“I’ve not the slightest objection to seven percent,” said Crosbie.
“But that’s on security,” said Butterwell.
“You can name your own terms,” said Crosbie.
Mr. Butterwell got out of his chair, and walked about the room with his hands in his pockets. He was thinking at that moment what Mrs. Butterwell would say to him. “Will an answer do tomorrow morning?” he said. “I would much rather have it today,” said Crosbie. Then Mr. Butterwell took another turn about the room. “I suppose I must let you have it,” he said.
“Butterwell,” said Crosbie, “I’m eternally obliged to you. It’s hardly too much to say that you’ve saved me from ruin.”
“Of course I was joking about interest,” said Butterwell. “Five percent is the proper thing. You’d better let me have a little acknowledgment. I’ll give you the first half tomorrow.”
They were genuine tears which filled Crosbie’s eyes, as he seized hold of the senior’s hands. “Butterwell,” he said, “what am I to say to you?”
“Nothing at all—nothing at all.”
“Your kindness makes me feel that I ought not to have come to you.”
“Oh, nonsense. By the by, would you mind telling Thompson to bring those papers to me which I gave him yesterday? I promised Optimist I would read them before three, and it’s past two now.” So saying he sat himself down at his table, and Crosbie felt that he was bound to leave the room.
Mr. Butterwell, when he was left alone, did not read the papers which Thompson brought him; but sat, instead, thinking of his five hundred pounds. “Just put them down,” he said to Thompson. So the papers were put down, and there they lay all that day and all the next. Then Thompson took them away again, and it is to be hoped that somebody read them. Five hundred pounds! It was a large sum of money, and Crosbie was a man for whom Mr. Butterwell in truth felt no very strong affection. “Of course he must have it now,” he said to himself. “But where should I be if anything happened to him?” And then he remembered that Mrs. Butterwell especially disliked Mr. Crosbie—disliked him because she knew that he snubbed her husband. “But it’s hard to refuse, when one man has known another for more than ten years.” Then he comforted himself somewhat with the reflection, that Crosbie would no doubt make himself more pleasant for the future than he had done lately, and with a second reflection, that Crosbie’s life was a good life—and with a third, as to his own great goodness, in assisting a brother officer. Nevertheless, as he sat looking out of the omnibus-window, on his journey home to Putney, he was not altogether comfortable in his mind. Mrs. Butterwell was a very prudent woman.
But Crosbie was very comfortable in his mind on that afternoon. He had hardly dared to hope for success, but he had been successful. He had not even thought of Butterwell as a possible fountain of supply, till his mind had been brought back to the affairs of his office, by the voice of Sir Raffle Buffle at the corner of the street. The idea that his bill would be dishonoured, and that tidings of his insolvency would be conveyed to the Commissioners at his Board, had been dreadful to him. The way in which he had been treated by Musselboro and Dobbs Broughton had made him hate City men, and what he supposed to be City ways. Now there had come to him a relief which suddenly made everything feel light. He could almost think of Mr. Mortimer Gazebee without disgust. Perhaps after all there might be some happiness yet in store for him. Might it not be possible that Lily would yet accept him in spite of the chilling letter—the freezing letter which he had received from Lily’s mother? Of one thing he was quite certain. If ever he had an opportunity of pleading his own cause with her, he certainly would tell her everything respecting his own money difficulties.
In that last resolve I think we may say that he was right. If Lily would ever listen to him again at all, she certainly would not be deterred from marrying him by his own story of his debts.
XLV
Lily Dale Goes to London
One morning towards the end of March the squire rapped at the window of the drawing-room of the Small House, in which Mrs. Dale and her daughter were sitting. He had a letter in his hand, and both Lily and her mother knew that he had come down to speak about the contents of the letter. It was always a sign of good-humour on the squire’s part, this rapping at the window. When it became necessary to him in his gloomy moods to see his sister-in-law, he would write a note to her, and she would go across to him at the Great House. At other times, if, as Lily would say, he was just then neither sweet nor bitter, he would go round to the front door and knock, and be admitted after the manner of ordinary people; but when he was minded to make himself thoroughly pleasant he would come and rap at the drawing-room window, as he was doing now.
“I’ll let you in, uncle; wait a moment,” said Lily, as she unbolted the window which opened out upon the lawn. “It’s dreadfully cold, so come in as fast as you can.”
“It’s not cold at all,” said the squire. “It’s more like spring than any morning we’ve had yet. I’ve been sitting without a fire.”
“You won’t catch us without one for the next two months; will he, mamma? You have got a letter, uncle. Is it for us to see?”
“Well—yes; I’ve brought it down to show you. Mary, what do you think is going to happen?”
A terrible idea occurred to Mrs. Dale at that moment, but she was much too wise to give it expression. Could
