"How cursed suspicious you are, Scruby."
"No, I ain"t. I"m not a bit suspicious. I don"t deal in such articles; that"s all!"
"What doubt can there be about such bills as those? Everybody knows that my cousin has a considerable fortune, altogether at her own disposal."
"The truth is, Mr. Vavasor, that bills with ladies" names on them,--ladies who are no way connected with business,--ain"t just the paper that people like."
"Nothing on earth can be surer."
"You take them into the City for discount, and see if the bankers don"t tell you the same. They may be done, of course, upon your name.
I say nothing about that."
"I can explain to you the nature of the family arrangement, but I can"t do that to a stranger. However, I don"t mind."
"Of course not. The time is so short that it does not signify. Have them collected through your own bankers, and then, if it don"t suit you to call, send me a cheque for a thousand pounds when the time is up." Then Mr. Scruby turned to some papers on his right hand, as though the interview had been long enough. Vavasor looked at him angrily, opening his wound at him and cursing him inwardly. Mr. Scruby went on with his paper, by no means regarding either the wound or the unspoken curses. Thereupon Vavasor got up and went away without any word of farewell.
As he walked along Great Marlborough Street, and through those unalluring streets which surround the Soho district, and so on to the Strand and his own lodgings, he still continued to think of some wide scheme of revenge,--of some scheme in which Mr. Scruby might be included. There had appeared something latterly in Mr. Scruby"s manner to him, something of mingled impatience and familiarity, which made him feel that he had fallen in the attorney"s estimation. It was not that the lawyer thought him to be less honourable, or less clever, than he had before thought him; but that the man was like a rat, and knew a falling house by the instinct that was in him. So George Vavasor cursed Mr. Scruby, and calculated some method of murdering him without detection.
The reader is not to suppose that the Member for the Chelsea Districts had, in truth, resolved to gratify his revenge by murder,--by murdering any of those persons whom he hated so vigorously. He did not, himself, think it probable that he would become a murderer. But he received some secret satisfaction in allowing his mind to dwell upon the subject, and in making those calculations. He reflected that it would not do to take off Scruby and John Grey at the same time, as it would be known that he was connected with both of them; unless, indeed, he was to take off a third person at the same time,--a third person, as to the expediency of ending whose career he made his calculations quite as often as he did in regard to any of those persons whom he cursed so often. It need hardly be explained to the reader that this third person was the sitting Member for the Chelsea Districts.
As he was himself in want of instant ready money Mr. Scruby"s proposition that he should leave the four bills at his own bankers", to be collected when they came to maturity, did not suit him. He doubted much, also, whether at the end of the fourteen days the money would be forthcoming. Alice would be driven to tell her father, in order that the money might be procured, and John Vavasor would probably succeed in putting impediments in the way of the payment.
He must take the bills into the City, and do the best there that he could with them. He was too late for this to-day, and therefore he went to his lodgings, and then down to the House. In the House he sat all the night with his hat over his eyes, making those little calculations of which I have spoken.
"You have heard the news; haven"t you?" said Mr. Bott to him, whispering in his ear.
"News; no. I haven"t heard any news."
"Finespun has resigned, and Palliser is at this moment with the Duke of St. Bungay in the Lords" library."
"They may both be at the bottom of the Lords" fishpond, for what I care," said Vavasor.
"That"s nonsense, you know," said Bott. "Still, you know Palliser is Chancellor of the Exchequer at this moment. What a lucky fellow you are to have such a chance come to you directly you get in. As soon as he takes his seat down there, of course we shall go up behind him."
"We shall have another election in a month"s time," said George. "I"m safe enough," said Bott. "It never hurts a man at elections to be closely connected with the Government."
George Vavasor was in the City by times the next morning, but he found that the City did not look with favourable eyes on his four bills. The City took them up, first horizontally, and then, with a twist of its hand, perpendicularly, and looked at them with distrustful eyes. The City repeated the name, Alice Vavasor, as though it were not esteemed a good name on Change. The City suggested that as the time was so short, the holder of the bills would be wise to hold them till he could collect the amount. It was very clear that the City suspected something wrong in the transaction. The City, by one of its mouths, a.s.serted plainly that ladies" bills never meant business. George Vavasor cursed the City, and made his calculation about murdering it. Might not a river of strychnine be turned on round the Exchange about luncheon time? Three of the bills he left at last with his own bankers for collection, and retained the fourth in his breast-pocket, intending on the morrow to descend with it into those lower depths of the money market which he had not as yet visited. Again, on the next day, he went to work and succeeded to some extent. Among those lower depths he found a capitalist who was willing to advance him two hundred pounds, keeping that fourth bill in his possession as security. The capitalist was to have forty pounds for the transaction, and George cursed him as he took his cheque. George Vavasor knew quite enough of the commercial world to enable him to understand that a man must be in a very bad condition when he consents to pay forty pounds for the use of two hundred for fourteen days. He cursed the City. He cursed the House of Commons. He cursed his cousin Alice and his sister Kate. He cursed the memory of his grandfather. And he cursed himself.
Mr. Levy had hardly left the house in Queen Anne Street, before Alice had told her father what she had done. "The money must be forthcoming," said Alice. To this her father made no immediate reply, but turning himself in his chair away from her with a sudden start, sat looking at the fire and shaking his head. "The money must be made to be forthcoming," said Alice. "Papa, will you see that it is done?"
This was very hard upon poor John Vavasor, and so he felt it to be. "Papa, if you will not promise, I must go to Mr. Round about it myself, and must find out a broker to sell out for me. You would not wish that my name should be dishonoured."
"You will be ruined," said he, "and for such a rascal as that!"
"Never mind whether he is a rascal or not, papa. You must acknowledge that he has been treated harshly by his grandfather."
"I think that will was the wisest thing my father ever did. Had he left the estate to George, there wouldn"t have been an acre of it left in the family in six months" time."
"But the life interest, papa!"
"He would have raised all he could upon that, and it would have done him no good."
"At any rate, papa, he must have this two thousand pounds. You must promise me that."
"And then he will want more."
"No; I do not think he will ask for more. At any rate, I do not think that I am bound to give him all that I have."
"I should think not. I should like to know how you can be bound to give him anything?"
"Because I promised it. I have signed the bills now, and it must be done." Still Mr. Vavasor made no promise. "Papa, if you will not say that you will do it, I must go down to Mr. Round at once."
"I don"t know that I can do it. I don"t know that Mr. Round can do it. Your money is chiefly on mortgage." Then there was a pause for a moment in the conversation. "Upon my word, I never heard of such a thing in my life," said Mr. Vavasor; "I never did. Four thousand pounds given away to such a man as that, in three months! Four thousand pounds! And you say you do not intend to marry him."
"Certainly not; all that is over."
"And does he know that it is over?"
"I suppose he does."
"You suppose so! Things of that sort are so often over with you!"
This was very cruel. Perhaps she had deserved the reproach, but still it was very cruel. The blow struck her with such force that she staggered under it. Tears came into her eyes, and she could hardly speak lest she should betray herself by sobbing.
"I know that I have behaved badly," she said at last; "but I am punished, and you might spare me now!"
"I didn"t want to punish you," he said, getting up from his chair and walking about the room. "I don"t want to punish you. But, I don"t want to see you ruined!"
"I must go to Mr. Round then, myself."
Mr. Vavasor went on walking about the room, jingling the money in his trousers-pockets, and pushing the chairs about as he chanced to meet them. At last, he made a compromise with her. He would take a day to think whether he would a.s.sist her in getting the money, and communicate his decision to her on the following morning.
CHAPTER LXI.
The Bills Are Made All Right.
Mr. Vavasor was at his wits" end about his daughter. She had put her name to four bills for five hundred pounds each, and had demanded from him, almost without an apology, his aid in obtaining money to meet them. And she might put her name to any other number of bills, and for any amount! There was no knowing how a man ought to behave to such a daughter. "I don"t want her money," the father said to himself; "and if she had got none of her own, I would make her as comfortable as I could with my own income. But to see her throw her money away in such a fashion as this is enough to break a man"s heart."
Mr. Vavasor went to his office in Chancery Lane, but he did not go to the chambers of Mr. Round, the lawyer. Instead of calling on Mr. Round he sent a note by a messenger to Suffolk Street, and the answer to the note came in the person of Mr. Grey. John Grey was living in town in these days, and was in the habit of seeing Mr. Vavasor frequently.
Indeed, he had not left London since the memorable occasion on which he had pitched his rival down the tailor"s stairs at his lodgings. He had made himself pretty well conversant with George Vavasor"s career, and had often shuddered as he thought what might be the fate of any girl who might trust herself to marry such a man as that.
He had been at home when Mr. Vavasor"s note had reached his lodgings, and had instantly walked off towards Chancery Lane. He knew his way to Mr. Vavasor"s signing-office very accurately, for he had acquired a habit of calling there, and of talking to the father about his daughter. He was a patient, persevering man, confident in himself, and apt to trust that he would accomplish those things which he attempted, though he was hardly himself aware of any such apt.i.tude.
He had never despaired as to Alice. And though he had openly acknowledged to himself that she had been very foolish,--or rather, that her judgement had failed her,--he had never in truth been angry with her. He had looked upon her rejection of himself, and her subsequent promise to her cousin, as the effects of a mental hallucination, very much to be lamented,--to be wept for, perhaps, through a whole life, as a source of terrible sorrow to himself and to her. But he regarded it all as a disease, of which the cure was yet possible,--as a disease which, though it might never leave the patient as strong as she was before, might still leave her altogether. And as he would still have clung to his love had she been attacked by any of those illnesses for which doctors have well-known names, so would he cling to her now that she was attacked by a malady for which no name was known. He had already heard from Mr. Vavasor that Alice had discovered how impossible it was that she should marry her cousin, and, in his quiet, patient, enduring way, was beginning to feel confident that he would, at last, carry his mistress off with him to Nethercoats.
It was certainly a melancholy place, that signing-office, in which Mr. John Vavasor was doomed to spend twelve hours a week, during every term time, of his existence. Whether any man could really pa.s.s an existence of work in such a workshop, and not have gone mad,--could have endured to work there for seven hours a day, every week-day of his life, I am not prepared to say. I doubt much whether any victims are so doomed. I have so often wandered through those gloomy pa.s.sages without finding a sign of humanity there,--without hearing any slightest tick of the hammer of labour, that I am disposed to think that Lord Chancellors have been anxious to save their subordinates from suicide, and have mercifully decreed that the whole staff of labourers, down to the very message boys of the office, should be sent away to green fields or palatial clubs during, at any rate, a moiety of their existence.
The dismal set of chambers, in which the most dismal room had been a.s.signed to Mr. Vavasor, was not actually in Chancery Lane. Opening off from Chancery Lane are various other small lanes, quiet, dingy nooks, some of them in the guise of streets going no whither, some being thoroughfares to other dingy streets beyond, in which sponging-houses abound, and others existing as the entrances to so-called Inns of Court,--inns of which all knowledge has for years been lost to the outer world of the laity, and, as I believe, lost almost equally to the inner world of the legal profession. Who has ever heard of Symonds" Inn? But an ancestral Symonds, celebrated, no doubt, in his time, did found an inn, and there it is to this day. Of Staples" Inn, who knows the purposes or use? Who are its members, and what do they do as such? And Staples" Inn is an inn with pretensions, having a chapel of its own, or, at any rate, a building which, in its external dimensions, is ecclesiastical, having a garden and architectural proportions; and a facade towards Holborn, somewhat dingy, but respectable, with an old gateway, and with a decided character of its own.