Rarely in these days did he enter Aldersbury without a feeling of elation. The very air of the town inspired him. The life of the streets, the movement of the markets, the sight of the shopkeepers at their doors, the stir and bustle had their appeal for him. He felt himself on his own ground; it was here and not in the waste places that his work lay, here that he was formed to conquer, here that he was conquering fortune. Garth was very well — a grand, a splendid reserve; but as he rode up the steep streets to the bank, he felt that here was his vocation. He sniffed the battle, his eyes grew brighter, his figure more alert. From some Huguenot ancestor had descended the Huguenot appetite for business, the Huguenot ability to succeed.
This morning, however, he did not reach the bank in his happiest mood. Purslow, the irrepressible Purslow, stopped him, with a long face and a plaint to match. “Those Antwerp shares, Mr. Bourdillon! Excuse me, have you heard? They’re down again — down twenty-five since Wednesday! And that’s on to five, as they fell the week before! Thirty down, sir! I’m in a regular stew about it! Excuse me, sir, but if they fall much more — —”
“You’ve held too long, Purslow,” Arthur replied. “I told you it was a quick shot. A fortnight ago you’d have got out with a good profit. Why didn’t you?”
“But they were rising — rising nicely. And I thought, sir — —”
“You thought you’d hold them for a bit more? That was the long and short of it, wasn’t it? Well, my advice to you now is to get out while you can make a profit.”
“Sell?” the draper exclaimed. “Now?” It is hard to say what he had expected, but something more than this. “But I should not clear more than — why, I shouldn’t make — —”
“Better make what you can,” Arthur replied, and rode on a little more cavalierly than he would have ridden a few months before.
He did not reflect how easy it is to sow the seeds of distrust. Purslow, left alone to make the best of cold comfort, felt for the first time that his interests were not the one care of the bank. For the first time he saw the bank as something apart, a machine, cold, impassive, indifferent, proceeding on its course unmoved by his fortunes, good or bad, his losses or his gains. It was a picture that chilled him, and set him thinking.
Arthur, meantime, left his horse at the stables and let himself into the bank by the house-door. As he laid his hat and whip on the table in the hall, he caught the sound of an angry voice. It came from the bank parlor. He hesitated an instant, then he made up his mind, and stepping that way he opened the door.
The voice was Wolley’s. The man was on his feet, angry, protesting, gesticulating. Ovington, his lips set, the pallor of his handsome face faintly tinged with color, sat behind his table, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingertips meeting.
Arthur took it all in. Then, “You don’t want me?” he said, and he made as if he would close the door again. “I thought that you were alone, sir.”
“No, stay,” Ovington answered. “You may as well hear what Mr. Wolley has to say, though I have told him already — —”
“What?” the clothier cried rudely. “Come! Let’s have it in plain words!”
“That we can discount no more bills for him until the account against him is reduced. You know as well as I do, Mr. Wolley, that you have been drawing more bills and larger bills than your trade justifies.”
“But I have to meet the paper I’ve accepted for wool, haven’t I? And if my customers don’t pay cash — as you know it is not the custom to pay — where am I to get the cash to pay the wool men?”
The banker took up one of two bills that lay on the table before him. “Drawn on Samuel Willias, Manchester,” he said. “That’s a new name. Who is he?”
“A customer. Who should he be?”
“That’s the point,” Ovington replied coldly. “Is he? And this other bill. A new name, too. Besides, we’ve already discounted your usual bills. These bills are additional. My own opinion is that they are accommodation bills, and that you, and not the acceptors, will have to meet them. In any case,” dropping the slips on the table, “we are not going to take them.”
“You won’t cash them? Not on no terms?”
“No, we are going no further, Wolley,” the banker replied firmly. “If you like I will send for the bill-book and ledger and tell you exactly what you owe, on bills and overdraft. I know it is a large amount, and you have made, as far as I can judge, no effort to reduce it. The time has come when we must stop the advances.”
“And you’ll not discount these bills?”
“No!”
“Then, by G — d, it’s not I will be the only one to be ruined!” the man exclaimed, and he struck the table with his fist. The veins on his forehead swelled, his coarse mottled face became disfigured with rage. He glared at the banker. But even as Ovington met his gaze, there came a change. The perspiration sprang out on his forehead, his face turned pale and flabby, he seemed to shrink and wilt. The ruin, which recklessness and improvidence had hidden from him, rose before him, certain and imminent. He saw his mill, his house, his all gone from him, saw himself a drunken, ruined, shiftless loafer, cadging about public-houses! “For God’s sake!” he pleaded, “do it this once, Mr. Ovington. Meet just these two, and I’ll swear they’ll be the last. Meet these.”
“No,” the banker said. “We go no farther.”
Perhaps the thought that he and Ovington had risen from the ranks together, that for years they had been equals, and that now the one refused his help to the other, rose and mocked the unhappy man. At any rate, his rage flared up anew. He swore violently. “Well, there’s more than I will go down, then!” he said. “And more than will suit your book, banker! Wise as you think yourself, there’s more bills out than you know of!”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“Ay, and you’ll be more sorry by and by!” viciously. “Sorry for yourself and sorry that you did not give me a little more help, d — n you! Are you going to? Best think twice about it before you say no!”
“Not a penny,” Ovington rejoined sternly. “After what you have admitted I should be foolish indeed to do so. You’ve had my last word, Mr. Wolley.”
“Then damn your last word and you too!” the clothier retorted, and went out, cursing, into the bank, shouting aloud as he passed through it, that they were a set of bloodsuckers and that he’d have the law of them! Clement from his desk eyed him steadily. Rodd and the clerks looked startled. The customers — there were but two, but they were two too many for such a scene — eyed each other uneasily. A moment, and Clement, after shifting his papers uncertainly, left his desk and went into the parlor.
Ovington and Arthur had not moved. “What’s the matter?” Clement asked. The occurrence had roused him from his apathy. He looked from the one to the other, a challenge in his eyes.
“Only what we’ve been expecting for some time,” his father answered. “Wolley has asked for further credit and I’ve had to say, no. I’ve given him too much rope as it is, and we shall lose by him. He’s an ill-conditioned fellow, and he is taking it ill.”
“He wants a drubbing,” said Clement.
“That is not in our line,” Ovington replied mildly. “But,” he continued — for he was not sorry to have the chance of taking his son into his confidence— “we are going to have plenty to think of that is in our line. Wolley will fail, and we shall lose by him; and I have no doubt that he is right in saying that he will bring down others. We must look to ourselves and draw in, as I warned Bourdillon some time ago. That noisy fellow may do us harm, and we must be ready to meet it.”
Arthur looked thoughtful. “Antwerps have fallen,” he said.
“I wish it were only Antwerps!” the banker answered. “You haven’t seen the mail? Or Friday’s prices? There’s a fall in nearly everything. True,” looking from one to the other, “I’ve expected it — sooner or later; and it has come, or is coming. Yes, Rodd? What is it?”
The cashier had opened the door. “Hamar,” he sa
id in a low voice, “wants to know if we will buy him fifty of the railroad shares and advance him the face value on the security of the shares. He’ll find the premium himself. He thinks they are cheap after the drop last week.”
The banker shook his head. “No,” he said. “We can’t do it, tell Mr. Hamar.”
“It would support the shares,” Arthur suggested.
“With our money. Yes! But we’ve enough locked up in them already. Tell him, Rodd, that I am sorry, but it is not convenient at present.”
“They are still at a premium of thirty shillings,” Arthur put in.
“Is the door shut, Rodd?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thirty shillings? And that might run off in a week, Mr. Secretary. No, the time is come when we must not shilly-shally. I see your view and the refusal may do harm. But we have enough money locked up in the railway, and with the outlook such as it is, I will not increase the note issues. They are already too large, as we may discover. We must say no, Rodd, but tell him to come and see me this evening, and I will explain.”
The cashier nodded and went out.
Ovington gazed thoughtfully at his joined finger-tips. “Is the door closed?” he asked again, and assured that it was, he looked thoughtfully from one to the other of the young men. He seemed to be measuring them, considering how far he could trust them, how far it would be well to take them into his confidence. Then, “We are going to meet a crisis,” he said. “I have now no doubt about that. All over the country the banks have increased their issues, and hold a vast quantity of pawned stock. If the fall in values is continued, the banks must throw the stock on the market, and there will be a general fall. At the same time they will be obliged to restrict credit and refuse discounts, which will force traders to throw goods on the market to meet their obligations. Goods as well as stocks will fall. Alarm will follow, and presently there will be a run on a weak bank and it will close its doors. Then there will be a panic, and a run on other banks — a run proportioned in violence to the amount of credit granted in the last two years. We may have to meet a run on deposits at the same time that we may be called upon to cash every note that we have issued.”
“Impossible!” Arthur cried. “We could not do it.”
“If you mean that the run is impossible,” the banker answered quietly, “I much fear that events will confute you. If you mean that we could not meet our obligations, well, we must strain every nerve to do so. We must retain all the cash that comes in, and we must issue no more notes, create no more credit. But even this we must do with discretion, and above all not a whisper must pass beyond this room. I will speak to Rodd. Hamar I will see this evening, and do what I can to sweeten the refusal. We must wear confident faces however grave the crisis. We are solvent, amply solvent, if time be given us to realize our resources; but time may not be given us, and we may have to make great sacrifices. You may be inclined to blame me — —” he paused, and looked from one to the other — Arthur stood frowning, his eyes on the carpet— “that I did not take the alarm earlier? Well, I ought to have done so, perhaps. But — —”
“Nobody blames you, sir!” It was Clement who spoke, Clement, in whom the last few minutes had made a marked change. His dulness and listlessness had fallen from him, he stood upright and alert. The imagination which had balked at the routine of banking, faced a crisis with alacrity, and conscious that he had hitherto failed his father, he welcomed with zest the opportunity of proving his loyalty, “Nobody blames you, sir!” he repeated firmly. “We are here to stand by you, and I am confident that we shall win through. If any bank can stand, Ovington’s will stand. And if we don’t win through, if the public insists on cutting its own throat, well” — a little ashamed of his own enthusiasm— “we shall still believe in you, sir, you may be sure of that!”
“But isn’t — isn’t all this a little premature?” Arthur asked, his tone cold and business-like. “I don’t understand why you think that all this is coming upon us at a moment’s notice, sir? Without warning?”
“Not quite without warning,” the banker rejoined with patience. Clement’s declaration of faith had moved him more deeply than he showed, and, having that, he could bear a little disappointment. “I have hinted more than once, Arthur, that I was uneasy. But why, you ask, this sudden alarm — now? Well, look at Richardson’s list of last Friday’s prices. You have not seen it. Exchequer Bills that a week ago were at par are at a discount. India Stock are down five points on the day — a large fall for such a stock. New Four per Cents, have fallen 3, Bank Stock that stood at 224 ten days ago is 214. These are not panic falls, but they are serious figures. With Bank Stock falling ten points in as many days, what will happen to the immense mass of speculative securities held by the public, and on much of which calls are due? It will be down this week; next week the banks will have to throw it out to save their margins, and customers to pay their calls. It will fall, and fall. The week after, perhaps, panic! A rush to draw deposits, or a rush to cash notes, or, probably, both.”
“Then you think — you must think” — Arthur’s voice was not quite under his control— “that there is danger?”
“It would be as foolish in me to deny it here,” the banker replied gravely, “as it would be reckless in me to affirm it outside. There is danger. We shall run a risk, but I believe that we shall win through, though, it may be, by a narrow margin. And a little thing might upset us.”
Arthur was not of an anxious temperament — far from it. But he had committed himself to the bank. He had involved himself in its fortunes in no ordinary way. He had joined it against the wishes of his friends and in the teeth of the prejudices of his caste. He had staked his reputation for judgment upon its success, and assured that it would give him in the future all for which he thirsted, he had deemed himself far-sighted, and others fools. In doing this he had never dreamt of failure, he had never weighed the possibility of loss. Not once had he reflected that he might turn out to be wrong and robbed of the prize — might in the end be a laughing-stock!
Now as the possibility of all this, as the thought of failure, complete and final, flooded his mind and shook his self-confidence, he flinched. Danger! Danger, owned to by Ovington himself! Ah, he ought to have known! He ought to have suspected that fortunes were not so easily made! He ought to have reflected that Ovington’s was not Dean’s! That it was but a young bank, ill-rooted as yet — and speculative! Ay, speculative! Such a bank might fall, he was almost certain now that it would fall, as easily as it had risen!
It was a nerve-shaking vision that rose before him, and for a moment he could not hide his disorder. At any rate, he could not hide it from two jealous eyes. Clement saw and condemned — not fully understanding all that this meant to the other or the sudden strain which it put upon him. A moment and Arthur was himself again, and his first words recovered for him the elder man’s confidence. They were practical.
“How much — I mean, what extra amount of reserve,” he asked, “would make us safe?”
“Just so,” and in the banker’s eyes there shone a gleam of relief. “Well, if we had twelve thousand pounds, in addition to our existing assets, I think — nay, I am confident that that would place us out of danger.”
“Twelve thousand pounds.”
“Yes. It is not a large sum. But it might make all the difference if it came to a pinch.”
“In cash?”
“In gold, or Bank paper. Or in such securities as could be realized even in a crisis. Twelve thousand added to our reserve — I think I may say with confidence that with that we could meet any run that could be made upon us.”
“There is no doubt that we are solvent, sir?”
“You should know that as well as I do.”
“We could realize the twelve thousand eventually?”
“Of course, or we should not be solvent without it.” For once Ovington spoke a little impatiently.
“Then could we not,” Arthur asked, “by laying our accounts b
efore our London agents obtain the necessary help, sir?”
“If we were the only bank likely to be in peril, of course we could. And even as it is, you are so far right that I had already determined to do that. It is the obvious course, and my bag is being packed in the house — I shall go to town by the afternoon coach. And now,” rising to his feet, “we have been together long enough — we must be careful to cause no suspicion. Do you, Clement, see Massy, the wine-merchant to-day, and tell him that I will take, to lay down, the ten dozen of ‘20 port that he offered me. And ask the two Welshes to dine with me on Friday — I shall return on Thursday. And get some oysters from Hamar’s — two barrels — and have one or two people to dine while I am away. And, cheerful faces, boys — and still tongues. And now go. I must put into shape the accounts that I shall need in town.”
He dismissed them with calmness, but he did not at once fall to work upon the papers. His serenity was that of the commander who, on the eve of battle, reviews the issues of the morrow, and habituated to the chances of war, knows that he may be defeated, but makes his dispositions, folds his cloak about him, and lies down to sleep. But under the cloak of the commander, and behind the mask that deceives those about him, is still the man, with the man’s hopes and fears, and cares and anxieties, which habit has rendered tolerable, and pride enables him to veil. But they are there. They are there.
As he sat, he thought of his rise, of his success, of step won after step; of the praise of men and the jealousy of rivals which wealth had won for him; and of the new machine that he had built up — Ovington’s. And he knew that if fate went against him, there might in a very short time be an end of all. Yesterday he and Wolley had been equals. They had risen from obscurity together. To-day Wolley was a bankrupt. To-morrow — they might be again equal in their fall, and Ovington’s a thing to wonder at. Dean’s would chuckle, and some would call him a fool and some a rogue, and all an upstart — one who had not been able to keep his head. He would be ruined, and they would find no name too bad for him.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 654