Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Whereas if he went with Clement now, humiliation would indeed be his. But he would still be himself, and with his qualities he might live it down, and in the end lose nothing.

  So at last, “Go on,” he said, sulkily. “Have it your own way. At any rate, I may spoil your game!” He shut his eyes to Clement’s generosity. If he gave a thought to it at all, he fancied that he had some purpose to serve, some axe of his own to grind.

  They went out into the babel of the street, and, deafened by the cries of the hawkers, elbowed by panic-stricken men who fancied that if they were somewhere else they might save their hoards, shouldered by stout countrymen, adrift in the confusion like hulks in a strange sea, they made their way into Bishopsgate Street. Here they found the hackney-coach awaiting them, and drove by London Wall to the Bull and Mouth. A Birmingham coach was due to start at three, and after a gloomy wrangle they booked places by it, and, while the officer guarded the money, they sat down in the Coffee Room to a rare sirloin and a foaming tankard. They ate and drank in unfriendly silence, two empty chairs intervening; and more than once Arthur repented of his decision. But already the force of circumstances was driving them together, for the thoughts of each had travelled forward to Aldersbury — and to Ovington’s. What was happening there? What might not already have happened there? Hurried feet ran by on the pavement. Ominous words blew in at the windows. Scared men rushed in with pallid, sweating faces, ate standing and went out again. Other men sat listless, staring at the table before them, eating nothing, or here and there, apart in corners whispered curses over their meat.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  The news of the failures which convulsed the City on that Black Monday did not reach Aldersbury until late on the Tuesday — the tidings came in with the mails. But hours before that, and even before the opening of the bank, things in the town had come to a climax. The women, always more practical than the men and less squeamish, had taken fright and been talking. In many a back parlor in Maerdol, and the Foregate, and on the Cop, wives had spoken their minds. They wouldn’t be scared out of asking for their own, by any banker that ever lived, they said. Not they! “Would you, Mrs. Gittins?” quoth one.

  “Not I, ma’am, if I had it to ask for, as your goodman has. I’d not sleep another night before I had it tight and right.”

  “No more he shall! What, rob his children for fear of a stuffy old man’s black looks? But I’ll see him into the bank myself, and see that he brings it out, too! I’ll answer for that!”

  “And you’re in the right, ma’am, seeing it’s yours. Money’s not that easy got we’re to be robbed of it. Now those notes with CO. on them they’re money anyways, I suppose? There’s nothing can alter them, I’m thinking. I’ve two of them at home, that my lad — —”

  “Oh, Mrs. Gittins!” And superior information raised its hands in horror. “You understand nothing at all. Don’t you know they’re the worst of all? If those shutters — go — up at that bank,” dramatically, “they’ll not be worth the paper they’re printed on! You take my advice and go this very minute and buy something at Purslow’s or Bowdler’s, and get them changed. And you’ll thank me for that word, Mrs. Gittins, as long as you live.”

  Upset was not the word for Mrs. Gittins, who had thought herself outside the fray. “Well, they be thieves and liars!” she gasped. “And Dean’s too, ma’am? You don’t mean to say — —”

  “I wouldn’t answer even for them,” darkly. “If you ask me, I’d let some one else have ‘em, Mrs. Gittins. Thank the Lord, I’ve none of them on my mind!”

  And on that Mrs. Gittins waddled away, and two minutes later stood in Purslow’s shop, inwardly “all of a twitter,” but outwardly looking as if butter would not melt in her mouth. But, alas! Purslow’s was out of change that day; and so, strange to say, was Bowdler’s. Most unlucky — great scarcity of silver — Government’s fault — should they book it? But Mrs. Gittins, although she was all of a twitter, as she explained afterwards, was not so innocent as that, and got away without making her purchase.

  Still, that was the way talk went, up and down Bride Hill and in Shocklatch, at front door and back door alike. And the men were not ill-content to be bidden. Some had passed a sleepless night, and had already made up their minds not to pass another. Others had had a nudge or a jog of the elbow from a knowing friend, and had been made as wise by a raised eyebrow as by an hour’s sermon. Worse still, some had got hold of a story first set afloat at the Gullet — the Gullet was the ancient low-browed tavern in the passage by the Market Place, where punch flowed of a night, and the tradesmen of the town and some of their betters were in the habit of supping, as their fathers and grandfathers had supped before them. Arthur’s departure, quickly followed by Clement’s — after dark and in a post-chaise, mark you! — had not passed without comment; and a wiseacre had been found to explain it. At first he had confined himself to nods and winks, but being cornered and at the same time uplifted by liquor — for though the curious could taste saloop at the Gullet, Heathcote’s ale was more to the taste of the habitués, when they did not run to punch — he has whispered a word, which had speedily passed round the circle and not been slow to go beyond it.

  “Gone! Of course they’re gone!” was the knowing one’s verdict. “And you’ll see the old man will be gone, too, before morning, and the strong-box with him! Open? No, they’ll not open? Never again, ten o’clock or no ten o’clock. Well, if you must have it, I got it from Wolley not an hour back. And he ought to know. Wasn’t he hand in glove with them? Director of the — oh, the Railroad Shares? Waste paper! Never were worth more, my lad. If you put your money into that, it’s on its way to London by this time!”

  “And Boulogne to-morrow,” said another, going one better, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “I’m seventy-five down by them, and that’s the worst and the best for me! Those that are in deeper, I’m sorry for them, but they’ve only themselves to thank! It’s been plain this month past what was going to happen.”

  One or two were tempted to ask why he hadn’t drawn out his seventy-five pounds, if he had been so sure. But they refrained, having a wambling, a sort of sick feeling in the pit of their stomachs. He was a rude, overbearing fellow, and there was no knowing what he might not bring out by way of retort.

  The upshot of this and of a hundred other reports which ran about the town like wild-fire, was that a full twenty minutes before the bank opened on the Tuesday, its doors were the butt of a hundred eyes. Many assembled by twos and threes in the High Street and on the Market Place, awaiting the hour; while others took up their stand in the dingy old Butter Cross a little above the bank, where day in and day out old crones sat knitting and the poultry women’s baskets stood on market days. Few thought any longer of concealment; the time for that was past, the feeling of anxiety was too deep and too widespread. Men came together openly, spoke of their fears and cursed the banker, or nervously fingered their pass-books, and compared the packets of notes that they had with them.

  Some watched the historic clock, but more watched, and more eagerly, the bank. The door, the opening of which, if it were ever opened, meant so much to so many, must have shrunk, seasoned wood as it was, under the intensity of the gaze fixed upon it; while the windows of the bank-house — ugh! the pretender, to set himself up after that fashion, while all the time he was robbing the poor! — were exposed to a fire as constant. Not a curtain moved or a blind was lowered, but the action was marked and analyzed, deductions drawn from it, and arguments based upon it. That was Ovington’s bedroom! No, that. And there was his girl at the lower window — but he would not have been likely to take her with him in any case.

  As a fact, had they been on the watch a little earlier, they would have been spared one anxiety. For about nine o’clock Ovington had shown himself. He had left the house, crossed with a grave face to the Market Place, and rung the bell at Dean’s. He had entered after a brief parley with an amazed man-servant, had been admitted to see one of the partners,
and at a cost to his pride, which only he could measure, the banker had stooped to ask for help. Between concerns doing business in the same town, relations must exist and transactions must pass even when they are in competition; and Dean’s and Ovington’s had been no exception to the rule. But the elder bank had never forgotten that they had once enjoyed a monopoly. They had neither abandoned their claims nor made any secret of their hostility, and Ovington knew that it was to the last degree unlikely that they would support him, even if they had the power to do so.

  But he had convinced himself that it was his duty to make the attempt, however hopeless it might seem, and however painful to himself — and few things in his life had been more painful. To play the suppliant, he who had raised his head so high, and by virtue of an undoubted touch of genius had carried it so loftily, this was bad enough. But to play the suppliant to the very persons on whom he had trespassed, and whom he had defied, to open his distresses to those to whom he had pretended to teach a newer and sounder practice, to acknowledge in act, if not in word, that they had been right and he wrong, this indeed was enough to wring the proud man’s heart, and bring the perspiration to his brow.

  Yet he performed the task with the dignity, of which, as he had risen in the world, he had learned the trick, and which even at this moment did not desert him. “I am going to be frank with you, Mr. Dean,” he said when the door had closed on the servant and the two stood eye to eye. “There is going, I fear, to be a run on me to-day, and unfortunately I have been disappointed in a sum of twelve thousand pounds, which I expected to receive. I do not need the whole, two-thirds of the sum will meet all the demands which are likely to be made upon me, and to cover that sum I can lodge undeniable security, bills with good names — I have a list here and you can examine it. I suggest, Mr. Dean, that in your own interests as well as in mine you help me. For if I am compelled to close — and I cannot deny that I may have to close, though I trust for a short time only — it is certain that a very serious run will be made upon you.”

  Mr. Dean’s eyes remained cold and unresponsive. “We are prepared to meet it,” he answered frostily. “We are not afraid.” He was a tall man, thin and dry, without a spark of imagination, or enterprise. A man whose view was limited to his ledger, and who, if he had not inherited a business, would never have created one.

  “You are aware that Poles’ and Williams’s have failed?”

  “Yes. I believe that our information is up to date.”

  “And that Garrard’s at Hereford closed yesterday?”

  “I am sorry to hear it.”

  “The times are very serious, Mr. Dean. Very serious.”

  “We have foreseen that,” the other replied. They were both standing. “The truth is, we are paying for a period of reckless trading, encouraged in my humble opinion, Mr. Ovington” — he could not refrain from the stab— “by those who should have restrained it.”

  Ovington let that pass. He had too much at stake to retort. “Possibly,” he said. “Possibly. But we have now to deal with the present — as it exists. It is on public rather than on private grounds that I appeal to you, Mr. Dean. A disaster threatens the community. I appeal to you to help me to avert it. As I have said, securities shall be placed in your hands, more than sufficient to cover the risk. Approved securities to your satisfaction.”

  But the other shook his head. He was enjoying his triumph — a triumph beyond his hopes. “What you suggest,” he said, a faint note of sarcasm in his tone, “comes to this, Mr. Ovington — that we pool resources? That is how I understand you?”

  “Practically.”

  “Well, I am afraid that in justice to our customers I must reply that we cannot do that. We must think of them first, and of ourselves next.”

  Ovington took up his hat. The other’s tone was coldly decisive. Still he made a last effort. “Here is the list,” he said. “Perhaps if you and your brother went over it at your leisure?”

  But Dean waved the list away. “It would be useless,” he said. “Quite useless. We could not entertain the idea.” He was already anticipating the enjoyment with which he would tell his brother the news.

  With a heavy heart, Ovington replaced the list in his breast pocket. “Very good,” he said. His face was grave. “I did not expect — to be frank — any other answer, Mr. Dean. But I thought it was my duty to see you. I regret your decision. Good-morning.”

  “Good-morning,” the other banker replied, and he rang for his man-servant.

  “They’re gone,” he reflected complacently, as the door closed behind his visitor. “Smashed, begad!” and with the thought he rid himself of a sense of inferiority which had more than once troubled him in his rival’s presence. He sat down to eat his breakfast with a good appetite. The day would be a trying one, but Dean’s, at any rate, was safe. Dean’s, thank God, had never put its hand out farther than it could draw it back. How pleased his brother would be!

  That was the worst, immeasurably the worst, of Ovington’s experiences, but it was not the only painful interview that was in store for him before the bank opened that morning. Twice, men, applying, stealthy and importunate, at the back door, forced their way in to him. They were not of those who had claims on the bank and feared to be losers by it. They were in debt to it, but desperate and pushed for money they saw in the bank’s necessity their opportunity. They — one of the two was Purslow — required only small sums, and both had conceived the idea that, as the bank was about to fail, it would be all one to Ovington whether he obliged them or not. It would be but a hundred or so the less for the creditors, and as the bank had sold their pledged stocks they thought that it owed them something. They had still influence, their desperate straits were not yet known; if he obliged them they would do this and that and the other — nebulous things — for him.

  Ovington, of course, could do nothing for them, but to harden his heart against their appeals was not a good preparation for the work before him, and when he entered the bank five minutes before ten, he had to brace himself in order to show an unmoved front to the clerks.

  He need not have troubled himself. Rodd knew all, and the two lads, on their way to the bank that morning, had been badgered out of such powers of observation as they possessed. They had been followed, cornered, snatched in this direction and that, rudely questioned, even threatened. Were they going to open? Where was the gaffer? Was he gone? They had been wellnigh bothered out of their lives, and more than once had been roughly handled. It seemed as if all Aldersbury was against them — and they did not like it. But Ovington had the knack of attaching men to him, the lads were loyal, and they had returned only hard words to those who waylaid them. Pay? They could pay all the dirty money in Aldersbury! Mr. Ovington? Well, they’d see. They’d see where he was, and be licking his boots in a week’s time. And they’d better take their hands off them! The stouter even threatened fisticuffs. A little more and he’d give his questioners a lick over the chops. Come now, give over, or he’d show them a trick of Dutch Sam’s they wouldn’t like.

  The two arrived at the bank, panting and indignant, their coats half off their backs; and Rodd, whose impeccable respectability no one had ventured to assail, had to say a few sharp words before they settled down and the counter assumed the calm and orderly aspect that, in his eyes, the occasion required. He was himself simmering with indignation, but he let no sign of it appear. He had made all his arrangements beforehand, seen every book in its place, and the cash where it could be handled — and a decent quantity, sufficient to impose on the vulgar — laid in sight. After a few words had been exchanged between him and Ovington, the latter retired to the desk behind the curtain, and the other three took their places. Nothing remained but to watch — the seniors with trepidation, the juniors with a not unpleasant excitement — the minute hand of the clock. It wanted three minutes of ten.

  And already, though from their places behind the counter the clerks could not see it, the watching groups before the bank had grown into a cro
wd. It lined the opposite pavement, it hung a fringe two-deep on the steps of the Butter Cross, it extended into the Market Place, it stretched itself half-way down the hill. And it made itself heard. The voices of those who passed along the pavement, the scraps of talk half caught, the sudden exclamation, merged in a murmur not loud but continuous, and fraught with something of menace. Once, on the fringe of the gathering, there was an outburst of booing, but it ceased as suddenly as it had risen, suppressed by the more sober element; and once a hand tried the doors, a voice surprisingly loud, cried, “They’re fast enough!” and footsteps retreated across the pavement. The driver of a cart descending the hill called to “Make way! Make way!” and that, too, reached those within almost as plainly as if it had been said in the room. Something, too, happened on it, for a shout of laughter followed.

  It wanted two — it wanted one minute of ten. Rodd gave the order to open.

  The younger clerk stepped forward and drew the bolts. He turned the key, and opened one leaf of the door. The other was thrust open from without. The clerk slid under the counter to his place. They came in.

  They came in, three abreast, elbowing and pushing one another in their efforts to be first. In a moment they were at the counter, darting suspicious glances at the clerks and angry looks at one another, and with them entered an atmosphere of noise and contention, of trampling feet and peevish exclamations. The bank, so still a moment before, was filled with clamor. There were tradesmen among them, a little uncertain of themselves and thankful that Ovington was not visible, and one or two bluff red-faced farmers who cared for nobody, and slapped their books down on the counter; and there were also a few, of the better sort, who looked straight before them and endeavored to see as little as possible — with a sprinkling of small fry, clerks and lodging-house keepers and a coal-hawker, each with his dirty note gripped tight in his fist. The foremost rapped on the counter and cried “Here, Mister, I’m first!” “No, I!” “Here, you, please attend to me!” They pressed their claims rudely, while those in the rear uttered impatient remonstrances, holding their books or their notes over the heads of others in the attempt to gain attention. In a moment the bank was full — full to the doors, full of people, full of noise.