The girl placed the dish on the table hurriedly, and left the room.
“See if she has gone.”
“No fear,” said Van Heldre, obeying, to humour his visitor. “I don’t think my servants listen at doors.”
“Don’t trust ’em, or anybody else,” said Uncle Luke with a grim look, as he opened his basket wide. “Going to trust her?”
“Well, I’m sure, Mr Luke Vine!” cried Mrs Van Heldre, “I believe you learn up rude things to say.”
“He can’t help it,” said Van Heldre, laughing. “Yes,” he continued, with a droll look at his wife, which took her frown away, “I think we’ll trust her, Luke, my lad – as far as the fish is concerned.”
“Eh! What?” said Uncle Luke, snatching his hands from his basket. “What do you mean?”
“That the dish is waiting for the bit of conger.”
“Let it wait,” said the old man snappishly. “You’re too clever, Van – too clever. Look here; how are you getting on with that boy?”
“Oh, slowly. Rome was not built in a day.”
“No,” chuckled the old man, “no. Work away, and make him a useful member of society – like his aunt, eh, Mrs Van.”
“Useful!” cried Mrs Van. “Ah.”
Then old Luke chuckled, and drew the fish from the basket.
“Fine one, ain’t it?” he said.
“A beauty,” cried Mrs Van Heldre ecstatically.
“Pshah!” ejaculated Uncle Luke. “Ma’am, you don’t care for it a bit; but there’s more than I want, and it will help keep your servants.”
“It would, Luke,” said Van Heldre, laughing, as the fish was laid in the dish, “but they will not touch it. Well?”
“Eh? What do you mean by well?” snorted the old man with a suspicious look.
“Out with it.”
“Out with what?”
“What you have brought.”
The two men gazed in each other’s faces, the merchant looking half amused, the visitor annoyed; but his dry countenance softened into a smile, and he turned to Mrs Van Heldre. “Artful!” he said dryly. “Don’t you find him too cunning to get on with?”
“I should think not indeed,” said Mrs Van Heldre indignantly.
“Might have known you’d say that,” sneered Uncle Luke. “What a weak, foolish woman you are!”
“Yes, I am, thank goodness! I wish you’d have a little more of my foolishness in you, Mr Luke Vine. There, I beg your pardon. What have you got there, shrimps?”
“Yes,” said Uncle Luke grimly, as he brought a brown paper parcel from the bottom of his basket, where it had lain under the wet piece of conger, whose stain was on the cover, “some nice crisp fresh shrimps. Here, Van – catch.”
He threw the packet to his brother’s old friend and comrade, by whom it was deftly caught, while Mrs Van Heldre looked on in a puzzled way.
“Put ’em in your safe till I find another investment for ’em. Came down by post this morning, and I don’t like having ’em at home. Out fishing so much.”
“How much is there?” said Van Heldre, opening the fishy brown paper, and taking therefrom sundry crisp new Bank of England notes.
“Five hundred and fifty,” said Uncle Luke. “Count ’em over.”
This was already being done, Van Heldre having moistened a finger and begun handling the notes in regular bank-clerk style.
“All right; five fifty,” he said.
“And he said they were shrimps,” said Mrs Van Heldre.
“Eh? I did?” said Uncle Luke with a grim look and a twinkle of the eye. “Nonsense, it must have been you.”
“Look here, Luke Vine,” said Van Heldre; “is it any use to try and teach you at your time of life?”
“Not a bit: so don’t try.”
“But why expose yourself to all this trouble and risk? Why didn’t your broker send you a cheque?”
“Because I wouldn’t let him.”
“Why not have a banking account, and do all your money transactions in an ordinary way?”
“Because I like to do things in my own way. I don’t trust bankers, nor anybody else.”
“Except my husband,” said Mrs Van Heldre, beaming.
“Nonsense, ma’am, I don’t trust him a bit. You do as I tell you, Van. Put those notes in your safe till I ask you for them. I had that bit of money in a company I doubted, so I sold out. I shall put it in something else soon.”
“You’re a queer fellow, Luke.”
“Eh? I’m not the only one of my family, am I? What’s to become of brother George when that young scapegrace has ruined him? What’s to become of Louie, when we’re all dead and buried, and out of all this worry and care? What’s to become of my mad sister, who squandered her money on a French scamp, and made what she calls her heart bankrupt?”
“Nearly done questioning?” said Van Heldre, doubling the notes longwise.
“No, I haven’t, and don’t play with that money as if it was your wife’s curl-papers.”
Van Heldre shrugged his shoulders, and placed the notes in his pocket.
“And as I was saying when your husband interrupted me so rudely, Mrs Van Heldre, what’s to become of that boy by and by? Money’s useful sometimes, though I don’t want it myself.”
“All! you needn’t look at me, Mr Luke Vine. It’s of no use for you to pretend to be a cynic with me.”
“Never pretend anything, ma’am,” said Uncle Luke, rising; “and don’t be rude. I did mean to come in and have some conger-pie to-night; now I won’t.”
“No, you didn’t mean to do anything of the sort, Luke Vine,” said Mrs Van Heldre tartly; “I know you better than that. If I’ve asked you to come and have a bit of dinner with us like a Christian once I’ve asked you five hundred times, and one might just as well ask the hard rock.”
“Just as well, ma’am; just as well. There, I’m going. Take care of that money, Van. I shall think out a decent investment one of these days.”
“When you want it there it is,” said Van Heldre quietly.
“Hope it will be. And now look here: I want to know a little more about the Count.”
“The Count?” said Mrs Van Heldre.
“My nephew, ma’am. And I hope you feel highly honoured at having so distinguished a personage in your husband’s service.”
“What does he mean, dear?”
“Mean, ma’am? Why, you know how his aunt has stuffed his head full of nonsense about French estates.”
“Oh! that, and the old title,” cried Mrs Van Heldre. “There, don’t say any more about it, for if there is anything that worries me, it’s all that talk about French descents.”
“Why, hang it, ma’am, you don’t think your husband is a Frenchman, and that my sister, who has made it all the study of her life, is wrong?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care whether my husband’s a Dutchman or a double Dutchman by birth; all I know is he’s a very good husband to me and a good father to his child; and I thank God, Mr Luke Vine, every night that things are just as they are; so that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“Tut