"That would be the devil!"
"There will be an end of him--but not of him only. We must go warily, lad. To throw him down now----" the banker shook his head. "No, we will give him one more chance. I will talk to him."
"I should not have the patience."
"That is one of the things you have to learn."
Arthur reviewed the conversation as he rode, and retained his own opinion. He thought Ovington too apprehensive. He would himself have played a bolder game and cut Wolley and his losses, if losses there must be. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he dismissed the matter and allowed his thoughts to go before him to Garth, to the old man, to his favor, and the path it opened to Josina. Yes, Josina. He was not doing much there, but there was no hurry, and despite the charms of Garth he had not quite made up his mind. When he did, he anticipated no difficulty.
Still something was due to her, were it only as a matter of form; and she was pale and sweet and appealing. A little love-making would not be unpleasant these summer evenings, though he had so far held off, haunted by a foolish hankering after Betty: Betty with her sparkle and color, her wit and high spirit, ay, and her very temper, mutinous little rebel as she was--her temper which, manlike, he longed to tame.
Ten minutes later saw him in the Squire's room, entertaining him with scraps of county gossip and the latest news from town. Into the dull room, with its drab hanging and shadowy portraits, where the old man sat by his fireless grate, he came like a gleam of sunshine, his laugh lighting up the dim places, his voice expelling the tedium of the long day. He brought with him the new Quarterly, or the last _Morning Post_. He had news of what Sir Harry had lost at Goodwood, of Mytton's last scrape, of the poaching affray at my lord's. He had a joke for Josina and a teasing word for Miss Peacock--who idolized him.
And he had tact. He could listen as well as talk. He heard with interest who had called to ask after the Squire, whose landau and outriders had turned on the narrow sweep, and whose curricle; what humbler visitors had left their respects at the stables or the backdoor, and what was Calamy's last scrap of dolefulness.
He was the universal favorite. He had taken the length of the Squire's foot; it had been an easier matter than he had anticipated. But even in his cup there was a sour drop. He had his occasional misgivings and now and then he suffered a shock. One day it was, "What about your coat, lad?"
"My coat?" Arthur stared at the old man. He did not understand.
"Ay. You thought that I'd forgotten it. But I'm not that shaken. What about it?"
Now, between the darkness of the night and the confusion, Arthur had not noticed the damage done to Clement's overcoat. Consequently he could make nothing of the Squire's words and he tried to pass the matter off. "Oh, it's all right, sir," he said. He waited for something to enlighten him.
"Can you wear it?"
"Oh yes."
"The deuce you can!" The Squire was surprised. "Then all I can say is, you've found a d--d good cleaner, lad. If you got that blood off--but as you did, all's well. I was afeared I'd owe you a new coat, my boy.
I'd not forgotten it, but I knew that you'd not be wearing it this weather, and I thought in another week or two I'd be getting this bandage off. Then I'd see how it was, and what we could do with it."
Arthur understood then, and a thrill of alarm ran through him. What if the Squire began--but no, the danger was over, and as quickly as possible he rid himself of fear. He was not a fool to start at shadows. Things were going so well with him that he had no mind to spare for trifles, and no time to look aside.
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!