CHAPTER IX.
A LITTLE BIOGRAPHY.
It is a curious question to consider how very frequently the same matter is being discussed at the same time by different people; to notice how a similar idea is germinated in utterly dissimilar minds, and becomes for a period the subject of animated discussion between various pairs and groups of people. There is no reason, so far as we can tell, why two men should talk on any given topic at any given time; but, supposing that two men do so converse, we may be morally certain that two other people, and many other twos besides, either have got, or immediately will get, hold of the theme also, and commence tearing it to rags straight away.
Various questions go the round of families, little communities, large masses, the bulk of the population, the inhabitants of countries, all about the same time. Different subjects seem to come in the air like influenza, cholera, the cattle plague, without rhyme or reason; they affect the whole of society to a greater or less extent; and when they are exhausted, another idea, like another epidemic, takes the place of its predecessor.
There is no accounting for these things, no accounting for the fact that often, when you are thinking or talking of a friend long absent, he walks into your chambers, or stops you in the street; no accounting for the very disagreeable fact, that if you find a creditor straying into your mind, if you begin wondering why he has given you peace for so long, the next post is almost certain to bring a little reminder from him; no accounting for the ill-fortune which if, Jones, shall we say, take to writing a memoir of Fair Rosamond, sets all the Browns, Smiths, and Robinsons writing books about that frail beauty also.
Once upon a time, two people, unknown to each other, resident as far apart as Northumberland and Cornwall, shall we say, composed two melodies, and, behold, when a common friend heard the twain, they were identical. It is the same with works of imagination: a dozen people, writing novels in one year, are almost certain to handle identical subjects with a difference.
People cannot be original either, even in their travels. Imagine that Jones, exhausted with his literary propping-up of Fair Rosamond’s reputation, says secretly to his own soul, “I will eschew my kind, and take holiday where the heart of man never dreamed of taking holiday before, in the smallest county in England.” He thinks he has conceived a new thing, yet Smith is on the station when he gets to King’s Cross, with travelling-bag labelled “Oakham,” also. It is a marvel the pair do not kill each other; but, instead of that, they exchange cigars, and the newspapers, and stop at the same hotel.
It is a law of nature, we may conclude, this rotatory cropping-up of ideas, this constant evidence that nothing we do, or say, or think, is in itself perfectly new or original; and, however unpleasant many natural laws may be, still we cannot get rid of them, nor escape from their control.
And, indeed—though we always are—why should we even be astonished at these coincidences? When we see one primrose on a bank, we may feel pretty certain there are other primroses not far off. They come in their season like the thoughts of men; they dot the hedgerows, and spring amongst the woods; they show their faces boldly by the roadside, and they hide them shyly amid the grass; they are sold in the market-place, and the children gather them for posies; they bloom; they are sought after; they are taken to grace lordly rooms; they remain unseen; they wither; they pass away; they are forgotten; like the thoughts of the best men, they but serve their purpose and depart, to make way for fresh flowers, and for fresh thinkers; for there is nothing new under the sun.
All of which may help to explain the fact, that although Mr. Black’s latest financial undertaking resembled the root of a primrose as little as any two things on the face of the earth could do by possibility, still his scheme bore many flowers of speech in Berrie Down Hollow.
On the day when Miss Hope broke ground in Heather’s dressing-room, many other people broke up the same ground, though with different intentions, and in different language.
Gilbert told Bessie how Mr. Black had offered him the business of a “large company” (Mr. Harcourt was a young solicitor); at least, said he would try to get it for him, whereupon Bessie remarked she hoped it would turn out a good company, for she thought, during the course of his life, her uncle had often got into very questionable society.
Likewise, lying on the drawing-room sofa, Mrs. Ormson discoursed to her sister about business, and supposed she would soon be riding in her carriage now, and grow too proud to find her way to Guildford Street at all!
Speaking of his new prospects to Alick, Mr. Ormson, an utterly inoffensive individual, remarked, he hoped the lad “would not let himself be led away by Mr. Black, or made dissatisfied with his small salary, for, whatever some people might imagine, fortunes were not to be picked up out of the gutter; at least, not with clean hands,” added Mr. Ormson, after a pause;—while riding side by side with Lord Kemms along Berrie Down Lane, Mr. Compton Raidsford, beholding Arthur Dudley and Mr. Black walking together up and down one of the broad green meadows, shaded by a pleasant hedgerow, remarked to his companion:—
“I hope Dudley won’t suffer that fellow to drag him into any of his rotten companies. If he do, Berrie Down Hollow will soon be in the market.”
“In which case I shall buy it,” said his lordship.
“I do not think you will, excepting at something considerably beyond its value, for I have set my heart upon it too,” observed Mr. Raidsford; whereupon the pair laughed, and Lord Kemms, reverting to Mr. Black, informed his companion “he had been asking him to allow his name to appear on the Direction.”
“Which Direction?” inquired Mr. Raidsford. “He is floating, or rather trying to float, several companies. For which of them does he solicit the honour of Lord Kemms’ name?”
“For the ‘Protector Bread and Flour Company,’” answered his lordship.
“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Raidsford. Then, after a moment’s silence, he asked, “And what terms does he offer? I suppose there is no secret about the matter?”
“None that I am aware of,” was the reply; “at least, he made no mention of secrecy to me. He offered two hundred paid-up shares, and he showed me names he had got, that, I confess, made me hesitate about refusing. In fact, I meant to ask your advice. You know, every one goes in for these kind of things now-a-days, and some people must make money out of them.”
“Yes, but not people who are associated with Mr. Black,” replied Compton Raidsford.
“And yet he has got the name of one man who is considered unusually wary in his investments, Mr. Allan Stewart.”
“Allan Stewart,” repeated Mr. Raidsford; “now you do surprise me.” And he rode on for a while, turning the matter over in his mind.
“And he expects to get Douglas Croft.”
“The deuce he does!”
“So you see it is all in the family, at least in one branch of it,” continued his lordship.
“Ay, and if I were Lord Kemms, it might stay in one branch of it for me,” was the quick reply.
“But still money is made out of these kind of things,” said Lord Kemms, harking back to the point from which he had started.
“And lost,” added Mr. Raidsford, quietly.
“But I could not lose money.”
“No, but you might be the cause of making others lose it,” Mr. Raidsford observed.
“I did not think of that,” said Lord Kemms.
“Every person should think of that before lending, giving, or selling his name,” answered Mr. Raidsford, a little bitterly. “Do you not know,” went on this man, who had made every sixpence of his money for himself honestly, “do you not know that you, and such as you, are used by adventurers like Mr. Black for decoy ducks? Could they afford to pay you the sums they do for the sake of mere ornament? No, they use you. They do not use your money, which you will not give them; nor your business capabilities, which you do not possess; nor your influence, which you would not be troubled employing in their behalf; but they use your names. When a halfcolumn advertisement appears in the Times, with my Lord This, and Sir Something That, General So and So, and a few esquires, living at Parks, Courts, and the rest of it, on the Direction, the British public comes up for shares like sheep to the slaughter. It does not matter to you when the bubble bursts, but it matters to widows and orphans, to country clergymen, to governesses, to all the poor deluded creatures, in fact, who have invested money in the undertaking.”
“That is supposing the thing fail, Mr. Raidsford,” remarked Lord Kemms.
“I cannot suppose anything likely to succeed, my lord, in which Mr. Black acts as fugleman,” was the reply.
“Do you know much of Mr. Black?”
“Yes, I have known about him all my life—in fact, at one time, I did business with him—for he was town-traveller for a house which supplied us with tools. He was always a clever, pushing fellow, possessed of a tongue that would have persuaded a man almost to buy old castings for steel (here Lord Kemms smiled as though he understood the meaning of the illustration), and I think he might have done well, if he could have been but content; however, he could not. His employers found out he was doing a little business for himself, and making a connexion while receiving a salary from them; so they turned him adrift, and then he started on his own account. If he had been honest, he might still have succeeded; but he fell into a bad habit of supplying extraordinarily bad goods, while selling at ordinary prices. He had a small warehouse in Clerkenwell in those days, and certainly never was above his business, I will say that for him—am I wearying you, my lord?”
“No, the biography is interesting.”
“After a time, things began to go badly with him—” proceeded Mr. Raidsford; but here he suddenly paused—“They are crossing the field so as to meet us,” he said; “suppose I finish my story afterwards.”
“No, they are not coming to meet us,” said Lord Kemms, “they only turned so as to make sure of who we were—excuse me for a moment, but I want to speak to Mr. Dudley;” and his lordship shouted out a greeting to the Squire, who, standing on his dignity, only raised his hat in acknowledgment, and resumed his conversation with Mr. Black.
But Lord Kemms was not a man to be so easily diverted from his purpose. Backing his horse to the other side of the road, he put him at the ditch, and next moment was cantering across the field towards his neighbour.
“Don’t bring an action for trespass against me, Mr. Dudley,” he said, laughing; “you are so hard to catch, I could not resist the opportunity of speaking to you about that filly your brother was training. Do you really wish to keep her? she is exactly what I want for my niece.”
With his hands buried in his pockets, Squire Dudley stood silent, looking at the mane of Lord Kemms’ Black Knight.
Truth was, brought face to face with this would-be purchaser, he did not know exactly what answer to make.
“If you really mean to keep her,” proceeded Lord Kemms, growing a little hot and uncomfortable, “of course I can only apologise for my mistake; but the fact is, I heard you were going to sell her, and—and—being neighbours, and so forth, I thought you might as well sell her to me as to anybody else.”
Still Arthur did not speak—and there is no knowing when he would have spoken to the purpose, had not Mr. Black rushed in with—
“I suppose it resolves itself into a money question, my lord—of course I know nothing about the horse or the offer, but my experience is that everything is a money question now-a-days.”
“If that be the case—” began Lord Kemms, good humouredly—but Arthur cut across his sentence:
“It is not so with me,” he said, deliberately turning his back on Mr. Black, so as to cut him out of the conversation; “it is not so with me. For the sake of a few pounds, I would not haggle and bargain with any man—more especially your lordship. I did intend to keep the filly—not exactly for my own riding, but because I thought, and think still, she would be worth three times over what you offered me in another twelve months; but I have changed my mind about the matter, and, if you like to have her on the terms you offered before, I will send her over to the Park to-night. She is fit for any light weight to ride; my brother can break a horse better than anyone I know.”
Arthur spoke rapidly: there was a look in his face, and a decision about his manner, Lord Kemms had never noticed before; but then, to be sure, his opportunities of witnessing the Squire’s moods had been few and far between.
From the Squire it was natural Lord Kemms’ glance should wander to Mr. Black, and written on that gentleman’s expressive countenance, the peer read such intense disgust at Arthur’s folly, that he could scarcely refrain from laughing.
“Thank you, Mr. Dudley,” he said, gathering up his reins and stroking the Black Knight’s neck as he spoke; “thank you very much. I shall be very proud of Nellie, and think her a great addition to my stud—she is a perfect beauty!”
“I would not sell her to you, if I did not believe her to be every bit as good as she looks,” answered the Squire.
“Of that I am certain,” was the reply; and Lord Kemms held out his hand to Arthur,—a courtesy which he did not think it necessary to extend to Mr. Black.
“Then you will send her over this evening?” were his last words, as, with a farewell nod to Mr. Black, he galloped across the field to rejoin Mr. Raidsford, whose horse had been regaling itself at the expense of Mr. Dudley’s thorn-hedge during the time occupied by the preceding conversation.
“Well, it is no wonder you are a poor man, Dudley,” remarked Mr. Black, the moment Lord Kemms was out of earshot; “he would have given you fifty guineas more for that Nellie creature, as easily as fifty pence.”
“I am not a horse-dealer,” returned the Squire, coldly. “And have you not secured what you wanted? You said a hundred pounds would be sufficient to commence your advertising; you have got your hundred pounds, and Nellie is gone.”
“You speak as if you regretted her,” said Mr. Black.
“Whether I do or not is my concern,” was the reply.
“Of course; only, if you do regret her, say the word, and I will go to Runcorn. He would take it up, pretty sharp, I can tell you; only, as I explained, those fellows always want the biggest share for themselves.”
“I have sold the mare, and there’s an end of it,” answered Arthur, resuming his walk up and down the meadow.
“There’s the beginning of it,” was Mr. Raidsford’s somewhat different comment when Lord Kemms told him the result of the interview. “Your cheque will be passed through Mr. Black’s bank before the week is over. Well, I am heartily sorry for Dudley. Even from this simple transaction it is easy to see what the result will prove. A man like that stands no chance with Mr. Peter Black.”
“You were telling me Mr. Black’s history,” suggested Lord Kemms. “We left him in Clerkenwell, on his own account, and not above his business.”
“Your lordship must kindly excuse my City slang,” answered Mr. Raidsford.
“On the contrary—excuse me—or rather let me assure you my quotations were intended as complimentary, not satirical. Your story interests me immensely. I wish I could relate a man’s biography as well.”
“Although he stuck to his business,” proceeded Mr. Raidsford, without directly replying to his companion’s gracious remark, “he fell into difficulties; perhaps, because he did not stick to it solely, but served himself precisely as he had served his employers. Speculated; tried to attend to two things at once, and, as is usual in such cases, neither answered. Then he failed, and passed through the Court.”
“The Bankruptcy Court, do you mean?” inquired Lord Kemms.
“No, the Insolvent,” was the reply. He has been through them both more than once. I was in with him the first time for about a couple of hundreds, and I remember the estate paid a shilling in the pound. I have never lost much by him since, however.
“After this whitewashing, he began the world again as clerk to a wine-merchant, in Devonshire Square. While he was in that employment, he met with some man who had a few hundreds, and the pair went into partnership. For a time everything progressed swimmingly, but at last they failed and passed through the Bankruptcy Court, creditably enough, if I recollect rightly.
“Mr. Black next turned up in an alley off Cornhill, as agent for Messrs. Murphy and Hatchford’s celebrated Epping ales. You might think a man who was merely an agent could not well contract business debts; but Mr. Black proved the contrary, and although Messrs. Murphy and Hatchford paid, as it afterwards turned out, rent, taxes, wages, and advertising expenses, Mr. Black made a thorough smash, and was whitewashed again.
“After that, things went very badly with him for a long time. Sometimes he used to do me the favour of calling at my office and borrowing small sums of money; and, indeed, I did feel sorry for the fellow in those days, for it seemed as though luck and he had bidden good-bye for ever. He wanted me to give him a berth, but I did not think he was exactly the kind of person I required, and told him so as delicately as I could.
“‘If you would only take me for a month,’ he said; ‘I could get a situation from you.’
“Instead of doing that I gave him a sovereign, and heard no more of his prospects for a considerable time. Occasionally I saw him in the street, looking very seedy and ill-fed, but he never came to my place of business. During that lull I have reason to believe he travelled for a lead-pencil manufacturer, held a situation in a tract repository, was collector to some charitable institution, started a suburban newspaper (all the original matter in which he wrote himself), and had a commission from some glass-house on all the orders he could bring in. Suddenly he fell out of my observation altogether, and for full two years I never even met him in the street. I thought he was dead, in fact, when one day, happening to call about some business at an office in Alderman’s Walk, I met Mr. Black on the staircase, well-dressed, plump as a partridge, fluent and self-sufficient as ever. He was kind enough to stop and speak to me,” went on Mr. Raidsford, with an amused smile, “and to tell me he was doing well, remarkably well, indeed. He added, also, he was glad to hear I had got some good contracts, and assured me I possessed his best wishes for my welfare. He said he had fallen into a capital concern, and was managing partner for Hume, Holme, Draycott, and Co.
“Further, without the slightest solicitation on my part,—indeed, without the slightest desire for the information,—he confided to me the fact that he was going to be married to a daughter of Alderman Cuthbert.
“‘Good City connection,’ he added, with a wink, ‘and likelihood of money. If you are ever passing my way, come in and smoke a cigar, will you?’ I never inquired which way his might be, but I said I would, and so we parted. I had a curiosity to know who Hume, Holme, Draycott, and Co. were, and accordingly I discovered that there was no Hume in the firm, and no Holme; no Draycott, and no Company, except Mr. Black, who was, indeed, managing and principal partner, and everything, in the concern.
“Then I lost sight of him again; but it is a curious fact about London, at least, about the City, that in it one never is able to lose sight of any person for ever. A man new to London might feel inclined to doubt this fact, but it is perfectly true, I assure you. People seem to move in circles which always bring them back to some given spot. Even the re-appearance of comets like Mr. Black, that one might imagine were governed by no certain law, may safely be predicted, and accordingly I heard of him again. His name came to me in the ordinary way of trade as acceptor of a bill that was offered to me in payment of an account, which bill I refused. Where Hume, Holme, and Draycott had vanished to I never could ascertain; but on that bill he came to me in his own proper identity.
“Soon afterwards he failed once more. I declare when I talk of Peter Black it seems to me he must have been fifty men instead of one.
“Before long, I discovered him managing a small house property for a man in the City, who was in the habit of purchasing on short repairing leases.
“I will not trouble your lordship with the roguery Mr. Black became acquainted with in that employment. The school was a very bad one, and Mr. Black a very apt pupil.
“‘It is not what I like, you know,’ he said to me, ‘but it is a stepping-stone,’ which opinion proved to be correct, for he stepped from that into the office of a man who had made a fortune by speculating in railway shares. There he would have acquired great experience; but his principal falling into difficulties, Mr. Black was adrift once more.”
“I never heard such a history,” remarked Lord Kemms; “what indomitable energy the man must have had!”
“True,” was the reply; “and yet I do not know whether the man who works hard in some one business day after day, week after week, year after year, have not a greater share of what I should call indomitable energy than Mr. Black. I am not thinking of myself now,” added Mr. Raidsford, noticing his companion smile, “because, of course, there was plenty of variety in my life, and, though I stuck close to one trade, plenty of variety too; but I was thinking of lots of hard-working men I know who come into the City every day, and see the same people, and do the same work, and go the same rounds, and cheerfully, and by dint of very perseverance, finally conquer fortune; or, at least, earn a competence,” which last clause came apparently as an after-thought. “In a life like Mr. Black’s, the excitement of the game is almost recompense enough for a man. It is not legitimate work, you know; it is commercial pitch and toss; it is Cockney rouge et noir; it is gambling of the worst kind—gambling when the player has everything to gain and nothing to risk. It is the old story, ‘heads I win, tails you lose.’ That is Mr. Black’s system of betting, at all events.”
Lord Kemms laughed. “And yet,” he said, “even if a man be riding a borrowed horse, we cannot help a certain admiration in seeing him take dangerous leaps. Of course, the life of a trader, who goes round and round on a business treadmill, is more useful, and decidedly more monotonous; but you cannot expect him to command our interest, however much he may deserve our respect. As for Mr. Black, I own I am charmed with him. If I am not unreasonable, I should like to hear more.”
“Once again,” resumed Mr. Raidsford, thus entreated, “there is a blank in my knowledge of his history. He referred two or three people to me for his character, and for his means of paying house-rent, which I considered a liberty, but still, unwilling to injure the man, said what I could in his favour. He never came near me himself, however; and I subsequently discovered that he used one of the offices, which my representation enabled him to enter, for one of the many shilling swindles, with which, I fear, he was afterwards connected. Of course I got into trouble through my recommendation, and since that time I have dropped all acquaintance with Mr. Peter Black.”
“I do not quite understand what you mean by shilling swindles,” said Lord Kemms.
“You must have seen those advertisements to ‘ladies of reduced incomes,’ to ‘persons in search of employment,’ to ‘persons of limited incomes,’ how to ‘secure a fortune,’ ‘for twelve postage-stamps a certain income may be secured!’ To that—to common trickery—Mr. Black descended; but not alone, remember, my lord. He was connected with one of the cleverest and most, plausible swindles that I can remember ever having been attempted on a small scale, and his partners in it were men in your own rank of life—noblemen and gentlemen—or, at least, honourables and baronets. These highly-principled individuals were not above taking the money of foolish women and inexperienced men; they sold their names, and, when written to on the subject, said they believed the secretary to be a man of the highest standing and principle.
“Doubtless they were but the black sheep of your order; but, when there are black sheep in that order, it behoves you, and such as you, my lord, to be careful.”
“What was this swindle?” asked the owner of Kemms Park.
“It was one in which all the tickets sold were to draw prizes,” was the reply; “in which shares were regularly issued, and prospectuses carefully drawn up and freely forwarded; in which samples of goods were sent to agents on deposit of two pounds; in which the hopes of fortune held out were so great, that money poured in from the provinces like water, and would have continued to pour in but for a smashing article on the subject, which appeared in a respectable journal. That proved a death-blow to the scheme, and the reputable little lot had to close their concern, and adopt some other means of subsistence. What the others did I am unable to say: one appeared in the Bankruptcy Court, but that was some time afterwards.
“To Mr. Peter Black, however, ‘Limited Liability,’ in which the concern I have mentioned was his first venture, appeared in the very nick of time.
“He had tried his hand at most other trades; why not at the promotion of large companies?
“The shilling swindles, the wonderful City fraud, were but introductions to this mightier arena, and the first time, after years, when I met Mr. Black again, was when I saw him in splendid offices in Cannon Street, sipping Madeira, and issuing his orders as though poverty and he had never been even on speaking terms. I am not easily surprised, but I confess those offices and Mr. Peter Black himself astonished me.
“There was not a thing under heaven in those days that could not be formed into a company, and accordingly Mr. Black was secretary to a Limited Liability for supplying England and the world with hermetically-sealed soups made from the flesh of South American oxen.”
Here Lord Kemms laughed outright.
“There was nothing impossible about the matter,” said Mr. Raidsford, quietly. “I’ll be bound, if any man liked to go in single-handed for a project of the kind to-morrow, he could compass it—ay, and make money out of it too; but what a man may do, a company cannot do, and accordingly the soup never came from South America, and the bullocks Mr. Black represented in his reports as slain and in the English market may, for aught I know, be still roaming over the prairies.”
“And after that company collapsed?” inquired his lordship.
“Why, since that, Mr. Black has been sometimes up and sometimes down—sometimes living in retirement with his banking account drawn down to two and three half-pence; and again, giving grand dinners and living utterly regardless of expense. He is in the latter state at present—has a house in Stanley Crescent, servants in livery; dinners from Gunter’s; Mrs. Black “receives” on Tuesdays; Mr. Black asks great people to dinner any day in the week that suits his purpose. He has three separate banking accounts—he is promoting four different companies; he has offices in Cannon Street, Broad Street, and George Street, Westminster. He has an efficient staff of clerks—he has got, it is said, a couple of first-rate backers; he has all his past experience to guide him safely through the quagmires of limited liability; and, in short, if Mr. Black do not now make his fortune, he never will. My own opinion is, he never will; but that, of necessity, is merely an opinion.”
“And suppose Squire Dudley embark with him?” asked Lord Kemms.
“Squire Dudley will never come back to land,” was the significant reply; after which the pair rode on in silence.
At Mr. Raidsford’s gates they parted company.
“I shall see you again this evening, you know,” said my lord, waving his hand as he struck his horse’s flank and galloped off.
Mr. Raidsford looked after the retreating figure of his companion for a minute before entering his own gates, then he passed into his domain and rode slowly up the avenue, thinking as he rode.
“I wonder how he will decide?” was the burden of his mental discourse; “but I shall learn this evening.”
Now the reason he said so was, that Lord Kemms had promised to come over and dine with him tête-à-tête—the ladies of Mr. Raidsford’s family being absent.