Cursed by a Fortune

“Not here the day before yesterday, sir.”

“What time did he leave on Monday?”

“About five minutes after you left for Brighton, sir.”

“Thank you, Barlow; that will do. By the way – ”

The clerk who had nearly reached the door, turned, and there was again silence, while a few specks were blown from where they had fallen inside one of the spotless cuffs.

“Send Mr Harry to me as soon as he arrives.”

“Yes, sir,” and the man left the room; while after standing for a few moments thinking, John Garstang walked to one of the tin boxes in the rack and drew down a lid marked, “Wilton, Number 1.”

Taking from this a packet of papers carefully folded and tied up with green silk, he seated himself at his massive knee-hole table, and was in the act of untying the ribbon, when the door opened and a short, thick-set young man of five-and-twenty, with a good deal of French waiter in his aspect, saving his clothes, entered, passing one hand quickly over his closely-shaven face, and then taking the other to help to square the great, dark, purple-fringed, square, Joinville tie, fashionable in the early fifties.

“Want to see me, father?”

“Yes. Shut the baize door.”

“Oh, you needn’t be so particular. It won’t be the first time Barlow has heard you bully me.”

“Shut the baize door, if you please, sir,” said Garstang, blandly.

“Oh, very well!” cried the young man, and he unhooked and set free a crimson baize door whose spring sent it to with a thud and a snap.

Then John Garstang’s manner changed. An angry frown gathered on his forehead, and he placed his elbows on the table, joined the tips of his fingers to form an archway, and looked beneath it at the young man who had entered.

“You are two hours late this morning.”

“Yes, father.”

“You did not come here at all yesterday.”

“No, father.”

“Nor the day before.”

“No, father.”

“Then will you have the goodness to tell me, sir, how long you expect this sort of thing to go on? You are not of the slightest use to me in my professional business.”

“No, and never shall be,” said the young man coolly.

“That’s frank. Then will you tell me why I should keep and supply with money such a useless drone?”

“Because you have plenty, and a lot of it ought to be mine by right.”

“Why so, sir? You are not my son.”

“No, but I’m my mother’s.”

“Naturally,” said Garstang, with a supercilious smile.

“You need not sneer, sir. If you hadnt deluded my poor mother into marrying you I should have been well off.”

“Your mother had a right to do as she pleased, sir. Where have you been?”

“Away from the office.”

“I know that. Where to?”

“Where I liked,” said the young man sulkily, “I’m not a child.”

“No, and this conduct has become unbearable. It is time you went away for good. What do you say to going to Australia with your passage paid and a hundred pounds to start you?”

“’Tisn’t good enough.”

“Then you had better execute your old threat and enlist in a cavalry regiment. I promise you that I will not buy you out.”

“Thank you, but it isn’t good enough.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“Never mind.”

Garstang looked up at him sharply, this time from outside the finger arch.

“Don’t provoke me, Harry Dasent, for your own sake. What are you going to do?”

“Get married.”

“Indeed? Well, that’s sensible. But are there not enough pauper children for the parish to keep?”

“Yes, but I am not going to marry a pauper. You have my money and will not disgorge it, so I must have somebody’s else.”

“Indeed! Then you are going to look out for a lady with money?”

“No. I have already found one.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Who is it, pray?”

“Katherine Wilton.”

Garstang’s eyes contracted, and he gazed at his stepson for some moments in silence. Then a contemptuous smile dawned upon his lip.