ABOUT the time when Fred was starting from Yalton Mr. Wedderburn, the friend of the family, might have been seen in his office in a condition very unlike his usual calm. That he was very much disturbed about something was evident. His table was covered with all those carefully-arranged letters and docketed papers which are essential to the pose of a man of business; and by intervals he wrote a letter—or, rather, part of a letter—to which he added a line whenever he could fix his thoughts to it; but these intervals were scattered through the reflections and calculations of several hours, to which Mr. Wedderburn returned, from minute to minute, laying down his pen and falling back into some more absorbing subject of thought. Sometimes he got up and walked about the room, going from one window to the other, and staring out at each as if the slight variation of the view could afford him some light upon the subject over which he puckered his brows. Now and then he said to himself audibly, “I must go out to-night.” He was not a man who indulged in the habit of speaking to himself, nor was there much in these words which could throw light upon the subject of his thoughts; but it was evidently a sort of relief to him to say this as he paced heavily about the room and looked out, staring blankly, neither seeing, nor expecting to see, anything that would clear up the trouble on his face. “I must go out to-night.” This phrase, however, meant a great deal to the sober and reserved Edinburgh lawyer.
It meant that to the house which he visited so often, receiving hospitality, kindness, and a sense of almost family well-being, for which he gave back nothing but a steady, undemonstrative friendship, the moment had now come when he must go in another character—in the character, indeed, of an anxious brother and helper, but yet as announcing an approaching catastrophe and the breaking-up of a superstructure of long-established prosperity and peace. He had not been convinced of the necessity of this till to-day. Whispers, indeed, had come to his ears of doubtful speculations and a position which was beginning to be assailed by questions which never should arise as to the position of a man in business. But he had lent a deaf ear to all that was malicious, and brushed away all friendly fears. “Bob D’yell’s as sensible a fellow as ever stepped. It’ll take strong evidence to make me believe that he’s been playing ducks and drakes with his money.” This confident speech from a man of Pat Wedderburn’s authority (in Edinburgh, as in fashionable circles, the well-known members of the community are generally distinguished by their Christian names) had done much to support a credit which was not so robust as it had been. But this morning Mr. Wedderburn had heard very unpleasant things—things which had gone to his heart, and wounded both his affection and his pride. He had a pride in his friend’s credit as in his own. And when he thought of the cheerful household and all its innocent indulgences, Mr. Wedderburn struck the table with his fist in the trouble of his heart. To think that they might have to leave Yalton, to give up their little luxuries, their social rank, all the pleasures of their life, affected this old bachelor as probably it would not at all affect themselves. He could have shed angry tears over the “putting down” of Mrs. Dalyell’s carriage and the girls’ ponies, which, if it came to that, and they were aware that their position required such sacrifices, these ladies would give up without a murmur; and, perhaps, none of them would have much objection to come “in” to a house in Edinburgh instead of Yalton, which was a possibility which made Mr. Wedderburn swear. He was very unhappy about them, one and all, and about his life-long friend, Bob D’yell, who must no doubt have been in the wrong, and whom sometimes in his heart he blamed angrily and bitterly, thinking what the effect of his rashness would be to the others. Pat Wedderburn was grieved to the heart. He could as easily have believed in himself going wrong; “But, God bless us!” he said to himself, “it’s not going wrong. He has been taken in; he was always a sanguine fellow, and he’s been deceived.” His thoughts finally resolved themselves into the necessity, above and before all things, of having a long talk with Bob; and he repeated, as he once more stared mechanically out of the further window, “I must go out to-night.”
He could not, however, go “out” before the usual time, and in the interval he could not rest. Finally, he took his hat and left his office with a better inspiration. If he could find his friend at one of the establishments in which he had an interest, the talk might be had at once, without any need, at least for to-night, of disturbing the peaceful echoes of Yalton. Mr. Wedderburn went out for this purpose with very tender thoughts of his friend mingled with his anger. “Why couldn’t the fellow tell me in time? But the Lord grant it may still be in time! There’s things I might have done. I’m not without funds nor resources, nor ideas, either, for that matter.” And as Mr. Wedderburn went along the orderly Edinburgh street, he burst out into a kind of laugh, such as is among many elderly Scotchmen the last evidence of emotion, and said within himself: “To the half of my kingdom!” The humour of the contrast between that romantic phrase and the very prosaic, rapid calculation he had gone through as to the money he—not a romantic person at all, an Edinburgh W.S., of fifty-five, and of the most humdrum appearance—could command: and the true feeling with which he had realised his friend’s misfortune, burst forth in that anomalous sound. A woman who was passing turned round and looked at him with puzzled alarm; and a boy, one of those rude commentators who spare nobody’s feelings, called out, “That’s a daft man; he’s laughing to himsel’.” “Laughing,” said Mr. Wedderburn with something like a groan: “there is little laughing in my head.” And so he went on to the Railway Office, and the Insurance Office, to ask for Mr. Dalyell.
At the railway he had not been seen that day, at the other office he had appeared for about half an hour only.
“He will have returned home, I suppose,” Wedderburn said indifferently.
“Well, no, sir; not at once,” said the clerk who answered his questions. “I heard him saying he was feeling fagged, and that he was going out to Portobello for a dip in the sea and a good swim.”
“It’s a little cold for that,” said Wedderburn.
“Well, it may be a little cold,” admitted the clerk cautiously, “but Mr. D’yell is a great man for the sea.”
“He will probably be going out by the usual train,” Mr. Wedderburn said to himself as he turned away. But there was no appearance of Dalyell in the train. The lawyer walked to Yalton through the cornfields, in which the harvest had begun, just as the sun was sinking. The ruddy autumnal light came into his eyes, half blinding him with its long, level rays. Everything was rosy with the brilliancy of the sunset; the blue sky flushed with ruddy clouds, the warm colour of the sheaves catching a still warmer tone from the sun. All was peaceful, wealthy, full of external comfort and riches, and the house of Yalton caught the sinking gleams from the west upon its high roof and pinnacles like a benediction. The trees were taking the autumn livery here and there, giving as yet only a little additional warmth to the landscape. To go from Yalton to Melville Street, or some other dread abode of stony gentility in Edinburgh, how could they ever bear it? Mr. Wedderburn had been going over all his resources as he made his little journey, and he had reckoned up what he could spare to set his friend on his legs again. Perhaps there might yet be time!
When he went into the drawing-room where Mrs. Dalyell was sitting, she raised her head from her work, with a smile on her face. And then he observed a little alteration—oh, not so much as a cloud upon her face, not even a look that could be called disappointment, but only the slightest scarcely perceptible change of expression. “Mr. Wedderburn!” she said. “I’m very glad to see you: but I thought it was Robert,” and she held out her hand to him with all the easy confidence of habitual friendship. She was not disappointed; there was no doubt in her mind that Robert was coming, if not behind his friend, at least with the next train.
“You will be surprised to see me so soon again,” he said, feeling a little embarrassed. “You will think you are never to be quit of that old fellow—but I wanted to have a long talk with Bob on some business; and as I could not find him at the office——”
“No,” said Mrs. Dalyell; “he said as soon as he could get his business over he was going down to Portobello for a dip in the sea. I never knew such a man for the sea. No doubt that has made him lose his train—for he’s generally very punctual by this train.”
“That is what I thought,” said Mr. Wedderburn. “I thought I would meet him and come out with him. But the next will bring him, no doubt.”
“In about three-quarters of an hour,” said Mrs. Dalyell, calmly: and she added, “It’s a beautiful evening, and it’s a pity to keep you in the house. We should take the good of the fine weather as long as it lasts. Never mind me: you will find the girls upon the terrace somewhere. But take a cup of tea before you go out.”
“I will take a cup of tea,” said the visitor, “thankfully. But why not come out upon the terrace yourself? It is the most lovely afternoon, and the wind, as much as there is, is from the west. It’s a sin to stay in the house when you have such a place to see the sunset from. Now if you were in Melville Street, for instance——”
“Why Melville Street?” said Mrs. Dalyell with a laugh—but she did not wait for an answer. “If I had to live in Edinburgh I would never go there. I would prefer the south side—or old George’s Square where the houses are so good. I sometimes think we will have to come in for the winter now that Susie’s of an age for parties, for there is little gaiety for a young thing here.”
“That’s true,” said Mr. Wedderburn, and he gave her a look in which there was an inquiry and a moment’s doubt. Did she perhaps know something? Had Bob D’yell confided some hint of approaching calamity or necessary retrenchment to the wife of his bosom? What so natural, what so wise? Mrs. Dalyell’s head was a little bent over the table where she stood pouring out a cup of tea for the visitor; but she raised it, meeting that inquiring look with the perfect frankness of her usual demeanour and the calm of a woman round whom there had never been any mysteries. She was struck, however, by his look. “Is there anything the matter?” she said. “You are looking very serious.” Then, for heaven knows what womanish reason, it occurred to her that Mr. Wedderburn was himself in trouble, and wanting something of her husband. “You know,” she said with a little emphasis, “that whatever might be the matter, if there’s anything that Robert could do, Mr. Wedderburn, you are as sure of him as of a brother.” “God bless her innocence!” the lawyer said to himself.
“Not a bit,” he said. “There’s nothing the matter: but thank you all the same for saying that. Bob D’yell’s been to me as a brother, since we were boys together—and will be I hope till the end.”
Mrs. Dalyell put out her soft hand to him over the tea-table with a smile. There was water in his eyes, though, fortunately, as he stood with his back to the light, it could not be seen—but there was none in hers. Her eyes were as serene as the evening skies; and her soft hand, which perhaps was a little too soft, with no bones in it to speak of, the hand of a woman never used to do much for herself, met his strong grasp, in which there was more than many an oath of fidelity, with a moderate and simple kindness which showed at once how natural and genuine was the friendship to which she thus pledged her husband, and how devoid of all tragical elements so far as her comprehension went. She was a little surprised by Mr. Wedderburn’s grip, which rather hurt that soft hand, but led the way to the terrace, after he had taken his tea, with all her usual serenity. She took a shawl from the stand in the hall and wrapped herself in it as she went out. In Scotland even in July it is wise to take a shawl when you go out to see the sunset; how much more in September! Indeed, after she had taken two or three turns upon the terrace, she went in again, saying that it was all very well for “you young things” (with a smile at Mr. Wedderburn), but that she knew what rheumatism was. Susie and Alice were very good company on the terrace, and they had a thousand things to say to their old friend, so that, though he had looked occasionally at his watch, he had not taken very decided note of the passage of time, until an hour after, when Mrs. Dalyell came back again, with a shawl this time over her head. The sun had quite gone down, the shadows were lengthening, and twilight stealing on. “Do you mean to say,” Mrs. Dalyell said as she came down the steps to the terrace, “that your father’s not here? I made sure he must be here with you: the train’s been in this half-hour, and there’s not another till nine—and no telegram. I don’t know what it can mean.”
It could not be said, perhaps, that she was anxious, but she was uneasy, not knowing what to think. Mr. Wedderburn, for his part, started, as if the fault had somehow been his. “Bless me!” he said, “I had forgotten all about it. I might have gone down and met the train.”
“That would have done little good,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “for if he had come by it he would have been here before now: the thing that astonishes me is there’s no telegram. Sometimes Robert, like other people, is detained. Every business man must be detained now and then: but he always sends a telegram. I never knew him to fail.”
“That is the worst,” said Mr. Wedderburn, “of being too exact in your ways. If you ever depart from them by any accident everybody thinks something must have happened.”
“I don’t think something must have happened,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “but I don’t understand it. It’s so unlike him. He would rather take any trouble than keep me anxious; and I told him particularly we should be alone to-night, with no man except servants in the house. It’s not like Robert. It must have been something quite unforeseen.”
“Such things are always happening, my dear lady. He may have had to meet some man from London; he may even have had to go to London himself.”
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Dalyell, “you don’t think that’s likely? Without so much as a clean shirt! Besides, he would have sent a telegram,” she repeated, going back to the one thing of which she was sure.
“It’s the telegram you miss more than the man,” said Mr. Wedderburn with a laugh. It was very very little of a laugh. He was more miserable than she, for her anxiety was quite unmixed by any deeper sense of a possible reason for her husband’s absence. There was no reason for it, none whatever to her consciousness.
“That is just it. I want the telegram to explain the man. Of course, he might be called away. Would I have him tied to my apron-string? But a word of warning, that’s what I look for. ‘Kept by business and will not be back till the late train,’ or ‘Dining at the Lord President’s,’ or—it does not matter what it is. I am always glad that Robert should enjoy himself, so long as I have my telegram. But as it’s evident he’s not coming,” said Mrs. Dalyell, looking at her watch, “we must just take our dinner and hope he’s getting as good a one. He will be coming by the nine train.”
Mr. Wedderburn went in with very painful fancies, which he could not shake off. The moment would have come, perhaps, when Bob D’yell had to tell his family that he was a ruined man, and he would be shrinking from that stern necessity. His friend pictured him wandering about the dark streets, or sitting in the rooms above the Insurance Office, where there was space to receive on occasion a belated director, and counting up all he had—alas! would it not rather be all the debts he had—reckoning them, and asking himself how long it would be before the storm burst, and how he was to tell her, and what the poor children would do? That was what the poor fellow would be thinking, wherever he was. Instead of coming back—the good lawyer exclaimed within himself in a little attempt at anger, to keep his sympathy from becoming too heart-rending—to one that might have helped him! But that would be just like Bob D’yell—ready enough to come to you if you were in trouble, to give all his mind to what was to be done: but not if the trouble was his own: more likely then to hide himself, to think shame of it, as if misfortune was a man’s own fault. Mr. Wedderburn did not know what to do, whether to hurry into Edinburgh to make inquiries, or to wait on, and see whether he would arrive by the late train. Somehow he had very little faith that his friend would come home. He might go away, thinking, perhaps, that the creditors would be more gentle with his family if he were gone. And that would be called absconding! Heaven only could tell what in his despair the poor fellow might do.
Except suicide: there never occurred to his friend, in the endless thoughts he had on the subject, any fear of that, which to a Frenchman would be the first thing to be thought of—the natural refuge for a bankrupt. No, no!—come what might there was no need to think of that dark contingency. Besides, Mr. Wedderburn reflected, with a sense of the grim humour of the suggestion, that Dalyell, as the director of an insurance company, knew too well that such a step would take away the last resource his children might have. No, no!—not that. But he might go away. He might not be able to bear the sight of ruin as affecting them. That was what chiefly weighed upon himself—the woman and her children; the girls, who would not know what it meant; and poor Fred, who would know what it meant—who would have to abandon everything on which his heart was most set. Had Wedderburn been aware of the conversation which had taken place between Fred and his father his troubled thoughts would have been still more serious: as it was, all he could do was to keep his countenance, to look as like his ordinary as possible, not to frighten the poor things too soon.
But the dinner went over well enough. Mrs. Dalyell kept looking at the door every time it opened, though she knew it was only to admit a new dish, expecting her telegram. But it did not come. And the nine o’clock train arrived, and there was still no appearance of the master of the house. The footman was sent down to meet the train, and Wedderburn put on his coat, and said shyly that he would just take a turn and meet the truant. And the girls ran out by the terrace, and one strayed down the avenue to bring papa home. And though it was cold, Mrs. Dalyell opened one of the drawing-room windows that she might hear him coming. She was not alarmed: but she was so much surprised that it made her a little uneasy, for in all her married life such a thing had never happened to her before.
When it proved that he had not come by the nine o’clock train nobody knew what to think. By this time the telegraph-office was closed at the village, and there was no longer any hope of news that way: which, strangely enough, was a thing that rather calmed than otherwise Mrs. Dalyell’s mind.
“He must be coming by the midnight express,” she said.
“Would you like me to go in and see if there was anything the matter?” said Mr. Wedderburn.
“What could be the matter?” she said.
“Oh, he might be ill—or there might have been an accident!”
“In that case,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “Robert never would have omitted to send a telegram—or the people at the office, or wherever he was, would have done it. No, no! You would go in to Edinburgh anxious, and we could not let you know that he had got the express to stop. Just stay where you are. And we’ll hear all about it when he comes. And it’s a comfort to have you in the house.”
To this request Mr. Wedderburn at once yielded. If the poor fellow did come home, miserable and disheartened, it was better that he should see a friend’s face, and take counsel with a man who was ready to help and advise before he told her. Besides, it was better for her, poor thing, to have somebody to stand by her. And, oddly enough, now that there was no chance of that telegram she was not so anxious. She had no doubt of Robert coming by the express. She let Alice stay up beyond her bedtime to make up a rubber for Mr. Wedderburn, and took her share in the game quite cheerfully. She did not believe in either illness or accident. “He would have had no peace till I was by his bedside,” she said; “and anybody could have sent a telegram.” No, no, she had no fear of that: and expected now quite calmly the last train.
But Mr. Dalyell did not come by the midnight express.