The Complete Short Stories of Wilkie Collins. Уилки Коллинз
did you say?” cried Mr. Boxsious; “it wasn’t gradual at all. I was sharp — damned sharp, and I jumped at my first start in business slap into five hundred pounds in one day.”
“That was an extraordinary step in advance,” I rejoined. “I suppose you contrived to make some profitable investment — ”
“Not a bit of it! I hadn’t a spare sixpence to invest with. I won the money by my brains, my hands, and my pluck; and, what’s more, I’m proud of having done it. That was rather a curious case, Mr. Artist. Some men might be shy of mentioning it; I never was shy in my life and I mention it right and left everywhere — the whole case, just as it happened, except the names. Catch me ever committing myself to mentioning names! Mum’s the word, sir, with yours to command, Thomas Boxsious.”
“As you mention ‘the case’ everywhere,” said I, “perhaps you would not be offended with me if I told you I should like to hear it?”
“Man alive! haven’t I told you already that I can’t be offended? And didn’t I say a moment ago that I was proud of the case? I’ll tell you, Mr. Artist — but stop! I’ve got the interests of the Town Council to look after in this business. Can you paint as well when I’m talking as when I’m not? Don’t sneer, sir; you’re not wanted to sneer — you’re wanted to give an answer — yes or no?”
“Yes, then,” I replied, in his own sharp way. “I can always paint the better when I am hearing an interesting story.”
“What do you mean by talking about a story? I’m not going to tell you a story; I’m going to make a statement. A statement is a matter of fact, therefore the exact opposite of a story, which is a matter of fiction. What I am now going to tell you really happened to me.”
I was glad to see that he settled himself quietly in his chair before he began. His odd manners and language made such an impression on me at the time, that I think I can repeat his “statement” now, almost word for word as he addressed it to me.
The Lawyer’s Story of a Stolen Letter
I served my time — never mind in whose office — and I started in business for myself in one of our English country towns, I decline stating which. I hadn’t a farthing of capital, and my friends in the neighbourhood were poor and useless enough, with one exception. That exception was Mr. Frank Gatliffe, son of Mr. Gatliffe, member for the county, the richest man and the proudest for many a mile round about our parts. Stop a bit, Mr. Artist, you needn’t perk up and look knowing. You won’t trace any particulars by the name of Gatliffe. I’m not bound to commit myself or anybody else by mentioning names. I have given you the first that came into my head.
Well, Mr. Frank was a stanch friend of mine, and ready to recommend me whenever he got the chance. I had contrived to get him a little timely help — for a consideration, of course — in borrowing money at a fair rate of interest; in fact, I had saved him from the Jews. The money was borrowed while Mr. Frank was at college. He came back from college, and stopped at home a little while, and then there got spread about all our neighbourhood a report that he had fallen in love, as the saying is, with his young sister’s governess, and that his mind was made up to marry her. What! you’re at it again, Mr. Artist! You want to know her name, don’t you? What do you think of Smith?
Speaking as a lawyer, I consider report, in a general way, to be a fool and a liar. But in this case report turned out to be something very different. Mr. Frank told me he was really in love, and said upon his honour (an absurd expression which young chaps of his age are always using) he was determined to marry Smith, the governess — the sweet, darling girl, as he called her; but I’m not sentimental, and I call her Smith, the governess. Well, Mr. Frank’s father, being as proud as Lucifer, said “No,” as to marrying the governess, when Mr. Frank wanted him to say “Yes.” He was a man of business, was old Gatliffe, and he took the proper business course. He sent the governess away with a first-rate character and a spanking present, and then he, looked about him to get something for Mr. Frank to do. While he was looking about, Mr. Frank bolted to London after the governess, who had nobody alive belonging to her to go to but an aunt — her father’s sister. The aunt refuses to let Mr. Frank in without the squire’s permission. Mr. Frank writes to his father, and says he will marry the girl as soon as he is of age, or shoot himself. Up to town comes the squire and his wife and his daughter, and a lot of sentimentality, not in the slightest degree material to the present statement, takes places among them; and the upshot of it is that old Gatliffe is forced into withdrawing the word No, and substituting the word Yes.
I don’t believe he would ever have done it, though, but for one lucky peculiarity in the case. The governess’s father was a man of good family — pretty nigh as good as Gatliffe’s own. He had been in the army; had sold out; set up as a wine-merchant — failed — died; ditto his wife, as to the dying part of it. No relation, in fact, left for the squire to make inquiries about but the father’s sister — who had behaved, as old Gatliffe said, like a thoroughbred gentlewoman in shutting the door against Mr. Frank in the first instance. So, to cut the matter short, things were at last made up pleasant enough. The time was fixed for the wedding, and an announcement about it — Marriage in High Life and all that — put into the county paper. There was a regular biography, besides, of the governess’s father, so as to stop people from talking — a great flourish about his pedigree, and a long account of his services in the army; but not a word, mind ye, of his having turned wine-merchant afterward. Oh, no — not a word about that!
I knew it, though, for Mr. Frank told me. He hadn’t a bit of pride about him. He introduced me to his future wife one day when I met him out walking, and asked me if I did not think he was a lucky fellow. I don’t mind admitting that I did, and that I told him so. Ah! but she was one of my sort, was that governess. Stood, to the best of my recollection, five foot four. Good lissom figure, that looked as if it had never been boxed up in a pair of stays. Eyes that made me feel as if I was under a pretty stiff cross-examination the moment she looked at me. Fine red, kiss-and-come-again sort of lips. Cheeks and complexion — No, Mr. Artist, you wouldn’t identify her by her cheeks and complexion, if I drew you a picture of them this very moment. She has had a family of children since the time I’m talking of; and her cheeks are a trifle fatter, and her complexion is a shade or two redder now, than when I first met her out walking with Mr. Frank.
The marriage was to take place on a Wednesday. I decline mentioning the year or the month. I had started as an attorney on my own account — say six weeks, more or less, and was sitting alone in my office on the Monday morning before the wedding-day, trying to see my way clear before me and not succeeding particularly well, when Mr. Frank suddenly bursts in, as white as any ghost that ever was painted, and says he’s got the most dreadful case for me to advise on, and not an hour to lose in acting on my advice.
“Is this in the way of business, Mr. Frank?” says I, stopping him just as he was beginning to get sentimental. “Yes or no, Mr. Frank?” rapping my new office paper-knife on the table, to pull him up short all the sooner.
“My dear fellow” — he was always familiar with me — ”it’s in the way of business, certainly; but friendship — ”
I was obliged to pull him up short again, and regularly examine him as if he had been in the witness-box, or he would have kept me talking to no purpose half the day.
“Now, Mr. Frank,” says I, “I can’t have any sentimentality mixed up with business matters. You please to stop talking, and let me ask questions. Answer in the fewest words you can use. Nod when nodding will do instead of words.”
I fixed him with my eye for about three seconds, as he sat groaning and wriggling in his chair. When I’d done fixing him, I gave another rap with my paper-knife on the table to startle him up a bit. Then I went on.
“From what you have been stating up to the present time,” says I, “I gather that you are in a scrape which is likely