It was certain, as the month of April 1910 proceeded, that a demand
would suddenly be made upon English capital for the exploitation of the
Manatasara Syndicate's concession upon the Upper Congo.
I mention the matter only to elucidate what follows, for Mr.
Clutterbuck was neither of the social rank nor of the literary world in
which the salvation of the unhappy natives of the Congo had been the
principal theme for months and years before.
That salvation had been only recently achieved, but the hideous rule of
Leopold no longer weighed upon the innocent and unfortunate cannibals
of equatorial Africa; dawn had broken at last upon those millions whom
Christ died to save, and whom so many missionaries had undertaken
hasty and expensive voyages to free from an exploitation odious to the
principles of our Common Law.
But though the consummation of that great event, which history will
always record as the chief achievement of modern England, was but
freshly written upon the tablets of our age, there were not a few in
the financial and ecclesiastical world of London who could read the
signs of the times, and could appreciate the material results which
would follow upon the advent of Christian liberty for these unhappy
men. I have but to mention Sir Joseph Gorley, the Right Rev. the Lord
Bishop of Shoreham, Sir Harry Hog, Mrs. Entwistle, Lord Barry, the
Dean of Betchworth, Lord Blackwater, and his second son, the Hon. I.
Benzinger, to show the stuff of which the reformers were composed.
There were some, indeed, to whom the financial necessities of the
unhappy natives were but a second consideration, absorbed as they were
in the spiritual needs of the African; but there were others who saw,
with the sturdy common sense which has led us to all our victories,
that little could be done even upon the spiritual side, until marshes
had been drained, forests cleared, fields ploughed, and the most
carefully chosen implements imported from as carefully chosen merchants
in the capitals of Europe. The directing hand and brain of the European
must be lent to raise the material position of those unhappy savages in
whom the Belgian had almost obliterated the semblance of humanity.
For this purpose had been chosen, after long thought by those best
acquainted with the district, Mr. Charles Hatton, brother of that
Mr. Sachs whose name will be familiar to all as the originator of the
Society for the Prevention of the Trade in Tobacco to the Inhabitants
of Liberia, and the successful manager of Chutes Limited.
Mr. Hatton, who, upon his marriage with Amelia, daughter and heiress of
Sir Henry Hatton, of Hatton Hall, Hatton, in Herefordshire, had adopted
his father-in-law's name and had lent the whole of his considerable
fortune, and of his yet more considerable talents, to the uplifting
of the equatorial negro. Mr. Hatton it was who successfully carried
through the negotiations with the Colonial Committee of the Belgian
Parliament, and who obtained for his syndicate the concession of the
Manatasara district for twenty-one years.
The first act of the concessionaires was to take advantage of the new
regulations whereby future chartered rulers in the Congo might declare
the native to be the owner of his land. The soil to which these poor
blacks were born was restored to them. The hideous system of forced
labour was at once ended, and in its place one uniform hut tax was
imposed upon the whole community. All were free, and though the actual
amount of labour required to discharge the tax was perhaps triple
the old assessment, yet as it fell equally upon the whole tribe, no
complaint of injustice could be made, nor, to judge from the absence
of complaint in the London papers, was any felt.
In many other ways the new _régime_ witnessed to the great truth that
business and righteousness are not opposed in the Dark Continent. Where
the native had been permitted to run free at every risk to his morals
and to ours, he was now segregated in neat compounds under a tutelage
suitable to his stage of development. The early marriages at which
the fatuous Continental friars had winked, were severely repressed.
The adoption of Christianity in any of its forms (except Mormonism),
was left to the free exercise of individual choice, but the pestilent
folly of ordaining native priests was at once forbidden. Most important
of all, the abominable restriction of human liberty by which, under
the accursed rule of King Leopold the native's very food and drink
had been supervised, was replaced by an ample liberty in which he was
free to accept or to reject the beverages of civilisation. The natural
temptation which gin at a penny the bottle offers to a primitive being
was not met as of old by slavish prohibition, but by the wiser and
more noble engine of persuasion, and the temperance leagues already
springing up in the coast towns, gave promise of deep effect upon the
general tone of the native community.
To all this beneficent endeavour, capital alone was lacking. To look
for it in the hardened and worldly centres of the continent was
hopeless. Those who in our own country would some years ago have
been the first to come forward, had recently so suffered through the
necessary initial expense of Rhode's glorious dream, that with all the
good will in the world they hesitated to embark upon novel ventures in
Africa.
More than one godly woman, persuaded by the eloquence of those who had
heard of the atrocities, was willing to venture her few hundreds; and
more than one wealthy manufacturer bestowed considerable donations of
fifty pounds and more upon the spiritual side of the new enterprise:
one high spirit of fire endowed a bishopric with £300 a year for
three years. But the attempt to float a company upon the basis of the
concession was still in jeopardy, and it seemed for a moment as though
all those years of effort to destroy the infamy of Leopold's control
had been thrown away.
The concessionaires, eager as they were to work in the vineyard, could
hardly be expected to go forward until the general public should
take something of the burden off their hands. It was under these
circumstances that the Manatasara Syndicate and its offspring the
company stood in the spring of 1910.
Put in terms of Eternal Life, the shares in the new company of the
Manatasara Syndicate which was to uplift so many poor negroes and to
free so many human souls, were more precious than pearl or ruby and
above the price of chrysoprase,[3] but in the cold terms of our mortal
markets this month of April found them utterly unsaleable. Yet the
capital required was small, one considerable purchase would have been
enough to start the sluggish stream; and if it be asked why, under
these circumstances, Mr. Hatton did not use his considerable financial
influence to obtain the first subscriptions, the answer is that he
was far too high-minded to persuade any man, even for the noblest of
ideals, to the smallest risk for which he might later seem responsible.
As to his own means, ardent as was his enthusiasm for the cause of our
black brothers, he owed it to his wife, to his bright-eyed boy, and
to his aged father-in-law, Sir Charles Hatton of Hatton Hall, who was
penniless, to risk no portion of the family fortune in any speculation
no matter how deserving.
The public, though their ears were ringing with the name of Manatasara,
and though the Press spoke of little else, held back; there was an
interval--a very short one--during which the reconstruction of the
whole affair was seriously considered in secret, when the Hand which
will so often be observed in these pages, visibly moved for the
benediction of Mr. Clutterbuck and of the great Empire which he was
destined to serve.
The Municipal Council of Monte Zarro, in southern Italy, had in
that same spring of 1910 determined upon the construction of new
water-works; and in the true spirit of the men who inherit from
Garibaldi, from Crispi, and from Nathan,[4] they had put the contract
up to the highest--or rather, to the most efficient--tender. I need
hardly say that the firm of Bigglesworth, of Tyneside, the Minories,
and Pall Mall East, obtained the contract; a firm intimately connected
both with the Foreign Office and with the Cavaliere Marlio, and one
whose name is synonymous with thorough if expensive workmanship. The
bonds to be issued in connection with this progressive enterprise
were to bear an interest of four and a half per cent., and in view
of the comparative poverty of the town and the extensive nature of
the investment (which was designed for a town of at least 50,000
inhabitants, though Monte Zarro numbered no more than 15,000), in view
also of the high cost of municipal action in Italy, was to be issued
at some low figure; the precise price was conveyed privately to a few
substantial clients of Barnett and Sons' Bank who all precipitately
refused to touch the security: all, that is, with the exception of Mr.
Clutterbuck.
He, with the unerring instinct that had now guided him for nearly eight
long years, decided to take up the issue. It was not until he had twice
dined, and generously, with a junior partner of the bank that he was
finally persuaded to support the scheme with his capital, nor did his
loyal nature suspect the bias that others were too ready to impute to
the banker's recommendation.
Indeed, Mr. Clutterbuck was led to this determination not so much by
the extremely low price at which the bonds were offered him, or the
considerable interest they were pledged to bear, as by the implied and,
as it were, necessary guarantee of the Italian Government which Barnett
and Sons assured him were behind them. Of the two things, as the junior
partner was careful to point out, one must occur: either the interest
upon the outlay would be too much for the Municipality, in which case
the Government would be bound to intervene, or the interest would be
regularly paid, at least for the first few years, in which case the
price of eighty-three at which the bonds were offered was surely so low
as to ensure an immediately profitable sale.
Mr. Clutterbuck was in no haste, however; the issue still had some
days before it, he was still considering what precise sum he was
prepared to furnish, when he felt, during one of the later and more
bitter mornings of that April, an unaccountable weakness and fever
which increased as the day proceeded.
He at once consulted an eminent physician of his recent acquaintance,
and was assured by the Baronet that if he were not suffering from the
first stages of influenza, he was either the victim of a feverish cold
or possibly of overwork.
This grave news determined him, as a prudent man, to leave his business
for some days and to take a sea voyage, but before doing so, with equal
prudence he put a power of attorney into the hands of a confidential
clerk and left witnessed instructions upon the important investment
which would have to be made in his absence.
Unfortunately, or rather fortunately--such are the mysterious designs
of Heaven--he dictated these full and minute instructions which he
was to leave behind him, and in the increasing discomfort which he
felt toward evening, he neglected to read over the typewritten copy
presented him to sign.
That evening at Croydon, the symptoms being now more pronounced, it was
patent even to the suburban doctor that Mr. Clutterbuck was the prey
of a Diplococcus, not improbably the hideous Diplococcus of pneumonia.
* * * * *
The confidential clerk heard with regret next morning by telephone of
the misadventure that had befallen his master; but he was a man of
well-founded confidence in himself; he had now for five years past
conducted the major part of Mr. Clutterbuck's affairs, under his
superior's immediate direction, it is true, and his proficiency had
earned him a high and increasing salary. Save for an active anxiety
as to Mr. Clutterbuck's ultimate recovery, the terms of his will, and
other matters naturally falling within his province, he knew that he
had all the instructions and powers upon which to act during the next
few days.
He spent the first of those days in visiting, in company with his
second cousin Hyacinth, the charming old town of Rye; the second,
which was also the first of Mr. Clutterbuck's delirium, he occupied in
perusing and digesting at length the detailed instructions which had
been left in his hands.
With the fact that a large investment must of necessity be made in
a few days he was already familiar: his master had sold out and had
placed to his current account at Parr's the important sum destined to
meet it. But he was necessarily in ignorance of the precise security
in which that sum was to be placed, for Mr. Clutterbuck had come to his
final determination but a little while before his illness had struck
him.
The instructions would, he knew, contain his orders in every
particular, and it was mainly with the object of discovering what he
was to do in this chief matter that he studied the lines before him.
The directions given covered a multitude of points; they concerned the
buying and selling of a certain number of small stocks, especially the
realisation of certain Siberian Copper shares, which still stood high,
but which Mr. Clutterbuck, having heard upon the best authority that
the copper was entirely exhausted, had determined to convey to some
other gentleman before the general public should acquire, through the
Press, information which he had obtained at no small expense in advance
of the correspondents.
There followed several paragraphs relative to the installation of
certain improvements in the office, upon which Mr. Clutterbuck was
curiously eager; next, in quite a brief but equally clear passage,
was the order--if the merchant were not himself able to attend to the
matter by the 25th at latest--to take up 15,000 shares in the Muntsar
issue; an investment, the instructions added, on which the fullest
particulars would be afforded him, if he were in any doubt, by Messrs.
Barnett and Sons.
The Confidential Clerk was in very considerable doubt. The word as it
stood was meaningless. He sent for Miss Pugh, the shorthand writer, and
her notes; they appeared together with hauteur, and the Confidential
Clerk, who in humbler days had done his 120 words a minute, carefully
examined the outline. It was not very neat, but there was the "Mntsor"
right enough. He complained of the vowels, and received from Miss Pugh,
whom he openly admired, so sharp a reprimand as silenced him.... Yet
his experience assured him that "Mnt" was not an English form. He began
to experiment with the vowels. He tried "e" and "a" and made Muntusare,
which was nonsense; then he tried "a" and "u"; then "a" and "e"; and
suddenly he saw it.
In a flash he remembered a friend of his who was employed in the
offices of a syndicate; he should surely have guessed! Manatasara!
More than once that friend had hinted at the advantage of "setting
the ball rolling." More than once had he spoken in flattery of the
Confidential Clerk's ascendency over his master and with unmerited
contempt of that master's initiative.... He had even let it be known
that the introduction of Mr. Clutterbuck's name alone would be regarded
with substantial gratitude by Mr. Hatton.... The more he thought of
it the more he was determined that Manatasara was the word ... and he
needed no help from Barnett and Sons now.
He considered the habits of his friend, and remembered that he commonly
lunched at the Woolpack. To the Woolpack went the Confidential Clerk
a little after two, and found that friend making a book with Natty
Timpson, Joe Buller, and the rest upon the approaching but most
uncertain Derby. He joined them, drew him aside, briefly told him his
business, and asked him how he should proceed.
His friend, who was a true friend and a little drunk, conveyed to
him, in language which would certainly be tedious here and probably
offensive, the extreme pleasure his principals would find in Mr.
Clutterbuck's determination: the probability that the Confidential
Clerk himself would not go unrewarded. He spoke of his own high hopes;
then, as he contemplated the opportunity in all its greatness, it so
worked upon his own enthusiasm as to make him insist upon accompanying
the reluctant Clerk to the office itself, and introducing him in a
flushed but articulate manner to Mr. Hatton's private secretary.
The two were closeted together for something less than an hour; it was
not four o'clock when they parted. Mr. Hatton's secretary, forgetting
all social distinctions, shook hands warmly at the door with the
Confidential Clerk, who passed out heedless of his friend's eager
pantomime in the outer office. And thus it was that by the morning of
the next day, while poor Mr. Clutterbuck's temperature was hovering
round 104° (Fahrenheit), no small portion of his goods were already
earmarked for the Great Crusade to Redeem the Negro Race.
Mr. Clutterbuck's illness reached its crisis and passed; but for many
days he was not allowed to hear the least news, still less to occupy
himself with business. The Confidential Clerk was far too careful of
his master's interests to jeopardise them by too early a call upon his
energies. He wrote a daily report to Mrs. Clutterbuck to the effect
that nothing had been done beyond the written instructions left by her
husband, that all was well, and the office in perfect order. He was
at the pains of dictating a daily synopsis of the correspondence he
had opened and answered; and though the offer of marriage which since
his new stroke of fortune he had made to Miss Pugh for the second time
had for the second time been rejected, he continued to utilise her
services, both on his own account and on that of his absent principal.
He dictated considerable reports upon the movements of his favourite
stocks to greet Mr. Clutterbuck's eye upon his recovery, and in a
hundred ways gave evidence of his discretion and his zeal now that he
could look forward to his master's early return.
Meanwhile Barnett and Sons, after assuring themselves by certain
general questions that Mr. Clutterbuck had said nothing with regard to
any Italian investment, held the parcel over till it could be dealt
with in person, and were satisfied of the tenacity of purpose of their
client.
In the first week of May Mr. Clutterbuck, his crescent of a moustache
untrimmed, his hair quite grey, but the broad fan of it still clinging
to his large, bald forehead, was permitted for the first time after so
many days to see the papers and hear news of the world.
He was languid and utterly indifferent, as convalescents are, to what
had hitherto been his chief interests, but as a matter of wifely duty
Mrs. Clutterbuck felt herself bound to read him at full length the
City article in the _Times_, and as she did so on the third day her
philanthropic and evangelising eye was caught, in the midst of names
that had no meaning for her, by the one name Manatasara. It was the
feature of the moment that the new company had been successfully
launched.
A strong Imperialist, like most women of the governing classes and of
the Established Faith, whether in this country or in Scotland, she
naturally rejoiced to observe securely forged yet another bond with the
Britains Overseas. She could comprehend little of the technicalities
of promotion, but she was aware that another of these achievements, of
which the Chartered Company of South Africa had for so many years been
the brilliant type, was upon the eve of its success, and she rejoiced
with a joy in which the love of country stood side by side with a pure
and sincere attachment to her religion.
As one day of convalescence succeeded to another, this item of news
began to grow so insistent that the wan invalid could not but take some
heed of it. Although the long list of shares and prices recited like
a litany had carried with it, when it had approached him through his
wife's lips, something more than tedium, yet when he was permitted to
read and select in it for himself and with his own eyes, the prominence
given to Manatasara's interwove with his reviving interest in life the
story of Charles Hatton's creation.
The capital was not large: the district was but one of many, but the
strong interest which the place had aroused and the very restriction in
the number of available shares had roused the public.
The allotment had been followed by a sharp rise. There were dealings
in the new quotation so continual and so vigorous as to recall the
great days before the South African War. The premium upon "Congoes," as
they were affectionately called, rose without ceasing--and just at the
moment when Mr. Clutterbuck was beginning, but only beginning, to grasp
the story of the company, he was permitted, somewhat doubtfully, by his
doctor to return for an hour or two to the City.
He reached his office, where a warm and cordial welcome awaited him;
his correspondence had already been opened, and an abstract made by
his Clerk and Secretary, when, before he had fully mastered what had
happened, that admirable assistant remarked to him in a tone more
deferential than he had expected, that he had received full allotment
for his application in consideration of the very early date on which he
approached the Syndicate.
"What allotment?" said the enfeebled Mr. Clutterbuck, as he looked up
in some astonishment from the paper before him.
"The allotment in Congoes, sir. I understood I was to apply. I kept the
money ready, sir."
"You've paid nothing I hope," said Mr. Clutterbuck in a testy voice too
often associated with convalescents. "You haven't been such a fool as
to pay anything on your own?"
"Well, sir----" said the Clerk hesitatingly. Then he waited for a
moment for the full effect of his good fortune to penetrate Mr.
Clutterbuck's renewed conceptions of the outer world.
Mr. Clutterbuck read the letter before him twice over, slowly. He
had received allotment to the full amount; the call had been for a
half-crown on 60,000. He did not appreciate how he stood. His mind,
always rather sane than alert, was enfeebled by illness and long
absence from affairs.
"You've been doing something silly," he said again peevishly,
"something damned silly. I don't understand. I'll repudiate it. I don't
understand what you've done--I don't believe it's meant for me at all."
"I humbly did my best, sir; I was assured, really and truly, that a
quarter was the most they'd allow, sir; I truly believed I wasn't
risking more than 15,000 of yours, sir; I did truly."
"Oh! do be quiet," said his principal, as he turned again to the
letter. His head hurt him, and he had a buzzing in the ears. He felt he
wasn't fit for all this. It was a cruel injustice to a man barely on
his feet after a glimpse of the grave.
The Clerk had the wisdom to hold his tongue and to wait. And as he
waited it dawned upon Mr. Clutterbuck that he held 60,000 Congoes; the
Congoes he had heard talked of in the train; the Congoes of which
the papers had been full during the long listless days when he had
lain beside his window looking out into the little sunlit garden; the
Congoes with which every feature of the repeated view from that window
had become grotesquely associated in his invalid imagination. He was
just about to speak again, perhaps to say the something which his Clerk
most dreaded, when he was swamped by a realisation of what had happened.
What Mr. Clutterbuck in health would have seen in five or ten minutes,
Mr. Clutterbuck in convalescence at last grasped, at least as to its
main lines. He remembered two men in the train as he went in, and their
angry discussion: how one who pooh-poohed the whole affair and said
they would not go beyond three before next settling day; and the other,
who was equally confident, swore that they could not fail to pass five
and might touch seven. At the lowest the paper ready to his hands was
60,000 of those same.
He deliberately settled his face and said to the Clerk in an impassive
and altered tone:
"Have you heard what people are offering?"
"Well, sir, it's all talk so far," answered the Clerk. "Some were
saying two and a half, and I heard one gentleman say two and
five-eighths; but it's all talk, sir."
He watched his master narrowly, standing a little behind him and
scrutinising his face as he bent over the letter and read its short
contents for the fourth time. He was well content with the result of
that scrutiny.
As for Mr. Clutterbuck, he now perceived quite clearly (and was
astonished to discern his own quiet acquiescence in the discovery)
that he was at that moment--by some accident which mystified him--the
possessor of over £200,000 in one department of his investments alone.
He sighed profoundly, and said in something like his old voice:
"I supposed they've had their cheque?"
"Yes, sir, undoubtedly," said the clerk rapidly.
Mr. Clutterbuck called for the cheque-book on Parr's, casually asked
the balance, turned to the counterfoil and, initialled the £7500
sacrifice, he rose from the table a man worth a quarter of a million
all told.
The air was warmer with the advent of summer. It was a pleasant day,
and Mr. Clutterbuck, throwing open the window and letting in the roar
of the sunlit street, leant for awhile looking out and taking deep
draughts of air. He noted all manner of little things, the play of the
newsboys, the ribbons upon the dray horses, the chance encounters of
passers-by, and the swirl and the eddy of men. Then he drew in again,
more composed, and said to the clerk:
"Well, I suppose there's nothing more to be done to-day." Then it
occurred to him to add: "If any one comes round from Barnett's, tell
'em 'certainly.'"
"Certainly what, sir?" said the clerk. They had been round more than
once, and lately a little anxiously, but he did not like to trouble Mr.
Clutterbuck at that moment with such details.
"Why," said that gentleman with a touch of his invalid's testiness
returning, "tell 'em I'm ready to do what they want. I promised them
something before--before my illness. Tell them 'certainly.' Tell them
I'll be here again to-morrow."
The clerk helped him on with his heavy fur coat and saw him carefully
to the carriage he had hired. He urged him to drive back the whole way.
But Mr. Clutterbuck shook his head, and drove to the station. He would
soon be well again.
That afternoon, just after hours, another anxious message came from
Barnett's, but this time they were satisfied. Mr. Clutterbuck was
entirely at their service; he would be at the office next day.
This revolution--for it was no less--acted like a tonic upon the man
into whose life it had come. His health was restored to him with a
rapidity which the doctor, who had repeatedly urged him to seek a
particular hotel upon the English Riviera, marvelled at and frequently
denied. There is no better food for a man's recovery than the food of
his vigorous manhood, and this, with Mr. Clutterbuck, was the food of
affairs. To venture, to perceive before another, to seize the spoil, is
life to men of his kind; and he could now recognise in himself one of
those whose foresight and lightning action win the great prizes of this
world.
He was at his office every day, first for a short spell only, but
soon for the old full working hours; and in the midst of twenty other
interests which were rather recreations than labours, he watched
Congoes. In the eagerness of that watch he neglected all the marvels
the newspapers had to tell him of an energy that was transforming the
old hell of the equator into a paradise. He even neglected the great
spiritual work which Dr. Perry and his assistant clergy had so manfully
begun. It must honestly be confessed that he watched nothing but the
fluctuation of the Company's shares.
Mrs. Clutterbuck went to the seaside without him. He saw them touch
seven in the heat of the summer; he was confident they would go
further. They fell to six before the opening of August, to five a week
later. His sound commercial instinct bade him beware; at four and a
half he sold. Then and then only did he take his long holiday away
from the strain of business; a holiday marred to some extent by the
observation that the moment he had disposed of them Congoes rose like
a balloon to a point still higher than that at which he might himself
much earlier have realised.
But though this secret thorn remained in his own side, to the world he
was a marvel; first Croydon talked of him, then the City, then Mayfair,
and the sportsmen, and even the politicians. In ever-increasing
circles, at greater and greater distances from himself, fantastically
exaggerated even in his own immediate neighbourhood and growing to be
a legend in the mouths of great ladies, the story of his one fortune,
among the others of that flotation, expanded into fame.
The story rose beneath him like a tide; it floated him out of his
suburb into a new and a greater world; it floated him at last into
the majestic councils of the nation. It all but bestowed upon him an
imperishable name among the Statesmen of England.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Habakkuk xvi. 8.]
[Footnote 4: The sometime Mayor of Rome; not to be confounded with Sir
Henry Nathan, whom we recently came across in the matter of the eggs.]