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Chapter IV.

Those deary intervening days passed, during which Jack Stanley was at Mr. Denby's house; and then the funeral; after which everything seemed suddenly to come to a standstill. It is such a mistake, under any circumstances in this life, to be idle. If we are suffering, we suffer much more acutely for having no occupation; work, which was originally given as part of the curse of sin, has by the goodness of God been turned into the greatest of blessings to every rightly constituted man. A man who dislikes work or is unwilling to work is only half a man, and certainly nothing of a gentleman. But what could Jack Stanley do, taken as it were against his will into the house of Mr. Denby, and feeling that he was expected to sit down and do nothing? Had he proposed even revisiting Mrs. Bennett's lodgings, he felt sure it would have been looked upon as eccentric, and would have provoked some more of Mrs. Denby's unanswerable remarks.

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He was continually asking of himself the question, “What am I to do?” He had all at once come into possession of himself, his own future, and his own responsibilities. He had hoped that Mr. Denby would introduce the subject after all was over; but Mr. Denby's mind was engrossed by some fresh event which had taken place more recently than Mr. Stanley's death, and he did not do so. So, after breakfast on the third day following the funeral, Jack said to Mr. Denby,

“Can I speak to you to-day, sir, about myself?”

“What about yourself?” asked the lawyer, glancing up from the letters which he had been reading in the intervals between eating and talking.

Jack felt inclined to say, “Everything; all my future; all my life; everything that I care for!” but he answered instead, very deliberately,

“It is very kind, indeed, of you and Mrs. Denby to have taken me into your house in the way that you have. It is very kind; but I want to understand my position. I want to decide what I must do.”

“Mr. Denby and I have been talking that over,” said Mrs. Denby; “and,” glancing at her husband and nodding her head smilingly at Jack, “I think we have settled it all.”

Jack looked up quickly: it seemed to him strange that things should be supposed settled already for him without any reference to himself, for it does not take us long to realize our own independece, and Jack Stanley was beginning page 34 to feel his boyishness slipping away from him, and that he was already a man.

“Hush, my dear!” said Mr. Denby to his wife. “I intend to explain to John Stanley what I have been thinking of; but there is no hurry.”

“Excuse me,” said Jack, “but I feel very anxious to know something definite of my future. Will you speak to me to-day? And, besides,” he added, “I must ask you to be so good as to explain to me what my father wished me to know of his former life. I am very impatient to hear that.”

“Young people are always impatient,” said the lawyer.

“But really, upon consideration, I don't see what good it will do to tell you the particulars you refer to.”

“My father wished me to know,” said Jack.

“So he told you when he was dying, my dear boy; but I think he would have spoken of it to you himself when in health had he much wished it. I don't see any end to be gained.”

Jack felt very much inclined to be angry; but Mr. Denby had been kind to him, and he remained silent.

“I think,” said the lawyer, “that you and I together had better look through your poor father's papers, if he has left any.”

“There is a number of letters at the lodgings,” said Jack.

“Very well; we will go there and look them over, some time or other,” said Mr. Denby.

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“This morning, sir?”

“This morning, if you cannot wait till the afternoon.”

“Meanwhile, tell John Stanley what we have been thinking of,” observed Mrs. Denby, taking a seat opposite to Jack, with a placid smile upon her face, as if quite satisfied of his delight at hearing of the plan.

“You are sixteen, are you not?” asked Mr. Denby.

“Near seventeen, sir,” Jack answered.

“Well, you are young; but a youth of your age may be responsible and trustworthy.”

“I hope so, indeed,” said Jack, flushing.

“I was thinking that I will perhaps be able to find you employment in my office, John Stanley. I am in want at present of a junior clerk: of course, at first, you cannot expect any salary; but after a few years we will talk about it: there is time enough for that. Meanwhile, I know your poor father has left a few hundreds in the bank: he was always in the habit of saving a little yearly, with an eye to your future; and, perhaps, on investigating matters, we shall find that there will be enough to go on with for a time with strict economy, and—”

Mr. Denby might have talked on for some time longer, having quite arranged all Jack's future life in his own mind, had he not been brought to a standstill by catching sight of the very blank expression which had come over the face of his hearer. To be a lawyer's clerk for an unlimited space of years—upon nothing; in an office, and with a principal found for him, and whom he did not like, page 36 and associated at table with Mrs. Denby, who at this moment was sitting opposite to him, apparently prepared for some outbreak of gratitude upon the part of Jack; and eventually to become, perhaps, a lawyer—a profession the very idea of which he hated!

“You are very kind, sir,” he stammered, after a time, during which all these thoughts had passed rapidly through his mind, “but I do not think, in fact, I do not believe, such a thing would suit me.”

“Your father was not above working in an office,” observed Mr. Denby, with a slightly offended air.

“Yes, I know; dear old father!” exclaimed Jack, passionately. “He worked in an office, as he has said, that we might both live, and that he might educate me for a profession. But that is at an end. I know that is at an end. But the work made him miserable, and it would drive me wild: I couldn't do it.”

“Don't talk nonsense,” said Mr. Denby, angrily. “You ought to be thankful for the offer. You should remember the proverb, ‘beggars cannot be choosers.”’

“I ought to have remembered I am a beggar, sir,” said Jack. “I will try to do so. Shall we go to the lodgings and look over my father's letters now?”

Jack rose as he spoke; and Mr. Denby, shrugging his shoulders and saying, “You will be brought to your bearings some day, young man,” went with him to the lodgings.

There was not much in the letters; but amongst the papers in his father's pocket-book, which until then Jack page 37 had felt shy of examining, was a letter addressed to Mr. Denby. The lawyer read it in silence, then said to his companion,

“This is chiefly a request that I will make known to you the particulars you referred to. Your father seemed to imagine that his reputation was involved in having brought you up to a certain age in luxury and with the expectation of succeeding to a fortune and estate, and then leaving you under such circumstances. He was always eccentric and overstrained in his ideas, was your poor father.”

“He was always everything that a high-souled gentleman ought to be!” exclaimed Jack, impetuously.

“My dear boy,” said the lawyer, “when you have lived a little longer in the world you will not be quite so impulsive and unguarded in your way of speaking.”

“I trust I shall never live to hear the least slur cast upon my father without defending him,” said Jack, ready to cry with indignation.

“Well, well! we will put that aside for the present, and, if you will listen quietly and like a rational being, I will tell you the cause of your poor father's reverse of fortune.”

Jack sat still, with his eyes fixed upon Mr. Denby's face, only too anxious to hear what he had for so long wished to know.

The lawyer began:

“In early youth your father made acquaintance with a young man, with whom he afterwards became very intimate. page 38 I believe the friendship began at school, and was continued at college.”

“What was his name?” asked Jack.

“William Maitland,” said the lawyer, unthinkingly for once. Then he presently added, “However, the name is of little consequence.”

“I have never heard it before that I can remember,” said Jack.

“I do not suppose you have. I should think it must be many years since that name has passed your father's lips.”

“Why?” Jack asked.

“My good fellow,” said Mr. Denby, “if you keep on interrupting me in this way with questions, I shall never get to the end of my story. You must be quiet if you wish me to tell it to you.”

“All right,” said Jack; “I will ask no more.”

“Well,” resumed Mr. Denby, “this man used to be with your father very frequently indeed. He was a very handsome man, who could do most things well, and he certainly gained a very undue influence over your father. I never liked the man myself. He was an idle fellow, without any profession, living no one knew exactly how, but certainly at the expense of other people more than his own. He was always staying about at the houses of friends, but more frequently at The Beeches than elsewhere. The Beeches was the name of your father's place.”

“Yes, I know, I know,” said Jack. “Go on, pray.”

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“A sweet pretty place it was too,” said Mr. Denby, “a most enjoyable place to stay at. Perhaps you may remember it?”

“Of course I do,” said Jack, who was becoming irritated by the lawyer's manner.

“It ought to have been yours, that place; it should have been yours at the present moment, and it was the knowledge of the wrong done you which weighed upon your father's mind; the knowledge that he had been the means of depriving you of your inheritance. It gradually broke his spirits; he was never the same man after he sold the place.”

“He had been the means!” exclaimed Jack. “Who do you mean—my father?”

“Your father, certainly, though you must not blame him. His great feeling in the matter always was that you might blame him.”

“He need not have feared that,” said Jack, sorrowfully. “I wish he had told me all this himself. I might have told him then that I should never blame him, whatever he might have done.”

The lawyer looked at Jack with surprise in his face. I am afraid that Mr. Denby had not much sentiment left in him now, whatever he might have had when he had been the age of Jack Stanley.

“But—” gasped Jack.

“Be quiet and keep your seat. I know all that you wish to ask. Many people, I believe, myself amongst the page 40 number, warned your father against Maitland; but your father was a man who was credulous to a fault. He would believe nothing against his friend, and his friend ruined him.”

“I must speak!” exclaimed Jack. “You tell it so slowly. How did—what had Maitland to do with it? How could he make my father sell The Beeches?”

“Well, if you will have it in short words—he induced your father—who understood about as much of business as a new-born baby—to enter into some rascally speculation with him.”

“Rascally!” said Jack, firing up.

“Rascally: and Maitland knew it. There, there! I didn't intend to infer your father knew it. I know he didn't. He was blameless in the matter—more than blameless. But the whole thing went smash, involving numbers of dupes like your father; and, rather than through his instrumentality poor men and widows and orphans should suffer, your father—”

“Sold The Beeches and made himself a beggar!” exclaimed Jack.

“Exactly. I thought it was rather Quixotic at the time; but he was always that way. Nothing would serve him but he must sell everything and pay off to the last farthing. He used to say he did not regret it, excepting for you.”

“For me!” said Jack, bursting into a passion of tears. “I would not have it otherwise. He does not regret it now. Dear, noble father!”

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Mr. Denby looked at him in some dismay; then presently he said, “Young man, you are really so very—” Then he added, after a pause, “Well, I have told you, I think, all that you may want to know.”

“No, indeed,” said Jack; “I must know several things more. What has become of this man Maitland?”

“That I cannot tell you. He made off to America or to New Zealand, or somewhere—the latter, I believe—carrying with him a large sum of money. He provided for himself well.”

“And ruined my father and broke his heart,” said Jack, between his teeth.

“Well, he assuredly ruined him,” said the lawyer. “As to breaking his heart, I don't believe in that sort of thing.”

“Don't you believe in a man's life being made miserable, sir, by such treachery?”

“Well, yes; your poor father certainly felt it very acutely,” said Mr. Denby.

“It comes to much the same thing by whatever name you call it. —Did you say he went to New Zealand?”

“I believe so; but what can that matter? We are never likely to meet with him again.”

“It matters this, sir: that I will never rest until I find him!” exclaimed Jack Stanley, starting from his seat. “I will search for that man until I meet him, if it takes my whole lifetime.”

“To what end?” asked the lawyer, with unfeigned surprise.

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“Do you think I will let the man who made my father miserable continue to live on without exposure? You have given me an object in life, sir, by telling me this history.”

“Really, John Stanley,” said Mr. Denby, “I think the days for such extravagant feeling are past. I see no object in your seeking revenge upon Maitland.”

“Not revenge—justice,” said Jack. And he quite believed that he was speaking the truth.

Mr. Denby said nothing more, but merely shrugged his shoulders, and continued looking through the papers until the evening closed in. Then he said,

“What do you intend doing? Are you coming back with me?”

“Thank you, sir,” said Jack; “if you will excuse me, I will go on reading these. I am very anxious to go through them.”

“What is the good?” asked the lawyer. “I can see that there is nothing of consequence in them. I should advise you to put them all together in a box, and let me take charge of them: you can look them over at your leisure.”

“I would rather do so now,” said Jack, doggedly. “When I have done so, I shall put the greater part of them in the fire. I see no use in keeping old letters. I am quite sure Mrs. Bennett will let me sleep here to-night; she is a good old soul.”

“Very well: as you will. Only don't set the house page 43 afire,” said Mr. Denby, who began to see already that he could not treat Jack Stanley like a schoolboy.

I have said that he had, since his father's death, felt his boyishness slipping from him. From the moment he learnt his father's wrongs he became a man in energy and determination.

Left alone, the first feeling upon Jack's part was one of intense relief at being free from the presence of Mr. Denby, who looked at everything with the eye of a lawyer. He was hardly aware of the action, but he positively stretched himself and yawned; then, finding it was getting too dark to read, he was about to ring; but recollecting that he was no longer Mrs. Bennett's lodger, he went downstairs and knocked at the door of her back parlour.

“Bless me!” said the old lady at sight of him. “I thought as you had gone, my dear, with that lawyer chap. Don't you be getting into the hands of them lawyers, Master Stanley, whatever you do.”

“I have no such intention, I can assure you, Mrs. Bennett,” said Jack. “But I want a light, if you will kindly give me one.”

With his light he returned to the room above, and then re-commenced his task. Mr. Denby had hastily looked through the bundles of letters, caring principally it seemed to collect receipted bills, which he had tied together and taken with him. Jack took no interest in such, not having arrived at the time when a paid bill is looked upon as a treasure. He had seen nothing of consequence in the letters page 44 before hearing the story which Mr. Denby had told him; but now he looked them over with a fresh interest, in the hope of finding proofs which might serve him against Maitland. He did not search in vain. After a time he found letters written at the period of the sale of The Beeches: these he put aside. Later, to his great joy, he came upon several signed with William Maitland's own name, inducing Mr. Stanley to embark in his speculation; then newspaper cuttings, telling how the whole thing had gone to ruin and Maitland had absconded with the spoils; heartrending letters to Mr. Stanley from poor wretches ruined by their over-confidence, at the same time appealing to him for relief in their distress—appeals which Jack felt certain were not in vain. It was all plain enough throughout. There was enough here to ruin Maitland in whatever position he might be.

Jack carefully tied all these documents up together, and, putting them into the breast-pocket of his coat, he laughed out loud, and for the moment felt like a demon. I think he must have looked something like one, for poor old Mrs. Bennett, entering at that moment with a cup of tea for him, started back, exclaiming,

“Bless the boy! whatever is the matter? Don'tee scowl so at me.”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Bennett, how very kind!” said Jack, trying to smile, as he took the tea from her. “May I come back and sleep here to-night?”

“Of course, Master Stanley. But where are you going page 45 at this time of night? Better stay here and be quiet,” returned Mrs. Bennett.

But Jack nodded his head, and ran past her. It was to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, to see his friend Bernard, the house surgeon, that he was going.

With the frankness of his disposition, Jack repeated to Mr. Bernard the events he had that day learnt with regard to his father and Mr. Maitland. Bernard had his head turned away at the time Jack was talking, for he was arranging some instruments in a case, and when Jack had come to the end of his rapidly-told tale, it was some minutes before the other spoke. Then he said,

“You have no proof: who would believe you?”

“I have every proof,” said Jack, exultingly.

“I think you are very wrong,” said Bernard. “You will think the same in a little while.” He spoke as if the subject was an unpleasant one.

“Well,” cried Jack, “I thought that you would have felt with me. I thought that you would have understood.”

“But you don't know where—where Mr. Maitland is,” said Bernard, suddenly.

“I know where he was two years ago by a copy of a letter my father wrote to him, and which I found amongst his papers. He was at a place called Wellington, in New Zealand, and he was a shipowner there.”

This fact, which exhilarated Jack so much, did not seem to have a corresponding effect upon Bernard, for he made no remark upon Jack Stanley's information. The latter resumed,

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“Now I know what to do. At the very earliest opportunity I will start for New Zealand; I will go out by the next ship that leaves. As soon as I arrive at Wellington I will look up that man, and I will, when once I am sure that he is living, I will publish his conduct in this matter to all the Wellington world. Imagine him: rich, I have no doubt—rascals are generally rich,—secure in what he imagines his respectability: what a fall for him! It shall be in every newspaper in New Zealand.”

Bernard looked so tired, that as Jack caught sight of his face he was struck with it, and exclaimed,

“I am sure you are not well, you look so fagged and pale. I do not believe this doctoring work suits you; I am sure it would not suit me. I will not stop here any longer bothering you about my affairs, at this time of night too. But I felt as if I was obliged to talk to somebody about this, and you are the only one to whom I can speak.”

Now, Bernard was to Jack such a very recent and such a very slight acquaintance that he could not help feeling some surprise at Jack's confidence, and he said,

“Do not be hurt, but why do you give me your confidence? You know nothing of me: if you knew more, perhaps I might be the last man in London to whom you would come in this—this present difficulty. Have you no friends who will advise you how to act?”

“I never had any friend but my father,” said Jack, “and you were kind to my father. I owe you a debt of gratitude for that. I shall never forget it.”

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“I am glad you think I was,” said Bernard.

“I shall never forget it. I shall always be grateful to you for that,” reiterated Jack.

Bernard turned his face suddenly upon his companion, laying his hand upon his shoulder.

“Remember you have said that, Jack Stanley.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jack.

“Nothing but what I say,” answered Bernard. “Whatever happens, remember if you can that I did my best for your father. And now go home. Good night to you. I am, as you say, tired, and I have a good deal to do tonight.”

Jack did not require a second bidding, but ran back to the lodging of Mrs. Bennett. Thenceforth it seemed to Jack Stanley that he had an object in life. It is easy at seventeen years of age to exalt such a feeling as actuated him into heroism and chivalry. By its real name he did not at the time recognize it.

All home plans were at an end. There was no more need to debate in his own mind what profession or calling he would follow. His calling was to revenge his father.

It may seem strange that Jack Stanley stood so alone in the world—so solitary as to choose Bernard suddenly as a confidant—a man of whom he knew so very little; but it must be taken into consideration that he had with his father lived the life of a recluse, mixing only when away from home with his schoolfellows—a very ordinary page 48 set of boys; and I hope by this time, little way as we have made in our story, that I have made it understood that John Stanley was not an ordinary boy.