‘There is no need to say anything, except perhaps “so be it”.’
‘And that I’m resolved not to say, for I can be stubborn, too, you know! But I am willing to call a truce, for, as you said a moment ago, the situation may never arise … in which case I shall merely have wasted my breath and you will have made me cry for nothing. There! Now I am done with it! No more arguments. No more tears. We see each other too seldom to spend our brief time in disagreements, whatever their cause. Suffice it to say that just for the present, and I hope for long years to come, you remain lord and owner of Railes whether you like it or not.’
‘As it happens, I like it very well, and so long as I remain here, I mean to enjoy it to the full. Furthermore, as its lord and owner, I beg that you will do me the honour of taking luncheon with me today. It would make a number of people happy … not just myself but Cook and Jobe and Jack Sherard and all the rest of your old staff … to see you in your old home again.’
‘I shall come, of course,’ Katharine said, ‘and it will make me happy, too.’
She slipped her hand into his arm.
Chapter Fourteen
1865 was a good year for trade in England. Europe for once was at peace with itself; the war in America had come to an end; and everywhere it was felt that a new prosperity lay ahead. The Cullen Valley was no exception; its foremost trade was enjoying a boost; and Charles Yuart, running two mills simultaneously, was achieving miracles at both.
Business at Hainault was so good that the manager at Coulson’s Bank had extended the mill’s overdraft yet again. Charles had also, through his solicitor, Alec Stevenson, been able to borrow a further two thousand pounds from Joseph Samms, the former ironmonger, who, having retired from business to live in some style at Fordover House, now made use of his capital by putting part of it out on loan at a high rate of interest. Charles had to pay seven per cent, but, Hainault profits having risen to a clear twenty-one per cent, the arrangement was well worth while. Throughout this period, therefore, he was increasing production steadily to meet the growing demand for quality broadcloth. As a result, he was buying ever-increasing quantities of the most expensive wools, still under the aegis of his partner at Loxe. One day Maynard remarked on it. He had three invoices in his hand, relating to Yuart’s purchases, and was frowning over the size of the orders.
‘I should have thought John Pirrie would allow you credit in your own name by now, seeing you’re doing so well at Hainault.’
‘Possibly he might,’ Charles said, ‘but I don’t want to risk his saying no.’
‘H’mm. Well, don’t be too rash, man. Your orders this quarter alone amount to nearly two thousand pounds. That’s a lot of money for a man in a small way of business like yourself.’
‘If my business is to grow ‒ and it is growing rapidly ‒ I must have wool in these quantities or I can’t make enough cloth to meet my orders. As for the money involved, you have my promissories for that, and so far, as you well know, every one has been paid on the nail.’
‘I should hope so indeed!’ Maynard said, with a sharp look. ‘We’d have had words on the subject sooner than this if they had not been so paid!’
Charles reddened but said nothing. Luckily, the clerk, Anstey, was not in the office at that moment. After a while Maynard spoke again.
‘You are ambitious, Mr Yuart, which is natural in a man of your age. You’re impatient to make Hainault Mill what it was before. But ‒ festina lente, Mr Yuart. Festina lente. That’s a motto I learnt at school and I’m sure you did too. I would commend its wisdom to you.’
‘There is another motto which says “Strike while the iron is hot.” That is what I am doing, Mr Maynard, ‒ not only at Hainault but here, too, ‒ and the result as you yourself have said ‒’
‘Yes, yes,’ Maynard agreed. ‘You’ve worked wonders, I grant you that, and you mustn’t think I’m not grateful for it.’ He laid the invoices down on his desk and sat back in his armed chair, his hands clasped across his middle. For a while he looked at Charles in silence. Then he gave a little grunt. ‘Well, I’ve done lecturing you for today. Now it’s your turn to lecture me. You can tell me about this idea of yours for credit-capping with Francus Warde.’
All in all, Maynard was pleased, and, as Charles said, had good reason to be. During the greater part of that year, Loxe was working to capacity, and its new designs, which Charles had created, were selling well at home and abroad. The order-books were well filled and the ledgers, when audited, showed that profits had risen to a record twenty-five per cent. All this, as Maynard acknowledged, was due to Yuart’s efficiency.
‘You’ve certainly done what I asked you to do. You’ve pulled this mill up again to what it was in earlier days, before this dammed illness of mine reduced me to the poor half-man I am now.’
This was said at the onset of winter, when the first fogs came down on the valley, and Maynard, with his chronic bronchitis, was obliged to remain in his own home. During the fine summer that year, he had been at the mill almost every day, arriving after ten in the morning, as his doctor advised, and leaving at four in the afternoon. But now already the weather was such that he dared not venture out of doors, let alone go to the mill, and the strict confinement fretted him. As in the previous two winters, however, Charles now visited him at home, taking cheques and trade bills for him to sign, and acceptances for him to endorse, together with other ‘receivables’. If Charles was too busy, Anstey went instead, but once a week without fail Charles took ‘the books’ for Maynard to see, and on these occasions would stay perhaps an hour or more, giving detailed news of the mill and answering Maynard’s eager questions.
‘Oh, if you knew how it vexes me to sit here playing the invalid while another man does my work for me! Still, I must count my blessings, I know, because I have got two good men in you and Anstey. You and he are my eyes and ears. And what you don’t tell me, be sure he does!’
Maynard cocked an eyebrow at Charles, for the animosity that existed between his partner and his clerk was a source of some amusement to him. But Charles, as always, was not to be drawn.
‘I admit I don’t report every petty squabble that flares up in the loom-shops, nor every bit of vulgar gossip bandied about among the pickers. I have neither the time nor the inclination. I’m much too busy making sure that the mill is kept running smoothly and efficiently. And, I might add, profitably.’
‘Yes, and in that you’ve succeeded right well. Nobody could argue with that. It’s been a good year, thanks to you. Let’s hope for another one like it, eh?’
1866, however, although it began well enough, soon brought problems, due to the sudden collapse of a prominent firm of London financiers, Overend, Gurney, and Company, who, after some years of highly doubtful business practice, had now gone into liquidation with debts, it was said, amounting to many millions of pounds. To Charles, reading about it in the papers, the news was of small significance. He dismissed it as one of those convulsions that seized the City periodically, only to die down in a while, its cause and outcome alike unknown to most of the country’s population.
The first indication he had that others felt differently was when Joseph Samms sent him a note calling in his loan, which he wanted paid in three days. Charles, though worried, was certainly not going to plead for time with a jumped-up ironmonger. He therefore sat down at once and wrote the man a cheque, comforting himself with the thought that his overdraft at the bank cost two per cent less than his loan from Samms had done. Soon, however, came an urgent message from the bank’s manager, Mr Harriman, asking Charles to call on him. The Hainault account was now overdrawn to the sum of seven thousand, four hundred, and twenty-one pounds, far in excess of the six thousand pound limit agreed between them the year before. The bank had honoured Mr Yuart’s cheque to Mr Samms on the assumption that the situation thus created would be of the shortest possible duration. Could he have Mr Yuart’s assurance that this was indeed the case? Yes, certainly, Charles replied. It would be c
orrected without delay.
Unfortunately, just at this time, incomings at Hainault Mill were quickly cancelled by its outgoings, and Charles began to regret his haste in paying his debt to Joseph Samms. At Loxe Mill, one morning in June, there was fresh cause for anxiety, for among the papers on his partner’s desk were three or four receivables, now mature and due for payment, which Anstey had placed there ready for Maynard to endorse. And among them, as Charles could see, was a promissory note of his own, written three months previously, in payment for wool, for a sum close upon nine hundred pounds. After his interview with Mr Harriman, it was certain this note would not be honoured.
The time was just after eight o’clock. Maynard, of course, had not yet arrived, and George Anstey was out in the yard, checking deliveries of coal. Charles, after a moment’s hesitation, removed his promissory note from the pile and put it into his breast pocket. He sat down at his own desk and began looking through his own correspondence, though his mind still dwelt on what he had done. There was, of course, always the risk that the watchful clerk, when he returned, might discover the loss of the note, in which case Charles would arrange that it should be ‘found’ elsewhere in the office. ‒ At the back of the bill-box, perhaps, or between the pages of the relevant ledger.
In the event, all was well, and his action went undetected. As for the nine hundred pounds, he would pay that debt later on, perhaps when his next wool bill fell due, by writing a freshly dated note that covered both amounts together. He had no doubt whatever that by then his present difficulties would be resolved, because all this year Hainault cloth had been going out in large quantities, the value of which, when the trade bills returned, was enough to cover his present debts two or three times over. The bulk of this cloth, especially of the superfines, had gone to Francus Warde of London, and one of Charles’s bills of exchange, sent to Warde the previous week, was expected back imminently.
Three days later the bill arrived, duly signed by Francus Warde, and Charles, with relief and satisfaction, took it at once to Coulson’s Bank, where he laid it before the manager. The bill, payable in London, was made out in the sum of nine thousand, five hundred pounds; it would not only pay off his overdraft but would leave him in credit to an amount slightly exceeding two thousand pounds. Mr Harriman, having looked at the bill, laid it down again on his desk. His face became very stiff. His voice, though controlled, conveyed anger.
‘Mr Yuart, this bill, as you well know, is not payable until three months from now, and that, in your present situation with us, simply is not good enough. I pointed out, when last we met, that your overdraft is now far in excess of the limit agreed, and asked you to remedy the situation without delay. That you promised to do but instead you bring me this acceptance of Francus Warde’s ‒’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Charles said. ‘That acceptance is worth a substantial amount of money. Francus Warde, as you know, is one of the largest and most highly respected cloth merchants in London. I have done business with him for years. So have a score of other clothiers in this district. You must have discounted hundreds of Warde’s acceptances during your time in this bank. Certainly you’ve discounted a large number for me, two of them in recent weeks.’
‘Quite so, Mr Yuart. And those acceptances of yours which I already hold do nothing to mitigate the extent by which you have exceeded your credit with us. At present, in fact, they merely add to the risks imposed on this bank by your recent business transactions, which is why I must insist ‒ yet again ‒ that something of a more concrete nature be done to reduce those risks without further delay.’
‘I would remind you, sir, that this bank earns its quarterly one per cent on all my acceptances and a further annual five per cent on the sum of my overdraft.’
‘I would remind you, Mr Yuart, that if, as is rumoured at present, the Bank Rate should rise to ten per cent, your overdraft and your acceptances will be costing you accordingly. It is therefore in your own best interests, as well as the bank’s, that you should take steps to remedy your present position before it becomes critical. Furthermore, I would remind you that as you do not own Hainault Mill, the only security you offer in return for our loan is the business you carry on there.’
‘Yes! And yet you would jeopardize that business by making unreasonable demands!’ Charles, leaning forward, jabbed his finger at the trade-bill lying on the manager’s desk. ‘That represents the business I do. That is part of its hard-earnt profits. That is value for value received.’
‘Not until three months from now, Mr Yuart, and in the present financial situation, three months is a long time. I have here an urgent memorandum from my Head Office directing me to stop all further extensions of credit, except on the soundest security, and to call in all outstanding debts instanter. I can make no exceptions to this ruling, as I’m sure you will appreciate.’
‘Is that your last word?’ Charles asked.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Yuart, but you must have read the papers, I’m sure. This affair of Overend and Gurney has caused panic in the City and it’s already spreading to the provinces.’ Mr Harriman picked up the bill and looked at it for a moment or two. ‘You could try your luck with the brokers, of course, but … there’s a run on the discount houses at present, just as there is on the banks, so I can’t pretend to any great optimism.’ He laid the bill down on the desk again and pushed it gently towards Charles. ‘Perhaps, if you have no other resources at your disposal, your partner at Loxe would be willing to help. Presumably you have a substantial investment there which would form the required security if Mr Maynard were so disposed and would discount this acceptance for you.’
Charles did not answer this suggestion. For one thing, he thought it presumptuous. For another, his present investment at Loxe was a mere two thousand pounds, since the greater part had been withdrawn to finance his business at Hainault. But there was no reason why Harriman should be told that, for it was, as Charles saw it, nobody’s business but his own.
‘The matter will be dealt with. You may rest assured.’ He put the bill into his pocket and rose to his feet. ‘But that you should refuse a perfectly good acceptance drawn on the account of a firm with the solid reputation of Francus Warde is something beyond my comprehension. And I take it amiss, sir. ‒ I will tell you that!’
From the bank he went straight back to Hainault, there to peruse the mill’s books, together with his clerk, Preston, to see which of his customers could, with justification, be called upon to settle their accounts. But the total value of the sums due was not nearly enough to meet his needs and calling them in would take time. Also, he ran the risk of offending those customers forever, a risk he could ill-afford to take. It seemed the only course open to him was to do as Harriman suggested and ask Maynard to help him out. On arriving at Loxe, however, he found that his partner had gone home. It was after four o’clock, later than Charles had realized, and, going about Loxe Mill affairs, mostly in the loom-shops, he put Hainault out of his mind until, at half past seven that evening, sitting at his desk, alone in the office, he applied himself to the problem anew.
If he was going to ask Maynard’s help, it would be better to go to his home, where they could be private together, safe from the possibility that the clerk might be listening at the door. But Charles, even now, still had his doubts, and somehow, alone in Maynard’s office, those doubts were magnified. To reveal the state of his business affairs, which he had guarded so jealously; then, to endure Maynard’s questioning, followed by his homilies: the prospect was more than Charles could stomach, especially when, at the end of it all, Maynard might very well refuse!
He, too, had been made nervous by the present financial situation and had left a memorandum for Charles, which lay before him, on his desk.
‘No long credit to new customers. Ditto, no sale above £400.
A note to be sent out with all trade bills, requesting their prompt return. Old, established customers to receive their usual commutations but beware of orders exceedi
ng their norm.’
And so on, for a page and a half.
But Charles, long before he reached the end, was not reading the words for their sense: he was studying Maynard’s handwriting; and, familiar though it was to him, he saw it now in a different way, as though the neatly formed characters stood out, each in turn, from the white page, in response to some thought not yet fully formed in his mind. Moving his chair backwards a little, to catch the full light from the window, he read the whole memorandum again. After this, having laid it aside, he leant back and lit a cigarette. But smoking it took too long and, rising, he threw it into the hearth.
He went over to Maynard’s desk and brought back Maynard’s pen. He sat down again at his own desk, some clean sheets of paper in front of him, and, consulting the memorandum, began copying Maynard’s script, paying particular attention to the heavy strokes crossing the ‘t’s, and the flourishes adorning certain capitals, especially the T and the M in the signature on the second page. Within a few minutes he had covered a whole sheet with extracts copied from the memorandum, after which, on a second sheet, he wrote out the whole of the alphabet, first in capitals, then in small letters, all in Maynard’s own style.
After studying these for a while, he copied Maynard’s signature, again and again, all down the page. Then he practised a number of phrases, together with certain abbreviations, habitually used by Maynard when endorsing cheques or acceptances. It was really very easy to do, Charles thought, and he viewed the results with some surprise. But now, having reached this point, he became aware of his quickened pulse; of the tight constriction in his chest. He got up and lit another cigarette but this time he smoked it right to the end, walking to and fro all the time, slowly, with measured pace, intended to allay his nerves.
The cigarette finished, he returned to his desk and, with the same deliberate movements, took his notecase out of his pocket and removed from it the trade bill refused by the manager of his bank. He laid it on his blotter and smoothed it out. Written and signed by himself, requiring payment in ninety days, it was cross-signed by Francus Warde, accepting it as payable by the London bankers, Collet and Bown. It was worth nine thousand, five hundred pounds, and yet, Charles thought bitterly, his own bank in Chardwell had refused point-blank to discount it for him, thereby placing him in a position of the utmost gravity. The thought served to harden his resolve and, with a sudden angry briskness, he turned the trade bill over and round so that it lay blank side up, in a position convenient for him to write across it, narrow-ways. Thus, in his own elegant hand, and using his own fountain-pen, he inscribed the following endorsement: ‘On maturity pay Mr Maynard of Loxe Mill the full value of this acceptance in return for value discounted as pledged in the following.’ Under this he signed his own name.
The Old House at Railes: A heartwarming rags to riches Victorian family saga Page 40