The Chronicles of Barsetshire (300 page)

CHAPTER XXXVII

Hook Court

Mr. Dobbs Broughton and Mr. Musselboro were sitting together on a certain morning at their office in the City, discussing the affairs of their joint business. The City office was a very poor place indeed, in comparison with the fine house which Mr. Dobbs occupied at the West End; but then City offices are poor places, and there are certain City occupations which seem to enjoy the greater credit the poorer are the material circumstances by which they are surrounded. Turning out of a lane which turns out of Lombard Street, there is a desolate, forlorn-looking, dark alley, which is called Hook Court. The entrance to this alley is beneath the first-floor of one of the houses in the lane, and in passing under this covered way the visitor to the place finds himself in a small paved square court, at the two further corners of which there are two open doors; for in Hook Court there are only two houses. There is No. 1, Hook Court, and No. 2, Hook Court. The entire premises indicated by No. 1 are occupied by a firm of wine and spirit merchants, in connexion with whose trade one side and two angles of the court are always lumbered with crates, hampers, and wooden cases. And nearly in the middle of the court, though somewhat more to the wine-merchants’ side than to the other, there is always gaping open a trap-door, leading down to vaults below; and over the trap there is a great board with a bright advertisement in very large letters:—

BURTON AND BANGLES.

HIMALAYA WINES,

22s. 6d. per dozen.

And this notice is so bright and so large, and the trap-door is so conspicuous in the court, that no visitor, even to No. 2, ever afterwards can quite divest his memory of those names, Burton and Bangles, Himalaya wines. It may therefore be acknowledged that Burton and Bangles have achieved their object in putting up the notice. The house No. 2, small as it seems to be, standing in the jamb of a corner, is divided among different occupiers, whose names are painted in small letters upon the very dirty posts of the doorway. Nothing can be more remarkable than the contrast between Burton and Bangles and these other City gentlemen in the method taken by them in declaring their presence to visitors in the court. The names of Dobbs Broughton and of A. Musselboro—the Christian name of Mr. Musselboro was Augustus—were on one of those dirty posts, not joined together by any visible “and”, so as to declare boldly that they were partners; but in close vicinity—showing at least that the two gentlemen would be found in apartments very near to each other. And on the first-floor of this house Dobbs Broughton and his friend did occupy three rooms—or rather two rooms and a closet—between them. The larger and front room was tenanted by an old clerk, who sat within a rail in one corner of it. And there was a broad, short counter which jutted out from the wall into the middle of the room, intended for the use of such of the public as might come to transact miscellaneous business with Dobbs Broughton or Augustus Musselboro. But anyone accustomed to the look of offices might have seen with half an eye that very little business was ever done on that counter. Behind this large room was a smaller one, belonging to Dobbs Broughton, in the furnishing and arrangement of which some regard had been paid to comfort. The room was carpeted, and there was a sofa in it, though a very old one, and two arm-chairs and a mahogany office-table, and a cellaret, which was generally well supplied with wine which Dobbs Broughton did not get out of the vaults of his neighbours, Burton and Bangles. Behind this again, but with a separate entrance from the passage, was the closet; and this closet was specially devoted to the use of Mr. Musselboro. Closet as it was—or cupboard as it might almost have been called—it contained a table and two chairs; and it had a window of its own, which opened out upon a blank wall which was distant from it not above four feet. As the house to which this wall belonged was four stories high, it would sometimes happen that Mr. Musselboro’s cupboard was rather dark. But this mattered the less as in these days Mr. Musselboro seldom used it. Mr. Musselboro, who was very constant at his place of business—much more constant than his friend, Dobbs Broughton—was generally to be found in his friend’s room. Only on some special occasions, on which it was thought expedient that the commercial world should be made to understand that Mr. Augustus Musselboro had an individual existence of his own, did that gentleman really seat himself in the dark closet. Mr. Dobbs Broughton, had he been asked what was his trade, would have said that he was a stockbroker; and he would have answered truly, for he was a stockbroker. A man may be a stockbroker though he never sells any stock; as he may be a barrister though he has no practice at the bar. I do not say that Mr. Broughton never sold any stock; but the buying and selling of stock for other people was certainly not his chief business. And had Mr. Musselboro been asked what was his trade, he would have probably given an evasive answer. At any rate in the City, and among people who understood City matters, he would not have said that he was a stockbroker. Both Mr. Broughton and Mr. Musselboro bought and sold a good deal, but it was chiefly on account. The shares which were bought and sold very generally did not pass from hand to hand; but the difference in the price of the shares did do so. And then they had another little business between them. They lent money on interest. And in this business there was a third partner, whose name did not appear on the dirty door-post. That third partner was Mrs. Van Siever, the mother of Clara Van Siever whom Mr. Conway Dalrymple intended to portray as Jael driving a nail into Sisera’s head.

On a certain morning Mr. Broughton and Mr. Musselboro were sitting together in the office which has been described. They were in Mr. Broughton’s room, and occupied each arm-chair on the different sides of the fire. Mr. Musselboro was sitting close to the table, on which a ledger was open before him, and he had a pen and ink before him, as though he had been at work. Dobbs Broughton had a small betting-book in his hand, and was seated with his feet up against the side of the fireplace. Both men wore their hats, and the aspect of the room was not the aspect of a place of business. They had been silent for some minutes when Broughton took his cigar-case out of his pocket, and nibbled off the end of a cigar, preparatory to lighting it.

“You had better not smoke here this morning, Dobbs,” said Musselboro.

“Why shouldn’t I smoke in my own room?”

“Because she’ll be here just now.”

“What do I care? If you think I’m going to be afraid of Mother Van, you’re mistaken. Let come what may, I’m not going to live under her thumb.” So he lighted his cigar.

“All right,” said Musselboro, and he took up his pen and went to work at his book.

“What is she coming here for this morning?” asked Broughton.

“To look after her money. What should she come for?”

“She gets her interest. I don’t suppose there’s better paid money in the City.”

“She hasn’t got what was coming to her at Christmas yet.”

“And this is February. What would she have? She had better put her dirty money into the three per cents., if she is frightened at having to wait a week or two.”

“Can she have it to-day?”

“What, the whole of it? Of course she can’t. You know that as well as I do. She can have four hundred pounds, if she wants it. But seeing all she gets out of the concern, she has no right to press for it in that way. She is the —— old usurer I ever came across in my life.”

“Of course she likes her money.”

“Likes her money! By George she does; her own and anybody else’s that she can get hold of. For a downright leech, recommend me always to a woman. When a woman does go in for it, she is much more thorough than any man.” Then Broughton turned over the little pages of his book, and Musselboro pondered over the big pages of his book, and there was silence for a quarter of an hour.

“There’s something about nine hundred and fifteen pounds due to her,” said Musselboro.

“I daresay there is.”

“It would be a very good thing to let her have it if you’ve got it. The whole of it this morning, I mean.”

“If! yes, if!” said Broughton.

“I know there’s more than that at the bank.”

“And I’m to draw out every shilling that there is! I’ll see Mother Van — further first. She can have £500 if she likes it—and the rest in a fortnight. Or she can have my note-of-hand for it all at fourteen days.”

“She won’t like that at all,” said Musselboro.

“Then she must lump it. I’m not going to bother myself about her. I’ve pretty nearly as much money in it as she has, and we’re in a boat together. If she comes here bothering, you’d better tell her so.”

“You’ll see her yourself?”

“Not unless she comes within the next ten minutes. I must go down to the court. I said I’d be there by twelve. I’ve got somebody I want to see.”

“I’d stay if I were you.”

“Why should I stay for her? If she thinks that I’m going to make myself her clerk, she’s mistaken. It may be all very well for you, Mussy, but it won’t do for me. I’m not dependent on her, and I don’t want to marry her daughter.”

“It will simply end in her demanding to have her money back again.”

“And how will she get it?” said Dobbs Broughton. “I haven’t a doubt in life but she’d take it to-morrow if she could put her hands upon it. And then, after a bit, when she began to find that she didn’t like four per cent., she’d bring it back again. But nobody can do business after such a fashion as that. For the last three years she’s drawn close upon two thousand a year for less than eighteen thousand pounds. When a woman wants to do that, she can’t have her money in her pocket every Monday morning.”

“But you’ve done better than that yourself, Dobbs.”

“Of course I have. And who has made the connexion; and who has done the work? I suppose she doesn’t think that I’m to have all the sweat and that she is to have all the profit?”

“If you talk of work, Dobbs, it is I that have done the most of it.” This Mr. Musselboro said in a very serious voice, and with a look of much reproach.

“And you’ve been paid for what you’ve done. Come, Mussy, you’d better not turn against me. You’ll never get your change out of that. Even if you marry the daughter, that won’t give you the mother’s money. She’ll stick to every shilling of it till she dies; and she’d take it with her then, if she knew how.” Having said this, he got up from his chair, put his little book into his pocket, and walked out of the office. He pushed his way across the court, which was more than ordinarily crowded with the implements of Burton and Bangles’ trade, and as he passed under the covered way he encountered at the entrance an old woman getting out of a cab. The old woman was, of course, Mother Van, as her partner, Mr. Dobbs Broughton, irreverently called her. “Mrs. Van Siever, how d’ye do? Let me give you a hand. Fare from South Kensington? I always give the fellows three shillings.”

“You don’t mean to tell me it’s six miles!” And she tendered a florin to the man.

“Can’t take that, ma’am,” said the cabman.

“Can’t take it! But you must take it. Broughton, just get a policeman, will you?” Dobbs Broughton satisfied the driver out of his own pocket, and the cab was driven away. “What did you give him?” said Mrs. Van Siever.

“Just another sixpence. There never is a policeman anywhere about here.”

“It’ll be out of your own pocket, then,” said Mrs. Van. “But you’re not going away?”

“I must be at Capel Court by half-past twelve—I must, indeed. If it wasn’t real business, I’d stay.”

“I told Musselboro I should be here.”

“He’s up there, and he knows all about the business just as well as I do. When I found that I couldn’t stay for you, I went through the account with him, and it’s all settled. Good morning. I’ll see you at the West End in a day or two.” Then he made his way out into Lombard Street, and Mrs. Van Siever picked her steps across the yard, and mounted the stairs, and made her way into the room in which Mr. Musselboro was sitting.

“Somebody’s been smoking, Gus,” she said, almost as soon as she had entered the room.

“That’s nothing new here,” he replied, as he got up from his chair.

“There’s no good being done when men sit and smoke over their work. Is it you, or he, or both of you?”

“Well—it was Broughton was smoking just now. I don’t smoke of a morning myself.”

“What made him get up and run away when I came?”

“How can I tell, Mrs. Van Siever,” said Musselboro, laughing. “If he did run away when you came, I suppose it was because he didn’t want to see you.”

“And why shouldn’t he want to see me? Gus, I expect the truth from you. How are things going on here?” To this question Mr. Musselboro made no immediate answer; but tilted himself back in his chair and took his hat off, and put his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and looked his patroness full in the face. “Gus,” she said again, “I do expect the truth from you. How are things going on here?”

“There’d be a good business—if he’d only keep things together.”

“But he’s idle. Isn’t he idle?”

“Confoundedly idle,” said Musselboro.

“And he drinks—don’t he drink in the day?”

“Like the mischief—some days. But that isn’t the worst of it.”

“And what is the worst of it?”

“Newmarket—that’s the rock he’s going to pieces on.”

“You don’t mean to say he takes the money out of the business for that?” And Mrs. Van Siever’s face, as she asked the question, expressed almost a tragic horror. “If I thought that I wouldn’t give him an hour’s mercy.”

“When a man bets he doesn’t well know what money he uses. I can’t say that he takes money that is not his own. Situated as I am, I don’t know what is his own and what isn’t. If your money was in my name I could keep a hand on it—but as it is not I can do nothing. I can see that what is put out is put out fairly well; and when I think of it, Mrs. Van Siever, it is quite wonderful that we’ve lost so little. It has been next to nothing. That has been my doing—and that’s about all I can do.”

“You must know whether he has used my money for his own purposes or not.”