The news of the failures which convulsed the City on that Black Monday
did not reach Aldersbury until late on the Tuesday—the tidings came in
with the mails. But hours before that, and even before the opening of
the bank, things in the town had come to a climax. The women, always
more practical than the men and less squeamish, had taken fright and
been talking. In many a back parlor in Maerdol, and the Foregate, and
on the Cop, wives had spoken their minds. They wouldn’t be scared out
of asking for their own, by any banker that ever lived, they said. Not
they! “Would you, Mrs. Gittins?” quoth one.
“Not I, ma’am, if I had it to ask for, as your goodman has. I’d not
sleep another night before I had it tight and right.”
“No more he shall! What, rob his children for fear of a stuffy old
man’s black looks? But I’ll see him into the bank myself, and see that
he brings it out, too! I’ll answer for that!”
“And you’re in the right, ma’am, seeing it’s yours. Money’s not that
easy got we’re to be robbed of it. Now those notes with CO. on them
they’re money anyways, I suppose? There’s nothing can alter them, I’m
thinking. I’ve two of them at home, that my lad——”
“Oh, Mrs. Gittins!” And superior information raised its hands in
horror. “You understand nothing at all. Don’t you know they’re the
worst of all? If those shutters—go—up at that bank,” dramatically,
“they’ll not be worth the paper they’re printed on! You take my advice
and go this very minute and buy something at Purslow’s or Bowdler’s,
and get them changed. And you’ll thank me for that word, Mrs. Gittins,
as long as you live.”
Upset was not the word for Mrs. Gittins, who had thought herself
outside the fray. “Well, they be thieves and liars!” she gasped. “And
Dean’s too, ma’am? You don’t mean to say——”
“I wouldn’t answer even for them,” darkly. “If you ask me, I’d let some
one else have ’em, Mrs. Gittins. Thank the Lord, I’ve none of them on
my mind!”
And on that Mrs. Gittins waddled away, and two minutes later stood in
Purslow’s shop, inwardly “all of a twitter,” but outwardly looking as
if butter would not melt in her mouth. But, alas! Purslow’s was out of
change that day; and so, strange to say, was Bowdler’s. Most
unlucky—great scarcity of silver—Government’s fault—should they book
it? But Mrs. Gittins, although she was all of a twitter, as she
explained afterwards, was not so innocent as that, and got away without
making her purchase.
Still, that was the way talk went, up and down Bride Hill and in
Shocklatch, at front door and back door alike. And the men were not
ill-content to be bidden. Some had passed a sleepless night, and had
already made up their minds not to pass another. Others had had a nudge
or a jog of the elbow from a knowing friend, and had been made as wise
by a raised eyebrow as by an hour’s sermon. Worse still, some had got
hold of a story first set afloat at the Gullet—the Gullet was the
ancient low-browed tavern in the passage by the Market Place, where
punch flowed of a night, and the tradesmen of the town and some of
their betters were in the habit of supping, as their fathers and
grandfathers had supped before them. Arthur’s departure, quickly
followed by Clement’s—after dark and in a post-chaise, mark you!—had
not passed without comment; and a wiseacre had been found to explain
it. At first he had confined himself to nods and winks, but being
cornered and at the same time uplifted by liquor—for though the curious
could taste saloop at the Gullet, Heathcote’s ale was more to the taste
of the habitués, when they did not run to punch—he has whispered a
word, which had speedily passed round the circle and not been slow to
go beyond it.
“Gone! Of course they’re gone!” was the knowing one’s verdict. “And
you’ll see the old man will be gone, too, before morning, and the
strong-box with him! Open? No, they’ll not open? Never again, ten
o’clock or no ten o’clock. Well, if you must have it, I got it from
Wolley not an hour back. And he ought to know. Wasn’t he hand in glove
with them? Director of the—oh, the Railroad Shares? Waste paper! Never
were worth more, my lad. If you put your money into that, it’s on its
way to London by this time!”
“And Boulogne to-morrow,” said another, going one better, as he knocked
the ashes out of his pipe. “I’m seventy-five down by them, and that’s
the worst and the best for me! Those that are in deeper, I’m sorry for
them, but they’ve only themselves to thank! It’s been plain this month
past what was going to happen.”
One or two were tempted to ask why he hadn’t drawn out his seventy-five
pounds, if he had been so sure. But they refrained, having a wambling,
a sort of sick feeling in the pit of their stomachs. He was a rude,
overbearing fellow, and there was no knowing what he might not bring
out by way of retort.
The upshot of this and of a hundred other reports which ran about the
town like wild-fire, was that a full twenty minutes before the bank
opened on the Tuesday, its doors were the butt of a hundred eyes. Many
assembled by twos and threes in the High Street and on the Market
Place, awaiting the hour; while others took up their stand in the dingy
old Butter Cross a little above the bank, where day in and day out old
crones sat knitting and the poultry women’s baskets stood on market
days. Few thought any longer of concealment; the time for that was
past, the feeling of anxiety was too deep and too widespread. Men came
together openly, spoke of their fears and cursed the banker, or
nervously fingered their pass-books, and compared the packets of notes
that they had with them.
Some watched the historic clock, but more watched, and more eagerly,
the bank. The door, the opening of which, if it were ever opened, meant
so much to so many, must have shrunk, seasoned wood as it was, under
the intensity of the gaze fixed upon it; while the windows of the
bank-house—ugh! the pretender, to set himself up after that fashion,
while all the time he was robbing the poor!—were exposed to a fire as
constant. Not a curtain moved or a blind was lowered, but the action
was marked and analyzed, deductions drawn from it, and arguments based
upon it. That was Ovington’s bedroom! No, that. And there was his girl
at the lower window—but he would not have been likely to take her with
him in any case.
As a fact, had they been on the watch a little earlier, they would have
been spared one anxiety. For about nine o’clock Ovington had shown
himself. He had left the house, crossed with a grave face to the Market
Place, and rung the bell at Dean’s. He had entered after a brief parley
with an amazed man-servant, had been admitted to see one of the
partners, and at a cost to his pride, which only he could measure, the
banker had stooped to ask for help. Between concerns doing business in
the same town, relations must exist and transactions must pass even
when they are in competition; and Dean’s and Ovington’s had been no
exception to the rule. But the elder bank had never forgotten that they
had once enjoyed a monopoly. They had neither abandoned their claims
nor made any secret of their hostility, and Ovington knew that it was
to the last degree unlikely that they would support him, even if they
had the power to do so.
But he had convinced himself that it was his duty to make the attempt,
however hopeless it might seem, and however painful to himself—and few
things in his life had been more painful. To play the suppliant, he who
had raised his head so high, and by virtue of an undoubted touch of
genius had carried it so loftily, this was bad enough. But to play the
suppliant to the very persons on whom he had trespassed, and whom he
had defied, to open his distresses to those to whom he had pretended to
teach a newer and sounder practice, to acknowledge in act, if not in
word, that they had been right and he wrong, this indeed was enough to
wring the proud man’s heart, and bring the perspiration to his brow.
Yet he performed the task with the dignity, of which, as he had risen
in the world, he had learned the trick, and which even at this moment
did not desert him. “I am going to be frank with you, Mr. Dean,” he
said when the door had closed on the servant and the two stood eye to
eye. “There is going, I fear, to be a run on me to-day, and
unfortunately I have been disappointed in a sum of twelve thousand
pounds, which I expected to receive. I do not need the whole,
two-thirds of the sum will meet all the demands which are likely to be
made upon me, and to cover that sum I can lodge undeniable security,
bills with good names—I have a list here and you can examine it. I
suggest, Mr. Dean, that in your own interests as well as in mine you
help me. For if I am compelled to close—and I cannot deny that I may
have to close, though I trust for a short time only—it is certain that
a very serious run will be made upon you.”
Mr. Dean’s eyes remained cold and unresponsive. “We are prepared to
meet it,” he answered frostily. “We are not afraid.” He was a tall man,
thin and dry, without a spark of imagination, or enterprise. A man
whose view was limited to his ledger, and who, if he had not inherited
a business, would never have created one.
“You are aware that Poles’ and Williams’s have failed?”
“Yes. I believe that our information is up to date.”
“And that Garrard’s at Hereford closed yesterday?”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“The times are very serious, Mr. Dean. Very serious.”
“We have foreseen that,” the other replied. They were both standing.
“The truth is, we are paying for a period of reckless trading,
encouraged in my humble opinion, Mr. Ovington”—he could not refrain
from the stab—“by those who should have restrained it.”
Ovington let that pass. He had too much at stake to retort. “Possibly,”
he said. “Possibly. But we have now to deal with the present—as it
exists. It is on public rather than on private grounds that I appeal to
you, Mr. Dean. A disaster threatens the community. I appeal to you to
help me to avert it. As I have said, securities shall be placed in your
hands, more than sufficient to cover the risk. Approved securities to
your satisfaction.”
But the other shook his head. He was enjoying his triumph—a triumph
beyond his hopes. “What you suggest,” he said, a faint note of sarcasm
in his tone, “comes to this, Mr. Ovington—that we pool resources? That
is how I understand you?”
“Practically.”
“Well, I am afraid that in justice to our customers I must reply that
we cannot do that. We must think of them first, and of ourselves next.”
Ovington took up his hat. The other’s tone was coldly decisive. Still
he made a last effort. “Here is the list,” he said. “Perhaps if you and
your brother went over it at your leisure?”
But Dean waved the list away. “It would be useless,” he said. “Quite
useless. We could not entertain the idea.” He was already anticipating
the enjoyment with which he would tell his brother the news.
With a heavy heart, Ovington replaced the list in his breast pocket.
“Very good,” he said. His face was grave. “I did not expect—to be
frank—any other answer, Mr. Dean. But I thought it was my duty to see
you. I regret your decision. Good-morning.”
“Good-morning,” the other banker replied, and he rang for his
man-servant.
“They’re gone,” he reflected complacently, as the door closed behind
his visitor. “Smashed, begad!” and with the thought he rid himself of a
sense of inferiority which had more than once troubled him in his
rival’s presence. He sat down to eat his breakfast with a good
appetite. The day would be a trying one, but Dean’s, at any rate, was
safe. Dean’s, thank God, had never put its hand out farther than it
could draw it back. How pleased his brother would be!
That was the worst, immeasurably the worst, of Ovington’s experiences,
but it was not the only painful interview that was in store for him
before the bank opened that morning. Twice, men, applying, stealthy and
importunate, at the back door, forced their way in to him. They were
not of those who had claims on the bank and feared to be losers by it.
They were in debt to it, but desperate and pushed for money they saw in
the bank’s necessity their opportunity. They—one of the two was
Purslow—required only small sums, and both had conceived the idea that,
as the bank was about to fail, it would be all one to Ovington whether
he obliged them or not. It would be but a hundred or so the less for
the creditors, and as the bank had sold their pledged stocks they
thought that it owed them something. They had still influence, their
desperate straits were not yet known; if he obliged them they would do
this and that and the other—nebulous things—for him.
Ovington, of course, could do nothing for them, but to harden his heart
against their appeals was not a good preparation for the work before
him, and when he entered the bank five minutes before ten, he had to
brace himself in order to show an unmoved front to the clerks.
He need not have troubled himself. Rodd knew all, and the two lads, on
their way to the bank that morning, had been badgered out of such
powers of observation as they possessed. They had been followed,
cornered, snatched in this direction and that, rudely questioned, even
threatened. Were they going to open? Where was the gaffer? Was he gone?
They had been wellnigh bothered out of their lives, and more than once
had been roughly handled. It seemed as if all Aldersbury was against
them—and they did not like it. But Ovington had the knack of attaching
men to him, the lads were loyal, and they had returned only hard words
to those who waylaid them. Pay? They could pay all the dirty money in
Aldersbury! Mr. Ovington? Well, they’d see. They’d see where he was,
and be licking his boots in a week’s time. And they’d better take their
hands off them! The stouter even threatened fisticuffs. A little more
and he’d give his questioners a lick over the chops. Come now, give
over, or he’d show them a trick of Dutch Sam’s they wouldn’t like.
The two arrived at the bank, panting and indignant, their coats half
off their backs; and Rodd, whose impeccable respectability no one had
ventured to assail, had to say a few sharp words before they settled
down and the counter assumed the calm and orderly aspect that, in his
eyes, the occasion required. He was himself simmering with indignation,
but he let no sign of it appear. He had made all his arrangements
beforehand, seen every book in its place, and the cash where it could
be handled—and a decent quantity, sufficient to impose on the
vulgar—laid in sight. After a few words had been exchanged between him
and Ovington, the latter retired to the desk behind the curtain, and
the other three took their places. Nothing remained but to watch—the
seniors with trepidation, the juniors with a not unpleasant
excitement—the minute hand of the clock. It wanted three minutes of
ten.
And already, though from their places behind the counter the clerks
could not see it, the watching groups before the bank had grown into a
crowd. It lined the opposite pavement, it hung a fringe two-deep on the
steps of the Butter Cross, it extended into the Market Place, it
stretched itself half-way down the hill. And it made itself heard. The
voices of those who passed along the pavement, the scraps of talk half
caught, the sudden exclamation, merged in a murmur not loud but
continuous, and fraught with something of menace. Once, on the fringe
of the gathering, there was an outburst of booing, but it ceased as
suddenly as it had risen, suppressed by the more sober element; and
once a hand tried the doors, a voice surprisingly loud, cried, “They’re
fast enough!” and footsteps retreated across the pavement. The driver
of a cart descending the hill called to “Make way! Make way!” and that,
too, reached those within almost as plainly as if it had been said in
the room. Something, too, happened on it, for a shout of laughter
followed.
It wanted two—it wanted one minute of ten. Rodd gave the order to open.
The younger clerk stepped forward and drew the bolts. He turned the
key, and opened one leaf of the door. The other was thrust open from
without. The clerk slid under the counter to his place. They came in.
They came in, three abreast, elbowing and pushing one another in their
efforts to be first. In a moment they were at the counter, darting
suspicious glances at the clerks and angry looks at one another, and
with them entered an atmosphere of noise and contention, of trampling
feet and peevish exclamations. The bank, so still a moment before, was
filled with clamor. There were tradesmen among them, a little uncertain
of themselves and thankful that Ovington was not visible, and one or
two bluff red-faced farmers who cared for nobody, and slapped their
books down on the counter; and there were also a few, of the better
sort, who looked straight before them and endeavored to see as little
as possible—with a sprinkling of small fry, clerks and lodging-house
keepers and a coal-hawker, each with his dirty note gripped tight in
his fist. The foremost rapped on the counter and cried “Here, Mister,
I’m first!” “No, I!” “Here, you, please attend to me!” They pressed
their claims rudely, while those in the rear uttered impatient
remonstrances, holding their books or their notes over the heads of
others in the attempt to gain attention. In a moment the bank was
full—full to the doors, full of people, full of noise.
Rodd’s cold eye travelled over them, measured them, weighed them. He
was filled with an immense contempt for them, for their folly, their
greed, their selfishness. He raised his hand for silence. “This is not
a cock-fight,” he said in a tone as withering as his eye. “This is a
bank. When you gentlemen have settled who comes first. I will attend to
you.” And then, as the noise only broke out afresh and more loudly,
“Well, suppose I begin at the left hand,” he said. He passed to that
end of the counter. “Now, Mr. Buffery, what can I do for you. Got your
book?”
But Mr. Buffery had not got his book, as Rodd had noticed. On that the
cashier slowly drew from a shelf below the counter a large ledger, and,
turning the leaves, began a methodical search for the account.
But this was too much for the patience of the man last on the right,
who saw six before him, and had left no one to take care of his shop.
“But, see here,” he cried imperiously. “Mr. Rodd, I’m in a hurry! If
that young man at the desk could attend to me I shouldn’t take long.”
Rodd, keeping his place in the book with his finger, looked at him. “Do
you want to pay in, Mr. Bevan?” he asked gravely.
“No. I want forty-two, seven, ten. Here’s my cheque.”
“You want cash?”
“That’s it.”
“Well, I’m the cashier in this bank. No one else pays cash. That’s the
rule of the bank. Now, Mr. Buffery,” leisurely turning back to the page
in the ledger, and running his finger down it. “Thirty-five, two, six.
That’s right, is it?”
“That’s right, sir.” Buffery knuckled his forehead gratefully.
“You’ve brought a cheque?”
But Buffery had not brought a cheque. Rodd shrugged his shoulders,
called the senior clerk forward, and entrusted the customer, who was no
great scholar, to his care. Then he closed the ledger, returned it
carefully to the shelf, and turned methodically to the next in the
line. “Now, Mr. Medlicott, what do you want? Are you paying, or
drawing?”
Mr. Medlicott grinned, and sheepishly handed in a cheque. “I’ll draw
that,” he mumbled, perspiring freely, while from the crowd behind him,
shuffling their feet and breathing loudly, there rose a laugh. Rodd
brought out the ledger again, and verified the amount. “Right,” he said
presently, and paid over the sum in Dean’s notes and gold.
The man fingered the notes and hesitated. Rodd, about to pass to the
next customer, paused. “Well, ain’t they right?” he said. “Dean’s
notes. Anything the matter with them?”
The man took them without more, and Rodd paid the next and the next in
the same currency, knowing that it would be remarked. “I’ll give them a
jog while I can,” he thought. “They deserve it.” And, sure enough,
every note of that bank that he paid out was presented across the
counter at Dean’s within the hour. It gave Mr. Dean something to think
about.
No one, in truth, could have done the work better than Rodd. He was so
cool, so precise, so certain of himself. Nothing put him out. He
plodded through his usual routine at his usual leisurely pace. He
recked nothing of the impatient shuffling crowd on the other side of
the counter, nothing of the greedy eyes that grudged every motion of
his hand. They might not have existed for him. He looked through them.
A plodder, he had no nerves. He was the right man in the right place.
At noon, taking with him a slip of paper, he went to report to
Ovington, who had retired to the parlor. They had paid out seventeen
hundred pounds in the two hours. At this rate they could go on for a
long time. There was only one large account in the room—should he call
it up and pay it? It might have a good effect.
Ovington agreed, and Rodd returned to the counter. His eye sought out
Mr. Meredith. “I don’t know what you’re doing here,” he said austerely.
“But I suppose your time is worth something. If you’ll pass up your
cheque I’ll let you go.”
The small fry clamored, but Rodd looked through them. “Eight hundred
and ten,” said Meredith with a sigh of relief, passing his cheque over
the heads of those before him. He was not ashamed of his balance, but
for the moment he was ashamed of himself. He began to suspect that he
had let himself be carried away with a lot of silly small chaps—yet his
fingers itched to hold the money.
Rodd confirmed the account, fluttered a packet of notes, counted them
thrice and slowly, and tossed them to Mr. Meredith. “I make them
right,” he said, “but you’d better count them.” Then, to one or two who
were muttering something about illegal preference, “Bless your innocent
hearts,” he said, “you’ll all be paid!” And he took the next in order
as if nothing had happened.
It had its effect, and so had a thing that half an hour later broke the
dreary monotony of paying out. A man at the back who had just pressed
in—for the crowd, reinforced by new arrivals, was very nearly as large
as at the hour of opening—raised his voice, complaining bitterly that
he could not stay there all day, and that he wanted to pay in some
money and go about his business.
There was a stir of surprise. A dozen turned to look at him.
“Good lord!” someone exclaimed.
Only Rodd was unmoved. “Get a pay slip,” he said to the senior clerk,
who had been pretty well employed filling in cheques for the illiterate
and examining notes. “Now, gentlemen, fair play. Let his pass through.
Oh, it’s Mr. Walker, is it? How much, Mr. Walker?”
“Two seven six, ten,” said Mr. Walker, laying a heavy canvas bag on the
counter. Rodd untied the neck of the bag and upset the contents, notes
and gold, before him. He counted the money with professional deftness,
whilst the clerk filled in the slip. “How’s your brother?” he asked.
“Pretty tidy.”
“And how are things in Wolverhampton?”
“So, so! But not so bad as they were.”
“Thank you. You’re the only sensible man I’ve seen to-day, and we shall
not forget it. Now, gentlemen, next please.”
Mr. Walker was closely inspected as he pushed his way out, and one or
two were tempted to say a word of warning to him, but thought better of
it, and held their peace. About two in the afternoon a Mr. Hope of
Bretton again broke the chain of withdrawals. He paid in two hundred.
Him a man did pluck by the sleeve, muttering “Have a care, man! Have a
care what you’re doing!” But Mr. Hope, a bluff tradesman-looking person
only answered, “Thank ye, but I am up to snuff. If you ask me I think
you’re a silly set of fools.”
News of him and of what he had said, and indeed of much more than he
had said, ran quickly through the crowd that wondered and waited all
day before the bank; that snapped up every rumor, and devoured the
wildest inventions. The bank would close at one! It would close at
three—the speaker had it on the best authority! It would close when so
and so had been paid! Ovington, the rascal, had fled. He was in the
bank, white as a sheet. He had attempted suicide. There was a warrant
out for him. The crowd moved hither and thither, like the colors in a
kaleidoscope. On its outer edges there was horseplay. Children chased
one another up and down the Butter Cross steps, fell over the old women
who knitted, were cuffed by the men, driven out by the Beadle—only to
return again.
But under the trivialities there was tense excitement. Now and again a
man who had been slow to take the alarm forced his way, pale and
agitated, through the crowd, to vanish within the doors; or a
countryman, whom the news had only just reached in his boosey-close or
his rickyard—as they call a stackyard in Aldshire—rode up the hill, hot
with haste and cursing those who blocked his road, flung his reins to
the nearest bystander, and plunged into the bank as into water. And on
the fringe, hiding themselves in doorways, or in the dark mouths of
alleys, were men who stood biting their nails, heedless or unconscious
of what passed about them; or who came staggering up from the Gullet
with stammering tongues and eyes bloodshot with drink—men who a year
before had been well-to-do, sober citizens, fathers of families. All
one to them now whether Ovington’s stood or fell! They had lost their
all, and to show for it and for all that they had ever been worth had
but a few pieces of printed paper, certificates, or what not, which
they took out and read in corners, as if something of hope might still,
at the thousandth time of reading be derived from them, or which they
brandished aloft in the tavern with boasts of what they would have
gained if trickery had not robbed them. So, though the crowd had its
humors and was swept at times by gusts of laughter, the spectre of ruin
stood, gaunt and bleak, in the background, and many a heart quailed
before grim visions of bailiffs and forced sales and the workhouse—the
workhouse, that in Aldersbury, where they were nothing if not genteel,
they called the House of Industry.
And Ovington, as he sat over his books, or peered from time to time
from a window, knew this, and felt it. He would not have been human if
he had not thought with longing of that twelve thousand, the use of
which had so nearly been his; ay, and with passing regret—for after all
was not the greatest good for the greatest number sound morality?—of
the self-denying ordinance which had robbed him of it. But harassed and
heavy-hearted as he was, he remained master of himself, and his bearing
was calm and dignified, when at a quarter to four, he showed himself,
for the first time that day, in the bank.
It was still half-full, and the approach of closing time and the
certainty that they could not all be paid that day, along with the fear
that the doors would not open on the morrow, mightily inflamed those
who were not in the front rank. They clamored to be paid, brandishing
their books or their notes. Some tried prayers, addressing Rodd by
name, pleading their poverty or their services. Others reproached him
for his slowness, and swore that it was purposeful. And they would not
be still, they pushed and elbowed one another, rose on tiptoe and
shuffled their feet, quarrelled among themselves.
Their voices filled the bank, passed beyond it, were heard in the
street. Rodd worked on bravely, but the perspiration stood on his brow,
while the clerks, flurried and nervous, looked now at the clock and now
at the malcontents whose violence and restlessness seemed to treble
their numbers.
Then it was that Ovington came in, and on the instant the noise died
down, and there was silence. He advanced without speaking to within a
few feet of the counter. He was cold, composed, upright, dignified. And
still he did not speak. He surveyed his customers, his spectacles in
his hand. His eyes took in each. At length, “Gentlemen,” he said
quietly, “there is no need for this excitement. You will all be paid.
We are shorthanded to-day, but I had no reason to suppose that those
who know me as well as most of you do know me—and there are some here
who have known me all my life—would distrust me. However, as we are
shorthanded, the bank will remain open to-day until half-past four. Mr.
Rodd, you will see, if you please, that the requirements of those now
in the room are met. I need not add that the bank will open at the
usual time to-morrow. Good-day, gentlemen.”
They raised a feeble cheer in their relief, and in the act of turning
away, he paused. “Mr. Ricketts,” he said, singling out one, “you are
here about those bills? They are important. If you will bring them
through to me—yes, if you please?”
The man whom he had addressed, a banker’s clerk, followed him
thankfully into the parlor. His uneasiness had been great, for, though
he had not joined in his neighbors’ threats, his employers’ claim
exceeded those of all the rest put together.
“We daren’t wait, Mr. Ovington,” he said apologetically. “Our people
want it. I take it, it is all right, sir?”
“Quite,” Ovington said. “You have them here? What is the total?”
“Eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, six, eight, sir.”
Ovington examined the bills with a steady hand and wrote the amount on
a slip of paper. He rang the bell, and the younger clerk came in.
“Bring me that,” he said “as quickly as you can.” Then to his visitor,
“My compliments to Mr. Allwood. Will you tell him that his assistance
has been of material use to me, and that I shall not forget it? I was
sorry to hear of Gibbons’ failure.”
“Yes, sir. Very unfortunate. Very unfortunate, indeed?”
“He is no loser by them, I hope?”
“Well, he is, sir, I am sorry to say.”
“Ah, I am sorry.” And when the lad had brought in the money, and the
account was settled, “Are you returning to-night?”
“No, sir. My instructions were to travel by daylight.”
“Then you have an opportunity of stating outside, that you have been
paid? I am anxious, of course, to stop this foolish run.”
The man said he would not fail to do so, and Ovington thanked him and
saw him out by the private door. Then, taking with him certain books
and the slips of paper that Rodd had sent in to him at hourly
intervals, he went into the dining-room. Things were no worse than he
had expected, but they were no better. Or, yes, they were, a few
hundreds better.
Betty was there, awaiting him with an anxious face. She had had no
slips to inform her from hour to hour how things went, and she had been
too wise to intrude on her father. But many times she had looked from
the windows on the scene before the bank, on the shifting crowd, the
hasty arrivals, the groups that clung unwearied to the steps of the
Butter Cross; and though poverty—she was young—had few terrors for her,
she comprehended only too well what her father was suffering—ay, and,
though it was a minor evil, what a blister to his pride was this
gathering of his neighbors to witness his fall!
So, though she could have put on an appearance of cheerfulness, she
felt that it would not accord with his mood, and instead, “Well,
father,” she said, with loving anxiety, “is it bad or good?” And, as he
sank wearily into his chair, she passed her arm about his shoulders.
“Well,” he replied, with the sigh of a tired man, “it is pretty much as
we expected. I don’t know, child, that it is better or worse. But Rodd
will be here presently and he will tell us. He must be worn out, poor
chap. He has borne the brunt of the day, and he has borne it famously.
Famously! I offered to take his place at the dinner-hour but he would
not have it. He has not left the counter for five minutes at a time,
and he has shown splendid nerve.”
“Then you have not missed the others much?”
“No. We did not wish to pay out too quickly. Well—let us have some tea.
Rodd will be glad of it. He has not tasted food since ten o’clock.”
“Did you go in, father?”
“For a minute,” smiling, “to scold them.”
“Oh, they are horrid!”
“No, they are just frightened. Frightened, child! We should do the same
in their place.”
“No,” Betty said stoutly. “I shouldn’t! And I could never like anyone
who did! Never!”
“Did what?”
“Took money from you when you wanted it so much! I think they’re mean!
Mean! And I shall never think anything else!” Betty’s eyes sparkled,
she was red with indignation. But the heat passed, and now she was
paler than usual, she looked sad. Perhaps she had forgotten how things
were, and now remembered; or perhaps—at any rate the glow faded and she
was again the Betty of late days—a tired and depressed Betty.
She had seen to it that the fire was clear and the lamps burned
brightly; had she not visited the room a dozen times to see to it? And
now the curtains had been drawn, the tea-tray had come in, the kettle
sang on the hob, the silver and china, reflecting the lights, twinkled
a pleasant welcome to the tired man. Or they would have, if he could
have believed that the comfort about him was permanent. But how
long—the doubt tortured him—would it be his? How long could he ensure
it for others? The waiting, anxious crowd, the scared faces, the
clamorous customers, these were the things he saw, the things that
blotted out the room and darkened the future. These were the only
realities, the abiding, the menacing facts of life. He let his chin
fall on his hand, and gazed moodily into the fire. A Napoleon of
finance? Ay, but a Napoleon, crushed in the making, whose Waterloo had
met him at Arcola!
He straightened himself when Rodd’s step was heard in the passage, and
he rose to take the last slip from the cashier’s hand.
“Sit down, man, sit down,” he said. “Betty, give Rodd a cup of tea. He
must need it. Well?” putting on his glasses to consult the slip.
“We’ve paid out thirteen thousand two hundred and ten, sir.”
“Through one pair of hands! Well done! A fine feat, Rodd, and I shall
not forget it. Umph!” thoughtfully, “that is just about what we
expected. Neither much better nor much worse. What we did not
expect—but sit down and drink your tea, man. Betty!”
“Yes, father.”
“Pass the toast to him. He deserves all we can do for him. What we did
not expect,” reverting to the slip with a wrinkled brow, “were the
payments in. Four hundred and seventy odd! I don’t understand that. No
other sign of returning credit, Rodd? Was it some one we’ve obliged?
Very unlikely, for long memories are rare at such times as these. Who
was it?”
Rodd was busy with his toast. Betty had passed it to him with a polite
smile. “There were two, sir, I think,” he said. He spoke as if he were
not quite certain.
The banker looked up in surprise. “Think!” he said. “Why, you must
know.”
“Well, there were two, sir, I am sure. But paying out all day——”
“You’d remember who paid in, I should think. When there were but two.
You must remember who they were.”
“One was from Wolverhampton, I know,” Rodd replied, “Mr. Watkins—or
Walker.”
“Walker or Watkins? Of Wolverhampton? I don’t remember any customer of
that name. And the other? Who was he?”
“From somewhere Bretton way. I could look him up.”
The banker eyed Rodd closely. Had the day’s work been too much for him?
“You could look him up?” he rejoined. “Why, man, of course you could.
Four hundred and seventy! A bank has failed before now for lack of
less. All good notes, I suppose? No Gibbons’ or Garrards’, eh?” an idea
striking him. “But you’d see to that. If some one had the idea of
washing his hands that way—and the two banks already closed!”
But Rodd shook his head. “No, sir. It was in gold and Bank of England
notes. I saw to that.”
“Then I don’t understand it,” the banker decided. He sat pondering—the
thing had taken hold of his mind. Was it a trick? Did they mean to draw
out the amount next morning? But, no they would not risk the money, and
he would stand no worse if they drew it. An enemy could not have done
it, then. A friend? But such friends were rare and the sum was no
trifle. The amount was more than he had received for his plate, the
proceeds of which had already gone into the cash-drawer. He pondered.
Meanwhile, “Another cup of tea?” Betty said politely. And as Rodd,
avoiding her eyes, handed her his cup, “It’s so nice to hear of
strangers helping us,” she continued with treacherous sweetness. “One
feels so grateful to them.”
Rodd muttered something, his mouth full of toast.
“It’s so fine of them to trust us, when they don’t know how things
are—as we do, of course. I think it is splendid of them,” Betty
continued. “Father, you must bring them to me, some day, when all these
troubles are over—that I may thank them.”
But her father had risen to his feet. He was standing on the hearthrug,
a queer look on his face. “I think that they are here now,” he said.
“Rodd, why did you do it?”
The cashier started. “I, sir? I don’t think I——”
“Oh, you understand, man!” The banker was much moved. “You understand
very well. Walker of Wolverhampton? You’ve a brother at Wolverhampton,
I remember, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen him. This is your three
hundred, and all you could add to it. My G—d, man——” Ovington was
certainly moved, for he seldom swore, “but if we go you’ll lose it! You
must draw it out before the bank opens to-morrow.”
“No,” said Rodd, who had turned red. “I shall do nothing of the sort,
sir. It’s as safe there as anywhere. I’m not afraid.”
“But I don’t understand,” Betty said, looking from one to the other. It
couldn’t be true. It could not be that she had made such a—a dreadful
mistake!
“There’s no Mr. Walker,” her father explained, “and no gentleman from
Bretton. They are both Rodd. It’s his money.”
“Do you mean——” in a very small voice. “I thought that Mr. Rodd took
his money out!”
“Only to put it in again when he thought that it might help us more.
But we can’t have it. He mustn’t lose his money, all I expect that
he——”
“It came out of the bank,” Rodd said, “And there’s where it belongs,
and I’m not going,” stubbornly, “to take it out. I’ve been here ten
years—very comfortable, sir. And if the bank closed where’d I be? It’s
my interest that it shouldn’t close.”
The banker turned to the fire and put one foot on the fender as if to
warm it. “Well, let it stay,” he said, but his voice was unsteady. “If
we have to close you’ll have done a silly thing—that’s all. But if we
don’t, you’ll not have been such a fool!”
“Oh, we shall not close,” Rodd boasted, and he gulped down his tea, his
ears red.
There was an embarrassing silence. Ovington turned. “Well, Betty,” he
said, attempting a lighter tone. “I thought that you were going to
thank—Mr. Walker of Wolverhampton?”
But Betty, murmuring something about an order for the servants, had
already hurried from the room.