"What is the matter?" asked Dolly, stepping up to the pair and looking from one to the other with a quick apprehension of something being wrong.
Her husband rose, and walking to the hearth, stood leaning with his back against the mantel-piece. Rupert rose likewise and looked out of the window nearest to where he stood; his hands plunged deep in his pockets, his dress dusty as when he returned from town, his hair, worn long as was the artist fashion he affected; looking rough and unkempt, and an expression on his face no one probably had ever seen there before, not even when Mr. Gideon told him he must make a slight inventory of a few articles and leave behind him the first creature, gentle or simple, to whom the owners of Homewood grudged extending hospitality.
How the room, the flowers, the soft evening light, the figures of the two men were photographed into her mind at that moment Mrs. Mortomley never knew until the months had come and the months had gone, and Homewood, its shady walks, its smooth lawns, its banks of flowers, its wealth of foliage, its modest luxury of appointment, its utter comfort and sweet simplicity, were all part and parcel of a past which could return—ah! nevermore.
"What is the matter?" she repeated. "What has gone wrong?"
"I do not know that anything has gone wrong," Rupert answered. "It may be, for aught I can tell, the beginning of greater peace than we have had for some time past. I have been telling Archie I think he ought to stop."
"I have thought so often lately," said Mortomley with quiet resignation.
"Stop what—stop when!" his wife interrogated; then she suddenly paused, adding the instant after, "Do you mean fail?"
"Certainly not," replied the younger man. "I merely mean that he should go into liquidation."
"What on earth is liquidation?"
"It is nothing very dreadful," said Mr. Halling reassuringly. "Nothing, of course, will be changed here—the works will go on as usual—you can live just as we have been doing lately; we could not expect to entertain, of course, until every one to whom anything is owing is paid off, and then we can do what we like. That is about the English of it, is it not?" he said turning to Mr. Mortomley, who replied with a set face,
"I do not know. I have never been in liquidation."
"But you know plenty of fellows who have."
"I cannot say that I do," was the answer; and he turned a little aside and began toying absently with the articles on the chimney-piece.
"At all events, you see quite clearly we cannot go on as we have been doing," persisted Rupert.
"I wonder we have been able to go on so long—"
"It would not be such a hopeless fight if we were not daily and hourly getting involved more deeply with the General Chemical Company."
"Yes; that is the worst feature of the position; and I confess I cannot understand how it happens."
"But I have explained the whole thing to you fully," said Rupert, looking angry and excited.
"Yes, according to your idea; but I tell you such a system is impossible in any respectable business."
"Do you consider the General Chemical Company a respectable concern?"
"I have always supposed so; but whether respectable or not, the errors, to use a mild term, you speak of are simply impossible in an establishment where there are clerks employed, and checks kept, and experienced book-keepers always engaged on the accounts."
Having made which observation, in a much more decided manner than it was his custom usually to employ, Mr. Mortomley walked out of the room, leaving his wife and Rupert alone together.
Rupert, looking after him, shrugged his shoulders, and thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets and planting one shoulder well up against the window shutter, remarked to Dolly,
"He won't believe those people have been cheating him right and left, and I don't know that any good purpose would be served if I could make him believe it. Because, owing to my stupidity, we never can prove the fact. If you and Lenore are beggared," he added, with a poor attempt at mirth, "I give you full leave to blame me for the whole of it."
"Do not be absurd," answered Mrs. Mortomley uneasily. "Archie is quite right, of course. People could not cheat, and if they could they would not be so wicked."
Rupert laughed outright. "Would they not, Mrs. Mortomley? Much you know of the world and its ways—I say and shall say to the end of my life, that the General Chemical Company has, by a system of splendid book-keeping, been robbing us of I should be afraid to say how much; and I say further, no system of book-keeping we could devise would be of the slightest use in preventing it. But it might have been stopped ere this by our stoppage. Nothing else will do it now. Remember what I say to you, Dolly; and they are not my words alone—they are the words of men who know far more about business and City matters than I ever want to do. If Archie is to do any good for himself and you and Lenore" (Rupert kept his own name and that of his sister discreetly out of sight) "he must stop now. If he speaks to you about it, don't dissuade him, Dolly; for God's sake don't try to induce him to put off the evil day any longer."
Vehemence of manner or expression was unusual at Homewood, and, for a moment, Rupert's words and looks startled Mrs. Mortomley. After that moment she answered,
"I shall not dissuade or persuade him, for I know nothing really about the matter."
"Do you mind coming with me into the works?" asked Rupert in reply.
"No." Dolly said she would go with him if he wished; and accordingly the pair went out together on to the lawn and across the flower-garden and so to the laurel-walk which people averred was the crowning beauty of Homewood. Who had first planted it no one knew, but tradition ascribed that virtuous deed to a far-away dignitary of the Church of Rome, who had considered Homewood, then a mere cottage and lands on the borders of the forest, a sort of hermitage to which, from the din of party and the clamour of men's tongues, he might retire to pray and meditate in peace.
And this view is confirmed by the fact, that in another country I remember well seeing in grounds belonging to an old monastic institution similar arcades of greenery, thick hedges to right and left, and overarching branches inter-twining and overlapping, till the light of day was shut out and the paths made dark as night.
At Homewood this inconvenience had been obviated by cutting at intervals openings in one of the hedges in the form of pointed arches; and the effect produced was consequently somewhat akin to that left on the mind by walking along some cloister in an ancient cathedral.
Quiet as any monastic pavement was the laurel-path at Homewood; and the frequent glimpses of emerald green and bright-hued flowers afforded by the openings mentioned, in no way detracted from the solemn feeling produced by the stillness of that remarkable passage.
Of late many a bitter thought and wearying anxiety had kept Mortomley company as he paced along it to the postern gate giving admission to his works; and this, Dolly's quick instinct enabled her to realise as she tried with her short uneven steps to keep up with Rupert's long careless stride.
"Oh! I wish I had known sooner," she said mentally; "I wish—I wish—I wish I had."
"It is a sweet place, Dolly," remarked Rupert, who possessed a keen sense of the beautiful in nature, women, and children, though his artistic power of reproducing beauty on canvas was meagre.
"Ay," she answered with a little gasp, "that it is."
"We must not risk losing it."
She did not answer, but she touched his arm with her hand entreatingly.
Looking down at the face upraised to his, he saw her eyes were full of tears. Lose Homewood! why it had never looked fairer than it did at that moment, with the evening sun shining athwart its lawns. Lose Homewood! where she had been so happy; it would be worse than death.
"Oh! Rupert," she cried at last, and she clung to him entreatingly, "you did not mean it—say you did not."
"I declare Dolly, you are prettier than Lenore," he answered irrelevantly, as it may seem; but the fact was, all at once, in that moment of mental anguish, of pathetic helplessness, he saw something in the woman's face he had never beheld there before—something grief had developed already, a grace and a beauty hitherto concealed.
"Dolly," he went on vehemently, "if I can keep Homewood for you I will; but you must help, you must not let Archie turn back from the battle. It is true, dear, I do not go on my own judgment; if he is not firm now, we shall all be lost!"
As he spoke he was unlocking the postern door, which admitted them to a small court which, in its turn, gave ingress to the foreman's office as well as to the more private offices of the establishment, Mr. Mortomley's own room and laboratory included.
When they entered the court, Hankins, the foreman, was fastening his door and came to meet them, swinging a great bunch of keys on his fingers in a debonnaire manner the while.
Out of respect or, shall we say, gallantry he raised his hat to Mrs. Mortomley. Rupert's "Good evening," he answered with a nod. Mr. Hankins was a working-man of the very advanced type, who thought much of himself, and but little consequently of any one else. He was a clever fellow, as all Mortomley's picked men were, and fairly faithful and honest as the world goes now-a-days, which is not perhaps far.
But he understood his business and he did his work, and he saw that others did it also. Now that the day's labour was over, he had been, as he informed his visitors, "just taking as usual a look round to see everything was right."
"Mr. Lang gone?" asked Rupert.
"Yes, sir, not five minutes ago;" and Mr. Hankins swung his bunch of keys again as a polite intimation to Mr. Halling that it was not part of his contract to stand talking to him all night.
"You got some more barytes in to-day," remarked Rupert, wilfully disregarding the hint.
"You can call it barytes, of course, sir, if you like," was the reply, "I call it stuff."
"It is not good then?"
"Good! Now I should just wish you to see it. Naturally, not having been brought up to the business, you cannot be supposed to know all the ins and outs of our trade, but a child might tell the inferiority of this. If not detaining you, sir, I really should feel obliged by your stepping this way," and with an air he flung open the door of his office, and pointing to a powder of a whity-brown colour lying on the desk, asked ironically,
"That is a first-rate article, ain't it, sir?"
Rupert shook his head; and Mr. Hankins thus encouraged, pressed his point.
"Here, ma'am," he said, taking up an other parcel and opening it, "is something like. Look at the difference. I declare, upon my conscience," continued Mr. Hankins, turning to Rupert and forgetting in his energy the presence of his employer's wife, "it is enough to drive a man out of his mind to be obliged to sign a receipt-note for such rubbish. I often think things here might make people believe that old story the parsons tell about the Israelites being ordered to make bricks without straw. After what I have seen this last eighteen months I fancy I could almost swallow anything," finished Mr. Hankins with that advanced and almost unconscious scepticism which is so curious an adjunct to skilled labour at this period of the world's history.
Rupert looked uneasily at his companion. At any other time she might have felt inclined to enter into a controversy with Mr. Hankins on the religious question, but at that moment her heart was so full of her husband's position that the orthodoxy or non-orthodoxy of any person's opinions seemed quite a secondary matter in her eyes.
"Surely," she began, "Mr. Mortomley is the only person to say here what is good or bad. If he approves of this," and she pointed to the barytes, "it is not fitting any one else should disapprove."
"Mr. Mortomley won't look at it, ma'am," was the ominous answer. "If I go to him, he says, 'I am busy now,' or, 'you must do the best you can with it,' or, 'I will write and complain;' and all the while as fine a business as there is in the Home counties is going to the devil. I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I can't help saying it. You heard, sir, I suppose, that Traceys had sent back all the ten tons of Brunswick green," (Rupert nodded) "and if things go on much longer as they have been going, we shall have everything sent back. If it wasn't for the respect I have to Mr. Mortomley, I would not stay here an hour; and as it is, I do not know as how I can bear it much longer."
Which last was intended as a side blow to be carried by Mrs. Mortomley to her husband. Mr. Hankins folded up his samples, took his keys, said, "Evening, sir," "Good evening, ma'am," touched the brim of his hat, and sauntered leisurely across the yard leaving his visitors alone.
"I wanted you to hear, Dolly," said Rupert, "but I fear in my wisdom I have been a brute."
She did not answer, but she walked back steadily to the house. She dressed for dinner; and when that meal was served, they all sat down as people might the evening before an execution.
So far this narrative has been preliminary and introductory. In the next chapter the real story of Mortomley's Estate begins.
The stores, warehouses, and offices of the General Chemical Company (Limited), are situated, as all City folks know, on St. Vedast Wharf, Vedast Lane, Upper Thames Street.
Landing stages and railway bridges, which have altered the aspect of so many other places of business, have left St. Vedast Wharf untouched. And the curious inquirer will find it still presenting precisely the same appearance as it did in those early summer days of a few years back when it was still optional with Mortomley to do what he liked under certain conditions with his own estate.
Excepting Lower Thames Street, there is not probably in the city a thoroughfare so utterly given over to business and business doing, as Thames Street above bridge.
What Hyde Park is for carriages, it is for vans and carts. If timid people elect to walk along it, they must do so crossing from side to side, under the heads of great cart-horses to avoid the bales of goods, the reams of paper, the huge barrels, the heavy castings that come swinging down from the loop-holes of third and fourth stories, indifferent as to whether any-body or nobody is passing beneath.
All the lanes leading from it to the river are narrow and dingy and sunless, and Vedast Lane seems probably narrower and dirtier than most of its fellows, because many carts and waggons pass down it on their way to various huge warehouses, occupied by persons following different trades.
During all the working hours of the day, shouting and swearing and the lumbering of vans, and the trampling and slipping about of horses, cease not for one single instant; and it is notorious that the traffic of the whole lane was once stopped for four hours by a jibbing horse, who would probably have remained there until now, had a passer-by not suggested throwing a truss of straw under him and then setting fire to it, which produced such celerity of movement that the driver found himself in Bridge Street, having threaded the vehicles crowded together by the way, without let or hindrance, before he had sufficiently recovered his presence of mind to search about for his whip.
Arrived, however, at St. Vedast Wharf, the scene changes as if by magic. One moment the foot-passenger is in the gloom and dirt and riot of a narrow City lane, the next all clamour and noise seem left behind. Before him lies the Silent Highway, with its steam-boats, barges, and tiny skiffs threading their way in and out amongst the heavier craft.
Facing the river the imposing-looking warehouses of the General Chemical Company rear themselves story on the top of story. To the left lies London Bridge, the masts of the larger vessels showing at uncertain intervals between the stream of vehicles flowing perpetually over it, while to his right the old bridges and the new confuse themselves before him, so that he has to pause for a moment before answering the eager inquiries of a country cousin.
To look at the wharf, to look at the warehouses, to enter the offices, most people a few years back would have said,
"Here is a solvent Company. It must be paying large dividends to its shareholders."
Whereas the true history and state of the General Chemical Company chanced to be this:
When in the palmy days of "promoting," long before Black Friday was thought of, while the Corner House was a power in the City, the old and long established business (vide prospectus of the period) of Henrison Brothers was merged into the General Chemical Company, Limited, with a tribe of directors, manager, sub-manager, secretary, and shareholders,—probably no one, excepting Mr. Henrison and his brothers and the gentlemen who successfully floated the venture, was aware that the old and highly respectable house was as near bankruptcy as any house could well be.
Such, however, was the case, but a considerable time elapsed before the directors and the shareholders found that out.
Mr. Henrison "consented" to remain as manager for one year after he and his brothers put the purchase-money in their pockets, (the shares they sold at discreet intervals), and it is unnecessary to say he did not enlighten the Company he represented about that part of the business.
Neither did the sub-manager, who hoped to succeed Mr. Henrison, and who did succeed him. Neither did the secretary, whose ideas of the duties connected with his office were exceedingly simple.
To do as little work as possible, and to draw as much money as he could get, was the easy programme he sketched out for his own guidance; and that the programme pleased his audience may be gathered from the fact, that whilst shareholders varied, and directors resigned, and managers were supplanted, that fortunate official's name remained on the prospectus of the Company.
He beheld Henrison fulfil his year. He was on friendly terms with the sub who succeeded him. He still nodded to that ex-sub and manager when he was discharged for malpractices. He preserved his equanimity when the next manager, also discharged, brought his action against the Company for wrongful dismissal, and the Company, their eyes beginning to open, compromised the matter rather than let the public light of day in on the swindle Henrison Brothers had practiced.
He was there when Delaroche making on his own responsibility a bad debt which shook the concern to its rotten foundations, was turned off penniless and characterless; he was there when various other managers and subs obtained, who either in due course of time shifted themselves, or were shifted by the powers then supreme; and, to cut short a long list, he was there when the united wisdom of the directors appointed Forde, General in command.
One of the directors had looked with exceeding favour upon Forde. Having known him fill various subordinate positions in the trade creditably, he concluded he was precisely the man wanted at that period at the General Chemical Company.
Outwardly Mr. Forde made little of the honour conferred; inwardly he was uplifted.
If men and women, who, having been to the manner born, are able to bear worldly promotion without entirely losing whatever small amount of sense God may have seen fit to give them, could only understand the mental effect, the fact of being placed in a position of power produces upon those who have hitherto served in the rank and file of life's army,—I fancy managers and housekeepers and confidential employées of all descriptions would be chosen from a far different rank than is the case at present.
You, sir, who having had the use of a carriage all your life, would much rather walk to your destination than be driven thither,—do you suppose you can comprehend what driving even in another person's carriage means to the man who has all his life looked upon an equipage of the kind with mingled feelings of admiration and envy.
No, you cannot! But I, who have been practically taught the lesson, may inform you that it is utter folly to open the door and let down the steps, and permit the poor simpleton I have indicated to fancy himself a great fellow, lounging on your cushions, or the cushions you have helped to place for him.
If he is able, in God's name let him buy a carriage for himself if nothing less will content him. By the time he has done so, he will have conjugated all the moods and tenses connected with its possession, and may, perhaps, go on safely to the end; otherwise he is very apt to loll back with legs outstretched and arms crossed on his way to that place the name of which on earth is, beggary.
Was it the fault of Forde that he was placed in a square hole, he being essentially fitted to fill a round one; that he, being poor, should have visions of opulence thrust upon him; that he, being in a very settled and respectable and useful rank of society, should, nolens volens, have visions of a far different rank presented to him.
I think not. A man is scarcely responsible for his weakness and his folly.
The credulity of those who believed in Forde, may be open to wonder; that Forde failed to verify their belief, seems to me the most natural thing in the world.
If a country squire, accustomed to horses and their vagaries, accustomed likewise to stiff fences, broad watercourses, and awkward bullfinches, mounted a cockney, who says he can ride, on a hunter acquainted with his business, would he be surprised to see that cockney carried home crippled or dead.
Certainly, he would not; and why in business a man who has hitherto only ambled along on the back of a spiritless old cob, should be considered fit to control a thoroughbred passes my comprehension.
When Forde accepted the situation offered to him, he undertook a task too great for his abilities. It was a repetition of the old fable of the ox and the frog, and with a like ending; the frog burst his skin.
Into the offices of the General Chemical Company, Limited, Mr. Forde walked, determined to do his duty and push the concern.
He saw at a glance where others had failed; it does not require long sight for this operation. Naturally, he was tolerant of their errors, since to those errors he owed his own preferment; and he meant, so he declared, to send up the dividend to something which should astonish the shareholders. It is only just to state he at first performed this feat; as a true chronicler, it saddens me to add, that eventually he brought down the shares to something which astonished them still more.
Mr. Forde caught at any and all business which offered. At first he believed in the legitimacy of many schemes with which the General Chemical Company was connected; when enlightenment came he had to make the illegitimate children pass muster by some means; and so at length—the downward descent is one neither pleasant nor profitable to follow—step by step the General Chemical Company, Limited, became a sort of refuge for the destitute—a place where rogues and vagabonds did congregate to transact very suspicious business; a concern with which voluntarily no solvent man dealt; which was in a fair way of becoming in the City a by-word and a reproach.
And all the time, Forde, incompetent, miserable, was keeping a brave face to the world and a false one to his employers,—was fighting a losing game with all the strength he possessed, and calling it to himself, and every one who cared to listen to him, success.
Failure meant a great deal to him. It does to most men who have risen to what may be called in their own station, eminence, through adventitious circumstances, instead of their own cleverness, or roguery, or force of character.
If a person be possessed of energy, or plausibility, or cleverness, or enormous industry, it is utterly impossible for any reverse short of broken health to crush him so utterly that he may not hope to come up in the front some day again; but if a fellow have got a chance, merely through a fluke, and have sense enough to know this, how he will cling to it with tooth and nail and hand and foot, till he and it drop down unpitied together. For my own part, I cannot tell why such men receive no pity. They never do. The only reason which presents itself to account for this is that in their descent they spare nor friend nor foe. Into their abyss they would drag the nearest and dearest, could he retard the striking of the inevitable hour by five minutes.
To Mr. Forde further failure meant more than it does to the generality of men in his position. He had been raised so high that he could not even contemplate the other side of the canvas. He knew the General Chemical Company was rotten, root, branch, and leaf, but he thought, if he could keep up the appearance of prosperity long enough, he might obtain some other appointment before the crash came.
In a very ancient book there is a parable written concerning an unjust steward.
According to his light, Mr. Forde tried to emulate the tactics of that old world swindler, but with indifferent success.
Those who owed money to my Lords the Chemical Company had taken Mr. Forde's measure tolerably accurately at an early period of his stewardship; and when the end came it turned out that no one, except the rogues, had made much of the falsifying of their accounts; which was all very hard on Mr. Forde who had really worked with might and main for himself and his employers; only, as seemed natural, for himself first.
Afternoon had arrived, and Mr. Forde sat alone in that office which, so long as he remained manager at St. Vedast's Wharf, he had a right to call his.
It was a handsomely-furnished if somewhat comfortless-looking room. All new offices smell for an unconscionable time of paint, varnish, French polish, and new carpets.
That office was no exception to the general rule, but to Mr. Forde, the smell of newness had a sweet savour in his nostrils.
As the business happened about that time to be doing about as badly as it could, it had been deemed expedient to spend a considerable sum of money in renovating the premises; and the varnish and the polish, and the newly-laid carpets and the sticky oil-cloths in and leading to the manager's office were parts of the result.
So long as the precipice was fringed with flowers, the manager could not realize it hung over an abyss, and he therefore, on the afternoon in question, sat before his table writing with a marvellous serenity, though he had that day received two warnings of evil to come that might well have shaken a braver and wiser man.
But they were over. To a certain extent Mr. Swanland had been right when he said, "Forde is mentally short-sighted," but he would have proved a more correct delineator of character had he styled him, "wilfully short-sighted."
The natural sequence of events Mr. Forde utterly declined to study; in the chapter of accidents he was as much at home as in the fluctuations of the Stock Exchange.
Still two alarming events had occurred that day—first, a new director had given him to understand he intended personally to examine the accounts and securities of three customers whose solvency he doubted.
Amongst the directors, however, disunion meant safety to the manager; and as no two of them ever agreed, Mr. Forde had found it a matter of little difficulty to set the whole of them so utterly by the ears on some utterly unimportant point that the unsatisfactory clients were for the time forgotten.
Still Mr. Forde knew that the subject must crop up again sooner or later, and he meant to lead the tardy debtors a weary life until "he had something tangible to show his directors."
The second matter was more serious. After the last of his directors had left, a gentleman tall, dignified, and elderly, inquired in the outer office if he could speak to Mr. Forde.
"Certainly not," Mr. Forde said in answer to the clerk who asked if he were at liberty, "I can see no one at present."
Mr. Forde was not engaged in any matter of the slightest importance, but this was one of his devices for maintaining the dignity of position.
Amongst the recent chronicles of St. Vedast's Wharf was a legend that on one occasion an entire stranger to the Company and the manager, finding the outer office unoccupied, penetrated to the inner sanctum and there surprised Mr. Forde industriously reading the 'Times.'
Whereupon the manager rose and said, "How dare you sir, come in here? I must request you to leave my office immediately."
But the stranger stood his ground. "Don't excite yourself, pray. I have come to speak to you about a little matter of business, and I can wait until you are cool. I am going to take a seat, and if you follow my advice you will do the same."
And suiting his action to the word, the madman, as Mr. Forde afterwards called him, pulled forward a chair, sat down and calmly eyed the manager until that gentleman asked, "What the——he wanted?"
Mr. Forde's present visitor was, however, a man of a different stamp.
"Take my card to Mr. Forde," he said, "and ask him to name an hour this afternoon when he will be at leisure."
Now the name engraved on the card was that of a City magnate, and Mr. Forde at once with many apologies came out to greet him.
In the revulsion of his feelings he would have shaken hands, but the visitor failed to perceive his intention; neither did he make any answer to Mr. Forde's inquiries as to what he could do for him until they stood together in the private office with the door shut.
With great effusion of manner, Mr. Forde pressed one of the highly-polished, hair-stuffed, morocco-covered chairs upon the magnate's attention, and the magnate seated himself upon it, put his hat and gloves on the table, placed his gold-headed cane between his knees, and then after deliberately drawing out a pocket-book remarked,
"I have come to speak to you about a rather unpleasant piece of business, Mr. Forde."
"I am very sorry to hear it," said the manager. And for once he said what was not false. He did not want any more unpleasant subjects presented to his notice at that time than those he was already obliged to contemplate.
"After all," he thought, "what Kleinwort says is quite true; it is never the thing you expect but the thing you do not expect which proves the trouble."
Prophetic words, though spoken only mentally; words he often recalled in the evil days that were then to come.
As if he had caught some echo of his muttered sentence, the stranger went on,
"In the way of business a bill indorsed by your Company and a certain Bertrand Kleinwort came into our hands some time since. We intrusted a correspondent to make some inquiries concerning the drawer and acceptor of that bill, and I have thought it my duty to communicate the result of those inquiries to you. We find the drawer is a poor man in a very small way of business in a remote German village, whilst the acceptor's address is at an empty house in Cologne."
"Impossible, sir!" retorted Mr. Forde. "You have been deceived, vilely deceived. Mr. Kleinwort is a most respectable merchant, a gentleman whose character is above reproach, and he assured us he was personally acquainted with both acceptor and drawer, and that their names were good as the Bank of England."
"I am sorry to say," was the reply, "I should not feel inclined to take Mr. Kleinwort's word concerning the solvency of any person whose bill he wished to negotiate. I felt you must have been deceived, and I therefore considered it only right to inform you what are the nature of the acceptances you have indorsed."
"Very kind of you, I am sure," was the half-sneering reply, "but I repeat, sir, you have been deceived. In their own country the men who drew and accepted those bills stand as well as the General Chemical Company does here."
A very dubious smile hovered about the lips of Mr. Forde's visitor as he answered,
"I have no means of disproving your last assertion; indeed, I fear it is perfectly true in every particular. I may add, however, I shall give orders that for the future no bill of any kind or description which bears the indorsement of your Company is to be taken by our house. Good morning, sir."
But Mr. Forde did not answer. With a defiant air he strode to the window and turned his back on his visitor, who opened the door for himself, walked through the outer office, and so made his way to Vedast Lane, shaking the dust of the General Chemical Company off his feet as he went.
As for Mr. Forde, he sat down and wrote a letter to a certain "Dear Will" residing at Liverpool, in which he told him in strict confidence that the work at St. Vedast Wharf was beginning to tell on his health, and that if he (Will) chanced to hear of any good situation likely to fall vacant, his correspondent would take it as a great favour if he would let him know. In a postscript Mr. Forde added he should have no objection to go to Spain as superintendent of a mine if an adequate salary were offered. "Bess and the children," he explained, "could take a nice little place near Eastbourne or Southampton till affairs were more settled in Spain, or they might even go to the south of France. He believed education there was very good and very cheap, and the children could acquire the language without expense."
By the time he had finished this epistle Mr. Forde looked upon his future as almost settled. He had taken the first step, and would be certain to get some good berth.
Out of England he trusted it might be. Had any one offered him an appointment at that moment in the West Indies, I think he would have taken it.
Small as the man's power of realizing future ills happened to be, he would have said unhesitatingly that under some aspects he considered "Yellow Jack" a less formidable enemy than John Bull.
He would go; he made up his mind to that, but not until Will had got something good for him, something he should not feel it derogatory to his dignity to accept.
With this letter lying sealed before him, tracing idle lines on his blotting-paper Mr. Forde sat dreaming dreams of future fortune, seeing visions of cork trees and gitanas, of veiled señoras and haughty hidalgos, hearing the plash of fountains and the tinkling of guitars, when a clerk disturbed his reverie.
"Mr. Halling wishes to speak to you, sir," said the youth.
"Show Mr. Halling in," was the reply, and Rupert accordingly entered arrayed in that velveteen suit which Mr. Forde secretly admired, and one like which he longed to don, and would in fact have donned had he not dreaded the displeasure of his directors.
Mr. Forde had light hair and fair florid complexion, small dark blue eyes, so dark, indeed, that when he was angry or excited they might have been taken for black, and he considered that these peculiarities of appearance would show to enormous advantage against sable velveteen.
As red-haired men always affect blue neck-ties, as dark complexioned men choose light coloured garments, as stout men like coats which button tight round their waists; so on the same inexplicable principle of selection, Mr. Forde would have liked to strut about St. Vedast Wharf arrayed in a similar suit to that which made Rupert Halling look in the eyes of City men so handsome and disreputable a vagabond.
"I was expecting to see you earlier," remarked Mr. Forde.
"Yes," Rupert assented, waiting his opportunity to make the communication he had been over-persuaded to convey all by himself into the enemy's camp.
"Anything new?" continued Mr. Forde.
"One thing, which I fear it will not much please you to hear," was the reply.
Mr. Forde looked up from the purposeless tracings he had resumed after the first greetings were over. He looked up, his face darkening with the approach of one of those tempests of passion Rupert, as well as every other person who chanced to be unpleasantly connected with the General Chemical Company's Manager, had felt sweep over him.
Well, it was all nearly at an end. He had stood many a cannonade without flinching, and another broadside could not much matter.
"I have come to tell you," he went on hurriedly, without giving the other time to speak, "that Mr. Mortomley cannot go on any longer. He must call a meeting of his creditors."
Holding the arms of his chair with both hands, Mr. Forde rose, gasping, literally gasping with rage.
"Where is he now?" he asked hoarsely. His voice was so strange and choked, Rupert could scarcely have recognized it.
"He is at his solicitor's."
"The villain, the cowardly unprincipled vagabond—the thief—the cur; but I won't stay to face my directors over it. I won't stand between him and them. I will send in my resignation within the hour. He has ruined me."
And having delivered himself of this sentence in a crescendo of fury, Mr. Forde took his hat, thrust it down over his forehead, and walked out of the office.
"Well, that is one way of cutting the knot, certainly," thought Rupert, who was, by the manager's move, left standing in the middle of the new carpet more utterly astounded than he had ever before been in the whole course of his life.
"I may as well go too," he thought, after a minute's consideration; and he was moving towards the door with this intention, when Mr. Forde came back again, took off his hat, flung himself into his chair, and asked—
"Now, what is the meaning of all this?"
Having made up his mind to place the state of his affairs before his creditors, Mr. Mortomley decided to break the news to Mr. Forde in person.
This intention, however, was abandoned at the advice of a very shrewd individual who, happening to meet the "conspirators," as he facetiously styled Rupert and his uncle, in the City, stopped to shake hands and inquired if there was "anything fresh." Whereupon as he happened to be a creditor, and one who had followed with some interest the spectacle of Mortomley slipping off terra firma into hitherto unknown water, which grew deeper and deeper at every effort he made to get out of it, Rupert told him in so many words what they meant to do and whither they were bound.
"And the very best thing you can do is to stop," was the reply. "I will do all in my power to help you through, and if you want a friendly trustee I should not object to act. But," and he laid his hand impressively on Mortomley's arm, "you go straight to your solicitor without turning to the right or to the left. Put it beyond your own power to draw back before you see Forde. I have always told you that, although to such a concern the amount of your indebtedness is or should be nothing, still you are a link in a chain, and you know what happens if even one link gives way."
"But I should not like his first intimation of the matter to be by circular," answered Mr. Mortomley.
"First intimation, pooh!" retorted the other. "The man is not a total idiot. He knows you are in difficulties; he knows how difficulties always end. He may not expect the end to come so soon, but he must be certain it is on its way."
Nevertheless, Mortomley hesitated. This was just like Mortomley—to pause when staking something high for himself, and consider Dick, Tom, or Harry might not like his throw.
This had been a weak point in every Mortomley, since the days of him who left the Place to seek his fortune; but it was intensified in Archibald who, through this and other similar traits was about to bring the last noble left by his predecessors to ninepence.
"Now promise me," said the self-constituted adviser, noticing his hesitation; "I know Forde better than you. I have been behind the scenes in that respectable concern, and could let you into a good many mysteries if I chose; and I can tell you if you go to Vedast Wharf before you have been to Mr. Leigh, you won't go into liquidation till you have nothing left to liquidate. If Forde must be told, let your nephew tell him."
"I will go to him fast enough if you will accompany me," answered Rupert; "but I should not care for the task of breaking it to him alone."
Whereat the other laughed loudly. "Look here," he said, "what is there to be afraid of? He won't try to murder you, and if he did he could not well succeed in the attempt. He will blow up, doubtless; rave and blaspheme a good deal; swear you are all swindlers together, and that there is only one honest man, himself, left on earth. He will then calm down and try to cajole you to keep things moving a little longer; then he will offer you more credit, and, perhaps, to help you to open fresh credits; and if the thing is not done, he will over-persuade you to go on. But if the thing is done, and he knows remonstrance is useless, he will make the best of a bad business. He will tell his directors your estate is good to pay forty shillings in the pound, and you may have more peace and comfort in your home and your business than you have known for many a long day past."
There was truth in all this—hard, keen, practical truth—as Rupert, who had experienced some very stormy weather at St. Vedast Wharf, knew, and Mortomley, who had been kept pretty well in ignorance of the frequent tempests which prevailed there, instinctively felt.
"What you say is right enough," remarked Rupert after a pause. "But come now, Mr. Gibbons, be frank. If it were your own case now, should you like facing Forde?"
"So little that I should not face him at all; but if, as Mr. Mortomley seems to think he must be faced, I should, if I were in your place, put on a bold front and beard the lion in his den. It is your only chance. I tell you straightforwardly if once he gets hold of Mr. Mortomley the estate is doomed."
"Will you come with me then?" asked Rupert.
"I," repeated the other, "in what character would you have me appear? If as a friend, he would retort that I am also a creditor; if as a creditor, he would at once pooh, pooh! me, because I am a friend. No. Do your part boldly, and when that connection is fairly at an end come to me for help, and you shall have it."
Which was all very good advice, though Mr. Gibbons gave it; indeed it was so good, that, with a very ill-grace, Rupert at last consented to see Mr. Forde, and parted with Mortomley for that purpose.
He had arranged to meet his relative at five o'clock, so that they might return to Homewood together; and as there was no reason to hurry the impending interview between himself and the manager of the Chemical Company, as there was indeed every reason to retard its advent, he took a cheerful walk all by himself along Cheapside, through St. Paul's Churchyard, down Ludgate Hill, over Blackfriars Bridge, whence he wended his way to Southwark Bridge viâ Bankside.
When he looked at his watch in Thames Street, however, he decided his call might still be advantageously deferred for a short time longer, and he accordingly retraced his steps over Southwark Bridge, and, when he reached the Surrey side of the river, threaded his way through many a narrow lane and curious passage till he found himself in the Borough Market.
By that time Mortomley must be considered to have nearly finished his business; so, buttoning his coat tight across his chest, he gathered up his courage, drew a long breath, and stepped briskly across the bridge to St. Vedast Wharf and the interview already described.
It is no exaggeration to say that when he beheld Mr. Forde take his hat and leave the office, Rupert felt that, although it might be problematical whether by that simple movement the manager had cut the knot of his own difficulties, there could be no doubt he had thereby sundered the worst entanglement in Mortomley's path; and it was, therefore, with a sensation of little short of despair he beheld Mr. Forde reappear and heard him inquire,
"Now, what is the meaning of all this—how has it come about?"
"As I suppose such things usually do," was the almost sullen reply; "through shortness of money."
"Don't be insolent to me, sir," retorted Mr. Forde. "You know it has come through no such thing; it has come through gross bad management and cowardice, of which a child might be ashamed, and utter laziness and want of energy."
"Well, we need not quarrel about the cause, Mr. Forde," said Rupert, "and as hard words break no bones—particularly when they chance to be untrue,—we will not quarrel over the last part of your sentence either; the end has come, and in my opinion the only matter to be regretted is that it did not come sooner."
"Your opinion," repeated Mr. Forde with a sneer.
"It may not be worth much I admit," said Rupert in agreement, "but such as it is you are welcome to it; and now, Mr. Forde, as there cannot be the slightest use in our prolonging a disagreeable interview I will wish you good afternoon."
"Don't go yet," exclaimed the manager peremptorily. "Confound that fellow, where has he got to?" having added which rider to his sentence, he took his hat once more and hurried out of the office.
"I wonder if he intends to give me in charge," thought the young man, who was much perplexed by Mr. Forde's mysterious change of manner. "Never mind, I hope I shall never set foot in this office again." A hope which was realized, but not in the way he desired.
Up and down the office he commenced pacing again. No one before had ever been made so free, or made himself so free of it as to take such a liberty; but the brand-new carpet and the furniture smelling strongly of varnish, and the manager's airs of alternate affability and terrorism, were nothing to Rupert now. He had sworn to himself from the time he broke ground with Mortomley, that Mr. Forde should be an incubus on his life no longer.
"I would rather have a settled term of penal servitude than an uncertain period of slavery under Forde," he had remarked more than once to Mr. Gibbons; and then Mr. Gibbons, who managed his own affairs extremely well, and who was not over-particular, so people said, about always rendering to other men exactly what was their due pecuniarily, asked what could have induced him and Mortomley to become Forde's bond-servants.
Whereupon Rupert, who could rap out an oath in a style which must have caused Mr. Asherill to shed tears had he heard his utterances, replied, "He believed Forde had got to the soft side of his uncle with some 'damned infernal rubbish' about his wife and children, and being ruined himself."
At which Mr. Gibbons laughed again, and happening to own a few shares in the General Chemical Company, directed his broker to sell them.
According to Mr. Gibbons' account, when he next met Mr. Forde, he had never been so short of money in his life as at that particular period.
He pledged his word, nothing except dire necessity could have induced him to part with those especial shares.
When times mended a little, he should like to re-purchase, but he supposed there would be then none in the market.
"I will try to get you a few privately," said Mr. Forde, knowing his companion had not spoken a word of truth during the whole of their conversation, and Mr. Gibbons thanked him, understanding perfectly well that Mr. Forde was perfectly well aware he regarded the General Chemical Company as a Company going, generally speaking, to the dogs; and the pair shook hands, and bade each other "Good-bye" most cordially, and parted apparently on the very best of terms.
Now this Mr. Gibbons was the gentleman who, having taken Mr. Mortomley's measure at a very early period of their business acquaintanceship, recommended him not to see Mr. Forde till the liquidation business was past recall; and the reader may therefore imagine the nature of Rupert's feelings, he having unbounded faith in Mr. Gibbons' powers of discernment, when he beheld Mr. Forde re-enter his office accompanied by Mortomley.
The impending bankrupt looked flushed and tired. Mr. Forde's face bore on it a mingled expression of triumph and anxiety. Rupert surveyed the pair distrustfully. If he had ever doubted the accuracy of Mr. Gibbons' judgment, he certainly did not doubt it then, when he beheld Mortomley led captive into the lion's den.
Without asking his visitors to be seated, Mr. Forde flung himself into his own especial chair, crossed his legs, stuffed one hand deep down into his pocket, and said "You may not be aware of it, but this is a very serious thing for me."
"I am afraid it is," agreed Mortomley, leaning in a limp attitude against the manager's desk, one hand resting on it, the other which held his hat hanging down by his side.
As for Rupert, seeing Mr. Forde did not think it necessary to remove his head gear, he at once and defiantly covered his curly black locks, and took up a position close to the window, out of which he stared assiduously.
"And it is a very serious thing for you," observed Mr. Forde in the tone and in the manner of an open-air preacher.
No honest man placed in such a position could dispute the truth of this proposition, and Mr. Mortomley did not attempt to do so.
"And I really do not see how you are to get through it," went on Mr. Forde.
"I think—indeed, I am sure I shall not have any opposing creditor—unless it may be you," said Mortomley suggestively.
"Oh! as for me," answered Mr. Forde, "I shall walk out of the concern whenever you go into liquidation. I have pledged myself so deeply concerning your solvency and respectability that I could not face my directors over your account. It is a fact, I could not. I must leave; and I am not a young and adaptable man, like your nephew there, able to play at football with fortune, and I am not like you, Mr. Mortomley, so fortunate as to have married a wife possessed of money. When I go all goes; when this salary ceases, I have not the faintest idea where to turn to procure another, and what is to become of my wife and children God alone knows. Poor little Alfie!" added Mr. Forde sotto voce, apostrophizing the latest pug-nosed, round-faced, vacant-eyed darling with which Mrs. Forde had as yet blessed the managerial mansion.
That shot went straight home. Mortomley thought of his wife and his Lenore, and remained ashamedly silent. Mr. Forde perceiving his advantage pressed it.
"You are the last man I should have considered capable of taking such a mean advantage."
"Good heavens!" broke in Mortomley, "what would you have me do? Can I keep on a business with men in possession, with judgments out against me, with writs returnable next week and the week after. Mean advantage! I have borne what I think no other man living would have done, and I believe I have been a simple fool for my pains."
At this juncture Rupert interposed.
"If you allow Mr. Forde to persuade you to draw back now you will be a simple fool."
"Keep silence, sir," said Mr. Forde facing round on this undesired prophet.
"I shall not keep silence if I see fit to speak," retorted Rupert angrily.
"You have spoken a great deal too often of late," was the reply. "Owing to your representations I have been induced to tell my directors that Mr. Deane intended to go into partnership with your uncle, and—"
"Stop," interposed Rupert. "Let me contradict one canard at a time. I never said Mr. Deane would go into partnership with Mr. Mortomley, but you did, and I then told you Mr. Deane would do no such thing. You then suggested he might lend money to the concern. I told you he would not. Of course you will try to make your own story good, but mine is the true version of the affair."
With a shrug—which Mr. Forde believed to be of a style a Frenchman might have envied—the manager turned once again to Mortomley.
"We will waive that question for the present," he said. "I suppose you do not really want to go into the Gazette; you have no private reason for desiring to liquidate your affairs?"
"And the act is, you tell me, not past recall?"
"It is not," said Mortomley.
Rupert clenched his hand and made a feint of thrusting his fist through a pane of glass as his relative spoke, but he refrained and said,
"Gibbons knows all about it."
"Ah! how does that happen?" asked Mr. Forde, rising and walking eagerly towards the window.
"We met him," Rupert answered. "He asked what news, and I told him. He said it was the best thing could be done, and that if a friendly trustee were required he would not mind acting."
"I dare say not—I dare say not," observed Mr. Forde. "Now, sir," addressing Mortomley, "how much do you want to clear you? For what amount are these debts upon which writs are returnable? Things, if faced, are never very formidable. I dare say with good management, you can pull through without difficulty. First—" and he dipped his pen in the ink and drew a sheet of paper towards him.
At this crisis Rupert turned from the window and advanced towards the desk.
"One moment, if you please," he said, interrupting Mr. Forde's figure pattern of Mortomley's debts. "Archie," he went on, "you remember what I told you yesterday."
"Yes, I remember, Rupert; but—"
"But you did not believe me; never mind standing nice about words, that was what it came to. Now I know what the end of all this will prove. I know I and my father, God forgive us both, have brought you into this connection, out of which I fear nothing but utter ruin can now extricate you. Still there is one last chance left you, and I give it. Don't listen to another word that plausible gentleman speaks, but come away with me, and leave all the rest to your solicitor. Will you come? No. Then I go; but before we meet again, I, who now thoroughly understand Mr. Forde, say you will have done an hour's work you will repent to the last day of your life."
If the atmosphere of the City had proved trying to more than one person on that especial day when Mr. Forde felt it necessary to wonder what, in the event of Mortomley's failing, was to become of his—Forde's—wife and children, many people at Homewood had not found country air agree with them so well as usual.
The morning broke clear and bright. Mortomley, with haggard face and listless mien, appeared early amongst his men, vibrating between office and works till eight o'clock ringing introduced into the manufactory the usual odours of fish and rank bacon, which were detestable in the nostrils of the owner of Homewood.
Mr. Lang had overnight made up his mind to draw his employer's attention to several matters of paramount importance. Mr. Hankins, stepping up to Homewood in the early morning, had determined, let who else would not, to speak to the governor about "that 'ere——lot of barytes;" but when the silent half-hour arrived, both intentions were unfulfilled. There had been that in Mortomley's face which, like death, stopped criticism as well as comment.
By reason of long wakefulness at night, and unbroken slumber after dawn, Rupert entered the breakfast-room later than usual. He was vexed at this, because he wanted to speak in private to Dolly, who, seeming to understand his wishes by intuition, sidled up to him in the hall and whispered,
"Archie has said nothing to me; nothing at all."
Then the dog-cart was brought round, and the two men drove off to the station, leaving the two women to their own devices.
Miss Halling had a new piece to practise, and a new song to try. Dolly went up to her own room and stayed there for a couple of hours. Then she rang the bell.
"I am at home to-day to no one," she said. "Remember, to no one, not even to Mrs. Werner. Tell Miss Halling this."
After a time she could not, however, endure the solitude any longer; and so stealing downstairs, let herself out into the laurel walk, and paced its length, so one who watched her with pitying eyes said afterwards, hundreds and hundreds of times.
That over, her maid, finding she refused to come in to luncheon, took her out a biscuit and a glass of wine.
"Do try to swallow it, ma'am," she entreated; and Mrs. Mortomley looking at her with almost unseeing eyes complied.
After that the girl told Miss Lenore to run and look for her mamma, and ten minutes after child and mother were sitting hand clasped in hand in a summer-house placed in a retired part of the grounds.
Hour after hour crept by. Lenore had been asleep and was awake again. Dolly's eyes had grown weary of looking at the trees and the grass and the flowers, and her ears were aching by reason of listening for the sound of voices that came not, of footsteps that tarried by the way.
At last a servant hurried to where she sat, saying,
"The master has come back, ma'am." They all knew she was anxious; they were all, perhaps, anxious themselves.
Then, like one weak from long illness, she arose and, walking slowly, retraced her way to the house.
On the lawn Mortomley met her.
"Well, dear?" she asked.
"It is all right, little woman," he answered, with a more cheerful expression than she had seen lighten his face for many a day. "Everything will go on well now."
She did not ask a question; she would not damp his exultation by a word, though she saw Rupert standing in the background with bent brows and lowering visage.
For the time being, her husband was happy. If her own soul misgave her, why should she try to make him unhappy?
A most unsuitable wife for Mortomley those who know most about such matters exclaim, and I dare not venture to say them nay. Only in his joy as in his sorrow she was loyal. She was no Griselda; no senselessly submissive woman; no besotted creature who thought her husband, simply because he chanced to be her husband, could do no wrong; but she was loyal.
If he made mistakes, to others she would uphold them; if he was weak, as sensitive and generous and noble natures usually are in some points, Dolly would not have been Dolly had it been possible for her to side with those who criticized his failings.
There are not many women of Mrs. Mortomley's stamp to be found in the times we now live in—all the better for the world it may be, since an universe of failure is a thing scarcely to be contemplated with equanimity; but in the old days ladies whose names shall for ever live in story, were not ashamed to cling to a fallen cause, and were capable of feeling a respect and devotion for a fugitive prince they never felt for a king on his throne. But fashions change, and she who adopts an obsolete fashion makes a mistake.
"She is as great a simpleton as he," thought Rupert, turning angrily away, for in truth his temper had that day been tried almost beyond endurance.
No one living understood better than Rupert Halling, that first to his father and then to him, Mortomley owed the present complication of his affairs.
There were plenty of people to enlighten him on both points. City folks are no more backward than the rest of the world about uttering disagreeable truths; and Mr. Rupert Halling had only been assisting his uncle for a short period before references to the way in which his father had regarded Mortomley's chattels as his own, inquiries as to whether Homewood was not a nice sort of place to be free of, facetious remarks concerning the advantage it must prove to a young man to have a relation's house in which to hang up his hat for life, with more covert allusions to Mortomley as a good milch cow, and a confiding, easy-going, soft sort of clever simpleton,—showed the young man exactly how the business world, which he cordially detested, regarded the owner of Homewood and his hangers on.
But this and much more Rupert could have borne with equanimity, had he not felt Mortomley's affairs were becoming hopelessly entangled. He had done his best, his poor incompetent best to avert the calamity. He had offered to help his uncle, feeling certain his vigorous youth, his perfect health, his undaunted assurance, could work much more wondrous results on the Cockney mind than Mortomley, with his modest diffidence, his shy, quiet manners, his reserve and his utter absence of self-assertion had ever been able to effect.
And at first results justified his confidence. City people are too apt to judge by appearances and to accept a man's estimate of himself as correct, and there were certainly a sufficient number of persons who for a considerable period really did think Rupert a more desirable representative of Mortomley's business than Mortomley himself.
But when once difficulty came, the new favourite was deposed. Creditors said openly, "Things would not be as they are if Mr. Mortomley was well;" the Thames Street clerks grumbled and remarked amongst themselves, "We never were so bothered when the governor was here;" men Rupert knew in business, meeting him rushing along the streets, sometimes advised him to "cut trade," or, if in a jocular mood, inquired when he expected to make his fortune and retire; people who had known something of Mortomley and of Mortomley's father before him, came to offer advice to the young man, and entreat that, if there were any real fire beneath the smoke enveloping the colour maker's affairs, he would recommend his uncle to face the worst boldly and meet his creditors.
If counsellors could have compassed deliverance, Mortomley had been saved; but it is one thing to give advice and another to follow it. There is all the difference between seeing clearly how your neighbour ought to act and feeling inclined to act boldly yourself.
Further, in this especial case there was a great deal to lose. Bankruptcy did not mean to Mortomley precisely what it does to a vast number of persons who suspend payment.
To be able to preserve his home, his works, his connection, was worth almost any personal sacrifice he could make; and even whilst anathematizing business and business people, and business ways and business drudgery, Rupert felt that if the evil could be averted, he was bound to do all that lay in his power to compass his uncle's emancipation.
But once he found that nothing save severing altogether the ropes which bound Mortomley to the wheels of the General Chemical Company's chariot would or could mend the position of affairs, he was as eager for the crash to come as he had been anxious to avoid it.