To do him justice, Arthur had hitherto seen the thing only by his own lights. He had looked on it as a case of all for fortune and the rest well lost, and he had even pictured himself in the guise of a hero, who took the risks and shared the benefits. If the act were ill, at least, he considered, he did it in a good cause; and where, after all, was the harm in assuming a loan of something which would never be missed, which would be certainly repaid, and which, in his hands, would save a hundred homes from ruin? The argument had sounded convincing at the time.
Then, for the risk, what was it, when examined? It was most unlikely that the Squire would discover the trick, and if he did he could not, hard and austere as he was, prosecute his own flesh and blood. Nay, Arthur doubted if he could prosecute, since he had signed the transfer with his own hand--it was no forgery. At the worst, then and if discovery came, it would mean the loss of the Squire's favor and banishment from the house. Both of these things he had experienced before, and in his blindness he did not despair of reinstating himself a second time. He had a way with him, he had come to think that few could resist him. He was far, very far, from understanding how the Squire would view the act.
But now the mists of self-deception were for the moment blown aside, and he saw the gulf on the edge of which he stood, and into which a word might precipitate him. If the pig-headed fool before him did what he said he would, and preferred a charge, the India House might take it up; and, pitiless where its interests were in question, it might prove as inexorable as the Bank had proved in the case of Fauntleroy only the year before. In that event, what might not be the end? His uncle had signed the transfer, and at the time that had seemed enough; it had seemed to secure him from the worst. But now--now when so much hung upon it, he doubted. He had not inquired, he had not dared to inquire how the law stood, but he knew that the law's uncertainties were proverbial and its ambages beyond telling.
And the India House, like the Bank of England, was a terrible foe.
Once launched on the slope, let the cell door once close on him, he might slip with fatal ease from stage to stage, until the noose hung dark and fearful before him, and all the influence, all the help he could command, might then prove powerless to save him! It was a terrible machine--the law! The cell, the court, the gallows, with what swiftness, what inevitableness, what certainty, did they not succeed one another--dark, dismal stages on the downward progress! How swiftly, how smoothly, how helplessly had that other banker traversed them! How irresistibly had they borne him to his doom!
He shuddered. The officer of the law, who a few minutes before had been his servant, fee-bound, obsequious, took on another shape. He grew stern and menacing, and was even now, it might be, observing him, and conceiving suspicion of him. Arthur's color ebbed at the thought and his face betrayed him. The peril might be real or unreal--it might be only his imagination that he had to fight. But he could not face it. He moistened his dry lips, he forced himself to speak. He surrendered--sullenly, with averted eyes.
"Have it your own way," he said. "Take it." And with a last attempt at bravado, "I shall appeal to your father!"
"That is as you will," Clement said. He was not comfortable, and sensible of the other's humiliation, his only wish was to bring the scene to an end as quickly as possible. He took up the bag and signed to the officer that they were ready.
"It's some hundreds short. You know that?" Arthur muttered.
"I can't help it."
"He'll be the loser."
"Well--it must be so." Yet Clement hesitated, a little taken aback. He did not like the thought, and he paused to consider whether it might not be his duty to return to the brokers' and undo the bargain. But it would be necessary to repeat all the formalities at a cost of time that he could not measure, and it was improbable that he would be able to recoup the whole of the loss. Rightly or wrongly, he decided to go on, and he turned to the officer. "I take on the business now," he said, sharply. "Where is the hackney-coach? In Bishopsgate? Then lead the way, will you?" And, the bag in his hand, he moved towards the crowded street.
But with his foot on the threshold, something spoke in him, and he looked back. Arthur was standing where he had left him, gloom in his face; and Clement melted. He could not leave him, he could not bear to leave him thus. What might he not do, what might he not have it in his mind to do? Pity awoke in him, he put himself in the other's place, and though there was nothing less to his taste at that moment than a companionship equally painful and embarrassing, he went back to him.
"Look here," he said, "come with me. Come down with me and face it out, man, and get it over. It's the only thing to do, and every hour you remain away will tell against you. As it is, what is broken can be mended--if you're there."
Arthur did not thank him. Instead, "What?" he cried. "Come? Come with you? And be dragged at your chariot wheels, you oaf! Never!"
"Don't be a fool," Clement remonstrated, pity moving him more strongly now that he had once acted on it. He laid his hand on the other's arm.
"We'll work together and make the best of it. I will, I swear, Bourdillon, and I'll answer for my father. But if I leave you here and go home, things will be said and there'll be trouble."
"Trouble the devil!" Arthur retorted, and shook off his hand. "You have ruined the bank," he continued, bitterly, but with less violence, "and ruined your father and ruined me. I hope you are content. You have been thorough, if it's any satisfaction to you. And some day I shall know why you've done it. For your honesty and your clean hands, they don't weigh a curse with me. You're playing your own game, and if I come to know what it is, I'll spoil it yet, d--n you!"
"I don't mind how much you curse me, if you will come," Clement answered, patiently. "It's the only thing to be done, and when you think it over in cold blood, you'll see that. Come, man, and put a bold face on it. It is the brave game and the only game. Face it out now."
Arthur looked away, his handsome face sullen. He was striving with his passions, battling with the maddening sense of defeat. He saw, as plainly as Clement, that the latter's advice was good, but to take it and to go with him, to bear for many hours the sense of his presence and the consciousness of his scorn, his gorge rose at the thought.
Yet, what other course was open to him? What was he going to do? He had little money with him, and he saw but two alternatives: to blow out his brains, or to go, hat in hand, and seek employment at the brokers' where he was known. He had no real thought of the former alternative--life ran strong in him and he was sanguine; and the latter meant the overthrow of all his plans, and a severance, final and complete, from Ovington's. His lot thenceforth would, he suspected, be that of a man who had "crossed the fight," done something dubious, put himself outside the pale.
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 habitues, 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.