The White Virgin Part 35

"I: Clive Reed."

"Down directly."

Five minutes later the door was opened by the Doctor himself, and quite at home there, Clive Reed sprang in to face his old friend standing in dressing-gown and slippers.

"How is she?" he cried, in a low excited whisper. "How is she?"

repeated the Doctor, as he closed the door. "Here, come this way."

He took a chamber candlestick from where he had set it down on the hall table, and led on into his consulting-room, with its walls adorned with grim-looking engravings of medical magnates, and its table with books and inkstand, two stethoscopes standing upright on the chimneypiece like a pair of very ancient attenuated vases.

"You came up at once, then?" said the Doctor grimly.

"Of course. I caught the mail; but don't keep me--in suspense," Clive was about to say, but he checked himself, for positions had altered now, and he had no right to be in suspense, so he used the word "waiting."

"Waiting!" said the Doctor. "What do you mean?"

"Your telegram--about Janet. Is she very bad?"

"Confound Janet for a weak-minded idiot!" cried the Doctor testily.

"Nothing of the kind. I wired to you to come up about this cursed mine."

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Clive, with a feeling of relief. "Your telegram explained nothing, and I thought the poor girl was ill."

"Ill! No: I wish she were. Be a lesson to her--a hussy. Now, then, what am I to do? Nice business this, sir. Here, on the strength of your representations, I put a life's savings in that cursed mine, and they're pretty well all swept away."

Clive looked at him, as if doubting his old friend's sanity.

"Don't stand staring at me like a confounded stock-fish, sir. You've got me into this sc.r.a.pe, now tell me how to get out of it. Hang it all, Clive, I've been like a second father to you, and the least you could have done would have been to give me fair warning, so that I might have--have--hedged--yes, that's the word my lovely son-in-law would have used. Now, then, before it is too late. I daresay I could get them back from him, as I only saw him to-night. Can you help me to make a better price?"

Clive seated himself, for he was weary, and the Doctor, after setting down his candlestick, was walking up and down the room as he talked.

"My dear Doctor," said Clive, "will you explain what you mean? Cursed mine--too late--get them back from him. To begin with, who is `him'?"

"Who is `him'?" cried the Doctor furiously. "Why, that confounded brother of yours. After all that has pa.s.sed, I was obliged to go to him hat in hand, and humble myself so as to try and save what I could out of the fire."

"In heaven's name, what fire, sir?" cried Clive, who, after his sleepless night and anxiety, was growing more and more confused.

"For," continued the Doctor, without heeding the question, "I said to myself: He's cursedly knowing on 'Change, and for the sake of Janet and his expectations of what he may get from me, he'll do his best, and he may know where to get a good price."

"My dear sir, have you taken leave of your senses?"

"Almost, you scoundrel. Money spoils all men. Sucks all the honesty out of them. You're as bad as the rest. But I didn't think you would put me in such a hole. Now then: shall I leave them in Jessop's hands or place them in yours, to cheat somebody else with the cursed rubbish.

I'm a bit reckless now, for it's ruin nearly, and drudgery to the end of my days."

"Look here," said Clive excitedly; "do I understand that you have given your shares in the `White Virgin' to Jessop to sell?"

"Of course you do, sir. Was I to wait till they were worth nothing?"

"Look here, Doctor: speak plainly. Are you all right?"

"Confound you, no: I'm all wrong."

"But explain yourself. Those shares are worth double what you gave for them."

"I tell you they're hardly worth their weight as waste-paper," roared the Doctor. "Don't stare at me with that miserable a.s.sumption of innocency about your cursed bankrupt old mine."

Clive burst out laughing.

"Why, what do you mean, Doctor? What precious mare's nest have you been discovering in the dark?"

"Mare's nest?" cried the Doctor, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a heap of newspapers from a side table, and throwing them in the young man's lap, "look at that, sir, and that, and that. Four days now has this been going on. I was down in the country at a consultation, and I came back to find myself a ruined man."

"What!" roared Clive, as his eyes fell upon a notice with a full heading--"`Collapse of the "White Virgin" scheme--bubble cleverly inflated--burst at last--serious loss.' Good heavens!"

"Good other place!" growled the Doctor. "Oh, Clive Reed! You are a broken Reed indeed to lean on, and enter into a poor man's hand. But there, don't stop over those papers; they are alike, and the price has gone down to nothing. Tell me; can you sell my shares better than Jessop can? I must have a little back for my outlay."

"What did Jessop tell you?"

"What does every man tell you when he has you at his mercy? That the paper was worthless, but he might get some speculative fool to buy them; and if I waited there at his office he would try, but I must expect the merest trifle for them."

"Well?" said Clive, frowning.

"Don't take it so confoundedly cool, sir. I was obliged to do the best I could, and I put myself in his hands."

"Well?"

"And he went out and brought the speculative person--a Mr Wrigley, a solicitor."

"Well?"

"Well! Ill, man, ill!"

"But what did my worthy brother's friend say?"

"Shrugged his shoulders--said it was throwing money away--mere gambling.

He did not want them, but to oblige his old friend, Mr Jessop Reed, he would take them at a pound apiece, and the chance of making an eighth out of them."

"And you laughed at him?"

"Laughed? I nearly cried at him, and was only too glad to get the little bit of salvage from a man who bought as a speculation, and would not care so much if he lost."

"But you said you had let Jessop have them to try and sell."

"Did I? Yes, I think I did."

"And asked me if you got them back, whether I could deal better with them."

"Yes, I suppose I did, but I don't want to swindle any one into buying worthless stock."