Geoffrey Hamstead Part 33

"No. That is not all," answered Jack gloomily.

"Go on, then."

"I don't feel as if I could go on," said Jack, not noticing the rough tone in which he was commanded to proceed. "But I suppose I must. The fact is, Geoffrey, I found out afterward that I was not married at all to her, and I never let her know until to-night."

"Is she dead, then?"

Geoffrey looked at him with his brow lowered, his eyes glittering. He felt like striking Jack.

"Gracious heavens, no! Why should she die?" cried Jack, startled from his gloom.

"It's enough to kill her," said Geoffrey. His contempt for Jack a.s.sisted the rage he felt against him. He had been drinking steadily all day, and now could hardly restrain the violent fury that seethed in him. "Go on, you infernal a.s.s! Dribble it out. Go on."

"I see you feel for her, Geoffrey. I _am_ the biggest fool that ever was allowed to live."

Then, with his face averted, he told Geoffrey the whole story of the mistake in Buffalo. His listener watched him, with lips muttering, while sometimes his teeth seemed to be bared and gleaming.

In this story, Geoffrey at first seemed to see a new danger to himself and his future prospects. Then it occurred to him that the new information did not much affect his own position. Two things seemed certain. One was, that Joseph Lindon would spare no expense to find out where Jack and Nina had gone and to be fully informed of everything that happened. Secondly, that Nina could never be able to show any legal marriage prior to the one now intended. This meant that Nina and Jack could not return to Toronto. A vague idea went through Geoffrey's head at this time.

When Jack had finished his story Geoffrey was calm in appearance. But his eyes were half closed, which gave him a cunning look.

Then he talked with Jack, so as to impress upon his mind the fact that it would be impossible for them ever to visit Canada again.

"Yes," said Jack. "Unless you come out to visit us you will never see us again. I could never make it right with the Toronto people. I will never again be able to return to Toronto; that's clear."

When he proposed to make arrangements as to the best ways and means of leaving Toronto, Geoffrey said he must have time to think over everything. It was late. It would be better to sleep, if possible, and arrange things further to-morrow. They parted for the night, having settled that Jack was to draw out his money at once.

On the next morning Geoffrey ascertained that he was ruined. The stock that he held in the Canadian railway had gone down beyond redemption as far as he was concerned. He had mortgaged everything he possessed, raised money on indorsed notes, raised it in every shape and way within his means, but he had been unable to tide over the depression. A further call had been made for margins, and he had not another cent to fill the gap and all his stock pa.s.sed to other hands. He drank steadily all day and even carried a flask with him into the office, which he soon emptied. Hampstead was not by any means the same man now that he was three weeks previously. He looked sufficiently like his right self to escape a betrayal, but the liquor and the thought of his losses raged within him, and all the time an idea was insinuating itself into his frenzied brain. He had gone so far as carefully to consider many schemes to avert his ruin which he would not have countenanced before. His weakened judgment now placed Jack before him as one who conspired against his peace. He cunningly concealed it, but to him the mere sight of Jack was like a red flag to a bull. Just when all his plans were demolished, all his hopes gone, his entire ruin an accomplished fact, this fool came in to add fuel to the fire that burned him. In this way he regarded his old friend.

While in this state and while at his work in the bank the next morning he said to Jack, who occupied the next stall to him, that he had hit upon the best way for him and Nina to depart. It would be better for Jack to go away without giving any notice to the bank. The notice would be of no use if he did so, because, if he must go away the next morning, the notice would only raise inquiry. He told Jack to slip out and go down to the docks and find if there would be any sailing vessels leaving for American ports the next day. Jack could depart on a schooner; Nina could make some excuse at home and follow him by steamer.

Jack liked this proposal. He would have one more sail on old Ontario before he left it forever. He skipped out of the side door, and soon found a vessel at Yonge Street wharf that would finish taking in its cargo of fire-bricks and start for Oswego at noon the following day. He tried to arrange with the mate to go as a pa.s.senger, but the captain was going to take his wife with him on this trip, so Jack, if he wanted to go, would be obliged to sleep in the forecastle. He did not mind this much, and engaged to go "before the mast."

In the afternoon he told Nina about his intentions, and explained that she could take the steamer to Oswego on the day after he left, so that she would probably arrive there about the same time. He had drawn all his money out of the bank and was now ready to go. Nina said she could arrange about her own departure, and after they had made a few other plans as to her course in case she got to Oswego first, Jack kissed her and tried to cheer her from the depression in which she had sunk, and then he departed.

All that day Geoffrey grew more moody and further from his right self.

To drown the recollections of his ruin and his other worries, he went on drinking steadily. The thought came to him again and again that his marriage with Margaret was now almost impossible. He knew that, as a married man, he could never live on his bank salary alone, and the capital to speculate with was entirely gone. What made him still more frenzied was the fact that he knew that this stock he had bought was bound to re-establish itself in a very short time. But, for the moment, every person else had gone mad. He alone was sane. Public lunacy about this stock had robbed him of his fifteen thousand dollars. He drank still harder when he thought this, and although he did not get drunk, he got what can be described vaguely as "queer," and the next stage of his queerness was that he became convinced that the public had in a manner robbed him, and that society owed him something. When a man's brain is in this state, he is in a dangerous condition.

Jack wished heartily that they should dine together, as this was his last evening in Toronto, but Geoffrey avoided doing so. He hated the sight of Jack, but he carefully concealed the aversion which he felt. He made an excuse and absented himself until nine or ten o'clock, and during this time he wandered about the city and continued drinking. He had not seen Margaret for over two weeks. Everything had been going wrong with him. Besides his own losses, he would be heavily in debt to the men who had "backed" his paper and who would have to pay for him.

Jack found him in their chambers when he returned for his last night at the old rooms, and there they sat and talked things over. Geoffrey tried to brace himself up for the conversation with a bottle of brandy which he had just uncorked, but it was quite impossible for him to pretend to be as cheerful as he wished.

Jack thought he was depressed, and said:

"I am sorry to see you in such bad spirits to-night, Geoffrey."

"Well, it's a bad business," said Hampstead, sententiously, looking moodily at the floor. As this might mean anything, Jack thought that Geoffrey was taking his departure to heart. He had every right to think that Hampstead would miss him.

It was now getting late, and Jack arose and laid his hand on Geoffrey's shoulder: "Don't be cut up, old man," he said; "I have been a fool, but I am glad that I know it and am able to make things as right as they can be made. I know you feel for Nina and me, but you will get some other fellow to room with you and--"

During the conversation Hampstead had drunk a good deal of the brandy.

The kind words that Jack was speaking filled him with a fury which lunatic cunning could scarcely conceal. The idea in his mind had been settling itself into a resolve, and at this moment it did finally settle itself. He shook Jack's hand off his shoulder as he arose, glared at him for an instant, and then turned off to his bedroom. "Good night," he said over his shoulder. "It's late. I'm off." Then he entered his bedroom, shut the door, and bolted it.

As he went, Jack looked at his retreating form with tears standing in his eyes.

"I never," he said, "saw Geoffrey show any emotion before. I never felt quite sure whether he cared much about me until now. And now I know that he does. I hate to see him so cut up about it; but it is comforting to think, on going away, that he really liked me all this time."

Jack was a clean-souled fellow. He was one of those who, no matter how uproarious or slangy they are, always give the idea that they are gentlemen. With this nature a certain softness of heart must go. He stood watching the door through which Geoffrey had pa.s.sed, and he thought drearily that never again would they have such good times together, and that most likely they would never meet again. He thought of Geoffrey's winning ways, of his prowess, of his strength, his stature, his handsome face, and his devil-may-care manner. He thought of their companionship, the incidents, and even dangers they had had together. He thought of the way Geoffrey had done his work that night on the yacht when returning from Charlotte. He stood thinking of all these things with an aching heart. As he turned away sadly, his heart full of grief at parting, he burst out with "Darned if I don't love that man,"

and he closed his door quickly, as if to shut out the world from witnessing a weakness.

On the inner side of Geoffrey's bedroom door there was something else going on, which represented a very different train of thought.

Geoffrey, after bolting his door, went to his dressing-case and took from it a pair of scissors and a threaded needle. Then he took an old waistcoat and cut the lining out of it. Then he took a second old waistcoat and sewed the pieces of lining against the inside of it, and also ran st.i.tches down the middle of each piece after it was sewed on.

Thus he had a waistcoat with four long pockets on the inside--two on each side of it, all open at the top.

When this was done he rolled into bed, where Nature hastened to restore herself.

Before breakfast in the morning, Jack hailed a cab and took his two valises to the Yacht Club beside the water's edge, and left them in his locked cupboard there. He only intended to take this amount of luggage with him. The rest of his things could come on when Geoffrey packed up and forwarded his share of their joint museum and library. Geoffrey did not turn up at breakfast. He breakfasted on a cup of strong coffee and brandy at a restaurant, and went to the bank early.

Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote, commonly called "Sappy" in the bank, was a younger son of a long-drawn-out race. He had been sent out to make his fortune in the colonies, and he had progressed so far toward affluence that, in eight years of "beastly servitude, you know,"

he had attained the proud position of discount clerk at the Victoria Bank, and it did not seem probable that his abilities would be ever recognized to any further extent. The great scope of his intelligence was shown in the variety of wearing apparel he was able to choose, all by himself, and he was the showman, the dude, the _incroyable_ of the Victoria Bank. When he met a man for the first time he weighed him according to the merits of the garments he wore. He met Geoffrey as he came into the bank this morning.

"My deah fellah," he said, "where did you get that dreadful waistcoat?"

"None of your business, Sappy. You used to wear one yourself when they were in fashion. I remember your rushing off to get one from the same piece when you first saw this one."

Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote had a weak child's voice, which he cultivated because it separated him from the common herd--most effectually. It made all ordinary people wish to kick him every time he opened his mouth. He liked to be thought to have ideas about art, and he talked sweetly about the furniture of "ma mothah" (my mother.)

Geoffrey walked past this specimen with but little ceremony. The brandy and coffee and another brandy without coffee had succeeded in putting him into just the same state in which he had gone to bed on the previous night. He could talk to any person and could do his work, but fumes of alcohol and abandonment of recklessness had for a time driven out all the morality he ever possessed; and where some ideas of justice had generally reigned there flourished, in the fumes of the liquor which he had drunk, noxious weedy outgrowths of a debased intelligence unchecked by the self-respect of civilization. To-day, he was, to himself, the victim of a public that had robbed him. Society owed him a debt.

They all went to work in the usual way. About a quarter-past eleven o'clock Jack put his head to Geoffrey's wicket and they whispered together:

Jack said, "Time for me to be off?"

"Yes, just leave everything as if you were coming back. If you put away anything, or close the ledger, they may ask where you are before you get fairly off. By the way, how are you carrying your money?"

"By Jove! I forgot that," said Jack, "or I might have made the package smaller by exchanging for larger bills. It makes a terrible 'wollage' in my pocket."

Geoffrey stepped back a moment and picked two American bills for one-thousand dollars each from a package of fifty of them lying beside him.

"Here," he said. "Take these two and pin them in the watch-pocket of your waistcoat. Don't give me back your money here. Just run up to our chambers and leave your two thousand under my bed-clothes. I don't want any one to see you paying me the money here, or they will think I connived at your going. I can get it during the afternoon and make my cash all right."

Jack did not quite see the necessity of this, but he had not time to think it out, and even if he had, he would have done what Geoffrey told him.

"All right," he said, "thank you. That will make two 'one-thousands' and seven 'one hundreds,' and the rest small, for immediate use."

"Very well. Go into the pa.s.sage, now, and wait at the side door. I will come out and say good-by to you."

Jack took his hat and sauntered out into the pa.s.sage.