Part 10 (1/2)

Remember Netta! You'll be as grand as any of 'em now, if you do only begin right, and are being study and persevaring, and sticking to your business. I 'ouldn't wonder if you was to be a councillor some day. Only to think of me, mother of Councillor Jenkins! You may be looking higher than Netta, and be marrying a real lady, and be riding in your coach and four, and be dining with my Lord Single ton, and be in the London papers; and I 'ouldn't wonder if you was to be visiting the Queen and Prince Albert again, and behaving your picture taken to put into your own books and the ”'l.u.s.trated.” I always was saying I 'ould be making a gentleman of you, and I have.'

'But, mother, before I can do anything like this I must pay my debts and make a new beginning. I will marry Netta, now, in spite of the whole tribe of Davids and Jonathans, and they shall see us as much above them as--as--money can make us. Now, mother, we must have a search for the money.'

'Not whilst your father is in the house, Howel; I should be afraid. Be you sure his spirit'll be looking after the money till the funeral's over.'

'Nonsense; where are the keys? We'll have a turn at the old bureau anyhow. Money I must have, at once, and Rowland is as obstinate as a pig about what the governor told him.'

'Indeet, and indeet, Howel, you had better don't. Suppose it 'ould bring him to life again?'

'I'll risk that. Give me the keys.'

Mrs Jenkins handed a bunch of keys to her son with trembling fingers.

'Tak you a drop of spirits first. It do show how rich they are thinking us now. There's Jones, the Red Cow, and Lewis, draper, are letting us have as much credit as we like; and they 'ouldn't let us have as much as a dobbin or a yard of tape before poor Griffey died.'

Howel drank a wine-gla.s.s of raw brandy and went upstairs with the keys in his hand. He crept stealthily into that room where the miser breathed his last, as if fearful of arousing the body within the drawn curtains.

He proceeded to the bureau and tried the various keys of the large bunch that he now grasped for the first time in his life. At last one key entered the lock and turned in it. Hus.h.!.+ there is a sound in the room.

He turns very pale as he glances round. He sees no movement anywhere.

The curtains are so still that he almost wishes the wind would stir them. He opens the bureau and again looks wistfully round. He is almost sure that the curtains move. 'Coward that I am,' he cries, 'what do I fear?'

He turns again, and, looking into the bureau, sees that all the open divisions are filled with papers, and imagines what must be the contents of the closed and secret compartments. As he touches one of these a tremor seizes him, and he fancies that a hand is on his shoulder. He starts and turns, but the curtains are motionless as ever. He goes into the pa.s.sage and calls, 'Mother, come here. Quick! I want you directly.'

Mrs Jenkins comes upstairs, looking as pale as her son.

'Just help me out with this bureau, mother; I cannot examine it in this room, you have put such ridiculous notions into my head.'

'I'm afraid, Howel.'

'Nonsense, come directly, or I must get some one else.'

The pair went into the room and tried to move the bureau that had stood for nearly fifty years in that corner untouched, save by the husband and father, now lifeless near them. It was very heavy, and scarcely could their united strength move it from its resting-place. They finally succeeded, however, in dragging it towards the door, in doing which they had to pa.s.s the foot of the bed. Unconsciously they pushed the bed with the corner of the bureau and shook it. They nearly sank to the ground with terror, expecting, for the moment, to see the miser arise, and again take possession of his treasures. The mother rushed into the pa.s.sage, the son again called himself a coward, and, with a great effort, pushed the bureau through the door and shut it after him.

'Now, mother, help to get it into my room. One would think we were breaking into another man's house, instead of taking possession of our own property.'

With the whole of their joint strength they succeeded in getting the heavy piece of furniture into Howel's room, where, having first locked the door, they proceeded to examine its contents. Disappointment awaited them; they could find nothing but papers. Deeds, mortgages, bills, letters, accounts, were arranged in every open and shut division. The drawers contained nothing else, and the little locked cupboard in the centre, the key of which was found upon the bunch, also enshrined nothing but a few very particular doc.u.ments.

'These papers could not have made the bureau so heavy,' said Howel, biting his nails. 'There must be secret drawers.'

He pulled out the drawers and papers, and threw them on his bed. He tried to move the bureau, and found it almost as heavy as ever.

'I am thinking, Howel, bach, that cupboard don't go through to the back of the bureau,' suggested Mrs Jenkins.

Howel seized the poker and aimed a blow at the cupboard; the mahogany did not give way, but they fancied they heard a c.h.i.n.king sound within.

'I am thinking,' said the mother, 'that it must be a double bureau. It is looking so much broader than it do seem.'

Howel examined it, and began to think so, too; he took some carpenter's tools down from the shelf, and set to work to try to pierce the back of the bureau with a gimlet, in order to see if the gimlet would appear on the other side.

He worked the implement through a portion of the wood, and then found its course stopped by some still harder matter. He had recourse to his penknife, with which he hacked a hole in the wood, large enough to find that there was an inner back of iron, or some kind of metal. Each new obstacle served only to inflame his impatience, and to provoke his temper. He forgot the bed in the next room, and everything else in the world except the attainment of his object, and running downstairs, returned with a large sledge-hammer that he found in the coal-hole. With his strength concentrated in one blow, he swung it against the back of the bureau, and had the satisfaction of finding his wishes gratified.