The Golden Shoemaker Part 24

"Well, Jemima," he exclaimed, "I'm back again safe and sound, you see!"

"Yes," was the solemn response, "I'm thankful to see you, brother,--and relieved."

"Cobbler" Horn laughed heartily, and kissed her on the other cheek.

"Thankful enough, Jemima, let us be. But 'relieved'! well, I had no fear.

You see, my dear sister, the whole round world lies in the hand of G.o.d.

And, then, I didn't understand the way the Lord has been dealing with me of late to mean that he was going to allow me to be cut off quite so soon as that."

This was said cheerily, and not at all in a preaching tone; and having said it, "Cobbler" Horn turned, with genuine pleasure, to exchange a genial greeting with his young secretary, who had remained sedately in the background.

"Dinner is almost ready," said Miss Jemima, as they entered the house; "so you must not spend long in your room."

"I promise you," said her brother, from the stairs, "that I shall be at the table almost as soon as the dinner itself."

During dinner, "Cobbler" Horn talked much about his voyage to and fro, and his impressions of America. He had sent, by letter, during his absence, a regular report, from time to time, of the progress of the sorrowful business which had taken him across the sea; and with regard to that neither he nor his sister was now inclined to speak at large.

After dinner, "Cobbler" Horn, somewhat to his sister's mortification, retired to the office, for the purpose of receiving, from his secretary, a report of the correspondence which had pa.s.sed through her hands during his absence.

Let it not be supposed that Miss Jemima was capable of entertaining suspicion with regard to her brother. She would frown upon his doings and disapprove of his opinions, with complete unreserve; but she would not admit concerning him a shadow of mistrust. When, therefore, it is recorded that his frequent and close intercourse with his young secretary occasioned his sister uneasiness of mind, it must not be supposed that any evil imagining intruded upon her thoughts. Miss Jemima was simply fearful lest this young girl should, perhaps inadvertently, steal into the place in her brother's heart which belonged to her. As "Cobbler" Horn and his secretary sat in counsel, from time to time, in their respective arm-chairs, at the opposite ends of the office table, neither of them had any suspicion of Miss Jemima's jealous fears.

Miss Owen had dealt diligently, and with much shrewdness, with the ever-inflowing tide of letters. Her labour was much lightened now by reason of "Cobbler" Horn's having provided her with the best type-writer that could be obtained for money. With regard to some of the letters, she had ventured to avail herself of the advice of the minister; and she had also, with great tact, consulted Miss Jemima on points with reference to which the opinion of that lady was likely to be sound and safe. The consequence was that the letters which remained to be considered were comparatively few.

First, Miss Owen gave her employer an account of the letters of which she had disposed; then she unfolded such matters as were still the subjects of correspondence; and lastly she laid before him the letters with which she had not been able to deal.

The most important of all the letters were two long ones from Messrs.

Tongs and Ball and Mr. Gray, respectively, relating to the improvements in progress at Daisy Lane in general, and in particular to the work of altering and fitting up the old Hall for the great and gracious purpose on which its owner had resolved. "The Golden Shoemaker" was gratified to learn, from these letters, that the work of renovating his dilapidated property had been so well begun, and that already, amongst his long-suffering tenants, great satisfaction was beginning to prevail.

The remaining letters were pa.s.sed under review, and then "Cobbler" Horn lingered for a few moment's chat.

"I mean to take my sister and you to see the village and the Hall one day soon, Miss Owen," he said.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Horn!" enthusiastically exclaimed the young secretary.

"You would like to go?"

"I should love it dearly! I can't tell you, Mr. Horn, how much I am interested in that kind and generous scheme of yours for the old Hall."

In her intercourse with her employer, "Cobbler" Horn's secretary was quite free and unreserved, as indeed he wished her to be.

"It's to be a home for orphans, isn't it?" she asked.

"Not for orphans only," he replied, tenderly, as he thought of his own lost little one. "It's for children who have no home, whether orphans or not,--little waifs, you know, and strays--children who have no one to care for them."

"I'm doing it," he added, simply, "for the sake of my little Marian."

"Oh, how good of you! And, do you know, Mr. Horn, its being for waifs and strays makes me like it all the more; because I was a waif and stray once myself."

She was leaning forward, with her elbows on the table, and her pretty but decided chin resting on her doubled hands. As she spoke, her somewhat startling announcement presented itself to her in a serio-comic light, and a whimsical twinkle came into her eyes. The same impression was shared by "Cobbler" Horn; and, regarding his young secretary, with her neatly-clothed person, her well-arranged hair, and her capable-looking face, he found it difficult to regard as anything but a joke the announcement that she had once been, as she expressed it, "a waif and stray."

"You!" he exclaimed, with an indulgent smile.

"Yes, Mr. Horn, I was indeed a little outcast girl. Did not Mr. Durnford tell you that the dear friends who have brought me up are not my actual parents?"

"Yes," replied "Cobbler" Horn, slowly, "he certainly did. But I did not suspect----"

"Of course not!" laughed the young girl. "You would never dream of insulting me by supposing that I had once been a little tramp!"

"No, of course not," agreed "Cobbler" Horn, with a perplexed smile.

"It's true, nevertheless," affirmed Miss Owen. "Mr. and Mrs. Burton have been like parents to me almost ever since I can remember, and I always call them 'father' and 'mother'; but they are no more relations to me than are you and Miss Horn. They found me in the road, a poor little ragged mite; and they took me home, and I've been just like their own ever since.

I remember something of it, in a vague sort of way."

"Cobbler" Horn was regarding his secretary with a bewildered gaze.

"You may well be astonished, Mr. Horn. But, do you know, sometimes I almost feel glad that I don't know my real father and mother. They must have been dreadful people. But, whatever they were, they could never have been better to me than Mr. and Mrs. Burton have been. They have treated me exactly as if I had been their own child."

Many confused thoughts were working in the brain of "Cobbler" Horn.

"But," said Miss Owen, resuming her work, "I must tell you about it another time."

"Yes, you shall," said "Cobbler" Horn, rousing himself. "I shall want to hear it all."

So saying, he left the room, and betook himself to his old workshop for an hour or two on his beloved cobbler's bench. He had placed the old house under the care of a widow, whom he permitted to live there rent free, and to have the use of the furniture which remained in the house, and to whom, in addition, he paid a small weekly fee.

As he walked along the street, he could not fail to think of what his secretary had just said with reference to her early life. His thoughts were full of pathetic interest. Then she too had been a little homeless one! The fact endeared to him, more than ever, the bright young girl who had come like a stream of suns.h.i.+ne into his life. For to "Cobbler" Horn his young secretary was indeed becoming very dear. It could not be otherwise. She was just filling his life with the gentle and considerate helpfulness which he had often thought would have been afforded to him by his little Marian. And now, it seemed to draw this young girl closer to him still, when he learnt that she had once been homeless and friendless, as he had too much reason to fear that his own little one had become. He had a feeling also that the coincidence therein involved was strange.

CHAPTER XXVII.

COMING INTO COLLISION WITH THE PROPRIETIES.

It is not surprising that, in his new station, "Cobbler" Horn should have committed an occasional breach of etiquette. It was unlikely that he would ever be guilty of real impropriety; but it was inevitable that he should, now and again, set at nought the so-called "proprieties" of fas.h.i.+onable life. In the genuine sense of the word, "Cobbler" Horn was a Christian gentleman; and he would have sustained the character in any position in which he might have been placed. But he had a feeling akin to contempt for the punctilious and conventional squeamishness of polite society.

It was, no doubt, largely for this reason that "society" did not receive "the Golden Shoemaker" within its sacred enclosure. Not that it rejected him. He had too much money for that; half his wealth would have procured him the entree to the most select circles. But the att.i.tude he a.s.sumed towards the fas.h.i.+onable world rendered impossible his admission to its charmed precincts. He made it evident that he would not, and could not, conform to its customs or observe its rules. The world, indeed, courted him, at first, and would gladly have taken him within its arms. Fas.h.i.+on set to work to woo him, as it would have wooed an ogre possessed of his glittering credentials. But he repelled its advances with an amused indifference verging on contempt.

"Cobbler" Horn foiled, by dint of sheer unresponsiveness, the first attempt to introduce itself to him made by the world. On his return from America, one of the first things which attracted his attention was a pile of visiting cards on a silver salver which stood on the hall table. Some of these bore the most distinguished names which Cottonborough or its vicinity could boast. There were munic.i.p.al personages of the utmost dignity, and the representatives of county families of the first water. It had taken the world some little time to awake to a sense of its "duty"

with regard to the "Cobbler" who had suddenly acceded to so high a position in the aristocracy of wealth. But when, at length, it realized that "the Golden Shoemaker" was indeed a fact, it set itself to bestow upon him as full and free a recognition as though the blood in his veins had been of the most immaculate blue.

It was during his absence in America that the great rush of the fas.h.i.+onable world to his door had actually set in. But Miss Jemima had not been taken unawares. She had supplied herself betimes with a manual of etiquette, which she had studied with the a.s.siduity of a diligent school-girl. She had also, though not without trepidation, ordered a quant.i.ty of visiting cards, and had them inscribed respectively with her own and her brother's names. And thus, when Society made its first advances, it did not find Miss Jemima unprepared.

When "Cobbler" Horn espied the visiting cards on his hall table, he said to his sister:

"What, more of these, Jemima?"

"Yes, Thomas," she responded, with evident pride; "and some of them belong to the best people in the neighbourhood!"