Henry Dunbar by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Henry Dunbar

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He waited for a few moments, in the hope that Margaret would say
something; but her face was still averted, and the trembling hand which
Mr. Austin was holding struggled to release itself from his grasp.

"Margaret," he said, very gravely, "perhaps I have been foolish and
presumptuous in this business. In that case I fully deserve to be
disappointed, however bitter the disappointment may be. If I have been
wrong, Margaret; if I have been deceived by your sweet smile, your
gentle words; for pity's sake tell me that it is so, and I will forgive
you for having involuntarily deceived me, and will try to cure myself of
my folly. But I will not leave this room, I will not abandon the dear
hope that has brought me here to-night, until you tell me plainly that
you do not love me. Speak, Margaret, and speak fearlessly."

But Margaret was still silent, only in the silence Clement Austin heard
a low, sobbing sound.

"Margaret darling, you are crying. Ah! I know now that you love me, and
I will not leave this room except as your plighted husband."

"Heaven help me!" murmured Joseph Wilmot's daughter; "Heaven lead me
right! for I do love you, Clement, with all my heart"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

BUYING DIAMONDS.

Mr. Dunbar did not waste much time before he began the grand business
which had brought him to London--that is to say, the purchase of such a
collection of diamonds as compose a necklace second only to that which
brought poor hoodwinked Cardinal de Rohan and the unlucky daughter of
the Caesars into such a morass of trouble and slander.

Early upon the morning after his visit to the bank, Mr. Dunbar went out
very plainly dressed, and hailed the first empty cab that he saw in
Piccadilly.

He ordered the cabman to drive straight to a street leading out of
Holborn, a very quiet-looking street, where you could buy diamonds
enough to set up all the jewellers in the Palais Royale and the Rue de
la Paix, and where, if you were so whimsical as to wish to transform a
service of plate into "white soup" at a moment's notice, you might
indulge your fancy in establishments of unblemished respectability.

The gold and silver refiners, the diamond-merchants and wholesale
jewellers, in this quiet street, were a very superior class of people,
and you might dispose of a handful of gold chains and bangles without
any fear that one or two of them would find their way into the
operator's sleeve during the process of weighing. The great Mr.
Krusible, who thrust the last inch of an Eastern potentate's sceptre
into the melting-pot with the sole of his foot, as the detectives
entered his establishment in search of the missing bauble, and walked
lame for six months afterwards, lived somewhere in the depths of the
city, and far away from this dull-looking Holborn street; and would have
despised the even tenor of life, and the moderate profits of a business
in this neighbourhood.

Mr. Dunbar left his cab at the Holborn end of the street, and walked
slowly along the pavement till he came to a very dingy-looking
parlour-window, which might have belonged to A lawyer's office but for
some gilded letters on the wire blind, which, in a very pale and faded
inscription, gave notice that the parlour belonged to Mr. Isaac
Hartgold, diamond-merchant. A grimy brass plate on the door of the house
bore another inscription to the same effect; and it was at this door
that Mr. Dunbar stopped.

He rang a bell, and was admitted immediately by a very sharp-looking
boy, who ushered him into the parlour, where ha saw a mahogany counter,
a pair of small brass scales, a horse-hair-cushioned office-stool
considerably the worse for wear, and a couple of very formidable-looking
iron safes deeply imbedded in the wall behind the counter. There was a
desk near the window, at which a gentleman, with very black hair and
whiskers was seated, busily engaged in some abstruse calculations
between a pair of open ledgers.

He got off his high seat as Mr. Dunbar entered, and looked rather
suspiciously at the banker. I suppose the habit of selling diamonds had
made him rather suspicious of every one. Henry Dunbar wore a fashionable
greatcoat with loose open cuffs, and it was towards these loose cuffs
that Mr. Hartgold's eyes wandered with rapid and rather uneasy glances.
He was apt to look doubtfully at gentlemen with roomy coat-sleeves, or
ladies with long-haired muffs or fringed parasols. Unset diamonds are an
eminently portable species of property, and you might carry a tolerably
valuable collection of them in the folds of the smallest parasol that
ever faded under the summer sunshine in the Lady's Mile.

"I want to buy a collection of diamonds for a necklace," Mr. Dunbar
said, as coolly as if he had been talking of a set of silver spoons;
"and I want the necklace to be something out of the common. I should
order it of Garrard or Emanuel; but I have a fancy for buying the
diamonds upon paper, and having them made up after a design of my own.
Can you supply me with what I want?"

"How much do you want? You may have what some people would call a
necklace for a thousand pounds, or you may have one that'll cost you
twenty thousand. How far do you mean to go?"

"I am prepared to spend something between fifty and eighty thousand
pounds."

The diamond merchant pursed up his lips reflectively. "You are aware
that in these sort of transactions ready money is indispensable?" he
said.

"Oh, yes, I am quite aware of that," Mr. Dunbar answered, coolly.

He took out his card-case as he spoke, and handed one of his cards to
Mr. Isaac Hartgold. "Any cheques signed by that name," he said, "will be
duly honoured in St. Gundolph Lane."

Mr. Hartgold bent his head reverentially to the representative of a
million of money. He, in common with every business man in London, was
thoroughly familiar with the names of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby.

"I don't know that I can supply you with fifty thousand pounds' worth of
such diamonds as you may require at a moment's notice," he said; "but I
can procure them for you in a day or two, if that will do?"

"That will do very well. This is Tuesday; suppose I give you till
Thursday?"

"The stones shall be ready for you by Thursday, sir."

"Very good. I will call for them on Thursday morning. In the meantime,
in order that you may understand that the transaction is a _bonâ fide_
one, I'll write a cheque for ten thousand, payable to your order, on
account of diamonds to be purchased by me. I have my cheque-book in my
pocket. Oblige me with pen and ink."

Mr. Hartgold murmured something to the effect that such a proceeding was
altogether unnecessary; but he brought Mr. Dunbar his office inkstand,
and looked on with an approving twinkle of his eyes while the banker
wrote the cheque, in that slow, formal hand peculiar to him. It made
things very smooth and comfortable, Mr. Hartgold thought, to say the
least of it.

"And now, sir, with regard to the design of the necklace," said the
merchant, when he had folded the cheque and put it into his
waistcoat-pocket. "I suppose you've some idea that you'd like to carry
out; and you'd wish, perhaps, to see a few specimens."

He unlocked one of the iron safes as he spoke, and brought out a lot of
little paper packets, which were folded in a peculiar fashion, and which
he opened with very gingerly fingers.

"I suppose you'd like some tallow-drops, sir?" he said. "Tallow-drops
work-in better than anything for a necklace."

"What, in Heaven's name, are tallow-drops?"

Mr. Hartgold took up a diamond with a pair of pincers, and exhibited it
to the banker.

"That's a tallow-drop, sir," he said. "It's something of a heart-shaped
stone, you see; but we call it a tallow-drop, because it's very much the
shape of a drop of tallow. You'd like large stones, of course, though
they eat into a great deal of money? There are diamonds that are known
all over Europe; diamonds that have been in the possession of royalty,
and are as well known as the family they've belonged to. The Duke of
Brunswick has pretty well cleared the market of that sort of stuff; but
still they are to be had, if you've a fancy for anything of that kind?"

Mr. Dunbar shook his head.

"I don't want anything of that sort," he said; "the day may come when my
daughter, or my daughter's descendants, may be obliged to realize the
jewels. I'm a commercial man, and I want eighty thousand pounds' worth
of diamonds that shall be worth the money I give for them to break up
and sell again. I should wish you to choose diamonds of moderate size,
but not small; worth, on an average, forty or fifty pounds apiece, we'll
say."

"I shall have to be very particular about matching them in colour," said
Mr. Hartgold, "as they're for a necklace." The banker shrugged his
shoulders.

"Don't trouble yourself about the necklace," he said, rather
impatiently. "I tell you again I'm a commercial man, and what I want is
good value for my money."

"And you shall have it, sir," answered the diamond-merchant, briskly.

"Very well, then; in that case I think we understand each other, and
there's no occasion for me to stop here any longer. You'll have eighty
thousand pounds' worth of diamonds, at thereabouts, ready for me when I
call here on Thursday morning. You can cash that cheque in the meantime,
and ascertain with whom you have to deal. Good morning."

He left the diamond-merchant wondering at his sang froid, and returned
to the cab, which had been waiting for him all this time.

He was just going to step into it, when a hand touched him lightly on
the shoulder, and turning sharply and angrily round, he recognized the
gentleman who called himself Major Vernon. But the Major was by no means
the shabby stranger who had watched the marriage of Philip Jocelyn and
Laura Dunbar in Lisford Church. Major Vernon had risen, resplendent as
the phoenix, from the ashes of his old clothes.

The poodle collar was gone: the dilapidated boots had been exchanged for
stout water-tight Wellingtons: the napless dirty white hat had given
place to a magnificent beaver, with a broad trim curled at the sides.
Major Vernon was positively splendid. He was as much wrapped up as ever;
but his wrappings now were of a gorgeous, not to say gaudy, description.
His thick greatcoat was of a dark olive-green, and the collar turned up
over his ears was of a shiny-looking brown fur, which, to the confiding
mind of the populace, is known as imitation sable. Inside this fur
collar the Major wore a shawl-patterned scarf of all the colours in the
prismatic scale, across which his nose lacked its usual brilliancy of
hue by force of contrast. Major Vernon had a very big cigar in his
mouth, and a very big cane in his hand, and the quiet City men turned to
look at him as he stood upon the pavement talking to Henry Dunbar.

The banker writhed under the touch of his Indian acquaintance.

"What do you want with me?" he asked, in low angry tones; "why do you
follow me about to play the spy upon me, and stop me in the public
street? Haven't I done enough for you? Ain't you satisfied with what I
have done?"

"Yes, dear boy," answered the Major, "perfectly satisfied, more than
satisfied--for the present. But your future favours--as those low
fellows, the butchers and bakers, have it--are respectfully requested
for yours truly. Let me get into the cab with you, Mr. H.D., and take me
back to the _casa_, and give me a comfortable little bit of perrogg. I
haven't lost my aristocratic taste for seven courses, and an elegant
succession of still fine sparkling wines, though during the last few
years I've been rather frequently constrained to accept the shadowy
hospitality of his grace of Humphrey. '_Nante dinari, nante manjare_,'
as we say in the Classics, which I translate, 'No credit at the
butcher's or the baker's.'"

"For Heaven's sake, stop that abominable slang!" said Henry Dunbar,
impatiently.

"It annoys you, dear friend, eh? Well, I've known the time when----But
no matter, 'let what is broken, so remain,' as the poet observes; which
is only an elegant way of saying, 'Let bygones be bygones.' And so
you've been buying diamonds, dear boy?"

"Who told you so?"

"You did, when you came out of Mr. Isaac Hartgold's establishment. I
happened to be passing the door as you went in, and I happened to be
passing the door again as you came out."

"And playing the spy upon me."

"Not at all, dear boy. It was merely a coincidence, I assure you. I
called at the bank yesterday, cashed my cheques, ascertained your
address; called at the Clarendon this morning, was told you'd that
minute gone out; looked down Albemarle Street; there you were, sure
enough; saw you get into a cab; got into another--a Hansom, and faster
than yours--came behind you to the corner of this street."

"You followed me," said Henry Dunbar, bitterly.

"Don't call it _following_, dear friend, because that's low. Accident
brought me into this neighbourhood at the very hour you were coming into
this neighbourhood. If you want to quarrel with anything, quarrel with
the doctrine of chances, not with me."

Henry Dunbar turned away with a sulky gesture. His friend watched him
with very much the same malicious grin that had distorted his face under
the lamp-lit porch at Maudesley. The Major looked like a vulgar-minded
Mephistopheles: there was not even the "divinity of hell" about him.

"And so you've been buying diamonds?" he repeated presently, after a
considerable pause.

"Yes, I have. I am buying them for a necklace for my daughter."

"You are so dotingly fond of your daughter!" said the Major with a leer.

"It is necessary that I should give her a present."

"Precisely, and you won't even trust the business to a jeweller; you
insist on doing it all yourself."

"I shall do it for less money than a jeweller."

"Oh, of course," answered Major Vernon; "the motive's as clear as
daylight."

He was silent for a few minutes, then he laid his hand heavily upon his
companion's shoulder, put his lips close to the banker's ear, and said,
in a loud voice, for it was not easy for him to make himself heard above
the jolting of the cab,--

"Henry Dunbar, you're a very clever fellow, and I dare say you think
yourself a great deal sharper than I am; but, by Heaven, if you try any
tricks with me, you'll find yourself mistaken! You must buy me an
annuity. Do you understand? Before you move right or left, or say your
soul's your own, you must buy me an annuity!"

The banker shook off his companion's hand, and turned round upon him,
pale, stern, and defiant.

"Take care, Stephen Vallance," he said; "take care how you threaten me.
I should have thought you knew me of old, and would be wise enough to
keep a civil tongue in your head, with _me_. As for what you ask, I
shall do it, or I shall let it alone--as I think fit. If I do it, I
shall take my own time about it, not yours."

"You're not afraid of me, then?" asked the other, recoiling a little,
and much more subdued in his tone.

"No!"

"You are very bold."

"Perhaps I am. Do you remember the old story of some people who had a
goose that laid golden eggs? They were greedy, and, in their besotted
avarice, they killed the goose. But they have not gone down to posterity
as examples of wisdom. No, Vallance, I'm not afraid of you."

Mr. Vallance leaned back in the cab, biting his nails savagely, and
thinking. It seemed as if he was trying to find an answer for Mr.
Dunbar's speech: but, if so, he must have failed, for he was silent for
the rest of the drive: and when he got out of the vehicle, by-and-by,
before the door of the Clarendon, his manner bore an undignified
resemblance to that of a half-bred cur who carries his tail between his
legs.

"Good afternoon, Major Vernon," the banker said, carelessly, as a
liveried servant opened the door of the hotel: "I shall be very much
engaged during the few days I am likely to remain in town, and shall be
unable to afford myself the pleasure of your society."

The Major stared aghast at this cool dismissal.

"Oh," he murmured, vaguely, "that's it, is it? Well, of course, you know
what's best for yourself--so, good afternoon!"

The door closed upon Major Vernon, alias Mr. Stephen Vallance, while he
was still staring straight before him, in utter inability to realize his
position. But he drew his cashmere shawl still higher up about his ears,
took out a gaudy scarlet-morocco cigar-case, lighted another big cigar,
and then strolled slowly down the quiet West-end street, with his bushy
eyebrows contracted into a thoughtful frown.

"Cool," he muttered between his closed lips; "very cool, to say the
least of it. Some people would call it audacious. But the story of the
goose with the golden eggs is one of childhood's simple lessons that
we're obliged to remember in after-life. And to think that the
Government of this country should have the audacity to offer a measly
hundred pounds or so for the discovery of a great crime! The shabbiness
of the legislature must answer for it, if criminals remain at large. My
friend's a deep one, a cursedly deep one; but I shall keep my eye upon
him 'My faith is strong in time,' as the poet observes. My friend
carries it with a high hand at present; but the day may come when he may
want me; and if ever he does want me, egad, he shall pay me my own
price, and it shall be rather a stiff one into the bargain."

CHAPTER XXIX.

GOING AWAY.

At one o'clock on the appointed Thursday morning, Mr. Dunbar presented
himself in the diamond-merchant's office. Henry Dunbar was not alone. He
had called in St. Gundolph Lane, and asked Mr. Balderby to go with him
to inspect the diamonds he had bought for his daughter.

The junior partner opened his eyes to the widest extent as the
brilliants were displayed before him, and declared that big senior's
generosity was something more than princely.

But perhaps Mr. Balderby did not feel so entirely delighted two or three
hours afterwards, when Mr. Isaac Hartgold presented himself before the
counter in St. Gundolph Lane, whence he departed some time afterwards
carrying away with him seventy-five thousand eight hundred pounds in
Bank-of-England notes.

Henry Dunbar walked away from the neighbourhood of Holborn with his coat
buttoned tightly across his broad chest, and nearly eighty thousand
pounds' worth of property hidden away in his breast-pockets. He did not
go straight back to the Clarendon, but pierced his way across
Smithfield, and into a busy smoky street, where he stopped by-and-by at
a dingy-looking currier's shop.

He went in and selected a couple of chamois skins, very thick and
strong. At another shop he bought some large needles, half-a-dozen
skeins of stout waxed thread, a pair of large scissors, a couple of
strong steel buckles, and a tailor's thimble. When he had made these
purchases, he hailed the first empty cab that passed him, and went back
to his hotel.

He dined, drank the best part of a bottle of Burgundy, and then ordered
a cup of strong tea to be taken to his dressing-room. He had fires in
his bedroom and dressing-room every night. To-night he retired very
early, dismissed the servant who attended upon him, and locked the door
of the outer room, the only door communicating with the corridor of the
hotel.

He drank a cup of tea, bathed his head with cold water, and then sat
down at a writing-table near the fire.

But he was not going to write; he pushed aside the writing-materials,
and took his purchases of the afternoon from his pocket. He spread the
chamois leather out upon the table, and cut the skins into two long
strips, about a foot broad. He measured these round his waist, and then
began to stitch them together, slowly and laboriously.

The work was not easy, and it took the banker a very long time to
complete it to his own satisfaction. It was past twelve o'clock when he
had stitched both sides and one end of the double chamois-leather belt;
the other end he left open.

When he had completed the two sides and the end that was closed, he took
four or five little canvas-bags from his pocket. Every one of these
canvas-bags was full of loose diamonds.

A thrill of rapture ran through the banker's veins as he plunged his
fingers in amongst the glittering stones. He filled his hands with the
bright gems, and let them run from one hand to the other, like streams
of liquid light. Then, very slowly and carefully, he began to drop the
diamonds into the open end of the chamois-leather belt.

When he had dropped a few into the belt, he stitched the leather across
and across, quilting-in the stones. This work took him so long, that it
was four o'clock in the morning when he had quilted the last diamond
into the belt. He gave a long sigh of relief as he threw the waste
scraps of leather upon the top of the low fire, and watched them slowly
smoulder away into black ashes. Then he put the chamois-leather belt
under his pillow, and went to bed.

Henry Dunbar went back to Maudesley Abbey by the express on the morning
after the day on which he had completed his purchase of the diamonds. He
wore the chamois-leather belt buckled tightly round his waist next to
his inner shirt, and was able to defy the swell-mob, had those gentry
been aware of the treasures which he carried about with him.

He wrote from Warwickshire to one of the best and most fashionable
jewellers at the West End, and requested that a person who was
thoroughly skilled in his business might be sent down to Maudesley
Abbey, duly furnished with drawings of the newest designs in diamond
necklaces, earrings, &c.

But when the jeweller's agent came, two or three days afterwards, Mr.
Dunbar could find no design that suited him; and the man returned to
London without having received an order, and without having even seen
the brilliants which the banker had bought.

"Tell your employer that I will retain two or three of these designs,"
Mr. Dunbar said, selecting the drawings as he spoke; "and if, upon
consideration, I find that one of them will suit me, I will communicate
with your establishment. If not, I shall take the diamonds to Paris, and
get them made up there."

The jeweller ventured to suggest the inferiority of Parisian workmanship
as compared with that of a first-rate English establishment; but Mr.
Dunbar did not condescend to pay any attention to the young man's
remonstrance.

"I shall write to your employer in due course," he said, coldly. "Good
morning."

Major Vernon had returned to the Rose and Crown at Lisford. The deed
which transferred to him the possession of Woodbine Cottage was speedily
executed, and he took up his abode there. His establishment was composed
of the old housekeeper, who had waited on the deceased admiral, and a
young man-of-all-work, who was nephew to the housekeeper, and who had
also been in the service of the late owner of the cottage.

From his new abode Mr. Vernon was able to keep a tolerably sharp
look-out upon the two great houses in his neighbourhood--Maudesley Abbey
and Jocelyn's Rock. Country people know everything about their
neighbours; and Mrs. Manders, the housekeeper, had means of
communication with both "the Abbey" and "the Rock;" for she had a niece
who was under-housemaid in the service of Henry Dunbar, and a grandson
who was a helper in Sir Philip Jocelyn's stables. Nothing could have
better pleased the new inhabitant of Woodbine Cottage, who was speedily
on excellent terms with his housekeeper.

From her he heard that a jeweller's assistant had been to Maudesley, and
had submitted a portfolio of designs to the millionaire.

"Which they do say," Mrs. Manders continued, "that Mr. Dunbar had laid
out nigh upon half-a-million of money in diamonds; and that he is going
to give his daughter, Lady Jocelyn, a set of jewels such as the Queen
upon her throne never set eyes on. But Mr. Dunbar is rare and difficult
to please, it seems; for the young man from the jeweller's, he says to
Mrs. Grumbleton at the western lodge, he says, 'Your master is not easy
to satisfy, ma'am,' he says; from which Mrs. Grumbleton gathers that he
had not took a order from Mr. Dunbar."

Major Vernon whistled softly to himself when Mrs. Manders retired, after
having imparted this piece of information.

"You're a clever fellow, dear friend," he muttered, as he lighted his
cigar; "you're a stupendous fellow, dear boy; but your friend can see
through less transparent blinds than this diamond business. It's well
planned--it's neat, to say the least of it. And you've my best wishes,
dear boy; but--you must pay for them--you must pay for them, Henry
Dunbar."

This little conversation between the new tenant of Woodbine Cottage and
his housekeeper occurred on the very evening on which Major Vernon took
possession of his new abode. The next day was Sunday--a cold wintry
Sunday; for the snow had been falling all through the last three days
and nights, and lay deep on the ground, hiding the low thatched roofs,
and making feathery festoons about the leafless branches, until Lisford
looked like a village upon the top of a twelfth-cake. While the
Sabbath-bells were ringing in the frosty atmosphere, Major Vernon opened
the low white gate of his pleasant little garden, and went out upon the
high-road.

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