Walter Besant - All Sorts and Conditions of Men - An Impossible Story

"You want a forewoman," echoed the agent, as if interpreting for her.

"Yes, I do," Angela replied. "I know, to begin with, all about your religious opinions."

"She knows," said the agent, standing between the two parties, as if retained for the interests of both – "she knows, already, your religious opinions."

"Very well, miss." Rebekah looked disappointed at losing a chance of expounding them. "Then, I can only say, I can never give way in the matter of truth."

"In truth," said the agent, "she's as obstinate as a pig."

"I do not expect it," replied Angela, feeling that the half-a-crown-an-hour man was really a stupendous nuisance.

"She does not expect it," echoed Mr. Bunker, turning to Rebekah. "What did I tell you? Now you see the effect of my recommendations."

"Take it off the wages," said Rebekah, with an obvious effort, which showed how vital was the importance of the pay. "Take it off the wages, if you like; and, of course, I can't expect to labor for five days and be paid for six; but on the Saturday, which is the Sabbath-day, I do no work therein, neither I, nor my man-servant, nor my maid-servant, nor my ox, nor my ass."

"Neither her man-servant, nor her maid-servant, nor her ox, nor her ass," repeated the agent solemnly.

"There is the Sunday, however," said Angela.

"What have you got to say about Sunday now?" asked Mr. Bunker, with a change of front.

"Of all the days that's in the week," interpolated the sprightly one, "I dearly love but one day – and that's the day – "

Rebekah, impatient of this frivolity, stopped it at once.

"I do as little as I can," she said, "on Sunday, because of the weaker brethren. The Sunday we keep as a holiday."

"Well – " Angela began rather to envy this young woman, who was a clear gainer of a whole day by her religion; "well, Miss Hermitage, will you come to me on trial? Thank you; we can settle about deductions afterward, if you please. And if you will come to-morrow – that is right. Now, if you please to take a turn with me, we will talk things over together; goodnight, Mr. Bunker."

She took the girl's arm and led her away, being anxious to get Bunker out of sight. The aspect of this agent annoyed and irritated her almost beyond endurance; so she left him with his nephew.

"One of Bunker's!" Harry repeated softly.

"You here!" growled the uncle, "dangling after a girl when you ought to be at work! How long, I should like to know, are we hard-working Stepney folk to be troubled with an idle, good-for-nothing vagabond? Eh, sir? How long? And don't suppose that I mean to do anything for you when your money is all gone. Do you hear, sir? do you hear?"

"I hear, my uncle!" As usual, the young man laughed; he sat upon the arm of a garden-seat, with his hands in his pockets, and laughed an insolent, exasperating laugh. Now, Mr. Bunker in all his life had never seen the least necessity or occasion for laughing at anything at all, far less at himself. Nor, hitherto, had any one dared to laugh at him.

"Sniggerin' peacock!" added Mr. Bunker fiercely, rattling a bunch of keys in his pocket.

Harry laughed again, with more abandon . This uncle of his, who regarded him with so much dislike, seemed a very humorous person.

"Connection by marriage," he said. "There is one question I have very much wished to put to you. When you traded me away, now three-and-twenty years ago, or thereabouts – you remember the circumstances, I dare say, better than I can be expected to do — what did you get for me? "

Then Bunker's color changed, his cheeks became quite white. Harry thought it was the effect of wrath, and went on.

"Half a crown an hour, of course, during the negotiations, which I dare say took a week – that we understand; but what else? Come, my uncle, what else did you get?"

It was too dark for the young man to perceive the full effect of this question – the sudden change of color escaped his notice; but he observed a strange and angry light in his uncle's eyes, and he saw that he opened his mouth once or twice as if to speak, but shut his lips again without saying a word; and Harry was greatly surprised to see his uncle presently turn on his heel and walk straight away.

"That question seems to be a facer; it must be repeated whenever the good old man becomes offensive. I wonder what he did get for me?"

As for Mr. Bunker, he retired to his own house in Beaumont Square, walking with quick steps and hanging head. He let himself in with his latch-key, and turned into his office, which, of course, was the first room of the ground-floor.

It was quite dark now, save for the faint light from the street-gas, but Mr. Bunker did not want any light.

He sat down and rested his face on his hands, with a heavy sigh. The house was empty, because his housekeeper and only servant was out.

He sat without moving for half an hour or so; then he lifted his head and looked about him – he had forgotten where he was and why he came there – and he shuddered.

Then he hastily lit a candle, and went upstairs to his own bedroom. The room had one piece of furniture, not always found in bedrooms; it was a good-sized fireproof safe, which stood in the corner. Mr. Bunker placed his candle on the safe, and stooping down began to grope about with his keys for the lock. It took some time to find the keyhole; when the safe was opened, it took longer to find the papers which he wanted, for these were at the very back of all. Presently, however, he lifted his head with a bundle in his hand.

Now, if we are obliged to account for everything, which ought not to be expected, and is more than one asks of scientific men, I should account for what followed by remarking that the blood is apt to get into the brains of people, especially elderly people, and, above all, stout, elderly people, when they stoop for any length of time; and that history records many remarkable manifestations of the spirit world which have followed a posture of stooping too prolonged. It produces, in fact, a condition of brain beloved by ghosts. There is the leading case of the man at Cambridge, who, after stooping for a book, saw the ghost of his own bed-maker at a time when he knew her to be in the bosom of her family eating up his bread-and-butter and drinking his tea. Rats have been seen by others – troops of rats – as many rats as followed the piper, where there were no rats; and there is even the recorded case of a man who saw the ghost of himself, which prognosticated dissolution, and, in fact, killed him exactly fifty-two years after the event. So that, really, there is nothing at all unusual in the fact that Mr. Bunker saw something when he lifted his head. The remarkable thing is that he saw the very person of whom he had been thinking ever since his nephew's question – no other than his deceased wife's sister; he had never loved her at all, or in the least desired to marry her, which makes the case more remarkable still; and she stood before him just as if she was alive, and gazed upon him with reproachful eyes.

He behaved with great coolness and presence of mind. Few men would have shown more bravery. He just dropped the candle out of one hand and the papers out of the other, and fell back upon the bed with a white face and quivering lips. Some men would have run – he did not; in fact, he could not. His knees instinctively knew that it is useless to run from a ghost, and refused to aid him.

"Caroline!" he groaned.

As he spoke the figure vanished, making no sign and saying no word. After a while, seeing that the ghost came no more, Mr. Bunker pulled himself together. He picked up the papers and the candle and went slowly downstairs again, turning every moment to see if his sister-in-law came too. But she did not, and he went to the bright gas-lit back parlor, where his supper was spread.