Next day, she arrived at the office to find a note from Chambers: "Another piece of Latin for you, from Horace—Virtus post nummos (cash first, virtue afterwards). It is the real motto of banking. I yield to it and to you. Merry Christmas!"
At least he was yielding with good grace. He had plotted to get her properties liquidated and she had outbluffed him. Just to make sure he understood that, she gave orders that no payments of any kind were to be made the following week; she could put it all straight after Christmas. Then he would see that the list she had furnished him with was as false as the letter he had (or so she suspected) persuaded Collins & Wilcox to write.
By the end of that day, the Stevenson trust was contracted to buy Nora's properties; the mortgages were being discharged; and the firm's credit was a hundred thousand to the good. Merry Christmas indeed!
To make all straight with John—to show him that they really had scraped the barrel to its bottom splinters—she decided to sell Fontana, her prize horse, and to mortgage Thorpe Old Manor. She went riding the following day and returned limping, saying she had taken a fall in the Home wood. Dr. Hales came and examined her as best he could through her skirts. He looked dubious.
"If I might be permitted to see and palpate the limb?" he suggested timidly.
"Certainly not!" Nora said, outraged. "You may ask Mrs. Cornelius or Mademoiselle Nanette to…'palpate' my limb. They will tell you all you need to know."
So with the doctor on one side of the screen calling directions to Nanette, and Nora on the other wincing and suppressing louder cries of pain, he arrived at a diagnosis of "traumatic hyperplasia of the acetabulum." Nora thought it sounded a good enough reason for getting rid of a valued horse without causing tattle about their financial state.
The following morning, she went to York with the deeds of Thorpe Old Manor. She wanted to raise the loan up there rather than in London because Stevenson's had used the York City & County Bank a great deal and had never yet asked a favour; and when she had later to explain these moves to John it would seem the natural thing to have done.
There was only a small staff then at Thorpe, on board wages; all the principal rooms were shrouded in dust sheets and the shutters drawn against the sunlight. She got the maids to open only the business room and to make up the small bed in the room leading off it. The fire soon took the damp off everything. She was pleased to find it all in order, although her arrival was quite unheralded.
She had just finished her supper and was going out for a walk in the last of the evening sun when the maid said that Mr. Hudson was calling.
Her spirits fell. There had recently been one unpleasant railway-company meeting after another, all filled with angry shareholders demanding the dismissal of George Hudson as their chairman. First the Eastern Counties, then the Midland, and on through all the others. Now only his debts connected him to the railway world that had once called him its king. Irregularities amounting to over half a million pounds had been uncovered and he was pledged to pay back every penny—though such losses were a small fraction of the total sustained by his companies in the general decline in trade and business. She and John had written to him expressing their sadness and saying he would always be a welcome guest and so on; but she knew they ought to have been to see him. If things had been easier this year, they would have done so.
She had no idea what he would be like. There had been such conflicting stories about him. Some said he had all his old arrogance and spirit, others told of how people who had once trembled and walked on tiptoe in his presence had actually spat on him at meetings, and he had behaved ever so meekly in response. "Meek" and "Hudson" had not seemed possible partners, to her way of thinking. He must have heard she'd come off the train at York. What, she wondered, did he want here?
He was certainly his old wary, genial self in his greeting to her. She told him she had been about to walk in the garden, the air being so mild, and suggested they both should go. He said nothing would delight him more.
"Someone told me you had a bad hip," he said.
"Oh it comes and goes. Worst at sunrise, best at sunset. And what a sunset!"
They basked in its glow and in the retained warmth pouring out of the old brick wall to their left. The December air was alive with it.
"Have you ever been up the old tower?" she asked. "Would you like to see?"
He nodded affably. Despite his ponderous bulk, he leaped up the stairs more easily than she could have—even if she had not remembered to limp slightly. At the top, the merest zephyr of a breeze stirred the air.
"A red sky at night is a shepherd's delight, we used to say in the West Riding," she told him.
"Here too," Hudson agreed. "But there's an East Riding sign of good weather, as well. Yon cloud, shaped like an ark." He pointed to a squarish cloud that could charitably be seen as a Noah's ark. "It's going over the Humber. That's a sure sign of fair weather in these parts."
Away to the west, where the sun was gold and huge, the sky around it was a cloudless green. The smell of woodsmoke was strong on the air. The yews and hollies were thick in leaf, like ramparts, their shade already turning black.
"On such an evening," Hudson said, "even the poor may forget their cares."
"Aye. On just such an evening Stevenson and I met first," she said, stretching truth by a few months. "We were poor."
"Imagine!"
"It seems only yesterday, sometimes. Yet think of all that's happened. Look where he's gotten to."
"And you. The credit's yours every bit as much as his."
"Aye. I'd deny that to many, but not to you. You'd not think less of him for it."
He smiled bravely. "If I'd had such a partner in my line of business…"
She pushed him in the ribs. "You'd have sacked him in less than a week! He'd never have suited your style."
She wanted to avoid talking of his troubles except lightly and bravely, otherwise she could not avoid pointing out how foolhardy he had been. Also, there was the undeniable fact that Stevenson's present difficulties were entirely due to the low value of railway securities—and that, in turn, was largely because of the disastrous financial management that had been uncovered in all of Hudson's former companies.
But he, perhaps sensing her unwillingness, said bluntly: "What was my style, Mrs. Stevenson? I hear and read so much from men who never knew me, and nothing from those who did."
She looked at him steadily; up there on the battlements, with his squat frame and motionless face, he seemed half-man, half-statue. She wondered how people had ever been afraid of him. But they had. She knew men who would leave any building he entered rather than risk an encounter. And though she had never known him in that light, it struck her as sad that such a man should now be standing atop a ruined tower in a remote parish, not a railway in view, asking a mere passing acquaintance for an honest opinion. But, if he asked, he should get—sad or no.
"What I've never been able to explain to myself about you, Mr. Hudson," she said, "is how a man who was such a genius at railway politics—and on your greatest days you were a juggler with a million skittles in the air at once, without a mishap—how such a man with such a mind could have failed to grasp the relationships between capital, income, and dividends."
She thought, once the words were out, they were too harsh, so she added what was also true: "But I must say you had an idea of what railways should be, long before anyone else. When others were merely thinking of individual lines, you had a grand vision of a network, which no one had ever seen before. When all the money's forgotten, that's what folk will remember. But for me it only deepens the mystery."
"When the money's forgotten!" he echoed. "When will that be?"
"Well…" Her voice was dubious. "Give it a century."
He laughed then, as if it was a compliment. "Aye," he agreed complacently. "It was very bad. Shall I tell you a secret—as I've told no one?"
Nora waited.
"I never understood it."
"M
oney?"
"Aye. Never understood it."
"I knew that."
He sniffed. "I understood what it did though. If I took some shares and stuffed them in Lord Tomnoddy's back pocket so that he would give my company a wayleave, with no argument—who was I benefiting? Myself? Or my company? Obviously the company; so who should pay for it? Me? I didn't think so. That's why I made the company pay for those shares. They say I paid it out of fresh subscriptions, but that's a lie."
"What did you do?" Nora asked, knowing the truth very well but wanting to hear what possible gloss he could put on it.
"All sorts of things."
"For instance."
"Well, for instance, we would make provision for a hundred thousand in bad debts, and if there were only, in fact, four thousand, I'd take the remaining ninety-six and use it to buy favours—pay for shares—and so on. But the favours were for the company, never for me. Now they say I must pay it all back. Well, so I will, but I'm still mystified why I have to."
She smiled to herself. If he really did not understand it, there was little purpose in pursuing the point. "What I find most disgusting," she said, "is the spectacle of those who cheered you to the echo and who profited so vastly during all the years when you were making such money for them, and now they turn around and revile you as if all the ills of the railway world could be laid at just the one doorstep. Other sins may be morally worse, but to me, ingratitude is the least edifying of all. You know there's always a Yorkshire welcome for you wherever Stevenson and I may be."
Hudson could not answer. His eyes were moist though not actually brimming with tears. He nodded gratefully and looked rapidly from her to the sunset and back.
"You'll manage, I take it," she said, hoping her tone implied help without actually offering it.
He drew breath and rallied. "I've sold Albert Gate to the French ambassador, and my estates are going up on the market. But I'm far from done. In fact"—he sniffed—"I'm here on a bit of business now. May I?"
"By all means." Intrigued, she turned away from him and began the descent, forgetting to limp until they were halfway down.
"Do you remember the rail we used for the Newcastle & Berwick?"
"Aye. We supplied most of it."
"I heard a whisper that you'd made too much of it."
It was true. They had made, in fact, over ten thousand rails too many—enough to lay fifteen miles of track. It stood on the books at nearly five thousand pounds. Rather than scrap it they had put it into stock to sell when the line needed maintenance. This was not among the stock they had reduced—the Newcastle & Berwick was the only buyer for that shape of rail.
"Ooh, you have gotten out of touch, Mr. Hudson. It's true we put a certain amount by for stock."
"Ah." He seemed to lose interest. "Pity. It's no good then. I need a fair bit. I have a market for thirty miles of it. Twenty-one thousand one hundred and twenty rails. Good price too, for quick delivery. In Norway, so your mill was ideally placed."
"How quick?" she asked and before he could dictate she added: "We could supply enough for five miles at once. Then three and a half thousand a week— enough for five miles a week. You could have the lot by mid-February. If the price was right."
This rate of production was, in fact, twice their actual capacity, but she wasn't going to tell him they had such a heavy stock. Let him make what he liked of the rust on it when it was delivered. She wondered where his buyer really was.
They haggled on until she got her price—and the promise of a ninety-day bill to be waiting at the York City & County Bank in the morning.
They did not go back indoors but went straight around to the stable yard.
"So," he said as he remounted. "You think they'll remember me?"
"No doubt of it, Mr. Hudson. History might even know you as George Hudson, the great ironmaster who also had something to do with railways—in his youth."
He laughed uproariously at that. "Thou'll do!" he said as he spurred his horse away. "Eay, thou'll do!"
A broken man indeed! she thought, scorning the rumour mongers, as she watched him trotting back up the lane to the highway. She filled with pride to be of the same Yorkshire race.
Chapter 50
John spent that Christmas in Italy before going on to Bohemia, Moravia, Hungaria, and then back to southern France, and so home via Spain. Nora expected him to be exhausted, but he was leaner and more vigorous than ever. It took years off her just to be beside him again. From the moment he stepped off the train, she could feel how strongly he wanted her. As soon as they were in their carriage he began to kiss her and fondle her with an overwhelming fervour.
"Want to risk it?" she asked. They were only just driving onto London Bridge.
He shivered and pulled a little apart. "You'll never meet a man more charged. But we'd better wait awhile, eh?" He folded his arms and kept her gently at bay.
"Well I can't," she said. She had her skirts up and was straddling him before he could move. His resistance was a mere token. It was all over before they were fully across the Thames.
"More!" she whispered.
He lifted her bodily and put her in the seat opposite. "Don't you move until…"
"Until we reach where?" she taunted. "Come on. Name it!"
"I'll decide."
They giggled like schoolchildren as they dawdled on through the City. He opened the window to let the chill March air revive him. "Your true home," he said, looking out.
"It has been for the last half year."
"How are we?"
"You mean the firm? Or me and the baby?" She grinned.
"Well, I've just had proof of you and the baby."
"The firm's out of the wood, but I still can't say how far."
"Still not!" He was disappointed.
"We're too big to get a clear picture day by day. I sometimes think there's a sort of square law for businesses. Twice as big is four times harder to manage. Three times as big, nine times harder."
He shut the window to a crack and settled contentedly into the upholstery. "I won't say we could exist in the conditions of last year all the time. That strain. But while it lasted, I don't think it was…I believe it did us a lot of good."
She beseeched the heavens. "Speak for yourself."
"I do. It put everyone on their mettle. Taught them what they're capable of when they're really stretched. I tell you, we've come out of this with some first-class deputies. Men who know they've won something. They know how to win now. I could take a year off now, and no harm done."
"You!" She was astounded. "Four days off and you start to twitch."
As if to give point to her words, he made a stop at Finsbury Park to see the progress on the Great Northern, and again at Wood Green, where they also took tea. Then he made the coachman hurry on so that he would see the Welwyn viaduct before dark. They made love again on that last part of the journey; slowly, luxuriously, exhaustingly. The sun went down before they turned into the Maran valley, where the great viaduct was now nearly complete.
By moonlight it was even more impressive than by day. Its abutments in the hills each side were lost in a mysterious dusk, stretching its forty vast arches to an infinite chain, arriving out of the dark and vanishing back into it. Over the road in the centre of the valley the arches soared to lift the track more than a hundred feet above ground. The brick piers, so delicately light from a distance, were black and massive close to. Just the farther edge of each tight curve was silvered by the moon. It was awesome to drive in the rumbling coach beneath so vast a mass. John kept his head out of the window, looking back, until a network of intervening branches, also silver in the moonlight, obscured the viaduct completely.
He sat back and sighed out his satisfaction.
"A piddling little line!" Nora told him.
He pinched her in the dark. "You waited a year to say that," he said.
She giggled.
A week later, "twitching" as Nora said, he went to North Wales, where
his other large bridge, the Britannia, was being prepared to have the third of its great iron tubes lifted into place. Then to the Highland Railway for a week. Then to France…and on it went, as busy as ever.
He paid flying visits to Maran Hill between these journeys and always his question was, "How is the firm now?" And still Nora did not want to tell him exactly how well off they were. Partly she was afraid he would pledge all their profit into even vaster railway schemes—work for all those first-class deputies, but work that would put the firm back into the perils it had faced last year. And partly she wanted to have some really breathtaking profit to distract him—for she was also going to have to confess what she had done with the trust and with her properties. Indeed, she was surprised he had said nothing on the subject yet. He had not even made the most casual inquiry.
The Rich Are with You Always Page 53