“No thank you, papa,” she replied with equal gravity.
“On what then do you intend to dine?” There had been a sole of which she had also declined to partake. “There is nothing else, unless you will dine off rice pudding.”
“I am not hungry, papa.” She could not decline to wear her customary clothes as did her friend Polly, but she could at any rate go without her dinner. Even a father so stern as was Mr. Greenmantle could not make her eat. Then there came a vision across her eyes of a long sickness, produced chiefly by inanition, in which she might wear her father’s heart out. And then she felt that she might too probably lack the courage. She did not care much for her dinner; but she feared that she could not persevere to the breaking of her father’s heart. She and her father were alone together in the world, and he in other respects had always been good to her. And now a tear trickled from her eye down her nose as she gazed upon the empty plate. He ate his two cutlets one after another in solemn silence and so the dinner was ended.
He, too, had felt uneasy qualms during the meal. “What shall I do if she takes to starving herself and going to bed, all along of that young rascal in the outer bank?” It was thus that he had thought of it, and he too for a moment had begun to tell himself that were she to be perverse she must win the battle. He knew himself to be strong in purpose, but he doubted whether he would be strong enough to stand by and see his daughter starve herself. A week’s starvation or a fortnight’s he might bear, and it was possible that she might give way before that time had come.
Then he retired to a little room inside the bank, a room that was half private and hal official, to which he would betake himself to spend his evening whenever some especially gloomy fit would fall upon him. Here, within his own bosom, he turned over all the circumstances of the case. No doubt he had with him all the laws of God and man. He was not bound to give his money to any such interloper as was Philip Hughes. On that point he was quite clear. But what step had he better take to prevent the evil? Should he resign his position at the bank, and take his daughter away to live in the south of France? It would be a terrible step to which to be driven by his own Cashier. He was as efficacious to do the work of the bank as ever he had been, and he would leave this enemy to occupy his place. The enemy would then be in a condition to marry a wife without a fortune; and who could tell whether he might not show his power in such a crisis by marrying Emily! How terrible in such a case would be his defeat! At any rate he might go for three months, on sick leave. He had been for nearly forty years in the bank, and had never yet been absent for a day on sick leave. Thinking of all this he remained alone till it was time for him to go to bed.
On the next morning he was dumb and stiff as ever, and after breakfast sat dumb and stiff, in his official room behind the bank counter, thinking over his great trouble. He had not spoken a word to Emily since yesterday’s dinner beyond asking her whether she would take a bit of fried bacon. “No thank you, papa,” she had said; and then Mr. Greenmantle had made up his mind that he must take her away somewhere at once, lest she should be starved to death. Then he went into the bank and sat there signing his name, and meditating the terrible catastrophe which was to fall upon him. Hughes, the Cashier, had become Mr. Hughes, and if any young man could be frightened out of his love by the stern look and sterner voice of a parent, Mr. Hughes would have been so frightened.
Then there came a knock at the door, and Mr. Peppercorn having been summoned to come in, entered the room. He had expressed a desire to see Mr. Greenmantle personally, and having proved his eagerness by a double request, had been allowed to have his way. It was quite a common affair for him to visit the bank on matters referring to the brewery; but now it was evident to anyone with half an eye that such at present was not Mr. Peppercorn’s business. He had on the clothes in which he habitually went to church instead of the light-coloured pepper and salt tweed jacket in which he was accustomed to go about among the malt and barrels. “What can I do for you, Mr. Peppercorn?” said the banker. But the aspect was the aspect of a man who had a poker still fixed within his head and gullet.
“ ’Tis nothing about the brewery, sir, or I shouldn’t have troubled you. Mr. Hughes is very good at all that kind of thing.” A further frown came over Mr. Greenmantle’s face, but he said nothing. “You know my daughter Polly, Mr. Greenmantle?”
“I am aware that there is a Miss Peppercorn,” said the other. Peppercorn felt that an offence was intended. Mr. Greenmantle was of course aware. “What can I do on behalf of Miss Peppercorn?”
“She’s as
