CHAPTER IX
A BLACK EYE
WHEN Arthur got up the next morning he saw, to his dismay and disgust, that in addition to his swollen nose, he had a black eye, as a result of the blow he had received the previous evening.
"Oh, Arthur, whatever will you do?" exclaimed Molly when, in answer to his "come in," she opened the door and saw him at the looking-glass surveying critically his injured face.
"I shouldn't do for a beauty-show just now, should I?" replied the lad, trying to make a joke of the affair.
"Don't you think Alice had better run for the doctor at once?" said Molly.
Arthur laughed. "That's like a girl," he said. "There's nothing to be afraid of, only we are pretty busy just now, and how am I to get up to the counting-house without being seen? That's the problem, Molly. Mr. Brading would not like to see me go in such a sight as this, I know, but Mr. Bristow would be vexed if I stayed away while there is such a rush of work as we have just now."
"But you can't walk through the streets such a sight as that," protested Molly. "You must write a note, and I will take it down to Mr. Brading."
But Arthur shook his head. "That won't do at all. I would rather pay for a cab than do that. I must hold a pocket-handkerchief up to that side of my face, as though I had got the toothache—" And at this point his elder sister came in and at once declared that he could not go out that day.
"I shall send Alice for some lotion, and you must keep your eye bandaged well to-day, and then you may be able to go out to-morrow."
"Send for the lotion by all means, Annie, and I will use it, but I cannot stay at home, we are too busy."
"But you are such a sight!" said his sister. "What will people think, to see you with such a face?"
"People sha'n't see, and to make sure of this, I will take some sandwiches with me for dinner, and then I need not go into another part of the place until I come home, and I hope I shall be all right to-morrow. I wonder how poor old Ted feels this morning!"
"I hope he feels very ill," said Molly viciously, "for it isn't the first time he has been into the town and had too much to drink. Hannah saw him there one night, hardly able to walk, before she left."
"Well, I hope Hannah got him off to bed before his mother got home last night," said Arthur. And then, having arranged his collar and tie to his satisfaction, they all went downstairs. And while Annie sent Alice to the chemist's for some lotion for the injured eye, Molly went to the kitchen and cut the sandwiches for Arthur to take with him. Annie again tried to persuade him to stay at home as she poured out the coffee, wishing at the same time that Arthur had not gone out where he could meet his cousin.
"That's all very well, Annie, but who knows what might have happened to Ted if I had not been at hand to help him against those roughs! They might have knocked him about terribly."
"Well, they have knocked you about, and I don't see why you should have what he deserved. I call it quite disgraceful, and I wonder Aunt Mary allows it."
"Aunt Mary wouldn't allow it, of course, if she could help it. I suppose Ted has fallen in with bad company because he had nothing to do, and Aunt Mary is a regular dragon," concluded Arthur.
By the time breakfast was over, Alice had got back with the lotion, and Molly had cut a good supply of sandwiches. Finding she could not persuade her brother to give up the idea of going out, she arranged the pocket-handkerchief he was to carry as neatly as she could so as to hide the discoloured eye, and Arthur went a few minutes earlier than usual that he might go in at a side-door and so escape observation.
He was just tying up the last letter-bag when Mr. Bristow arrived.
"Good-morning, sir! Do you think one of the messengers might take the letters round for me this morning?"
Mr. Bristow stopped and looked curiously at Arthur. "You have been in the wars," he remarked.
"Yes, sir, but it might have been worse, for my cousin at least. He was set upon by a couple of roughs up the Sycamore Road last night, and I happened to go that way for a walk and came across them. I got a knock-down blow, and might have had another if two gentlemen had not come to our help and then got a cab for me to take Ted home."
"Well, you seem to have fared badly in the encounter," remarked the gentleman. "Of course I will send a messenger round with the letters. If you can manage to do your work, I shall be glad for you to stay, of course."
"Yes, I knew I could not be spared to take holiday just now, and I have brought some sandwiches with me so that no one but you need see me to-day, and I dare say it will be better to-morrow."
And Mr. Bristow having taken charge of the letter-bags, Arthur sat down to his usual work. He did not see Mr. Brading that morning, for he was busy in another part of the house. It was about eleven o'clock that a messenger came to enquire if Mr. Brading was in his own room.
"Is he wanted very specially?" asked Mr. Bristow. "For I know he does not want to be disturbed this morning."
"It's Lady Mary Murray, sir," answered the messenger.
Mr. Bristow pondered for a moment, and then decided that it would be better to send the man to Mr. Brading and let him decide whether he would see the lady or not. And so he told the man where he would probably find him.
Mr. Brading was not best pleased at being summoned to another interview with the lady, remembering what the last had been, but when he reached his downstairs private room, he found her seated and quite disposed to be pleasant, and even cordial.
"Good-morning, Mr. Brading! I am afraid I was a little excited, a little put-out, yesterday morning when I was here, and so I have called again to correct any unfavourable impression upon your mind, and also to tell you that for the present. I shall not take any further stops to trace that missing letter, and, in fact, I feel disposed to let the matter drop, and put up with the loss of the money, if you will help me in another matter."
Mr. Brading bowed. "Of course, as we have never received your ladyship's letter we cannot be held responsible for it," he said cautiously.
"Well, there is very little doubt who had the letter and cashed the cheque," said Lady Mary. "But now I am more anxious on my son's account, and this is what I have come to consult you about. Let me tell you what happened last night not far from your own door. I was returning home from an early dinner-party when I noticed a cab drawn up a little way up that side road just above your house, and almost at the same moment I saw your clerk, who calls himself Arthur Murray, but is a disgrace to the name, come staggering along as though he could not walk straight, and the cab was evidently waiting for him, for the cabman called to him, and he got into the cab and was driven away. Now, you must know whether or not that boy could afford to go driving about like that of an evening!"
"Perhaps not, in the way you put it, my lady," said Mr. Brading; "but I could not charge a lad with being dishonest because he rode out in the evening. There might be a good reason for having the cab there."
"Well, I see I shall have to tell you all my tale, although it involves the reputation of my own dear son, and then, I think, you will see that it is quite reasonable and right that I should demand that Arthur Murray should be discharged from your employment and sent to another town where—"
"But, my lady, I have no such control as that over my employees," interrupted Mr. Brading.
"But I think you will find a way to exercise it when you hear all my story, if only for the sake of your own son, who I hear is a friend of this artful lad's. When I got home last night my cook came to tell me that my son and this Arthur Murray had come home very tipsy, and, as I learned later, my son had lost or been robbed of his watch and chain. Now, when I tell you that this sort of thing has been going on for years and years, that he has constantly been leading my poor boy into mischief of some sort or other, you will understand how anxious I am to remove him from such bad company, and the only way to do it is for one or other of them to leave the neighbourhood. I cannot part with my dear Adrian for any length of time, and so I do hope you will help me to get rid of Arthur, for he is, I can assure you, a dreadful boy! Actually calls me a dragon, I hear from my cook, who lived with them as long as they could keep a decent servant!"
Mr. Brading could scarcely keep from smiling at the lady's last charge, and yet he knew not what to think of the other part of her communication. He paused before replying, to see if the lady had anything else to bring forward to the lad's discredit, and also so to frame his answer as to leave himself uncommitted to any special course of action, and yet not to give any offence to Lady Mary.
He was much more disposed to credit her statements this morning, for she spoke calmly and reasonably, and there was not the heat of temper in what she said. She, on her part, could see that she had made a more favourable impression on Mr. Ending, and was anxious to follow it up by being unusually gracious, and so, after a pause, she said:
"I suppose you have not heard the great news yet, that the railway is really coming at last, and coming by the old route that was supposed to have been given up for a short-cut that would practically have left our town far from its benefits."
"No, indeed, I have not heard a word about it," said Mr. Brading, his interest at once aroused. For if this information was correct, it would alter all the plans he was formulating just now for the building of a new factory which the extension of his business demanded should be set about without delay. "May I ask the source of your information, my lady?" he said.
She laughed and shook her head. "I cannot tell you that, Mr. Brading," she answered. "But you may rely upon it as being quite true."
"Thank you; but you see for years past there have been so many rumours about this railway, that one is shy of giving credence to anything."
"Oh, I can assure you that this is no idle rumour! My brother, Lord Lismore, is on the board of directors. Not that he knows anything about business," she hastened to add, "but he likes to see his name in print; and I have said to him more than once: 'If you can get a railway through our town, I will give you a hundred pounds for the earliest information.' So you see, Mr. Brading, I am making you a valuable present, for I only heard this morning that the route is decidedly fixed at last, and the railway will be here before our sleepy old town can wake up from its astonishment."
Mr. Brading laughed. "I am not much interested in railway stock," he said, "or I might hurry to buy some shares in this. But now to return to the matter under discussion. I must have time to look at the whole matter fairly. I make it a rule, both in the management of my business and the ruling of my life, to do as far as I possibly can to other people as I should wish them, and could fairly expect them, to do if I were in their place and they were in mine. Now you see, in dealing with this lad, I have to put myself in the place of his father, and ask myself what I could reasonably expect if he were my Jack."
"But, Mr. Brading, that notion is absurd! You never could be an idle spendthrift like Charles Murray, living on expectations and credit and—"
"Ah!" suddenly interrupted Mr. Brading. "The expectations were founded on this very railway we have been talking about."
"Very likely," said the lady shortly, rising from her seat as she spoke. "But it can make no difference to them now, for the waste and extravagance that have been going on for years and years have eaten up their land. And so the best thing for Arthur is to go to London, and if you can force him to do this, I am sure it will be a kindness to him if you could only think so."
"Then I may tell the lad that this is your advice, my lady?" said Mr. Brading, looking keenly at her.
"Oh no!" she almost screamed. "You must not mention my name in it. But I may tell you that I shall be compelled to press that matter about Andrews' cheque, if it is not found in a day or two."
"Andrews' cheque?" repeated Mr. Brading in a mystified tone.
"Yes, yes; Andrews the lawyer, I mean. It was the cheque I sent to you. It happened this way. I wanted a vest for my son, and had written the order and said I enclosed a cheque for five pounds, and then I could not find my cheque-book. My son was waiting to post my letter for me, and I remembered that I had this cheque sent by Mr. Andrews, and took it out of my pocket and endorsed it, and put that in to save further bother."
"Did your son see you sign this cheque, my lady?" asked Mr. Brading.
"Very likely he did; he was waiting for the letter, I tell you. But that has nothing to do with it. He posted the letter, he says; and what I want to know is this: Who stole that letter after it came into this house?"
Mr. Brading shook his head. "You have to prove first, my lady, that the letter did come into this house," he said calmly.
"Of course there is a difficulty about that. I shall have to send for Lismore and a London detective, as the post office people say it must have come here, and I don't want to have all that bother. And so I ask you to compromise the matter by discharging this lad without saying a word more than you are obliged as to the reason. Say you have altered your plans, and that you will recommend him to anyone in London."
"What! You want to convince me that the lad is dishonest, and then in the same breath ask me to recommend him to a stranger? No, my lady, I am a plain man, of straightforward dealing, and I could not do that to the poorest errand boy in my employ."
Then began the Irish jig once more. Lady Mary lost control of her temper, and said a good many things she would fain have left unsaid, and at last left Mr. Brading as perplexed as before, both with regard to Arthur and also as to what he had better do in his own business arrangements, if the news concerning the railway was true.
He sat for nearly ten minutes after the lady had left the room. And then he exclaimed:
"I wish I had never seen the woman! What am I to believe? What am I to do? I've a good mind to go and talk to Andrews about it. He knows me, and he knows these Murrays. He may be able to make something of this tangle, for it seems as though a Solomon was needed to unravel it."
If Mr. Brading had been curious, and had watched the movements of Lady Mary, he would have seen that she, too, went to consult a lawyer. But it was not to Mr. Andrews' office that she bent her steps. Her man of business was a Mr. Simmons, a much younger man, and people considered him much more clever. Certainly he was much sharper in his practices. Everybody admitted that.
But to Lady Mary's imperious demand to see Mr. Simmons without delay, the clerk replied: "He is not in just now, my lady."
"When will he be in?" she asked.
"Very soon now, my lady, I think."
"Very well; I am going home now. Tell him to come to me as soon as he comes in."
"Could you leave any instructions, my lady, in case Mr. Simmons should be late?" asked the clerk insinuatingly.
"What do you mean?" demanded Lady Mary, with a look of withering scorn. "I came to consult Mr. Simmons, and if he is not here, he must come to me!"
And saying this, the lady sailed out of the office just in time for Mr. Brading to see her cross the road, as he walked up the street to see Mr. Andrews.
"I am glad I decided to see a lawyer, since her ladyship is going to do the same thing," he muttered half-aloud as he went on.
He was more fortunate than Lady Mary had been with her legal adviser. Mr. Andrews was at his office, and quite ready to listen to Mr. Brading's rather long story, which he told by way of explaining how he came to be possessed of the news about the railway.
Mr. Andrews was a man of few words in general, but when he heard of the lady's visit to his rival, he rubbed his hands, and a smile broke slowly all over his face.
"I am not sure that the news is not worth more than a hundred pounds to me," he said. "Now what is your own particular business, Mr. Brading?" asked the lawyer.
"Well, if this particular railway is coming at last, I had better build my new factory as close to it as I can get the land. I was just planning to buy up those cottages on the opposite side of Kent Street, and place my factory there; but it would be infinitely better to have it close to the railway. You can see that, of course?"
"Certainly I can. It will be better in every way, for it would be a pity to pull down those cottages; and, moreover, I shall be glad to sell you a plot of land near the railway, if it only comes."
"Very well then. Mind, it is a promise that if this comes about, I am to have first chance of the land."
"Yes, you shall, Brading, if only for what you have done for Arthur Murray. The lad has grit, and you have given him a chance of proving it."
But Mr. Brading would not be drawn into discussing this topic.
"I must be going," he said. "I have been hindered a good deal already. Lady Mary and such folk have small idea of the value of time to a busy man, but you have, and I am not going to be tempted to talk to you any longer," he added with a laugh.
Mr. Andrews was a keen observer, and knew Mr. Brading well, and he detected something like a false ring in the laughter of his old friend. "There is a screw loose somewhere if I am not mistaken," he muttered to himself as he went back to his seat, after opening the door for Mr. Brading.
Then he touched the gong on his table, and a young clerk came in from the outer office. "Send Phillips to me," he said.
"Mr. Phillips is just going to his dinner, sir."
"Run after him, then, and tell him I want to see him first," said Mr. Andrews.
The old clerk, who knew all the secrets of the office as well as Mr. Andrews did himself, came back the next minute.
"I want a word with you," said Mr. Andrews, "before you go out. Sit down for a moment. Have you heard any talk of the new railway lately?"
The man smiled, and shook his head. "That is as dead as a door-nail," he said in a lower tone.
"Not if what I have heard this morning is true. Now I want you to send a confidential telegram to Barclay about this. He will understand what I mean, but they won't at the post office, and you understand I don't want the news to be the town talk yet."
The old man nodded. "It will make a deal of difference to this office if it should be true," he remarked.
"Yes, it will. But I also want to find out which of the two lads is making himself the talk of the place over that new billiard saloon. Do you think you could find out for me whether it is Lady Mary's son or the lad that will be benefited if this railway comes through the town? Lady Mary's son is a little chap, thin and delicate-looking, but our lad is a tall, strapping fellow. Be particular that you do not confuse the one with the other, and if it is necessary to spend a little money in pressing the enquiry, it can go down as office expenses. You understand, Phillips?"
"Oh, yes, sir! I think I know what you want, and you may trust me for making sure of my facts before I bring you the information."
Then Mr. Andrews wrote his telegram to a confidential agent in London, and before he left the office to return home that evening he heard that the information he had received might be relied upon. So that now it only depended upon the report he heard as to how Arthur was spending his time in the evenings, whether he should exercise all his skill and power to rescue the property that nominally belonged to him, or whether he should let things drift to the end that was inevitable—foreclosure by those who held it as security for money lent, that had simply been wasted in idle indulgence by its late owners.