Young Mr. Barters Repentance | Page 4

short notice. Said I couldn't do better with it anywhere, and at last I told him, "Look here, Fellowes, I shall begin to think by and by there's something wrong." He went as red as a turkey-cock, begad, and drew a note on their London agent like a lord, and here I am with the money. Eight thousand pounds.'
By this time he had drawn a bundle of bank-notes from the pocket-book, and now sat flicking the edges of the notes with the tips of his great broad fingers. Bommaney heard the crisp music, and looked up with a momentary glance of hunger in his eyes.
'That's Patty's little private handful,' the visitor continued, opening the packet of notes, and smoothing it upon his knee. 'Eighty notes of a hundred. Pretty little handful, isn't it? They don't look,' he added, with his head reflectively on one side and his eyebrows raised a little, 'they don't look as they'd buy as much as they will.'
Bommaney tried to find a commonplace word by answer, and an inaudible something died drily in his throat. When his companion began to speak again, the bankrupt merchant wondered that he made no comment on his ghastly face--he knew his face was ghastly--or his shaking hands. There was an intuition in his mind so strong and clear that he trembled at its prophecy.
'Patty,' said the visitor, 'will have everything in time, and a pretty good handful, too. But she's bent on being independent, and she wants to have her own money in her own hands. She pretends it's all because she wants to pay her milliner's bills, and that kind of thing, herself; but I know better. The fact is'--he lowered his voice and chuckled--'the fact is, she doesn't want me to know how much she spends in charity. You look here, Bommaney'--the merchant's heart seemed to stand still, and then to beat so wild an alarum that he wondered the other did not hear it The intuition multiplied in strength. He heard beforehand the spoken words, the very tones which marked them. 'You're a safe man, you're a smart man. I suppose there isn't anybody in London who can lay out money to more advantage than you can. I know it's a great favour to ask, but I think you'll do it for Patty's sake and mine, if I do ask you. Take this, and invest it for her. Will you, now?'
He stood up with the bundle of notes outstretched in his hand. The merchant rose and accepted it, and looked him, with a sudden curious calm and steadiness, straight in the face.

II
Mr. Bommaney was alone again, and if it had not been for the actual presence of the bundle of bank-notes upon the table, he could well have thought that the whole episode had been no more than a dreadful and disturbing dream. It was very hard, he thought complainingly, that a man should come and put so horrible a temptation in his way. He would not yield to it--of course he would not yield to it. He had been an honest and honourable man all his life long, and had never so much as felt a monetary temptation until now. It was humiliating to feel it now--it was horrible to have his fingers itching for another man's money, and his heart coveting it, and his brain, in spite of himself, devising countless means of use for it. It was quite unbearable to know that the money might tide him over his troubles and land him in prosperity again, if he could only dare to use it, and risk engulfing it with the lost wreckage of his own fortunes.
But no, no, no. He had never meant to use it. His only reason for accepting it had been that he had not found the courage to declare his true position to his old friend and school companion. Perhaps, he told himself (trying to silence and cajole that inward monitor and accuser who would not be silenced or cajoled), perhaps if Brown had been less confident and truthful--if he had had less faith in his old companion's powers as a man of business--it would have come easier to tell the truth. And how futile a thing it was to stave off discovery for a single day! How doubly ashamed he would have to feel after that poor pretence of responsible solidity! If he had only been disposed to be tempted at all--here surely was an added reason for yielding to temptation.
Obviously the first, and, indeed, the only thing to be done, was to bank this money in Brown's name, and so have done with it; and yet any feeling of haste in that respect would seem to imply a fear of temptation, which he was, of course, quite resolute