[Illustration]
OVINGTON’S BANK
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF
THE NEW RECTOR
THE STORY OF FRANCIS CLUDDE
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
THE MAN IN BLACK
UNDER THE RED ROBE
MY LADY ROTHA
MEMOIRS OF A MINISTER OF FRANCE
THE RED COCKADE
SHREWSBURY
THE CASTLE INN
SOPHIA
COUNT HANNIBAL
IN KINGS’ BYWAYS
THE LONG NIGHT
THE ABBESS OF VLAYE
STARVECROW FARM
CHIPPINGE
LAID UP IN LAVENDER
THE WILD GEESE
THE GREAT HOUSE
OVINGTON’S BANK
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
Author of “A Gentleman of France,” “Count Hannibal,”
“The Castle Inn,” “The Great House,” etc., etc.
NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
55 FIFTH AVENUE
1922
Copyright, 1922
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
MADE IN THE UNITED STATES
Contents
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
CHAPTER XLII.
OVINGTON’S BANK
CHAPTER I
It was market day at Aldersbury, the old county town of Aldshire, and
the busiest hour of the day. The clock of St. Juliana’s was on the
point of striking three, and the streets below it were thronged. The
gentry, indeed, were beginning to take themselves homeward; a carriage
and four, with postillions in yellow jackets, awaited its letters
before the Post Office, and near at hand a red-wheeled tandem-cart, the
horses tossing their small, keen heads, hung on the movements of its
master, who was gossipping on the steps of Ovington’s Bank, on Bride
Hill. But only the vans bound to the more distant valleys had yet
started on their lagging journey; the farmers’ gigs, the hucksters’
carts, the pack-asses still lingered, filling the streets with a
chattering, moving multitude. White-coated yeomen and their wives
jostled their betters—but with humble apologies—in the low-browed
shops, or hardily pushed smocked-frocks from the narrow pavements, or
clung together in obstinate groups in the roadway. Loud was the babel
about the yards of the inns, loudest where the taprooms poured forth
those who, having dined well, had also drunk deep, after the fashion of
our great-grandsires.
Through all this medley and hubbub a young man threaded his way. He
wore a blue coat with gilt buttons, a waistcoat to match, and drab
trousers, and as he hurried along, his hat tilted back, he greeted
gentle and simple with the same laughing nod. He had the carriage of
one who had a fixed position in the world and knew his worth; and so
attractive was his smile, so gallant his confidence, that liking ran
before him, and two out of three of the faces that he encountered
mirrored his good humor. As he passed along the High Street, and
skirted the Market Place, where the quaint stone figure of an ancient
Prince, great in his day, looked down on the turmoil from the front of
the Market House, he glanced up at the clock, noted the imminence of
the hour, and quickened his pace.
A man touched him on the sleeve. “Mr. Bourdillon, sir,” he said, trying
to stop him, “by your leave! I want to——”
“Not now. Not now, Broadway,” the young man answered quickly. “I’m
meeting the mail.” And before the other had fairly taken in his words
he was a dozen paces away, now slipping deftly between two lurching
farmers, now coasting about the more obstinate groups.
A moment later St. Juliana’s clock, hard put to it to raise its wheezy
voice above the noise, struck the hour. The young man slackened his
pace. He was in time, but only barely in time, for as he paused, the
distant notes of the guard’s bugle sprang like fairy music above the
turbid current of sound and gave notice that the coach was at hand.
Hurriedly gigs and carts drew aside, the crowd sought the pavements,
the more sober drew the heedless out of danger, half a dozen voices
cried “Look out! Have a care!” and with a last shrill Tantivy! Tantivy!
Tantivy! the four sweating bays, the leaders cantering, the wheelers
trotting, the bars all taut, emerged from the crest of the steep Cop,
and the Holyhead Mail, within a minute of its time, drew up before the
door of the Lion, the Royal Arms shining bravely from its red panels.
Shop-keepers ran to their doors, the crowd closed up about it, the
yokels gaped—for who in those days felt no interest in its advent! By
that coach had come, eleven years before, the news of the abdication of
the Corsican and the close of the Great War. Laurelled and flagged, it
had thrilled the town a year afterwards with the tidings of Waterloo.
Later it had signalled the death of the old blind king, and later
still, the acquittal—as all the world regarded it—of Queen Caroline.
Ah, how the crowd had cheered then! And how lustily old Squire Griffin
of Garth, the great-uncle of this young man, now come to meet the mail,
had longed to lay his cane about their disloyal shoulders!
The coachman, who had driven the eleven-mile stage from Haygate in
fifty-eight minutes, unbuckled and flung down the reins. The guard
thrust his bugle into its case, tossed a bundle of journals to the
waiting boys, and stepped nimbly to the ground. The passengers followed
more slowly, stamping their chilled feet, and stretching their cramped
limbs. Some, who were strangers, looked about them with a travelled
air, or hastened to the blazing fires that shone from the Lion windows,
while two or three who were at their journey’s end bustled about,
rescuing shawls and portmanteaux, or dived into inner pockets for the
coachman’s fee.
The last to appear, a man, rather below the middle height, in a
handsome caped travelling-coat, was in no hurry. He stepped out at his
ease and found the young man who has been described at his side. “That
you, Arthur?” he said, his face lighting up. “All well?”
“All well, sir. Let me take that!”
“Isn’t Rodd here? Ah!” to a second young man, plainer, darker, and more
soberly garbed, who had silently appeared at his forerunner’s elbow.
“Take this, Rodd, will you?” handing him a small leather case. “Don’t
let it go, until it is on my table. All well?”
“All well, sir, thank you.”
“Then go on at once, will you? I will follow with Mr. Bourdillon. Give
me your arm, Arthur.” He looked about him as he spoke. One or two hats
were lifted, he acknowledged the courtesy with a smile. “Betty well?”
“You’ll find her at the window looking out. All gone swimmingly, I
hope, sir?”
“Swimmingly?” The traveller paused on the word, perhaps questioning its
propriety; and he did not continue until they had disengaged themselves
from the group round the coach. He and the young man came, though there
was nothing to show this, from different grades of society, and the one
was thirty years older than the other and some inches shorter. Yet
there was a likeness. The lower part of the face in each was strong,
and a certain brightness in the eyes, that was alertness in the younger
man and keenness in the elder, told of a sanguine temperament; and they
were both good-looking. “Swimmingly?” the traveller repeated when they
had freed themselves from their immediate neighbors. “Well, if you
choose to put it that way, yes. But, it’s wonderful, wonderful,” in a
lower tone, as he paused an instant to acknowledge an acquaintance,
“the state of things up there, my boy.”
“Still rising?”
“Rising as if things would never fall. And upon my word I don’t know
why, with the marvellous progress everything is making—but I’ll tell
you all that later. It’s a full market. Is Acherley at the bank?”
“Yes, and Sir Charles. They came a little before time.”
“Clement is with them, I suppose?”
“Well, no, sir.”
“Don’t say he’s away to-day!” in a tone of vexation.
“I’m afraid he is,” Arthur admitted. “But they are all right. I offered
Sir Charles the paper, but they preferred to wait outside.”
“D——n!” muttered the other, nodding right and left. “Too bad of the
boy! Too bad! No,” to the person who had lain in wait for Bourdillon
and now put himself in their way, “I can’t stop now, Mr. Broadway.”
“But, Mr. Ovington! Just a——”
“Not now!” Ovington answered curtly. “Call to-morrow.” And when they
had left the man behind, “What does he want?”
“What they all want,” Arthur answered, smiling. “A good thing, sir.”
“But he isn’t a customer.”
“No, but he will be to-morrow,” the young man rejoined. “They are all
agog. They’ve got it that you can make a man’s fortune by a word, and
of course they want their fortunes made.”
“Ah!” the other ejaculated drily. “But seriously, look about you,
Arthur. Did you ever see a greater change in men’s faces—from what they
were this time two years? Even the farmers!”
“Well, they are doing well.”
“Better, at any rate. Better, even they. Yes, Mr. Wolley,” to a stout
man, much wrapped up, who put himself in the way, “follow us, please.
Sir Charles is waiting. Better,” Ovington continued to his companion,
as the man fell behind, “and prices rising, and demand—demand spreading
in everything.”
“Including Stocks?”
“Including Stocks. I’ve some news for Sir Charles, that, if he has any
doubts about joining us, will fix him. Well, here we are, and I’m glad
to be at home. We’ll go in by the house door, Arthur, or Betty will be
disappointed.”
The bank stood on Bride Hill, looking along the High Street. The
position was excellent and the house good. Still, it was no more than a
house, for in 1825 banks were not the institutions that they have since
become; they had still for rivals the old stocking and the cracked
teapot, and among banks, Ovington’s at Aldersbury was neither of long
standing nor of more than local repute.
Mr. Ovington led the way into the house, and had barely removed his hat
when a girl flew down the wide oak staircase and flung herself upon
him. “Oh, father!” she cried. “Here at last! Aren’t you cold? Aren’t
you starving?”
“Pretty well for that,” he replied, stroking her hair in a way that
proved that, whatever he was to others, he had a soft spot for his
daughter. “Pretty well for that, Betty.”
“Well, there’s a good fire! Come and warm yourself!”
“That’s what I can’t do, my dear,” he said, taking off his great coat.
“Business first.”
“But I thought you had done all that in London?” pouting.
“Not all, but some. I shall be an hour, perhaps more.”
She shot a mutinous glance at Arthur. “Why can’t he do it? And Mr.
Rodd?”
“You think we are old enough, Betty?”
“Apprentices should be seen, and not heard!” she snapped.
Arthur’s position at the bank had been hardly understood at first, and
in some fit of mischief, Betty, determined not to bow down to his
pretensions, had christened him the “Apprentice.”
“I thought that that proverb applied to children,” he retorted.
The girl was a beauty, dark and vivid, but small, and young enough to
feel the gibe. Before she could retaliate, however, her father
intervened. “Where’s Clement?” he asked. “I know that he is not here.”
“Tell-tale!” she flung at Arthur. “If you must know, father,” mildly,
“I think that he’s——”
“Mooning somewhere, I suppose, instead of being in the bank, as he
should be. And market day of all days! There, come, Bourdillon, I
mustn’t keep Sir Charles and Acherley waiting.” He led the way to the
rear of the hall, where a door on the left led into the bank parlor.
Betty made a face after them.
In the parlor which lay behind the public office were two men. One,
seated in an arm-chair by the fire, was reading the _Morning Post_. The
other stood at the window, his very shoulders expressing his
impatience. But it was to the former, a tall, middle-aged man, stiff
and pompous, with thin sandy hair but kindly eyes, that Ovington made
the first advance. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Sir Charles,”
he said. “Very sorry. But I assure you I have not wasted a minute. Mr.
Acherley,” to the other, “pardon me, will you? Just a word with Sir
Charles before we begin.”
And leaving Bourdillon to make himself agreeable to the impatient
Acherley, Ovington drew Sir Charles Woosenham aside. “I have gone a
little beyond my instructions,” he said in a low tone, “and sold your
Monte Reales.”
The Baronet’s face fell. “Sold!” he ejaculated. “Parted with them? But
I never—my dear sir, I never——”
“Authorized a sale?” the banker agreed suavely. “No, perfectly right,
Sir Charles. But I was on the spot and I felt myself responsible. There
was a favorable turn and—” forestalling the other as he would have
interrupted—“my rule is little and sure—little and sure, and sell on a
fair rise. I don’t think you will be dissatisfied with the
transaction.”
But Sir Charles’s displeasure showed itself in his face. He was a man
of family and influence, honorable and straightforward, but his
abilities were hardly on a par with his position, and though he had at
times an inkling of the fact it only made him the more jealous of
interference. “But I never contemplated,” he said, the blood rising to
his face, “never for a moment, that you would part with the stocks
without reference to me, Mr. Ovington.”
“Precisely, precisely—without your authority, Sir Charles—except at a
really good profit. I think that four or five hundred was mentioned?
Just so. Well, if you will look at this draft, which of course includes
the price of the stocks—they cost, if I remember, fourteen hundred or
thereabouts—you will, I hope—I really hope—approve of what I did.”
Sir Charles adjusted his glasses, and frowned at the paper. He was
prepared to be displeased and to show it. “Two thousand six hundred,”
he muttered, “two thousand six hundred and twenty-seven!” his jaw
dropping in his surprise. “Two thousand six—really! Ah, well, I
certainly think—” with a quick change to cordiality that would have
amused an onlooker—“that you acted for the best. I am obliged to you,
much obliged, Mr. Ovington. A handsome profit.”
“I felt sure that you would approve,” the banker assented gravely.
“Shall Bourdillon put the draft—Arthur, be good enough to place this
draft to Sir Charles Woosenham’s account. And tell Mr. Wolley and Mr.
Grounds—I think they are waiting—to come in. I ask your pardon, Mr.
Acherley,” approaching him in turn.
“No plum for me, I suppose?” growled that gentleman, whom the gist of
the interview with Sir Charles had not escaped. He was a tall,
hatchet-faced, dissipated-looking man, of an old family, Acherley of
Acherley. He had been a dandy with Brummell, had shaken his elbow at
Watier’s when Crockford managed it, had dined at the Pavilion; now he
vegetated in the country on a mortgaged estate, and on Sundays attended
cock-fights behind the village public-house.
“Well, not to-day,” Ovington answered pleasantly. “But when we have
shaken the tree a little——”
“One may fall, you think?”
“I hope so. You will be unlucky if one does not.”
The two men who had been summoned came in, each after his fashion.
Wolley entered first, endeavoring to mask under a swaggering manner his
consciousness that he stood in the presence of his betters. A clothier
from the Valleys and one of Ovington’s earliest customers, he had
raised himself, as the banker had, and from the same stratum; but by
enlarging instead of selling his mill. During the war he had made much
money and had come to attribute his success a little more to his
abilities and a little less to circumstances than was the fact. Of late
there were whispers that in the financial storm of ’16, which had
followed the close of the war, he had come near the rocks; but if so he
had put a bold face on the crisis, and by steadily putting himself
forward he had impressed most men with a belief in his wealth.
“Afternoon, Sir Charles,” he grunted with as much ease as he could
compass. “Afternoon,” to Acherley. He took a seat at the table and
slapped down his hat. He was here on business and he meant to show that
he knew what business was.
Grounds, who followed, was a man of a different type. He was a maltster
and had been a dairyman; a leading tradesman in the town, cautious,
penurious, timid, putting pound to pound without saying much about it,
and owning that respect for his superiors which became one in his
position. Until lately he had hoarded his savings, or put them into the
five per cents.; he had distrusted even the oldest bank. But progress
was in the air, new enterprises, new discoveries were the talk of the
town, the interest on the five per cents. had been reduced to four, and
in a rare moment of rashness, he had taken a hint dropped by Ovington,
had ventured, and won. He still trembled at his temerity, he still
vowed in wakeful moments that he would return to the old safe road, but
in the meantime easy gains tempted him and he was now fairly embarked
on modern courses. He was a byword in Aldersbury for caution and
shrewdness, and his adhesion to any scheme would, as Ovington well
knew, commend it to the town.
He hung back, but, “Come, Mr. Grounds, take a seat,” said the banker.
“You know Sir Charles and Mr. Acherley? Sir Charles, will you sit on my
right, and Mr. Acherley here, if you please? Bourdillon, will you take
a note? We are met, as you know, gentlemen, to consider the formation
of a Joint Stock Company, to be called”—he consulted a paper—“the
Valleys Steam Railroad Company, for the purpose of connecting the
woollen business of the Valleys with the town, and of providing the
public with a superior mode of transport. The Bill for the Manchester
and Liverpool Railroad is on the point of passing, and that great
enterprise is as good as carried through. The Bill for the London and
Birmingham Railroad is before the House; a Bill for a line from
Birmingham to Aldersbury is preparing. Those projects are, gentlemen,
in stronger hands than ours, and it might seem to some to be too early
to anticipate their success and to provide the continuation we propose.
But nothing is more certain than that the spoils are to those who are
first in the field. The Stockton and Darlington Railway is proving what
can be done by steam in the transport of the heaviest goods. There a
single engine draws a load of fifty tons at the rate of six miles an
hour, and has been known to convey a load of passengers at fifteen
miles. Higher speeds are thought to be possible——”
“I’ll never believe it!” Wolley growled, anxious to assert himself.
“But not desirable,” Ovington continued blandly. “At any rate, if we
wait too long——”
“There’s no talk of waiting!” Acherley exclaimed. Neither he nor Sir
Charles was in the habit of meeting on an equal footing the men with
whom they were sitting to-day; he found the position galling, and what
was to be done he was anxious should be done quickly. He had heard the
banker’s exordium before.
“No, we are here to act,” Ovington assented, with an eye on Grounds,
for whose benefit he had been talking. “But on sober and
well-considered lines. We are all agreed, I think, that such a railroad
will be a benefit to the trade and district?”
Now, to this proposition not one of those present would have assented a
year before. “Steam railroads?” they would have cried, “fantastic and
impossible!” But the years 1823 and 1824 had been years not only of
great prosperity but of abnormal progress. The seven lean years, the
years of depression and repression, which had followed Waterloo had
come to an end. The losses of war had been made good, and
simultaneously a more liberal spirit had been infused into the
Government. Men had breathed freely, had looked about them, had begun
to hope and to venture, to talk of a new world. Demand had overtaken
and outrun supply, large profits had been made, money had become cheap,
and, fostered by credit, the growth of enterprise throughout the
country had been marvellous. It was as if, after the frosts of winter,
the south wind had blown and sleeping life had everywhere awakened. Men
doubled their operations and still had money to spare. They put the
money in the funds—the funds rose until they paid no more than three
per cent. Dissatisfied, men sought other channels for their savings,
nor sought in vain. Joint Stock Companies arose on every side.
Projects, good and bad, sprang up like mushrooms in a night. Old lodes
and new harbors, old canals and new fisheries, were taken in hand, and
for all these there seemed to be capital. Shares rose to a premium
before the companies were floated, and soon the bounds of our shores
were found to be too narrow for British enterprise. At that moment the
separation of the South American countries from Spain fell out, and
these were at once seen to offer new outlets. The romantic were dazzled
with legends of mines of gold and pockets of diamonds, while the
gravest saw gain in pampas waving with wheat and prairies grazed by
countless herds. It was felt, even by the most cautious, that a new era
had set in. Trade, soaring on a continual rise in prices, was to know
no bounds. If the golden age of commerce had not begun, something very
like it had come to bless the British merchant.
Under such circumstances the Valleys Railroad seemed a practical thing
even to Grounds, and Ovington’s question was answered by a general
assent.
“Very good, gentlemen,” he resumed. “Then I may take that as agreed.”
He proceeded to enter upon the details of the scheme. The length of the
line would be fourteen miles. The capital was to be £45,000, divided
into 4500 shares of £10 each, £1 a share to be paid at once, the sum so
raised to be used for the preliminary expenses; £1 10s. per share to be
paid three months later, and the rest to be called up as required. The
directors’ qualification would be fifty shares. The number of directors
would be seven—the five gentlemen now present and two to be named, as
to whom he would have a word to say by-and-by. Mr. Bourdillon, of whose
abilities he thought highly—here several at the table looked kindly at
the young man—and who for other reasons was eminently fitted for the
position, would be secretary.
“But will the forty-five thousand be enough, sir?” Grounds ventured
timidly. He alone was not directly interested in the venture. Wolley
was the tenant of a large mill. Sir Charles was the owner of two mills
and the hamlets about them, Acherley of a third. Ovington had various
interests.
“To complete the line, Mr. Grounds? We believe so. To provide the
engine and coaches another fifteen thousand will be needed, but this
may be more cheaply raised by a mortgage.”
Sir Charles shied at the word. “I don’t like a mortgage, Mr. Ovington,”
he said.
“No, d——n a mortgage!” Acherley chimed in. He had had much experience
of them.
“The point is this,” the banker explained. “The road once completed, we
shall be able to raise the fifteen thousand at five per cent. If we
issue shares they must partake, equally with ourselves, in the profits,
which may be fifteen, twenty, perhaps twenty-five per cent.”
A twinkle of greed passed from eye to eye. Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five
per cent.! Ho, ho!
“The next question,” Ovington continued, “is important. We cannot use
the highway, the gradients and angles render that impossible. We must
acquire a right of way; but, fortunately, the estates we run over are
few, no more than thirteen in all, and for a full third of the distance
they are represented at this table.” He bowed gracefully to the two
landowners. “Sir Charles will, of course, be President of the Road and
Chairman of the Directors. We are fortunate in having at our head a
country gentleman who has”—he bowed again—“the enlightenment to see
that the landed interest is best served by making commerce contributory
to its well-being.”
“But what about the game?” Sir Charles asked anxiously. “You don’t
think——”
“On that point the greatest care will be taken. We shall see that no
covert is closely approached.”
“And the—you won’t bring the line within sight of——”
“Of the Park? God forbid! The amenities of every estate must be
carefully guarded. And, of course, a fair price for the right of way
will be agreed. Seven of the smaller landowners I have sounded, and we
shall have no trouble with them. The largest estate outstanding——”
“Is my landlord’s, I’ll bet!” Wolley exclaimed.
“Yes—is Garth. Mr. Griffin’s.”
Wolley laughed rudely. “Garth? Ay, you’ll have your work cut out
there!”
“Oh. I don’t know!”
“I do. And you’ll find I’m right.”
“Well, I hope——”
“You may hope what you like!” Sir Charles shuddered at the man’s
brusqueness. “The Squire’s a hard nut to crack, and so you’ll find,
banker. If you can get him to do a thing he don’t wish to do, you’ll be
the first that ever has. He hates the name of trade as he hates the
devil!”
The baronet sat up. “Trade?” he exclaimed. “Oh! but I am not aware,
sir, that this is—— Surely a railroad is on another footing?” Alarm was
written on his face.
“Quite!” Ovington struck in. “Entirely different! Another thing
altogether, Sir Charles. There can be only one opinion on that.”
“Of course, if I thought I was entering on anything like——”
“A railroad is on an entirely different footing,” the banker repeated,
with an angry glance at Wolley, who, unrepentant, continued to stare
before him, a sneer on his face. “On an entirely different footing.
Even Mr. Griffin, prejudiced as I venture with all respect to think he
is—even he would agree to that. But I have considered the difficulty,
gentlemen, and I have no doubt we can surmount it. I propose to see him
on Monday, accompanied by Mr. Bourdillon, his great-nephew, and between
us I have no doubt that we shall be able to persuade him.”
Acherley looked over his shoulder at the secretary, who sat at a small
table at Ovington’s elbow. “Like the job, Arthur?” he asked.
“I think Sir Charles’s example will go a long way with him,” Bourdillon
answered. He was a tactful young man.
The banker put the interruption aside. “I shall see Mr. Griffin on
Monday, and with your consent, gentlemen, I propose to offer him the
sixth seat at the Board.”
“Quite right, quite right,” Sir Charles murmured, much relieved.
“He’ll not take it!” Wolley persisted.
“My dear sir!”
“You will see I am right.”
“Well, there are more ways than one. At any rate I will see him and
report to the next meeting, when, with the chairman’s approbation, we
shall draw up the prospectus. In that connection”—he consulted his
paper—“I have already received overtures from customers of the bank for
four hundred shares.” There was a murmur of applause and Grounds’s face
betrayed relief. “Then Sir Charles has put himself down for three
hundred.” He bowed deferentially to Woosenham. “Mr. Acherley for one
hundred and fifty, Mr. Wolley has taken up one hundred and twenty-five,
and Mr. Grounds—I have not heard from Mr. Grounds, and there is no
hurry. No hurry at all!”
But Grounds, feeling that all eyes were on him, and feeling also
uncomfortable in his company, took the fence up to which he had been
brought. He murmured that he would take one hundred and twenty-five.
“Excellent!” said Ovington. “And I, on behalf of the bank, propose to
take four hundred.” Again there was a murmur of applause. “So that
before we go to the public we have already one-third of the shares
taken up. That being so, I feel no doubt that we shall start at a
premium before we cut the first sod.”
There followed a movement of feet, an outburst of hilarity. For this
was what they all wished to hear; this was the point. Chairs were
pushed back, and Sir Charles, who was as fearful for his prestige as
Grounds for his money, recovered his cheerfulness. Even Acherley became
good-humored. “Well, here’s to the Valleys Railroad!” he cried. “Damme,
we ought to have something to drink it in!”
The banker ignored this, and Sir Charles spoke. “But as to the seventh
seat at the Board? We have not arranged that, I think?” He liked to
show that nothing escaped him, and that if he was above business he
could still, when he condescended, be a business man.
“No,” Ovington agreed. “But I suggest that, with your permission, we
hold that over. There may be a big subscriber taking three or four
hundred shares?”
“Quite so, quite so.”
“Somebody may come forward, and the larger the applications the higher
the premium, gentlemen.”
Again eyes glistened, and there was a new movement. Woosenham took his
leave, bowing to Wolley and Grounds, and shaking hands with the others.
Acherley went with him and Ovington accompanied them, bare-headed, to
Sir Charles’s carriage, which was waiting before the bank. As he
returned Wolley waylaid him and drew him into a corner. A conference
took place, the banker turning the money in his fob as he listened, his
face grave. Presently the clothier entered on a second explanation. In
the end Ovington nodded. He called Rodd from the counter and gave an
order. He left his customer in the bank.
When he re-entered the parlor Grounds had disappeared, and Arthur, who
was bending over his papers, looked up. “Wolley wanted his notes
renewed, I suppose?” he said. The bank had few secrets for this shrewd
young man, who had learnt as much of business in eighteen months as
Rodd the cashier had learned in ten years, or as Clement Ovington would
learn in twenty.
The banker nodded. “And three hundred more on his standing loan.”
Arthur whistled. “I wonder you go on carrying him, sir.”
“If I cut him loose now——”
“There would be a loss, of course.”
“Yes, but that is not all, lad. Where would the Railroad scheme be?
Gone. And that’s not all, either. His fall would deal a blow to credit.
The money that we are drawing out of the old stockings and the cracked
tea-pots would go back to them. Half the clothiers in the Valley would
shiver, and neither I nor you would be able to say where the trouble
would stop, or who would be in the _Gazette_ next week. No, we must
carry him for the present, and pay for his railway shares too. But we
shall hold them, and the profits will eventually come to us. And if the
railway is made, it will raise the value of mills and increase our
security; so that whether he goes on or we have to take the mills
over—which Heaven forbid!—the ground will be firmer. It went well?”
“Splendidly! The way you managed them!” The lad laughed.
“What is it?”
“Grounds asked me if I did not think that you were like the pictures of
old Boney. I said I did. The Napoleon of Finance, I told him. Only, I
added, you knew a deal better where to stop.”
Ovington shook his head at the flatterer, but was pleased with the
flattery. More than once, people had stopped him in the street and told
him that he was like Napoleon. It was not only that he was stout and of
middle height, with his head sunk between his shoulders; but he had the
classic profile, the waxen complexion, the dominating brow and keen
bright eyes, nay, something of the air of power of the great Exile who
had died three years before. And he had something, too, of his
ambition. Sprung from nothing, a self-made man, he seemed in his
neighbors’ eyes to have already reached a wonderful eminence. But in
his own eyes he was still low on the hill of fortune. He was still a
country banker, and new at that. But if the wave of prosperity which
was sweeping over the country and which had already wrought so many
changes, if this could be taken at the flood, nothing, he believed, was
beyond him. He dreamed of a union with Dean’s, the old conservative
steady-going bank of the town; of branches here and branches there;
finally of an amalgamation with a London bank, of Threadneedle Street,
and a directorship—but Arthur was speaking.
“You managed Grounds splendidly,” he said. “I’ll wager he’s sweating
over what he’s done! But do you think—” he looked keenly at the banker
as he put the question, for he was eager to know what was in his
mind—“the thing will succeed, sir?”
“The railroad?”
“Yes.”
“I think that the shares will go to a premium. And I see no reason why
the railroad should not do. If I did not think so, I should not be
fostering it. It may take time and, of course, more money than we
think. But if nothing occurs to dash the public—no, I don’t see why it
should not succeed. And if it does it will give such an impetus to the
trade of the Valleys, three-fourths of which passes through our hands,
as will repay us many times over.”
“I am glad you think so. I was not sure.”
“Because I led Grounds a little? Oh, that was fair enough. It does not
follow from that, that honesty is not the banker’s only policy. Make no
mistake about that. But I am going into the house now. Just bring me
the note-issue book, will you? I must see how we stand. I shall be in
the dining-room.”
But when Arthur went into the house a few minutes later he met Betty,
who was crossing the hall. “Your father wanted this book,” he said.
“Will you take it to him?”
But Betty put her hands behind her back. “Why? Where are you going?”
“You have forgotten that it is Saturday. I am going home.”
“Horrid Saturday! I thought that to-night, with father just back——”
“I wouldn’t go? If I don’t my mother will think that the skies have
fallen. Besides, I am riding Clement’s mare, and if I don’t go, how is
he to come back?”
“As you go at other times. On his feet.”
“Ah, well, very soon I shall have a horse of my own. You’ll see, Betty.
We are all going to make our fortunes now.”
“Fortunes?”—with disdain. “Whose?”
“Your father’s for one.”
“Silly! He’s made his.”
“Then yours—and mine, Betty. Yours and mine—and Clement’s.”
“I don’t think he’ll thank you.”
“Then Rodd’s. But, no, we’ll not make Rodd’s. We’ll not make Rodd’s,
Betty.”
“And why not Mr. Rodd’s?”
“Never mind. We’ll not make it,” mischievously. “I wonder why you’ve
got such a color, Betty?” And as she snatched the book from him and
threatened him with it, “Good-bye till Monday. I’m late now, and it
will be dark before I am out of the town.”
With a gay nod he vanished through the door that led into the bank. She
looked after him, the book in her hand. Her lip curled. “Rodd indeed!”
she murmured. “Rodd? As if I should ever—oh, isn’t he provoking!”