Reginald Cruden, Talbot Baines Reed [best black authors txt] 📗

“You’re not obliged to go there,” he said, with a curl of his lip, “unless you like.”

Mr Shanklin smiled at this sally, a demonstration which considerably incensed the not too amiable Mr Pillans.

“I’ll take precious care I don’t,” said the latter.

Reginald said “Thanks!” drily, and in a way so cutting that Mr Shanklin and Blandford both laughed this time.

“Look here,” said the unwholesome Pillans, looking very warm, “what do you say that for? Do you want to cheek me?”

“Don’t be a fool, Pillans. It doesn’t matter to you where he lives,” said Blandford.

“Thank goodness it don’t—or whether he pays his rent either.”

“It’s a pity you had to leave Garden Vale,” said Blandford, apparently anxious to turn the conversation into a more pacific channel; “such a jolly place it was. What do you do with yourself all day long in town?”

Reginald smiled.

“I work for my living,” said he, keeping his eye steadily fixed on Mr Pillans, as if waiting to catch the first sign of an insult on his part.

“That’s what we all do, more or less,” said Mr Shanklin. “Blandford here works like a nigger to spend his money, don’t you, old man?”

“I do so,” said Blandford, “with your valuable assistance.”

“And with somebody else’s assistance too,” said Mr Pillans, with a shrug in the direction of Reginald.

Reginald understood the taunt, and rose to his feet.

“You’re not going?” said Blandford.

“I am. I don’t forget I owe you for my dinner, Blandford; and I shan’t forget that I owe you also for introducing me to a blackguard. Good-night.”

And without allowing his hearers time to recover from the astonishment into which these words had thrown them, he marched out of the Shades with his head in the air.

It was a minute before any of the three disconcerted companions could recover the gift of speech. At last Mr Shanklin burst out into a laugh.

“Capital, that was,” he said; “there’s something in the fellow. And,” he added internally, and not in the hearing of either of his companions, “if he’s the same fellow Medlock has hooked, our fortune’s made.”

“All very well,” said Pillans; “but he called me a blackguard.”

This simple discovery caused still greater merriment at the expense of the outraged owner of the appellation.

“I’ve a good mind to go after him, and pull his nose,” growled he.

“Nothing would please him better,” said Blandford. “But you’d better leave your own nose behind, my boy, before you start, or there won’t be much of it left. I know Cruden of old.”

“You won’t see much more of him now,” sneered Pillans, “now he owes you for his dinner.”

“It strikes me, Bland was never safer of a six-and-six in his life than he is of the one he lent to-night,” said Mr Shanklin. “Unless I’m mistaken, the fellow would walk across England on his bare feet to pay it back.”

Mr Shanklin, it was evident, could appreciate honesty in any one else. He was highly delighted with what he had seen of the new secretary. If anything could float the Select Agency Corporation, the lad’s unsuspicious honesty would do it. In fact, things were looking up all round for the precious confederates. With Reginald to supply them with honesty, with easy-going spendthrifts, like Blandford and Pillans, to supply them with money, and with a cad like Durfy to do their dirty work for them, they were in as comfortable and hopeful a way as the promoters of such an enterprise could reasonably hope to be.

The trio at the Shades soon forgot Reginald in the delights of one another’s sweet society. They played billiards, at which Mr Shanklin won. They also played cards, at which, by a singular coincidence, Mr Shanklin won too. They then went to call on a friend who knew the “straight tip” for the Saint Leger, and under his advice they laid out a good deal of money, which (such are the freaks of fortune) also found its way somehow into Mr Shanklin’s pocket-book. Finally, they supped together, and then went home to bed, each one under the delusion that he had spent a very pleasant evening.

Reginald was far from sharing the same opinion as he paced home that evening. How glad he should be to be out of this hateful London, where everything went wrong, and reminded him that he was a pauper, dependent on others for his living, for his clothes, for his—faugh! for his dinner! Happily he had not to endure it much longer. At Liverpool, he would be independent. He would hold a position not degrading to a gentleman; he would associate with men of intellect and breeding; he would even have the joy of helping his mother to many a little luxury which, as long as he remained in London, he could never have given her. He quickened his pace, and reached home. Gedge had been there, spiritless and forlorn, and had left as soon as he could excuse himself.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” he had said, with a forced laugh, to Horace when the latter expressed his regret at Reginald’s absence.

Mrs Cruden and Horace both tried to look cheerful; but the cloud on the horizon was too large now to be covered with a hand.

When Reginald announced that he had written and accepted the invitation to Liverpool, there was no jubilation, no eager congratulation.

“What shall we do without you?” said Mrs Cruden.

“It is horrid having to go, mother,” said the boy; “but we must make the best of it. If you look so unhappy, I shall be sorry I ever thought of it.”

His mother tried to smile, and said,—

“Yes, we must try and make the best of it, dear boys; and if we cannot seem as glad as we should like to be, it’s not to be wondered at at first, is it?”

“I hope you’ll get holidays enough now and then to run up,” said Horace.

“Oh yes; I don’t fancy there’ll be much difficulty about that,” replied Reg. “In fact, it’s possible I may have to come up now and then on business.”

There was a silence for a few seconds, and then he added rather nervously,—

“By the way, mother, about the £50. I had intended to ask Mr Richmond to advance it, although I should have hated to do so. But now, I was wondering—do you think there would be any objection to taking it out of our money, and letting it be invested in my name in the Corporation? It really wouldn’t make any difference, for you’d get exactly the same interest for it as you got through Mr Richmond; and, of course, the principal would belong to you too.”

“I see no objection,” said Mrs Cruden. “It’s our common stock, and if we can use it for the common good, so much the better.”

“Thanks,” said Reginald. “If you wouldn’t mind sending a line to Mr Richmond’s clerk to-morrow, he could let me have the cheque to take down or Monday with me.”

The three days that followed were dismal ones for the three Crudens. There are few miseries like that of an impending separation. We wish the fatal moment to arrive and end our suspense. We know of a thousand things we want to say, but the time slips by wasted, and hangs drearily on our hands. We have not the spirit to look forward, or the heart to look back. We long to have it all over, and yet every stroke of the clock falls like a cruel knell on our ears. We long that we could fall asleep, and wake to find ourselves on the other side of the crisis we dread.

So it was with the Crudens; and when at last the little trio stood on the Monday on the platform of Euston Station, all three felt that they would give anything to have the last few days back again.

“I’ll write, mother, as often as ever I can,” said Reginald, trying to speak as if the words did not stick in his throat.

“Tell us all about your quarters, and what you have to do, and all that,” said Horace.

Mrs Cruden had no words. She stood with her eyes fixed on her boy, and felt she needed all her courage to do that steadily.

“Horrors,” said Reg, as the guard locked the carriage door, and the usual silence which precedes the blowing of the whistle ensued, “keep your eye on young Gedge, will you? there’s a good fellow.”

“I will, and I’ll—”

But here the whistle sounded, and amid the farewells that followed, Reginald went out into his new world, leaving them behind, straining their eyes for a last look, but little dreaming how and when that little family should meet again.