MRS. MORTOMLEY'S FORTUNE.
Mr. Leigh, Mortomley's solicitor, was all that in an early chapter of
this story Mr. Asherill stated him to be, and perhaps a little more.
He was honest and honourable, a kind father, a devoted husband, an
affectionate son, and a staunch friend, but he was human, and being
human his reception of Mrs. Mortomley proved cool and formal.
No one knew more of Mortomley's estate than he--not even Mortomley
himself. His father had managed the legal affairs of Mortomley's father,
and he personally had been _au fait_ with every in and out of the son's
hopes and disappointments, successes and failures, gains and losses,
liabilities and expectations, until the death of Richard Halling.
At that time, some outspoken advice was given on the one side, which
caused a certain amount of vexation on the other; and although Mr. Leigh
had never ceased to act as the colour-maker's solicitor, still from the
day that grievous connection--so madly continued with the General
Chemical Company began--he knew so little of the actual position of his
former friend, that when Mortomley walked into his office, out of which
he was subsequently dragged by a clerk from St. Vedast Wharf, and stated
it was absolutely necessary for him to lay the state of his affairs
before his creditors, the lawyer stared at him aghast.
Then after that patched up truce with fate, the terms of which were
evolved out of the workings of Mr. Forde's ingenuity, things went on as
before, and he had no more idea his client was on the verge of
bankruptcy, until he saw that paragraph previously mentioned in the
'Times,' than he had of going into the 'Gazette' himself.
Well might Mr. Leigh consider he had been hardly done by. At least he
was an honest man, and yet Mr. Mortomley evidently preferred that a
black sheep should manage his affairs.
Faithfully, through every chance and change of life, he had dealt by his
client; and now when he really might have made some amount of money
worth having out of his estate, that client pitched him over.
And finally, as if all these injuries were not enough, here was Mrs.
Mortomley herself, a woman he had never taken to or understood, sitting
in his office, dressed out as if liquidation by arrangement meant
succession to an earldom and a hundred thousand a year.
He sat and looked at her, not speculatively, as Mr. Asherill had done,
but disapprovingly.
Mr. Leigh entertained some old-fashioned ideas, and one of these
happened to be that a woman who, at such a juncture, could think of her
dress, was not likely to be of much assistance when the evil days
arrived in which pence should take the place of pounds,--and stuffs, of
silks and satins.
Nor did he, of course, incline more favourably to Mortomley's wife, when
she explained how small a share her husband had in the selection of Mr.
Benning.
If Mortomley had not been ungrateful, she had proved herself so little
better than a simpleton, that he could not find an excuse for her folly,
in her ignorance.
All this made it hard for Dolly to tell her tale; indeed for ever Mr.
Leigh had only a hazy idea that, in the event of his having happened to
be in town instead of absent from it, things might have turned out
differently.
A week only had elapsed since Mrs. Mortomley took her early walk to seek
that vague advice and assistance, which last is never given, which first
is always utterly useless; but so many events had crowded themselves
into the space of eight days, that the incident slipped out of the
sequence of her story, and was only mentioned accidently by her.
Indeed, she was so full of the horrible idea suggested by the interview
at Salisbury House that she began at the end of her narrative, instead
of the beginning. She asked questions, and failed to answer questions
which were put to her.
"What was a settlement--had any been made--was it true, as Mr. Benning
said, that if there were no settlement, everything went to the
creditors. If so, what was to become of her husband, Lenore, and
herself?"
Mr. Leigh replied to her last inquiry first.
"There will be an allowance made out of the estate, of course," he said.
"Are you certain," she persisted; "for if they can avoid doing so, I am
sure we shall not have a penny."
Whereupon, Mr. Leigh read her a mild lecture warning her of the danger
of being prejudiced, and making enemies instead of friends. He gave her
to understand that Mr. Swanland was a member of a most respectable
profession, and that she had not the smallest reason to suppose he was
inimical to her husband, or disposed to act in other than the kindest
and most honourable manner.
With an impatient gesture Mrs. Mortomley averted her head.
"I shall never be able to make any one comprehend my meaning," she said
wearily, "until events have verified my forebodings. It seems of no use
your talking to me, Mr. Leigh, or my talking to you, for you think me
foolish and prejudiced, and I think you know just about as much of what
liquidation by arrangement really is as I did a week ago."
"In that case--" he began coldly.
"You think I ought to say good morning, and refrain from wasting your
valuable time," she interrupted.
"My dear Mrs. Mortomley," he said gently, for he saw that her eyes were
full of tears, and that her trouble was very genuine, "pray compose
yourself, and try to look calmly at your situation. You are frightening
yourself with a bugbear of your own creation, I assure you. The new
Bankruptcy Act was framed for the express purpose of relieving honest
debtors from many hardships to which they were formerly exposed, and to
assist creditors to obtain their money by a cheaper and more simple mode
than was practicable previously. You cannot suppose a trustee has the
power to act contrary to law, and the law never contemplated beggaring a
man merely because he chanced to be unfortunate. You may make your mind
quite easy about money matters. I do not say you will be able to have
the luxuries you have hitherto enjoyed;" here he made a slight stop, as
if to emphasise the fact on her comprehension, "but you will have
everything needful for your position. And with respect to your own
fortune, which I am afraid cannot be saved, there are two sides to
everything, and there are two sides to this. As a lawyer of course I
think every husband ought to secure the pecuniary future of his wife and
family, but really my unprofessional opinion is that settlements which
place a woman in a position of affluence, and consequently provide a
handsome income for a man, no matter how reckless or improvident he has
been, can scarcely be defended on any ground of right or reason. Do you
follow my meaning?"
She looked up at him as he made this inquiry, and answered,
"Do not think me rude. I cannot give my mind to what you are saying.
Possibly you are right. I heard your words, and I shall remember them
sufficiently, I have no doubt, to be able to argue the matter out by
myself at some future time--if--if we ever get into smooth water again;
but I cannot think of anything but ourselves now, I cannot. While you
are speaking my thoughts run back to Homewood, and I wonder what has
happened there, and whether, if I told this great trouble to Archie, it
would kill him outright. Through everything, I know, he has calculated
on that money for me and Lenore. If he had not been satisfied, if he had
ever doubted my right to it for a moment, do you suppose he would have
run such a risk? Do you think he would have failed to make any necessary
arrangement to keep us beyond the possibility of want?"
"I am certain he would if he could have foreseen a time like this," the
lawyer answered. "But you must remember men do not anticipate bankruptcy
as a rule. When they do, it is far too late to talk of settlements. If
every one were prudent and foreseeing, misfortunes such as these could
not occur; but bankruptcy is not a pleasant eventuality for a person to
contemplate, though it is undoubtedly true that every business man ought
to order his course just as if he expected to go into the 'Gazette'
within a week."
"We hear something like that every Sunday about living as if we were
dying, don't we, Mr. Leigh?" she asked, with a little gasping sob, "but
we none of us practise what we are told. I wonder now," Dolly added,
addressing no one in particular, but speaking her thoughts out loud,
"whether the clergy are right after all, whether, if we all go on as we
are going, we shall, men and women alike, prove utter bankrupts at the
Judgment-day. An immortality of insolvency is not a pleasant future to
contemplate; but it may be true. I dare say it will be perfectly true
for some of us."
Mr. Leigh was eminently a safe man--safe in morals, religion, politics,
and money matters, and nothing offended his ideas more than wild
utterances and random talk, for which reason Mrs. Mortomley's last
sentence proved more distasteful than even her candidly expressed doubt
as to his thorough acquaintance with the new Bankruptcy Act.
But he was kind, and if his visitor had occasionally a curious and
unpleasant way of communicating her ideas, he could see underlying all
external eccentricities that she was in fearful trouble, not because she
dreaded being unable to renew her laces and replace her silks--truth
being, Dolly had never descended even mentally to such details--but
because she had taken a phantom to nurse and reared it into a giant.
Some one, it was necessary, should adopt measures to destroy the giant,
he decided, ere it destroyed her.
"Mrs. Mortomley," he began, "you ought to get out of town for a short
time--"
"And leave my husband?"
"No, take him with you."
She shook her head. "You do not know how ill he is. No one knows how ill
he is but me, not even the doctors."
"He would get stronger if he were away, and he must be strong before the
meeting of creditors. Ask the doctors, and be guided by their advice.
Now let me entreat of you to be influenced by what they may say."
"If it were possible to move him it might be better," she said
thoughtfully, "but he could not go without me, and I suppose I ought to
be at Homewood."
"Why, are Miss Halling and her brother and all those men you told me
about not sufficient to take care of the place?" asked Mr. Leigh.
She opened her lips to tell him that Rupert and Antonia had left, but
closed them again, feeling ashamed to say how utterly desolate she and
her husband were in their extremity.
"I think I ought to stay," she remarked at last.
"Really I cannot see the necessity. The presence of Mr. Swanland's clerk
of course relieves you from all real responsibility."
"I suppose so--but still--"
"But still what?"
"When we leave Homewood we shall leave it for good. I feel that. I mean
we shall leave it altogether, whether for good or for ill, whichever may
befall."
"If you were to go from home for a few weeks, you would look at your
position much more cheerfully," answered Mr. Leigh, who was not himself
utterly unacquainted with some of the moods and tenses of a woman's
mind.
"Mr. Benning said we should be quite free to go when once the meeting of
creditors was over," Mrs. Mortomley remarked.
"That was an absurd observation," returned Mr. Leigh, "for you are
perfectly free to go now."
"Yes; but he meant _for ever_," Dolly explained. "I am not mistaken,"
she went on. "He said they could get a manager, that my husband's
health was broken, and that the best thing we could do was to go to some
pretty seaside place and live there comfortably upon my money."
Mr. Leigh's face darkened. "I must see to this," he said, speaking
apparently to himself; then added, "Trust me, Mrs. Mortomley, I will do
all in my power for you. I am afraid you have made one false step, but
we must try to remedy it as far as possible. In the meantime most
certainly I should get Mr. Mortomley away for a time. The state of his
health complicates matters very much. Have you--excuse the question, but
I know how suddenly these things sometimes come upon men of
business--have you money?"
"Yes, thank you," she answered. "I have enough for the present; at
least, Rupert has money of mine, and I can get it from him."
"And you will try to remove Mr. Mortomley," he went on, "and pray let me
hear from you, and send me your address. Do not be so despondent, Mrs.
Mortomley. Only get your husband well and everything will yet be right."
She smiled, but shook her head incredulously.
"You are very kind, Mr. Leigh," she said, "and I only hope your pleasant
words may prove true prophecies. If they do not, when once we know the
worst, whatever that may prove, we must try to bear it. I think we shall
be able," added Dolly a little defiantly, drawing herself up about a
quarter of an inch. She was so little she had generally to go about the
world stretched out as much as possible.
"She is not a bad specimen of a woman, if she only knew how to dress
herself suitably," thought Mr. Leigh after her departure, "but I am
afraid she is not the wife poor Mortomley ought to have had at a crisis
like this."
Which was really very hard upon Dolly, who had not the slightest
intention of ever reproaching Mortomley--as a model wife might have
done--because of the ruin that had come upon them.
Rather she was considering as she walked to Fenchurch Street how she
should keep knowledge of this latest misfortune from him.
And then as regarded her dress, so objectionable in the eyes of a man
who knew exactly the sort of sad-coloured garments appropriate for such
an errand as Mrs. Mortomley's, does any intelligent reader suppose it
was one atom too rich or too rare in the opinion of those four young
ladies from Chigwell with whom Mrs. Mortomley travelled on her return
journey?
Nay, rather they reported when they reached their own home, that Mrs.
Mortomley looked nicer than usual, was pleasanter and more talkative
even than her wont, and _beautifully dressed_, they added as the
crowning point in her perfections.
If they had known what Dolly thought about them, they might not have
been so enthusiastic in her praise.
Having no one near at hand in whom she could confide, she marvelled to
herself,
"I wonder whether on the face of the earth there is any creature so
utterly wearisome as a human being."