Weyman Stanley John
Ovington's Bank
"He stole it," the Squire said, "out of that cupboard."
"Oh, but that's impossible, sir!" Clement replied with eagerness. He felt an immense relief, for he thought that he saw light. He took note of the Squire's condition, and he fancied that his memory, if not his mind, had given way. He had forgotten what he had done. That was it! "That's impossible, sir," he repeated firmly. "He had a proper transfer of the stock-India Stock it was-signed and witnessed and all in order."
"Signed and witnessed?" the Squire ejaculated. "Signed and-signed, your grandmother! So that's your story, is it? Signed and witnessed, eh?"
But Clement was beginning to be angry. "Yes, sir," he said. "That is our story, and it is true." He thought that he had hit on the truth, and he clung to it. The Squire had signed and the next minute had forgotten the whole transaction-Clement had heard of such cases. "He had the transfer with him," he continued, "signed by you and witnessed by himself and-and Miss Griffin. I saw it myself. I saw the signatures, and I have seen yours, sir, often enough on a cheque to know it. The transfer was perfectly in order."
"In whose favor, young man?"
"Our brokers', sir."
The Squire flared up. "I did not sign it!" he cried. "It's a lie, sir! I signed nothing! Nothing!"
But Josina intervened. She, poor girl, saw light. "Yes," she said, "my father did sign something-on Saturday after dinner. But it was a lease. I and Arthur witnessed it."
"And what has that to do with it?" the Squire asked passionately. "What the devil has that to do with it? I signed a lease and-and a counterpart. I signed no transfer of stock, never put hand to it! Never! What has the lease to do with it?"
But Josina was firm. "I am afraid I see now, sir," she said. "You remember that you signed a paper to try your pen? And I signed it too, father, by mistake? You remember? Ah!" – with a gesture of despair-"if I had only not signed it!"
The Squire groaned. He, too, saw it now. He saw it, and his head sank on his breast. "Forger as well as thief!" he muttered. "And a Griffin!"
And Clement's heart sank too as he met the girl's anguished eyes and viewed the Squire's bowed head and the shame and despair that clothed themselves in an apathy so unlike the man. He saw that here was a tragedy indeed, a tragedy fitly framed in that desolate room with its windows staring on the night and its air of catastrophe; a tragedy passing bank failures or the loss of fortune. And in his mind he cursed the offender.
But even as the words rose to his lips, doubt stayed them. There was, there must be, some mistake. The thing could not be. He knew Arthur, he thought that he knew Arthur; he knew even the darker side of him-his selfishness, his lack of thought for others, his desire to get on and to grow rich. But this thing Arthur never could have done! Clement recalled his gay, smiling face, his frank bearing, his care-free eyes, the habit he had of casting back a lock from his brow. No, he could not have done this thing. "No, sir, no!" he cried impulsively. "There is some mistake! I swear there is! I am sure of it."
"You've the securities?"
"Yes, but I am sure-"
"You're all in it," the Squire said drearily. And then, with energy and in a voice quivering with rage, "He's learned this at your d-d counter, sir! That's where it is. It's like to like, that's where it is. Like to like! I might ha' known what would happen, when the lad set his mind on leaving our ways and taking up with yours. I might ha' known that that was the blackest day our old house had ever seen-when he left the path his fathers trod and chose yours. You can't touch pitch and keep your hands clean. You ha' stole my daughter-d-n you, sir! And you ha' taught him to steal my money. I mind me I bid your father think o' Fauntleroy, I never thought he was breeding up a Fauntleroy in my house." And, striking the table with all his old vitality, "You are thieves! thieves all o' you! And you ha' taught my lad to thieve!"
"That is not true!" Clement cried. "Not a word of that is true!"
"You ha' stole my daughter!"
Clement winced. She had told him, then.
"And now you ha' stole my money!"
"That, at least, is not true!" He held up his head. He stepped forward and laid his hand on the table. "That is not true," he repeated firmly. "Yon do not know my father, Mr. Griffin, though you may think you do. He would see the bank break a hundred times, he would see every penny pass from him, before he would do this that you say has been done. Your nephew told us what I have told you, and we believed him-naturally we believed him. We never suspected. Not a suspicion crossed my father's mind or mine. We saw the certificates, we saw the transfer, we knew your handwriting. It was in order, and-"
"And you thought-you ha' the impudence to tell me that you thought that I should throw thousands, ay, thousands upon thousands into the gutter-to save your bank?"
"We believed what we were told," Clement maintained. "Why not-as you put the question, sir? Your nephew had five thousand pounds at stake. His share in the bank was at stake. He knew as well as we did that with this assistance the bank was secure. We supposed that for his sake and the sake of his prospects-"
"I don't believe it!" the Squire retorted. "I'll never believe it. Your father's a trader. I know 'em, and what their notion of honesty is. And you tell me-"
"I tell you that a trader is nothing if he be not honest!" Clement cried hotly. "Honesty is to him what honor is to you, Mr. Griffin. But we'll leave my father's name out of this, if you please, sir. You may say what you like of me. I have deserved it."
"No," said Josina.
"Yes, I have deserved it, and I am ashamed of myself-and proud of myself. But my father has done nothing and known nothing. And for this money, when he learns the truth, Mr. Griffin, he will not touch one penny of it with one of his fingers. It shall be returned to you, every farthing of it, as soon as we can lay our hands on it. Every penny of it shall be returned to you-at once!"
"Ay," dryly, "when you have had the use of it!"
"No, at once! Without the loss of an hour!"
"You be found out," said the old man bitterly. "You be found out! That's it!"
Clement read an appeal in Josina's eyes, and he stayed the retort that rose to his lips. "At any rate the money shall be restored," he said-"at once. I will start for town to-night, and if I can overtake" – he paused, unwilling to utter Arthur's name-"if I can overtake him before he transfers the stock, the securities shall be returned to you. In that case no harm will be done."
"No harm!" the Squire ejaculated. He raised his hand and let it fall in a gesture of despair. "No harm?"
But Clement was determined not to dwell on that side of it. "If I am not able to do that," he continued, "the proceeds shall be placed in your hands without the delay of an hour. In which case you must let the signature pass-as good, sir."
"Never!" the old man cried, and struck his hand on the table.
"But after all it is yours," Clement argued. "And you must see, sir-"
"Never! Never!" the Squire repeated passionately.
"You will not say that in cold blood!" Clement rejoined, and from that moment he took a higher tone, as if he felt that, strange as the call was, it lay with him now to guide this unhappy household. "You have not considered, and you must consider, Mr. Griffin," he continued, "before you do that, what the consequences may be. If you deny your signature, and anyone, the India House or anyone, stands to lose, steps may be taken which may prove-fatal. Fatal, sir! A point may be reached beyond which even your influence, and all you may then be willing to do, may not avail to save your nephew."
The Squire groaned. Clement's words called up before him and before Josina, not only the thing which Arthur had done, but the position in which he had placed himself. In this room, in this very room in which men of honor-dull and prejudiced, perhaps, but men of honor, and proud of their honor-had lived and moved for generations, he, their descendant, had done this thing. The beams had stood, the house had not fallen on him. But to Josina's eyes the candles seemed to burn more mournfully, the windows to stare more darkly on the night, the ashes on the hearth to speak of desolation and a house abandoned and fallen.
Clement hoped that his appeal had succeeded, but he was disappointed. The old man in his bitterness and unreason was not to be moved-at any rate as yet. He would listen to no arguments, and he suspected those who argued with him. "I'll never acknowledge it!" he said. "No, I'll never acknowledge it. I'll not lie for him, come what may! He has done the thing and disgraced our blood, and what matter who knows it-he has done it! He has made his bed and must lie on it! He went into your bank and learned your tricks, and now you'd have me hush it up! But I won't, d-n you! I'll not lie for you, or for him!"
Clement had a retort on his lips-for what could be more unfair than this? But again Josina's eyes implored him to be silent, and he crushed back the words. He believed that by and by the Squire would see the thing differently, but for the moment he could do no more, and he turned to the door.
There in the doorway, and for one moment, Josina's hands met his, she had one word with him. "You will save him if you can, Clement?" she murmured.
"Yes," he promised her, "I will save him if I can."
CHAPTER XXXII
If the news which Arthur had conveyed to the bank on that Monday morning had been much to Clement, it had been more to his father. It had brought to Ovington immense relief at the moment when he had least reason to expect it. The banker had not hidden the position from those who must needs work with him; but even to them he had not imparted the full measure of his fears, much less the extent of the suffering which those fears occasioned him. The anxiety that kept him sleepless, the calculations that tormented his pillow, the regret with which he reviewed the past, the responsibility for the losses of others that depressed him-he had kept these things to himself, or at most had dropped but a hint of them to his beloved Betty.
But they had been very real to him and very terrible. The spectre of bankruptcy-with all the horror which it connoted for the mercantile mind-had loomed before him for weeks past, had haunted and menaced him; and its sudden exorcism on this Monday morning meant a relief which he dared not put into words to others and shrank from admitting even to himself. He who had held his head so high-no longer need he anticipate the moment when he would be condemned as a reckless adventurer, whose fall had been as rapid as his rise, and whom the wiseacres of Aldersbury had doomed to failure from the first! That had been the bitterest drop in his cup, and to know that he need not drain it, was indeed a blessed respite.
Still, he had received the news with composure, and through the day he had moved to and fro doing his work with accuracy. But it was in a pleasant dream that he had followed his usual routine, and many a time he paused to tell himself that the thing was a fact, that Dean's would not now triumph over him, nor his enemies now scoff at him. On the contrary, he might hope to emerge from the tempest stronger than before, and with his credit enhanced by the stress through which he had ridden. Business was business, but in the midst of it the banker had more than once to stand and be thankful.
And with reason. For if he who has inherited success and lives to see it threatened suffers a pang, that pang is as nothing besides the humiliation of the man who has raised himself; who has outstripped his fellows, challenged their admiration, defied their jealousy, trampled on their pride; who has been the creator of his own greatness, and now sees that greatness in ruins. He had escaped that. He had escaped that, thank God! More than once the two words passed his lips; and in secret his thoughts turned to the great chief of men to whom in his own mind and with a rather absurd vanity he had compared himself. Thank God that his own little star had not sunk like his into darkness!
It was relief, it was salvation. And that evening, as the banker sat after his five o'clock dinner and sipped his fourth and last glass of port and basked in the genial heat of the fire, while his daughter knitted on the farther side of the hearth, he owned himself a happy man. He measured the danger, he winced at the narrow margin by which he had escaped it-but he had escaped! Dean's, staid, long-established, slow-going Dean's, which had viewed his notes askance, had doubted his stability and predicted his failure, Dean's which had slyly put many a spoke in his wheel, would not triumph. Nay, after this, would not he, too, rank as sound and staid and well established, he who had also ridden out the storm? For in crises men and banks age rapidly; they are measured rather by events than by years. Those who had mistrusted him would mistrust him no longer; those who had dubbed him new would now count him old. As he stretched his legs to meet the genial heat and sank lower in his chair he could have purred in his thankfulness. Things had fallen out well, after all; he saw rosy visions in the fire. Schemes which had lain dormant in his mind awoke. His London agents had failed, but others would compete for his business, and on better terms. The Squire who had so marvellously come to his aid would bring back his account, and his example would be followed. He would extend, opening branches at Bretton and Monk's Castle and Blankminster, and the railroad? He was not quite sure what he would do about the railroad; possibly he might decide that the time was not ripe for it, and in that case he might wind up the company, return the money, and himself meet the expenses incurred. The loss would not be great, and the effect would be prodigious. It would be a Napoleonic stroke-he would consider it. He lost himself in visions of prosperity.
And it would be all for Clement and Betty. He looked across the hearth at the girl who sat knitting under the lamp-light, and his eyes caressed her, his heart loved her. She would make a great match. Failing Arthur-and of late Arthur and she had not seemed to hit it off-there would be others. There would be others, well-born, who would be glad to take her and her dowry. He saw her driving into town in her carriage, with a crest on the panels.
It was she who cut short his thoughts. She looked at the clock. "I can't think where Clement is," she said. "You don't think that there is anything wrong, dad?"
"Wrong? No," he answered. "Why should there be!"
"But he disappeared so strangely. He said nothing about missing his dinner."
"He was to check some figures with Rodd this evening. He may have gone to his rooms."
"But-without his dinner?"
But the banker was not in the mood to trouble himself about trifles. The lamp shone clear and mellow, the fire crackled pleasantly, a warm comfort wrapped him round, the port had a flavor that he had not perceived in it of late. Instead of replying to Betty's question he measured the decanter with his eye, decided that it was a special occasion, and filled himself another glass. "Ovington's Bank," he said as he raised it to his lips. But that to which he really drank was the home that he saw about him, saved from rain, made secure.
Betty smiled. "You're relieved to-night, dad."
"Well, I am, Betty," he admitted. "Yes, I am-and thankful."
"And that queer old man! I wonder," as she turned her knitting on her knee, "why he did it."
"I suppose for Arthur's sake. He'd have lost pretty heavily-for him."
"But you didn't expect that Mr. Griffin would come forward?"
The banker allowed it. "No," he said. "I don't know that I ever expected anything less. Such things don't happen, my girl, very often. But he will be no loser, and I suppose Arthur convinced him of that. He is shrewd, and, once convinced, he would see that it was the only thing to do."
"But not many people would have been convinced?"
"No, perhaps not."
Betty knitted awhile. "I thought that he hated the bank?" she said, as she paused to rub her chin with a needle.
"He does-and me. But he loves his money, my dear."
"Still it isn't his. It is Arthur's."
"True. But he's a man who cannot bear to see money lost. He thinks a good deal of it."
"He is not alone in that," Betty exclaimed. "Sometimes I feel that I hate money! People grow so fond of it. They think only of themselves, even when you've been ever so good to them."
"Well, it's human nature," the banker replied equably. "I don't know who it is that you have in your mind, my dear, but it applies to most people." He was going to say more when the door opened.
"Mr. Rodd is here, asking for Mr. Clement, sir," the maid said. "He was to meet him at half after six, and-"
"Ask Mr. Rodd to come in."
The cashier entered shyly. In his dark suit, with his black stock and stiff carriage, he made no figure, where Arthur, or even Clement, would have shone. But there were women in Aldersbury who said that he had fine eyes, eyes with something of a dog's gentleness in them; and Arthur so far agreed that he dubbed him a dull, mechanical dog, and often made fun of him as such. But perhaps Arthur did not always see to the bottom of things.
Ovington pushed the decanter and a glass towards him. "A glass of wine, Rodd," he said genially. He was not of those who undervalued his cashier, though he knew his limitations. "The bank!" he said.
"And those who have stood by it!" Betty added softly.
Rodd drank the toast with a muttered word.
"Mr. Rodd has not the same reason to be thankful that we have," Betty continued carelessly, holding her knitting up to the lamp.
"Why not?" Her father did not understand.
"Why," innocently, as she lowered the knitting again, "he does not stand to lose anything, does he?"
"Except his place," the cashier objected, his eyes on his glass.
"Just so," the banker rejoined. "And in that event," moved to unusual frankness, "we should have been all out together. And Rodd might not have been the worst off, my girl.
"Exactly," Betty said. "I'm sure that he would take care of that."
The cashier opened his mouth to speak, but checked himself, and drank off his wine. Then, as he rose, "If you know where Mr. Clement is, sir-"
"I don't. I can't think what has become of him," the banker explained. "He went out about four, and since then-hallo! That's some one in a hurry. It sounds like a fire."
A vehicle had burst in on the evening stillness. It came clattering at a reckless pace up Bride Hill. It passed the bank, it rattled noisily around the corner of the Market Place, and pounded away down the High Street.
"More likely some one hastening to get out of danger," said Betty. "A sauve qui peut, Mr. Rodd-if you know what that means."
The clerk, with a flushed cheek, avoided the question. "It might be some one trying to catch the seven o'clock coach, sir," he said.
"Very likely. And if so he's failed, for he's coming back again. Ay, here he comes, and he stopping here, by Jove! I hope that nothing's wrong."
The vehicle had, indeed, stopped abruptly before the house. They heard some one alight on the pavement, a latchkey was thrust into the door. "It's Clement!" the banker exclaimed, his eyes on the door. "I hope he does not bring bad news! Well, lad?" as Clement in his overcoat, his hat on his head, appeared in the doorway. "What is it? Is anything wrong?"
"Very much wrong!" his son replied curtly, and he closed the door behind him. He was pale, and his splashed coat and neck-shawl tied awry, no less than his agitated face, confirmed their fears.
"Out with it, lad! What is it? his father asked, fearing he knew not what.
"Bad news, sir!" was the answer. "I'm sorry to say I bring very bad news!"
"What?"
"That loan of Mr. Griffin's-"
"The twelve thousand? Yes?" – anxiously-"well?"
"It's a fraud, sir! A cursed fraud!"
There was a tense silence. Then, "Impossible!" the banker exclaimed. But he grasped a chair to steady himself. His face had turned grey.
"The Squire knows nothing of it!" Clement struck his open hand on the back of a chair. "He never signed the transfer! He never gave any authority for the loan!"
"No, no, that's impossible!" Ovington straightened himself with a sigh of relief. What mare's nest, what bee in the bonnet, was this? The lad was dreaming-must be dreaming. "Impossible!" he repeated. "I saw it, man, and read it! And I know the old man's signature as well as I know my own. You must be dreaming."
"I am not, sir!" Clement answered, and added bitterly, "It was Arthur who was dreaming! Dreaming or worse, d-n him!" – the pent-up excitement of the evening finding vent at last, and the sight of his father's stricken face whetting his rage. "He has robbed, ay, robbed his uncle, and dishonored us! That is what he has done, sir. I am not dreaming! I wish to heaven I were!"
The banker no longer protested. "Well-tell us!" he said weakly.
"It's hard on you, sir-"
"Never mind me! Tell me what you know." They stood round Clement, amazed and shocked, fearing the worst and yet incredulous, while he, his weary face and travel-stained figure at odds with the lighted room and the comfort about him, told his story. The banker listened. He still hoped, hoped to detect some flaw, to perceive some misunderstanding-so much, so very much, hung upon it. But even on his mind the truth at last forced itself, and monstrous as the story, incredible as Arthur's action still appeared, he had at last to accept it and its consequences-its consequences!
He seemed to grow years older as he listened, but when Clement had done, and the whole shameful story was told, he made no comment. The position, indeed, was no worse than it had been twenty-four hours before. He might still hope against hope, that, by putting a bold face on matters, and by a dexterous use of his resources, he might ride out the storm. But the reaction from a triumphant confidence was so sudden, the failure of his recent expectations so overwhelming, that even his firm spirit yielded. He sank into his chair. Betty laid her hand on his shoulder and whispered some word of comfort in his ear, but he said nothing.
It was Clement who spoke the first word. "I am going after him," he said, his tone hard and practical. "I have thought it out, and by posting all night I may be in London by noon to-morrow, and I may intercept him either at the brokers' or at the India House before he has sold the stock. In that case I may be in time to stop him."
"Why?" the banker asked, looking up. "What have we to do with him? Why should we stop him?"
"For our own sakes as well as his," Clement answered firmly. "For our own good name, which is bound up with his. Think, think, sir, of the harm it will do us if there is a prosecution-and the old man swears that he will not acknowledge the signature! Besides I have promised to stop him-if I can. If I am too late to do that, and he has sold the stock, I can still get possession of the money, and it must be our business to return it to the owner without the loss of an hour. Of an hour, sir!" Clement repeated earnestly. "We must repudiate this transaction from the outset. We must wash our hands of it at once, if it be only to clear our own name."
The banker looked dazed. "But," he said, as if his mind were beginning to work again, "why should we-take all this trouble?" He hesitated, then he began again. "We have done nothing. We are innocent. Why should we-"
"Stop him?"
"Ay, or be in such a hurry to return the money? It is no fault of ours if it does come to our hands. And, remember, if it lies with us only a week" – he looked at his son, his face troubled-"only a week, the position is such-"
"No! no!" Clement cried, and for once he spoke preemptorily. "Not for a day, father, not for an hour! And when you have thought it over as I have, when you have had time to think it over, you will see that. You will be the first, the very first, to see that, and to say that we must have no part or share with Bourdillon in this; that if we must go down we will go down with clean hands. To avail ourselves of this money, even for a day, and though it would save the bank twice over, would be to make us accomplices-"
The banker stood up. "Right!" he said firmly. "You are right, lad!" He drew a deep breath, the color returned to his face. He laid his hand on Clement's shoulder. "You are quite right, my boy, and I wasn't myself when I said that. You shall have no reason to blush for your father. You are quite right. We will repudiate the transaction from the first. We will have neither art nor part in it. We will return the money the moment it comes into your hands!"
"Thank God, sir, that you see it as I do."
"I do, I do! The money shall be paid over at once, though the shutters go up the next hour. And we will fight our battle as we must have fought it if this had never happened."
"With clean hands, at any rate, sir."
"Yes, lad, with clean hands."
"Oh, father, that's splendid!" Betty cried, and she pressed herself against him. "But as for Clement going, he must be worn out. Could not Mr. Rodd go?"
"Rodd will be of more use to you here," Clement said. "You will be short-handed as it is."
"We shall pay out the more slowly," the banker answered with grim humor.
"And I doubt, besides," said Clement, "if Bourdillon would listen to Rodd."
"Will he listen to you?"
"He will have to, or face the consequences!" And Clement looked as if he meant it: a hard Clement this, with a new note in his voice. "From the India House to Bow Street is not very far, and he will certainly go to Bow Street-or the Mansion House-if he does not see reason. But he will."
"He may, if you are with him before he parts with the securities. But from this to noon to-morrow you will not do it in that time, my lad, at night? Winter time, too? You'll never do it!"
But Clement averred that he would-in fourteen hours, with good luck. It was for that reason that he had gone straight to the Lion and ordered a chaise for eight o'clock and sent on word by the seven o'clock coach for a relay to be ready at the Heygate Inn. He had also asked the Lion to pass on word by any chaise starting in front of him. "So I hope for two or three stages I shall find the horses ready. Betty, pack up some food for me, that's a good girl. I've only twenty minutes."
"And your travelling cloak?" she cried. "I'll air it."
"You must eat something before you start," said his father.
"Yes, I will. And, Rodd, do you get me the bank pistols-and see that they are loaded!"
The banker nodded. "Yea, you'd better take them," he said. "It's an immense sum-if you bring it back. It would be a terrible business if you were robbed."
"Ay, for then we should share the blame," Clement answered drily. "That wouldn't do, would it? But let me get the money, and I'll not be robbed, sir."
They parted, hurrying to and fro on their several errands, the banker fetching money for the journey, Rodd loading the pistols, Betty setting food before the traveller and cutting sandwiches for the journey, Clement himself making some change in his dress. For ten minutes a cheerful stir reigned in the house. But Ovington, though he yielded to this and watched his son at his meal and filled his glass, and played his part, did but feign. He knew that within a few minutes the door would close on Clement, the house would relapse into silence, the lights would go out, and he would be left to face the failure of all the hopes, the plans and expectations which he had entertained through the day. The odds against him, which had not seemed overwhelming twenty-four hours before, now appeared invincible and not to be resisted. He felt that the fates were opposed to him. He had had his chance, and it had been withdrawn. As he climbed the stairs to bed, climbed them slowly and with heavy feet, he read ruin in the flame of his candle. As he undressed he heard the voices of revellers passing the house at midnight, on their way from the Raven or the Talbot, and he suspected derision in their tones. He fancied that they were talking of him, jeering at him, rejoicing in his fall. In bed he lay long awake, calculating, and trying to make of four, five. Could he hold out till Wednesday? Till Thursday? Or would panic running through the town on the morrow, like fire amid tinder, kindle the crowd and hurl it, inflamed with greed and fear, upon his slender defences?
He was buying honesty at a great price. But he thought of Clement and Betty, and towards morning he fell asleep.
