Mr. Gerald Yorke stood in his chambers--as he was pleased to style the luxurious rooms he occupied in a most fashionable quarter of London. Gerald liked both luxury and fashion, and went in for both. He was occupied very much as Mrs. Bede Greatorex had been earlier in the day--namely, casting a glance round his rooms, and the supplies of good things just brought into them. For Gerald was to give a wine and supper party that night.
Running counter to the career planned for him--the Church--Gerald had embarked on one of his own choosing. He determined to be a public man; and had private ambitious visions of a future premiership. He came to London, got introductions through his family connections, and hoped to be promoted to some government appointment to start with. As a preliminary step, he plunged into society and high living; going out amidst the great world and receiving men in return. This requires some amount of cash, as everybody who has tried it knows, however unlimited the general credit may be; and Gerald Yorke laboured under the drawback of possessing none. A handsome present from Lord Carrick when his lordship was in funds, of a five-pound note, screwed out of his mother\'s shallow purse, constituted his resources. So Gerald did as a vast many more do--he took to writing as a temporary means of living. Of genius he had none; but after a little practice he became a sufficiently ready writer. He tried political articles, he wrote short stories for periodicals, he obtained a post on one or two good papers as a reviewer. Gerald liked to review works of fiction best: they gave him the least trouble: and no one could cut and slash a rival\'s book to shreds, more effectively than he. Friendly with a great many of the literary world, and with men belonging to the press, Gerald found plenty of work put into his hands, for which he was well paid. At last he began to try his hand at a book himself. If he could only get through it, he thought, and it made a hit and brought him back money, what a glorious thing it would be!
As the time went on, so did Gerald\'s hopes. The book progressed towards completion (in spite of sundry stumbling blocks where he had seemed stuck), and success, with its attendant golden harvest, drew almost as near to his view, as its necessity was in reality. For the ready money earned by his stray papers and reviews, was verily but as a drop of water in the great ocean of Gerald\'s needs.
Look at him as he stands there with his back to the fireplace; the tall, fine man in his evening dress. But there is a savage frown of perplexity and temper on his generally cynical face, for something has occurred to annoy him.
And yet, that had been in its earlier part such a red-lettered day! In the morning Gerald had put the finishing conclusion to his book, and complacently written the title. In the afternoon he had been introduced to a great literary don at Mrs. Bede Greatorex\'s drum, who might prove of use in the future. Calling in later upon a friend, he had taken some dinner with him, and then returned home and dressed for the opera, his supper guests being bidden for twelve o\'clock. He was just going out on his way to the opera, when two letters met his eye, which he had overlooked on entering. The one, he saw, was in the handwriting of a creditor who was becoming troublesome; the other in that of his wife and marked "Immediate."
Gerald Yorke had been guilty of one imprudent act, for which there was no cure. When only twenty-one, he had married. The young lady, Winnifred Eales, was of no family, and did not possess a fraction of money. Gerald was taken by her pretty face, and was foolish enough to marry her off-hand; saddling himself with a wife without having the wherewithal to keep one. Little did Gerald Yorke\'s acquaintances in London suspect that the fast and fashionable young man, (only in his twenty-sixth year now, though looking older) had a wife and three children! Had the question been put to Gerald "Are you married?" he would have briefly acknowledged it; but he never volunteered the information. His wife was his wife; he did not wish to repudiate either her or the children; but he had long ago found them an awful incumbrance, and kept them in the background. To do so was less cost. Had Gerald come into two or three thousand a year, he would have set up his tent grandly, have had his family home to it forthwith, and introduced them to the world: until that desirable time should arrive, he had meant them to remain in the little country cottage-home in Gloucestershire, where he had placed them, and where they knew nobody. But that his wife was tolerably patient and very persuadable, he would have struck long before. She did grumble; when Gerald visited her she was fretful, tearful, fractious and complaining. In fact, she was little better than a child herself, and not by any means a strong-minded one.
But the crisis had come. Gerald tore open the letter, with its ominous word Immediate, and found unwelcome news. For two or three blissful moments, he did not believe his eyesight, and then the letter was dashed down in vehement passion.
"Winny\'s mad!"
Whinny (as Gerald\'s wife was generally called) tired of her lonely home, of the monotonous care of her children, tired above all of waiting month after month, year after year, for the fulfilment of his promises to put matters upon a more satisfactory footing, had taken the initiative into her own hands. She informed her husband that she had given up the cottage, sold off its furniture by auction, and should arrive with the children in London (Paddington terminus) at three o\'clock the next day, where he must meet her if he could: if not, they should drive at once to him at his chambers, or to his club, the Young England. A slight concluding hint was annexed that he need not attempt to stop her by telegraph, for the telegraph people had received orders not to bring her up any messages that might arrive.
A pretty announcement, that, for a man in society to get! Gerald stood very much as if he had received a blow that blinded him. What was he to do with them when they came? Never in all his life had he been so pushed into a corner. The clock went ticking on, on; but Gerald did not heed it.
His servant came in, under pretence of bringing a dish of fruit, and ventured to remind him of the engagement at the opera, truly thinking his master must have forgotten it. Gerald sent the opera very far away, and ordered the man to shut the door.
In truth he was in no mood for the opera now. Had there been a possibility of doing it, he would have put off his supper-party. The other letter, which he opened in a kind of desperation, contained threats of unpleasant proceedings, unless a debt, long sued for, was paid within twenty-four hours. Money, Gerald must have and he did not know where to get it. His literary pay had been forestalled wherever it could be. He had that day applied to young Richard Yorke (or Vincent, as Gerald generally called him, being the finer name of his cousin\'s two baptismal ones) for a loan, and been refused. Apart from the future difficulties connected with Winny and the children, it would take some cash in pocket to establish them in lodgings.
"Winny wants a good shaking for causing me this trouble," earnestly soliloquised Gerald in his dilemma, that fashionable drawl of his, kept for the world, not being discernible in private life. "Suppose she should turn restive and insist on coming here? Good heavens! a silly, untidy wife, and three ill-kept children!"
He walked to the sideboard, dashed out a glass of some cordial with his shaking band, and drank it, for the picture unnerved him.
"If I could get my book accepted by a publisher, and an advance made upon it," thought Gerald, resuming his place on the hearthrug, "I might get along. Some of those confounded publishers are so independent; they\'ll keep a manuscript for twelve months and never look at it."
A short while before this, Gerald had tried his hand at a play, which ill-natured managers had hitherto refused to accept. Gerald of course thought the refusal arose from nothing but prejudice, as some others do in similar cases. He went on with his soliloquy.
"I think I\'ll get some fellow to look over my novel and give me an opinion upon it--which I can repeat over to a publisher. Write it down if necessary. That\'s what I ought to have done by the drama: one is apt to be overlooked in these days without a special recommendation. Let\'s see? Who is there? Hamish Channing. Nobody so good. His capabilities are first-rate, and I\'ll make him read it at once. If Vincent Yorke----"
The soliloquy was brought to a standstill. Some commotion outside, as if a visitor had sought to enter and was stopped, caught Gerald\'s startled ear; but he knew his servant was trustworthy. The next moment the door opened, and the man spoke.
"Mr. Yorke, sir."
Who should walk in, with his usual disregard to the exigencies of ceremonious life, but Roland! Gerald stared in utter astonishment; and, when satisfied that it was in truth his brother, frowned awfully. Gerald in his high sphere might find it difficult to get along; but to have an elder brother who was so down in the world as to accept any common employment that offered, and put up with one room and a turn-up bedstead, and not scruple to own it, was a very different matter. And Gerald\'s intention was to wash his hands of Roland and his low surroundings, as entirely as Sir Richard Yorke could do.
Roland took a survey of things in general, and saluted his brother with off-hand cordiality. He knew his presence there was unacceptable, but in his good-nature would not appear to remember it. The handsome rooms, lacking no signs of wealth and comfort, the preparations for the entertainment that peeped out here and there, Gerald himself (as Roland would have expressed it) in full fig; all seemed to denote that life was sunny in this quarter, and Roland thought it was fine to be Gerald.
Gerald slowly extended one unwilling finger in response to Roland\'s offered grasp, and waited for him to explain his business, not inviting him to sit. It was not he that would allow Roland to think he might be a visitor there at will. Roland, however, put himself into a comfortable velvet lounging-chair of his own accord, as easily as he might have put himself into the old horsehair thing at Mrs. Jones\'s: and then proceeded to tell his errand.
It was this. Upon going home that night at seven--for he had to stay late in the office to make up for the time lost at Mrs. Bede\'s kettle-drum--Roland found a letter from Lord Carrick, who was in the shade still. Amidst some personal matters, it contained a confidential message for Gerald, which Roland was charged to deliver in person. This was no other than a reminder to Gerald that a certain pecuniary obligation for which he and Lord Carrick were equally responsible (the latter having made himself so, to accommodate Gerald, but receiving no benefit) was becoming due, and that Gerald would have to meet it. "Tell him, my boy, that I\'d willingly find the means for him if I could, and as much more at the back of it," wrote the good-natured peer; "but I\'m regularly out of everything for the time being, and can\'t."
It may be easily conceived that the errand, when explained, did not tend to increase Roland\'s welcome. Gerald bit his full lips with suppressed passion, and could willingly have struck his brother. Vincent Yorke, perhaps as an ostensible plea for not responding in kind to Gerald\'s application for the loan of twenty pounds that day, said they might have to lose forty-four, and had disclosed to him the particulars of the appropriated cheque, adding that he should think suspicion must lie on someone of the four clerks in Bede Greatorex\'s office. That was quite enough ............