CHAPTER VI
SCHEMERS AND DREAMERS
BESSIE MEGGISON had no suspicion; for it was scarcely possible, in the first place, that anyone should be interesting himself on her behalf. She was glad to think that her father and Mr. Byfield had suddenly grown to be to all appearances such excellent friends; although even in that there was a lurking dread, lest the wily Daniel Meggison should exercise that "tapping" process upon his new acquaintance. For the rest, it simplified matters, and made it easier to carry on that innocent intercourse with Gilbert.
The plotters meanwhile may be said to have watched each other's movements with suspicion and distrust. Daniel Meggison was all for immediate action; wanted to feel his fingers grasping that good money, and putting it to such uses as only he, from a long experience, could accurately name. Bessie should, of course, have a share in the good things that were coming; but only, quite properly, after her father had been satisfied; quixotic notions were not to be encouraged where a rich young man absolutely offered to toss fifty pounds over a garden wall in Islington. Gilbert Byfield, on the other hand, already began to doubt whether after all he had not been a little precipitate; began to suggest this, and to demand that, in the way of security. Not that he regretted his action so far as Bessie was concerned; a single glance at her white face was sufficient to speed him to the undertaking; but he doubted the instrument he had been compelled to choose.
Daniel Meggison's idea of a rest and a holiday for his daughter, when it came to the actual point of expression, seemed to consist in a vague notion of driving about London all day long, with large cigars for his own consumption, and new clothes, and an occasional visit with some ceremony to a saloon bar; which was not of course quite the idea that had been in the mind of Mr. Gilbert Byfield. The wily old man had already drawn sundry sovereigns, on account of that imaginary fortune, and still nothing had been done, when one evening he appeared in Gilbert Byfield's rooms with a face of mystery, and with round eyes that had a frightened look in them. He closed the door, and carefully removed his dingy skull cap; combed out the last threads of its silk tassel between his fingers; and looked up and spoke.
"Mr. Byfield, sir," he whispered – "my daughter is ill."
Gilbert got up quickly, and came across to where the little man was standing. "What do you mean?" he demanded in a shocked voice.
"Fainted, sir – gave way suddenly, and became all at once, in a manner of speaking, collapsed," said Meggison, nodding at him slowly. "Never knew her do it before – but it's not unlikely she may do it again. Mr. Byfield, sir – my heart bleeds."
"She must be got away – at once," said Gilbert hastily.
"She must be got away – at once," echoed Meggison, moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue. "Just what I said, Mr. Byfield, sir, as she was coming to. Not a moment to be lost – eh?"
"Not an instant," said Gilbert, beginning to pace up and down the room. "We've waited too long already, Meggison, over that scheme of ours."
"Nearly a week – and nothing done," retorted the other, twisting the skull cap round and shaking his head at it. "Not my fault, of course."
"It's only because I haven't known what to do, or how to do it," said Gilbert, pondering. "But now we must wait no longer; you must take her away at once."
"At once," said Meggison, putting on his cap with an air of determination, as though he had quite made up his mind to start upon a journey forthwith. "All times are alike to me, Mr. Byfield, sir; it's only the question of money." His eyes were expectant.
"It's just the question of money, Meggison, that is troubling me," said Gilbert Byfield, seating himself on the end of his desk, and so facing the little man at the door with folded arms. "If it hadn't been the question of money, and the difficulty of dealing with it, and of dealing with you, something would have been done before."
"Of dealing with me, Mr. Byfield, sir?" Daniel Meggison put his head on one side, with a faint show of indignation.
"Frankly, Mr. Meggison, I do not know quite what you would do with any substantial sum of money that might be placed in your hands. I do not trust your discretion. I want to speak quite plainly."
"Don't spare my feelings," said Meggison, leaning against the door, and folding his arms in turn. "I have been battered by the world; I can put up with anything."
"You clear the ground beautifully," said Gilbert, smiling grimly. "Frankly then, I don't care a rush about you or your son, or any of you – with the sole exception of Bessie. I want to help her – and I only use you because there's no one else that stands in such near relation to her as you do. She wouldn't take money from me – but you will; and so we've got to start some little fiction about the matter, as I suggested. This very night, Mr. Meggison, you must come into your property; but I shall have to be a sort of trustee, the better to keep a tight hand upon what you do."
"You mentioned a sum of fifty pounds," said Meggison, after an uncomfortable pause. "Fifty pounds is not much, when it comes to a holiday; as fortunes are counted, it's nothing to speak of."
"I've altered my mind about that," said Gilbert. "Instead of providing the money, I think I'll provide the place for a holiday, and see that you have sufficient money to keep it going. I've a cottage in Sussex – at a place they call Fiddler's Green; I've used it for fishing and so forth; it's rather pretty, and it wouldn't be half a bad notion to whisk this girl of yours away down there, and give her a holiday."
Daniel Meggison looked dubious. "It occurs to me, on the other hand, Mr. Byfield, sir," he said, with a shake of the head, "that she might find it dull. No society – no familiar figures such as she meets every day; no intercourse with boon companions – "
"Perhaps you're thinking a little of yourself," said Gilbert, with a smile. "I imagine we can trust your daughter to like the place to which I'm thinking of sending her. We'll call it settled. Now for the method."
"Which I suppose is where I come in," retorted the other, a little sourly.
"Exactly. We want a fine stretch of your imagination; we want you to invent that mysterious relative, or that extraordinary speculation – either of which shall in a moment provide you with a substantial sum of money. What more natural, therefore, than that you – devoted father – should immediately turn to your daughter with the earnest desire that she should be the first to benefit by your good fortune. The cottage at Fiddler's Green you rent, as a surprise to her; you give her the rest she so sorely needs; you bring her back to London in due course, with renewed strength to take up the battle of life."
"Back to Arcadia Street? It seems rather a tame ending, Mr. Byfield, sir," said the little man, with a shake of the head.
"It's the ending we'll adopt for the present," retorted the younger man. "And you understand, of course, that I must not appear in the matter; I shall be as greatly surprised as she will be to hear of what has happened. Remember always that she believes me to be almost as poor and as struggling as herself."
"It's all right up to a point," said Meggison, pursing up his lips and frowning; "what I don't like is the temporary nature of it. Come, sir – don't be cheese-paring; why not do the thing more handsomely – extend it a bit – eh?"
"All I intend to do is to give Bessie a short holiday at Fiddler's Green, and to bring her back to London restored to health," said Gilbert, with an air of finality.
"Well of course, Mr. Byfield, sir, you know best," Meggison said doubtfully. "In the meantime I will go and see my child, and will endeavour to act my part in that game of make-believe as becomes a father and a man. If by any chance you should be walking in the garden attached to this house a little later on, it might happen that Bessie would have some startling news to impart to you. Splendid notion – eh?"
With restored good humour Daniel Meggison set the old skull cap rakishly at one side of his head, and went downstairs, whistling softly to himself, and seeing before him a golden vision that was not soon to fade.
A visit to the Arcadia Arms gave him renewed confidence; through the glass he held he saw, by no means darkly, a rosy prospect wherein Gilbert Byfield continued from a mere matter of sentiment to supply the wants of Daniel Meggison, at least, for the rest of that gentleman's natural life. Daniel told himself, if not in so many words at least with so many nods and winks, that he would be a very limpet – sticking fast to his benefactor, and not to be shaken off. This young man had talked lightly of fifty pounds – had spoken of them, in fact, in much the same fashion in which Daniel Meggison might have spoken of fifty pence. Over a second glass Mr. Meggison said that this sort of thing should be encouraged; that men of sentiment were rare, and that for his dear daughter's sake at least the chance should be snatched at. With the draining of that glass Mr. Daniel Meggison had firmly persuaded himself that it was his solemn duty to sink his own personal feelings for the sake of his child, and to make war upon this young man. Not too steadily he went down Arcadia Street with that idea in his mind.
Bessie had recovered, and was leaning upon the sympathetic Amelia, inclined to laugh a little at this new weakness that had come upon her. Her brother Aubrey stood looking at her in some dismay, with his hands thrust in his pockets, and with the inevitable cigarette drooping from his lips; for this was a new and uncommon disaster, which threatened the source of his income. Not that he put it quite in that crude fashion, but rather that he saw his small world shaken to its foundations, and trembled a little in consequence.
Mr. Daniel Meggison was jocose. He wondered if by any chance Bessie (always his favourite child!) was strong enough to bear a shock – to hear news that might prove startling? Bessie a little faintly declared that she was quite well – was sorry, in fact, to have caused such trouble; she was ready for any news. Perhaps he had heard of a new and profitable lodger?
"To the devil with all lodgers!" exclaimed Mr. Meggison, with a sudden blustering violence. "We have done with lodgers for ever, my child; henceforth this particular Englishman's house is his castle – inviolate. Henceforth his child plays the lady, and takes that position in the world to which, as her father's child, she has a right."
"You've stayed a bit long at the club, guv'nor," said Aubrey, applying a light to his cigarette and winking at his sister. "'Tisn't quite fair to worry Bess now – is it?"
"Be silent, sir!" Daniel Meggison turned upon him wrathfully. "What do you understand of my methods – or even of me? While you, sir – a mere hobbledehoy – a lout – a frequenter of low billiard saloons and such-like places – while you are wasting your time and your substance in a species of debauchery – your father is out and about in the world – looking here and there and everywhere for opportunities. While you are wasting the hard earnings of your sister, and squandering money to which you have no right, I am turning that brain which has never really failed me yet to account – and making money!"
By this time Daniel Meggison had worked himself into that state of mind in which he was quite prepared to believe that he really had done the wonderful thing he suggested. He soared in imagination in high finance; dabbled with this and with that; held the great world of money in the mere hollow of his hand. For the first time in his mean and shiftless life he had his grip upon a man who was prepared to pay largely and without question; and the education Daniel Meggison had received in a hard world had prepared him to meet such a man, and to deal with him in the right way. The more he talked the more his ideas grew, and the more certain he was that he had tapped at last a gold mine. Moreover, on this occasion he knew that he had played a stronger card than any he had ever held before; his glance shifted to the figure of the girl, and he recognized that her white face had a power to charm gold out of the pockets of Mr. Gilbert Byfield, and that in her very innocence as to the plot lay Meggison's real safety.
"You are excited, father dear," said Bessie, going to him with the intention to put him in his chair. But he boisterously put an arm about her, and stood thus in an attitude, facing the astonished Amelia and the contemptuous Aubrey.
"Excited! I should think so, indeed," he exclaimed. "Who would not be excited at the prospect of a sudden fortune – of an end to want and pinching and – and general meanness? Who would not be excited at the prospect of leaping, in one glorious moment, from Arcadia Street to affluence; of stepping in a moment gloriously out of the shadows in which for so long we have been plunged, into the splendid sunshine of riches and plenty? Excited! – I am drunk with excitement!"
"When you feel yourself fairly sober again, it mightn't be a bad idea to let us know what on earth you are talkin' about," suggested Aubrey, leaning against the mantelpiece, and presenting a bored expression to the company. "Not that I'm denyin', mind you, that you'd do a lot if you had the chance; you've always impressed that on us, so that we ain't likely to forget it. But what I argue is – show us something solid."
Mr. Daniel Meggison laughed an easy laugh. "Something solid, sir," he ejaculated. "What if I tell you that I can to-night produce, if necessary, a sum of fifty pounds – "
"Father!" The girl was clinging to his arm, looking at him in bewilderment.
"What if I tell you that that is but the beginning – the forerunner of many similar sums? Yes, my child, your father has at last justified an existence that has in the past not perhaps been all that it might have been. For the future, my dear Bessie, I will make amends; for the future our relative positions will be changed. No longer shall you trouble about lodgers – no longer shall you weigh this and that, or reckon how much a shilling will do in this direction or in that; all that is done with. We have for the first time in our lives that very necessary thing – an income."
"But, father, I don't understand," she pleaded. "What has happened? It's only some dream – something that in your good heart you wish might come true – for my sake."
"I tell you it has come true!" he exclaimed. "The chance of a lifetime – a mere matter of fortunate speculation."
"Fortunate what?" demanded Aubrey contemptuously. "Where did you get the money to speculate?"
"Borrowed capital," replied Meggison promptly. "What do you know of such matters? I hear of a great many things in the world – stocks and shares – this going up – that going down. It might have happened that I had plunged the family deeper into ruin even than before; that was a risk I had to take. But no" – he shook his head, and smiled with deep wisdom – "I knew from the beginning that I was right. A pound or two in the right direction – and a pound or two added to that. It mounted; it grew into a perfect snowball, which, rolling on, added to itself with every movement. So that to-night I stand before you revealed in my true colours. To all intents and purposes I am a rich man!"
She broke down then for the first time. It never occurred to her for a moment to doubt him; indeed she had always been secretly a little proud of this man, who was a little better, in the matter of dignity and deportment, than his fellows of Arcadia Street. Her life had at all times been a surprising thing of chances; this greater chance that had come was only what might in her dreams have been expected. Practical only in the matter of dealing with the small details of her daily life, she was utterly unpractical where it came to any question of dealing with the world. This was but a coming true of all the best dreams she had ever had.
She called him her dear, dear father; she blessed and praised him for his cleverness; she called the astonished Aubrey to witness that she had said over and over again that if only father had his chance he would do better than anyone. They were not to mind her tears; she had perhaps been a little tired and a little troubled at times; but all that was done with now, and they should see her bright and smiling. Above all, they had never had any real chance to show the best that was in them in the life that was done with from to-night!
Mr. Aubrey Meggison was a little stunned. Feeling that perhaps it might be well if he ranged himself on the side of this new financier, he somewhat flabbily shook the hand of his parent, and murmured "Good old guv'nor!" as an encouragement to that gentleman to do even better yet. And then in a bewildered way, with Amelia the servant almost light-headed from sheer excitement, they sat down to a hastily provided supper, the better to discuss details.
"Of course you will understand that I have kept it all secret; I intended to spring a surprise upon you," said Daniel Meggison, between bites at an unaccustomed delicacy. "And I have done nothing by halves; in fact, I may tell you that I have already provided a place in the country – a mere modest cottage. Charming spot – Fiddler's Green, Sussex," he added carelessly, with a secret determination to discover from Gilbert exactly in what part of Sussex Fiddler's Green was situated.
"Oh, my dear!" whispered Bessie under her breath, as she looked at this new wonder. "The country – and a cottage! Is it a large cottage, father dear?"
"Largish," said Mr. Meggison cautiously. "Roomy place – and well furnished. Fishing, I understand, and other pursuits of a like nature."
"I will say that for the guv'nor – he has got large ideas," said Aubrey, with a solemn nod. "I wish he'd taken me into his confidence as to the locality – but still I'm not blaming him for that. Can't say I care much for the country as country – but I dare say I shall get used to it. Rummy thing, though, that you should have kept the game going so well that you haven't even added to your wardrobe, or changed your habits at all. He's a sly 'un, the guv'nor," added the young gentleman, with a wink at Bessie.
"I intended that it should all be a surprise; moreover, I intended to assert myself, and to take for the first time my true position in the family," said Mr. Meggison. "In this matter you will have to take your time from me; when I say 'move,' we will move. Now, as I am perhaps a little excited, I will just stretch my legs in the open air, and perhaps look in at my club for a moment or two."
By that time the man had fully persuaded himself that all he said was true – had fully made up his mind, in fact, that the great game on which he was embarked could be played out to the end by sheer bluff and cunning. Someone else was to pay the piper, but Mr. Daniel Meggison had quite made up his mind that he would call the tune. And so elated was he that he even unbent so far as to desire Aubrey to join him in that stroll to the Arcadia Arms; so that father and son went off arm in arm, with quite a new amiability sitting a little awkwardly upon them.
Meanwhile there was, of course, one person to whom it was absolutely necessary that the great news should be told – one person who would be glad for her sake, and yet, she hoped, a little sorry on his own account. She went out into that garden of her dreams, feeling a little strange now that the dreams were coming true – vaguely troubled in fact that there should be no more necessity for pretence. She was like a child that is promised with certainty a new and gorgeous toy, and yet looks back, in the very act of going to it, with regret at the broken, battered things left behind.
Not that the place seemed poor or common; it could never be that, because of the memories it held. Nor did it look shabby even to-night, with the grander prospect opening out in Bessie's imagination; she would be in a sense regretful at the thought of leaving it, because so much had happened there – every poor sordid stick and stone of it meant so much more to her than to anyone else. She passed through the place now smilingly, looking and listening for her friend.
And the friend was there; in the strangest fashion he looked over the wall directly she emerged from the house. Of course he knew nothing of the great and glorious news; that was for her to tell him. Pride was in that thought, because all in a moment she was lifted nearer to him by reason of her new riches. She was greater even than this wonderful young man who could spend money recklessly on theatres and cabs. She went straight to him now, and told him without parley all the great news. He, expecting it, set himself to appear as surprised as she would expect to find him.
"Mr. Byfield – there's something I want to tell you," she began. "You've been my best friend – almost my only friend; so you must know before anyone else. It's great good news."
"I'm very glad," he assured her, leaning on the wall, and looking down at her. "What has happened? Another and a splendid lodger?"
She laughed and shook her head – laughed more light-heartedly than he had ever known her. "It's nothing to do with lodgers; there are never going to be any lodgers any more," she said; and he thought how even the tired voice had changed in a little time. "Father has suddenly grown very rich!"
He stared at her for a moment in utter bewilderment; he could not understand. He was on the very point of correcting her, and of telling her that the strange fortune which had come to her father was a matter that would provide leisure for a period of a few weeks only, when he reflected that he must know nothing about it. Doubtless she had misunderstood old Meggison; that would be a matter to be set right afterwards.
"I'm very glad," he said cordially. "Very rich – is he? And what's he going to do with all his money?"
"He thought first of me; one might know he would do that," she said proudly. "He's taken a house in the country – and he's going to take me down there – and of course Aubrey."
"Oh – so Aubrey's going – is he?" said Gilbert slowly. "Anybody else?"
"I was only thinking, Mr. Byfield," she said shyly – "I was only thinking that we should be glad if you would come down. I know father would like it – and so should I. It's at Fiddler's Green."
"I shall be delighted," he exclaimed, smiling at the thought of this strange invitation to his own place. "And I suppose you're going to stop there until you're quite well and strong again – eh? You'll be sorry to come back to Arcadia Street."
"But we're not coming back to Arcadia Street," she assured him. "Father's going to give it all up; we're going to live down there for ever. Think of it – in the country!"
The friendly darkness hid his bewildered face; he wondered what new blunder Daniel Meggison had plunged them all into. Even as that thought came to him the door at the end of the garden was opened, and old Meggison came in. He was singing to himself in a high cracked falsetto, and the hand that was not required to support him against the edge of the door was solemnly beating time to the tune. He closed the door, and leant against it; stared with drunken sternness at his daughter.
"Whash this?" he demanded. "Go in, m' child; go t' bed. Object mos' strongly – endanger precious life. Go t' bed!"
Bessie went in quickly, and her father, after a preliminary stagger, essayed to follow her. He was pulled up quickly by the stern hurried voice of Gilbert Byfield.
"What have you been telling her?" demanded the young man.
Mr. Meggison winked solemnly. "A little exaggel-exaggeration," he replied. "Splendid notion! Goo' night!"