Part 85 (1/2)
said he, with his sunny smile. ”You are here early this morning.”
”I want to say just a word to you in private, Mr. George.”
George led the way to his room, talking gaily. He pushed a chair towards Mr. Hastings, and took his own. Never a face more free from care than his; never an eye less troubled. He asked after Mrs. Hastings; asked after Reginald, who was daily expected home from a voyage--whether he had arrived. ”Maria dreamt last night that he had returned,” said he, laughing, ”and told her he was never going to sea again.”
Mr. Hastings remembered _his_ dreams--if dreams they could be called. He was beginning to think that he must have had nightmare.
”Mr. George, I have come to you upon a strange errand,” he began. ”Will you for a few moments regard me as a confidential friend, and treat me as one?”
”I hope it is what I always do, sir,” was the reply of George G.o.dolphin.
”Ay; but I want a proof of your friends.h.i.+p this morning. But for my being connected with you by close ties, I should not have so come. Tell me, honestly and confidentially, as between man and man--Is that trust-money safe?”
George looked at Mr. Hastings, his countenance slightly changing. Mr.
Hastings thought he was vexed.
”I do not understand you,” he said.
”I have heard a rumour--I have heard, in fact, two rumours--that---- The long and the short of it is this,” more rapidly continued Mr. Hastings, ”I have heard that there's something doubtful arising with the Bank.”
”What on earth do you mean?” exclaimed George G.o.dolphin.
”_Is_ there anything the matter? Or is the Bank as solvent as it ought to be?”
”I should be sorry to think it otherwise,” replied George. ”I don't understand you. What have you heard?”
”Just what I tell you. A friend spoke to me in private yesterday, when I was at Binham, saying that he had heard a suspicion of something being wrong with the Bank here. You will not be surprised that I thought of the nine thousand pounds I had just paid in.”
”Who said it?” asked George. ”I'll prosecute him if I can find out.”
”I dare say you would. But I have not come here to make mischief. I stopped his repeating it, and I, you know, am safe, so there's no harm done. I have pa.s.sed an uneasy night, and I have come to ask you to tell me the truth in all good faith.”
”The Bank is all right,” said George. ”I cannot imagine how such a report could by any possibility have arisen,” he continued, quitting the one point for the other. ”There is no foundation for it.”
George G.o.dolphin spoke in all good faith when he said he could not tell how the report could have arisen. He really could not. Nothing had transpired at Prior's Ash to give rise to it. Possibly he deemed, in his sanguine temperament, that he spoke in equally good faith, when a.s.suring Mr. Hastings that the Bank was all right: he may have believed that it would so continue.
”The money is safe, then?”
”Perfectly safe.”
”Otherwise, you must let me have it out now. Were it to be lost, it would be ruin to me, ruin to the little Chisholms.”
”But it is safe,” returned George, all the more emphatically, because it would have been remarkably inconvenient, for special reasons, to refund it then to Mr. Hastings. I repeat, that he may have thought it _was_ safe: safe in so far as that the Bank would get along somehow, and could repay it sometime. Meanwhile, the use of it was convenient--how convenient, none knew, except George.
”A packet of deeds has been mislaid; or is missing in some way,” resumed George. ”They belong to Lord Averil. It must be some version of that which has got abroad--if anything has got abroad.”
”Ay,” nodded Mr. Hastings. The opinion coincided precisely with what he had expressed to the agent.
”I know of nothing else wrong with the Bank,” spoke George. ”Were you to ask my brother, I am sure he would tell you that business was never more flouris.h.i.+ng. I wish to goodness people could be compelled to concern themselves with their own affairs instead of inventing falsehoods for their friends!”
Mr. Hastings rose. ”Your a.s.surance is sufficient, Mr. George: I do not require your brother's word to confirm it. I have asked it of you in all good faith, Maria being the link between us.”