THE CRASH.
Within a month Carey's Bank broke, not altogether unexpectedly. The
breaking carried dismay and desolation into not a few households in
Redcross, and administered a sharp shock--productive of much startled
speculation, and roused distrust, even in those quarters which had not
suffered financially by the bankruptcy. The stoppage of a bank, with
little hope of its resuming its functions, is like the stoppage of a
heart which will never beat again. It may have been dreaded as a
possible calamity, and occasionally hinted at in awed whispers; but when
the blow falls it does so with a stunning, crushing force because of its
irreparable nature and far-reaching ruin.
There was just a little preparation to herald the catastrophe. Poor
Carey, an honest, weak tool of dishonest speculators and birds of prey
in the shape of needy, unscrupulous relations, when the appalling
tidings reached him which could only betoken immediate wreck, did all
that there was left to him to do. He called a meeting of the Redcross
shareholders. These were the leading professional men in the town who
had invested their savings, and a small proportion of the neighbouring
country gentlemen who had put a little capital--not often to spare in
those days--in a concern once regarded as sound and incapable of
collapse as the Bank of England itself. With a faltering tongue and a
hanging head the nominal head of the firm told to those nearly concerned
what was coming on them. Nobody reproached him; either no man had the
heart, or all felt the uselessness of reproaches. Certainly these
shareholders' silence was his heaviest punishment.
They made a hasty examination, as far as they could, for themselves, and
then the meeting broke up. Its members did not even linger to consult,
being well assured that consultation, like reproaches, would be of no
avail; the failure was so much more extensive and complete than their
worst fears had led them to anticipate. The men looked blankly in each
other's whitening faces and sought the refuge of their own houses at
first. There would be time enough for outcry, for desperate plans and
schemes a little later.
Poor Dr. Millar had not even this breathing space. It happened to be a
particularly busy day with him. Various neutral individuals, in no way
concerned with Carey's Bank, even when its misfortunes should be made
public, took that inconvenient time for falling ill, and their medical
man had to attend upon them with spasmodic promptitude and mechanical
attention--projected, as it were, against the dazed and confused
background of his brain. After all he was glad of his profession with
its outward and immediate calls, taking him out of himself in the hour
when he had heard the worst. He preferred to be about the town doing
battle with this man's attack of paralysis and that woman's symptoms of
typhoid, even though his ears were ringing with clamorous questions
which no one else could hear or answer. How was he to pay up the
liabilities of his bank shares from his dwindling practice? What about
inexperienced young girls driven out to make their own way in the world,
and the gentlewoman (in every sense of the word) whom he had loved and
cherished for four-and-twenty years, soon to be left a desolate, all but
unprovided for widow? But better a thousand times to be dragged in
different directions than to be sitting like Russell, locked in his
room, his little children and their young mother shut out, holding
between his hands the erect head of a soldier who had come out of many a
hard battle, but none so hard as this ambuscade which had been sprung
upon him after he had been invalided a dozen years before, and returned
home to spend his declining years in peace. Better than to have to write
sermons and read prayers, like the Rector, and pause between every
sentence to take himself sternly to task. Was it common forethought and
prudence, with the necessity of providing for the wants of a household,
which even the apostle Paul had commended, or was it worldly-mindedness
and greed which had brought him, a beneficed clergyman, a priest in holy
orders, the vowed servant of a King whose kingdom was not of this world,
to this lamentable pass? Yes; he would be dishonoured in the eyes of
men, a debtor who could not pay his debts, and even with the support of
his bishop would be scarcely able to weather the storm, while he must
make up his mind, as he was an honest man, that he and his should endure
the pinch of poverty for the rest of his days.
Annie and Dora had been out on a shopping expedition, and were coming in
talking and laughing as usual, when they were startled by the apparition
of their mother standing in the doorway of her room, and motioning to
them to come in directly and speak with her. The poor lady really looked
like a ghost, as she stood there with her fine colour gone, beckoning to
her daughters with her hand, as if the power of speech had suddenly
forsaken her.
"What is it, mother?" cried the alarmed girls in one breath, hurrying
towards her. "Has anything happened? Is anybody ill?"
"Hush! hush, my dears," said Mrs. Millar in a low tone, carefully
shutting the door of her room behind the girls, as if she were ready to
guard her secret with her life--at the same time painfully sensible that
the bad news would be all over Redcross the next day, or the next after
that. "I thought it would be better to tell you myself; nobody in the
house knows anything of it yet, except your father and me."
"But what is it, mother; you have not told us?" Annie urged; while Mrs.
Millar sank down in a low wicker chair, and her daughter Dora
instinctively stooped over her, and began to set her vagrant cap right.
"Never mind my cap, my love," said Mrs. Millar hurriedly, and then she
grew incoherent. "What does it matter, when perhaps I may not long have
a cap to wear."
Annie and Dora stared at each other in consternation. Was their mother
going out of her senses?
"It is the bank, Carey's Bank," said Mrs. Millar, recovering herself,
"Oh dear! I am afraid it is in a very bad way."
"Is that it?" cried Annie vaguely but gravely, opening wide her brown
eyes. "Is it going to fail?" She, too, spoke of the bank as if it were a
responsible being.
"Annie, Annie, take care what you say. Girls are so heedless. I tell you
it is very dangerous to make such broad statements. You do not know what
harm you may do by a single word when you are so childishly outspoken."
Mrs. Millar felt bound even yet to give her own words the timid
qualification, though she was forced to add the next moment, "Your
father has suspected things were going wrong for some time, and spoken
of his suspicions to me repeatedly. He has just come back from a private
meeting of the Redcross shareholders. He says in consequence of some
additional losses in South America, I think, and inability to realize
capital there, the bank cannot meet two or three heavy calls at home. I
daresay I am not telling you rightly, for I don't understand business,
and I don't suppose you do."
"I understand so far, that if this is not failure, I don't know what
is," said Annie.
"Don't, Annie," said Dora; "let mother tell us in her own way; it is not
easy for her, it is a dreadful misfortune."
"You may say that, Dora," exclaimed her mother. "Your father does not
believe the bank can hold out for another week; it may stop payment
to-morrow, since there are rumours afloat which will destroy what credit
it has left."
"Will no other bank help it?" cried Annie shrewdly.
"I believe not," said Mrs. Millar dolefully.
"Then there will be a run, like what one has read of in similar
circumstances--a rush of the people, and a riot in the town," suggested
Annie, getting excited over the idea. "The police may have to guard the
bank and the Bank house--soldiers may have to come from Nenthorn!"
"Oh, surely not," cried Dora; "the poor Careys--who could treat them so
cruelly?"
"No, no," said Mrs. Millar; "there is one good thing, your father does
not think there will be much ill-feeling, or anything like an angry mob,
or tumult--not even when the people see the closed doors. There has
always been such confidence in Carey's Bank, the Careys have been
respected for generations; even now it is James Carey's misfortune and
not his fault, though he may have been misled and imposed upon; and,
after all, the depositors are tolerably sure of their money in time. But
your father is afraid," she ended, her voice sinking, "that it will go
hard with the shareholders."
"And poor father is one of them," said Annie quickly.
"Poor father!" echoed Dora piteously; "and you, poor, poor mother, to
have to think of us, and break it to us, while your heart is with
father."
"And he has not even been left in peace for a single afternoon, to make
up his mind what we shall do," lamented his sympathetic wife. "As usual,
so many tiresome people have fallen ill--as if they did it on purpose,
and sent for him."
"I daresay they could not help it," said Annie, "and I don't think it
would quite suit father if they were never ill."
"Don't speak so unfeelingly, child," remonstrated her mother; "well, I
suppose I gave you a bad example," she corrected herself immediately,
"but I have been in such trouble since lunch time."
"Poor mother!" repeated Dora in a voice that was only more soft and
caressing because of its sorrowfulness. She was very fond of her mother,
who reciprocated the special fondness, while Dr. Millar was rather
inclined to favour Annie and Rose, and both father and mother petted
May.
"Will it ruin us, mother?" inquired Annie directly, but before her
mother could answer her, Annie's practical mind took a sudden flight. It
went straight back to the purchases which she and Rose had been making
that afternoon. They had been at "Robinson's," of all places. But Tom
Robinson was only to be seen in the glass office, or walking about the
place in the morning, at hours which these two customers had carefully
avoided. Dora's heart had quaked all the same, in dread of an event
which, bad enough when it was confined to a passing bow, or a limp
hand-shake and half a dozen words exchanged in the street, would have
been intolerable in "Robinson's," under the eyes of his satellites. Yet
for the Millars to have refrained altogether from going to the one great
shop in the town, where women oft did congregate, would have been to
expose an event, the participators in which devoutly hoped was buried in
oblivion. They had been in Miss Franklin's department without anything
untoward happening; but it was neither "Robinson's" nor the person who
served them there that flashed like lightning across Annie's thoughts at
this crisis. It was the articles the girls had been buying, the Tussore
silk and Torchon lace for frocks that Annie and Dora had meant to wear
at a garden-party--for which the Dyers, the new people who had come to
Redcross Manor-house, had sent out invitations. If the Millars were
ruined, they were not likely to go to many more garden-parties, and
though the sisters might still want frocks, yet frocks of Tussore silk
trimmed with Torchon lace--granted that the materials had appeared a
modest and becoming wear for a doctor's daughters an hour before--might
not be quite an appropriate selection in the family's altered
circumstances.
"It depends upon what you call ruin," Mrs. Millar was saying
falteringly, "and of course the bank's assets may turn out better than
is thought just now, though your father is far from hopeful. He says all
his savings will go, and he may count on having to pay bank 'calls' on
his income till the business is wound up, which may not be in his
lifetime. No doubt he is taking the darkest view of things at present."
Then she yielded to the relief of pouring forth some of the coming woes
in detail. "Oh, my dears, your father says, though nothing can be
settled in a moment, there is one thing certain--this house must be
given up."
"Our house!" cried both of the girls in dismay.
"Where we were all born, where father himself was born," pleaded Dora,
still hanging about her mother.
"The Old Doctor's House--why, it seems to belong to the practice,"
protested Annie, sitting down, taking off her hat and tossing it on the
bed as if the better to realize the situation.
"No, I don't think it would hurt the practice--not in a town the size of
Redcross, where everybody would know where your father was to be found,
though he were to change his house again and again. Still it does seem
hard," she admitted, as she covertly wiped away a tear, "particularly
when the fault has not been ours--we have always lived within your
father's income, even though his practice has been falling off in these
bad times, what with his getting up in years, and what with these young
doctors trying to get in their hands everywhere. He tells me that he has
never had to find fault with me for extravagance," she finished
wistfully.
"I should think not," said Annie emphatically. "Why you have always been
as simple as simple could be in your own tastes and habits, not a woman
in your circle dresses more quietly. You have hardly even driven in the
brougham when father was not wanting it, in case you should over-work
the horse--you have always said, but I really believe that you chose to
walk for the simple reason that many of your acquaintances had no
choice. Nobody can ever reflect upon you, mother, for having wasted
either father's means or other people's," said Annie, with a bright
glance which became her infinitely.
"Thank you, my love, for saying so," replied her mother gratefully; "and
you see it is as well that I did not accustom myself to driving, among
other indulgences, for another of the retrenchments which your father
mentioned was putting down the brougham. Yet how he is to manage his
more distant patients on foot, at his age, I cannot imagine," she broke
off in helpless distress, clasping her hands tightly together, according
to a way she had. "It seems downright madness to propose it."
"Then you may be sure it will be prevented," said Dora with earnest
trustfulness, as she gently patted her mother's cap. "Nobody can ask a
sacrifice from him which he is unable to make. Mother, do you know what
I was thinking? that the only occasions on which you and father were
regardless of expense have been where the profit or pleasure of us girls
was concerned. You have given us every advantage you could get for us in
the shape of education. You sent Annie and me to London to take these
costly music-lessons;--Annie, I wish we had made more of them. You
arranged that we should go on that foreign tour with the Ludlows."
"We did our best for you--your father and I. I think I may say that,"
admitted Mrs. Millar simply.
Dora went on eagerly with her generous catalogue. "There was the young
artist who exhibits at the Academy and the Grosvenor, who was sketching
at Nenthorn, you had him over at a high price once a week, and he
condescended to help Rose with her drawing and painting. Then there was
Mr. Blake, the university man whom father considered so far in advance
of any classical master Miss Burridge could afford, he was induced so
long as he was staying at Woodleigh to bring on May with her Latin and
Greek."
"So far so good," said Mrs. Millar, in her excitement borrowing one of
her husband's brisk, cut and dry phrases. "I hope you will reap the
benefit of any effort we made, dears, because"--she hesitated, and
nearly broke down--"well, I don't think you need mind so much your
father's giving up this house and going into a smaller one; I'm sure I
don't mind it at all when I think what other people will have to suffer;
and as for you, why, you may not be here--not always, at least. We are
afraid, your father and I, that you'll need to go and do something to
keep yourselves."
"To be sure," said Annie promptly. "Don't trouble about that, mother;
we'll be only too glad to be of use!"
"We'll be too thankful to relieve you and father as much as we can,"
said Dora in a voice soft and fervent, but less assured.
"That will be the least trial," asserted Annie fearlessly.
"Oh, you don't know what you're saying!" cried Mrs. Millar, fairly
giving way and permitting herself to sob for a minute or two behind her
handkerchief. "You are dear, good girls! I knew you would be, and so
brave that I ought to take courage; but young people are so hopeful and
inexperienced. I don't wish you to be unhopeful, of course, still you
cannot tell what it is for your father and me to send our girls--our own
girls whom we have been so proud and fond of, that have been making the
old house brighter and brighter ever since they were born--out into a
cold world, to have to struggle for a pittance, to lose their youth and
its privileges, to be knocked about, and perhaps ill-treated, and looked
down upon by people in every way their inferiors."
"Don't, mother," interrupted Annie with decision; "you're conjuring up
bogies which have ceased to exist now-a-days. Think of the women who go
out into the world by no compulsion, simply for the honour and pleasure
of the thing, because they will not stay at home to lead idle, useless
lives, when there is needful work to be done abroad. I don't question
that they have difficulties to encounter, but I have yet to learn that
staying at home will keep away crosses. Brave women can bear whatever
trouble comes. I have often thought of such workers, if you will believe
me"--the girl was in a glow of animation--"with both shame and envy. It
is true I have not proposed to join them," she added in a lower tone,
"because I knew I was young for such work and not half good enough or
clever enough, and because we were all so happy at home--you and father
made us so," and Annie turned away her head, and forthwith came tumbling
down a few steps from the exalted position she had taken up.
"No, don't tell me, Annie Millar," said her mother with something like
passionate resistance, "that any good father or mother can be glad to
send their young daughters out into the wide world to fight and suffer
by themselves. It is not natural and it is not true. It is an altogether
different thing to give them to good men who will take care of them and
make them happy."
"But if the good men are not forthcoming, or if they happen to be the
wrong men," protested Annie. There was an irresistible twinkle in her
dark eyes, in spite of the care and trouble that had come upon the
household, which she was too sensible and warm-hearted a girl not to
share fully.
Dora stood conscience-stricken and guilty-looking, until, as she stroked
her mother's locked hands, she at last found words to put in her humble
petition, "We shan't all go away, mother dear. Father and you must let
one of us stay to take care of you and cheer you?"
"Oh, my dear, we are not old enough, at least I am not old enough to
accept such a boon, supposing we are very poor," said Mrs. Millar
sadly, "and in that case it might be sacrificing one of you, and
spoiling your prospects in life."
"No, no," cried Dora vehemently.
"Dora means that one of us ought to stay at home to set your cap right,"
said Annie brusquely.
It sounded an inopportune jest, positively unfeeling. The truth was
Annie still laboured under the common youthful necessity to hide her
deeper feelings, an obligation made up of a touch of hysterical
excitement, pride, shyness, and possibly the unsubdued buoyance of
two-and-twenty years. The last is apt to rebound swiftly, with a mixture
of cheerfulness and defiance from any sorrow, short of the one sorrow
which cannot be trampled down or made light of, that has its root in a
grave. Annie must find something to laugh at, to get fun out of, in the
tribulation which she nevertheless felt in every nerve of her body, to
the core of her heart.
"I ought to be able to keep my cap straight," said poor Mrs. Millar very
literally and meekly, looking a little puzzled by Annie's ill-timed
nonsense, and apparent hardness. "I daresay I should pin it, but the
pins drag my hair so and hurt me."
"Never think of it, mother," said mild Dora indignantly, looking daggers
at Annie.
"Of course I did not mean that, mother. I was not in earnest," Annie
made the penitent amendment.
"You are right to make the best of things," said Mrs. Millar, giving a
little shivering sigh on her own account. "It is the will of Providence.
We are in God's hands, poor Mr. Carey and all of us, as we were a year
ago--twenty years ago when you two were babies."
They were simple truisms which she uttered, but they were honest words,
which meant a great deal to her. They borrowed impressiveness from the
truthfulness of the speaker, in addition to the truth of the sayings,
and by force of sympathy told on the listening girls, quieting and
controlling them.
"Poor Mr. Carey as you say, mother," Annie caught up the words. "Well, I
suppose the Careys will be in a far worse plight than we can be, and
Cyril has been such a fool, though I don't suppose he meant much harm,
with his dandyisms and idleness and his college airs--all that he has
brought back from college."
"Hush! child," exclaimed the elder, more tolerant woman. "He has been a
silly, selfish lad, but as he will know it now, to his cost, I do not
like to hear you casting it in his teeth to-day. Perhaps it will steady
him, and then this misfortune will be a blessing so far as he is
concerned."
"Rather hard that we should all be sacrificed to prop up Cyril's weak
moral nature," muttered Annie.
"And the Russells," suggested Dora. "I have heard Colonel Russell
speaking to father, as if he and the Rector also had to do with the
bank. Oh! there is Ned Hewett, who has not passed his Cambridge
examination any more than Cyril Carey. Not that it has been Ned's fault,
or that he goes in for nothing save amusement, only he is so slow over
his books, poor fellow! He will grudge his father's having spent money
over him to no purpose more than ever now; and Lucy and Bell will be
sorry for him--they are so fond of Ned."