Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

Taking pity upon them, a clerk left his perch, and going forward, asked the woman what she wanted.

To this she replied promptly, that she wanted money.

She was much flushed and very warm, and appeared to have come some distance on foot, as well as to be in a state of considerable agitation, which, however, she determinedly subdued by the force of a strong will.

“If you go to yonder rail and present your cheque,” replied the clerk kindly, “you’ll get the money.”

“Present what, young man?”

“Your cheque,” replied the clerk.

“What’s that?”

“Have you not a cheque-book—or a slip of paper to—”

“Oh! ay, a book. Of course I’ve got a book, young man.”

Saying this, Mrs Gaff, (for it was she), produced from a huge bag the bank-book that had erstwhile reposed in the mysterious tea-caddy.

“Have you no other book than this?”

“No, young man,” replied Mrs Gaff, feeling, but not exhibiting, slight alarm.

The clerk, after glancing at the book, and with some curiosity at its owner, then explained that a cheque-book was desirable, although not absolutely necessary, and went and got one, and showed her the use of it,—how the sum to be drawn should be entered with the date, etcetera, on the margin in figures, and then the cheque itself drawn out in words, “not in figures,” and signed; after which he advised Mrs Gaff to draw out a cheque on the spot for what she wanted.

“But, young man,” said Mrs Gaff, who had listened to it all with an expression of imbecility on her good-looking face, “I never wrote a stroke in my life ’xcept once, when I tried to show my Billy how to do it, and only made a big blot on his copy, for which I gave him a slap on the face, poor ill-used boy.”

“Well, then, tell me how much you want, and I will write it out for you,” said the clerk, sitting down at a table and taking up a pen.

Mrs Gaff pondered for a few seconds, then she drew Tottie aside and carried on an earnest and animated conversation with her in hoarse whispers, accompanied by much nodding and quivering of both bonnets, leading to the conclusion that what the one propounded the other heartily agreed to.

Returning to the table, Mrs Gaff said that she wanted a hundred pounds.

“How much?” demanded the clerk in surprise.

“A hundred pound, young man,” repeated Mrs Gaff, somewhat sternly, for she had made up her mind to go through with it come what might; “if ye have as much in the shop just now—if not I’ll take the half, and call back for the other half to-morry—though it be raither a longish walk fro’ Cove and back for a woman o’ my size.”

The clerk smiled, wrote out the cheque, and bade her sign it with a cross. She did so, not only with a cross, but with two large and irregular blots. The clerk then pointed to a partition about five feet six in height, where she was to present it. Going to the partition she looked about for a door by which to enter, but found none. Looking back to the clerk for information, she perceived that he was gone. Pickpockets and thieves instantly occurred to her, but, on searching for the bank-book and finding that it was safe, she felt relieved. Just as she was beginning to wonder whether she was not being made game of, she heard a voice above her, and, looking up, observed a man’s head stretched over the top of the partition and looking down at her.

“Now, then, good woman, what do you want?” said the head.

“I wants a hundred pound,” said Mrs Gaff, presenting her cheque in a somewhat defiant manner, for she began to feel badgered.

The head put over a hand, took the cheque, and then both disappeared.

Mrs Gaff stood for some time waiting anxiously for the result, and as no result followed, she began again to think of thieves and pickpockets, and even meditated as to the propriety of setting up a sudden cry of thieves, murder, and fire, in order to make sure of the clerk being arrested before he should get quite clear of the building, when she became aware of a fluttering of some sort just above her. Looking up she observed her cheque quivering on the top of the partition. Wondering what this could mean, she gazed at it with an expression of solemn interest.

Twice the cheque fluttered, with increasing violence each time, as though it were impatient, and then the head re-appeared suddenly.

“Why don’t you take your cheque?” it demanded with some asperity.

“Because I don’t want it, young man; I wants my money,” retorted Mrs Gaff, whose ire was beginning to rise.

The head smiled, dropped the cheque on the floor, and, pointing with its nose to a gentleman who stood behind a long counter in a sort of stall surrounded with brass rails, told her to present it to the teller, and she’d get the money. Having said which the head disappeared; but it might have been noted by a self-possessed observer, that as soon as Mrs Gaff had picked up the cheque, (bursting two buttons off her gown in the act), the head re-appeared, grinning in company with several other heads, all of which grinned and watched the further movements of Mrs Gaff with interest.

There were four gentlemen standing behind the long counter in brazen stalls. Three of these Mrs Gaff passed on her way to the one to whom she had been directed by the head’s nose.

“Now, sir,” said Mrs Gaff, (she could not say “young man” this time, for the teller was an elderly gentleman), “I hope ye’ll pay me the money without any more worrittin’ of me. I’m sure ye might ha’ done it at once without shovin’ about a poor ignorant woman like me.”

Having appealed to the teller’s feelings in this last observation, Mrs Gaff’s own feelings were slightly affected, and she whimpered a little. Tottie, being violently sympathetic, at once began to weep silently.

“How would you like to have it, my good woman?” asked the teller kindly.

“Eh?” exclaimed Mrs Gaff.

“Would you like to have it in notes or gold?” said the teller.

“In goold, of course, sir.”

Tottie here glanced upwards through her tears. Observing that her mother had ceased to whimper, and was gazing in undisguised admiration at the proceedings of the teller, she turned her eyes in his direction, and forgot to cry any more.

The teller was shovelling golden sovereigns into a pair of scales with a brass shovel as coolly as if he were a grocer’s boy scooping out raw sugar. Having weighed the glittering pile, he threw them carelessly out of the scale into the brass shovel, and shot them at Mrs Gaff, who suddenly thrust her ample bosom against the counter, under the impression that the coins were about to be scattered on the floor. She was mistaken. They were checked in their career by a ledge, and lay before her unbelieving eyes in a glittering mass.

Suddenly she looked at the teller with an expression of severe reproof.

“You’ve forgot to count ’em, sir.”

“You’ll find them all right,” replied the teller, with a laugh.

Thereupon Mrs Gaff, in an extremely unbelieving state of mind, began to count the gold pieces one by one into a little cotton bag which had been prepared by her for this very purpose, and which Tottie held open with both hands. In ten minutes, after much care and many sighs, she counted it all, and found that there were two sovereigns too many, which she offered to return to the teller with a triumphant air, but that incredulous man smiled benignantly, and advised her to count it again. She did count it again, and found that there were four pieces too few. Whereupon she retired with the bag to a side table, and, in a state of profuse perspiration, began to count it over a third time with deliberate care.

Tottie watched and checked each piece like a lynx, and the sum was at last found to be correct!

Mrs Gaff quitted the bank with a feeling of intense relief, and met Lizzie Gordon walking with Emmie Wilson just outside the door.

“My dear Miss Gordon,” exclaimed the poor woman, kissing Lizzie’s hand in the fulness of her heart, “you’ve no ideer what agonies I’ve bin a-sufferin’ in that there bank. If they’re a-goin’ to treat me in this way always, I’ll draw out the whole o’ my ten hundred thousand pound—if that’s the sum—an’ stow it away in my Stephen’s sea-chest, what he’s left behind him.”

“Dear Mrs Gaff, what have they done to you?” asked Lizzie in some concern.

“Oh, it’s too long a story to tell ye here, my dear. Come with me. I’m a-goin’ straight to yer uncle’s, Captain Bingley. Be he to home? But stop; did ye ever see a hundred golden pounds?”

Mrs Gaff cautiously opened the mouth of her bag and allowed Lizzie to peep in, but refused to answer any questions regarding her future intentions.

Meanwhile Emmie and Tottie had flown into each other’s arms. The former had often seen my niece, both at the house of Mr Stuart and at my own, as our respective ladies interchanged frequent visits, and Miss Peppy always brought Emmie when she came to see us. Lizzie had taken such a fancy to the orphan that she begged Miss Peppy to allow her to go with her and me sometimes on our visits to the houses of distressed sailors and fishermen. In this way Emmie and Tottie had become acquainted, and they were soon bosom friends, for the gentle, dark-eyed daughter of Mrs Gaff seemed to have been formed by nature as a harmonious counterpart to the volatile, fair-haired orphan. Emmie, I may here remark in passing, had by this time become a recognised inmate of Mr Stuart’s house. What his intentions in regard to her were, no one knew. He had at first vowed that the foundling should be cast upon the parish, but when the illness, that attacked the child after the ship-wreck, had passed away, he allowed her to remain without further remark than that she must be kept carefully out of his way. Kenneth, therefore, held to his first intention of not letting his father or any one else know that the poor girl was indeed related to him by the closest tie. Meanwhile he determined that Emmie’s education should not be neglected.

Immediately on arriving at my residence, Mrs Gaff was, at her own request, ushered into my study, accompanied by Tottie.

I bade her good-day, and, after a few words of inquiry as to her health, asked if I could be of any service to her.