Stanley John Weyman

“ The Squire was angry—angry for the moment, and with reason. But could he maintain his anger against one who had saved his life at the risk of his own? Could he refuse to pardon one, but for whom he would be already lying in his grave? With a quick uplifting of the spirit Arthur conceived that the Squire could not. No man could be so thankless, so unmindful of a benefit, so ungrateful.
Strange, that he had not thought of that before! Strange—that under the pressure of difficulties he had let that claim slip from his mind. It had restored him to his uncle’s favor once. ”

“ Ovington.”
“A very bad banker,” he replied ruefully. “To tell the truth, Miss Griffin, I hate banking. Pounds, shillings, and pence—and this!” He pointed to the country about them, the stream, the sylvan path they were treading, the wood beside them, with its depths gilded here and there by a ray of the sun. “A desk and a ledger—and this! Oh, I hate them! I would like to live out of doors. I want”—in a burst of candor—“to live my own life! To be able to follow my own bent and make the most of myself.” ”

“ Now and again men went by the windows, talking—talking, it might be, of him: anxious, suspicious, greedy, ready at a word to ruin themselves and him, to cut their own throats in their selfish panic. They had only to use common sense, to control themselves, and no man would lose a penny. But they would have no common sense. They would rush in and destroy all, their own and his. For no bank called upon to pay in a day all that it owed could do so, any more than an insurance office could at any moment pay all its lives. ”

“ The romance charmed Betty, the audacity of it dazzled her; for, a woman, she perceived more clearly than Clement the gulf between the town and the country, the new and the old. She listened to his tale with sighs and tears and little endearments, and led him on from one thing to another. She could not hear too much of a story that hardly a woman alive could have heard with indifference. She praised Josina to the top of his bent, and if she could not give him much hope, she gave sympathy. ”

“ In a room vibrating with emotion they gazed at one another in thankful silence, and it was only after a long interval that the older man let his thoughts appear. Then “Thank God!” he said unsteadily, “and you, Clement! God bless you! If we owe this to any one we owe it to you, my boy! If you had not been beside me, God knows what I might not have done!”
“Pooh, pooh, sir,” Clement said; yet he did but disguise deep feeling under a mask of lightness. “You don’t do yourself justice. And for the matter of that, if we have to thank any one it is Rodd, here.” ”

“ But even he found it easier to go with the current, and once or twice, so high was his opinion of Arthur’s abilities, he let himself be persuaded by him. Then the mere bustle was exhilarating. The door of the bank that never rested, the crowded counter, the incense of the streets, the whispers where he passed, all had their intoxicating effect. The power to put a hundred pounds into a man’s pocket—who can abstain from, who is not flattered by, the use of this, who can at all times close his mouth? And often one thing leads to another, and advice is the prelude to a loan. ”

“ He had left the house, crossed with a grave face to the Market Place, and rung the bell at Dean’s. He had entered after a brief parley with an amazed man-servant, had been admitted to see one of the partners, and at a cost to his pride, which only he could measure, the banker had stooped to ask for help. Between concerns doing business in the same town, relations must exist and transactions must pass even when they are in competition; and Dean’s and Ovington’s had been no exception to the rule. But the elder bank had never forgotten that they had once enjoyed a monopoly. ”

“ The arrival of every coach was a thing to listen for, the opening of every mail-bag a terror, the presentation of every bill a pang, the payment of every note a thing at which to wince; while the sense of danger, borne like some infection on the air, spread mysteriously from town to village, and village to hamlet, to penetrate at last wherever one man depended on another for profit or for subsistence. ”

“ Now and again a man who had been slow to take the alarm forced his way, pale and agitated, through the crowd, to vanish within the doors; or a countryman, whom the news had only just reached in his boosey-close or his rickyard—as they call a stackyard in Aldshire—rode up the hill, hot with haste and cursing those who blocked his road, flung his reins to the nearest bystander, and plunged into the bank as into water. And on the fringe, hiding themselves in doorways, or in the dark mouths of alleys, were men who stood biting their nails, heedless or unconscious of what passed about them ”

“ His gaze, passing over the ledger that lay before him, focussed itself on the unconscious customers beyond the counter. He had the air of challenging them, of defying them. They were the enemy. It was their folly, their greed, their selfishness, their insensate desire to save themselves, let who would perish, that menaced the bank, that threatened the security, the well-being, the happiness of better men. It was a battle and they were the enemy. He scowled at them. Supposing them to have sense, patience, unselfishness, there would be no battle and no danger. ”

“ Less might not serve; while to ask for less, to ask for anything at all, might cost the petitioner the favor he had won—his standing in the house, and the advantages which the Squire’s support might still gain for him. And then it was such a forlorn hope, such a desperate, feckless venture! No, he would be a fool to risk it. He dared not do it. He had not the face.
Yet, for a few seconds after the Squire had ceased to speak, Arthur hesitated, confession trembling on his lips. The twelve thousand would make all good, save all, redeem all—ay, and bind Ovington to him in bonds of steel. ”

“ To Arthur he was more candid. The eye was beyond hope—it could not be saved, and he feared that the other eye was injured; and there was serious concussion. He played with his fob seals and looked sagely over his gold-rimmed spectacles as he mouthed his phrases. Whether there was a fracture he could not say at present.
He had seen in a long life and a country practice many such cases, and was skilful in treating them. But—no active measures. “Dr. Quiet,” he said, “Dr. Quiet, the best of the faculty, my dear. If he does not always effect a cure, he makes no mistakes. ”

“ Oh, Bourdillon? It was Bourdillon you asked for? To be sure, it’s Mr. Ovington, isn’t it? I thought so; I never forget a face, but he didn’t tell me that you were here. By Jove!” He raised his hands—he was a portly gentleman, wearing a satin under-vest and pins and chains innumerable, all at this moment a little awry. “By Jove, what a find you have there! Slap, bang, and tip to the mark, and no mistake! Hard and sharp as nails! I take off my hat to him! There’s not a firm,” mopping his heated face anew, “within half a mile of us that wouldn’t be glad to have him! ”

“ On market evenings women stole trembling down the lane that the sound of wheels might the sooner dispel their fears.
At Garth it was youth not age that first caught the alarm. For Josina’s conscience troubled her, and before even Miss Peacock, most fidgety of old maids, had seen cause to fear, the girl was standing in the darkness before the door, listening and uneasy. The Squire was seldom late; it could not be that Clement had met him and there had been a—but no, Clement was not the man to raise his hand against his elder—the thought was dismissed as soon as formed. ”

“ He paused. He did not know what to add, and the Squire did not help him, and for the first time Arthur felt a pang of uneasiness. This was not lessened when the old man asked, “How long has this been going on, eh?”
“Oh, for a long time, sir—on my side,” Arthur answered. There was an ominous silence. The Squire might be taking it well or ill—it was impossible to judge. He had not changed his attitude and still sat, leaning forward, his hands on his stick, impenetrable behind his bandages. It struck Arthur that he might have been premature; that he might have put his favor to too high a test. ”

“ And even on him the prosperity of the venture had some effect. Sir Charles and Acherley, too, were not of those who openly exulted; it is possible that the latter sold a few shares, or even a good many shares.
But Purslow and Grounds and Wolley? Who shall describe the importance which sat upon their brows, the dignity of their strut, the gravity of their nod, the mock humility of their reticence? Never did they go in or go out without the consciousness that the eyes of passers-by were upon them! Theirs to make men’s fortunes by a hint—and their bearing betrayed that they knew it. ”

“ So precious indeed were the associations they recalled, that while, with the hardness of a woman who loves elsewhere, she felt little sympathy with Arthur in his disappointment, she actively resented the fact that he had chosen to address her there, and so had profaned the one spot, on which with some approach to nearness, she could dream of Clement.
Living a life so retired, and with little to distract her, she gave herself to long thoughts of her lover, and lived and lived again the stolen moments which she had spent with him. ”

“ A stranger, and worse than a stranger—a nobody. Then apart from her father’s contempt for the class to which Clement belonged, and with which he was less in sympathy than with the peasants on his lands, his prejudice against the Ovingtons was itself a thing to frighten her! Hardly a day passed that he did not utter some jibe at their expense, or some word that betrayed how sorely Arthur’s defection rankled. And then his blindness—that added the last touch of deceit to her conduct, that made worse and more clandestine what had been bad before. ”

“ Ruin was abroad, stalking the countryside, driving rich and poor, the widow and the orphan to one bourne, and his name—his name through his nephew—would be linked with it, and dragged through the mire by it, no man so poor that he might not have a fling at it. He had held his head high, he had refused to stoop to such things, he had condemned others of his class, Woosenham and Acherley, and their like, because they had lowered themselves to the traffic of the market-place. But now—now, wherever men met and bragged of their losses and cursed their deluders, the talk would be of his nephew! ”

“ From this moment the bank became to him a place of interest and color, instead of that which it had been. Where there was danger there was romance. Even Rodd, adding up a customer’s pass-book, his face more thoughtful than usual, wore a halo, for he stood in peril. If the shutters went up Rodd would suffer with his betters. He would lose his place, he would be thrown on the world. He would lose, too, the trifle which he had on deposit in the bank. And even Rodd might have his plans and aims and ambitions, might be hoping for a rise, might be looking to marry some day—and some one! ”

“ But his mind was now busy with Arthur. Was it true that the young spark was thinking more of Garth than of the girl? More of the heiress than of the sweetheart? More of lucre than of love? If so, d—n his impudence! He deserved what he had got! From which point it was but a step to thoughts of the bank. Ay, Arthur was certainly one who had his plans for getting on, and getting on in ways to which no Griffin had stooped before. ”

“ He gained the bank without further stay, and there the stir and bustle which his practised eye was quick to mark sustained the note already struck. There were customers coming and going: some paying in, others seeking to have bills renewed, or a loan on securities that they might pay calls, or accommodation of one kind or another. But with easy money these demands could be granted, and many a parcel of Ovington’s notes passed out amid smiling and general content. The January sun was shining as if March winds would never blow, and credit seemed to be a thing to be had for the asking. ”

“ The shares of companies which had passed from hand to hand at fourfold and tenfold their face value fell with appalling rapidity. They fell and fell until they were in many cases worth no more than the paper on which they were printed. And the bursting of these shams, which had never owned the smallest chance of success, brought about the fall of ventures better founded. The good suffered with the bad. Presently no man would buy a share, no man would look at a share, no bank advance on its security. Men saw their fortunes melt day by day as snow melts under an April sun. ”

“ As a rule Ovington was too big a man to harbor spite, but as he rode and fumed, a plan which he had already considered put on a new aspect, and by and by his brow relaxed and he smote his thigh. Something tickled him and he laughed. He thought that he saw a way to avenge himself and to annoy his enemy, and by the time he reached the bank he was himself again. Indeed, he had not been human if he had not by that time owned that whatever Garth thought of him he was something in Aldersbury. ”

“ He was in a savage mood as he crossed the stable-yard at Garth, and unluckily his eye fell upon Thomas, who was seated on a shaft in a corner of the cart-shed. The man espied him at the same moment and hurried away a paper—it looked like a newspaper—over which he had been poring. Now, the Squire hated idleness, but he hated still more to see a newspaper in one of his men’s hands. A laborer who could read was, in his opinion, a laborer spoiled, and his wrath blazed up. ”

“ The imagination which had balked at the routine of banking, faced a crisis with alacrity, and conscious that he had hitherto failed his father, he welcomed with zest the opportunity of proving his loyalty, “Nobody blames you, sir!” he repeated firmly. “We are here to stand by you, and I am confident that we shall win through. If any bank can stand, Ovington’s will stand. And if we don’t win through, if the public insists on cutting its own throat, well”—a little ashamed of his own enthusiasm—“we shall still believe in you, sir, you may be sure of that!” ”

“ Between the village and Garth the fields sank gently, to rise again to the clump of beeches which masked the house. On the farther side the ground fell more sharply into the narrow valley over which the Squire’s window looked, and which separated the knoll whereon Garth stood from the cliffs. Beyond the brook that babbled down this valley and turned the mill rose, first, a meadow or two, and then the Thirty Acre covert, a tangle of birches and mountain-ashes which climbed to the foot of the rock-wall. ”

“ Clement laid his hand on his shoulder and said a cheery word, but, getting no answer, or as good as none, he went through to his desk. A moment later his voice could be heard rallying a too conscious customer, greeting another with contemptuous good humor, bringing into the close, heated atmosphere of the bank, where men breathed heavily, snapped at one another, and shuffled their feet, a gust of freer brisker air.
Another half-hour passed. A clerk brought in a slip. The banker looked at it. No more than seven hundred pounds remained in the till. “Very good,” he said. ”

“ The smiling plain, in the midst of which it rises, is itself embraced at a distance by a ring of hills, broken at one point only, which happens to correspond with the guarded isthmus; on which side, and some four miles away, was fought many centuries ago a famous battle. It is a proud town, looking out over a proud county, a county still based on ancient tradition, on old names and great estates, standing solid and four-square against the invasion that even in the Squire’s day threatened it—invasion of new men and new money, of Birmingham and Liverpool and Manchester. ”

“ She clasped him more closely to her. “Might not worse things happen to us? Might you not die and I be left alone? Or might I not die, and you lose me? Or Clement? You are pleased with Clement, father, aren’t you? He may not be as clever as—as some people. But you know he’s there when you want him. Suppose you lost us?”
“True, child. But you don’t know what poverty is—after wealth, Betty—how narrowing, how irksome, how it galls at every point! You don’t know what it is to live on two or three pounds a week, in two or three rooms!” ”