Reginald Cruden Part 58

"Never fear, I'll be back."

And he went.

The pale youth sat down, and looked with a strange mixture of sadness and eagerness round the little room. He had seen it before, and yet he seemed hardly to recognise it. He got up and glanced at a few envelopes lying on the mantel-piece. He took into his hands a piece of knitting that lay on one of the chairs and examined it. He turned over the leaves of a stray book, and read the name on the t.i.tle-page. It all seemed so strange--yet so familiar. Then he crept silently to the half- open door of a little bedroom and peeped in, and his heart beat strangely as he recognised a photograph on the dressing-table, and by its side a letter written in his own handwriting. From this room he turned to another still smaller and more roughly furnished. A walking- stick stood in the corner that he knew well, and there was a cap on the peg behind the door, the sight of which sent a thrill through him.

Yet he felt he dared touch nothing--that he scarcely dare let his foot be heard as he paced across the room, or venture even to stir the little fire that was dying out in the grate.

The slight flush which the excitement of his first arrival had called up faded from his cheeks as the minutes wore on.

Presently his ears caught a light footfall on the pavement outside, and his heart almost stood still as it halted and the bell rang below.

It was one of those occasions when a man may live a lifetime in a minute. With a mighty rush his thoughts flew back to the last time he had heard that step. What goodness, what hope, what love did it not bring back to his life! He had taken it all for granted, and thought so little of it; but now, after months of loveless, cheerless drudgery and disappointment, that light step fell with a music which flooded his whole soul.

He sat almost spell-bound as the street-door closed and the steps ascended the stairs. The room seemed to swim round him, and to his broken nerves it seemed for a moment as though he dreaded rather than longed for what was coming. But as the door opened the spell broke and all the mists vanished; he was his own self once more--nothing but the long-lost boy springing to the arms of the long-lost mother.

"Mother!"

"My boy!"

That was all they said. And in those few words Reginald Cruden's life entered on a new era.

When Horace half an hour later came flying on to the scene they still sat there hand in hand, trying to realise it all, but not succeeding.

Horace, however, helped them back to speech, and far into the night they talked. About ten o'clock Harker looked in for a moment, and after them young Gedge, unable to wait till the morning. But they stayed only a moment, and scarcely interrupted the little family reunion.

What those three talked about it would be hard for me to say. What they did not talk about in the past, the present, and the future would be almost easier to set down. And when at last Mrs Cruden rose, and in her old familiar tones said,--

"It's time to go to bed, boys," the boys obeyed, as in the days long ago, and came up to her and kissed her, and then went off like children, and slept, like those who never knew what care was, all the happy night.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

TURNING OVER LEAVES, NEW AND OLD.

A very few words more, reader, and my story is done.

The trial of Medlock and Shanklin took place in due time, and among the witnesses the most important, but the most reluctant, was Reginald Cruden. It was like a hateful return to the old life to find himself face to face with those men, and to have to tell over again the story of their knavery and his own folly. But he went through with it like a man.

The prisoners, who were far more at their ease than the witness, troubled him with no awkward cross-examination, and when presently the jury retired, he retired too, having neither the curiosity nor the vindictiveness to remain and hear their sentence.

On his way out a familiar voice accosted him.

"Cruden, old man, will you shake hands? I've been a cad to you, but I'm sorry for it now."

It was Blandford, looking weak and pale, with one arm still in a sling.

Reginald took his proffered hand eagerly and wrung it.

"I've been bitten over this affair, as you know," continued Blandford, "and I've paid up for my folly. I wish I could come out of it all with as easy a conscience as you do, that's all! Among them all I've lost a good deal more than money; but if you and Horrors will take me back in your set there'll be a chance for me yet. I'm going to University College, you know, so I shall be staying in town. Harker and I will probably be lodging together, and it won't be my fault if it's far away from your quarters."

And arm in arm the old schoolfellows walked, with their backs on the dark past and their faces turned hopefully to the future.

Had Reginald remained to hear the end of the trial, he would have found himself the object of a demonstration he little counted on.

The jury having returned with their expected verdict, and sentence having been pa.s.sed on the prisoners, the counsel for the prosecution got up and asked his lords.h.i.+p for leave to make one observation. He spoke in the name of the various victims of the sham Corporation when he stated that his clients desired to express their conviction that the former secretary of the Corporation, whose evidence that day had mainly contributed to the exposure of the fraud, was himself entirely clear of any imputation in connection with the conspiracy.

"I should not mention this, my lord," said the counsel, "had not a certain magistrate, in another place, at an earlier stage of this inquiry, used language--in my humble opinion harsh and unwarranted-- calculated to cast a slur on that gentleman's character, if not to interfere seriously with his future prospects. I merely wish to say, my lord, that my clients, and those of us who have gone fully into the case, and may be expected to know as much about it even as a north- country magistrate, are fully convinced that Mr Cruden comes out of this case with an unsullied character, and we feel it our duty publicly to state our opinion to that effect."

The counsel sat down amid signs of approval from the Court, not unmixed with amus.e.m.e.nt at the expense of the north-country magistrate, and the judge, calling for order, replied, "I make no objection whatever to the statement which has just fallen from the lips of the learned counsel, and as it commends itself entirely to my own judgment in the matter, I am glad to inform Mr Cruden, if he be still in court, that he will quit it to-day clear of the slightest imputation on his character unbecoming an upright but unfortunate gentleman."

Reginald was not in court, but he read every word of it next day with grateful and overflowing heart.

Three months have pa.s.sed. The winter has given way to spring, and Number 3, Dull Street is empty. Jemima Shuckleford still nurses her sorrow in secret, and it will be a year or two yet before the happy man is to turn up who shall reconcile her to life, and disestablish the image of Reginald Cruden from her soft heart. Meanwhile she and her mother are constant visitors at the little house in Highbury where the Crudens now live, and as often as they go they find a welcome. Samuel writes home from the country that he is doing great things, and expects to become Lord Chancellor in a few years. Meanwhile he too contemplates matrimony with a widow and four children, who will probably leave him among them very little leisure for another experiment in the amateur detective business.

The Shuckleford ladies were invited, but unfortunately were unable to go, to a little quiet house-warming given by the Crudens on the occasion of their taking possession of the new house.

But though they could not go, Miss Crisp could, and, as a matter of course, Mr Booms, in all the magnificence of last year's spring costume. And Waterford came too, and young Gedge, as did also the faithful Harker, and--with some little trepidation--the now sobered Blandford.

The company had quite enough to talk about without having to fall back on shouting proverbs or musical chairs. Indeed, there were several little excitements in the wind which came out one by one, and made the evening a sort of epoch in the lives of most of those present.

For instance, young Gedge was there no longer as a common compositor.

He had lately been made, youth as he was, overseer in the room of Durfy; and the dignity of his new office filled him with sobriety and good- humour.

"It's no fault of mine," said he, when Mrs Cruden congratulated him on his promotion. "If Cruden hadn't stood by me that time he first came to the _Rocket_, I should have gone clean to the dogs. I mean it. I was going full tilt that way."

"But I went off and left you after all," said Reginald.

"I know you did; and I was sorry at the time you hadn't left that cab- horse to finish his business the evening you picked me up. But Horace here and Mrs Cruden--"

"Picked you up again," said Waterford. "Regular fellow for being picked up, you are. All comes of your habit of picking up types. One of nature's revenges--and the last to pick you up is the _Rocket_. What an appet.i.te she's got, to be sure!"

"I should think so from the way she swallows your and Horace's lucubrations every week," says Gedge, laughing. "Why, I actually know a fellow who knows a fellow who laughed at one of your jokes."

"Come, none of your chaff," said Horace, looking not at all displeased.

"You never laughed at a joke, I know, because you never see one."

"No more I do. That's what I complain of," replied the incorrigible young overseer.

"Never mind, we shall have our revenge when he has to put our joint novel in print," said Waterford. "Ah, I thought you'd sit up there, my boy. Never mind, you'll know about it some day. The first chapter is half done already."

"Jolly work that must be," says Harker. "More fun than higher mathematics and Locke on the Understanding, eh, Bland?"

"Perhaps they would be glad to change places with us before they are through with it, though," observes Blandford.

"Never knew such a beggar for grinding as Bland is turning out," says Harker. "He takes the s.h.i.+ne out of me; and I'm certain he'll knock me into a c.o.c.ked hat at the matric.."

"You forget I've lost time to make up," replies Blandford, gravely; "and I'm not going to be content if I don't take honours."