Frank Crossehad only been married some months when he first had occasion to suspect that his wife had some secret sorrow. There was a sadness and depression about her at times, for which he was unable to account. One Saturday afternoon he happened to come home earlier than he was expected, and entering her bedroom suddenly, he found her seated in the basket-chair in the window, with a large book upon her knees. Her face, as she looked up at him with a mixed expression of joy and of confusion, was stained by recent tears. She put the book hastily down upon the dressing-stand.
‘Maude, you’ve been crying.’
‘No, Frank, no!’
‘O Maude, you fibber! Remove those tears instantly.’ He knelt down beside her and helped. ‘Better now?’
‘Yes, dearest, I am quite happy.’
‘Tears all gone?’
‘Quite gone.’
‘Well, then, explain!’
‘I didn’t mean to tell you, Frank!’ She gave the prettiest, most provocative little wriggles as her secret was drawn from her. ‘I wanted to do it without your knowing. I thought it would be a surprise for you. But I begin to understand now that my ambition was much too high. I am not clever enough for it. But it is disappointing all the same.’
Frank took the bulky book off the table. It was Mrs. Beeton’sBook of Household Management. The open page was headed, ‘General Observations on the Common Hog,’ and underneath was a single large tear-drop. It had fallen upon a woodcut of the Common Hog, in spite of which Frank solemnly kissed it, and turned Maude’s trouble into laughter.
‘Now you are all right again. I do hate to see you crying, though you never look more pretty. But tell me, dear, what was your ambition?’
‘To know as much as any woman in England about housekeeping. To know as much as Mrs. Beeton. I wanted to master every page of it, from the first to the last.’
‘There are 1641 of them,’ said Frank, turning them over.
‘I know. I felt that I should be quite old before I had finished. But the last part, you see, is all about wills, and bequests, and homeopathy, and things of that kind. We could do it later. It is the early part that I want to learn now—but itisso hard.’
‘But why do you wish to do it, Maude?’
‘Because I want you to be as happy as Mr. Beeton.’
‘I’ll bet I am.’
‘No, no, you can’t be, Frank. It says somewhere here that the happiness and comfort of the husband depend upon the housekeeping of the wife. Mrs. Beeton must have been the finest housekeeper in the world. Therefore, Mr. Beeton must have been the happiest and most comfortable man. But why should Mr. Beeton be happier and more comfortable than my Frank? From the hour I read that I determined that he shouldn’t be—and he won’t be.’
‘And he isn’t.’
‘Oh, you think so. But then you know nothing about it. You think it right because I do it. But if you were visiting Mrs. Beeton, you would soon see the difference.’
‘What an awkward trick you have of always sitting in a window,’ said Frank, after an interval. ‘I’ll swear that the wise Mrs. Beeton never advocates that—with half a dozen other windows within point-blank range.’
‘Well, then, you shouldn’t do it.’
‘Well, then, you shouldn’t be so nice.’
‘You really still think that I am nice?’
‘Fishing!’
‘After all these months?’
‘Nicer and nicer every day.’
‘Not a bit tired?’
‘You blessing! When I am tired of you, I shall be tired of life.’
‘How wonderful it all seems!’
‘Does it not?’
‘To think of that first day at the tennis-party. “I hope you are not a very good player, Mr. Crosse!”—“No, Miss Selby, but I shall be happy to make one in a set.” That’s how we began. And now!’
‘Yes, it is wonderful.’
‘And at dinner afterwards. “Do you like Irving’s acting?”—“Yes, I think that he is a great genius.” How formal and precise we were! And now I sit curling your hair in a bedroom window.’
‘Itdoesseem funny. But I suppose, if you come to think of it, something of the same kind must have happened to one or two people before.’
‘But never quite like us.’
‘Oh no, never quite like us. But with a kind of family resemblance, you know. Married people do usually end by knowing each other a little better than on the first day they met.’
‘Whatdidyou think of me, Frank?’
‘I’ve told you often.’
‘Well, tell me again.’
‘What’s the use when you know?’
‘But I like to hear.’
‘Well, it’s just spoiling you.’
‘I love to be spoiled.’
‘Well, then, I thought to myself—If I can only have that woman for my own, I believe I will do something in life yet. And I also thought—If I don’t get that woman for my own, I will never, never be the same man again.’
‘Really, Frank, the very first day you saw me?’
‘Yes, the very first day.’
‘And then?’
‘And then, day by day, and week by week, that feeling grew deeper and stronger, until at last you swallowed up all my other hopes, and ambitions, and interests. I hardly dare think, Maude, what would have happened to me if you had refused me.’
She laughed aloud with delight.
‘How sweet it is to hear you say so! And the wonderful thing is that you have never seemed disappointed. I always expected that some day after marriage—not immediately, perhaps, but at the end of a week or so—you would suddenly give a start, like those poor people who are hypnotised, and you would say, “Why, I used to think that she was pretty! I used to think that she was sweet! How could I be so infatuated over a little, insignificant, ignorant, selfish, uninteresting—” O Frank, the neighbours will see you?’
‘Well, then, you mustn’t provoke me.’
‘WhatwillMrs. Potter think?’
‘You should pull down the blinds before you make speeches of that sort.’
‘Now do sit quiet and be a good boy.’
‘Well, then, tell me what you thought.’
‘I thought you were a very good tennis-player.’
‘Anything else?’
‘And you talked nicely.’
‘Did I? I never felt such a stick in my life. I was as nervous as a cat.’
‘That was so delightful. I do hate people who are very cool and assured. I saw that you were disturbed, and I even thought—’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, I thought that perhaps it was I who disturbed you.’
‘And you liked me?’
‘I was very interested in you.’
‘Well, that is the blessed miracle which I can never get over. You, with your beauty, and your grace, and your rich father, and every young man at your feet, and I, a fellow with neither good looks, nor learning, nor prospects, nor—’
‘Be quiet, sir! Yes, you shall! Now?’
‘By Jove, thereisold Mrs. Potter at the window! We’ve done it this time. Let us get back to serious conversation again.’
‘How did we leave it?’
‘It was that hog, I believe. And then Mr. Beeton. But where does the hog come in? Why should you weep over him? And what are the Lady’s Observations on the Common Hog?’
‘Read them for yourself.’
Frank read out aloud: ‘“The hog belongs to the order Mammalia, the genussus scrofa, and the speciespachydermata, or thick-skinned. Its generic characters are a long, flexible snout, forty-two teeth, cloven feet, furnished with four toes, and a tail, which is small, short, and twisted, while, in some varieties, this appendage is altogether wanting.”—But what on earth has all this to do with housekeeping?’
‘That’s whatIwant to know. It is so disheartening to have to remember such things. What does it matter if the hoghasforty-two toes. And yet, if Mrs. Beeton knew it, one feels that one ought to know it also. If once I began to skip, there would be no end to it. But it really is such a splendid book in other ways. It doesn’t matter what you want, you will find it here. Take the index anywhere. Cream. If you want cream, it’s all there. Croup. If you want—I mean, if you don’t want croup, it will teach you how not to get it. Crumpets—all about them. Crullers—I’m sure you don’t know what a cruller is, Frank.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Neither do I. But I could look it up and learn. Here it is—paragraph 2847. It is a sort of pancake, you see. That’s how you learn things.’
Frank Crosse took the book and dropped it. It fell with a sulky thud upon the floor.
‘Nothing that it can teach you, dear, can ever make up to me if it makes you cry, and bothers you.—You bloated, pedantic thing!’ he cried, in sudden fury, aiming a kick at the squat volume. ‘It is to you I owe all those sad, tired looks which I have seen upon my wife’s face. I know my enemy now. You pompous, fussy old humbug, I’ll kick the red cover off you!’
But Maude snatched it up, and gathered it to her bosom. ‘No, no, Frank, I don’t know what I should do without it. You have no idea what a wise old book it is. Now, sit there on the footstool at my feet, and I will read to you.’
‘Do, dear; it’s delightful.’
‘Sit quiet, then, and be good. Now listen to this pearl of wisdom: “As with the commander of an army, so it is with the mistress of a house. Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment, and, just in proportion as she performs her duties thoroughly, so will her domestics follow in her path.”’
‘From which it follows,’ said her husband, ‘that Jemima must be a perfect paragon.’
‘On the contrary, it explains all Jemima’s shortcomings. Listen to this: “Early rising is one of the most essential qualities. When a mistress is an early riser, it is almost certain that her house will be orderly and well managed.”’
‘Well, you are down at nine—what more do you want?’
‘At nine! I am sure that Mrs. Beeton was always up at six.’
‘I have my doubts about Mrs. B. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. I should not be very much surprised to learn that she had breakfast in bed every morning.’
‘O Frank! You have no reverence for anything.’
‘Let us have some more wisdom.’
‘“Frugality and Economy are home virtues without which no household can prosper. Dr. Johnson says, ‘Frugality may be termed—’”
‘Oh, bother Dr. Johnson! Who cares for a man’s opinion. Now, if it had been Mrs. Johnson—!’
‘Johnson kept house for himself for years—and a queer job he made of it.’
‘So I should think.’ Maude tossed her pretty curls. ‘Mrs. Beeton is all right, but I will not be lectured by Dr. Johnson. Where was I? Oh yes—“‘We must always remember that to manage a little well, is a great merit in housekeeping.”’
‘Hurrah! Down with the second vegetable! No pudding on fish days.Vive la bière de Pilsen!’
‘What a noisy boy you are!’
‘This book excites me. Anything more?’
“Friendships should not be hastily formed, nor the heart given at once to every newcomer—”’
‘Well, I should hope not! Don’t let me catch you at it! You don’t mind my cigarette? Has Mrs. Beeton a paragraph about smoking in bedrooms?’
‘Such an enormity never occurred to her as a remote possibility. If she had known you, dear, she would have had to write an appendix to her book to meet all the new problems which you would suggest. Shall I go on?’
‘Please do!’
‘She next treats conversation. “In conversation, trifling occurrences such as small disappointments, petty annoyances, and other everyday incidents, should never be mentioned to friends. If the mistress be a wife, never let a word in connection with her husband’s failings pass her lips—”’
‘By Jove, this book has more wisdom to the square inch than any work of man,’ cried Frank, in enthusiasm.
‘I thought that would please you. “Good temper should be cultivated by every mistress, as upon it the welfare of the household may be said to turn.”’
‘Excellent!’
‘“In starting a household, it is always best in the long-run to get the very best articles of their kind.”’
‘That is why I got you, Maude.’
‘Thank you, sir. We have a dissertation then upon dress and fashion, another upon engaging domestics, another about daily duties, another about visiting, another about fresh air and exercise—’
‘The most essential of any,’ cried Frank, jumping up, and pulling his wife by the arms out of her low wicker-chair. ‘There is just time for nine holes at golf before it is dark, if you wilt come exactly as you are. But listen to this, young lady. If ever again I see you fretting or troubling yourself about your household affairs—’
‘No, no, Frank, I won’t!’
‘Well, if you do, Mrs. Beeton goes into the kitchen-fire. Now remember?’
‘You are sure you don’t envy Mr. Beeton?’
‘I don’t envy a man upon earth.’
‘Then why should I try to be Mrs. Beeton?’
‘Why indeed?’
‘O Frank, what a load off my mind! Those sixteen hundred pages have just lain upon it for months. Dear old boy! come on!’
And they clattered downstairs for their golf-clubs.
Therewere few things which Maude liked so much as a long winter evening when Frank and she dined together, and then sat beside the fire and made good cheer. It would be an exaggeration to say that she preferred it to a dance, but next to that supreme joy, and higher even than the theatre in her scale of pleasures, were those serene and intimate evenings when they talked at their will, and were silent at their will, within their home brightened by those little jokes and endearments and allusions which make up that inner domestic masonry which is close-tiled for ever to the outsider. Five or six evenings a week, she with her sewing and Frank with his book, settled down to such enjoyment as men go to the ends of the earth to seek, while it awaits them, if they will but atune their souls to sympathy, beside their own hearthstones. Now and again their sweet calm would be broken by a ring at the bell, when some friend of Frank’s would come round to pay them an evening visit. At the sound Maude would say ‘bother,’ and Frank something shorter and stronger, but, as the intruder appeared, they would both break into, ‘Well, really now itwasgood of you to drop in upon us in this homely way.’ Without such hypocrisy, the world would be a hard place to live in.
I may have mentioned somewhere that Frank had a catholic taste in literature. Upon a shelf in their bedroom—a relic of his bachelor days—there stood a small line of his intimate books, the books which filled all the chinks of his life when no new books were forthcoming. They were all volumes which he had read in his youth, and many times since, until they had become the very tie-beams of his mind. His tastes were healthy and obvious without being fine. Macaulay’sEssays, Holmes’Autocrat, Gibbons’History, Jefferies’Story of my Heart, Carlyle’s Life, Pepys’Diary, and Borrow’sLavengrowere among his inner circle of literary friends. The sturdy East Anglian, half prize-fighter, half missionary, was a particular favourite of his, and so was the garrulous Secretary of the Navy. One day it struck him that it would be a pleasant thing to induce his wife to share his enthusiasms, and he suggested that the evenings should be spent in reading selections from these old friends of his. Maude was delighted. If he had proposed to read the rig-vedas in the original Sanskrit, Maude would have listened with a smiling face. It is in such trifles that a woman’s love is more than a man’s.
That night Frank came downstairs with a thick well-thumbed volume in his hand.
‘This is Mr. Pepys,’ said he solemnly.
‘What a funny name!’ cried Maude. ‘It makes me think of indigestion. Why? Oh yes, pepsine, of course.’
‘We shall take a dose of him every night after dinner to complete the resemblance. But seriously, dear, I think that now that we have taken up a course of reading, we should try to approach it in a grave spirit, and endeavour to realise—Oh, I say, don’t!’
‘Iamso sorry, dear! I do hope I didn’t hurt, you!’
‘You did—considerably.’
‘It all came from my having the needle in my hand at the time—and you looked so solemn—and—well, I couldn’t help it.’
‘Little wretch—!’
‘No, dear; Jemima may come in any moment with the coffee. Now, do sit down and read about Mr. Pepys to me. And first of all, would you mind explaining all about the gentleman, from the beginning, and taking nothing for granted, just as if I had never heard of him before.’
‘I don’t believe—’
‘Never mind, sir! Be a good boy and do exactly what you are told. Now begin!’
‘Well, Maude, Mr. Pepys was born—’
‘What was his first name?’
‘Samuel.’
‘Oh dear, I’m sure I should not have liked him.’
‘Well, it’s too late to change that. He was born—I could see by looking, but it really doesn’t matter, does it? He was born somewhere in sixteen hundred and something or other, and I forget what his father was.’
‘I must try to remember what you tell me.’
‘Well, it all amounts to this, that he got on very well in the world, that he became at last a high official of the navy in the time of Charles the Second, and that he died in fairly good circumstances, and left his library, which was a fine one, to one of the universities, I can’t remember which.’
‘There is an accuracy about your information, Frank—’
‘I know, dear, but it really does not matter. All this has nothing to do with the main question.’
‘Go on, then!’
‘Well, this library was left as a kind of dust-catcher, as such libraries are, until one day, more than a hundred years after the old boy’s death, some enterprising person seems to have examined his books, and he found a number of volumes of writing which were all in cipher, so that no one could make head or tail of them.’
‘Dear me, how very interesting!’
‘Yes, it naturally excited curiosity. Why should a man write volumes of cipher? Imagine the labour of it! So some one set to work to solve the cipher. This was about the year 1820. After three years they succeeded.’
‘How in the world did they do it?’
‘Well, they say that human ingenuity never yet invented a cipher which human ingenuity could not also solve. Anyhow, they did succeed. And when they had done so, and copied it all out clean, they found they had got hold of such a book as was never heard of before in the whole history of literature.’
Maude laid her sewing on her lap, and looked across with her lips parted and her eyebrows raised.
‘They found that it was an inner Diary of the life of this man, with all his impressions, and all his doings, and all his thoughts—not his ought-to-be thoughts, but his real, real thoughts, just as he thought then at the back of his soul. You see this man, and you know him very much better than his own wife knew him. It is not only that he tells of his daily doings, and gives us such an intimate picture of life in those days, as could by no other means have been conveyed, but it is as a piece of psychology that the thing is so valuable. Remember the dignity of the man, a high government official, an orator, a writer, a patron of learning, and here you have the other side, the little thoughts, the mean ideas which may lurk under a bewigged head, and behind a solemn countenance. Not that he is worse than any of us. Not a bit. But he is frank. And that is why the book is really a consoling one, for every sinner who reads it can say to himself, “Well, if this man who did so well, and was so esteemed, felt like this, it is no very great wonder that I do.”’
Maude looked at the fat brown book with curiosity. ‘Is it really all there?’ she asked.
‘No, dear, it will never all be published. A good deal of it is, I believe, quite impossible. And when he came to the impossible places, he doubled and trebled his cipher, so as to make sure that it should never be made out. But all that is usually published is here.’ Frank turned over the leaves, which were marked here and there with pencilings.
‘Why are you smiling, Frank?’
‘Only at his way of referring to his wife.’
‘Oh, he was married?’
‘Yes, to a very charming girl. She must have been a sweet creature. He married her at fifteen on account of her beauty. He had a keen eye for beauty had old Pepys.’
‘Were they happy?’
‘Oh yes, fairly so. She was only twenty-nine when she died!’
‘Poor girl!’
‘She was happy in her life—though hedidblacken her eye once.’
‘Not really?’
‘Yes, he did. And kicked the housemaid.’
‘Oh, the brute!’
‘But on the whole he was a good husband. He had a few very good points about him.’
‘But how does he allude to his wife?’
‘He has a trick of saying, “my wife, poor wretch!”’
‘Impertinent! Frank, you said to-night that other men think what this odious Mr. Pepys says. Yes, you did! Don’t deny it! Does that mean that you always think of me as “poor wretch”?’
‘We have come along a little since then. But how these passages take you back to the homely life of those days!’
‘Do read some.’
‘Well, listen to this, “And then to bed without prayers, to-morrow being washing-day.” Fancy such a detail coming down to us through two centuries.’
‘Why no prayers?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose they had to get up early on washing-days, and so they wanted to go to sleep soon.’
‘I’m afraid, dear, you do the same without as good an excuse. Read another!’
‘He goes to dine with some one—his uncle, I think. He says, “An excellent dinner, but the venison pasty was palpable beef, which was not handsome.”’
‘How beautiful! Mrs. Hunt Mortimer’s sole last week was palpable plaice. Mr. Pepys is right. It was not handsome.’
‘Here’s another grand entry: “Talked with my wife of the poorness and meanness of all that the people about us do, compared with what we do.” I dare say he was right, for they did things very well. When he dined out, he says that his host gave him “the meanest dinner of beef, shoulder and umbles of venison, and a few pigeons, and all in the meanest manner that ever I did see, to the basest degree.”
‘What are umbles, dear?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Well, whatever they are, it sounds to me a very good dinner. People must have lived very well in those days.’
‘They habitually over-ate and over-drank themselves. But Pepys gives us the menu of one of his own entertainments. I’ve marked it somewhere. Yes, here it is. “Fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie!), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble and to my great content.”’
‘Good gracious! I told you that I associated him with indigestion.’
‘He did them pretty well that time.’
‘Who cooked all this?’
‘The wife helped in those days.’
‘No wonder she died at twenty-nine. Poor dear! What a splendid kitchen-range they must have had! I never understood before why they had such enormous grates in the old days. Naturally, if you have six pigeons, and a lamprey, and a lobster, and a side of lamb, and a leg of mutton, and all these other things cooking at the same time, you would need a huge fire.’
‘The wonderful thing about Pepys,’ said Frank, looking thoughtfully over the pages, ‘is that he is capable of noting down the mean little impulses of human nature, which most men would be so ashamed of, that they would hasten to put them out of their mind. His occasional shabbiness in money matters, his jealousies, his envies, all his petty faults, which are despicable on account of their pettiness. Fancy any man writing this. He is describing how he visited a friend and was reading a book from his library. “A very good book,” says he, “especially one letter of advice to a courtier, most true and good, which made me once resolve to tear out the two leaves that it was writ in, but I forbore it.” Imagine recording such a vile thought.’
‘But what you have never explained to me yet, dear, or if you did, I didn’t understand—you don’t mind my being a little stupid, do you?—is, what object Mr. Pepys had in putting down all this in such a form that no one could read it.’
‘Well, you must bear in mind, dear, that he could read it himself. Besides he was a fellow with a singularly methodical side to his mind. He was, for example, continually adding up how much money he had, or cataloguing and indexing his library, and so on. He liked to have everything shipshape. And so with his life, it pleased him to have an exact record which he could turn to. And yet, after all, I don’t know that that is a sufficient explanation.’
‘No, indeed, it is not. My experience of man—’
‘Yourexperience, indeed!’
‘Yes, sir, my experience of men—how rude you are, Frank!—tells me that they have funny little tricks and vanities which take the queerest shapes.’
‘Indeed! Have I any?’
‘You—you are compounded of them. Not vanity—no, I don’t mean that. But pride—you are as proud as Lucifer, and much too proud to show it. That is the most subtle form of pride. Oh yes, I know perfectly well what I mean. But in this man’s case, it took the form of wishing to make a sensation after his death. He could not publish such a thing when he lived, could he?’
‘Rather not.’
‘Well, then, he had to do it after his death. He had to write it in cipher, or else some one would have found him out during his lifetime. But, very likely, he left a key to the cipher, so that every one might read it when he was gone, but the key and his directions were in some way lost.’
‘Well, it is very probable.’
The fire had died down, so Maude shipped off her chair, and sat on the black fur rug, with her back against Frank’s knees. ‘Now, dear, read away!’ said she.
But the lamp shone down upon her dainty head, and it gleamed upon her white neck, and upon the fluffy, capricious, untidy, adorable, little curlets, which broke out along the edges of the gathered strands of her chestnut hair. And so, after the fashion of men, his thoughts flew away from Mr. Pepys and the seventeenth century, and all that is lofty and instructive, and could fix upon nothing except those dear little wandering tendrils, and the white column on which they twined. Alas, that so small a thing can bring the human mind from its empyrean flights! Alas, that vague emotions can drag down the sovereign intellect! Alas, that even for an hour, a man should prefer the material to the spiritual!
But the man who doesn’t misses a good deal.
Thereare several unjustifiable extravagances which every normal man commits. There are also several unjustifiable economies. Among others, there is that absurd eagerness to save the striking of a second match, which occasions so many burned fingers, and such picturesque language. And again, there is the desire to compress a telegraphic message into the minimum sixpennyworth, and so send an ambiguous and cryptic sentence, when sevenpence would have made it as clear as light. We all tend to be stylists in our telegrams.
A week after the conversation about Mr. Pepys, when some progress had been made with the reading of theDiary, Maude received the following wire from Frank—
‘Mrs. Crosse. Woking.—Pepys buttered toast suède gloves four Monument wait late.’
‘Mrs. Crosse. Woking.—Pepys buttered toast suède gloves four Monument wait late.’
As a sixpennyworth it was a success, but as a message it seemed to leave something to be desired. Maude puzzled over it, and tried every possible combination of the words. The nearest approach to sense was when it was divided in this way—Pepys—buttered toast—suède gloves—four—Monument, wait late.
She wrote it out in this form, and took it section by section. ‘Pepys,’ that was unintelligible. ‘Buttered toast,’ no sense in that. ‘Suède gloves,’ yes, she had told Frank that when she came to town, she would buy some suède gloves at a certain shop in the City, where she could get for three and threepence a pair which would cost her three and ninepence in Woking. Maude was so conscientiously economical, that she was always prepared to spend two shillings in railway fares to reach a spot where a sixpence was to be saved, and to lavish her nerve and energy freely in the venture. Here, then, in the suède gloves, was a central point of light. And then her heart bounded with joy, as she realised that the last part could only mean that she was to meet Frank at the Monument at four, and that she was to wait for him if he were late.
So, now, returning to the opening of the message, with the light which shone from the ending, she realised that buttered toast might refer to a queer little City hostel, remarkable for that luxury, where Frank had already taken her twice to tea. And so leaving Mr. Pepys to explain himself later, Maude gave hurried orders to Jemima and the cook, and dashed upstairs to put on her new fawn-coloured walking-dress—a garment which filled her with an extraordinary mixture of delight and remorse, for it was very smart, cost seven guineas, and had not yet been paid for.
The rendezvous was evidently a sudden thought upon the part of Frank, for he had left very little time for her to reach the trysting-place. However, she was fortunate in catching a train to Waterloo, and another thence to the City, and so reached the Monument at five minutes to four. The hour was just striking when Frank, with his well-brushed top-hat and immaculate business frock-coat, came rushing from the direction of King William Street. Maude held out her hand and he shook it, and then they both laughed at the formality.
‘I am so glad you were able to come, dearest. How you do brighten up the old City!’
‘Do I? I felt quite lonely until you came. Nothing but droves of men—and all staring.’
‘It’s your dress.’
‘Oh, thank you, sir!’
‘Entirely that pretty brown—’
‘Brown! Fawn colour.’
‘Well, that’s brown. Anyhow, it looks charming. And so do you—by Jove you do, Maude! Come this way!’
‘Where are we going?’
‘By underground. Here we are.—Two second singles, Mark Lane, please!—No, that’s for the west-end trains. Down here! Next train, the man says.’
They were in the mephitic cellar, with the two long wooden platforms where the subterranean trains land or load their freights. A strangling gas tickled their throats and set them coughing. It was all dank and dark and gloomy. But little youth and love care for that! They were bubbling over with the happiness of this abnormal meeting. Both talked together in their delight, and Maude patted Frank’s sleeve with every remark. They could even illuminate all that was around them, by the beauty and brightness of their own love. It went the length of open praise for their abominable surroundings.
‘Isn’t it grand and solemn?’ said Maude. ‘Look at the black shadows.’
‘When they come to excavate all this some thousands of years hence, they will think it was constructed by a race of giants,’ Frank answered.
‘The modern works for the benefit of the community are really far greater than those which sprang from the caprice of kings. The London and North-Western Railway is an infinitely grander thing than the pyramids. Look at the two headlights in the dark!’
Two sullen crimson discs glowed in the black arch of the tunnel. With a menacing and sinister speed, they grew and grew until roaring they sprang out of the darkness, and the long, dingy train, with a whining of brakes, drew up at the platform.
‘Here’s one nearly empty,’ said Frank, with his hand on the handle.
‘Don’t you think—’ said Maude.
‘Yes, I do,’ cried Frank.
And they got into one which was quite empty. For the underground railway is blessed as regards privacy above all other lines, and where could a loving couple be more happy, who have been torn apart by cruel fate for seven long hours or so? It was with a groan that Frank remarked that they had reached Mark Lane.
‘Bother!’ said Maude, and wondered if there were any shop near where she could buy hairpins. As every lady knows, or will know, there is a very intimate connection between hairpins and a loving husband.
‘Now, Frank, about your telegram.’
‘All right, dear. Come along where I lead you, and you will understand all about it.’
They passed out of Mark Lane Station and down a steep and narrow street to the right. At the bottom lay an old smoke-stained church with a square tower, and a small open churchyard beside it.
‘That’s the church of Saint Olave,’ said Frank. ‘We are going into it.’
He pushed open a folding oaken door, and they found themselves inside it. Rows of modern seats filled the body of it, but the walls and windows gave an impression of great antiquity. The stained glass—especially that which surmounted the altar—contained those rich satisfying purples and deep deep crimsons which only go with age. It was a bright and yet a mellow light, falling in patches of vivid colour upon the brown woodwork and the grey floors. Here and there upon the walls were marble inscriptions in the Latin tongue, with pompous allegorical figures with trumpets, for our ancestors blew them in stone as well as in epitaphs over their tombs. They loved to die, as they had lived, with dignity and with affectation. White statues glimmered in the shadows of the corners. As Frank and his wife passed down the side-aisle, their steps clanged through the empty and silent church.
‘Here he is!’ said Frank, and faced to the wall.
He was looking up at the modern representation of a gentleman in a full and curly wig. It was a well-rounded and comely face, with shrewd eyes and a sensitive mouth. The face of a man of affairs, and a good fellow, with just that saving touch of sensuality about it which makes an expression human and lovable. Underneath was printed—
SAMUEL PEPYSErected by public subscription1883.
SAMUEL PEPYS
Erected by public subscription
1883.
‘Oh, isn’t he nice?’ said Maude.
‘He’s not a bad-looking chap, is he?’
‘I don’t believe that man ever could have struck his wife or kicked the maid.’
‘That’s calling him a liar.’
‘Oh dear, I forgot that he said so himself. Then I suppose he must have done it. What a pity it seems.’
‘Cheer up! We must say what the old heathen lady said when they read the gospels to her.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said, “Well, it was a long time ago, and we’ll hope that it wasn’t true!”’
‘O Frank, how can you tell such stories in a church. Do you really suppose that Mr. Pepys is in that wall?’
‘I presume that the monument marks the grave.’
‘There’s a little bit of plaster loose. Do you think I might take it?’
‘It isn’t quite the thing.’
‘But it can’t matter, and it isn’t wrong, and we are quite alone.’ She picked off the little flake of plaster, and her heart sprang into her mouth as she did so, for there came an indignant snort from her very elbow, and there was a queer little smoke-dried, black-dressed person who seemed to have risen, like the Eastern genii or a modern genius, in a single instant. A pair of black list slippers explained the silence of his approach.
‘Put that back, young lady,’ said he severely.
Poor Maude held out her guilty relic on the palm of her hand. ‘I am so sorry,’ said she. ‘I am afraid I cannot put it back.’
‘We’ll ’ave the ’ole church picked to pieces at this rate,’ said the clerk. ‘You shouldn’t ’ave done it, and it was very wrong.’ He snorted and shook his head.
‘It’s of no consequence,’ said Frank. ‘The plaster was hanging, and must have fallen in any case. Don’t make a fuss about a trifle.’
The clerk looked at the young gentleman and saw defiance in one of his eyes and half a crown in the other.
‘Well, well!’ he grumbled. ‘It shows as the young lady takes an interest, and that’s more than most. Why, sir, if you’ll believe me, there’s not one in a hundred that comes to this church that ever ’eard of Pepys. “Pepys!” says they. “’Oo’s Pepys?” “The Diarist,” says I. “Diarist!” says they, “wot’s a Diarist?” I could sit down sometimes an’ cry. But maybe, miss, you thought as you were picking that plaster off ’is grave?’
‘Yes, I thought so.’
The clerk chuckled.
‘Well, it ain’t so. I’ll tell you where ’e really lies, if you’ll promise you won’t pick another chunk off that. Well, then, it’s there—beside the communion. I saw ’im lyin’ there with these very eyes, and ’is wife in the coffin beneath ’im.’
‘You saw him?’
‘Yes, sir, I saw ’im, an’ that’s more than any livin’ man could say, for there were only four of us, and the other three are as dead as Pepys by now.’
‘Oh do tell us about it!’ cried Maude.
‘Well, it was like this, miss. We ’ad to examine to see ’ow much room there was down there, and so we came upon them.’
‘And what did you see?’
‘Well, miss, ’is coffin lay above, and ’is wife’s below, as might be expected, seeing that she died thirty years or so before ’im. The coffins was very much broken, an’ we could see ’im as clear us I can see you. When we first looked in I saw ’im lying quite plain—a short thick figure of a man—with ’is ’ands across ’is chest. And then, just as we looked at ’im, ’e crumbled in, as you might say, across ’is breast bone, an’ just quietly settled down into a ’uddle of dust. It’s a way they ’as when the fresh air strikes ’em. An’ she the same, an’ ‘is dust just fell through the chinks o’ the wood and mixed itself with ’ers.’
‘O Frank!’ Maude’s ready tears sprang to her eyes. She put her hand upon her husband’s and was surprised to find how cold it was. Women never realise that the male sex is the more sensitive. He had not said, ‘O Maude!’ because he could not.
‘They used some powder like pepper for embalmin’ in those days,’ said the clerk. ‘And the vicar—it was in old Bellamy’s time—’e took a sniff into the grave, an’ ’e sneezed an’ sneezed till we thought we should ’ave to fetch a doctor. ’Ave you seen Mrs. Pepys’ tomb?’
‘No, we have only just come.’
‘That’s it on the left of the common.’
‘With the woman leaning forward?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s Mrs. Pepys herself.’
It was an arch laughing face, the face of a quite young woman; the sculptor had depicted her as leaning forward in an animated and natural attitude. Below was engraved—
ObiitXoNovembrisÆtatis 29Conjugii 15Anno Domini 1669.
Obiit
XoNovembris
Ætatis 29
Conjugii 15
Anno Domini 1669.
‘Poor dear!’ whispered Maude.
‘It was hard that she should die just as her husband was becoming famous and successful,’ said Frank. ‘She who had washed his shirts, and made up the coal fires, when they lived in a garret together. What a pity that she could not have a good time!’
‘Ah well, if she loved him, dear, she had a good time in the garret.’
Maude was leaning forward with her face raised to look at the bust of the dead woman, which also leaned forward as if to look down upon her. A pair of marble skulls flanked the lady’s grave. A red glow from the evening sun struck through a side-window and bathed the whole group in its ruddy light. As Frank, standing back in the shadow, ran his eyes from the face of the dead young wife to that of his own sweet, girlish bride, with those sinister skulls between, there came over him like a wave, a realisation of the horror which lies in things, the grim close of the passing pageant, the black gloom, which swallows up the never-ending stream of life. Will the spirit wear better than the body; and if not, what infernal practical joke is this to which we are subjected!
‘It will. It must,’ he said.
‘Why, Frank—Frank dear, what is the matter? You are quite pale.’
‘Come out into the air, Maude. I have had enough of this stuffy old church.’
‘Stuffy!’ said the clerk. ‘Well, we’ve ’ad the Lord Mayor ’ere at least once a year, an’ ’e never found it stuffy. A cleaner, fresher church you won’t find in the city of London. It’s ’ad its day, I’ll allow. There was a time—and I can remember it—when folk used to spend their money where they made it, and the plate would be full of paper and gold, where now we find it ’ard enough to get coppers. That was fifty year ago, when I was a young clerk. You might not think it, but I’ve seen a Lord Mayor, a past Lord Mayor, and a Lord Mayor elect of the city of London, all sitting on one bench in this very church. Andyoucall it stuffy!’
Frank soothed the wounded feelings of the old clerk, and explained that by stuffy he meant interesting. He also shook hands with him in a peculiar way as he held his palm upturned in the small of his back. Then Maude and he retraced their steps up the narrow street which is called Seething Lane.
‘Poor old boy! What was it, then?’ asked Maude, looking up with her sympathetic eyes. It is at such moments that a man realises what the companionship of women means. The clouds melted before the sun.
‘What an ass I was! I began to think of all sorts of horrible things. Never mind, Maude! We are out for a holiday. Hang the future! Let us live in the present.’
‘I always do,’ said Maude, and she spoke for her sex.
‘Well, what now? Buttered toast or suède gloves?’
‘Business first!’ said Maude primly, and so proceeded to save her sixpence on the gloves. As she was tempted, however (‘such a civil obliging shopman, Frank!’), to buy four yards of so-called Astrakhan trimming, a frill of torchon lace, six dear little festooned handkerchiefs, and four pairs of open-work stockings—none of which were contemplated when she entered the shop—her sixpenny saving was not as brilliant a piece of finance as she imagined.
And then they finished their excursion in the dark, wainscotted, low-ceilinged coffee-room of an old-fashioned inn, once the mother of many coaches, and now barren and deserted, but with a strange cunning in the matter of buttered toast which had come down from more prosperous days. It was a new waiter who served them, and he imagined them to be lovers and scented an intrigue; but when they called for a second plate of toast and a jug of boiling water, he recognised the healthy appetite of the married. And then, instead of going home like a good little couple, Maude suddenly got it into her head that it would cheer away the last traces of Frank’s gloom if they went to see ‘Charley’s Aunt’ at the Globe. So they loitered and shopped for a couple of hours, and then squeezed into the back of the pit; and wedged in among honest, hearty folk who were not ashamed to show their emotions, they laughed until they were tired. And so home, as their friend Pepys would have said, after such a day as comes into the memory, shining golden among the drab, when old folk look back, and think of the dear dead past. May you and I, reader, if ever we also come to sit in our final armchairs in the chimney corners, have many such to which our minds may turn, sweet and innocent and fragrant, to cheer us in those darksome hours to come.
Oneevening Frank came home with a clouded face. His wife said nothing, but after dinner she sat on a footstool beside his chair and waited. She knew that if it were for the best, he would tell her everything, and she had confidence enough in his judgment to acquiesce in his silence if he thought it best to be silent. As a matter of fact, it was just this telling her which made his trouble hard to bear. And yet he thought it wiser to tell.
‘I’ve had something to worry me, dear.’
‘Poor old boy, I know you have. What was it?’
‘Why should I bother you with it?’
‘A nice wife I should be, if I shared all your joys and none of your sorrows! Anyhow, I had rather share sorrow with you than joy within any one else.’ She snuggled her head up against his knee. ‘Tell me about it, Frank.’
‘You remember my telling you just before our marriage that I was surety for a man?’
‘I remember perfectly well.’
‘His name was Farintosh. He was an insurance-agent, and I became surety for him in order to save his situation.’
‘Yes, dear, it was so noble of you.’
‘Well, Maude, he was on the platform this morning, and when he saw me, he turned on his heel and hurried out of the station. I read guilt in his eyes. I am sure that his accounts are wrong again.’
‘Oh, what an ungrateful wretch!’
‘Poor devil, I dare say he has had a bad time. But I was a fool not to draw out of that. It was all very well when I was a bachelor. But here I am as a married man faced with an indefinite liability and nothing to meet it with. I don’t know what is to become of us, Maude.’
‘How much is it, dearest?’
‘I don’t know. That is the worst of it.’
‘But surely your own office would not be so hard upon you?’
‘It is not my own office. It is another office—the Hotspur.’
‘Oh dear! What have you done about it, Frank?’
‘I called at their office in my lunch-hour, and I requested them to send down an accountant to examine Farintosh’s books. He will be here to-morrow morning, and I have leave of absence for the day.’
And so they were to spend an evening and a night without knowing whether they were merely crippled or absolutely ruined. Frank’s nature was really a very proud one, and the thought of failing in his engagements wounded his self-respect most deeply. His nerves winced and quivered before it. But her sweet, strong soul rose high above all fear, and bore him up with her, into the serenity of love and trust and confidence. The really precious things, the things of the spirit, were permanent, and could not be lost. What matter if they lived in an eight-roomed villa, or in a tent out on the heath? What matter if they had two servants, or if she worked for him herself? All this was the merest trifle, the outside of life. But the intimate things, their love, their trust, their pleasures of mind and soul, these could not be taken away from them while they had life to enjoy them. And so she soothed Frank with sweet caresses and gentle words, until this night of gloom had turned to the most beautiful of all his life, and he had learned to bless the misfortune which had taught him to know the serene courage and the wholehearted devotion which can only be felt, like the scent of a fragrant leaf, when Fate gives us a crush between its iron fingers.
Shortly after breakfast Mr. Wingfield, the accountant from London, arrived—a tall, gentlemanly man, with a formal manner.
‘I’m sorry about this business, Mr. Crosse,’ said he.
Frank made a grimace. ‘It can’t be helped.’
‘We will hope that the amount is not very serious. We have warned Mr. Farintosh that his books will be inspected to-day. When you are ready we shall go round.’
The agent lived in a side-street not far off. A brass plate, outside a small brick house, marked it out from the line of other small brick houses. A sad-faced woman opened the door, and Farintosh himself, haggard and white, was seated among his ledgers in the little front room. A glance at the man’s helpless face turned all Frank’s resentment to pity.
They sat down at the table, the accountant in the centre, Farintosh on the right, and Frank on the left. There was no talk save an occasional abrupt question and answer. For two hours the swish and rustle of the great blue pages of the ledgers were the chief sound, with the scratching of Mr. Wingfield’s pen as he totalled up long columns of figures. Frank’s heart turned to water as he saw the huge sums which had passed through this man’s hands. How much had remained there? His whole future depended upon the answer to that question. How prosaic and undramatic are the moments in which a modern career is made or marred! In this obscure battlefield, the squire no longer receives his accolade in public for his work well done, nor do we see the butcher’s cleaver as it hacks off the knightly spurs, but failure and success come strangely and stealthily, determined by trifles, and devoid of dignity. Here was the crisis of Frank’s young life, in this mean front room, amongst the almanacs and the account-books.
‘Can I rely upon these figures?’ asked Wingfield at last.
‘You can, sir.’
‘In that case I congratulate you, Mr. Crosse. I can only find a deficiency of fifty pounds.’
Only enough to swallow the whole of their little savings, which they had carefully invested! However, it was good news, and Frank shook the proffered hand of the accountant.
‘I will stay for another hour to check these figures,’ said Wingfield. ‘But there is no need to detain you.’
‘You will come round and lunch with us?’
‘With pleasure.’
‘Au revoir, then.’ Frank ran all the way home, and burst in upon his wife. ‘It is not so very bad, dear—only fifty pounds.’ They danced about in their joy like two children.
But Wingfield came to his lunch within a solemn face.
‘I am very sorry to disappoint you,’ he said, ‘but the matter is more serious than I thought. We have entered some sums as unpaid which he has really received, but the receipts for which he has held back. They amount to another hundred pounds.’
Maude felt inclined to cry as she glanced at Frank, and saw his resolute effort to look unconcerned.
‘Then it’s a hundred and fifty.’
‘Certainly not less. I have marked the items down upon this paper for your inspection.’
Frank glanced his practised eyes over the results of the accountant’s morning’s work.
‘You have credited him within a hundred and twenty pounds in the bank, I see.’
‘Yes, his bank-book shows a balance of that amount.’
‘When was it made out?’
‘Last Saturday.’
‘He may have drawn it since them.’
‘It is certainly possible.’
‘We might go round after lunch and make sure.’
‘Very good.’
‘And in any case, as it is the Company’s money, don’t you think we had better take it out of his hands?’
‘Yes, I think you are right.’
It was a miserable meal, and they were all glad when it was finished. Maude drew Frank into the other room before he started.
‘I could not let you go withoutthat, dearest. Keep a brave heart, my own laddie, for I know so well that we shall come through it all right.’
So Frank set out with a higher courage, and they both returned to the agent’s house. His white face turned a shade whiter when he understood their errand.
‘Is this necessary, Mr. Wingfield?’ he pleaded. ‘Won’t you take my word for this money?’
‘I am sorry to have to say it, sir, but we have trusted in your word too often.’
‘But the money is there, I swear it.’
‘It is the Company’s money, and we must have it.’
‘It will ruin my credit locally if I draw out my whole account under compulsion.’
‘Then let him keep ten pounds in,’ said Frank. Farintosh agreed with an ill grace to the compromise, and they all started off for the bank. When they reached the door the agent turned upon them with an appealing face.
‘Don’t come in with me, gentlemen. I could never hold up my head again.’
‘It is for Mr. Crosse to decide.’
‘I don’t want to be unreasonable, Farintosh. Go in alone and draw the money.’
They could never understand why he begged for that extra five minutes. Perhaps it was that he had some mad hope of persuading the bank manager to allow him to overdraw to that amount. If so, the refusal was a curt one, for he reappeared with a ghastly face and walked up to Frank.
‘I may as well confess to you, Mr. Crosse, I have nothing in the bank.’
Frank whistled and turned upon his heel. He could not by reproaches add to the wretched man’s humiliation. After all, he had himself to blame. He had incurred a risk with his eyes open, and he was not the man to whine now that the thing had gone against him. Wingfield walked home with him and murmured some words of sympathy. At the gate the accountant left him and went on to the station.
So their liability had risen from fifty to two hundred and seventy pounds. Even Maude was for an instant daunted by the sum. The sale of their furniture would hardly meet it. It was the blackest hour of their lives, and yet, always a strange sweet undercurrent of joy was running through it, for it is only sorrow, fairly shared and bravely borne, which can weld two human souls together.
Dinner was over when there came a ring at the bell.
‘If you please, sir, Mr. Farintosh would like to see you,’ said the maid Jemima.
‘Show him in here.’
‘Don’t you think, Frank, that I had better go?’
‘No, I don’t. I never asked him to come. If he comes, let him face us both. I have not made much of my dealings with him alone.’
He was shown in, downcast, shifty-eyed, and ill at ease. He laid his hat upon the floor, and crept humbly towards the chair which Frank pushed towards him.
‘Well, Farintosh?’
‘Well, Mr. Crosse, I have come round to tell you, and you too, missus, the sorrow I feel that I have brought this trouble upon you. I hoped all would have gone right after that last time, but I’ve had to pay up back debts, and that’s what has put me wrong. I’ve never had what one may call a fair chance. But I’m really sorry, sir, that you who have, as one might say, befriended me, should have to suffer for it in this way.’
‘Words won’t mend it, Farintosh. I only blame you for not coming to me when first things began to go wrong.’
‘Well, sir, I was always hoping that I could turn them right again, so as you wouldn’t need to be troubled at all. And so it went from bad to worse until we find ourselves here. But what I wanted to ask you, Mr. Crosse, was what you meant to do about it?’
Frank writhed before this home question.
‘Well, I suppose I am responsible,’ said he.
‘You mean to pay the money, sir?’
‘Well, somebody must pay it.’
‘Do you remember the wording of the bond, Mr. Crosse?’
‘Not the exact wording.’
‘Well, sir, I should advise you to get your lawyer to read it. In my opinion, sir, you are not liable at all.’
‘Not liable!’ Frank felt as if his heart had turned suddenly from a round-shot to an air-balloon. ‘Why not liable?’
‘You were a little slapdashy, if one might say so, in matters of business, sir, and perhaps you read that bond less carefully than I did. There was a clause in it by which the Company agreed frequently and periodically to audit my accounts, so as to prevent your liability being at any time a very high one.’
‘So there was!’ cried Frank. ‘Well, didn’t they?’
‘No, sir, they didn’t.’
‘By Jove—Maude, do you hear that?—if that is right, they brought their own misfortunes upon themselves. Do you mean to say they never audited you?’
‘Yes, sir, they did so four times.’
‘In how long?’
‘In fourteen months.’
The air-balloon was gone and the cannon-ball back in its place once more.
‘That will be held to exonerate them.’
‘No, sir, I think not. “Frequently and periodically” does not mean four times in fourteen months.’
‘A jury might take it so.’
‘Consider, sir, that the object was that your liability should be limited. Thousands of pounds were passing through my hands in that time, and therefore these four audits were, as one might say, insufficient for the object of the bond.’
‘So I think,’ cried Maude, with conviction. ‘Frank, we’ll have the best advice upon the subject to-morrow.’
‘And meanwhile, Mr. Crosse,’ said Farintosh, rising from his chair, ‘I am your witness, whether the Company prosecutes me or not. And I hope that this will be some humble atonement for the trouble that I have brought you.’
And so a first rift of light began to shine in the dark place. But it was not broadened by the letter which he found waiting upon his breakfast-table—
ReFarintosh’s Accounts.Hotspur Insurance Office.Dear Sir,—On arriving in London I came here at once, and checked Farintosh’s accounts from the books of the head office. I am sorry to say that I find a further discrepancy of seventy pounds. I am able, however, to assure you that we have now touched bottom. The total amount is three hundred and forty pounds, and a cheque for that sum at your early convenience would oblige us, as we are anxious to bring so unpleasant a business to a conclusion.—Yours truly,James Wingfield.
ReFarintosh’s Accounts.
Hotspur Insurance Office.
Dear Sir,—On arriving in London I came here at once, and checked Farintosh’s accounts from the books of the head office. I am sorry to say that I find a further discrepancy of seventy pounds. I am able, however, to assure you that we have now touched bottom. The total amount is three hundred and forty pounds, and a cheque for that sum at your early convenience would oblige us, as we are anxious to bring so unpleasant a business to a conclusion.—Yours truly,
James Wingfield.
To which Frank and Maude in collaboration—
Dear Sir,—I note your claim for £340 on account of the affairs of your agent Farintosh. I am advised, however, that there have been certain irregularities in the matter, about which I must make some investigation before paying the claim.—Yours truly,Frank Crosse.
Dear Sir,—I note your claim for £340 on account of the affairs of your agent Farintosh. I am advised, however, that there have been certain irregularities in the matter, about which I must make some investigation before paying the claim.—Yours truly,
Frank Crosse.
To which the Hotspur Insurance Office—
Sir,—Had your letter been a plea for more time to fulfil your engagement, we should have been content to wait; but since you appear disposed to dispute your liability, we have no alternative but to take immediate steps to enforce payment.—Yours truly,John Waters,Secretary.
Sir,—Had your letter been a plea for more time to fulfil your engagement, we should have been content to wait; but since you appear disposed to dispute your liability, we have no alternative but to take immediate steps to enforce payment.—Yours truly,
John Waters,Secretary.
To which Frank and Maude—
Sir,—My solicitor, A. C. R. Owen, of 14 Shirley Lane, E.C., will be happy to accept service.
Sir,—My solicitor, A. C. R. Owen, of 14 Shirley Lane, E.C., will be happy to accept service.
Which is the correct legal English for ‘You may go to the devil!’
But this is an anticipation. In the meantime, having received the original letter and answered it, Frank went up to town as usual, while Maude played the more difficult part of waiting quietly at home. In his lunch-hour Frank went to see his friend and solicitor, who in turn obtained leave to see the bond, and came back with a grave face.
‘You have a case,’ said he, ‘but by no means a certainty. It all depends upon how the judge might read the document. I think that it would strengthen our case very materially if we had counsel’s opinion. I’ll copy the bond and show it to Manners, and have his opinion before you go back to-night.’
So Frank went round again after office-hours, and found Owen waiting in very low spirits, for their relations were closer than those of mere solicitor and client.
‘Very sorry,’ said he.
‘Opinion against us.’
‘Dead against us.’
Frank tried to look as if he didn’t mind.
‘Let me see it.’
It was a long blue document with the heading, ‘The Hotspur Insurance Company, Limited,v.Frank Crosse.’
‘I have perused the case submitted to me, and the papers accompanying the same,’ said the learned counsel, ‘and in my opinion the Hotspur Insurance Company, Limited, are entitled to recover from Mr. Crosse under his guarantee, the sum of £340, being monies received by Mr. Farintosh, and not paid over by him to the said Company.’ There was a great deal more, but it was anticlimax.
‘Well, what shall we do?’ asked Frank helplessly. The British law makes one feel so.
‘Well, I should stand out, if I were you. There is certainly a chance.’
‘Look here, old chap,’ said Frank, ‘I may as well be honest with you. If this thing goes against me, I am stony broke. I don’t know where your costs are coming from.’
‘Don’t bother about that,’ said Owen kindly. ‘After all, Manners is not infallible. Let us have Holland, and see what he can make of it.’
So twenty-four hours later Frank found Owen radiant with another opinion in his hand.
‘Dead for us this time. Look here!’
And he read out, ‘I have carefully considered the case submitted to me for my opinion, and the documents sent therewith. In my opinion the Hotspur Insurance Company, Limited, are not entitled to recover against Mr. Crosse the sum claimed by them or any part thereof, as there has been a breach on their part of an essential condition of the guarantee.’ ‘He reads “frequently and periodically” as we do,’ continued Owen, glancing over the long document, ‘and he is very clear as to our case.’
‘Suppose we have another, and try the best of three,’ said Frank.
‘It’s too expensive a game. No, Holland is a sound man, and his opinion would weigh with any judge. I think we have enough to go on with.’
‘And you think it is safe?’
‘No, no, nothing is ever safe in the law. But we can make a fight of it now.’
And now Frank was to learn what it meant to be entangled in an intricate clumsy old machine, incredibly cumbrous and at the same time incredibly powerful, jolting along with its absurd forms and abominable English towards an end which might or might not be just, but was most certainly ruinously expensive. The game began by a direct letter from the Queen, of all people, an honour which Frank had never aspired to before, and certainly never did again.
Victoria, by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, remarked abruptly to Frank Crosse of Woking, in the county of Surrey, ‘We command you that within eight days of the service of this writ on you, inclusive of the day of such service, you cause an appearance to be entered for you in an action at the suit of the Hotspur Insurance Company, Limited.’ If he didn’t do so, Her Majesty remarked that several very unpleasant things might occur, and Hardinge Stanley, Earl of Halsbury, corroborated Her Majesty. Maude was frightened to death when she saw the document, and felt as if unawares they must have butted up against the British Constitution, but Owen explained that it was only a little legal firework, which meant that there might be some trouble later.