A Crooked Path Part 4

"Thank you," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "Pray is it your own?"

"Mine! Oh dear no! It is my mother's. She is not very strong, so _I_ brought it."

There was a slight faltering in her voice that suggested a good deal to her hearer. "Then you are not Mrs. W. Liddell," glancing at the card, "but Mrs. Liddell's daughter. Pray put down that heavy parcel. Three volumes, I suppose?"

"Yes, three volumes, but they are not very long, and the story is most interesting."

"No doubt. I hope it is not historical?"

"Oh no! quite modern."

"So much the better. Well, Miss Liddell, I will look at the ma.n.u.script, or rather our reader shall, and let you know the result in due course; but I must warn you that we are rather overdone with three-volume novels, and there are already a large number of ma.n.u.scripts awaiting perusal, so you must not expect our verdict for some little time."

"When you will, but oh! as soon as you can," she urged.

"I will keep your address, and you shall hear at the earliest date we can manage. Good-morning. Very damp, uncomfortable day."

Katherine felt herself dismissed, and almost forgot her ulterior intention. "Would you be so very good as to let me look at the Directory, if you have one?"

"Certainly," said Wyndham, who was slipping the card under the string of poor Katherine's parcel. "Here, Tompkins, let this young lady see the Directory. Excuse me--I am a good deal pressed for time;" and with a bow he went off, the ma.n.u.script under his arm.

"Well, it is really in his hands, at all events," thought Katherine, looking wistfully after it.

A boy with inky hands here placed that thick volume, the Post-Office Directory, before her, and she proceeded to search confusedly among the endless pages of names, a little strengthened and cheered by her brief interview with the publisher. It seemed that she was in a lucky vein: trouble is always conducive to superst.i.tion. When visible hope fails, poor human hearts turn to the invisible and the improbable.

At last she paused at "John Wilmot Liddell, 27 Legrave Crescent, Camden Town, N. W." That must be her uncle; they were all Wilmot Liddells. How to reach his abode was the question.

The inky boy soon gave her the requisite information. "You take a Waterloo 'bus at Piccadilly Circus; it runs through to Camden Town; that is, to the beginning of Camden Town," he said. Katherine thanked him, and again set forth.

It was a long, tedious drive. The omnibus was crammed with warm pa.s.sengers and damp umbrellas, but Katherine was too racked with impatience and fear to heed small discomforts. Would her dreaded relative order her out of his sight at once? Was her interview with the publisher a good omen?

At last she reached the end of her journey, and addressing herself to the tutelary policeman solemnly pacing past the Tavern where the omnibus paused, she asked to be directed to Legrave Crescent.

It was an old-fas.h.i.+oned row of houses, before them a few sooty trees in a half-moon of gra.s.s, one side railed off from the street and dignified with gates at either end--gates which were always open.

The place had a still, deserted air, but about the middle stood a cab, on which a rheumatic driver, a.s.sisted by a small boy, was placing a c.u.mbrous box. As Katherine approached she found that the house before which it stood bore the number she sought, and on reaching it she found the door held open by a little s.m.u.tty girl, the very lowest type of slavey, with unkempt hair, and a rough holland ap.r.o.n of the grimiest aspect. On the top step stood a stout woman, fairly well dressed in a large shawl and a straw bonnet largely decorated with crushed artificial flowers; a very red, angry face appeared beneath it, with watery eyes and a coa.r.s.e, half-open mouth. All this Katherine saw, but hardly observed, so strongly was her attention attracted to a figure that stood a few paces within the entrance--a tall, thin old man, bent and leaning on a stick. He was wrapped in a long dressing-gown of dull dark gray, evidently much worn; slippers were on his feet, and a black velvet skull-cap on his head, from under which some thin straggling locks of white hair escaped. His thin aquiline features and dark sunken eyes were alight with an expression of malignant fury; one long claw-like hand was outstretched with a gesture of dismissal, the other grasped the top of his stick. "Begone, you accursed drunken thief!" he was almost screaming in a shrill voice. "I would take you to the police, court if there was anything to be got out of you; but it would only be throwing good money away after bad. Get you gone to the ditch where you'll die! You guzzling, muzzling fool, to leave my house without a s.h.i.+lling after all your pilfering!"

While he uttered these words with frightful vehemence, the woman he addressed kept up a rapid undercurrent of reply.

"Living with a miserable screwy miser like you would make a saint drink!

Do you think people will serve you for nothing, and not pay themselves somehow? The likes of you are born to be robbed--and may your last crust be stole from you, you old skinflint!" With this last defiance, she turned and threw herself hastily into the cab, which crawled away as if horse and driver were equally rheumatic.

"Shut the door," said the old man, hoa.r.s.ely, as if exhausted.

"Please, sir, there's a lady here," said the little slavey. Katherine, who was as frightened as if she were face to face with a lunatic, had a terrible conviction that this appalling old man was her uncle. How should she ever address him? What an unfortunate time to have fallen upon!

"What do you want?" asked the old man, fiercely, frowning till his s.h.a.ggy white eyebrows almost met over his angry black eyes.

"I want to see Mr. John Wilmot Liddell."

"Then you see him! Who are you?"

"Katherine Liddell, your niece."

"My niece!" with inexpressible contempt and disbelief, "Well, niece or not, you may serve a turn. Can you read?"

"Yes, of course."

"Come, then--come in." He turned and walked with some difficulty to the door of the front parlor. Half bewildered, Katherine followed mechanically, and the small servant shut the front door, putting up the chain with a good deal of noise.

The room to which Katherine was so unceremoniously introduced was of good size, covered with a carpet of which no pattern and very little color were left. The furniture was old-fas.h.i.+oned and solid; a dining-table covered with faded green baize was in the middle, and a writing-table with several drawers was placed near the fireplace, beside which stood a high-backed leather arm-chair, old, worn, dirty. A wretched fire was dying out in the grate, almost choked by the red ashes of the very cheapest coal.

An odor of dust long undisturbed pervaded the atmosphere, and the dull damp weather without added to the extreme gloom. Indeed the door of this apartment might well have borne Dante's inscription over the entrance to a warmer place.

Mr. Liddell went with feeble rapidity across to where a large newspaper lay upon the floor, and resting one hand on the writing-table, stooped painfully to raise it.

"There! read--read the price-list to me. I am blind and helpless, for that jade has hid my gla.s.ses. I know she has. I cannot find them anywhere, and I _must_ know how Turkish bonds are going. Read to me.

I'll hear what you have to say after." He thrust the paper into her hand, and sat down in the high-backed chair.

Poor Katherine felt almost dazed. She took a seat at the other side of the table, and began to look for the mysterious list. The geography of the mighty _Times_ was unknown to her, and even in her mother's humbler penny paper the City article was a portion she never glanced at. While she turned the wide pages, painfully bewildered, the old man "glowered"

at her.

"I don't think you know what you are looking for," he cried, impatiently.

"I do not indeed! If you will show it to me----"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her, and pointed out the part he wished to hear.

"Read from the beginning," he said.

Katherine obeyed, her courage returning as she found herself thus strangely installed within the fortress she feared to attack. She stumbled occasionally, and was sharply set upon her feet, in the matter of figures, by her eager hearer. At last she came to Turkish six per cents.

"Eighty-seven to eighty-eight and a quarter."

"Ha!" muttered the old man, "that's an advance! good! nothing to be done there yet. Now read the railway stocks."

Katherine obeyed. When she came to "Florida and Teche debentures, sixty-two and a half to sixty-five and three-fourths," she was startled by a sort of shrill shout. "Ay! _that's_ a rise! Some rigging design there! I must write--I must. Where, where has that----harridan hid my gla.s.ses? Why, it is almost twelve o'clock! the boy will be here for the paper immediately. And the post! the post! I must catch the post. Can you write?"

"Oh yes! Shall I write for you?"

"You shall! you shall! here's paper"--rising and opening an ancient blotting-book, its covers all scribbled over with tiny figures, the result of much calculating, he hastily set forth writing materials, his lean, claw-like, dirty hands trembling with eagerness. "Hear, hear, write fast."

Katherine, growing a little clearer, and amazed at her own increasing self-possession, drew off her gloves, and taking the rusty pen offered her, wrote at his dictation:

"_To Messrs. Rogers & Stokes, Corbett Court, E. C._:

"GENTLEMEN,--Sell all my Florida shares if possible to-day, even if they decline a quarter.

"I am yours faithfully--"