“She has been warning me against him — says he is the rankest pirate in London. I hope that it is all right, boy, and that we may not find ourselves in broken water.”
Harold had turned a little pale as he heard Mrs. Westmacott’s opinion of his senior partner. It gave shape and substance to certain vague fears and suspicions of his own which had been pushed back as often as they obtruded themselves as being too monstrous and fantastic for belief.
“He is a well-known man in the City, dad,” said he.
“Of course he is — of course he is. That is what I told her. They would have found him out there if anything had been amiss with him. Bless you, there’s nothing so bitter as a family quarrel. Still it is just as well that you have written about this affair, for we may as well have all fair and aboveboard.”
But Harold’s letter to his partner was crossed by a letter from his partner to Harold. It lay awaiting him upon the breakfast table next morning, and it sent the heart into his mouth as he read it, and caused him to spring up from his chair with a white face and staring eyes.
“My boy! My boy!”
“I am ruined, mother — ruined!” He stood gazing wildly in front of him, while the sheet of paper fluttered down on the carpet. Then he dropped back into the chair, and sank his face into his hands. His mother had her arms round him in an instant, while the Admiral, with shaking fingers, picked up the letter from the floor and adjusted his glasses to read it.
“My DEAR DENVER,” it ran. “By the time that this reaches you I shall be out of the reach of yourself or of any one else who may desire an interview. You need not search for me, for I assure you that this letter is posted by a friend, and that you will have your trouble in vain if you try to find me. I am sorry to leave you in such a tight place, but one or other of us must be squeezed, and on the whole I prefer that it should be you. You’ll find nothing in the bank, and about L13,000 unaccounted for. I’m not sure that the best thing you can do is not to realise what you can, and imitate your senior’s example. If you act at once you may get clean away. If not, it’s not only that you must put up your shutters, but I am afraid that this missing money could hardly be included as an ordinary debt, and of course you are legally responsible for it just as much as I am. Take a friend’s advice and get to America. A young man with brains can always do something out there, and you can live down this little mischance. It will be a cheap lesson if it teaches you to take nothing upon trust in business, and to insist upon knowing exactly what your partner is doing, however senior he may be to you.
“Yours faithfully,
“JEREMIAH PEARSON.”
“Great Heavens!” groaned the Admiral, “he has absconded.”
“And left me both a bankrupt and a thief.”
“No, no, Harold,” sobbed his mother. “All will be right. What matter about money!”
“Money, mother! It is my honor.”
“The boy is right. It is his honor, and my honor, for his is mine. This is a sore trouble, mother, when we thought our life’s troubles were all behind us, but we will bear it as we have borne others.” He held out his stringy hand, and the two old folk sat with bowed grey heads, their fingers intertwined, strong in each other’s love and sympathy.
“We were too happy,” she sighed.
“But it is God’s will, mother.”
“Yes, John, it is God’s will.”
“And yet it is bitter to bear. I could have lost all, the house, money, rank — I could have borne it. But at my age — my honor — the honor of an admiral of the fleet.”
“No honor can be lost, John, where no dishonor has been done. What have you done? What has Harold done? There is no question of honor.”
The old man shook his head, but Harold had already called together his clear practical sense, which for an instant in the presence of this frightful blow had deserted him.
“The mater is right, dad,” said he. “It is bad enough, Heaven knows, but we must not take too dark a view of it. After all, this insolent letter is in itself evidence that I had nothing to do with the schemes of the base villain who wrote it.”
“They may think it prearranged.”
“They could not. My whole life cries out against the thought. They could not look me in the face and entertain it.”
“No, boy, not if they have eyes in their heads,” cried the Admiral, plucking up courage at the sight of the flashing eyes and brave, defiant face. “We have the letter, and we have your character. We’ll weather it yet between them. It’s my fault from the beginning for choosing such a land-shark for your consort. God help me, I thought I was finding such an opening for you.”
“Dear dad! How could you possibly know? As he says in his letter, it has given me a lesson. But he was so much older and so much more experienced, that it was hard for me to ask to examine his books. But we must waste no time. I must go to the City.”
“What will you do?”
“What an honest man should do. I will write to all our clients and creditors, assemble them, lay the whole matter before them, read them the letter and put myself absolutely in their hands.”
“That’s it, boy — yard-arm to yard-arm, and have it over.”
“I must go at once.” He put on his top-coat and his hat. “But I have ten minutes yet before I can catch a train. There is one little thing which I must do before I start.”
He had caught sight through the long glass folding door of the gleam of a white blouse and a straw hat in the tennis ground. Clara used often to meet him there of a morning to say a few words before he hurried away into the City. He walked out now with the quick, firm step of a man who has taken a momentous resolution, but his face was haggard and his lips pale.
“Clara,” said he, as she came towards him with words of greeting, “I am sorry to bring ill news to you, but things have gone wrong in the City, and — and I think that I ought to release you from your engagement.”
Clara stared at him with her great questioning dark eyes, and her face became as pale as his.
“How can the City affect you and me, Harold?”
“It is dishonor. I cannot ask you to share it.”
“Dishonor! The loss of some miserable gold and silver coins!”
“Oh, Clara, if it were only that! We could be far happier together in a little cottage in the country than with all the riches of the City. Poverty could not cut me to the heart, as I have been cut this morning. Why, it is but twenty minutes since I had the letter, Clara, and it seems to me to be some old, old thing which happened far away in my past life, some horrid black cloud which shut out all the freshness and the peace from it.”
“But what is it, then? What do you fear worse than poverty?”
“To have debts that I cannot meet. To be hammered upon ‘Change and declared a bankrupt. To know that others have a just claim upon me and to feel that I dare not meet their eyes. Is not that worse than poverty?”
“Yes, Harold, a thousand fold worse! But all this may be got over. Is there nothing more?”
“My partner has fled and left me responsible for heavy debts, and in such a position that I may be required by the law to produce some at least of this missing money. It has been confided to him to invest, and he has embezzled it. I, as his partner, am liable for it. I have brought misery on all whom I love — my father, my mother. But you at least shall not be under the shadow. You are free, Clara. There is no tie between us.”
“It takes two to make such a tie, Harold,” said she, smiling and putting her hand inside his arm. “It takes two to make it, dear, and also two to break it. Is that the way they do business in the City, sir, that a man can always at his own sweet will tear up his engagement?”
“You hold me to it, Clara?”
“No creditor so remorseless as I, Harold. Never, never shall you get from that bond.”
“But I am ruined. My whole life is blasted.”
“And so you wish to ruin me, and blast my life also. No indeed, sir, you shall not get away so lightl
y. But seriously now, Harold, you would hurt me if it were not so absurd. Do you think that a woman’s love is like this sunshade which I carry in my hand, a thing only fitted for the sunshine, and of no use when the winds blow and the clouds gather?”
“I would not drag you down, Clara.”
“Should I not be dragged down indeed if I left your side at such a time? It is only now that I can be of use to you, help you, sustain you. You have always been so strong, so above me. You are strong still, but then two will be stronger. Besides, sir, you have no idea what a woman of business I am. Papa says so, and he knows.”
Harold tried to speak, but his heart was too full. He could only press the white hand which curled round his sleeve. She walked up and down by his side, prattling merrily, and sending little gleams of cheeriness through the gloom which girt him in. To listen to her he might have thought that it was Ida, and not her staid and demure sister, who was chatting to him.
“It will soon be cleared up,” she said, “and then we shall feel quite dull. Of course all business men have these little ups and downs. Why, I suppose of all the men you meet upon ‘Change, there is not one who has not some such story to tell. If everything was always smooth, you know, then of course every one would turn stockbroker, and you would have to hold your meetings in Hyde Park. How much is it that you need?”
“More than I can ever get. Not less than thirteen thousand pounds.”
Clara’s face fell as she heard the amount. “What do you purpose doing?”
“I shall go to the City now, and I shall ask all our creditors to meet me to-morrow. I shall read them Pearson’s letter, and put myself into their hands.”
“And they, what will they do?”
“What can they do? They will serve writs for their money, and the firm will be declared bankrupt.”
“And the meeting will be to-morrow, you say. Will you take my advice?”
“What is it, Clara?”
“To ask them for a few days of delay. Who knows what new turn matters may take?”
“What turn can they take? I have no means of raising the money.”
“Let us have a few days.”
“Oh, we should have that in the ordinary course of business. The legal formalities would take them some little time. But I must go, Clara, I must not seem to shirk. My place now must be at my offices.”
“Yes, dear, you are right. God bless you and guard you! I shall be here in The Wilderness, but all day I shall be by your office table at Throgmorton Street in spirit, and if ever you should be sad you will hear my little whisper in your ear, and know that there is one client whom you will never be able to get rid of — never as long as we both live, dear.”
CHAPTER XII. FRIENDS IN NEED.
“Now, papa,” said Clara that morning, wrinkling her brows and putting her finger-tips together with the air of an experienced person of business, “I want to have a talk to you about money matters.”
“Yes, my dear.” He laid down his paper, and looked a question.
“Kindly tell me again, papa, how much money I have in my very own right. You have often told me before, but I always forget figures.”
“You have two hundred and fifty pounds a year of your own, under your aunt’s will.
“And Ida?”
“Ida has one hundred and fifty.”
“Now, I think I can live very well on fifty pounds a year, papa. I am not very extravagant, and I could make my own dresses if I had a sewing-machine.”
“Very likely, dear.”
“In that case I have two hundred a year which I could do without.”
“If it were necessary.”
“But it is necessary. Oh, do help me, like a good, dear, kind papa, in this matter, for my whole heart is set upon it. Harold is in sore need of money, and through no fault of his own.” With a woman’s tact and eloquence, she told the whole story. “Put yourself in my place, papa. What is the money to me? I never think of it from year’s end to year’s end. But now I know how precious it is. I could not have thought that money could be so valuable. See what I can do with it. It may help to save him. I must have it by to-morrow. Oh, do, do advise me as to what I should do, and how I should get the money.”
The Doctor smiled at her eagerness. “You are as anxious to get rid of money as others are to gain it,” said he. “In another case I might think it rash, but I believe in your Harold, and I can see that he has had villainous treatment. You will let me deal with the matter.”
“You, papa?”
“It can be done best between men. Your capital, Clara, is some five thousand pounds, but it is out on a mortgage, and you could not call it in.”
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!”
“But we can still manage. I have as much at my bank. I will advance it to the Denvers as coming from you, and you can repay it to me, or the interest of it, when your money becomes due.”
“Oh, that is beautiful! How sweet and kind of you!”
“But there is one obstacle: I do not think that you would ever induce Harold to take this money.”
Clara’s face fell. “Don’t you think so, really?”
“I am sure that he would not.”
“Then what are you to do? What horrid things money matters are to arrange!”
“I shall see his father. We can manage it all between us.”
“Oh, do, do, papa! And you will do it soon?”
“There is no time like the present. I will go in at once.” He scribbled a cheque, put it in an envelope, put on his broad straw hat, and strolled in through the garden to pay his morning call.
It was a singular sight which met his eyes as he entered the sitting-room of the Admiral. A great sea chest stood open in the center, and all round upon the carpet were little piles of jerseys, oil-skins, books, sextant boxes, instruments, and sea-boots. The old seaman sat gravely amidst this lumber, turning it over, and examining it intently; while his wife, with the tears running silently down her ruddy cheeks, sat upon the sofa, her elbows upon her knees and her chin upon her hands, rocking herself slowly backwards and forwards.
“Hullo, Doctor,” said the Admiral, holding out his hand, “there’s foul weather set in upon us, as you may have heard, but I have ridden out many a worse squall, and, please God, we shall all three of us weather this one also, though two of us are a little more cranky than we were.”
“My dear friends, I came in to tell you how deeply we sympathize with you all. My girl has only just told me about it.”
“It has come so suddenly upon us, Doctor,” sobbed Mrs. Hay Denver. “I thought that I had John to myself for the rest of our lives — Heaven knows that we have not seen very much of each other — but now he talks of going to sea again.
“Aye, aye, Walker, that’s the only way out of it. When I first heard of it I was thrown up in the wind with all aback. I give you my word that I lost my bearings more completely than ever since I strapped a middy’s dirk to my belt. You see, friend, I know something of shipwreck or battle or whatever may come upon the waters, but the shoals in the City of London on which my poor boy has struck are clean beyond me. Pearson had been my pilot there, and now I know him to be a rogue. But I’ve taken my bearings now, and I see my course right before me.”
“What then, Admiral?”
“Oh, I have one or two little plans. I’ll have some news for the boy. Why, hang it, Walker man, I may be a bit stiff in the joints, but you’ll be my witness that I can do my twelve miles under the three hours. What then? My eyes are as good as ever except just for the newspaper. My head is clear. I’m three-and-sixty, but I’m as good a man as ever I was — too good a man to lie up for another ten years. I’d be the better for a smack of the salt water again, and a whiff of the breeze. Tut, mother, it’s not a four years’ cruise this time. I’ll be back every month or two. It’s no more than if I went for a visit in the country.” He was talking boisterously, and heaping his sea-boots and sextants back into his chest.
“And you really thin
k, my dear friend, of hoisting your pennant again?”
“My pennant, Walker? No, no. Her Majesty, God bless her, has too many young men to need an old hulk like me. I should be plain Mr. Hay Denver, of the merchant service. I daresay that I might find some owner who would give me a chance as second or third officer. It will be strange to me to feel the rails of the bridge under my fingers once more.”
“Tut! tut! this will never do, this will never do, Admiral!” The Doctor sat down by Mrs. Hay Denver and patted her hand in token of friendly sympathy. “We must wait until your son has had it out with all these people, and then we shall know what damage is done, and how best to set it right. It will be time enough then to begin to muster our resources to meet it.”
“Our resources!” The Admiral laughed. “There’s the pension. I’m afraid, Walker, that our resources won’t need much mustering.”
“Oh, come, there are some which you may not have thought of. For example, Admiral, I had always intended that my girl should have five thousand from me when she married. Of course your boy’s trouble is her trouble, and the money cannot be spent better than in helping to set it right. She has a little of her own which she wished to contribute, but I thought it best to work it this way. Will you take the cheque, Mrs. Denver, and I think it would be best if you said nothing to Harold about it, and just used it as the occasion served?”
“God bless you, Walker, you are a true friend. I won’t forget this, Walker.” The Admiral sat down on his sea chest and mopped his brow with his red handkerchief.
“What is it to me whether you have it now or then? It may be more useful now. There’s only one stipulation. If things should come to the worst, and if the business should prove so bad that nothing can set it right, then hold back this cheque, for there is no use in pouring water into a broken basin, and if the lad should fall, he will want something to pick himself up again with.”
“He shall not fall, Walker, and you shall not have occasion to be ashamed of the family into which your daughter is about to marry. I have my own plan. But we shall hold your money, my friend, and it will strengthen us to feel that it is there.”
Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Page 554