A Little World

“You did not, sir; but it was wisely done. And now it seems to me necessary that one of us should be always here in case of information of any kind arriving.”

“I will stay,” said Sir Richard; “it is my duty, though the inaction is extremely hard to bear; but I am weak and troubled, and unable to get about.”

“You may be the first to get good news,” said Harry, smiling.

“Perhaps so – perhaps so,” was the reply. “I never knew before how old I had grown. You must carry on the search; but you will come back often, Clayton?”

“I will, sir,” said Harry, gently, and soon after he left the house.

Harry’s first visit was to Great Scotland Yard, where he was passed up-stairs to a quiet ordinary-looking person, in plain clothes, who, however, only shook his head.

“Nothing at present, sir,” he said; “but do you know, sir, I think Sir Richard Redgrave is making a mistake, sir – ‘too many cooks spoil the broth!’ Better have left the matter entirely to us; we’re doing all we can. Private inquiries are all very well; and Mr Whittrick’s a good man – was here, you know; but he’s only good for a runaway-match or a slope, or anything of that kind. Sir Richard’s wrong, sir, depend upon it he is.”

“You must excuse it all on account of the old gentleman’s anxiety,” said Harry, quietly, as, after being told for the twentieth time that information should be forwarded the moment it arrived, he took his leave, so as to seek the renowned Mr Whittrick, of private-inquiry fame; but here the interview was very similar to the last; and he returned to Sir Richard to find him restlessly pacing the room with a telegram in his hand.

“News?” exclaimed Harry, excitedly.

“For you,” said the old man, kindly; “and I hope it is good.”

He handed the telegram, which had been sent down to Cambridge, and re-transmitted. It was short and painful. Richard Pellet was the sender, and he announced the sudden and serious illness of Mrs Richard at Norwood – Harry arriving at his mother’s bedside, but just in time to receive her farewell.

This was a check to future proceedings, for Harry was deeply affected at the loss. He could not recall the weak woman who had been flattered into marriage without proper settlements by Richard Pellet, but only the tender loving mother, who had always been ready to indulge his every whim; and till after the funeral he was too much unhinged to do more than quietly talk with Sir Richard, who had, on his part, little news to give, save the usual disappointments that follow upon the offering of a reward.

The last sad duties performed to the dead, Harry gladly returned to the task left incomplete, seeing in it relief from his oppressive thoughts, and an opportunity of serving one whom he looked upon as a benefactor.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty One.

At Austin Friars

“What name?” asked a clerk.

“Pellet – Jared Pellet,” said the owner of that name.

“Pellet,” – repeated the clerk, hesitatingly; “I’m afraid he’s engaged;” and he looked hard at the shabby visitor to Austin Friars, as much as to say, “You’re a poor relation, or I’m no judge.”

“Tell him his brother would be glad of a few minutes’ conversation,” said Jared, desperately; and he stood gazing over his brother’s offices, where, over their gas-lit desks, some half-score clerks were busy writing.

It was a bitter day, with a dense yellow fog choking the streets, so that eleven o’clock a.m. might have been eleven o’clock p.m., save for the business going on around. The smoke-burdened vapour had even made its way with Jared into the offices; but the glowing fire in the polished stove was too much for it, and the fog soon shrank away, leaving Jared shivering alone, as much from a strange new-born feeling as from cold, as he was gazed at from time to time by some inquisitive eye.

“This way, sir, if you please,” said the clerk, and the next minute Jared was standing like a prisoner at the bar before his justice-like brother in a private room – standing, for Richard did not offer him a chair.

“I have come to you for advice,” said Jared, plunging at once into the object of his visit.

“If you had come sooner to me for advice, you would not have been in this plight,” said Richard, coldly, as he glanced at his brother’s shabby garments, and the worn hat he held in his hand. “But what is it?”

Jared stared, for, to the best of his belief, his brother had never given him any advice worth taking.

“Time is money to business people,” said Richard, for Jared remained silent.

“Yes, yes, I know – I know,” he said; and then he paused again, as if nerving himself for his task, till once more Richard turned hastily in his chair, and was about to speak.

“Bear with me for a few minutes, Dick, and I will tell you all,” exclaimed Jared. “I am in bitter affliction.”

“I suppose so,” said Richard, “or you would not have come. There! speak out; how much do you want?”

“What! money?” replied Jared; “none. But don’t be hard upon me, Dick – the world can do that.”

“The world is to any man his lord or his servant – a hard master or a cringing slave, whichever a man pleases,” sneered Richard. “Let him keep poor, and the world is his ruler; let him get rich, and the world will be ruled.”

“But I am in trouble – in great trouble,” cried Jared, pleadingly. “The poor-boxes at our church have been robbed.”

“Well!”

“Great endeavours have been made to discover the thief.”

“Well!”

“And by some means a key got into the locker of my organ-loft.”

“Yes!”

“And it was found by the vicar, who cruelly wrongs me with his suspicions.”

“Yes!”

“And I am accused, and dismissed from my post.”

“Well!”

“What shall I do? Help me with your advice. How am I to prove my innocence? What is best for me to do under the circumstances? I feel my head confused, and am at a loss how to proceed, for I cannot let it be known at home. The vicar seems to be so convinced of my guilt that he refuses to see me, and returns my letters. All I get from the churchwarden when I assert my innocence is, ‘Prove it, sir, prove it.’ I have thought by day and by night. I have struggled hard – I have done all that a man can do, but I am as far off as ever. I was not born, Dick, with your business head – I’m not clever. You know that I never was, and now I have turned to you – ”

“To mix myself up in the affair?” said Richard, coldly.

“No, no; to advise me – to tell me what I should do,” said Jared.

“Who committed the theft?” said Richard, scowling.

“Indeed, indeed, I have not an idea,” replied Jared, humbly.

“No, of course not. Well, I can tell you, Some of your fine Decadia friends – that wretched fiddler, perhaps, that you disgraced yourself, your family, and me, by making a companion. And now you want me to get my name sullied, and the substantiality of my house shaken, and my credit disgraced, by being drawn into connection with a beggarly, low, contemptible piece of petty larceny? Do you think I am mad?”

“Oh, no, Richard.”

“Hold your tongue. I’ve heard you – now hear me. Do you think I have gone backwards into an idiot? Do I look childish, or in my dotage? But there – some people are such fools!”

To do Richard Pellet justice, he looked neither mad, idiotic, nor childish, but the image of an angry sarcastic prosperous man, as he threw himself back in his morocco-covered chair, and, stretching out his glossy legs towards the fire, scowled at his brother.

“O Richard!” groaned Jared, in despair.