The year was 1886.
When at business, Warburton sat in a high, bare room, which looked upon
little Ailie Street, in Whitechapel; the air he breathed had a taste
and odour strongly saccharine. If his eye strayed to one of the walls,
he saw a map of the West Indies; if to another, it fell upon a map of
St. Kitts; if to the third, there was before him a plan of a sugar
estate on that little island. Here he sat for certain hours of the
solid day, issuing orders to clerks, receiving commercial callers,
studying trade journals in sundry languages--often reading some book
which had no obvious reference to the sugar-refining industry. It was
not Will's ideal of life, but hither he had suffered himself to be led
by circumstance, and his musings suggested no practicable issue into a
more congenial world.
The death of his father when he was sixteen had left him with a certain
liberty for shaping a career. What he saw definitely before him was a
small share in the St. Kitts property of Messrs. Sherwood Brothers, a
small share in the London business of the same firm, and a small sum of
ready money--these things to be his when he attained his majority. His
mother and sister, who lived in a little country house down in
Huntingdonshire, were modestly but securely provided for, and Will
might have gone quietly on with his studies till he could resolve upon
a course in life. But no sooner was he freed from paternal restraint
than the lad grew restive; nothing would please him but an adventure in
foreign lands; and when it became clear that he was only wasting his
time at school, Mrs. Warburton let him go to the West Indies, where a
place was found for him in the house of Sherwood Brothers. At St.
Kitts, Will remained till he was one-and-twenty. Long before that, he
had grown heartily tired of his work, disgusted with the climate, and
oppressed with home sickness, but pride forbade him to return until he
could do so as a free man.
One thing this apprenticeship to life had taught him--that he was not
made for subordination. "I don't care how poor I am," thus he wrote to
his mother, "but I will be my own master. To be at other people's
orders brings out all the bad in me; it makes me sullen and bearish,
and all sorts of ugly things, which I certainly am not when my true
self has play. So, you see, I must find some independent way of life.
If I had to live by carrying round a Punch and Judy show, I should
vastly prefer it to making a large income as somebody's servant."
Meanwhile, unfortunately for a young man of this temperament, his
prospects had become less assured. There was perturbation in the sugar
world; income from St. Kitts and from Whitechapel had sensibly
diminished, and it seemed but too likely, would continue to do so. For
some half-year Will lived in London, "looking about him," then he
announced that Godfrey Sherwood, at present sole representative of
Sherwood Brothers, had offered him an active partnership in Little
Ailie Street, and that he had accepted it. He entered upon this
position without zeal, but six months' investigation had taught him
that to earn money without surrendering his independence was no very
easy thing; he probably might wait a long time before an opening would
present itself more attractive than this at the sugar-refinery.
Godfrey Sherwood was a schoolfellow of his, but some two or three years
older; much good feeling existed between them, their tastes and tempers
having just that difference in similarity which is the surest bond of
friendship. Judged by his talk, Sherwood was all vigour, energy, fire;
his personal habits, on the other hand, inclined to tranquillity and
ease--a great reader, he loved the literature of romance and adventure,
knew by heart authors such as Malory and Froissart, had on his shelves
all the books of travel and adventure he could procure. As a boy he
seemed destined to any life save that of humdrum commerce, of which he
spoke with contempt and abhorrence; and there was no reason why he
should not have gratified his desire of seeing the world, of leading
what he called "the life of a man." Yet here he was, sitting each day
in a counting-house in Whitechapel, with nothing behind him but a few
rambles on the continent, and certainly with no immediate intention of
going far afield. His father's death left him in sole command of the
business, and his reasonable course would have been to retire from it
as soon as possible, for foreign competition was making itself felt in
the English trade, and many firms more solidly established than that in
Little Ailie Street had either come to grief or withdrawn from the
struggle. But Godfrey's inertia kept him in the familiar routine, with
day-to-day postponement of practical decision. When Warburton came back
from St. Kitts, and their friendship was renewed, Godfrey's talk gave
full play to his imaginative energies. Yes, yes, the refining business
was at a bad pass just now, but this was only temporary; those firms
that could weather the storm for a year or two longer would enter upon
a time of brilliant prosperity. Was it to be supposed that the
Government would allow a great industry to perish out of mere regard
for the fetish of Free Trade? City men with first-hand information
declared that "measures" were being prepared; in one way or another,
the English trade would be rescued and made triumphant over those
bounty-fed foreigners.
"Hold on?" cried Sherwood. "Of course I mean to hold on. There's
pleasure and honour in the thing. I enjoy the fight. I've had thoughts
of getting into Parliament, to speak for sugar. One might do worse, you
know. There'll be a dissolution next year, certain. First-rate fun,
fighting a constituency. But in that case I must have a partner
here--why that's an idea. How would it suit you? Why not join me?"
And so the thing came about. The terms which Godfrey offered were so
generous that Will had to reduce them before he accepted: even thus, he
found his income, at a stroke, all but doubled. Sherwood, to be sure,
did not stand for Parliament, nor was anything definite heard about
that sugar-protecting budget which he still believed in. In Little
Ailie Street business steadily declined.
"It's a disgrace to England!" cried Godfrey. "Monstrous that not a
finger should be lifted to save one of our most important industries.
You, of course, are free to retire at any moment, Will. For my own
part, here I stand, come what may. If it's ruin, ruin let it be. I'll
fight to the last. A man owes me ten thousand pounds. When I recover
it, and I may any day--I shall put every penny into the business."
"Ten thousand pounds!" exclaimed Warburton in astonishment. "A trade
debt, do you mean?"
"No, no. A friend of mine, son of a millionaire, who got into
difficulties some time ago, and borrowed of me to clear himself. Good
interest, and principal safe as Consols. In a year at most I shall have
the money back, and every penny shall go into the business."
Will had his private view of the matter, and not seldom suffered a good
deal of uneasiness as he saw the inevitable doom approach. But already
it was too late to withdraw his share from the concern; that would have
been merely to take advantage of Sherwood's generosity, and Will was
himself not less chivalrous. In Godfrey's phrase, they continued "to
fight the ship," and perhaps would have held out to the moment of
sinking, had not the accession of the Liberals to power in the spring
of this present year caused Sherwood so deep a disgust that he turned
despondent and began to talk of surrender to hopeless circumstance.
"It's all up with us, Will. This Government spells ruin, and will count
it one of its chief glories if we come to grief. But, by Heaven, they
shan't have that joy. We'll square up, quietly, comfortably, with
dignity. We'll come out of this fight with arms and baggage. It's still
possible, you know. We'll sell the St. Kitts estate to the Germans.
We'll find some one to buy us up here--the place would suit a brewer.
And then--by Jove! we'll make jam."
"Jam?"
"Isn't it an idea? Cheap sugar has done for the refiners, but it's a
fortune for the jam trade. Why not put all we can realize into a jam
factory? We'll go down into the country; find some delightful place
where land is cheap; start a fruit farm; run up a building. Doesn't it
take you, Will? Think of going to business every day through lanes
overhung with fruit-tree blossoms! Better that than the filth and
stench and gloom and uproar of Whitechapel--what? We might found a
village for our workpeople--the ideal village, perfectly healthy, every
cottage beautiful. Eh? What? How does it strike you, Will?"
"Pleasant. But the money?"
"We shall have enough to start; I think we shall. If not, we'll find a
moneyed man to join us."
"What about that ten thousand pounds?" suggested Warburton.
Sherwood shook his head.
"Can't get it just yet. To tell you the truth, it depends on the death
of the man's father. No, but if necessary, some one will easily be
found. Isn't the idea magnificent? How it would rile the Government if
they heard of it! Ho, ho!"
One could never be sure how far Godfrey was serious when he talked like
this; the humorous impulse so blended with the excitability of his
imagination, that people who knew him little and heard him talking at
large thought him something of a crack-brain. The odd thing was that,
with all his peculiarities, he had many of the characteristics of a
sound man of business; indeed, had it been otherwise, the
balance-sheets of the refinery must long ago have shown a disastrous
deficit. As Warburton knew, things had been managed with no little
prudence and sagacity; what he did not so clearly understand was that
Sherwood had simply adhered to the traditions of the firm, following
very exactly the path marked out for him by his father and his uncle,
both notable traders. Concerning Godfrey's private resources, Warburton
knew little or nothing; it seemed probable that the elder Sherwood had
left a considerable fortune, which his only son must have inherited. No
doubt, said Will to himself, this large reserve was the explanation of
his partner's courage.
So the St. Kitts estate was sold, and, with all the deliberate dignity
demanded by the fact that the Government's eye was upon them, Sherwood
Brothers proceeded to terminate their affairs in Whitechapel. In July,
Warburton took his three weeks' holiday, there being nothing better for
him to do. And among the letters he found on his table when he
returned, was one from Sherwood, which contained only these words:
"Great opportunity in view. Our fortunes are made!"