The Lorimer Line

by Anne Melville

  Not since the moment when they declared their love had Margaret considered the possibility that she would not marry David Gregson. She looked up at her father in sudden alarm. He seemed to read her anxiety.

  ‘I am not bribing you to withdraw from your understanding with Mr Gregson,’ he said. ‘Nor am I insinuating any suspicion that he may wish to do so. Indeed, I am sure he will continue to see the marriage as greatly to his advantage.’ His eyelids hooded his eyes briefly, in a movement which Margaret had learned to recognize as signifying the end of an interview. ‘I shall retire directly to bed now. Give my apologies to Miss Morton.’

  ‘Good night, Papa. And thank you.’

  John Junius nodded. On this occasion he accepted her kiss in his usual manner, without any hint of the emotion which he had briefly allowed to show.

  Later that evening, after she had assured herself that Lydia was provided with everything she could want for the night, Margaret went along the corridor to her brother’s room. Her relationship with Ralph had been a loving one ever since he had been placed, as a baby, in her three-year-old arms. William had quarrelled incessantly with his sister, but she had always felt a protective affection for her younger brother and could guess the misery he was enduring now. She found him on his knees beside his bed. From the stiffness with which he rose to his feet as she entered, she realized that he had been in this position for a considerable time.

  ‘I know what has happened,’ she told him. ‘And I know that Papa is deeply grieved. But his anger will not last for ever, Ralph. I have angered him myself many times, but he has shown himself generous in forgiveness.’

  ‘I am unworthy of forgiveness,’ said Ralph. ‘Father is right to be angry. I have been wicked, and I deserve more punishment than he can give me.’

  ‘You ought not to blame yourself entirely. I hardly imagine that you pressed your attention on Claudine by force.’ Margaret offered this consolation out of kindness, for she knew in her heart that even when there was no physical compulsion it was difficult for a servant to evade the attentions of the son or master of the household. Claudine’s situation was not a unique one. Most of the well-brought-up young ladies of Bristol society could have produced a memory of some young maid who had left their family’s service in a hurry.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Ralph was horrified at the suggestion. ‘It was an accident. You remember that Sophie sent Claudine here with Matthew, just before Beatrice was born. I had started French lessons at school, and found them difficult. I asked Claudine to help me. I meant only help with the French language, but she misunderstood me. She said she would give me a lesson after Matthew was asleep, and when I went …’

  Margaret put a hand on his arm to interrupt him. Her sympathy did not extend to a wish for details.

  ‘It sounds as though you are very little to blame. Papa will understand that later. It’s natural that he should be shocked at first. You should not reproach yourself too much.’

  ‘I have sinned in the eyes of God and the world,’ said Ralph. He flung himself back on to his knees again and buried his head in his hands. Margaret could hear him muttering the words of contrition. And perhaps, she thought, it was right that he should not forgive himself too soon. She went quietly back to her own bedroom.

  Early the next morning she was awakened by the sound of a door closing and of footsteps hurrying along the corridor. Her first thought was of the thieves whose presence in the city her father had mentioned the previous day. She sat up in bed with her heart beating loudly enough, it seemed, to be heard by any intruder. There was a moment in which she felt too frightened to move, but something must be done. The servants slept on a higher floor, and her father’s room was in the other wing of the house, on the far side of the staircase. Ralph was her nearest protector. She covered herself with a wrap and went to rouse him.

  To her surprise, his room was empty. But the sheets of his bed were still warm, and when she put her finger to the glass of his lamp she was forced to jerk it quickly away to avoid a burn. It was clear that he had only just left, and that almost certainly his were the footsteps she had heard.

  Margaret frowned to herself as she went back to her bedroom. Had Ralph’s guilty conscience driven him to run away from home? She could think of nowhere he could go. Both his parents had been only children, so there were no aunts or cousins to offer refuge, and Sophie would take pleasure in turning him away. He was not fitted to earn his own living in any way. But even as she assured herself of this, Margaret stiffened with fear. Any able-bodied man could find employment on the sailing ships of the Lorimer Line - and even some who did not seek it had been known to find themselves waking to the sound of a creaking mast on the morning after a heavy evening’s drinking. There were few who willingly undertook the rigours of a voyage round the Horn.

  Margaret gave the thought her serious consideration. No ship could leave the Bristol docks until the tide from the estuary filled the river. From the last occasion when she had noticed high water she calculated that Ralph could not escape in that particular manner before eleven o’clock. No other decision on his part would be irreversible in quite the same manner, for her brother would surely not seek to escape from the guilt of one sin by the far greater one of taking his own life. She told herself that even her earlier thought was perhaps too drastic. Ralph had suffered a sleepless night, no doubt, and was refreshing an aching head with an early walk on the Clifton Downs.

  Her conclusion seemed to be confirmed by the later discovery that Ralph had returned to the house. She met him, in fact, just as he was leaving for school: his face was as pale as usual, but his expression was calmer than on the previous day and he gave no indication that he had already been awake for several hours. Margaret respected his silence and was glad to abandon her own fears.

  Dr Scott arrived for his regular visit to Mrs Lorimer just as Ralph was leaving, and Margaret accompanied him up the stairs. It gave her the chance to voice a second anxiety which had invaded her mind after Ralph’s departure had woken her.

  ‘How do you find my father’s health?’ she asked in what she hoped was a casual tone of voice.

  Dr Scott gave the jovial laugh which was his chief contribution to the health of his patients.

  ‘How should I know anything about your father’s health?’ he asked. ‘It is so good that I am never allowed to approach him. A man of most remarkable constitution. Even age seems unable to attack him.’

  ‘I thought yesterday he appeared a little tired,’ said Margaret hesitantly. Dr Scott gave her a quick look, but did not change the tone of his voice.

  ‘Not letting all those rumours upset him, I hope,’ he said. ‘Nothing in them, I’m sure. Difficult times, though; difficult times.’

  ‘What rumours?’ asked Margaret.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.’

  If he had intended to annoy her, he could have thought of no better phrase. Margaret left him at the door of her mother’s room without pressing the conversation further. She forgot the mention of the rumours at once, because she had not in fact been telling the truth when she claimed that John Junius looked tired. Her questions had been prompted by the suspicion that her father’s sudden generosity to both her mother and herself might mean that something had prompted in him the thought that he would not live for ever. For a second time in a few hours she was able to dismiss a problem which had never existed outside her own imagination. It was a good start to the day and the morning sparkled with sunshine. It seemed that Spring at last was on the way.

  8

  The promises of princes are often warped by expediency, but the word of a banker must be his bond, for reputation is the tool of his trade. The proposals made by John Junius Lorimer to David Gregson in the January of 1878 had been unequivocal. If David - lonely in London during those three cold months - sometimes asked himself whether there was any means whereby those promises could without dishonour be left unfulfilled, it was more out of astonishment at his own pr
ospects of good fortune and respect for the known subtlety of his employer’s mind, than because he had any good reason to fear disappointment. Margaret’s constancy he trusted absolutely, and all the rest depended on that.

  The thought sustained him through the dullness of his social life. The gentleman to whom John Junius had sent him for training invited him once for dinner, to eat plain food with his plain wife and two plain daughters. Apart from that one evening, his helpfulness was confined to business hours. Within the walls of the banking house David found it easy to grasp the practical advice he was given, but less easy to become intimate with the members of the staff, for his status was too uncertain. He was no longer an accountant, but not yet a manager, and no one seemed prepared to invest time in developing a friendship with a stranger whose stay would be so brief. He ate alone in chop-houses, entertained himself occasionally with visits to music halls, but spent most of his evenings studying the notes he had made during the day or writing to Margaret and reading her replies, which told him that he had not been forgotten.

  Constantly he assured himself that there was no reason why John Junius should change his mind, yet the letter which summoned him back to Bristol came almost as a surprise as well as a relief. He was to take up his new duties as general manager of Lorimer’s on May 1st, wrote John Junius. Mrs Lorimer would be pleased to receive him at Brinsley House on April 30th. It seemed that all his dreams were going to come true.

  When the time came for his visit to Brinsley House, only a man too much in love to notice anyone other than his beloved could have deluded himself into thinking that Mrs Lorimer felt any pleasure at all in receiving him. Georgiana’s off-hand sulkiness was that of a woman to whom an intolerable arrangement had been presented as a fait accompli and who was required actively to endorse it. But David still took at face value Georgiana’s claim to invalid status and assumed her petulance to be caused by ill-health. All that mattered to him was the radiance on Margaret’s face as she greeted him. While he had been away he had told himself over and over again that she loved him, but he had forgotten how it felt to be so obviously adored.

  The only way in which Georgiana could express her ill-temper was by ensuring that David and Margaret would never be left alone together. A maid or a coachman had been sufficient company when she had been able to believe that the meetings of her daughter with the bank’s accountant were on matters of business only, but if the two young people were considering marriage, the rules of chaperonage must be invoked. Ralph and Sophie were allotted this responsibility between them and resented it equally.

  ‘I have a surprise for you next Sunday,’ Margaret whispered when they had exchanged all the news of their separation.

  ‘Tell me now.’

  ‘It has to be shown, not told. Keep the afternoon free. Ralph has promised to come with us.’

  David wondered what it was, but his mind was too fully occupied in the days which followed to give the matter any thought. His return to Margaret had confirmed an existing relationship; but his return to the bank was the beginning of many new ones.

  This was not an easy period. It was necessary for him to be less familiar with those members of the staff whom he had known before his promotion, and at the same time more at ease with the bank’s customers, with whom he had previously had no direct contact. His time in London had been well spent, but nothing he had learned there could provide a short cut towards the assessment of each new proposition or request which was put to him. For this reason each day of his first week as manager left him tired and strained with the anxiety of taking no false steps. It was not until Friday, when the rest of the staff had gone home, that he felt able to spare the time to look back over the transactions which had taken place during his three-month absence.

  What he found there appalled him. The bank’s financial year had ended in early April. The annual accounts had been drawn up by John Trinder, his successor as accountant. They had been signed by Mr Lynch, and adopted by the board of directors as a true statement of the bank’s situation. They bore no relationship at all to the state of affairs as David himself had left them.

  It took him several hours of hard work to find out what had happened. By the time he went back to his lodgings that evening his eyes were swimming with strain and his head ached with anxiety. His first question the next morning concerned the previous manager. In as casual a way as possible he asked the chief clerk where Mr Lynch had gone. Even had he not been suspicious before, the answer would have raised doubts in his mind.

  ‘Mr Lynch has left England for Boston. Mr Lorimer asked him to go, to open a new branch of Lorimer’s. It was felt that many American gentlemen would find it a convenience to be able to use the same bank both in their own country and if they came to visit England.’

  David made no comment on this. It was possible that it would indeed be a convenience for the American gentlemen, just as it was convenient for the chairman that the manager recently in charge of Lorimer’s day-to-day running should be out of the country. It could hardly have been seen by Mr Lynch as a desirable promotion: he was fifty years old or more, and not a pioneering type of man. As soon as the chairman arrived in his office, David sent in a request to speak to him.

  He was expected, of course. John Junius made no pretence of being surprised either by the visit or by the grim expression on David’s face. Perhaps he had been amusing himself all week with speculations on how long it would take his new manager to appreciate the state of affairs.

  ‘I would like to discuss the accounts for the financial year which has just ended,’ said David. He set down on the wide mahogany desk the papers on which he had done his own calculations.

  ‘Yes.’ It was not a statement, not a question: merely a gesture of permission to proceed.

  ‘I will start by raising one point which in any other year would seem to be of major importance, although in the context of these accounts it seems a small amount. I observe that thirty thousand pounds have been lent to further Mr Crankshaw’s development of the new docks at Portishead. His company is already deeply indebted to us, and it appears that he was unable to offer any security for this new loan.’

  ‘You have been away from Bristol and are no doubt out of touch with local events,’ said the chairman. His voice was patient, as though accepting that the matter was a fair one to raise. ‘You will recall that the new docks were due to open this summer. Unfortunately, in the middle of March there was a collapse of one of the main walls. The money to rebuild it must be raised from somewhere, and there are few individuals in the present state of society who could be approached for such a sum. Since Lorimer’s would have more to lose than any other institution if the whole project were to be abandoned for the lack of a comparatively small sum, the directors felt it essential to increase the loan by this amount. Although no new security could be offered, the docks themselves, when they are completed, will be their own guarantee.’

  ‘But the completion date has presumably been delayed.’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes. However, the docks are expected to open in the Spring of next year.’

  David did not press that point further. It was a trivial one compared to his main complaint.

  ‘During my absence,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, ‘there appear to have been substantial changes in some of the major items in the balance sheet. I have been unable to find any justification for these. Perhaps there have been other developments of which I am not aware.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said John Junius. ‘If you will specify the points you have in mind, I shall no doubt be able to elucidate them.’

  It was a complicated situation which David had discovered, in that part of the bank’s dealings which concerned its loans to local companies. The securities - mainly property - which had been offered to guarantee the loans had been frequently revalued upwards in the years succeeding the original arrangements. This had no doubt been justifiable in the early days but, as David himself had pointed out almost a year befor
e, the values had been falling again since 1875; and in addition some of the companies which had borrowed on them had been equally affected by the economic situation and were no longer stable.

  David had advised earlier that the securities should be revalued in the balance sheet, and this had now been done to such good purpose that four million pounds had been cut from the statement of the bank’s assets. In a sense this was a proper action, if somewhat abrupt, and one which he had attempted from his junior situation to recommend. But it should have revealed a deficit in the accounts. Instead of this the books were still balanced. He did his best to explain his uneasiness on this point.

  ‘You do not deny that you yourself thought various properties to be over-valued,’ said John Junius.

  ‘I do not. But as well as writing down the inflated assets, you have written down the loans which were made on the strength of them. You have cut four million pounds off the debit side to match the missing four million pounds of assets.’

  ‘Any prudent business must write off a bad debt,’ said John Junius.

  ‘Any prudent shareholder may expect that by examining the accounts he may see that four million pounds have been written off,’ David pointed out. ‘In this case the loss has been concealed by balancing real loans against paper securities, values which never in truth existed. The shareholders will be reassured in a situation which should not be reassuring at all.’

  ‘And what alternative do you suggest, Mr Gregson? The total money which we hold on behalf of our depositors - in other words, which we owe to them - is, as you have doubtless discovered in the course of your researches, in the region of five million pounds. If your prudent shareholder were to observe that the loans made by the bank are covered mainly by the amount held on deposit, your prudent depositor might be able to come to the same conclusion, especially as he is in many cases the same person. If he should seek to withdraw his deposit, and if his fellow-depositors should make the same decision at the same moment, the bank would be forced to call in its loans and overdrafts. You know as well as I do, Mr Gregson, that this would cause the ruin of several companies which are in fact likely to become highly profitable from the moment they complete their capital equipment and begin to earn with it. These are local companies and employ labour on a large scale. Their collapse would cause unemployment amongst the poorest members of the community. There would be no possibility then of full repayment of the loans, so at the same moment the collapse of the bank would cause suffering to the wealthier classes as well. We are talking about the ruin of a city, Mr Gregson.’