King of the Castle

Glyddyr drew a long breath, and Gellow threw himself on the padded seat.

“Might as well have shaken hands,” he said; “but, bah! it’s only form. Very sad about the old chap, but a grand stroke of fate for you. I’m glad you’ve stopped on here. Very wise: because, of course, there’s sure to be a shoal of poor relatives wanting to nibble the cake – your cake – our cake, eh?”

“So that’s why you’ve come down?”

“Yes. Been sooner, but a certain lady has taken up a lot of my time. You didn’t want her here now. I’ve plenty of time, though. I knew you were on the spot, and that nothing would be done till the old gentleman had been put away quietly, and the lady had time to order the mourning. Oh, I say, Glyddyr! you’ll excuse me, but – ”

“But what, man?”

“Don’t be so snaggy to a man who is helping you. But what bad form.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Look at yourself in the glass. Promised wife in deep mourning, and you in blue serge and a red tie. Why, you ought to be as solemn looking as an undertaker.”

Glyddyr involuntarily glanced at himself in a mirrored panel at the side of the saloon.

“Change all that, dear boy. That’s where I come in so useful, you see.”

Glyddyr moved impatiently.

“You see, I’m not a lawyer, but I’m quite as good, or better. There are not many legal dodges I’m not up to, and you can take me with you to the house, introduce me to the young lady, and I can put her up to saving hundreds in rental on the estates. When are you going next?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll want a bit of money, too. Don’t stint yourself – I’m at your back all ready, so that you may cut it fat right through. By George, Glyddyr, you are lucky. The estate is about as good as a million of money.”

“How do you know?” said Glyddyr savagely.

“How do I know, man?” said Gellow, laughing. “Used my wits. Fine thing wits. You began life with a pot of money. I began life with tuppence. But it’s you fellows who get the luck, and turn out millionaires.”

“Look here, Mr Gellow – ”

“Nonsense, nonsense, man. How huffy you will be to your best friend! Come, you must want my help, so let’s talk business over quietly. When are you going over yonder?”

“I told you I don’t know.”

“Gammon! Don’t be absurd, man, and talk rough just because we were a little out last time I was down. That’s all over. You talk as if you wanted to throw me over, and get your millions without my help; but you can’t do it, my dear boy. Let alone what you owe me, you know, I must stand in here.”

“Stand in! What do you mean?”

“You know.”

“Why, you scoundrel – ”

“Now, there you go again. You force me to take up the cudgels in my defence.”

“Leave this room.”

“Cabin, dear boy, cabin. But what for? To go ashore, walk up to Gartram’s Fort – I mean Glyddyr’s Fort, if I like it to be – ask to see the young lady, and tell her exactly what you are, and how you stand with a certain person.”

Glyddyr stared at him helplessly.

“No: you wouldn’t drive me to do such a thing – such a cowardly thing as it really would be – in self-defence. No, no, my dear boy; you are really too hard on an old friend – far too hard.”

Glyddyr’s teeth grated together in his impotent rage.

“Come, come, come, shake hands, and let me help you to pay your debts like a gentleman, and to drop into this good thing easily and nicely as can be.”

There was no response.

“Tell me how matters stand. I know pretty well, but I should like to hear from you.”

“You’ll hear nothing from me.”

“Very well. I’ll tell you what I know. You can correct me where I am wrong, eh? Now, then, to begin with. Papa told the young lady she was to marry you. That ought to be good enough to carry the day, but – there’s your little but again – there’s a gentleman, a Mr Christopher Lisle – old friend, playmate, and the rest of it – whom the lady likes, eh?”

Glyddyr uttered an ejaculation.

“And then there’s something else on. Tall, big gent stopping at the house. Young lady and he are shut up together a deal.”

“How do you know all this?” cried Glyddyr, thrown off his guard by a dread lest, after all, Claude should escape him.

“How do I know? Now, come; isn’t there a tall, biggish gent staying at the house?”

Glyddyr nodded.

“Of course there is. I don’t say things unless they are right. Now, what does he want?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know! Well, how long has he been there?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Gellow sat up suddenly, and glared at Glyddyr.

“Look here; you are not playing with a good thing, are you?”

Glyddyr shook his head.

“When were you there last?”

“Mr Gellow, I object to the line of cross-examination that you are taking.”

“Do you? Then look here, Mr Parry Glyddyr, you’ll have to object. If you don’t know what’s good for you, I must. Now, then: when were you there last?”

“I have not been there since Mr Gartram died.”

“Well, I am!” cried Gellow. “You’re engaged to the young lady, and haven’t been since the father’s death. Why?”

Glyddyr was silent.

“Good heavens, man, don’t turn stunt like that. There isn’t a tiff on, is there?”

“I felt it better not to go near the house while the poor girl is in so much trouble.”

“Hark at him!” cried Gellow excitedly, “when every day he stops away may mean ten thousand pounds.”

“She may have been ill, and I have been unwell,” said Glyddyr sullenly.

“And all the time the old man’s money might be running down the sink hole, or into the poor relatives’ pockets. What are you at?”

“I tell you I couldn’t go to the house with that old man lying there dead,” cried Glyddyr, with a half-suppressed shudder.

“Look at him!” cried Gellow angrily, “shivering and shaking as if he had been on the drink for six months. Not afraid of a dead man, are you?”

“Your language is revolting,” cried Glyddyr passionately.

“Well, ain’t it enough to make any man revolt? Why, you ought to have hold there; you ought to have taken possession and looked after everything. It’s as good as your own. Oh, where would you be if I didn’t look after you. Now, then: you’d better get over there at once.”

“No,” said Glyddyr, “not yet;” and, in spite of himself, he shuddered, and then glanced at his visitor to see if it had been noticed.

“Look at him! Why, the old man isn’t there now. There, I won’t bully you, dear boy. I see how it is. Ring the bell; have in the steward, and let me mix you a pick-me-up. You’re down, regularly down. I’ll soon wind you up, and set you going again. I’m like a father to you.”

Glyddyr obeyed in a weak, helpless way, ringing for the steward, and then ordering in the spirits.

“Bring in the liqueurs too, my lad – Curaçoa, Chartreuse, anything. – You want me now, old fellow, but you must take care. You’re as white as wax, and your hand’s all of a tremble. It won’t do. You don’t drink fair. Now, as soon as your man brings in the tackle, I’ll give you a dose, and then you’ve got to go over yonder.”

“No,” said Glyddyr hoarsely, “no: not to-day.”

“Yes, to-day. You don’t want two chaps cutting the ground from under your feet. – Hah, that’s your sort, steward. Better than being aboard ship, and having to put your hand in your pocket every time you want a drink. Needn’t wait.”

The man left the little saloon, and Gellow deftly concocted a draught with seltzer and liqueurs, which Glyddyr took with trembling hand, and tossed off.

“Talk about making a new man!” cried Gellow. “You feel better already, don’t you?”

Glyddyr nodded.

“Of course you do. Now, then, let’s take the boat and go over yonder. I’m curious to see the place.”

“No: impossible,” said Glyddyr, flushing.

“Not a bit impossible. Come on, and I’ll back you up.”

“No: I will not take you there.”

“Coming round more and more,” said Gellow, laughing. “Well, will you go alone?”

“Not to-day.”

“You’ll leave those two chaps to oust you out of what is your own?”

“No. I’ll go and call.”

“When?”

“Now: at once.”

“That’s your sort,” cried Gellow. “Never you say I’m not your friend.”

Ten minutes later the boat was manned, and Glyddyr was ready to step in, but Gellow laid his hand upon his arm, and drew him back.

“Don’t,” he said, almost with tears in his eyes; “don’t go like that, dear boy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Go and change that tie. If you haven’t got a black one, put on a white.”

Glyddyr obeyed him sullenly, and changed his tie before starting, while his visitor went down into the saloon, helped himself to a cigar, and took up a glass and the brandy decanter.

“A nip wouldn’t do me any harm,” he said with a laugh, and, removing the stopper, poured out a goodly dram.

It was half-way to his lips when he stopped, and poured it back.

“No,” he said quickly, “I want a clear head now; I can enjoy myself when I’ve got Master Glyddyr quite in trim.”

He went on deck, to begin smoking and asking questions of the two men left on board; but all the time he had an eye on Glyddyr’s boat, watching it till it reached the pier-steps, and then he was able to see its owner at intervals, till he disappeared among the houses.

After this, Gellow went below and used the binocular, fixing it upon the Fort till he made out Glyddyr approaching the house, where he stood in the entry for a few moments talking to a servant, and then turned away.

Gellow set down the glass, thrust his hands in his pockets, and stood with the cigar in the exact centre of his lips, puffing away rapidly – “For all the world like a steam launch,” said one of the men left on board when talking about it afterwards – till Glyddyr came on board.

“Out,” said the latter laconically.

“Fashionable slang for engaged with another chap,” said Gellow, with a sneer.

Glyddyr turned upon him fiercely.

“Don’t be waxey, dear boy,” said Gellow; “but it was quite time I came down.”

The progress of affairs at the Fort had been business-like meanwhile.

“I beg your pardon, miss.”

“It is nothing, Woodham; come in,” said Claude quietly, as the woman was withdrawing after giving an unheeded tap, and entering the room.

“Mr Trevithick’s compliments, ma’am, and would you see him in the study?”

“Yes, at once,” said Claude; and both thought how she had seemed to change during the past few weeks, from the slight girl into the dignified woman. “Come, Mary.”

“Isn’t it private business?” said Mary, shrinking back strangely.

“Yes, dear; our private business,” said Claude, and they passed out, Sarah Woodham holding open the door.

Claude gave her an affectionate smile, and crossed to the study; and, as the door closed after them, Sarah Woodham stood alone in the doorway, with her hands clasped and eyes closed as she muttered softly —

“And let me live for her – die for her, grateful for her undeserved love, in expiation – oh, my God, in expiation!”

“Ah!” said Trevithick, rising from a chair at the table covered with papers, and looking like the great, heavy, bashful Englishman he was, as he placed chairs opposite to where he had been seated, “I am sorry to trouble you, Miss Gartram, Miss Dillon too,” he said with a smile, as he beamed upon her.

Mary gave him an angry, resentful look, and he turned chapfallen on the instant, and became the man of business again, then cold, and seeming to perspire figures.

“Miss Dillon takes part in our little conference, Miss Gartram?” he said, rather stiffly.

“Of course. My cousin is, as it were, my sister, Mr Trevithick.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, as he slowly resumed his seat, pursed up his lips a little, and then he took up a pen, with the holder of which he scratched his head as he studied a paper before him on the table. “Are you ready, Miss Gartram?”

“Quite.”

“Well, then, I have very bad news for you, I am sorry to say.”

“I am used to bad news, Mr Trevithick.”

“My dear madam, I spoke too bluntly. I meant bad news as to money matters. Forgive me my rough way. I am a man of business – a mere machine.”

Claude smiled her thanks, for the words were uttered with a manly sympathy that was pleasant to her ears, and Mr Trevithick felt better, and beamed again at Mary.

Mary once more resented that beam, and Trevithick passed his hand through his hair, which more than ever resembled a brush, and sighed, and said —

“I have gone over all papers and accounts, Miss Gartram, over and over again, and an auditor may perhaps find an error, but for the life of me I can’t tell where, for I have studied the figures night and day ever since I came here last, and I cannot bring them right. I was wrong to the extent of one, seven, eight; but I found a receipt afterwards, evidently carelessly thrown into the drawer before entering, and I wish I could find the other.”

“What other?” said Mary sharply.

“That other,” said Mr Trevithick, beaming at her again, being silently snubbed, and collapsing once more. “As I make it, Miss Gartram,” he continued, in the most stern and business way, “you inherit from my late respected client, your father, the freehold quarry, this residence, also freehold and of great value, while the quarry is almost inexhaustible; the furniture and plate, good debts, etcetera, and five hundred and twenty-seven thousand eight hundred and forty-nine pounds, seven shillings and four-pence, including half-a-sheet of stamps.”

“Indeed?” said Claude, with a sigh.

“What bad news!” said Mary, with preternatural solemnity.

“That is to come, Miss Dillon,” said Trevithick, with a look of triumph which met so sharp a glance that it was turned aside on the instant, and he took refuge in his papers.

“Yes, madam,” he repeated, “that is to come. There is a very serious deficit, Miss Gartram. I find that there should have been five hundred and sixty-eight thousand, eight hundred and forty-nine, seven and four-pence – a deficit, you see, of forty-one thousand pounds – I need not add, a very large sum.”

“Yes,” said Claude quietly.

“Yes,” said Trevithick. “Well, madam, what have you to say?”

“Nothing, Mr Trevithick.”

“But really, my dear madam, I think you ought to say something about this sum, and give me some instructions what to do to recover it.”

Claude shook her head gravely.

“No,” she said, “I cannot regard this as a loss in the presence of one so much greater. Thank you very much, Mr Trevithick, for all that you have done; and now, pray, give me some advice as to what to do with this money.”

“Good, my dear madam, and that I am sure you will do.”

“I mean as to its investment.”

“To be sure. I was coming to that, for the sooner this heavy amount is out of your hands the more comfortable you will be.”

“I said something like this to my cousin a little while back, Mr Trevithick,” said Mary sharply. “Pray give her some better advice than that.”

The solicitor looked disconcerted, but he recovered himself.

“Well, Miss Gartram, I have plenty of clients who want money, and would agree to pay five per centum; but, excuse me, you don’t want to make money, and, as your father’s trusted legal adviser, I shall give his daughter the most valuable advice I can.”

“And what is that, Mr Trevithick?”

“Let me at once invest all this money for you in Consols. Only two and a half now, but there will be no fluctuations, no heavy dividend one year, nothing at all the next, and some day perhaps failure. It is very poor advice, perhaps, but safe as the Bank of England.”

“Take the necessary steps at once, Mr Trevithick,” said Claude decisively.

“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?”

He held out his hand for the bottle, and the barber passed it at once.

“Oh, no, sir,” he said, “nothing of that kind.”

With the action born of long habit, the doctor took out the cork, sniffed, held the bottle up to the light, shook it, applied a finger to the neck, shook the bottle again, tasted the drug at the end of his finger, and quickly spat it out.

“Why, Wimble, what the dickens are you doing with chloral?”

“Nothing, sir, nothing; only an old bottle.”

“Throw it away, then,” said the doctor hastily. “Don’t take it. Very bad habit. Recollect that’s how poor Mr Gartram came to his end. Good-day. Come round, then, at three.”

“Yes, sir, certainly, sir; but you forgot to – ”

“Oh, I beg pardon. Yes, of course,” said the doctor, handing back the bottle, and then, beating himself with his right-hand glove, he walked hastily out of the place.

Wimble stood looking after his visitor till he was out of sight, and then walked slowly back into his museum to operate upon the dead bird, which lay where he had placed it upon a shelf ready for skinning.

“Ah,” he said mournfully, as he rubbed his nose slowly with the cork of the little bottle, “what a world of deception it is. There is nothing honest. Were all more or less like specimens. A front, and me not to have known it all this time. If she had taken me sooner into her confidence, I wouldn’t have cared. The doctor did. Hah! I wonder who ever suspected him, with his clear dark locks, as I keep so right. Yes, he’s a deceiver, and without me what would he look like in a couple of months? – Deceit, deceit, deceit. – And I trusted her so. It’s taking a mean advantage of a man.

“Well, it was a mark of confidence, and perhaps I have been all wrong. It shows she is waiting to trust me, and ought I to? Well, we shall see.”