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"No, it isn't. It's about about the Crudens." "Oh, of course. What about them?" "Well, isn't it bad enough they have this dreadful trouble?" said Jemima; "but it isn't half the trouble they really are in." "You know I can't understand what you mean when you talk like that," said Booms. "Will you promise, if I tell you, to keep it a secret?" "Oh, of course. I hate secrets, but go on."
But Reginald declined the invitation with thanks, and took up a comic paper, in which he attempted to bury himself, while Miss Shuckleford hammered out the latest polka on the piano, stopping abruptly and frequently enough to finish half a dozen rounds in the time it had taken him to dispose of two. Fresh games followed, and to all except the Crudens the evening passed merrily and happily.
"If you wouldn't mind sending a line to Mr Richmond's clerk to-morrow, he could let me have the cheque to take down or Monday with me." The three days that followed were dismal ones for the three Crudens. There are few miseries like that of an impending separation. We wish the fatal moment to arrive and end our suspense.
Mrs Cruden looked at Reginald, Horace looked at Reginald, but Reginald looked straight before him and bit his lips and breathed hard. Whereupon Horace rose and said, "We think it very kind of you to drink our healths; and I am sure we are much obliged to you all for doing so." Which said, the Shucklefords' party broke up, and the Crudens went home.
The Crudens had always been great heroes in the eyes of their schoolfellows, for their family was unimpeachable, and even with others who had greater claims to be considered as aristocratic, their ample pocket-money commended them as most desirable companions. Mr Cruden, however, with all his virtues and respectability, was not a good man of business.
"I say," continued Barber, just a little disappointed to find that his exquisite humour was not as electrical in its effect as it would have been on any one less dense than the Crudens, "'ow is it you ain't got a clean collar on to-day, and no scent on your 'andkerchers eh?" This was getting feeble. Even Mr Barber felt it, for he continued, in a more lively tone,
For some time Mrs Cruden, prostrated by the shock of her bereavement, was unable to leave her room, and the burden of the care fell on the two inexperienced boys, who had to face it almost single-handed. For the Crudens had no near relatives in England, and those of their friends who might have been of service at such a time feared to intrude, and so stayed away.
Nevertheless, no one ever questioned the wealth of the Crudens, least of all did the Crudens themselves, who took it as much for granted as the atmosphere they breathed in. On the day on which our story opens Mr Cruden had driven down into the City on business. No one knew exactly what the business was, for he kept such matters to himself.
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.
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.
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