The Lighted Way Part 18

"Of course," he said, "as you went out with Mrs. Weatherley I suppose it's none of my business as to your hours, but you must know that to come back from lunch at half-past three is most irregular, especially as you are practically junior in the place."

"I quite agree with you," Arnold a.s.sented, "but, you see, I really couldn't help myself to-day. I don't suppose it is likely to happen again. Is that all that you wanted to speak to me about?"

"Not altogether," Mr. Jarvis admitted. "To tell you the truth," he went on, confidentially, "I wanted to ask you a question or two."

"Well, look sharp, then," Arnold said, good-humoredly. "I dare say Mr. Weatherley will be getting impatient, and he probably saw me come in."

"I want to ask you," Mr. Jarvis began, impressively, "whether you noticed anything peculiar about the governor's manner this morning?"

"I don't think so--not especially," Arnold replied.

Mr. Jarvis took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and wiped them carefully.

"Mr. Weatherley," he proceeded, "has always been a gentleman of very regular habits--he and his father before him. I have been in the service of the firm for thirty-five years, Mr. Chetwode, so you can understand that my interest is not merely a business one."

"Quite so," Arnold agreed, glancing at the man by his side with a momentary curiosity. He had been in Tooley Street for four months, and even now he was still unused to the close atmosphere, the pungent smells, the yellow fog which seemed always more or less to hang about in the streets; the dark, cavernous-looking warehouse with its gloomy gas-jets always burning. From where they were standing at that moment, the figures of the draymen and warehous.e.m.e.n moving backwards and forwards seemed like phantoms in some subterranean world. It was odd to think of thirty-five years spent amid such surroundings!

"It is a long time," he remarked.

Mr. Jarvis nodded.

"I mention it," he said, "so that you may understand that my remarks to you are not dictated by curiosity or impertinence. Mr.

Weatherley's behavior and mode of life has been entirely changed, Chetwode, since his marriage."

"I can understand that," Arnold replied, with a faint smile. What, indeed, had so beautiful a creature as Fenella to do with Samuel Weatherley of Tooley Street!

"Mrs. Weatherley," Mr. Jarvis continued, "is, no doubt, a very beautiful and accomplished lady. Whether she is a suitable wife for Mr. Weatherley I am not in a position to judge, never having had the opportunity of speech with her, but as regards the effect of his marriage upon Mr. Weatherley, I should like you to understand, Chetwode, at once, that it is my opinion, and the opinion of all of us, and of all his business friends, that a marked change for the worse in Mr. Weatherley has set in during the last few months."

"I am sorry to hear it," Arnold interposed.

"You, of course," Mr. Jarvis went on, "could scarcely have noticed it, as you have been here so short a time, but I can a.s.sure you that a year or so ago the governor was a different person altogether. He was out in the warehouse half the morning, watching the stuff being unloaded, sampling it, and suggesting customers. He took a live interest in the business, Chetwode. He was here, there and everywhere. To-day--for the last few weeks, indeed--he has scarcely left his office. He sits there, signs a few letters, listens to what I have to say, and goodness knows how he spends the rest of his time. Where the business would be," Mr. Jarvis continued, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "if it were not for us who know the running of it so well, I can't say, but a fact it is that Mr. Weatherley seems to have lost all interest in it."

"I wonder he doesn't retire," Arnold suggested.

Mr. Jarvis looked at him in amazement.

"Retire!" he exclaimed. "Why should he retire? What would he do?

Isn't it as comfortable for him to read his newspaper over the fire in the office here as at home? Isn't it better for him to have his friends all around him, as he has here, than to sit up in his drawing-room in business hours with never a soul to speak to? Such men as Mr. Weatherley, Chetwode, or as Mr. Weatherley's father was, don't retire. If they do, it means the end."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear what you tell me," Arnold said. "I haven't seen much of Mr. Weatherley, of course, but he seems devoted to his wife."

"Infatuated, sir! Infatuated is the word!" Mr. Jarvis declared.

"She is very charming," Arnold remarked, thoughtfully.

Mr. Jarvis looked as though there were many things which he could have said but refrained from saying.

"You will not suggest, Chetwode," he asked, "that she married Mr.

Weatherley for any other reason than because he was a rich man?"

Arnold was silent for a moment. Somehow or other, he had accepted the fact of her being Mrs. Weatherley without thinking much as to its significance.

"I suppose," he admitted, "that Mr. Weatherley's money was an inducement."

"There is never anything but evil," Mr. Jarvis declared, "comes from a man or a woman marrying out of their own circle of friends. Now Mr. Weatherley might have married a dozen ladies from his own circle here. One I know of, a very handsome lady, too, whose father has been Lord Mayor. And then there's young Tidey's sisters, in the office there. Any one of them would have been most suitable. But no!

Some unlucky chance seems to have sent Mr. Weatherley on that continental journey, and when you once get away from England, why, of course, anything may happen. I don't wish to say anything against Mrs. Weatherley, mind," Mr. Jarvis continued, "but she comes from the wrong cla.s.s of people to make a city man a good wife, and I can't help a.s.sociating her and her friends and her manner of living with the change that's come over Mr. Weatherley."

Arnold swung himself up on to the top of a barrel and sat looking down at his companion.

"Mr. Jarvis," he said, "you and I see this matter, naturally, from very different standpoints. You have known Mr. Weatherley for thirty-five years. I have known him for four months, and he never spoke a word to me until a few days ago. Practically, therefore, I have known Mr. and Mrs. Weatherley the same length of time. Under the circ.u.mstances, I must tell you frankly that my sympathies are with Mrs. Weatherley. Not only have I found her a very charming woman, but she has been most unnecessarily kind to me."

Mr. Jarvis was silent for a moment.

"I had forgotten," he admitted, "that that might be your point of view. It isn't, of course, possible to look for any feeling of loyalty for the chief from any one who has only been here a matter of a few months. Perhaps I was wrong to have spoken to you at all, Chetwode."

"If there is anything I can do," Arnold began,--

"It's in this way," Mr. Jarvis interrupted. "Owing, I dare say, to Mrs. Weatherley, you have certainly been put in a unique position here. You see more of Mr. Weatherley now than any one of us. For that reason I was anxious to make a confidant of you. I tell you that I am worried about Mr. Weatherley. He is a rich man and a prosperous man. There is no reason why he should sit in his office and gaze into the fire and look out of the window as though the place were full of shadows and he hated the sight of them. Yet that is what he does nowadays, Chetwode. What does it mean? I ask you frankly. Haven't you noticed yourself that his behavior is peculiar?"

"Now you mention it," Arnold replied, "I certainly have noticed that he was very strange in his manner this morning. He seemed very upset about that Rosario murder. Mr. Rosario was at his house the other night, you know. Were they great friends, do you think?"

Mr. Jarvis shook his head.

"Not at all," he said. "He was simply, I believe, one of Mrs.

Weatherley's society acquaintances. But that there's something gone wrong with Mr. Weatherley, no one would deny who sees him as he is now and knows him as he was a year or so ago. There's Johnson, the foreman packer, who's been here as long as I have; and Elwick, the carter; and Hummel, in the export department;--we've all been talking together about this."

"He doesn't speculate, I suppose?" Arnold enquired.

"Not a ha'penny," Mr. Jarvis replied, fervently. "He has spent large sums of money since his marriage, but he can afford it. It isn't money that's worrying him."

"Perhaps he doesn't hit it off with his wife," Arnold remarked.

Mr. Jarvis drew a little breath. For a moment he was speechless. To him it seemed something like profanity that this young man should make so casual a suggestion.

"Mrs. Weatherley, sir," he declared, "was, I believe, without any means whatever when Mr. Weatherley made her his wife. Mr.

Weatherley, as you know, is at the head of this house, the house of Samuel Weatherley & Co., bankers Lloyds. It should be the business of the lady, sir, to see that she hits it off, as you put it, with a husband who has done her so much honor."

Arnold smiled.

"That is all very well, Mr. Jarvis," he said, "but you must remember that Mrs. Weatherley had compensations for her lack of wealth. She is very beautiful, and she is, too, of a different social rank."

Mr. Jarvis was frankly scornful.

"Why, she was a foreigner," he declared. "I should like to know of what account any foreign family is against our good city firms, such as I have been speaking of. No, Chetwode, my opinion is that she's brought a lot of her miserable, foreign hangers-on over here, and that somehow or other they are worrying Mr. Weatherley. I should like, if I could, to interest you in the chief. You can't be expected to feel as I do towards him. At the same time, he is the head of the firm, and you are bound, therefore, to feel a certain respect due to him, and I thought that if I talked to you and put these matters before you, which have occurred not only to me but to those others who have been with Mr. Weatherley for so many years, you might be able to help us by watching, and if you can find any clue as to what is bothering him, why, I'd be glad to hear of it, for there isn't one of us who wouldn't do anything that lay in his power to have the master back once more as he used to be a few years ago. Why, the business seems to have lost all its spring, nowadays,"

Mr. Jarvis went on, mournfully. "We do well, of course, because we couldn't help doing well, but we plod along more like a machine. It was different altogether in the days when Mr. Weatherley used to bring out the morning orders himself and chaff us about selling for no profit. You follow me, Chetwode?"

"I'll do what I can," Arnold agreed. "Of course, I see your point of view, and I must admit that the governor does seem depressed about something or other."

"If anything turns up," Mr. Jarvis asked eagerly, "anything tangible, I mean, you'll tell me of it, won't you, there's a good fellow? Of course, I suppose your future is outside my control now, but I engaged you first, you know, Chetwode. There aren't many things done here that I haven't a say in."