ROMANCE OF AN INSURANCE OFFICE,*

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9358, 8 May 1889, Page 3

ROMANCE OF AN INSURANCE OFFICE,*

BY J. MARSDEN SUTCLIFFE, Being Passages in the Expesienceof Mr. Aqustus William Webber, Pormerl)' General Manager to the Universal Insurance Company.

[All Rights Reserved; 1 ] • THE WAY OF THE WORLD. I. The scene is the beautiful chuirchyard of Harrow on the Hill, which com mands one of the finest landscape views to be seen in broad England—a spot dear to the worshippers of Byron's genius, as a favoured retreat of the poet in his boyiish days, and immortalised by him in pathetic verse. Here, tradition records, Byron -would often come to escape the din and ccimmotion of the playground attached to the great public school, where so many of the most famous of English worthies —statesme warriors, poets, thinkers —were trained and taught, and having carved their names >tleep in the oak of the school benches, weiut forth to write their names deeper still upon English memories and English hearts. Here that proud spirit held his earlier communings with Nature, on whose ample bosom he may have found repose, and an influence to charm away t;he fretful turbulence of his spirit, about which, even in those early days, the shadows which finally clothed him round had alres\dy begun to gather. It is the last day of summer- term fifty years ago. Speech day is over,, and the last VlolColr liaa lori££ cinco dopuriori. -■ 'X l llrOi* strapping youths, the silken down just showing on their upper lips, are idly lounging on the tomb traditionally assigned as the scene of the poet's reveries. It is not only the last day of term for these three, but their last day of school life. To-morrow, when " the tootling horn " wakes the echoes in the still sleeping village the coach will bear them away from • the scene which, for nine long years, has been their common home, and carry them hence, each to tread his own path in the world. They have been firm friends hitherto, and before they separate will breathe muitual vows of eternal constancy ; but who s hall say what may betide them whon the unsealed book of the future shall have opened its pages ?

Charlie Lowndes, the sturdiest of the three, with limbs like a well-trained athlete, is destined " food for powder." His father died fighting in one of the Indian frontier wars, and powerful interest has been employed by one who held the father dear to secure a commission for the son in the —till, and generally to forward his prospects i'a his self-chosen career. The —th is under orders to sail for Bombay, and Lowndes ha recoived instructions to join his regiment immediately. He will barely have time to learn the goose-step, and get initiated into some of his new duties, before ttaa Nabob troopship gets under weigh and spreads her white wings to the breeze. Hi« looks, every inch of him, a soldier, worthy to bear the commission of the then maideni Queen, and one to be depended upon to bring honour to the colours he is to carry. His frank, open face proclaims him honesb as tho day and true as steel.

There is something sardonic in the face of Mark Westlake, the second of the trio ; something hard and cruel about the lines of the mouth, round which a curious smile, halt-amused and half-cynical, .is wont to play, and which the passion that now sleeps, and- anon flames forth from his flashing dark eyes does nothing to belie. He has something of the poet's temperament in his composition, fervid in love and fierce in hate ; and you would judge him to be endowed with a nature which would make him an implacable enemy but a fast friend when affection or interest inclined him. Westlake has his holidays cut out for him. Nigh by the Vale of Llangollen a maiden aunt, who has burdened her slender means with the care of his orphanage, has her home. The next three months will find him in Wales busy with rod and line, a deadly foe to the trout which are sporting and leaping in mountain stream and tarn all unsuspicious of their impending fate. In October he journeys to London to begin his studies at Guy's, tor Westlake has decided to adopt surgery as his profession and has dreams of rivalling trie fame of John Hunter.

The third of tho group, with laughing blue eyes, and the retreating chin which is ev-er the sign of weakness of character, is in other respects a handsome lad, and goodnatured to a fault. But let the Fates deal kindly with Pierce Wharton, for he is of the sort to go under if beaten hard by the stern wind of circumstance. He is destined for the Stock Exchange. His uncle, to whose care his mother, the widow of a clergyman, bequeathed him, and who is a sharebroker, means to introduce him to his own profession, and he has only this brother of his dead mother and his own honest endeavours to look to in order to make his way in the world. All three lads are orphans. Their common sorrow may have been the bond which in the first instance drew them together on the day when they were severally launched 011 the great world of school. But whatever was the attraction in the first instance, there was enough of identity in their tastes (or shall wo say dissimilarity?) slowly to weld together the links of the friendship which had grown stronger with each succeeding term, until the three became inseparable, and were ironically dubbed "The Three Graces." "I wonder when we shall meet again," Pierce Wharton exclaimed sentimentally, breaking a long silence which had reigned amongst them. "Yes, I wonder too," Wcstlake replied. "Wo have been ' comrades in friendship and mischief allied,' " quoting a line from his favourite poet. " But here comes the ond of it all. What a pity it is school days don't last!" he added, with a discontented air. " Don't say that," cried Lowndes, thirsting for the life of action, and dreaming already of " seeking the bubble reputation even in tho cannon's mouth." " For my part," ho went on, "I am glad to have dono with Latin and Greek, and all the classical stuff. I never had the head for it. And then to be a soldier as my father was !"

" Yos, and to be run through with a lane s by one of those blackguardly blackskins as your father was," Westlake bluntly retorted. " Pleasant prospect, I must say." The blunt home-thrust from Westlake's mocking tongue told upon Lowndes, who held his fathers name in reverent reoollection, and was not a little proud that his parent had died a soldier's death. A dark shadow crossed hi« face as he thought of him now, lying in his bloody grave in that far-off land whither his own steps would soon be bent. "Isn't that a little brutal, Westlake?" asked Pierce Wharton, in a remonstrating tone. "The fact is, Charlie, old boy, Westlake here is so full of the idea of carving other people's quivering flesh with tools of another sort, in the interests of science and suffering humanity, as he says, that he cannot appreciate the romance and the sacrifice of ' glorious war.' " "But, after all," Lowndes quickly replied, passing by Wharton's apologetic explanation of Westlake's unfortunate remark, "howcan a man act more nobly than giving his life for his country and his Queen at toe call of duty ?" " Exactly so," said Wharton. "I am of Hocatius' mind— ' And how can man die better * Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of Ills fathers, And the temples of his Gods ? " " Horatius was an old Pagan," Westlake replied, sententiously ; and then murmured to himself, " Strange that mankind should find delight in butchery." - " How horridly you talk," cried Wharton, warmly. " Butchery indeed !" And then he began to troll, forth in rebuke the old song, " Ye gentlemen of England." " Do shut up that caterwaulling," Westlake said, irritably. " See the rooks are off to bed. It's enough to make them return to join the concert for very envy."

"Come, 110 more of this," Lowndes said in an authoritative tone. " Our friendship will be handed down to future Horrovians as a kind of sacred tradition. I won't have it spoiled by a jarring note the last night we shall spend together till Heaven knows when."

" Heigho !" cried Westlake, " that brings us back to the point whence ive started. ' When shall we three meet again ?' Now, Pierce, none of your stale quotations," he added, with a good-natured, but menacing look, as Wharton, who had risen from the tombstone on which they were sitting, struck an attitude which threatened a. continuation of the witches' dialogue in " Macbeth." "All right, old fellow, you shall have a monopoly of quotation for to-night, then." "And I will take you at your word," Westlake replied. And forthwith he began in a rich, musical voice, trembling with scarcely suppressed emotion, to repeat the lines written by Lord Byron on the spot where they were gathered, beginning with— " Ye scenes of ray childhood, whose loved recollection Embitters the present, compared with the past, Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection, And friendships were forin'd too romantic to last." The eyes of all three were moist when Westlake concluded his recitation, which he delivered with exquisite feeling and effect. The past, as in a moment, was lighted up in the memories of each ; the future, so unknown, oppressed them with its mingled hopes and fears. Only consider their situation. The long happy years which they had passed together, the warmth of their friendship, the close of school life and the near approach of the hour for their separation, the uncertainty of their meeting again, the unknown possibilities of good or evil lying within the reach of each of them," the pathetic lines they had just listened to, repeated with a passion of fondness and regret which vibrated in every tone of a finely modulated voice, the softly dying light of a summer evening, the sleeping dead beneath their feet; and, having considered all this, do not charge these lads with being sentimental, un-English, or unmanly if, before they turned away from the place consecrated by so many touching memories, they took oath and swore that, though seas should hereafter roll between them, and many years slip by ere they met again, come good fortune or ill-luck, they would be true to the memories of the past and loyal in friendship to the very end of life. The moon rose fair in the heavens and filled the plains below with her soft, shimmering light, before they quitted the venerable churchyard ; and, ere they went, they bound themselves by a solemn vow, sealing their compact by strong hand-clasps, that they would note the hour when each succeeding moon would reach her full, take out their watches and wait for it, and then they would think of each other, and of this last night of their school-life spent together in the churchyard of Harrow on the Hill. Was theirs an instance where " Friendships were formed too romantic to last V

11. Ib was the year of the Indian mutiny. Twenty years had come and gone since "the solemn league and covenant" of eternal friendship in Harrow Churchyard, and the years had brought with them many changes. Lowndes was a sunburnt warrior in the far East who had seen much service, gained some renown, and reaped little benefit to himself. If promotion had gone by merit, ho would long since have received the colonelcy of his regiment. As it was, he had to put up with the rank of captain and adjutant of the —th. The friend whose patronage had procured for him his commission, and who promised to push his interests in the service, for his dead father's sake, died soon after the young ensign sailed for Bombay. Lowndes' fate—by no means ail uncommon one, witness Havelock—had been to see striplings with powerful friends behind them promoted over his head, so that whilst the hard work fell to his share the plums were dropped into other mouths.

A great disappointment had overtaken Pierce Wharton. His uncle, who was childless, though married, in the old Harrow days, lost his wife and took to himself another mate, many years younger than himself, who presented him with a numerous progeny. Mr. Wharton the elder considered that after disbursing the cost of his nephew's education and providing him with a stool in his office, he had paid his debts in full to Mr. Wharton the younger. Pierce stayed on with his uncle, earning a modest salary, until he was thirty, when the return of Mark Westlake to his native land, from which he had long been absent in the humble capacity of a ship's surgeon, altered his whole prospects.

" You had better marry my sister, Wharton," he said ; " she has a snug little fortune of her own—a matter of three or four thousand pounds—and leave ' mine uncle' to fend for himself." Westlake made this suggestion more in jest than earnest, but it so fell out that soon afterwards Pierce Wharton and Alice Westlake met, and Wharton's suggestion proved an unconscious prophecy. They were married, after a brief courtship, and having taken a snug little house at Brixton, Wharton obtained a suite of offices and set up for himself as a stock and sharebroker. His first client was his old school friend, Charlie Lowndes, who forwarded to him his little savings from time to time to invest at his own discretion. Mark Westlake had passed through a more chequered career. He ran through a successful and brilliant course at Guy's, and then went to Paris to continue his studies there. Later he accepted a succession of appointments as ship's surgeonless in the interests of his profession than to gratify his tastes as a naturalist, employing his time at every foreign port in adding to his biological specimens. ' After his return, when he had succeeded in getting his sister off his hands, he returned to Paris, where he gave himself up to the ; study of nervous diseases. Next, returning to England, he invested his fortune in purf chasing a lunacy practice, and settled 1 down in a gloomy, barrack-like building on .the Norfolk coast. The practice was a pay- ' ing one, and for some time Westlake made | money ; but his tastes were expensive, and (the money disappeared as fast as it was •earned. The special subject to which he .had devoted his life possessed for him a 'lingular fascination and charm. Indeed, it 75 aay be said to have .amounted to an infatuation of so overmastering a kind tihat he had no hesitation in setting aside tucrv scruple that would have been acknowledged by a less infatuated student ! n'henevor a moral obstacle stood in the way (if the advancement of the interests of science.

If report may be trusted, Westlake was a viivisectionist long before the term vivisection fell on the startled ears of a humane world. Certainly, an incredible number of live rabbits, cats, and dogs found their way to the " Retreat," as his place was called, ■which set the minds of the Norfolk rustics wondering "what Doctor Westlake could want with all that live stock." But the bucolics of Norfolk never penetrated the sijcrets of the Retreat. If any belated traveller passing near the asylum after nightfall chanced to be startled by agonising cries as from living creatures in torment, ib was set down to " those poor bodies who were kept inside to -have their reason ended." Certain it is that Doctor Westlake was ofiten employed in his laboratory in pursuit of his occult studies at the oxpense of some poor quivering animal, when his attention mivght have been better employed in the supervision of his agents, and particularly of a brute named Howgate, whose cruelty cast his master dear. Howgate was a liend in human shape who delighted in the infliction of pain. One night when his master was employed bellow in torturing dumb animals in the interests of science, Howgate.was engaged in one of the wards above in torturing a pa or half-witted creature who died under the treatment. Westlake interfered, but he was too late. He could not repair the broken ribs nor heal the lacerated lung. The former might have been within the scope of his skill if the injury had stood alo'ne. The latter was not. Westlake would have . covered up the affair if he could, but the friends of the patient were startled by the suddenness of his death, anc'l when they came down, bringing a medical friend with them, Westlake was quick enough to perceive that the truth must be 'told. An inquest was held, and though by his evidence Westlake endeavoured to screen Howgate, an incensed Norfolk jury insisted on sending Howgate for trial to answer a charge of manslaughter. But Doctor Westlake's testimony told with bgtjjer effect on minds of the j.ufy who.

adjudicated upon the case at the following I i Norwich assizes, and Howgate was acquitted and released after a sharp reprimand from the judge. Notwithstanding his barbarity, the man was valuable, and Westlake took him back into his service. But the esclajidre worked irreparable mischief on Westlake's prospects. His practice fell off. Such clients as still availed themselves of his services were of the least reputable class, who had sinister ends of their own to gain by risking their relatives to Howgate's tender mercies. Matters were in this state at the commencement of the year 1857, when a cloud arose in Pierce Wharton's sky. He was seated one morning in his office, in the month of March, going through his correspondence, when his eye fell upon a letter bearing the Indian post-mark. There was something in that letter that should have stirred the best feelings in the breast of an honest man, although it blanched the cheek of Pierce Wharton when he recognised the handwriting, and a chill feeling of dismay smote his heart as soon as he had mastered its contents. It was a letter from his old school friend Charlie Lowndes. Its pages were filled with chatty gossip of the regimental mess and the station. It breathed throughout the language of affection and confidence, so that Pierce Wharton's brow became less clouded as he read on. Towards the close, however, the letter went on to say that Lowndes had obtained his majority at last, and was looking forward at no distant day to planting his feet on English soil after twenty years' absence. They were expecting to be ordered home immediately, and in three or four months' time he exj pected they would be sailing gaily up Southampton Water. The letter, after expressing the joy with which Major Lowndes was looking forward to meeting his old chums once more, concluded by requesting Wharton to realise the securities he held for Lowndes' benefit and bank the sum in his name. If the information that Lowndes' return was close at hand caused a palpable tremor to pass through Pierce Wharton's frame, an emotion more intense and visible was produced when he read the instruction requiring him to sell out the shares he held in Lowndes' behalf. Those shares had been disposed of months ago to relieve Wharton from the sharp pressure of necessity, and cold though the weather was, thick beads of perspiration stood out upon his pale brow as he found the obligation suddenly imposed upon him to bank several thousand pounds in the name of Major Lowndes before that officer arrived at Southampton. His plain, downright robbery of his friend he clothed in the euphemistic term — temporary loan ; a phrase that had helped him to play juggling tricks with his conscience when he stooped to the base transaction, and which went a long way in concealing from himself the true nature of his offence. He overlooked the trifling fact that he had obtained this temporary loan without the consent of the lender. It is always the same ever-ready excuse of weak and sorelytempted men for malfeasance. The clerk who " borrows" from his unconscious employer, the fraudulent trustee who "borrows" from the widow and orphan, the official who " borrows" from the company that honours him with its confidence, and all the gang of nefarious scoundrels who abuse their positions of trust show little fertility in excuses for their thefts. They all sing the same refrain to the praises of " a temporary loan." The world, however, looks on these transactions with a colder and sterner eye, and calls these loans, obtained without consent of the lenders, by the ugly and uncompromising name of embezzlement, and Society is judicially and executively organised to see that this class of borrowers receive their due. The punishment looked very real and formidable to Pierce Wharton as he sat with the Indian letter before him. Where was he to obtain the money wherewith to make good the wrong he had done his friend ? Not from his uncle, The elder Mr. Wharton, even if inclined to advance so large a sum to his nephew, would require ample security, and Wharton had none to give. More than that, " Uncle Ted " would be guilty of the offence of manifesting an inordinate curiosity about the reasons that justified his nephew in asking for so large a loan ; and Pierce Wharton did not see his way clear to gratifying "Uncle Ted's'' curiosity. For one thing, no other reason than the true reason would go down for a moment with that sharp man of business, and Pierce Wharton knew that his uncle would scarcely advance him five thousand pence to keep him out of prison and shield him from the just consequences of dishonesty. Where then was he to obtain the money ? The time at his disposal was short. That morning's Times confirmed the information contained in Major Lownde's letter. The —th were expecting orders to return by every mail, and it was concluded that midsummer at furthest would see the famous regiment once more in England. Pierce Wnarton Silt ruminating over the dilemma in which his fraud had placed him without seeing any means of extrication. At last a glimmering of light seemed to dawn upon his sombre reflections and he hastily despatched one of his clerks with the following telegram : — From Pierce Wharton, Loughboroughroad, Brixton, to Dr. Westlake, trie Retreat, Gorlington, Norfolk : Send dog-cart to meet me Norwich Station at five o'clock. Important.

111. Gorlington is a small village on the Norfolk coast, standing high on the cliff, overlooking the German Ocean. It numbers some four hundred inhabitants, principally of the fishing class, and is situated nearly equi distant from Norwich and Yarmouth. The village consists of two or three short tortuous streets, built in a fashion that would provoke a smile from a city surveyor, but was justified in the experience of the Gorlingtonians by the capacity of the little village, so built, to withstand the fierce gales which blow on that stormy coast. In the centre of the village stands the church, built of squared flint, which with the natural polish of its surface gives the building the appearance of a mosaic of grey time-stained marble. Beyond the village, half-a-mile away, stands the 'Sylum, as the rustics term the Retreat, whose gloomy appearance is less due perhaps to any idea on the part of the architect to erect a structure as forbidding as architectural rules permitted as to the necessity of the building possessing strength sufficient to defy the fury of winter tempests that beat with appalling fury upon that exposed situation. The nearest railway station was fourteen miles away; Norwich was further still. But Dr. Westlake's patients were usually conveyed to Gorlington via Norwich, and Pierce Wharton had chosen to reach Gorlington by the same route, because an examination of the time-tables had shown him that he could do some necessary business on the Stock Exchange, and still arrive at Gorlington in time for dinner ; whereas by the alternate route he must either sacrifice the day's business or put up with the inconveniences of a tedious journey by a slow train, and a late arrival.

When the train steamed into Norwich station Wharton saw his brother-in-law standing on the platform. Dr. West/lake's sardonic face, grown more sardonic than ever since we saw hiin last, and with a look of cynical hardness upon it that it had not before, lighted up with pleasure as Pierce Wharton stepped from the train and saluted him. " Well," he exclaimed, " ' it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.' I was just thirsting for a little society when your telegram came." "It is awfully good of you to pub yourself about by coming for me yourself," Wharton replied. " Not a bib of it. The drive to and fro will do me good. And besides," he added, after a pause, " I had to come." The dog-cart, drawn by a spirited blood mare, was waiting outside the station in charge of a groom from the Maid's Head. It was opened behind to receive a large square basket, securely fastened upon the seat behind. "I hope you do not object to the basket," Westlake remarked as ho lighted his cigar, and the groom stood aside from the horse's head. "Not in the least. "Whab have you inside ?" "The Gorlington Puzzle." And then, smiling grimly at his companion's look of astonishment, he added, " I have a score of rabbits here. I call it the Gorlington Puzzle because it du puzzle the natives there to know what I do with all my live stock. I fancy they think I feed my patients on rabbit pi? at) wggt with a frwffit of.

cafe and a ragout of dog just to vary the monotony." ' You are still experimenting with the poor beasts?" Wharton inquired. "And shall be as long as my eyesight lasts." " I should think you have destroyed as many lives as Samson." " More !" was the laconic reply. The " City of Churches" was left behind before conversation was again renewed. But when once the mare's head was fairly set towards Goriington, Doctor Westlake began again. . " How is Alice ?" Very well, but her spine is still weak." " And always will be, I fear." Doctor Westlake knew that nothing but the excellent constitution of his sister had held at bay that progressive paralysis which was her inevitable doom. Shortly after the birth of her first and only child, Marcia, she had missed her footing in descendings the stairs, and received serious injuries to her head. Concussion of the brain was the result, and attention being exclusively given to this, the physicians overlooked the trivial injury she had received in the spine. Trivial then ! for if it had been detected at the time and attended to, the mischief could have been remedied ; but the injury had not been discovered until the evil had progressed too far, and rendered everything except a palliative treatment useless. Mrs. Wharton was able to get about, though only with difficulty. But she had her bad bouts, when she remained a prisoner to her sofa for days together, racked with excruciating headaches. At other times no stranger who saw her comely face with the bloom of apparent health upon her cheeks, and her plump, shapely figure, would imagine that the fiat had gone forth against her. "And how is Marcia, my little namesake ?" Doctor Westlake went on, pursuing his inquiries. "She grows bonnier every day," Wharton answered. " We must have them both down here in the summer. Our seabreezes will do Alice good, though nothing can arrest the mischief your great pots in town failed to find out until it was too late to cure. And now, Wharton, old man, wake up and tell me what brings you to Norfolk at this time of the year. Not for pleasure; I know that very well. Take your gates with a clean rush, man, and out with it.'' Wharton, on this hint"—it was broad enough—"spake." He told Westlake the whole miserable story, commencing with the rise of his difficulties, from which he had won for himself a temporary respite at the price of honour, down to the reception of Major Lowndes' letter, and the despair that had prompted the telegram and this visit to Norfolk,

Doctor Westlake heard the whole story through without interruption and without betraying by the slightest sign that the shameful confession had engaged his attention. At its close he quietly remarked, "Well, I have never kept up that friendship of ours that began at school, but, if I remember truly, you have; which makes this business of yours ever so much worse. I could not treat a man so, who trusted in me, as you will find, Wharton." " What do you mean ?" Wharton asked, querulously. " I mean that I will pull you through this, but in my own way, and on my owu conditions, mind; for Alice's sake and Marcia's, and for the sake of ' auld lang syne,' and because you trust me. I do"not think that you have gone on the same principle with Lowndes, poor fellow. He trusted you, and you have deceived him. You have trusted me, and I will pull you out-of the mess. That is what I mean." " I knew you would help me if you could," Wharton said, passing by the rebuke ; " but I didn't see how you could." " Neither do I," replied Westlake, dryly. "I see noway out of it just yet. Have another cigar and leave me to think it out." Silence now fell between the two men, broke only by the sound of the flying wheels and the quick step of the mare, whilst Doctor Westlake pondered over the knotty problem. Evidently lie did not find the solution of the difficulty an easy matter, for he remained in a brown study until the horse, answering to the rein, slackened speed as they passed through the narrow streets of Gorlington, and bowled along the road that led to the Retreat, that stood out from the darkness like a frowning prison beneath the star-lit sky. The sound of advancing wheels was heard within the porter's lodge; for as they reached the entrance gates they flew open as if by magic and clanged to again without necessitating any check upon rein, and in another moment Wharton was standing in the well-lighted hall of the Retreat. The doctor's reflections had evidently brought forth pleasant fruit, for on joining Wharton, after giving some instructions to his groom, his tones were cordial, and buoyant even, as he bade Wharton stand on no ceremony about dressing. " Your room is ready, and you will find a good fire burning there. Wash quicklyami come down to dinner at once." [To be continued.]