When he had settled this he wanted a letter written, and Arthur sat down at the oaken bureau that stood between the windows, its faded green lining stained with the ink of a century and its pigeon-holes crammed with receipts and sample-bags. While he wrote his thoughts were busy with the matter that they had just discussed, but it was not until he found himself standing at a window outside the room, staring with unseeing eyes over the green vale, that he brought his thoughts to a head, and knew that even at the eleventh hour he hesitated.
Yes, he hesitated. The thing that he had so much desired, that had presented itself to him in such golden hues, that had dazzled his ambition and absorbed his mind, was within his grasp now, ready to be garnered — and yet he hesitated. Ovington was a just man and beyond doubt would release him and cancel the partnership agreement, if he desired to have it cancelled. And he was very near to desiring it at this moment.
For he saw now that there were other things to be garnered — Garth, its broad acres, its fine rent-roll, the old man’s savings, Josina. Secure of the Squire’s favor he had but to stretch out his hand, and all these things might be his; might certainly be his if he gave up the bank and his prospects there. That step, if he took it, would remove his uncle’s last objection; it would bind him to him by a triple bond. And it would do more. It would ease his own mind, by erasing from the past — for he would no longer need the five thousand — a thing which troubled his conscience and harassed him when he lay awake at night. It would erase that blot, it would make all clean behind him, and it would at the same time remove the impalpable barrier that had risen between him and his mother.
It was still in his power to do all this. A word would do it. He had only to go back to the Squire and tell him that he had changed his mind, that he no longer wanted the money, and was not going into the bank.
He hesitated, standing at the window, looking on the green vale and the hillside beyond it. Yes, he might do it. But what if he repented later? And what security had he for those other things? His uncle might live for years, long years, might live to quarrel with him and discard him. Did not the proverb say that it was ill-work waiting for dead men’s shoes? And Josina? Doubtless he might win Josina, for the wooing; he had no doubt about that. But he was not sure that he wanted Josina.
He decided at last that the question might wait. Until he had written the letter to the brokers, until then, at any rate, either course was open to him. He went downstairs. In the wainscoted hall, small and square, with a high narrow window on each side of the door, his mother and Josina were sitting on one of the window seats. The door stood open, the spring air and the sunshine poured in. “I’m telling her that she’s not looking well,” his mother said, as he joined them.
“She spends too much time in that room,” he answered. Then, after a moment’s thought, rattling the money in his fob, “Is Farmer coming to-day?”
“No.” The girl spoke listlessly. “I don’t think he is.”
“He’s made a wonderful recovery,” his mother observed.
“Yes — if it’s a real recovery.”
“At any rate, the doctor hopes that he may come downstairs in ten days. And then, I’m afraid, we shall have Josina to nurse.”
The girl protested that she was well, quite well. But her heavy eyes and the shadows under them belied her words.
“Well, I’m off to town,” he said, “I have to see Welshes for him.”
He left them, and ten minutes later he was on the road to Aldersbury, still undecided, still uncertain what course he would pursue, and at one moment accusing himself of a weakness that deserved the contempt of every strong man, at another praising moderation and a country life. Had he had eyes and ears for the things about him as he rode, he might have found much to support the latter view. The cawing of rooks, the murmur of wood-doves, the scents of late spring filled the balmy air. The sky was pure blue, and beneath it the pastures shone yellow with buttercups. Tree and field, bank and hedge-row rioted in freshest green, save where the oak wood, slow to change and careless of fashion, clung to its orange garb, or the hawthorn stood out, a globe of snow. The cuckoo and the early corncrake told of coming summer, and behind him the Welsh hills simmered in the first heat of the year. Clement, had he passed that way, would have noted it all, and in the delight of the eye and the spring-tide of all growing things would have found ground to rejoice, whatever his trouble.
But Arthur, wrapt in his own thoughts, barely noticed these things. He rode with his eyes fixed on his horse’s ears, and only roused himself when he saw the very man whom he wished to see coming to meet him. It was Dr. Farmer, in the mahogany-topped boots, the frilled shirt, and the old black coat — shaped as are our dress coats but buttoned tightly round the waist — which the dust of a dozen summers and every road in the district had whitened.
“Hallo, doctor!” Arthur cried as they met. “Are you going up to the house to-day?”
“No, Mr. Bourdillon. But I can if necessary. How is he?”
“That is what I want you to tell me. One can’t talk freely at the house and I have a reason for wishing to know. How is he, doctor?”
“Do you mean — —”
“Has this really shaken him? Will he be the same man again?”
“I see.” Farmer rubbed his chin with the horn-handle of his riding-crop. “Well — I see no reason at present why he should not be. He’s one in a hundred, you know. Sound heart, good digestion, a little gouty — but tough. Tough! You never know, of course. There may be some harm we haven’t detected, but I should say that he had a good few years of life in him yet.”
“Ah!”
“Of course, an unusual recovery — from such injuries. And I say nothing about the sight. I’m not hopeful of that.”
“Well,” said Arthur. “I’ll tell you why I asked. There’s a question arisen about a lease for lives — his is one. But you won’t talk, of course.”
Farmer nodded. He found it quite natural. Leases for lives were still common, and doctors were often consulted as to the value of lives which survived or which it was proposed to insert. With another word or two they parted and Arthur rode on.
But he no longer doubted. To wait for eight or ten years, dependent on the whims of an arbitrary and crotchety old man? No! Only in a moment of imbecility could he have dreamed of resigning for this, the golden opportunities that the new world, opening before him, offered to all who had the courage to seize them. He had been mad to think of it, and now he was sane. Garth was worth a mass. He might have served a year or two for it. But seven, or it might be ten? No. Besides, why should he not take the Squire at his word and make the best of both worlds, and availing himself of the favor he had gained, employ the one to exploit the other? He had his foot in at Garth and he was no fool, he could make himself useful. Already, he was well aware, he had made himself liked.
It was noon when he rode into Aldersbury, the town basking in the first warmth of the year, the dogs lying stretched in the sunshine. And he was in luck, for, having met Farmer, he now met Frederick Welsh coming down Maerdol. The lawyer, honestly concerned for his old friend, was urgent in inquiry, and when he had heard the news, “Thank God!” he said. “I’m as pleased to hear that as if I’d made a ten-pound note! Aldshire without the Squire — things would be changing, indeed!”
Arthur told him what the Squire had said about the lease. But that was another matter. The Squire was too impatient. “He’s got his agreement. We’ll draw the lease as soon as we can,” the lawyer said. “The office is full, and more haste less speed. We’ll let him know when it’s ready.” Like all old firms he was dilatory. There was no hurry. All in good time.
They parted, and Arthur rode up the street, alert and smiling, and many eyes followed him — followed him with envy. He worked at the bank, he had his rooms on the Town Walls, he chatted freely with this townsman and that. He was not proud. But they never forgot who he was. They did not talk to him as they talked even to Ovington. Ovington had risen and
was rich, but he came as they came, of common clay. But this young man, riding up the street in the sunshine, smiling and nodding this way and that, his hand on his thigh, belonged to another order. He was a Griffin — a Griffin of Garth. He might lose his all, his money might fly from him, but he would still be a Griffin, one of the caste that ruled as well as reigned, that held in its grasp power and patronage. They looked after him with envy.
CHAPTER XIX
The week in early June which witnessed Arthur’s return to his seat at the bank — that and the following week which saw his mother’s five thousand pounds paid over for his share in the concern — saw the tide of prosperity which during two years had been constantly swelling, reach its extreme point. The commerce and wealth of the country, as they rose higher and higher in this flood-time of fortune, astonished even the casual observer. Their increase seemed to be without limit; they answered to every call. They not only filled the old channels, but over-ran them, irrigating, in appearance at least, a thousand fields hitherto untilled. Abroad, the flag of commerce was said to fly where it had never flown before; its clippers brought merchandise not only from the Indies, East and West, and tea from China, and wool from Sydney, and rich stuffs from the Levant, but Argosies laden with freight still more precious were — or were reported to be — on their way from that new Southern continent on the opening of which to British trade so many hopes depended. The gold and silver of Peru, the diamonds of Brazil, the untapped wealth of the Plate were believed to be afloat and ready to be exchanged for the produce of our looms and spindles, our ovens and forges.
Nor was that produce likely to fail, for at home the glow of foundries, working night-shifts, lit up the northern sky, and in many a Lancashire or Yorkshire dale, old factories, brought again into service, shook, almost to falling, under the thunder of the power-loom. Mills and mines, potteries and iron-works changed hands from day to day, at ever-rising prices. Men who had never invested before, save in the field at their gate, or the house under their eyes, rushed eagerly to take shares in these ventures, and in thousands of offices and parlors conned their securities, summed up the swelling total of their gains, and rushed to buy and buy again, with a command of credit which seemed to have no bottom.
To provide that credit, the banks widened their operations, increased, on the security of stocks ever rising in value, their over-drafts, issued batch after batch of fresh notes. The most cautious admitted that accommodation must keep step with trade; and the huge strides which this was making, the changed conditions, the wider outlook, the calling in of the new world to augment the wealth of the old — all seemed to demand an advance which promised to be as profitable as it was warranted. To the ordinary eye the sun of prosperity shone in an unclouded sky. Even the experienced, though they scanned the heavens with care, saw nothing to dismay them. Only here and there an old fogey whose memory went back to the crisis of ‘93, or to the famous Black Monday of twenty years earlier, uttered a note of warning; or some mechanical clerk, of the stamp of Rodd, sunk in a rut of routine, muttered of Accommodation Bills where his employer saw only legitimate trade. But their croakings, feeble at best, were lost in the joyous babble of an Exchange, enriched by commissions, and drunk with success.
It was a new era. It was the age of gold. It was the fruit of conditions long maturing. Men’s labor, aided by machinery, was henceforth to be so productive that no man need be poor, all might be rich. Experts, reviewing the progress which had been made and the changes which had been wrought during the last fifty years, said these things; and the vulgar took them up and repeated them. The Bank of England acted as if they were true. The rate of discount was low.
And while all men thus stretched out their hands to catch the golden manna Aldersbury was not idle. The appetite for gain grows by what it feeds upon and Aldersbury appetites had been whetted by early successes in their own field. The woollen mills, sharing in the general prosperity of the last two years, had done well, and more than one mill had changed hands at unheard-of prices. The Valleys were said to be full of money which, or part of it, trickled into the town, improving a trade already brisk. Many had made large gains by outside speculations and had boasted of them. Report had multiplied their profits, others had joined in and they too had gained, and their gains had fired the greed of their neighbors. Some had followed up their first successes. Others prepared to extend their businesses, built new premises, put in new-fangled glass windows, and by their action gave an impetus to subordinate trades, and spread still farther the sense of well-being.
On the top of all this had come the Valleys Railroad Scheme, backed by Ovington’s Bank, and offering to everyone a chance of speculating on his door-step: a scheme which while it appealed to local pride, had a specious look of safety, since the railway was to be built under the shareholders’ own eyes, across the fields they knew, and by men whom they saw going in and out every day.
There was a great run on it. Some of the gentry, following the old Squire’s example, held aloof, but others put their hundreds into it, not much believing in it but finding it an amusing gamble. The townsfolk took it more seriously, with the result that a week after allotment the shares were changing hands at a premium of thirty shillings and there was still a busy market in them. Some who, tempted by the premium, sold at a profit suspected as soon as they had sold that they had thrown away their one chance of wealth, and went into the market and bought again, and so the rise was maintained and even extended. More than once Ovington put in a word of caution, reminding his customers that the first sod was not yet cut, that all the work was to do, that even the Bill was not yet passed. But his warnings were disregarded.
To the majority it seemed a short and easy way to fortune, and they wondered that they had been so simple in the past as to know nothing of it. It was by this way, they now saw, that Ovington had risen to wealth, while they, poor fools, not yet admitted to the secret, had gaped and wondered. And what a secret it was! To rise in the morning richer by fifty pounds than they had gone to bed! To retire at night with another fifty as good as in the bank, or in the old and now despised stocking! The slow increment of trade seemed mean and despicable beside their hourly growing profits, made while men slept or dined, made, as a leading tradesman pithily said, while they wore out their breeches on their chairs! Few troubled themselves about the Bill, or the cutting of the first sod, or considered how long it would be before the railroad was at work! Fewer still asked themselves whether this untried scheme would ever pay. It was enough for them that the shares were ever rising, that men were always to be found to buy them at the current price, and that they themselves were growing richer week by week.
For the directors these were great days! They walked Bride Hill and the Market Place with their heads high and their toes turned out. They talked in loud voices in the streets. They got together in corners and whispered, their brows heavy with the weight of affairs. They were great men. The banker, it is true, did not like the pitch to which the thing was being carried, but it was his business to wear a cheerful face, and he had no misgivings to speak of, though he knew that success was a long way off. And even on him the prosperity of the venture had some effect. Sir Charles and Acherley, too, were not of those who openly exulted; it is possible that the latter sold a few shares, or even a good many shares.
But Purslow and Grounds and Wolley? Who shall describe the importance which sat upon their brows, the dignity of their strut, the gravity of their nod, the mock humility of their reticence? Never did they go in or go out without the consciousness that the eyes of passers-by were upon them! Theirs to make men’s fortunes by a hint — and their bearing betrayed that they knew it. Purslow’s apron was discarded, no longer did he come out to customers in the street; if he still rubbed one hand over the other it was in self-content. Grounds was dazzled, and wore his Sunday clothes on week-days. Wolley, always a braggart, swaggered and talked, closed his eyes to his commitments and remembered only his gains. He talked of buying another m
ill, he even entered into a negotiation with that in view. He was convinced that safety lay in daring, and that this was the golden moment, if he would free himself from the net of debt that for years had been weaving itself about him.
He assumed the airs of a rich man, but he was not the worst. The draper, if more honest, had less brains, and success threw him off his balance. “A little country ‘ouse,” he said, speaking among his familiars. “I’m thinking of buying a little country ‘ouse. Two miles from town. A nice distance.” He recalled the fact that the founder of Sir Charles’s family had been Mayor of Aldersbury in the days of Queen Bess, and had bought the estate with money made in the town. “Who knows,” with humility— “my lad’s a good lad — what may come of it? After all there is nothing like land.”
Grounds shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t double — —”
“Double itself in a month, Grounds? No. But all in good time. All in good time. ‘Istory repeats itself. My lad may be a parliament-man, yet. I saw Ovington this morning.” Two months before it would have been “Mr. Ovington.” “He’s sold those Anglo-Mexicans for me and it beats all! A gold-mine! Bought at forty, sold at seventy-two! He wanted me to pay off the bank, but not I, Grounds. When you can borrow at seven and double the money in a month! No, no! Truth is, he’s jealous. He gets only seven per cent. and sees me coining! Of course he wants his money. No, no, I said.”
Grounds looked doubtful. He was too cautious to operate on borrowed money. “I don’t know. After all, enough is as good as a feast, Purslow.”
Purslow prodded him playfully. “Ay, but what is enough?” he chuckled. “No. We’ve been let in and I mean to stay in. There’s plenty of fools grubbing along in the old way, but you and me, we are inside now, Grounds, and I mean to stay in. The days of five per cent are gone for you and me. Gone! ‘Twarn’t by five per cent. that Ovington got where he is.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 650