The Joss: a Reversion
Copyright© 2024 by Richard Marsh
Chapter 20: My Client—and Her Friend.
The next day I was engaged. On that following I went up to Fenchurch Street, to the offices of Messrs. Staple, Wainwright and Friscoe. I had ascertained that Gardiner was out of town, and actuated by motives of curiosity thought I would learn where Mr. Lander might be found. As I was going up the steps an old gentleman came down. I knew him pretty well. His name was Curtis. He had been, and, indeed, for all I knew, was still an agent of Lloyd’s. For two or three years we had not met. After we had exchanged greetings, I put to him my question.
“Do you know a man named Lander, Max Lander?”
“Late of The Flying Scud?”
An odd expression came on his face, as it were the suggestion of a grin.
“That’s the man.”
“Yes, I know something of Max Lander, Captain Max, as he likes to be called. Though there’s not much of the captain about him just at present.”
The grin came more to the front.
“He called on me about a matter of which I could make neither head nor tail. I should like to have another talk with him. Can you tell me where he’s to be found?”
Mr. Curtis shook his head.
“Just now he’s resting. It’s been a little too hot for him of late. I fancy he’s lying by till it gets a little cooler.”
“What’s wrong with the man?”
“Nothing exactly wrong, only he’s had a little experience. Sorry I can’t stay, this cab’s waiting for me.” He stepped into the hansom which was drawn up by the kerb. “If you want to know what’s wrong with Lander, you mention to him the name of Batters—Benjamin Batters.”
The cab drove off. Before I had recovered from my astonishment it was beyond recall.
Batters? Benjamin Batters? My Benjamin Batters? There could hardly be two persons possessed of that alliterative name. If I had only guessed that there was any sort of connection between him and Benjamin Batters, Mr. Lander would not have departed till we had arrived at a better understanding. Why had the idiot not dropped a hint? Why had Curtis driven off at that rate at the wrong moment?
I asked at the office for the address of Captain Max Lander. I was snubbed. The name was evidently not a popular one in that establishment. The clerk, having submitted my inquiry to someone elsewhere, informed me curtly that nothing was known of such a person there, and appeared to think that I had been guilty of an impertinence in supposing that anything was. When I followed with a request for information about a Mr. Benjamin Batters, I believe that clerk thought I was having a game with him. Somewhere in the question must have been a sting, with which I was unacquainted; for, with a scowl, he turned his back on me, not deigning to reply.
As I did not want to have an argument with Messrs. Staple, Wainwright and Friscoe’s staff, I went away. I pursued my inquiries elsewhere, both for Captain Max Lander and for Mr. Benjamin Batters. But without success. The scent had run to ground. By the evening I concluded that I had had about enough of the job. Instead of trying to find out things about Benjamin Batters, I would seek out Mary Blyth. She should have the good news. I was not sure that I had not already kept them from her longer than I was justified in doing. She should learn that she was the proud possessor of a tumble-down, disreputable house in Camford Street; though, so far as I could see, she had not a shadow of a title to it which would hold good in law; but perhaps she was not a person who would allow herself to be hampered by a trifle of that description; also of a comfortable income derived from consols—conditions being attached to both bequests which were calculated to drive her mad. Having imparted that good news, I would wash my hands of the Batters’ family for good and all. There was something about it which was, as Gregory Pryor put it, “sniffy.”
With that design I started betimes the next morning. I had no difficulty in finding the establishment of Messrs. Cardew and Slaughter, where Mr. Batters stated in his will that he had last heard of his niece as an assistant. It was an “emporium,” where they sold many things you wanted, and more which you did not, from gloves to fire-irons. After being kept waiting an unconscionable length of time, asked many uncalled-for questions, and enduring what I felt to be intentional indignities, I was ushered into the office of Mr. Slaughter.
That gentleman was disposed to mete out to me even more high-handed treatment than Messrs. Staple, Wainwright and Friscoe. Under the circumstances, however, that was more than I was inclined to submit to. He seemed to regard it as sheer insolence that a stranger should venture to speak to him—the great Slaughter!—of such a mere nothing as one of his assistants. As if I had wanted to! We had quite a passage of arms. In the midst who should come running in but the girl herself—Mary Blyth.
She had just been dismissed. I had come in the nick of time to prevent her being thrown—literally thrown—into the street. That was a partial explanation of Mr. Slaughter’s haughtiness. Pretty badly she seemed to have been used. And very hot she was with a sense of injury. She had a companion in misfortune; a prettier girl I had never seen. The pair had been sent packing at a moment’s notice. If I had been a minute or two later I should have missed them; they would have gone. In which case the most striking chapter in my life’s history might have had to be written in a very different fashion.
When it came to paying the two girls the wretched pittance which was due to them as wages, an attempt was made to keep back the larger portion of it under the guise of “fines,” that rascally system by means of which so many drapers impose upon the helpless men and women they employ. A few sharp words from me were sufficient to show that this was an occasion on which that method of roguery could hardly be safely practised. I judged that the sum paid them—fifteen shillings—represented their entire fortune. With that capital they were going out to face the world.
In the cab I had an opportunity of forming some idea of what my client was like.
Mary Blyth was big, rawboned, and, I may add, hungry looking. She gave me the impression that she had had a hard life, one in which she had had not seldom to go without enough to eat. In age I set her down as twenty-six or seven. She was not handsome; on the other hand she was not repellent. Her features were homely, but they were not unpleasing, and there was about them more than a suggestion of honesty and shrewdness. Her experience of the rougher side of life had probably given her a readiness of wit, and a coolness of head, which would cause her to find herself but little at a loss in any position in which a changeable fate would place her. That was how she struck me. I liked her clear eyes, her pleasant mouth, her determined nose and chin. Intellectuality might not be her strongest point; obviously, in a scholastic sense, her educational advantages had been but small. Her tongue betrayed her. But, unless I greatly erred, she was a woman of character for all that. Strong, enduring, clear-sighted, within her limits; sure and by no means slow. A little prone to impatience, perhaps; it is a common failing. I am impatient myself at times. Still, on the whole, on her own lines, a good type of an Englishwoman.
My client’s appearance pleased me better than I feared would have been the case. I was not so eager to wash my hands of the Batters’ connection as I had been.
But it was my client’s friend who appealed most strongly to my imagination. She took my faculties by storm. I am not easily disconcerted. Yet, in her presence, I felt ridiculously ill at ease. She was only a girl. I kept telling myself that she was only a girl. I believe that it was because she was only a girl that I was conscious of such curious sensations. She sat opposite me in the cab. Every time her knee brushed against mine, I felt as if I was turning pink and green and yellow. It was not only uncomfortable, it was undignified.
She was just the kind of girl I like to look at; yet, for some reason, I hardly dared allow my eyes to stray in her direction. I could look at Miss Blyth; stare at her, indeed, till further notice, in the most callous, cold-blooded way. But my glances studiously avoided her friend. Her name was Emily Purvis—the friend’s name, I mean. I had a general impression that she had big eyes, light brown hair, and a smile which lit up her face like sunshine. I am aware that this sounds slightly drivelling; if it were another man I should say that his language reminded me of a penny novelette. But my mood at the moment was pronouncedly imbecile; I was only capable of drivel. The girl had come upon me with such a shock of surprise. I had never expected to light on anything of that kind when pursuing the niece of Benjamin Batters.
Miss Purvis was small. I like small women. I am aware that this is an age of muscularity, and that athletics do cause women to run to size. But, for my part, I like them little. Bone, muscle, stamina, these things are excellent. From a physical point of view, no doubt, the Amazon, when she is fit, in good condition, is all that she should be. I admire such a one, even when her height is five feet eleven. But I do not like her; I never could. As to having a woman of that description for a wife—the saints forbid!
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.