Author Of ‘Aunt Rachel,’ ‘The Weaker Vessel,’ Etc.
I
Mr Bommaney was a British merchant of the highest rectitude and the most
spotless reputation. He traded still under the name of Bommaney, Waite,
and Co., though Waite had been long since dead, and the Company had
gone out of existence in his father’s time. The old offices, cramped and
inconvenient, in which the firm had begun life eighty years before,
were still good enough for Mr. Bommaney, and they had an air of solid
respectability which newer and flashier places lacked. The building
of which they formed a part stood in Coalporter’s Alley, opposite
the Church of St. Mildred, and the hum of the City’s traffic scarcely
sounded in that retired and quiet locality.
Mr. Bommaney himself was a man of sixty, hale and hearty, with a rosy
face and white whiskers. He was a broad-shouldered man, inclining to be
portly, and he was currently accepted as a man of an indomitable
will. There was no particular reason for the popular belief in his
determination apart from the fact that it was a favourite boast of his
that nothing ever got him down. On all occasions and in all companies he
was wont to declare that no conceivable misfortune could really break
a man of spirit. He confessed to a pitying sympathy for mealy-willed
people (and everybody knew that Bommaney, in spite of his own strength
of mind, was one of the kindliest creatures in the world); but, whenever
he met a man in trouble, he would clip him by the shoulder, and would
say, in his own hearty fashion, ‘You must look the thing in the face, my
boy. Look it in the face. I’d never let anything break _me_ down.’
Since his reputation for fortitude was as solid and as old-fashioned
amongst the people who knew him as his business character itself, it
would have come as something of a shock upon any of his friends if he
could but have been seen by them, or any credible man amongst them, on a
certain afternoon in the April of 1880. He had locked himself in his own
room, and, sitting there in a big chair before a businesslike desk, with
a great number of docketed papers in pigeon-holes, and a disordered mass
of papers strewn before him, the determined Mr. Bommaney, the decided
Mr. Bommaney, the Mr. Bommaney whom no misfortune could subdue, was
crying, very feebly and quietly, and was mopping his rosy cheeks, and
blowing his nose in an utter and unrestraining abandonment to trouble.
There was another fact which would have come upon his friends with an
equal shock of surprise if they could but have had it brought home to
them. The man who sat unaffectedly crying in the big chair in helpless
contemplation of the scattered papers was a hopeless bankrupt, and had
seen himself sliding towards bankruptcy for years. When men who knew him
wanted business advice, they went to him by preference, and nobody came
away empty. He knew the City and its intricacies like a book. He knew
who was safe and who was shaky, as if by a kind of instinct, and he knew
where and when to invest, and where and when not to invest, as few men
did. ‘You can’t get at me,’ he would say; for, old-fashioned as he was,
he used a little of the new-fashioned slang to give spice and vigour to
his conversation. ‘There isn’t a move on the board that I don’t know.’
He advised his friends excellently, and there were perhaps half a score
of fairly well-to-do speculative people who had to thank him, and him
alone, for the comfort they lived in and the consideration they enjoyed.
He had been wise for others all his life, and in his own interests he
had always acted like a greenhorn. He talked loudly, he spent freely,
he paid his way, he expressed the soundest business maxims, and was as
shrewd in detail as he was wise in generalities, and these things made a
natural reputation for him: whilst he traded for years at the expense of
his capital, and went steadily and surely towards the bottomless gulf of
insolvency. Now he was on the very verge of it, and to-morrow he would
be in it. It lent a feeble sting to his sufferings to know how surprised
people would be, and how completely men would find him out.
He had not very profoundly involved other people in his own ruin, but he
had gone a little farther than a man altogether brave, and honourable,
and clearsighted would have ventured, and he knew that some would suffer
with him. He might have made arrangements to go a little farther still
if he had been courageous, clear-sighted, and dishonest, and might have
held his head up for another matter too, perhaps. But he had lacked the
nerve for that, and had never consciously been a rogue. He felt even
now a pride of honesty. He had been unfortunate, and his creditors would
have everything--everything.
He thanked God that Phil’s mother had tied her money on her only son,
and that the boy at least had enough to begin the world with. How should
he face Phil when he came home again? How should he send the news to
him? The lad was away enjoying himself, travelling all round the world
with a wandering Baronet, who owned a yacht and had an unappeasable
taste for the destruction of big game. He would have to surrender his
fashionable and titled acquaintance now, poor fellow, and begin the
world with a disgraced and broken frame to be a drag and hindrance
to him. The more Mr. Bommaney thought of these things, the more
unrestrainedly he cried; and the more he cried, the less he felt able or
inclined to control his tears.
He wept almost silently, only an occasional sniff betraying his emotion
to his ear. He had always held his head so high, and had been so
believed in. It was very bitter.
Whilst he was in the midst of this childish abandonment to his grief a
set of knuckles softly and hesitatingly tapped the door from without,
and directly afterwards a hand made a tentative respectful sort of
attempt upon the handle.
‘Who’s there?’ cried Mr. Bommaney, steadying his voice as best he could.
‘A gentleman to see you, sir,’ answered a smooth voice outside.
Mr. Bommaney pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and retiring to a
smaller room consulted a little square looking-glass which hung upon
the wall above his washing-stand. His blue eyes were very tearful and a
little swollen, his cheeks and nose looked as if they had been scalded.
‘Wait a moment,’ he said aloud, and his voice betrayed him by a break.
He blushed and trembled, thinking that Mr. Hornett, his confidential
clerk, would know how he was breaking down, and would speak of his
want of courage and self-command hereafter. The reflection nerved
him somewhat, and he sluiced his face with water, making a little
unnecessary noise of splashing to tell the listener how he was engaged.
He polished his face with the towel, and, consulting the mirror again,
thought he looked a little better.
Then he re-entered his business room, and turning the key in the lock
opened the door slightly, a mere inch or two.
‘Who is it?’
‘A Mr. Brown, sir,’ said the smooth voice outside. The clerk insinuated
a card through the space between the door and door-jamb, and Mr.
Bommaney took it from his fingers without revealing himself. He had
some difficulty in making out its inscription, for his eyes were newly
tearful, and, whilst he peered at it, a reflex of his late emotions
brought a sniffling sob again. He was freshly ashamed at this, and said
hastily,
‘Five minutes’ time. I will ring when I am ready. Ask the gentleman to
wait.’
Mr. James Hornett softly closed the door, and stood on the landing with
long lean fingers scraping at his lantern jaws. He was a little man,
short of stature, and sparely built. His skin was vealy in complexion,
and he had wiry hair of a russet-red. Even when he was clean shaven his
fingers rasped upon his hollow cheeks with a faint sound. His nose and
chin were long and pointed, and his manner was meek and self-effacing
even when he was alone. There was a tinge of wonder in his face, at war
with an habitual smile, in which his eyes had no part.
‘Something wrong?’ he said, under his breath. He went creeping softly
down the stairs. ‘Something wrong? Mr. Bommaney in tears? Mr. Bommaney!’
Could anything have happened to Mr. Phil? That was the only thing Mr.
Hornett could think of as being likely to affect his employer in that
way.
Now Mr. Hornett had been in his present employ for thirty years, man
and boy, and he was human. Therefore, when at the expiration of a
little more than five minutes’ time Mr. Bommaney’s bell rang, he himself
ushered the visitor upstairs, and in place of retiring to his own pew
below stairs, lingered in a desert little apartment rarely used, and
then stole out upon the landing and listened. He was the more prompted
to this because the visitor, who had a bucolic hearty aspect, and was
very talkative, had told him downstairs that Mr. Bommaney and himself
were old friends and schoolfellows, and had been in each other’s
confidence for years.
‘I am afraid, sir,’ Mr. Hornett had said, when the visitor first
presented himself, ‘that Mr. Bommaney may not be able to see you at
present. He gave orders not to be disturbed.’
‘Not see me?’ said the visitor with a laugh. ‘I’ll engage he will.’
And then followed the statement about his old acquaintanceship with Mr.
Hornett’s employer.
If there were anything to be told at all, it seemed not unlikely that
this visitor might be the recipient of the intelligence, and Mr. Hornett
lingered to find if haply he might overhear. He heard nothing that
enlightened him as to the reasons for his employer’s disturbance, but
heard most that passed between the two.
Bommaney had succeeded in composing himself and in washing away the
traces of his tears. Then he had taken a stiffish dose of brandy and
water, and was something like his own man again. He received his
visitor cordially, and in his anxiety not to seem low-spirited was a
little more boisterous than common.
‘I’m busy, you see,’ he said, waving a hand at the papers scattered
on the desk, and keeping up the farce of prosperous merchandise to the
last, ‘but I can spare _you_ a minute or two, old man. What brings you
up to town?’
‘I’ve come here to settle,’ said the visitor. He was a florid man with
crisp black hair with a hint of gray in it, and he was a countryman from
head to heel. He seemed a little disposed to flaunt his bucolics upon
the town, his hat, his necktie, his boots and gaiters, were of so
countrified a fashion, and yet he looked somehow more of a gentleman
than Bommaney.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve come to settle.’ He rubbed his hands and laughed
here, not because there was anything humorous and amusing in his
thoughts, but out of sheer health and jollity of nature. Bommaney,
still distrustful of his own aspect, and afraid of being observed, sat
opposite to him with bent head and fidgeted with his papers, blindly
pretending to arrange them.
‘To settle,’ he said absently. Then, rousing himself with an effort, ‘I
thought you hated London?’
‘Ah, my boy,’ said his visitor, ‘when you’re in the shafts with a whip
behind you, you’ve got to go where you are driven.’
‘Yes,’ said Bommaney mechanically, ‘that is so. That _is_ so.’
The visitor was laughing and rubbing his hands again in perfect
happiness and self-contentment, and had no eye for Bommaney’s
abstraction.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s Patty’s doing. I’ve sold up every stick and stone,
and I’ve taken a house in Gower Street. Do you know, Bommaney,’ he
added, with an air and voice suddenly serious and confidential, ‘the
country’s going to the devil. Land’s sinking in value every year. I’ve
been farming at a growing loss these six years, and rents don’t come in
as they used to do. I got my chance and I took it. Lord Bellamy wanted
to join the Mount Royal and the three estates. My little bit o’ land
lay between ‘em, and I sold it to him. Sold it, too, begad, as well as I
could have done half a dozen years ago.’
Then he laughed once more with great heartiness, and unbuttoning his
overcoat, groped in an inner pocket. After a struggle, in the course
of which he grew very red in the face, he drew forth a pocket-book of
unusual dimensions, and slapped it on the desk so vigorously that his
companion started.
‘I got a tip the other day,’ he went on; ‘that old bank at Mount Royal,
Fellowes and Fellowes, is going to crack up, my boy. There’s something
very queer in the commercial atmosphere just now, Bommaney. There are
lots of old-fashioned solid people breaking up.’
To Bommaney’s uneasy fancy there was in his visitor’s voice an accent
which sounded personal.
‘I--I hope not,’ he answered, somewhat feebly, ‘so much depends----’
(he tried hard to rally himself), ‘so much depends upon a spirit of
commercial confidence.’
‘Exactly,’ cried the visitor, laying hands’ upon the pocket-book and
opening it. ‘I went to the bank and saw young Fellowes myself. “Look
here, Fellowes,” I told him, “I want my daughter’s money.” He stuck to
it, sir; like a dog holding on to a bone. He growled about it, and he
whined about it, said it wasn’t fair to withdraw the money on short
notice. Said I couldn’t do better with it anywhere, and at last I told
him, “Look here, Fellowes, I shall begin to think by and by there’s
something wrong.” He went as red as a turkey-cock, begad, and drew a
note on their London agent like a lord, and here I am with the money.
Eight thousand pounds.’
By this time he had drawn a bundle of bank-notes from the pocket-book,
and now sat flicking the edges of the notes with the tips of his great
broad fingers. Bommaney heard the crisp music, and looked up with a
momentary glance of hunger in his eyes.
‘That’s Patty’s little private handful,’ the visitor continued, opening
the packet of notes, and smoothing it upon his knee. ‘Eighty notes of
a hundred. Pretty little handful, isn’t it? They don’t look,’ he added,
with his head reflectively on one side and his eyebrows raised a little,
‘they don’t look as they’d buy as much as they will.’
Bommaney tried to find a commonplace word by answer, and an inaudible
something died drily in his throat. When his companion began to speak
again, the bankrupt merchant wondered that he made no comment on his
ghastly face--he knew his face was ghastly--or his shaking hands. There
was an intuition in his mind so strong and clear that he trembled at its
prophecy.
‘Patty,’ said the visitor, ‘will have everything in time, and a pretty
good handful, too. But she’s bent on being independent, and she wants to
have her own money in her own hands. She pretends it’s all because she
wants to pay her milliner’s bills, and that kind of thing, herself; but
I know better. The fact is’--he lowered his voice and chuckled--‘the
fact is, she doesn’t want me to know how much she spends in charity. You
look here, Bommaney’--the merchant’s heart seemed to stand still, and
then to beat so wild an alarum that he wondered the other did not hear
it The intuition multiplied in strength. He heard beforehand the spoken
words, the very tones which marked them. ‘You’re a safe man, you’re a
smart man. I suppose there isn’t anybody in London who can lay out money
to more advantage than you can. I know it’s a great favour to ask, but
I think you’ll do it for Patty’s sake and mine, if I do ask you. Take
this, and invest it for her. Will you, now?’
He stood up with the bundle of notes outstretched in his hand. The
merchant rose and accepted it, and looked him, with a sudden curious
calm and steadiness, straight in the face.