Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell [read this if TXT] 📗

attentions; but there was no sign of Mr. Bradshaw ever forgiving the imposition which had been practised upon him, and Mr. Benson ceased to hope for any renewal of their intercourse. Still, he thought that he must know of all the kind attentions which Jemima paid to them, and of the fond regard which both she and her husband bestowed on Leonard. This latter feeling even went so far that Mr. Farquhar called one day, and with much diffidence begged Mr. Benson to urge Ruth to let him be sent to school at his (Mr. Farquhar’s) expense.

Mr. Benson was taken by surprise, and hesitated. “I do not know. It would be a great advantage in some respects; and yet I doubt whether it would in others. His mother’s influence over him is thoroughly good, and I should fear that any thoughtless allusions to his peculiar position might touch the raw spot in his mind.”

“But he is so unusually clever, it seems a shame not to give him all the advantages he can have. Besides, does he see much of his mother now?”

“Hardly a day passes without her coming home to be an hour or so with him, even at her busiest times; she says it is her best refreshment. And often, you know, she is disengaged for a week or two, except the occasional services which she is always rendering to those who need her. Your offer is very tempting, but there is so decidedly another view of the question to be considered, that I believe we must refer it to her.”

“With all my heart. Don’t hurry her to a decision. Let her weigh it well. I think she will find the advantages preponderate.”

“I wonder if I might trouble you with a little business, Mr. Farquhar, as you are here?”

“Certainly; I am only too glad to be of any use to you.”

“Why, I see from the report of the Star Life Assurance Company in the Times, which you are so good as to send me, that they have declared a bonus on the shares; now it seems strange that I have received no notification of it, and I thought that perhaps it might be lying at your office, as Mr. Bradshaw was the purchaser of the shares, and I have always received the dividends through your firm.”

Mr. Farquhar took the newspaper, and ran his eye over the report.

“I have no doubt that’s the way of it,” said he. “Some of our clerks have been careless about it; or it may be Richard himself. He is not always the most punctual and exact of mortals; but I’ll see about it. Perhaps after all it mayn’t come for a day or two; they have always such numbers of these circulars to send out.”

“Oh! I’m in no hurry about it. I only want to receive it some time before I incur any expenses, which the promise of this bonus may tempt me to indulge in.”

Mr. Farquhar took his leave. That evening there was a long conference, for, as it happened, Ruth was at home. She was strenuously against the school plan. She could see no advantages that would counterbalance the evil which she dreaded from any school for Leonard; namely, that the good opinion and regard of the world would assume too high an importance in his eyes. The very idea seemed to produce in her so much shrinking affright, that by mutual consent the subject was dropped; to be taken up again, or not, according to circumstances.

Mr. Farquhar wrote the next morning, on Mr. Benson’s behalf, to the Insurance Company, to inquire about the bonus. Although he wrote in the usual formal way, he did not think it necessary to tell Mr. Bradshaw what he had done; for Mr. Benson’s name was rarely mentioned between the partners; each had been made fully aware of the views which the other entertained on the subject that had caused the estrangement; and Mr. Farquhar felt that no external argument could affect Mr. Bradshaw’s resolved disapproval and avoidance of his former minister.

As it happened, the answer from the Insurance Company (directed to the firm) was given to Mr. Bradshaw along with the other business letters. It was to the effect that Mr. Benson’s shares had been sold and transferred above a twelvemonth ago, which sufficiently accounted for the circumstance that no notification of the bonus had been sent to him.

Mr. Bradshaw tossed the letter on one side, not displeased to have a good reason for feeling a little contempt at the unbusiness-like forgetfulness of Mr. Benson, at whose instance some one had evidently been writing to the Insurance Company. On Mr. Farquhar’s entrance, he expressed this feeling to him.

“Really,” he said, “these Dissenting ministers have no more notion of exactitude in their affairs than a child! The idea of forgetting that he has sold his shares, and applying for the bonus, when it seems he has transferred them only a year ago!”

Mr. Farquhar was reading the letter while Mr. Bradshaw spoke.

“I don’t quite understand it,” said he. “Mr. Benson was quite clear about it. He could not have received his half-yearly dividends unless he had been possessed of these shares; and I don’t suppose Dissenting ministers, with all their ignorance of business, are unlike other men in knowing whether or not they receive the money that they believe to be owing to them.”

“I should not wonder if they were—if Benson was, at any rate. Why, I never knew his watch to be right in all my life—it was always too fast or too slow; it must have been a daily discomfort to him. It ought to have been. Depend upon it, his money matters are just in the same irregular state; no accounts kept, I’ll be bound.”

“I don’t see that that follows,” said Mr. Farquhar, half amused. “That watch of his is a very curious one—belonged to his father and grandfather, I don’t know how far back.”

“And the sentimental feelings which he is guided by prompt him to keep it, to the inconvenience of himself and every one else.”

Mr. Farquhar gave up the subject of the watch as hopeless.

“But about this letter. I wrote, at Mr. Benson’s desire, to the Insurance Office, and I am not satisfied with this answer. All the transaction has passed through our hands. I do not think it is likely Mr. Benson would write and sell the shares without, at any rate, informing us at the time, even though he forgot all about it afterwards.”

“Probably he told Richard, or Mr. Watson.”

“We can ask Mr. Watson at once. I am afraid we must wait till Richard comes home, for I don’t know where a letter would catch him.” Mr. Bradshaw pulled the bell that rang into the head-clerk’s room, saying as he did so—

“You may depend upon it, Farquhar, the blunder lies with Benson himself. He is just the man to muddle away his money in indiscriminate charity, and then to wonder what has become of it.”

Mr. Farquhar was discreet enough to hold his tongue.

“Mr. Watson,” said Mr. Bradshaw, as the old clerk made his appearance, “here is some mistake about those Insurance shares we purchased for Benson ten or a dozen years ago. He spoke to Mr. Farquhar about some bonus they are paying to the shareholders, it seems; and, in reply to Mr. Farquhar’s letter, the Insurance Company say the shares were sold twelve months since. Have you any knowledge of the transaction? Has the transfer passed through your hands? By the way” (turning to Mr. Farquhar), “who kept the certificates? Did Benson or we?”

“I really don’t know,” said Mr. Farquhar. “Perhaps Mr. Watson can tell us.”

Mr. Watson meanwhile was studying the letter. When he had ended it, he took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replacing them, he read it again.

“It seems very strange, sir,” he said at length, with his trembling, aged voice, “for I paid Mr. Benson the account of the dividends myself last June, and got a receipt in form, and that is since the date of the alleged transfer.”

“Pretty nearly twelve months after it took place,” said Mr. Farquhar.

“How did you receive the dividends? An order on the Bank, along with old Mrs. Cranmer’s?” asked Mr. Bradshaw sharply.

“I don’t know how they came. Mr. Richard gave me the money, and desired me to get the receipt.”

“It’s unlucky Richard is from home,” said Mr. Bradshaw; “he could have cleared up this mystery for us.”

Mr. Farquhar was silent.

“Do you know where the certificates were kept, Mr. Watson?” said he.

“I’ll not be sure, but I think they were with Mrs. Cranmer’s papers and deeds in box A, 24.”

“I wish old Cranmer would have made any other man his executor. She, too, is always coming with some unreasonable request or other.”

“Mr. Benson’s inquiry about his bonus is perfectly reasonable, at any rate.” Mr. Watson, who was dwelling in the slow fashion of age on what had been said before, now spoke—

“I’ll not be sure, but I am almost certain, Mr. Benson said, when I paid him last June, that he thought he ought to give the receipt on a stamp, and had spoken about it to Mr. Richard the time before, but that Mr. Richard said it was of no consequence. Yes,” continued he, gathering up his memory as he went on, “he did—I remember now—and I thought to myself that Mr. Richard was but a young man. Mr. Richard will know all about it.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Farquhar gravely.

“I shan’t wait till Richard’s return,” said Mr. Bradshaw. “We can soon see if the certificates are in the box Watson points out; if they are there, the Insurance people are no more fit to manage their concern than that cat, and I shall tell them so. If they are not there (as I suspect will prove to be the case), it is just forgetfulness on Benson’s part, as I have said from the first.”

“You forget the payment of the dividends,” said Mr. Farquhar, in a low voice.

“Well, sir! what then?” said Mr. Bradshaw abruptly. While he spoke—while his eye met Mr. Farquhar’s—the hinted meaning of the latter flashed through his mind; but he was only made angry to find that such a suspicion could pass through any one’s imagination.

“I suppose I may go, sir,” said Watson respectfully, an uneasy consciousness of what was in Mr. Farquhar’s thoughts troubling the faithful old clerk.

“Yes. Go. What do you mean about the dividends?” asked Mr. Bradshaw impetuously of Mr. Farquhar.

“Simply, that I think there can have been no forgetfulness—no mistake on Mr. Benson’s part,” said Mr. Farquhar, unwilling to put his dim suspicion into words.

“Then, of course, it is some blunder of that confounded Insurance Company. I will write to them to-day, and make them a little brisker and more correct in their statements.”

“Don’t you think it would be better to wait till Richard’s return? He may be able to explain it.”

“No, sir!” said Mr. Bradshaw sharply. “I do not think it would be better. It has not been my way of doing business to spare any one, or any company, the consequences of their own carelessness; nor to obtain information second-hand, when I could have it direct from the source. I shall write to the Insurance Office by the next post.”

Mr. Farquhar saw that any further remonstrance on his part would only aggravate his partner’s obstinacy: and, besides, it was but a suspicion,—an uncomfortable suspicion. It was possible that some of the clerks at the Insurance Office might have made a mistake. Watson was not sure, after all, that the certificates had been deposited in box A, 24; and when he and Mr. Farquhar could not find them there, the old