At His Gates: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3), Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII.

  It was in the summer of the third year of his bank directorship thatRobert made his first personal entry into business. The occasion of itwas this. One of his early friends who had been at school with him, andwith whom he had kept up a precarious and often interrupted intercourse,came to him one morning with an anxious face. He was in businesshimself, with a little office in one of the dreary lanes in the City, asingle clerk, and very limited occupation. He had married young, and hada large family; and Drummond was already aware that while the lines hadfallen to himself in pleasant places, poor Markham's lot had been hardand full of thorns. He was now at the very crisis of his troubles. Hegave a glance round the painter's handsome studio when he entered, atthe pictures on the walls and the costly things about, and the air ofevident luxury that pervaded everything, and sighed. His ownsurroundings were poor and scant enough. And yet he could and didremember that Drummond had started in life a poorer man, with lesshopeful prospects than himself. Such a contrast is not lively orinspiriting, and it requires a generous mind to take it kindly, andrefrain from a passing grudge at the old companion who has done so muchbetter for himself. Poor Markham had come with a petition, on which, hesaid, all his future life depended. He had made a speculation whichwould pay him largely could he only hold out for three months; butwithout help from his friends this was impossible. It was a large sumthat he wanted--more than any private friend would be likely to givehim--something between two and three thousand pounds. The welfare of hisfamily, his very existence in a business point of view, and the hopes ofhis children depended on his ability to tide those three months over.For old friendship's sake, for all the associations of their youth,would Drummond help him? Robert listened with his kindly heart full ofsympathy. Long before the story was done, he began to calculate what hehad at his disposal, how much he could give; but the sum startled him.He could not produce at a moment's notice a sum of nearly threethousand pounds. With a troubled heart he shook his head and said it wasimpossible--he had not so much money at his disposal--he could not doit. Then Markham eagerly explained. It was not from his friend's ownpurse that he had hoped for it; but the bank! On Drummond'sintroduction, the bank would do it. Rivers's could save him. No suchrequest had ever been made to Robert before. Very few of his friendswere business men. Their needs were private needs, and not the spasmodicwants of trade. There were people who had borrowed from himselfpersonally, and some who had been helped by him in other ways; but thiswas the first appeal made to his influence in the bank. He was startledby it in his innocence of business habits. It seemed to him as if it waslike asking a private favour, turning over his own petitioner to a thirdperson. 'He is my friend, give him three thousand pounds.' It seemed tohim the strangest way of being serviceable to his neighbour. But poorMarkham had all the eloquence of a partially ruined man. He made itclear to Robert, not only that such things were, but they happenedcontinually, and were in the most ordinary course of nature. The endwas that they went out together, and had an interview with Mr Golden atthe bank. And then Robert found that his acquaintance had notexaggerated, that the matter was even easier than he had represented it,and that there would not be the slightest difficulty in 'accommodating'the man who was Mr Drummond's friend. Markham and he parted at the doorof the bank, the one with tears of gratitude in his eyes, blessing Godand Robert for saving him, and the other with a bewildered sense ofpower which he had not realised. He had not known before how much hecould do, nor what privileges his directorship put in his hands, and hewas confused by the discovery. It bewildered him, as a man might bebewildered to know that he could bestow fertility or barrenness on hisfields by a glance: how strange the power was, how sweet in thisinstance, how--dangerous! Yes, that was the word. He felt afraid ofhimself as he went home. If such plaints came to him often, it would beso difficult to resist them; and then a kind of horrible dread came overhis mind. Would the money ever be paid back that he had got so easily?The thought made his hand shake when he went back to the peaceable workat which no such bewildering risks were run.

  When the three months were over, Markham's money was not paid; on thecontrary he had fled to Australia, he and all his children, leavingnothing but some wretched old furniture behind him. Poor Drummond wasnearly beside himself. He rushed to the bank when he heard the news, andprotested that the loss must be his. It was his fault, and of course hemust repay it. Mr Golden smiled at him with a genuine admiration of hissimplicity. He told him in a fatherly way of a speculation which hadbeen very successful, which had cleared nearly the same sum of money.'Putting the one to the other, we are none the worse,' he said; 'everycommercial concern must make some bad debts.'

  Drummond went away with more bewilderment still, with many new thoughtsbuzzing in his head, thoughts which troubled the composure of his life.He himself being but an artist, and not a merchant, was afraid of money.He touched it warily, trafficked in it with a certain awe. He knew howmuch labour it required to earn it, and how hard it was to be withoutit. He could not understand the levity with which Burton and Goldentreated that potent thing. To them it was like common merchandise, sugaror salt. A heap of it, as much as would make a poor man's fortune,melted away in a moment, and the bland manager thought nothing ofit--it was a bad debt. All this was so strange to him, that he did notknow what to make of it. He himself was guilty, he felt, of havingthrown away so much which belonged to other people. And every otherdirector on the board had the same power which he had with a painfulpleasure discovered himself to have. And they knew better about it thanhe did; and what check could there be upon them? If every other manamong them had been art and part in losing three thousand pounds, whatcould Robert say? It would not be for him to throw the first stone. Hefelt like Christian in the story, when, upon the calm hill-side, hesuddenly saw a door through which there appeared, open and visible, themouth of hell. It occurred to Robert to go down to the next meeting ofdirectors, to tell them his own story, and beg that the money lostthrough his means should be subtracted from his private share of thecapital, and to beg all of them to do likewise. He quite made up hismind to this in the first tumult of his thoughts. But before the timefor that meeting came, a sense of painful ridicule, that bugbear of theEnglishman, had daunted him. They would call him a fool, they wouldthink he was 'canting,' or taking an opportunity to display his owndisinterestedness. And accordingly he accepted the misfortune, and wascontent to permit it to be called a bad debt. But the enlightenmentwhich it threw on the business altogether gave Robert a shock which hedid not easily recover. It seemed to show him a possible chasm openingat his very feet, and not at his only, but at the feet of all theignorant simple people, the poor painters, the poor women, the sick menlike Haldane, who had placed their little seed-corn of money in Rivers'sbank.

  These thoughts were hot in his heart at the time of this misadventurewith Markham; and then there came a lull, and he partially forgot them.When no harm is visible, when the tranquil ordinary course of affairsseems to close over a wrong or a blunder, it is so difficult to imaginethat everything will not go well. He said as little as possible to Helenon the subject, and she did not take fright fortunately, having manythings to occupy her now-a-days. There was her own enlarged and fullerhousehold; the duties of society; her charities, for she was very goodto the poor people near Southlees, their house in the country, and keptwatch over them even from St Mary's Road. And she had now many friendswho came and occupied her time, and carried her off from her husband;so that he had not that resource of talking about it which so oftenlightens our anxiety, and so often deepens it. In this instance,perhaps, it was as well that he could not awaken her fears to increaseand stimulate his own.

  And thus everything fell into its usual quietness. Life was so pleasantfor them. They had so much real happiness to cushion the angles of theworld, and make them believe that all would always be well. Those whohave been experienced in pain are apt to tremble and doubt thecontinuance of happiness when they attain it; but to those who have hadno rea
l sorrows it seems eternal. Why should it ever come to an end?This the Drummonds felt with an instinctive confidence. It was easier tobelieve in any miracle of good than in the least prognostic of evil. Thesun was shining upon them; summer was sweet and winter pleasant. Theyhad love, they had ease, they had wealth, as much as they desired, andthey believed in it. The passing cloud rolled away from Robert's mind.He reflected that if there was danger there, there was danger ineverything; every day, he said to himself, every man may be in somedeadly peril without knowing it. We pass beneath the arch that fallsnext moment; we touch against some one's shoulder unaware, whose touchof infection might be death; we walk over the mined earth, and breatheair which might breed a pestilence, and yet nothing happens to us. Humannature is against everything violent. Somehow she holds a balance, whichno one breaks down, though it is possible to be broken down at anymoment. The directors might ruin the bank in a week, but they would not,any more than the elements, which are ever ready for mischief, wouldclash together and produce an earthquake. Such things might be: butnever--or so seldom as to be next to never--are.

  In the early autumn of that year, however, another shock came upon theignorant painter. His wife and Norah were at Southlees, where he himselfhad been. Business had brought him up against his will, business of thegentler kind, concerning art and the Academy, not the bank. He was aloneat St Mary's Road, chafing a little over his solitude, and longing forhome and the pleasant fields. London, the London he knew and cared for,had gone out of town. August was blazing upon the parks and streets; thegrass was the colour of mud, and the trees like untanned leather. Thegreat people were all away in their great houses, and among his ownprofession those who could afford it had started for Switzerland or someother holiday region, and those who could not had gone for their annualwhiff of sea-air. Robert was seated by himself at breakfast, mournfullyconsidering how another day had to be got over, before he could go home,when a hansom dashed up to the door, and Mr Golden, bland and clean asever, but yet with a certain agitation in his face, came in. Heexplained eagerly that he had come to Drummond only because the otherdirectors were out of town. 'The fact is,' he said, 'I want you to comewith me, not to give you much trouble or detain you long, but to standby me, if you will, in a crisis. We have had some losses. Those peoplein Calcutta who chose to stop payment, like fools, and the Sullivans'house at Liverpool.--It is only temporary.--But the Bank of England hasmade itself disagreeable about an advance, and I want you to come withme and see the governor.'

  'An advance! Is Rivers's in difficulties? is there anything wrong? Youtake away my breath.'

  'There is no occasion for taking away your breath,' said Mr Golden; 'itis only for the moment. But it is an awkward time of the year, foreverybody is out of town. I should not have troubled you, knowing youwere not a business man, but of course the presence of a director givesauthority. Don't be alarmed, I beg. I will tell you all about it as wedrive along.'

  But what Mr Golden told was very inarticulate to Robert, what with thewild confusion produced in his own mind, and the noise and dust of thesultry streets. It was the most temporary difficulty; it was not worthspeaking of; it was a simple misunderstanding on the part of theauthorities of the Bank of England. 'Why we are worth twenty times themoney, and everybody knows it,' said Mr Golden. His words, instead ofmaking Robert confident, made him sick. His sin in that matter ofMarkham came darkly before him; and, worse even than that, the manager'swords recalled Markham's to him. In his case, too, it was to have beenmerely a temporary difficulty. Drummond's imaginative mind rushed atonce to the final catastrophe. He saw ruin staring him in the face--andnot only him.

  The interview with the authorities of the Bank of England did not makethings much clearer to the amateur. They talked of previous advances; oftheir regret that the sacred name of 'Rivers's' should be falling intomist and darkness; of their desire to have better securities, and aguarantee which would be more satisfactory: to all of which Robertlistened with consternation in his soul. But at last the object wasattained. Mr Golden wiped the moisture from his forehead as they leftthe place. 'That has been a tough battle,' he said, 'but thank Heaven!it is done, and we are tided over. I knew they would not be such foolsas to refuse.'

  'But, good God!' said Robert, 'what have you been doing? What is themeaning of it? Why do you require to go hat in hand to any governor? IsRivers's losing its position? What has happened? Why don't you call theshareholders together and tell them if anything is wrong?'

  'My dear Mr Drummond!' said Mr Golden. He could scarcely do more thansmile and say the words.

  'Don't smile at me,' said Drummond in the ardour of his heart. 'Do youconsider that you have the very lives of hundreds of people in yourhands? Call them together, and let them know what remains, for God'ssake! I will make good what was lost through me.'

  'You are mad,' said Golden, when he saw that his gentle sneer hadfailed; 'such a step would be ruin. Call together the shareholders! Why,the shareholders--Mr Drummond, for heaven's sake, let people manage itwho know what they are about.'

  'For heaven's sake! for hell's sake, you mean,' said Robert in hisdespair. And the words reverberated in his ears, rang out of all theechoes, sounded through the very streets, 'It would be ruin!' Ruin! thatwas the word. It deafened him, muttering and ringing in his ears.

  And yet even after this outburst he was calmed down. Mr Golden explainedit to him. It was business; it was the common course of affairs, andonly his own entire inexperience made it so terrible to him. To theothers it was not in the least terrible, and yet he had no right toconclude that his colleagues were indifferent either to their owndanger, or to the danger of the shareholders of whom he thought so much.'The shareholders of course know the risks of business as well as wedo,' Mr Golden said. 'We must act for the best, both for them and forourselves.' And the painter was silenced if not convinced. This was inthe autumn, and during the entire winter which followed the bank went onlike a ship in a troubled sea. After a while such a crisis as the onewhich had so infinitely alarmed him became the commonest of incidentseven to Drummond. Now that his eyes had been once enlightened, it wasvain to attempt any further concealment. One desperate struggle he didindeed make, when in the very midst of all this anxiety a largerdividend than usual was declared. The innocent man fought wildly againstthis practical lie, but his resistance was treated as utter folly by thebusiness board, who were, as they said, 'fighting the ship.' 'Do youwant to create a panic and a run upon us?' they asked him. He had to besilent, overpowered by the judgment of men who knew better than himself.And then something of the excitement involved in that process of'fighting the ship' stole into his veins. Somehow by degrees, nobody hadbeen quite aware how, the old partners of Rivers's had gone out of theconcern. It was true there had been but three or four to start with; nowthere was but one left--Lord Rivers, the head of the house, who nevertook any share in the business, and was as ignorant as the smallestshareholder. The new directors, the fighting directors, were men of avery different class. As the winter went on the ship laboured more andmore. Sometimes it seemed to go down altogether, and then rose againwith a buoyancy which almost seemed to justify hope. '_Tout peut ser?tablir_,' they said to each other. 'After all we shall tide it over.'And even Robert began to feel that thrill of delight and relief when adanger was 'tided over,' that admiration, not of his own cleverness, butof the cleverness of others, which Golden had once described. Goldencame out now in his true colours; his resources were infinite, his pluckextraordinary. But he enjoyed the struggle in the midst of hisexcitement and exertion, and Drummond did not enjoy it, which made animmense difference between them.

  Things became worse and worse as spring came on. By that time, so far asDrummond was concerned, all hope was over. He felt himself sucked intothe terrible whirlpool whence nothing but destruction could come. With aheart unmanned by anxiety, and a hand shaking with suppressedexcitement, how could he go into his peaceable studio and work at thatcalmest work, of art? That phase of his existence seemed
to have beenover for years. When he went into the room he loved it looked to himlike some place he had known in his youth--it was fifty years off ormore, though the colour was scarcely dry on the picture which stood idlyon the easel. When he was called to Academy meetings, to consultationsover an old master, or a new rule, a kind of dull amazement filled hissoul. Did people still care for such things--was it still possible thatbeauty and pleasantness remained in life? There were people in thesedays who felt even that the painter had fallen into bad ways. They sawhis eyes bloodshot and his hand trembling. He was never seen with hiswife now when she drove her ponies through the park--even in societyHelen went sometimes out alone. And they had been so united, so happy apair. 'Drummond will have nothing ready in April,' the painterssaid to each other--'even his diploma picture has never beenfinished--prosperity has not agreed with _him_.' When he was visible atall, his vacant air, his tremulous look, the deep lines under his eyes,frightened all his friends. Dr Maurice had spoken to him very seriously,begging that he would be candid and tell his ailments. 'You cannot go onlike this,' he said. 'You are killing yourself, Drummond.' 'How much cana man go through without being killed, I wonder?' poor Robert asked,with an unsteady smile, and even his friend stopped short in dismay andperplexity. Was it dissipation? Was it some concealed misery? Could hiswife have anything to do with it? These suggestions flitted vaguelythrough the doctor's mind without bringing any certainty with them. Oncehe seemed to be getting a clue to the mystery, when Robert rushed inupon him one day, and with a show of levity suggested that Haldane'smoney should be taken out of the bank. 'I know a better investment, andhe should have the very best that is going,' said Drummond. Dr Mauricewas somewhat startled, for he had money in Rivers's too.

  'Where is there a better investment?' he asked.

  'In the Three per Cents.,' said Robert, with a hoarse laugh.

  Was he mad? Was he----drunk? The doctor took a day to consider it, tothink whether there could be anything in it. But he looked at thedividend papers, showing that Rivers's that year had paid ten per cent.And he called upon Dr Bradcliffe, and asked him to go with himprivately, _accidentally_, one of these days, to see a friend whosebrain was going, he feared. The two physicians shook their heads, andsaid to each other mournfully how common that was becoming. But Fatemoved faster than Dr Maurice, and the accidental call was never made.