A Duet (with an occasional chorus) by Arthur Conan Doyle (best classic books to read .txt) 📕
Write to me, my own darling Maude, and tell me all you think, yourvery inmost soul, in this matter. Am I right? Have I asked too muchof you? Does the change frighten you? You will have this in themorning, and I should have my answer by the evening post. I shallmeet the postman. How hard I shall try not to snatch the letter fromhim, or to give myself away. Wilson has been in worrying me withfoolish talk, while my thoughts were all of our affairs. He workedme up into a perfectly homicidal frame of mind, but I hope that Ikept on smiling and was not discourteous to him. I wonder which isright, to be polite but hypocritical, or
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‘I thought you might. I have only just got back myself, and I saw by your wire that you had bought them all right.’
‘Yes, I thought I had better let you have your contract at once. Settling day is on Monday, you know.’
‘All right. Thank you. I will let you have a cheque. What—what’s this?’
The contract had been laid face upwards upon the table. Frank Crosse’s face grew whiter and his eyes larger as he stared at it. It ran in this way -
13a THROGMORTON STREET.
Bought for Francis Crosse, Esq.
(Subject to the Specific Rules and Regulations of the Stock Exchange.) Pounds 200 El Dorado Proprietaries at 4.75 950 0 0 Stamps and Fees 4 17 6 Commission 7 10 0
962 7 6
For the 7th inst.
‘I fancy there is some mistake here, Harrison,’ said he, speaking with a very dry pair of lips.
‘A mistake!’
‘Yes, this is not at all what I expected.’
‘O Frank! Nearly a thousand pounds!’ gasped Maude.
Harrison glanced from one of them to the other. He saw that the matter was serious.
‘I am very sorry if there has been any mistake. I tried to obey your instructions. You wanted two hundred El Dorados, did you not?’
‘Yes, at four and ninepence.’
‘Four and ninepence! They are four pound fifteen each.’
‘But I read that they were only ten shillings originally, and that they had been falling.’
‘Yes, they have been falling for months. But they were as high as ten pounds once. They are down at four pound fifteen now.’
‘Why on earth could the paper not say so?’
‘When a fraction is used, it always means a fraction of a pound.’
‘Good heavens! And I have to find this sum before Monday.’
‘Monday is settling day.’
‘I can’t do it, Harrison. It is impossible.’
‘Then there is the obvious alternative.’
‘No, I had rather die. I will never go bankrupt—never!’
Harrison began to laugh, and then turned stonily solemn as he met a pair of reproachful grey eyes.
‘It strikes me that you have not done much at this game, Crosse.’
‘Never before—and by Heaven, never again!’
‘You take it much too hard. When I spoke of an alternative, I never dreamed of bankruptcy. All you have to do is to sell your stock to-morrow morning, and pay the difference.’
‘Can I do that?’
‘Rather. Why not?’
‘What would the difference be?’
Harrison took an evening paper from his pocket. ‘We deal in rails chiefly, and I don’t profess to keep in touch with the mining market. We’ll find the quotation here. By Jove!’ He whistled between his teeth.
‘Well!’ said Frank, and felt his wife’s little warm palm fall upon his hand under the table.
‘The difference is in your favour.’
‘In my favour?’
‘Yes, listen to this. “The mining markets, both the South African and the Australian, opened dull, but grew more animated as the day proceeded, prices closing at the best. Out crops upon the Rand mark a general advance of one-sixteenth to one-eighth. The chief feature in the Australian section was a sharp advance of five-eighths in El Dorados, upon a telegram that the workings had been pumped dry.” Crosse, I congratulate you.’
‘I can really sell them for more than I gave?’
‘I should think so. You have two hundred of them, and a profit of ten shillings on each.’
‘Maude, we’ll have the whisky and the soda. Harrison, you must have a drink. Why, that’s a hundred pounds.’
‘More than a hundred.’
‘Without my paying anything?’
‘Not a penny.’
‘When does the Exchange open to-morrow?’
‘The rattle goes at eleven.’
‘Well, be there at eleven, Harrison. Sell them at once.’
‘You won’t hold on and watch the market?’
‘No, no—I won’t have an easy moment until they are sold.’
‘All right, my boy. You can rely upon me. You will get a cheque for your balance on Tuesday or Wednesday. Good evening! I am so glad that it has all ended well.’
‘And the joke of it is, Maude,’ said her husband, after they had talked over the whole adventure from the beginning. ‘The joke of it is that we have still to find an investment for our original fifty pounds. I am inclined to put it into Consols after all.’
‘Well,’ said Maude, ‘perhaps it would be the patriotic thing to do.’
Two days later the poor old Broadwood with the squeaky treble and the wheezy bass was banished for ever from The Lindens, and there arrived in its place a ninety-five-guinea cottage grand, all dark walnut and gilding, with notes in it so deep and rich and resonant that Maude could sit before it by the hour and find music enough in simply touching one here and one there, and listening to the soft, sweet, reverberant tones which came swelling from its depths. Her El Dorado piano, she called it, and tried to explain to lady visitors how her husband had been so clever at business that he had earned it in a single day. As she was never very clear in her own mind how the thing had occurred, she never succeeded in explaining it to any one else, but a vague and solemn impression became gradually diffused abroad that young Mr. Frank Crosse was a very remarkable man, and that he had done something exceedingly clever in the matter of an Australian mine.
Blue skies and shining sun, but far down on the horizon one dark cloud gathers and drifts slowly upwards unobserved. Frank Crosse was aware of its shadow when coming down to breakfast he saw an envelope with a well-remembered handwriting beside his plate. How he had loved that writing once, how his heart had warmed and quickened at the sight of it, how eagerly he had read it—and now a viper coiled upon the white tablecloth would hardly have given him a greater shock. Contradictory, incalculable, whimsical life! A year ago how scornfully he would have laughed, what contemptuous unbelief would have filled his soul, if he had been told that any letter of hers could have struck him cold with the vague apprehension of coming misfortune. He tore off the envelope and threw it into the fire. But before he could glance at the letter there was the quick patter of his wife’s feet upon the stair, and she burst, full of girlish health and high spirits, into the little room. She wore a pink crepon dressing-gown, with cream guipure lace at the neck and wrists. Pink ribbon outlined her trim waist. The morning sun shone upon her, and she seemed to him to be the daintiest, sweetest tiling upon earth. He had thrust his letter into his pocket as she entered.
‘You will excuse the dressing-gown, Frank.’
‘I just love you in it. No, you mustn’t pass. Now you can go.’
‘I was so afraid that you would breakfast without me that I had no time to dress. I shall have the whole day to finish in when you are gone. There now—Jemima has forgotten to warm the plates again! And your coffee is cold. I wish you had not waited.’
‘Better cold coffee with Maude’s society.’
‘I always thought men gave up complimenting their wives after they married them. I am so glad you don’t. I think on the whole that women’s ideas of men are unfair and severe. The reason is that the women who have met unpleasant men run about and make a noise, but the women who are happy just keep quiet and enjoy themselves. For example, I have not time to write a book explaining to every one how nice Frank Crosse is; but if he were nasty my life would be empty, and so of course I should write my book.’
‘I feel such a fraud when you talk like that.’
‘That is part of your niceness.’
‘Oh don’t, Maude! It really hurts me.’
‘Why, Frank, what is the matter with you to-day?’
‘Nothing, dear.’
‘Oh yes, there is. I can tell easily.’
‘Perhaps I am not quite myself.’
‘No, I am sure that you are not. I believe that you have a cold coming on. O Frank, do take some ammoniated quinine.’
‘Good heavens, no!’
‘Please! Please!’
‘My dear girlie, there is nothing the matter with me.’
‘But it is such splendid stuff.’
‘Yes, I know. But really I don’t want it.’
‘Have you had any letters, Frank?’
‘Yes, one.’
‘Anything important?’
‘I have hardly glanced at it yet.’
‘Glance at it now.’
‘Oh, I will keep it for the train. Good-bye, dearest. It is time that I was off.’
‘If you would only take the ammoniated quinine. You men are so proud and obstinate. Good-bye, darling. Eight hours, and then I shall begin to live again.’
He had a quiet corner of a carriage to himself, so he unfolded his letter and read it. Then he read it again with frowning brows and compressed lips. It ran in this way -
My Dearest Frankie,—I suppose that I should not address you like this now that you are a good little married man, but the force of custom is strong, and, after all, I knew you long before she did. I don’t suppose you were aware of it, but there was a time when I could very easily have made you marry me, in spite of all you may know about my trivial life and adventures, but I thought it all over very carefully, and I came to the conclusion that it was not good enough. You were always a dear good chap yourself, but your prospects were not quite dashing enough for your festive Violet. I believe in a merry time even if it is a short one. But if I had really wanted to settle down in a humdrum sort of way, you are the man whom I should have chosen out of the whole batch of them. I hope what I say won’t make you conceited, for one of your best points used to be your modesty.
But for all that, my dear Frankie, I by no means give you up altogether, and don’t you make any mistake about that. It was only yesterday that I saw Charlie Scott, and he told me all about you, and gave me your address. Don’t you bless him? And yet I don’t know. Perhaps you have still a kindly thought of your old friend, and would like to see her.
But you are going to see her whether you like or not, my dear boy, so make up your mind to that. You know how you used to chaff me about my whims. Well, I’ve got a whim now, and I’ll have my way as usual. I am going to see you to-morrow, and if you won’t see me under my conditions in London, I shall call at Woking in the evening. Oh my goodness, what a bombshell! But you know that I am always as good as my word. So look out!
Now I’ll give you your orders for the day, and don’t you forget them. To-morrow (Thursday, 14th, no excuses about the date) you will leave your office at 3.30. I know that you can when you like. You will drive to Mariani’s, and you will find me at the door. We shall go up to our old private room, and we shall have tea together, and a dear old chat about all sorts of things. So come! But if you don’t, there is a train which leaves Waterloo at 6.10 and
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