Chapter 5 | A Sister's Trial | The Bag of Diamonds

“Don’t ask questions. There’s the money; take it. You don’t think I stole it, do you?”

“Stole it, Hendon dear? No, of course. How can you talk so?”

“Then, why don’t you take it?”

“Because, as your sister, I think I have a right to know whence it comes.”

“And, as your brother, seeing how we live here, in everybody’s debt, I don’t think you need be so jolly particular.”

“However poor we are, Hendon, we need not lose our self-respect.”

“Self-respect! How is a man to have self-respect, without a penny in his pocket?”

“You just showed me pounds.”

“Yes, now.”

“How did you come by it, Hendon?”

“Don’t ask,” he cried impatiently. “Take it, and pay that poor girl some wages on account, and give young Bob a tightener. Don’t be so squeamish, Rich.”

“I will not take the money. You deceived me once before.”

“Well, if I’d told you I won it at pool you wouldn’t have taken it.”

“No,” said Rich firmly, “I would sooner have lived on dry bread. This money, then, is part of some gambling transaction?”

“It isn’t.”

“Then how did you come by it?”

“Well, then, if you will have it, Poynter lent it to me.”

“Oh, Hendon, Hendon, has it come to this?” cried Richmond piteously.

“Yes, it has. What is a fellow to do? Home’s wretched; one never has a shilling. The guvnor’s mad over his essence, as he calls it, and I believe, if he saw us starve, he would smile and sigh.”

“No, no. He is so intent upon his discovery, that he does not realise our position.”

“His discovery! Bah! Lunacy! There isn’t a fellow at Guy’s who wouldn’t laugh at me if I told him what the guvnor does. Rich, old girl, I’m sick of it! It was madness for me to go through all this training, when I might have been earning money as porter or a clerk. Everything has been swallowed up in the fees. Why, if Jem Poynter hadn’t come forward like a man, and paid the last—”

“What?”

“Well, what are you shouting at?”

“Did Mr Poynter pay your last fees at Guy’s?”

“Of course he did. Do you suppose the money was caught at the bottom of a spout after a shower?”

“Hendon, dear Hendon!”

“There, it’s no use to be so squeamish. If those last hadn’t been paid, it would have been like throwing away all that had been paid before.”

“I did not know of this—I did not know of this!”

“Don’t, don’t, dear! I couldn’t help it. I used to feel as bad as you do; but this cursed poverty hardens a man. I fought against it; but Poynter was always after me, tempting me, standing dinners when I was as hungry as a hound; giving me wine and cigars. He has almost forced money on me lots of times; and at—at other times—when I’ve had a few glasses—I haven’t refused it. It’s all Janet’s fault.”

“Hendon!”

“Well, so it is!” cried the young fellow passionately. “If she hadn’t thrown me over as she did—”

“To save you from additional poverty.”

“No, it didn’t; it made me desperate, and ready to drink when a chap like Poynter was jolly, and forced champagne on me. I was as proud as you are once, but my pride’s about all gone!”

“Hush! I will not hear you speak like that, Hendon, my own darling brother! For Janet’s sake—”

“She’s nothing to me now. I was thrown over for some other fellow.”

“How dare you, sir! You know it is not true! Dear Janet! Working daily like a slave, and offering me her hard earnings when we were so pressed.”

“Did she—did she?” cried Hendon excitedly, and with his pale face flushing up.

“There,” cried Richmond half-laughingly, half-scornfully, “confess, sir, that a lying spirit was on your lips. Say you believe that of Janet and that you do not still love her, if you dare!”

Hendon Chartley let his head fall into his hands, and bent down, with his shoulders heaving with the emotion he could not conceal, while his sister bent over him and laid her hand upon his head.

He started up at her touch, seized and kissed her hand, and then, going to the side of the room, he laid his arm against the panel and his brow upon it, to stand talking there.

“I can’t help it, Rich dear,” he groaned; “I feel like a brute beast sometimes, and as if I can never look her in the face again. I’ve drunk; I’ve gone wild in a kind of despair; and Poynter seems to have been always by me to egg me on, and get me under his thumb.”

“My own brother!”

“Don’t touch me, dear. I can’t stop here. I’ll do as Mark Heath did, and if Janet’ll wait, perhaps some day I may come back to her a better man, and she may forgive me.”

There was a pause.

“I don’t believe anything of her but what is good and true; God bless her for a little darling—Why, Rich!”

He turned sharply, for a low moan had escaped his sister, and he found that she had sunk into a chair, and was sobbing bitterly, with her face in her hands.

“Rich darling, I did not mean it. What have I said?”

“Nothing, nothing, dear; only you—you must not leave me.”

“But Mark Heath—Ah! what a fool I am!” he cried, catching his sister in his arms. “I did not think what I was saying; and, Rich dear, hold up, I don’t believe the dear old boy is dead.”

“Hush, Hendon dear,” said Richmond, mastering her emotion; “I want—I want to talk to you about Mr Poynter.”

“Yes, all right. Sit down, dear, and I won’t be such a fool.”

“You must not leave me.”

“I won’t. I’ll stop and fight it out like a man. And as for James Poynter, I wish I hadn’t let him pay those rates.”

“What?”

“I didn’t like to tell you, but I let out to him about the gas and water and the rest of it, and next day he gave me all the receipts. It was one night after I’d dined with him at his club, and I was a bit primed. I thought it was very noble of him then, but when I saw it all I did nothing but curse and swear. It was nearly the death of a patient at Guy’s, for I forget what I was about. Hang it, Rich dear! don’t look so white as that.”

“I—I was wondering why we had not been troubled more,” she stammered; and then, with her face flushing, she turned fiercely upon her brother.

“Hendon,” she cried, “do you know what this means?”

There was utter silence, and Hendon Chartley turned his face away.

“I say, do you know what this means? Hendon, speak?”

“Yes.”

It was slowly and unwillingly said.

“And you have encouraged this man to make advances to the woman your best friend—almost your brother—loved?”

“Oh, Rich!”

“Speak.”

“No, no! I never encouraged him. I fought against it, and it has made me half mad when the great vulgar boor has sat talking about you, and drinking your health and praising you. Rich, I tell you I’ve felt sometimes as if I could smash the champagne bottle over his thick skull for even daring to think about you.”

“And yet you have let him do all this!” cried Richmond, with her eyes flashing. “Hendon—brother, for the sake of this man’s money and the comforts it would bring, do you wish to see me his wife?”

“Damn it, no! I’d sooner see you dead!” cried the young man passionately. “Say the word, old girl, and I’ll fight for you as a brother should. I’ll half-starve myself but what I’ll get on, and pay that thick-skinned City elephant every penny I’ve had.”

“And some day Janet shall put her arms round your neck, and tell you that you are the best and truest boy that ever lived.”

“Ah! some day,” said Hendon sadly.

“Yes, some day,” cried Rich, clasping him in her arms. “Hendon dear, you’ve made me strong where I felt very, very weak, and now we can join hands and fight the enemy to the very last.”

“When old Mark shall come back.”

“Hush!”

“No, I’ll not hush! When dear old Mark shall come back, and all these troubles be like a dream.”

Richmond looked up with a sad smile in her brother’s face, and kissed him once again.

“And Janet—” he said hoarsely, after he had returned her caress.

“Is acting as a true woman should. Take her as a pattern, dear, and show some self-denial.”

“Why not take you, Rich?” he said kindly as he gazed in the sweet careworn face before him. “There, I won’t ask you to have the money. I’m off; if I stop here longer I shall be acting like a girl. As for Poynter, if he comes and pesters you—”

“Mr Poynter will not come,” said Richmond, drawing herself up proudly. “He has acted like a coward to us both.”

“One moment, Rich,” said Hendon eagerly: “do you think—the governor—”

“Has taken money from him? No.”

“Thank God!”

“My father, whatever his weakness, is a true gentleman at heart. He would not do this thing.”

Hendon advanced a step to take his sister in his arms, but in his eyes then she wore so much the aspect of an indignant queen that he raised her thin white hand to his lips instead, and hurried from the house.