In Aldersbury there had been a simmering of excitement through all the
hours of that Monday. At the corner of the Market Place on which the
little statue of the ancient Prince looked down, in the shops on Bride
Hill, in the High Street under the shadow of St. Juliana’s, knots of
people had gathered, discussing, some with scared faces and low voices,
others with the gusto of unconcern, the rumors of troubles that came
through from Chester, from Manchester, from the capital; that fell from
the lips of guards in inn-yards, and leaked from the boots of coaches
before the Lion. Gibbon’s, one of the chief banks at Birmingham, had
closed its doors, Garrard’s had stopped payment at Hereford, there was
panic on the stones in Manchester, a bank had failed at Liverpool. It
was reported that a director had hung himself, a score had fled to
Boulogne, dark stories of ’15 and ’93 were revived. It was asserted
that the Bank of England had run out of gold, that cash payments would
be again suspended. In a dozen forms these and wilder statements ran
from mouth to mouth, gathered weight as they went, blanched men’s faces
and turned traders’ hearts to water. But the worst, it was agreed,
would not be known until the afternoon coaches came in and brought the
mails from London. Then—ah, then, people would see what they would see!
Idle men, with empty pockets, revelled in news which promised to bring
all to their level. And malice played its part. Wolley, who had little
but a debtor’s prison in prospect, was in town and talking, bent on
revenge, and the few who had already withdrawn their accounts from
Ovington’s were also busy; foxes who had lost their tails, they felt
themselves marked men until others followed their example. Meanwhile,
Purslow and such as were in his case lay low, sweated in their
shop-parlors, conned their ledgers with haggard faces, or snarled at
their womenfolk. Gone now was the pride in stock and scrip, and
bounding profits! Gone even the pride in a directorship.
Purslow, perhaps, more than anyone was to be pitied. A year before he
had been prosperous, purse-proud, free from debt, with a good business.
Now his every penny was sunk in unsaleable securities, his credit was
pledged to the bank, his counter was idle, while trade creditors whom
in the race for wealth he had neglected were pressing him hard. Worst
of all, he did not know where he could turn to obtain even the small
sum needed to pay the next month’s wages.
But, though the pot was boiling in Aldersbury as elsewhere, it did not
at once boil over. The day passed without any serious run on either of
the banks. Men were alarmed, they got together in corners, they
whispered, they marked with jealous eyes who entered and who left the
banks. They muttered much of what they would do on the morrow, or when
the London mail came in, or when they had made up their minds. But to
walk into Ovington’s and face the clerks and do the deed required
courage; and for the most part they were not so convinced of danger, or
fearful of loss, as to be ready to face the ordeal. They might draw
their money and look foolish afterwards. Consequently they hung about,
putting off the act, waiting to see what others would do. The hours
slipped by and the excitement grew, but still they waited, watching
their neighbors and doing nothing, but prepared at any moment to rush
in and jostle one another in their panic.
“By G—d, I’ll see I get my money!” said one. “You wait, Mr. Lello! You
wait and——”
In another part, “I’d draw it, I’d draw it, Tom, if I were you! After
all, it’s your own money. Why, confound it, man, what are you afraid
of?”
“I ain’t afraid of anything,” Tom replied surlily. “But Ovington gave
me a leg-up last December, and I’m hanged if I like to go in and——”
“And ask for your own? Well, you are a ninny!”
“Maybe. May—be,” jingling the money in his fob. “But I’ll wait. I’ll
wait till to-morrow. No harm done afore then!”
A third had left Dean’s under a cloud, and if he quarrelled with
Ovington’s, where was he to go? While a fourth had bills falling due,
and did not quite see his way. He might be landing a trout and losing a
salmon. He would see how things went. Plenty of time!
But though this was the general attitude, and the Monday passed without
a run of any consequence, a certain number of accounts were closed, and
the excitement felt boded ill for the morrow. It waxed rather than
waned as the day went on, and Ovington’s heart would have been heavy
and his alarm keen if the one had not been lightened and the other
dispersed by the good news which Arthur had brought from Garth that
morning—the almost incredibly good news!
Aldersbury, however, was in ignorance of that news, and when Clement
issued from the bank a few minutes after the doors had closed, there
were still knots of people hanging about the corners of the Market
Place, watching the bank. He viewed them with a sardonic eye, and could
afford to do so; for his heart was light like his father’s, and he
could smile at that which, but for the good news of the morning, would
have chilled him with apprehension. He turned from the door, intending
to seek the Lime-Walks by the river, and, late as it was, to get a
breath of fresh air after the confinement of the day. But his intention
was never carried out. He had not gone half a dozen yards down the
street before his ear caught the sound of a horse breasting Bride Hill
at an unusual pace, and something in the speed at which it approached
warned him of ill. He waited, and his fears were confirmed. The
vehicle, a gig, drew up at the door of the bank, and the driver, a
country lad, began to get down. Clement retraced the half-dozen steps
that he had taken.
“Who is it you want?” he asked.
The lad sat down again in his seat. “Be Mr. Arthur here, sir?” he
inquired.
“Mr. Bourdillon?”
“Ay, sure, sir.”
“No, he is not.”
“Well, I be to follow ’ee wheresomever he be, axing your pardon!”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that, my lad,” Clement explained. “He’s gone
to London. He went by coach this morning.”
The lad scratched his head. “O Lord!” he said. “What be I to do? I was
to bring him back, whether or no. Squire’s orders.”
“Squire Griffin?”
“Ay, sure, sir. He’s in a taking, and mun see him, whether or no!
Mortal put about he were!”
Clement thought rapidly, the vague alarm which he had felt taking solid
shape. What if the Squire had repented of his generosity? What if the
help, heaven-sent, beyond hope and beyond expectation, which had
removed their fears, were after all to fail them? Clement’s heart sank.
“Who sent you?” he asked. “The young lady?”
“Ay, sure. And she were in a taking, too. Crazy she were.”
Clement leapt to a decision. He laid his hand on the rail of the gig.
“Look here,” he said. “You’d better take me out instead, and, at any
rate, I can explain.”
“But it were Mr. Arthur——”
“I know, but he’s half-way to London by now. And he won’t be back till
Thursday.”
He climbed up, and the lad accepted his decision and turned the horse.
They trotted down the hill between the dimly lighted shops, past
observers who recognized the Garth gig, by groups of men who loitered
and shivered before the tavern doors. They swung sharply into Maerdol,
where the peaks of the gables on either hand rose against a pale sky,
and a moment later they were crossing the bridge, and felt the cold
waft of the river breeze on their faces. Two minutes saw them trotting
steadily across the open country, the lights of the town behind them.
Clement sat silent, lost in thought, wondering if he were doing right,
and fearing much that the Squire had repented of his generosity and was
minded to recall it. If that were so, the awakening from the hopes
which he had raised, and the dream of security in which they had lost
themselves, would be a cruel shock. Clement shrank from thinking what
its effect would be on his father, whose relief had betrayed the full
measure of his fears. And his own case was hardly better, for it was
not only his fortune that was at stake and that he had thought saved.
He had given rein, also, to his hopes. He had let them carry him far
into a roseate country where the sun shone and Josina smiled, and all
the difficulties that had divided them melted into air. There might be
need of time and patience; but with time and patience he had fancied
that he might win his way.
It was cruel, indeed, then if the old man at Garth had changed his
mind, if he had played with them, only to deceive them, only to
disappoint them! And Clement could not but fear that it was so. The
closing day, the wintry air, the prospect before him, as they swung
across the darkening land, seemed to confirm his fears and oppress him
with misgivings. A long cloud, fish-shaped, hung lowering across the
western sky; below it, along the horizon, a narrow strip of angry
yellow, unnaturally bright, threw the black, jagged outline of the
hills into violent contrast, and shed a pale light on the intervening
plain. Ay, he feared the worst. He could think of nothing else that
could be the cause of this sudden, this agitated summons. The Squire
must have repented. He had changed his mind, and——
But here they were at the bridge. The cottages of the hamlet showed
here and there a spark of light. They turned to the left, and five
minutes later—the horse quickening its pace as they approached its
stable—they were winding up the sunken drive under the stark limbs of
the beeches. The house stood above them, a sombre pile, its chimneys
half obscured by the trees.
Heavily Clement let himself down, to find Calamy at his elbow. The man
had been waiting for him in the dimly lighted doorway. “Mr. Bourdillon
has gone to London,” Clement explained. “I have come instead if I can
be of any use.” Then he saw that the butler did not know him, and “I am
Mr. Clement Ovington,” he added. “You’d better ask your master if he
would like to see me.”
“There’s times when the devil’d be welcome,” the man replied bluntly.
“It’s tears and lamentations and woe in the house this night, but God
knows what it’s all about, for I don’t. Come in, come in, sir, in
heaven’s name, but I’m fearing it’s little good. The devil has us in
his tail, and if the master goes through the night—but this way,
sir—this way!”
He opened a door on the left of the hall, pushed the astonished Clement
into the room, and over his shoulder, “Here’s one from the bank, at any
rate,” he proclaimed. “Maybe he’ll do.”
Clement took in the scene as he entered, and drew from it an instant
impression of ill. The room was in disorder, lighted only by a pair of
candles, the slender flames of which were reflected, islanded in
blackness, in the two tall windows that, bald and uncurtained, let in
the night. The fire, a pile of wood ashes neglected or forgotten, was
almost out, and beside it a cupboard-door gaped widely open. A chair
lay overturned on the floor, and in another sat the Squire, gaunt and
upright, muttering to himself and gesticulating with his stick, while
over him, her curls falling about her neck, her face tragic and
tear-stained, hung his daughter, her shadow cast grotesquely on the
wall behind her. She had a glass in her hand, and by her on the table,
from which the cloth had fallen to the floor, stood water and a
medicine bottle.
In their absorption neither of the two had heard Calamy’s words, and
for a moment Clement stood in doubt, staring at them and feeling that
he had been wrong to come. The trouble, whatever it was, could not be
what he had feared. Then, as he moved, half minded to withdraw, Josina
heard him, and turned. In her amazement, “Clement!” she cried. “You!”
The Squire turned in his chair. “Who?” he exclaimed.
“Who’s there? Has he come?”
The girl hesitated. The hand that rested on the old man’s shoulder
trembled. Then—oh, bravely she took her courage in her hands, and “It
is Clement who has come,” she said—acknowledging him so firmly that
Clement marvelled to hear her.
“Clement?” The old man repeated the word mechanically, and for a moment
he sought in his mind who Clement might be. Then he found the answer,
and “One of them, eh?” he muttered—but not in the voice that Clement
had anticipated. “So he won’t face me? Coward as well as rogue, is he?
And a Griffin! My God, a Griffin! So he’s sent him?”
“Where is Arthur?” Josina asked sharply.
“He left for London this morning—by the coach.”
“Ay, ay,” the Squire said. “That’s it.”
Clement plucked up courage. “And hearing that you wanted him, I came to
explain. I feared from what the messenger said that there was something
amiss.”
“Something amiss!” The Squire repeated the words in an indescribable
tone. “That’s what he calls it! Something amiss!”
Clement looked from one to the other. “If there is anything I can do?”
“You?” bluntly. “Why, you be one of them!”
“No!” Josina interposed. “No, father. He has no part in it! I swear he
has not!”
But, “One of them! One of them!” the Squire repeated in the same
stubborn tone, yet without lifting his voice.
“No!” Josina repeated as firmly as before; and the hand that rested on
her father’s shoulder slid round his neck. She held him half embraced.
“But he may tell you what has happened. He may explain, sir?”
“Explain!” the Squire muttered. Contempt could go no farther.
“Shall I tell him, sir?”
“You’re a fool, girl! The man knows.”
“I am sure he does not!” she said.
Again Clement thought that it was time to interpose, “Indeed I do not,
sir,” he said. “I am entirely in the dark.” In truth, looking on what
he did, seeing before him the unfamiliar room, the dark staring
windows, and the old man so unlike himself and so like King Lear or
some figure of tragedy, he was tempted to think the scene a dream. “If
you will tell me what is the matter, perhaps I can help. Arthur left
this morning for London. He went to raise the money with which he was
entrusted——”
“Entrusted?” the Squire cried with something of his old energy. He
raised his head and struck the floor with his stick. “Entrusted? That’s
what you call it, is it?”
Clement stared. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“What did he tell you?” Josina asked. “For heaven’s sake speak,
Clement! Tell us what he told you.”
“Ay,” the Squire chimed in. “Tell us how you managed it. Now it’s done,
let’s hear it.” For the time scorn, a weary kind of scorn, had taken
the place of anger and subdued him to its level.
But Clement was still at sea. “Managed it?” he repeated. “What do
you——”
“Tell us, tell us—from the beginning!” Jos cried, at the end of her
patience. “About this money? What did Arthur tell you? What did he tell
you—this morning?”
Then for the first time Clement saw what was in question, and he braced
himself to meet the shock which he foresaw. “He told us,” he said,
“what Mr. Griffin had consented to do—that he had given him securities
for twelve thousand pounds for the use of the bank and to support its
credit. He had the stock with him, and he received from the bank, in
return for it, an undertaking to replace the amount two months after
date with interest at seven per cent. It was thought best that he
should take it to London himself, as it was so large a sum and time was
everything. And he went by the coach this morning—to realize the
money.”
Josina shivered. “He took it without authority,” she said, her voice
low.
“He stole it,” the Squire said, “out of that cupboard.”
“Oh, but that’s impossible, sir!” Clement replied with eagerness. He
felt an immense relief, for he thought that he saw light. He took note
of the Squire’s condition, and he fancied that his memory, if not his
mind, had given way. He had forgotten what he had done. That was it!
“That’s impossible, sir,” he repeated firmly. “He had a proper transfer
of the stock—India Stock it was—signed and witnessed and all in order.”
“Signed and witnessed?” the Squire ejaculated. “Signed and—signed, your
grandmother! So that’s your story, is it? Signed and witnessed, eh?”
But Clement was beginning to be angry. “Yes, sir,” he said. “That is
our story, and it is true.” He thought that he had hit on the truth,
and he clung to it. The Squire had signed and the next minute had
forgotten the whole transaction—Clement had heard of such cases. “He
had the transfer with him,” he continued, “signed by you and witnessed
by himself and—and Miss Griffin. I saw it myself. I saw the signatures,
and I have seen yours, sir, often enough on a cheque to know it. The
transfer was perfectly in order.”
“In whose favor, young man?”
“Our brokers’, sir.”
The Squire flared up. “I did not sign it!” he cried. “It’s a lie, sir!
I signed nothing! Nothing!”
But Josina intervened. She, poor girl, saw light. “Yes,” she said, “my
father did sign something—on Saturday after dinner. But it was a lease.
I and Arthur witnessed it.”
“And what has that to do with it?” the Squire asked passionately. “What
the devil has that to do with it? I signed a lease and—and a
counterpart. I signed no transfer of stock, never put hand to it!
Never! What has the lease to do with it?”
But Josina was firm. “I am afraid I see now, sir,” she said. “You
remember that you signed a paper to try your pen? And I signed it too,
father, by mistake? You remember? Ah!”—with a gesture of despair—“if I
had only not signed it!”
The Squire groaned. He, too, saw it now. He saw it, and his head sank
on his breast. “Forger as well as thief!” he muttered. “And a Griffin!”
And Clement’s heart sank too as he met the girl’s anguished eyes and
viewed the Squire’s bowed head and the shame and despair that clothed
themselves in an apathy so unlike the man. He saw that here was a
tragedy indeed, a tragedy fitly framed in that desolate room with its
windows staring on the night and its air of catastrophe; a tragedy
passing bank failures or the loss of fortune. And in his mind he cursed
the offender.
But even as the words rose to his lips, doubt stayed them. There was,
there must be, some mistake. The thing could not be. He knew Arthur, he
thought that he knew Arthur; he knew even the darker side of him—his
selfishness, his lack of thought for others, his desire to get on and
to grow rich. But this thing Arthur never could have done! Clement
recalled his gay, smiling face, his frank bearing, his care-free eyes,
the habit he had of casting back a lock from his brow. No, he could not
have done this thing. “No, sir, no!” he cried impulsively. “There is
some mistake! I swear there is! I am sure of it.”
“You’ve the securities?”
“Yes, but I am sure——”
“You’re all in it,” the Squire said drearily. And then, with energy and
in a voice quivering with rage, “He’s learned this at your d—d counter,
sir! That’s where it is. It’s like to like, that’s where it is. Like to
like! I might ha’ known what would happen, when the lad set his mind on
leaving our ways and taking up with yours. I might ha’ known that that
was the blackest day our old house had ever seen—when he left the path
his fathers trod and chose yours. You can’t touch pitch and keep your
hands clean. You ha’ stole my daughter—d—n you, sir! And you ha’ taught
him to steal my money. I mind me I bid your father think o’ Fauntleroy,
I never thought he was breeding up a Fauntleroy in my house.” And,
striking the table with all his old vitality, “You are thieves! thieves
all o’ you! And you ha’ taught my lad to thieve!”
“That is not true!” Clement cried. “Not a word of that is true!”
“You ha’ stole my daughter!”
Clement winced. She had told him, then.
“And now you ha’ stole my money!”
“That, at least, is not true!” He held up his head. He stepped forward
and laid his hand on the table. “That is not true,” he repeated firmly.
“Yon do not know my father, Mr. Griffin, though you may think you do.
He would see the bank break a hundred times, he would see every penny
pass from him, before he would do this that you say has been done. Your
nephew told us what I have told you, and we believed him—naturally we
believed him. We never suspected. Not a suspicion crossed my father’s
mind or mine. We saw the certificates, we saw the transfer, we knew
your handwriting. It was in order, and——”
“And you thought—you ha’ the impudence to tell me that you thought that
I should throw thousands, ay, thousands upon thousands into the
gutter—to save your bank?”
“We believed what we were told,” Clement maintained. “Why not—as you
put the question, sir? Your nephew had five thousand pounds at stake.
His share in the bank was at stake. He knew as well as we did that with
this assistance the bank was secure. We supposed that for his sake and
the sake of his prospects——”
“I don’t believe it!” the Squire retorted. “I’ll never believe it. Your
father’s a trader. I know ’em, and what their notion of honesty is. And
you tell me——”
“I tell you that a trader is nothing if he be not honest!” Clement
cried hotly. “Honesty is to him what honor is to you, Mr. Griffin. But
we’ll leave my father’s name out of this, if you please, sir. You may
say what you like of me. I have deserved it.”
“No,” said Josina.
“Yes, I have deserved it, and I am ashamed of myself—and proud of
myself. But my father has done nothing and known nothing. And for this
money, when he learns the truth, Mr. Griffin, he will not touch one
penny of it with one of his fingers. It shall be returned to you, every
farthing of it, as soon as we can lay our hands on it. Every penny of
it shall be returned to you—at once!”
“Ay,” dryly, “when you have had the use of it!”
“No, at once! Without the loss of an hour!”
“You be found out,” said the old man bitterly. “You be found out!
That’s it!”
Clement read an appeal in Josina’s eyes, and he stayed the retort that
rose to his lips. “At any rate the money shall be restored,” he
said—“at once. I will start for town to-night, and if I can
overtake”—he paused, unwilling to utter Arthur’s name—“if I can
overtake him before he transfers the stock, the securities shall be
returned to you. In that case no harm will be done.”
“No harm!” the Squire ejaculated. He raised his hand and let it fall in
a gesture of despair. “No harm?”
But Clement was determined not to dwell on that side of it. “If I am
not able to do that,” he continued, “the proceeds shall be placed in
your hands without the delay of an hour. In which case you must let the
signature pass—as good, sir.”
“Never!” the old man cried, and struck his hand on the table.
“But after all it is yours,” Clement argued. “And you must see, sir——”
“Never! Never!” the Squire repeated passionately.
“You will not say that in cold blood!” Clement rejoined, and from that
moment he took a higher tone, as if he felt that, strange as the call
was, it lay with him now to guide this unhappy household. “You have not
considered, and you must consider, Mr. Griffin,” he continued, “before
you do that, what the consequences may be. If you deny your signature,
and anyone, the India House or anyone, stands to lose, steps may be
taken which may prove—fatal. Fatal, sir! A point may be reached beyond
which even your influence, and all you may then be willing to do, may
not avail to save your nephew.”
The Squire groaned. Clement’s words called up before him and before
Josina, not only the thing which Arthur had done, but the position in
which he had placed himself. In this room, in this very room in which
men of honor—dull and prejudiced, perhaps, but men of honor, and proud
of their honor—had lived and moved for generations, he, their
descendant, had done this thing. The beams had stood, the house had not
fallen on him. But to Josina’s eyes the candles seemed to burn more
mournfully, the windows to stare more darkly on the night, the ashes on
the hearth to speak of desolation and a house abandoned and fallen.
Clement hoped that his appeal had succeeded, but he was disappointed.
The old man in his bitterness and unreason was not to be moved—at any
rate as yet. He would listen to no arguments, and he suspected those
who argued with him. “I’ll never acknowledge it!” he said. “No, I’ll
never acknowledge it. I’ll not lie for him, come what may! He has done
the thing and disgraced our blood, and what matter who knows it—he has
done it! He has made his bed and must lie on it! He went into your bank
and learned your tricks, and now you’d have me hush it up! But I won’t,
d—n you! I’ll not lie for you, or for him!”
Clement had a retort on his lips—for what could be more unfair than
this? But again Josina’s eyes implored him to be silent, and he crushed
back the words. He believed that by and by the Squire would see the
thing differently, but for the moment he could do no more, and he
turned to the door.
There in the doorway, and for one moment, Josina’s hands met his, she
had one word with him. “You will save him if you can, Clement?” she
murmured.
“Yes,” he promised her, “I will save him if I can.”