King of the Castle

“Thank you, madam,” making a note; “it shall be done.”

“And that is all?” said Claude.

“Oh, no, my dear madam. The next question is this residence. If you will part with it, I have a client who will give a very handsome sum – its full value – and take it, furniture and all. Cash.”

“And is that all?” said Claude quietly.

“No, madam, there is the quarry. I should advise you to sell that to a small company. You can get your own price, for it is very valuable, and retain shares in it if you liked; but I should say no – sell; add the purchase money to that for this house, and let me invest it in Consols also.”

“No,” said Claude, rising, and speaking firmly, though with tears in her eyes; “the opening of that quarry was my father’s dearest enterprise, and the building of this house his greatest pleasure. While I live, his quarry and his people shall be my life business, and nothing shall be touched, nothing shall be changed in this his house.”

“My dear Miss Gartram,” said the lawyer, colouring like a girl, as he rose and stretched out his hand to take Claude’s, which he raised reverently to his lips, “I feel proud of the confidence you placed in me. I feel far more proud now, and I honour you for what you have just said. Your wishes shall be carried out. One word more. You will require some assistance over the commercial matters of the quarry – a gentleman learned in stone, and – ”

“No, Mr Trevithick, I shall only want help as to the monetary affairs of the business. That I hope you will oblige me by supervising yourself. The workpeople will help me in the rest.”

The lawyer bowed, and once more beamed on Mary, but looked stern again.

“Now, have you done, Mr Trevithick?” said Claude.

“Not quite. The deficit.”

“If, as you say, there is a deficit, it must remain. There is enough.”

“But my late client would not have rested till it was put straight.”

“No,” said Claude dreamily; “but my father may have had some project of which we are ignorant. We had better wait. You will stay with us a few days longer?”

“I should say no,” replied Trevithick; “but I cannot conscientiously leave these premises till this money is safe. Till then, my dear madam, I am your guest.”

Claude would have spoken again, but the look she cast round the study brought up such a flood of painful memories that she could only make a sign to Mary to follow, as she hurried from the room.

“A woman any man might love,” said the lawyer, as soon as he was alone. “I hope no money-hunting scoundrel will catch her up. No; she is too strong-minded and firm. Now, what have I done to offend little Mary?” he added, with a sigh. “Bless her, I don’t get along with her as I could wish.”

He was quiet and thoughtful for a few moments, and then began tapping the table.

“Gartram had that forty – one thousand. His books say so, and he was correct as an actuary. Some one knew the secret of this room, and got at that cash.”

“Yes. I should like to find that out. It would please little Mary, too.”

Volume Three – Chapter Four.

Wimble Seizes the Clue

“Love is blind,” said Michael Wimble, with a piteous sigh. “Yes, love is blind.”

He had been a great many times past Mrs Sarson’s cottage, always with a stern determination in his breast to treat her with distance and resentment, as one who shunned him for the sake of her lodger; but so surely as he caught a glimpse of the pleasant lady at door or window, his heart softened, and he knew that if she would only turn to him, there was forgiveness for her and more.

Upon the morning in question he had had his constitutional, and found a splendid specimen of an auk washed up, quite fresh, which he meant to stuff and add to his museum.

An hour later a neat little servant-maid came to the door with a parcel and a letter.

“With missus’s compliments.”

Wimble took the letter and parcel, his hands trembling and a mist coming before his eyes, for it was Mrs Sarson’s little maid.

“We are all wrong,” he said, as he hurried in, his heart beating complete forgiveness, happiness in store, and everything exactly as he wished.

He turned back to the door, slipped the bolt, and then seated himself at the table with his back to the window, and cut the string of the parcel with a razor.

“She has relented, and it is a present,” he said to himself, as he tingled with pleasure; “a present and a letter.”

He stopped, with his fingers twitching nervously and his eyes going from parcel to note and back again.

Which should he open first – note or parcel?

He took the parcel, unfastened the paper, and found a neat cardboard box; and he had only to take off the lid to see its contents, but he held himself back from the fulfilment of his delight by taking up the note, opening it, and reading —

“Mrs Sarson would be greatly obliged by Mr Wimble’s attention to the enclosed at once. To be returned within a week.”

“Attention – returned – a week!” faltered Wimble; and with a sudden snatch he raised the lid, and sat staring dismally at its contents.

“And me to have seen her all these times and not to know that,” he groaned, as he rested his elbows on the table and his brow upon his hands, gazing the while dismally into the box. “Ah! false one – false as false can be. Why, I’ve gazed at her fondly hundreds o’ times, but love is blind, and – yes,” he muttered, as he took the object from the box and rested it upon his closed fist in the position it would have occupied when in use, “there is some excuse. As good a skin parting as I ever saw. One of Ribton’s, I suppose.”

There was a long and dismal silence as Michael Wimble, feeling that he was thoroughly disillusioned, slowly replaced the object in its box.

“How can a woman be so deceitful, and all for the sake of show? And me never to know that she wore a front!”

“All, well!” he sighed, “I can’t touch it to-day,” and rising slowly he replaced it in the box, dropped the note within, roughly secured the packet, and opened a drawer at the side.

As he pulled the drawer sharply out, something rolled from front to back, and then, as the drawer was out to its full extent, rolled down to the front.

He picked it out, dropped the cardboard box within, and shut it up, ignoring the bottle he held in his hand as he walked away to slip the bolt back and throw open the door.

He was just in time to receive a customer in the shape of Doctor Asher, who entered and nodded.

“I want you, Wimble,” he said. “When can you come up? Beginning to show a little grey about the roots, am I not?”

“Yes, sir, decidedly,” said Wimble, as the doctor took off his hat, and displayed his well-kept dark hair.

“When will you come, then?”

“When you like, sir,” said Wimble, unconsciously rubbing the tip of his nose with the cork of the little bottle he held in his hand.

“To-morrow afternoon, then,” said the doctor sharply; “and you needn’t shake the hair dye in my face.”

“Beg pardon, sir? Oh, I see! That’s not hair dye, sir.”

“What is it, then? New dodge for bringing hair on bald places?”