Part 8 (2/2)
”Nothing!” And Lucy, now worked up to hysterical pitch, felt as if she could break the windows, beat her mother, or do anything else equally reckless and irresponsible. ”I shall be left to myself now,--he will never ask me to his house again, never give me any parties or drives or opera-boxes or jewels,--he will never come to see me, and I shall have no pleasure at all! I shall sink into a dowdy, frowsy, shabby-genteel old maid for the rest of my life! It is _detestable_!” and she uttered a suppressed small shriek on the word, ”It has been a hateful, abominable birthday! Everybody will be laughing at me up their sleeves! Think of Lady Larford!”
This suggestion was too dreadful for comment, and Mrs. Sorrel closed her eyes, visibly shuddering.
”Who would have thought it possible!” she moaned drearily, ”a millionaire, with such mad ideas! I _had_ thought him always such a sensible man! And he seemed to admire you so much! What will he do with all his money?”
The fair Lucy sighed, sobbed, and swallowed her tears into silence. And again, like the doubtful refrain of a song in a bad dream, her mother moaned and murmured--
”What will he do with all his money!”
CHAPTER IV
Two or three days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formulae preliminary to an impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,--signs that his mind was wandering somewhat from the point at issue. He was a conscientious man, but he was getting old, and the disputations of obstinate or foolish clients were becoming troublesome to him. Moreover, the case concerning which his clerk was prosing along in the style of a chapel demagogue engaged in extemporary prayer, was an extremely uninteresting one, and he thought hazily of his lunch. The hour for that meal was approaching,--a fact for which he was devoutly thankful. For after lunch, he gave himself his own release from work for the rest of the day. He left it all to his subordinates, and to his partner Symonds, who was some eight or ten years his junior. He glanced at the clock, and beat a tattoo with his foot on the floor, conscious of his inward impatience with the reiterated ”Whereas the said” and ”Witnesseth the so-and-so,” which echoed dully on the otherwise unbroken silence. It was a warm, suns.h.i.+ny morning, but the brightness of the outer air was poorly reflected in the stuffy room, which though comfortably and even luxuriously furnished, conveyed the usual sense of dismal depression common to London precincts of the law. Two or three flies buzzed irritably now and then against the smoke-begrimed windowpanes, and the clerk's dreary preamble went on and on till Sir Francis closed his eyes and wondered whether a small ”catnap” would be possible between the sections of the seeming interminable doc.u.ment. Suddenly, to his relief, there came a sharp tap at the door, and an office boy looked in.
”Mr. Helmsley's man, sir,” he announced. ”Wants to see you personally.”
Sir Francis got up from his chair with alacrity.
”All right! Show him in.”
The boy retired, and presently reappearing, ushered in a staid-looking personage in black who, saluting Sir Francis respectfully, handed him a letter marked ”Confidential.”
”Nice day, Benson,” remarked the lawyer cheerfully, as he took the missive. ”Is your master quite well?”
”Perfectly well, Sir Francis, thank you,” replied Benson. ”Leastways he was when I saw him off just now.”
”Oh! He's gone then?”
”Yes, Sir Francis. He's gone.”
Sir Francis broke the seal of the letter,--then bethinking himself of ”Whereas the said” and ”Witnesseth the so-and-so,” turned to his worn and jaded clerk.
”That will do for the present,” he said. ”You can go.”
With pleasing haste the clerk put together the voluminous folios of blue paper from which he had been reading, and quickly made his exit, while Sir Francis, still standing, put on his gla.s.ses and unfolded the one sheet of note-paper on which Helmsley's communication was written.
Glancing it up and down, he turned it over and over--then addressed himself to the attentively waiting Benson.
”So Mr. Helmsley has started on his trip alone?”
”Yes, Sir Francis. Quite alone.”
”Did he say where he was going?”
”He booked for Southhampton, sir.”
”Oh!”
<script>