"Oh! a debt! I did, sir. Between father and boy, dad and lad; debts! ...
but use your own terms, I pray you."
"I don"t ask you where that money is now. I ask you to tell me where you got it from."
"You speak bluntly, my dear sir."
"You won"t answer, then?"
"You ask the question as a family matter? I reply with alacrity, to the best of my ability: and with my hand on my heart, Mr. Beltham, let me a.s.sure you, I very heartily desire the information to be furnished to me. Or rather--why should I conceal it? The sources are irregular, but a child could toddle its way to them--you take my indication. Say that I obtained it from my friends. My friends, Mr. Beltham, are of the kind requiring squeezing. Government, as my chum and good comrade, Jorian DeWitt, is fond of saying, is a sponge--a thing that when you dive deep enough to catch it gives liberal supplies, but will a.s.suredly otherwise reverse the process by acting the part of an absorbent. I get what I get by force of arms, or I might have perished long since."
"Then you don"t know where you got it from, sir?"
"Technically, you are correct, sir."
"A bird didn"t bring it, and you didn"t find it in the belly of a fish."
"Neither of these prodigies. They have occurred in books I am bound to believe; they did not happen to me."
"You swear to me you don"t know the man, woman, or committee, who gave you that sum?"
"I do not know, Mr. Beltham. In an extraordinary history, extraordinary circ.u.mstances! I have experienced so many that I am surprised at nothing."
"You suppose you got it from some fool?"
"Oh! if you choose to indict Government collectively?"
"You pretend you got it from Government?"
"I am termed a Pretender by some, Mr. Beltham. The facts are these: I promised to refund the money, and I fulfilled the promise. There you have the only answer I can make to you. Now to my own affair. I come to request you to demand the hand of the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld on behalf of my son Harry, your grandson; and I possess the a.s.surance of the prince, her father, that it will be granted. Doubtless you, sir, are of as old a blood as the prince himself. You will acknowledge that the honour brought to the family by an hereditary princess is considerable: it is something. I am prepared to accompany you to his Highness, or not, as you please. It is but a question of dotation, and a selection from one or two monosyllables."
Janet shook her dress.
The squire replied: "We "ll take that up presently. I haven"t quite done. Will you tell me what agent paid you the sum of money?"
"The usual agent--a solicitor, Mr. Beltham; a gentleman whose business lay amongst the aristocracy; he is defunct; and a very worthy old gentleman he was, with a remarkable store of anecdotes of his patrons, very discreetly told: for you never heard a name from him."
"You took him for an agent of Government, did you? why?"
"To condense a long story, sir, the kernel of the matter is, that almost from the hour I began to stir for the purpose of claiming my rights--which are transparent enough this old gentleman--certainly from no sinister motive, I may presume--commenced the payment of an annuity; not sufficient for my necessities, possibly, but warrant of an agreeable sort for encouraging my expectations; although oddly, this excellent old Mr. Bannerbridge invariably served up the dish in a sauce that did not agree with it, by advising me of the wish of the donator that I should abandon my Case. I consequently, in common with my friends, performed a little early lesson in arithmetic, and we came to the one conclusion open to reflective minds--namely, that I was feared."
My aunt Dorothy looked up for the first time.
"Janet and I have some purchases to make," she said.
The squire signified sharply that she must remain where she was.
"I think aunty wants fresh air; she had a headache last night," said Janet.
I suggested that, as my presence did not seem to be required, I could take her on my arm for a walk to the pier-head.
Her face was burning; she would gladly have gone out, but the squire refused to permit it, and she nodded over her crossed hands, saying that she was in no hurry.
"Ha! I am," quoth he.
"Dear Miss Beltham!" my father e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed solicitously. "Here, sir, oblige me by attending to me," cried the squire, fuming and blinking.
"I sent for you on a piece of business. You got this money through a gentleman, a solicitor, named Bannerbridge, did you?"
"His name was Bannerbridge, Mr. Beltham."
"Dorothy, you knew a Mr. Bannerbridge?"
She faltered: "I knew him.... Harry was lost in the streets of London when he was a little fellow, and the Mr. Bannerbridge I knew found him and took him to his house, and was very kind to him."
"What was his Christian name?"
I gave them: "Charles Adolphus."
"The identical person!" exclaimed my father.
"Oh! you admit it," said the squire. "Ever seen him since the time Harry was lost, Dorothy?"
"Yes," she answered. "I have heard he is dead:
"Did you see him shortly before his death?"
"I happened to see him a short time before!
"He was your man of business, was he?"
"For such little business as I had to do."
"You were sure you could trust him, eh?"
"Yes."
My aunt Dorothy breathed deeply.
"By G.o.d, ma"am, you"re a truthful woman!"
The old man gave her a glare of admiration.
It was now my turn to undergo examination, and summoned by his apostrophe to meet his eyes, I could appreciate the hardness of the head I had to deal with.
"Harry, I beg your pardon beforehand; I want to get at facts; I must ask you what you know about where the money came from?"
I spoke of my attempts to discover the whence and wherefore of it.
"Government? eh?" he sneered.