Mortomley's Estate: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)

"Will it make any difference to us?" asked Rupert, impatient of this digression.

"That is just what I have been wondering," answered Mr. Gibbons. "I don't see that it can. I know nothing of Swanland personally (of course, everybody knows his partner, Asherill, the most thoroughfaced old humbug in the City), but in his position he dare not play into Forde's hand. It is impossible for him to make fish of one creditor and fowl of another. Had they chosen a creature of their own for trustee, the case would have been different; but, upon my honour, I think the matter could not stand better than it does. If Forde does not oppose, nobody else will, I should imagine; and all your uncle has to do now is to get well as fast as he can, so as to push business along and pay us all a good dividend."

"Mr. Gibbons," said Rupert slowly, "what is liquidation?"

"That is rather a difficult question to answer," was the reply. "I have understood that its object is to enable a man who really means honestly to repay his creditors to do so. You see, the new Bankruptcy Act has been passed so recently that we have not much knowledge of its working. In the only case of which I have had experience, it seems to go smoothly enough. A pianoforte-maker, who had taken out some new patent got himself into difficulties, and the creditors asked me to look into his affairs, and see what chance there was of their ever being repaid. I did so, and found the estate could never pay sixpence if it was compulsorily realised, but that there was a probability of twenty shillings if the man could be allowed to work on without the fear of writs.

"The fellow seemed honest enough, and the creditors were inclined to be patient—all except one fellow, who wanted to get the business into his own hands. I soon shut his mouth; and we arranged to throw the payment of ten shillings in the pound over three years; the rest was left to his honour. Well, so far as I can see, every creditor will get his money in full, and the debtor is as happy as possible, working away to pay all he owes. He is allowed so much out of the business for his household expenses; and, of course, I do not look him and his books up for nothing, but still when the affair comes to be closed, it will prove better than bankruptcy for every one concerned; and if I had been appointed trustee to your uncle's estate, I have no doubt we might, out of such a business as his, have arranged ten pounds a week for his services, and paid everybody in full, with interest, in four years."

"I wish to God you had been the trustee," said Rupert earnestly.

"I echo the wish. I could have made it easy for your uncle and beneficial to myself; but Forde does not like me. He can't take me in as he takes in other people. However," added Mr. Gibbons, "it is a great matter to have him with you, since, unless you were able to produce good proof of what you have hinted to me, his opposition might be dangerous."

"Do you know," said Rupert, "Mr. Dean really frightened me to-night. He declared my uncle was commercially dead, that he could never hold up his head again in the City, that his estate had been allowed to go to the dogs, and that the dogs had got it, with much more to the same effect."

"Mr. Dean is a pompous old ass," commented Mr. Gibbons.

"Please remember he is going to marry my sister," entreated Rupert.

"In that at all events he shows his sense," returned Mr. Gibbons with ready courtesy, "but what should he know about liquidation? If Mr. Dean thought a poor wretch were shaky, he would serve him with a trading debtors' summons at once, and if the amount were not paid, make him bankrupt before he could know what had happened. That is how Elm Park is maintained. Please heaven," added Mr. Gibbons piously, "a more liberal policy shall supply the more modest requirements of Forest View."

Which was the appropriate name of the spic-and-span new mansion, since not a glimpse of the forest could be obtained even from its attic windows.

"Thank you," said Rupert, rising and holding out his hand to Mr. Gibbons, "you have relieved my mind greatly. I do not know I ever felt more miserable than I have done to-night. Mrs. Mortomley quite unnerved me. She has a fancy that her husband is going to be ruined."

"My dear fellow," was the reply, "when you have lived as long as I have lived, and been married as many years as I have been married you will know women are always having fancies. No better creature than my wife ever breathed, but she has a prophetic feeling about some matter or person every day of her life."

"It is quite a new thing for Dolly to be among the prophets, however," remarked Rupert almost involuntarily.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Gibbons, not understanding.

"Oh! I was speaking of Mrs. Mortomley. We always call her Dolly. Absurd, is it not? but it is better than Dollabella."

The connection of ideas between her name and her fortune did not seem very plain, nevertheless, as if one suggested the other, Mr. Gibbons said,

"I suppose Mrs. Mortomley's money is all right."

"What do you mean," Rupert inquired.

"Settled on herself of course."

"Of course," the young man answered.

"That is well," answered Mr. Gibbons. "I wish you would stay and have some supper. No? Then good night and keep up your spirits, all will turn out for the best, be sure of that."

And so they shook hands and parted. Mr. Gibbons to return to his psalmody, and Rupert to retrace his steps to the 'Green Man,' where he re-mounted Bess and rode back, moonlight accompanying him, drifting rain following his horse's heels to Whip's Cross.

CHAPTER VII.

"Why, who did you expect to see?" retorted Mr. Rupert, "and where, when all that is settled, is Fisher?"

"He left at seven, sir. He came in to do up the horses as usual, and he said, sir, when he was going out that he should not be back again, for that Hankins had seen you on the road to Elm Park, and you were sure not to be back such a night as this."

"I wish Hankins would attend to his own business and not attempt to manage mine," muttered Rupert. "Get me a lantern, Esther. I must see to that unfortunate mare myself."

Esther fetched him a lantern, and one of the men in possession, who had himself formerly been the owner of some livery stables, offered to see to the well-being of Madam Bess, but Rupert would not hear of it.

"You can bring the light if you will be so good," he said, for it was no part of the policy at Homewood for the inhabitants to give themselves airs above those sent to keep watch and ward over their chattels.

"But I will rub her down myself; I should not care about it, only I am so confoundedly wet," he added, with his frank pleasant laugh.

"However, she is wetter, poor beast;" and as he spoke he passed his hand over the mare's neck and shoulder, which attention she acknowledged by trying to get it in her mouth.

"Frisky still, old lady," Rupert remarked; "I should have thought your journey to-night might have taken that out of you. Come on," and he slipped off her bridle, and holding her mane walked beside her into the stall, where he put on her halter.

"It is too wet still to make your toilette out of doors," he went on; "so you must be quiet while I rub you down here."

And after having taken off his hat and coat and waistcoat, Rupert set too and groomed that mare "proper," to quote the expression of Turner, the man who held the light.

And then he brought her a warm mash, and forked her up a comfortable bed, which Bess at once devoted herself to pawing out behind her; having accomplished which feat, and vaunted herself to her stable companions about the evening's work she had performed, she lay down to sleep on the bare pavement.

This was her pleasant fancy, which is shared by many a dog.

After all, there was much of a dog's nature about Bess—notably as far as faithfulness and affection were concerned.

Rupert walked back to the house and asked Esther to make him some coffee. Whilst she was preparing it, he went softly to his own room, changed his wet clothes, washed, brushed his curly hair, and otherwise made himself presentable; then he went downstairs again and entered the library, where he found coffee awaiting his arrival.

"My sister is gone to bed, I suppose," he said to Esther.

"Yes, sir, Miss Halling was very tired, and thought you would not be back to-night."

"And Mrs. Mortomley?"

"She is up still, sir."

"I must see her to-night. Will you tell her that I want to speak to her very particularly."

"Yes, sir."

"What have you been crying about?" asked Rupert suddenly, but the girl turned her head away and made no answer.

"Has Mrs. Mortomley been scolding you?" he persisted. At this question Esther broke down altogether.

"It—it—is—th—first time my—mistress ever spoke cross to me, sir—," she sobbed.

"Well, you needn't allow that fact to vex you," Rupert answered, "for if things go on as they have been doing, you may be very sure it will not be the last. Now go and give her my message, and you will sleep all the better for seeing your mistress again. Depend upon it, she is far more sorry than you by this time."

"What a spit-fire temper Dolly is developing," thought the young man, looking uneasily into the blazing fire. "Though it is rather turning the proprieties upside down, I fear I must lecture my aunt," but when Mrs. Mortomley came into the room there was an expression on her face which changed his intention.

She had taken off the elaborate dress in which he last beheld her, and exchanged it for a dressing-gown of brilliant scarlet, confined round the waist by a belt of its own material, and showing, in every fold and plait which hung loosely about her figure, how the plump shapeliness which once needed no padding, no adventitious assistance from her dressmaker, had changed to leanness and angles.

She had unloosed her hair, she had taken away the great pads and enormous frizettes in which her soul once found such pleasure, and the straight locks fell over her shoulders in a manner as natural as it was unwonted.

"Good Heavens, Dolly," exclaimed Rupert, at sight of her, "why do you ever wear scarlet, it makes you look like a ghost, or a corpse."

"It is warm," she answered, "and I was very cold. You wanted to see me and I wanted to see you; but tell me your story first."

"I have been to Elm Park," he replied, "in order to make up friends with that whited sepulchre, Mr. Dean; and I have succeeded. So much for that which immediately concerns Antonia and myself. After I left Elm Park, I rode round by Leytonstone and called upon Mr. Gibbons. He says that Swanland must act fairly by you and all the creditors; that, in fact, so far as that goes we need feel no uneasiness."

"Then, where is the cause for uneasiness?" she enquired.

"Nowhere so far as he can see," Rupert answered evasively, "but I will tell you what I have been thinking as I came home. Of course, once this order, whatever it may be, is taken out, we shall have no more trouble from writs and so forth, and we need not be anxious about the business, but we shall, I fear, want ready money. Of course there will be an allowance to Archie, but we may not be able to get that immediately. Now we had better look this matter in the face. How much money is there in the house?"

Dolly put her hand in her pocket and pulled forth her purse, turning its contents out on the table.

"I had the June interest from my money on Friday night," she remarked. "For the first time I wrote to ask for it, and I was so thankful it came, as otherwise the wages here could not have been paid yesterday."

"Surely, Dolly, you never paid them out of your money?"

"Not the whole amount. Lang told me he was five-and-twenty pounds short, so I sent him to town to get the cheque changed, and gave him what he required."

"I must see Lang about this the first thing to-morrow," Rupert remarked. "Dolly, give me your money and let me keep it."

She gathered up the notes and gold and handed them to him. He counted both over. "Why, Dolly," he said, "there is only thirty pounds left."

She laughed, in reply, that frank guileless laugh which never rings out save when a woman has concealed nothing—has nothing she wishes to conceal.

"Oh! I paid off such a number of worries yesterday. Of course, had there been enough to get rid of even one of our distinguished visitors, I should have done so, but as there was not, I killed such a host of gnats. See," and going to her desk she produced a perfect packet of receipts. "I am so thankful those little things are settled," she went on, "if I had kept the money it would only have gone somehow—not this 'how,' I am quite certain."

"Will nothing teach her common sense?" but even as he thought, Dolly's eyes suddenly uplifted surprised his—her brown eyes looking out from a very white face and a confused mass of dark hair.

"What is the matter," she inquired; "of what are you thinking?"

"Of you," he answered; "I wish you were more prudent."

"I wish I were—perhaps I shall be some day," she said humbly.

Thinking of the manner in which she had without question turned her money over to him Rupert felt doubtful.

"You had better keep two or three sovereigns," he observed.

"I fancy so," she agreed. "There is always money wanting now, and you might not be in the way."

He looked at her across the table, and then bent down his head over the notes and gold.

Incredible as it may seem, there was something in the woman's face—though she was utterly ignorant of its presence—which touched Rupert's nature to its best and deepest depths, wringing his heart-strings.

If he had known what that something prefigured, if God had only for one moment given him prescience that night, the man's memory might have failed to hold something which shall never depart from him now till life is extinguished with it.

As it was he exclaimed,

"I would to Heaven, Dolly, I had passed all my life with you and Archie. I should in that case have been as unmercenary and unselfish as you."

"Rather," said Dolly sententiously, "you should thank Heaven for having placed you in one of this world's strictest schools. Otherwise you might have been a simpleton like myself, or a clever idiot like dear Archie, but you would never have been a man who shall make his way to success as you intend to do."

"How shall I make my way to success?" he inquired.

"I do not quite like to say out my thought," she replied. "It is Sunday night, and what I feel may seem profane when rendered into speech. Nevertheless, Rupert, Providence does take care of men like you. I cannot at all tell why, since I know you are no better, indeed a great deal worse than myself. You will get on, never fear; just as if the vision were realized, I can see you now in a fine place, with a rich wife."

"Stay," interrupted Rupert; "wherein this vision comes the skeleton?"

"To my imagination," she answered, "the skeleton ceases not by day or night; it is ever present,—it is Homewood with you and your sister, prosperous in your plans, and my husband, who sheltered you—dying."

"How you talk, Dolly? Archie is no worse."

"Is he not?" she replied. "If things do not soon change here, the whole question will be settled in the simplest manner possible. He will die, and there will be a funeral, and people will say,

"'Poor fellow! he held out as long as he could, and died just in the nick of time.'"

"I know one man, at any rate, who would say nothing of the kind," remarked Rupert, "who would be quite certain to observe, 'Have you heard about that fellow Mortomley? No. Well, he has taken it into his head to die, and left me in the lurch. And after all my kindness to him too. I declare, sir, if that man had been my brother, I could not have done more for him—but there, that is just the return I meet with from, every one.'"

The imitation was so admirable, and the words so exactly similar to those she had heard used, that Dolly could not choose but laugh.

Then she stopped suddenly and said, "It is no laughing matter though."

"What makes you think Archie is worse?" asked her companion.

"He would try to get up for a short time this afternoon, and unfortunately elected to have his chair wheeled up close to the side window. He had not been seated there ten minutes before he saw one of those men crossing from the kitchen-garden. He asked me who he was, and I was obliged to tell him. He did not make any remark at the time, but shortly afterwards said he would lie down again, and since that time he has not dozed for a moment; he has refused to touch any nourishment, and he scarcely answers when I speak to him. After the doctor saw him, he asked me whether Archie had received any shock, and when I explained the matter to him, he looked very grave and said,

"Unless his mind can be kept easy, I will not answer for the consequences."

"Then he was an idiot to say anything of the sort," Rupert angrily commented. "Never mind, Dolly, such a contretemps shall not occur again. I will warn these fellows that if I catch one of them prowling about the grounds, I will horsewhip him, let the consequence be what it may. Now, have you anything more to say, for it is growing late?"

"Yes," Mrs. Mortomley answered. "I am going to send Lenore away to-morrow; my aunt Celia will take charge of her until things are settled here."

"Surely this is a very sudden idea."

"It never occurred to me until this afternoon. She has wearied and worried me, poor little mite; but I did not know what to do with her, and I probably never should have known what to do with her, had Mr. Dean's effusion about the impossibility of his future wife remaining at Homewood, not opened my eyes."

"I understand," remarked Rupert. "You decided at once that if Homewood were an unfit residence for Miss Halling, it was still more unfit for Miss Mortomley, and I really think you are right. But who is to go with the child; am I?"

"No, Esther is to take her. I have arranged all that. They start by an early train to-morrow, and I hope Esther may be able to get back to-morrow night."

"Why cannot I take Lenore?" he asked.

"Because you ought to be here," Mrs. Mortomley replied. "Those two young men have to finish the accounts remember, and I know little or nothing about our affairs."

"I had forgotten," he remarked. "Perhaps I ought not to be away. Now, Dolly, have we finished business for to-night?"

"No, I have something more to tell you," she answered. "After you went out this afternoon, and while I was finishing my letter to aunt Celia, Esther came in and said 'Mr. Turner hoped I would excuse the liberty, but could he be allowed to speak to me?'

"Naturally I asked who Mr. Turner was, when it transpired that one of those creatures is so named. I did not know what he might want, and so told her to send him in.

"'I trust you will pardon me, ma'am,' he began, 'I have not always been in as low a position as that I now occupy, and—'

"I misunderstood his meaning, and told him that of course he must know the whole affair was miserable for us, but that I was aware if a man chose such a vocation, he must discharge the duties connected with it; and that we did not want in any way to make the discharge of those duties unpleasant to him. He waited quietly and respectfully till I had quite finished, when he first thanked me for my kindness, and then said I had mistaken his meaning.

"'I understand' he finished, 'that Mr. Mortomley intends to go into liquidation.'

"I was a little surprised at this, but told him yes, Mr. Mortomley did. There was nothing secret about the matter.

"Then in so many words he told me he was bound to write and inform his employer that such was the case; but he went on and then paused, while I waited curiously, I must confess, for the man's manner and the expression of his face perplexed me.

"'The truth is, ma'am,' he gathered up courage to say at last, 'I have been very well treated here, and I am very sorry to see things going wrong in a house like this, and as I have seen a great deal of bankruptcy and arrangements and all the rest of it, I thought I would just make so bold as to say that if there are any things about the house for which you have a particular fancy, the sooner you put them on one side or ask some of your friends to take charge of them for you the better.'

"I declare, Rupert, I did not comprehend at first what he meant, and when at last he explained himself more at length, I was so amazed I could only say we did not think of leaving Homewood or selling the furniture, that all Mr. Mortomley wanted was time, and of course things would remain as they were and the business be continued just as usual.

"He said he was sure he hoped all might turn out as I expected, but that he trusted I would excuse his still recommending me to make arrangements for the worst.

"'And do you propose that we should do that by stealing from ourselves?' I asked.

"'Well, everything in the place is yours to-night, ma'am, certainly,' he answered; 'that is, except for the amounts I and my companion are here for, but that will not be the case for long when once the other man comes in.'

"'What other man?' I said.

"'Why the trustee's man.'

"Then I got annoyed and told him he was talking nonsense, that once the petition was granted there would be no more 'men' at Homewood; that since the passing of the new Bankruptcy Act everything was made comparatively pleasant for people who wanted to act honestly.

"'If you will excuse my saying so, ma'am,' he persisted, 'I think you know even less about the working of the new Act than I do.'

"At that point I lost my temper.

"'Whether I do or not I shall not follow your advice, though I suppose you mean it kindly. If my husband's creditors want every article in Homewood, why, they must take even to the last chair, that is all. If I had to turn out to-night without a shelter or a penny I would not do what you suggest.'

"He bowed and went away without speaking another word, and of course I thought the subject was ended.

"Quite by accident I went an hour ago to Lenore's room, and there to my astonishment I found piled up on the drawers and tables all the knick-knacks out of the drawing-room; the timepieces, the vases, the statuettes, the little genuine silver we have not parted with, and a whole tribe of other articles.

"Then I rang for Esther and asked what it meant. Turner, it appeared, after leaving me, told her I understood nothing whatever of our real position, and that the greatest service she could do me was to send as much as possible to some safe place of keeping without mentioning the matter to me.

"And acting on this, she had intended to get up about four o'clock and pack up all she could, and take the spoil with her to Great Dassell.

"I was so angry I said sharp things to the girl I ought not to have said. I believe I frightened her to death, and I know I have made myself quite ill and hysterical with the passion I got into."

"Esther is happy enough now. She did it all for the best, and I have told her how sorry I am to have spoken sharply; but, Rupert, Rupert, what is the meaning of all this? There is something in liquidation we do not understand."

"I do not think there is," was the reply. "This man only spoke according to his light, which seems to be a very poor one. He simply advised that course to be taken which would be taken by ninety-nine people out of a hundred."

"Then if such is the case, I cannot wonder at Mr. Forde's idea that debtors are thieves."

"And at the same time there may be some reason for the debtors' belief that creditors are robbers."

"Oh!" cried Dolly, "that it were all ended."

"It will be some day, please God," he answered. "And now, Dolly, do get to bed; your white face will disturb my dreams. When had you anything to eat?"

"I don't think I have eaten anything since Thursday," she answered; "anything, I mean, worth calling a meal."

"You will kill yourself if you go on as you are doing," he said, but she shook her head.

"I am going to live to a hundred and forty, like the Countess of Desmond, who died in consequence of a fall from a cherry-tree," Dolly explained. "I shall be a great-great-great-grandmother, and I shall inculcate upon the first, second, third, and fourth generations the truth of that old proverb, 'Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.'"

"Never mind pence or pounds either, Dolly. I wish you would take care of yourself."

"Why?" she asked; then went on, "I wonder if on the face of the earth besides Archie and Lenore, and Esther and Mrs. Werner, and perhaps my Aunt Celia, there is a creature who would be really sorry if I died to-night?"

"Do you exclude me?" Rupert marvelled.

"You have not lived long enough to be very sorry about anything except your own affairs—about any trouble coming to those connected with you unless their sorrow means loss of comfort to yourself."

"Do you think I am not sorry for Archie and you now?"

"I am quite sure you are," she replied bitterly. "Homewood has been a pleasant house for you to live in; far pleasanter than Elm Park can ever prove."

"Dolly," he interrupted, "I do not mean to call you ungrateful, but considering how I have been working on your behalf to-day—"

"We need not discuss the question," she remarked as he stopped and paused. "There is no necessity now for us to go into our accounts and put down, 'I have done this, and Archie has done the other.' Before this liquidation business is ended we shall have ample opportunity of doing full justice each to the other—only—Rupert, I do not think you would have been quite so ready to leave Homewood had your opinion and that of the man Turner not to a certain extent coincided."

"You wrong me greatly," he answered, "but as you say there is no necessity for us to discuss these questions now. Do go to bed, dear; you will knock yourself up if you neither rest nor sleep, and then who can see to Archie?"

"Good night," she said holding out her hand, "if I have misjudged you I am sorry."

He held the door open for her to pass out, and watched her as she flitted up the staircase.

Had she misjudged him Rupert wondered. No. Her instinct guided her aright when reason might have failed to do so.

"I suppose I am a rat," he thought, "and that by some curious intuition I did guess the ship was sinking. Knowledge and calculation had, however, nothing to do with the matter. That I can declare. Now it will perhaps be well for me to calculate. I do not much relish hearing a list of benefits conferred, recited at each interview."

In his heart Rupert felt very angry. An individual must be remarkably good looking to approve of a mirror which reflects him feature by feature, wrinkle by wrinkle, exactly as he is!

CHAPTER VIII.

"Good morning," he said to the men. "No one could call this a fine one. Lang, give the keys to Hankins and walk with me a little way; I want to speak to you."

In a few words Mr. Halling explained his difficulty, and asked Lang to help him out of it.

"I can manage that easily enough," was the answer. "Luckily I did not make up my books on Saturday as I generally do. Now, sir, remember you know nothing except that you understood I was short twenty-five pounds for the wages. Leave all the rest to me."

"You are sure, Lang, you do not mind interfering in this."

Mr. Lang laughed a short laugh, more like a snort than an evidence of merriment.

"Mind!" he echoed, "have I not been through the fire myself? but then I knew what was coming and arranged accordingly. Otherwise me and my wife and the children would not have had a bed to lie on. Mind! If the governor or you had only told me things were coming to this pass, we might have had a snug business at work some place else by this time, and snapped our fingers at them all. By Heavens, to think of it!" added Mr. Lang, stopping to look at Homewood. "I wish it had been bankruptcy though, if it must be anything, and then we should have had some chance of speaking out our minds about that rubbish from the General Chemical Company."

"I did not know you had ever been bankrupt," said Rupert.

"Yes, sir; I had to fail; after the old gentleman's death," with a jerk of his head he indicated that he meant Mr. Mortomley, senior. "I must needs go as working partner into a firm who promised to do wonders for me. When they had picked my skull clean, they wanted to pitch me over, and they did pitch me over, thinking to have all the road to themselves, but that was not good enough for me, not at all," added Mr. Lang sarcastically. "I had a little money and I got a place and I set to work, and I could have done well only there was not an article I dealt in they did not offer at a lower price.

"Seeing their game I lowered my prices, then they cut theirs still lower, and so we went on till at last what we charged did not pay men's wages, let alone material and rent and all the rest of it.

"I being a practical man, and able to work myself, had a little the advantage of them; and besides I knew what must come, sooner or later, and so managed matters that when the brokers came in at last—and I was sick to death of expecting them before they did come—there was not enough in my house to pay the expenses of levying.

"At the works of course everything remained as usual, for there was not an article in them ever likely to be of use to me again.

"My old partners and me smashed up about the same time, and they have never done any good since. I met one of them only the other day and he says,

"'Lang,' he says, 'I wish we could have agreed and stayed together,' he says. 'we might all have been independent by this time.'

"'I wish,' I says, 'you could have acted honourable by me. It might have been better for you in the long run. For myself, I'm pretty comfortable, thank you. I have a good berth at Mortomley's, and needn't lie awake half my nights thinking about the wages for Saturday.'

"And then I asked him if he would take a glass of sherry; and though he was once a high and mighty sort of gentleman, he thanked me and did take it. That's the fruits of competition, sir, which some people think is so good for trade."

Turning the corner of the road sharply at this juncture, they came upon a man who stood leaning over the close fence which on that side enclosed the kitchen gardens at Homewood.

It was early to meet a stranger in such a neighbourhood, more especially a stranger who not being a working man had evidently no better employment than to stand out in damp weather surveying local landmarks.

He did not take any notice of either Rupert or his companion, continuing to lounge against the fence and contemplate vegetable-marrows, cabbages, and parsley.

Rupert, however, turned twice or thrice and took a long steady survey on each occasion.

"Who is that man, Lang?" he inquired.

"Never saw him before. He looks up to no good," answered Mr. Lang.

Rupert and the manager walked a few steps further, and then began to retrace their steps.

As they did so, they beheld the stranger lounging slowly before them, stopping at intervals to inspect the appearance of Homewood from different points of view, and giving the two an opportunity to pass him again.

"Beg pardon," he said, when they were close upon him, "but can you oblige me with a light?"

He addressed Lang, but Rupert answered him by producing a box of matches.

"I wonder who that man can be," remarked Rupert once they were out of earshot.

"He is up to no good," said Mr. Lang emphatically.

"I don't think he is," agreed Rupert uneasily, but neither he nor Lang could have defined the precise form of evil they believed the stranger had set himself to compass.

Had any one at Homewood kept a diary, however, which no one did with the exception of Lang, who prided himself not a little on the neatness and accuracy of his day-book, there would have been little in the events of the next eight-and-forty hours worth chronicling.

The clerks arrived as arranged, and before they had finished their work Mr. Benning appeared to see how they were getting on and have a look round the place, and ask a few questions of Rupert and Mrs. Mortomley, and a great many when he got the chance of wandering about the works unaccompanied, of Lang, Hankins, and even the rank and file of the working men.

He came, though Rupert was unaware of the fact, to try and find out something, but whatever that something might be he failed to make any discovery, excepting that the extent of Mr. Mortomley's trade had not been exaggerated, and that about the serious and possibly dangerous nature of his illness no rational doubt could be entertained.

Having satisfied his mind on these points, he and the clerks returned to town, taking as accurate a list of the liabilities as could be prepared in the time with them.

The same night Esther returned from Great Dassell, eloquent in praise of Miss Gerace, who had sadly wanted her to remain at all events till the following morning, and from whom she brought a very kind little note, saying she would gladly take charge of Lenore until Mr. Mortomley was better, and their difficulties of whatever nature they might be, overcome.

Next day Mr. Benning reappeared, accompanied by a Commissioner, to take Mr. Mortomley's affidavit that to the best of his belief the accounts furnished were accurate.

This ceremony occupied about half a minute, but under the circumstances it did prove an exhilarating performance, and to any one superstitious about such matters, the steady downfall of rain which had commenced on the previous Saturday, and never really left off since it began, was suggestive of a considerable amount of bad weather in the business journey Mortomley had been compelled to undertake.

Late in the afternoon Miss Halling and her brother took their departure. The young lady's luggage had all been despatched earlier in the day, and Rupert's seemed to consist merely of a black leather bag. Nevertheless, when Dolly went into his room she found it stripped of every article belonging to him, even to the sketch of Lenore at five years of age which always hung over the mantel-piece.

The young man had made sure of the safety of his own possessions, and Mrs. Mortomley had sense enough to commend his wisdom.

Nevertheless there is a wisdom which hurts, and Rupert's hurt her.

"I was right," she thought, "they are rats and the ship is sinking." And from that hour she braced up her courage to meet whatever fate might be coming, bravely—as she certainly would have done had she in fact stood on the deck of a vessel foundering in the midst of a wild and cruel sea.

Towards evening there arrived at Homewood a respectable looking sort of individual, who announcing that he was the bearer of a note from Mr. Swanland to Mrs. Mortomley, was asked without delay into the library.

Mrs. Mortomley looked at him and felt relieved. Here was a middle-aged confidential clerk, not at all like a man in possession, and she greeted him with civility, not to say cordiality.

"Pray sit down," she said, and Mr. Meadows seated himself with an apparent show of deference, all the time he understood quite as well as Mr. Bailey, there was not a chair in Homewood which did not already belong of right, not exactly perhaps to him, but his employer.

Then Mrs. Mortomley opened the note and read—

"Dear Madam,

"The bearer, Mr. Meadows, will inform you that everything is going on satisfactorily. He may be able, I trust, to relieve you from all anxiety and responsibility, and I have directed him to make his presence as little irksome as possible. To-morrow, if possible, I hope to call at Homewood, in order to make arrangements for the future. In the meantime, dear madam,

"I have the honour to remain,

"Yours faithfully,
"V. S. Swanland.

"To Mrs. Mortomley,
"Homewood,
"Whip's Cross."

Mrs. Mortomley read this epistle over three times. If she had not been enlightened on the point, it would never have occurred to her that Mr. Meadows was to be located at Homewood.

Having been enlightened, however, she asked,

"Do I understand you are to remain here?"

"It will be necessary for me to do so, madam," he answered, "until the preliminaries are settled. In fact, it is quite possible I may have to stay here until after the meeting of creditors."

Mrs. Mortomley paused and reflected. She did not know he was letting her down easily, and there was a feasibility about his statements which to her mind stamped them with a certain authenticity.

"Should you like tea or supper?" she asked after that mental conference—unconscious still, poor Dolly! that there sat the representative of the legal owner of Homewood and all it contained. "Either can be sent to you here immediately."

"If you have no objection ma'am," he answered, "I will go into the kitchen out of the way—and I can take share of what is going—"

"You are very thoughtful," said Mrs. Mortomley, "but I could not really think of allowing such a thing. You can have your own rooms here and—"

"I would rather go into the kitchen, ma'am," he persisted. "In these cases I like to be out of the way and give no trouble."

"That's extremely kind of you," said Mrs. Mortomley, and he failed, for a reason, to hear the ring of sarcasm in her tone. "You shall be made comfortable wherever you are, for I suppose now you are come—the men in possession will go out."

"Not to-night," he answered; "I have no instructions in the matter. To-morrow, Mr. Swanland purposes to be here, and then no doubt, everything will be gone into and arranged."

So on Tuesday evening a third man joined the kitchen family circle at Homewood, and added the smoke of his pipe to the smoke of those already in possession. Wednesday came, the morning and the noon and the afternoon passed without incident.

Dolly had been much with her husband. Mr. Meadows took occasion to wander into the works, and was treated at first with much respect. Really anywhere Mr. Meadows might have passed—to those who did not know he elected to live in the kitchen—for a small manufacturer—for a master reduced to take a clerk's place.

And Mr. Meadows had once occupied a very different position to that of an accountant's bailiff, and how he ever chanced to occupy himself in Mr. Swanland's service astonished all the people employed about Homewood.

He had a good, not to say superior, address. He spoke very fair English, he wrote a capital hand, and possessed a considerable amount of education. The routine of business was evidently familiar to him, though he was of course utterly ignorant of every detail of the colour trade. Still he asked a sufficient number of pertinent questions, to convince Lang he felt determined to acquire such a smattering of knowledge as might enable him to talk glibly on the subject hereafter to people who did understand about the matter.

At the end of two days Mr. Lang had taken the "new man's" measure, but still he was puzzled to imagine what he could have been originally, and how he ever came to adopt so low a calling.

With Hankins the first question of interest was, whether the chemicals were still to be had from St. Vedast Wharf.

"You had better ask Mr. Swanland about that," was the answer. "He will be here this evening."

"What does he know about chemicals or colours either?" inquired Hankins.

"Well, he is obliged to know something about everything," replied Mr. Meadows. "He is an uncommonly clever gentleman."

"One of those who can learn without being taught, I suppose," suggested Hankins.

"You have hit it pretty nearly," answered the other, in a tone which checked any further inquiries at that moment on the part of Mr. Hankins.

In the evening Mr. Swanland accompanied by Mr. Benning arrived, to make, in his double capacity of trustee and manager, arrangements for carrying on a business of which he knew almost as much as Mrs. Mortomley did of algebra.

Lang and Hankins and a subordinate foreman had been instructed to wait his coming, and perhaps to this trial of patience the remark of the latter, that "Swanland was the greatest swell for a man in possession he had ever seen," might be ascribed.

And indeed in one way his observation was strictly true, for whereas the individuals sent from time to time by descendants of all the twelve sons of Jacob, to keep watch and ward over the Mortomley goods and chattels, only came in for a slice of the estate, Mr. Swanland came for all.

At one swoop he had everything in his hand; without inventory or formality of any kind, save announcing himself as manager and trustee, he took a comprehensive grasp of Homewood and all it contained. The horses in the stables, the chemicals and colours in the works, the bed the sick man lay upon, the flowers in the garden, the exotics in the greenhouse, the cat curled up before the hall fire, the dogs raving at the length of their chains at the intruder, the pigeons in the dovecote, and the monarch of the dunghill, all belonged to Mr. Swanland. On the Saturday morning previously he had scarcely been aware that such a man as Mortomley was in existence. If he had accidentally heard his name, no memory of it remained; whilst as for Homewood, the place might have been a station in Australia for aught he knew about it.

And now he was master. Nominally the servant of the creditors, and ostensibly acting for the bankrupt, he was as truly the lord of Mortomley, the controller of his temporal destiny, as any southern planter ever proved of that of his slaves.

Whether the gentlemen, commercial and legal no doubt, who concocted the Bankruptcy Act of 1869, and the other gentlemen of the Upper and Lower Houses who made it law, ever contemplated that an utterly irresponsible person should be placed in a responsible position it is not for me to say, but I cannot think that any body of men out of Hanwell could have proposed to themselves that the whole future of a bankrupt's life should be made dependent on the choice of a trustee, since it is simple nonsense to suppose a committee selected virtually by him and the petitioning creditor have the slightest voice in the matter.

And if any man in business whose affairs are going at all wrong should happen to read these lines, which unhappily is not at all probable, since literature at such a time chiefly assumes the form of manuscript, let him remember liquidation means no appeal, no chance of ever having justice done him, nor even, remote contingency,—supposing the trustee a cool hand like Mr. Swanland,—of setting himself right with the business world.

He who goes into liquidation without first being sure of his trustee, his lawyer, and his committee passes into an earthly hell, over the portals of which are engraved the same words as those surmounting Dante's 'Inferno.'

He has left hope behind. God help him, for nothing save a miracle can ever enable him to retrace the path to the spot where she sits immortal.

At Homewood Mr. Swanland was in possession, and yet Dolly never suspected the fact. Her first uneasiness arose from a few words uttered by Mr. Benning.

"I suppose the business will be carried on," he remarked, sitting in the pleasant drawing-room with his feet stretched out towards the fire and his hands plunged in his pockets. Dolly could not avoid noticing that all these dreadful men did keep their hands in their pockets, as if they had no use for them anywhere else. "We must get a manager, I suppose."

Now was Dolly's opportunity.

"The business cannot be carried on except by some one who understands it thoroughly," she said.

"I do not suppose there will be any difficulty about that," he answered. "Competent people are always to be had if one knows how to look for them."

"Do you mean," she inquired, "that my husband will not have the management of his own business. Under Mr. Swanland I mean of course," she added.

"Mr. Mortomley's health seems quite broken up," said Mr. Benning. "It would be simple cruelty to ask him to attend to business. After the meeting of creditors the best thing he can do will be to go to some pretty seaside place in Devonshire or Cornwall, and live there comfortable upon your money."

For a minute the wretched woman sat silent facing her misery. Leave Homewood! leave the business of which her husband thought so much! Perhaps it was not true, perhaps she had not understood him.

"Do you really think we had better go away, away altogether," she gasped.

"Certainly," he answered.

At that moment, that critical moment, when she was about to ask if such a proposal were possible what the meaning of liquidation could be, Mr. Swanland, pale, bland, pleasant, courteous, Mr. Asherill's perfect gentleman the accountant cat, with his claws sheathed in velvet, folded in his muff, purring complacently, re-entered the room.

"Well, Mrs. Mortomley," he said, "everything seems most satisfactory. The trade appears good and the men employed respectable. Yes, thank you; I will take a cup of tea."

This was between the lines, and when Mrs. Mortomley handed him the tea she noticed how he stirred it, not at all as Mr. Asherill's perfect gentleman should have done, but holding the spoon upright.

"It is a shame for me to be so hypercritical," she thought. "I dare say he is a far honester man than this dreadful lawyer."

And so she inclined her ear to his pleasant words.

"Do not think, Mrs. Mortomley," he said, as he was leaving, with a sudden uplifting of his Albino eyes, "that because I am placed here in a disagreeable position I wish to make matters disagreeable to you. Pray let me hear from you when you want anything, and be quite sure it is my desire to act towards you as a friend in every way."

And he put out his hand.

Dolly took it, and thought she must by some accident have got hold of a frog.

Kleinwort was right. Mr. Asherill's partner had no digestion and no heart.

The more Mrs. Mortomley thought about Mr. Swanland the less she believed in him, spite of his plausible manner and his pleasant utterances, and when she crept into bed that night she caught herself wondering whether there could be any good in a person whose hand was like wet clay and who stirred his tea as the accountant stirred his.

Mr. Swanland left Homewood with an instinctive knowledge that the quondam mistress of that place disliked him, which knowledge touched the trustee in no vulnerable point.

It made, however, some slight difference to Mrs. Mortomley in the future, that future which, lying awake in the darkness, she vainly tried to forecast.

CHAPTER IX.

In imagination he saw looming in the distance ruin and beggary. He heard the gates of St. Vedast Wharf close behind him for the last time. Things were worse with him, much worse than they had been when Mortomley's nephew came to say his uncle meant to go into liquidation, and Mr. Forde felt impelled once again to take his hat.

"I wish I had left then," he muttered.

If a house be tottering, the removal of even a single stone may hasten the impending catastrophe. As Mr. Forde believed, Mortomley was a most important stone in the edifice of his own safety, and yet even at that juncture it never occurred to him it was his own mad sledge-hammer blows had driven it so completely out of place that no one could ever hope to make it available at St. Vedast Wharf again.

Really the manager was to be pitied. If there chanced to be one thing more than another on which he piqued himself, it was his genius for diplomacy, and, as Mr. Gibbons said, he had done a neat thing when he employed his own solicitor to do Mortomley's work.

If everything could have been prevailed upon to work as he intended it should, Mr. Forde would have been comparatively at ease; but edged tools have sometimes a knack of cutting those who play with them, and already one of Mr. Forde's tools had inflicted upon him a nasty wound.

"I will go round to Basinghall Street," he said almost aloud, as though some balm of Gilead might be extracted even from Salisbury House, and he went round to find Mr. Swanland out, Mr. Asherill urbane and unctuous as ever.

Deriving little consolation from his unsatisfactory interview with the latter gentleman, he walked on to Kleinwort's office, only to find him absent also, and the time of his return uncertain.

Then, because he was able to think of no other person to whom he could speak on the subject, he turned into Werner's counting-house.

As usual, Mr. Werner was within and visible.

"Have you seen the 'Times'?" asked Mr. Forde, after the first greetings were exchanged.

"Yes," was the short reply.

"Were you not surprised?"

"I do not know. I suppose I was. I thought you would have expressed your wishes more clearly."

"Clearly!" No italics and no number of interjections could convey an idea of the tone in which Mr. Forde uttered this word. "Why, sir, I told Benning as plainly as I could speak I wanted the matter kept out of the papers, and if that was not sufficiently explicit, I repeated the same thing to Swanland, and now just see the mess they have got me into."

"What do your directors say?"

"I have not seen any of them yet. What I shall say to them I cannot imagine."

And Mr. Forde beat a dismal tattoo on the corner of the desk as he spoke.

Then ensued a pause, during which Werner looked out at the weather, which was wet and cheerless, and Mr. Forde looked at him.

"What do you think?" asked the manager at length.

"I do not think. What is the good of thinking? If you had not been so decided on having your own way and insisting on Benning taking out the order, this need never have happened; but you always imagine yourself cleverer than anybody else, and so overshot the mark. Have you been to Swanland?"

"Yes, he was out. I saw Asherill, however, who repudiated all knowledge of Mortomley and his affairs and Swanland and his doings. He blessed me and gave me a tract, and said he was going to speak at a meeting this evening on behalf of a mission to some hopeful heathens in Africa. He presented me with tickets and asked me to give them to any friend if I could not make use of them myself. Here they are."

Henry Werner took the tickets and tore them into small atoms, flinging these contemptuously into his waste basket.

"If he would speak on behalf of a mission to the heathens of the City of London, I could furnish him with some anecdotes calculated to adorn his address," he remarked. "But to return to Mortomley. In your place I should meet the difficulty boldly. There is nothing disgraceful about Mortomley's debt to you; nothing disgraceful about the man, spite of all the mud with which you have been pleased to bespatter him. His worst crime is illness, and that illness leaves you at liberty to make good any story you like to tell. If it were Kleinwort now—"

"Kleinwort would never serve me as Mortomley has done," interrupted Mr. Forde.

"It is very hard to tell what any man would do till he is tried," said Mr. Werner sententiously.

"You would not fail me. You would always consider me. You would remember I have a wife and family depending upon me," observed Mr. Forde entreatingly.

"If I were in a corner myself, I am quite certain I should do nothing of the kind," was the frank reply. "My dear fellow bring the case home. Do you never fail other people? Do you always consider me for instance? Have you given throughout the whole of this affair of Mortomley's one thought to his wife or child? No you have not, and no man in business does. You would pitch Kleinwort and me and a score more over to-morrow if you could do so safely, and we would pitch you over if any extraordinary temptation came in our way. You do not believe in us, and we do not believe in you; but we do believe we have amongst us got into such a cursed muddle we cannot afford to throw anybody overboard who might swim to land and tell the story of our voyage. That is the state of the case, my friend. It is not a cheerful view of the position, but it is the true one."

"I have no doubt you would throw anybody overboard and jeer him while he was drowning," said Mr. Forde bitterly. "Now let Kleinwort be what he may, he has a heart. He is not like you, Werner."

"Well that is a comfort at any rate," remarked Mr. Werner. "I do not think I should care to be like Kleinwort."

Mr. Forde did not reply. He always got the worst of the game when he engaged in a verbal duel with Mr. Werner, so he remained leaning against the corner of the desk for a minute or so in silence thinking how extremely disagreeable Werner was and how hardly every one dealt with him.

At length he roused himself and said, "I suppose there is no good in my staying here any longer."

"You are quite welcome to stay" was the reply; "but I agree with you that there is no good purpose to be served by your doing so."

"What a Job's comforter you are," sighed poor Mr. Forde.

"Job came all right in the end, if you remember," Mr. Werner replied. "If you only fare ultimately half so well as he did you will not have much cause to complain."

"Yes, to-morrow must come, no matter how much sorrow to-day holds," answered Mr. Forde unconsciously paraphrasing one of Kleinwort's utterances. "If you see any of my people, Werner, do try to make things a little pleasant for me."

"You had better explain what you propose telling them, so that I may know the statement I am expected to back up," said Mr. Werner. "These things ought to be arranged beforehand."

But Mr. Forde had already banged the door and departed, so that the last utterance failed to reach his ears.

When Mr. Werner went out during the afternoon he met Mr. Kleinwort.

"Have not you some shares in that Spanish mine Green promoted," he inquired.

The German nodded.

"Well, I heard this morning from good authority that the mine will never pay, that the whole thing is a swindle, and was a swindle from the beginning."

"Ah! what a world is this," said Kleinwort with a pious and resigned expression of countenance.

"I do not think it is too late for you to sell," suggested Mr. Werner.

The German shrugged his shoulders.

"It matters not to me," he replied.

"I thought you said you had shares," remarked his companion.

"So I have; but they are in pledge don't you call it. That dear Forde wanted them and he has got them. How nice it is when a man has got what he wants."

"Kleinwort, I am afraid you are a great rogue," observed Mr. Werner severely.

"Ditto to you half countryman of mine own," answered the other raising his hat with a gesture of mock deference. "Have you been to St. Vedast to-day? No. Neither have I. Seemed best, I thought, to leave poor Forde to digest that neat little paragraph in the 'Times' without disturbance!"

"It will be a bad thing for him, I am afraid," remarked Werner.

"It will be a bad thing for me, which is matter of much more interest to Bertram Kleinwort," was the answer. "That accursed Benning and thrice-accursed partner of the Christian wolf,—how I wish they were both hanging on a gibbet higher than Haman's, and that I was big man enough to pull their legs!"

Having giving utterance to which Christian desire Mr. Kleinwort departed, leaving even Werner astonished at the tone of deadly hatred he concentrated in one sentence.

"I believe you would do it too, you little devil," he decided. "Well, I will go and tell Forde about the mine, and give him a chance of selling."

But Mr. Forde was not at the wharf.

"He had received a letter by the second post," explained one of the clerks, "which obliged him to start at once for Newcastle."

Mr. Werner smiled. He understood the cause of that sudden journey, but he only said, "I will look round again on Friday."

But when Friday came, it was useless for him to do so. The shares in that especial mine were a drug in the market. Every one was hastening to sell, and no man could be found to buy.

Meantime, however, fortune, which never proves more utterly capricious than when we believe ourselves down for life in her black books, had relented and done Mr. Forde a gracious turn.

On the occasion of that meeting in behalf of the heathen, to which Mr. Forde referred so contemptuously, Samuel Witney, Esq., took the chair, and after various missionaries and others interested in the good work had addressed the assemblage, and votes of thanks had been returned to everybody for something, proposed to his dear brother in religion that, as they must return to their respective homes from the Waterloo Station, they should walk thither together.

Perfectly well Mr. Asherill understood the reason of this suggestion, and for one moment he hesitated whether he should not charter a cab to the City and tell Mr. Witney the literal truth, namely, that he generally travelled to and from his snug villa residence viâ the North London Railway.

But immediately he decided to face the difficulty. Sooner or later his fellow Christian was certain to question him about Mortomley, and the sooner he did so, the less difficulty there might be in answering his inquiries.

"I was very much surprised to see in the 'Times' this morning that Mr. Mortomley had gone into liquidation," began Mr. Witney.

"Sad affair, is it not?" said Mr. Asherill, feeling his way.

"It is sad for us. We are creditors, as of course you are aware."

"I have been given to understand as much, but I am glad to know that you are not creditors for any large amount, that is, I mean for anything serious. A few thousands is of course a bagatelle, to a great concern like the General Chemical Company."