The explanation was serious enough, but, strange to say, Mrs. Bourdillon looked relieved. "Oh! And I suppose that they all have to be there?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"And that's all?"
"I am afraid that that is enough."
"But-but you don't mean that there may be a-a failure?"
"I hope not. Indeed, I hope not. But people are so silly! They think that they can all have their money out at once. And of course," Josina continued, speaking from a height of late-acquired knowledge, "a bank lends its money out and cannot get it in again in a minute. But I've no doubt that it will be all right. Mr. Ovington is very clever."
Mrs. Bourdillon sighed. "That's bad," she said. And she seemed to think it over. "You know that all our money is in the bank now, Josina! I don't know what we should do if it were lost! I don't know what we should do!" But, all the same, Josina was clear that this was not the fear that her visitor had had in her mind when she entered the room. "Nor why Arthur was so set upon putting it in," the good lady continued. "For goodness knows," bridling, "we were never in trade. Mr. Bourdillon's grandfather-but that was in the West Indies and quite different. I never heard anyone say it wasn't. So where Arthur got it from I am sure I don't know. And, oh dear, your father was so angry about it, he will never forgive us if it is lost."
"I don't think that you need be afraid," Josina said, as lightly as she could. "It's not lost yet, you know. And of course we must not say a word to anyone. If people thought that we were afraid-"
"We? But I can't see" – Mrs. Bourdillon spoke with sudden sharpness, "what you have to do with it?"
Josina blushed. "Of course we are all interested," she said.
Mrs. Bourdillon saw the blush. "You haven't-you and Arthur-made it up?" she ventured.
Josina shook her head.
"But why not? Now-now that he's in trouble, Josina?"
"I couldn't! I couldn't, indeed."
The mother's face fell, and she sighed. She stared for awhile at the faded carpet. When she looked up again, the old anxiety peeped from her eyes. "And you don't think that-there's anything else?" she asked, as she prepared to rise.
"I am afraid that that is enough-to make them all anxious!"
But later, when the other was gone, Josina wondered. What had aroused the mother's misgivings? What had brought that look of alarm to her eyes? Arthur's sudden departure might have vexed her, but it could hardly have done more, unless he had dropped some hint, or she had other grounds for suspicion? But that was impossible, Josina decided. And she dismissed the thought.
She went slowly upstairs. After all she had troubles enough of her own. She had her father to think of-and Clement. They were her world, hemispheres which, though her whole happiness depended upon it, she could hardly hope to bring together, divided as they were by an ocean of prejudice. How her father now regarded Clement, whether his hatred of the name were in the slightest degree softened, whether under the blow which had stunned him, he thought of her lover at all, or remembered that it was he, and not Arthur, who had saved his life, she had no notion.
Alas! it would be but natural if the name of Ovington were more hateful to him than ever. He would attribute-she felt that he did attribute Arthur's fall to them. He had said that it was the poison of trade, their trade, their cursed trade, which had entered his veins, and, contaminating the honest Griffin blood, had destroyed him. It was they who had ruined him!
And then, as if the stain were not enough, it was from them again that it could not be hid. They knew of it, they must know of it. There must be interviews about it, dealings about it, dealings with them. They might feign horror of it, they who in the Squire's eyes were the real cause of it. They might hold up their hands at the fact and pity him! Pity him! If anything, anything, she was sure, could add to her father's mortification, it was that the Ovingtons were involved in the matter.
With every stair, the girl's heart sank lower. Once more in her father's room, she watched him. But she was careful not to let her solicitude appear, and though she was assiduous for his comfort and conduced to it by keeping Miss Peacock and the servants at a distance, she said almost as little to him as he to her. From time to time he sighed, but it was only when she reminded him that it was his hour for bed that he let a glimpse of his feelings appear.
"Ay," he muttered, "I'm better there! Better there, girl!" And with one hand on his stick and the other on his chair he raised himself up by his arms as old men do. "I can hide my head there."
She lent him her shoulder across the room and strove by the dumb show of her love to give him what comfort she might, what sympathy. But tears choked her, and she thought with anguish that he was conquered. The unbreakable old man was broken. Shame and not the loss of his money had broken him.
It would not have surprised her had he kept his bed next day. But either there was still some spring of youth in him, or old age had hardened him, for he rose as usual, though the effort was apparent. He ate his breakfast in gloomy silence, and about an hour before noon he declared it his will to go out. Josina doubted if he was fit for it, but whatever the Squire willed his womenfolk accepted, and she offered to go with him. He would not have her, he would have Calamy-perhaps because Calamy knew nothing. "Take me to the stable," he said. And Josina thought "He is going to see the old mare-to bid her farewell."
It certainly was to his old favorite that he went, and he stood for some minutes in her box, feeling her ears and passing his hand between her forelegs to learn if she were properly cleaned; while the grey smelled delicately about his head, and nuzzled with her lips in his pockets.
"Ay," said Calamy after a while, "she were a trig thing in her time, but it's past. And what are the legs of a horse when it's a race wi' ruin?"
"What's that?" The Squire let his stick fall to the ground. "What do you mean?" he asked, and straightened himself, resting his hand on the mare's withers.
"They be all trotting and cantering," Calamy continued with zest, as he picked up the stick, "trotting and cantering into town since morning, them as arn't galloping. They be covering all the roads wi' the splatter and sound of them. But I'm thinking they'll lose the race."
"What do you mean?" the Squire growled. Something of his old asperity had come back to him.
"Mean, master? Why, that Ovington's got the shutters up, or as good. Their notes is no better than last year's leaves, I'm told. And all the country riding and spurring in on the chance of getting change for 'em before it's too late! Such-like fools I never see-as if the townsfolk will have left anything for them! Watkins o' the Griffin, he's three fi-pun notes of theirs, and he was away before it was light, and Blick the pig-killer and the overseer with him, in his tax-cart. And parson he's gone on his nag-trust Parson for ever thinking o' the moth and rust except o' Sunday! They've tithe money of his. And the old maid as live genteel in the villa at the far end o' the street, she've hired farmer Harris's cart-white as a sheet she was, I'm told! Wouldn't even stay to have the mud wiped off, and she so particular! And there's three more of 'em started to walk it. I'm told the road is black with them-weavers from the Valleys and their missuses, every sort of 'em with a note in his fist! There was two of them came here, wanted to see Mr. Arthur-thought he could do something for 'em."
"D-n Mr. Arthur!" said the Squire. But inwardly he was thinking, "There goes the last chance of my money! A drowning man don't think whether the branch he can reach is clean or dirty! But there never was a chance. That young chap came to bamboozle me and gain time, and that's their play." Aloud, "Give me my stick," he said. "Who told you-this rubbish?"
"Why, it's known at the Cross! The rooks be cawing it. Ovington is over to Bullon or some-such foreign place, these two days! And Dean he won't be long after him! They're talking of him, too. Ay, Parson should ha' thought of the poor instead of laying up where thieves break through and steal. But we're all things of a day!"
"Take me to the house," said the Squire.
"Shadows as pass! Birds i' the smoke!" continued the irrepressible Calamy, smacking his lips with enjoyment. "Leaves and the wind blows! Mr. Arthur-but there, your honor knows best where the shoe pinches. Squire Acherley's gone through on his bay, and Parson Hoggins with him, and 'Where's that d-d young banker?' he asks. Thinks I, if the Squire heard you, you'd get a flip o' the tongue you wouldn't like! But he's a random-tandem talker as ever was! And" – halting abruptly-"by gum, I expect here's another for Mr. Arthur! There's some one drove up the drive now, and gone to the front door."
"Take me in! Take me in!" said the Squire peevishly, his heart very bitter within him. For this was worse than anything that he had foreseen. His twelve thousand pounds was gone, but even that loss-monstrous, incredible, heart-breaking loss as it was-was not the worst. 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! His nephew! They might even say that he had had a share in it himself, and canvass and discuss him, and hint that he was not above robbing his neighbors-but only above owning to the robbery!
This was worse, far worse than the worst that he had foreseen when the lad had insisted on going his own way. Worse, far worse! Even his sense of Arthur's dishonor, even his remembrance of the vile, wicked, reckless act which the young man had committed, faded beside the prospect before him; beside the certainty that wherever, in shop or tavern, men cursed the name of Ovington, or spoke of those who had ruined the country-side, his name would come up and his share in the matter be debated.
Ay, he would be mixed up in it! He could not but be mixed up in it! His nephew! His nephew! He hung so heavily on Calamy's arm, that the servant for once held his tongue in alarm. They went into the house-the house that until now dishonor had never touched, though hard times had often straitened it, and more than once in the generations poverty had menaced it.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
But before they crossed the threshold they were intercepted. Miss Peacock, her plumage ruffled, and that which the Squire was wont to call her "clack" working at high pressure, met them at the door. "Bless me, sir, here's a visitor," she proclaimed, "at this hour! And won't take any denial, but will see you, whether or no. Though I told Jane to tell him-"
"Who is it?"
"Goodness knows, but it's not my fault, sir! I told Jane-but Jane's that feather-headed, like all of them, she never listens, and let him in, and he's in the dining-parlor. All she could say, the silly wench, was, it was something about the bank-great goggle-eyes as she is! And of course there's no one in the way when they're wanted. Calamy with you, and Josina traipsing out, feeding her turkeys. And Jane says the man's got a portmanteau with him as if he's come to stay. Goodness knows, there's no bed aired, and I'm sure I should have been told if-"
"Peace, woman!" said the Squire. "Did he ask to see me, or-" with an effort, "my nephew?"
"Oh, you, sir! Leastwise that's what Jane said, but she's no more head than a goose! To let him in when she knows that you're hardly out of your bed, and can't see every Jack Harry that comes!"
"I'll see him," the Squire said heavily. He bade Calamy take him in.
"But you'll take your egg-flip, Mr. Griffin? Before you-"
"Don't clack, woman, don't clack!" cried the Squire, and made a blow at her with his stick, but with no intention of reaching her. "Begone! Begone!"
"But, dear sir, the doctor! You know he said"
"D-n you, I'll not take it! D'you hear? I'll not take it! Get out!" And he went on through the house, the tap of his stick on the stone flags going before him and announcing his coming. Half-way along the passage he paused. "Did she say," he asked, lowering his voice, "that he came from the bank?"
"Ay, ay," Calamy said. "And like enough. Ill news has many feet. Rides apace and needs no spurs. But if your honor will let me see him, I'll sort him! I'll sort him, I'll warrant! One'd think," grumbling, "they'd more sense than to come here about their dirty business as if we were the bank!" The man was surprised that his master took the matter with any patience, for, to him, with all the prejudices of the class he served, it seemed the height of impertinence to come to Garth about such business. "Let me see him, your honor, and ask what he wants," he urged.
But the Squire ruled otherwise. "No," he said wearily, "I'll see him." And he went in.
The front door stood open. "There's a po-chay, right enough," Calamy informed him. "And luggage. Seems to ha' come some way, too."
"Umph! Take me in. And tell me who it is. Then go."
The butler opened the door, and guided the old man into the room. A glance informed him who the visitor was, but he continued to give all his attention to his master, in this way subtly conveying to the stranger that he was of so little importance as to be invisible. Nor until the Squire had reached the table and set his hand on it did Calamy open his mouth. Then, "It's Mr. Ovington," he announced.
"Mr. Ovington?"
"Ay, the young gentleman."
"Ah!" The old man stood a moment, his hand on the table. Then, "Put me in my chair," he said. "And go. Shut the door."
And when the man had done so, "Well!" heavily, "what have you come to say? But you'd best sit. Sit down! So you didn't go to London? Thought better of it, eh, young man? Ay, I know! Talked to your father and saw things differently? And now you've come to give me another dose of fine words to keep me quiet till the shutters go up? And if the worst comes to the worst, your father's told you, I suppose, that I can't prosecute-family name, eh? That's what you've come for, I suppose?"
"No, sir," Clement answered soberly. "I've not come for that. And my father-"
The Squire struck his stick on the floor. "I don't want to hear from him!" he cried with violence. "I want no message from him, d'you hear? I'm not come down to that! And as for your excuses, young gentleman-"
"I am not come with any excuses," Clement answered, restraining himself with difficulty-but after all the old man had had provocation enough to justify many hard words, and he was blind besides. As he sat there, glaring sightlessly before him, his hands on his stick, he was a pathetic figure in his anger and helplessness. "I've been to town, as I said I would."
The Squire was silent for some seconds. "And come back?" he exclaimed.
"Well, yes, sir," with a smile. "I'm here."
"Umph? How did you do it?"
"I posted up and came down as far as Birmingham by the Bull and Mouth coach. I posted on this morning."
"Well, you've been devilish quick!" The Squire admitted it reluctantly. He hardly knew whether to believe the tale or not. "You didn't wait long there, that's certain. And did as little, I suppose. Bank's going, I hear?"
"I hope not."
"Pooh!" the Squire said impatiently. "You may speak out! Speak out, man! There is no one here."
"There's some danger, I'm afraid."
"Danger! I should think there was! More than danger, as I hear!" The Squire drummed for a moment with his fingers on the table. He was thinking not of the bank, or even of his loss, but of his nephew and the scandal that would not pass by him. But he would not refer to Arthur, and after a pause, "Well," with an angry snort, "if that's all you've come to tell me, you might have spared yourself-and me. I cannot say that your company's very welcome, so if you please, we'll dispense with compliments. If that's all-"
"But that's not all, sir," Clement interposed. "I wish I could have brought back the securities, or even the whole of the money."
The Squire laughed. "No doubt," he said.
"But I was too late to ensure that. The stock had already been transferred."
"So he was quick, too!"
"And selling for cash in the middle of such a crisis he had to accept a loss of seven per cent. on the current price. But he suggests that if you reinvest immediately, a half, at least, of this may be recovered, and the eventual loss need not be more than three or four hundred. I ought perhaps to have stayed in town to effect this, but I had to think of my father, who was alone at the bank. However, I did what I could, sir, and-"
Clement paused; the Squire had uttered an exclamation which he did not catch. The old man turned a little in his chair so as to face the speaker. "Eh?" he said. "Do you mean that you've got any of the money-here?"
"I've eleven thousand and a bit over," Clement explained. "Five thousand in gold and the rest-"
"What?"
"Sir?"
"Do you mean" – the Squire spoke haltingly, after a pause-he did not seem to be able to find the right words. "Do you mean that you've brought back the money?"
"Not all. What I've told you, sir. There's six thousand and odd in notes. The gold is in two bags in the chaise."
"Here?"
"At the door, sir. I'll bring it in."
"Ay," said the Squire passively. "Bring it in."
Clement went out and returned, carrying in two small leather bags. He set them down at the Squire's feet "There's the gold, sir," he said. "I've not counted it, but I've no doubt that it is right. It weighs a little short of a hundred pounds."
The old man felt the bags, then, standing up, he lifted them in turn a few inches from the floor. "What does a thousand pounds weigh?" he asked.
"Between eighteen and nineteen pounds, sir."
"And the notes?"
"I have them here." Clement drew a thick packet from the pocket of his inner vest and put it into the Squire's hands. "They're Bank of England paper. They were short even at the bank, and wanted Bourdillon to take it in one-pound notes, but he stood out and got these in the end."
The Squire handled the packet, felt its thickness, weighed it lovingly in his hand. So much money, so much money in so small a space! Six thousand and odd pounds! It seemed as if he could not let it go, but in the end he placed it in the breast pocket of his high-collared old coat, the shabby blue coat with the large gilt buttons that was his common wear at home. The money secured, he sat, looking before him, while Clement, a little mortified, waited for the word of acknowledgment that did not come. At last, "Did you call at your father's?" the old man asked-irrelevantly, it seemed.
Clement colored. He had not expected the question. "Well, I did, sir," he admitted. "Bourdillon-"
"He was with you?"
"As far as the town. He was anxious that the money should be seen to arrive. He thought that it might check the run, and I agreed that it might do some good, and that we might make that advantage of it. So I took it through the bank."
"Pretty full, I expect, eh? Pretty full?"
"Well," ruefully, "it was, sir."
"A strong run, eh?"
"I'm afraid so. It looked like it. It was full to the doors. That's why," glancing at his watch as he stood by the window, the table between him and the Squire, "I must get back to my father. We took it through the bank and out by the garden, and put it in the chaise again in Roushill."
"Umph! He came back to town with you?"
"Bourdillon, sir? Yes-as far as the East Bridge. He left me there."
"Where is he?"
Clement hesitated. "I hope that he's gone to the bank, sir," he said.
He did not add, as he might have, that, after Arthur and he had left the coach at Birmingham and posted on, there had been a passionate scene between them. No doubt Arthur had never given up hope, but from the first had determined to make another fight for it; and there was no police officer at their elbows now. He had appealed to Clement by all that he loved to take the money to the bank, and there to deal with it as his father should decide. Finding Clement firm and his appeals useless, he had given way to passion, he had stormed and threatened and even shed tears; and at last, seizing the pistol case that lay at their feet, he had sworn that he would shoot himself before the other's eyes if he did not give way. In his rage he had seemed to be capable of anything, and there had been a struggle for the pistol, blows had been exchanged, and worse might have come of it if the noise of the fracas had not reached the postboy's ears. He had pulled up, turned in his saddle, and asked what the devil they would be at; he would have no murder in his master's carriage.
That had shamed them. Arthur had given way, had flung himself back, white and sullen, in his corner, and they had continued the journey on such terms as may be imagined. But even so, Arthur had proved his singular power of adaptation. The environs of the town in sight, he had suggested that at least they should take the money through the bank. Clement, anxious to make peace, had consented to that, and on the East Bridge Arthur had called on the postboy to stop, had jumped out, and, turning his back on his companion, had made off without a word.
Clement said nothing of this to the Squire, though the scene had been painful, and though he felt that something was due to him, were it but a word of thanks, or an expression of acknowledgment. It had not been his fault or his father's, that the money had been taken; it was through him that the greater part of it had been recovered, and now reposed safe in the Squire's pocket or in the bags at his feet.
At the least, it seemed to him, the old man might remember that his father was alone and needing him-was facing trouble, and, it might be, ruin. He took up his hat. "Well, sir, that's all," he said curtly. "I must go now."
"Wait!" said the Squire. "And ring the bell, if you please."
Clement stepped to the hearth, and pulled the faded drab cord, which once had been blue, that hung near it. The bell in the passage had hardly tinkled before Calamy entered. "Bid your mistress come here," said the old man. "Where is she? Fetch her?"
The blood mounted to Clement's face, and his pulses began to throb, his ideas to tumble over one another. The old man, who sat before him, his hands on his stick, stubbornly confronting the darkness, the old man, whom he had thought insensible, took on another hue, became instead inscrutable, puzzling, perplexing. Why had he sent for his daughter? What was in his mind? What was he going to say? What had he-but even while Clement wondered, his thoughts in a whirl, strange hopes jostling one another in his brain, the door opened, and Josina came in.
She came in with a timid step, but as soon as her eyes met Clement's, the color rose vividly to her cheeks, then left her pale. Her lip trembled. But her look-fleeting as it was and immediately diverted to her father-how he blessed her for that look! For it bade him take confidence, it bade him have no fear, it bade him trust her. Silently and incredibly, it took him under her protection, it pledged her faith to him.
And how it changed all for him! How it quelled, in a moment, the disappointment and anger he was feeling, ay, and even the vague hopes which the Squire's action in summoning her had roused in him! How it gave calmness and assurance where his aspirations had been at best to the extravagant and the impossible.
But, whatever his feelings, to whatever lover's heaven that look raised him, he was speedily brought to earth again. The old man had proved himself thankless; now, as if he were determined to show himself in the worst light, he proceeded to prove himself suspicious. "Come here, girl," he said, "and count these notes." Fumbling, he took the parcel from his pocket and handed it to her. "Ha' you got them? Then count them! D'you hear, wench? Count them! And have a care to make no mistake! Lay 'em in piles o' ten. They are hundreds, are they? Hundreds, eh?"
