It was in the summer of the third year of his bank directorship that
Robert made his first personal entry into business. The occasion of it
was this. One of his early friends who had been at school with him, and
with whom he had kept up a precarious and often interrupted intercourse,
came to him one morning with an anxious face. He was in business
himself, with a little office in one of the dreary lanes in the City, a
single clerk, and very limited occupation. He had married young, and had
a large family; and Drummond was already aware that while the lines had
fallen to himself in pleasant places, poor Markham's lot had been hard
and full of thorns. He was now at the very crisis of his troubles. He
gave a glance round the painter's handsome studio when he entered, at
the pictures on the walls and the costly things about, and the air of
evident luxury that pervaded everything, and sighed. His own
surroundings were poor and scant enough. And yet he could and did
remember that Drummond had started in life a poorer man, with less
hopeful prospects than himself. Such a contrast is not lively or
inspiriting, and it requires a generous mind to take it kindly, and
refrain from a passing grudge at the old companion who has done so much
better for himself. Poor Markham had come with a petition, on which, he
said, all his future life depended. He had made a speculation which
would pay him largely could he only hold out for three months; but
without help from his friends this was impossible. It was a large sum
that he wanted--more than any private friend would be likely to give
him--something between two and three thousand pounds. The welfare of his
family, his very existence in a business point of view, and the hopes of
his children depended on his ability to tide those three months over.
For old friendship's sake, for all the associations of their youth,
would Drummond help him? Robert listened with his kindly heart full of
sympathy. Long before the story was done, he began to calculate what he
had at his disposal, how much he could give; but the sum startled him.
He could not produce at a moment's notice a sum of nearly three
thousand pounds. With a troubled heart he shook his head and said it was
impossible--he had not so much money at his disposal--he could not do
it. Then Markham eagerly explained. It was not from his friend's own
purse that he had hoped for it; but the bank! On Drummond's
introduction, the bank would do it. Rivers's could save him. No such
request had ever been made to Robert before. Very few of his friends
were business men. Their needs were private needs, and not the spasmodic
wants of trade. There were people who had borrowed from himself
personally, and some who had been helped by him in other ways; but this
was the first appeal made to his influence in the bank. He was startled
by it in his innocence of business habits. It seemed to him as if it was
like asking a private favour, turning over his own petitioner to a third
person. 'He is my friend, give him three thousand pounds.' It seemed to
him the strangest way of being serviceable to his neighbour. But poor
Markham had all the eloquence of a partially ruined man. He made it
clear to Robert, not only that such things were, but they happened
continually, and were in the most ordinary course of nature. The end
was that they went out together, and had an interview with Mr Golden at
the bank. And then Robert found that his acquaintance had not
exaggerated, that the matter was even easier than he had represented it,
and that there would not be the slightest difficulty in 'accommodating'
the man who was Mr Drummond's friend. Markham and he parted at the door
of the bank, the one with tears of gratitude in his eyes, blessing God
and Robert for saving him, and the other with a bewildered sense of
power which he had not realised. He had not known before how much he
could do, nor what privileges his directorship put in his hands, and he
was confused by the discovery. It bewildered him, as a man might be
bewildered to know that he could bestow fertility or barrenness on his
fields by a glance: how strange the power was, how sweet in this
instance, how--dangerous! Yes, that was the word. He felt afraid of
himself as he went home. If such plaints came to him often, it would be
so difficult to resist them; and then a kind of horrible dread came over
his mind. Would the money ever be paid back that he had got so easily?
The thought made his hand shake when he went back to the peaceable work
at which no such bewildering risks were run.
When the three months were over, Markham's money was not paid; on the
contrary he had fled to Australia, he and all his children, leaving
nothing but some wretched old furniture behind him. Poor Drummond was
nearly beside himself. He rushed to the bank when he heard the news, and
protested that the loss must be his. It was his fault, and of course he
must repay it. Mr Golden smiled at him with a genuine admiration of his
simplicity. He told him in a fatherly way of a speculation which had
been very successful, which had cleared nearly the same sum of money.
'Putting the one to the other, we are none the worse,' he said; 'every
commercial concern must make some bad debts.'
Drummond went away with more bewilderment still, with many new thoughts
buzzing in his head, thoughts which troubled the composure of his life.
He himself being but an artist, and not a merchant, was afraid of money.
He touched it warily, trafficked in it with a certain awe. He knew how
much labour it required to earn it, and how hard it was to be without
it. He could not understand the levity with which Burton and Golden
treated that potent thing. To them it was like common merchandise, sugar
or salt. A heap of it, as much as would make a poor man's fortune,
melted away in a moment, and the bland manager thought nothing of
it--it was a bad debt. All this was so strange to him, that he did not
know what to make of it. He himself was guilty, he felt, of having
thrown away so much which belonged to other people. And every other
director on the board had the same power which he had with a painful
pleasure discovered himself to have. And they knew better about it than
he did; and what check could there be upon them? If every other man
among them had been art and part in losing three thousand pounds, what
could Robert say? It would not be for him to throw the first stone. He
felt like Christian in the story, when, upon the calm hill-side, he
suddenly saw a door through which there appeared, open and visible, the
mouth of hell. It occurred to Robert to go down to the next meeting of
directors, to tell them his own story, and beg that the money lost
through his means should be subtracted from his private share of the
capital, and to beg all of them to do likewise. He quite made up his
mind to this in the first tumult of his thoughts. But before the time
for that meeting came, a sense of painful ridicule, that bugbear of the
Englishman, had daunted him. They would call him a fool, they would
think he was 'canting,' or taking an opportunity to display his own
disinterestedness. And accordingly he accepted the misfortune, and was
content to permit it to be called a bad debt. But the enlightenment
which it threw on the business altogether gave Robert a shock which he
did not easily recover. It seemed to show him a possible chasm opening
at his very feet, and not at his only, but at the feet of all the
ignorant simple people, the poor painters, the poor women, the sick men
like Haldane, who had placed their little seed-corn of money in Rivers's
bank.
These thoughts were hot in his heart at the time of this misadventure
with Markham; and then there came a lull, and he partially forgot them.
When no harm is visible, when the tranquil ordinary course of affairs
seems to close over a wrong or a blunder, it is so difficult to imagine
that everything will not go well. He said as little as possible to Helen
on the subject, and she did not take fright fortunately, having many
things to occupy her now-a-days. There was her own enlarged and fuller
household; the duties of society; her charities, for she was very good
to the poor people near Southlees, their house in the country, and kept
watch over them even from St Mary's Road. And she had now many friends
who came and occupied her time, and carried her off from her husband;
so that he had not that resource of talking about it which so often
lightens our anxiety, and so often deepens it. In this instance,
perhaps, it was as well that he could not awaken her fears to increase
and stimulate his own.
And thus everything fell into its usual quietness. Life was so pleasant
for them. They had so much real happiness to cushion the angles of the
world, and make them believe that all would always be well. Those who
have been experienced in pain are apt to tremble and doubt the
continuance of happiness when they attain it; but to those who have had
no real sorrows it seems eternal. Why should it ever come to an end?
This the Drummonds felt with an instinctive confidence. It was easier to
believe in any miracle of good than in the least prognostic of evil. The
sun was shining upon them; summer was sweet and winter pleasant. They
had love, they had ease, they had wealth, as much as they desired, and
they believed in it. The passing cloud rolled away from Robert's mind.
He reflected that if there was danger there, there was danger in
everything; every day, he said to himself, every man may be in some
deadly peril without knowing it. We pass beneath the arch that falls
next moment; we touch against some one's shoulder unaware, whose touch
of infection might be death; we walk over the mined earth, and breathe
air which might breed a pestilence, and yet nothing happens to us. Human
nature is against everything violent. Somehow she holds a balance, which
no one breaks down, though it is possible to be broken down at any
moment. The directors might ruin the bank in a week, but they would not,
any more than the elements, which are ever ready for mischief, would
clash together and produce an earthquake. Such things might be: but
never--or so seldom as to be next to never--are.
In the early autumn of that year, however, another shock came upon the
ignorant painter. His wife and Norah were at Southlees, where he himself
had been. Business had brought him up against his will, business of the
gentler kind, concerning art and the Academy, not the bank. He was alone
at St Mary's Road, chafing a little over his solitude, and longing for
home and the pleasant fields. London, the London he knew and cared for,
had gone out of town. August was blazing upon the parks and streets; the
grass was the colour of mud, and the trees like untanned leather. The
great people were all away in their great houses, and among his own
profession those who could afford it had started for Switzerland or some
other holiday region, and those who could not had gone for their annual
whiff of sea-air. Robert was seated by himself at breakfast, mournfully
considering how another day had to be got over, before he could go home,
when a hansom dashed up to the door, and Mr Golden, bland and clean as
ever, but yet with a certain agitation in his face, came in. He
explained eagerly that he had come to Drummond only because the other
directors were out of town. 'The fact is,' he said, 'I want you to come
with me, not to give you much trouble or detain you long, but to stand
by me, if you will, in a crisis. We have had some losses. Those people
in Calcutta who chose to stop payment, like fools, and the Sullivans'
house at Liverpool.--It is only temporary.--But the Bank of England has
made itself disagreeable about an advance, and I want you to come with
me and see the governor.'
'An advance! Is Rivers's in difficulties? is there anything wrong? You
take away my breath.'
'There is no occasion for taking away your breath,' said Mr Golden; 'it
is only for the moment. But it is an awkward time of the year, for
everybody is out of town. I should not have troubled you, knowing you
were not a business man, but of course the presence of a director gives
authority. Don't be alarmed, I beg. I will tell you all about it as we
drive along.'
But what Mr Golden told was very inarticulate to Robert, what with the
wild confusion produced in his own mind, and the noise and dust of the
sultry streets. It was the most temporary difficulty; it was not worth
speaking of; it was a simple misunderstanding on the part of the
authorities of the Bank of England. 'Why we are worth twenty times the
money, and everybody knows it,' said Mr Golden. His words, instead of
making Robert confident, made him sick. His sin in that matter of
Markham came darkly before him; and, worse even than that, the manager's
words recalled Markham's to him. In his case, too, it was to have been
merely a temporary difficulty. Drummond's imaginative mind rushed at
once to the final catastrophe. He saw ruin staring him in the face--and
not only him.
The interview with the authorities of the Bank of England did not make
things much clearer to the amateur. They talked of previous advances; of
their regret that the sacred name of 'Rivers's' should be falling into
mist and darkness; of their desire to have better securities, and a
guarantee which would be more satisfactory: to all of which Robert
listened with consternation in his soul. But at last the object was
attained. Mr Golden wiped the moisture from his forehead as they left
the place. 'That has been a tough battle,' he said, 'but thank Heaven!
it is done, and we are tided over. I knew they would not be such fools
as to refuse.'
'But, good God!' said Robert, 'what have you been doing? What is the
meaning of it? Why do you require to go hat in hand to any governor? Is
Rivers's losing its position? What has happened? Why don't you call the
shareholders together and tell them if anything is wrong?'
'My dear Mr Drummond!' said Mr Golden. He could scarcely do more than
smile and say the words.
'Don't smile at me,' said Drummond in the ardour of his heart. 'Do you
consider that you have the very lives of hundreds of people in your
hands? Call them together, and let them know what remains, for God's
sake! I will make good what was lost through me.'
'You are mad,' said Golden, when he saw that his gentle sneer had
failed; 'such a step would be ruin. Call together the shareholders! Why,
the shareholders--Mr Drummond, for heaven's sake, let people manage it
who know what they are about.'
'For heaven's sake! for hell's sake, you mean,' said Robert in his
despair. And the words reverberated in his ears, rang out of all the
echoes, sounded through the very streets, 'It would be ruin!' Ruin! that
was the word. It deafened him, muttering and ringing in his ears.
And yet even after this outburst he was calmed down. Mr Golden explained
it to him. It was business; it was the common course of affairs, and
only his own entire inexperience made it so terrible to him. To the
others it was not in the least terrible, and yet he had no right to
conclude that his colleagues were indifferent either to their own
danger, or to the danger of the shareholders of whom he thought so much.
'The shareholders of course know the risks of business as well as we
do,' Mr Golden said. 'We must act for the best, both for them and for
ourselves.' And the painter was silenced if not convinced. This was in
the autumn, and during the entire winter which followed the bank went on
like a ship in a troubled sea. After a while such a crisis as the one
which had so infinitely alarmed him became the commonest of incidents
even to Drummond. Now that his eyes had been once enlightened, it was
vain to attempt any further concealment. One desperate struggle he did
indeed make, when in the very midst of all this anxiety a larger
dividend than usual was declared. The innocent man fought wildly against
this practical lie, but his resistance was treated as utter folly by the
business board, who were, as they said, 'fighting the ship.' 'Do you
want to create a panic and a run upon us?' they asked him. He had to be
silent, overpowered by the judgment of men who knew better than himself.
And then something of the excitement involved in that process of
'fighting the ship' stole into his veins. Somehow by degrees, nobody had
been quite aware how, the old partners of Rivers's had gone out of the
concern. It was true there had been but three or four to start with; now
there was but one left--Lord Rivers, the head of the house, who never
took any share in the business, and was as ignorant as the smallest
shareholder. The new directors, the fighting directors, were men of a
very different class. As the winter went on the ship laboured more and
more. Sometimes it seemed to go down altogether, and then rose again
with a buoyancy which almost seemed to justify hope. '_Tout peut se
rétablir_,' they said to each other. 'After all we shall tide it over.'
And even Robert began to feel that thrill of delight and relief when a
danger was 'tided over,' that admiration, not of his own cleverness, but
of the cleverness of others, which Golden had once described. Golden
came out now in his true colours; his resources were infinite, his pluck
extraordinary. But he enjoyed the struggle in the midst of his
excitement and exertion, and Drummond did not enjoy it, which made an
immense difference between them.
Things became worse and worse as spring came on. By that time, so far as
Drummond was concerned, all hope was over. He felt himself sucked into
the terrible whirlpool whence nothing but destruction could come. With a
heart unmanned by anxiety, and a hand shaking with suppressed
excitement, how could he go into his peaceable studio and work at that
calmest work, of art? That phase of his existence seemed to have been
over for years. When he went into the room he loved it looked to him
like some place he had known in his youth--it was fifty years off or
more, though the colour was scarcely dry on the picture which stood idly
on the easel. When he was called to Academy meetings, to consultations
over an old master, or a new rule, a kind of dull amazement filled his
soul. Did people still care for such things--was it still possible that
beauty and pleasantness remained in life? There were people in these
days who felt even that the painter had fallen into bad ways. They saw
his eyes bloodshot and his hand trembling. He was never seen with his
wife now when she drove her ponies through the park--even in society
Helen went sometimes out alone. And they had been so united, so happy a
pair. 'Drummond will have nothing ready in April,' the painters
said to each other--'even his diploma picture has never been
finished--prosperity has not agreed with _him_.' When he was visible at
all, his vacant air, his tremulous look, the deep lines under his eyes,
frightened all his friends. Dr Maurice had spoken to him very seriously,
begging that he would be candid and tell his ailments. 'You cannot go on
like this,' he said. 'You are killing yourself, Drummond.' 'How much can
a man go through without being killed, I wonder?' poor Robert asked,
with an unsteady smile, and even his friend stopped short in dismay and
perplexity. Was it dissipation? Was it some concealed misery? Could his
wife have anything to do with it? These suggestions flitted vaguely
through the doctor's mind without bringing any certainty with them. Once
he seemed to be getting a clue to the mystery, when Robert rushed in
upon him one day, and with a show of levity suggested that Haldane's
money should be taken out of the bank. 'I know a better investment, and
he should have the very best that is going,' said Drummond. Dr Maurice
was somewhat startled, for he had money in Rivers's too.
'Where is there a better investment?' he asked.
'In the Three per Cents.,' said Robert, with a hoarse laugh.
Was he mad? Was he----drunk? The doctor took a day to consider it, to
think whether there could be anything in it. But he looked at the
dividend papers, showing that Rivers's that year had paid ten per cent.
And he called upon Dr Bradcliffe, and asked him to go with him
privately, _accidentally_, one of these days, to see a friend whose
brain was going, he feared. The two physicians shook their heads, and
said to each other mournfully how common that was becoming. But Fate
moved faster than Dr Maurice, and the accidental call was never made.