That the Squire suffered was certain; whether he suffered more deeply
in pocket or in pride, whether he felt more poignantly the loss of his
hoarded thousands or the dishonor that Arthur had done to his name,
even Josina could not say. His ruling passions through life had been
pride of race and the desire to hoard, and it is certain that sorely
wounded in both points he suffered as acutely as age with its indurated
feelings can suffer. But after the first outburst, after the
irrepressible cry of anguish which the discovery of his nephew’s
treachery had wrung from him, he buried himself in silence. He sat
morose and unheeding, his hands clasping his stick, his sightless eyes
staring at the fire. He gave no sign, and sought no sympathy. He was
impenetrable. Even Josina would not guess what were his thoughts.
Nor did she try to learn. The misfortune was too great, the injury on
one side beyond remedy, and the girl had the sense to see this. She
hung over him, striving to anticipate his wishes and by mute signs of
affection to give him what comfort she might. But she was too wise to
trouble him with words or to attempt to administer directly to a mind
which to her was a mystery, darkened by the veil of years that
separated them.
She was sure of one thing, however, that he would not wish anything to
be said in the house; and she said nothing. But she soon found that she
must set a guard also on her looks. On the Tuesday Mrs. Bourdillon
“looked in,” as it was her habit to look in three or four times a week.
She had usually some errand to put forward, and her pretext on this
occasion was the Squire’s Christmas list. Near as he was, he thought
much of old customs, and he would not for anything have omitted to brew
a cask of October for his servants’ Christmas drinking, or to issue the
doles of beef to the men and of blankets to the women which had gone
forth from the Great House since the reign of Queen Anne. Mrs.
Bourdillon was never unwilling to gain a little reflected credit, or to
pay in that way for an hour’s job-work, so that there were few years in
which she did not contrive to graft a name or two on the list.
That was apparently her business this afternoon. But Josina, whose
faculties were quickened by the pity which she felt for the unconscious
mother, soon perceived that this was not her only or, indeed, her real
motive. The visitor was not herself. She was nervous, the current of
her small talk did not run with its usual freedom, she let her eyes
wander, she broke off and began again. By and by as the strain
increased she let her anxiety appear, and at last, “I wish you would
tell me,” she said, “what is the matter with Arthur. He is not open
with me,” raising her eyes with a piteous look to Josina’s face.
“And—and he’s something on his mind, I’m sure. I noticed it on Sunday,
and I am sure you know. Is there”—and Josina saw with compassion that
her mittened hands were trembling—“is there anything—wrong?”
The girl had her answer ready, for she had already decided what she
would say. “I am afraid that they are anxious about the bank,” she
said. “There is what they call a ‘run’ upon it.”
The explanation was serious enough, but, strange to say, Mrs.
Bourdillon looked relieved. “Oh! And I suppose that they all have to be
there?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“And that’s all?”
“I am afraid that that is enough.”
“But—but you don’t mean that there may be a—a failure?”
“I hope not. Indeed, I hope not. But people are so silly! They think
that they can all have their money out at once. And of course,” Josina
continued, speaking from a height of late-acquired knowledge, “a bank
lends its money out and cannot get it in again in a minute. But I’ve no
doubt that it will be all right. Mr. Ovington is very clever.”
Mrs. Bourdillon sighed. “That’s bad,” she said. And she seemed to think
it over. “You know that all our money is in the bank now, Josina! I
don’t know what we should do if it were lost! I don’t know what we
should do!” But, all the same, Josina was clear that this was not the
fear that her visitor had had in her mind when she entered the room.
“Nor why Arthur was so set upon putting it in,” the good lady
continued. “For goodness knows,” bridling, “we were never in trade. Mr.
Bourdillon’s grandfather—but that was in the West Indies and quite
different. I never heard anyone say it wasn’t. So where Arthur got it
from I am sure I don’t know. And, oh dear, your father was so angry
about it, he will never forgive us if it is lost.”
“I don’t think that you need be afraid,” Josina said, as lightly as she
could. “It’s not lost yet, you know. And of course we must not say a
word to anyone. If people thought that we were afraid——”
“We? But I can’t see”—Mrs. Bourdillon spoke with sudden sharpness,
“what you have to do with it?”
Josina blushed. “Of course we are all interested,” she said.
Mrs. Bourdillon saw the blush. “You haven’t—you and Arthur—made it up?”
she ventured.
Josina shook her head.
“But why not? Now—now that he’s in trouble, Josina?”
“I couldn’t! I couldn’t, indeed.”
The mother’s face fell, and she sighed. She stared for awhile at the
faded carpet. When she looked up again, the old anxiety peeped from her
eyes. “And you don’t think that—there’s anything else?” she asked, as
she prepared to rise.
“I am afraid that that is enough—to make them all anxious!”
But later, when the other was gone, Josina wondered. What had aroused
the mother’s misgivings? What had brought that look of alarm to her
eyes? Arthur’s sudden departure might have vexed her, but it could
hardly have done more, unless he had dropped some hint, or she had
other grounds for suspicion? But that was impossible, Josina decided.
And she dismissed the thought.
She went slowly upstairs. After all she had troubles enough of her own.
She had her father to think of—and Clement. They were her world,
hemispheres which, though her whole happiness depended upon it, she
could hardly hope to bring together, divided as they were by an ocean
of prejudice. How her father now regarded Clement, whether his hatred
of the name were in the slightest degree softened, whether under the
blow which had stunned him, he thought of her lover at all, or
remembered that it was he, and not Arthur, who had saved his life, she
had no notion.
Alas! it would be but natural if the name of Ovington were more hateful
to him than ever. He would attribute—she felt that he did attribute
Arthur’s fall to them. He had said that it was the poison of trade,
their trade, their cursed trade, which had entered his veins, and,
contaminating the honest Griffin blood, had destroyed him. It was they
who had ruined him!
And then, as if the stain were not enough, it was from them again that
it could not be hid. They knew of it, they must know of it. There must
be interviews about it, dealings about it, dealings with them. They
might feign horror of it, they who in the Squire’s eyes were the real
cause of it. They might hold up their hands at the fact and pity him!
Pity him! If anything, anything, she was sure, could add to her
father’s mortification, it was that the Ovingtons were involved in the
matter.
With every stair, the girl’s heart sank lower. Once more in her
father’s room, she watched him. But she was careful not to let her
solicitude appear, and though she was assiduous for his comfort and
conduced to it by keeping Miss Peacock and the servants at a distance,
she said almost as little to him as he to her. From time to time he
sighed, but it was only when she reminded him that it was his hour for
bed that he let a glimpse of his feelings appear.
“Ay,” he muttered, “I’m better there! Better there, girl!” And with one
hand on his stick and the other on his chair he raised himself up by
his arms as old men do. “I can hide my head there.”
She lent him her shoulder across the room and strove by the dumb show
of her love to give him what comfort she might, what sympathy. But
tears choked her, and she thought with anguish that he was conquered.
The unbreakable old man was broken. Shame and not the loss of his money
had broken him.
It would not have surprised her had he kept his bed next day. But
either there was still some spring of youth in him, or old age had
hardened him, for he rose as usual, though the effort was apparent. He
ate his breakfast in gloomy silence, and about an hour before noon he
declared it his will to go out. Josina doubted if he was fit for it,
but whatever the Squire willed his womenfolk accepted, and she offered
to go with him. He would not have her, he would have Calamy—perhaps
because Calamy knew nothing. “Take me to the stable,” he said. And
Josina thought “He is going to see the old mare—to bid her farewell.”
It certainly was to his old favorite that he went, and he stood for
some minutes in her box, feeling her ears and passing his hand between
her forelegs to learn if she were properly cleaned; while the grey
smelled delicately about his head, and nuzzled with her lips in his
pockets.
“Ay,” said Calamy after a while, “she were a trig thing in her time,
but it’s past. And what are the legs of a horse when it’s a race wi’
ruin?”
“What’s that?” The Squire let his stick fall to the ground. “What do
you mean?” he asked, and straightened himself, resting his hand on the
mare’s withers.
“They be all trotting and cantering,” Calamy continued with zest, as he
picked up the stick, “trotting and cantering into town since morning,
them as arn’t galloping. They be covering all the roads wi’ the
splatter and sound of them. But I’m thinking they’ll lose the race.”
“What do you mean?” the Squire growled. Something of his old asperity
had come back to him.
“Mean, master? Why, that Ovington’s got the shutters up, or as good.
Their notes is no better than last year’s leaves, I’m told. And all the
country riding and spurring in on the chance of getting change for ’em
before it’s too late! Such-like fools I never see—as if the townsfolk
will have left anything for them! Watkins o’ the Griffin, he’s three
fi-pun notes of theirs, and he was away before it was light, and Blick
the pig-killer and the overseer with him, in his tax-cart. And parson
he’s gone on his nag—trust Parson for ever thinking o’ the moth and
rust except o’ Sunday! They’ve tithe money of his. And the old maid as
live genteel in the villa at the far end o’ the street, she’ve hired
farmer Harris’s cart—white as a sheet she was, I’m told! Wouldn’t even
stay to have the mud wiped off, and she so particular! And there’s
three more of ’em started to walk it. I’m told the road is black with
them—weavers from the Valleys and their missuses, every sort of ’em
with a note in his fist! There was two of them came here, wanted to see
Mr. Arthur—thought he could do something for ’em.”
“D——n Mr. Arthur!” said the Squire. But inwardly he was thinking,
“There goes the last chance of my money! A drowning man don’t think
whether the branch he can reach is clean or dirty! But there never was
a chance. That young chap came to bamboozle me and gain time, and
that’s their play.” Aloud, “Give me my stick,” he said. “Who told
you—this rubbish?”
“Why, it’s known at the Cross! The rooks be cawing it. Ovington is over
to Bullon or some-such foreign place, these two days! And Dean he won’t
be long after him! They’re talking of him, too. Ay, Parson should ha’
thought of the poor instead of laying up where thieves break through
and steal. But we’re all things of a day!”
“Take me to the house,” said the Squire.
“Shadows as pass! Birds i’ the smoke!” continued the irrepressible
Calamy, smacking his lips with enjoyment. “Leaves and the wind blows!
Mr. Arthur—but there, your honor knows best where the shoe pinches.
Squire Acherley’s gone through on his bay, and Parson Hoggins with him,
and ‘Where’s that d—d young banker?’ he asks. Thinks I, if the Squire
heard you, you’d get a flip o’ the tongue you wouldn’t like! But he’s a
random-tandem talker as ever was! And”—halting abruptly—“by gum, I
expect here’s another for Mr. Arthur! There’s some one drove up the
drive now, and gone to the front door.”
“Take me in! Take me in!” said the Squire peevishly, his heart very
bitter within him. For this was worse than anything that he had
foreseen. His twelve thousand pounds was gone, but even that
loss—monstrous, incredible, heart-breaking loss as it was—was not the
worst. Ruin was abroad, stalking the countryside, driving rich and
poor, the widow and the orphan to one bourne, and his name—his name
through his nephew—would be linked with it, and dragged through the
mire by it, no man so poor that he might not have a fling at it. He had
held his head high, he had refused to stoop to such things, he had
condemned others of his class, Woosenham and Acherley, and their like,
because they had lowered themselves to the traffic of the market-place.
But now—now, wherever men met and bragged of their losses and cursed
their deluders, the talk would be of his nephew! His nephew! They might
even say that he had had a share in it himself, and canvass and discuss
him, and hint that he was not above robbing his neighbors—but only
above owning to the robbery!
This was worse, far worse than the worst that he had foreseen when the
lad had insisted on going his own way. Worse, far worse! Even his sense
of Arthur’s dishonor, even his remembrance of the vile, wicked,
reckless act which the young man had committed, faded beside the
prospect before him; beside the certainty that wherever, in shop or
tavern, men cursed the name of Ovington, or spoke of those who had
ruined the country-side, his name would come up and his share in the
matter be debated.
Ay, he would be mixed up in it! He could not but be mixed up in it! His
nephew! His nephew! He hung so heavily on Calamy’s arm, that the
servant for once held his tongue in alarm. They went into the house—the
house that until now dishonor had never touched, though hard times had
often straitened it, and more than once in the generations poverty had
menaced it.