The Wharf by the Docks by Florence Warden (novel24 TXT) 📖

be the greatest success ever known in these parts, or the greatest failure. Nothing between. That's what I must always have--something sensational--something to make people howl at me, or to make them want to light bonfires in my honor. That's characteristic, isn't it?"

And Doreen, who was dressed in a black skirt, with a scarlet velvet bodice which did justice to her brilliant complexion and soft, dark hair, paused in the act of turning out a number of glittering glass balls into her lap.

"Very," said Dudley, as he made his way carefully to the nearest chair and sat down to look at her.

He was up to his knees in brown-paper parcels, over which barricade he stretched out his hand.

Doreen affected not to see it. She began to tie bits of fancy string into the little rings in the glass balls, cutting off the ends with a pair of scissors.

"Aren't you going to shake hands with me?" asked Dudley, impatiently.

Doreen answered without looking tip.

"No. Not yet."

"What's the matter now?"

"Oh, I am offended."

"What have I done now?"

Doreen threw up her head.

"What have you _not_ done? We have all of us--I among the others--had a good deal to put up with from you, lately, in the matter of what I will call general neglect. And you put a climax to it the day before yesterday by rushing out of the house without a word of good-bye to anybody."

"There was a reason for it," interrupted Dudley, quickly.

"I suppose so. But I'm not going to take the reason on trust, Mr. Horne."

"Not if you're satisfied that you will meet with no more neglect in the future? That my conduct shall be in every respect what you--and the others--can desire?"

"Not even then," replied Doreen decisively.

"But if your father is satisfied?"

"Then go and talk to my father."

There was a pause and their eyes met. Dudley, who had acknowledged to himself the patience with which Doreen had put up with his recent neglect, was astonished by the resolution which he saw in her eyes.

"What is it you want to know?" he asked, in a condescending and indulgent tone.

"A great deal more than you will tell me," answered Doreen, promptly.

Whereat there was another pause. Dudley took up one of the brown-paper parcels and turned it over in his hands. Perhaps it was to hide the fact that an irrepressible tremor was running through his limbs.

If he had looked at her at that moment he would have seen in her eyes a touching look of sympathy and distress. The girl knew that something had been amiss with him--that something was amiss still. She cared for him. She wanted his confidence, or at least so much of it as would allow her to pour out upon him the tender sympathy with which her innocent heart was overflowing. And he would have none of it. He wanted to treat her like a beautiful doll, to be left in its cotton wool when his spirits were too low for playthings, and to be taken out and admired when things went better with him.

This was what Doreen mutinously thought and what her lips were on the point of uttering, when the door was opened by Mr. Wedmore, who came into the room with a copy of the _Evening Standard_ in his hand.

"Look here, Horne, did you see this?" said he, as he folded the paper and handed it to Dudley. "Here's an odd thing. Of course it may be only a coincidence. But doesn't it seem to refer to the rascal who ruined your prospects--Edward Jacobs?"

"A middle-aged Jewish woman, who found some difficulty in making herself understood, from an impediment in her speech, applied to Mr. ----, of ---- Street Police Court, for advice in the following circumstances: She and her husband had returned to England in reduced circumstances, after a long residence abroad, and her husband was in search of employment. He had received a letter from Limehouse, offering him employment and giving him an appointment for yesterday afternoon, which he started to keep. He had not returned; she had been to Limehouse police station to make inquiries, but could learn nothing of her husband. She seemed to be under the impression that he had met with foul play, and made a rambling statement to the effect that he had 'enemies.' It was only after much persuasion, and the assurance that the press could not help her without the knowledge, that she gave her name as Jacobs, and her husband's first name as Edward. She described him as of the middle height, thin, with gray hair and a short gray beard. The magistrate said he had no doubt the press would do what they could to help her, and the woman withdrew."

Dudley Horne read this account, and gave the paper back to Mr. Wedmore.

He tried to speak as he did so, but, though his mouth opened, the voice refused to come.


CHAPTER V.

ONE MAN'S LOSS is ANOTHER MAN'S GAIN.

"Confound the Christmas tree!" grumbled Mr. Wedmore, as he stumbled over a parcel of fluffy rabbits, whose heads screwed off to permit the insertion of sweets.

"Oh, papa, you'll be saying 'Confound Christmas' next!"

And Doreen, with one watchful eye on Dudley all the time, made a lane through her boxes and her hampers to admit the passage of her father to a chair.

By this time Dudley had recovered himself a little, and was able to answer the question Mr. Wedmore now put to him.

"What do you think of that, Horne?"

"I think, sir, that it must be more than a coincidence; that Mrs. Jacobs must be the wife of the man who was my father's manager."

"Well, I think so, too. I know Jacobs's wife had an impediment in her speech. The odd part of the business is that he should have disappeared at Limehouse, the very place where one would have thought he would have an objection to turning up at all, connected as it was with his old peculations. I suppose he thought they were forgotten by this time."

"I suppose so."

Dudley still looked very white. He took up the paper again, as if to re-read the paragraph. But Doreen, from her post of vantage on the floor, saw that he held it before him with eyes fixed. Mr. Wedmore, after a little hesitation, and after vainly trying to get another look at the face of the younger man, went on again:

"I thought you would be struck by this; the subject turning up again in this odd way, just when you've been interesting yourself so much in the old story!"

Down went the paper, and Dudley looked into the face of Mr. Wedmore.

"Interesting myself in it! Have I? How do you mean?"

"Well, you've asked a good many questions about this Jacobs, and wondered what had become of him. I fancy you have the answer in that paragraph."

There was a pause, and Dudley seemed to recollect something. Then he said:

"Oh, yes, I think I have. The man has fallen upon bad times, evidently. I--I--I'm sorry for his wife."

"And the man himself--haven't you forgiven him yet?"

Dudley started, and glanced quickly round, as if the simple words had been an accusation.

"Forgiven him? Oh, yes, long ago. At least--" He paused a moment, and then added, inquiringly: "What had I to forgive?"

"Well, to tell the truth, Horne, that's just what I have often asked myself, when you have insisted upon raking up all the details of poor Jacobs's misdeeds! Why, your poor father, who was ruined by his dishonesty, never showed half the animosity you do. I could have understood it if you had suffered by his frauds. But have you? You have been well educated; you have started well in life. And on the whole, no man who has arrived at your age can honestly say that it would have been better for him to start life with a fortune at his back, eh?"

"No."

Dudley got up from his chair. He seemed agitated and uneasy, and soon took advantage of Mr. Wedmore's suggestion, somewhat dryly made, that he was tired after his journey and would like to go to bed.

When he had left the room, Mr. Wedmore turned angrily to his daughter.

"Now, Doreen, I will have no more of this nonsense. Dudley is beginning all the old tricks over again--absence of mind, indifference to you--did he even look at you as he said good night?--and morbid interest in this old, forgotten business of Jacobs and his misdoings. I won't have any more of it, and I shall tell him plainly that we don't care to have him down here until he can bring a livelier face and manner with him!"

Doreen had risen from her humble seat on the floor and had crawled on her knees to the side of his chair, where she slid a coaxing, caressing hand under his arm and put her pretty head gently down on his shoulder.

"No, you won't, papa dear. You won't do anything of the kind," she whispered in his ear very softly, very humbly. "You would not do anything to give pain to your old friend's son if you could help it, and you would not do anything to hurt your own child, your little Doreen, for a hundred thousand pounds, now would you?"

"Yes, I would, if it was for her good," replied Mr. Wedmore, in a very loud and determined voice, which was supposed to have the effect of frightening her into submission. "And it's all rubbish to think to get around me by calling yourself 'little Doreen,' when you're a great, big, overgrown lamp-post of a girl, who can take her own part against the whole county."

Doreen laughed, but still clung persistently to the arm which he pretended to try to release from her clutches.

"Well, I don't know about the county, but I think I can persuade my old father into doing what I want," she purred into his ear with gentle conviction. "You see, papa, it isn't as if Dudley and I were engaged. We--"

"Why, what else have you been but engaged ever since last Christmas?" said her father, irritably. "Everybody has looked upon it as an engagement, and Dudley was devoted enough until a couple of months ago; but now something has gone wrong with the lad, I'm certain, and it would be much better for you both to make an end of this."

"Why, there's nothing to make an end of," pleaded Doreen. "Just 'let things slide,' as Max says, and let Dudley come down or stay away as he likes, and the matter will come quite right one way or the other, and you will find there was really nothing for you to trouble your dear old head about, after all."

There was really some excellence in the girl's suggestion; and her father, after much grumbling, gave a half consent to it. He was forced to admit to himself that there was some grounds for Dudley's agitation on reading the paragraph concerning the disappearance of Edward Jacobs, since he had been interesting himself of late in that person's history. But it was the degree of the young man's agitation which had seemed morbid. Mr. Wedmore found it difficult to understand why a mere suggestion of the man's disappearance--if it were indeed _the_ man--should affect Dudley so deeply. And