COMMOTION.
With the wing of the dawn--that is, with the wing of the dawn for
business in London--Mark Cray was at the offices in the City. Barker
was there before him, and started forward to meet him as he entered.
Mark had not succeeded in seeing Barker the previous night.
"Cray, it's all up. I'm afraid it's all up."
"Have you heard from Wales?"
"I got a telegram this morning. There's an irruption of water, in
earnest this time. It's flowing in like so many pumps. Look here."
Mark's hands shook as he laid hold of the telegram. "I wasn't in bed
till three o'clock," said he, as if he would give an excuse for the
signs of agitation. But though he tried to account for his shaking
hands, he could not for his scared face.
Yes Mr. Barker was no doubt right: it was "all up" with the Great
Wheal Bang. Mark and he stood alone over the table in the board-room:
in consultation as to what they could do, and what they might do.
Might they dare--allowing that the public still reposed in happy
security--to take some shares into the market, and secure themselves
something out of the wreck? Barker was all for doing it; at any rate
for _trying_ it--"whether it would work," he said. Mark hung back in
indecision: he thought there might be after-consequences. He told
Barker the episode of Mr. Brackenbury's visit, and of his satisfying
that gentleman with the cheque of Bracknell, Street, and Oswald Cray,
which cheque was no doubt cashed by that time.
"Mean old idiot!" apostrophised Mr. Barker. "That's always the way
with those petty people. They'll make more fuss over their paltry
hundred pounds or two than others do over thousands. I'd not have paid
him, Mark."
"I couldn't help it," said Mark. "You should have seen the work he
made. Besides, if I had not, he'd have proclaimed the thing from one
end of London to another."
"Well, about these shares," said Barker. "We must make as much as ever
we can. Will you go, or shall I?"
"Perhaps it's known already," returned Mark, dubiously.
"Perhaps it isn't. Brackenbury gave you his word that he'd keep quiet,
and who else is likely to know it? Letters _can't_ get here till the
afternoon post, and nobody at the mine would make it their business to
telegraph up."
Mark stood in restless indecision. When annoyed, he was fidgety to a
degree; could not be still. Perhaps he had inherited his mother's
temperament He pushed back his hair incessantly; he fingered nervously
the diamond studs in his shirt. Mark was not in the habit of wearing
those studs by day, or the curiously fine embroidery they were
adorning. Whether, in his confusion of faculties, he had put in the
studs that morning, or had absently retired to rest in his shirt the
previous night, studs and all, must be left to conjecture.
"Look here, Barker," said he. "If news had not come to _us_ of the
disaster, to you and to me, I'd willingly have taken every share we
possess into the market, and got the money for them down, if I could.
But the news _has_ come: and I don't think it would do."
"Who's to know it has come?" asked Barker.
"Well, things do often come out, you know; they nearly always do;
especially if they are not wanted to. Perhaps the telegraph office
could be brought up to prove it, or something of that."
"Well?" said Barker.
"Well," repeated Mark. "It mightn't do."
"Oh, bother, Cray! We must do it. We must stand out through thick and
thin afterwards that the message never reached us. I could; and you
are safe, for you have not had one at all. Look at our position. We
_must_ realise. Of course we can't attempt to negotiate many shares;
that would betray us; but a few we might, and must. We must, for our
own sakes we can't stand naked, without a penny to fall back upon."
Mark still hesitated. "I'd have done it with all the pleasure in life
but for this telegram," he reiterated. "For one thing, Oswald would
never forgive me; my name's the same as his, you know; and I shall
have to face him over this two hundred pounds: that will be bad
enough. And there's my mother. And my wife, Barker; you forget her."
"I don't forget her. I am thinking of her," was Mr. Barker's answer.
"It's for her sake, as much as ours, that you ought to secure a little
ready money. You'll want it. I know that much, for I have been down in
luck before."
Mark looked irresolute and pitiably gloomy. "I don't see my way
clear," he resumed, after a pause. "Let's put the thing into plain
black and white. I go out, and sell some shares, and get the money
paid down for them, and pocket it. An hour afterwards the news spreads
that the mine's destroyed, and the shares are consequently worthless.
Well, Barker, my belief is that they could proceed against me
criminally for disposing of those shares----"
"Not if you did not know the mine was wrong when you took them into
the market."
"Nonsense," returned Mark, irritably, "they'd be sure to know it. I
tell you it would be safe to come out by hook or by crook. They'd call
it felony, or swindling, or some such ugly name. Do you suppose I'm
going to put my head into that noose? I was born a gentleman."
"And do you suppose I wish either of us to do it?" retorted Barker. "I
shouldn't be such a fool. I never go into a thing unless I know I can
fight my way out of it. I shall take a few shares into the market, and
feel my way. I shall sell them for money, if I can; and you shall
share it, Mark. I suppose you won't object to that."
No, certainly, Mark would have no objection to that.
"I did not hear of the disaster until later, you know," said Barker,
winking. "News of it came up to us by the afternoon post. If they do
find out about the telegram, why, I never opened it. Nobody saw me
open it," added Barker, with satisfaction. "I have had so many up from
the mine at my lodgings that the servants sign and put them in my
sitting-room as a matter of course. This one was put there this
morning, and I found it when I came down, but nobody was in the room.
Oh, it will be all right. And I say, Mark, if----"
Mr. Barker's smooth projects were stopped. Absorbed in their
conversation, he and Mark had alike failed to notice a gradually
gathering hum in the street outside. A very gentle, almost
imperceptible hum at first, but increasing to a commotion now. With
one bound they reached the window.
A concourse of people, their numbers being augmented every moment, had
assembled beneath. They were waiting for the opening of the offices of
the Great Wheal Bang at ten o'clock. And the hour was almost on the
point of striking.
"It's all up," shouted Barker in Mark's ear. "The news is abroad, and
they have heard of it. Look at their faces!"
The faces were worth looking at, though not as a pleasant sight.
Anger, rage, disappointment, above all _impatience_, were depicted
there. The impatience of a wolf waiting to spring upon its prey. One
of the faces unluckily turned its gaze upwards and caught sight of
Barker's. Barker saw it; he had not been quick enough in drawing away
from the window.
"They'll not be kept out now, doors or no doors," said he quietly to
Mark.
Mr. Barker was right. Ere the words had died away upon his lips a
sound as if the walls of the house were being beaten in ensued. The
bells commenced a perpetual peal the knocker knocked incessantly, the
doors were pushed and kicked and thumped. In the midst of it rose the
sound of human voices in a roar: disjointed words distinguishable
amidst the tumult. "Let us in! Come out to us!"
Mr. Barker advanced to the stairs, and leaned over the balustrades.
"Williams," he called out to an attendant official below, "you can
open the doors. The gentlemen may come up."
It was curious to note the difference in the two men. Barker was as
cool as a cucumber; self-possessed as ever he had been in his life;
ready to make the best of everything, and quite equal to the
emergency. Mark Cray, on the contrary, seemed to have parted alike
with his wits and his nerves. Not more completely did he lose his
presence of mind in that long past evening which had been so fatal to
Lady Oswald. His hands shook as with terror; his faff was white as
death.
"Will they pull us to pieces, Barker?"
"Pooh!" said Barker, with a laugh at the evident tremor. "What has
taken you, Mark? Let them rave on a bit without answering, and they'll
calm down. Put _that_ in your pocket," he continued. "It will be a
trifle to fall back upon."
He had touched the diamond ring that glittered on Mark Cray's finger.
Mark obeyed like a child. He took it from his hand and thrust it into
his waistcoat pocket; next he buttoned his coat, some vague feeling
perhaps prompting him to hide the studs; but he did it all
mechanically, as one not conscious of his actions. Terror was holding
its sway over him.
"Why should they be excited against us? Heaven knows we have not
intentionally wronged them."
"That's just the question I shall ask them myself when they are cool
enough to listen to it," rejoined Barker with a gay air. "Now then
comes the tug of war."
In they came, thick and threefold, dashing up the stairs and pouring
into the room like so many bees. And then it was found that Mark's
apprehensions had been somewhat premature. For these shareholders had
come flowing to the offices not so much to abuse the projectors of the
company as to inquire the true particulars of the disaster. The news
had gone forth in a whisper--and to this hour neither Mark nor Barker
knows how, or through whom, it had oozed out--but that whisper was
vague and uncertain. Naturally those interested flew to the offices
for better information. Was the damage of great extent? and would the
mine and the company stand it?
Barker was of course all suavity. He treated the matter more as a joke
than anything else, making light of it altogether. An irruption of
water? well, perhaps a little drop had got in, but they must wait for
the afternoon's post. It would be all right.
He looked round for Mark, hoping that gentleman's face would not
arouse suspicion; but he could not see him. Mark, as Barker learnt
afterwards, had contrived to escape from the room as the throng
entered, and got into the street unnoticed, and leaped into a cab.
Mark was beside himself that morning.
The unfortunate news spread from one end of London to the other. It
was carried to Oswald Cray; but the day was advancing then. "The Great
Wheal Bang Company had exploded, and there was a run upon the office."
Oswald was startled; and betook himself at once to the premises, as
the rest had done. On his way he called in upon Henry Oswald, and
spoke a word of caution.
"It may be a false rumour," said he; "I hope it is. But don't do
anything in the shares until you know."
A false rumour! When Oswald reached the offices he found it all too
true a one. The secretary to the company, without meaning to do
ill--indeed he had let it out in his lamentation--had unwittingly
disclosed the fact of the previous irruption of water in the summer:
and the excited crowd were going wild with anger. Many of them had
bought their shares at a period subsequent to that.
Oswald heard this, and went to Mr. Barker in the board-room. That
gentleman, rather heated certainly, but with unchanged suavity of
demeanour, was still doing his best to reassure everybody. Oswald drew
him aside.
"What a dreadful thing this is! What is the real truth of it?"
"Hush!" interrupted Mr. Barker. "No need to tell the worst to them. You
are one of us. I'm afraid it is all up with the mine; but we will keep
it from them as long as we can. Anyway, it's no fault of ours."
"What is it that they are saying about an irruption of water having
occurred in the summer?"
"Well, so it did," answered Mr. Barker, whose past few hours'
temporising with the crowd caused him perhaps to throw off reserve to
Mr. Oswald Cray as a welcome relief. "But it wasn't much, that; and we
succeeded in keeping it dark."
"Did Mark know of it?"
"Mark know of it!" rejoined Barker; "of course he knew of it. What
should hinder him? Why, the telegram bringing the news was given me at
Mark's house; and, by the way, you were present, I remember. It was
the evening that old doctor in the yellow trousers was there, with his
two frights of daughters."
The scene rose as in a mirror before Oswald's memory. Dr. Ford and his
daughters, Miss Davenal and Sara, Caroline Cray in her silks and her
beauty. He remembered the telegram, he remembered that it appeared to
disturb both Barker and Mark; and he remembered Mark's denial to him
that anything was amiss with the mine.
"I do recollect it," he said aloud. "It struck me--perhaps it was
rather singular it should do so--that something was wrong. Mark
declared to me that it was not so."
The words seemed to tickle Barker uncommonly.
"Ah," said he, laughing, "Mark told me of it, and how he turned you
off the scent. You'd not have put your thousand into it, perhaps, had
you known of the water."
"Perhaps not," quietly replied Oswald. "And my thousand was wanted, I
suppose."
"Law! you don't know the money that's been wanted," was the response.
"And that irruption of water, slight as it was, made the demand for it
worse. The mine has sucked it in like a sponge."
Oswald made no answering remark. "I suppose this irruption is worse
than that?" he presently observed.
"Indeed I fear this is another thing altogether--ruin. But we ion%
know anything certain until the post comes in this afternoon. We have
had no letter yet."
"How did the news of it come to you?"
"By telegram. But the first news came to Mark; in an odd manner, too.
A curmudgeon of a shareholder, old Brackenbury, went up yesterday
evening to Mark just as he was going out to dinner with his wife, and
insisted upon his paltry money, only two hundred pounds, being
returned to him. He was inclined to be nasty; and if Mark had not
satisfied him he'd have gone over London proclaiming that the mine was
overflowing with water. The odd thing is, who could have telegraphed
the news to him. We must have a traitor in the camp. Mark told me--oh,
ah," broke off Mr. Barker, interrupting himself as a recollection
flashed upon him--"I think he got the two hundred from you."
"And Mark knew the mine was then ruined!" returned Oswald, drawing in
his lips, but not losing his calm equanimity.
"Brackenbury _said_ it was. He didn't know it otherwise.
Brackenbury--Halloa! what's that?"
It was a shout in the street. A shout composed of roars, and hisses,
and groans. Drawing up to the door of the offices was the handsome
carriage of Mark Cray; and the crowd had turned their indignation upon
it.
One look, one glimpse of the white and terror-stricken faces of its
inmates, and Oswald Cray bounded down the stairs. They were the faces
of Mrs. Cray and Sara Davenal.
What could have brought them there?