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Page 46
"You're making a comfortable nest of it, anyhow, Pratt," answered
Eldrick, looking round. "And--what sort of business are you going to do,
pray?"
"Agency," replied Pratt, promptly. "It struck me some little time ago
that a smart man,--like myself, eh?--could do well here in Barford as an
agent in a new sort of fashion--attending to things for people who
aren't fitted or inclined to do 'em for themselves--or are rich enough
to employ somebody to look after their affairs. Of course, that
Normandale stewardship dropped out when young Harper died, and I don't
suppose the notion 'll be revived now that his sister's come in. But
I've got one good job to go on with---Mrs. Mallathorpe's given me her
affairs to look after."
Eldrick took one of the cigarettes and lighted it--as a sign of his
peaceable and amicable intentions.
"Pratt!" he said. "That's just what I've come to see you about.
Unofficially, mind--in quite a friendly way. It's like this"; and he
went on to tell Pratt of what had just occurred at his own office.
"So--there you are," he concluded. "I'm saying nothing, you know, it's
no affair of mine--but if these people begin to say that you've used any
undue influence----"
"Mr. Collingwood, and Mr. Robson, and Miss Mallathorpe--and anybody,"
answered Pratt, slowly and firmly, "had better mind what they are
saying, Mr. Eldrick. There's such a thing as slander, as you're well
aware. I'm not the man to be slandered, or libelled, or to have my
character defamed--without fighting for my rights. There has been no
undue influence! I went to see Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday at her own
request. The arrangement between me and her is made with her approval
and free will. If her daughter found her a bit upset, it's because she'd
such a shock at the time of her son's death. I did nothing to frighten
her, not I! The fact is, Miss Mallathorpe doesn't know that her mother
and I have had a bit of business together of late. And all that Mrs.
Mallathorpe has entrusted to me is the power to look after her affairs
for her. And why not? You know that I'm a good man of business, a really
good hand at commercial accountancy, and well acquainted with the trade
of this town. You know too, Mr. Eldrick, that I'm scrupulously
honest--I've had many and many a thousand pounds of yours and your
partner's through my hands! Who's got anything to say against me? I'm
only trying to earn an honest living."
"Well, well!" said Eldrick, who, being an easy-going and
kindly-dispositioned man, was somewhat inclined to side with his old
clerk. "I suppose Mr. Robson thinks that if Mrs. Mallathorpe wished to
put her affairs in anybody's hands, she should have put them in his.
He's their family solicitor, you know, Pratt, while you're a young man
with no claim on Mrs. Mallathorpe."
Pratt smiled--a queer, knowing smile--and reached out his hand to some
papers which lay on his desk.
"You're wrong there, Mr. Eldrick," he said. "But of course, you don't
know. I didn't know myself, nor did Mrs. Mallathorpe, until lately. But
I have a claim--and a good one--to get a business lift from Mrs.
Mallathorpe. I'm a relation."
"What--of the Mallathorpe family?" exclaimed Eldrick, whose legal mind
was at once bitten by notion of kinship and succession, and who knew
that Harper Mallathorpe was supposed to have no male relatives at all,
of any degree. "You don't mean it?"
"No!--but of hers, Mrs. Mallathorpe," answered Pratt. "My mother was her
cousin. I found that out by mere chance, and when I'd found it, I worked
out the facts from our parish church register. They're all here--fairly
copied--Mrs. Mallathorpe has seen them. So I have some claim--even if
it's only that of a poor relation."
Eldrick took the sheets of foolscap which Pratt handed to him, and
looked them over with interest and curiosity. He was something of an
expert in such matters, and had helped to edit a print more than once of
the local parish registers. He soon saw from a hasty examination of the
various entries of marriages and births that Pratt was quite right in
what he said.
"I call it a poor--and a mean--game," remarked Pratt, while his old
master was thus occupied, "a very mean game indeed, of well-to-do folk
like Mr. Collingwood and Mr. Robson to want to injure me in a matter
which is no business of theirs. I shall do my duty by Mrs.
Mallathorpe--you yourself know I'm fully competent to do it--and I shall
fully earn the percentage that she'll pay me. What right have these
people--what right has her daughter--to come between me and my living?"
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