Miss or Mrs.?

by Wilkie Collins

  THIRD SCENE.

  The Money Market.

  Let us be serious.--Business!

  The new scene plunges us head foremost into the affairs of the Levanttrading-house of Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca. What on earth do weknow about the Levant Trade? Courage! If we have ever known what it isto want money we are perfectly familiar with the subject at starting.The Levant Trade does occasionally get into difficulties.--Turlingtonwanted money.

  The letter which had been handed to him on board the yacht was from histhird partner, Mr. Branca, and was thus expressed:

  "A crisis in the trade. All right, so far--except our business withthe small foreign firms. Bills to meet from those quarters, (say) fortythousand pounds--and, I fear, no remittances to cover them. Particularsstated in another letter addressed to you at Post-office, Ilfracombe. Iam quite broken down with anxiety, and confined to my bed. Pizzituti isstill detained at Smyrna. Come back at once."

  The same evening Turlington was at his office in Austin Friars,investigating the state of affairs, with his head clerk to help him.

  Stated briefly, the business of the firm was of the widely miscellaneoussort. They plied a brisk trade in a vast variety of commodities. Nothingcame amiss to them, from Manchester cotton manufactures to Smyrna figs.They had branch houses at Alexandria and Odessa, and correspondentshere, there, and everywhere, along the shores of the Mediterranean, andin the ports of the East. These correspondents were the persons alludedto in Mr. Branca's letter as "small foreign firms;" and they hadproduced the serious financial crisis in the affairs of the great housein Austin Friars, which had hurried Turlington up to London.

  Every one of these minor firms claimed and received the privilege ofdrawing bills on Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca for amounts varyingfrom four to six thousand pounds--on no better security than a verbalunderstanding that the money to pay the bills should be forwarded beforethey fell due. Competition, it is needless to say, was at the bottom ofthis insanely reckless system of trading. The native firms laid it downas a rule that they would decline to transact business with any housein the trade which refused to grant them their privilege. In the ease ofTurlington's house, the foreign merchants had drawn their bills on himfor sums large in the aggregate, if not large in themselves; had longsince turned those bills into cash in their own markets, for their ownnecessities; and had now left the money which their paper representedto be paid by their London correspondents as it fell due. In someinstances, they had sent nothing but promises and excuses. In others,they had forwarded drafts on firms which had failed already, or whichwere about to fail, in the crisis. After first exhausting hisresources in ready money, Mr. Branca had provided for the more pressingnecessities by pledging the credit of the house, so far as he _could_pledge it without exciting suspicion of the truth. This done, there wereactually left, between that time and Christmas, liabilities to be met tothe extent of forty thousand pounds, without a farthing in hand to paythat formidable debt.

  After working through the night, this was the conclusion at whichRichard Turlington arrived, when the rising sun looked in at him throughthe windows of his private room.

  The whole force of the blow had fallen on _him_. The share of hispartners in the business was of the most trifling nature. The capitalwas his, the risk was his. Personally and privately, _he_ had to findthe money, or to confront the one other alternative--ruin.

  How was the money to be found?

  With his position in the City, he had only to go to the famousmoney-lending and discounting house of Bulpit Brothers--reported to"turn over" millions in their business every year--and to supply himselfat once with the necessary funds. Forty thousand pounds was a triflingtransaction to Bulpit Brothers.

  Having got the money, how, in the present state of his trade, was theloan to be paid back?

  His thoughts reverted to his marriage with Natalie.

  "Curious!" he said to himself, recalling his conversation with SirJoseph on board the yacht. "Graybrooke told me he would give hisdaughter half his fortune on her marriage. Half Graybrooke's fortunehappens to be just forty thousand pounds!" He took a turn in the room.No! It was impossible to apply to Sir Joseph. Once shake Sir Joseph'sconviction of his commercial solidity, and the marriage would becertainly deferred--if not absolutely broken off. Sir Joseph's fortunecould be made available, in the present emergency, in but one way--hemight use it to repay his debt. He had only to make the date at whichthe loan expired coincide with the date of his marriage, and therewas his father-in-law's money at his disposal, or at his wife'sdisposal--which meant the same thing. "It's well I pressed Graybrookeabout the marriage when I did!" he thought. "I can borrow the money at ashort date. In three months from this Natalie will be my wife."

  He drove to his club to get breakfast, with his mind cleared, for thetime being, of all its anxieties but one.

  Knowing where he could procure the loan, he was by no means equally sureof being able to find the security on which he could borrow themoney. Living up to his income; having no expectations from any livingcreature; possessing in landed property only some thirty or fortyacres in Somersetshire, with a quaint little dwelling, half farm house,half-cottage, attached--he was incapable of providing the needfulsecurity from his own personal resources. To appeal to wealthy friendsin the City would be to let those friends into the secret of hisembarrassments, and to put his credit in peril. He finished hisbreakfast, and went back to Austin Friars--failing entirely, so far, tosee how he was to remove the last obstacle now left in his way.

  The doors were open to the public; business had begun. He had not beenten minutes in his room before the shipping-clerk knocked at the doorand interrupted him, still absorbed in his own anxious thoughts.

  "What is it?" he asked, irritably.

  "Duplicate Bills of Lading, sir," answered the clerk, placing thedocuments on his ma ster's table.

  Found! There was the security on his writing-desk, staring him in theface! He dismissed the clerk and examined the papers.

  They contained an account of goods shipped to the London house on boardvessels sailing from Smyrna and Odessa, and they were signed by themasters of the ships, who thereby acknowledged the receipt of the goods,and undertook to deliver them safely to the persons owning them, asdirected. First copies of these papers had already been placed in thepossession of the London house. The duplicates had now followed, incase of accident. Richard Turlington instantly determined to make theduplicates serve as his security, keeping the first copies privatelyunder lock and key, to be used in obtaining possession of the goodsat the customary time. The fraud was a fraud in appearance only. Thesecurity was a pure formality. His marriage would supply him with thefunds needed for repaying the money, and the profits of his businesswould provide, in course of time, for restoring the dowry of his wife.It was simply a question of preserving his credit by means which werelegitimately at his disposal. Within the lax limits of mercantilemorality, Richard Turlington had a conscience. He put on his hat andtook his false security to the money-lenders, without feeling at alllowered in his own estimation as an honest man.

  Bulpit Brothers, long desirous of having such a name as his on theirbooks, received him with open arms. The security (covering the amountborrowed) was accepted as a matter of course. The money was lent, forthree months, with a stroke of the pen. Turlington stepped out againinto the street, and confronted the City of London in the character ofthe noblest work of mercantile creation--a solvent man.*

  The Fallen Angel, walking invisibly behind, in Richard's shadow, flappedhis crippled wings in triumph. From that moment the Fallen Angel had gothim.

  * It may not be amiss to remind the incredulous reader that a famous firm in the City accepted precisely the same security as that here accepted by Bulpit Brothers, with the same sublime indifference to troubling themselves by making any inquiry about it.