Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs Part 3

Owen ushered John into the office, feeling almost at home there already.

In a short time Owen and John were summoned into Mr Fluke's room.

John was not prepossessed by that worthy's manner.

"You are John Rowe, I understand," he began. "Believing this boy's account of himself I am going to give him a trial; if he behaves well, he will rise in this office, for there is no doubt that he possesses the talents he boasts of. He shall come and stop at my house. Go and get his things and bring them here, for I shall take him home with me. Now listen, Mr John Rowe, I want you to perform a commission for me. Here is a cheque, you can get it cashed in the country. Buy up all the books with the name of Walford in them which were sold at the Fenside Vicarage sale."

As he spoke, he handed a cheque for 10 pounds to John, adding, "Do not tell the bookseller why you want them, or he will raise the price. Buy them in your own name. If this sum is not sufficient, let me know; should it be more than you require, take it to defray the expenses you have been at on the boy's account."

John thanked Mr Fluke, and promised to carry out his wishes, highly pleased at what he considered Owen's good fortune.

Owen, however, felt somewhat disappointed at not being able to spend another evening with his friend.

From Mr Fluke's manner, John saw that it was time to take his departure, and Owen followed him to the door. John had to return with Owen's box of clothes, but there probably would not then be time for any conversation.

Owen sent many grateful messages to Fenside Farm. "I hope that Mr Fluke will let me go down and see you sometimes," he added, "for I never can forget all the kindness you, your father, and David have shown me, and your mother and sisters."

"Well, if you are not happy here, mind you must tell us so, and you shall ever be welcome at Fenside," said John, as they parted.

CHAPTER THREE.

John Rowe brought Owen's little trunk all the way from the "Green Dragon" on his own broad shoulders, and deposited it at Paul Kelson, Fluke and Company's office. Having done so he hurried off, not wis.h.i.+ng to be thanked, and considering there was not much advantage to be gained by another parting with his young friend. Owen, however, was disappointed, when he found that his box had arrived, that he had missed seeing John.

The instant five o'clock struck, Simon Fluke came out of his office, and directing one of his porters to bring along the boy's trunk, took Owen by the hand, and having tucked a thick cotton umbrella under his other arm, led him out. They trudged along through numerous dirty streets and alleys, teeming with a ragged and unkempt population, and redolent of unsavoury odours, until they emerged into a wide thoroughfare.

"Call a coach, boy!" said Mr Fluke, the first words he had spoken since he had left the office. "How am I to do that, sir?" asked Owen.

"Shout 'Coach,' and make a sign with your hand to the first you see."

"Will the coach come up, sir, if I call it?" asked Owen.

"Of course, if the driver hears you," answered Mr Fluke in a sharp tone. "The boy may be a good arithmetician, but he knows nothing of London life," he muttered to himself. "To be sure, how should he? But he must learn--he will in time, I suppose; I once knew no more than he does."

Owen saw several coaches pa.s.sing, and he shouted to them at the top of his voice, but no one took the slightest notice of him. At length the driver of a tumble-down looking vehicle, with a superb coat of arms on the panel, made a signal in return and drew up near the pavement.

"You will know how to call a coach in future," said Mr Fluke. "Step in."

The porter, who had been watching proceedings, not having ventured to interfere by a.s.sisting Owen, put the box in, after Mr Fluke had taken his seat, and then told the coachman where to drive to. The latter, applying his whip to the flanks of his horses, made them trot off, for a few minutes, at a much faster rate than they were accustomed to move at.

They soon, however, resumed their usual slow pace, and not until Mr Fluke put his head out of the window, and shouted, "Are you going to sleep, man?" did he again make use of his whip.

"You must learn to find your way on foot, boy," said Mr Fluke. "I do not take a coach every day; it would be setting a bad example. I never yet drove up to the counting-house, nor drove away in one, since I became a partner of old Paul Kelson, and he, it is my belief, never got into one in his life, until he was taken home in a fit just before his death."

Owen thought he should have great difficulty in finding his way through all those streets, but he made no remark on the subject, determining to note the turnings as carefully as he could, should he accompany Mr Fluke the next morning back to Wapping.

The coach drove on and on; Mr Fluke was evidently not given to loquacity, and Owen had plenty of time to indulge in his own reflections. He wondered what sort of place his newly found relative was taking him to. He had not been prepossessed with the appearance of the office, and he concluded that Mr Fluke's dwelling-house would somewhat resemble it. The coach at last emerged from the crowded streets into a region of trees and hedge-rows, and in a short time stopped in front of an old-fas.h.i.+oned red brick house, with a high wall apparently surrounding a garden behind it. At that moment the door of the house opened, and a tall thin female in a mob cap appeared.

"Bless me!" she exclaimed, as she advanced across the narrow s.p.a.ce between the gate and the doorway; "and so he has come!"

She eyed Owen narrowly as she spoke. Simon Fluke declining her help as he stepped out, pointed to Owen's box, which the coachman, who had got down from his seat, handed to her. Mr Fluke having paid the fare, about which there was no demur, he knowing the distance to an inch, led the way into the house, followed by Owen, the old woman, carrying his box, bringing up the rear.

"I have brought him, Kezia, as I said I possibly might. Do you look after him; let us have supper in a quarter of an hour, for I am hungry, and the boy I am sure is."

The house wore a greater air of comfort than Owen expected to find. In the oak panelled parlour into which Mr Fluke led him a cheerful fire burned brightly, although the spring was well advanced, while a white cloth was spread ready for supper.

"Now come into the garden," said his host, who had entered the room, apparently merely to deposit his umbrella. A gla.s.s door opened out on some steps which led down into a large garden, laid out in beds in which bloomed a number of beautiful flowers, such as Owen had never before seen in his life, and on one side, extending along the wall, was a large greenhouse.

"Do you know what those are, boy?" asked Mr Fluke. "Every one of those flowers are worth a hundred times its weight in gold. They are all choice and rare tulips, I may say the choicest and rarest in the kingdom. I prize them above precious stones, for what ruby or sapphire can be compared to them for beauty and elegance? You will learn in time to appreciate them, whatever you do now."

"I am sure I shall, and I think they are very beautiful!" said Owen.

Mr Fluke made up for his former silence by expatiating on the perfections of his favourites. While the old gentleman was going the round of his flower beds, stooping down with his hands behind him, to admire, as if to avoid the temptation of touching the rich blossoms, a person approached, who, from his green ap.r.o.n, his general costume, and the wheelbarrow he trundled full of tools before him, was easily recognised as the gardener. He could not have been much younger than his master, but was still strong and hearty.

"They are doing well, Joseph; we shall have some more in bloom in a day or two," observed Mr Fluke.

"Yes, praise the Lord, the weather has been propitious and rewarded the care we have bestowed on His handiworks," answered the old gardener. "I am in hopes that the last bulbs the Dutch skipper Captain Van Tronk brought over will soon be above ground, and they will not be long after that coming into bloom."

Mr Fluke, having had some confidential conversation with his gardener on the subject of his bulbs, and given him various directions, it by that time growing dusk, summoned Owen to return to the house.

"A pretty long quarter of an hour you've been," exclaimed Kezia to her master, as he re-entered; "it's always so when you get talking to my man Joseph Crump about the tulips. If the rump steak is over-done it's not my fault."

Mr Fluke made no reply, except by humbly asking for his slippers, which Kezia having brought, she a.s.sisted him in taking off his shoes.

"There, go in both of you, and you shall have supper soon," she exclaimed in an authoritative tone, and Mr Fluke shuffled into his parlour.

Owen remarked, that though Mr Fluke ruled supreme in his counting-house, there was another here to whom he seemed to yield implicit obedience. Not a word of remonstrance did he utter at whatever Kezia told him to do; it was, however, pretty evident that whatever she did order, was to his advantage. Probably, had she not a.s.sumed so determined a manner, she would have failed to possess the influence she exerted over her master. He made a sign to Owen to take a seat opposite him on one side of the fire. Mrs Kezia Crump, as she was generally designated outside the house, placed an ample supper on the board--in later days it would have been called a dinner--two basins of soup, some excellently cooked rump steak, and an apple tart of goodly proportions.

"I know boys like apple tart, and you may help him as often as he asks for it," she remarked as she put the latter dish on the table.

A single gla.s.s of ale was placed by Mr Fluke's side. Owen declined taking any, for he had never drank anything stronger than water.

"Very right and wise, boy," observed his host in an approving tone.

"You are the better without what you don't require. I never drank a gla.s.s of ale till I was fifty, and might have refrained ten years longer with advantage, but Kezia insisted that I should take a gla.s.s at supper, and for the sake of quiet I did so. Kezia is not a person who will stand contradiction. She is sensible though. Could not have endured her if she were not. But she is not equal to her husband Joseph. The one rules supreme in the house, the other in the garden. You've seen what Joseph Crump has done there. What do you think of my tulips? I am indebted to Joseph for them. Beautiful! glorious! magnificent! Are they not?"

Owen nodded his head in a.s.sent.

"Their worth cannot be told. Once upon a time one of those splendid bulbs would have fetched thousands. That was nearly two centuries ago, that events repeat themselves, and, for what we can tell, that time may come round again, then, Owen, I shall be the richest man in England. No one possesses tulips equal to mine."

"Indeed," said Owen; and he thought to himself, when at Wapping this old man's whole soul seems to be absorbed in business, while out here all his thoughts appear to be occupied in the cultivation of tulips. How could he have been first led to admire them? Before many minutes were over Mr Fluke answered the question himself.

"Twenty years ago I scarcely knew that such a flower as a tulip existed, when one day going on board a Dutch vessel I saw a flower growing in a pot in the cabin. I was struck by the beauty of its form--its brilliant colours. I learned its name. I was seized with the desire to possess it. I bought it of the skipper. The next voyage he brought me over a number of bulbs. I wanted something to engage my thoughts, and from that day forward I became fonder and fonder of tulips."

The evening was pa.s.sed more pleasantly than Owen had antic.i.p.ated. Mr Fluke, indeed, appeared to be an altogether different person to what he had seemed at his first interview with his young relative.

"Boys want more sleep than old men," said Mr Fluke, pulling out his turnip-like watch.

"Here, Kezia!" he shouted, "come and take him off to bed. She will look after you," he added, nodding to Owen; "you must do as she bids you though."

The old man did not even put out a finger as Owen advanced to take his hand to wish him good night, but said, pointing to Kezia, who just then entered the room, "There she is; go with her."