A Gentleman's Gentleman/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
OLD BARKER SHOWS HIS BOOKS
All this, as you may think, was in my mind when I set out for the post-office to find out, if I could, what message really had been given to Lord Heresford. I knew well enough that a word would send him barking to old Oakley; and if that word had been written, good-by to Miss Janet, said I, and heigho for Paris again. This wasn't the first time by a long way that Nicky and I had changed our quarters suddenly; but better quarters than the White House we couldn't hope to find in a hurry—better quarters nor better people, for there wasn't a man of them, even down to Reubens, the constable, that didn't treat us in slap-up style. Whenever I went into the village, it was "Good-day to you, Mr. Bigg. Ye'll take a glass of ale with me?" or, "How's Sir Nicolas finding himself to-day, Mr. Bigg? Been riding, I suppose. Ay, he's a wunner on horseback is your master." Strange, it was, too, how they did love Nicky, every man, woman, and child among them; and this I will say, that more pleasant manners with children you'll never see this side of Dublin.
When I got down to the post-office, old Barker, the post-master, was at the meeting-house, "wrestling with the Lord," his wife called it; and there was nothing for it but to catch him as he came out and before he got into the public. But I hadn't been in the village five minutes when Reubens came sidling up to me, and began a parley. He was a rare talker, was Reubens, and if you wanted any thing put abroad, you couldn't do better than give him a whisper of it.
"Evenin', Mister Bigg," said he. "I do hope that you be finding yourself better this day."
"Well, thank you, Mr. Reubens," said I, "it's not much that I'm complaining of. Will you have a cigar to-night?"
I offered him my case, and he took a smoke readily.
"It's funny," said he, biting off the end of it then and there, "that you should be offering me bacca, for it weren't five minutes ago that Mrs. Reubens says to me, 'Reubens, ye're more tiresome this night than I can remember. Drat ye, go out and smoke your pipe, and leave me to get the childer to bed.' Ay, wunnerful woman she is with childer! Ye'll not be having a lucifer about you, Mr. Bigg?"
"Oh, but I have, though. You'll take a glass of ale with me, Mr. Reubens?"
"Well, now, you do put things into a man's head!"
I took him up to the Duke of York, and we went into the private bar at his wish.
"There's some as say," he explained, "that a constable shouldn't go for to be seen drinking in a public; but that's not my word. A man's a man, and no' the worse for taking a glass of yale like other folk. And it's example, too. What would ye think of a policeman that wanted a stomach for a sup of beer? That's no man to preserve the Queen's peace."
"Quite right," said I. "But I don't suppose the Queen's peace wants very much preserving in these parts."
"No," said he, draining his jug at a draught; "we're a tidy civil folk as folk go. When there's trouble, it's a'most a' ways brought by strangers. An' that reminds me—ye'll not have been looking for any man from Lunnon to-day, Mr. Bigg?"
"What sort of a man?" said I, feeling a bit queer at the question; which was no wonder, remembering the business I'd come down to the village about.
"Spare party, with short legs and a fly-away voice," said he. "Clerkish way he has, too, pryin' about just as if he was sorting out pigs. Thought he might be down here about Saturday. Ay, but you'll be busy enough without him. She's a fine lady, is Miss Oakley; no finer in the county, that I do say. And I've seed a many giv' and took since I was a lad, Mr. Bigg."
"That's so, Mr. Reubens," replied I; "you must have seen a wonderful lot in your time. But this clerk, now—was he asking after me?"
"After you—no; I don't mind that he was, or I'd have been bringing him up to the house. Queer party he is, though. And you'll not forget that there are diamonds and such up yonder now. There's been stranger things in Derbyshire than house-breakers, Mr. Bigg."
I saw in a minute what he meant, and I could have burst out laughing in his face. When he told me that a clerk was in the village he didn't need to say more. I knew well what the chap was after, and I said to myself, "Nicky, my boy, here's another bit of white paper which the wind has sent us." Yet how they had scented us out, or whose writ it was, I couldn't think. At the same time, it wasn't for me to be putting thoughts into the constable's head, and I kept my wits about me.
"It seems to me that the village should think itself lucky to have such a man as you about, Mr. Reubens," said I, after a bit. "There's no knowing what these London chaps aren't up to nowadays. Do you remember when old Lord Ramer was married down Bedford way last autumn? Well, the very night he was honeymooning, three of them entered his place and filled themselves right up with plate and jewels. Broke into his dressing-room, they did, and wired all the park, so that when his butler went after them he cut his face cruel. What do you think of that?"
"Ay, but it was bad business, Mr. Bigg."
"You're right there; and if I was you I'd keep my eye on this chap you speak of. Likely enough he's news of what's going on yonder. But I don't doubt you'll be good enough for him—and more to come."
This, you see, I said, to please him; and mighty pleased he was at it, giving me trouble to get away to the post-master. But I was itching to read the telegram which had gone to Heresford, and when he had drunk another glass of beer we went across to the post-office together. Old Barker was back from his hymn-singing now, and he made haste to light up his lamps and to refer to his book. It wasn't ten minutes before he'd come across the other message, and no sooner had I cast my eye over it than I knew the game was up.
"Have wired the old boy as directed. What is Nicky up to now?"
Here was the telegram I read, and pretty bad it made me feel, I must say. How my brother Jerome could have been such a fool, the Lord only knows; but there were the words, and I knew that Heresford must already have seen them.
"There's been a mistake here," said I to Barker, keeping as cool as I could. "The telegram you sent up to me was meant for Lord Heresford."
"You don't say so!" cried he, running hurriedly to the book. "Dear, dear, what an annoying thing to happen, Mr. Bigg!"
But I was wishing already that I had bitten my tongue off before making such a fool of myself.
"Well, perhaps it's my mistake," I cried, as quickly as I could. "But this wasn't the telegram I was looking for, that is all. You're quite sure that the words came over the wire as you have written them, Mr. Barker?"
"Just as sure as mortal man can be, I took them down myself. Not that I'm any Pope of Rome, Mr. Bigg, and above mistakes."
"No, that you bain't, Barker," said Reubens; "no more ain't we all. So long as the world is, so long will some of us go queer in the head when the weather's hot. Let's hope as there won't be no mistakes when our books is balanced upstairs. It 'ud be hard on a man to find himself in hell for the want of a bit of good summing."
"That's true," said the postmaster, and he said it very solemnly. "But I'll trust in the Lord's books, Mr. Reubens."
I listened to the two fools wrangling together for some minutes, and then it occurred to me that I ought to get back to the house again. I'd stopped long enough to put my foot into it pretty badly, and long enough to know that nothing but a miracle could marry Sir Nicolas Steele to Janet Oakley. It was bad enough when Heresford received the first telegram; but I saw—and I could have bitten my hand because I'd done it—that I had put him in the way of getting the second message, which must tell him as plain as a book what the matter meant. "Like enough," said I, "he'll be over here with the post to-morrow, and then where shall we be?" Upon my word, it was the crudest bit of business that I'd met with in the ten years I'd been man to Sir Nicolas Steele.