Probation

A committee meeting had been called for a certain Tuesday afternoon. An appeal for help had been sent out to all the persons of any position in the neighbourhood. Canon Ponsonby’s name headed the list with a donation of fifty pounds, which was more to him than fifty hundred would have been to Mr. Spenceley. Some half-dozen large manufacturing firms followed with sums varying from one to five hundred pounds. ‘S. M., five hundred pounds.’ ‘Mrs. Mallory, five pounds.’ Mrs. Mallory had so many calls upon her charity just then, she said, she really could not afford more, or the yearly sum she set apart for such purposes would be exceeded.

‘The yearly distress to be relieved is also considerably exceeded,’ murmured her son, as he took possession of the contribution. ‘H. v. B., five pounds.’

‘Our money!’ as Mrs. Mallory indignantly observed to herself, and tossed her head angrily.

‘H. S., ten pounds.’ This stood for Helena Spenceley, who delivered the money over to Sebastian with a kind of chuckle. ‘You would never guess how I got it,’ said she, with a broad smile of triumph and satisfaction.

‘Begged, borrowed, or stolen?’ he asked, smiling too.

‘Neither one nor the other. Nor yet was it a free gift, nor yet did I find it at the back of a drawer, having quite forgotten that I had put it there, as I once before did with a five-pound note. Oh, you will never know how I got it.’ And she laughed.

But Sebastian learnt from Adrienne how she had come by the money.

‘Her father would not give her a penny,’ said she, ‘because he had made up his mind with his narrow income to sacrifice twenty-five pounds, which he was sadly in need of himself, so what do you think she did?’

‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.’

‘She sold a lot of her dresses and things. I expect the poor girl has been awfully cheated,’ Adrienne added, a touch of real feminine feeling and regret in her tone. ‘She said she had left herself only half a dozen—and fancy getting no more than ten pounds for the rest of her wardrobe—it is awful to think of. But the money was there, she said, and she could not resist it. She is as pleased as if it had been a hundred.’

‘Like somebody else’s,’ suggested Sebastian.

‘Somebody else’s?’

He pointed to the written subscription list which they had been looking over. ‘Life let us Cherish, £100,’ stood inscribed on the page.

‘Do you think I don’t know what hand traced that?’

‘But you won’t tell, please!’ said Adrienne.

‘Ah, you have confessed. No; I will not tell, unless I think it would be for your good.’

‘Nonsense! But was it not nice and generous in that girl?’ persisted Adrienne, who always would talk to Sebastian, much more than he liked, about Helena.

‘Yes; it was. But she has a generous disposition,’ he admitted, still looking affectionately at his favourite inscription.

The celebrated twenty-five pounds spoken of by Adrienne—it is lucky that money has not an organised nervous system, or it might suffer keenly under the touch of some fingers!—was committed by Mr. Spenceley the elder to Mr. Spenceley the younger, with the remark that he wondered how much longer people who had honestly earned their money would be expected to pour it out like water ‘in that way;’ and the request that he would deliver it into the hands of Sebastian Mallory, the treasurer.

Mr. Frederick Spenceley, who did not appear to find business so engrossing as his father, strolled down to the committee-rooms, arriving on the scene of action some ten minutes or quarter of an hour before any signs of action had begun to manifest themselves. The well-known mauvais quart d’heure may be evil in many ways, kinds, and degrees of badness. Frederick Spenceley had no intention of spending his fifteen minutes more aimlessly or mischievously than usual; but his guardian demon had ordained that they should be consumed more reprehensibly, perhaps, than all the rest of his existence put together.

There was no one in the first room, no one in the second room; in the third room was a solitary figure standing in one of the windows—a figure in black cloth clothes, with a bundle of documents under one arm—the figure of Mr. James Hoyle.

There were two windows to the room. Mr. Spenceley, jingling the coin in his pockets, strolled up to the other one, and stood at it, whistling to himself, and looking out upon the prospect—what there was of it. The two windows were on the same side of the room, and looked upon a kind of open yard, separated from the street by a low wall. It was a slanting street, like so many others in that up-and-down town, Thanshope. Exactly opposite the window in which Spenceley stood was a gate, through which any one coming to the committee-rooms must pass, and, going under the windows (to the right) of the other two rooms, at last arrive at the door opening into the Ladies’ Committee-room. There was also a separate door, leading into the second room, or clerk’s office, where Myles Heywood and his fellow-clerk sat.

Half absently, Spenceley began to collect the money together that his father had given him, and to lay it out, two five-pound notes and fifteen sovereigns, upon the window-ledge before him. He looked at it pensively, and Mr. Hoyle’s little sharp eyes were fixed with a sidelong gaze, full of interest, upon his face. Mr. Hoyle had surveyed the prospect to more purpose than Mr. Spenceley, and was very anxious that the latter should give over counting out his money, and return to the apparently innocent pursuit of looking out of the window, which he presently did.

He plunged his hands into his pockets, and gazed out again, swaying to and fro from his toes to his heels, in the rhythmic manner common to persons in his position. Presently the rhythmic movement ceased. Mr. Spenceley’s attention became concentrated on outside objects, on a figure some two hundred yards distant, approaching down the hill. He looked at her as she came along, in her black dress, with her pale face and her warmly tinted hair. He hated her for a thousand reasons, and because she looked sad and lovely at once, because she was gentle to others and to him an icicle; and most of all, because he had made a great mistake about her in his gross, clumsy, blundering way, and knew now, that if he had but known what she was he would never have insulted her, but would have tried with all his might, though he was not clever, to become good enough for her. But she had prevented that, she had refused him the faintest chance of letting her know that he repented, and by ——, he thought savagely, he did not repent. These women were all alike; either worse than the devil himself, or too icily cold and pure to glance aside at such as he. He watched and watched, as if fascinated; watched how she came along, looking tired and pale, but lovely; despite his hatred he felt, with all the finer feeling he had, that she was lovely, and his head turned, his eyes followed her steps, till she arrived at the gate, and then her face changed, and he gave a great start, for, standing there, exactly as she came up, was Myles Heywood, who had been coming (as the astute Mr. Hoyle had perceived) up the hill from the opposite direction.

They met at the gate. Adrienne’s face, after a faint smile, seemed to grow still paler and calmer. She held out her hand. Myles took off his cap, and though he did not smile—unless a slight quiver about the comers of his mouth could be called a smile—yet he took her hand, and they spoke together for a moment at the gate. It was quite evident that it was Adrienne, and not Myles, who made the pause and carried on the conversation which took place before they both came on, past the windows (which had the lower panes frosted, on purpose to baffle vulgar curiosity), without seeing the two striking countenances that were watching them.

Myles left Adrienne at the door of the second room, and she went on to the ladies’ room.

Frederick Spenceley had entirely forgotten the presence of any one but himself. He gave vent to his feelings in a low but distinctly audible—

‘D—n them!’

He suddenly felt a touch on his arm, and, turning round with his usual disproportionate start, beheld Mr. Hoyle at his elbow, looking into his face.

‘Oh! Confound you! What do you want, creeping up to a fellow in that way?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir. I have been looking at that man Myles Heywood....’

‘What, that’s the blackguard’s name, is it?’

‘Yes, sir. My step-son. A—some young ladies choose strange friends, sir; don’t you think so?’

Spenceley was about to ask roughly what business of his it was; but something in the intent, glittering fixity of the man’s gaze held him fast.

‘Perhaps they do,’ said he, slowly. ‘What then?’

‘Only this. That young man’s mother is now my wife. I ought to know what sort of a character he is. I ought to know something about the young lady, too. If the facts about both of them, the real facts, were known, she would be in a different position from what she has, and he——’

Mr. Hoyle laughed.

‘He—what about him?’ asked Mr. Spenceley, almost breathlessly.

‘Well, I don’t think that young fool of a master of his——’

‘Who is his master?’

‘Mallory.’

‘Ah—h!’

‘He’s taken a fancy to him; he’s offered to help him. He did help him to his present place. But it was in ignorance of the facts. If he knew the facts, my young gentleman would not be in such a hurry to patronise him. In fact—he’d be ruined.’

‘Facts—what facts?’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Hoyle. ‘That’s just it. Properly to investigate and establish those facts might be rather expensive.’

‘Oh! you are certain that if they were known they would have the requisite effect?’

‘You mean——’

‘Of parting him and her—of punishing her?’

‘I tell you, he would leave the place, and she would cry her eyes out. I know it.’

‘And about how expensive would that be?’ demanded Spenceley.

‘It would cost a hundred pounds, and I should want five-and-twenty to go on with—the rest down when I tell you he has gone.’

Spenceley put his hand on the money.

‘This is five-and-twenty,’ he remarked. ‘I must give them a cheque for it, instead of money down. But remember, if you’re cheating me——’

‘On my soul and honour, sir,’ said Hoyle, with almost vehement earnestness, ‘you may trust me. It’s as much my cause as yours. And meantime, if you should hear any reports to the disadvantage of a certain lady, don’t deny them—I told you I knew some queer facts about them both.’

Scarcely had the money been transferred to the keeping of Mr. Hoyle, than the door was opened, and Canon Ponsonby, Sebastian Mallory, and others, came in. Mr. Hoyle began to study his documents, and Fred Spenceley to look out of the window again, his heart beating unheroically fast, with a sense of peril of which he felt ashamed, and an undercurrent of eager thirst for revenge, the stronger in that there was now some prospect of its being gratified.