If the news which Arthur had conveyed to the bank on that Monday
morning had been much to Clement, it had been more to his father. It
had brought to Ovington immense relief at the moment when he had least
reason to expect it. The banker had not hidden the position from those
who must needs work with him; but even to them he had not imparted the
full measure of his fears, much less the extent of the suffering which
those fears occasioned him. The anxiety that kept him sleepless, the
calculations that tormented his pillow, the regret with which he
reviewed the past, the responsibility for the losses of others that
depressed him—he had kept these things to himself, or at most had
dropped but a hint of them to his beloved Betty.
But they had been very real to him and very terrible. The spectre of
bankruptcy—with all the horror which it connoted for the mercantile
mind—had loomed before him for weeks past, had haunted and menaced him;
and its sudden exorcism on this Monday morning meant a relief which he
dared not put into words to others and shrank from admitting even to
himself. He who had held his head so high—no longer need he anticipate
the moment when he would be condemned as a reckless adventurer, whose
fall had been as rapid as his rise, and whom the wiseacres of
Aldersbury had doomed to failure from the first! That had been the
bitterest drop in his cup, and to know that he need not drain it, was
indeed a blessed respite.
Still, he had received the news with composure, and through the day he
had moved to and fro doing his work with accuracy. But it was in a
pleasant dream that he had followed his usual routine, and many a time
he paused to tell himself that the thing was a fact, that Dean’s would
not now triumph over him, nor his enemies now scoff at him. On the
contrary, he might hope to emerge from the tempest stronger than
before, and with his credit enhanced by the stress through which he had
ridden. Business was business, but in the midst of it the banker had
more than once to stand and be thankful.
And with reason. For if he who has inherited success and lives to see
it threatened suffers a pang, that pang is as nothing besides the
humiliation of the man who has raised himself; who has outstripped his
fellows, challenged their admiration, defied their jealousy, trampled
on their pride; who has been the creator of his own greatness, and now
sees that greatness in ruins. He had escaped that. He had escaped that,
thank God! More than once the two words passed his lips; and in secret
his thoughts turned to the great chief of men to whom in his own mind
and with a rather absurd vanity he had compared himself. Thank God that
his own little star had not sunk like his into darkness!
It was relief, it was salvation. And that evening, as the banker sat
after his five o’clock dinner and sipped his fourth and last glass of
port and basked in the genial heat of the fire, while his daughter
knitted on the farther side of the hearth, he owned himself a happy
man. He measured the danger, he winced at the narrow margin by which he
had escaped it—but he had escaped! Dean’s, staid, long-established,
slow-going Dean’s, which had viewed his notes askance, had doubted his
stability and predicted his failure, Dean’s which had slyly put many a
spoke in his wheel, would not triumph. Nay, after this, would not he,
too, rank as sound and staid and well established, he who had also
ridden out the storm? For in crises men and banks age rapidly; they are
measured rather by events than by years. Those who had mistrusted him
would mistrust him no longer; those who had dubbed him new would now
count him old. As he stretched his legs to meet the genial heat and
sank lower in his chair he could have purred in his thankfulness.
Things had fallen out well, after all; he saw rosy visions in the fire.
Schemes which had lain dormant in his mind awoke. His London agents had
failed, but others would compete for his business, and on better terms.
The Squire who had so marvellously come to his aid would bring back his
account, and his example would be followed. He would extend, opening
branches at Bretton and Monk’s Castle and Blankminster, and the
railroad? He was not quite sure what he would do about the railroad;
possibly he might decide that the time was not ripe for it, and in that
case he might wind up the company, return the money, and himself meet
the expenses incurred. The loss would not be great, and the effect
would be prodigious. It would be a Napoleonic stroke—he would consider
it. He lost himself in visions of prosperity.
And it would be all for Clement and Betty. He looked across the hearth
at the girl who sat knitting under the lamp-light, and his eyes
caressed her, his heart loved her. She would make a great match.
Failing Arthur—and of late Arthur and she had not seemed to hit it
off—there would be others. There would be others, well-born, who would
be glad to take her and her dowry. He saw her driving into town in her
carriage, with a crest on the panels.
It was she who cut short his thoughts. She looked at the clock. “I
can’t think where Clement is,” she said. “You don’t think that there is
anything wrong, dad?”
“Wrong? No,” he answered. “Why should there be!”
“But he disappeared so strangely. He said nothing about missing his
dinner.”
“He was to check some figures with Rodd this evening. He may have gone
to his rooms.”
“But—without his dinner?”
But the banker was not in the mood to trouble himself about trifles.
The lamp shone clear and mellow, the fire crackled pleasantly, a warm
comfort wrapped him round, the port had a flavor that he had not
perceived in it of late. Instead of replying to Betty’s question he
measured the decanter with his eye, decided that it was a special
occasion, and filled himself another glass. “Ovington’s Bank,” he said
as he raised it to his lips. But that to which he really drank was the
home that he saw about him, saved from rain, made secure.
Betty smiled. “You’re relieved to-night, dad.”
“Well, I am, Betty,” he admitted. “Yes, I am—and thankful.”
“And that queer old man! I wonder,” as she turned her knitting on her
knee, “why he did it.”
“I suppose for Arthur’s sake. He’d have lost pretty heavily—for him.”
“But you didn’t expect that Mr. Griffin would come forward?”
The banker allowed it. “No,” he said. “I don’t know that I ever
expected anything less. Such things don’t happen, my girl, very often.
But he will be no loser, and I suppose Arthur convinced him of that. He
is shrewd, and, once convinced, he would see that it was the only thing
to do.”
“But not many people would have been convinced?”
“No, perhaps not.”
Betty knitted awhile. “I thought that he hated the bank?” she said, as
she paused to rub her chin with a needle.
“He does—and me. But he loves his money, my dear.”
“Still it isn’t his. It is Arthur’s.”
“True. But he’s a man who cannot bear to see money lost. He thinks a
good deal of it.”
“He is not alone in that,” Betty exclaimed. “Sometimes I feel that I
hate money! People grow so fond of it. They think only of themselves,
even when you’ve been ever so good to them.”
“Well, it’s human nature,” the banker replied equably. “I don’t know
who it is that you have in your mind, my dear, but it applies to most
people.” He was going to say more when the door opened.
“Mr. Rodd is here, asking for Mr. Clement, sir,” the maid said. “He was
to meet him at half after six, and——”
“Ask Mr. Rodd to come in.”
The cashier entered shyly. In his dark suit, with his black stock and
stiff carriage, he made no figure, where Arthur, or even Clement, would
have shone. But there were women in Aldersbury who said that he had
fine eyes, eyes with something of a dog’s gentleness in them; and
Arthur so far agreed that he dubbed him a dull, mechanical dog, and
often made fun of him as such. But perhaps Arthur did not always see to
the bottom of things.
Ovington pushed the decanter and a glass towards him. “A glass of wine,
Rodd,” he said genially. He was not of those who undervalued his
cashier, though he knew his limitations. “The bank!” he said.
“And those who have stood by it!” Betty added softly.
Rodd drank the toast with a muttered word.
“Mr. Rodd has not the same reason to be thankful that we have,” Betty
continued carelessly, holding her knitting up to the lamp.
“Why not?” Her father did not understand.
“Why,” innocently, as she lowered the knitting again, “he does not
stand to lose anything, does he?”
“Except his place,” the cashier objected, his eyes on his glass.
“Just so,” the banker rejoined. “And in that event,” moved to unusual
frankness, “we should have been all out together. And Rodd might not
have been the worst off, my girl.
“Exactly,” Betty said. “I’m sure that he would take care of that.”
The cashier opened his mouth to speak, but checked himself, and drank
off his wine. Then, as he rose, “If you know where Mr. Clement is,
sir——”
“I don’t. I can’t think what has become of him,” the banker explained.
“He went out about four, and since then—hallo! That’s some one in a
hurry. It sounds like a fire.”
A vehicle had burst in on the evening stillness. It came clattering at
a reckless pace up Bride Hill. It passed the bank, it rattled noisily
around the corner of the Market Place, and pounded away down the High
Street.
“More likely some one hastening to get out of danger,” said Betty. “_A
sauve qui peut_, Mr. Rodd—if you know what that means.”
The clerk, with a flushed cheek, avoided the question. “It might be
some one trying to catch the seven o’clock coach, sir,” he said.
“Very likely. And if so he’s failed, for he’s coming back again. Ay,
here he comes, and he stopping here, by Jove! I hope that nothing’s
wrong.”
The vehicle had, indeed, stopped abruptly before the house. They heard
some one alight on the pavement, a latchkey was thrust into the door.
“It’s Clement!” the banker exclaimed, his eyes on the door. “I hope he
does not bring bad news! Well, lad?” as Clement in his overcoat, his
hat on his head, appeared in the doorway. “What is it? Is anything
wrong?”
“Very much wrong!” his son replied curtly, and he closed the door
behind him. He was pale, and his splashed coat and neck-shawl tied
awry, no less than his agitated face, confirmed their fears.
“Out with it, lad! What is it? his father asked, fearing he knew not
what.
“Bad news, sir!” was the answer. “I’m sorry to say I bring very bad
news!”
“What?”
“That loan of Mr. Griffin’s——”
“The twelve thousand? Yes?”—anxiously—“well?”
“It’s a fraud, sir! A cursed fraud!”
There was a tense silence. Then, “Impossible!” the banker exclaimed.
But he grasped a chair to steady himself. His face had turned grey.
“The Squire knows nothing of it!” Clement struck his open hand on the
back of a chair. “He never signed the transfer! He never gave any
authority for the loan!”
“No, no, that’s impossible!” Ovington straightened himself with a sigh
of relief. What mare’s nest, what bee in the bonnet, was this? The lad
was dreaming—must be dreaming. “Impossible!” he repeated. “I saw it,
man, and read it! And I know the old man’s signature as well as I know
my own. You must be dreaming.”
“I am not, sir!” Clement answered, and added bitterly, “It was Arthur
who was dreaming! Dreaming or worse, d—n him!”—the pent-up excitement
of the evening finding vent at last, and the sight of his father’s
stricken face whetting his rage. “He has robbed, ay, robbed his uncle,
and dishonored us! That is what he has done, sir. I am not dreaming! I
wish to heaven I were!”
The banker no longer protested. “Well—tell us!” he said weakly.
“It’s hard on you, sir——”
“Never mind me! Tell me what you know.” They stood round Clement,
amazed and shocked, fearing the worst and yet incredulous, while he,
his weary face and travel-stained figure at odds with the lighted room
and the comfort about him, told his story. The banker listened. He
still hoped, hoped to detect some flaw, to perceive some
misunderstanding—so much, so very much, hung upon it. But even on his
mind the truth at last forced itself, and monstrous as the story,
incredible as Arthur’s action still appeared, he had at last to accept
it and its consequences—its consequences!
He seemed to grow years older as he listened, but when Clement had
done, and the whole shameful story was told, he made no comment. The
position, indeed, was no worse than it had been twenty-four hours
before. He might still hope against hope, that, by putting a bold face
on matters, and by a dexterous use of his resources, he might ride out
the storm. But the reaction from a triumphant confidence was so sudden,
the failure of his recent expectations so overwhelming, that even his
firm spirit yielded. He sank into his chair. Betty laid her hand on his
shoulder and whispered some word of comfort in his ear, but he said
nothing.
It was Clement who spoke the first word. “I am going after him,” he
said, his tone hard and practical. “I have thought it out, and by
posting all night I may be in London by noon to-morrow, and I may
intercept him either at the brokers’ or at the India House before he
has sold the stock. In that case I may be in time to stop him.”
“Why?” the banker asked, looking up. “What have we to do with him? Why
should we stop him?”
“For our own sakes as well as his,” Clement answered firmly. “For our
own good name, which is bound up with his. Think, think, sir, of the
harm it will do us if there is a prosecution—and the old man swears
that he will not acknowledge the signature! Besides I have promised to
stop him—if I can. If I am too late to do that, and he has sold the
stock, I can still get possession of the money, and it must be our
business to return it to the owner without the loss of an hour. Of an
hour, sir!” Clement repeated earnestly. “We must repudiate this
transaction from the outset. We must wash our hands of it at once, if
it be only to clear our own name.”
The banker looked dazed. “But,” he said, as if his mind were beginning
to work again, “why should we—take all this trouble?” He hesitated,
then he began again. “We have done nothing. We are innocent. Why should
we——”
“Stop him?”
“Ay, or be in such a hurry to return the money? It is no fault of ours
if it does come to our hands. And, remember, if it lies with us only a
week”—he looked at his son, his face troubled—“only a week, the
position is such——”
“No! no!” Clement cried, and for once he spoke preemptorily. “Not for a
day, father, not for an hour! And when you have thought it over as I
have, when you have had time to think it over, you will see that. You
will be the first, the very first, to see that, and to say that we must
have no part or share with Bourdillon in this; that if we must go down
we will go down with clean hands. To avail ourselves of this money,
even for a day, and though it would save the bank twice over, would be
to make us accomplices——”
The banker stood up. “Right!” he said firmly. “You are right, lad!” He
drew a deep breath, the color returned to his face. He laid his hand on
Clement’s shoulder. “You are quite right, my boy, and I wasn’t myself
when I said that. You shall have no reason to blush for your father.
You are quite right. We will repudiate the transaction from the first.
We will have neither art nor part in it. We will return the money the
moment it comes into your hands!”
“Thank God, sir, that you see it as I do.”
“I do, I do! The money shall be paid over at once, though the shutters
go up the next hour. And we will fight our battle as we must have
fought it if this had never happened.”
“With clean hands, at any rate, sir.”
“Yes, lad, with clean hands.”
“Oh, father, that’s splendid!” Betty cried, and she pressed herself
against him. “But as for Clement going, he must be worn out. Could not
Mr. Rodd go?”
“Rodd will be of more use to you here,” Clement said. “You will be
short-handed as it is.”
“We shall pay out the more slowly,” the banker answered with grim
humor.
“And I doubt, besides,” said Clement, “if Bourdillon would listen to
Rodd.”
“Will he listen to you?”
“He will have to, or face the consequences!” And Clement looked as if
he meant it: a hard Clement this, with a new note in his voice. “From
the India House to Bow Street is not very far, and he will certainly go
to Bow Street—or the Mansion House—if he does not see reason. But he
will.”
“He may, if you are with him before he parts with the securities. But
from this to noon to-morrow you will not do it in that time, my lad, at
night? Winter time, too? You’ll never do it!”
But Clement averred that he would—in fourteen hours, with good luck. It
was for that reason that he had gone straight to the Lion and ordered a
chaise for eight o’clock and sent on word by the seven o’clock coach
for a relay to be ready at the Heygate Inn. He had also asked the Lion
to pass on word by any chaise starting in front of him. “So I hope for
two or three stages I shall find the horses ready. Betty, pack up some
food for me, that’s a good girl. I’ve only twenty minutes.”
“And your travelling cloak?” she cried. “I’ll air it.”
“You must eat something before you start,” said his father.
“Yes, I will. And, Rodd, do you get me the bank pistols—and see that
they are loaded!”
The banker nodded. “Yea, you’d better take them,” he said. “It’s an
immense sum—if you bring it back. It would be a terrible business if
you were robbed.”
“Ay, for then we should share the blame,” Clement answered drily. “That
wouldn’t do, would it? But let me get the money, and I’ll not be
robbed, sir.”
They parted, hurrying to and fro on their several errands, the banker
fetching money for the journey, Rodd loading the pistols, Betty setting
food before the traveller and cutting sandwiches for the journey,
Clement himself making some change in his dress. For ten minutes a
cheerful stir reigned in the house. But Ovington, though he yielded to
this and watched his son at his meal and filled his glass, and played
his part, did but feign. He knew that within a few minutes the door
would close on Clement, the house would relapse into silence, the
lights would go out, and he would be left to face the failure of all
the hopes, the plans and expectations which he had entertained through
the day. The odds against him, which had not seemed overwhelming
twenty-four hours before, now appeared invincible and not to be
resisted. He felt that the fates were opposed to him. He had had his
chance, and it had been withdrawn. As he climbed the stairs to bed,
climbed them slowly and with heavy feet, he read ruin in the flame of
his candle. As he undressed he heard the voices of revellers passing
the house at midnight, on their way from the Raven or the Talbot, and
he suspected derision in their tones. He fancied that they were talking
of him, jeering at him, rejoicing in his fall. In bed he lay long
awake, calculating, and trying to make of four, five. Could he hold out
till Wednesday? Till Thursday? Or would panic running through the town
on the morrow, like fire amid tinder, kindle the crowd and hurl it,
inflamed with greed and fear, upon his slender defences?
He was buying honesty at a great price. But he thought of Clement and
Betty, and towards morning he fell asleep.