The Squire in his inmost heart had not derived much satisfaction from
his visit to the bank. He had left it with an uneasy feeling that the
step he had taken had not produced the intended effect. Ovington had
accepted the loss of his custom, not indeed with indifference, but with
dignity, and in a manner which left the old man little upon which to
plume himself. The withdrawal of his custom wore in the retrospect too
much of the look of spite, and he came near to regretting it, as he
drove along.
Had he been present at an interview which took place after he had
retired, he might have been better pleased. The banker had not been
many minutes in the parlor, chewing the cud of the affair, before he
was interrupted by his cashier. In this there was nothing unusual;
routine required Rodd’s presence in the parlor several times in the
day. But his manner on the present occasion, and the way in which he
closed the door, prepared Ovington for something new, and “What is it,
Rodd?” he asked, leaning back in his chair, and disposing himself to
listen.
“Can I have a word with you, sir?”
“Certainly.” The banker’s face told nothing. Rodd’s was that of a man
who had made up his mind to a plunge. “What is it?”
“I have been wishing to speak for some time, sir,” Rodd faltered.
“This——” Ovington understood at once that he referred to the Squire’s
matter—“I don’t like it, sir, and I have been with you ten years, and I
feel—I ought to speak.”
Ovington shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t like it either,” he said.
“But it is of less importance than you think, Rodd. I know why Mr.
Griffin did it. And we are not now where we were. The withdrawal of a
few hundreds or the loss of a customer——” again he shrugged his
shoulders.
“No,” Rodd said gravely. “If nothing more follows, sir.”
“Why should anything follow? I know his reasons.”
“But the town doesn’t. And if it gets about, sir?”
“It won’t do us much damage. We’ve lost customers before, yet always
gained more than we lost. But there, Rodd, that is not what you came in
to say. What is it?” He spoke lightly, but he felt more surprise than
he showed. Rodd was a model cashier, performing his duties in a
precise, plodding fashion that had often excited Arthur’s ridicule; but
hitherto he had never ventured an opinion on the policy of the bank,
nor betrayed the least curiosity respecting its secrets. “What is it?”
Ovington repeated. “What has frightened you, man?”
“We’ve a lot of notes out, sir!”
The banker looked thoughtfully at the glasses he held in his hand.
“True,” he said. “Quite true. But trade is brisk, and the demand for
credit is large. We must meet the demand, Rodd, as far as we can—with
safety. That’s our business.”
“And we’ve a lot of money out—that could not be got in in a hurry,
sir.”
“Yes,” the banker admitted, “but that is our business, too. If we did
not put our money out we might close the bank to-morrow. That much of
the money cannot be got in at a minute’s notice is a thing we cannot
avoid.”
The perspiration stood on Rodd’s forehead, but he persisted. “If it
were all on bills, sir, I would not say a word. But there is a lot on
overdraft.”
“Well secured.”
“While things are up. But if things went down, sir? There’s Wolley’s
account. I suspect that the last bills we discounted for him were
accommodation. Indeed, I am sure of it. And his overdraft is heavy.”
“We hold the lease of his mill.”
“But you don’t want to run the mill!” Rodd replied, putting his finger
on the weak point.
The banker reflected. “That’s the worst account we have. The worst,
isn’t it?”
“Mr. Acherley’s, sir.”
“Well, yes. There might be a sounder account than that. But what is
it?” He looked directly at the other. “I want to know what has opened
your mouth? Have you heard anything? What makes you think that things
are going down?”
“Mr. Griffin——”
“No.” The banker shook his head. “That won’t do, Rodd. You had this in
your mind before he came in. You are pat with Wolley and Mr. Acherley;
bad accounts both, as all banks have bad accounts here and there. But
it’s true—we’ve been giving our customers rope, and they have bought
things that may fall. Still, they’ve made money, a good deal of money,
and we’ve kept a fair margin and obliged them at the same time. All
legitimate business. There must be something in your mind besides this,
I’m sure. What is it, lad?”
The cashier turned a dull red, but before he could answer the door
behind him opened. Arthur came in. He looked at the banker, and from
him to Rodd, and his suspicions were aroused. “It’s four o’clock, sir,”
he said, and looked again at Rodd as if to ask what he was doing there.
But Rodd held his ground, and the banker explained.
“Rodd is a little alarmed for us,” he said, and it was difficult to be
sure whether he spoke in jest or in earnest. “He thinks we’re going too
fast. Putting our hand out too far. He mentions Wolley’s account, and
Acherley’s.
“I was speaking generally,” Rodd muttered. He looked sullen.
Arthur shrugged his shoulders. “I stand corrected,” he said. “I didn’t
know that Rodd ever went beyond his ledgers.”
“Oh, he’s quite right to speak his mind. We are all in the same
boat—though we do not all steer.”
“Well, I’m glad of that, sir.”
“Still,” mildly, “it is a good thing to have an opinion.”
“If it be worth anything.”
“If opinions are going——” Betty had opened the door behind the banker’s
chair, and was standing on the threshold—“wouldn’t you like to have
mine, father?”
“To be sure,” Arthur said. “Why not, indeed? Let us have it. Why not
have everybody’s? And send for the cook, sir, and the two clerks—to
advise us?”
Betty dropped a curtsy. “Thank you, I am flattered.”
“Betty, you’ve no business here,” her father said. “You mustn’t stop
unless you can keep your opinions to yourself.”
“But what has happened?” she asked, looking around in wonder.
“Mr. Griffin has withdrawn his account.”
“And Rodd,” Arthur added, with more heat than the occasion seemed to
demand, “thinks that we had better put up the shutters!”
“No, no,” the banker said. “We must do him justice. He thinks that we
are going a little too far, that’s all. And that the loss of Mr.
Griffin’s account is a danger signal. That’s what you mean, man, isn’t
it?”
Rodd nodded, his face stubborn. He stood alone, divided from the other
three by the table, for Arthur had passed round it and placed himself
at Ovington’s elbow.
“His view,” the banker continued, polishing his glasses with his
handkerchief and looking thoughtfully at them, “is that if there came a
check in trade and a fall in values, the bank might find its resources
strained—I’ll put it that way.”
Arthur sneered. “Singular wisdom! But a fall—a general fall at any
rate—what sign is there of it?” He was provoked by the banker’s way of
taking it. Ovington seemed to be attaching absurd weight to Rodd’s
suggestion. “None!” contemptuously. “Not a jot.”
“There’s been a universal rise,” Rodd muttered.
“In a moment? Without warning?”
“No, but——”
“But fiddlesticks!” Arthur retorted. Of late it seemed as if his good
humor had deserted him, and this was not the first sign he had given of
an uncertain temper. Still, the phase was so new that two of those
present looked curiously at him, and his consciousness of this added to
his irritation. “Rodd’s no better than an old woman,” he continued.
“Five per cent. and a mortgage in a strong box is about his measure. If
you are going to listen to every croaker who is frightened by a shadow,
you may as well close the bank, sir, and put the money out on Rodd’s
terms!”
“Still Rodd means us well,” the banker said thoughtfully, “and a little
caution is never out of place in a bank. What I want to get from him
is—has he anything definite to tell us? Wolley? Have you heard anything
about Wolley, Rodd?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what is it? What is it, man?”
But Rodd, brought to bay, only looked more stubborn. “It’s no more than
I’ve told you, sir,” he muttered, “it’s just a feeling. Things must
come down some day.”
“Oh, damn!” Arthur exclaimed, out of patience, and thinking that the
banker was making altogether too much of it—and of Rodd. “If he were a
weather-glass——”
“Or a woman!” interjected Betty, who was observing all with bright
inscrutable eyes.
“But as he isn’t either,” Arthur continued impatiently, “I fail to see
why you make so much of it! Of course, things will come down some day,
but if he thinks that with your experience you are blind to anything he
is likely to see, he’s no better than a fool! Because my uncle, for
reasons which you understand, sir, has drawn out four hundred pounds,
he thinks every customer is going to leave us, and Ovington’s must put
up the shutters! The truth is, he knows nothing about it, and if he
wishes to damage the bank he is going the right way to do it!”
“Would you like my opinion, father?” Betty asked.
“No,” sharply, “certainly not, child. Where’s Clement?”
“Well, I’m afraid he’s away.”
“Again? Then he is behaving very badly!”
“That was the opinion I was going to give,” the girl answered. “That
some were behaving better than others.”
“If,” Arthur cried, “you mean me——”
“There, enough,” said her father. “Be silent, Betty. You’ve no business
to be here.”
“Still, people should behave themselves,” she replied, her eyes
sparkling.
Arthur had his answer ready, but Ovington forestalled him. “Very good,
Rodd,” he said. “A word on the side of caution is never out of place in
a bank. But I am not blind, and all that you have told me is in my
mind. Thank you. You can go now.”
It was a dismissal, and Rodd took it as such, and felt, as he had never
felt before, his subordinate position. Why he did so, and why, as he
withdrew under Arthur’s eye, he resented the situation, he best knew.
But it is possible that two of the others had some inkling of the
cause.
When he had gone, “There’s an old woman for you!” Arthur exclaimed. “I
wonder that you had the patience to listen to him, sir.”
But Ovington shook his head. “I listened because there are times when a
straw shows which way the wind blows.”
“But you don’t think that there is anything in what he said?”
“I shall remember what he said. The time may be coming to take in
sail—to keep a good look-out, lad, and be careful. You have been with
us—how long? Two years. Ay, but years of expansion, of rising prices,
of growing trade. But I have seen other times—other times.” He shook
his head.
“Still, there is no sign of a change, sir?”
“You’ve seen one to-day. What is in Rodd’s head may be in others, and
what is in men’s heads soon reflects itself in their conduct.”
It was the first word, the first hint, the first presage of evil; of a
fall, of bad weather, of a storm, distant as yet, and seen even by the
clearest eyes only as a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand. But the word
had been spoken. The hint had been given. And to Arthur, who had paid a
high price for prosperity—how high only he could say—the presage seemed
an outrage. The idea that the prosperity he had bought was not a
certainty, that the craft on which he had embarked his fortune was,
like other ships, at the mercy of storm and tempest, that like other
ships it might founder with all its freight, was entirely new to him.
So new that for a moment his face betrayed the impression it made. Then
he told himself that the thing was incredible, that he started at
shadows, and his natural confidence rebounded. “Oh, damn Rodd!” he
cried—and he said it with all his heart. “He’s a croaker by nature!”
“Still, we won’t damn him,” the banker answered mildly. “On the
contrary, we will profit by his warning. But go now. I have a letter to
write. And do you go, too, Betty, and make tea for us.”
He turned to his papers, and Arthur, after a moment’s hesitation,
followed Betty into the house. Overtaking her in the hall, “Betty, what
is the matter?” he asked. And when the girl took no notice, but went on
with her chin in the air as if he had not spoken, he seized her arm.
“Come,” he said, “I am not going to have this. What is it?”
“What should it be! I don’t know what you mean,” she retorted.
“Oh yes, you do. What took you—to back up that ass in the bank just
now?”
Then Betty astonished him. “I didn’t think he wanted any backing,” she
said, her eyes bright. “He seemed to me to talk sense, and someone else
nonsense.”
“But you’re not——”
“A partner in Ovington’s? No, Mr. Bourdillon, I am not—thank heaven!
And so my head is not turned, and I can keep my temper and mind my
manners.”
“Oh, it’s Mr. Bourdillon now, is it?”
“Yes—if you are going to behave to my friends as you did this
afternoon.”
“Your friends!” scornfully. “You include Rodd, do you? Rodd, Betty?”
“Yes, I do, and I am not too proud to do so. Nor too proud to be angry
when I see a man ten years younger than he is slap him in the face! I
am not so spoiled that I think everyone beneath me!”
“So it’s Rodd now?”
“It’s as much Rodd now,” her cheeks hot, her eyes sparkling, “as it was
anyone else before! Just as much and just as little. You flatter
yourself, sir!”
“But, Betty,” in a coaxing tone, “little spitfire that you are, can’t
you guess why I was short with Rodd? Can’t you guess why I don’t
particularly love him? But you do guess. Rodd is what he is—nothing!
But when he lifts his eyes above him—when he dares to make eyes at
you—I am not going to be silent.”
“Now you are impertinent!” she replied. “As impertinent as you were
mean before. Yes, mean, mean! When you knew he could not answer you!
Mean!”
And without waiting for a reply she ran up the stairs.
He went to one of the windows of the dining-room and looked across
Bride Hill and along the High Street, full at that hour of market
people. But he did not see them, his thoughts were busy with what had
happened. He could not believe that Betty had any feeling for Rodd. The
man was dull, commonplace, a plodder, and not young; he was well over
thirty. No, the idea was preposterous. And it was still more absurd to
suppose that if he, Arthur, threw the handkerchief—or even fluttered it
in her direction, for dear little thing as she was, he had not quite
made up his mind—she would hesitate to accept him, or would let any
thought of Rodd weigh with her.
Still, he would let her temper cool, he would not stay to tea. Instead,
he would by and by ride his new horse out to the Cottage. He had not
been home for the weekend. He had left Mrs. Bourdillon to come to
herself and recover her good humor in solitude. Now he would make it up
with her, and while he was there he might as well get a peep at
Josina—it was a long time since he had seen her. If Betty chose to
adopt this unpleasant line, why, she could not blame him if he amused
himself.