Herbert Wes McBride - "The Emma Gees"

E. Phillips Oppenheim - "The Great Secret "

George Durston - "The Boy Scouts on the Trail"

Edgar Rice Burroughs - "Ce la koro de la tero"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Henry Dunbar

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Henry Dunbar




Mr. Dunbar had given all necessary directions for the reception of his
shabby friend.

The Major was ushered at once to the tapestried room, where the banker
was still sitting at the dinner-table. He had that meal laid upon a
round table near the fire, and the room looked a very picture of comfort
and luxury as Major Vernon went into it, fresh from the black foggy
night, and the leafless avenue, where the bare trunks of the elms looked
like gigantic shadows looming through the obscurity.

The Major's eyes were almost dazzled by the brightness of that pleasant
chamber. This man was a reprobate; but he had begun life as a gentleman.
He remembered such a room as this long ago, across a dreary gulf of
forty ill-spent years. The sight of this room brought back the memory of
a pretty lamplit parlour, with an old man sitting in a high-backed
easy-chair: a genial matron bending over her work; two fair-faced girls;
a favourite mastiff stretched full length upon the hearth; and, last of
all, a young man at home from college, yawning over a sporting
newspaper, weary to death of all the simple innocent delights of home,
sick of the companionship of gentle sisters, the love of a fond mother,
and wishing to be back again at the old uproarious wine-parties, the
drunken orgies, the card-playing and prize-fighting, the extravagance
and debauchery of the bad set in which he was a chief.

The Major gave a profound sigh as he looked round the room. But the
melancholy shadow on his face changed into a grim smile, as he glanced
from the tapestried walls and curtained window, with a great Indian jar
of hothouse flowers standing upon an inlaid table before it, and filling
the room with a faint perfume of jasmine and almond, to the figure of
Henry Dunbar.

"It's comfortable," said Major Vernon; "to say the least of it, it's
very comfortable. And with a balance of half a million or so at one's
banker's, or in one's own bank--which is better still perhaps--one is
not so badly off, eh, Mr. Dunbar?"

"Sit down and eat one of those birds," answered the banker. "I'll talk
to you by-and-by."

The Major obeyed his friend; he unwound three or four yards of dingy
woollen stuff from his scraggy throat, turned down the poodle collar,
pulled his chair close to the table, squared his brows, and began
business. He made very light of a brace of partridges and a bottle of
sparkling Moselle.

When the table had been cleared, and the two men left alone together,
Major Vernon stretched his long legs upon the hearth-rug, plunged his
hands deep down in his trousers' pockets, and gave a sigh of
satisfaction.

"And now," said Mr. Dunbar, filling his glass from the starry crystal
claret-jug, "what is it that you want to say to me, Stephen Vallance, or
Major Vernon, or whatever ridiculous name you may call yourself--what is
it you've got to say?"

"I'll tell you that in a very few words," answered the Major, quietly;
"I want to talk to you about the man who was murdered at Winchester some
months ago."

The banker's hand lost its steadiness, the neck of the claret-jug
knocked against the thin lip of the glass, and shivered it into
half-a-dozen pieces.

"You'll spill your wine," said Major Vernon. "I'm very sorry for you if
your nerves are no better than that."

* * * * *

When Major Vernon that night left his friend, he carried away with him
half-a-dozen cheques for different amounts, making in all two thousand
pounds, upon that private banking-account which Mr. Dunbar kept for
himself in the house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby.

It was after midnight when the banker opened the hall-door, and passed
out with the Major upon the broad stone flags under the Gothic porch.
There was no rain now; but it was very dark, and the north-easterly
winds were blowing amongst the leafless branches of giant oaks and elms.

"Shall you present those cheques yourself?" Henry Dunbar asked, as the
two men were about to part.

"Yes, I think so."

"Dress yourself decently, then, before you do so," said the banker;
"they'd wonder what dealings you and I could have together, if you were
to show yourself in St. Gundolph Lane in your present costume."

"My friend is proud," exclaimed the Major, with a mock tragic accent;
"he is proud, and he despises his humble dependant."

"Good night," said Mr. Dunbar, rather abruptly; "it's past twelve
o'clock, and I'm tired."

"To be sure. You're tired. Do you--do you--sleep well?" asked Major
Vernon, in a whisper. There was no mock solemnity in his tone now.

The banker turned away from him with a muttered oath. The light of a
lamp suspended from the groined roof of the porch shone upon the two
men's faces. Henry Dunbar's countenance was overclouded by a black
frown, and was by no means agreeable to look upon; but the grinning face
of the Major, the thin lips wreathed into a malicious smile, the small
black eyes glittering with a sinister light, looked like the face of a
Mephistopheles.

"Good night," repeated the banker, turning his back upon his friend, and
about to re-enter the house.

Major Vernon laid his bony fingers upon Henry Dunbar's shoulder, and
stopped him before he could cross the threshold.

"You've given me two thou'," he said; "that's liberal enough to start
with; but I'm an old man; I'm tired of the life of a vagabond, and I
want to live like a gentleman;--not as you do, of course; _that's_ out
of the question; it isn't everybody that has the good luck to be a
millionaire, like Henry Dunbar; but I want a bottle of claret with my
dinner, a good coat upon my back, and a five-pound note in my pocket
constantly. You must do as much as that for me; eh, dear boy?"

"I don't refuse to do it, do I?" asked Henry Dunbar, impatiently; "I
should think what you've got in your pocket already is a pretty good
beginning."

"My dear fellow, it's a stupendous beginning!" exclaimed Major Vernon;
"it's a princely beginning; it's a Napoleonic beginning. But that two
thou isn't meant for a blind, is it? It's not to be the beginning,
middle, and the end? You're not going to do the gentle bolt--eh?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're not going to run away? You're not going to renounce the pomps
and vanities of this wicked world, and make an early expedition across
the herring-pond--eh, friend of my soul?"

"Why should I run away?" asked Henry Dunbar, sternly.

"That's the very thing I say myself, dear boy. Why should you? A wise
man doesn't run away from landed estates, and fine houses, and half a
million of money. But when you broke that claret-glass after dinner, it
struck me somehow that you were--shall I venture the word?--_rather_
nervous! Nervous people do all manner of things. Give me your word that
you're not going to bolt, and I'm satisfied."

"I tell you, I have no such idea in my mind," Mr. Dunbar answered, with
increasing impatience. "Will that do?"

"It will, dear boy. Your hand upon it! What a cold hand you've got! Take
care of yourself; and once more--good night!"

"You're going to London?"

"Yes--to cash the cheques, and make a few business arrangements."

Mr. Dunbar bolted the great door as the footsteps of his friend the
Major died away upon the gravelled walk, which had been quickly dried by
the frosty wind. The banker had dismissed his servants at ten o'clock
that night; so there was nobody to wait upon him, or to watch him, when
he went back to the tapestried room.

He sat by the low fire for a little time, thinking, with a settled gloom
upon his face, and drinking Burgundy out of a tumbler. Then he went to
bed; and the light of the night-lamp shining upon his face as he slept,
showed it distorted by strange shadows, that were not altogether the
shadows of the draperies above his head.

Major Vernon walked briskly down the long avenue leading to the
lodge-gates.

"Two thou' is comfortable," he muttered to himself; "very satisfactory
for a first go-in at the gold-diggin's! but I shall expect my California
to produce a little more than that before we close the shaft, and retire
upon the profits of the speculation. I _think_ my friend is safe--I
don't think he'll run away. But I shall keep my eye upon him,
nevertheless. The human eye is a great institution; and I shall watch my
friend."

In spite of a natural eagerness to transform those oblong slips of
paper--the cheques signed with the well-known name of Henry Dunbar--into
the still more convenient and flimsy paper circulating medium dispensed
by the Old Lady in Threadneedle Street, or the yellow coinage of the
realm, Major Vernon did not seem in any very great hurry to leave
Lisford.

A great many of the Lisfordians had seen the shabby stranger take his
seat in Henry Dunbar's carriage, side by side with the great banker.
This fact became universally known throughout the parish of Lisford and
two neighbouring parishes, before the shadows of night came down upon
the day of Laura Dunbar's wedding, and the Major was respected
accordingly.

He was shabby, certainly; queer-about the heels of his boots; and very
mangy with regard to the poodle collar. His hat was more shiny than was
consistent with the hat-manufacturing interest. His bony hands were red
and bare, and only one miserable mockery of a glove dangled between his
thumb and finger as he swaggered along the village street.

But he had been seen riding in Henry Dunbar's carriage, and from that
moment he had become invested with a romantic interest. He was a reduced
gentleman, who had seen better days; or he was a miser, perhaps--an
eccentric individual, who wore shabby boots and shiny hats for his own
love and pleasure.

People paid respect, therefore, to the stranger at the Rose and Crown,
and touched their hats to him as he went in and out, and were glad to
answer any questions he chose to put to them as he loitered about the
village. He contrived to find out a good deal in this way about things
in general, and the habits of Henry Dunbar in particular. The banker had
given his shabby acquaintance a handful of sovereigns for present use,
as well as the cheques; and the Major was able to live upon the best the
Rose and Crown could afford, and pay liberally for all he consumed.

"I find the Warwickshire air agree with me remarkably well," he said to
the landlord, as he sat at breakfast in the bar-parlour, upon the second
day after his interview with Henry Dunbar; "and if you know of any snug
little box in the neighbourhood that would suit a lonely old bachelor
with a comfortable income, and nobody to help him spend it, why, I
really should have a very great inclination to take it, and furnish it."

The landlord scratched his head, and reflected for a few minutes. Then
he slapped his leg with a sounding and triumphant slap.

"I know the very thing as would suit you, Major Vernon," he said--the
Major had assumed the name of Vernon, as agreed upon between himself and
Henry Dunbar--"the very thing," repeated the landlord; "you might say it
had been made to order like. There's a sale comes off next Thursday. Mr.
Grogson, the Shorncliffe auctioneer, will sell, at eleven o'clock
precisely, the furniture and lease of the snuggest little box in these
parts--Woodbine Cottage it's called--a sweet pretty little place, as was
the property of old Admiral Manders. The admiral died in the house, and
having been a bachelor, and his money having gone to distant relatives,
the lease and furniture of the cottage will be sold. But I should
think," added the landlord, gravely, looking rather doubtfully at his
guest as he spoke, "I should think the lease and furniture, pictures and
plate, will fetch a matter of eight hundred to a thousand pound; and
perhaps you mightn't care to go to that?"

The landlord could not refrain from glancing furtively at the white and
shining aspect of the cloth that covered the sharp knees of his
customer, which were exactly under his eyes as the two men sat opposite
to each other beside the snug little round table.

"You mightn't care to go to that price," he repeated, as he helped
himself to about three-quarters of a pound of cold ham.

The Major lifted his bristly eyebrows with a contemptuous twitch.

"If the cottage suits me," he said, "I don't mind a thousand for it.
To-day's Saturday;--I shall run up to town to-morrow, or Monday morning,
to settle a bit of business I've got on hand, and come back here in time
to attend the sale."

"My wife and me was thinkin' of goin' sir," the landlord answered, with,
unwonted reverence in his voice; and, if it was agreeable, we could
drive you over in a four-wheel shay. Woodbine Cottage is about a mile
and a half from here, and little better than a mile from Maudesley
Abbey. There's a copper coal-scuttle of the old admiral's as my wife has
got rather a fancy for. But p'raps if you was to make a hoffer previous
to the sale, the property might be disposed of as it stands by private
contrack."

"I'll see about that," answered Major Vernon. "I'll stroll over to
Shorncliffe, this, morning, and look in upon Mr. Grogson--Grogson, I
think you said was the auctioneer's name?"

"Yes, sir; Peter Grogson, and very much looked up to be is, and a warm
man, folks do say. His offices is in Shorncliffe High Street, sir; next
door but two from Mr. Lovell's, the solicitor's, and not more than
half-a-dozen yards from St. Gwendoline's Church."

Major Vernon, as he now chose to call himself, walked from Lisford to
Shorncliffe. He was a very good walker, and, indeed, had become pretty
well used to pedestrian exercise in the course of long weary trampings
from one racecourse to another, when he was so far down on his luck as
to be unable to pay his railway fare. The frost had set in for the first
time this year; so the roads were dry and hard once more, and the sound
of horses' hoofs and rolling wheels, the jingling of bells, the
occasional barking of a noisy sheep-dog, and sturdy labourers' voices
calling to each other on the high-road, travelled far in the thin frosty
air.

The town of Shorncliffe was very quiet to-day, for it was only on
market-days that there was much life or bustle in the queer old streets,
and Major Vernon found no hindrance to the business that had brought him
from Lisford.

He went straight to Mr. Grogson, the auctioneer, and from that gentleman
heard all particulars respecting the pending sale at Woodbine Cottage.
The Major offered to take the lease at a fair price, and the furniture,
as it stood, by valuation.

"All I want is a comfortable little place that I can jump into without
any trouble to myself," Major Vernon said, with the air of a man of the
world. "I like to take life easily. If you can honestly recommend the
place as worth seven or eight hundred pounds, I'm willing to pay that
money for it down on the nail. I'll take it at your valuation, if the
present owners are agreeable to sell it on those terms, and I'll pay a
deposit of a couple of hundred or so on Tuesday afternoon, to show that
my proposition is a _bona fide_ one."

A little more was said, and then Mr. Grogson pledged himself to act for
the best in the interests of Major Vernon, consistently with his
allegiance to the present owners of the property.

The auctioneer had been at first a little doubtful of this tall, shabby
stranger in the napless dirty-white beaver and the mangy poodle collar;
but the offer of a deposit of two hundred pounds or so gave a different
aspect to the case. There are always eccentric people in the world, and
appearances are very apt to be deceptive. There was a confident air
about the Major which seemed like that of a man with a balance at his
banker's.

The Major went back to the Rose and Crown, ate a comfortable little
dinner, which he had ordered before setting out for Shorncliffe, paid
his bill, and made all arrangements for starting by the first train for
London on the following morning. It was nearly ten o'clock by the time
he had done this: but late as it was, Major Vernon put on his hat,
turned his poodle collar up about his ears, and went out into Lisford
High Street.

There was scarcely one glimmer of light in the street as the Major
walked along it. He took the road leading to Maudesley Abbey, and walked
at a brisk pace, heedless of the snow, which was still falling thick and
fast.

He was covered from head to foot with snow when he stopped before the
stone porch, and rang a bell, that made a clanging noise in the
stillness of the night. He looked like some grim white statue that had
descended from its pedestal to stalk hither and thither in the darkness.

The servant who opened the door yawned undisguisedly in the face of his
master's friend.

"Tell Mr. Dunbar that I shall be glad to speak to him for a few
minutes," the Major said, making as if he would have passed into the
hall.

"Mr. Dunbar left the habbey uppards of a hour ago," the footman
answered, with supreme hauteur; "but he left a message for you, in case
you was to come. The period of his habsence is huncertain, and if you
wants to kermoonicate with him, you was to please to wait till he come
back."

Major Vernon pushed aside the servant, and strode into the hall. The
doors were open, and through two or three intermediate rooms the Major
saw the tapestried chamber, dark and empty.

There was no doubt that Henry Dunbar had given him the slip--for the
time, at least; but did the banker mean mischief? was there any deep
design in this sudden departure?--that was the question.

"I'll write to your master," the Major said, after a pause; "what's his
London address?"

"Mr. Dunbar left no address."

"Humph! That's no matter. I can write to him at the bank. Good night."

Major Vernon stalked away through the snow. The footman made no response
to his parting civility, but stood watching him for a few moments, and
then closed the door with a bang.

"Hif that's a spessermin of your Hinjun acquaintances, I don't think
much of Hinjur or Hinjun serciety. But what can you expect of a nation
as insults the gentleman who waits behind his employer's chair at table
by callin' him a kitten-muncher?"




CHAPTER XXVI.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BACK PARLOUR OF THE BANKING-HOUSE.


Henry Dunbar arrived in London a couple of hours after Mr. Vernon left
the Abbey. He went straight to the Clarendon Hotel. He had no servant
with him, and his luggage consisted only of a portmanteau, a
dressing-case, and a despatch-box; the same despatch-box whose contents
he had so carefully studied at the Winchester hotel, upon the night of
the murder in the grove.

The day after his arrival was Sunday, and all that day the banker
occupied himself in reading a morocco-bound manuscript volume, which he
took from the despatch-box.

There was a black fog upon this November day, and the atmosphere out of
doors was cold and bleak. But the room in which Henry Dunbar sat looked
the very picture of comfort and elegance.

He had drawn his chair close to the fire, and on a table near his elbow
were arranged the open despatch-box, a tall crystal jug of Burgundy,
with a goblet-shaped glass, on a salver, and a case of cigars.

Until long after dark that evening, Henry Dunbar sat by the fire,
smoking and drinking, and reading the manuscript volume. He only paused
now and then to take pencil-notes of its contents in a little
memorandum-book, which he carried in the breast-pocket of his coat.

It was not till seven o'clock, when the liveried servant who waited upon
him came to inform him that his dinner was served in an adjoining
chamber, that Mr. Dunbar rose from his seat and put away the book in the
despatch-box. He laid down the volume on the table while he replaced
other papers in the box, and it fell open at the first page. On that
first page was written, in Henry Dunbar's bold, legible hand--

"_Journal of my life in India, from my arrival in 1815 until my
departure in 1850._"

This was the book the banker had been studying all that winter's day.

At twelve o'clock the next day he ordered a brougham, and was driven to
the banking-house in St. Gundolph Lane. This was the first time that
Henry Dunbar had visited the house in St. Gundolph Lane since his return
from India.

Those who knew the history of the present chief partner of the house of
Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby, were in nowise astonished by this fact.
They knew that, as a young man, Henry Dunbar had contracted the tastes
and habits of an aristocrat, and that, if he had afterwards developed
into a clever and successful man of business, it was only by reason of
the force of circumstances, which had thrust him into a position that he
hated.

It was by no means wonderful, then, that, after becoming possessor of
the united fortunes of his father and his uncle, Henry Dunbar should
keep aloof from a place that had always been obnoxious to him. The
business had gone on without him very well during his absence, and it
went on without him now, for his place in India had been assumed by a
very clever man, who for twenty years had acted as cashier in the
Calcutta house.

It may be that the banker had an unpleasant recollection of his last
visit to St. Gundolph Lane, upon the day when the existence of the
forged bills was discovered by Percival and Hugh Dunbar. All the width
of thirty-five years between the present hour and that day might not be
wide enough to separate the memory of the past from the thoughts which
were busy this morning in the mind of Henry Dunbar.

Be it as it might, Mr. Dunbar's reflections this day were evidently not
of a pleasant nature. He was very pale as he rode citywards, in the
comfortable brougham, from the Clarendon; and his face had a stern,
fixed look, like a man who has nerved himself to meet some crisis, which
he knows is near at hand.

There was a stoppage upon Ludgate Hill. Great wooden barricades and
mountains of uprooted paving-stones, amidst which sturdy navigators
disported themselves with spades and pickaxes, and wheelbarrows full of
rubbish, blocked the way; so the brougham turned into Farringdon Street,
and went up Snow Hill, and under the grim black walls of dreadful
Newgate.

The vehicle travelled very slowly, for the traffic was concentrated in
this quarter by reason of the stoppage on Ludgate Hill, and Mr. Dunbar
was able to contemplate at his leisure the black prison-walls, and the
men and women selling dogs'-collars under their dismal shadows.

It may be that the banker's face grew a shade paler after that
contemplation. The corners of his mouth twitched nervously as he got out
of the carriage before the mahogany doors of the banking-house in St.
Gundolph Lane. But he drew a long breath, and held his head proudly
erect as he pushed open the doors and went in.

Never since the day of the discovery of the forged bills had that man
entered the banking-house. Dark thoughts came back upon his mind, and
the shadows deepened on his face as he gave one rapid glance round the
familiar office.

He walked straight towards the private parlour in which that
well-remembered scene had occurred five-and-thirty years ago. But before
he arrived at the door leading from the public offices to the back of
the house, he was stopped by a gentlemanly-looking man, who came forward
from a desk in some shadowy region, and intercepted the stranger.

This man was Clement Austin, the cashier.

"Do you wish to see Mr. Balderby, sir?" he asked.

"Yes. I have an appointment with him at one o'clock. My name is Dunbar."

The cashier bowed and opened the door. The banker passed across the
threshold, which he had not crossed for five-and-thirty years until
to-day.

But as Mr. Dunbar went towards the familiar parlour at the back of the
banking-house, he stopped for a minute, and looked at the cashier.

Clement Austin was scarcely less pale than Henry Dunbar himself. He had
heard of the banker's intended visit to St. Gundolph Lane, and had
looked forward with strange anxiety to a meeting with the man whom
Margaret Wilmot declared to be the murderer of her father. Now that the
meeting had come to pass, he looked at Henry Dunbar with an earnest,
scrutinizing gaze, as if he would fain have discovered the secret of the
man's guilt or innocence in his countenance.

The banker's face was pale, and grave, and stern; but Clement Austin
knew that for Henry Dunbar there were very humiliating and unpleasant
circumstances connected with the offices in St. Gundolph Lane, and it
was scarcely to be expected that a man would come smiling into a place
out of which he had gone five-and-thirty years before a disgraced and
degraded creature.

For a few moments the two men paused in the passage between the public
offices and the private parlour, looking at each other.

The banker's gaze never flinched during that encounter. It is taken as a
strong proof of a man's innocence that he should look you full in the
face with a steadfast gaze when you look at him with suspicion plainly
visible in your eyes; but would he not be the poorest villain if he
shirked that encounter of glances when he knows full surely that he is
in that moment put to the test? It is rather innocence whose eyelids
drop when you peer too closely into its eyes, for innocence is appalled
by the stern, accusing glances which it is unprepared to meet. Guilt
stares you boldly in the face, for guilt is hardened and defiant, and
has this one grand superiority over innocence--that it is _prepared for
the worst_.

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