Miser Farebrother Volume Ii Part 12

"The Lethbridges, Jeremiah?"

"Yes, the Lethbridges, and that lawyer chap."

"I told you there was danger in that quarter, Jeremiah."

"And I told _you_ to mind your own business. Do you think this Phoebe affair is the only one I've got to look after? There are other schemes, mother, with heaps of money hanging to them, which will land me in a carriage as sure as guns. I'm going to take in the sharpers; I'm going to prove that I'm the sharpest fellow _they_ ever had to deal with; I'll have thousands out of them! They think they know a lot, but they don't know everything. Why, with my head for figures and calculations, I ought to be as rich as the Rothschilds! I'll tell you all about it by-and-by."

"You are always keeping things from me, Jeremiah," said Mrs. Pamflett, in an injured tone. "Why not tell me now?"

"Because I don't choose. Still tongue, wise head."

"I might keep things from you, Jeremiah," said Mrs. Pamflett; and there was now a sly note in her voice which caused Jeremiah to bristle up.

"Oh, you would, would you! You've got something to tell, and you won't tell it! All right. I've done with you." He turned to go, but she seized his arm and detained him.

"No, no, Jeremiah! I've no one in the world but you. I'll tell you everything, everything!"

"Well, out with it; and never speak to me again like that, or it will be the worse for you. Mind what I say!"

"I will, Jeremiah--I will. Shut the door, and look first that there's no one outside."

"Who should be outside?" he asked, when he returned to his mother's side.

"Speak low, Jeremiah. Miser Farebrother is as cunning as a fox. For all his lameness, he can creep about the house as soft as a cat. I was awake last night with a bad toothache, and I heard his bedroom door creak, and then I heard him go softly, softly down-stairs. 'What is he up to?' I thought, and I slipped out of bed and into the pa.s.sage. There was no fear of his hearing _my_ door creak; I keep the hinges well oiled; and it was dark, and he couldn't see me. Would you believe it, Jeremiah? It was past two o'clock in the morning, and he went out of the house. I was afraid to go after him, because if he had turned suddenly back, and shut the street door upon me, I shouldn't have been able to get in without his finding me out. So I waited and waited, wondering what he was about.

I suppose it must have been twenty minutes at least before he came back; but he did come at last, and, oh, Jeremiah; you never in all your life saw anybody as sly as he was! He looked round and round, and this way and that, to make sure he was alone, and then he crawled upstairs. How he managed it I don't know, he was in such pain; but not a groan, not a sound, escaped him. And he was carrying a large cash-box, too, that I had never seen before. It was covered with mud, and of course I jumped at the truth; it had been buried somewhere in the grounds, and he had gone out in the middle of the night to dig it up. You may guess what a state of excitement I was in, and I said to myself, 'For Jeremiah's sake I'll see the end of it.' It took him almost another twenty minutes to get to his room; he had to sit on the stairs a dozen times to rest, and I couldn't help thinking what a wonderfully sly man he was that he should be doing what he was doing, and what perhaps he's done over and over again, without my ever being able to find it out."

"You may well say that," grumbled Jeremiah. "A nice article you are to look after my interests! Catch me being in the house all the years you've been, and being taken in like that! I wouldn't have believed it of you if anybody else was telling me."

"I wouldn't have believed it of myself, Jeremiah; but better late than never, my boy."

"Better soon than late: that's the proper way of it. But go on, can't you? He got back to his room, and there was you outside the door, peeping through the key-hole?"

"Yes, Jeremiah, and Miser Farebrother none the wiser. He wiped the mud off the cash-box and opened it. Jeremiah, it was stuffed full of gold and bank-notes. He counted it and counted it over and over again, and he wrote down some figures on a piece of paper. Then he put the money back and locked the box, and hid it under his mattress. After that he tore up the paper he'd been writing on, and blew out the candle, and went to bed. I heard him groaning there for an hour afterward."

"Is that the end of it?" asked Jeremiah, in a wrathful voice and with wrathful looks. "Do you mean to tell me that is the end of it?"

"No, it isn't; there's something more. Never you call me a fool again. I went into his room as usual this morning, and you may depend I looked about for the box; but I couldn't catch sight of it. Oh, he's a cunning one, he is! But I did catch sight of something. I had my hand-broom and shovel, and I swept up the floor and the fireplace, and brought away the pieces of paper he had torn up. I asked him if he'd had a good night, and he said he fell asleep the moment he put his head on the pillow, and that he must have slept seven or eight hours right off. I told him he looked as if he'd had a splendid rest--which he didn't, Jeremiah. He was the picture of misery. When I got away from him I sorted out the pieces of paper and stuck them together. Here it is. He must be richer than we think, Jeremiah. Look! Ten one hundred pounds--bank-notes, Jeremiah! I saw him count 'em--that's a thousand. Twenty fifties--that's another thousand. Fifty twenties--that's another thousand. And another thousand in sovereigns. He laid 'em in piles upon the table. They did look grand!

Piles of gold. Jeremiah! Four thousand pounds altogether. You didn't know anything about it, did you?"

"No, I didn't," replied Jeremiah, his eyes glittering greedily. "He must have had the money by him a long time, I expect. Did you look about the grounds for his hiding-place?"

"Yes; but I didn't find it. I couldn't see the slightest signs of one."

"_I'll_ find it, mother."

"You mustn't do anything rash, Jeremiah; you mustn't get yourself into trouble."

"Not likely, mother. Trust me for looking after myself. All his money is mine, and I mean to have it! By fair means, mother--by fair means; and he sha'n't cheat me out of a penny. Once I get hold of Phoebe--. Well, all right! I shall know how to work it. I'll go now and have a talk with him."

CHAPTER XI.

MISER FAREBROTHER GIVES JEREMIAH A WARNING.

Jeremiah's "talk" with Miser Farebrother proved to be not entirely to the satisfaction of the younger juggler, and the few days of happiness which yet remained to Phoebe were not disturbed by any intimation of the conspiracy into which the two men had entered, the successful issue of which would result in the destruction of the fondest hopes of her life. Jeremiah was impatient, and eager that Phoebe should be recalled home immediately; but Miser Farebrother would not have it so. Of the two he was infinitely the more wily and astute, and he dropped pearls of wisdom for the benefit of his crafty managing clerk. It told rather against Jeremiah that in the account he gave of his interviews with the Lethbridge party on the previous night he should accentuate every unpleasant and disagreeable word to which he had given utterance; he had an idea that by so doing he was impressing the miser with a deep sense of his wit and cleverness, the fact being that he produced quite an opposite effect.

"Never startle your game, Jeremiah," said Miser Farebrother. "A skilful sportsman goes quietly and patiently to work. I have not been in the habit of suddenly summoning my daughter from London, after having given her permission to remain there for a stated time. To do so now would only excite suspicion, and strengthen, perhaps, any opposition we have to meet with. Last night's proceedings are not in your favour. You spoke sarcastically, and made yourself generally objectionable. The tongue of that clever young person, Miss f.a.n.n.y Lethbridge, must have wagged rarely against you after you took your departure. You rubbed them the wrong way, Jeremiah--a mistake, a great mistake! Instead of oil, you used vinegar. 'Tis a million to one that the lawyer scoundrel saw through you; you made an enemy of him when you might have thrown dust into his eyes."

"What does it matter?" said Jeremiah, rather sulkily. "I'm not afraid of him."

"It matters everything," retorted Miser Farebrother. "It matters that you exposed your hand, and gave your rival the advantage over you."

"My rival!" cried Jeremiah, with a dark frown.

"It looks like it, doesn't it?" said Miser Farebrother, with a certain sly satisfaction at Jeremiah's discomposure. For himself, he was easy in his mind with respect to Phoebe. He had her oath, sworn upon her dead mother's prayer-book, that she would not marry without his consent, and he knew that she would rather die than break it. Jeremiah was not cognizant of this sacred promise, so cunningly wrung by Miser Farebrother from his daughter, and the miser, secure in the knowledge, could afford to laugh at his intriguing clerk, who thought himself his master's equal in duplicity. In Miser Farebrother's feelings there was something of the delight and the triumph which one rogue experiences when he overreaches another. "It looks like it, doesn't it? And we mustn't lose sight of the uncomfortable fact that Mr. Cornwall looks like a gentleman, while you, Jeremiah, you--not to mince the matter--look quite the other thing." He rubbed his hands with a sense of great enjoyment, and proceeded: "There you were, Jeremiah, sitting in the pit all the time this fine lawyer-gentleman was paying court to your sweetheart in a private box. And she blushing and hanging her head the while; and our dear friends the Lethbridges--"

"d.a.m.n them!" interposed Jeremiah, the blurting out of the expletive being some slight relief to his feelings.

"With all my heart! d.a.m.n them behind their backs, but bless them to their faces. That is the true and wise policy of life. Never take off your mask unless you are alone, or with me, Jeremiah. And there, as I was saying, while my daughter was blushing and hanging her head at the honeyed nonsense the gentleman-lawyer was pouring into her ears, were our dear friends the Lethbridges holding back, and doing all they could to break your tender heart. You owe them a good turn, Jeremiah."

"I will pay what I owe," said Jeremiah, fiercely. "They are working against me, and they shall live to rue it. When they play with men like me they play with edged tools. But doesn't all this go to prove that you should summon Miss Phoebe home at once--this very day?"

"No; it only goes to prove that I know how to conduct this matter better than you do. My daughter will return home on Tuesday or Wednesday; and then, Jeremiah, then you can commence your wooing in real earnest."

"You mean it?"

"I mean it. I can't afford to trick and deceive you."

"No," said Jeremiah, unaccountably--for one so shrewd--losing his guard; "I don't think you can." But he was ready the next moment to bite his tongue off for the indiscretion.

"That is right," said Miser Farebrother, with outward composure, "always be frank with me, Jeremiah--with me above all others. When you are conversing with me, drop the mask, as I advised you. It makes me understand the kind of metal I am dealing with, and how I must act to shape it to my will. And it is as well that you should understand, my lad"--and now there was in Miser Farebrother's voice a note of stern determination which caused Jeremiah to wince and to shift uneasily on his chair--"exactly how far it is safe to go with me. My will is law, and shall be while I live. We have made a bargain, you and I, and I shall abide by it as long as it suits me--no longer. You are not yet my son-in-law; you are my servant, and your future welfare depends upon me.

Remember it, Jeremiah."

"Why do you speak to me like that?" whined Jeremiah. "If I happened to say something foolish, it was because my feelings were worked up. You helped to work them up, speaking in the way you did about your daughter and that--that beast! What I meant was that I am sure you wouldn't deceive me. I know that I am dependent upon you, and I beg your pardon a thousand times!" He so cringed and fawned that he seemed to become limp, and to grovel in the dust before the miser.

"You see, Jeremiah," said Miser Farebrother, slowly and deliberately, "though I am weak, I am not entirely powerless. My brain was never clearer, my will never stronger, than they are this day. At any moment, my servant as you are, my son-in-law as you hope to be, I could manage to pounce upon you in London, and clear you out of my office. Money will buy service, and I can buy it. Money will buy spies, and I can buy them.

Let me have reason to suppose that you are playing me false, and this piece of paper is not more easily torn than you should be ruined! I hold out no threat; I simply warn you. We are not men of sentiment, you and I, Jeremiah, because we know that sentiment doesn't pay; it always ends in a loss. We are practical, hard-headed men, with a shrewd eye to our own interests. I don't blame you for that; I like you for it. We are a.s.sociated with each other, you for your interests, I for mine; and that you have, and will have, the best of the bargain is a slice of luck for which you may thank this cursed rheumatism which racks my bones and makes my life a torture. But what I would drive into you is the conviction that I am more necessary to you than you are to me; and that I could more easily do without you than you could do without me.

Supposing you were dead"--Jeremiah started--"supposing you were dead,"

the miser repeated, complacently, "I should still have my business, which I could intrust to other hands, or wind up, as I pleased; my money would still be my own, and I could leave it to my daughter, or, if she offended and thwarted me, to some good charitable inst.i.tution where my name would be revered, or to some church--I am not particular as to creeds, Jeremiah--where prayers would be offered up for my soul.

Rheumatism doesn't necessarily kill a man; it makes his life a h.e.l.l, but it seldom shortens it. Now I think of it, I can even see advantages in it. It keeps a man in-doors; he can't be run over; he can't slip down on a piece of orange peel; he can't sit in a 'bus next to a person who has a fever or the small-pox. Why, it lengthens life instead of shortens it; the statistics are worth looking up. I am not what you call a reading man--I never was--but I can remember what I have heard, and when I was a young man I heard somebody say, 'Those whom the G.o.ds love die young.'

Now you are young, Jeremiah, and the G.o.ds may love you. So, taking it altogether, the chances of my life against yours are rather in my favour. With respect to our particular business relations, I warn you to be careful; I may not be in such complete ignorance of your doings as you suppose me to be. That is all I have to say."

"It isn't very pleasant," said Jeremiah, thoroughly cowed, "after the years I've worked for you, to have to listen to all this, and just because I happened to let a word slip. What more can I do, except to beg your pardon again?"

"Let it pa.s.s, Jeremiah; I forgive you. All I require is obedience."