Book 1 - Chapter 3

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_ BOOK I CHAPTER III

That same evening, in Mr. Matthew Wesley's parlour, Johnson's Court, Captain Bewes told the whole story--or so much of it as he knew. The disappearance from on board his ship of a person so important as Mr. Samuel Annesley touched his prospects in the Company's service, and he did not conceal it. He had already reported the affair at the East India House and was looking forward to a highly uncomfortable interview with the Board of Governors: but he was concerned, too, as an honest man; and had jumped at Mrs. Wesley's invitation to sup with her in Johnson's Court and tell what he could.

Mr. Matthew Wesley, as host, sat at the head of his table and puffed at a churchwarden pipe; a small, narrow-featured man, in a chocolate-coloured suit, with steel buttons, and a wig of professional amplitude. On his right sat his sister-in-law, her bonnet replaced by a tall white cap: on his left the Captain in his shore-going clothes. He and the apothecary had mixed themselves a glass apiece of Jamaica rum, hot, with sugar and lemon-peel. At the foot of the table, with his injured leg supported on a cushion, reclined the Reverend Samuel Wesley, Junior, Usher of Westminster School, his gaunt cheeks (he was the plainest-featured of the Wesleys) wan with recent illness, and his eyes fixed on Captain Bewes's chubby face.

"Well, as I told you, Mr. Annesley's cabin lay beside my state-room, with a window next to mine in the stern: and, as I showed Mrs. Wesley to-day, my stateroom opens on the 'captain's cabin' (as they call it), where I have dined as many as two dozen before now, and where I do the most of my work. This has three windows directly under the big poop-lantern. I was sitting, that afternoon, at the head of the mahogany swing table (just as you might be sitting now, sir) with my back to the light and the midmost of the three windows wide open behind me, for air. I had the ship's chart spread before me when my second mate, Mr. Orchard, knocked at the door with word that all was ready to cast off. I asked him a few necessary questions, and while he stood there chatting I heard a splash just under my window. Well, that might have been anything--a warp cast off and the slack of it striking the water, we'll say. Whatever it was, I heard it, turned about, and with one knee on the window-locker (I remember it perfectly) took a glance out astern. I saw nothing to account for the sound: but I knew of a dozen things which might account for it-- anything, in fact, down to some lazy cabin-boy heaving the dinner-scraps overboard: and having, as you'll understand, a dozen matters on my mind at the moment, I thought no more of it, but turned to Mr. Orchard again and picked up our talk. To this day I don't know that there was anything in the sound, but 'tis fair to tell you all I can."--Captain Bewes took a sip at his grog, and over the rim looked down the table towards Samuel, who nodded.

The Captain nodded back, set down his glass, and resumed. "Quite so. The next thing is that Mr. Orchard, returning to deck two minutes later and having to pass the door of Mr. Annesley's cabin on his way, ran against an old Hindu beggar crouching there, fingering the door-handle and about to enter--or so Orchard supposed, and kicked him up the companion. He told me about it himself, next day, when we found the cabin empty and I began to make inquiries. 'Now here,' says you, 'here's a clue,' and I'm not denying but it may be one. Only when you look into it, what does it amount to? Mr. Annesley-- saving your presence--was known for a stern man: you may take it for certain he'd made enemies over there, and these Hindus are the devil (saving your presence again, ma'am) for nursing a grudge. 'Keep a stone in your pocket seven years: turn it, keep it for another seven; 'twill be ready at hand for your enemy'--that's their way. But, to begin with, an old _jogi_ is nothing strange to meet on a ship before she clears. These beggars in the East will creep in anywhere. And, next, you'll hardly maintain that an old beggarman ('seventy years old if a day,' said Orchard) was going to take an active man like Mr. Annesley and cram him bodily through a cabin window? 'Tis out of nature. And yet when we broke into his cabin, twenty-four hours later, there was not a trace of him: only his boxes neatly packed, his watch hanging to the beam and just running down, a handful of gold and silver tossed on to the bunk--just as he might have emptied it from his pockets--nothing else, and the whole cabin neat as a pin."

"But," objected Mr. Matthew Wesley, "if this _jogi_--or whatever you call him--had entered the cabin for no good, he would hardly have missed the money lying on the bunk."

"Sir, you must not judge these eastern mendicants by your London beggars. They are not thieves, nor avaricious, but religious men practising self-denial, who collect alms merely to support life, and believe that money so bestowed blesses the giver."

"A singularly perverted race!" was the apothecary's comment.

Captain Bewes turned towards Mr. Samuel, who next spoke from the penumbra at the far end of the table. "I believe, Captain," said he, "that these mendicants are as a rule the most harmless of men?"

"Wouldn't hurt a fly, sir. I have known some whose charity extended to the vermin on their own bodies."

Mrs. Wesley sat tapping the mahogany gently with her finger-tips. "To my thinking, the key of this mystery, if there be one, lies at Surat. My brother had powerful enemies: his letters make that clear. We must inquire into _them_--their numbers and the particular grudge they bore him--and also into the state of his mind. He was not the sort of person to be kidnapped in open day."

--"By a Thames waterman, for instance, madam?" said Captain Bewes, jocularly, but instantly changed his tone. "You suggest that he may have disappeared on his own account? To avoid his enemies, you mean?"

"As to his motives, sir, I say nothing: but it certainly looks to me as if he had planned to give you the slip."

"Tut-tut!" exclaimed Matthew. "And left his money behind? Not likely!"

"We have still his boxes to search--"

"Under power of attorney," Sam suggested. "We must see about getting it to-morrow."

"Well, madam"--Captain Bewes knocked out his pipe, drained his glass, and rose--"the boxes shall be delivered up as soon as you bring me authority: and I trust, for my own sake as well as yours, the contents will clear up this mystery for us. I shall be tied to my ship for the next three days, possibly for another week--"

He was holding out his hand to Mrs. Wesley when the door opened behind him, and Sally appeared.

"If you please," she announced, "there's a gentleman without, wishes to see the company. He calls himself Mr. Wesley."

"It cannot be Charles?" Mrs. Wesley turned towards her son Sam. "But Charles must be at Westminster and in bed these two hours!"

"Surely," said he.

"'Tis not young Master Charles, ma'am, nor anyone like him: but a badger-faced old gentleman who snaps up a word before 'tis out of your mouth."

"Show him in," commanded Matthew: and the words were scarcely out before the visitor stood in the doorway. Mrs. Wesley recognised him at once as the old gentleman who had stood beside her that morning and watched the fight.

"Good evening, ma'am. I learned your address at Westminster: or, to be precise, at the Reverend Samuel Wesley's. You are he, I suppose?"--here he swung round upon Sam--"Your amiable wife told me I should find you here: and so much the better, my visit being on family business. Eh? What? I hope I'm not turning out this gentleman?"--indicating Captain Bewes--"No? Well, if you were leaving, sir, I won't detain you: since, as I say, mine is family business. Mr. Matthew Wesley, I presume?"--with a quick turn towards his host as Captain Bewes slipped away--"And brother of this lady's husband? Quite so. No, I thank you, I do not smoke; but will take snuff, if the company allows. I have heard reports of your skill, sir. My name is Wesley also: Garrett Wesley, of Dangan, County Meath, in Ireland: I sit for my county in Parliament and pass in this world for a respectable person. You'll excuse these details, ma'am; but when a man breaks in upon a family party at this hour of the night, he ought to give some account of himself."

Mrs. Wesley rose from her chair and dropped him a stately curtsey. "The name suffices for us, sir. I make my compliments to one of my husband's family."

"I'm obliged to you, ma'am, and pleased to hear the kinship acknowledged. A good family, as families go, though I say it. We have held on to Dangan since Harry Fifth's time; and to our name since Guy of Welswe was made a thane by Athelstan. We have a knack, ma'am, of staying the course: small in the build but sound in the wind. It did me good, to-day, to see that son of yours step out for the last round."

"Excuse me--" put in Samuel, pushing a candle aside and craning forward (he was short-sighted) for a better look at the visitor.

"Ha? You have not heard? Well, well--oughtn't to tell tales out of school, and certainly not to the Usher: but your mother and I, sir, had the fortune, this morning, to witness a bout of fisticuffs--Whig against Tory--and perhaps it will not altogether distress you to learn that the Whig took a whipping. I like that boy of yours, ma'am: he has breed. I do not forget"--with another bow--"his mother's descent from the Annesleys of Anglesea and Valentia: but she will forgive me that, while watching him, I thought rather of his blood derived from my own great-great-grandfather Robert, and of our common ancestors--Walter, the king's standard-bearer, Edward, who carried the heart of the Bruce to Palestine--but I weary Mr. Matthew perhaps?"

"Not at all, sir," the apothecary protested: rubbing a lump of sugar on the rind of a lemon. "You will suffer me to mix you a glass of punch while I listen? I am a practical man, who has been forced to make his own way in the world, and has made it, I thank God. I never found these ancestors of any use to me; but if one of them had time and leisure to carry the heart of the Bruce to Jerusalem I hope I have the leisure to hear about it. Did he return, may I ask?"

"He did not, sir. The Saracens slew him before the Holy Sepulchre, and in fact the undertaking was, as you would regard it, unprofitable. But it gave us the palmer-shells on our coat of arms-- argent, a cross sable, in each corner three escallops of the last. I believe, ma'am, the coat differs somewhat in your husband's branch of the family?" He spread a hand on the table so that the candle-light fell on his signet ring.

Mrs. Wesley smiled. "We keep the scallops, sir."

"Scallops!" grunted the apothecary. "Better for you, Susanna, if your husband had ever found the oyster!"

Garrett Wesley glanced at him from under his badger-gray brows. "We may be coming to the oyster, sir, if you have patience. Crest, a wivern proper: motto, 'God is love.' I am thinking, ma'am, a child of yours might find some use for that motto, since children of my own I have none."

"There could be none nobler, sir," Mrs. Wesley answered.

"'Tis his then, ma'am, if you can spare me your son Charles."

The lump of sugar dropped from old Matthew's fingers and splashed into the tumbler, and with that there fell a silence on the room. Samuel half rose from his couch and passed a nervous hand over his thick black hair. His purblind eyes sought his mother's; hers were fastened on this eccentric kinsman, but with a look that passed beyond him. Her lips were parted.

"God is love," she repeated it, soft and low, but with a thrill at which Garrett Wesley raised his head. "If ever I had distrusted it, that love is manifested here to-night. There was a kinsman, sir, from whom I hoped much for my son; to-day I learn that he is lost-- dead, most like--and those hopes with him. He was my brother, and God--who understands mothers, and knows, moreover, how small was ever Samuel Annesley's kindness--must forgive me that I grieved less for him than for Charles's sake. The tale was brought us by the honest man who has just left, and it is scarcely told when another kinsman enters and lays his fortune in Charles's hands. Therefore I thank God for His goodness and"--her voice wavered and she ended with a frank laugh at her own expense--"you, on your part, may read the quality of the gratitude to expect from me. At least I have been honest, sir."

"Ma'am, I have lived long enough to value honesty above gratitude. I make this offer to please myself. The point is, Do I understand that you accept?"

"As for that," she answered deliberately--and Sam leaned forward again--"as for that, I am a married woman, and have learnt to submit to my husband's judgment. To be sure I have acquired some skill in guessing at it." She smiled again. "My husband is no ordinary man to jump at this offer. He has three sons, besides his women folk--"

"Whom he neglects," put in Matthew.

"His dearest ambition is to see each of these three an accredited servant of Christ. He desires learning for them, and the priest's habit, and the living God in their hearts. It will appear strange to you that he should rate these above wealth and a castle in Ireland and a seat in Parliament; but in fact he would. I know him. Think what you will of his ambition, it has this much of sincerity, that he is willing to pinch and starve for it. This, too, I have proved."

"You might add, mother," interposed Sam, "that he would like all these the better with a little success to season them."

"No, I will add that he has perhaps enough respect for me to listen to my entreaties and allow Charles to choose for himself. And this for the moment, sir, is all I can promise, though I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

"Tut, woman!" snapped the apothecary. "Close with the offer and don't be a fool. My brother, sir, may be pig-headed--sit down, Susanna!"

"You and I, sir," said Garrett Wesley, "as childless men, are in no position to judge a parent's feelings."

"Children? Let me tell you that I had a son, sir, and he broke my heart. He is in India now, I believe; a middle-aged rake. I give you leave to find and adopt _him_, so long as you don't ask me to see his face again. One was too many for me, and here's a woman with ten children alive--Heaven knows how many she's buried--ten children alive and half-clothed, and herself the youngest of twenty-five!" He broke off and chuckled. "Did you ever hear tell, sir, what old Dr. Martin said after baptizing Susanna here? Someone asked him 'How many children had Dr. Annesley?' 'I forget for the moment,' said the doctor, but 'tis either two dozen or a quarter of a hundred.' And here's a woman, sir, with such a sense of her offspring's importance that she higgles over accepting a fortune for one of 'em!"

"Can you suffer this, ma'am?" Garrett Wesley began. But the apothecary for the moment was neither to hold nor to bind.

"Sam! _You_ have a grain of sense in your head. Don't sit there mum-chance, man! Speak up and tell your mother not to be a fool. You are no child; you know your father, and that, if given one chance in a hundred to act perversely, he'll take it as sure as fate. For heaven's sake persuade your mother to use common caution and keep his finger out of this pie!"

"Nay, sir," answered Sam, "I think she has the right of it, that my father ought to be told; and that the chances are he will leave it to Charles to decide."

Matthew Wesley flung up his hands. "'Tis a conspiracy of folly! Upon my professional word, you ought all to be strait-waistcoated!" He glared around, found speech again, and pounced upon Sam. "A pretty success _you've_ made of your father's ambitions--you, with your infatuation for that rogue Atterbury, and your born gift of choosing the cold side of favour! You might have been Freind's successor, Head Master of Westminster School! Where's your chance now? You'll not even get the under-mastership, I doubt. Some country grammar school is your fate--I see it; and all for lack of sense. If you lacked learning, lacked piety, lacked--"

"Excuse me, sir, but these are matters I have no mind to discuss with you. When Freind retires Nicoll will succeed him, and Nicoll deserves it. Whether I get Nicoll's place or no, God will decide, who knows if I deserve it. Let it rest in His hands. But when you speak of Bishop Atterbury, and when I think of that great heart breaking in exile, why then, sir, you defeat yourself and steel me against my little destinies by the example of a martyr."

He said it awkwardly, pulling the while at his bony knuckles; but he said it with a passion which cowed his uncle for the moment, and drew from his mother a startled, almost expectant, look. Yet she knew that Sam's eyes could never hold (for her joy and terror) the underlying fire which had shone in her youngest boy's that morning, and which mastered her--strong woman though she was--in her husband's. And this was the tragic note in her love for Sam--the more tragic because never sounded. Sam had learning, diligence, piety, a completely honest mind; he had never caused her an hour's reasonable anxiety; only--to this eldest son she had not transmitted his father's genius, that one divine spark which the Epworth household claimed for its sons as a birthright. An exorbitant, a colossal claim! Yet these Wesleys made it as a matter of course. Did the father know that one of his sons had disappointed it? Sam knew, at any rate; and Sam's mother knew; and each, aware of the other's knowledge, tried pitifully to ignore it.

Matthew Wesley bounced from his chair, unlocked the glazed doors of a bookcase behind him and pulled forth a small volume.

"Here you have it, sir, '_Maggots: by a Scholar_'--that's my brother. '_Poems on Several Subjects never before Handled,_'--that's the man all over. You may wager that if any man of sense had ever hit on these subjects, my brother had never come within a mile of 'em. Listen: 'The Grunting of a Hog,' 'To my Gingerbread Mistress,' 'A Box like an Egg,' 'Two Soldiers killing one another for a Groat,' 'A Pair of Breeches,' 'A Cow's Tail'--there's titles for you! Cow's tail, indeed! And here, look you, is the author's portrait for a frontispiece, with a laurel-wreath in his hair and a maggot in place of a parting! 'Maggots'! He began with 'em and he'll end with 'em. Maggots!" He slammed the two covers of the book together and tossed it across the table.

Mr. Garrett Wesley, during this tirade, had fallen back upon the attitude of a well-bred man who has dropped in upon a painful family quarrel and cannot well escape. He had taken his hat and stood with his gaze for the most part fastened on the carpet, but lifted now and then when directly challenged by the apothecary's harangue. The contemned volume skimmed across the table and toppled over at his feet. With much gravity he stooped and picked it up; and as he did so, heard Mrs. Wesley addressing him.

"And the curious part of it is," she was saying calmly, "that my brother-in-law means all this in kindness!"

"No, I don't," snapped Matthew; and in the next breath, "well, yes, I do then. Susanna, I beg your pardon, but you'd provoke a saint." He dropped into his chair. "You know well enough that if I lose my temper, 'tis for your sake and the girls'."

"I know," she said softly, covering his hand with hers. "But you must e'en let us go our feckless way. Sir,"--she looked up-- "must this decision be made to-night?"

"Not at all, ma'am, not at all. The lad, if you will, may choose when he comes of age; I have another string to my bow, should he refuse the offer. But meantime, and while 'tis uncertain to which of us he'll end by belonging, I hope I may bear my part in his school fees."

"But that, to some extent, must bind him."

"No: for I propose to keep my share of it dark, with your leave. But you shall hear further of this by letter. May I say, that if I chose his father's son, I have come to-day to set my heart on his mother's? I wish you good night, ma'am! Good night, sirs!" _

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