Kitabı oku: «Ovington's Bank», sayfa 15

CHAPTER XXI

July had passed into August. Who was it who whispered the first word of doubt? Of misgiving? Where was felt the first shiver of distrust? What lips first let drop the fatal syllables, a fall? Who in the secrecy of some bank-parlor or some discounter's office, sitting at the centre of the spider's web of credit, felt a single filament, stretched it may be across half a world, shiver, and relax? And, refusing to draw the unwelcome inference, sceptical of danger, felt perhaps a second shock, ever so slight and ever so distant; and then, reading the message aright, began to narrow his commitments, to draw in his resources, to call in his money, to turn into gold his paper wealth? And so from that dark office or parlor in Fenchurch Street or Change Alley, set in motion, obscurely, imperceptibly at first, the mighty impetus that was to reach to such tremendous ends?

Who? Probably no one knew then, and certainly no one can say now. But it is certain that in the late summer of that year, while the Squire sat blinded in his drab-hued room at Garth, and Ovington's hummed with business, and Arthur rode gaily to and fro between the two, the thing happened. Some one, some bank, perhaps some great speculator with irons in many fires and many lands, took fright and acted on his fears-but silently, stealthily, as is the manner of such. Or it may have been a manufacturer on a great scale who looked abroad and fancied that he saw, though still a long way off, that bugbear of manufacturers, a glut.

At any rate there came a check, unmarked by the vast majority, but of which a whisper began to pass round the inner recesses of Lombard Street-a fall, such as there had been a few months earlier, but which then had been speedily made good. Aldersbury lay far beyond the warning, or if a hint of it reached Ovington, it did not go beyond him. He did not pass it on, even to Arthur, much less did it reach others. Sir Charles, secluded within his park walls, was not in the way of hearing such things, and Acherley and his like were busy with preparations for autumn sport, getting out their guns and seeing that their pink coats were aired and their mahogany tops were brought to the right color. Wolley had his own troubles, and dealt with them after his own reckless fashion, which was to retire one bill by another; he found it all he could do to provide for to-day, without thinking what to-morrow might bring forth, should his woollen goods become unsaleable, or his bills fail to find discounters. And the multitude, Grounds and Purslow and their followers, were happy, secure in their ignorance, foreseeing no evil.

This was the state of things at Aldersbury, as summer passed into autumn. Men still added up their investments, and reckoned the amount of their fortunes and chuckled over what they had made, and added to the sum what they were sure of making, when the shares of this mine or that canal company rose another five or ten points. Their wealth on paper was still, to them, solid, abiding wealth, to be garnered and laid by and enjoyed when it pleased them. And trade seemed still to flourish, though not quite so briskly. There was still a demand for goods though not quite so urgent a demand-and the price stuck a little. The railway shares still stood at the high premium to which they had risen, though for the moment they did not seem to be inclined to go higher.

But about the end of September-perhaps some one in London or Birmingham or Liverpool had twitched the filament which connected it with Aldersbury-Ovington called Arthur back as he was leaving the parlor at the close of the day's business. "Wait a moment," he said, "I want you. I have been thinking things over, lad, and I am not quite comfortable about them."

"Is it Wolley?" Wolley's case had been before them that morning and sharp things had been said about his trading methods.

"No, it's not Wolley." Having got so far Ovington paused, and Arthur noticed that his face was grave. "No, though Wolley is a part of it. I am always uneasy about him. But-"

"What is it, sir?"

"It is the general situation, lad. I don't like it. I've an impression that things have gone farther than they should. There is an amount of inflation that, if things go smoothly, will be gradually reduced and no harm done. But we have a large sum of money out" – he touched the pile of papers before him-"and I should like to see it lessened. I hardly know why, but I do not feel that the position is healthy."

"But our money is well covered."

"As things are."

"And we are as solvent, sir, as-"

"As need be, with the ordinary time to meet the calls that may be made upon us. But in the event of a sudden fall, of one big failure leading to another-in the event of a sudden rush to present our notes?"

"Even then, sir, we are well secured. We should have no difficulty in finding accommodation."

"In ordinary circumstances, no-and if we alone needed it. We could go to A. or B. or C, and there would be no difficulty. We have the money's worth and a good margin. But if A. and B. and C. were also short, what then, lad?"

Arthur felt something approaching contempt. The banker was inventing bogies, imagining dangers, dreaming of difficulties where none existed. He saw him in a new light, and discovered him to be timorous. "But that state of things is not likely to occur," he objected.

"Perhaps not, but if it did?"

"Have you had any hint?"

"No. But I see that iron is down-since Saturday. And the Manchester market was flat yesterday."

"Things that have happened before," Arthur said. "I think, sir, it is really Wolley's affair that is troubling you."

"If it ended with Wolley it would be a small matter. No, I am not thinking of that." He looked before him and drummed upon the table with his fingers. "But the positions calls for-caution. We must go no farther. We must be careful how we grant accommodation no matter who applies for it. We must raise our reserve. See, if you please, that we do not discount a single bill without recourse to me-though, of course, you will let nothing be noticed on the other side of the counter."

"Very good," Arthur said. But he thought that the other's caution was running away with him. The sky seemed clear to him-he could discern no sign of a storm, and he did not reflect that, as he had never been present at a storm, the signs might escape him. "Very good," he said, "I'll tell Rodd. I am sure it will please him," and with that tiny sting, he went out.

The conversation had been held behind closed doors, yet it had its effect. A chill seemed to fall upon the bank. The air became less genial. Ovington's face grew both keen and watchful. Arthur, perplexed and puzzled, was more brusque, his speech shorter. Rodd's face reflected his superiors' gravity. Only Clement, going about his branch of the work with his usual stolid indifference, perceived no change in the temperature, and, depressed before, was only a degree nearer to the mean level.

Poor Clement! There are situations in which it is hard to play the hero, and he found himself in one of them. He had vowed that there should be no more meetings and no more love-making until he had faced and conquered his dragon. But meanwhile the dragon lay sick and blind at the bottom of its den, guarded by its very weakness from attack, while every hour and every day that saw nothing done seemed to remove Clement farther from his mistress, seemed to set a greater distance between them, seemed to blacken his face in her eyes.

Yet what could he do? How could he wrest himself from the inaction-it must seem to her the ignoble inaction-which pressed upon him? She watched-he pictured her watching from her tower, or more precisely from the terraced garden at Garth, for the deliverance which did not come, for the knight whose trumpet never sounded! She watched, while he, weak and shiftless, hung back in uncertainty, the inefficient he had ever been!

Ay, that he had ever been! It was that which hurt him. It was the sense of that which wasted his spirits as sorely as the impatience, the fever, of thwarted love. The spell of vigor which had for a few days lifted him out of himself, and given him the force to meet and to impress his fellows, had not only failed to win any real advantage, but failing, it had left him less self-reliant than before. For he saw now where he had failed. He saw that with the winning-card in his hand he had allowed himself to be defeated by Arthur, and to be jockeyed out of all the fruits of his labor, simply because he had lacked the moral courage, the hardness of fibre, the stiffness to stand by his own!

And he feared that it would ever be so. Arthur had got the better of him, and the knowledge depressed him to the ground. He was not a man. He was a weakling, a dreamer, good for neither one thing nor another! As useless outside the bank as at his desk, below and not above the daily tasks that he secretly despised.

Yet what could he do? What was it in his power to do? He asked himself that question a hundred times. He could not force himself on the Squire, ill and confined to his bed as he was-and be sure, Arthur did not make the best of his uncle's condition. He could only wait, though to wait was intolerable. He could only wait, while poor Josina first doubted, then despaired! Wait while first hope, and then faith, and in the end love died in her breast! Wait, till she thought herself abandoned!

Of course in his impatience and his humility Clement exaggerated both the delay and its results. The days seemed weeks to him, the weeks months. He fancied it a year since he had seen Josina. He did not consider that she was no stranger to his difficulties, nor reflect that though his silence might try her, and his absence cause her unhappiness, she might still approve both the one and the other. As a fact, the lesson which he had taught her at their last meeting had been driven home by the remorse that had tortured her on that dreadful night; and lonely hours in the sick room, much watching, and many a thought of what might have been, had strengthened the impression.

But Clement did not know this. He pictured the girl as losing all faith in him, and as the weeks ran on, the time came when he could bear the delay no longer, when he felt that he must either do something, or write himself down a coward. So one day, after hearing in the town that the Squire was able to leave his room, he wrote to Josina. He told her that he should call on the morrow and see her father.

And on the morrow he rode over, blind for once to the changes of nature, of landscape and cloudscape that surrounded him. But he never reached the house, for at the little bridge at the foot of the drive Josina met him, and eager as he had been to see his sweetheart and to hear her voice, he was checked by the change in her. It was a change which went deeper than mere physical alteration, though that, too, was there. The girl was paler, finer, more spiritual. Trouble and anxiety had laid their mark on her. He had left her girl, he found her woman. A new look, a look of purpose, of decision, gave another cast to her features.

She was the first to speak, and her words bore out the change in her. "You must come no farther, Clement," she said. And then as their hands met and their eyes, the color flamed in her cheeks, her head drooped flowerlike, she was for an instant the old Josina, the girl he had wooed by the brook, who had many a time fallen on his breast. But for a moment only. Then, "You cannot see him yet," she announced. "Not yet, for a long time, Clem. I met you here that I might stop you, and that there might be no misunderstanding-and no more secrets."

And this she had certainly secured, for the place which she had chosen for their meeting was overlooked, though at a distance, by the doorway of the house, and by all the walks about it.

But he was not to be so put off. "I must see him," he said, and he told himself that he must not be moved by her pleadings. It was natural that she should fear, but he must not fear-and indeed he had passed beyond fear. "No, dear," as she began to protest, "you must let me judge of this." He held her hands firmly as he looked down at her. "I have suffered enough, I have suffered as much as I can bear. I have had no sight of you and no word of you for months, and I cannot endure this longer. Every hour of every day I have felt myself a coward, a deserter, a do-nothing! I have had to bear this, and I have borne it. But now-now that your father is downstairs-"

"You can still do nothing," she said. "Believe, believe me," earnestly, "you can do nothing. Dear Clement," and the tenderness which she strove to suppress betrayed itself in her tone, "you must be guided by me, you must indeed. I am with my father, and I know, I know that he cannot bear it now. I know that it would be cruel to tell him now. He is blind. Blind, Clement! And he trusts me, he has to trust me. To tell him now would be to destroy his faith in me, to shock him and to frighten him-irreparably. You must go back now-now at once."

"What?" he cried. "And do nothing? And lose you?" The pathos of her appeal had passed him by, and only his love and his jealousy spoke.

"No," she answered soberly, "you will not lose me, if you have patience."

"But have you patience?"

"I must have."

"And I am to do nothing?" He spoke with energy, almost with anger. "To go on doing nothing? I am to stand by and-and play the coward still-go on playing it?"

Her face quivered, for he hurt her. He was selfish, he was cruel; yet she understood, and loved him for his cruelty. But she answered him firmly. "Nothing until I send for you," she said. "You do not think, Clem. He is blind! He is dependent on me for everything. If I tell him in his weakness that I have deceived him, he will lose faith in me, he will distrust me, he will distrust everyone. He will be alone in his darkness."

It began to come home to him. "Blind?" he repeated.

"Yes."

"But for good? Do you mean-quite blind?"

"Ah, I don't know!" she cried, unable to control her voice. "I don't know. Dr. Farmer does not know, the physician who came from Birmingham to see him does not know. They say that they have hopes-and I don't know! But I fear."

He was silent then, touched with pity, feeling at length the pathos of it, feeling it almost as she felt it. But after a pause, during which she stood watching his face, "And if he does not recover his sight?"

"God forbid!"

"I say God forbid too, with all my heart. Still, if he does not-what then? When may I-"

"When the time comes," she answered, "and of that I must be the judge. Yes, Clement," with resolution. "I must be the judge, for I alone know how he is, and I alone can choose the occasion."

The delay was very bitter to him. He had ridden out determined to put. his fate to the test, to let nothing stand between him and his love, to over-ride excuses; and he could not in a moment make up his mind to be thwarted.

"And I must wait? I must go on waiting? Eating my heart out-doing nothing?"

"There is no other way. Indeed, indeed there is not."

"But it is too much. It is too much, Jos, that you ask!"

"Then, Clement-"

"Well?"

"You must give me up." She spoke firmly but her lips quivered, and there were tears in her eyes.

He was silent. At last, "Do you wish me to do that?" he said.

She looked at him for answer, and his doubts, if he had doubted her, his distrust, if it had been possible for him to distrust her, vanished. His heart melted. They were a very simple pair of lovers, moved by simple impulses.

"Forgive me, oh, forgive me, dear!" he cried. "But mine is a hard task, a hard task. You do not know what it is to wait, to wait and to do nothing!"

"Do I not?" Her eyes were swimming. "Is it not that which I am doing every day, Clem? But I have faith in you, and I believe in you. I believe that all will come right in the end. If you trust me, as I trust you, and have to trust you-"

"I will, I will," he cried, repentant, remorseful, recognizing in her a new decision, a new sweetheart, and doing homage to the strength that trial and suffering had given her. "I will trust you, trust you-and wait!"

Her eyes thanked him, and her hands; and after this there was little more to be said. She was anxious that he should go, and they parted. He rode back to Aldersbury, thinking less of himself and more of her, and something too of the old man, who, blind and shorn of his strength, had now to lean on women, and suspicious by habit must now trust others, whether he would or no. Clement had imagination, and by its light he saw the pathos of the Squire's position; of his helplessness in the midst of the great possessions he had gathered, and the acres that he had added, acre to acre. He who had loved to look on hill and covert and know them his own, to whom every copse and hedgerow was a friend, who had watched his marches so jealously and known the rotation of every field, must now fume and fret, thinking them neglected, suspecting waste, doubting everyone, lacking but a little of doubting even his daughter.

"Poor chap!" he muttered, "poor old chap!" He was sorry for the Squire, but he was even more sorry for himself. Any other, he felt, would have surmounted the obstacles that stopped him, or by one road or another would have gone round them. But he was no good, he was useless. Even his sweetheart-this in a little spirit of bitterness-took the upper hand and guided him and imposed her will on him. He was nothing.

In the bank he grew more taciturn, doing his business with less spirit than before, suspecting Arthur and avoiding speech with him, meeting his careless smile with a stolid face. His father, Rodd too, deemed him jealous of the new partner, and his father, growing in these days a little sharp in temper, spoke to him about it.

"You took no interest in the business," he said, "and I had to find some one who would take an interest and be of use to me. Now you are making difficulties and causing unpleasantness. You are behaving ill, Clement."

But Clement only shrugged his shoulders. He had become indifferent. He had his own burden to bear.

CHAPTER XXII

Arthur, on the other hand, felt that things were going well with him. A few months earlier he had decided that a partnership in Ovington's would be cheaply bought at the cost of a rupture with his uncle. Now he had the partnership, he could look forward to the wealth and importance which it would bring-and he had not to pay the price. On the contrary, his views now took in all that he had been prepared to resign, as well as all that he had hoped to gain. They took in Garth, and he saw himself figuring not only as the financier whose operations covered many fields, and whose riches were ever increasing, but as the landed Squire, the man of family, whose birth and acres must give him a position in society which no mere wealth could confer. The unlucky night which had cost the old man so much, had been for Arthur the birth-night of fortune. He could date from it a favor, proof, as he now believed, against chance and change, a favor upon which it seemed unlikely that he could ever overdraw.

For since his easy victory on the question of the India Stock, he had become convinced that the Squire was failing. The old man, once so formidable, was changed; he had grown, if not weak, yet dependent. And it could hardly be otherwise, Arthur reflected. The loss of sight was a paralyzing deprivation, and it had fallen on the owner of Garth at a time of life when any shock must sap the strength and lower the vitality. For a while his will had reacted, he had seemed to bear up against the blow, but age will be served, and of late he had grown more silent and apathetic. Arthur had read the signs and drawn the conclusion, and was now sure that, blind and shaken, the old man would never again be the man he had been, or assert himself against an influence which a subtler brain would know how to weave about him.

Arthur was thinking of this as he rode into town one morning in November, his back turned to the hills and the romance of them, his face to the plain. It was early in the month. St. Luke's summer, prolonged that year, had come to an end a day or two before, and the air was raw, the outlook sombre. Under a canopy of grey mist, the thinning hedge-rows and dripping woods showed dark against clear blue distances. But in the warmth of his thoughts the rider was proof against weather, and when he came to the sedgy spot, never more dreary to the view than to-day, which Thomas had chosen for his attack on the Squire, he smiled. That little patch of ground had done much for him, but at a price, of course-for there he had lost a friend, a good easy friend in Clement. And Betty-Betty, whose coolness had caused him more than one honest pang-he had no doubt that there had come a change in her, too, from that date.

But one had to pay a price for everything, and these were but small spots on the sun of his success. Soon he had put the thought of them from him, and, abreast of the first houses of the town, began to employ his mind on the work of the day-revolving this and that, matters outside routine which would demand his attention. He knew what was likely to arise.

Rarely in these days did he enter Aldersbury without a feeling of elation. The very air of the town inspired him. The life of the streets, the movement of the markets, the sight of the shopkeepers at their doors, the stir and bustle had their appeal for him. He felt himself on his own ground; it was here and not in the waste places that his work lay, here that he was formed to conquer, here that he was conquering fortune. Garth was very well-a grand, a splendid reserve; but as he rode up the steep streets to the bank, he felt that here was his vocation. He sniffed the battle, his eyes grew brighter, his figure more alert. From some Huguenot ancestor had descended the Huguenot appetite for business, the Huguenot ability to succeed.

This morning, however, he did not reach the bank in his happiest mood. Purslow, the irrepressible Purslow, stopped him, with a long face and a plaint to match. "Those Antwerp shares, Mr. Bourdillon! Excuse me, have you heard? They're down again-down twenty-five since Wednesday! And that's on to five, as they fell the week before! Thirty down, sir! I'm in a regular stew about it! Excuse me, sir, but if they fall much more-"

"You've held too long, Purslow," Arthur replied. "I told you it was a quick shot. A fortnight ago you'd have got out with a good profit. Why didn't you?"

"But they were rising-rising nicely. And I thought, sir-"

"You thought you'd hold them for a bit more? That was the long and short of it, wasn't it? Well, my advice to you now is to get out while you can make a profit."

"Sell?" the draper exclaimed. "Now?" It is hard to say what he had expected, but something more than this. "But I should not clear more than-why, I shouldn't make-"

"Better make what you can," Arthur replied, and rode on a little more cavalierly than he would have ridden a few months before.

He did not reflect how easy it is to sow the seeds of distrust. Purslow, left alone to make the best of cold comfort, felt for the first time that his interests were not the one care of the bank. For the first time he saw the bank as something apart, a machine, cold, impassive, indifferent, proceeding on its course unmoved by his fortunes, good or bad, his losses or his gains. It was a picture that chilled him, and set him thinking.

Arthur, meantime, left his horse at the stables and let himself into the bank by the house-door. As he laid his hat and whip on the table in the hall, he caught the sound of an angry voice. It came from the bank parlor. He hesitated an instant, then he made up his mind, and stepping that way he opened the door.

The voice was Wolley's. The man was on his feet, angry, protesting, gesticulating. Ovington, his lips set, the pallor of his handsome face faintly tinged with color, sat behind his table, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingertips meeting.

Arthur took it all in. Then, "You don't want me?" he said, and he made as if he would close the door again. "I thought that you were alone, sir."

"No, stay," Ovington answered. "You may as well hear what Mr. Wolley has to say, though I have told him already-"

"What?" the clothier cried rudely. "Come! Let's have it in plain words!"

"That we can discount no more bills for him until the account against him is reduced. You know as well as I do, Mr. Wolley, that you have been drawing more bills and larger bills than your trade justifies."

"But I have to meet the paper I've accepted for wool, haven't I? And if my customers don't pay cash-as you know it is not the custom to pay-where am I to get the cash to pay the wool men?"

The banker took up one of two bills that lay on the table before him. "Drawn on Samuel Willias, Manchester," he said. "That's a new name. Who is he?"

"A customer. Who should he be?"

"That's the point," Ovington replied coldly. "Is he? And this other bill. A new name, too. Besides, we've already discounted your usual bills. These bills are additional. My own opinion is that they are accommodation bills, and that you, and not the acceptors, will have to meet them. In any case," dropping the slips on the table, "we are not going to take them."

"You won't cash them? Not on no terms?"

"No, we are going no further, Wolley," the banker replied firmly. "If you like I will send for the bill-book and ledger and tell you exactly what you owe, on bills and overdraft. I know it is a large amount, and you have made, as far as I can judge, no effort to reduce it. The time has come when we must stop the advances."

"And you'll not discount these bills?"

"No!"

"Then, by G-d, it's not I will be the only one to be ruined!" the man exclaimed, and he struck the table with his fist. The veins on his forehead swelled, his coarse mottled face became disfigured with rage. He glared at the banker. But even as Ovington met his gaze, there came a change. The perspiration sprang out on his forehead, his face turned pale and flabby, he seemed to shrink and wilt. The ruin, which recklessness and improvidence had hidden from him, rose before him, certain and imminent. He saw his mill, his house, his all gone from him, saw himself a drunken, ruined, shiftless loafer, cadging about public-houses! "For God's sake!" he pleaded, "do it this once, Mr. Ovington. Meet just these two, and I'll swear they'll be the last. Meet these."

"No," the banker said. "We go no farther."

Perhaps the thought that he and Ovington had risen from the ranks together, that for years they had been equals, and that now the one refused his help to the other, rose and mocked the unhappy man. At any rate, his rage flared up anew. He swore violently. "Well, there's more than I will go down, then!" he said. "And more than will suit your book, banker! Wise as you think yourself, there's more bills out than you know of!"

"I am sorry to hear it."

"Ay, and you'll be more sorry by and by!" viciously. "Sorry for yourself and sorry that you did not give me a little more help, d-n you! Are you going to? Best think twice about it before you say no!"

"Not a penny," Ovington rejoined sternly. "After what you have admitted I should be foolish indeed to do so. You've had my last word, Mr. Wolley."

"Then damn your last word and you too!" the clothier retorted, and went out, cursing, into the bank, shouting aloud as he passed through it, that they were a set of bloodsuckers and that he'd have the law of them! Clement from his desk eyed him steadily. Rodd and the clerks looked startled. The customers-there were but two, but they were two too many for such a scene-eyed each other uneasily. A moment, and Clement, after shifting his papers uncertainly, left his desk and went into the parlor.

Ovington and Arthur had not moved. "What's the matter?" Clement asked. The occurrence had roused him from his apathy. He looked from the one to the other, a challenge in his eyes.

"Only what we've been expecting for some time," his father answered. "Wolley has asked for further credit and I've had to say, no. I've given him too much rope as it is, and we shall lose by him. He's an ill-conditioned fellow, and he is taking it ill."

"He wants a drubbing," said Clement.

"That is not in our line," Ovington replied mildly. "But," he continued-for he was not sorry to have the chance of taking his son into his confidence-"we are going to have plenty to think of that is in our line. Wolley will fail, and we shall lose by him; and I have no doubt that he is right in saying that he will bring down others. We must look to ourselves and draw in, as I warned Bourdillon some time ago. That noisy fellow may do us harm, and we must be ready to meet it."

Arthur looked thoughtful. "Antwerps have fallen," he said.

"I wish it were only Antwerps!" the banker answered. "You haven't seen the mail? Or Friday's prices? There's a fall in nearly everything. True," looking from one to the other, "I've expected it-sooner or later; and it has come, or is coming. Yes, Rodd? What is it?"

The cashier had opened the door. "Hamar," he said in a low voice, "wants to know if we will buy him fifty of the railroad shares and advance him the face value on the security of the shares. He'll find the premium himself. He thinks they are cheap after the drop last week."

The banker shook his head. "No," he said. "We can't do it, tell Mr. Hamar."

"It would support the shares," Arthur suggested.

"With our money. Yes! But we've enough locked up in them already. Tell him, Rodd, that I am sorry, but it is not convenient at present."

"They are still at a premium of thirty shillings," Arthur put in.

"Is the door shut, Rodd?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thirty shillings? And that might run off in a week, Mr. Secretary. No, the time is come when we must not shilly-shally. I see your view and the refusal may do harm. But we have enough money locked up in the railway, and with the outlook such as it is, I will not increase the note issues. They are already too large, as we may discover. We must say no, Rodd, but tell him to come and see me this evening, and I will explain."