"It is! It is, mother!"
"I'd do anything to make you happy, Arthur! But I don't believe," with a sigh, "that whatever I did your uncle would pay the money."
"Is it his money or yours?"
"Why, of course, Arthur, I thought that you knew that it was your father's." She was very simple, and her pride was touched.
"And now it is yours. And I suppose that some day--I hope it will be a long day, mother--it will be mine. Believe me, you've only to write to my uncle and tell him that you have decided to call it up, and he will pay it as a matter of course. Shall I write the letter for you to sign?"
Mrs. Bourdillon looked piteously at him. She was very, very unwilling to comply, but what was she to do? Between love of him and fear of the Squire, what was she to do? Poor woman, she did not know. But he was with her, the Squire was absent, and she was about to acquiesce when a last argument occurred to her. "But you are forgetting," she said, "if your uncle takes offence, and I'm sure he will, he'll come between you and Josina."
"Well, that is his look-out."
"Arthur! You don't mean that you've changed your mind, and you so fond of her? And the girl heir to Garth and all her father's money!"
"I say nothing about it," Arthur declared. "If he chooses to come between us that will be his doing, not mine."
"But Garth!" Mrs. Bourdillon was altogether at sea. "My dear boy, you are not thinking! Why, Lord ha' mercy on us, where would you find such another, young and pretty and all, and Garth in her pocket? Why, if it were only on Jos's account you'd be mad to quarrel with him."
"I'm not going to quarrel with him," Arthur replied sullenly. "If he chooses to quarrel with me, well, she's not the only heiress in the world."
His mother held up her hands. "Oh dear me," she said wearily. "I give it up, I don't understand you. But I'm only a woman and I suppose I don't understand anything."
He was accustomed to command and she to be guided. He saw that she was wavering, and he plied her afresh, and in the end, though not without another outburst of tears, he succeeded. He fetched the pen, he smoothed the paper, and before he handed his mother her bed-candle he had got the fateful letter written, and had even by lavishing on her unusual signs of affection brought a smile to her face. "It will be all right, mother, you'll see," he urged as he watched her mount the stairs. "It will be all right! You'll see me a millionaire yet."
And then he made a mistake which was to cost him dearly. He left the letter on the mantel-shelf. An hour later, when he had been some time in bed, he heard a door open and he sat up and listened. Even then, had he acted on the instant, it might have availed. But he hesitated, arguing down his misgivings, and it was only when he caught the sound of footsteps stealthily re-ascending that he jumped out of bed and lit a candle. He slipped downstairs, but he was too late. The letter was gone.
He went up to bed again, and though he wondered at the queer ways of women he did not as yet doubt the issue. He would recover the letter in the morning and send it. The end would be the same.
There, however, he was wrong. Mrs. Bourdillon was a weak woman, but weakness has its own obstinacy, and by the morning she had reflected.
The sum charged on Garth was her whole fortune, her sole support, and were it lost she would be penniless, with no one to look to except the Squire, whom she would have offended beyond forgiveness. True, Arthur laughed at the idea of loss, and he was clever. But he was young and sanguine, and before now she had heard of mothers beggared through the ill-fortune or the errors of their children. What if that should be her lot!
Nor was this the only thought which pressed upon her mind. That Arthur should marry Josina and succeed to Garth had been for years her darling scheme, and she could not, in spite of the hopes with which he had for the moment dazzled her, imagine any future for him comparable to that. But if he would marry Josina and succeed to Garth he must not offend his uncle.
So, when Arthur came down in the morning, and with assumed carelessness asked for the letter she put him off. It was Sunday. She would not discuss business on Sunday, it would not be lucky. On Monday, when, determined to stand no more nonsense, he returned to the subject, she took refuge in tears. It was cruel of him to press her so, when--when she was not well! She had not made up her mind. She did not know what she should do. To tears there is no answer, and, angry as he was, he had to start for Aldersbury, leaving the matter unsettled, much to his disgust and alarm, for the time was running on.
And that was the beginning of a tragedy in the little house under Garthmyle. It was a struggle between strength and weakness, and weakness, as usual, sought shelter in subterfuge. When Arthur came home at the end of the week his mother took care to have company, and he could not get a word with her. She had no time for business--it must wait. On the next Saturday she was not well, and kept her bed, and on the Sunday met him with the same fretful plea--she would do no business on Sunday! Then, convinced at last that she had made up her mind to thwart him, he hardened his heart. He loved his mother, and to go beyond a certain point did not consort with his easy nature, but he had no option; the thing must be done if his prospects were not to be wrecked. He became hard, cruel, almost brutal; threatening to leave her, threatening to take himself off altogether, harassing her week after week, in what should have been her happiest hours, with pictures of the poverty, the obscurity, the hopelessness to which she was condemning him! And, worst of all, torturing her with doubts that after all he might be right.
And still she resisted, and weak, foolish woman as she was, resisted with an obstinacy that was infinitely provoking. Meanwhile only two things supported her: her love for him, and the belief that she was defending his best interests and that some day he would thank her. She was saving him from himself. The odds were great, she was unaccustomed to oppose him, and still she withstood him. She would not sign the letter. But she suffered, and suffered terribly.
She took to bringing in guests as buffers between them, and once or twice she brought in Josina. The girl, who knew them both so well, could not fail to see that there was something wrong, that something marred the relations between mother and son. Arthur's moody brow, his silence, or his snappish answers, no less than Mrs. Bourdillon's scared manner, left her in no doubt of that. But she fancied that this was only another instance of the law of man's temper and woman's endurance--that law to which she knew but one exception. And if the girl hugged that exception, trembling and hoping, to her breast, if Arthur's coldness was a relief to her, if she cared little for any secret but her own, she was no more of a mystery to them than they were to her. When the door closed behind her, and, accompanied by a maid, she crossed the dark fields, she thought no more about them. The two ceased--such is the selfishness of love--to exist for her. Her thoughts were engrossed by another, by one who until lately had been a stranger, but whose figure now excluded the world from her view. Her secret monopolized her, closed her heart, blinded her eyes. Such is the law of love--at a certain stage in its growth.
Meanwhile life at the Cottage went on in this miserable fashion until April had come in and the daffodils were in full bloom in the meadows beside the river. And still Arthur could not succeed in his object, and wondering what the banker thought of the delay and his silence, was almost beside himself with chagrin. Then there came a welcome breathing space. Ovington despatched him to London on an important and confidential mission. He was to be away rather more than a fortnight, and the relief was much even to him. To his mother it had been more, if he had not, with politic cruelty, kept from her the cause of his absence. She feared that he was about to carry out his threat and to make a home elsewhere--that this was the end, that he was going to leave her. And perhaps, she thought, she had been wrong. Perhaps, after all, she had sacrificed his love and lost his dear presence for nothing! It was a sad Easter that she passed, lonely and anxious, in the little house.
CHAPTER VIII
It was in the third week of April that Arthur returned to Aldersbury.
Ovington had not failed to let his correspondents know that the lad was no common mercantile person, but came of a county family and had connections; and Arthur had been feted by the bank's agents and made much of by their friends. The negotiation which Ovington had entrusted to him had gone well, as all things went well at this time. His abilities had been recognized in more than one counting-house, and in the general elation and success, civilities and hospitality had been showered upon him. Mothers and daughters had exerted themselves to please the nephew--it was whispered the heir--of the Aldshire magnate; and what Arthur's letters of credit had not gained for him, his handsome face and good breeding had won. He came back, therefore, on the best of terms with himself and more in love than ever with the career which he had laid out. And, but for the money difficulty, and his mother's obstinacy, he would have seen all things in rose color.
He returned at the moment when speculation in Aldersbury--and Aldersbury was in this but a gauge of the whole country--was approaching its fever point. The four per cent, consols, which not long before had stood at 72, were 106. The three per cents., which had been 52, had risen to 93. India stock was booming at 280, and these prices, which would have seemed incredible to a former generation, were justified by the large profits accruing from trade and seeking investment. They were, indeed, nothing beside the heights to which more speculative stocks were being hurried. Shares in one mine, bought at ten pounds, changed hands at a hundred and fifty. Shares in another, on which seventy pounds had been paid, were sold at thirteen hundred. An instalment of 5 was paid on one purchase, and ten days later the stock was sold for one hundred and forty!
Under such circumstances new ventures were daily issued to meet the demand. Proposals for thirty companies came out in a week, and still there appeared to be money for all, for the banks, tempted by the prevailing prosperity, increased their issues of notes. It seemed an easy thing to borrow at seven per cent., and lay out the money at ten or fifteen, with certainty of a gain in capital. Men who had never speculated saw their neighbors grow rich, and themselves risked a hundred and doubled it, ventured two and saw themselves the possessers of six. It was like, said one, picking up money in a hat. It was like, said another, baling it up in a bucket. There seemed to be money everywhere--money for all. Peers and clergymen, shop-keepers and maiden ladies, servants even, speculated; while those who knew something of the market, or who could allot shares in new ventures, were courted and flattered, drawn into corners and consulted by troops of friends.
All this came to its height at the end of April, and Arthur, sanguine and eager, laden with the latest news from Lombard Street, returned to Aldersbury to revel in it. He trod the Cop and the High Street as if he walked on air. He moved amid the excitement like a young god. His nod was confidence, his smile a promise. A few months before he had doubted. He had viewed the rising current of speculation from without, and had had his misgivings. Now the stream had caught him, and if he ever reflected that there might be rocks ahead, he flattered himself that he would be among the first to take the alarm.
The confidence which he owed to youth, the banker drew from a past of unvarying success. But the elder man did have his moments of mistrust.
There were hours when he saw hazards in front, and the days on which he did not call for the Note Issues were few. But even he found it easier to go with the current, and once or twice, so high was his opinion of Arthur's abilities, he let himself be persuaded by him.
Then the mere bustle was exhilarating. The door of the bank that never rested, the crowded counter, the incense of the streets, the whispers where he passed, all had their intoxicating effect. The power to put a hundred pounds into a man's pocket--who can abstain from, who is not flattered by, the use of this, who can at all times close his mouth?
And often one thing leads to another, and advice is the prelude to a loan.
It was above all when the railroad scheme was to the fore that the banker realized his importance. It was his, he had made it, and it was on its behalf that he was disposed to put his hand out farthest. The Board, upon Sir Charles's proposal--the fruit of a hint dropped by Ovington--had fixed the fourth market-day in April for the opening of the subscription list. Though the season was late, the farmers would be more or less at liberty; and as it happened the day turned out to be one of the few fine days of that spring. The sun, rarely seen of late, shone, the public curiosity was tickled, the town was full, men in the streets quoted the tea-kettle and explained the powers of steam; and Arthur, as he forged his way through the good-tempered, white-coated throng, felt to the full his importance.
Near the door of the bank he met Purslow, and the draper seized his arm. "One moment, sir, excuse me," he whispered. "I've a little more I can spare at a pinch. What do you advise, Mr. Bourdillon?"
Arthur knew that it was not in his province to advise, and he shook his head. "You must ask Mr. Ovington," he said.
"And he that busy that he'll snap my nose off! And you're just from London. Come, Mr. Bourdillon, just for two or three hundred pounds. A good 'un! A real good 'un! I know you know one!"
Arthur gave way. The man's wheedling tone, the sense of power, the ability to confer a favor were too much for him. He named the Antwerp Navigation Company. "But don't stop in too long," he added. And he snatched himself away, and hurried on, and many were those who found his frank eager face irresistible.
As he ploughed his way through the crowd, his head on a level with the tallest, he seemed to be success itself. His careless greeting met everywhere a cheery answer, and more than one threw after him, "There goes the old Squire's nevvy! See him? He's a clever 'un if ever there was one!" They gave him credit for knowing mysteries dark to them, yet withal they owned a link with him. He too belonged to the land. A link with him and some pride in him.
In the parlor where the Board met he had something of the same effect.
Sir Charles and Acherley had taken their seats and were talking of county matters, their backs turned on their fellows. Wolley stood before the fire, glowering at them and resenting his exclusion.
Grounds sat meekly on a chair within the door. But Arthur's appearance changed all. He had a word or a smile for each. He set Grounds at his ease, he had a joke for Sir Charles and Acherley, he joined Wolley before the fire. Ovington, who had left the room for a moment, noted the change, and his heart warmed to the Secretary. "He will do," he told himself, as he turned to the business of the meeting.
"Come, Mr. Wolley, come, Mr. Grounds," he said, "pull up your chairs, if you please. It has struck twelve and the bank should be open to receive applications at half-past. I conveyed your invitation, gentlemen, to Mr. Purslow two days ago, and I am happy to tell you that he takes two hundred shares, so that over one-third of the capital will be subscribed before we go to the public. I suppose, gentlemen, you would wish him to take his seat at once?"
Sir Charles and Acherley nodded, Wolley looked sullen but said nothing, Grounds submitted. Neither he nor Wolley was over-pleased at sharing with another the honor of sitting with the gentry. But it had to be done. "Bring him in, Bourdillon," Ovington said.
Purslow, who was in waiting, slid into the room and took his seat, between pride and humility. "I have reason to believe, gentlemen,"
Ovington continued, "that the capital will be subscribed within twenty-four hours. It is for you to say how long the list shall remain open."
"Not too long," said Sir Charles, sapiently.
"Shall I say forty-eight hours? Agreed, gentlemen? Very good. Then a notice to that effect shall be posted outside the bank at once. Will you see to that, Bourdillon?"
"And what of Mr. Griffin?" Wolley blurted out the question before Ovington could restrain him. The clothier was anxious to show Purslow that he was at home in his company.
"To be sure," Ovington answered smoothly. "That is the only point, gentlemen, in which my expectations have not been borne out. The interview between Mr. Griffin and myself was disappointing, but I hoped to be able to tell you to-day that we were a little more forward. Mr. Wolley, however, has handed me a letter which he has received from Garth, and it is certainly----"
"A d----d unpleasant letter," Wolley struck in. "The old Squire don't mince matters." He had predicted that his landlord would not come in, and he was pleased to see his opinion confirmed. "He says I'd better be careful, for if I and my fine railroad come to grief I need not look to him for time. By the Lord," with unction, "I know that, railroad or no railroad! He'd put me out as soon as look at me!"
Sir Charles shuffled his papers uncomfortably. To hear a man like Wolley discuss his landlord shocked him--he felt it a kind of treason to listen to such talk. He feared--he feared more than ever--that the caustic old Squire was thinking him a fool for mixing himself up with this business. Good Heavens, if, after all, it ended in disaster!