by Ellen Wood
Mark felt as if water were flowing over him. He stood there under the gas-burner — the servant had only lighted one — a picture of perplexity, his face blank, his hand running restlessly through his hair, after his old restless manner, the diamond studs in his shirt sparkling and gleaming. All this sounded as though some treason, some treachery, were at work. If this man could get news up, he and Barker ought to have got it.
A knock at the door. It opened about an inch, and Caroline’s voice was heard.
“Mark, we must go. We are keeping the dinner waiting.” And Mark was turning towards her, when Mr. Brackenbury silently caught him by the arm, and spoke in a whisper.
“No! Not until you have given me my money.”
“Allow me to say a word to my wife,” said Mark, haughtily. “I will return to you in an instant.”
Caroline stood there with questioning eyes and a rebellious face. Mark shut the door while he spoke to her.
“You must go on alone, my dear. I can’t come yet. I’ll join you later in the evening.”
“Mark! What’s that for?”
“Hush! This gentleman has come up on business from the City, and I must attend to him,” whispered Mark. “I’ll get rid of him as soon as I can.”
He was hurrying her out to the carriage as he spoke, and he placed her in it, she yielding to his strong will in her bewilderment Once seated in it then she spoke.
“But, Mark, why should he come on business now f What is the business?”
“Oh, it has to do with the Great Wheal Bang,” said Mark, carelessly. “It’s all right; only I can’t get away just at the minute. I won’t be long. They are not to wait dinner, mind.”
The carriage drove away, and Mark returned indoors. His unwelcome visitor stood in the same place, apparently not having stirred hand or foot “How am I to know whether this news you have brought is true?” was Mark’s first question. And Mr. Brackenbury looked at him for a minute before replying to it.
“I don’t altogether take you, Mr. Cray. You cannot think I should knowingly bring you a false report; my character is too well respected in the City for you to fear that; and you may rely upon it, unhappily, that there’s no mistake in the tidings forwarded to me.”
“Well — allowing that it shall prove to be true — why can’t you take your shares into the market and realise to-morrow morning, as well as coming to me for the money to-night?”
“Because I am not sure that I could realise!” was the frank response. “I don’t suppose the intelligence will be public by that time; I don’t think it will; but I cannot answer for it that it won’t You must give me the money, Mr. Cray.”
Mark took an instant’s gloomy counsel with himself. Might he dare to defy this man, and refuse his demands? He feared not. Mark was no more scrupulous than are some other shareholders we have read of; and the chance of realising something in the morning, to pit against the utter ruin that seemed to be impending was not to be forfeited rashly. But how was he to pay the money? He had not two hundred shillings in the house, let alone two hundred pounds.
“I can’t give it you to-night,” said Mark; “I have not got it to give.”
“I must and will have it,” was the resolute answer. “I daresay you can go out and get it somewhere: fifty people would be glad to lend you money. I shall stay here until I have it And if you deem me scant of courtesy to-night, Mr. Cray, you may set it down to the sore feeling in my mind at the circumstances under which the shares were sold to me. I’d never have touched them had I suspected water had been already in the mine.”
“That’s talking nonsense,” said Mark, in his irritation. “The mine was as sound and as safe after the water had been in it as it was before. It was nothing more than a threatening; nothing to hurt.”
“A threatening — just so. Well, it is of no use to waste time squabbling over terms now. That will do no good.”
Mr. Brackenbury was right. It certainly would do no good. Mark went out, leaving him there, for he refused to stir; and, not seeing a cab, ran full speed to Mr. Barker’s lodgings in Piccadilly. A Hansom could not have gone quicker. It was not that he hoped Mr. Barker would supply the two hundred pounds; that gentleman was as short of ready cash as himself; but Mark was burning with impatience to impart the disastrous news, and to hear whether Barker had had intelligence of it.
Disappointment. When Mark, panting, breathless, excited, seized the bell of Mr. Barker’s house and rang a peal that frightened the street, he was told that Mr. Barker was not within. He had gone out in the afternoon: the servant did not know where.
“Has any telegram come up from Wales to-night?” gasped Mark.
“Telegram, sir? No, sir; nothing at all has come to-night, neither letter nor anything.”
“I’ll be back in a short while,” said Mark. “If Mr. Barker returns, tell him to wait in for me. It is of the very utmost importance that I should see him.”
He turned away, jumped into a cab that was passing, and ordered it to drive to Parliament Street. The two hundred pounds he must get somehow, and he knew nobody he could apply to at the pinch, save Oswald.
Mark was not the only visitor to Oswald Cray that night He had been sitting alone, after his dinner, very deep in deliberation, when Benn came up showing in a gentleman. It proved to be Henry Oswald.
They had not met since the funeral of Lady Oswald twelve months before, and at the first moment Oswald scarcely knew him. Henry Oswald was a cordial-mannered man. He had not inherited the cold heart and the haughty bearing so characteristic of the Oswalds of Thorndyke, and he grasped Oswald’s hand warmly.
“I have been out of England nearly ever since we met, Oswald — I am sure you will let me call you so, we are near relatives — or I should have sought to improve the acquaintance begun at that short meeting. I want you to be friendly with me. I know how wrong has been the estrangement, and what cause you have to hate us; but surely you and I can afford to do away with the prejudice that has kept you from Thorndyke, and Thorndyke from you.”
Oswald saw how genuine were the words, how earnest the wish imparted in them; and from that moment his “prejudice” went out of him, as far as Henry Oswald was concerned, and his eye lighted up with an earnest of the future friendship. He had liked Henry Oswald at that first meeting; he liked him still.
They sat together, talking of the days gone by, when they two were unconscious children. Of Oswald’s mother; of the conduct of her family towards her; of the insensate folly — it was his son called it so — that still estranged Sir Philip from Oswald Cray. They talked freely and fully as though they had been intimate for years — far more confidentially than Oswald had ever talked to his halfbrother.
“I shall be proud of your friendship, Oswald,” cried the young man, warmly; “if that’s not an ominous word for one of us. But I fancy you inherit the family failing far more than I. You will be one of the world’s great men yet, making yourself a name that the best might envy.”
Oswald laughed. “If the world envies those who work hard, then it may envy me.”
“I can tell you what, Oswald, if work’s not envied in these days, it is honoured. In the old days of darkness — I’m sure I can call them so, in comparison with these — it was such as I who were envied. The man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who need do nothing his whole life long but sit down in idleness and enjoy his title and fortune, and be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day — he got the honour then. Now the man of industry and talent is bowed down to, he who labours onwards and upwards to use and improve the good gifts bestowed upon him by God. It may be wrong to say it, but I do say it in all sincerity, that I, Henry Oswald, born to my baronetcy, envy you, Oswald Cray, born to work.”
Prom one subject they went to another. In talking of the Cray family, they spoke of Mark, and from Mark the transition to the Great Wheal Bang Company was easy. Henry Oswald had heard and read of its promise, and he now asked Oswald’s opinion of its stability. He
had a few hundreds to spare, for he had not been an extravagant man, and felt inclined to embark them in the Great Wheal Bang. Oswald advised his doing so. He himself had embarked all his saved cash in it, a thousand pounds, and he thought he had done well.
“Then I’ll see about it to-morrow,” decided Henry Oswald; “and get it completed before I go down to Thorndyke.”
He departed soon, for he was engaged out that evening, and Oswald resumed the train of thought which his entrance had interrupted. The deliberation it may be said. He was pondering a grave question: Should he not despatch Frank Allister to Spain in place of himself? Allister was equally capable; and two or three years’ residence in that climate might renovate him for life. It would be a great sacrifice for him, Oswald; a sacrifice, in some degree, of name and fame, and of pecuniary benefit; but he was a conscientious man, very different from the generality of business men, who seek their own elevation, no matter who is left behind. Oswald as a child had learnt the good wholesome doctrine of doing to others as we would be done by: and he carried it out practically in life, content to leave the issue with God. How many of us can say as much?
A few minutes’ earnest thought and he raised his head with a clear countenance. The decision was made.
“Allister shall go,” he said, half-aloud. “Should he get ill again in this wretched climate next winter, and die, I should have it on my conscience for ever. It will be a sacrifice for me: but how can I put my advancement against his life? I ought not, and I will not.”
The words had scarcely left his lips when Mark came in. Not Mark as we saw him just now, troubled, eager, panting; but Mark all coolness and smiles. A little hurried, perhaps, but that was nothing.
He had come to ask Oswald a favour. Would he accommodate him with a cheque for two hundred pounds until the banks opened in the morning? A gentleman, to whom was owing that sum on account of the Great Wheal Bang had urgent need of it that very night, and had come bothering him, Mark, for it If Oswald would accommodate him, he, Mark, should feel very much obliged, and would return it in the morning with many thanks.
“I have not got as much of my own,” said Oswald.
“But you can give me a cheque of the firm’s, can’t you?” returned Mark, playing carelessly with his diamond studs.
Oswald did not much like this suggestion, and hesitated. Mark spoke again.
“It will be rendering me the greatest possible service, Oswald. The fellow has to leave town, or something, by one of the night trains. You shall have it back the first thing in the morning.”
“You are sure that I shall, Mark!”
“Sure!” echoed Mark, opening his small grey eyes very wide in surprise. “Of course I am sure. Do you think I should forget to bring it you? Let me have it At once, there’s a good brother. Carine will think I am never coming; we have to go to two parties to-night.”
Oswald wrote the cheque and gave it him. It was a cheque of the firm: “Bracknell, Street, and Oswald Cray for Oswald’s name appeared now.
And Mr. Mark carried it off with him. “There’s a good brother,” indeed! I wonder how he slept that night!
CHAPTER XLVII.
COMMOTION.
WITH the wing of the dawn — that is, with the wing of the dawn for business in London — Mark Cray was at the offices in the City. Barker was there before him, and started forward to meet him as he entered. Mark had not succeeded in seeing Barker the previous night “Cray, it’s all up. I’m afraid it’s all up.”
“Have you heard from Wales?”
“I got a telegram this morning. There’s an irruption of water, in earnest this time. It’s flowing in like so many pumps. Look here.”
Mark’s hands shook as he laid hold of the telegram. “I wasn’t in bed till three o’clock,” said he, as if he would give an excuse for the signs of agitation. But though he tried to account for his shaking hands, he could not for his scared face.
Yes, Mr. Barker was no doubt right: it was “all up” with the Great Wheal Bang. Mark and he stood alone over the table in the board-room: in consultation as to what they could do, and what they might do.
Might they dare — allowing that the public still reposed in happy security — to take some shares into the market, and secure themselves something out of the wreck? Barker was all for doing it; at any rate for trying it—” whether it would work,” he said. Mark hung back in indecision: he thought there might be after-consequences.
He told Barker the episode of Mr. Brackenbury’s visit, and of his satisfying that gentleman with the cheque of Bracknell, Street, and Oswald Cray, which cheque was no doubt cashed by that time.
“Mean old idiot!” apostrophised Mr. Barker. “That’s always the way with those petty people. They’ll make more fuss over their paltry hundred pounds or two than others do over thousands. I’d not have paid him, Mark.”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Mark. “You should have seen the work he made. Besides, if I had not, he’d have proclaimed the thing from one end of London to another.”
“Well, about these shares,” said Barker. “We must make as much as ever we can. Will you go, or shall I?”
“Perhaps it’s known already,” returned Mark, dubiously.
“Perhaps it isn’t Brackenbury gave you his word that he’d keep quiet, and who else is likely to know it? Letters can’t get here till the afternoon post, and nobody at the mine would make it their business to telegraph up.”
Mark stood in restless indecision. When annoyed, he was fidgety to a degree; could not be still. Perhaps he had inherited his mother’s temperament. He pushed back his hair incessantly; he fingered nervously the diamond studs in his shirt Mark was not in the habit of wearing those studs by day, or the curiously fine embroidery they were adorning. Whether, in his confusion of faculties, he had put in the studs that morning, or had absently retired to rest in his shirt the previous night, studs and all, must be left to conjecture.
“Look here, Barker,” said he. “If news had not come to us of the disaster, to you and to me, I’d willingly have taken every share we possess into the market, and got the money for them down, if I could. But the news has come: and I don’t think it would do.”
“Who’s to know it has come?” asked Barker.
“Well, things do often come out, you know; they nearly always do; especially if they are not wanted to. Perhaps the telegraph office could be brought up to prove it, or something of that.”
“Well?” said Barker.
“Well,” repeated Mark. “It mightn’t do.”
“Oh, bother, Cray! We must do it. We must stand out through thick and thin afterwards that the message never reached us. I could; and you are safe, for you have not had one at all. Look at our position. We must realise. Of course we can’t attempt to negotiate many shares; that would betray us; but a few we might, and must. We must, for our own sakes; we can’t stand naked, without a penny to fall back upon.”
Mark still hesitated. “I’d have done it with all the pleasure in life but for this telegram,” he reiterated. “For one thing, Oswald would never forgive me; my name’s the same as his, you know; and I shall have to face him over this two hundred pounds: that will be bad enough. And there’s my mother. And my wife, Barker; you forget her.”
“I don’t forget her. I am thinking of her,” was Mr. Barker’s answer. “It’s for her sake, as much as ours, that you ought to secure a little ready money. You’ll want it I know that much, for I have been down in luck before.”
Mark looked irresolute and pitiably gloomy. “I don’t see my way clear,” he resumed, after a pause. “Let’s put the thing into plain black and white. I go out, and sell some shares, and get the money paid down for them, and pocket it An hour afterwards the news spreads that the mine’s destroyed, and the shares are consequently worthless. Well, Barker, my belief is that they could proceed against me criminally for disposing of those shares—”
“Not if you did not know the mine was wrong when you took them into the market
.”
“Nonsense,” returned Mark, irritably, “they’d be sure to know it. I tell you it would be safe to come out by hook or by crook. They’d call it felony, or swindling, or some such ugly name. Do you suppose I’m going to put my head into that noose? — I was born a gentleman.”
“And do you suppose I wish either of us to do it?” retorted Barker. “I shouldn’t be such a fool. I never go into a thing unless I know I can fight my way out of it. I shall take a few shares into the market, and feel my way. I shall sell them for money, if I can; and you shall share it, Mark. I suppose you won’t object to that.”
No, certainly, Mark would have no objection to that “I did not hear of the disaster until later, you know,” said Barker, winking. “News of it came up to us by the afternoon post. If they do find out about the telegram, why, I never opened it. Nobody saw me open it,” added Barker, with satisfaction. “I have had so many up from the mine at my lodgings that the servants sign and put them in my sitting-room as a matter of course. This one was put there this morning, and I found it when I came down, but nobody was in the room. Oh, it will be all right. And I say, Mark, if —— —”
Mr. Barker’s smooth projects were stopped. Absorbed in their conversation, he and Mark had alike failed to notice a gradually gathering hum in the street outside. A very gentle, almost imperceptible hum at first, but increasing to a commotion now. With one bound they reached the window.
A concourse of people, their numbers being augmented every moment, had assembled beneath. They were waiting for the opening of the offices of the Great Wheal Bang at ten o’clock. And the hour was almost on the point of striking.
“It’s all up,” shouted Barker in Mark’s ear. “The news is abroad, and they have heard of it Look at their faces!”
The faces were worth looking at, though not as a pleasant sight Anger, rage, disappointment, above all impatience, were depicted there. The impatience of a wolf waiting to spring upon its prey. One of the faces unluckily turned its gaze upwards and caught sight of Barker’s. Barker saw it; he had not been quick enough in drawing away from the window.