The spring did not bring happy days with it in the city of London. The south wind had no influence on that financial storm which had not yet subsided. It brought no comfort to unhappy speculators and tottering houses of trade. The city sparrows shambled from under the eaves, and rolled themselves in the dust of the great city, and street boys whistled merrily along the hard pavements; but great merchants held down their heads, directors of companies hurried to and fro with great secrets in their hearts that troubled them sorely; countrymen stared vacantly up at offices and banks that were closed and marked “To Let.” The genius of finance, and not spring, had full possession of the City, and he was tormenting it with panic fiends and imps of all kinds.
People had said six months previously that the worst was over; but the genius of finance looked on with a sardonic grin, and after breathing awhile quietly he set to work again, shaking the city with all his might, and letting flights of rumours out of his black bag that frightened people almost out of their wits. Then the telegraph wires carried the rumours far away into the country once more, and newspaper editors began to write furiously about the currency; deputations waited on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to talk about the Bank Charter Act; and the court of the Bank of England sat in secret, and raised the rate of discount. The more that big demon of finance shook the City, the higher went up the Bank barometer, and the higher it rose the lower fell the hopes of traders, and discounters, and shaky companies.
The period of panic through which the monetary world is passing whilst we are writing this history, has nearly all the characteristics of the one which occurred in the days of Thomas Dibble and Richard Tallant, and the other persons who make up this poor drama of life. Every ten years these storms occur, they say; and yet the wise people who say so, never seem prepared for the rainy day.
Mr. Richard Tallant had hitherto succeeded in profiting by the storm. He was one of those financial wreckers who plundered the broken ships, and made money out of claims for salvage after the crews were murdered. But he had believed, like some others, that the worst was past during that breathing time, and in an evil hour for him he had, on good information, bought largely of shares in the Bungalay Bank, and had taken a seat at the board of directors. The thing collapsed immediately on the revival of the financial storm, and Mr. Tallant’s losses were so considerable, that the four thousand pounds which he had screwed out of Twyzell and Kits were absolutely necessary to meet and float fresh bills of exchange which had been useful bladders to him in the monetary sea for some time past. Several “good things” had come to the ground without warning, including a discount house in which Mr. Tallant was interested.
The times were peculiarly ticklish for many a stronger man than Richard Tallant; but that gentleman found himself in a position which needed all his administrative ability. He not only held a large number of shares in the Bungalay Bank, but he had used the establishment largely in connection with the Discount Company for bill purposes. He had worked his position at the Meter Iron Works to considerable advantage, drawing upon foreign iron houses, and other companies (some of them quite imaginary), and holding their acceptances to a large amount. The collapse of the Bungalay Bank and the Discount Company made things particularly unpleasant. It would not do for him to sell to any extent the shares he held in the Meter Works; for his holding there gave him a strong position at the board. He had before now made money out of winding up a bank; but there had been no opportunity for this in the Bungalay, and Mr. Tallant had a shrewd suspicion that he had been “done” in this business, seeing that the promoter of the bank was the gentleman who had brought it to the ground by a petition to wind it up.
Keeping up appearances was a thing of great importance to Mr. Tallant—next indeed to meeting his engagements. He therefore took an opportunity to let it be known in the proper quarter that his sister was going to be married to Earl Verner, which fact speedily came forth in the Morning Post, and was copied by a host of other journals. “The Right Hon. the Earl Verner will shortly lead to the hymeneal altar, Miss Tallant, daughter and heiress of the late Christopher Tallant, Esq., of Barton Hall, and sister to Richard Tallant, Esq., of the City of London, Managing Director of the famous Meter Iron Works Company.”
Lord Verner did not much like this announcement. The thing might have been blazoned forth in all the papers so far as the mere fact was concerned; but he objected to the introduction of Richard Tallant into the announcement. He was her brother, no doubt, but he was a scoundrel he believed in addition, and his father had disowned him.
His lordship showed Amy the Post, and she only laughed at it, and said how very absurd to mention her brother.
“Though by the way, my lord, he is wonderfully improved, I believe. He is making quite a reputation in that dreadful London.”
“Is he, my love?” said Lord Verner, looking down at Miss Tallant, as she put the last touches to a water-colour drawing.
“Yes, I have seen his name in the papers several times lately mentioned almost as respectfully as his late father’s.”
What a splendid creature she is, Lord Verner thought, as he stood by her side, forgetting altogether about her brother. “Is not that sky slightly too blue?” he said, leaning over her.
“Perhaps it is my love—my lord, I mean,” said Amy, at which his lordship was in raptures; so much so, that he put his arm round the painter’s waist, and kissed her.
“There!” said Amy, laughing. “I will call you love no more—what a mistake I made to be sure; now, pray go away, you will spoil my work. Sit down, and let us talk.”
Lord Verner complied at, once, and sat down close beside her.
“I ought not to be wasting time upon this,” said Amy; “but I really could not resist finishing it this morning. Let me see, what were we talking about. Oh, my brother. Well, as I observed, he is really making quite a position as a financier—quite. What a pity it is, he did not begin to reform before Mr. Tallant died.”
“That is a matter of opinion, my dear—ha, ha, ha!” said Lord Verner, laughing and chuckling quite merrily; “he would have had all the money then, perhaps—ha, ha!”
Amy turned round and looked his lordship full in the face, and saw at once that this was said in jest.
“Don’t you see, my love, you would have had no great fortune to give your husband—eh? don’t you see! How it might have influenced events—eh? Ha, ha!”
Lord Verner went red in the face at the bare idea of anything influencing his choice of Amy for a wife.
“And then you would not have proposed for me?” said Amy, smiling.
“No, no—capital idea, is it not?—splendid idea—ha, ha!”
“Then you only care about my money?” said Amy, with affected seriousness.
“That is all, dear, that is all. I am poor myself, very poor; I wanted money—ha, ha!—capital joke!”
“I think it is more than a joke, my lord,” said Amy, quite seriously.
“No, now, you do not,” said his lordship, rising and taking her hand quite gravely; “I am sure you do not.”
Now it was Amy’s turn to laugh, and she did so right merrily, shaking her finger archly at her lord and saying, “There, that is one to me, as you say. Of course I was joking; but now, really, let us talk seriously.”
“Well, then, my dearest girl,” said his lordship, “if you had been no more than that bailiff’s daughter, if you had been that beggar maid you talk of in the poem, I would have asked you to marry me all the same, and felt blessed with your consent. You know I would,” said his lordship, with passionate earnestness.
“My dear lord,” said Amy, with more warmth than she had ever spoken before.
“What care I for money,” said his lordship, “except for the luxuries it can purchase?—and nothing it could purchase would make me so happy as I am with you.”
Amy held down her head and blushed, not for the love she bore him, but because in that earnest moment she saw a likeness to his brother, and she was grateful for his affection, and remembered how she had sought to inspire the same feeling in another.
“We were talking of my brother,” she said presently, laying down her brushes. “What a pity it is that we are not friendly; it seems so lonely to think that I have no male relative who should stand by my side at our marriage.”
Poor Amy! There was something in that half-threat of Richard Tallant’s about giving her away which had set her thinking and preparing for such a contingency as a demand from her brother to be a wedding guest; and she knew that if he vowed to be there at the ceremony, there was no Ancient Mariner to take him by the button, and keep him away. She almost hated herself for saying a word in favour of one whose conduct ought to have placed him outside all decent society.
“Don’t think of that, my dear girl,” said his lordship. “Lord Tufton will ‘give you away,’ as the service hath it, and I will be by your side.”
“You are so kind and considerate,” said Amy. “You do not like me to thank you, and I will not; but supposing I had a brother worthy of being present, how nice it would have been: it will seem so very strange to have no one belonging to me at such a time. If Lieutenant Somerton had really been my brother.”
“Yes, he is rather a fine fellow, the young officer, and I propose we invite him to be present.”
Miss Tallant was pleased at this kindly recognition of her sometime brother Paul, and from that time she desisted further in her preliminary suggestions with regard to her real brother.
Meanwhile the arrangements for the wedding went on, and hardly a day went by which did not bring some handsome present from Lord Verner. His lordship had been over to Paris specially to make a purchase of some famous court diamonds, which he had learnt were in the market. There was nothing too good nor too costly for this charming woman at Barton Hall.
It was almost like buying the young lady to load her so with presents and compliments, and already all the people at Montem Castle were profoundly jealous of her. The housekeeper, the valet, the cook, the chaplain, even the vicar at Brazencrook, close by, were jealous of the coming queen. The Castle had been undergoing all sorts of alterations during the last few months. Painters and decorators, and upholsterers, and cabinet-makers, had swarmed in every part of it, and his lordship had looked into every nook and corner of the place himself. The gardeners had been compelled to seek assistance, and strange men from London, calling themselves florists, had been down, and planted all manner of strange-looking plants and shrubs. The whole place had been in a state of commotion, and his lordship had never been known to be so active, nor so well. When the vicar ventured, on the strength of old familiarity, to rally his lordship upon his improved health and spirits, the Earl laughed and chuckled, and said he had no time to be ill; he did not intend to be ill any more; he had wasted enough valuable time upon that hobby.
Then the vicar would go home to chat with Mrs. Vicar about the changes which were taking place, and wonder what Mr. Hammerton thought about the affair. Of course he knew nothing of it at present; there had scarcely been time for letters to reach him since the match had really been settled and made known.
Everybody in the neighbourhood of Montem Castle and at Brazencrook had looked upon the Hon. Lionel Hammerton as certain of the earldom. Not only was his brother considerably his senior—old enough to be his father—but he had generally been an invalid, and looked much older than he really was. But his lordship was far stronger than they imagined. He had loved retirement and study, and frequently secured it by a pretence of not being well. He had a horror of “boredom”; he could not endure toadyism; he loved his books and his pictures, his old china, his statuary; and he preferred this to the best society in the district, though he and the vicar and occasional visitors dined luxuriously together, and sat genially over their wine until late in the night.
It was generally agreed that his lordship was odd, and nobody doubted that some day he would be found dead in his bed, and that Lionel Hammerton would succeed and make up for the former Earl’s retirement by a liberal reign and a generous performance of the duties of his high station. But his lordship had opened their eyes of late, and turned the gossip into entirely new and unexpected channels.
Earl Verner’s intended wife had not misinterpreted Richard Tallant’s vague threat. The idea had only occurred to him suddenly as an available bit of sarcasm to hurl at his sister; but he had thought of it in the railway, lighted his cigar with it at the junction, and it had cropped up in his thoughts several times since. To be publicly reconciled to his sister, and be seen hand and glove with Lord Verner; to be recorded as giving away his sister to an Earl, would be of great advantage to him, just at that time when it was important he should keep up appearances. So he resolved to write to his sister upon the subject, and Amy was not at all surprised when she received the letter.
Nevertheless, Amy’s first impulse was to explain the whole thing to Lord Verner, and entreat his advice and forgiveness; but her second thoughts were calmer and more worldly, and she wrote a brief acknowledgment of Mr. Tallant’s letter, drove to Avonworth, and posted it herself, that the servants might not know there was any correspondence between her brother and herself. She promised to give the subject her best consideration, and on the next opportunity that offered she again introduced the question to Earl Verner. That she might do so more easily, and with a better chance of success, Mr. Richard Tallant had forwarded a copy of the Severntown Times, in which the following paragraph was marked:
“The Representation of Severntown.—We are authorised to state that at the next election for Severntown, Mr. Richard Tallant, who is well known in the county, will offer himself as a candidate in the Liberal interest. Mr. Tallant is a gentleman of great financial and administrative ability; he is best known as the managing director of that great and flourishing corporation, the Meter Iron Works Company. Added to his high position in the commercial world, our readers have had many proofs of his benevolence. He is a subscriber to all our local institutions, and we happen to know that his private charities are equally liberal. With regard to his politics we believe him to be a Liberal in the best sense of the term; but upon that point the electors will form their own judgment at the proper time. It is pretty well understood that we shall have a general election during the next six months.”
“I had thought of my brother Lionel for Severntown,” said Lord Verner, when Amy showed his lordship the paragraph; “but I have given that up, of course,—he was too extravagant.”
Miss Tallant made no remark about Lionel; but endeavoured to impress his lordship with the growing importance of her brother, and what a position he might have held had he made his peace with his father before he died; then by degrees she presented herself in the light of an ungrateful sister, and talked about the duty of forgiveness.
Need we say that in the end she gained her point, which was not exactly permission to invite her brother to be present at the ceremony, but that Earl Verner should himself suggest that perhaps it would be best that Mr. Richard Tallant should be asked to act the paternal part on the interesting occasion. He had called upon her, Amy explained, and this newspaper was directed to her by himself. He had made overtures of peace; was it not her place as the inheritor of so much property, which ought to have been his, to respond, and thus give him an additional inducement to blot out the past, and make reparation to society and to his father’s memory? Of course it was. Lord Verner was too liberal a man not to see this at once, and not to love his intended wife all the more for her generous and noble advocacy of her brother.