The building in which Mr. John Vavasor had a room and a desk was located in one of these side streets, and had, in its infantine days, been regarded with complacency by its founder. It was stone-faced, and strong, and though very ugly, had about it that air of importance which justifies a building in a.s.suming a special name of itself. This building was called the Accountant-General"s Record Office, and very probably, in the gloom of its dark cellars, may lie to this day the records of the expenditure of many a fair property which has gotten itself into Chancery, and has never gotten itself out again. It was entered by a dark hall, the door of which was never closed; and which, having another door at its further end leading into another lane, had become itself a thoroughfare. But the pa.s.sers through it were few in number. Now and then a boy might be seen there carrying on his head or shoulders a huge ma.s.s of papers which you would presume to be accounts, or some clerk employed in the purlieus of Chancery Lane who would know the shortest possible way from the chambers of some one attorney to those of some other. But this hall, though open at both ends, was as dark as Erebus; and any who lingered in it would soon find themselves to be growing damp, and would smell mildew, and would become naturally affected by the exhalations arising from those Chancery records beneath their feet.
Up the stone stairs, from this hall, John Grey pa.s.sed to Mr. Vavasor"s signing-room. The stairs were broad, and almost of n.o.ble proportions, but the darkness and gloom which hung about the hall, hung also about them,--a melancholy set of stairs, up and down which no man can walk with cheerful feet. Here he came upon a long, broad pa.s.sage, in which no sound was, at first, to be heard. There was no busy noise of doors slamming, no rapid sound of shoes, no pa.s.sing to and fro of men intent on their daily bread. Pausing for a moment, that he might look round about him and realize the deathlike stillness of the whole, John Grey could just distinguish the heavy breathing of a man, thereby learning that there was a captive in, at any rate, one of those prisons on each side of him. As he drew near to the door of Mr.
Vavasor"s chamber he knew that the breathing came from thence.
On the door there were words inscribed, which were just legible in the gloom--"Signing Room. Mr. Vavasor."
How John Vavasor did hate those words! It seemed to him that they had been placed there with the express object of declaring his degradation aloud to the world. Since his grandfather"s will had been read to him he had almost made up his mind to go down those melancholy stairs for the last time, to shake the dust off his feet as he left the Accountant-General"s Record Office for ever, and content himself with half his official income. But how could he give up so many hundreds a year while his daughter was persisting in throwing away thousands as fast as, or faster than, she could lay her hands on them?
John Grey entered the room and found Mr. Vavasor sitting all alone in an arm-chair over the fire. I rather think that that breathing had been the breathing of a man asleep. He was resting himself amidst the labours of his signing. It was a large, dull room, which could not have been painted, I should think, within the memory of man, looking out backwards into some court. The black wall of another building seemed to stand up close to the window,--so close that no direct ray of the sun ever interrupted the signing-clerk at his work. In the middle of the room there was a large mahogany-table, on which lay a pile of huge papers. Across the top of them there was placed a bit of blotting-paper, with a quill pen, the two only tools which were necessary to the performance of the signing-clerk"s work. On the table there stood a row of official books, placed lengthways on their edges: the "Post-Office Directory," the "Court Circular,"
a "Directory to the Inns of Court," a dusty volume of Acts of Parliament, which had reference to Chancery accounts,--a volume which Mr. Vavasor never opened; and there were some others; but there was no book there in which any Christian man or woman could take delight, either for amus.e.m.e.nt or for recreation. There were three or four chairs round the wall, and there was the one arm-chair which the occupant of the chamber had dragged away from its sacred place to the hearth-rug. There was also an old Turkey carpet on the floor. Other furniture there was none. Can it be a matter of surprise to any one that Mr. Vavasor preferred his club to his place of business? He was not left quite alone in this deathlike dungeon. Attached to his own large room there was a small closet, in which sat the signing-clerk"s clerk,--a lad of perhaps seventeen years of age, who spent the greatest part of his time playing t.i.t-tat-to by himself upon official blotting-paper. Had I been Mr. Vavasor I should have sworn a bosom friendship with that lad, have told him all my secrets, and joined his youthful games.
"Come in!" Mr. Vavasor had cried when John Grey disturbed his slumber by knocking at the door. "I"m glad to see you,--very. Sit down; won"t you? Did you ever see such a wretched fire? The coals they give you in this place are the worst in all London. Did you ever see such coals?" And he gave a wicked poke at the fire.
It was now the 1st of May, and Grey, who had walked from Suffolk Street, was quite warm. "One hardly wants a fire at all, such weather as this," he said.
"Oh; don"t you?" said the signing-clerk. "If you had to sit here all day, you"d see if you didn"t want a fire. It"s the coldest building I ever put my foot in. Sometimes in winter I have to sit here the whole day in a great-coat. I only wish I could shut old Sugden up here for a week or two, after Christmas." The great lawyer whom he had named was the man whom he supposed to have inflicted on him the terrible injury of his life, and he was continually invoking small misfortunes on the head of that tyrant.
"How is Alice?" said Grey, desiring to turn the subject from the ten-times-told tale of his friend"s wrongs.
Mr. Vavasor sighed. "She is well enough, I believe," he said.
"Is anything the matter in Queen Anne Street?"
"You"ll hardly believe it when I tell you; and, indeed, I hardly know whether I ought to tell you or not."
"As you and I have gone so far together, I think that you ought to tell me anything that concerns her nearly."
"That"s just it. It"s about her money. Do you know, Grey, I"m beginning to think that I"ve been wrong in allowing you to advance what you have done on her account?"
"Why wrong?"
"Because I foresee there"ll be a difficulty about it. How are we to manage about the repayment?"
"If she becomes my wife there will be no management wanted."
"But how if she never becomes your wife? I"m beginning to think she"ll never do anything like any other woman."
"I"m not quite sure that you understand her," said Grey; "though of course you ought to do so better than any one else."
"n.o.body can understand her," said the angry father. "She told me the other day, as you know, that she was going to have nothing more to do with her cousin--"
"Has she--has she become friends with him again?" said Grey. As he asked the question there came a red spot on each cheek, showing the strong mental anxiety which had prompted it.
"No; I believe not;--that is, certainly not in the way you mean. I think that she is beginning to know that he is a rascal."
"It is a great blessing that she has learned the truth before it was too late."
"But would you believe it;--she has given him her name to bills for two thousand pounds, payable at two weeks" sight? He sent to her only this morning a fellow that he called his clerk, and she has been fool enough to accept them. Two thousand pounds! That comes of leaving money at a young woman"s own disposal."
"But we expected that, you know," said Grey, who seemed to take the news with much composure.
"Expected it?"
"Of course we did. You yourself did not suppose that what he had before would have been the last."
"But after she had quarrelled with him!"
"That would make no difference with her. She had promised him her money, and as it seems that he will be content with that, let her keep her promise."
"And give him everything! Not if I can help it. I"ll expose him. I will indeed. Such a pitiful rascal as he is!"
"You will do nothing, Mr. Vavasor, that will injure your daughter. I"m very sure of that."
"But, by heavens--. Such sheer robbery as that! Two thousand pounds more in fourteen days!" The shortness of the date at which the bills were drawn seemed to afflict Mr. Vavasor almost as keenly as the amount. Then he described the whole transaction as accurately as he could do so, and also told how Alice had declared her purpose of going to Mr. Round the lawyer, if her father would not undertake to procure the money for her by the time the bills should become due.
"Mr. Round, you know, has heard nothing about it," he continued. "He doesn"t dream of any such thing. If she would take my advice, she would leave the bills, and let them be dishonoured. As it is, I think I shall call at Drummonds", and explain the whole transaction."
"You must not do that," said Grey. "I will call at Drummonds", instead, and see that the money is all right for the bills. As far as they go, let him have his plunder."
"And if she won"t take you, at last, Grey? Upon my word, I don"t think she ever will. My belief is she"ll never get married. She"ll never do anything like any other woman."
"The money won"t be missed by me if I never get married," said Grey, with a smile. "If she does marry me, of course I shall make her pay me."
"No, by George! that won"t do," said Vavasor. "If she were your daughter you"d know that she could not take a man"s money in that way."
"And I know it now, though she is not my daughter. I was only joking.
As soon as I am certain,--finally certain,--that she can never become my wife, I will take back my money. You need not be afraid. The nature of the arrangement we have made shall then be explained to her."
In this way it was settled; and on the following morning the father informed the daughter that he had done her bidding, and that the money would be placed to her credit at the bankers" before the bills came due. On that Sat.u.r.day, the day which her cousin had named in his letter, she trudged down to Drummonds", and was informed by a very courteous senior clerk in that establishment, that due preparation for the bills had been made.
So far, I think we may say that Mr. George Vavasor was not unfortunate.
CHAPTER LXII.
Going Abroad.
One morning, early in May, a full week before Alice"s visit to the bankers" at Charing Cross, a servant in grand livery, six feet high, got out of a cab at the door in Queen Anne Street, and sent up a note for Miss Vavasor, declaring that he would wait in the cab for her answer. He had come from Lady Glencora, and had been specially ordered to go in a cab and come back in a cab, and make himself as like a Mercury, with wings to his feet, as may be possible to a London footman. Mr. Palliser had arranged his plans with his wife that morning,--or, I should more correctly say, had given her his orders, and she, in consequence, had sent away her Mercury in hot pressing haste to Queen Anne Street. "Do come;--instantly if you can," the note said. "I have so much to tell you, and so much to ask of you. If you can"t come, when shall I find you, and where?" Alice sent back a note, saying that she would be in Park Lane as soon as she could put on her bonnet and walk down; and then the Mercury went home in his cab.
Alice found her friend in the small breakfast-room up-stairs, sitting close by the window. They had not as yet met since the evening of Lady Monk"s party, nor had Lady Glencora seen Alice in the mourning which she now wore for her grandfather. "Oh, dear, what a change it makes in you," she said. "I never thought of your being in black."
"I don"t know what it is you want, but shan"t I do in mourning as well as I would in colours?"
"You"ll do in anything, dear. But I have so much to tell you, and I don"t know how to begin. And I"ve so much to ask of you, and I"m so afraid you won"t do it."
"You generally find me very complaisant."