SOUTH AUDLEY STREET.
The Duke of Omnium had notified to Mr. Fothergill his wish that some
arrangement should be made about the Chaldicotes mortgages, and Mr.
Fothergill had understood what the duke meant as well as though his
instructions had been written down with all a lawyer’s verbosity.
The duke’s meaning was this, that Chaldicotes was to be swept up
and garnered, and made part and parcel of the Gatherum property. It
had seemed to the duke that that affair between his friend and Miss
Dunstable was hanging fire, and, therefore, it would be well that
Chaldicotes should be swept up and garnered. And, moreover, tidings
had come into the western division of the county that young Frank
Gresham of Boxall Hill was in treaty with the Government for the
purchase of all that Crown property called the Chace of Chaldicotes.
It had been offered to the duke, but the duke had given no definite
answer. Had he got his money back from Mr. Sowerby, he could have
forestalled Mr. Gresham; but now that did not seem to be probable,
and his grace was resolved that either the one property or the other
should be duly garnered. Therefore Mr. Fothergill went up to town,
and therefore Mr. Sowerby was, most unwillingly, compelled to have a
business interview with Mr. Fothergill. In the meantime, since last
we saw him, Mr. Sowerby had learned from his sister the answer which
Miss Dunstable had given to his proposition, and knew that he had no
further hope in that direction.
There was no further hope thence of absolute deliverance, but there
had been a tender of money services. To give Mr. Sowerby his due,
he had at once declared that it would be quite out of the question
that he should now receive any assistance of that sort from Miss
Dunstable; but his sister had explained to him that it would be a
mere business transaction; that Miss Dunstable would receive her
interest; and that, if she would be content with four per cent.,
whereas the duke received five, and other creditors six, seven,
eight, ten, and heaven only knows how much more, it might be well for
all parties. He, himself, understood, as well as Fothergill had done,
what was the meaning of the duke’s message. Chaldicotes was to be
gathered up and garnered, as had been done with so many another fair
property lying in those regions. It was to be swallowed whole, and
the master was to walk out from his old family hall, to leave the
old woods that he loved, to give up utterly to another the parks and
paddocks and pleasant places which he had known from his earliest
infancy, and owned from his earliest manhood.
There can be nothing more bitter to a man than such a surrender.
What, compared to this, can be the loss of wealth to one who has
himself made it, and brought it together, but has never actually seen
it with his bodily eyes? Such wealth has come by one chance, and
goes by another: the loss of it is part of the game which the man is
playing; and if he cannot lose as well as win, he is a poor, weak,
cowardly creature. Such men, as a rule, do know how to bear a mind
fairly equal to adversity. But to have squandered the acres which
have descended from generation to generation; to be the member of
one’s family that has ruined that family; to have swallowed up in
one’s own maw all that should have graced one’s children, and one’s
grandchildren! It seems to me that the misfortunes of this world can
hardly go beyond that!
Mr. Sowerby, in spite of his recklessness and that dare-devil gaiety
which he knew so well how to wear and use, felt all this as keenly
as any man could feel it. It had been absolutely his own fault. The
acres had come to him all his own, and now, before his death, every
one of them would have gone bodily into that greedy maw. The duke
had bought up nearly all the debts which had been secured upon the
property, and now could make a clean sweep of it. Sowerby, when he
received that message from Mr. Fothergill, knew well that this was
intended; and he knew well also, that when once he should cease to be
Mr. Sowerby of Chaldicotes, he need never again hope to be returned
as member for West Barsetshire. This world would for him be all over.
And what must such a man feel when he reflects that this world is for
him all over?
On the morning in question he went to his appointment, still bearing
a cheerful countenance. Mr. Fothergill, when in town on such business
as this, always had a room at his service in the house of Messrs.
Gumption and Gagebee, the duke’s London law agents, and it was
thither that Mr. Sowerby had been summoned. The house of business of
Messrs. Gumption and Gagebee was in South Audley Street; and it may
be said that there was no spot on the whole earth which Mr. Sowerby
so hated as he did the gloomy, dingy back sitting-room up-stairs
in that house. He had been there very often, but had never been
there without annoyance. It was a horrid torture-chamber, kept for
such dread purposes as these, and no doubt had been furnished, and
papered, and curtained with the express object of finally breaking
down the spirits of such poor country gentlemen as chanced to be
involved. Everything was of a brown crimson,—of a crimson that had
become brown. Sunlight, real genial light of the sun, never made its
way there, and no amount of candles could illumine the gloom of that
brownness. The windows were never washed; the ceiling was of a dark
brown; the old Turkey carpet was thick with dust, and brown withal.
The ungainly office-table, in the middle of the room, had been
covered with black leather, but that was now brown. There was a
bookcase full of dingy brown law books in a recess on one side of
the fireplace, but no one had touched them for years, and over the
chimney-piece hung some old legal pedigree table, black with soot.
Such was the room which Mr. Fothergill always used in the business
house of Messrs. Gumption and Gagebee, in South Audley Street, near
to Park Lane.
I once heard this room spoken of by an old friend of mine, one
Mr. Gresham of Greshamsbury, the father of Frank Gresham, who was
now about to purchase that part of the Chace of Chaldicotes which
belonged to the Crown. He also had had evil days, though now happily
they were past and gone; and he, too, had sat in that room, and
listened to the voice of men who were powerful over his property,
and intended to use that power. The idea which he left on my mind
was much the same as that which I had entertained, when a boy, of
a certain room in the castle of Udolpho. There was a chair in that
Udolpho room in which those who sat were dragged out limb by limb,
the head one way and the legs another; the fingers were dragged off
from the hands, and the teeth out from the jaws, and the hair off
the head, and the flesh from the bones, and the joints from their
sockets, till there was nothing left but a lifeless trunk seated in
the chair. Mr. Gresham, as he told me, always sat in the same seat,
and the tortures he suffered when so seated, the dislocations of his
property which he was forced to discuss, the operations on his very
self which he was forced to witness, made me regard that room as
worse than the chamber of Udolpho. He, luckily—a rare instance of
good fortune—had lived to see all his bones and joints put together
again, and flourishing soundly; but he never could speak of the room
without horror.
“No consideration on earth,” he once said to me, very solemnly,—“I
say none, should make me again enter that room.” And indeed this
feeling was so strong with him, that from the day when his affairs
took a turn he would never even walk down South Audley Street. On
the morning in question into this torture-chamber Mr. Sowerby went,
and there, after some two or three minutes, he was joined by Mr.
Fothergill.
Mr. Fothergill was, in one respect, like to his friend Sowerby. He
enacted two altogether different persons on occasions which were
altogether different. Generally speaking, with the world at large, he
was a jolly, rollicking, popular man, fond of eating and drinking,
known to be devoted to the duke’s interests, and supposed to be
somewhat unscrupulous, or at any rate hard, when they were concerned;
but in other respects a good-natured fellow; and there was a report
about that he had once lent somebody money, without charging him
interest or taking security. On the present occasion Sowerby saw
at a glance that he had come thither with all the aptitudes and
appurtenances of his business about him. He walked into the room with
a short, quick step; there was no smile on his face as he shook hands
with his old friend; he brought with him a box laden with papers and
parchments, and he had not been a minute in the room before he was
seated in one of the old dingy chairs.
“How long have you been in town, Fothergill?” said Sowerby, still
standing with his back against the chimney. He had resolved on only
one thing—that nothing should induce him to touch, look at, or
listen to any of those papers. He knew well enough that no good would
come of that. He also had his own lawyer, to see that he was pilfered
according to rule.
“How long? Since the day before yesterday. I never was so busy in my
life. The duke, as usual, wants to have everything done at once.”
“If he wants to have all that I owe him paid at once, he is like to
be out in his reckoning.”
“Ah, well; I’m glad you are ready to come quickly to business,
because it’s always best. Won’t you come and sit down here?”
“No, thank you; I’ll stand.”
“But we shall have to go through these figures, you know.”
“Not a figure, Fothergill. What good would it do? None to me, and
none to you either, as I take it; if there is anything wrong,
Potter’s fellows will find it out. What is it the duke wants?”
“Well; to tell the truth, he wants his money.”
“In one sense, and that the main sense, he has got it. He gets his
interest regularly, does not he?”
“Pretty well for that, seeing how times are. But, Sowerby, that’s
nonsense. You understand the duke as well as I do, and you know very
well what he wants. He has given you time, and if you had taken any
steps towards getting the money, you might have saved the property.”
“A hundred and eighty thousand pounds! What steps could I take to
get that? Fly a bill, and let Tozer have it to get cash on it in the
City!”
“We hoped you were going to marry.”
“That’s all off.”
“Then I don’t think you can blame the duke for looking for his own.
It does not suit him to have so large a sum standing out any longer.
You see, he wants land, and will have it. Had you paid off what you
owed him, he would have purchased the Crown property; and now, it
seems, young Gresham has bid against him, and is to have it. This has
riled him, and I may as well tell you fairly, that he is determined
to have either money or marbles.”
“You mean that I am to be dispossessed.”
“Well, yes; if you choose to call it so. My instructions are to
foreclose at once.”
“Then I must say the duke is treating me most uncommonly ill.”
“Well, Sowerby, I can’t see it.”
“I can, though. He has his money like clock-work; and he has bought
up these debts from persons who would have never disturbed me as long
as they got their interest.”
“Haven’t you had the seat?”
“The seat! and is it expected that I am to pay for that?”
“I don’t see that any one is asking you to pay for it. You are like
a great many other people that I know. You want to eat your cake and
have it. You have been eating it for the last twenty years, and now
you think yourself very ill-used because the duke wants to have his
turn.”
“I shall think myself very ill-used if he sells me out—worse than
ill-used. I do not want to use strong language, but it will be more
than ill-usage. I can hardly believe that he really means to treat me
in that way.”
“It is very hard that he should want his own money!”
“It is not his money that he wants. It is my property.”
“And has he not paid for it? Have you not had the price of your
property? Now, Sowerby, it is of no use for you to be angry; you have
known for the last three years what was coming on you as well as I
did. Why should the duke lend you money without an object? Of course
he has his own views. But I do say this; he has not hurried you; and
had you been able to do anything to save the place you might have
done it. You have had time enough to look about you.”
Sowerby still stood in the place in which he had first fixed himself,
and now for awhile he remained silent. His face was very stern, and
there was in his countenance none of those winning looks which often
told so powerfully with his young friends,—which had caught Lord
Lufton and had charmed Mark Robarts. The world was going against him,
and things around him were coming to an end. He was beginning to
perceive that he had in truth eaten his cake, and that there was now
little left for him to do,—unless he chose to blow out his brains.
He had said to Lord Lufton that a man’s back should be broad enough
for any burden with which he himself might load it. Could he now
boast that his back was broad enough and strong enough for this
burden? But he had even then, at that bitter moment, a strong
remembrance that it behoved him still to be a man. His final ruin was
coming on him, and he would soon be swept away out of the knowledge
and memory of those with whom he had lived. But, nevertheless, he
would bear himself well to the last. It was true that he had made his
own bed, and he understood the justice which required him to lie upon
it.
During all this time Fothergill occupied himself with the papers.
He continued to turn over one sheet after another, as though he
were deeply engaged in money considerations and calculations. But,
in truth, during all that time he did not read a word. There was
nothing there for him to read. The reading and the writing, and the
arithmetic in such matters, are done by underlings—not by such big
men as Mr. Fothergill. His business was to tell Sowerby that he was
to go. All those records there were of very little use. The duke had
the power; Sowerby knew that the duke had the power; and Fothergill’s
business was to explain that the duke meant to exercise his power.
He was used to the work, and went on turning over the papers and
pretending to read them, as though his doing so were of the greatest
moment.
“I shall see the duke myself,” Mr. Sowerby said at last, and there
was something almost dreadful in the sound of his voice.
“You know that the duke won’t see you on a matter of this kind. He
never speaks to anyone about money; you know that as well as I do.”
“By ——, but he shall speak to me. Never speak to anyone about
money! Why is he ashamed to speak of it when he loves it so dearly?
He shall see me.”
“I have nothing further to say, Sowerby. Of course I shan’t ask his
grace to see you; and if you force your way in on him you know what
will happen. It won’t be my doing if he is set against you. Nothing
that you say to me in that way,—nothing that anybody ever
says,—goes beyond myself.”
“I shall manage the matter through my own lawyer,” said Sowerby; and
then he took his hat, and, without uttering another word, left the
room.
We know not what may be the nature of that eternal punishment to
which those will be doomed who shall be judged to have been evil at
the last; but methinks that no more terrible torment can be devised
than the memory of self-imposed ruin. What wretchedness can exceed
that of remembering from day to day that the race has been all run,
and has been altogether lost; that the last chance has gone, and has
gone in vain; that the end has come, and with it disgrace, contempt,
and self-scorn—disgrace that never can be redeemed, contempt that
never can be removed, and self-scorn that will eat into one’s vitals
for ever?
Mr. Sowerby was now fifty; he had enjoyed his chances in life; and as
he walked back, up South Audley Street, he could not but think of the
uses he had made of them. He had fallen into the possession of a fine
property on the attainment of his manhood; he had been endowed with
more than average gifts of intellect; never-failing health had been
given to him, and a vision fairly clear in discerning good from evil;
and now to what a pass had he brought himself!
And that man Fothergill had put all this before him in so terribly
clear a light! Now that the day for his final demolishment had
arrived, the necessity that he should be demolished—finished away at
once, out of sight and out of mind—had not been softened, or, as it
were, half hidden, by any ambiguous phrase. “You have had your cake,
and eaten it—eaten it greedily. Is not that sufficient for you?
Would you eat your cake twice? Would you have a succession of cakes?
No, my friend; there is no succession of these cakes for those who
eat them greedily. Your proposition is not a fair one, and we who
have the whip-hand of you will not listen to it. Be good enough to
vanish. Permit yourself to be swept quietly into the dunghill. All
that there was about you of value has departed from you; and allow me
to say that you are now—rubbish.” And then the ruthless besom comes
with irresistible rush, and the rubbish is swept into the pit, there
to be hidden for ever from the sight.
And the pity of it is this—that a man, if he will only restrain
his greed, may eat his cake and yet have it; ay, and in so doing
will have twice more the flavour of the cake than he who with
gourmandizing maw will devour his dainty all at once. Cakes in this
world will grow by being fed on, if only the feeder be not too
insatiate. On all which wisdom Mr. Sowerby pondered with sad heart
and very melancholy mind as he walked away from the premises of
Messrs. Gumption and Gagebee.
His intention had been to go down to the House after leaving Mr.
Fothergill, but the prospect of immediate ruin had been too much for
him, and he knew that he was not fit to be seen at once among the
haunts of men. And he had intended also to go down to Barchester
early on the following morning—only for a few hours, that he might
make further arrangements respecting that bill which Robarts had
accepted for him. That bill—the second one—had now become due, and
Mr. Tozer had been with him.
“Now it ain’t no use in life, Mr. Sowerby,” Tozer had said. “I ain’t
got the paper myself, nor didn’t ’old it, not two hours. It went away
through Tom Tozer; you knows that, Mr. Sowerby, as well as I do.”
Now, whenever Tozer, Mr. Sowerby’s Tozer, spoke of Tom Tozer, Mr.
Sowerby knew that seven devils were being evoked, each worse than
the first devil. Mr. Sowerby did feel something like sincere regard,
or rather love, for that poor parson whom he had inveigled into
mischief, and would fain save him, if it were possible, from the
Tozer fang. Mr. Forrest, of the Barchester bank, would probably take
up that last five hundred pound bill, on behalf of Mr. Robarts,—only
it would be needful that he, Sowerby, should run down and see that
this was properly done. As to the other bill—the former and lesser
one—as to that, Mr. Tozer would probably be quiet for a while.
Such had been Sowerby’s programme for these two days; but now—what
further possibility was there now that he should care for Robarts,
or any other human being; he that was to be swept at once into the
dung-heap?
In this frame of mind he walked up South Audley Street, and crossed
one side of Grosvenor Square, and went almost mechanically into Green
Street. At the farther end of Green Street, near to Park Lane, lived
Mr. and Mrs. Harold Smith.