Jacob's Ladder

CHAPTER III

At twelve o’clock, Jacob was in Regent Street, and at one o’clock, in a new blue serge suit, shirt, collar and tie of the latest pattern, he was dividing his time between admiring his reflection in the mirror and waiting in the entrance hall of Simpson’s. Dauncey’s coming was, in its way, pathetic. With a pessimism engendered by years of misfortune, he had found it impossible to preserve throughout the morning the exultation of those first few minutes with Jacob in the railway carriage. He entered the restaurant and came towards his friend with a feverish light in his eyes and a trembling of the lips which the latter only too well understood.

“It’s all right, old fellow,” Jacob assured him emphatically. “Throw in your hat with mine. Here’s our table – two cocktails waiting, you see, and a bottle of the best the place has – I tell you the old gentleman in Threadneedle Street parted without a murmur. I’m simply bursting with money – Steady, old chap!”

In the crowd of people waiting for their tables, they were little noticed, these two – Dauncey struggling against the faintness, the rising in his throat, the strange moisture in his eyes, Jacob talking nonsense as hard as he could and affecting to disregard these unusual conditions. Soon he had his friend safely seated opposite him, forced him to drink his cocktail, gave cheerful orders to the waiter, and produced a brand new pocketbook, which he laid upon the table.

“Richard,” he announced, “there’s a hundred pounds in that. Away with it, pocketbook and all. Now put the soles of your feet firmly on the ground and think what you’re going to say to Nora when you get home. You’ve stood up against some nasty knocks. Now just tell yourself that they’re all over. We’ll take a feast home to-night. Waiter, open the wine. By Jove, I’ve heard that pop for other fellows often enough, but not one for myself for two years and more.”

“Jacob,” Dauncey faltered, “I can’t say a word, but I’m all right. And God bless you,” he added, raising his glass and drinking. “God bless you, Jacob! You’re a pal.”

After that, the thing was accepted as part of their lives, and they talked reasonably.

“This afternoon,” Jacob confided, “I am going to be measured for half a dozen suits of clothes. I am going to prowl about Bond Street and gratify the longings of a lifetime for variegated hosiery. At five o’clock, Richard, I shall call for you at your office. By the bye, you had better ask them how soon they can let you go.”

“They won’t worry about that,” Dauncey answered, a little bitterly. “Every Saturday for months has been a nightmare to me, for fear I’d get the sack. They don’t think I’m smart enough for my job there – not smart enough even for three pounds a week!”

“Just let them know what you think about them, for a change,” Jacob enjoined. “Three pounds a week, indeed! Tell them you’ve accepted a post at five hundred a year with a financier who needs your advice with his investments. That’ll give them something to think about!”

“It will!” Dauncey admitted, with a smile. “They’ll think I’ve gone mad.”

“Let ’em think what they choose,” Jacob insisted. “You come out of it with your nose in the air and leave your office coat behind for the errand boy. They’ll always be worried to think that you must have been a great deal smarter than they gave you credit for.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dauncey promised.

“I shall call for you in my motor-car,” Jacob continued; “we shall make purchases on our way, and we shall return to Marlingden in state. Thank heavens, Dick, for small ambitions! Just for the moment, I feel that nothing could make me happier than to be driven down the village street, pull up at the shops on the way home, and spend a few five-pound notes where I’ve had to look twice at a shilling.”

Dauncey smiled with the air of a man who sees more wonderful things.

“That’s all very well in its way, old fellow,” he admitted, “but to appreciate this absolutely you ought to be married. I can think of nothing but Nora’s face when I tell her – when I show her the pocketbook – when she begins to realise! Jacob, it’s worth all the misery of the last few years. It’s worth – anything.”

Jacob’s face glowed with sympathy, but he made a brave attempt to whistle under his breath a popular tune.

“Fact of it is, old chap,” he said, as he gripped the bottle for support and watched the bubbles rise in Dauncey’s glass, “we are both altogether too emotional.”

Jacob’s programme, for the remainder of the day, was carried out very nearly as he had planned it. The car was hired without difficulty, and the sensation created in the village shops by his arrival in it, his lavish orders and prompt payment, was ample and gratifying. Mrs. Harris alone seemed curiously unmoved when he confided to her the story of this great change in his circumstances. She who had been all kindness and sympathy in the days of his misfortune listened to the story of his newly arrived wealth with a striking absence of enthusiasm.

“You’ll be giving up your rooms now, I suppose?” she observed with a sigh. “Want to go and live in the West End of London, or some such place.”

Jacob extended his arm as far as possible around her ample waist.

“Mrs. Harris,” he said, “no one else in the world could have looked after me so well when I was poor. No one else shall look after me now that I am rich. If I leave here, you and Harris must come too, but I don’t think that I shall – not altogether. There are the roses, you see.”

“And what’s in that cardboard box?” she asked suspiciously.

“A black silk dress for you,” Jacob replied. “You’ll give me a kiss when you see it.”

“A black silk dress – for me?” Mrs. Harris faltered, her eyes agleam. “I don’t know what Harris will say!”

“There’s a bicycle at the station for him,” Jacob announced. “No more two-mile trudges to work, eh?”

Mrs. Harris sat down suddenly and raised her apron to her eyes. Jacob made his escape and crossed the road. It had seemed to him that he must have exhausted the whole gamut of emotions during the day, but there was still a moment’s revelation for him when the pale, shy, little woman whom he had known as his friend’s wife came running out to greet him with shining eyes and outstretched hands.

“Mr. Pratt!” she cried. “Is it all true?”

“It’s all true, and more of it,” he assured her. “Your man’s set up comfortably for life, and I am a starving millionaire. Anything to eat?”

She laughed a little hysterically.

“Why, there’s everything in the world to eat, and to drink, too, I should think,” she answered. “What they must have thought of you two men in the shops, I can’t imagine! Come into the dining-room, won’t you? Dick’s opening some wine.”

Then followed the second feast of the day, at which Jacob had to pretend to be unconscious of the fact that his host and hostess were alternately ecstatically happy and tremulously hysterical. They all waited upon themselves and ate many things the names of which only were familiar to them. Dauncey opened champagne as though he had been used to it all his life. Jacob carved chickens with great skill, but was a little puzzled as to the location of caviare in the meal and more than a little generous with the pâté-de-foie-gras. The strawberries and real Devonshire cream were an immense success, and Mrs. Dauncey’s eyes grew round with pleasure at the sight of the boxes of bonbons and chocolates. Afterwards the two men wandered out into the garden, a quaint strip of uncultivated land, with wanton beds of sweet-smelling flowers, and separated from the meadow beyond only by an untrimmed and odoriferous hedge, wreathed in honeysuckle. Over wonderful cigars, the like of which neither of them had ever smoked before, they talked for a moment or two seriously.

“What are you really going to do with your money, Jacob?” Dauncey asked. “And where do I come in? I do hope I am going to have a chance of earning my salary.”

Jacob was silent for a few moments. In the half light, a new sternness seemed to have stolen into his face.

“Richard,” he said, “you’ve seen men come out of a fight covered with scars, – wounds that burn and remind them of their sufferings. Well, I’m rather like that. I was never a very important person, you know, but in the old days I was proud of my little business and my good name. It hurt me like hell to go under. It was bad enough when people were kind. Sometimes they weren’t.”

“I know,” Dauncey murmured sympathetically.

“My scars are there,” Jacob went on. “If I had such a thing, Dick, I should say that they had burned their way into my soul. I haven’t made any plans. Don’t think that I am going to embark upon any senseless scheme of revenge – but if this promise of great wealth is fulfilled, I have some sort of a fancy for using it as a scourge to cruelty, or for giving the unfortunate a leg up where it’s deserved. There are one or two enterprises already shaping themselves in my mind, which might be brought to a successful conclusion.”

“Enterprises?” Dauncey repeated a little vaguely.

Jacob laid his hand upon his friend’s shoulder. There was a strange light in his eyes.

“Dick,” he said, “you’d think I was a commonplace sort of fellow enough, wouldn’t you? So I am, in a way, and yet I’ve got something stirring in my blood of the fever which sent Sam out to the far west of America, more for the sheer love of going than for any hope of making a fortune. I’ve lived an everyday sort of life, but I’ve had my dreams.”

“We’re not going around the world treasure hunting, or anything of that sort, are we?” Dauncey asked anxiously.

“All the treasure hunting we shall do,” Jacob replied, with a little thrill in his tone, “will be on the London pavements. All the adventures which the wildest buccaneers the world has ever known might crave are to be found under the fogs of this wonderful city. We shan’t need to travel far in the body, Dick. A little office somewhere in the West End, a little ground bait which I know about, and the sharks of the world will come stealing around us. There are seven or eight million people in London, Dick. A detective I once knew – kind of thoughtful chap he was – once told me that on a moderate computation there were twenty-five thousand of them who would commit murder without hesitation if they could get their hand deep enough into their neighbour’s pocket.”

“Talking through his hat,” Dauncey muttered.

“That is what we shall find out. Only remember this, Richard. I am convinced that I possess in some degree that sixth sense the French criminologist talked about, – the sense for Adventure. I’ve had to keep my nose to the grindstone, worse luck, but there have been times when I’ve lifted my head and sniffed it in the air. In queer places, too! In the dark, shadowy streets of old towns which I have visited as a commercial traveller, selling goods by day and wandering out alone by night into the backwaters. I’ve felt the thrill there, Dick, trying to look through the curtained windows of some of those lonely houses. I’ve been brushed by a stranger in Fleet Street and felt it; looked into a woman’s mysterious eyes as she turned around, with a latchkey in her hand, before a house in Bloomsbury. We shan’t need to wander far away, Richard.”

“Seems to me,” the latter observed, “that I am to play Man Friday to – ”

He suddenly stood rigid. He gripped his friend’s arm, his lips a little parted. He was listening in a paroxysm of subdued joy. From out of the sitting-room window came faint sounds of melody.

“It’s Nora,” he murmured ecstatically. “It’s the first time for years! She’s singing!”

He moved involuntarily towards the house. Jacob filled his pipe and strolled across the way, homewards.

CHAPTER IV

Mr. Edward Bultiwell, of the House of Bultiwell and Sons, sat alone in his private office, one morning a week or so later, and communed with ghosts. It was a large apartment, furnished in mid-Victorian fashion, and, with the exception of the telephone and electric light, destitute of any of the modern aids to commercial enterprise. Oil paintings of Mr. Bultiwell’s father and grandfather hung upon the walls. A row of stiff, horsehair chairs with massive frames stood around the room, one side of which was glass-fronted, giving a view of the extensive warehouse beyond. It was here that Mr. Bultiwell’s ghosts were gathered together, – ghosts of buyers from every town in the United Kingdom, casting occasional longing glances towards where the enthroned magnate sat, hoping that he might presently issue forth and vouchsafe them a word or two of greeting; ghosts of sellers, too, sellers of hides and skins from India and South America, Mexico and China, all anxious to do business with the world-famed House of Bultiwell. Every now and then the great man would condescend to exchange amenities with one of these emissaries from distant parts. Everywhere was stir and bustle. Every few minutes a salesman would present himself, with a record of his achievements. All the time the hum of voices, the clattering of chains, the dust and turmoil of moving merchandise, the coming and going of human beings, all helping to drive the wheel of prosperity for the House of Bultiwell!..

The ghosts faded away. Two old men were outside, dusting stacks of leather. There was no one else, no sound of movement or life. Bultiwell glanced at his watch, as he sat there and waited. Presently he struck the bell in front of him, and a grey-haired bookkeeper shuffled in.

“What time did Pedlar say Mr. Pratt would be round?” he asked harshly.

“Between eleven and twelve, sir.”

Mr. Bultiwell glanced at his watch and grunted.

“Where’s Mr. Haskall?”

“Gone round to the sale, sir.”

“He got my message?” Mr. Bultiwell asked anxiously.

“I told him that he was on no account to buy, sir,” the cashier assented. “He was somewhat disappointed. There is a probability of a rise in hides, and most of the pits down at the tannery are empty.”

Mr. Bultiwell groaned under his breath. His eyes met the eyes of his old employé.

“You know why we can’t buy – at the sales, Jenkins,” he muttered.

The man sighed as he turned away.

“I know, sir.”

Then there was a little stir in the place. The two men left off dusting; the clerks in the counting-house raised their heads hopefully. Jacob Pratt arrived and was ushered into the presence of the head of the firm. It was a trying moment for Mr. Bultiwell, but he did his best. He wished to be patronising, kindly and gracious. He succeeded in being cringing.

“Glad to see you, Pratt. Glad to see you,” he said. “Try that easy-chair. A cigar, eh? No? Quite right! Don’t smoke much myself till after lunch. Seen Pedlar this morning?”

“I’ve just come from his office,” Jacob replied.

Mr. Bultiwell thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and leaned back in his chair.

“Clever fellow, Pedlar, but not so clever as he thinks himself. I don’t mind telling you, Pratt, between ourselves, that it was entirely my idea that you should be approached with a view to your coming in here.”

“Is that so?” Jacob observed quietly.

“I knew perfectly well that you wouldn’t be content to do nothing, a young man like you, and if you’re going to keep in the leather trade at all, why not become associated with a firm you know all about, eh? I don’t want to flatter myself,” Mr. Bultiwell proceeded, with a touch of his old arrogance, “but Bultiwell’s, although we haven’t been so energetic lately, is still pretty well at the top of the tree, eh?”

“Not quite where it was, I am afraid, Mr. Bultiwell,” Jacob objected. “I’ve been looking through the figures, you know. Profits seem to have been going down a good deal.”

“Pooh! That’s nothing! Hides were ridiculously high all last year, but they’re on the drop now. Besides, these accountants always have to make out balance sheets from a pessimistic point of view.”

“The present capital of the firm,” Jacob commented, “seems to me astonishingly small.”

“What’s it figure out at?” Mr. Bultiwell enquired, with a fine show of carelessness. “Forty thousand pounds? Well, that is small – smaller than it’s been at any time during the last ten years. Perhaps I have embarked in a few too many outside investments. They are all good ’uns, though. No use having money lying idle, Mr. Pratt, these days. Now my idea was,” he went on, striving to hide a slight quaver in his voice, “that you put in, say, eighty thousand pounds, and take an equal partnership – a partnership, Pratt, remember, in Bultiwell’s… Eh? What’s that?”

Mr. Bultiwell looked up with a well-assumed frown of annoyance. A very fashionably dressed young lady, attractive notwithstanding a certain sullenness of expression, had entered the room carrying a great bunch of roses.

“So sorry, dad,” she said, strolling up to the table. “I understood that you were alone. Here are the roses,” she added, laying them upon the table without enthusiasm. “Are you coming up west for luncheon to-day?”

“My dear,” Mr. Bultiwell replied, “I am engaged just now. By the bye, you know Mr. Pratt, don’t you? Pratt, you remember my daughter?”

Jacob, whose memories of that young lady, with her masses of yellow hair and most alluring smile, had kept him in fairyland for three months, and a little lower than hell for the last two years, took fierce command of himself as he rose to his feet and received a very cordial but somewhat forced greeting from this unexpected visitor.

“Of course I know Mr. Pratt,” she answered, “and I hope he hasn’t altogether forgotten me. The last time I saw you, you bicycled over one evening, didn’t you, to see my father’s roses, and we made you play tennis. I remember how cross dad was because you played without shoes.”

“Mr. Pratt is doubtless better provided in these days,” Bultiwell observed with an elephantine smile. “What about running over to see us to-night or to-morrow night in that new car of yours, Pratt, eh?”

“Do come,” the young lady begged, with a very colourable imitation of enthusiasm. “I am longing for some tennis.”

“You are very kind,” Jacob replied. “May I leave it open just for a short time?”

“Certainly, certainly!” Mr. Bultiwell agreed. “Sybil, run along and sit in the waiting-room for a few minutes. I’ll take you up to the Carlton, if I can spare the time. May take Mr. Pratt, perhaps.”

Sybil passed out, flashing a very brilliant if not wholly natural smile into Jacob’s face, as he held open the door. Mr. Bultiwell watched the latter anxiously as he returned slowly to his place. He was not altogether satisfied with the result of his subtle little plot.

“Where were we?” he continued, struggling hard to persevere in that cheerfulness which sat upon him in these days like an ill-fitting garment. “Ah! I know – eighty thousand pounds and an equal partnership. How does that appeal to you, Mr. Pratt?”

“There were one or two points in the balance sheet which struck me,” Jacob confessed, gazing down at his well-creased trousers. “The margin between assets and liabilities, though small, might be considered sufficient, but the liability on bills under discount seemed to me extraordinarily large.”

Mr. Bultiwell’s pencil, which had been straying idly over the blotting pad by his side, stopped. He looked at his visitor with a frown.

“Credits must always be large in our trade,” he said sharply. “You know that, Mr. Pratt.”

“Your credits, however,” Jacob pointed out, “are abnormal. I ventured to take out a list of six names, on each one of whom you have acceptances running to the tune of twenty or thirty thousand pounds.”

“The majority of my customers,” Mr. Bultiwell declared, with a little catch in his breath, “are as safe as the Bank of England.”