_ Ernest was now so far convalescent as to be able to sit up for the
greater part of the day. He had been three months in prison, and,
though not strong enough to leave the infirmary, was beyond all fear
of a relapse. He was talking one day with Mr Hughes about his
future, and again expressed his intention of emigrating to Australia
or New Zealand with the money he should recover from Pryer.
Whenever he spoke of this he noticed that Mr Hughes looked grave and
was silent: he had thought that perhaps the chaplain wanted him to
return to his profession, and disapproved of his evident anxiety to
turn to something else; now, however, he asked Mr Hughes point blank
why it was that he disapproved of his idea of emigrating.
Mr Hughes endeavoured to evade him, but Ernest was not to be put
off. There was something in the chaplain's manner which suggested
that he knew more than Ernest did, but did not like to say it. This
alarmed him so much that he begged him not to keep him in suspense;
after a little hesitation Mr Hughes, thinking him now strong enough
to stand it, broke the news as gently as he could that the whole of
Ernest's money had disappeared.
The day after my return from Battersby I called on my solicitor, and
was told that he had written to Pryer, requiring him to refund the
monies for which he had given his I.O.U.'s. Pryer replied that he
had given orders to his broker to close his operations, which
unfortunately had resulted so far in heavy loss, and that the
balance should be paid to my solicitor on the following settling
day, then about a week distant. When the time came, we heard
nothing from Pryer, and going to his lodgings found that he had left
with his few effects on the very day after he had heard from us, and
had not been seen since.
I had heard from Ernest the name of the broker who had been
employed, and went at once to see him. He told me Pryer had closed
all his accounts for cash on the day that Ernest had been sentenced,
and had received 2315 pounds, which was all that remained of
Ernest's original 5000 pounds. With this he had decamped, nor had
we enough clue as to his whereabouts to be able to take any steps to
recover the money. There was in fact nothing to be done but to
consider the whole as lost. I may say here that neither I nor
Ernest ever heard of Pryer again, nor have any idea what became of
him.
This placed me in a difficult position. I knew, of course, that in
a few years Ernest would have many times over as much money as he
had lost, but I knew also that he did not know this, and feared that
the supposed loss of all he had in the world might be more than he
could stand when coupled with his other misfortunes.
The prison authorities had found Theobald's address from a letter in
Ernest's pocket, and had communicated with him more than once
concerning his son's illness, but Theobald had not written to me,
and I supposed my godson to be in good health. He would be just
twenty-four years old when he left prison, and if I followed out his
aunt's instructions, would have to battle with fortune for another
four years as well as he could. The question before me was whether
it was right to let him run so much risk, or whether I should not to
some extent transgress my instructions--which there was nothing to
prevent my doing if I thought Miss Pontifex would have wished it--
and let him have the same sum that he would have recovered from
Pryer.
If my godson had been an older man, and more fixed in any definite
groove, this is what I should have done, but he was still very
young, and more than commonly unformed for his age. If, again, I
had known of his illness I should not have dared to lay any heavier
burden on his back than he had to bear already; but not being uneasy
about his health, I thought a few years of roughing it and of
experience concerning the importance of not playing tricks with
money would do him no harm. So I decided to keep a sharp eye upon
him as soon as he came out of prison, and to let him splash about in
deep water as best he could till I saw whether he was able to swim,
or was about to sink. In the first case I would let him go on
swimming till he was nearly eight-and-twenty, when I would prepare
him gradually for the good fortune that awaited him; in the second I
would hurry up to the rescue. So I wrote to say that Pryer had
absconded, and that he could have 100 pounds from his father when he
came out of prison. I then waited to see what effect these tidings
would have, not expecting to receive an answer for three months, for
I had been told on enquiry that no letter could be received by a
prisoner till after he had been three months in gaol. I also wrote
to Theobald and told him of Pryer's disappearance.
As a matter of fact, when my letter arrived the governor of the gaol
read it, and in a case of such importance would have relaxed the
rules if Ernest's state had allowed it; his illness prevented this,
and the governor left it to the chaplain and the doctor to break the
news to him when they thought him strong enough to bear it, which
was now the case. In the meantime I received a formal official
document saying that my letter had been received and would be
communicated to the prisoner in due course; I believe it was simply
through a mistake on the part of a clerk that I was not informed of
Ernest's illness, but I heard nothing of it till I saw him by his
own desire a few days after the chaplin had broken to him the
substance of what I had written.
Ernest was terribly shocked when he heard of the loss of his money,
but his ignorance of the world prevented him from seeing the full
extent of the mischief. He had never been in serious want of money
yet, and did not know what it meant. In reality, money losses are
the hardest to bear of any by those who are old enough to comprehend
them.
A man can stand being told that he must submit to a severe surgical
operation, or that he has some disease which will shortly kill him,
or that he will be a cripple or blind for the rest of his life;
dreadful as such tidings must be, we do not find that they unnerve
the greater number of mankind; most men, indeed, go coolly enough
even to be hanged, but the strongest quail before financial ruin,
and the better men they are, the more complete, as a general rule,
is their prostration. Suicide is a common consequence of money
losses; it is rarely sought as a means of escape from bodily
suffering. If we feel that we have a competence at our backs, so
that we can die warm and quietly in our beds, with no need to worry
about expense, we live our lives out to the dregs, no matter how
excruciating our torments. Job probably felt the loss of his flocks
and herds more than that of his wife and family, for he could enjoy
his flocks and herds without his family, but not his family--not for
long--if he had lost all his money. Loss of money indeed is not
only the worst pain in itself, but it is the parent of all others.
Let a man have been brought up to a moderate competence, and have no
specially; then let his money be suddenly taken from him, and how
long is his health likely to survive the change in all his little
ways which loss of money will entail? How long again is the esteem
and sympathy of friends likely to survive ruin? People may be very
sorry for us, but their attitude towards us hitherto has been based
upon the supposition that we were situated thus or thus in money
matters; when this breaks down there must be a restatement of the
social problem so far as we are concerned; we have been obtaining
esteem under false pretences. Granted, then, that the three most
serious losses which a man can suffer are those affecting money,
health and reputation. Loss of money is far the worst, then comes
ill-health, and then loss of reputation; loss of reputation is a bad
third, for, if a man keeps health and money unimpaired, it will be
generally found that his loss of reputation is due to breaches of
parvenu conventions only, and not to violations of those older,
better established canons whose authority is unquestionable. In
this case a man may grow a new reputation as easily as a lobster
grows a new claw, or, if he have health and money, may thrive in
great peace of mind without any reputation at all. The only chance
for a man who has lost his money is that he shall still be young
enough to stand uprooting and transplanting without more than
temporary derangement, and this I believed my godson still to be.
By the prison rules he might receive and send a letter after he had
been in gaol three months, and might also receive one visit from a
friend. When he received my letter, he at once asked me to come and
see him, which of course I did. I found him very much changed, and
still so feeble, that the exertion of coming from the infirmary to
the cell in which I was allowed to see him, and the agitation of
seeing me were too much for him. At first he quite broke down, and
I was so pained at the state in which I found him, that I was on the
point of breaking my instructions then and there. I contented
myself, however, for the time, with assuring him that I would help
him as soon as he came out of prison, and that, when he had made up
his mind what he would do, he was to come to me for what money might
be necessary, if he could not get it from his father. To make it
easier for him I told him that his aunt, on her deathbed, had
desired me to do something of this sort should an emergency arise,
so that he would only be taking what his aunt had left him.
"Then," said he, "I will not take the 100 pounds from my father, and
I will never see him or my mother again."
I said: "Take the 100 pounds, Ernest, and as much more as you can
get, and then do not see them again if you do not like."
This Ernest would not do. If he took money from them, he could not
cut them, and he wanted to cut them. I thought my godson would get
on a great deal better if he would only have the firmness to do as
he proposed, as regards breaking completely with his father and
mother, and said so. "Then don't you like them?" said he, with a
look of surprise.
"Like them!" said I, "I think they're horrid."
"Oh, that's the kindest thing of all you have done for me," he
exclaimed, "I thought all--all middle-aged people liked my father
and mother."
He had been about to call me old, but I was only fifty-seven, and
was not going to have this, so I made a face when I saw him
hesitating, which drove him into "middle-aged."
"If you like it," said I, "I will say all your family are horrid
except yourself and your aunt Alethea. The greater part of every
family is always odious; if there are one or two good ones in a very
large family, it is as much as can be expected."
"Thank you," he replied, gratefully, "I think I can now stand almost
anything. I will come and see you as soon as I come out of gaol.
Goodbye." For the warder had told us that the time allowed for our
interview was at an end. _