This Man's Wife

But the stout farmer, who was on the steps between the two pillars that flanked the entrance, put his hand to his mouth, as if about to give a view halloo!

“Look out for the bloonder-boosh, my lads.” And then, turning his head up to the window where Mr Trampleasure stood, weapon in hand, “Tak’ a good aim on the front, and gie it ’em – whang! Mr Trampleasure, sir. Thee’ll scatter the sloogs fine.”

Not a stone was thrown, and by this time James Thickens was busy at work cancelling with his quill pen, and counting and weighing out gold. He never offered one of Dixons’ notes: silver and gold, current coin of the realm, was all he passed over the counter, and though the customers pressed and hurried to get their cheques or notes changed, Thickens retained his coolness and went on.

At the end of a quarter of an hour the excitement was subsiding, but the bank was still full of farmers and tradespeople, the big burly man with the hunting crop being still by the counter unpaid.

All at once, after watching the paying over of the money for some time, he began hammering the mahogany counter heavily with the iron handle of his whip.

“Here, howd hard!” he roared.

Sir Gordon, who had put the pistols on the table, and was sitting on the manager’s chair, coolly reading his newspaper in full view, laid it down, and rose to come to the open glass door.

“Ay, that’s right, Sir Gordon. I want a word wi’ thee. I’m not a man to go on wi’ fullishness; but brass is brass, and a hard thing to get howd on. Now, look ye here. Howd hard, neighbours, I hevn’t got much to saya.”

“What is it, Mr Anderson?” said Sir Gordon calmly.

“Why, this much, Sir Gordon and neighbours. Friend o’ mine comes out o’ the town this morning and says, ‘If thou’st got any brass i’ Dixons’ Bank, run and get it, lad, for Maester Hallam’s bo’ted, and bank’s boosted oop.’ Now, Sir Gordon, it don’t look as if bank hev boosted oop.”

“Oh, no,” said Sir Gordon, smiling.

“Hev Maester Hallam bo’ted, then, or is that a lie too?”

“I am sorry to say that Mr Hallam has been arrested on a charge of fraud.”

“That be true, then?” said the farmer. “Well, now, look here, Sir Gordon; I’ve banked wi’ you over twanty year, and I can’t afford to lose my brass. Tween man and man, is my money safe?”

“Perfectly, Mr Anderson.”

“That’ll do, Sir Gordon,” said the farmer, tearing up the cheque he held in his hand, and scattering it over his head. “I’ll tak’ Sir Gordon’s word or Dixons’ if they say it’s all right. I don’t want my brass.”

“Gentlemen,” said Sir Gordon, flashing slightly, “if you will trust me and my dear old friend Mr Dixon, you shall be paid all demands to the last penny we have. I am sorry to say that I have discovered a very heavy defalcation on the part of our late manager, and the loss will be large, but that loss will fall upon us, gentlemen, not upon you.”

“But I want my deeds, my writings,” cried a voice. “I’m not a-going to be cheated out o’ my rights.”

“Who is that?” said Sir Gordon.

“Mr Gemp, Sir Gordon,” said Thickens quickly. “Deposit of deeds of row of houses in Rochester Close; and shares.”

“Mr Gemp,” said Sir Gordon, “I am afraid your deeds are amongst others that are missing.”

“Ay! Ay! Robbers! Robbers!” shouted Gemp excitedly.

“No, Mr Gemp, we are not robbers,” said Sir Gordon. “If you will employ your valuer, I will employ ours; and as soon as they have decided the amount, Mr James Thickens will pay you – to-day if you can get the business done, and the houses and shares are Dixons’.”

“Hear, hear, hear,” shouted Anderson. “There, neighbour, he can’t say fairer than that.”

“Nay, I want my writings, and I don’t want to sell. I want my writings. I’ll hev ’em too.”

“Shame on you, Gemp,” said a voice behind him. “Three days ago you were at death’s door. Your life was spared, and this is the thank-offering you make to your neighbours in their trouble.”

“Nay, don’t you talk like that, parson, thou doesn’t know what it is to lose thy all,” piped Gemp.

“Lose?” cried Bayle, who had entered the bank quietly to see Sir Gordon. “Man, I have lost heavily too.”

Thickens was making signs to him now with his quill pen.

“Ay, but I want my writings. I’ll hev my writings,” cried Gemp. “Neighbours, you have your money. Don’t you believe ’em. They’re robbers.”

“If I weer close to thee, owd Gemp, I’d tak’ thee by the scruff and the band o’ thy owd breeches and pitch thee out o’ window. Sir Gordon’s ready to do the handsome thing.”

“Touch me if you dare,” cried old Gemp. “I want my writings. It was bank getting unsafe made me badly. You neighbours have all thy money out, for they haven’t got enough to last long.”

There was a fresh murmur here, and Sir Gordon looked anxious. Mr Anderson stood fast; but it was evident that a strong party were waiting for their money, and more than one began to twitch Thickens by the sleeve, and present cheques and notes.

Thickens paid no heed, but made his way to where Christie Bayle was standing, and handed him a pocket-book.

“Here,” he said. “I couldn’t come to you. I had to watch the bank.”

“My pocket-book, Thickens?”

“Yes, sir. I was just in time to knock that scoundrel over as he was throttling you. I’d come to meet the coach.”

“Why, Thickens!” cried Bayle, flushing – “Ah, you grasping old miser! What! turn thief?”

The latter was to old Gemp, who saw the pocket-book passed, and made a hawk-like clutch at it, but his wrist was pinned by Bayle, who took the pocket-book and slipped it into his breast.

“It’s my papers – it’s writings – it’s – ”

His voice was drowned in a clamour that arose, as about twenty more people came hurrying in at the bank-door, eager to make demands for their deposits.

Sir Gordon grew pale, for there was not enough cash in the house to meet the constant demand, and he had hoped that the ready payment of a great deal would quiet the run.

The clamour increased, and it soon became evident that the dam had given way, and that nothing remained but to go on paying to the last penny in the bank, while there was every possibility of wreck and destruction following.

“Howd hard, neighbours,” cried Anderson; “Sir Gordon says it’s all right. Dixons’ ’ll pay.”

“Dixons’ can’t pay,” shouted a voice. “Hallam’s got everything, and the bank’s ruined.”

There was a roar here, and the fire seemed to have been again applied to the tow. Thickens looked in despair at Bayle, and then with a quick movement locked the cash drawer, and clapped the key in his pocket. The action was seen. There was a yell of fury from the crowd in front, and a dozen hands seized the clerk.

Sir Gordon darted forward, this time without pistols, and hands and sticks were raised, when in a voice of thunder Christie Bayle roared:

“Stop!”

There was instant silence, for he had leaped upon the bank counter.

“Stand back!” he said, “and act like Christian men, and not like wild beasts. Dixons’ Bank is sound. Look here!”

“It’s failed! it’s failed!” cried a dozen voices.

“It has not failed,” shouted Bayle. “Look here: I have been to London.”

“Yes, we know.”

“To fetch twenty-one thousand pounds – my own property!”

There was dead silence here.

“Look! that is the money, all in new Bank of England notes.”

He tore them out of the large pocket-book.

“To show you my confidence in Dixons’ Bank and in Sir Gordon Bourne’s word, I deposit this sum with them, and open an account. Mr Thickens, have the goodness to enter this to my credit; I’ll take a chequebook when you are at liberty.”

He passed the sheaf of rustling, fluttering, new, crisp notes to the cashier, and then, taking Sir Gordon’s offered hand, leaped down inside the counter of the bank.

“There, Sir Gordon,” he said, with a smile, “I hope the plague is stayed.”

“Christie Bayle,” whispered Sir Gordon huskily, “Heaven bless you! I shall never forget this day!” Half-an-hour later the bank business was going on as usual, but the business of the past night and morning was more talked of than before.

Volume Two – Chapter Sixteen.

In misery’s depths

One of many visits to the gloomy, stone-built, county gaol where Hallam was waiting his trial – for all applications for the granting of bail had been set aside – Millicent had insisted upon going alone, but without avail.

“No, Miss Milly, you may insist as long as you like; but until I’m berried, I’m going to keep by you in trouble, and I shall go with you.”

“But Thibs, my dear, dear old Thibs,” cried Millicent, flinging her arms about her neck, “don’t you see that you will be helping me by staying with Julie?”

“No, my dear, I don’t; and, God bless her! she’ll be as happy as can be with her grandpa killing slugs, as I wish all wicked people were the same, and could be killed out of the way.”

“But, Thibs, I order you to stay!”

“And you may order, my dear,” said Thisbe stubbornly. “You might order, and you might cut off my legs, and then I’d come crawling like the serpent in the Scripters – only I hope it would be to do good.”

“Oh, you make me angry with you, Thisbe. Haven’t I told you that Miss Heathery has been pressing to come this morning, and I refused her?”

“Why, of course you did, my dear,” replied Thisbe contemptuously. “Nice one she’d be to go with you, and strengthen and comfort you! Send her to your pa’s greenhouse to turn herself into a pot, and water the plants with warm water, and crying all over, and perhaps she’d do some good; but to go over to Lindum! The idea! Poor little weak thing!”

“But, Thisbe, can you not see that this is a visit that I ought to pay alone?”

“No, miss.”

“But it is: for my husband’s sake.”

“Every good husband who had left his wife in such trouble as you’re in would be much obliged to an old servant for going with you all that long journey. There, miss, once for all – you may go alone, if you like, but I shall follow you and keep close to you all the time, and sit down at the prison gate.”

“Oh, hush, Thibs!” cried Millicent, with a spasm of pain convulsing her features.

“Yes, miss, I understand. And now I’m going. I shan’t speak a word to you; I shan’t even look at you, but be just as if I was a nothing, and all the same I’m there ready for you to hear, and be a comfort in my poor way, so that you may lean on me as much as you like; and, please God, bring us all well out of our troubles. Amen.”

Poor Thisbe’s words were inconsequent, but they were sincere, and she followed her mistress to the coach, and then through the hilly streets of the old city, and finally, as she had suggested, seated herself upon a stone at the prison gates while her mistress went in.

The sound of lock and bolt chilled Millicent; the aspect of the gloomy, high-walled enclosure, with the loose bricks piled on the top to show where the wall had been tampered with, and to hinder escape, the very aspect, too, of the governor’s house, with its barred windows to keep prisoners out, as the walls were to keep them in – a cage within a cage – made her heart sink, and when after traversing stone passages, and hearing doors locked and unlocked, she found herself in the presence of her husband, her brain reeled, a mist came before her eyes, and for a while her tongue refused to utter the words she longed to speak.

“Humph!” said Hallam roughly. “You don’t seem very glad to see me.”

Her reproachful eyes gave him the lie; and, looking pale, anxious, and terribly careworn, he began to pace the floor.

The careful arrangement of the hair, the gentlemanly look, seemed to have given place to a sullen, half-shrinking mien, and it was plain to see how confinement and mental anxiety had told upon him.

In a few minutes, though, he had thrown off a great deal of this, and spoke eagerly to his wife, who, while tender and sympathetic in word and look, seemed ever ready to spur him on to some effort to free himself from the clinging stain.

This had been her task from the very first. Cast down with a feeling of degradation and sorrow, when the arrest had been made, she had, as we know, recoiled.

She had made every effort possible; had gone to her husband for advice and counsel, and had ended at his wish by taking the money Miss Heathery offered, to pay a good attorney to conduct his case; but on the first hearing, she was informed by the lawyer that a gentleman was down from town, a barrister of some eminence, who said that he had been instructed to defend Mr Hallam, and he declined to give any further information.

The despair that came over Millicent was terrible to witness; but she mastered these fits of despondency by force of will and the feverish energy with which she set to work. She visited Hallam, questioning, asking advice, instruction, and bidding him try to see his way out of the difficulty, till he grew morose and sullen, and seemed to find special pleasure in telling her that it was “all the work of that parson.”

In her feverish state, in the despair with which she had bidden herself do her duty to her wronged, her injured husband, she took all this as fact, and shutting herself up at Miss Heathery’s, refused to read the letters Bayle sent to her, or to give him an interview.

It was as if a savage spirit of hate and revenge had taken possession of her, and with blind determination she went on her way, praying for strength to make her worthy of the task of defending her injured husband, and for the overthrow of the cruel enemies who were fighting to work his ruin.

And now she was having the last interview with Hallam, for the authorities had interfered, she had had so much latitude, and he had given her certain instructions which made her start.

“Go to him?” she said, looking up wonderingly.

“Yes, of course,” he said sharply; “do you wish me to lose the slightest chance of getting off?”

“But, Robert, dear,” she said innocently, but with the energy that pervaded her speaking, “why not go bravely to your trial? The truth must prevail.”

“Oh, yes,” he said cynically; “it is a way it has in courts of law.”

“Don’t speak like that, love. I want you to hold up your head bravely in the face of your detractors, to show how you have been tricked and injured, that this man Crellock, whom you have helped, has proved a villain – deceiving, robbing, and shamefully treating you.”

“Yes,” he said; “I should like to show all that.”

“Then don’t send me to Sir Gordon. I feel that there is no mercy to be expected from either him or Mr Bayle. They both hate you.”

“Most cordially, dear. By all that’s wearisome, I wish they would let me have a cigar here.”

“No, no; think of what you are telling me to do,” she cried eagerly, as she saw him wandering from the purpose in hand. “You say I must go to Sir Gordon?”

“Yes. Don’t say it outright, but give him to understand that if he will throw up this prosecution of his, it will be better for the bank. That I can give such information as will pay them.”

“You know so much about Stephen Crellock?” she said quickly.

“Yes; I can recover a great deal, I am sure.”

“And I am to show him how cruelly he has wronged you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You desire me to do this; you will not trust to your innocence, and the efforts of the counsel?”

“Do you want to drive me mad with your questions?” he cried savagely. “If you decline to go, my lawyer shall see Sir Gordon.”

“Robert!” she said reproachfully, but with the sweet gentleness of her pitying love for the husband irritated, and beyond control of self in his trouble, apparent in her words.

“Well, why do you talk so and hesitate?” he cried petulantly.

“I will go, dear,” she said cheerfully, “and I will plead your cause to the uttermost.”

“Yes, of course. It will be better that you should go. He likes you, Millicent; he always did like you, and I dare say he will listen to you. I don’t know but what it might be wise to knock under to Bayle. But no: I hate that fellow. I always did from the first. Well, leave that now. See Sir Gordon; tell him what I say, that it will be best for the bank. You’ll win. Hang it, Millicent, I could not bear this trial: it would kill me.”

“Robert!”

“Ah, well, I’m not going to die yet, and it would be very sad for my handsome little wife to be left a widow if they hang me, or to exist with a live husband serving one-and-twenty years in the bush.”

“Robert, you will break my heart if you speak like that,” panted Millicent.

“Ah, well, we must not do that,” he cried laughingly. “Look here, though; this barrister who is to defend me, I know him – Granton, Q.C. Did your father instruct him?”

“No: he could not. Robert, we are frightfully poor.”

“Ah! it is a nuisance,” he said, “thanks to my enemies; but we’ll get through. Now then, who has instructed this man?”

“I cannot tell, dear.”

“I see it all,” he said; “it’s a plan of the enemy. They employ their own man, and he will sell me, bound hand and foot, to the Philistines.”

“Oh! Robert, surely no one would be so base.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “They want to win. It’s Sir Gordon’s doing. No, it’s Christie Bayle. I’d lay a thousand pounds he has paid the fellow’s fees.”

“Then, Robert, you will not trust him; you will refuse to let him defend you. Husband, my brave, true, innocent husband,” she cried, with her pale face flushing, “defend yourself!”

“Hush! Go to Sir Gordon at once. Say everything. I must be had out of this, Milly. I cannot stand my trial.” She could only nod her acquiescence, for a gaoler had entered to announce that the visit was at an end.

Then, as if in a dream, confused, troubled in spirit, and hardly seeing her way for the mist before her eyes, Millicent Hallam followed the gaoler back along the white stone passages and through the clanging gates, to be shut out of the prison and remain in a dream of misery and troubled thought, conscious of only one thing, and that one that a gentle hand had taken her by the arm and led her back to where they waited for the conveyance to take them home.

“These handsome men; these handsome men!” sighed Thibs, as she sat by Julia’s bed that night, tired with her journey, but reluctant to go to her own resting-place – a mattress upon the floor. “Oh! how I wish sometimes we were back at the old house, and me scolding and stubborn with poor old missus, and in my tantrums from morning to night. Ah! those were happy days.”

Thisbe shook her head, and rocked herself to and fro, and sighed and sighed again.

“My old kitchen, and my old back door, and the big dust-hole! What a house it was, and how happy we used to be! Ah! if we could only change right back and be there once more, and Miss Milly not married to no handsome scamp. Ah! and he is; Miss Milly may say what she likes, and try to believe he isn’t. He is a scamp, and I wish she had never seen his handsome face, and we were all back again, and then – Oh! – Oh! Oh! – Oh! – Oh!” cried hard, stubborn Thisbe as she sank upon her knees by the child’s bedside, sobbing gently and with the tears running down her cheeks, “and then there wouldn’t be no you. Bless you! bless you! bless you!”

She kissed the child as a butterfly might settle on a flower, so tender was her love, so great her fear of disturbing the little one’s rest.

“Oh! dear me, dear me!” she said, rising and wiping the tears from her hard face and eyes, “well, there’s whites and blacks, and ups and downs, and pleasures and pains, and I don’t know what to say – except my prayers; and the Lord knows what’s best for us after all.”

Ten minutes after, poor Thisbe was sleeping peacefully, while, with burning brow, Millicent was pacing her bed-room, thinking of the morrow’s interview with Sir Gordon Bourne.

Volume Two – Chapter Seventeen.

Mr Gemp is Curious

“I know’d – I know’d it all along,” said Old Gemp to his friends, for the excitement of his loss seemed now to have acted in an opposite direction and to be giving him strength. “I know’d he couldn’t be living at that rate unless things was going wrong. What did the magistrates say?”

“Said it was a black case, and committed him for trial,” replied Gorringe the tailor. “Ah, I don’t say that clothes is everything, Mr Gemp; but a well-made suit makes a gentleman of a man, and you never heard of Mr Thickens doing aught amiss.”

“Nor me neither, eh, Gorringe? and you’ve made my clothes ever since you’ve been in business.”

The tailor looked with disgust at his neighbour’s shabby, well-worn garments, and remained silent.

“I’d have been in the court mysen, Gorringe, on’y old Luttrell said he wouldn’t be answerable for my life if I got excited again, and I don’t want to die yet, neighbour; there’s a deal for me to see to in this world.”

“Got your money, haven’t you?”

“Ye-es, I’ve got my money, and it’s put away safe; but I wanted my deeds – my writings. I’ve lost by that scoundrel, horribly.”

“Ah, well, it might have been worse,” said Gorringe, giving a snip with his scissors that made Gemp start as if it were his own well-frayed thread of life being cut through.

“Oh, of course it might have been worse; but a lot of us have lost, eh, neighbour?”

“Dixons’ and Sir Gordon have come down very handsome over it,” said Gorringe, who was designing a garment, as he called it, with a piece of French chalk.

“And the parson,” said Gemp; “only to think of it – a parson, a curate, with one-and-twenty thousand pound in his pocket.”

“Ay, it come in handy,” said Gorringe.

“Now, where did he get that money, eh? It’s a wonderful sight for a man like him,” said Gemp, with a suspicious look.

“London. I heerd tell that he said he had been to London to get it.”

“Ay, he said so,” cried Gemp, shaking his head, “but it looks suspicious, mun. Here was he hand and glove with the Hallams, always at their house and mixed up like. I want to know where he got that money. I say, sir, that a curate with twenty thousand pound of his own is a sort o’ monster as ought to be levelled down.”

The tailor pushed up his glasses to the roots of his hair, and left off his work to hold up his shears menacingly at his crony.

“Gemp, old man,” he said, “I would not be such a cantankerous, suspicious old magpie as you for a hundred pounds; and look here, if you’re going to pull buttons off the back o’ parson’s coat, go and do it somewhere else, and not in my shop.”

“Oh! you needn’t be so up,” said Gemp. “Look here,” he cried, pointing straight at his friend, “what did Thickens say about the writings?”

“Spoke fair as a man could speak,” said Gorringe, resuming his architectural designs in chalk and cloth, “said he felt uncomfortable about the matter first when he saw Hallam give a package to a man named Crellock – chap who often come down to see him; that he was suspicious like that for two years, but never had an opportunity of doing more than be doubtful till just lately.”

“Why didn’t he speak out to a friend – say to a man like me?”

“Because, I’m telling you, it was only suspicion. Hallam managed the thing very artfully, and threw dust in Thickens’s eyes; but last of all he see his way clear, and went and told parson. And just then Sir Gordon were suspicious, too, and had got something to go upon, and they nabbed my gentleman just as he was going away.”

“And do you believe all this?” cried Gemp.

“To be sure I do. Don’t you?”

“Tchah! I’m afraid they’re all in it.”

“Ah! well, I’m not; and, as we’ve nothing to lose, I don’t care.”

“How did Hallam look?”

“Very white; and, my word! he did give parson a look when he was called up to give his evidence. He looked black at Thickens and at Sir Gordon, but he seemed regularly savage with parson.”

“Ah, to be sure!” cried Gemp. “What did I say about being thick with parson? It’s my belief that if all had their deserts parson would be standing in the dock alongside o’ Hallam.”

“And it’s my belief, Gemp, that you’re about the silliest owd maulkin that ever stepped! There, I won’t quarrel with thee. Parson? Pshaw!”

“Well, thou’lt see, mun, thou’lt see! Committed for trial, eh? And how about the other fellow!”

“What, Crellock? Oh, they’ve got him too. He came smelling after Hallam, who was like a decoy bird to him. Wanted to see him in the cage; and they let him see Hallam, and – ”

“Ah, I heard that Hallam told the constable Crellock was worse than he, and they took him too. Yes, I heard that. Hallo! here comes Hallam’s maid – doctor’s owd lass, Thisbe. Let’s get a word wi’ her.”