Court Royal/Chapter XLII
CHAPTER XLII.
NIBBLING.
Next evening, punctually at seven, Mr. Worthivale arrived. To honour his presence, two additional dishes were added to the dessert—one of dried figs, the other of preserved ginger. Also a bottle of claret was decanted. Mr. Cheek had not settled down into his usual composure; his excitement made him more talkative than usual, and induced him to fill out his sentences, and not present them in a somewhat less truncated shape. His talkativeness, however, did not manifest itself until after the servants had withdrawn. Then his reserve gave way. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and threw it to his guest.
‘Look at that, Worthivale! Got it this morning. Charles has made a fool of himself. Got entangled with a wench dredged from the social depths. Engaged! Cost something to set him free. However’—he rattled his pocket—‘I’m not like one of your dukes; I’ve money in my own pocket when there’s need. I haven’t to go cap in hand to others.’
The steward winced. Then he said, studying the photograph, ‘I am sure I know that face. It is familiar to me. Where can I have seen it?’
‘Of course. That is Charlie.’
‘Yes; but the other—the girl? She—it must be, yet I can hardly believe it—it must be our servant, Joanna!’
‘Joanna is her name.’
‘The maid left us under somewhat unsatisfactory circumstances—altogether puzzling.’
‘That I can well believe.’
‘She had been before with a Mrs. Delany.’
‘She is now with a Jew pawnbroker, as maid of all work.’
‘This must be broken off,’ said Mr. Worthivale. ‘I never quite made out the why and wherefore of her leaving my house. She ran away.’
‘I am going to buy her off,’ answered Mr. Cheek; ‘but what comfort is that to me, when my boy may be committing a similar folly again to-morrow?’
Mr. Worthivale was still considering the photograph.
‘Her face is striking,’ he said, ‘and she has eyes that sparkle; they are perfectly effervescing with intelligence. Beavis took against her; he suspected her from the outset, but I cannot say why. This is a very odd story. Your son’s acquaintance with her must be short. She left us at Christmas. She was clever, but unable to read and write.’
‘She wrote me a letter. I have it in my pocket—here it is. Almost ashamed, however, to let you see it.’
Mr. Worthivale looked at the letter. ‘I know about the pink silk dress,’ he said. ‘She had it when she came to us. It was spoiled, as she describes in this letter, by some mineral water getting spilled over it. The Roman pearls also—yes. She sent them to Lady Grace Eveleigh after her disappearance. Lucy told me of it. They came with a letter, but I supposed she had got some one to write it for her. The girl is not lost to good; she showed great respect and attachment to her ladyship. Perhaps this letter was written for her; and yet’—he mused—‘yet there were some odd circumstances about her departure which made Beavis think her ignorance simulated.’
‘Did she steal anything from your house?’
‘No, I cannot say we missed money or plate; in fact, nothing. No, I cannot charge her with that.’
‘Sorry for that,’ said old Cheek. ‘It would have made my course easier. Police case then.’
‘Your son must in no case marry such a person,’ said the steward, gravely. ‘It would be an ugly scandal.’
‘He shall not. I buy her off. Allow the boy to visit you for a month or so till this affair is blown over.’
‘Certainly. I will bring him into good society. The company of Beavis will be profitable. I may find means of introducing him to the Marquess and Lord Ronald. There are nice people in our neighbourhood. There are the Sheepwashes—some fine girls, much admired, and of good family. Who can tell? Charles may form an attachment for one of them, and so get his foot into society. They have not much of their own except blood, and that is just what you require.’
‘Nothing would please me better.’
‘Yes, we must get Charles into good society, and then he will lose the taste for low associations.’
‘The boy has his points,’ said Mr. Cheek. ‘Can’t help loving him. Admire his gentlemanly ways. Got them from his mother. Your family have always been gentlefolks.’
‘Yes; we were squires once, in Cornwall, but lost our property in the usual way, and went down into business.’
Then Mr. Worthivale turned the conversation to the Kingsbridge estates, and the advantages of lending money on them. He admitted that the Duke was in want of a few thousands, but then the investment was so secure. Turkish Government, Egyptian Khedives, Argentine Republics borrowed and could not pay. They were broken reeds, but an English duke was a pillar of strength. It would not be a bad excuse for introducing Charles to the family, if his father was inclined to accommodate it. At this bold proposition Mr. Cheek grew stiff, congealed, and frowned. The steward went on, now he had begun, unabashed, to show the great securities the duke could offer, the advantages from a pecuniary point of view that would accrue to Mr. Cheek by thus investing his money, Mr. Cheek listened, and said nothing in reply one way or the other.
‘There are a couple of mortgages that have been notified which must be met, amounting to about fifty thousand,’ he said. ‘If you would take these over, it would be a convenience to the family, you would have a safe investment, and you would have conferred on them an obligation which they would not forget.’
‘Fifty thousand!’ said Mr. Cheek. ‘I have more than that to dispose of, thank goodness; the Monokeratic Principle continues to bring in a good profit annually, and I must invest what I make somewhere and somehow.’
‘Really,’ said the steward, ‘a hundred thousand would not come amiss.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Cheek senior, ‘go on, hundred and fifty—two hundred—two hundred and fifty’
‘You do not hear me out. A couple of mortgages must be transferred or paid off. The Duke has not the ready money, and he would therefore wish the transfer. The one is on the manor of Kingsbridge, the other on the Court Royal estate. Why, the house itself cost seventy thousand—there is absolutely no risk.’
‘If I were to take these over, it would be merely because I do not see my way at present to a better investment. When I do see one I shall call them up. I don’t care for your four and half and four and three quarters. If I were to take these mortgages, your people would be put in the same box in a few years’ time when I wanted to release my capital.’
‘Oh, in two or three years that can be done without difficulty. The Duke only requires accommodation for the moment.’
‘Whence will the money come?’
‘Don’t trouble your head about that. Money can always be found with such estates. Why, they bring in forty thousand per annum.’
‘Land can always be sold,’ said Cheek. ‘If the money be not forthcoming when I want it, I will sell them up, or they must drop a farm or two into the market.’
‘I’ll tell you what, Cheek. If it ever comes to that, try and secure Bigbury. That is the site for a second Torquay, climate warm as Penzance, and not as rainy; looks south, scenery lovely, Plymouth accessible. He who has capital, and likes to spend it there, can realise in no time an enormous fortune. Come, what do you say to my proposal? You have a friend at court in me, who knows all the advantages.’
Mr. Cheek rubbed his nose with his fork, wherewith he had been eating preserved ginger, and left a trickle of juice upon it.
‘I should like to see the place,’ he said cautiously.
‘Come down, then.’
Suddenly Cheek jerked forwards his arms, and said, ‘I will.’
‘And as I return to-morrow, I can take Charles with me, and got him settled in. I expect to see the agent for the mortgagee on the twenty-third at my place. Suppose you are thereto meet him. Then nothing is more easy than a transfer.’
‘I go down to Plymouth to-morrow to settle this unpleasant matter of the girl. We can travel together.’
‘Then return by way of Kingsbridge.’
‘Cannot. Must be in town by night express, but by Wednesday I’ll be with you.’
Mr. Worthivale was delighted; the fish was nibbling and nigh hooked.
Neither spoke for some minutes, as each was engaged with his own thoughts and with drinking port.
Presently Mr. Cheek said, as he dipped his napkin in his finger-glass and wiped the syrup off his nose, ‘I wish you would tell me what was suspicious about that girl who has entangled Charles. If she has done anything to make her afraid of being found out, I might give her a scare, and bring her to an humble frame of mind. A knowledge of particulars will help me.’
The steward then related the circumstances.
‘Beavis caught her making an analysis of the accounts!’ exclaimed Mr. Cheek. ‘Why, the thing is improbable on the face of it. What could such a girl want with it?’
‘Nothing, that I can see. I said so to Beavis, but Beavis was very positive. She had the books out, she must have searched my pockets to get the key, and she had her head resting on the extracts she had taken. When Beavis roused her, she knocked over the lamp, and slipped her notebook away in the dark.’
‘Did Beavis question her?’
‘No; she bolted.’
‘Bolted at once?’
‘Yes; she did not wait to be questioned.’
‘And she went’
‘We did not trace her. We had no idea whither she had betaken herself.’
‘Now you know. She is with a Jew. Probably went straight to him. I know the man. He is a money-lender as well as a pawnbroker. There was a time when he helped me. Charles has been in his clutches before now. A dangerous man, worth more than you would fancy. Has he any interest in the affairs of the Duke?’
‘None whatever.’
‘Who are the holders of the mortgages? Have you their names? Are any Jews among them?’
‘Yes, several.’
‘Bad,’ said Cheek. ‘The Jews play into each other’s hands, hook on to each other like the links of a fetter.’
‘You do not mean to connect the act of the girl with the mortgagees?’
‘I should not be surprised. I find no other explanation. Beavis thinks so, probably. She came to you pretending inability to read and write?’
‘Yes.’
‘The girl is no ordinary girl,’ said Mr. Cheek, uneasily. ‘I doubt if she will let off Charles as cheap as a hundred pounds. I must inquire into this matter. Must see Lazarus. Haven’t seen or smelt him for years.’
‘I don’t see what Lazarus has to do with the matter. The girl came to me from Mrs. Delany. I suppose that after leaving me, and having no character, she was forced to take what situation she could.’
‘Charles can tell us. I hear his voice in the hall. He must have known her before she went to you if she had the silk dress and beads in your house.—Charles,’ he said as his son entered, ‘catechising continued.’
The young man had recovered his buoyancy.
‘By all means, father, but not in public.’
‘Want to know whether that person you were talking of with me yesterday has been long in present situation.’
‘All her life,’ answered Charles, promptly. ‘That is, since she was twelve years old.’
‘Was she ever in service with a Mrs. Delany?’
‘Wife of Colonel Delany,’ explained Mr. Worthivale.
‘Not to my knowledge; certainly not recently.’
‘Where was she before Christmas?’ asked the steward.
‘That I cannot say. Possibly then she may have been at the Colonel’s, but I do not know.’
‘Where was she before that?’ asked his father.
‘On November the fifth she was at the Barbican, where she had been since childhood. She was away till Christmas, and then returned, and has been there ever since.’
Cheek looked at Worthivale and shook his head.
‘Sent,’ he said.