Far above rubies (Vol. 2 of 3)

Amidst the anxieties of making salads, the desire to convert Heather from the evils and dangers of English cookery, skirmishes with Mrs. Ormson, criticisms on Bessie, and the personal enjoyment of such luxuries as ripe fruit, coffee of her own manufacture, chocolate and claret ad libitum, Miss Hope by no means forgot Mr. Black’s commercial scheme, and the efforts she felt confident he was making to induce Arthur to embark in it with him.

A woman sharp and clever enough in her generation, she was yet no match, either in sharpness or cleverness, for Mr. Black. If she knew a few things about him, he “was up,” so he phrased it, “to two or three of her moves,” and could turn the tables on her, when she tried his temper, as is often the wise fashion of her sex, a little too much.

The very first morning she opened fire upon him, the promoter informed Arthur, he “knew what the old lady was up to.”

This was the peculiarly diplomatic manner in which Miss Hope, finding that Heather inclined to do nothing, commenced her operations.

The time was breakfast; scene, the dining-room at Berrie Down, with all the windows open; actors, Miss Hope and Mr. Black: interested spectators, the family and visitors generally.

“Pray,” began the spinster, coquetting, as she spoke, with a peach which might have been grown in Eden, it looked so fresh and tempting; “pray, Mr. Black, can you tell me of a good investment for a small sum of money?”

Across the table Mr. Black looked at her, with a merry twinkle in his eyes; then he answered,—

“Yes, the Three per Cents.”

“But my friend would not be satisfied with three per cent.,” said Miss Hope.

“A mortgage, or some good freehold estate, might suit her then,” suggested Mr. Black.

“I did not say it was a lady, so far as I am aware,” remarked Miss Hope.

“No; but I concluded no man would ask a lady friend to make such inquiries for him,” explained her antagonist. “She might get four, or even four and a half, and still be safe enough.”

“But what is four and a half?” observed Miss Hope.

“Four pounds ten shillings per cent. per annum,” answered Mr. Black, at which reply Arthur laughed.

“You won’t make much of him, aunt,” he said; “you cannot get him to advise an unsafe investment.”

For a moment Miss Hope turned towards her nephew, evidently meditating an attack on him. Changing her mind, however, she addressed herself to Mr. Black once more.

“But there is more surely than four and a half per cent. to be had now-a-days, is there not; in some of those great companies, for instance?”

“All swindles, ma’am,” declared the promoter. “Should not advise you, or at least your friend, to have anything to do with them. In the companies that are bona fide, all the shares are snapped up before the project is well before the public. Whenever you hear of shares going a-begging, depend upon it the whole concern is rotten.”

“You are an authority in such matters?” she suggested.

“Not a better authority than Miss Hope,” replied Mr. Black, gallantly.

“What do you mean; do you think I know anything about investments?” she asked.

“I have heard that either you or some friend of yours does,” he answered. “I have heard of very good ventures you have made,—of shares sold in the nick of time, and bought wisely, and at a very low figure.”

“I assure you, Mr. Black, you have been misinformed,” said the spinster, eagerly; “all my money is sunk in a life annuity.”

“Which, no doubt, ma’am, you purchased on as favourable terms as those shares in the Great Britain and Ireland Canal Company.”

“Then you had to do with that!” exclaimed Miss Hope, setting down her claret-glass with most unladylike vehemence, and looking at the promoter as though he were a culprit caught in the very act. “I always thought that was one of your schemes; but never felt sure of it till now.”

“It is not wise to be too sure of anything,” Mr. Black answered. “I had nothing, as it happened, to do with the Great Britain and Ireland Canal Company. If I had, perhaps you might not have lost by your shares; but a man I know, a confoundedly clever fellow, got rid of his the day before the smash came, and it was he who told me you had got your fingers burnt. Your friend, Mr. Pembroke, did not advise you with his customary caution there, Miss Hope.”

“Mr. Pembroke had nothing to do with the matter,” said Miss Hope, angrily; “and how you happen to be so well acquainted with my private affairs is a mystery to me. I do not consider such prying gentlemanly. I do not know what may be thought of such conduct among business people, Mr. Black, but in a different circle——”

“I thought it was of business we were talking,” interrupted the promoter, “of affairs which were strictly commercial! The moment any one goes on the market, Miss Hope, either personally or by deputy, that moment he or she becomes public property. I never pretended to be a gentleman; but I do not think I would go prying into my neighbour’s secret concerns for all that, any more than you would do,” he added, significantly.

Almost involuntarily Heather’s eyes sought Miss Hope’s face at this statement, and under Mrs. Dudley’s look the spinster turned redder even than she had done at the conclusion of Mr. Black’s speech.

“I am perfectly incapable of impertinent or undue meddling in any person’s concerns,” she said. “Thank God, curiosity is a feeling that I was born without.”

“Then you ought to be sent to the South Kensington Museum,” remarked Mr. Black.

“Don’t you think, aunt, that is going a little too far?” inquired Arthur.

“Miss Hope only meant that she had no curiosity about indifferent subjects,” put in Mrs. Black, as usual making matters worse by trying to mend them.

“Miss Hope meant no such thing,” snapped that lady. “I meant precisely what I said; that I have no curiosity, and that I never had any.”

“Not even to see unfinished pictures and statues in course of chiselling,” suggested Mrs. Ormson.

“I do not think Miss Hope has any undue curiosity,” said Heather; “at least, I know she has not nearly so much as I. It interests me to know the name, and occupation, and worldly means, even, of Dora Scrotter’s lover down at the mill. In the country one learns to be inquisitive about one’s neighbours. There is so little excitement or amusement, that every piece of gossip is seized on eagerly.”

“You dear Heather, as if you were a gossip!” exclaimed Bessie.

“That is just what I say about the country,” remarked Mr. Black; “life stagnates here; you should come to London, Mrs. Dudley; come and bring the girls, and we will take you about. There are lots of rooms in Stanley Crescent crying out for some one to come and occupy them. Persuade your husband to give himself a holiday whenever the crops are in; you have never paid us a visit yet, and I call it mean.”

“We should be only too delighted if you would come,” murmured Mrs. Black.

“Well, all I can say is,” remarked Miss Hope, “that if I had such a place as Berrie Down, I would never leave it.”

“Not even to go abroad?” asked Mrs. Ormson.

“Not even to go abroad,” answered Miss Hope, deliberately—an assertion which took every one so much by surprise, that no person disputed its truthfulness; not even Arthur, who, feeling his aunt’s words were intended as a useful moral lesson for him, longed to argue the matter out with her, and say he should go to London, or stay at Berrie Down, or take a still longer journey if it pleased him to do so, without consulting any one in the matter.

“You would like greatly to have my nephew staying in Stanley Crescent?” Miss Hope said to Mrs. Black later on in the course of the same day.

“I should greatly,” answered the promoter, and thus war was declared between them; and from that day forth Miss Hope began unintentionally playing into her enemy’s hands.

“Take care what you are about with that man, Arthur,” she entreated.

“My dear aunt, I am much obliged to you for your kindness, but I believe I can manage my own affairs,” he returned.

“Heather, you must speak to Arthur,” she then declared; “if you do not speak, you will one day repent your weakness.”

“But I am afraid of vexing him,” Mrs. Dudley objected.

“Vex, nonsense; better vex him than lose every sixpence you have in the world.”

“Do you think my speaking likely to do any good?”

“It cannot do any harm;” and thus exhorted, Heather inquired,—

“Have you any intention, Arthur, of—of going into business?”

“Business,” he repeated; “what in the world put such an idea as that into your mind?”

“You and Mr. Black are always talking together.”

“And you object to our talking?”

“No; only I love Berrie Down, Arthur.”

“Which my aunt thinks I am in danger of losing; is that it, Heather? No, I won’t lose Berrie Down, nor beggar you and the children. Does that content you?”

“Yes, Arthur;” and she put her arm round his neck, and kissed him; and he, in return, kissed her, grateful, perhaps, for a wife whom so little confidence satisfied, or at least silenced; and who was as grateful for a kind word, for a loving look, as many a woman for the devotion of a life.

In those days, Arthur Dudley was a much more agreeable individual than he had seemed for many a year previously.

He was gayer, brighter, kindlier. He refrained from grumbling, and ceased to recite the benefits he had conferred upon his family.

There had come a summer to his winter, and in the bright sunshine all the good plants that were formerly hidden under the snows of adversity, put forth and blossomed into flower.

For such a change, could Heather be otherwise than thankful? Did not every creature about the house—every man, woman, and child, and even the very dumb animals—feel happier and better because the head of the family, believing fortune was coming towards him, looked out over the world with different eyes, and thought there was at last good to be found in it?

The labourers worked more willingly; the very cattle seemed to thrive better; the dogs, forgivingly forgetful that their master had been wont to repulse their demonstrations of affections with an angry, “Get off, will you!” came bounding towards him over the meadows and across the yard. They were so pleased with the notice he took of them in those days, that they lost their heads and made themselves perfectly ridiculous with their rejoicings and gambolings. They rolled each other over on the grass, and barked and worried each his companion in the friendliest manner possible. When Arthur entered the room, Muff, Lally’s dearly beloved and much-enduring kitten, now kept her position, instead of walking off gravely shaking her hind legs at him as she went. He had been wont to kick her also out of the way, but now he did not disdain to look when Bessie held the saucer of milk for which she had taught Muff to beg.

Even Jinny, the ill-conditioned goat, came in for her share of the universal sunshine; while as for Heather, she basked in it. Had it not been for Miss Hope’s eternal warnings, she would have forgotten her anxieties; ay, even the unpromising page of her own life which had been suddenly opened for her inspection.

Arthur was happy; and she is but a poor wife to whom the sight of her husband’s happiness does not bring rejoicing also! As for Lally, a new leaf in her book also was turned over. One day she came in to her mother—hot, breathless, excited—exclaiming, “Lally’s been to the mill, and Mr. Scrotter gave her two—beau—ful bantams!”

“Who went with you to the mill, my pet?” asked Heather; little expecting, however, to hear Lally say in reply,—

“Pa tooked me; and pa says, when Lally’s a big girl she shall have a nicer pony than Jack to ride, and that he’ll go out with her. Pa says it!” and Lally stood and looked at her mother as though expecting Heather to make an immediate memorandum of these remarkable words.

Ah! Heaven, how the poor Squire built his castles and furnished them in that glorious summer weather; in what a fairy edifice he lived; through what rose-coloured glass he surveyed his future life! How different everything looked; how changed he felt; how swiftly the stream of his existence flowed by! He was galloping on to fortune, and he never thought of the chance of fall or accident by the way. He believed in his steed, and the idea of stumbling or breaking down never occurred to him. He was in for it now; he had—as Mr. Black said to himself at the conclusion of their first actual conversation on the subject—“tasted blood;” and till the game was hunted down, Arthur was never likely to look back.

Besides, there was such perpetual excitement about the matter. Letters arrived, letters were answered, advertisements were drawn up, a prospectus had to be written. Post time became a longed-for hour at Berrie Down.

There was something to do, something to expect; the monotony of that country existence was broken up. Life at the Hollow, all at once, ceased to be mere vegetation. For himself the Squire never could have made an object and a purpose; but here, constantly at his right hand, was a man full of energy and expedients—a man who had confidence both in himself and in his project; who, pulling away with might and main towards opulence and success, was kind enough to take Arthur Dudley as a passenger in the same boat, and amuse him, as they rowed along, with descriptions of that fair land whither they were journeying.

Many a wiser person than Arthur Dudley has been led away by much more delusive prospects of fortune than those concerning which Mr. Black waxed daily more and more eloquent.

Besides, the mere fact of having anything actually to do—“anything to get up for,” so Mr. Black put the matter—proved an agreeable variety to the Squire.

He was not yet old enough to prefer repose to action, to dislike change, to distrust novelties; and there can be no question but that the brisk confidence of Mr. Black’s ideas—the sharp decision of Mr. Black’s manner, seemed a pleasant variety to a man who had for years and years been droning through life, wandering over the fields with his hands in his pockets, grumbling at his labourers, lamenting concerning his inferior crops, and his cattle that would not grow beef fast enough.

Other trifles also conspired to gratify him at this time; such trifles as a man must have lived very quietly and very economically even to notice. But then it was many a long day since Arthur had lived otherwise than quietly and economically, and for that reason one or two journeys taken to town about this period with Mr. Black—when the pair went about London regardless of expense, rushed from one end of town to the other in hansoms, kept cabs waiting for them without a thought of the ultimate cost; tipped footmen, porters, watermen; took trains from all parts of London for all suburbs and country districts that could be mentioned; treated subordinates to wonderful luncheons, or else had them up for dinner to Stanley Crescent, and went with them afterwards to the play—made a curious impression on the mind of a man who had hitherto looked conscientiously at a sovereign before spending it; who had almost ever since he left college travelled second-class, affected omnibuses, shunned staying in great houses on account of needful gratuities, and generally pinched himself as much as an honest gentleman, left but with a small property and many incumbrances, was likely to do.

Of course, this recital of scraping, careful, unexciting poverty must prove as wearisome and unendurable in a book as the reality does, when your neighbour (a person to be shunned) says he has to count his sixpences carefully and walk to the station for the sake of his family. The least said is soonest mended in such cases, no doubt; and the terrible economics poor Squire Dudley had been guilty of are now reluctantly named only to render intelligible the reason why rattling about London, in company with Mr. Black, seemed to him pleasant by contrast.

To be sure—and this is really the singular part of the business—what was spent came out of Arthur’s pocket. Various heads of cattle speedily followed Nellie, and the money they yielded was distributed by Mr. Black with no niggardly hand.

He knew the means by which to float a company; he believed that the way to every man’s heart was through the palm of his right hand.

Mesmerism, he said, was a round-about way of putting yourself en rapport with any one, in comparison to slipping a sovereign between his fingers.

Further, to get up other people’s steam, it is necessary, first, to raise your own; and Mr. Black held, and held truly, that there is no easier way of doing this than to rush from office to office, from station to bank, from bank to private house, all at express speed.

“This is how we live,” he was wont to say to Arthur Dudley; and, on the whole, the Squire thought such a way of living far from disagreeable.

They did not ask or want money from anyone, I pray you recollect. The great ship was still on the stocks; there had not occurred a single hitch in the business; it was all fair weather work, so far, at least, as Arthur could see; all like ordering goods and writing cheques; giving employment and paying cash; and it never occurred to the Squire that there could be another side to the picture; that sometimes business assumed the form of selling goods, and asking for payment. He was but a novice, and believed implicitly their ship would glide smoothly into the water; that she would carry a good cargo; that the profits on her freight would be enormous; that the passengers would all have a fair voyage, and agree well by the way; that there would be plenty, and to spare, for everybody; and that he should never have any harder work to do than running up to town with Mr. Black, and holding interviews with all sorts and conditions of men.

They saw printers and got estimates; they ticked off the best advertising media in “Mitchell’s Newspaper Guide;” they looked at offices in the City, they had long and confidential discourses with auctioneers and house-agents; they drove to Stangate and went over the mills, which were in full work, and in and out of which went and came men covered with flour, and of a generally white and dusty appearance; they dined at Wandsworth with Mr. Bailey Crossenham, and at Sydenham with Mr. Robert Crossenham.

They netted their thousands and their tens of thousands easily enough, after the ladies left the room, over wine which could not have been better. Capital, the Messrs. Crossenham agreed, was all that any business needed to ensure success. They made fortunes by the aid of pen and ink. Hundreds of tons of wheat—millions upon millions of loaves; the merest gains, the slightest margin of profit, swelled up to something almost incredible per annum. The Messrs. Crossenham were in the highest spirits about the new undertaking; but then certainly one fact concerning those worthy brothers must be borne in mind, namely, that they had been tottering on the very verge of bankruptcy when Mr. Black rushed to the rescue. This, which of course remained a secret amongst the trio, accounted for much that even in those early days puzzled Arthur Dudley—as, for instance, the intense respect wherewith these apparently well-to-do men treated Mr. Peter Black; the deference they paid to his opinions; the readiness with which they fell into all his views; the rapidity with which they seized and acted on his suggestions. There was not that independence of manner about the brothers which Arthur considered their means and position might have warranted them in assuming; but the conclusion he drew from all this was that, clever as he thought Mr. Black to be, people who ought to know much more about the promoter than it was possible for him to do, thought him cleverer still; and, had anything been wanting to increase Squire Dudley’s confidence in his leader, the manner in which that individual was treated by those with whom they came into actual contact, must have raised Mr. Black considerably in his kinsman’s esteem.

To the men amongst whom they mixed freely, the promoter, in fact, stood precisely in the same enviable position as that dog who has got a good bone, down to other curs.

With a certain envious deference they followed him, hoping to get a portion of the spoil, or the reversion, perhaps, of the bone itself, should Mr. Black by any accident drop it; whilst as for Arthur, the promoter had told and hinted such falsehoods concerning his position, his wealth, his tremendous pluck, his untiring energy, his determination to make the “Protector” a success, that the Squire was welcomed in the City with open arms, and became all of a sudden a person of consequence.

“Lord Kemms walks in and out of his house just as I might do in and out of yours,” remarked Mr. Black, with calm impertinence, to a man who, though worth a hundred thousand pounds, and the owner of a fine place twenty miles from town, had utterly failed in all his attempts to get grander people to dine with him than Miller, a tallow-chandler, who dropped his Hs, and then following the universal law of compensation picked them up, and stuck them in where they had no business to make their appearance; who was for ever inverting his personal pronouns, and vexing the soul of the rich man’s daughter with reminiscences which, though possibly faithful, were by no means pleasant to hear related in the presence of a limp young curate the lady hoped to fascinate.

It would have amazed Arthur to know that any human being held him in high esteem, because a lord was, truly or untruly, reported to be running loose about his house; and it might have annoyed him still more to know that the cool insolence of Mr. Black’s words brought the man who was worth a “plum” on to the direction, where certainly no politeness or entreaty on the part of the promoter could have compassed such an end.

Behind the scenes Squire Dudley was never, however, permitted to peep. He saw the play go on, and was fascinated by its variety, its excitement, its rapid dialogue, its sunshiny hopefulness. How it was really got up, he had not a suspicion. That it was all tinsel and paint, and hollowness and sham, he had not a ghost of an idea.

It made a good show, and promised fair to draw a full house. Was not that the only thing which concerned him? Mr. Black was of this opinion, at any rate, and took very good care he should see none of the dirty work in course of execution. The unpleasantnesses and difficulties, present and to come, were all kept studiously out of view. The king was never beheld without crown and sceptre; if the queen ate bread and honey, it was partaken of with locked doors, and in a decorous privacy.

No fairy met Arthur’s view destitute of gauze; unadorned with spangles, rouge, and pearl powder. The back of the canvas had no existence for him. If disagreeable letters arrived, Mr. Black did not show them to his coadjutor, but stated generally these private epistles concerned his other ventures. If a man’s consent were doubtful, the promoter saw him first alone. On insecure ground he knew better than to let Arthur step; and if the Squire returned to his country home, thinking the new company had hitherto not met with a check, who can feel surprised?

Whenever there was the faintest chance of a gale, his clever captain got him into the cabin, and kept him there till the storm had blown by, or the danger was over.

He saw the life and the fun of the voyage, but none of the peril; and so he went back to Berrie Down brighter and more cheerful than ever, and Heather seeing him happy could not brace up her courage for the explanation Miss Hope assured her was essential, if she would save herself and the children from beggary.

Perhaps the part of the business which Arthur enjoyed most was that of assisting to write the prospectus.

On that document, Mr. Black asserted, hung the fate of the “Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited,” and the mutual talents of Arthur Dudley and Peter Black, Esquires, were employed for one entire fortnight in writing, correcting, and revising the production which ultimately went forth to the world, like many another great and good work, anonymously.

“It may seem an easy thing to write a prospectus,” remarked Mr. Black. “The fellows that do histories, and novels, and newspaper articles, I dare say imagine there can be no trouble about drawing up an attractive advertisement; but let one of them try to do it—that is all I say. Why, a prospectus combines within itself every literary difficulty you could mention: it has to be got up to suit the tastes of all readers; it must contain something to tickle the palate of each man and woman who looks at it. Who is to check history, and say whether it is right or wrong? but any fool can check statistics. I had a hack once, who used to do some of this kind of work for me, and he said it was all very fine for Macaulay and Alison, who could write just what they liked, and were not compelled to stick to facts, which are such stubborn things there is sometimes no dressing them up attractively or even decently; but he declared there was a heap of dry bones flung to us, and we have to compose out of those promising materials brilliant pictures, exciting romances, perfect blue-hooks full of sound statistical information. And what he said was true. Our style must be at once brief and persuasive. We must be eloquent in order to draw shareholders, and yet mindful that each word costs money. We must say nothing we are not prepared to verify. We must be as well up in grammar as in the price of shares. We must not slander our neighbour, nor unduly exalt ourselves; and yet we are bound to show that, since the beginning of time, the heart of man never imagined, and the brain of man never conceived, such a project as that which we have the honour of submitting to the consideration of the intelligent and discriminating British public.”

“You should write a pamphlet on the subject,” suggested Arthur, laughing.

“I wish I could—I wish I dare. It would be a comfort and a satisfaction to me to tell that same enlightened British public what I think of its sense. Upon my honour, Dudley, the worse your company is, the easier it is to write a prospectus about it. If you only want to float a thing, not to carry it through, why, you can say whatever you please about the matter, and the more you say the better the shares sell.”

“And why do you not put down whatever you please about the ‘Protector’?” asked his companion.

“Just because it is bona fide—because I must stick to facts and figures—figures that will satisfy not country simpletons, and ambitious widows, and discontented governesses, but sound commercial men. It is a serious matter, my friend, and must be wisely concocted and wisely executed. That is why I put in merely a preliminary advertisement hitherto. I knew the grand coup would require both time and thought. We must have a little of the moral, the philanthropic, the hygienic, the scientific, the statistical, and the profitable; and we ought to put a Latin quotation at the top: it will look classical, and complimentary to the attainments of the people to whom it is addressed. Greek might be better, or Hebrew; but I suppose you do not understand Hebrew?”

To which accusation Arthur pleading guilty, Mr. Black urged upon him the immediate necessity of “rubbing up” his Latin, and finding an appropriate heading for the prospectus.

“We shall want one to go round the stamp also,” proceeded the promoter; “but that is not immediately required. Yes, it is, though,” he added, “for I must mention the stamp at the end of the prospectus. Now, Dudley, look alive; if I do the composing, the compiling, and the inventing, surely I may depend on you for the Latin and correct English!”

After fourteen years, the Squire’s classical education had the dust thus brushed off it, in order to furnish a plausible swindler with a couple of Latin mottoes.

For twice seven years he had kept this thing by him, that it might serve Mr. Black’s turn at last.

“Dudley’s!” said that individual, in frank explanation to his City friends. “Devilish neat and taking, ain’t it? Bring in the parsons; they’ll think the whole thing has been drawn up by some Oxford man, as the Latin was, for that matter, out of a well which has not had any water pumped from it for Heaven knows how long. If you have any suggestion to make on the subject make it, or else hereafter hold your tongues, for I am going to have the prospectus printed off to-morrow.”

“Could not be better!” answered his friends in chorus; and the programme of the “Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited,” was accordingly sent down to Harp Lane, where it was printed (on credit) by a protégé of Mr. Black’s, on a very superior satin paper, procured on credit likewise.

Next day after delivery, proof was duly forwarded, and the day afterwards the prospectus was returned—pressed, folded, multiplied a thousand-fold—to Peter Black, Esq., at the Temporary Offices of the Company, 220, Dowgate Hill. The bundle, containing programmes of the “Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited,” was flung down on the counter in the outer office of 220, Dowgate Hill, at five to five precisely, and, at three minutes to six, four hundred and twenty-five prospectuses were wrapped up, directed, stamped, and posted at the chief office, Lombard Street.

“She’s off the stocks at last, thank God!” said Mr. Black to Squire Dudley, who stood beside him; “she’s off the stocks and afloat!”