Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  But Rodd shook his head. “No, sir. It was in gold and Bank of England notes. I saw to that.”

  “Then I don’t understand it,” the banker decided. He sat pondering — the thing had taken hold of his mind. Was it a trick? Did they mean to draw out the amount next morning? But, no they would not risk the money, and he would stand no worse if they drew it. An enemy could not have done it, then. A friend? But such friends were rare and the sum was no trifle. The amount was more than he had received for his plate, the proceeds of which had already gone into the cash-drawer. He pondered.

  Meanwhile, “Another cup of tea?” Betty said politely. And as Rodd, avoiding her eyes, handed her his cup, “It’s so nice to hear of strangers helping us,” she continued with treacherous sweetness. “One feels so grateful to them.”

  Rodd muttered something, his mouth full of toast.

  “It’s so fine of them to trust us, when they don’t know how things are — as we do, of course. I think it is splendid of them,” Betty continued. “Father, you must bring them to me, some day, when all these troubles are over — that I may thank them.”

  But her father had risen to his feet. He was standing on the hearthrug, a queer look on his face. “I think that they are here now,” he said. “Rodd, why did you do it?”

  The cashier started. “I, sir? I don’t think I — —”

  “Oh, you understand, man!” The banker was much moved. “You understand very well. Walker of Wolverhampton? You’ve a brother at Wolverhampton, I remember, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen him. This is your three hundred, and all you could add to it. My G — d, man — —” Ovington was certainly moved, for he seldom swore, “but if we go you’ll lose it! You must draw it out before the bank opens to-morrow.”

  “No,” said Rodd, who had turned red. “I shall do nothing of the sort, sir. It’s as safe there as anywhere. I’m not afraid.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Betty said, looking from one to the other. It couldn’t be true. It could not be that she had made such a — a dreadful mistake!

  “There’s no Mr. Walker,” her father explained, “and no gentleman from Bretton. They are both Rodd. It’s his money.”

  “Do you mean — —” in a very small voice. “I thought that Mr. Rodd took his money out!”

  “Only to put it in again when he thought that it might help us more. But we can’t have it. He mustn’t lose his money, all I expect that he — —”

  “It came out of the bank,” Rodd said, “And there’s where it belongs, and I’m not going,” stubbornly, “to take it out. I’ve been here ten years — very comfortable, sir. And if the bank closed where’d I be? It’s my interest that it shouldn’t close.”

  The banker turned to the fire and put one foot on the fender as if to warm it. “Well, let it stay,” he said, but his voice was unsteady. “If we have to close you’ll have done a silly thing — that’s all. But if we don’t, you’ll not have been such a fool!”

  “Oh, we shall not close,” Rodd boasted, and he gulped down his tea, his ears red.

  There was an embarrassing silence. Ovington turned. “Well, Betty,” he said, attempting a lighter tone. “I thought that you were going to thank — Mr. Walker of Wolverhampton?”

  But Betty, murmuring something about an order for the servants, had already hurried from the room.

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  That the Squire suffered was certain; whether he suffered more deeply in pocket or in pride, whether he felt more poignantly the loss of his hoarded thousands or the dishonor that Arthur had done to his name, even Josina could not say. His ruling passions through life had been pride of race and the desire to hoard, and it is certain that sorely wounded in both points he suffered as acutely as age with its indurated feelings can suffer. But after the first outburst, after the irrepressible cry of anguish which the discovery of his nephew’s treachery had wrung from him, he buried himself in silence. He sat morose and unheeding, his hands clasping his stick, his sightless eyes staring at the fire. He gave no sign, and sought no sympathy. He was impenetrable. Even Josina would not guess what were his thoughts.

  Nor did she try to learn. The misfortune was too great, the injury on one side beyond remedy, and the girl had the sense to see this. She hung over him, striving to anticipate his wishes and by mute signs of affection to give him what comfort she might. But she was too wise to trouble him with words or to attempt to administer directly to a mind which to her was a mystery, darkened by the veil of years that separated them.

  She was sure of one thing, however, that he would not wish anything to be said in the house; and she said nothing. But she soon found that she must set a guard also on her looks. On the Tuesday Mrs. Bourdillon “looked in,” as it was her habit to look in three or four times a week. She had usually some errand to put forward, and her pretext on this occasion was the Squire’s Christmas list. Near as he was, he thought much of old customs, and he would not for anything have omitted to brew a cask of October for his servants’ Christmas drinking, or to issue the doles of beef to the men and of blankets to the women which had gone forth from the Great House since the reign of Queen Anne. Mrs. Bourdillon was never unwilling to gain a little reflected credit, or to pay in that way for an hour’s job-work, so that there were few years in which she did not contrive to graft a name or two on the list.

  That was apparently her business this afternoon. But Josina, whose faculties were quickened by the pity which she felt for the unconscious mother, soon perceived that this was not her only or, indeed, her real motive. The visitor was not herself. She was nervous, the current of her small talk did not run with its usual freedom, she let her eyes wander, she broke off and began again. By and by as the strain increased she let her anxiety appear, and at last, “I wish you would tell me,” she said, “what is the matter with Arthur. He is not open with me,” raising her eyes with a piteous look to Josina’s face. “And — and he’s something on his mind, I’m sure. I noticed it on Sunday, and I am sure you know. Is there” — and Josina saw with compassion that her mittened hands were trembling— “is there anything — wrong?”

  The girl had her answer ready, for she had already decided what she would say. “I am afraid that they are anxious about the bank,” she said. “There is what they call a ‘run’ upon it.”

  The explanation was serious enough, but, strange to say, Mrs. Bourdillon looked relieved. “Oh! And I suppose that they all have to be there?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “I am afraid that that is enough.”

  “But — but you don’t mean that there may be a — a failure?”

  “I hope not. Indeed, I hope not. But people are so silly! They think that they can all have their money out at once. And of course,” Josina continued, speaking from a height of late-acquired knowledge, “a bank lends its money out and cannot get it in again in a minute. But I’ve no doubt that it will be all right. Mr. Ovington is very clever.”

  Mrs. Bourdillon sighed. “That’s bad,” she said. And she seemed to think it over. “You know that all our money is in the bank now, Josina! I don’t know what we should do if it were lost! I don’t know what we should do!” But, all the same, Josina was clear that this was not the fear that her visitor had had in her mind when she entered the room. “Nor why Arthur was so set upon putting it in,” the good lady continued. “For goodness knows,” bridling, “we were never in trade. Mr. Bourdillon’s grandfather — but that was in the West Indies and quite different. I never heard anyone say it wasn’t. So where Arthur got it from I am sure I don’t know. And, oh dear, your father was so angry about it, he will never forgive us if it is lost.”

  “I don’t think that you need be afraid,” Josina said, as lightly as she could. “It’s not lost yet, you know. And of course we must not say a word to anyone. If people thought that we were afraid — —”

  “We? But I can’t see” — Mrs. Bourdillon spoke with sudden sharpness, “wh
at you have to do with it?”

  Josina blushed. “Of course we are all interested,” she said.

  Mrs. Bourdillon saw the blush. “You haven’t — you and Arthur — made it up?” she ventured.

  Josina shook her head.

  “But why not? Now — now that he’s in trouble, Josina?”

  “I couldn’t! I couldn’t, indeed.”

  The mother’s face fell, and she sighed. She stared for awhile at the faded carpet. When she looked up again, the old anxiety peeped from her eyes. “And you don’t think that — there’s anything else?” she asked, as she prepared to rise.

  “I am afraid that that is enough — to make them all anxious!”

  But later, when the other was gone, Josina wondered. What had aroused the mother’s misgivings? What had brought that look of alarm to her eyes? Arthur’s sudden departure might have vexed her, but it could hardly have done more, unless he had dropped some hint, or she had other grounds for suspicion? But that was impossible, Josina decided. And she dismissed the thought.

  She went slowly upstairs. After all she had troubles enough of her own. She had her father to think of — and Clement. They were her world, hemispheres which, though her whole happiness depended upon it, she could hardly hope to bring together, divided as they were by an ocean of prejudice. How her father now regarded Clement, whether his hatred of the name were in the slightest degree softened, whether under the blow which had stunned him, he thought of her lover at all, or remembered that it was he, and not Arthur, who had saved his life, she had no notion.

  Alas! it would be but natural if the name of Ovington were more hateful to him than ever. He would attribute — she felt that he did attribute Arthur’s fall to them. He had said that it was the poison of trade, their trade, their cursed trade, which had entered his veins, and, contaminating the honest Griffin blood, had destroyed him. It was they who had ruined him!

  And then, as if the stain were not enough, it was from them again that it could not be hid. They knew of it, they must know of it. There must be interviews about it, dealings about it, dealings with them. They might feign horror of it, they who in the Squire’s eyes were the real cause of it. They might hold up their hands at the fact and pity him! Pity him! If anything, anything, she was sure, could add to her father’s mortification, it was that the Ovingtons were involved in the matter.

  With every stair, the girl’s heart sank lower. Once more in her father’s room, she watched him. But she was careful not to let her solicitude appear, and though she was assiduous for his comfort and conduced to it by keeping Miss Peacock and the servants at a distance, she said almost as little to him as he to her. From time to time he sighed, but it was only when she reminded him that it was his hour for bed that he let a glimpse of his feelings appear.

  “Ay,” he muttered, “I’m better there! Better there, girl!” And with one hand on his stick and the other on his chair he raised himself up by his arms as old men do. “I can hide my head there.”

  She lent him her shoulder across the room and strove by the dumb show of her love to give him what comfort she might, what sympathy. But tears choked her, and she thought with anguish that he was conquered. The unbreakable old man was broken. Shame and not the loss of his money had broken him.

  It would not have surprised her had he kept his bed next day. But either there was still some spring of youth in him, or old age had hardened him, for he rose as usual, though the effort was apparent. He ate his breakfast in gloomy silence, and about an hour before noon he declared it his will to go out. Josina doubted if he was fit for it, but whatever the Squire willed his womenfolk accepted, and she offered to go with him. He would not have her, he would have Calamy — perhaps because Calamy knew nothing. “Take me to the stable,” he said. And Josina thought “He is going to see the old mare — to bid her farewell.”

  It certainly was to his old favorite that he went, and he stood for some minutes in her box, feeling her ears and passing his hand between her forelegs to learn if she were properly cleaned; while the grey smelled delicately about his head, and nuzzled with her lips in his pockets.

  “Ay,” said Calamy after a while, “she were a trig thing in her time, but it’s past. And what are the legs of a horse when it’s a race wi’ ruin?”

  “What’s that?” The Squire let his stick fall to the ground. “What do you mean?” he asked, and straightened himself, resting his hand on the mare’s withers.

  “They be all trotting and cantering,” Calamy continued with zest, as he picked up the stick, “trotting and cantering into town since morning, them as arn’t galloping. They be covering all the roads wi’ the splatter and sound of them. But I’m thinking they’ll lose the race.”

  “What do you mean?” the Squire growled. Something of his old asperity had come back to him.

  “Mean, master? Why, that Ovington’s got the shutters up, or as good. Their notes is no better than last year’s leaves, I’m told. And all the country riding and spurring in on the chance of getting change for ‘em before it’s too late! Such-like fools I never see — as if the townsfolk will have left anything for them! Watkins o’ the Griffin, he’s three fi-pun notes of theirs, and he was away before it was light, and Blick the pig-killer and the overseer with him, in his tax-cart. And parson he’s gone on his nag — trust Parson for ever thinking o’ the moth and rust except o’ Sunday! They’ve tithe money of his. And the old maid as live genteel in the villa at the far end o’ the street, she’ve hired farmer Harris’s cart — white as a sheet she was, I’m told! Wouldn’t even stay to have the mud wiped off, and she so particular! And there’s three more of ‘em started to walk it. I’m told the road is black with them — weavers from the Valleys and their missuses, every sort of ‘em with a note in his fist! There was two of them came here, wanted to see Mr. Arthur — thought he could do something for ‘em.”

  “D —— n Mr. Arthur!” said the Squire. But inwardly he was thinking, “There goes the last chance of my money! A drowning man don’t think whether the branch he can reach is clean or dirty! But there never was a chance. That young chap came to bamboozle me and gain time, and that’s their play.” Aloud, “Give me my stick,” he said. “Who told you — this rubbish?”

  “Why, it’s known at the Cross! The rooks be cawing it. Ovington is over to Bullon or some-such foreign place, these two days! And Dean he won’t be long after him! They’re talking of him, too. Ay, Parson should ha’ thought of the poor instead of laying up where thieves break through and steal. But we’re all things of a day!”

  “Take me to the house,” said the Squire.

  “Shadows as pass! Birds i’ the smoke!” continued the irrepressible Calamy, smacking his lips with enjoyment. “Leaves and the wind blows! Mr. Arthur — but there, your honor knows best where the shoe pinches. Squire Acherley’s gone through on his bay, and Parson Hoggins with him, and ‘Where’s that d — d young banker?’ he asks. Thinks I, if the Squire heard you, you’d get a flip o’ the tongue you wouldn’t like! But he’s a random-tandem talker as ever was! And” — halting abruptly— “by gum, I expect here’s another for Mr. Arthur! There’s some one drove up the drive now, and gone to the front door.”

  “Take me in! Take me in!” said the Squire peevishly, his heart very bitter within him. For this was worse than anything that he had foreseen. His twelve thousand pounds was gone, but even that loss — monstrous, incredible, heart-breaking loss as it was — was not the worst. Ruin was abroad, stalking the countryside, driving rich and poor, the widow and the orphan to one bourne, and his name — his name through his nephew — would be linked with it, and dragged through the mire by it, no man so poor that he might not have a fling at it. He had held his head high, he had refused to stoop to such things, he had condemned others of his class, Woosenham and Acherley, and their like, because they had lowered themselves to the traffic of the market-place. But now — now, wherever men met and bragged of their losses and cursed their deluders, the talk would be of h
is nephew! His nephew! They might even say that he had had a share in it himself, and canvass and discuss him, and hint that he was not above robbing his neighbors — but only above owning to the robbery!

  This was worse, far worse than the worst that he had foreseen when the lad had insisted on going his own way. Worse, far worse! Even his sense of Arthur’s dishonor, even his remembrance of the vile, wicked, reckless act which the young man had committed, faded beside the prospect before him; beside the certainty that wherever, in shop or tavern, men cursed the name of Ovington, or spoke of those who had ruined the country-side, his name would come up and his share in the matter be debated.

  Ay, he would be mixed up in it! He could not but be mixed up in it! His nephew! His nephew! He hung so heavily on Calamy’s arm, that the servant for once held his tongue in alarm. They went into the house — the house that until now dishonor had never touched, though hard times had often straitened it, and more than once in the generations poverty had menaced it.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  But before they crossed the threshold they were intercepted. Miss Peacock, her plumage ruffled, and that which the Squire was wont to call her “clack” working at high pressure, met them at the door. “Bless me, sir, here’s a visitor,” she proclaimed, “at this hour! And won’t take any denial, but will see you, whether or no. Though I told Jane to tell him — —”

  “Who is it?”

  “Goodness knows, but it’s not my fault, sir! I told Jane — but Jane’s that feather-headed, like all of them, she never listens, and let him in, and he’s in the dining-parlor. All she could say, the silly wench, was, it was something about the bank — great goggle-eyes as she is! And of course there’s no one in the way when they’re wanted. Calamy with you, and Josina traipsing out, feeding her turkeys. And Jane says the man’s got a portmanteau with him as if he’s come to stay. Goodness knows, there’s no bed aired, and I’m sure I should have been told if — —”