Tidings now came in from the office that Dockwrath was there. “You’ll come round and eat a bit of dinner with us?” said she, hesitatingly. He felt that she hesitated, and hesitated himself in his reply. “He must say something in the way of asking you, you know, and then say you’ll come. His manner’s nothing to you, you know. Do now. It does me good to look at you, John; it does indeed.” And then, without making any promise, he left her and went round to the office.
Kenneby had made up his mind, talking over the matter with Moulder and his sister, that he would be very reserved in any communication which he might make to Dockwrath as to his possible evidence at the coming trial; but nevertheless when Dockwrath had got him into his office, the attorney made him give a succinct account of everything he knew, taking down his deposition in a regular manner. “And now if you’ll just sign that,” Dockwrath said to him when he had done.
“I don’t know about signing,” said Kenneby. “A man should never write his own name unless he knows why.”
“You must sign your own deposition;” and the attorney frowned at him and looked savage. “What would a judge say to you in court if you had made such a statement as this, affecting the character of a woman like Lady Mason, and then had refused to sign it? You’d never be able to hold up your head again.”
“Wouldn’t I?” said Kenneby gloomily; and he did sign it. This was a great triumph to Dockwrath. Mat Round had succeeded in getting the deposition of Bridget Bolster, but he had got that of John Kenneby.
“And now,” said Dockwrath, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do;—we’ll go to the Blue Posts—you remember the Blue Posts?—and I’ll stand a beef steak and a glass of brandy and water. I suppose you’ll go back to London by the 3 p.m. train. We shall have lots of time.”
Kenneby said that he should go back by the 3 p.m. train, but he declined, with considerable hesitation, the beefsteak and brandy and water. After what had passed between him and Miriam he could not go to the Blue Posts with her husband.
“Nonsense, man,” said Dockwrath. “You must dine somewhere.”
But Kenneby said that he should dine in London. He always preferred dining late. Besides, it was a long time since he had been at Hamworth, and he was desirous of taking a walk that he might renew his associations.
“Associations!” said Dockwrath with a sneer. According to his ideas a man could have no pleasant associations with a place unless he had made money there or been in some way successful. Now John Kenneby had enjoyed no success at Hamworth. “Well then, if you prefer associations to the Blue Posts I’ll say goodbye to you. I don’t understand it myself. We shall see each other at the trial you know.” Kenneby with a sigh said that he supposed they should.
“Are you going into the house,” said Dockwrath, “to see her again?” and he indicated with his head the side on which his wife was, as she before had indicated his side.
“Well, yes; I think I’ll say goodbye.”
“Don’t be talking to her about this affair. She understands nothing about it, and everything goes up to that woman at Orley Farm.” And so they parted.
“And he wanted you to go to the Blue Posts, did he?” said Miriam when she heard of the proposition. “It’s like him. If there is to be any money spent it’s anywhere but at home.”
“But I ain’t going,” said John.
“He’ll go before the day’s out, though he mayn’t get his dinner there. And he’ll be ever so free when he’s there. He’ll stand brandy and water to half Hamworth when he thinks he can get anything by it; but if you’ll believe me, John, though I’ve all the fag of the house on me, and all them children, I can’t get a pint of beer—not regular—betwixt breakfast and bedtime.” Poor Miriam! Why had she not taken advice when she was younger? John Kenneby would have given her what beer was good for her, quite regularly.
Then he went out and took his walk, sauntering away to the gate of Orley Farm, and looking up the avenue. He ventured up some way, and there at a distance before him he saw Lucius Mason walking up and down, from the house towards the road and back again, swinging a heavy stick in his hand, with his hat pressed down over his brows. Kenneby had no desire to speak to him; so he returned to the gate, and thence went back to the station, escaping the town by a side lane; and in this way he got back to London without holding further communication with the people of Hamworth.
XLIII
John Kenneby’s Courtship
“She’s as sweet a temper, John, as ever stirred a lump of sugar in her tea,” said Mrs. Moulder to her brother, as they sat together over the fire in Great St. Helen’s on that same evening—after his return from Hamworth. “That she is—and so Smiley always found her. ‘She’s always the same,’ Smiley said to me many a day. And what can a man want more than that?”
“That’s quite true,” said John.
“And then as to her habits—I never knew her take a drop too much since first I set eyes on her, and that’s nigh twenty years ago. She likes things comfortable;—and why shouldn’t she, with two hundred a year of her own coming out of the Kingsland Road brick-fields? As for dress, her things is beautiful, and she is the woman that takes care of ’em! Why, I remember an Irish tabinet as
