ONE evening Frank came home with a clouded face. His wife said nothing,
but after dinner she sat on a footstool beside his chair and waited. She
knew that if it were for the best, he would tell her everything, and she
had confidence enough in his judgment to acquiesce in his silence if he
thought it best to be silent. As a matter of fact, it was just this
telling her which made his trouble hard to bear. And yet he thought it
wiser to tell.
‘I’ve had something to worry me, dear.’
‘Poor old boy, I know you have. What was it?’
‘Why should I bother you with it?’
‘A nice wife I should be, if I shared all your joys and none of your
sorrows! Anyhow, I had rather share sorrow with you than joy within any
one else.’ She snuggled her head up against his knee. ‘Tell me about
it, Frank.’
‘You remember my telling you just before our marriage that I was surety
for a man?’
‘I remember perfectly well.’
‘His name was Farintosh. He was an insurance-agent, and I became surety
for him in order to save his situation.’
‘Yes, dear, it was so noble of you.’
‘Well, Maude, he was on the platform this morning, and when he saw me, he
turned on his heel and hurried out of the station. I read guilt in his
eyes. I am sure that his accounts are wrong again.’
‘Oh, what an ungrateful wretch!’
‘Poor devil, I dare say he has had a bad time. But I was a fool not to
draw out of that. It was all very well when I was a bachelor. But here
I am as a married man faced with an indefinite liability and nothing to
meet it with. I don’t know what is to become of us, Maude.’
‘How much is it, dearest?’
‘I don’t know. That is the worst of it.’
‘But surely your own office would not be so hard upon you?’
‘It is not my own office. It is another office—the Hotspur.’
‘Oh dear! What have you done about it, Frank?’
‘I called at their office in my lunch-hour, and I requested them to send
down an accountant to examine Farintosh’s books. He will be here
to-morrow morning, and I have leave of absence for the day.’
And so they were to spend an evening and a night without knowing whether
they were merely crippled or absolutely ruined. Frank’s nature was
really a very proud one, and the thought of failing in his engagements
wounded his self-respect most deeply. His nerves winced and quivered
before it. But her sweet, strong soul rose high above all fear, and bore
him up with her, into the serenity of love and trust and confidence. The
really precious things, the things of the spirit, were permanent, and
could not be lost. What matter if they lived in an eight-roomed villa,
or in a tent out on the heath? What matter if they had two servants, or
if she worked for him herself? All this was the merest trifle, the
outside of life. But the intimate things, their love, their trust, their
pleasures of mind and soul, these could not be taken away from them while
they had life to enjoy them. And so she soothed Frank with sweet
caresses and gentle words, until this night of gloom had turned to the
most beautiful of all his life, and he had learned to bless the
misfortune which had taught him to know the serene courage and the
wholehearted devotion which can only be felt, like the scent of a
fragrant leaf, when Fate gives us a crush between its iron fingers.
Shortly after breakfast Mr. Wingfield, the accountant from London,
arrived—a tall, gentlemanly man, with a formal manner.
‘I’m sorry about this business, Mr. Crosse,’ said he.
Frank made a grimace. ‘It can’t be helped.’
‘We will hope that the amount is not very serious. We have warned Mr.
Farintosh that his books will be inspected to-day. When you are ready we
shall go round.’
The agent lived in a side-street not far off. A brass plate, outside a
small brick house, marked it out from the line of other small brick
houses. A sad-faced woman opened the door, and Farintosh himself,
haggard and white, was seated among his ledgers in the little front room.
A glance at the man’s helpless face turned all Frank’s resentment to
pity.
They sat down at the table, the accountant in the centre, Farintosh on
the right, and Frank on the left. There was no talk save an occasional
abrupt question and answer. For two hours the swish and rustle of the
great blue pages of the ledgers were the chief sound, with the scratching
of Mr. Wingfield’s pen as he totalled up long columns of figures.
Frank’s heart turned to water as he saw the huge sums which had passed
through this man’s hands. How much had remained there? His whole future
depended upon the answer to that question. How prosaic and undramatic
are the moments in which a modern career is made or marred! In this
obscure battlefield, the squire no longer receives his accolade in public
for his work well done, nor do we see the butcher’s cleaver as it hacks
off the knightly spurs, but failure and success come strangely and
stealthily, determined by trifles, and devoid of dignity. Here was the
crisis of Frank’s young life, in this mean front room, amongst the
almanacs and the account-books.
‘Can I rely upon these figures?’ asked Wingfield at last.
‘You can, sir.’
‘In that case I congratulate you, Mr. Crosse. I can only find a
deficiency of fifty pounds.’
Only enough to swallow the whole of their little savings, which they had
carefully invested! However, it was good news, and Frank shook the
proffered hand of the accountant.
‘I will stay for another hour to check these figures,’ said Wingfield.
‘But there is no need to detain you.’
‘You will come round and lunch with us?’
‘With pleasure.’
‘_Au revoir_, then.’ Frank ran all the way home, and burst in upon his
wife. ‘It is not so very bad, dear—only fifty pounds.’ They danced
about in their joy like two children.
But Wingfield came to his lunch within a solemn face.
‘I am very sorry to disappoint you,’ he said, ‘but the matter is more
serious than I thought. We have entered some sums as unpaid which he has
really received, but the receipts for which he has held back. They
amount to another hundred pounds.’
Maude felt inclined to cry as she glanced at Frank, and saw his resolute
effort to look unconcerned.
‘Then it’s a hundred and fifty.’
‘Certainly not less. I have marked the items down upon this paper for
your inspection.’
Frank glanced his practised eyes over the results of the accountant’s
morning’s work.
‘You have credited him within a hundred and twenty pounds in the bank, I
see.’
‘Yes, his bank-book shows a balance of that amount.’
‘When was it made out?’
‘Last Saturday.’
‘He may have drawn it since them.’
‘It is certainly possible.’
‘We might go round after lunch and make sure.’
‘Very good.’
‘And in any case, as it is the Company’s money, don’t you think we had
better take it out of his hands?’
‘Yes, I think you are right.’
It was a miserable meal, and they were all glad when it was finished.
Maude drew Frank into the other room before he started.
‘I could not let you go without _that_, dearest. Keep a brave heart, my
own laddie, for I know so well that we shall come through it all right.’
So Frank set out with a higher courage, and they both returned to the
agent’s house. His white face turned a shade whiter when he understood
their errand.
‘Is this necessary, Mr. Wingfield?’ he pleaded. ‘Won’t you take my word
for this money?’
‘I am sorry to have to say it, sir, but we have trusted in your word too
often.’
‘But the money is there, I swear it.’
‘It is the Company’s money, and we must have it.’
‘It will ruin my credit locally if I draw out my whole account under
compulsion.’
‘Then let him keep ten pounds in,’ said Frank. Farintosh agreed with an
ill grace to the compromise, and they all started off for the bank. When
they reached the door the agent turned upon them with an appealing face.
‘Don’t come in with me, gentlemen. I could never hold up my head again.’
‘It is for Mr. Crosse to decide.’
‘I don’t want to be unreasonable, Farintosh. Go in alone and draw the
money.’
They could never understand why he begged for that extra five minutes.
Perhaps it was that he had some mad hope of persuading the bank manager
to allow him to overdraw to that amount. If so, the refusal was a curt
one, for he reappeared with a ghastly face and walked up to Frank.
‘I may as well confess to you, Mr. Crosse, I have nothing in the bank.’
Frank whistled and turned upon his heel. He could not by reproaches add
to the wretched man’s humiliation. After all, he had himself to blame.
He had incurred a risk with his eyes open, and he was not the man to
whine now that the thing had gone against him. Wingfield walked home
with him and murmured some words of sympathy. At the gate the accountant
left him and went on to the station.
So their liability had risen from fifty to two hundred and seventy
pounds. Even Maude was for an instant daunted by the sum. The sale of
their furniture would hardly meet it. It was the blackest hour of their
lives, and yet, always a strange sweet undercurrent of joy was running
through it, for it is only sorrow, fairly shared and bravely borne, which
can weld two human souls together.
Dinner was over when there came a ring at the bell.
‘If you please, sir, Mr. Farintosh would like to see you,’ said the maid
Jemima.
‘Show him in here.’
‘Don’t you think, Frank, that I had better go?’
‘No, I don’t. I never asked him to come. If he comes, let him face us
both. I have not made much of my dealings with him alone.’
He was shown in, downcast, shifty-eyed, and ill at ease. He laid his hat
upon the floor, and crept humbly towards the chair which Frank pushed
towards him.
‘Well, Farintosh?’
‘Well, Mr. Crosse, I have come round to tell you, and you too, missus,
the sorrow I feel that I have brought this trouble upon you. I hoped all
would have gone right after that last time, but I’ve had to pay up back
debts, and that’s what has put me wrong. I’ve never had what one may
call a fair chance. But I’m really sorry, sir, that you who have, as one
might say, befriended me, should have to suffer for it in this way.’
‘Words won’t mend it, Farintosh. I only blame you for not coming to me
when first things began to go wrong.’
‘Well, sir, I was always hoping that I could turn them right again, so as
you wouldn’t need to be troubled at all. And so it went from bad to
worse until we find ourselves here. But what I wanted to ask you, Mr.
Crosse, was what you meant to do about it?’
Frank writhed before this home question.
‘Well, I suppose I am responsible,’ said he.
‘You mean to pay the money, sir?’
‘Well, somebody must pay it.’
‘Do you remember the wording of the bond, Mr. Crosse?’
‘Not the exact wording.’
‘Well, sir, I should advise you to get your lawyer to read it. In my
opinion, sir, you are not liable at all.’
‘Not liable!’ Frank felt as if his heart had turned suddenly from a
round-shot to an air-balloon. ‘Why not liable?’
‘You were a little slapdashy, if one might say so, in matters of
business, sir, and perhaps you read that bond less carefully than I did.
There was a clause in it by which the Company agreed frequently and
periodically to audit my accounts, so as to prevent your liability being
at any time a very high one.’
‘So there was!’ cried Frank. ‘Well, didn’t they?’
‘No, sir, they didn’t.’
‘By Jove—Maude, do you hear that?—if that is right, they brought their
own misfortunes upon themselves. Do you mean to say they never audited
you?’
‘Yes, sir, they did so four times.’
‘In how long?’
‘In fourteen months.’
The air-balloon was gone and the cannon-ball back in its place once more.
‘That will be held to exonerate them.’
‘No, sir, I think not. “Frequently and periodically” does not mean four
times in fourteen months.’
‘A jury might take it so.’
‘Consider, sir, that the object was that your liability should be
limited. Thousands of pounds were passing through my hands in that time,
and therefore these four audits were, as one might say, insufficient for
the object of the bond.’
‘So I think,’ cried Maude, with conviction. ‘Frank, we’ll have the best
advice upon the subject to-morrow.’
‘And meanwhile, Mr. Crosse,’ said Farintosh, rising from his chair, ‘I am
your witness, whether the Company prosecutes me or not. And I hope that
this will be some humble atonement for the trouble that I have brought
you.’
And so a first rift of light began to shine in the dark place. But it
was not broadened by the letter which he found waiting upon his
breakfast-table—
_Re_ Farintosh’s Accounts.