There & Back

“A pair of fools.”

“A good son and daughter, sir!”

“Attached to the young woman, eh?” asked the baronet, looking hard at him.

“Very much; but hardly more than to her brother,” answered Richard. “God knows if I had but my strength,” he cried, almost in despair, and suddenly shooting out his long thin arms, with his two hands, wasted white, at the ends of them, “I would work myself to the bone for them, and not ask you for a penny!”

“I provided for their mother!—why didn’t they look after the money? I’m not accountable for them!”

“Ain’t you accountable for giving the poor things a mother like that, sir?”

“By Jove, you have me there! She was a bad lot—a damned liar!—Young fellow, I don’t know who you are, but I like your pluck! There ain’t many I’d let stand talking at me like that! I’ll give you something for the poor creatures—that is, mind you, if you’ve told me the truth about their mother! You’re sure she’s dead? Not a penny shall they have if she’s alive!”

“I saw her dead, sir, with my own eyes.”

“You’re sure she wasn’t shamming?”

“She couldn’t have shammed anything so peaceful.”

The baronet laughed.

“Believe me, sir,” said Richard, “she’s dead—and by this time buried by the parish.”

“God bless my soul! Well, it’s none of my fault!”

“She ate and drank her own children!” said Richard with a groan, for his strength was failing him. He sank into a chair.

“I will give you a cheque,” said sir Wilton, rising, and going to a writing-table in the window. “I will give you twenty pounds for them in the meantime—and then we’ll see—we’ll see!—that is,” he added, turning to Richard, “if you swear by God that you have told me nothing but the truth!”

“I swear,” said Richard solemnly, “by all my hopes in God the saviour of men, that I have not wittingly uttered a word that is untrue or incorrect.”

“That’s enough. I’ll give you the cheque.”

He turned again to the table, sat down, searched for his keys, unlocked and drew out a drawer, took from it a cheque-book, and settled himself to write with deliberation, thinking all the time. When he had done—“Have the goodness to come and fetch your money,” he said tartly.

“With pleasure!” answered Richard, and went up to the table.

Sir Wilton turned on his seat, and looked him in the face, full in the eyes. Richard steadily encountered his gaze.

“What is your name?” said sir Wilton at length. “I must make the cheque payable to you!”

“Richard Tuke, sir,” answered Richard.

“What are you?”

“A bookbinder. I was here all the summer, sir, repairing your library.”

“Oh! bless my soul!—Yes! that’s what it was! I thought I had seen you somewhere! Why didn’t you tell me so at first?”

“It had nothing to do with my coming now, and I did not imagine it of any interest to you, sir.”

“It would have saved me the trouble of trying to remember where I had seen you!”

Then suddenly a light flashed across his face.

“By heaven,” he muttered, “I understand it now!—They saw it—that look on his face!—By Jove!—But no; she never saw her!—She must have heard something about him then!—They didn’t treat you well, I believe!” he said: “—turned you away at a moment’s notice!—I hope they took that into consideration when they paid you?”

“I made no complaint, sir. I never asked why I was dismissed!”

“But they made it up to you—didn’t they?”

“I don’t submit to ill usage, sir.” “That’s right! I’m glad you made them pay for it!”

“To take money for ill usage is to submit to it, it seems to me!” said Richard.

“By Jove, there are not many would call money ill usage!—Well, it wasn’t right, and I’ll have nothing to do with it!—Here,” he went on, wheeling round to the table, and drawing his cheque-book toward him, “I will give you another cheque for yourself.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Richard, “but I can take nothing for myself! Don’t you see, sir?—As soon as I was gone, you would think I had after all come for my own sake!”

“I won’t, I promise you. I think you a very honest fellow!”

“Then, sir, please continue to think me so, and don’t offer me money!”

“Lest you should be tempted to take it?”

“No; lest I should annoy you by the use I made of it!”

“Tut, tut! I don’t care what you do with it! You can’t annoy me!”

He wrote a second cheque, blotted it, then finished the other, and held out both to Richard.

“I can’t give you so much as the other poor beggars; you haven’t the same claim upon me!” he said.

Richard took the cheques, looked at them, put the larger in his pocket, walked to the fire, and placed the other in the hottest cavern of it.

“By Jove!” cried the baronet, and again stared at him: he had seen his mother do precisely the same thing—with the same action, to the very turn of her hand, and with the same choice of the central gulf of fire!

Richard turned to sir Wilton, and would have thanked him again on behalf of Alice and Arthur, but something got up in his throat, and, with a grateful look and a bend of the head, he made for the door speechless.

“I say, I say, my lad!” cried sir Wilton, and Richard stopped.

“There’s something in this,” the baronet went on, “more than I understand! I would give a big cheque to know what is in your mind! What does it all mean?”

Richard looked at him, but said nothing: he was in some sort fascinated by the old man’s gaze.

“Suppose now,” said sir Wilton, “I were to tell you I would do whatever you asked me so far as it was in my power—what would you say?”

“That I would ask you for nothing,” answered Richard.