The Lorimer Line

by Anne Melville

  ‘If my father were to be the only defendant,’ continued William, ‘the verdict would still, in my reading of the situation, go against him. But it is possible that in such a case the sentence might be mitigated by sympathy. He may have been responsible for the bank’s collapse, but he is quite clearly the one who has lost most by it. No one in his senses could impute an unworthy motive to such a man, even though his legal responsibility is admitted. It would be recognized that the failure is in itself almost a sufficient punishment. Although no doubt a token sentence of imprisonment might be imposed, we could hope that in view of his age it would be for a short period only. Do you agree with me so far?’

  ‘Yes,’ said David shortly. He had realized from the start that the chairman’s best defence was the loss of his own fortune as a result of the bank’s failure.

  ‘But your own case is different. The facts and figures remain the same, but the motive for their manipulation will be represented differently, and the element of sympathy will be lacking. The case will be tried in Bristol, and you have no claim on the mercy of a city which already finds itself in great economic difficulty. A sentence in your case might be vindictive, longer even than the charge justifies. Yet British justice must be seen to be fair. If you and my father are judged to be equal in guilt, there will no doubt be some equality of sentence. If so, it seems to me more likely on balance, that my father’s sentence might be increased to equal yours than that yours would be cut to match his.’

  ‘You are making a good many assumptions, Mr Lorimer. I cannot follow you in all of them.’

  ‘Then I will make the proposition which I came here to offer, and leave you to consider it on its own merits. What I have been saying is only to explain why I believe it to be in the interest of my family. I have brought with me, Mr Gregson, a paper authorizing you to take passage on any ship of the Lorimer Line which leaves Bristol within the next fourteen days. You have only to present this to the captain; and you may use what name you choose. There will be no formalities.’

  ‘The bail which you yourself have guaranteed would of course be forfeited in such a case.’

  William shrugged his thin shoulders.

  ‘There is a price to be paid for everything.’ He hesitated briefly. ‘I have told you, Mr Gregson, that I am anxious for my father’s sake. But it is also true, as my sister has reminded me, that I am indirectly indebted to you for the fact that my own property is not at risk. One day I intend to be as wealthy and as highly respected in this city as any of my forefathers, so that this unhappy incident in our family history will be forgotten and the name of Lorimer will once again be recognized as a symbol of worth and prosperity. I should have achieved this ambition in any case, but I am ready to own that it will come more easily to the owner of a great shipping line whose future is widening before it than to a bankrupt. I trust that with this I shall pay off my debt to you.’

  It was the most convincing argument he had used. David was prepared to believe that the offer was made by a man who did not care to be beholden to his inferiors.

  ‘You mentioned your sister,’ he said, not answering the proposal directly. ‘Does she know of your plan?’

  ‘No. It is a matter best not revealed to anyone. If it became known that you planned to depart, you would of course be re-arrested.’

  ‘But I cannot leave England without speaking to her.’ David looked down at the paper. ‘You offer but a single passage.’

  William showed signs of impatience.

  ‘You could hardly expect my sister to accompany you to a destination where you have as yet no home and no means of support. Tell her by all means, if you wish, that you will send for her to join you when you are in a position to do so. I will gladly take a letter for you now if you wish. Margaret has not been brought up to face the rigours of colonial life. I can provide her with a comfortable home here until you are ready to replace it with another in Australia, or wherever else you choose to go. The debt I owe to her for my son’s life is even larger than that to yourself. You will believe me, I am sure, when I tell you that I am determined to do everything possible to ensure her happiness. And she is not likely to be happy if you are in prison.’

  For the second time a more personal argument made it easier for David to believe that William was sincerely trying to help him. The antagonism between them was one of temperament, but the fact that at bottom they disliked each other did not prevent their interests from running together. David allowed himself to be distracted for a moment by the memory of what had been happening during his last visits to The Ivies.

  ‘Your wife and the baby are in good health, I hope?’ he said.

  ‘Both of them, by the grace of God,’ said William. ‘Arthur is still very small, but my sister has made herself responsible for his care. His strength increases daily.’

  He stood up, his business at an end. David looked down at the paper which he was still holding.

  ‘I need time to consider my predicament,’ he said. ‘May I keep this while I do so?’ He looked up at his visitor and forced himself to speak the words which were owing, although they stuck in his throat. ‘I am greatly obliged to you, Mr Lorimer.’

  William nodded, using the same movement that David had so often seen from his father. Each of them recognized that David would in fact use the passage he had been offered.

  After his visitor had left, David tried to persuade himself that he still had a choice, but deep in his heart he knew that his position in Bristol was hopeless. He could not maintain his own innocence of fraud except by claiming that he had always acted on the direct instructions of the chairman. If the chairman chose to deny this, as clearly he intended, no jury would prefer David’s word. Ever since the meeting with the lawyer he had been wondering how he could escape. Now the means had been put into his hands. There was nothing to stop him except the knowledge that his flight would be taken as a confession of guilt. Early next morning, knowing that every step brought him nearer to a decision, he walked down to the floating harbour.

  Two of William’s ships were moored in the basin, and another lay careened against the bank of the river. If a Lorimer steamship happened to be in England, it would be berthed at Portishead, in the estuary, for the Avon channel was not deep enough to take it. But until the new dock area was complete, the sailing ships still came into Bristol itself, as they had always done.

  David did not need to enquire about the destination of any steamship, for it would have been built especially to challenge the Cunard interest in the Atlantic crossing to New England. But the three vessels in the harbour would go wherever the promise of a cargo sent them. Although it was still dark, the day’s work had already begun. A squad of sailors was crawling over the hull of the careened ship, the Rosa, scraping it clear of barnacles. David found someone on the shore to tell him that she would be sailing for Australia in two weeks’ time. Of the two ships afloat in the harbour, the Diana was bound for Jamaica, the Flora for California.

  The Flora was being loaded at that moment. Standing on the wharf, the supercargo checked off on his bill of lading the goods that were being carried out of a warehouse by the light of a lantern. David went to speak to him.

  ‘What trade do you do?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ll fill our holds on the West Coast with hides for leather, sir,’ the man replied in a Somerset accent made even broader by his years at sea. ‘That’s to say, if we can keep the crew from the goldfields when they get there. This is one run that we’ve no need to shanghai for. A free passage to fortune, some of these scum seem to think it. We take none but married men, if we can find them, but even those will throw off a wife for the sake of an ounce of gold or silver, it seems.’

  ‘I thought those days were over,’ said David wonderingly.

  ‘Ay, the days of scraping and washing are done. It’s a mining job now, I’m told. But there’s enough still there to make a millionaire of a man who starts with nought but muscle.’

  ‘You haven’t been temp
ted yourself?’

  ‘There are other ways of making a fortune, sir.’ The man gave a contented smile. ‘The men who’ve made their millions come to live in the cities when they leave the mines. Rough types they are, some of them. But their wives, sir, that’s summat else again. The ladies of San Francisco live in palaces you’d not believe. And they’re not content with the furniture which their husband once made to fill a log cabin, I can tell you that. They want the best that Europe can send them. That’s what we’re loading now. Mr Lorimer’s had his agents out buying for the past six months to fill these holds. Half of it’s on special order, so there’s not even any risk. There’s a clock in the warehouse now, sir, come from Paris. If I were to tell you the price of it, you wouldn’t believe me, just to tell the hour of day. But some rich lady’s set her heart on it, and four days from now it’ll be on its way.’

  ‘You won’t grow rich by supervising Mr Lorimer’s business,’ suggested David.

  ‘He’s a good master,’ said the supercargo. ‘Or maybe it’s just that he’s got his wits about him. I wouldn’t like to say. He pays the lowest rate in Bristol for this run, and still he can make up a crew. Because every man may take one case of his own purchasings to sell at whatever profit he can. With a larger allowance for myself. Three crates of table silver I shall have stowed below there: thirty years old and the fanciest style I can find. My first voyage out, I borrowed more for my stock than I thought I’d ever be able to repay. But by now …’ He broke off to admonish a group of men who were staggering with a heavy load towards the edge of the wharf. ‘Go steady with that table, will you? That’s best Italian marble you’re carrying.’

  ‘I mustn’t hinder you,’ said David. ‘She sails in four days, you said?’

  ‘On the morning tide, sir.’

  David was thoughtful as he walked away. He turned his back on the ships and by the dawn light looked up at the terraces of the city which crossed the steep hills in tiers. He could disregard the slums which surrounded the harbour itself and appreciate the elegant houses of the elevated squares and crescents built in the previous century. This was a merchant city, grown rich by trading across the seven seas. The poorest member of William Lorimer’s crew, filthy and illiterate though he well might be, was carrying on a tradition which was already centuries old. As a bank official David could never have achieved more than a respectable competence. To marry the daughter of a rich man had been one way, certainly, of putting himself in line for wealth, but it was a way now closed to him. If he was to raise himself in the world, he must be prepared to take a risk. William had offered him a passage as a means of escape. Its attraction to David was as the means of entry into a new life.

  Of America he knew little. In his short period with Lorimer’s he had done some business with New York, but not enough to give him any claim on that city’s hospitality. What he did know was that the Americans themselves were going west, at first in a thin stream across the forbidding natural barriers of the continent and now in a flood carried by the railways. A city like San Francisco might well prove to be a place where a man could start again from the beginning, with not too many questions asked, and yet at the same time a place large and civilized enough for David to practise his urban skills. The empty acres of Australia held nothing to tempt him, but in a city of newly rich men he could surely find employment and the means of advancing himself.

  The change of viewpoint excited him as he walked back to his lodgings. By now the decision which had been reached unconsciously on the previous evening was ready to be openly acknowledged in his mind. He would not think of himself as a fugitive, but as a pioneer.

  The feeling of adventure raised his spirits from the depression which had leadened them for so long. It was necessary to remind himself that he had no capital which he could invest in even a sailor’s modest case of goods. No one in Bristol would lend money to David Gregson, and even a whisper that he was seeking it would be enough to have him seized and returned to jail. He would begin a new life with no assets but his head for figures and the skills of his fingers.

  They would be enough, he told himself, refusing to let his new excitement slip away. That expensive clock from Paris was not likely to take kindly to months of tossing through storms in a damp hold, and there would be others like it in need of attention. Light though his baggage might be, he would come to a new shore no worse equipped than many others before him. By the time he returned to his room, all doubt had vanished into the darkness. In four days’ time he would leave Bristol on the morning tide to make his fortune in America.

  15

  Few people can close the door on the past without some regret, however unhappy their memories of it may be. Back in his room after his decision had been made, David sat in front of the empty grate and thought about Margaret.

  Nothing in his feelings for her had been changed by the fact that she was no longer a rich man’s daughter. His body ached to hold her in his arms again: he longed to possess her wholly. He was confident that her nature was a loyal one. If he asked her to wait for him, she would wait. But was it a demand which he could honourably make? Although he had no liking for her brother, he recognized that one of William’s talents was the ability to analyse a situation dispassionately and express his opinions with clarity. He had been right to point out that Margaret should not be expected to remain faithful to a man serving a prison sentence, and equally right that she could not be carried off into a strange country by someone who would hardly have the price of the first night’s lodging in his pocket. Slowly David came to accept the fact that he would have to let her go. His disgrace and impending trial had brought him many hours of sleeplessness and anxiety and even fear, but only at the prospect of losing Margaret did he come close to weeping.

  If he were to see her again, he was sure that he could never leave. Instead, he wrote to her on the day before the Flora was due to sail. It was the letter, he hoped, of a gentleman - releasing her from her engagement for her own sake, so that she could look for a happy future elsewhere. But even as he sealed it, the hope was in his mind that perhaps a small miracle would happen and that she would refuse the freedom he offered her.

  Late that evening the miracle occurred. He heard a knocking on the door and the sound of his landlady expostulating. Margaret had come - and come unchap-eroned. Although Mrs Lambert knew well enough who she was, the name of Lorimer was no longer one to command respect. David cut the protests short and hurried Margaret into his sitting room.

  She had made the journey on foot, he realized, for her clothes were soaked, and the crape which trimmed her mourning mantle was ruined by the rain. This meant that she had not dared to tell William what her errand was. David stared at her, not daring to embrace or even touch her, in case the encouragement of hope should make a final parting even harder to bear. Margaret was also staring, but at the condition of a room which revealed so unmistakably that its occupant was packing for a final departure.

  ‘You told me I was free to go, so I hoped I was also free to come. But you are leaving. Your letter did not tell me that.’

  ‘I have no choice,’ said David. ‘Or rather, only the choice between a rapid disappearance and a prison cell.’

  ‘Will you not take me with you?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, if only I could! But what have I to offer? We could live on a very little, but I have nothing at all. Absolutely nothing.’

  ‘I have something,’ she said. ‘I could sell Lower Croft.’

  For a moment he stared at her in astonishment. In the strain of the past weeks he had completely forgotten the existence of the house which John Junius had given to his daughter. Margaret must have misunderstood the puzzled expression on his face.

  ‘I had thought at first that Lower Croft must be sold together with Brinsley House and all my father’s other possessions,’ she said. ‘Then William explained to me that the property was my own and that the officers of the court have no right to touch it. My second thought was that I ought t
o sell it in any case, and use the money to relieve some of the suffering which has been caused by the failure of Lorimer’s. But your need of the money is just as great. I would be happiest of all to put it in your hands.’

  He should have been grateful, both for the trust that she showed in him and, more practically, for the offer of money which could be invested in a new life for the two of them. Instead he was overcome by fury against the man who had done so much to wrong him.

  ‘I ought to have understood it earlier,’ he said. ‘As soon as your father saw the crash coming he removed what he could beyond the reach of his creditors. He could not act in such a way without good excuse. What could be more plausible than the coming-of-age of his only daughter. Mr Lorimer will never allow you to sell Lower Croft. It is intended to provide him with a roof over his own head when everything else has gone.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you are saying,’ she replied. ‘My father could have had no knowledge in advance of what has happened.’

  ‘He has known for months,’ said David. ‘That is why tomorrow I shall be a fugitive from a prison sentence.’

  ‘Are you so sure that you will be found guilty?’

  David had not intended to say anything to Margaret against her father, but anger at the mention of Lower Croft made him forget himself. It hurt his pride to think that after he had left, Margaret would hear nothing but ill of him, and there would be no one to speak in his defence.

  ‘You know the mood in the city,’ he said. ‘Someone must be judged responsible for all the suffering that has been caused. Someone must be found guilty. Your father has decided that I, and not himself, should be the scapegoat.’

  ‘You surely misjudge him. He would not do that when I love you and you are to be his son-in-law!’

  ‘Did it not surprise you, Margaret, when he accepted me as your suitor? A man without either fortune or family to recommend him. When your father had already made it clear that he wished to use you to ally himself with one of the other wealthy families of the city.’ His first use of her Christian name, though it was a sign that he was no longer prepared to bow to the conventions of her society, passed unnoticed by them both.