The Last Chronicle of Barset Part 63

"And you've been paid for what you've done. Come, Mussy, you'd better not turn against me. You'll never get your change out of that. Even if you marry the daughter, that won't give you the mother's money.

She'll stick to every shilling of it till she dies; and she'd take it with her then, if she knew how." Having said this, he got up from his chair, put his little book into his pocket, and walked out of the office. He pushed his way across the court, which was more than ordinarily crowded with the implements of Burton and Bangles' trade, and as he pa.s.sed under the covered way he encountered at the entrance an old woman getting out of a cab. The old woman was, of course, Mother Van, as her partner, Mr. Dobbs Broughton, irreverently called her. "Mrs. Van Siever, how d'ye do? Let me give you a hand. Fare from South Kensington? I always give the fellows three shillings."

"You don't mean to tell me it's six miles!" And she tendered a florin to the man.

"Can't take that, ma'am," said the cabman.

"Can't take it! But you must take it. Broughton, just get a policeman, will you?" Dobbs Broughton satisfied the driver out of his own pocket, and the cab was driven away. "What did you give him?"

said Mrs. Van Siever.

"Just another sixpence. There never is a policeman anywhere about here."

"It'll be out of your own pocket, then," said Mrs. Van. "But you're not going away?"

"I must be at Capel Court by half-past twelve;--I must, indeed. If it wasn't real business, I'd stay."

"I told Musselboro I should be here."

"He's up there, and he knows all about the business just as well as I do. When I found that I couldn't stay for you, I went through the account with him, and it's all settled. Good morning. I'll see you at the West End in a day or two." Then he made his way out into Lombard Street, and Mrs. Van Siever picked her steps across the yard, and mounted the stairs, and made her way into the room in which Mr.

Musselboro was sitting.

"Somebody's been smoking, Gus," she said, almost as soon as she had entered the room.

"That's nothing new here," he replied, as he got up from his chair.

"There's no good being done when men sit and smoke over their work.

Is it you, or he, or both of you?"

"Well;--it was Broughton was smoking just now. I don't smoke of a morning myself."

"What made him get up and run away when I came?"

"How can I tell, Mrs. Van Siever," said Musselboro, laughing. "If he did run away when you came, I suppose it was because he didn't want to see you."

"And why shouldn't he want to see me? Gus, I expect the truth from you. How are things going on here?" To this question Mr. Musselboro made no immediate answer; but tilted himself back in his chair and took his hat off, and put his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and looked his patroness full in the face. "Gus," she said again, "I do expect the truth from you. How are things going on here?"

"There'd be a good business,--if he'd only keep things together."

"But he's idle. Isn't he idle?"

"Confoundedly idle," said Musselboro.

"And he drinks;--don't he drink in the day?"

"Like the mischief,--some days. But that isn't the worst of it."

"And what is the worst of it?"

"Newmarket;--that's the rock he's going to pieces on."

"You don't mean to say he takes the money out of the business for that?" And Mrs. Van Siever's face, as she asked the question, expressed almost a tragic horror. "If I thought that I wouldn't give him an hour's mercy."

"When a man bets he doesn't well know what money he uses. I can't say that he takes money that is not his own. Situated as I am, I don't know what is his own and what isn't. If your money was in my name I could keep a hand on it;--but as it is not I can do nothing. I can see that what is put out is put out fairly well; and when I think of it, Mrs. Van Siever, it is quite wonderful that we've lost so little.

It has been next to nothing. That has been my doing;--and that's about all that I can do."

"You must know whether he has used my money for his own purposes or not."

"If you ask me, I think he has," said Mr. Musselboro.

"Then I'll go into it, and I'll find it out, and if it is so, as sure as my name's Van Siever, I'll sew him up." Having uttered which terrible threat, the old woman drew a chair to the table and seated herself fairly down, as though she were determined to go through all the books of the office before she quitted that room. Mrs. Van Siever in her present habiliments was not a thing so terrible to look at as she had been in her wiggeries at Mrs. Dobbs Broughton's dinner-table.

Her curls were laid aside altogether, and she wore simply a front beneath her close bonnet,--and a very old front, too, which was not loudly offensive because it told no lies. Her eyes were as bright, and her little wizen face was as sharp, as ever; but the wizen face and the bright eyes were not so much amiss as seen together with the old dark brown silk dress which she now wore, as they had been with the wiggeries and the evening finery. Even now, in her morning costume, in her work-a-day business dress, as we may call it, she looked to be very old,--so old that n.o.body could guess her age.

People attempting to guess would say that she must be at least over eighty. And yet she was wiry, and strong, and nimble. It was not because she was feeble that she was thought to be so old. They who so judged of her were led to their opinion by the extreme thinness of her face, and by the brightness of her eyes, joined to the depth of the hollows in which they lay, and the red margin by which they were surrounded. It was not really the fact that Mrs. Van Siever was so very aged, for she had still some years to live before she would reach eighty, but that she was such a weird old woman, so small, so ghastly, and so ugly! "I'll sew him up, if he's been robbing me," she said. "I will, indeed." And she stretched out her hand to grab at the ledger which Musselboro had been using.

"You won't understand anything from that," said he, pushing the book over to her.

"You can explain it to me."

"That's all straight sailing, that is."

"And where does he keep the figures that ain't straight sailing?

That's the book I want to see."

"There is no such book."

"Look here, Gus,--if I find you deceiving me I'll throw you overboard as sure as I'm a living woman. I will indeed. I'll have no mercy.

I've stuck to you, and made a man of you, and I expect you to stick to me."

"Not much of a man," said Musselboro, with a touch of scorn in his voice.

"You've never had a shilling yet but what I gave you."

"Yes; I have. I've had what I've worked for,--and worked confounded hard too."

"Look here, Musselboro; if you're going to throw me over, just tell me so, and let us begin fair."

"I'm not going to throw you over. I've always been on the square with you. Why don't you trust me out and out, and then I could do a deal better for you. You ask me now about your money. I don't know about your money, Mrs. Van Siever. How am I to know anything about your money, Mrs. Van Siever? You don't give me any power of keeping a hand upon Dobbs Broughton. I suppose you have security from Dobbs Broughton, but I don't know what security you have, Mrs. Van Siever.

He owes you now 915 16_s._ 2_d._ on last year's account!"

"Why doesn't he give me a cheque for the money?"

"He says he can't spare it. You may have 500, and the rest when he can give it you. Or he'll give you his note-of-hand at fourteen days for the whole."

"Bother his note-of-hand. Why should I take his note-of-hand?"

"Do as you like, Mrs. Van Siever."

"It's the interest on my own money. Why don't he give it me? I suppose he has had it."

"You must ask him that, Mrs. Van Siever. You're in partnership with him, and he can tell you. n.o.body else knows anything about it. If you were in partnership with me, then of course I could tell you. But you're not. You've never trusted me, Mrs. Van Siever."