The banker looked at the money lying at his feet. Clement looked at his
father. He noted the elder man’s despondent attitude, he read the lines
which anxiety had deepened on his brow, and his assumed gaiety fell
from him. He longed to say something that might comfort the other, but
_mauvaise honte_ and the reserve of years were too much for him, and
instead he rapidly and succinctly told his tale, running over what had
happened in London and on the road. He accounted for what he had
brought, and explained why he had brought it and at whose request.
Then, as the banker, lost in troubled thought, his eyes on the money,
did not speak, “It goes badly then, sir, does it?” he said. “I see that
the place is full.”
Ovington’s eyes were still on the bags, and though he forced himself to
speak, his tone was dull and mechanical. “Yes,” he said. “We paid out
fifteen thousand and odd yesterday. About six thousand in odd sums
to-day. I have just settled with Yapp—two thousand seven hundred. Mills
and Blakeway have drawn at the counter—three thousand and fifty between
them. A packet of notes from Birmingham, eleven hundred. Jenkins sent
his cheque for twelve hundred by his son, but he omitted to fill in the
date.”
“And you didn’t pay it?”
“No, I didn’t pay it. Why should I? But he will be in himself by the
two o’clock coach. The only other account—large account outstanding—is
Owen’s for eighteen hundred. Probably he will come in by the same
coach. In the meantime—” he took a slip of paper from the table—“we
have notes for rather more than two thousand still out; half of these
may not, for one reason or another, be presented. And payable on demand
we still owe something like two or three thousand.”
“You may be called upon for another six thousand, then, sir?”
“Six at best, seven thousand or a little more at worst. And we had in
the till to meet it, a quarter of an hour ago, about three thousand. We
should not have had as much if Rodd had not paid in four hundred and
fifty.”
“Rodd?” Clement eyes sparkled. “God bless him! He’s a Trojan, and I
shan’t forget it! Bravo, Rodd!”
The banker nodded, but in a perfunctory way. “That’s the position,” he
said. “If Owen and Jenkins hold off—but there’s no hope of that—we may
go on till four o’clock. But if either comes in we must close. Close,”
bitterly, “for the lack of three thousand or four thousand pounds!”
Clement sighed. Young as he was he was beginning to feel the effect of
his exertions, of his double journey, and his two sleepless nights. At
last, “No one will lose, sir?” he said.
“No, no one, ultimately and directly, by us. And if we were an old
bank, if we were Dean’s even—” there was venom in the tone in which he
uttered his rival’s name “—we might resume in a week or a fortnight. We
might reopen and go on. But,” shrugging his shoulders, “we are not
Dean’s, and no one would trust us after this. It would be useless to
resume. And, of course, the sacrifices that we have made have been very
costly. We have had to rediscount bills at fifteen per cent., and sell
a long line of securities at a loss, and what is left on our hands may
be worth money some day, but it is worthless at present.”
“Wolley’s Mill?”
“Ay, and other things. Other things.”
Clement looked at the floor, and again the longing to say something or
do something that might comfort his father pressed upon him. To himself
the catastrophe, save so far as it separated him from Josina, was a
small thing. He had had no experience of poverty, he was young, and to
begin the world at the bottom had no terrors for him. But with his
father it was different, and he knew that it was different. His father
had built up from nothing the edifice that now cracked and crumbled
about them. He had planned it, he had seen it rise and grow, he had
rejoiced in it and been proud of it. On it he had spent the force and
the energy of the best twenty years of his life, and he had not now, he
had no longer, the vigor or the strength to set about rebuilding.
It was a tragedy, and Clement saw that it was a tragedy. And all for
the lack—pity rose strong within him—all for the lack of—four thousand
pounds. To him, conversant with the bank’s transactions, it seemed a
small sum. It was a small sum.
“Ay, four thousand!” his father repeated. His eyes returned
mechanically to the money at his feet, returned and fixed themselves
upon it. “Though in a month we may be able to raise twice as much
again! And here—here”—touching it with his foot—“is the money! All, and
more than all that we need, Clement.”
Then at last Clement perceived the direction of his father’s gaze, and
he took the alarm. He put aside his reserve, he laid his hand gently on
the elder man’s shoulder, and by the pressure of his silent caress he
strove to recall him to himself, he strove to prove to him that
whatever happened, whatever befell, they were one—father and son,
united inseparably by fortune. But aloud, “No!” he said firmly. “Not
that, sir! I have given my word. And besides——”
“He would be no loser.”
“No, we should be the losers.”
“But—but it was not we, it was Bourdillon, lad!”
“Ay, it was Bourdillon. And we are not Bourdillon! Not yet! Nor ever,
sir!”
Ovington turned away. His hand shook, the papers that he affected to
put together on his desk rustled in his grasp. He knew—knew well that
his son was right. But how great was the temptation! There lay the
money at his feet, and he was sure that he could not be called to
account for it. There lay the money that would gain the necessary time,
that would meet all claims, that would save the bank!
True, it was not his, but how great was the temptation. It was so great
that what might have happened had Clement not been there, had he stood
there alone and unfettered, it is impossible to say—though the man was
honest. For it was easy, nothing was more easy, than to argue that the
bank would be saved and no man, not even the Squire, would lose. It was
so great a temptation, and the lower course appeared so plausible that
four men out of five, men of average honesty and good faith, might have
fallen.
Fortunately the habit of business integrity came to the rescue, and
reinforced and supported the son’s argument—and the battle was won.
“You are right,” the banker said huskily, his face still averted, his
hands trembling among the papers. “But take it away! For God’s sake,
boy, take it away! Take it out of my sight, or I do not know what I may
do!”
“You’ll do the right thing, sir, never fear!” the son answered
confidently. And with an effort he lifted the two heavy bags and moved
towards the door. But on the threshold and as the door closed behind
him, “Thank God!” he whispered to himself, “Thank God!” And to Betty,
who met him in the hall and flung her arms about his neck—the girl was
in tears, for the shadow of anxiety hung over the whole house, and even
the panic-stricken maids were listening on the stairs or peering from
the windows—“Take care of him, Betty,” he said, his eyes shining. “Take
care of him, girl. I shall be back by one o’clock. If I could stay with
him now I would, but I cannot. I cannot! And don’t fret. It will come
right yet!”
“Oh, poor father!” she cried. “Is there no hope, Clement?”
“Very little. But worse things have happened. And we may be proud of
him, Betty. We’ve good cause to be proud of him. I say it that know!
Cheer up!”
She watched him go with his heavy burden and his blunt common-sense
down the garden walk; and when he had disappeared behind the pear-tree
espaliers she went back to listen outside the parlor door. She had been
her father’s pet. He had treated her with an indulgence and a
familiarity rare in those days of parental strictness, and she
understood him well, better than others, better even than Clement. She
knew what failure would mean to him. It was not the loss of wealth
which would wound him most sorely, though he would feel that; but the
loss of the position which success had gained for him in the little
world in which he lived, and lived somewhat aloof. He had been thought,
and he had thought himself, cleverer than his neighbors. He had borne
himself as one belonging to, and destined for, a wider sphere. He had
met the pride of the better-born and the older-established with a
greater pride; and believing in his star, he had allowed his contempt
for others and his superiority to be a little too clearly seen.
For all this he would now pay, and his pride would suffer. Betty,
lingering in the darker part of the hall, where the servants could not
spy on her, listened and longed to go in to him and comfort him. But
all the rules forbade this, she might not distract him at such a time.
Yet, had she known how deep was his depression as he sat sunk in his
chair, had she known how the past mocked him, and the long chain of his
successes rose and derided him, how the mirage of long-cherished hopes
melted and left all cold before him—had she guessed the full bitterness
of his spirit, she had broken through every rule and gone in to him.
The self-made man! Proudly, disdainfully he had flung the taunt back in
men’s faces. Could they make, could they have made themselves, as he
had? And now the self-ruined man! He sat thinking of it, and the
minutes went by. Twice one of the clerks came in and silently placed a
slip beside him and went softly out. He looked at the slip, but without
taking in its meaning. What did it matter whether a few more or a few
less pounds had been drawn out, whether the drain had waxed or waned in
the last quarter of an hour? The end was certain, and it would come
when the two men arrived on the Chester coach. Then he would have to
bestir himself. Then he would have to resume the lead and play the man,
give back hardness for hardness and scorn for scorn, and bear himself
so in defeat that no man should pity him. And he knew that he could do
it. He knew that when the time came his voice would be firm and his
face would be granite, and that he would pronounce his own sentence and
declare the bank closed with a high head. He knew that even in defeat
he could so clothe himself with power that no man should browbeat him.
But in the meantime he paid his debt to weakness, and sat brooding on
the past, rather than preparing for the future; and time passed, the
relentless hand moved round the clock. Twice the clerk came in with his
doom-bearing slips, and presently Rodd appeared. But the cashier had
nothing to say that the banker did not know. Ovington took the paper
and looked at the figures and at the total, but all he said was, “Let
me know when Owen and Jenkins come.”
“Very good, sir.” Rodd lingered a moment as if he would gladly have
added something, would have ventured, perhaps, some word of sympathy.
But his courage failed him and he went out.
Nor when Clement, half an hour afterwards, returned from his mission to
Garth did he give any sign. Clement laid his hand on his shoulder and
said a cheery word, but, getting no answer, or as good as none, he went
through to his desk. A moment later his voice could be heard rallying a
too conscious customer, greeting another with contemptuous good humor,
bringing into the close, heated atmosphere of the bank, where men
breathed heavily, snapped at one another, and shuffled their feet, a
gust of freer brisker air.
Another half-hour passed. A clerk brought in a slip. The banker looked
at it. No more than seven hundred pounds remained in the till. “Very
good,” he said. “Let me know when Mr. Owen and Mr. Jenkins come.” And
as the door closed behind the lad he fell back into his old posture of
depression. There was nothing to be done.
But five minutes later Clement looked in, his face concerned. “Sir
Charles Woosenham is here,” he said in a low voice. “He is asking for
you.”
The banker roused himself. The call was not unexpected nor quite
unwelcome. “Show him in,” he said; and he took up a pen and drew a
sheet of paper towards him that he might appear to be employing
himself.
Sir Charles came in, tall, stooping a little, his curly-brimmed hat in
his hand; the dignified bearing with which he was wont to fence himself
against the roughness of the outer world a little less noticeable than
usual. He was a gentleman, and he did not like his errand.
Ovington rose. “Good morning, Sir Charles,” he said, “you wanted to see
me? I am unfortunately busy this morning, but I can give you ten
minutes. What is it, may I ask?” He pushed a chair toward his visitor.
But Woosenham would not sit down. If the man was down he hated to—but,
there, he had come to do it. “I am sure it is all right, Mr. Ovington,”
he said awkwardly, “but I am concerned about the—about the Railway
money, in fact. The sum is large, and—and—” stammering a little—“but I
think you will understand my position?”
The banker smiled. “You wish to know if it’s safe?” he said.
“Well, yes—precisely,” with relief. “You’ll forgive me, I am sure. But
people are talking.”
“They are doing more,” Ovington answered austerely—he no longer smiled.
“They are doing their best to ruin me, Sir Charles, and to plunge
themselves into loss. But I need not go into that. You are anxious
about the Railroad money? Very good.” He rang the bell and the clerk
came in. “Go to the strong-room,” the banker said, taking some keys
from the table, “with Mr. Clement, and bring me the box with the
Railway Trust.”
“I am sorry,” Sir Charles said, when they were alone, “to trouble you
at this time, but——”
Ovington stopped him. “You are perfectly in order,” he said. “Indeed, I
am glad you have come. The box will be here in a minute.”
Clement brought it in, and Ovington took another key and unlocked it.
“It is all here,” he explained, “except the small sum already expended
in preliminary costs—the sum passed, as you will remember, at the last
meeting of the Board. Here it is.” He took a paper which lay on the top
of the contents of the box. “Except four hundred and ten pounds, ten
shillings. The rest is invested in Treasury Bills until required. The
bills are here, and Clement will check them with you, Sir Charles,
while I finish this letter. We have, of course, treated this as a Trust
Fund, and I think that the better course will be for you to affix your
seal to the box when you have verified the contents.”
He turned to his letter, though it may be doubted whether he knew what
he was writing, while Sir Charles and Clement went through the box,
verified the securities, and finally sealed the box. That done,
Woosenham would have offered fresh apologies, but the banker waved them
aside and bowed him out, directing Clement to see him to the door.
That done, left alone once more, he sat thinking. The incident had
roused him and he felt the better for it. He had been able to assert
himself and he had confirmed in good will a man who might yet be of use
to him. But he was not left alone very long. Sir Charles had not been
gone five minutes before Rodd thrust a pale face in at the door, and in
an agitated whisper informed him that Owen and Jenkins were coming down
the High Street. A scout whom the cashier had sent out had seen them
and run ahead with the news. “They’ll be here in two minutes, sir,”
Rodd added in a tone which betrayed his dismay. “What am I to do? Will
you see them, sir?”
“Certainly,” Ovington answered. “Show them in as soon as they arrive.”
He spoke firmly, and made a brave show in Rodd’s eyes. But he knew that
up to this moment he had retained a grain of hope, a feeling, vague and
baseless, that something might yet happen, something might yet occur at
the last moment to save the bank. Well, it had not, and he must steel
himself to face the worst. The crisis had come and he must meet it like
a man. He rose from his chair and stood waiting, a little paler than
usual, but composed and master of himself.
He heard the disturbance that the arrival of the two men caused in the
bank. Some one spoke in a harsh and peremptory tone, and something like
an altercation followed. Raised voices reached him, and Rodd’s answer,
civil and propitiatory, came, imperfectly, to his ear. The peremptory
voice rose anew, louder than before, and the banker’s face grew hard as
he listened. Did they think to browbeat him? Did they think to bully
him? If so, he would soon—but they were coming. He caught the sound of
the counter as Rodd raised it for the visitors to pass, and the advance
of feet, slowly moving across the floor. He fixed his eyes on the door,
all the manhood in him called up to meet the occasion.
The door was thrown open, widely open, but for a moment the banker
could not see who stood in the shadow of the doorway. Two men,
certainly, and Rodd at their elbow, hovering behind them; and they must
be Owen and Jenkins, though Rodd, to be sure, should have had the sense
to send in one at a time. Then it broke upon the banker that they were
not Owen and Jenkins. They were bigger men, differently dressed, of
another class; and he stared. For the taller of the two, advancing
slowly on the other’s arm, and feeling his way with his stick, was
Squire Griffin, and his companion was no other than Sir Charles,
mysteriously come back again.
Prepared for that which he had foreseen, Ovington was unprepared for
this, and the old man, still feeling on his unguarded side with his
stick, was the first to speak. “Give me a chair,” he grunted. “Is he
here, Woosenham?”
“Yes,” Woosenham said, “Mr. Ovington is here.”
“Then let me sit down.” And as Sir Charles let him down with care into
the chair which the astonished banker hastened to push forward, “Umph!”
he muttered, as he settled himself and uncovered his head. “Tell my
man”—this to Rodd—“to bring in that stuff when I send for it. Do you
hear? You there? Tell him to bring it in when I bid him.” Then he
turned himself to the banker, who all this time had not found a word to
say, and indeed had not a notion what was coming. He could only suppose
that the Squire had somehow revived Woosenham’s fears, in which case he
should certainly, Squire or no Squire, hear some home truths. “You’re
surprised to see me?” the old man said.
“Well, I am, Mr. Griffin. Yes.”
“Ay,” drily. “Well, I am surprised myself, if it comes to that. I
didn’t think to be ever in this room again. But here I am, none the
less. And come on business.”
The banker’s eyes grew hard. “If it is about the Railroad moneys,” he
said, “and Sir Charles is not satisfied——”
“It’s none of his business. Naught to do with the Railroad,” the Squire
answered. Then sharply, “Where’s my nephew? Is he here?”
“No, he is not at the bank to-day.”
“No? Well, he never should ha’ been! And so I told him and told you.
But you would both have your own way, and you know what’s come of it.
Hallo!” breaking off suddenly, and turning his head, for his hearing
was still good. “What’s that? Ain’t we alone?”
“One moment,” Ovington said. Rodd had tapped at the door and put in his
head.
The cashier looked at the banker, over the visitors’ heads. “Mr. Owen
and Mr. Jenkins are here,” he said in a low tone. “They wish to see
you. I said you were engaged, sir, but——” his face made the rest of the
sentence clear.
Ovington reddened, but retained his presence of mind. “They can see me
in ten minutes,” he said, coldly. “Tell them so.”
But Rodd only came a little farther into the room. “I am afraid,” he
said, dropping his voice, “they won’t wait, sir. They are——”
“Wait?” The word came from the Squire. He shot it out so suddenly that
the cashier started. “Wait? Why, hang their infernal impudence,”
wrathfully, “do they think their business must come before everybody’s?
Jenkins? Is that little Jenkins—Tom Jenkins of the Hollies?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then d—n his impudence!” the old man burst forth again in a voice that
must have wellnigh reached the street. “Little Tom Jenkins, whose
grandfather was my foot-boy, coming and interrupting my business! God
bless my soul and body, the world is turned upside-down nowadays. Fine
times we live in! Little—but, hark you, sirrah, d’you go and tell him
to go to the devil! And shut the door, man! Shut the door!”
“Tell them I will see them in ten minutes,” said the banker.
But the old man was still unappeased. “That’s what we’re coming to, is
it?” he fumed. “Confound their impudence,” wiping his brow, “and
they’ve put me out, too! I dunno where I was. Is the door closed? Oh,
’bout my nephew! I didn’t wish it, I’ve said that, and I’ve said it
often, but he’s in. He’s in with you, banker, and he’s lugged me in!
For, loth as I am to see him in it, I’m still lother that any one o’ my
name or my blood should be pointed at as the man that’s lost the
countryside their money! Trade’s bad, out of its place. But trade that
fails at other folks’ cost and ruins a sight of people who, true or
false, will say they’ve been swindled——”
“Stop!” the banker could bear it no longer, and he stepped forward, his
face pale. “No one has swindled here! No one has been robbed of his
money. No one—if it will relieve your feelings to know it, Mr. Griffin
will lose by the bank in the end. I shall pay all demands within a few
weeks at most.”
“Can you pay ’em all to-day?” asked the Squire, at his driest.
“It may be that I cannot. But every man to whom the bank owes a penny
will receive twenty shillings in the pound and interest, within a few
weeks—or months.”
“And who will be the loser, then, if the bank closes? Who’ll lose,
man?”
“The bank. No one else.”
“But you can’t pay ’em to-day, banker?”
“That may be.”
“How much will clear you? To pay ’em all down on the nail,”
truculently, “and tell ’em all to go and be hanged? Eh? How much do you
need for that?”
Ovington opened his mouth, but for a moment, overpowered by the
emotions that set his temples throbbing, he could not speak. He stared
at the gaunt, stooping figure in the chair—the stooping figure in the
shabby old riding-coat with the huge plated buttons that had weathered
a dozen winters—and though hope sprang up in him, he doubted. The man
might be playing with him. Or, he might not mean what he seemed to
mean. There might be some mistake. At last, “Five thousand pounds would
pull us through,” he said in a voice that sounded strange to himself,
“as it turns out.”
“You’d better take ten,” the Squire answered. “There,” fumbling in his
inner pocket and extracting with effort a thick packet, “count five out
of that. And there’s five in gold that my man will bring in. D’you give
me a note for ten thousand at six months—five per cent.”
“Mr. Griffin——”
“There, no words!” testily. “It ain’t for you I’m doing it, man.
Understand that! It ain’t for you. It’s for my name and my nephew,
little as he deserves it! Count it out, count it out, and give me back
the balance, and let’s be done with it.”
Ovington hesitated, his heart full, his hands trembling. He was not
himself. He looked at Woosenham. “Perhaps, Sir Charles,” he said
unsteadily, “will be good enough to check the amount with me!”
“Pshaw, man, if I didn’t think you honest I shouldn’t be here, whether
or no. No such fool! I satisfied myself of that, you may be sure,
before I came in. Count it, yourself. And there! Bid ’em bring in the
gold.”
The banker rang the bell and gave the order. He counted the notes, and
by the time he had finished, the bags had been brought in. “You’ll ha’
to take that uncounted,” the Squire said, as he heard them set down on
the floor, “as I took it myself.”
“My son will have seen to that,” Ovington replied. He was a little more
like himself now. He sat down and wrote out the note, though his hand
shook.
“Ay,” the Squire agreed, “I’m thinking he will have.” And turning his
head towards Woosenham, “He’s a rum chap, that,” he continued, with a
chuckle and speaking as if the banker were not present. “He gave me a
talking-to—me! D’you know that he got to London in sixteen hours, in
the night-time?”
“Did he, by Jove! Our friend at Halston could hardly have beaten that.”
“And nothing staged either! Railroads!” scornfully. “D’you think
there’s any need o’ railroads when a man can do that? Or that any
railroad that’s ever made will beat that? Sixteen hours, by George, a
hundred and fifty-one miles in the night-time!”
Sir Charles, who had been an astonished spectator of the scene, gave a
qualified assent, and by that time Ovington was ready with his note.
The Squire pouched it with care, but cut short his thanks. “I’ve told
you why I do it,” he said gruffly. “And now I’m tired and I’ll be
getting home. Give me your arm, Woosenham. But as we pass I’ve a word
to say to that little joker in the bank.”
He had his word, and a strange scene it was. The two great men stood
within the counter, the old man bending his hawk-like face and
sightless eyes on the quailing group beyond it, while the clerks looked
on, half in awe and half in amusement. “Fools!” said the Squire in his
harshest tone. “Fools, all of ye! Cutting your own throats and tearing
the bottom out of your own money-bags! That’s what ye be doing! And
you, Tom Jenkins, and you, Owen, that should know better, first among
’em! You haven’t the sense to see a yard before you, but elbow one
another into the ditch like a pair of blind horses! You deserve to be
ruined, every man of you, and it’s no fault o’ yourn that you’re not!
Business men? You call yourselves business men, and run on a bank as if
all the money was kept in a box under the counter ready to pay you! Go
home! Go home!” poking at them with his stick. “And thank God the
banker has more sense than you, and a sight more money than your
tuppenny ha’penny accounts run to! Damme, if I were master here, if one
single one o’ you should cross my door again! But there, take me out,
Woosenham; take me out! Pack o’ fools! Pack o’ dumb fools, they are!”
The two marched out with that, but the Squire’s words ran up and down
the town like wild-fire. What he had said and how he had said it, and
the figure little Tom Jenkins of the Hollies had cut, was known as far
as the Castle Foregate before the old man had well set his foot on the
step of his carriage. The crowd standing about Sir Charles’s four bays
in the Market Place and respectfully gazing on the postillions’ yellow
jackets had it within two minutes. Within four it was known at the
Gullet that the old Squire was supporting the bank, and had given Welsh
Owen such a talking-to as never was. Within ten, the news was being
bandied up and down the long yard at the Lion, where they stabled a
hundred horses, and was known even to the charwomen who, on their
knees, were scrubbing the floors of the Assembly Rooms that looked down
on the yard. Dean’s, at which a persistent and provoking run had been
prosecuted since morning, got it among the first; and Mr. Dean, testy
and snappish enough before, became for the rest of the day a terror and
a thunder-cloud to the junior clerks. Nay, the news soon passed beyond
Aldersbury, for the three o’clock up-coach swept it away and dropped it
with various parcels and hampers at every stage between the Falcon at
Heygate and Wolverhampton. Not a turn-pike man but heard it and spread
it, and at the Cock at Wellington they gave it to the down-coach, which
carried it back to Aldersbury.
Owen, it was known, had drawn his money. But Jenkins had thought better
of it. He had gone out of the bank with his cheque in his hand, and had
torn it up _coram public_ in the roadway; and from that moment the run,
its force already exhausted, had ceased. Half an hour later he would
have been held a fool who looked twice at an Ovington note, or
distrusted a bank into which, rumor had it, gold had been carried by
the sackful. Had not the Bank of England sent down a special messenger
bearing unstinted credit? And had not the old Squire of Garth, the
closest, stingiest, shrewdest man in the county, paid in thirty, forty,
fifty thousand pounds and declared that he would sell every acre before
the bank should fail? Before night a dozen men were considering
ruefully the thing that they had done or pondering how they might, with
the least loss of dignity, undo it. Before morning twice as many wives
had told their husbands what they thought of them, and reminded them
that they had always said how it would be—only they were never listened
to!
At the Gullet in the Shut off the Market Place, where the tap never
ceased running that evening, and half of the trade of the town pressed
in to eat liver and bacon, there was no longer any talk of Boulogne.
All the talk ran the other way. The drawers of the day were the butts
of the evening, and were bantered and teased unmercifully. Their
friends would not be in their shoes for a trifle—not they! They had
cooked their goose with a vengeance—no more golden eggs for them! And
very noticeable was it that whenever the banker’s name came up, voices
dropped and heads came together. His luck, his power, his resources
were discussed with awe and in whispers. There were not a few
thoughtful faces at the board, and here and there were appetites that
failed, though the suppers served in the dingy low-ceiled room at the
Gullet, dark even at noon-day, were famous for their savoriness.
Very different was the scene inside the bank. At the counter, indeed,
discipline failed the moment the door fell to behind the last customer.
The clerks sprang to their feet, cheered, danced a dance of triumph,
struck a hundred attitudes of scorn and defiance. They cracked silly
jokes, and flung paper darts at the public side; they repaid by every
kind of monkey trick the alarms and exertions from which they had
suffered during three days. They roared, “Oh, dear, what can the matter
be!” in tones of derision that reached the street. They challenged the
public to come on—to come on and be hanged! They ceased to make a noise
only when breath failed them.
But in the parlor, whither Clement, followed after a moment’s
hesitation by Rodd, had hastened to join and to congratulate his
father, there was nothing of this. The danger had been too pressing,
the margin of safety too narrow to admit of loud rejoicing. The three
met like ship-wrecked mariners drawn more closely together by the
ordeal through which they had passed, like men still shaken by the
buffeting of the waves. They were quiet, as men amazed to find
themselves alive. The banker, in particular, sat sunk in his chair,
overcome as much by the scene through which he had passed as by a
relief too deep for words. For he knew that it was by no art of his
own, and through no resources of his own that he survived, and his
usual self-confidence, and with it his aplomb, had deserted him. In a
room vibrating with emotion they gazed at one another in thankful
silence, and it was only after a long interval that the older man let
his thoughts appear. Then “Thank God!” he said unsteadily, “and you,
Clement! God bless you! If we owe this to any one we owe it to you, my
boy! If you had not been beside me, God knows what I might not have
done!”
“Pooh, pooh, sir,” Clement said; yet he did but disguise deep feeling
under a mask of lightness. “You don’t do yourself justice. And for the
matter of that, if we have to thank any one it is Rodd, here.” He
clapped the cashier on the shoulder with an intimacy that brought a
spark to Rodd’s eyes. “He’s not only stuck to it like a man, but if he
had not paid in his four hundred and fifty——”
“No, no, sir, we weren’t drawn down to that—quite.”
“We were mighty near it, my lad. And easily might have been.”
“Yes,” said the banker; “we shall not forget it, Rodd. But, after all,”
with a faint smile, “it’s Bourdillon we have to thank.” And he
explained the motives which, on the surface at least, had moved the
Squire to intervene. “If I had not taken Bourdillon in when I did——”
“Just so,” Clement assented drily. “And if Bourdillon had not——”
“Umph! Yes. But—where is he? Do you know?”
“I don’t. He may be at his rooms, or he may have ridden out to his
mother’s. I’ll look round presently, and if he is not in town I’ll go
out and tell him the news.”
“You didn’t quarrel?”
Clement shrugged his shoulders. “Not more than we can make up,” he said
lightly, “if it is to his interest.”
The banker moved uneasily in his chair. “What is to be done about him?”
he asked.
“I think, sir, that that’s for the Squire. Let us leave it to him. It’s
his business. And now—come! Has any one told Betty!”
The banker rose, conscience-stricken. “No, poor girl, and she must be
anxious. I quite forgot,” he said.
“Unless Rodd has,” Clement replied, with a queer look at his father.
For Rodd had vanished while they were talking of Arthur, whom it was
noteworthy that neither of them now called by his Christian name.
“Well go and tell her,” said Ovington, reverting to his everyday tone.
And he turned briskly to the door which led into the house. He opened
it, and was crossing the hall, followed by Clement, who was anxious to
relieve his sister’s mind, when both came to a sudden stand. The banker
uttered an exclamation of astonishment—and so did Betty. For Rodd, he
melted with extraordinary rapidity through a convenient door, while
Clement, the only one of the four who was not taken completely by
surprise, laughed softly.
“Betty!” her father cried sternly. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Well, I thought—you would know,” said Betty, blushing furiously. “I
think it’s pretty plain.” Then, throwing her arms round her father’s
neck, “Oh, father, I’m so glad, I’m so glad, I’m so glad!”
“But that’s an odd way of showing it, my dear.”
“Oh, he quite understands. In fact”—still hiding her face—“we’ve come
to an understanding, father. And we want you”—half laughing and half
crying—“to witness it.”
“I’m afraid I did witness it,” gravely.
“But you’re not going to be angry? Not to-day? Not to-day, father.” And
in a small voice, “He stood by you. You know how he stood by you. And
you said you’d never forget it.”
“But I didn’t say that I should give him my daughter.”
“No, father; she gave herself.”
“Well, there!” He freed himself from her. “That’s enough now, girl.
We’ll talk about it another time. But I’m not pleased, Betty.”
“No?” said Betty, gaily, but dabbing her eyes at the same time. “He
said that. He said that you would not be pleased. He was dreadfully
afraid of you. And I said you wouldn’t be pleased, too. But——”
“Eh?”
“I said you’d come to it, father, by and by. In good time.”
“Well, I’m——” But what the banker was, was lost in the peal of laughter
that Clement could no longer restrain.