Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 104

"Yes, sir. Is anything the matter?"

"Anything the matter! No. Why do you ask?"

"I thought you looked put out, sir."

"There's nothing the matter. Only I think men of business should not be troubled with short memories. Take care of that waggon. What's the fellow galloping his horses at that rate for? Now, Johnny, I say, take care. Or else, give me the reins."

I nearly laughed. At home they never seemed to think I could do anything. If they did let me drive, it was always Now take care of this, Johnny; or, Take care of that. And yet I was a more careful driver than Tod: though I might not have had so much strength as he to pull up a four-in-hand team had it run away.

"Go round through Church d.y.k.ely, Johnny, and stop at Pell's Bank," said the Squire, as I was turning off on the direct road home.

I turned the pony's head accordingly. It took us about a mile out of our way. The pavement was so narrow and the Bank room so small, that I heard all that pa.s.sed when the Squire went in.

"Is Mr. Clement-Pell here?"

"Oh dear no, sir," replied the manager. "He is always at the chief Bank on Sat.u.r.day. Did you want him?"

"Not particularly. Tell him I think he must have forgotten to send to me."

"I'll tell him, sir. He may look in here to-night on his return. If you wish to see him yourself, he will be here all day on Monday."

The Squire came out and got in again. Cutting round the sharp corner by Perkins the butcher's, I nearly ran into Mrs. and the Miss Clement-Pells, who were crossing the dusty road in a line like geese, the one behind the other; their muslins sweeping the highway like brooms, and their complexions sheltered under point lace parasols.

"There you go again, Johnny! Pull up, sir."

I pulled up: and the heads came from under the parasols, and grouped round to speak to us. They had quite recovered Thursday's fatigue, Mrs.

Clement-Pell graciously said, in answer to the Squire's inquiries; and she hoped all her young friends had done the same, Mr. Todhetley's young friends in particular.

"_They_ felt no fatigue," cried the Pater, "Why, ma'am, they'd keep anything of that sort up for a week and a day, and not feel it. How's Mr. Clement-Pell?"

"He is as well as he allows himself to be," she answered. "I tell him he is wearing himself out with work. His business is of vast magnitude, Mr.

Todhetley. Good day."

"So it is," acquiesced the Pater as we drove on, partly to himself, partly to me. "Of vast magnitude. For my part, I'd rather do less, although it involved less returns. One can forgive a man, like him, forgetting trifles. And, Johnny, I shouldn't wonder but his enormous riches render him careless of small obligations."

Part of which was unintelligible to me.

Sunday pa.s.sed. We nodded to the Miss Clement-Pells at church (their bonnets making the pew look like a flower-garden); but did not see Mr.

Clement-Pell or his wife. Monday pa.s.sed; bringing a note from Tod, to say Lady Whitney and Bill would not let him leave yet. Tuesday morning came in. I happened to be seated under the hedge in the kitchen-garden, mending a fishing-rod, when a horse dashed up to the back gate. Looking through, I saw it was the butcher boy, Sam Rimmer. Molly, who was in one of her stinging tempers that morning, came out.

"We don't want nothing," said she tartly. "So you might have spared yourself the pains of coming."

"Don't want nothing!" returned the boy. "Why's that?"

"Why's that!" she retorted. "It's like your imperence to ask. Do families want joints every day; specially such weather as this? I a-going to cook fowls for dinner, and we've the cold round o' beef for the kitchen. Now you know why, Sam Rimmer."

Sam Rimmer sat looking at her as if in a quandary, gently rubbing his hair, which shone again in the sun.

"Well, it's a pity but you wanted some," said he, slowly. "We've gone and been and pervided a shop full o' meat to-day, and it'll be a dead loss on the master. The Clement-Pells don't want none, you see: and they took a'most as much as all the rest o' the gentlefolks put together.

There's summat up there."

"Summat up where?" snapped Molly.

"At the Clement-Pells'. The talk is, that they've busted-up, and be all gone off in consekence."

"Why, what d'ye mean?" cried Molly. "Gone off where? Busted-up from what?"

But, before Perkins's boy could answer, the Pater, walking about the path in his straw hat and light thin summer coat, came on the scene. He had caught the words.

"What's that you are saying about the Clement-Pells, Sam Rimmer?"

Sam Rimmer touched his hair, and explained. Upon going to Parrifer Hall for orders, he had found it all sixes-and-sevens; some of the servants gone, the rest going. They told him their master had bursted-up, and was gone away since Sunday morning; and the family since Monday morning. And his master, Perkins, would have all the meat left on his hands that he had killed on purpose for the Clement-Pells.

You should have seen the Squire's amazed face. At first he did not know how to take the words, and stared at Sam Rimmer without speaking.

"All the Banks has went and busted-up too," said Sam. "They be a-saying, sir, as how there won't be nothing for n.o.body."

The Squire understood now. He turned tail and rushed into the house. And rushed against Mr. Brandon, who was coming in.

"Well, have you heard the news?" asked Mr. Brandon in his thinnest voice.

"I can't believe it; I don't believe it," raved the Squire.

"Clement-Pell would never be such a swindler. He owes me two hundred pounds."

Mr. Brandon opened his little eyes. "Owes it _you_!"

"That day, last week, when he came driving in, in his smart c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l carriage--when you were here, you know, Brandon. He got a cheque for two hundred pounds from me. A parcel of money that ought to have come over from the chief Bank had not arrived, he said, and the Church d.y.k.ely branch might be run close; would I let him have a cheque for two or three hundred pounds on the Bank at Alcester. I told him I did not believe I had anything like two hundred pounds lying at Alcester: but I drew a cheque out for that amount, and wrote a note telling the people there to cash it, and I would make it right."

"And Pell drove straight off to Alcester then and there, and cashed the cheque?" said Mr. Brandon in his cynical way.

"He did. He had told me I should receive the money on the following day.

It did not come, or on the Friday either; and on Sat.u.r.day I went to Alcester, thinking he might have paid it in there."

"Which of course he had not," returned old Brandon. "Well, you must have been foolish, to be so taken-in."

"Taken-in!" roared the Squire, in a pa.s.sion. "Why, if he had asked me for two thousand pounds he might have had it--a man with the riches of Clement-Pell."

"Well, he wouldn't have got any from me. One who launched out as he did, and let his family launch out, I should never put much trust in. Any way, the riches are nowhere; and it is said Pell is nowhere too."

It was all true. As Sam Rimmer put it, Clement-Pell and his Banks had bursted-up.

XXIV.

GETTING AWAY.