Part 20

"It must be gratitude," corrected the Squire. "Don't interrupt."

"'Gratitude for your most welcome and liberal present, but because my heart and hands have alike shrunk from the ex--ex--explanation it must entail. Alas! a series of very terrible misfortunes have overwormed--overwhelmed us. We have had to give up our school and our prospects together, and to turn out of our once happy dome.'"

"Dome!" put in Tod.

"I suppose it's home," said the Squire. "This confounded lamp is as dim as it can be to-night!" And he went on fractiously.

"'Through no fault of my husband's he had to borrow a hundred and fifty pounds nearly twelve months ago. The man he had it from was a money-lender, a Mr. Gavity; he charged a high rate of interest, and brought the cost up to about thirty pounds; but we have no reason to think he wished to act un--unfar--unfairly by us. He required security--which I suppose was only reasonable. The Reverend Mr. Lockett offered himself; but Gavity said parsons were slippers.'"

"Good gracious!" said Mrs. Todhetley.

"The word's slippery, I expect," cried the Squire with a frown. "One would think she had emptied the water-bottle into the inkpot."

"'Gavity said parsons were slippery; meaning that they were often worth no more than their word. He took, as security, a bill of sale on the furnace. Stay,--furniture. Our school was quite prosperous; there was not the slightest doubt that in a short time the whole of the debt could be cleared off; so we had no hesitation in letting him have the bill of sale. And no harm would have come of it, but for one dreadful misfortune, which (as it seems) was a necessary part of the attendant proceedings. My husband got put into _Jer--Jer--Jerry's Gazelle_.'"

"_Jerry's Gazelle?_"

"_Jerry's Gazette_," corrected the Squire.

"_Jerry's Gazette?_"

We all spoke at once. He stared at the letters and then at us. We stared back again.

"It _is_ _Jerry's Gazette_--as I think. Come and see, Joe."

Tod looked over the Squire's shoulder. It certainly looked like "_Jerry's Gazette_," he said; but the ink was pale.

"'_Jerry's Gazette._' Go on, father. Perhaps you'll find an explanation further on."

"'This _Jerry's Gazette_, it appears, is circulated chiefly (and I think privately) amongst comical men--commercial men; merchants, and tradespeople. When they read its list of names, they know at once who is in difficulties. Of course they saw my husband's name there, Pyefinch Blair; unfortunately a name so peculiar as not to admit of any doubt. I did not see the _Gazette_, but I believe the amount of the debt was stated, and that Gavity (but I don't know whether he was mentioned by name) had a bill of sale on our household furniture.'"

"What the dickens is _Jerry's Gazette_?" burst forth the Squire, giving the letter a passionate flick. "I know but of one _Gazette_, into which men of all conditions go, whether they are made lords or bankrupts. What's this other thing?"

He put up his spectacles, and stared at us all again, as if expecting an answer. But he might as well have asked it of the moon. Mrs. Todhetley sat with the most hopeless look you ever saw on her face. So he went on reading again.

"'We knew nothing about _Jerry's Gazette_ ourselves, or that there was such a pub--pub--publication, or that the transaction had appeared in it; and could not imagine why the school began to fall off. Some of the pupils were taken away, _at once_, some at Lady-day; and by Midsummer nearly every one had left. We used to lie awake night after night, grieving and wondering what could be the matter, searching in vain for any cause of offence, given unwittingly to the boys or their parents. Often and often we got up in the morning to go about our day's work, never having closed our eyes. At last, a gentleman, whose son had been one of the first renewed--removed, told Pyefinch the truth: that he had appeared in _Jerry's Gazette_. The fathers who subscribed to _Jerry's Gazette_ had seen it for themselves; and they informed the others.'"

"The devil take _Jerry's Gazette_," interrupted Tod, deliberately. "This reads like an episode of the Secret Inquisition, sir, in the days of the French Revolution."

"It reads like a thing that an honest Englishman's ears ought to redden to hear of," answered the Squire, as he put the lamp nearer, for his outstretched arms were getting cramped.

"'Pyefinch went round to every one of the boy's fathers. Some would not see him, some not hear him; but to those who did, he imported--imparted--the whole circumstances; showing how it was that he had had to borrow the money (or rather to re-borrow it, but I have not time in this letter to go so far into detail), and that it could not by any possibility injure the boys or touch their interests. Most of them, he said, were very kind and sympathizing, so far as words went, saying that in this case _Jerry's Gazette_ appeared to have been the means of inflicting a cruel wrong; but they would not agree to replace their sons with us. They either declined point-blank, or said they'd consider of it; but you see the greater portion of the boys were already placed at other schools. All of them told Pyefinch one thing--that they were thoroughly satisfied with his treatment in every respect, and but for this interruption would probably have left their sons with him as long as they wanted intrusion--instruction. The long and short of it was this, my dear friends: they did not choose to have their sons educated by a man who was looked upon in the commercial world as next door to a bankrupt. One of them delicately hinted as much, and said Mr. Blair must be aware that he was liable to have his house topped--stripped--at any moment under the bill of sale. We said to ourselves that evening, as Pyefinch and I talked together, that we might have removed boys of our own from a school under the same circumstances.'"

"That's true enough," murmured Mrs. Todhetley.

"'My letter has grown very long and I must hasten to conclude it. Just before the rent was due at Michaelmas (we paid it half-yearly, by agreement) Gavity put the bill of sale into force. One morning several men came in and swept off the furniture. We were turned out next: though indeed to have attempted to remain in that large house were folly. The landlord came in a passion, and told Pyefinch that he would put him in prison if he were worth it; as he was not, he had better go out of the pitch--place--forthwith, as another tenant was ready to take possession. Since then we have been staying here, Pyefinch vainly seeking to get some employment. What we hoped was, that he would obtain an under-mastership to some public fool----"

"Fool, sir!"

"'School. But it seems difficult. He sends his best regards to you, and bids me say that the reason you have not heard from us so long is, that we could not bear to tell you the ill news after your former kindness to us. The arrival of the hamper leaves us no resource.

"'Thank you for that. Thank you very truly. The people at the old house have our address, and re-directed it here. We received it early on Christmas Eve. How good the things were, you do not need to be told. I stuffed the turkey--I shall make a famous cook in time--and sent it to the backhouse--bakehouse. You should have seen the pill--picture--it was when it came home. Believe me, my dear friends, we are both of us grateful for all your kindness to us, past and present. Little Joe is so delighted with the doll, he scarcely puts it out of his arms. Our best love to all, including Hugh and Lena. Thank Johnny for the beautiful new book he put in. I must apologize in conclusion for my writing; the ink we get in these penny bottles is pale; and baby has been on my lap all the time, never easy a minute. Do not say anything of all this, please, should you be writing to Wales.

"'Ever most truly yours, "'MARY BLAIR. "'_13, Difford's Buildings, Paddington._'"

The Squire put the letter down and his spectacles on it, quite solemnly. You might have heard a pin drop in that room.

"This is a thing that must be inquired into. I shall go up to-morrow."

"And I'd go too, sir, but for my engagement to the Whitneys," said Tod.

"She must mean, in speaking of a baby, that there's another," spoke Mrs. Todhetley, in a frightened sort of whisper. "Besides little Joe. Dear me!"

"I don't understand it," stamped the Squire, getting red. "Turned out of house and home through _Jerry's Gazette_! Do we live in England, I'd like to ask?--under English laws?--enjoying English rights and freedom? _Jerry's Gazette?_ What the deuce _is_ _Jerry's Gazette_? Where does it come from? What issues it? The Lord Chamberlain's Office?--or Scotland Yard?--or some Patent society that we've not heard of, down here? The girl must have been imposed upon: her statement won't hold water."

"It looks as though she had been, sir."

"_Looks_ like it, Johnny! It must be so," said the Squire, growing warmer. "I have temporary need of a sum of money, and I borrow it straightforwardly, honestly purposing and undertaking to pay it back with good interest, but not exactly wanting my neighbours to know about it; and you'd like me to believe that there's some association, or publication, or whatever else it may be, that won't allow this to be done privately, but must pounce upon the transaction, and take it down in print, and send it round to the public, just as if it were a wedding or a burying!"

The Squire had grown redder than a roost-cock. He always did when tremendously put out, and the matter would not admit of calling in old Jones the constable.

"Folly! Moonshine! Blair, poor fellow, has been slipping into some disaster, had his furniture seized, and so invents this fable to appease his wife, not liking to tell her the truth. _Jerry's Gazette!_ When I was a youngster, my father took me to see an exhibition in Worcester called 'Jerry's Dogs.' The worst damage you could get there was a cold, from the holes in the canvas roof, or a pitch over the front into the sawdust. But in _Jerry's Gazette_, according to this tale, you may be damaged for life. Don't tell me! Do we live in Austria, or France, or any of those places, where--as it's said--a man can't so much as put on a pair of clean stockings in a morning, but its laid before high quarters in black and white at mid-day by the secret police! No, you need not tell me that."

"I never heard of _Jerry's Gazette_ in all my life; I don't know whether it is a stage performance or something to eat; but I feel convinced Mary Blair would not write this without having good grounds for it," said Tod, bold as usual.

And do you know--though you may be slow to believe it--the Squire had taken latterly to listen to him. He turned his red old face on him now, and some of its fierceness went out of it.

"Then, Joe, all I can say is this--that English honour and English notions have changed uncommonly from what they used to be. 'Live and let live' was one of our mottoes; and most of us tried to act up to it. I know no more of this," striking his hand on the letter, "than you know, boys; and I cannot think but that she must have been under some unaccountable mistake in writing it. Any way, I'll go up to London to-morrow: and if you like, Johnny, you can go with me."

We went up. I did not feel sure of it until the train was off, for Tod seemed three-parts inclined to give up the shooting at the Whitneys', and start for London instead; in which case the Squire might not have taken me. Tod and some more young fellows were invited to Whitney Hall for three days, to a shooting-match.

It was dusk when we reached London, and as cold as charity. The Squire turned into the railway hotel and had some chops served, but did not wait for a regular dinner. When once he was in for impatience, he _was_ in for it.

"Difford's Buildings, Paddington," had been the address, so we thought it would not be far to go. The Squire held on in his way along the crowded streets, as if he were about to set things to rights, elbowing the people, and asking the road at every turn. Some did not know Difford's Buildings, and some directed us wrongly; but we got there at last. It was in a narrow, quiet street; a row of what Londoners call eight-roomed houses, with little gates opening to the square patches of smoky garden, and "Difford's Buildings" written up as large as life at the corner.

"Let's see," said the Squire, looking sideways at the windows. "Number thirteen, was it not, Johnny?"

"Yes, sir."

Difford's Buildings were not well lighted, and there was no seeing the numbers. The Squire stopped before the one he thought must be thirteen; when some one came out at the house-door, shutting it behind him, and met us at the gate. A youngish clergyman in a white necktie. He and the Squire stood looking at each other in the gathering darkness.

"Can you tell me if Mr. Blair lives here?"

"Yes, he does," was the answer. "I think--I think I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Todhetley."

The Squire knew him then--the Reverend Mr. Lockett. They had met when Blair first took to the school.

"What _is_ all this extraordinary history?" burst forth the Squire, seizing him by the button of his great-coat, and taking him a few yards further on. "Mrs. Blair has been writing us a strange rigmarole, which nobody can make head or tail of; about ruin, and sales, and something she calls _Jerry's Gazette_."

"Ay," quietly answered the clergyman in a tone of pain, as he put his arm inside the Squire's, and they paced slowly up and down. "It is one of the saddest histories my experience has ever had to do with."

The Squire was near coming to an explosion in the open street. "Will you be pleased to tell me, sir, whether there exists such a thing as _Jerry's Gazette_, or whether it is a fable? I have heard of Jerry's Performing Dogs; went to see 'em once: but I don't know what this other invention can be."

"Certainly there is such a thing," said Mr. Lockett. "It is, I fancy, a list of people who unfortunately get into difficulties; at least, people who fall into difficulties seem to get shown up in it. I am told it is meant chiefly for private circulation: which may imply, as I imagine (but here I may be wrong) what may be called secret circulation. Blair had occasion to borrow a little money, and _his_ name appeared in it. From that moment he was a marked man, and his school fell off."

"Goodness bless my soul!" cried the Squire solemnly, completely taken aback at hearing Mary's letter confirmed. "Who gives _Jerry's Gazette_ the right to do this?"

"I don't know about the right. It seems it has the power."

"It is a power I never heard of before, sir. We have a parson, down our way, who tells us every Sunday the world's coming to an end. I think it must be. I know it's getting too clever for me to understand. If a man has the misfortune (perhaps after years of struggling that nobody knows anything about but himself) to break up at last, he goes into the country's _Gazette_ in a straightforward manner, and the public read it over their breakfast-tables, and there's nothing underhand about it. But as to this other thing--if I comprehend the matter rightly--Blair did not as much as know of its existence, or that his name was going into it."

"I am sure he did not; or I, either," said Mr. Lockett.

"I should like its meaning explained, then," cried the Squire, getting hotter and angrier. "Is it a fair, upright, honest thing; or is it a sort of Spanish Inquisition?"

"I cannot tell you," answered the parson, as they both stood still. "Mr. Blair was informed by the father of one of his pupils that he believed the sheet was first of all set up as a speculation, and was found to answer so well that it became quite an institution. I do not know whether this is true."

"I have heard of an institution for idiots, but I never heard of one for selling up men's chairs and tables," stormed the Squire. "No, sir, and I don't believe it now. I might take up my standing to-morrow on the top of the Monument, and say to the public, 'Here I am, and I'll ferret out what I can about you, and whisper it to one another of you;' and so bring a serpent's trail on the unsuspecting heads, and altogether play Old Gooseberry with the crowds below me. Do you suppose, sir, the Lord Chancellor would wink his eye at me, stuck aloft there at my work, and would tolerate such a spectacle?"

"I fear the Lord Chancellor has not much to do with it," said Mr. Lockett, smiling at the Squire's random logic.

"Then suppose we say good men--public opinion--commercial justice and honour? Come!"

He shook the frail railings, on which his hand was resting, until they nearly came to grief. Mr. Lockett related the particulars of the transaction from the beginning; the original debt, which Blair was suddenly called upon to pay off, and the contraction of the one to Gavity. He said that he himself had had as much to do with it as Blair, in the capacity of friend and adviser, and felt almost as though he were responsible for the turn affairs had taken; which had caused him scarcely to enjoy an easy moment since. The Squire began to abuse Gavity, but Mr. Lockett said the man did not appear to have had any ill intention. As to his having sold off the goods--if he had not sold them, the landlord would have done so.

"And what's Blair doing now?" asked Mr. Todhetley.

"Battling with illness for his life," said the clergyman. "I have just been praying with him."

The Squire retreated towards the lamp-post, as if some one had given him a blow. Mr. Lockett explained further.

It was in September that they had left their home. His own lodging and the church of which he was curate were in Paddington, and he found rooms for Blair and his wife in the same neighbourhood--two parlours in Difford's Buildings. Blair (who had lost heart so terribly as to be good for little) spared no time or exertion in seeking for something to do. He tried to get into King's College; they liked his appearance and testimonials, but at present had no vacancy: he tried private schools for an ushership, but did did not get one: nothing seemed to be vacant just then. Then he tried for a clerk's place. Day after day, ill or well, rain or fine, feasting or fasting, he went tramping about London streets. At last, one of those who had had sons at his school, gave him some out-door employment--that of making known a new invention and soliciting customers for it from shop to shop: Blair to be paid on commission. Naturally, he did not let weather hinder him, and would come home to Difford's Buildings at night, wet through. There had been a great deal of rain in November and December. But he got wet once too often, and was attacked with rheumatic fever. The fever was better now; but the weakness it had left was dangerous.

"She did not say anything about this in her letter," interrupted the Squire resentfully, when Mr. Lockett had explained so far.

"Blair told her not to do so. He thought if their position were revealed to the friends who had once shown themselves so kind, it might look almost like begging for help again."

"Blair's a fool!" roared the Squire.

"Mrs. Blair has not made the worst of it to her family in Wales. It would only distress them, she says, for they could not help her. Mr. Sanker has been ill again for some time past, has not been allowed, I believe, to draw his full salary, and there's no doubt they want every penny of their means for themselves; and more too."

"How have they lived here?" asked the Squire, as we went slowly back to the gate.

"Blair earned a little while he could get about; and his wife has been enabled to procure some kind of wool-work from a warehouse in the city, which pays her very well," said the clergyman, dropping his voice to a whisper, as if he feared to be overheard. "Unfortunately there's the baby to take up much of her time. It was born in October, soon after they came there."

"And I should like to know what business there has to be a baby?" cried the Squire, who was like a man off his head. "Couldn't the baby have waited for a more convenient season?"

"It might have been better; it is certainly a troublesome, crying little thing," said the parson. "Yes, you can go straight in: the parlour door is on the right. I have a service this evening at seven, and shall be late for it. This is your son, I presume, sir?"

"My son! law bless you! My son is a strapping young fellow, six feet two in his stockings. This is Johnny Ludlow."

He shook hands pleasantly, and was good enough to say he had heard of me. The Squire went on, and I with him. There was no lamp in the passage, and we had to feel on the right for the parlour door.

"Come in," called out Mary, in answer to the knock. I knew her voice again.

We can't help our thoughts. Things come into the mind without leave or licence; and it is no use saying they ought not to, or asking why they do. Nearly opposite the door in the small room was the fireplace. Mary Blair sat on a low stool before it, doing some work with coloured wools with a big hooked needle, a baby in white lying flat on her lap, and the little chap, Joe, sitting at her feet. All in a moment it put me in mind of Mrs. Lease, sitting on her stool before the fire that day long ago (though in point of fact, as I discovered afterwards, hers had been a bucket turned upside down) with the sick child on her lap, and the other little ones round her. Why this, to-night, should have reminded me of that other, I cannot say, but it did; and in the light of an omen. You must ridicule me if you choose: it is not my fault; and I am telling nothing but the truth. Lease had died. Would Pyefinch Blair die?

The Squire went in gingerly, as if he had been treading on ploughshares. The candle stood on the mantel-piece, a table was pushed back under the window. Altogether the room was poor, and a small saucepan simmered on the hob. Mary turned her head, and rose up with a flushed face, letting the work fall on the baby's white nightgown, as she held out her hand. Little Joe, a sturdy fellow in a scarlet frock, with big brown eyes, backed against the wall by the fireplace and stood staring, Lena's doll held safely under his pinafore.

She lost her presence of mind. The Squire was the veriest old stupid, when he wanted to make-believe, that you'd see in a winter's day. He began saying something about "happening to be in town, and so called." But he broke down, and blurted out the truth. "We've come to see after you, my dear; and to learn what all this trouble means."

And then _she_ broke down. Perhaps it was the sight of us, recalling the old time at Dyke Manor, when the future looked so fair and happy; perhaps it was the mention of the trouble. She put her hands before her face, and the tears rained through her fingers.

"Shut the door, will you, Johnny," she whispered. "Very softly."

It was the other door she pointed to, one at the end of the room, and I closed it without noise. Except for a sob now and again, that she kept down as well as she could, the grief passed away. Young Joe, frightened at matters, suddenly went at her, full butt, and hid his eyes in her petticoats with a roar. I took him on my knee and got him round again. Somehow children are never afraid of me. The Squire rubbed his old red nose, and said he had a cold.

But, was she not altered! Now that the flush had faded, and emotion passed, the once sweet, fresh, blooming face stood out in its reality. Sweet, indeed, it was still; but the bloom and freshness had given place to a haggard look, and to dark circles round the soft brown eyes, weary now.

She had no more to tell of the past calamities than her letter and Mr. Lockett had told. _Jerry's Gazette_ was the sore point with the Squire, but she did not seem to understand it better than we did.