Rupert Godwin

RUPERT GODWIN THE BANKER.

The express-train from Winchester bore Harley Westford quickly across the fair expanse of country between the old cathedral city and the smoky roof-tops of the metropolis. Past swelling hillside and sunlit meadow, past winding river and secluded village, rushed the mighty monster. London, black, grimy, but with a certain rugged grandeur of its own, like some dusty Cyclops, mighty in his gigantic stature,—London, the commercial centre of the world,—loomed in sight of the merchant Captain, whose heart was divided between the dear ones he had left in the rustic Grange at Eastburgh, and the scenes of adventure, and perhaps peril, that lay before him on the high seas.

Harley Westford was in heart and soul a sailor. He had the spirit of a Columbus, and would gladly have gone forth in search of new worlds wherewith to enrich his Queen and country, if fate had permitted him so noble an adventure. His heart warmed at the thought of his Chinese expedition—an expedition which promised to make a noble addition to his fortune. For himself, no man could have been more indifferent about money. He had the true sailor’s recklessness of spirit, and would have flung his gold right and left, had he been alone in the world, as carelessly as the untutored salt, who, from sheer bravado, puts a bank-note between his bread-and-butter and eats it, in order to demonstrate his contempt for the sordid pelf. But for his children he was eager to earn the means of comfort and independence, so that no hard battle of life might await those pampered children, that idolized wife, who as yet had known only the sunshine of existence.

He reached London at about half-past one o’clock, and drove straight to Lombard-street, in which noble commercial thoroughfare the banking-house of Messrs. Godwin and Selby was situated.

The name of Selby had long ceased to be anything more than a name. The last Selby had expired placidly in a comfortable mansion at Tulse Hill, some little time after the battle of Waterloo. The firm was now solely represented by Rupert Godwin, the only son of the late head of the firm, Anthony Godwin, and of a noble Spanish lady, who had given supreme offence to her family by marrying a wealthy British trader, rather than one of the penniless hidalgos who were eager to unite their unimpeachable pedigrees and quarter their knightly arms with hers.

The lady was proud, passionate, and self-willed. She preferred the British trader to the descendants of the Cid, and left the shadowy glories of her native land for the comfort and splendour of her husband’s noble old mansion, where she ruled him with despotic power till the day of her death.

Two sons and three daughters were born to the proud Castilian beauty; but those children of the South languished under the cold English sky. The youngest son, Rupert, was the only one of the family who lived to attain manhood. He inherited his mother’s Spanish beauty, together with her wilful and passionate nature.

This Rupert Godwin was a man of five-and-forty years of age, who had inherited a noble fortune from his father, and who had obtained another fortune with the hand of his wife, the only daughter of a city millionnaire, an amiable but not over-wise damsel, who had worshipped her husband as a kind of demigod, and who had faded quietly out of existence soon after the birth of her second child, not by any means passionately lamented by Rupert Godwin.

He was a man who had begun the world very early, and had exhausted the common round of life’s pleasures and dissipations at an age when other men are still enjoying the freshness of youth’s morning. He had been his own master from the age of sixteen, for the simple reason that neither his father nor his tutors had ever been able to conquer his indomitable spirit, or restrain his determined will.

His father had been much shaken by the early deaths of his children and the loss of his wife, who died when Rupert was fifteen. He allowed this last surviving son to do as he pleased, and dawdled through his lonely existence at his country-house, in the company of his medical attendant and a valet who had grown grey in his service.

While the father’s placid days glided by at the country seat in Hertfordshire, the son travelled from one place to another, sometimes abroad, sometimes at home, spending money lavishly, and seeing a great deal of life, more or less to his own satisfaction, but not very much to his moral improvement.

At three-and-twenty he married; but those who knew him best augured little happiness from this marriage. He accepted his wife’s devotion as a matter of course, allowed her to live her own life at the noble old house in Hertfordshire, while he followed the bent of his inclinations elsewhere, honouring his household by his presence during all seasons of gaiety and festivity, but studiously avoiding the delights of domestic retirement. The business of the bank always afforded Mr. Godwin an excellent excuse for absence. There were branch-houses in Spain and in Spanish America, and these branch-houses were under the personal supervision of the banker.

For many years the name of Rupert Godwin had been in the minds of City men a tower of strength. But within the last few weeks there had come a crisis in the fortunes of great commercial firms, and all at once there were strange whispers passing from lip to lip amongst the wise men of the Stock Exchange. It was well known that for some years Rupert Godwin had been a great speculator. It was now whispered abroad that he had not been always a fortunate speculator. He had been bitten with the mania of speculation, men said, and had plunged wildly into all manner of schemes, many of which had ended in ruin.

Such whispers as these are fatal in their influence upon the credit of a commercial man. But as yet these dark rumours had not gone beyond the narrow circle of wiseacres; as yet no hint of Rupert Godwin’s losses had reached those whose money was lodged in his keeping; as yet, therefore, there had been no run upon the bank.

The banker sat in his private room, with his books spread open before him, while with a white face and a heavily-beating heart he examined the state of his affairs. Daily, almost hourly, he expected a desperate crisis, and he tried in vain to devise some means of meeting it.

There was only one human being who was admitted to Rupert Godwin’s confidence, and that was his head clerk, Jacob Danielson.

Ever since Rupert’s earliest manhood this Danielson had been in his employment, and little by little there had grown up a strange bond of union between the two men.

It could not be called friendship, for the banker was of too reserved a nature to form a close friendship with any one—least of all with an inferior; and whatever the confidences between him and his clerk, he was always haughty and commanding in his tone and manner towards his dependent.

But Jacob Danielson was the depository of many of his employer’s secrets, and seemed to possess an almost superhuman power of reading every thought that entered the brain of Rupert Godwin.

It may be that the banker knew this, and that there were times when he felt a kind of terror of his shabby, queer-looking dependent.

Nothing could be wider than the contrast between the outward appearance of the two men.

Rupert Godwin had one of those darkly splendid faces which we rarely see out of an old Italian picture—such a face as Leonardo or Guido might have chosen for a Herod or a Saul.

He was tall and broad-chested, his head nobly poised upon his shoulders. His dark flashing eyes had something of the falcon in their proud and eager glance; but beneath the calm steady gaze of more honest eyes those falcon glances grew shifting and restless.

Jacob Danielson was strangely deficient in those physical perfections which had so furthered his master’s fortunes.

The clerk was a wizen little man, with high shoulders, and a queer, limping walk. His small but piercing gray eyes looked out from under the shelter of a protruding forehead, fringed by two shaggy eyebrows. His thin lips were apt to be disturbed by a twitching motion, which at times was almost painful to witness.

Jacob Danielson was one of those walking mysteries whose thoughts, deeds, and words are alike beyond the comprehension of other men. No one understood him; no one was able to fathom the secrets hidden in his breast.

He lived in a dingy little lodging on the Surrey side of the Thames, a lodging which he had occupied for years, and where he had never been known to receive the visit of any human being.

It was known that he drank deeply, but he had never been seen in a state of intoxication. There were those amongst his fellow-clerks who had tried to make him drunk, and who declared that there was no spirit potent enough to master the senses of Jacob Danielson.

To his employer he was a most indefatigable servant. He seemed also a faithful servant; yet there were times in which the banker trembled when he remembered the dangerous secrets lodged in the keeping of this unsympathetic, inscrutable being.

While Rupert Godwin sat in his private apartment meditating over the books of the house, and dreading the bursting of that storm-cloud which had so long brooded above his head, Harley Westford was hurrying towards him, eager to deposit in his hand the savings of twenty years of peril and hardship.

A hansom cab carried the Captain to the door of the banking-house. He alighted, and made his way into the outer office of the firm, where he addressed himself to the first person whom he found disengaged. That person happened to be no other than Jacob Danielson, the chief clerk.

“I want to see Mr. Godwin,” said the Captain.

“Impossible,” Jacob answered coolly. “Mr. Godwin is particularly engaged. If you will be good enough to state your business, I shall be very happy to—”

“Thank you. No; I won’t trouble you. My time is very precious just now; but as my business is important, I’ll wait till Mr. Godwin is disengaged. When a man comes to place the savings of a lifetime with a banking firm in which he has confidence, he feels a sort of satisfaction in depositing his money in the hands of the principal.”

Jacob Danielson’s thin lips twitched nervously. The savings of a lifetime! A stranger eager to place his money in Rupert Godwin’s hands at a time when the banker expected only the frantic demands of panic-stricken depositors, eager to snatch their treasures from a falling house!

Jacob looked with keen scrutinizing eyes at the honest sailor, half suspecting that there might be some trap hidden beneath his apparent simplicity; but no one looking at Harley Westford could possibly suspect him of cunning or treachery.

“The poor fool has walked straight into the lion’s den,” thought the clerk; “and he’ll be tolerably close-shaved before he walks out of it.”

He sat at his desk for some minutes, scratching his head in a reflective manner, and looking furtively at handsome hazel-eyed Harley Westford, who was swinging his cane, and rocking himself backwards and forwards on his chair in a manner expressive of considerable impatience.

Presently the clerk dismounted from his high stool. “Come, I see you’re in a hurry, sir,” he said, “so I’ll go into the parlour and ascertain what Mr. Godwin’s engagements are. Shall I take your card?”

“Yes; you may as well do so. My father was a customer of the firm, and Mr. Godwin may have heard my name before to-day.”

He may have heard your name, Harley Westford! That name is written in letters of fire on the heart of Rupert Godwin, never to be erased on this side of the grave.

Jacob Danielson carried the card into the banker’s sitting-room, and threw it on the table before his master, without once deigning to look at the name inscribed upon it.

“Some unfortunate fool has come to deposit a lump of money in your hands, sir,” he said coolly; “he’s very particular about placing it in your hands, so that he may be sure it’s safe. I suppose you’ll see him?”

“Yes,” answered the banker haughtily; “you can show him in.”

The cool insolence of his clerk’s manner galled him cruelly. He had borne the same insolence without wincing in the hour of his prosperity; but now that he felt himself upon the verge of ruin, Jacob Danielson’s familiarity stung him to the quick. A deposed sovereign is quick to feel insolence from his lackeys.

It was only when the clerk had left the room that Rupert Godwin looked at the card lying on the table before him.

His glance was careless at first; but in the very moment when he recognized the name inscribed upon the slip of pasteboard, his face changed as few faces have power to change.

The sallow skin darkened to a dull leaden tint; a kind of electric flame seemed to kindle in the dark eyes.

“Harley Westford!” he muttered. “And it is to me, his bitterest enemy, that he brings his wealth; and at such a time as this! There is a Nemesis who plans these things.”

The banker crushed the card in his sinewy hand, and after that one passionate gesture controlled his emotion by a strength of will which was like iron in its unyielding nature. His face, so suddenly distorted, became as suddenly calm and placid, and he looked up with a friendly smile as Harley entered the room.

No warning presentiment restrained the sailor at this last moment. He handed the pocket-book to the banker, and said quietly, “That, Mr. Godwin, contains the hard-won earnings of twenty years. Be so good as to count the notes. You’ll find a thousand for every year—not so bad, take it all in all. I had the money invested in foreign loans, and it brought me very handsome interest, I can assure you. But some wise friends of mine have taken fright. There’s to be war here, and war there—two or three thrones expected to topple over during the next six months, and three or four glorious republics on the point of intestine war. ‘Sell out,’ say my friends. ‘What! and give up ten per cent.?’ say I. And then they remind me of the cautious old Duke’s axiom: ‘The better your interest, the worse your security.’ So I ‘cave in’ at once, as the Yankees say; and here I am, safe out of the lion’s claws, and ready to accept the current rate of interest for my capital.”

“I congratulate you on your escape,” answered the banker. “There’s more than one storm brewing on the Continent, and foreign stock is dropping every day.”

“Well, I’m glad I’ve done right. You see, I’m going to risk my life upon one more journey before I settle down in the pleasant harbour of home. I don’t know anything about this house, myself, but I know my father trusted your father to his dying day. I shall feel quite comfortable when my money is safely lodged in your hands. You find the amount correct, I suppose?”

Rupert Godwin was counting the little packet of notes which he held in his hand as the Captain spoke. Harley Westford did not see that the banker’s hand trembled slightly as it grasped the fluttering pieces of tissue paper.

Twenty thousand pounds! Such a sum trusted in his keeping at such a moment might be the salvation of his credit.

“I have one charge more to confide in your hands,” said the Captain, “and then I can leave England in peace. This sealed packet contains the title-deeds of a small estate in Hampshire, on which my wife and children reside; with your permission, I will lodge the packet in your hands.”

As he spoke, Harley Westford laid a sealed packet on the table.

“I shall be happy to accept any charge you may confide in me,” the banker answered with a courteous smile.

“And you’ll allow me decent interest on my money?”

“On deposits placed with us for a year certain we allow five per cent.”

“I think that settles everything,” said the sailor; “and now I can face danger, or death, without fear. Come what may, my wife and children are provided for. Let my fate be what it will, they are beyond the power of evil fortune.”

Rupert Godwin, bending over the papers before him, smiled to himself as Harley Westford uttered these words—a strange, almost satanic smile.

“Stay!” exclaimed the Captain, “you ought to give me some kind of receipt for that money, and those deeds, ought you not? I don’t pretend to be a man of business; but you see in these affairs a family man is bound to be precise—even if he happens to be a sailor.”

“Most decidedly; I was waiting the opportunity of giving you your receipt,” replied the banker coolly.

He touched a little hand-bell on the table before him, and the next minute Jacob Danielson appeared in answer to the summons.

“Bring me some blank forms of receipt, Danielson.”

The clerk obeyed; and Rupert Godwin filled-in the receipt for twenty thousand pounds.

To this he affixed his own signature, and then handed the paper to Jacob Danielson, who signed his name below that of his master, as witness. The banker also filled-in and duly signed an acknowledgment of the sealed packet containing the title-deeds of the Grange.

With these two documents in the breast-pocket of his light outer-coat, Harley Westford departed, delighted with the idea that he had rendered the fortunes of his wife and children thoroughly secure.

The same hansom cab that had driven him from the railway station to the bank in Lombard-street drove him to the Docks, where he alighted, and made his way on board his own vessel, the Lily Queen.

Her freight had been taken on board some days before, and all was ready for departure. A bright-faced, good-looking man of about five and twenty was pacing up and down the deck as the Captain came alongside the vessel.

This young man was Gilbert Thornleigh; first mate of the Lily Queen, and a great favourite of Harley Westford’s. He had been down to the Grange with his Captain, and had fallen desperately in love with Violet in the course of a three days’ visit to that rustic paradise: but it is needless to say that the sailor kept the secret of his inflammable heart. The Captain’s beautiful daughter seemed as high above him as some duchess crowned with a diadem and robed in ermine might appear to some young captain of household troops.

Captain Westford greeted Gilbert with a hearty grasp of the hand.

“True to my time, you see, my lad,” he said.

“Yes, Captain; always true.”

“And this time I can leave England with a light heart,” said Harley; “for I have made all secure for my wife and children. No more foreign loans and Otaheite railway debentures and Fiji Island first-preference bonds, my lad, which bewilder a plain man’s brains when he tries to understand them. I have placed the whole lump of money in the hands of an old-established English banker, and in my pocket here I have Rupert Godwin’s receipt for the cash.”

Gilbert Thornleigh stared aghast at his Captain.

“Rupert Godwin!” he exclaimed. “You can’t mean that, Captain? You can’t mean that you have placed your money with the firm of Godwin and Selby?”

“Why not, lad? Why shouldn’t I place it with them?”

“Because it is whispered that they are on the verge of ruin. I had a few hundreds in their hands myself until yesterday; but my uncle, an old City man, gave me a word of warning, and I drew every farthing of my money before the bank closed last night. But don’t be uneasy, Captain, the rumour may be a false one. Besides, it’s not too late; you can withdraw your money.”

Harley Westford’s face grew suddenly white. He reeled like a drunken man, and clung to the bulwark for support.

“The villain!” he exclaimed; “the infernal scoundrel! He knew that the money belonged to my wife and children, and he smiled in my face while he took it from me!”

“But there is time enough yet, Captain,” said Gilbert Thornleigh, looking at his watch; “the bank will not close before four o’clock, and it’s now only three. You can go ashore and get your money back.”

“Yes,” cried Harley Westford, with a terrible oath, “I will have my money—or the life of that villain! My children! My wife! The scoundrel could look me in the face and know that he was robbing two helpless women! No, no, my darlings, you shall not be cheated!”

“Captain, there is not a moment to lose.”

“I know, lad; I know,” answered Harley, passing his hand across his brow as if to collect his scattered senses. “This news upset me a bit at first, but I shall be all right presently. See here, my lad; you know how I have always trusted you, and now I must place a still greater trust in your hands. Come what may, the Lily Queen sails at daybreak to-morrow. If I am on board her by that time, well and good. If not, she must sail without me, and you, Gilbert Thornleigh, go as her Captain. Remember that. I will have no delays; the men are all on board her, her cargo is expected and waited for out yonder. There has been too much delay as it is, and it’s a point of honour with me not to lose another hour. I trust you, Gilbert, as if you were my son. Heaven only knows when I may see blue water again. If this man Rupert Godwin is indeed on the verge of ruin, he will scarcely relinquish twenty thousand pounds without a struggle. But, come what may, I will have the money from him, by fair means or foul. In the mean time Gilbert, I trust the command of the vessel to you in case of the worst. Remember, she sails to-morrow morning.”

“Without fail, Captain, and you with her, please Providence!”

“That,” answered Harley Westford solemnly, “is in the hands of Heaven.”

He placed all the necessary papers in the young man’s custody, and after a few instructions, hurriedly but not carelessly given, he wrung Gilbert’s extended hand, and then sprang into the boat which was to take him ashore.

He called the first cab that was to be found outside the Docks, and told the man to drive at a gallop to Lombard-street.

The bank was closing as the Captain alighted from the vehicle. Mr. Godwin had just left for his country-house, the clerk told Harley, and no further business could be transacted that day.

“Then I must follow him to his country-house,” answered the Captain. “Where is it?”

“Wilmingdon Hall, on the North road, beyond Hertford.”

“How can I get there?”

“You can go by rail to Hertford, and then get a fly across to the Hall. It’s only a mile and a half from the station.”

“Good,” answered Harley Westford. Then, after directing the cabman to drive his fastest to the Great Northern Terminus, he stepped once more into the vehicle.

“Neither Rupert Godwin nor I shall know peace or rest until that money has been restored to its rightful owner!” cried the Captain, raising his clenched hand, as if he would have invoked the powers of Heaven to witness his oath.

He little knew how terribly that oath was to be fulfilled.