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Nicky-Nan, Reservist, a novel by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
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Chapter 21. Fairy Gold |
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_ CHAPTER XXI. FAIRY GOLD "So you see, Mary-Martha, that for once in a way you were wrong and I was right." "You're too fond of sweepin' statements, Charity Oliver. I doubt your first, and your second I not only doubt but deny. So far as I remember, I said the man was probably in German pay, while you insisted that he'd won the money in a lottery." "I didn't insist: I merely suggested. It was you who started to talk about German money: and I answered you that, even if the money _was_ German, there might be an innocent way of explaining it before you took upon yourself to warn the police." Mrs Polsue glanced at her friend sharply. "You seem to be gettin' very hot over it," was her comment. "Why, I can't think. You certainly wouldn't if you gave any thought to your appearance." "I'm not hot in the least," hotly protested Miss Oliver. "I'm simply proving to you that you've made a mistake: which you could never in your life bear to be told. The money is English gold, with King George the Something's head on it: and _that_ you can't deny, try as you may." "All the more reason why it shouldn't come through a German lottery," replied Mrs Polsue, examining the coin. "I tell you for the last time that I only threw lotteries out as a suggestion. There's many ways to come into a fortune besides lotteries. You can have it left to you by will, for instance--" "Dear, dear! . . . But never mind: go on. How one lives and learns!" "And the other day the papers were full of a man who came into tens of thousands through what they call a Derby sweep. I remember wondering how cleaning chimneys--even those long factory ones--could be so profitable in the north of England, until it turned out that a sweep was some kind of horse-race." "The Derby, as it is called," said Mrs Polsue, imparting information in her turn, "is the most famous of horse-races, and the most popular, though not the most fashionable. It is called the Blue Ribbon of the Turf." "Indeed? Now that's very gratifying to hear," said Miss Oliver. "I didn't know they ran _any_ of these meetings on teetotal lines." "As I was saying," her friend continued, "the gowns worn are not so expensive as at Ascot, and I believe there is no Royal Enclosure. But the Derby is nevertheless what they call a National Institution. As you know, I disapprove of horse-racing as a pastime: but my brother-in-law in the Civil Service used to attend it regularly, from a sense of duty, with a green veil around his hat." "I suppose he didn't want to be recognised?" Miss Oliver hazarded. "He didn't go so far as to say that Government Officials were compelled to attend: though he implied that it was expected of him. There's an unwritten law in most of these matters. . . . But after what I've told you, Charity Oliver, do you look me in the face and suggest that the Derby horse-race--being run, as every one knows, early in the London season and somewhere towards the end of May, if my memory serves me--can be made to account for a man like Nanjivell, that humanly speaking shouldn't know one end of a horse from another, starting to parade his wealth in the month of August?" "You've such a knack of taking me up before I'm down, Mary-Martha! I never said nor implied that Mr Nanjivell had won his money on a horse-race. I only said that some people did." "Oh, well, if _that_'s your piece of news," said Mrs Polsue with her finest satirical air, "it was considerate of you to put on your bonnet and lose no time in telling me. . . . But how long is it since we started 'Mister'-ing Nanjivell in this way?" Miss Oliver's face grew crimson. "It seems to me that now he has come into money--and being always of good family, as everybody knows--" She hesitated and came to a halt. Her friend's eyes were fixed on her, and with an expression not unlike a lazy cat's. "Oho!" thought Mrs Polsue to herself, and for just a moment her frame shook with a dry inward spasm; but not a muscle of her face twitched. Aloud she said: "Well, in your place I shouldn't be so hot, at short notice, to stand up for a man who on your own showing is a corrupter of children's minds. Knowing what I've told you of the relations between this Nanjivell and Mrs Penhaligon, and catching this Penhaligon child with a gold coin in his hand, and hearing from his own confession that the man gave it to him, even _you_ might have drawn some conclusion, I'd have thought." "I declare, Mary-Martha, I wouldn't think so uncharitably of folks as you do, not if I was paid for it. You're annoyed--that's what you are--because you got Mr--because you got Nanjivell watched for a German spy, and now I've proved you're wrong and you can't wriggle out of _that!_" "Your godfather and godmothers did very well for you at your baptism, Charity Oliver. Prophets they must have been. . . . But just you take a chair and compose yourself and listen to me. A minute ago you complained that I took you up before you were down. Well, I'll improve on that by taking you down before you're up--or up so far as you think yourself. Answer me. This is a piece of gold, eh?" "Why, of course. That's why I brought it to you." "What kind of a piece of gold?" "A guinea-piece. My father used to wear one on his watch-chain, and I recognised the likeness at once." "Quite so. Now when your father happened to earn a sovereign, did he go and hang it on his watch-chain?" "What a silly question!" "It isn't at all a silly question. . . . Tell me how many sovereigns you've seen in your life, and how many guineas?" "O-oh! . . . I think I see what you mean-" "I congratulate you, I'm sure! Now, I won't swear, but I'm morally certain that guineas haven't been what they call in circulation for years and years and years." "You're always seeing them in subscription lists," Miss Oliver objected. "Take our Emergency Fund--'Charles Pendarves Tresawna, Esq., J.P., twenty-five guineas.'" "I seem to remember that the Squire paid by cheque," said Mrs Polsue drily. "But the guineas must have been there, in the Bank. . . . Oh, I see! You mean that a guinea being worth twenty-one shillings--" "That's right: you're getting at it. Though I declare, Charity Oliver, there are times when I don't know which is furthest behind the times--your head, or the coquelicots you insist on wearing upon it. But now I hope you'll admit I was right, and there's a mystery about Nanjivell. Whether 'tis mixed up with his immorality or separate I won't pretend to decide, or not at this stage." "But anyway you can't make out a guinea-piece to be German," maintained Miss Oliver with a last show of obstinacy. "I don't say 'yes' or 'no' to that just yet," Mrs Polsue replied. "The newspapers tell us the Germans have been hoarding gold for a very long time. But you mentioned the Bank a moment ago--or did I? Never mind: it was a good suggestion anyway. Wait while I send across for Mr Pamphlett." "Why, to be sure," said Mr Pamphlett, "it's a guinea--a George the Second guinea." He pushed back a corner of the cloth and rang the coin on the table. "Sound . . . and not clipped at all. There's always its intrinsic value, as we say: and one of these days it will have an additional value as a curiosity. But as yet that is almost negligible. Oddly enough--" He broke off, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and produced a guinea almost precisely similar. Miss Oliver gasped: it was so like a conjuring trick. "Where did Miss Oliver get this one?" asked Mr Pamphlett, laying his right forefinger upon the guinea on the table while still holding the other displayed in the palm of his left hand. "I got it," confessed Miss Oliver, "off that youngest child of Samuel Penhaligon's, who told me it had been given him as a present by Mr--by Nicholas Nanjivell." "WHAT?" She blanched, as Mr Pamphlett stared at her. "His eyes," as she explained later, "were round in his head-round as gooseberries." "Well, I suppose I oughtn't to have taken it from the child. . . . But seeing that he didn't know its value, and there being something of a mystery in the whole business--as Mary-Martha here will explain, though she will have it that the man is a German spy--" "Stuff and nonsense, ma'am! . . . I beg your pardon: you're quite right: there _is_ a mystery here, though it has nothing to do with German spies. I rather fancy I'm in a position to get to the bottom of it." On Saturday, almost at blink of dawn, the Penhaligons started house-moving. Mrs Penhaligon had everything ready--even the last box corded--more than thirty-six hours earlier. But she would neither finish nor start installing herself on a Friday, which was an unlucky day. The discomfort of taking their meals on packing-cases and sleeping on mattresses spread upon the bare floor weighed as nothing with the children in comparison with the delightful sense of adventure. Neither 'Bert nor 'Beida, when they came to talk it over, could understand why their mother was in such a fever to quit the old house. Scarcely ten days before she had kept assuring them, almost angrily, that there was no hurry before Michaelmas. It was queer, too, that not only had she forbidden them to accept even the smallest offer of help from Nicky-Nan when he showed himself willing (as he expressed it) for any light job as between neighbours, but on 'Bert's attempting to argue the point with her she had boxed 'Biades' ears for a quite trifling offence and promptly collapsed and burst into tears with no more preparation than that of throwing an apron over her head. "She's upset," said 'Bert. "If you learn at this rate, you'll be sent for, one of these days, by the people up at Scotland Yard," said 'Beida sarcastically. But you cannot glean much intelligence from a face which is covered by an apron. "She's upset at leavin' the house. Women are like that--always--when it comes to the point," 'Bert persisted. "Are they? I'll give you leave to watch _me_. And I'll bet you sixpence." "You're not a woman yet. When the time comes you may start cryin' or you mayn't. But I'll take even money you box 'Biades' ears." 'Beida's glance travelled to that forlorn child. "I'll not take any bet," she announced; "when you know that it may be necessary at any moment--he's that unaccountable." She lifted her voice so that the innocent culprit could not avoid hearing. "I don't speckilate on a _thief_," she added with vicious intention. "Hush--hush!" said 'Bert, and glanced anxiously at his sobbing parent. Nicky-Nan was the worst puzzled of them all. He had promised Sam Penhaligon to do his best when the family shifted quarters: and now Mrs Penhaligon would not hear of his lifting so much as a hand. He spent most of the day out on the cliffs, idly watching the military.
At a quarter to five Nicky-Nan returned to the desolate house. The front door stood open, of course. So (somewhat to his surprise) did the door of the Penhaligons' kitchen. "They're all behindhand," thought Nicky-Nan. "Better fit the good woman hadn' been so forward to despise my helpin'." He peered in cautiously. The room was uninhabited; stark bare of furniture, save for the quadrant key left to hang from the midmost beam; the "hellen "-slated floor clean as a new pin. Nicky-Nan heaved a sigh. "So they've gone," he thought to himself; "an' so we all pass out, one after another. A decent, cleanly woman, with all her kinks o' temper. Much like my own mother, as I remember her." He passed into his parlour, laid down hat and walking-staff, and of a sudden pulled himself upright, rigid. Footsteps were treading the floor overhead. For a moment it shook him almost to faintness. Then, swiftly, wrath came to his aid, and snatching up his staff again he stumped out to the foot of the stairway. "Who's that, up there?" "Ha! . . . Is that you, Nanjivell," answered the voice of Mr Pamphlett. "A domiciliary visit, and no harm intended." The figure of Mr Pamphlett blocked the head of the landing. Nicky-Nan raised his stick and shook it in a fury. "You get out within this minute, or I'll have the law of 'ee." "Gently, my friend," responded Mr Pamphlett soothingly. "I have the Constable here with me, besides Mr Gilbert the builder. And here's my Ejectment Order, if you drive me to it." "When you promised me--" stammered Nicky-Nan, escalading the stairs and holding his staff before him as if storming a breach. "But,"--Mr Pamphlett waved a hand,--"we need not talk about ejectment orders. By the terms of your lease, if you will examine them, the landlord is entitled to examine his premises at any reasonable hour. You won't deny this to be a reasonable hour. . . . Well, constable? What about that cupboard?" Nicky-Nan, reaching the doorway, gave a gasp. Across the room Rat-it-all, on hands and knees, had pulled open the door of the fatal cupboard, and had thrust in head and shoulders, exploring. "There's a loose piece of flooring here, Mr Pamphlett. New, by the looks of it." There was a sound of boards being shaken and thrown together in a heap. "Queer old cache here below. . . . Steady, now . . . wait till I turn my bull's-eye on it! Lucky I brought the lantern, too!" "You dare!" screamed Nicky-Nan, rushing to pull him backward by the collar. The constable, his head in the bowels of the hiding-place, neither heard him nor saw Mr Pamphlett and Builder Gilbert interpose to hold Nicky-Nan back. "But 'tis empty," announced Policeman Rat-it-all. "Empty?" EMPTY? Nicky-Nan, bursting from the two men, gripped Rat-it-all by the collar, flung him back on the floor, snatched his bull's-eye, and diving as a rabbit into its burrow, plunged the lantern's ray into the gulf. Rat-it-all had spoken truth. The treasure--every coin of it--had vanished! Nicky-Nan's head dropped sideways and rattled on the boards. _ |
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