Far above rubies (Vol. 3 of 3)

All this time the affairs of the Protector were falling into a more hopeless state of confusion than ever.

No talk now of shares going up to a premium. If a man had offered a handful of them to a beggar in the street, they would scarcely have been accepted, excepting for pipe-lights. On the Stock Exchange, every person knew better than to touch them. The Company was given over by commercial doctors, and no one felt inclined to waste a guinea on propping it up. If trade would only take “a start,” the directors remarked; but then, unhappily, trade did nothing of the kind.

Within eighteen months of the promising child’s birth, one of the very objects for which Limited Companies are ostensibly established, namely, to provide such a capital as shall enable a certain number of traders to live through bad seasons, in the hope of better days coming—this object, I say, was utterly ignored.

To extend their business, the directors would not have hesitated to make a further call upon the shareholders; but to carry their business through a time of extreme commercial distress they refused to do anything of the kind. To have made a further voyage, Mr. Black told them, they would have crowded on all sail; but at sight of the first storm their seamanship proved useless, their courage failed them.

All in vain he and Mr. Stewart—united at last—moved and seconded various courageous resolutions; the other directors were cowardly, and refused to acquiesce. Mr. Black was twitted with the ill success of many of his bantlings; Mr. Stewart was reminded of the fact that his nephew had been the first to leave the ship.

“The very fust shares,” remarked Mr. Smithers, the great miller at Plaistow, worth Heaven only knew how much money, and likely, before he died, to be worth a few hundreds of thousands more—“the very fust shares as was sold out of this here Company below their aktual market value was the property of your nephew, Mr. Stewart—your own nephew, Mr. Aymescourt Croft.”

“Am I answerable for the misdeeds of my nephew?” Mr. Stewart inquired; whereupon Mr. Smithers declared he did not know; that perhaps, Mr. Croft had very good reasons for acting as he did, and that it might have been better for all parties concerned if “everybody had sold their shares,” when Lord Kemms repudiated the Protector. Let the argument commence where it would, it always ended in Lord Kemms—it always reverted to the fact that Mr. Black had used his name without authority, and that Mr. Stewart’s noble relative had been the first to damage the Company, as his nephew was the first to dispose of his shares.

The business men on the Direction attributed all the disasters of the Protector to having so many “nobs” on the Board; while the Sirs, and Generals, and gentlemen possessed of landed property conceived it was the City element which had militated against the success of their enterprise.

One singular fact in connection with this subject may here be noted, namely, that the men who had not paid for their shares at all, such, for example, as Mr. Smithers, General Sinclair, &c., were much more vehement concerning their disappointment than those who really held a large pecuniary stake in the Protector.

It is more difficult, perhaps, to bear with equanimity the loss of hope than the loss of money, and individuals who, like Arthur Dudley, had expected to realise fortunes out of nothing, were much more disheartened by the prospect of failure than persons who, having “paid their shilling, took their risk.”

This remark applies only, however, to the directors. The shareholders having, one and all, hoped to realize their ten or twenty, or fifty or a hundred per cent., were as virtuously indignant as those members of the Board who had sold their names for scrip. Speculators all—gamblers as much as the man who stakes his last guinea on a throw of the dice—they were yet neither to hold nor to bind when the speculation turned out ill, when the throw of the dice threatened to leave them minus the money they had invested!

Truth is, shareholders have so long been commiserated instead of blamed; so long represented as victims instead of wilful dupes, that when the crash does come, they are for ever airing their grievances and wearying the public with records of folly that have now grown sickening, by reason of constant repetition.

Any man who, in these days, chooses to invest his savings in business, whether on his own sole risk or in company with other adventurers, has no right to ask for pity if the project fail—if the boat sink. Ostensibly, he took his chance; if the result be unfavourable to his hopes, he has no right to claim either sympathy or help.

It is the greed of gain, the dislike of legitimate work, the desire for usurious interest, the weak senseless refusal to be guided by the experience of others, which bring misery to families as to individuals. If men are willing to listen to every pleasant tale, to believe any lie which is put on paper, to think that fortune will make an exception in their favour, cause the sun to stand still, and suspend all the ordinary laws of commerce for their benefit, they must take the consequences.

No legislation can protect fools against the results of their own folly; no government is bound to find brains for the governed. Shall we pity a man who is deceived by a thimblerigger, or fleeced by his chatty travelling acquaintance who, on the long northern journey, produces a pack of cards, and proposes a game merely to while away the time! And, in like manner, shall we, at this age of the world, pity those “clergymen and others,” without whose post-office orders and almost illegibly-signed cheques promoters and Limited Liability Companies would soon have to die a death of sheer inanition, and leave the commercial field open for honest labour—for legitimate competition.

When a tradesman exposes his flannels, and cotton prints, and stout calicos on the pavement, a magistrate is reluctant to convict even the practised thief who walks off with a convenient dress-length secreted under her shawl; and, in like manner, when at this time of the world, in spite of newspaper exposures, notwithstanding warning “leaders” and magazine articles, and the advice of those whose advice is really worth following, people will risk their money in speculative ventures, shall we be sorry for them? shall we, like Mr. Raidsford, sing a doleful lamentation over the mites of widows, and the tithes of clergymen; over the savings of governesses and the rents of country gentlemen; nay, rather shall we not say with Mr. Stewart, the mouse is the cat’s legitimate prey, let promoters devour that substance which is theirs by right.

There is an old saying, that a man is justified in doing what he likes with his own; and, if a dupe be the personal property of a rogue, why should the rogue not fleece him, even though such a proceeding be disagreeable to the dupe?

In business, the millionaire and the curate alike must take his chance, only the curate is never willing to do so; he never bears his pain in such dignified silence as was the case with Compton Raidsford, who, week after week, found that “pressure for money” of which he had spoken to Arthur Dudley, increase so much, that eventually he began to tremble for Moorlands—to believe that the business he had worked so hard to establish was tottering, and that, before long, he should have to place his books in the hands of Messrs. Byrne, Browne, Byrne, and Company, accountants, Old Jewry.

He could not understand it. Never in all his experience before had money been so difficult to get in—so necessary to pay. Houses that formerly would have trusted him to any amount now absolutely refused to draw upon him at four months. Cash with order was requested in some cases; and although, at first, Mr. Raidsford had treated such refusals and demands as mere signs of the times, he came before very long to the conclusion that somehow his credit had got damaged—that there was more than accident in the pecuniary pressure which ultimately threatened to crush him to the earth.

In his distress he had no other confidant than Lord Kemms—to no business man dare he have confided his difficulties.

“I am perfectly solvent,” he repeated over and over again. “My estate ought to pay 60s. in the pound any day; and yet now, if you believe me, my Lord, I find a difficulty in getting even a bill discounted. If I could only trace the origin of this universal distrust, I really should not despair; but as it is, I feel I am fighting in the dark. That there is something being urged against me I am satisfied, but what that something may be I cannot conjecture. I have not speculated; I have not taken any unprofitable contracts. I have sedulously steered clear of railways for the last two years. Even that branch which is proposed from South Kemms to Palinsbridge, I have refused to touch. I wonder if I can have been too cautious—if my prudence have been misconstrued!”

Lord Kemms did not know, but professed himself willing to lend Mr. Raidsford whatever amount of money he might at the moment have at his bankers, which offer the contractor declined.

“I do not think, my Lord,” he said, “you know exactly into what sums our transactions run. No amount of money almost could compensate me for the loss of credit. If things go on for another month as they have done for the last three, I shall have to call a meeting. There is no use blinding oneself in a case of this kind.”

No use, indeed, when one-half the City was already talking of Mr. Raidsford’s suspension as imminent—when he was spoken of on ’Change as shaky, and words of wisdom were uttered in dingy back offices concerning the fall of the great contractor.

It was while things were in this state, both with the Protector, Limited, and Compton Raidsford, Unlimited, that one night, by the last post, Arthur Dudley received a letter, which at the first glance utterly astounded him. It was directed in Mr. Black’s hand to Arthur Dudley, Esquire; but the enclosure, in feigned writing, was addressed to Messrs. Shields and Montgomery, Solar Foundry, Wolverhampton.

Arthur had mastered the contents of this communication before he comprehended it could not be intended for him. He ran his eye over the few lines it contained hastily, and then examined the envelope; after that he read the letter again, and then, placing letter and envelope together, compared both at his leisure.

“What a d—— shame!” he at length broke out; and he rose straight away, and taking his hat walked forth into the night. He had the letter in his pocket-book, and he strode on like a man who distrusted the strength of his own resolution if he stood still and deliberated about the thing he was resolved to do.

Along Great Queen Street and Long Acre he proceeded rapidly. Taking the most direct routes he soon reached Regent Street, which he crossed; thence making his way to Bond Street, he commenced threading through the maze of squares that lie in that part of London till he came to the “Place” in which Mr. Raidsford’s town house was situated.

He had chosen a most unseasonable hour at which to pay a visit; but Arthur knew that if Mr. Raidsford were at home he should gain admittance. Lights flamed out across the pavement; the house was illuminated as though for a royal marriage; carriages containing merchant princes, their wives and their daughters, were setting down as Mr. Dudley drew near the house.

This was not quite what Arthur had anticipated; but still he held to his resolution, and arrived at the door which Lord Kemms was entering at the moment.

“My Lord,” he said; and at the words his former neighbour turned and recognised him.

“You here, Dudley?” he exclaimed. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Shall we go on? we are stopping the way.”

“I am not a guest,” Arthur answered; “but I want to see Mr. Raidsford particularly. I can wait until he is at leisure, but I must see him. Will you manage this for me?” he added, entreatingly, feeling, perhaps, that in his walking-dress amongst all that gay company he should stand but a poor chance of inducing any servant to carry his message. Good-natured as ever, Lord Kemms readily consented to do what was required.

“No bad news, I trust,” he whispered, as one of the servants, in compliance with his request, was showing Arthur to the library, there to wait Mr. Raidsford’s advent.

“Not bad news, I hope,” Arthur answered; “but, still, news he ought to hear at once.”

“I will tell him,” Lord Kemms said, and closing the library door he left the secretary marvelling whether such an entertainment could be considered a sign of impending ruin—of pecuniary difficulty.

There had been a time when Arthur would have decided this question in the negative; but he was wiser now, and knew that in London people feast on the very brink of commercial death, that they gather their friends and give elegant déjeûners, and eat with an appetite and enjoy their repast, even though they know next hour Jack Ketch is coming to arrange the noose and hang them by the neck till all chance of return to respectable West end society is past for ever.

To his country imagination, it was still a fearful and a wonderful thing to see people spending, with poverty stalking gauntly at the heels of pleasure; but he had acquired sufficient knowledge of town to be at the same time aware three or four hundred pounds seem a mere bagatelle to a man whose liabilities amount to hundreds of thousands.

With affairs going all cross in the City, Mrs. Raidsford, triumphant in satins and jewellery, was “at home” in Huntingdon Place.

If another chance were never to offer itself of airing her bad grammar, and exhibiting her wonderful taste in dress to her rich and grand acquaintances, that was all the more reason why she should avail herself of this opportunity, while opportunity lasted. Only stupid, unsophisticated people like the Dudleys thought of retrenchment before the final crash; besides, Mrs. Raidsford meant to marry her daughters off, if she could, and all the world knows the best way to secure a desirable husband is to ask a few hundred people to meet and make themselves as uncomfortable as circumstances and the construction of modern London houses will permit.

All this and much more to the same effect Arthur Dudley had abundant leisure for considering before the door opened and Mr. Raidsford appeared.

He made some hurried apology for his delay, and then throwing himself into a chair opposite Arthur, anxiously demanded his business.

Amongst his guests in the drawing-rooms, on the staircase, in the hall, he had been a prosperous-looking, smiling gentleman; now he flung the mask off, and allowed the lines of care to appear in his face, a tone of despairing trouble to lurk in his voice.

“Don’t be afraid, man,” he said, almost brusquely. “Lord Kemms told me your business concerned me; out with it; I am not a child—I can face the worst—I have seen it coming this many a day.”

“Mr. Raidsford,” began Arthur, “what you have suffered from has been a loss of credit, I understand; a pressure, as you yourself told me, for money.”

“Yes,” was the reply; “and when this pressure commenced, I believed my credit to be as good as that of any man in England; I believed it to be so good, in fact, that I paid no attention to the pressure for a considerable period—not, in fact, until it became almost like a run on a bank.”

“And to what cause did you attribute that run?” inquired Arthur.

“I have never been able to attribute it to any cause,” was the reply; “I had no heavy losses; I was engaged in no great ventures; I was perfectly solvent; I am solvent, in fact, now; but still I know I must stop; I have fought as long as fighting seems of any use; now I must adopt another plan.”

“If you were aware of the cause of your loss of credit, would it help you to battle through?” asked Arthur.

“That would depend entirely on the cause,” was the reply.

“Supposing it were private malice,” Arthur suggested; “suppose an enemy to have been at work.”

“I have not an enemy in the world,” Mr. Raidsford answered.

“If you read that, perhaps you will alter your opinion,” Arthur remarked, handing him the letter he had received. “Mr. Raidsford, I could not rest till I had come to you; I feared my own purpose might undergo a change before morning. I knew it was right you should be told this thing, and yet I hesitated about showing a letter which strictly is none of my property. I shall speak to Black about what I have done; you know now who has been your enemy, and I trust it may not be too late for you to repair the mischief he has caused.”

And with that Arthur left the room, and wended his way back to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He had never liked Mr. Raidsford, and he could not be very cordial to him, even at the moment when he was stretching out his hand to save the contractor from ruin.

He had not done him this service out of good-will, but because right was right, and justice, justice. He had hasted to serve this man, whom he always regarded with jealousy and distrust; but it was not in Arthur’s nature to feel other than bitterly the fact, that while he was able to serve Mr. Raidsford he was unable to extricate himself; that though Moorlands might be preserved, still Berrie Down was heavily mortgaged.

The very step he had taken, moreover, would, he knew, make his own position more difficult. With Mr. Black for an enemy, what troubles might he not expect to have to face in the future—what about his bills, what about Berrie Down, what about his means of actual subsistence? If a man could, secretly and anonymously, damage another’s credit, plot and scheme to beggar a person against whom he had a grudge, watch the growth of his plans through months, and never flinch nor falter in the execution of his purpose, what might Arthur not expect at his hands, after having baulked him in his design?

All that night Squire Dudley lay awake, thinking in what words he should tell Mr. Black he had found him out, exposed his scheme, and defeated his carefully-prepared plot.

He knew exactly how the accident, which put him in possession of Mr. Black’s secret, had occurred; and he was well aware, in due time, the letter intended for him would be returned by Messrs. Shields and Montgomery to Dowgate Hill; but he resolved not to wait for that dénouement—instead of doing so, he started next morning, directly after breakfast, for the City, where Mr. Black received him with his usual easy flow of language.

“Well, and how is the ‘Protector?’” was his greeting; “anything new? I think things were a shade better on the market yesterday, and I have some applications this morning from parsons about shares in the ‘Universal.’ Discount is down a half, too. By-the-bye, you got my letter, I suppose? There is no help for it, Dudley, we must renew those confounded bills again. You noticed what I said about knowing a fellow willing to do them?”

“I did not,” answered Arthur, “for the simple reason that I suppose the letter you meant to send to me is now at Wolverhampton.”

“What the devil do you mean?”

There was no sham about Mr. Black’s tone or manner as he put this question. For the first time, perhaps, during all the years he had known him, Arthur beheld the actual man, and the actual man was not pleasant to behold.

“Messrs. Shields and Montgomery’s letter came in my envelope,” the secretary explained.

“Indeed! And what have you done with that letter?”

“I took it last night to Mr. Raidsford.”

For a moment Arthur thought his kinsman was going to strike him. Mr. Black made a step forward towards his visitor, and lifted his clenched hand, but next instant he let it drop heavily on the table while he asked—

“Pray, Mister Squire Dudley, was that your idea of honour?”

“Yes, Mr. Black, it was, strictly,” Arthur replied.

“And how much did he give you for the information?—come now, be frank. I would have outbid him, had you played your cards well. What was the figure? Did you go cheap? I’ll be sworn you did. I’ll bet ten to one you sold yourself as well as me. Oh! you won’t answer—you are sulky. You are going to deprive me of the pleasure of your honourable, and gentlemanly, and intellectual society! Curse you!” added the promoter, suddenly changing his sneering tone for one of the intensest fury, “curse you, for a skulking, sneaking, timid fool, who has not even sense enough to enjoy seeing a man who ruined us ruined likewise! I’ll be even with you yet. I’ll make you rue the day you meddled in my concerns, and spoiled my game. Do you hear me, Dudley?” he shouted across the outer office; “look to yourself!”

“I intend,” was Arthur Dudley’s reply, as he walked into the street, knowing he was a ruined man.

He did not return to Lincoln’s Inn Fields for some hours—not, in fact, until after he had seen a solicitor, and laid the exact state of his affairs before that gentleman.

Now the worst had come, he felt equal to face it. He felt it was better to know the extent of his liabilities, and to take immediate measures for breaking off all dealings with the man who had led him so terribly astray.

For every scrap of paper to which he had ever attached his name, he was liable. His shares, he knew, were not worth sixpence; the whole of his property would barely suffice to pay his debts; Berrie Down must go, and also the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. This was the end of the dreamer’s vision—this was the fortune he had come to London to seek! Beggary!

His salary depended on the life of the “Protector,” and that was scarcely expected to survive from day to day. Heather would have to be told now—Heather, whose love he had grown to value too late—Heather, whom he had thrust from him that night when she knelt beside his chair, pleading to be unto him an helpmeet! Would she reproach him—would she ask if he had married her to bring her to this? No!—he knew she never could be so unlike the sweet Heather of old as to taunt him with his misfortunes; but would she be cold; would she be hard and unsympathetic; would she merely bear and leave him to bear also? If he only could have been sure of her, Arthur, walking about the lanes and alleys of the City, thought he should not have cared so much!

He had despised the crutch in his days of strength and independence; and now, when he was lame, he stretched forth his hand to touch some support in vain.

When late in the afternoon he reached Lincoln’s Inn, he found Mr. Stewart, Mr. Harcourt, and two strangers in the office.

At a glance he knew something disagreeable had happened, and, before five minutes were over, he was informed the cashier, recommended by Mr. Stewart himself, had been embezzling the moneys of the Company; that he, Mr. Black and Mr. Robert Crossenham, and Mr. Bayley Crossenham, the latter trading under the firm of “Stack and Son, Corn Factors, Mark Lane,” had all been playing into each other’s hands, buying wheat which never was delivered, and dividing the proceeds.

“We want to look at the register, if you please, Mr. Dudley,” said Mr. Stewart, with a terrible politeness.

“There,” he remarked, turning to Mr. Harcourt, when Arthur had produced the book required, “it is as I thought; and now we shall not have even the poor satisfaction of transporting him. Mr. Dudley, I should have thought that even you might have concluded there was something wrong when a clerk bought shares in a sinking concern;” and, with this remark, which was so much Hebrew to Arthur, Mr. Stewart said, “good evening,” and went off with the strangers he had brought with him.

“What is it all about?” Arthur asked of Mr. Harcourt, when they were left alone.

“There has been wholesale robbery,” was the reply, “and the Company will have to be wound up.”

“And why can they not prosecute Graham?”

“Because, being a shareholder, he is a partner, and a man cannot legally embezzle his own property. It is a bad business, a very bad business!” added Mr. Harcourt. “I am afraid Mr. Black is a thorough-paced scoundrel.”

“I know he is,” said Arthur; but the fact of his knowledge did not make matters any the better for him or for the Protector.

After the clerks were gone, and Mr. Harcourt had departed, Arthur still sate alone in his office, looking his misery in the face. Twice Tifford had been good enough to inform the secretary that dinner was ready; Arthur took no notice of the summons.

How to go upstairs and see Heather—how to tell her the game was over, and that it had left him a beggar, he could not imagine. What were his dreamings in the old days, speeding down to Palinsbridge, and planning to communicate the fact of a thousand a year being added to their income, to this!

Coldness and doubt had not visited Heather; Mrs. Croft had not aroused her jealousy; Lally was still with her, and he had not then neglected his child. Poor Lally, poor little Lally! The man’s heart must have been very heavy that night, for, sitting in the firelight, the tears dropped down from his eyes, one by one, as he sat thinking of his living wife and his dead child.

If only the past could come back again, how differently he would act! if only Heather would be to him the wife of old, he might still make a struggle and conquer Fortune yet.

Twice that day Arthur had found his level; had seen in what estimation people held his talents; and, in the years gone by, he had estranged from him the woman who believed him perfect—who was unto him, in the old, happy time at Berrie Down, though he recked not then of his blessing, more than silver or gold, Far above Rubies.

While he was thinking, Heather herself opened the door, and glided up to where he sat. For weeks previously she had been trying to draw nearer to her husband, seeking for an opportunity to pray for “forgiveness,” Lord help her, “for her selfish sorrow;” and now, in the firelight, she came and laying her hand on his shoulder, said,—

“Is anything the matter, Arthur? Are you ill? are you vexed? I have sent Tifford twice to tell you dinner is ready.”

“I do not want any dinner,” he answered. “I have had meals enough for one day—meals enough to destroy any man’s appetite. The ‘Protector’ is going to be wound up, Heather, and my salary will be stopped, of course.”

She hesitated for a moment before replying, then she said, “I am very sorry for your sake, dear, for you hoped to make so much out of it. We must return to the Hollow, I suppose.”

“I must sell the Hollow,” he answered; and then, in a few hurried sentences, he told her all—his folly, his credulity, his hopes, his ruin.

He kept nothing back; and when he had quite finished, when there was nothing more to add to the dreary recital of loss and misfortune, he paused, listening for what she should say, for how she should receive his confession.

For a moment there was silence—a silence so great that the falling of the cinders on to the hearth alone broke the stillness.

“Will she reproach me,” he wondered; “will she be angry at best? will she say nothing, and refuse pity to me, though she can give it to every other created being?”

“Have you not a word to speak to me, Heather?” he asked at last; and then the tears she had been striving to keep back burst forth, and flinging her arms around his neck, she sobbed out,—

“Oh, my love, my love!” and as she lay on his breast Arthur understood that he was to her, in that hour of bitter distress, dearer than the lover of her girlhood, than the husband of her youth.