CITY INTELLIGENCE.
Robert Streightley's preoccupation and loss of spirits were not
without due cause. In the half hour that had lapsed between his
parting with his wife and sister, and his rejoining them when in
colloquy with the Scotch gardener, he had gone through a phase of
mental torture such as he had never before experienced. The Irish
gentleman of good birth and vanished fortunes, who comes to London
with just sufficient money to pay his entrance-fees to a fashionable
club, to keep a garret in St. Alban's Place, and to hire a hack for
the season from a livery-stable, and goes in to win the heart, or at
all events the hand, of an heiress, gets to work at once, finds his
_coup manqué_ ever so many times during one season, and soon begins to
look upon his rejection as a mere matter of chance, and falls back on
the grand principle of "better luck next time." The starving student,
living from hand to mouth by the preparation of badly-paid work from
grinding booksellers, eats his ninepenny plate of boiled beef, and
hurries back to the reading-room of the British Museum, convinced that
the day will come when his talent shall be appreciated and remunerated
as it should be. The parish-doctor's assistant sings over his pestle,
and slaps his spatula cheerfully on the china plate, confident that
the retired Indian nabob, the wealthy widow with the quinsey, the
measles-struck child of the countess, his successful care of all or
one of whom will insure the pair-horse brougham, the M.D. degree, and
the house in Saville Row, are all gradually working up towards him.
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast;" and so long as we perceive
no symptoms of dry-rot in our dearest aspirations, we are for the most
part content to grind away, facing present difficulties manfully, and
awaiting the result. But if you were to prove to the Irish gentleman
that his fascinating powers were on the wane; to the student that his
overtaxed brain was giving way; to the doctor's assistant that he was
every where considered a hopeless quack, you would cut away all their
hold on life, and they would be whirled into that abyss of despondency
in which thousands, similarly unfortunate, yearly perish.
A phase of torture very much allied to these described was being
undergone by Robert Streightley. The "transaction" between him and Mr.
Guyon, under which Katharine had become his wife, was constantly
rising in his mind, and the heart-ache consequent thereon was only
allayed by the thought that his possession of wealth enabled her to
indulge in the extravagance which seemed to form a part and parcel of
her life. He knew thoroughly well that, under her father's influence,
he had won her by his riches, that they constituted his sole claim to
respect in her eyes, that the fact of her having made "an excellent
match," as bruited abroad by Lady Henmarsh and her set, meant that she
had married a City man in a large way of business and with a large
amount of ready-money at command, which would be at her disposal, and
enable her to indulge all the freaks and vagaries of her fancy. It
was, after all, a poor shifting foundation, a mere quicksand, on which
to base any structure of future happiness; but within the last few
weeks, marking the improvement in his wife's spirits, and the increase
of kindly feelings towards him, Robert had been content to accept it
at all events as an instalment of conjugal bliss, and had flattered
himself with the idea that when Katharine found all her thoughts
anticipated, all her wishes gratified, she might have some--he did not
like to think of it as gratitude, he wanted a feeling with a warmer
name--towards him who lived only to do her bidding.
Feeling then against all his hopes and attempts at self-deception that
in the money which he was enabled to place at his wife's command, and
in the position which she was thereby enabled to obtain, lay his only
chance of obtaining favour in the eyes of her, to gratify whose every
whim was the only pleasure of his life, it may be imagined with what
feelings Robert Streightley read through a letter which came to him by
the same post as brought Hester Gould's missive alluded to in the
preceding chapter. It was from his confidential clerk, Mr. Foster, and
ran thus:
"Dear Sir--Mr. Delley, the City editor of the _Bullionist_, who, as you
know, has for many years supplied the house with reliable information,
called in at 2 P.M. to see you; but learning you would not be at
business to-day, he sent for me to your private room, and told me he
understood that Messrs. Needham, Nick, and Driver were in a very shaky
state, owing to the failure of the Dublin branch of their bank,
announced in to-day's City Intelligence. Knowing how heavy our account
was against them (28,917_l_. 7_s_. 9_d_.), I started off at once to
Fenchurch Street, but found the doors closed, the shutters up, and all
business suspended. Mr. Delley has been here just now (5:30 P.M.), and
talks of a shilling in the pound. Old Mr. Nick's death, and the large
sums taken out of the bank by Mr. Needham junior, who was only
admitted as a partner two years ago, are said to have led to the
wind-up. Please come up at once, if convenient. Your obedient servant,
J. FOSTER."
When Robert Streightley laid down this letter his hand trembled, his
mouth was parched, and a film seemed to come over his eyes. It was not
the sum lost, though that was very large, but a horrid sensation
crossed him that retribution was attacking him in his most vulnerable
part, that the joints in his armour had been spied out by the enemy,
and that--Good God! if he were to lose that one hold upon his wife's
gratitude! if he were compelled to tell her that the mere wretched
substance to which she had been sacrificed was a sham and a swindle,
that he---- Pshaw! he sank down in his chair as these thoughts rushed
through his mind; then he wiped his damp brow with his handkerchief,
and shook himself together as it were with one strong effort, and
rising, began to pace the room. What a weak, cowardly fool he was, he
thought, thus to give way This was a blow undoubtedly,--what some of
the Stock-Exchange fellows called a "facer;" but what of that? It
could be met; and even if he lost all--if things turned out as badly
as Foster predicted--well, thirty thousand pounds would not shake the
credit of Streightley and Son. The mere repetition of the name seemed
to rouse up innate business instincts which had been slumbering for
some months--to call into action all those qualities which had made
the man what he was; and he determined to go up to the City at once,
and see for himself how the business stood. He waited for a minute or
two until Ellen had strayed off into a bye-path in search of some
flower, and then he said to his wife:
"I must leave you, Katharine, for a short time--four-and-twenty hours
or so--not longer, dear."
His voice dropped, and quivered a little with the natural emotion
which he felt. He looked tenderly up at her, and drawing near her,
tightly laid his hand on her arm. She was binding together a few
flowers as he joined her. She did not cease from her little task; but
as she leisurely made the knot, and drew it tight with her teeth, she
said, without looking up,
"O, indeed! business, I suppose?"
Robert Streightley started as though he had been shot. What else could
he have expected? Did he anticipate a few tender words of regret at
his necessitated absence; a tear or two dimming the bright eyes; a
little pouting or peevishness at being left alone? Did he imagine that
his wife might have made some inquiry as to the nature of the business
which caused him to absent himself for twenty-four hours from his
home? Such might have been the case in those preposterous matches
which are arranged thoughtlessly and frivolously by two young people
without calling their elders into council--in those ridiculous unions
of hearts. But there was nothing in Robert Streightley's bargain, no
clause in his bond, to warrant his expectation of any thing of the
kind. "To have and to hold," certainly; but to create sympathy, to
awaken interest--no mention of either of these superfluities in the
marriage-contract. So he simply said, "Yes, dear; business;" and laid
his lips to her cheek, and ordered his clothes to be packed, and drove
away to the station.
He was uncomfortable, vacillating, wretched, all through the journey;
but he became his old self as he entered his offices. As the door of
his private room closed behind him, as he marked the letters lying
unopened on his desk, as he took his seat in the birch-framed,
cane-bottomed chair which had been his seat ever since he first
assumed his junior partnership, and as he saw old Foster standing at
his elbow, with his paper of memoranda in his hand ready to read
from,--Robert Streightley felt more genuine pleasure than he had for
months. The mere fact of there being a difficulty--a hitch--something
towards the elucidation of which the play of his business talents
might tend--gave him life; the _gaudia certaminis_ inspired him;
and he set to work with such a zest, that old Foster, who had been
shaking his head dolefully for the past few months, and thinking
to himself--he would not have breathed such an opinion for the
world--that the glories of the great house of Streightley and Son were
on the wane, took fresh heart, and indulged that evening in the
enormity of an extra half-pint of stout at the chop-house where he
took his dinner, in token of his delight.
Robert Streightley had not been more than a couple of hours at work,
when a junior clerk entered, and told him that Mr. Guyon was outside
in a cab, and had called to know if Mr. Streightley was in town.
Bidden to show Mr. Guyon in, the junior clerk retired, immediately
returning with Mr. Guyon, looking ten years younger than when Robert
had last seen him; with his brown-black whiskers, and hair a little
red-rusty from travel; with the strong trace of a silvery beard; with
a rakish Glengarry cap on his head, a travelling suit and a courier's
bag on his body. He entered with his usual impulsive bound, and had
Streightley by both hands almost before the latter knew he had
entered.
"The merest chance, my dear Robert,--the merest chance that I should
have called in to-day. Returning from Paris by the tidal, and having
to stop at that most confounded of all confounded stations, London
Bridge, and having to go through this cursed City,--no offence to you,
my dear boy, but it's a dreadful hole,--I thought I'd just drop in and
see whether you were in town."
Mr. Streightley assured Mr. Guyon--a somewhat supererogatory
assurance--that he was in town, adding--of which there was no such
corroborative testimony--that he was glad to see him.
"And Katharine?" asked Mr. Guyon, carefully smoothing his chin
with his hand, and looking up under his eye-glass at his
son-in-law,--"Katharine is well?"
Katharine was quite well, Mr. Streightley thanked Mr. Guyon.
Mr. Guyon devoutly thanked heaven for that news. All the traces of
that horrible--eh? at Martigny--quite gone, eh? Thought he should
never have been able to dress himself that morning when he opened
Streightley's note about Katharine's illness. His man thought he was
going to have a fit, and wanted to hasten for a doctor. Told the man
he was a consummate ass; that what he, Mr. Guyon, was suffering from
was feelings; and what the devil did he, the man, know about them! And
Katharine was well; and their place, Middlemeads--eh?--was perfection?
O, he'd heard it here, there, and every where. Saw Roger Chevers at
Boulogne, _en passant_, and had heard him say what a lovely place it
was, and how leaving it had smashed up his old governor, root and
branch. He was always talking of it, sir--said Roger--and wondering
whether they'd cut into the avenue, or whether they left that view
clear top of Two-Ash Hill, looking out the south way; or whether
they'd put the stables in order, or built others where the Red Barn
stood. That's what he should have done, if that cursed Brazilian mine
had only turned up trumps! "Poor old Gov! he'll never forget
Middlemeads!" said honest Roger, who drowned all thought of his lost
patrimony in cheap brandy and the delights of perpetual pool, and
dances at the _Etablissement des Bains_.
Ignoring the opinions and speculations of Mr. Roger Chevers, Robert
Streightley acknowledged that Middlemeads was a fine place, and that
he thought it had improved since it had been in his hands.
"Of course, my dear Robert, of course!" said Mr. Guyon; "your princely
munificence, and what I think I may say--although my own child is in
question--Katharine's excellent taste, would be certain to do wonders
for any place to which both could be simultaneously applied. _Allez,
toujours, la jeunesse!_ a French phrase which is roughly but not
inadequately rendered by our own maxim of 'Go it while you're young!'
As for me, I'm an old bird--an old bird, begad, come back to an empty
nest, to find the sticks and the straw and all that, but my young
fledgling flown." Mr. Guyon seemed quite affected at the allusion
which he had thus made, and turned away his head, touching his eyes
lightly with his handkerchief.
"I trust you will have no cause to repent of your sanction to your
daughter's flight, Mr. Guyon," said Streightley, in a somewhat marked
tone. "You recollect, before she left your roof, that----"
"My dear Robert! my dear Robert!" interposed the old gentleman; "do
you think I have forgotten the confidence in which I told you that I
was unworthy of the blessing of such a daughter--that I was by nature
more fitted for--for less domestic delights. And indeed I--in Paris I
have enjoyed myself most amazin'ly, most amazin'ly! That fellow,
sir--whom I recklect when he lived in King Street--used to drive a
doosid good cab, I recklect; he certainly has improved Paris
wonderfully. But it's horribly expensive, my dear boy, horribly
expensive. I--I ran rather short before I came away, and I was obliged
to draw on you for a hundred--I was indeed!"
Streightley's face looked very stern as he heard this. "Do I
understand you to say that you have drawn a bill on me for a hundred
pounds, Mr. Guyon?"
"Yes, my dear boy, at a month; it'll be due----"
"That is a liberty which I permit no one to take, and which must never
be repeated."
"A liberty, Robert?"
"A liberty, Mr. Guyon. Any man who draws a bill on another without
first asking his friend's permission, takes what we of the City think
an unwarrantable liberty. I am sure you erred in ignorance; but I must
ask you to put a stop entirely to what seems to have become a habit
with you--the reliance on me for money. I cannot make you any further
advances, at least for the present."
This was a great blow for Mr. Guyon, who had been boasting, as
was his wont, amongst his English acquaintances in Paris of the
great wealth and generosity of his son-in-law. Nor had his French
friends been unenlightened on the subject; "eel a milyonair--com
voter Roschild vous savvy," the old gentleman had remarked with great
self-satisfaction. And now to find his milch-cow refusing her supply,
and as it were threatening him with her horns and heels, was any thing
but pleasant. However, Mr. Guyon's temperament was light and elastic;
he thought this determination of Streightley's would not last; that
some business matters had "put him out;" that his anger would soon
"blow over:" so he assured his son-in-law that he would remember what
he had said; and shaking hands fervently with him, skipped back to
the cab, with the pleasant feeling that at least a quarter of the
hundred pounds so judiciously drawn was at that moment safe in his
trousers-pocket.
Then Robert Streightley called Foster into his room, and over books
and ledgers, and commercial documents of all kinds, they held a
consultation which lasted until late in the afternoon, and which
proved to them both that the financial position of Streightley and Son
had recently had the hardest blow, in the stopping of Messrs. Nick's
bank, which it had received since it commenced operations of any
magnitude.
"It comes at an awkward time too for you, sir," said old Mr. Foster.
"We wanted all the ready cash we could lay our hands on just now;
there are the calls on the Benares Railroad, and the deposits upon the
Indian Peninsular--we're pretty deep in both of them--and there's six
thousand for the lease in Portland Place, which of course must be paid
at once. However, there's no reason to hold the Indian lines; they're
both at a high premium; and as this bothering bank has crippled us for
a bit, perhaps we had better sell and----"
"Not one share, Poster! not a single share! we'll stand to our guns,
and the money shall be forthcoming when it's wanted, I'll take care of
that. 'Forward!' has been the motto of Streightley and Son, Foster, as
you know very well, and they're not going to change it now! You shall
see the thirty thousand replaced, ay and doubled, before you retire on
a pension, Foster, I promise you."
"There never was any one like you, Mr. Robert," said the old man, his
eyes sparkling with pleasure; "when you say a thing will be, I know it
will be, ay, as sure as the Bank of England." And so closed the
business consultation.
The lease of the house in Portland Place, which Mr. Foster had alluded
to, was one of Robert Streightley's wedding-presents to his bride.
They must have a town-house, of course, one befitting her position in
society; and partly because of its proximity to her father's
residence, partly because the substantial appearance of the
Portland-Place houses, and the knowledge that they had been for years
in great demand among the moneyed classes, pleased him, he bought the
lease of this house then in the market, had the house splendidly
decorated while they were away, and on their return home had given
Katharine _carte-blanche_ as to its furniture. Katharine had gone
twice to London during their stay at Middlemeads, and had held long
consultations with the upholsterer, but Robert had not seen the house
since he had purchased it.
He walked there now; and though it was still in disorder, he was
astounded at the magnificence of the decorations and the splendour of
the furniture. Under the direction of Katharine's excellent taste, the
_carte-blanche_ given to the upholsterer had worked wonders. No
duchess could have had a more perfectly-appointed house, with nothing
new or perky-looking about it: for what would be the use of money
nowadays if it could not purchase antiquity in every thing save
family?--and even that can be manufactured to order at the Heralds'
College. So Robert Streightley walked in pleased astonishment among
the high-backed chairs in the dining-room, and past the dark oak
bookcases in the library, and through the pale-green drawing-rooms
with the lovely hangings, the elegant _portières_, the buhl cabinets,
the splendid glasses, the _étagères_, and all the nick-nackery of
upholstery. It was in this last paradise that Mr. Streightley found
one of the partners of the upholstery-firm, a gentlemanly-looking man,
who was surveying his men's work with much complacency. He bowed to
Robert, and hoped he was pleased with what had been done. Mr.
Streightley expressed himself as thoroughly satisfied; and Mr. Clinch
then ventured to hope that he should not be considered troublesome if
he were to ask for a cheque--not for the total, of course--just
something on account, as workmen's wages must be paid, &c. Certainly;
what amount did Messrs. Clinch require? Mr. Walter Clinch "for self
and partners" ventured to name the sum of twelve hundred pounds. Mr.
Streightley, after the smallest possible start, made a memorandum in
his pocketbook, and said that a cheque should be sent the next day.
Twelve hundred pounds for decorations and furniture--"on account" too,
showing that there was perhaps as much again to pay! Katharine had
certainly understood the word _carte-blanche_ in its widest and most
liberal sense. Twelve hundred pounds! and until his marriage he had
lived in a little Brixton villa, the entire furniture of which was not
worth one-third of the sum. Should he speak to his wife, should
he----? Not he! now she was his wife, why was she his wife? Simply for
the sake of his money--that money which he had placed at her command.
The one happiness that he could offer her was the power of spending
money, and should he refuse her that? The only salve that he could
apply to his never-quiet conscience was that he had been enabled to
supply her with the means of gratifying extravagant tastes which must
have remained ungratified had she married that--had she made that
match which seemed so imminent when he had that never-to-be-forgotten
interview with Mr. Guyon. No! Katharine had married him because he was
a rich man, and a rich man he must remain to her. Besides, after all,
what was her expenditure? what were these few hundred pounds to him?
This horrible bank business had frightened him, he supposed; had it
not happened, should he have given the smallest thought to such a
trifle as Mr. Clinch's account?
Nevertheless, all that he had said to Foster he determined on carrying
out. There should be no "drawing-in their horns," no curtailment in
the operations of Streightley and Son. The money necessary to meet
this bank failure must be raised somehow. He could get it in the City
at an hour's notice. From the Bank of England downwards there were
plenty of establishments ready to help the old-established firm. But
such matters are talked of in the City, chatted over in the Bank
parlour, whispered on 'Change, give matter for gossip and
shoulder-shrugs and eyebrow-liftings; and Robert's spirit shrunk from
the idea that he or his firm could form the subject of any such
speculations. And yet the money must be had. Where could he turn for
it? Ah, a lucky thought! That man--Mr. Guyon's friend--what was his
name? Thacker: a shrewd, clear-headed, clever man. He would go and see
him, and talk the matter over.