DIFFICULTIES.
The new year brought with it no increase of business to the Protector
Bread and Flour Company.
On the contrary, several pairs of stones were standing idle at Stangate,
and night-work was now a thing unheard of. Many men were discharged on
account of “slackness,” and the labour of those that remained resulted
rather in the accumulation of stock than in the execution of orders.
Orders to be executed had become, in fact, few and far between.
As for the bakehouse, it happened fortunately, perhaps, that no
gentlemen of the press desired to see it in the later days of which I am
writing, for it had become like one of those places in Pompeii, where,
although the implements and utensils necessary for carrying on a trade
still exist, the trade itself is a memory. Six months in London being
about equivalent to six hundred years in Pompeii, the once busy
court-yard and works now resembled nothing so much as a City of the
Dead.
Over the Protector something worse than lava had flowed; and, although
there was stock everywhere,—stock, and to spare—wheat in quantity, sacks
and sacks of flour, still every one looked gloomy,—every one felt that
“things were going queer.”
Half of the vans were now never pulled out of the sheds; a large number
of the horses—creatures that, as we know, eat their heads off when
standing idle in the stable—were sent to Gower’s and sold there by
public auction; stripped of their fine liveries, many of the “Company’s
servants” were now driving unornamental carts about the City, thankful
to earn their guinea a week and supplemental pots of beer, wherever such
terms were obtainable; most of the Company’s depôts were closed, and had
large bills stuck upon the shutters, signifying “that these desirable
premises were TO LET;” the rounds were shorter than of old, and the men
now stopped to get half-pints of ale anywhere they liked without
reprimand or dismissal.
A cloud of general depression had settled down upon the directors, the
shareholders, and the employés of the Company; there was nothing much
doing at Stangate, and there was less in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. About the
former establishment, Mr. Robert Crossenham walked disconsolately with
his hands in his pockets; before the fire, in the latter, Arthur Dudley
read the _Times_ diligently, and smoked the last Havannas he was ever
likely to have presented to him free of charge.
In the outer office, the clerks consumed walnuts in quantity, pelted
each other with the shells, and looked at their watches, or the clock
half a dozen times in the course of an hour.
Business was, in a word, as bad as the weather, and that could not by
any possibility have been worse. The sky, as regarded the physical
world, was leaden; the streets, sloppy; the air, raw; east winds
prevalent; in the City, things were drooping; stocks, heavy; rhubarb, a
drug; indigo, blue; shares, flat; corn, falling; sugars, depressed;
money, dear.
The only branch of commerce, the vigour of which did not seem impaired,
was that of advertising. People advertised their wares in despair,
thinking, if a smash were to come, they might as well be hung for a
sheep as a lamb,—as well face Basinghall Street with a creditable list
of debts as go through the Court for a few hundreds.
It was sink, or swim, with a vast number of persons during the earlier
months of the year in question, and yet the papers never were so full of
advertisements. The _Times_ came out with daily supplements, and the
_Telegraph_ with its extra sheet; the _Standard_ curtailed its usual
quantity of letterpress, and the weeklies raised their prices per line,
and would not guarantee immediate insertion. Not to be out of the
fashion, the Protector Bread Company, Limited, announced each morning in
the columns of the daily papers, “that pure bread was obtainable nowhere
excepting at the depôts of the Company;” and every now and then a copy
of an analysis from Daniel Smith, Esq., M.B., Ph.D., M.A., F.R.S., &c.,
Professor of Chemistry in the College of the Home Counties’ Hospital,
and Medical Officer of Health for Belgravia, was appended, stating that
he had found a loaf of the Company’s bread to contain so much of so many
things, and to be perfectly free from a certain number of other things;
that all articles used were of the best quality, and that he considered
the process of manufacture employed at the Stangate Works, to be highly
cleanly, and satisfactory.
But all this could not make the bread sell. The tide of fortune had
turned, and the waters of success were ebbing away from the goodly ship
“Protector” more rapidly than they had ever flowed in on the commercial
shore, where that once promising vessel now lay almost a wreck.
There was not a creature connected with it, however, who would admit
that the venture was even in danger; and yet every person’s temper
became, if Arthur Dudley’s report were to be believed, unbearable.
His own temper, never the most pliable, was severely tried; and now,
instead of longing for each morning to dawn, in order that the business
of the Protector might advance still further towards success, he hated
to see day break—hated leaving his breakfast-room and going downstairs
to meet those unpleasantnesses which had become of hourly, and momentary
occurrence in his life.
Between his principals and the public, in fact, Arthur stood exposed to
cross fires. He dreaded seeing a stranger enter the office; he looked
forward to board-days with perfect horror.
His old enemy, General Sinclair, C.B., tormented him beyond all powers
of expression. He seemed to think, that in Arthur’s hands lay the power
of making the Protector a failure or a success. He frequently declared,
their secretary was inefficient—his business capabilities below
contempt. When once matters began to go a little wrong with the
Protector, he commenced laying all the blame at Mr. Dudley’s door. He
affirmed that Lord Kemms’ open repudiation of any connection with the
Company, was owing entirely to the secretary’s lack of management; he
called at the office, and told Mr. Dudley he considered a person,
endowed with even the most moderate share of sense—an old friend and
neighbour, moreover, of his lordship—might have arranged the affair
without permitting it to be brought under the notice of the public; and,
in the course of subsequent conversations, he more than once hinted his
opinion, that, although the gentleman he had the pleasure of addressing
might be a gentleman, he was not much better than a simpleton.
To which innuendo, delicately implied, Arthur, with more spirit than
might have been expected, considering the state of his finances,
replied, that General Sinclair had ample reason for thinking any person
who relinquished his independence for the sake of becoming servant to a
dozen masters, must be either foolish or mad.
“For my part,” added the secretary, “I believe when I was persuaded into
having anything to do with the Protector, that I was both; and I can
very truthfully say, if I could only get back the money I have lost by
this confounded Company, I would cut the whole concern to-morrow.
Meantime, sir, if you have any complaint to make of my conduct, I would
thank you to bring it under the notice of the board. I am compelled to
bear bullying once a week, but I will not endure it oftener.”
Upon this, General Sinclair, boiling over with rage, inquired if he (Mr.
Dudley) knew to whom he was speaking?
“Yes,” Arthur answered, “I do; to that one of the directors of the
Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited, who took my place on the
board when I resigned; and, with all my heart and soul, I wish I had
never heard of the Protector, nor advanced a penny-piece for the purpose
of bringing it before the public.”
And every word that Arthur said, he meant. He was sick and weary of his
thankless office; of the preparation of unsatisfactory reports; of
conversations with disheartened shareholders; of entering minutes of
depressing proceedings.
Adversity, as has been stated, had not proved beneficial to the tempers
of his directors, and stormy meetings were now the rule instead of the
exception. Every man looked angrily on his neighbour; every orator
believed the last speaker, and the speakers who had preceded him,
wrong—practically and theoretically, root and branch; every creature had
his own pet plan for restoring public confidence in the Company, and was
wont to return home full of dismal forebodings, of doleful prophecies.
Mr. Black alone, perhaps, preserved his equanimity, and assured his
colleagues, that, if they would only have patience, the tide must turn.
For his part, he said, he had seen so many ebbs and flows, that he did
not care a snap of the fingers for any temporary depression. People had
not ceased to eat bread; and, although they might for a time have
changed their baker, still the best article must secure custom in the
long run. He vehemently protested against the closing of shops, and the
reduction of vans. “Better to have given the bread to the nearest
charity,” he said, “than to have adopted such a course. Penny wise and
pound foolish, he declared the policy adopted had been. He had advised
putting on steam, instead of reducing the pressure, and reminded his
fellow-directors of the fact; but of course,” he added, “they knew best;
their experience, no doubt, was greater than his; there was no knowing,
indeed, what the best plan to pursue might be, till they found out which
plan led to fortune or failure.” For his part, however, he thought it
was always judicious in business, as at whist, when doubtful to play a
trump. He would have played a trump, and if the game were to prove a
losing one, he would, at all events, have lost with éclat; but, as he
said before, he deferred to the superior wisdom of his colleagues, and
only trusted their wisdom might in the long run prove profitable to all
parties interested.
But the united wisdom of the directors of the Protector did not prove
profitable, and every board-day more temper was exhibited, till at
length the papers began to take the matter up, and the very journals who
had written leaders concerning the philanthropic and admirable
construction of the Company, now found spare corners which they filled
up with paragraphs, headed, “The Protector Bread Company again;” or with
letters from indignant shareholders, who could not understand the gross
mismanagement which must exist somewhere in a company, the directors of
which declared a dividend of fifteen per cent. per annum at the first
half-yearly meeting, and found their profits during the second six
months only enabled them to pay with difficulty two and a half per
cent.! Truth was, as Mr. Black—who practically knew a vast deal more
about the mind of the British public than the rest of the directors were
likely ever to evolve out of their internal consciousness—declared, the
very honesty of the board swamped the Company, or, at least, hastened
its extinction. No subterfuges; no cooking of accounts; no hints to the
secretary, that at the moderate expense of a bottle of good ink, a few
quires of paper, and a hundred of pens, things might be made to look as
pleasant as any body of shareholders need desire to see them! it was all
as though a doctor, being called in to see a bad case, were to lay the
peril of his position before the patient—to exhibit to him, in its
appalling nakedness, the poor chance he had of recovery.
“Enough to kill the man at once!” remarked the promoter to Mr. Robert
Crossenham; “and enough to kill a company, if it had as many lives as a
cat. What the devil do we want with directors or any board? If they
would only find the money, I swear I’d find the brains. It is such a
mistake, having so many masters. Well, if the ‘Protector’ goes smash, I
shall always say, one of the finest pots of broth ever a man brought to
boiling-point was spoiled by too many cooks having a hand in dishing
it.”
As for Mr. Stewart, he even, had his fits of irritability—his hours when
he came to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and treated Arthur to his opinions.
He said, he felt perfectly confident there was something radically wrong
about the Company, and he seemed to imagine Arthur could help him to
discover where the wrong existed, if the secretary would only set his
brains to work.
Some short time after Lally’s death, he remarked, a little
apologetically it is true,—
“I wish to Heaven, Dudley, you would bestir yourself! Surely, it is as
much your interest as mine to find out what game Black is playing—for
that he is playing some game, I am satisfied.”
“If he be, I am ignorant of it,” Arthur answered. “I presume you do not
suspect me of playing into his hands?”
“No, Mr. Dudley, I do not,” the director answered; and from that day Mr.
Stewart came seldom to Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Whatever suspicions he might entertain concerning Mr. Black’s immaculate
honesty, he did not again take Arthur into his confidence, but left the
secretary in undisturbed enjoyment of his office, where he had at least
the variety of seeing the ship containing his fortunes sink a little
lower, week by week.
But trade was bad with every one—so Mr. Black declared—so even Mr.
Raidsford stated on one occasion, when he and Arthur, meeting in Lombard
Street, the pair commenced singing a mutual Jeremiad over the state of
things in the City.
“There is a general distrust,” remarked the contractor, “for which I am
quite at a loss to account, and a pressure for money, even upon good
houses, which is unprecedented, at all events, in my experience. No
doubt, as the spring advances, business will improve, and I most
sincerely hope your shares may then feel the effect of greater
commercial confidence.”
All of which was said in the City oracle style, which, unwittingly,
perhaps, Mr. Raidsford had contracted, and which impressed country
people with the idea that he was a power in the state—a man who had
risen quite as much by talent as by industry; and yet, spite of his mode
of settling everything which was to occur in the future, Mr. Raidsford
was more humble on that occasion than Arthur had ever before seen him.
He had less of the “I am the people, and wisdom shall die with me”
manner, which had often angered the Squire in days gone by, than
formerly; indeed, if such an expression be not out of place in speaking
of so great a man, his tone was almost humble; and while he sympathised
heartily with Arthur’s anxiety, he forbore reading him a lecture on the
instability of all human companies, and did not, even from the heights
of his own superior position, look down and say—“I told you how it would
be. I, of course, who always see what is going to occur, told you;—don’t
blame me.”
No, instead of this, he remarked, “it was a wonder the ‘Protector’ did
not succeed, since the Company’s bread was so good, and people must eat,
you know.” He added, “Certainly, however, a company, like an individual,
adopting, and strictly adhering to, the system of ready cash, must be
prepared to stand a considerable amount of knocking about at first; but
I do hope things will brighten with you after a little—I really do;”
having finished which speech, Mr. Raidsford went his way, and Arthur
proceeded on his, thinking he liked the contractor better during that
interview than he had ever done before, and regretting to see his former
neighbour looking so thin, and anxious, and careworn.
Which facts, when, in due time, Arthur communicated them to Mr. Black,
produced a careless comment, to the effect, “that very probably his
Majesty had cause for uneasiness; people do say things are going
deucedly queer up there; but there is no use talking,” added Mr. Black,
“things are queer with everybody. I never was so hard up in my life;
discount is a thing past praying for. If you take a bill to the bank
now, with, say, even my Lord Mayor’s name on it, the manager looks at
you as if you were no better than a thief. It is no good being
down-hearted, though; if care killed the cat, I still see no reason why
care should kill us. We shall find the ‘Protector’ looking up yet, never
fear, and the shares at a premium again. Deuce a share is at a premium
in the City, I think, at this present minute of speaking. Where the
money gets to, every now and then, passes my understanding. The parsons
talk about riches taking unto themselves legs or wings, and fleeing
away, or something of that kind, don’t they? If their reverences were in
my office for a month, they would find out there is more truth in the
statement than most of them actually believe. Fly! by Jove! that’s no
word to express the pace they go at. Electricity is a fool to it;” and
so Mr. Black rattled on, till Arthur, utterly overwhelmed, bade him
“Good-day,” feeling much too dispirited to put the question he had
intended about those bills which would soon be falling due once again.
For things had come to such a pass, that Squire Dudley was compelled to
cut down his expenditure by every possible means. Even at Berrie Down he
never more scrupulously looked at a sovereign before changing it than
now, when it occurred to him not merely as a possibility, but as a
probability, that there might be a terrible reverse to the speculative
picture to which, while the Protector was still a myth of the promoter’s
fancy, Mr. Black had acted as travelling showman.
No more visions of wealth and position for Arthur—no more dreams of
standing for the county, of re-establishing the Dudleys as great
people—of keeping up a certain state at Berrie Down—of ease, and
comfort, and competence.
His ideas in many respects were much changed since he came to London;
and had it only been possible for him to see a way of ridding the Hollow
of all the encumbrances he had thrust upon it, the secretary would have
been a happy man.
Like the prodigal, he had gathered all together, and travelled into a
far country—a strange country, where he met with those who helped him to
waste his substance and devour his living.
And now, behold, the days of famine were at hand, when no man would give
unto him; when he fell into even a worse plight than the poor sinner who
would fain have satisfied his hunger with the husks the swine did eat;
for the prodigal had a home to which he could return, while Arthur had
none.
Longingly, sickeningly almost, his thoughts turned back to Berrie Down
as he walked through the streets of the accursed City (so he styled
London), where he had come to seek his fortune.
If the past could only be restored to him, he moaned in spirit, how
differently he would act! If he only could have foreseen his present
strait—if he only could have imagined such a termination to his hopes!
If—if—if! So the impotent, feebly-repentant strain ran on;
if—if—if—although the measure of his misery was as yet nothing like
full.
Berrie Down was still mortgaged for only half its value. He had his
house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields—his regularly paid salary—his shares,
which might yet bring him in some return.
He was not involved past hope of extrication. Before his bills fell due
again, Mr. Black would more than probably be able to meet them. The
future did not lie shrouded in total darkness before him; but as he had
been unreasonably sanguine, so he was now unreasonably depressed. He
knew more about business, too, than had formerly been the case; he
understood better that there were risks in it as well as
certainties—blanks as well as prizes, and he could not blind himself to
the truth that Fortune had not hitherto favoured him with so many
smiles, as to justify his imagining she would never dishearten him with
her frowns.
Besides all this, he was for the first time since his marriage wretched
in his home. He could not bear to see his wife’s sorrow—a sorrow in
which she gave him no chance of sharing.
The changed, worn face—the eyes heavy with weeping, the weary, unelastic
step—the silent grief which found no relief in words—were so many tacit
reproaches for the cold selfishness which had kept them apart through
the course of the years gone by.
Vaguely it began to dawn upon his understanding that nothing earthly can
live for ever—that there is no plant so strong but the keenness of a
prolonged frost may kill it; that if men do not enjoy and prize a
blessing while it is blooming beside them, the day will surely come when
they shall sigh for its fragrance, and its beauty all in vain.
He had neglected his wife’s love in the years when that bright stream
flowed through the fields of his existence, nourishing and making green
as it poured its treasures on his unthankful heart; and now the fountain
gushed no longer; the spring was dried up, the waters made no gladness
in the land. Where there had been life, there was lifelessness; where
there had been devotion, there was indifference; where there had been
championship, there was resentment,—and Arthur did not know how to put
the wrong right. He had not strength sufficient in his character to set
about winning Heather for the second time—wooing the woman as he had
wooed the girl.
She had no idea her husband was in such trouble; she was ignorant of his
fears as she had been of his hopes. No one told her Berrie Down was
mortgaged—that it must be let, in order to pay the interest—that the
Protector was tottering—that trade was wretched, that money was almost
an extinct currency.
Mr. Black was the only person, indeed, she ever heard mention financial
matters at all, and the words he spoke conveyed very little meaning to
her understanding.
“Money,” said that gentleman to Arthur one day when she chanced to be
present—“money, what is it like? Can you remember ever having seen the
article? The first five-pound note which comes my way, I intend to frame
and keep by me, lest I should never behold another. Some people must be
laying up for themselves a lot of treasures; but who they can be,
puzzles my brain. According to his own account, not a soul I meet has
sixpence in his pocket to keep the devil out of it. Do you happen to
know any one, Mrs. Dudley, who has money, for I do not? As for me, I am
thinking of applying for out-door relief—sending Mrs. B. up to the
workhouse for a couple of loaves. We are coming to it, fast as we can
run.”
“Some people have money, I suppose,” answered Heather, remembering at
that very moment she had a good round sum locked up in one of her
drawers—which sum proved a perpetual plague to her—a plague and yet a
comfort.
It was not her own, it was trust-money; and how the amount chanced to
come into her hands, Heather never told to any one for many a day
afterwards—for many and many a long day. And yet there was no particular
mystery about the matter. Heather had the money from Mr. Douglas Croft,
and it was given to her in this fashion:—
After due time, he came to condole with her on the death of Lally, and
then his visits were repeated and repeated until Heather, who could not
avoid guessing the nature of the feeling which drew him towards any of
Bessie’s kith or kin, began to grow uncomfortable—to imagine she ought
to cut short the intimacy somehow, though it was beyond her imagination
to conceive how she ought, under the circumstances, to do so.
Perhaps her manner showed her difficulty; perhaps Mr. Croft fancied
truly, as the days went by, there was less cordiality in her smile, in
the touch of her hand, in the tone of her voice! Anyhow, be that as it
will, he took courage one day, and made his confession.
He attempted no apology; he did not strive to whiten the blackness of
his sin to her. He did not even speak the name of the woman he had
wronged. He merely said, “Some day she may come to you; some day she may
want money. Let me leave a sufficient sum in your hands to keep her—if
she be living—from absolute poverty. Be to me my good angel! do not
believe my repentance insincere because I cannot talk much about it. You
are my last hope. If it be impossible for me to reach her through you,
then indeed my case is desperate.”
Naked he laid his sin out before her—naked as the new-born child, and
yet he prayed her not to look askance upon it, but to pity and forgive.
Well he understood—this man to whom the world and its ways were roads he
knew from beginning to end, from the first chapter to the last—that to
the woman whom he addressed the book of sin was almost as a dead letter,
as a language unlearned, as a science incomprehensible.
Passion died out in her presence, vice found no defence sustainable when
pleaded before that calm, impartial judge. She could not go with him in
his agony of love, of struggling virtue, of wicked strategy, of
unavailing repentance—she, whose life had never known the rush and
tumult of an overpowering affection, who had never been adored,
idolized, wronged, by any man, as it was in Douglas Croft’s nature to
adore, idolize, and wrong,—she, who was pure in thought and deed, pure
almost as one of God’s angels—how could he tell her of the
over-mastering love which had overleapt all boundaries of prudence, all
restraints of society, all divine laws, all human restrictions?
But he could appeal to her pity, and to her generosity. He could lay his
future at her feet, and pray her to do with it as she would; to give him
Bessie’s address, if it came to her knowledge, or to withhold it; to
mention his name to Bessie, or to preserve silence concerning him; to
say, if Bessie ever wrote or came near, or to ignore her existence, as
she pleased—as she deemed best.
“I make no conditions, I ask no mercy, Mrs. Dudley,” he said. “I place
myself in your hands; and I merely entreat that you will do whatever
seems to you best, regardless of my feelings. If I could only know she
is living!” he added.
“She is living,” Heather interrupted.
“Then you have seen her!” he said, eagerly; “is she in London?”
“You must not question me,” Mrs. Dudley replied. “All I can tell you
is—that—the girl, whose future you have made so wretched, is living. The
greatest kindness you can do her now is to forget that such a person
ever existed. I will keep this money, if you wish, in case she should
ever really be in want of it. At present, I know, she would not take
sixpence from you, and I cannot wonder at, her feeling as she does
towards you.”
“Then you have seen her?” he inquired.
“Yes, and talked with her; and guessed who stole her from us—stole her
away to shame, and grief, and suffering——”
At that point he interrupted her, vehemently, “Why should she be
ashamed,” he asked, “for that which was no fault of hers? and was she
not better, as she lived with me, believing herself to be a wife, than
legally married to Harcourt—a man for whom she never cared two straws?
Is not anything, any sin, any disgrace, any suffering, preferable to a
loveless marriage? Answer me, truly, Mrs. Dudley,” he persisted; “do you
not believe it is?”
With her cheeks on fire, Heather rose and answered him—“Why do you put
such a question to me, Mr. Croft—to me, of all women living?” and then
she covered her face, and wept aloud—wept for the life she could never
live over again, and which had been so poor a counterfeit of existence
that she might almost—but for her early training, but for the
conviction, that it is better to “suffer affliction with the people of
God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season”—have wished to
change places with Bessie, in order to experience the sensation of being
loved wildly and passionately, even though it were sinfully, and so
round off the incompleted paragraph of her life; have the sad seventh
resolved into the legitimate chord.
Heaven help her! she felt very weak and very miserable, surrounded by
people, whose stories seemed all more perfect than her own; and Douglas
Croft, listening to that unexpected outburst, felt in his soul there
were more ways of deceiving a woman than by a sham marriage; more means
of breaking a loving heart than by deceit, and falsehood, and wrong.
“God pardon me,” he thought, as he walked slowly home; “but yet, have I
been worse than Dudley? Is it more sinful to love and betray a woman,
than to marry her without love?” and, as is usual with all such
questions, he decided the matter in his own favour—never reflecting that
two wrongs cannot make a right, that a volume of platitudes will never
patch up a woman’s reputation, nor enable her to go back again through
the years, and begin her life anew.