by Ellen Wood
If you never had the chance of going to bed at night a poor man, and waking up in the morning with a larger fortune than could be counted, you might have it now. You had only to enter largely into the Great Wheal Bang Company, become the successful possessor of a number of its shares, and the thing was accomplished. For the world was running after it, and some of the applicants were successful in their request for allotments, and some were unsuccessful; and these last went away with a face as long as the Wheal Bang’s own prospectus, growling out a prophecy of all manner of ill-fortune for it Their grapes were sour. The shares were up in the market to a fabulous premium, and a man might take half a dozen into Capel Court, and come out of it with his pockets stuffed full of gold.
Mark Cray’s money had effected wonders, or rather his wife’s; for hers it was. A great many of these magnificent projects are nipped ignobly in the bud through want of a little ready money to set them fairly going. But for Mrs. Cray’s thousands, Mr. Barker’s mine of gold might never have been heard of by the world, and Mr. Barker’s name had not attained to its enviable pre-eminence. These thousands did it all. They got up the company, they set the mine a-working, they paid for the costly offices, they dazzled the eyes of the public, they gave earnest of present wealth, they seemed to assure future success. Certainly, if any mine had ever a fair prospect of realising a golden fruition, it appeared to be the Great Wheal Bang. The working of it had begun most promisingly, and every success was fairly looked for. In calling it a gold mine just now, you of course understood that I was speaking metaphorically; for gold mines are not yet common among us, even in Wales. This very valuable mine (as it could but turn out to be) was not rich in gold, but in lead; and, as we all know, the one is speedily converted into the other. The previous autumn, in consequence of some trifling difficulty in London, Mr. Barker found it convenient to enter on a temporary sojourn at a distance; and he penetrated to a remote district of South Wales. While there, with the good luck which that gentleman believed he was born to and should some time realise, a vein of lead was discovered of a most promising nature. He contrived to secure a large interest in it, and undertook to get up a company for the working of it.
How he would have accomplished this, or whether he ever would have accomplished it, is doubtful, had he not found a coadjutor in Mark Cray, and an aid in Mark’s money. Mark resigned the control of the money to him, and Mr. Barker did not spare it.
No earthly adjunct was wanting to ensure the success of the scheme, provided the mine only realised its present promises.
Has anybody who may happen to read this ever assisted in getting a newly-discovered mine into working order? If so, he may remember the money it cost. How it ran out of the hands like water that is poured through a broad-necked funnel, disappearing nobody knew where, and leaving little trace behind! How the pounds went, and the hundreds went, and the thousands went — if he was fortunate enough to possess thousands to go — he may not recollect without wincing, to this hour. Mark Cray’s thousands went But ere they had come quite to an end, the Great Wheal Bang Company was in full operation in London, the shareholders had answered to their calls, and the money was flowing in.
No lack of money to be feared then. And the operations at the mine were conducted on a much grander scale than heretofore, and the returns were certain to be without parallel, and Mr. Barker was in a glow of triumph, and Mark Cray in a state of ecstatic delight, and the lucky shareholders leaped up sixteen scales in the ladder of society. How many set up carriages on the strength of their future riches it is beyond my power to tell. The money flowed down to the mine, and the works went on beautifully, and the specimens of ore that came up to town were said to be more valuable than any ore ever was before. As to Mr. Barker and Mark, their expenses were not deemed worthy of a thought: with all that money going out weekly for the mine, personal expenditure was but as a drop of water in the ocean, and of course it was unnecessary to think of limiting it. Mrs. Cray, with her vanity and her love of display, was in the seventh heaven; while Mark looked back to his prosy life at Hallingham and wondered how he had endured it. He wondered how any of the doctors left there endured it, and pitied them from his heart. The thousand a-year or so he once thought to enter upon as successor to Dr. Davenal was recollected with contempt now.
This much must be said for the Great Wheal Bang Company — that its projectors were at least honest in their belief of its genuineness. In that they differed from some other companies we have heard of, which have turned out to be nothing but a swindle — if you will excuse the word — from the earliest commencement, the very first dawning dream of their projectors. Mr. Barker was of that strangely sanguine nature which sees a fortune in the wildest scheme, and plunges head and heart and creed into the most improbable speculation: Mark, an utter tyro in mines and all that concerns them, including companies, saw only with Barker’s eyes. When Mr. Barker assured the entranced shareholders that one hundred pounds put into the Great Wheal Bang would multiply tenfold and tenfold, he spoke only the sanguine belief of his heart. When Mark Cray declared to his brother Oswald that a thousand pounds embarked in it by him would make him a rich man for life, he asserted the honest truth according to his conviction. No wonder the two gentlemen-promoters were eloquent. —
Mark had made several visits to the scene of the mines, and he came back each time with (if possible) renewed assurance of the brilliant future; with increased ardour. Had the Chancellor of the Exchequer obligingly made Mark an impromptu present of a hundred thousand pounds, Mark would have flung it broadcast into the mine, did the mine thirst for it He did not understand these things in the least; and the perpetual bustle going on, the number of the miners, even the very money paid in wages and such-like expenses, were to Mark only an earnest of the rich returns that were to come hereafter. Mark would go back to London in a glowing state, and send his friends the shareholders into a fever, longing to realise the prosperity that seemed so dose at hand. The weekly reports overshadowed other weekly reports with envy, and created a furore in the speculating world. Some of the shareholders who understood mines, or thought they did, better than Mark, went down to the Principality, and examined into the state of things for themselves; they found them quite satisfactory, and came away as charmed as Mark. In point of fact, prospects did look well; the lead was of an unusually good quality, and there seemed no reason whatever to anticipate anything but success. Caroline had accompanied her husband once to the mines; but the stay there (putting prospects aside) did not please her: it was “rough,” she told Mark, and it was very dull at the little inn; and she was glad to come away from it all ere the second day was over.
Perhaps the only person within the circle of Mark Cray’s acquaintance not bitten by the Wheal Bang fever was Miss Davenal. Even Oswald Cray was to succumb at last. He would not become a shareholder; he was too cautious a man to enter upon possible future liabilities, the extent of which no human being could foretell: but he did feel inclined to put a thousand pounds into Mark’s hands, and tell him to do the best with it. It may almost be said that Oswald was worried into doing this. Mark would not let him rest. At the onset of the affair, when the glorious prospects of the Wheal Bang were first astonishing the world, Mark had urged Oswald to become one of them; a director or at least a shareholder; but Oswald had turned a deaf ear. He felt greatly vexed at Mark’s imprudence at abandoning Hallingham and his profession, leaving a certainty for an uncertainty; he felt more than vexed at the manner in which Mrs. Cray’s money was disposed of, so entirely opposed to the dying injunction of Dr. Davenal, so opposed (Oswald deemed) to all wisdom and prudence; and he set his face resolutely against the Wheal Bang. But Oswald was but mortal. As the weeks and months went on, and the mines became to all appearance valuable, the company flourishing, and Mark, in conjunction with others, dinned for ever into his ear the fortune he might make at it, Oswald began to waver. He had a thousand pounds laid by, and he felt half inclined to risk it; Mark over-persuaded him; and his v
isit to the Messrs. Knollys’s office the day he encountered Sara Davenal was for the purpose of making certain inquiries of those gentlemen relating to the Wheal Bang.
Not so with Miss Bettina Davenal. She set her face resolutely against the Great Wheal Bang from the first, and nothing turned her. She had never forgiven Mark and his wife for quitting Hallingham, and her reproaches to them could not cease. The apparent prosperity of the Great Wheal Bang changed not her opinion in the least. Mark asked her once whether she would take shares in it, and produced a Wheal Bang prospectus to point to its merits. She angrily replied that she would as soon throw her money into the Thames, that it would not be a surer way of getting rid of it, and rang the bell for Mark and his prospectus to be shown out of her house.
Mark Cray sat in the board room at the city offices of the Great Wheal Bang. A noble room, the cloth on its long table of the freshest green and the finest texture. Mark leaned his elbow upon this cloth as he talked and laughed with some of the friends of the Great Wheal Bang, who were getting rich so easily. It was not a board day; but visitors were numerous at all times.
“I had a line from him this morning,” said Mark, continuing the conversation. “Spirits? I should think he does write in spirits? — what are you talking of? They are getting up quantities of ore now. It will soon be ready for the market.”
“And its quality does not deteriorate?” asked Mark’s immediate listener, a middle-aged gentleman with wise-looking spectacles on his nose.
“Deteriorate!” repeated Mark. “But you shall see the letter.” He began to turn over the papers on the table, and the diamond ring on his little finger, a hundred-guinea investment of his, began to show out the colours of a prism in its glittering brilliancy.
“It is of no consequence,” returned the gentleman, when Mark could not readily find it. “I can take your word. When does Barker come up again?”
“To-day or to-morrow; I am not sure which. I should like you to have seen his letter, though it is but a line or two. The only motive for our fresh call upon the shareholders is to hasten the operations, and so speed the returns. With more capital afloat we can increase the workers at the mine, and bring the ore out more quickly.”
“It was to have been in the market by this.”
“One cannot calculate to a day. It won’t be long now; and its richness, when it does come, will astonish the world. Do just as you like: take the shares or leave them. This gentleman would not have had them to dispose of but that he has urgent need of the money. He is over in Austria now, and has written to me: he is an old friend of mine.”
“I’d not hesitate a moment to take them were it my own money; I wish I had more to embark in it But this is money belonging to my wards; and their relatives are so anxious that I should choose a safe investment, one in which there can be no risk.”
Mark Cray rose from his seat The word “risk” offended his pride, and he could only wonder that any one could be idiot enough to use it in connection with the Great Wheal Bang Mine. But Mark had no need to solicit now the taking of shares: half London was ready to snap them up: and he was too great a man to permit his time to be wasted unnecessarily.
“Consider over it, if you please, until to-morrow morning, Mr. Gilham,” he said, as he moved away. “You can see the secretary if you come in before ten. After that the shares will not be disposable.”
There’s no safer way to make a buyer eager, than for a seller to be indifferent; and Mr. Gilham and his spectacles went hastening after Mark, ready to close the bargain. But Mark was already the centre of an eager group, not to be got at again lightly. The next time Mr. Gilham caught sight of him, he was descending the wide staircase, surrounded as before by a crowd of attendant worshippers, who were unwilling to part with the great man and his widely-extending influence.
But great men must dine as well as small, and Mr. Cray was hastening home to that necessary meal. He extricated himself from his friends, and stepped into his cab that waited at the door: a favourite vehicle of Mark’s, built under his own superintendence, in which he generally went to and fro morning and evening, driving his blood horse himself. Glancing at his watch as he dashed along Cheapside, he found it was considerably later than he had thought, and urged the horse to a quicker pace.
For Mr and Mrs. Cray were expecting friends to dinner that evening. Dr. Ford of Hallingham and his two daughters were making a short stay in town, and had been invited by Mark and his wife — neither of them loth to show off their new grandeur, and to send it to be talked about in Hallingham.
Suddenly Mark threw the horse nearly on his haunches by the violence with which he pulled him up. Oswald Cray was on the pavement. He advanced to Mark at the latter’s sign.
“Have you decided about the thousand pounds, Oswald?”
“Partially. I went down to Knollys’s this morning, and they recommend the thing strongly. But I have worked hard for my money, Mark, and don’t care to lose it.”
“Lose it!” scornfully returned Mark. “The Great Wheal Bang won’t be a losing concern. Look here, Oswald! I have but one motive in pressing the matter upon you: this mine of wealth has come flowing into my hands, and I do consider it a great pity that you, my only brother, should not reap some benefit from it. Others, strangers, are making their thousands and thousands — or will make them; and it’s nothing but wilful blindness for you to let it slip through your fingers. It’s obstinate folly, Oswald. Give me the thousand pounds, and I’ll soon make you ten thousand.”
“The fact is, Mark, I cannot feel so positively sure of its turning out well as you do.”
“Oswald, I tell you that it will. I and Barker have means of knowing facts connected with the mine that I don’t speak of, even to you. As I assured you the other day, so I repeat it; your money cannot be lost. It is a perfectly sure and safe investment; I will answer for it with my life. Will you come home and dine with us?”
“I have dined.”
“Dined!” echoed Mark, rather scornfully, for he was learning to despise any but the most fashionable hours — as many another newly-made great man has learnt before him. “Come round in the evening, then, and see old Ford of Hallingham. Barker will be there, I expect, and we can talk this over further.”
Mark Cray touched his horse, and the cab and its freight bounded off. Mark did not draw rein again until Grosvenor Place was reached.
CHAPTER XLI.
A SLIGHT CHECK.
THE house was blazing with light, every window bright with it Mrs. Cray loved pomp and vanity in all their forms, and she generally caused her rooms to be lighted with the first glimmer of twilight Mark Cray stepped into his handsome hall and was received by a couple of footmen. Flinging his hat to one, his gloves to another, he bounded up-stairs to his dressing-room, conscious that he was keeping the dinner and his guests waiting.
Did Mark Cray ever cast a sigh of regret to the simple life at Hallingham, when he and his wife used to sit down to mutton cutlets and a pudding, and think the fare good enough? Did she regret it at any odd moment? Not yet Dress and dinners, with expense of other sorts, bring a fascination with them all too enthralling to the senses. How they pall upon the wearied spirit in time, how they deaden the heart and debase the intellect, let those answer who have become their slaves; but Mark Cray and his wife had not reached that period of weariness yet. You may be very sure, knowing what you do know of the world and the generality of people who populate it, that Mr and Mrs. Cray wanted not for what is called society. The great projector of the great Wheal Bang Company, holding in his own hands the power to make others rich, was not likely to lack adulation in his private capacity any more than in his public one, and he and his wife drank their fill of it Mark’s mind was shadow, and his head tolerably empty, but he was sufficiently attractive in manners to win his way in society, even without the adjunct just mentioned. Mark was looked upon as of good connections also; for it had somehow got reported that he was a nephew of the proud Baronet of Thorndyke. Perhaps it m
ay be forgiven to poor empty-headed Mark that he held his tongue from contradicting it, and suffered the world to think he was of the family of that great man. As to Caroline, people were in love with her beauty and her youth; and the costly extravagances of the house in Grosvenor Place bore their own charm. Altogether, more guests crowded the doors of Mr and Mrs. Cray than the doors could always hold. Many satellites of the great world, of a position far above the real one of Mark Cray and his wife, flocked to pay them court; and neither of them was wise enough to see how unsuitable are extremes, or to discern that the acquaintance would never have been condescended to but that Mark was the Great Wheal Bang’s powerful chieftain.
Therefore it was nothing unusual for Mark Cray to receive dinner guests at his board; on the contrary, it would have been a marked circumstance now, had he and his wife dined alone.
Mark washed his hands and hurried on his coat, and in a few minutes was at his dinner-table, his guests on either side of him. One guest at it Mark could only regard with astonishment, and that was Miss Davenal. Not that Miss Davenal was not fitted to grace a dinner-table; no lady more so at her age in the three kingdoms; but she had so resolutely abstained from honouring Mark’s house with her presence that he had never expected to see her in it again. Caroline said she should invite her and Sara to meet their old friends the Fords, and Mark had laughed when he heard it. “She’ll never come,” he said; “you might as well invite the lioness from the Zoological Gardens.” However, here she was: she had chosen to come. She sat on Mark’s left hand, her delicate features quite beautiful in their refinement; Miss Ford was on his right, a shrinking little woman of forty years; Miss Mary Ford and Sara Davenal were lower down; and the physician, a short, red-faced, shrivelled man, who talked incessantly and wore nankeen pantaloons, was next to Caroline. “Put a knife and fork for Mr. Barker,” Mark had said to his servants: but Mr. Barker had not made his appearance yet. Those were all the guests.