help him?” I said.
She did not answer for a few moments, for a struggle was going on within her breast, but she spoke at last. Her pride and feminine shrinking had given way before the love that she had been striving these many months to crush, but which was sweeping all before it now.
“Antony,” she said softly, “I can trust to you, I know; and I feel that whatever I help you in will be for the best. You shall help your friend Mr Hallett. My purse shall be open to you, and you shall find the means to enable him to carry his project to success.”
“Oh, Miss Carr!” I cried; and in my new delight I caught and kissed her hand.
She laid one upon my shoulder, but her head was averted still, and then she motioned me to resume my seat.
“Does that satisfy you, Antony?” she said.
“Yes – no,” I cried, getting up and walking up and down the room. “He would not take the money; he would be a great deal too proud.”
“Would not take the money, Antony? Why?”
“Because he would know that it came from you.”
“And knowing that the money came from me, Antony, would he not take it?”
“No, I am sure he would not.”
“Why?”
“Because – because – Miss Carr, should you be angry with me if I told you the truth?”
She paused again, some minutes, before she replied softly, but in so strange a tone: “No, Antony. How could I?”
“Because, Miss Carr, I am sure he loves you: and he would think it lowered him in your eyes.”
She turned upon me a look that seemed hot with anger, but the next moment she had turned her face away, and I could see that her bosom was heaving with suppressed emotion.
A great struggle was evidently going on within her breast, and it was some time before she could master it. At last, however, she turned to me a face that was deadly pale, and there was something very stern in her looks as she said to me:
“Antony, we have been separated for a year, but can you speak to me with the same boyish truth and candour as of old, in the spirit taught you, my dear boy, by the father and mother you have lost?”
“Oh yes, Miss Carr,” I said frankly, as I laid my hand in hers, and looked in her beautiful eyes.
“Yes, Antony, you can,” she said softly. “Tell me, then, has Mr Hallett ever dared to say such a thing as – as that to you?”
“Never, Miss Carr.”
“Has – has my name been made the subject of conversation amongst your friends?”
“Never, Miss Carr.”
“Or been coupled with his?”
“Oh! no, no,” I cried, “never. Mr Hallett has rarely mentioned your name.”
“Then how can you – how can you dare to make such an assertion as you did?”
“I don’t know,” I replied thoughtfully. “I could not tell you how it is, but I am sure he does love you as much as I do, Miss Carr.”
“I believe you do, Antony,” she said, bending forward and kissing my forehead. “But, you foolish boy, drive that other notion from your head, and if you do love me, Antony – and I would have you love me, my boy, as dearly as you loved her who has gone – never speak to your dearest friend of our words to-night.”
“Oh, you may trust me for that,” I said proudly.
“I do trust you, Antony, and I see now that your ideas are right about the money. Still, I should like you to help your friend.”
“So should I,” I said; and I sat thinking dreamily over the matter, being intensely desirous of helping Hallett, till it was time to go, when an idea occurred to me which I proposed to Miss Carr, one which she gladly accepted, joining eagerly in what was, perhaps, a deception, but one most truly and kindly meant.
Chapter Forty Eight.
An Invitation
“Hallo, young Grace,” said Mr Jabez Rowle, as I was shown up one evening into his room, to find him, snuff-box on the table and pen in hand, reading away at his paper, and, as I entered, smiling with satisfaction as he pounced upon a literal error, and marked it in the margin. “How are you?”
I said I was quite well, and he pointed to several pen marks at the side of the column.
“There’s reading,” he said contemptuously. “I’m ashamed of these daily papers, that I am. Well, how are wheels and lathes and steam-engines, eh? Bah! what a contemptible young sneak you were to leave so good a business for oil and steam and steel-filings. I give you up now. Glad to see you, though; sit down. Have a pinch or snuff?”
“No, thanks,” I said, smiling.
“Humph! how you grow, you young dog; why, you’ll soon be a man. Better have a pinch; capital bit of snuff.”
I shook my head, and he went on, smiling grimly at me the while.
“No business to have left me, Grace. I should have made a man of you. Well, how are you getting on?”
“Capitally,” I said.
“Don’t believe it. Better have stopped with me. Heard from Peter?”
“No,” I said eagerly. “Have you?”
“Yes. Just the same as usual. Down at Rowford still, smoking himself to death. Hah! capital pinch of snuff this,” he added, regaling himself again. “Sent his love to you, and said I was to tell you – tell you – where the dickens did I put that letter?” he continued, pulling a bundle of dip-proofs out of his breast-pocket, and hunting them over – “said I was to tell you – ah, here it is – to tell you – Ah – ‘Tell young Grace I shall come up to town and see him some day, and I’ll give you a look up too.’ Bah! Don’t want him: won’t have him. We should be sure to quarrel. He’d come here, and sit and smoke all day – where’s my – oh, here it is.”
He took a couple of pinches of snuff in a queer, excited way, and snapped his fingers loudly.
“I shall be very, very glad to see him when he does come,” I said warmly.
“Ah, yes, of course you will. He’s got some papers or something, he says, for you.”
“Has he?”
“So he says. Hang Peter! I don’t like him, somehow.”
There was a comical look of chagrin in the old man’s face as he spoke; but it was mingled with a dry, humorous air that refused to be concealed, and I seemed to feel in my heart that if the brothers met, Mr Jabez would be thoroughly cordial.
“Well, I’m glad you did condescend to call, young engine-driver,” he said at last; “as it happens, I’m not busy to-night. You won’t take a pinch of snuff?”
I shook my head.
“What will you have, then? Have some almonds and raisins? Figs? Some oranges? Well, some sweetstuff? They’ve got some capital cocoa-nut candy downstairs! No? Well, have some candied peel?”
“No, thank you, Mr Jabez,” I said, laughing. “Why, what a baby you do think me.”
“Well, so you are,” he growled. “You don’t want me to ask you to have beer, or grog, or cigars, do you?”
“Oh no!” I said, laughing.
“Good job, too, because you wouldn’t catch me giving them to you. Well, how’s your policeman?”
“Quite well.”
“Ever see Hallett now?”
“Every day nearly.”
“Humph! Decent fellow, Hallett; sorry he left us. Cleanest proofs I ever had. That man always read his stick, Grace. You always read yours?”
“But you forget I am not a printer now, Mr Jabez.”
“No, I don’t, stupid. Can’t you see I was speaking in metaphors? Always read your stick, boy, through life. When you’ve done a thing, go over it again to see if it’s right; and then, at the end, you’ll find your proof-sheets of life are not half so foul. Tell Hallett, when you see him again, to give me a look up. I rather liked him.”
“Why, you never seemed to like him, Mr Jabez,” I said.
“Well, what of that, boy? Can’t a man like anybody without always going about and grinning?”
He took another pinch of snuff, and then nodded and tapped his box.
“How’s Mr Grimstone?” I said, smiling.
“Oh, hard as a nut, and as awkward. Gives me a deal of trouble.”
“And is Jem Smith with you still?”
“With me? No; but he’s in a house close by, the great stupid lout! He’s got whiskers now, and grown more thick-headed than ever. Grimstone had a sharp illness, though, over that affair.”
“What affair?” I asked.
“Why, when the partnership was broken up – you know?”
“No,” I said, wonderingly.
“Why, you must have heard. When John Lister was bankrupt. He was dead in with the money-lenders, and he had to give up, you know.”
“What! was he ruined?”
“Ruined? yes, a gambling fool; and if Mr Ruddle hadn’t been pretty firm, the rascal would have ruined him too – pulled the house down.”
“This is news,” I said.
“Yes, and bad news, too,” said the old fellow. “Five hundred pounds of my savings went – lent money – for him to make ducks and drakes!”
“Oh, Mr Jabez,” I said: “I am very sorry.”
“Don’t deserve it,” he said, taking another pinch; “served me right for being such a fool. I don’t mind now; I never cry over spilt milk, but it nearly broke poor old Grim’s heart. Five hundred of his went, too, and it was very nearly being more.”
“I remember something about it,” I said. “You were speaking on the subject once before me.”
“Ah, so we were. Well, it was a warning to me, Grace. Temptation, you know.”
“Temptation?”
“Yes, to get bonus and high interest. Playing usurer, my boy. Serve us both right. Don’t you ever be led on to lending money on usury.”
“I’m not likely ever to have any to lend,” I said, laughing.
“I don’t know that,” he said, making another reference to his snuff-box. “Peter said in one of his letters that he thought there was some money that ought to come to you.”
“I’m afraid not,” I said, laughing. “I’ve a long debt to pay yet.”
“You! – you in debt, you young rascal!” he exclaimed angrily.
“I always said I would some day pay off my father’s debts, Mr Jabez,” I said; and then my words brought up such a flood of sad recollections, that I was about to eagerly change the subject, when Mr Jabez leaned over to me and took my hand.
“Good lad,” he said, shaking it up and down. “Good lad. I like that. I don’t believe you ever will pay them, you know; but I like the sound of it all the same.”
He kept on shaking my hand some time, and only left it to take another pinch of snuff.
“And has Mr Lister quite gone from the firm?”
“Oh, yes, quite, my lad. He was up to his eyes in debt, and when he didn’t marry that girl, and get her money to pay himself off clear, he went smash at once. Lucky escape for her. I’m afraid he was a bad one.”
“And what is he doing now?”
“What, Lister? Set up a rival shop on borrowed money; doing all he can to cut down his old partner, but he’ll do no good. Can’t get on. Hasn’t got a man on the premises who can read.”
“Indeed!” I said.
“Not a soul, Grace. Why, you wouldn’t believe it, my lad,” he continued, tapping me in the shirt-front with his snuff-box, “but I had one of their Chancery-bills in the other day – big quarto, you know, pica type – and there were two turned n’s for u’s in the second page.”
“Never?” I said, to humour him.
“Fact, sir, fact,” he said, taking another pinch of snuff and snapping his fingers triumphantly. “Why, I’d hardly forgive that in a daily paper where there’s a rush on, and it’s got up in the night; but in a thing like a Chancery-bill it’s inexcusable. Well, now about yourself, Grace. I’m glad you are getting on, boy. Never mind what I said; it’s better than being a reader, and growing into a snuffy cantankerous old scarecrow like me. Read your stick well, my boy, and I hope – no, I’m sure you’ll get on. But I say, what will you have to eat?”
“I’m not hungry, Mr Jabez,” I said; “and, look here, I haven’t delivered my message to you.”
“Message? To me?”
“Yes, sir. Miss Carr wished me to ask you if you would come and dine with her to-morrow.”
“Me? Dine with Miss Carr – Carr – Carr? Why, that’s the girl Lister was to have married.”
“Yes – Miss Carr,” I said.
“But me dine with her! Why, she hasn’t fallen in love with me now, has she?”
“Oh no,” I said, laughing. “She wants to see you on business.”
“See me on business? why, Grace,” he said excitedly, “I was to be paid my five hundred out of her money, and wasn’t paid. Is she repenting, and going to give it to me?”
“No,” I said; “I don’t think it’s that.”
“No, of course not,” he said thoughtfully. “Couldn’t take it if were. What does she want, then? Do you know?”
I nodded.
“What is it, then?”
“I am in Miss Carr’s confidence,” I said; “and I do not feel at liberty to speak about the matter till after you have seen her.”
“Let me see,” said the old man; “she’s very pretty, isn’t she?”
“Beautiful?” I exclaimed enthusiastically.
“Humph! Then I don’t think I shall go, Grace.”
“Not go? Why not?”
“These handsome women can wheedle a man out of anything. I’ve lost five hundred over Lister, and I don’t want to be wheedled out of any more.”
“You needn’t be afraid, Mr Jabez,” I said, laughing.
“Think not?”
“I’m sure not. Miss Carr wants to advance some money to help some one.”
“Well, then, let her do it.”
“She cannot well do it herself, and she asked me if I knew anyone, and I named you.”
“Hang your impudence, then,” he said, taking snuff fiercely. “You know I was fool enough to advance money to Lister, so you recommend me as an easy one to do it again.”
“No, no, Mr Jabez; you don’t understand me,” I said, laughing. “Miss Carr wishes to find the money, but she wants it to seem as if it came through you.”
“Oh!”
Here he refreshed himself with his snuff, looking at me suspiciously the while.
“Look here, young Grace,” he said; “I’m not fond of doing things in the dark; so, as we are old friends, suppose you make a clean breast of what all this means. You know, I suppose?”
“Yes, I know everything,” I replied.
“Well, then, out with it.”
“That I cannot do without being guilty of a breach of confidence, Mr Rowle,” I replied. “If you will come up to Miss Carr’s to-morrow evening at half-past six, you may be sure of a warm welcome, and I shall be there to meet you.”
“Phee-ew!” he whistled, “how fine we have got to be, Grace. Do we dine late every day, sir?”
“No; nonsense,” I said, laughing. “Miss Carr is very kind to me, though: and she wished me to be there to meet you.”
“Well, but, Grace, you know,” said the old man, “I’m such a queer, rough sort of a fellow. I’m not used to that sort of thing. I’ve read about it often enough; but I suppose – oh, you know, I couldn’t come?”
“I shall tell Miss Carr you will,” I said, rising; and after a few more words, the old man promised, and I went away.
Chapter Forty Nine.
Mr Jabez Undertakes a Commission
Mr Jabez was got up wonderfully for his visit to Miss Carr. His white waistcoat might have been carved in marble, and his white cravat was the stiffest ever made; but there was a good deal of the natural gentleman in the old man, and he took Miss Carr down to dinner with all the ceremony of the old school.
Everything was expressly arranged to be very simple, and in a very few minutes Mr Jabez was quite at his ease, while after a glass of sherry the old man became pleasantly chatty, and full of anecdote, but always treating his hostess with the most chivalrous respect, making a point of rising to open the door for her when she quitted the room, and we were supposed to be left to our wine.
“Hah, Grace,” he said, coming back to the table, and taking a long pinch of snuff; “now I feel a man again. I’ll just have three more pinches, and then we’ll go upstairs to that angel. Good heavens!”
“What is the matter?” I said, as, instead of sitting down, he began to walk up and down the dining-room, taking pinch after pinch of snuff.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed again.
“Is anything the matter, Mr Jabez?” I exclaimed.
“Good heavens! I say, Good heavens!” he repeated.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Good heavens! Only to think of it, Grace!”
Another pinch of snuff.
“Only to think, my lad, that he might have had that woman – that lady! A girl as beautiful in her mind as she is in her face. Why, Grace, my boy, I’m an old snuffy bachelor because my opportunity never came, but if I could have married such a woman as that – Hah! some men are born to be fools!”
“And you think Mr Lister was a fool?”
“Fool, sir? He was ten thousand times worse. But there! the sun don’t shine on me every day, my boy! We’ll go upstairs at once, and let it shine upon me again.”
I never liked Mr Jabez one-half so well before. It was delightful to me, who quite worshipped Miss Carr, to see the old man’s genuine admiration. He seemed quite transformed, and looked younger. In fact, no sooner were we upstairs, where Miss Carr was sitting with the urn singing on the tea-table, than he relieved me of a difficulty by opening the question of business himself.
“My dear young lady,” he said, as he sat down, and began rubbing one thin little leg, “I know you’ll excuse me for speaking so familiarly, but,” – he smiled – “I’m over sixty, and I should think you are not more than twenty-five.”
Miss Carr smiled, and he went on.
“Our young friend Grace here tells me that you would like me to perform a little commission for you. I only wish to say that you may command me in any way, and to the best of my ability the work shall be done.”
“Thank you, Mr Rowle,” said our hostess. “Antony Grace said he felt sure I could not have a more suitable and trustworthy agent.”
“I thank Antony Grace,” said the old man, bowing to me ceremoniously, and taking out his snuff-box, which he hastily replaced.
“The fact is,” said Miss Carr, hesitating, and her voice trembled and her face flushed slightly as she spoke, “I – oh, I will be plain,” she said, as if determined to cast off all false shame; “Mr Rowle, I trust to you not to put a false construction on this act of mine. I am rich – I am my own mistress, and I will do as I please, whatever the world may say.”
“You are rich, you are your own mistress, and you have a right to do as you please, my dear young lady, whatever the world may say,” assented Mr Jabez, tapping the lid of his snuff-box, which seemed as if it would not keep out of his hand.
“The fact is, Mr Rowle,” continued Miss Carr, “there is a gentleman – a friend of Antony Grace here, who is struggling to perfect a new invention – a great invention.”
Mr Jabez bowed, gazing at her animated countenance with open admiration the while.
“To perfect this invention, money is wanted.”
“Exactly,” said Mr Jabez, tapping his box softly. “Money is always useful.”
“I wish this gentleman to have that money – as much as is necessary.”
“You are rich; you are your own mistress; you have a right to do as you please, my dear young lady, whatever the world may say,” said Mr Jabez, harping upon her words once more. “It is easily settled. Give it him.”
“No,” said Miss Carr, speaking with animation, “it is not easy. You forget what I say. This inventor is a gentleman.”
“And would be too proud to take the money?” said Mr Jabez quickly.
“Yes,” said Miss Carr. “He would not stoop to be under such an obligation. He would feel insulted – that he was lowering himself. I wish to help him,” she said excitedly. “I would do anything to help him; but my hands are tied.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Mr Jabez softly; “and you want me to help you?”
“Yes, oh yes! And you will?” cried Miss Carr.
“Of course I will, my dear young lady,” said the old man; “but this requires thought. Would you excuse me if I took just one little pinch?”
“Oh, my dear Mr Rowle,” cried Miss Carr, “pray do not use ceremony here. I asked you to come to me as a friend. Pray consider that you are one.”
“Hah!” sighed Mr Jabez. “Now I can get on. Well, my dear young lady, surely we can find a way. In the first place, who is the gentleman?”
