The Head of the Firm. A novel

Front matter

©ttftott Copyright .Series. Crown Bvo., cloth, price $s. each. i. ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. By Amelie Rives, Author of 'The Quick or the Dead,' etc. Scotsman.— ' The literary work is highly artistic. _. . . It has beauty and brightness, and a kind of fascination which carries the reader on till he has read to the last page.' ii. THE PENANCE OF PORTIA JAMES. By Tasma, Author of ' Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill,' etc. Athenæum. — ' A powerful novel, with strong situations and ex cellent development of character.' Vanity Fair. — 'A very interesting story, morally sound, and flavoured throughout with ease of diction and lack of strain.' in. INCONSEQUENT LIVES. A Village Chronicle, shewing how certain folk set out for El Dorado ; what they attempted ; and what they attained. By J, H. Pearce, Author of ' Esther Pentreath,' etc.

Literary World. — ' Powerful and pathetic . . . from first to last it is profoundly interesting. It is long since we read a story revealing power of so high an order, marked by such evident care fulness of workmanship, such skill in the powerful and yet temperate presentation of passion, and in the sternly realistic yet delicate treatment of difficult situations.' iv. A QUESTION OF TASTE. By Maarten Maartens, Author of ' The Sin of Joost Avelingh,' etc. V. COME LIVE WITH JIB >AND BE MY LOVE. By Robert Buchanan, Auifo5SJf**,M^. Moment After,' 'The Coming Terror,' etc. f • *( THE O'CONNORS <OF BAIXtN^HJNCH. By Mrs. Hungerford, Author of ' Phyllis/ '. Molly-fcsiWn,' etc. A BATTLE AND A -liblS^y Blanche Willis Howard, Author of ' Guenn,' etc. VANITAS. By Vernon Lee, Author of ' Hauntings,' etc.

LONDON : WM. HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD STREET, W.C. A NOVEL BY MRS. J. H. RIDDELL AUTHOR OF 'GEORGE GEITH OF FEN COURT.' ' TOO MUCH ALONE,' 'far above rubies,' etc. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. III. LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1892 [A It rights reserved] CONTENTS OF VOL. III. CHAPTER pAGE I. INFORMATION WANTED - - - 1 II. MES. DESBOBNE'S OPINIONS- - - 25 III. TOM calloban's letteb - - - 46 IV. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE - - - 66 V. ' MAJOR WILTON'S ADVICE ' - - - 95 VI. ME. teipsdale's GEEAT-GEAND-AUNT - 106 VII. ME. PARKYN SUGGESTS - - - ,127 VIII. MAN PEOPOSES .... 147 IX. FAITH ----- 167 X. POOE AILEEN ! 184 XI. NO PLACE LIKE HOME - - - 196 XII. MES. FEEMOY - 215 XIII. TIME'S CHANGES ... - 233 XIV. IN THE EMBANKMENT GAEDENS - - 247 XV. A LITTLE DINNER-PARTY - - - 258 XVI. IN THE OLD OFFICE - - - 273 XVII. CONCLUSION ....

Chapter I. Information Wanted

What Mr. Tovey wanted to know was how Mr. Desborne met those bills. They were for a large amount ; they were bills not at all in the ordinary course of busi ness ; Mr. Tovey quite understood the pro ceeds were required to fill some purely private gap which was yawning to an inconveniently wide extent ; they were bills not made pay able, as ought to have been the case, at Mr. Desborne's bank, or office, or dwelling-house ; they were bills to be ashamed of and kept secret ; they were as things accursed, which vol. in. to clerk, or servant, or relative was to touch, or even see ; they were bills the drawer felt satisfied the acceptor would require his assistance to meet, yet the acceptor did not ask for such assistance. Instead, he went in a hansom to Mr. Tovey' s bank and ' honoured ' the ' nefarious docu ments,' at the eleventh hour it is true, but still a good fifty minutes before the stroke of doom.

Mr. Tovey, who chanced to be ' hovering around,' saw Mr. Desborne return through the swinging doors, and augured ill from the weary way he walked across the pavement, and his tired look as he directed the cabman where to drive next ; but the bills were all right ; they were not protested, they paid no fatal, if flying, visit to any notary ; they never returned to the drawer with that sig nificant inch of paper attached, the writing on which means ruin or the beginning of ruin, and is plain to the initiated as the legend Daniel interpreted for Belshazzar. There were none of these things, and Mr. Tovey naturally wanted to know why. Mr. Desborne could have told him, but Mr. Desborne did not, which, perhaps, was a pity, for Mr. Tovey, spite of his many peculiarities, was not by any means a bad fellow, and be liked the lawyer.

The lawyer, however, did not like him, and had made up his mind he would do anything and face anything rather than endure such another evening's 'heckling' as that he experienced when his moneyed friend ate grapes and raised quite a cairn of filbert-shells at Ashwater. Few men can bear being ' heckled ' with equanimity, particularly when troubled about money matters ; and though he was careful to conceal what he felt, Mr. Desborne grew at last to chafe under the most ordinary ques tioning, like a restive horse. There were, indeed, times before and after those bills arrived at their full stature when his uncle could scarcely put the simplest inquiry to him without causing exquisite pain. The torments he passed through while Mr. Tovey's drafts were maturing no man suspected. All the while Care, that cunning sculptor who works so much more thoroughly than Time, was graving indelible lines on his pleasant face, he met the world's scrutiny with a smile, and answered its greeting almost as cheerily as of old, but the man's heart was changed.

The elasticity of his once happy, buoyant nature had left him, to return never more. The amount of practical knowledge crowded into those three months by that merciless schoolmaster Experience could not be imagined save by the initiated. It is only those who have been ' through the mill ' that can tell how •' exceeding small ' the stones grind, how every fibre, every nerve, is racked during the process. Mr. Desborne soon grew to understand what the rack meant, if he never understood before. From the hour he signed his name across those drafts, his business education — previously neglected — may be said to have begun. First, he learned one truth never before suspected, though he ought to have been acquainted with it, namely, that money so raised goes no way at all ; and, second, the absolute accuracy of Mr. Tovey's statement concerning the rapidity with which time travels while a bill is coming due.

It is a gracious provision of Providence that a sovereign earned will purchase about three times as much as a sovereign borrowed, and as to Time's rate of progression during the ninety five days' breathing space allowed to the un happy debtor, why, the speed of light was but dawdling by comparison. Literally, the days flew. Once there had been an interval between breakfast and luncheon, luncheon and dinner ; but after he sold himself into captivity Mr. Desborne found there was no pause whatever. Dull November went its way; the dark days before Christmas came ; that merry season with its constant cry for money — money for needful tips, for presents, for. superabundant feasting, for pale-faced flowers and prickly holly — fled by in turn, only to give place to a happy New Year, inaugurated by heavy bills delivered, by respectful compliments, and re quests for cheques ; and still time dashed on with the speed of an express train, and Mr. Desborne felt as though he had travelled hundreds and thousands of miles, when, suddenly, the first of February came, and he found himself almost at the terminus of the ' Three months after date ' business, with nothing to meet his engagements.

It was then some leaden weight seemed to drop down in his heart with a heavy thud. From the first he knew this time must come, and now it had come. On that November evening which, spite of the frantic pace of Time's express, looked now to Mr. Desborne's memory so far and far away, what did he expect to happen that would enable him to keep faith with his own signature ? He had no idea whatever. Wonderful things do happen occasionally, but he could not remember at all why he then expected a miracle to be wrought for him. If thinking could have provided money for those bills, they had been met over and over again, because, indeed, he may be said to have thought of nothing else for months. But thoughts are not actions, as the state of his exchequer proved. It is of no use for a man to lie awake at night forming plans, unless he carry them out next day.

It is worse than useless for him to start from troubled dreams, if he fail to take such measures as shall prevent those dreams from becoming terrible realities. He had been as one at sea without an oar or rudder, rushing to cry to this person and to that for help, and yet uttering never a sound ; and now the rocks were within measurable distance, and he could do nothing to avert the impending catastrophe, unless he chose to take counsel with his uncle or Mr. Tovey. The latter had written a little memorandum, ' Do not forget the 8th.' Just as if any human being so placed were likely to forget it ! As well say to a man left for execution, ' Do not forget Monday morning, when you are to be hung by the neck.' A natural instinct impelled him to reply irritably, but his legal instinct compelled him to be careful. ' I have not forgotten,' was the compromise effected between the two. ' I have not for gotten,' which might mean he was still in possession of his faculties, but which certainly gave no assurance that he was in possession of the necessary amount of cash.

Mr. Tovey, knowing as well as anybody the ways and manners of individuals who rashly put pen to paper, particularly to stamped paper, read the four words of reply in this latter sense, and posted to Mr. Desborne's house a longer memorandum, which con tained a caution not to let the bills be dis honoured. ' If you are unable to manage the full amount, come to me ; only do not drive matters off to the last minute.' It was like lashing a horse already wild with fright. Mr. Desborne scarcely knew what he was doing, but the well-meant sug gestion only determined him to have no more dealings with Mr. Tovey. Perhaps, had he seen his way to scrape together part of the amount, he might have been tempted by so insidious an offer ; but not having a penny in hand, or any proposal to make, he no doubt felt he might, in vulgar parlance, as well be hung for a cow as a calf.

If he had to go to his uncle, Mr. Tovey's assistance would be unnecessary ; if he did not go to his uncle, any partial renewal could serve no purpose whatever. For these and other reasons he took no notice of Mr. Tovey's latest note, only answering it by a dignified silence, which induced his creditor to expect tbe worst. And all this time Mr. Desborne was suffer ing torments, in comparison with which lakes of fire and brimstone seemed to him mere child's play. He was learning the full meaning of bills payable ; he was more than beginning to understand the agonies those struggling men must have endured whom he had seen in the days of his own prosperity rushing into banks while the hands of the clock were travelling towards the stroke of four, and paying in their hardly-gathered money, only that they might secure the doubtful privilege of carrying on a losing game for some few toilsome months or years longer.

Vaguely, too, it was borne in upon him how hard it is for a capitalist to remain a lenient creditor. The business man who does not insist en his pound of flesh is very likely erelong to have no pound of flesh to insist on ; while, as for money-lenders, Mr. Desborne felt that if those gentlemen could only be induced not to ask so many questions, an intending borrower who knew anything of the difficulty of repayment might well forgive them for not lending at all. From experience, further, he was becoming acquainted with the torments of Tantalus. Fair fruit and sparkling waters were within his reach, yet he dare not slake his thirst with the one or stretch forth his hand to pluck the other. In the bank with which Desborne and Son kept the firm's account there were thousands of pounds lying quite" idle.

A heavy mort gage had been paid off some time previously, and the amount left in safe custody till such time as the owner might request it to be for warded to him, an event likely to happen any day. There, however, meantime it remained, making the firm's balance exceptionally heavy, and causing the head of that firm to feel certain there existed in the mode of distributing wealth some tremendous injus tice. Perhaps it was thinking about the sum of money Desborne and Son's bankers were pro bably turning over and over again with much profit to themselves which made Mr. Des borne wonder whether his own private bankers could assist him in his need. He had not much security to offer, but perhaps gentlemen with whom his father and grandfather had done business might regard his request favour ably and refrain from impertinent questioning and disagreeable comment.

That, certainly, was a notion worth considering ; unhappily, however, it was one which the more Mr. Desborne considered, the less he felt inclined to carry out. There were so many things against it ! First, he must tell his bankers he was short of money ; next, the state of his account, long drawn so close that if replenished one week it looked weak and poverty-stricken a fortnight after — a terribly shaky account, so shaky no banker in his senses could be expected to strengthen it with a loan. Preferring such a request might also damage his credit, and draw attention to the state of his affairs. No, that would not do, and yet what was he to do? He must ask someone ; he could be but refused. After being refused, he might go to his uncle. A few hours more, and the three months, which in prospect had seemed so long, would have vanished utterly, and the three days of grace only be left.

What was it possible to do in three days ? With a heavy heart, he involuntarily worked out this rule-of-three sum : Given that in ninety-two days he had not been able to pro vide for even one of the bills, what likelihood was there of his finding funds to meet all of them in three ? To an impecunious man there is no science so detestable as arithmetic, and Mr. Desborne, while vainly striving to make two and two five, had long felt he hated it with all his soul. Hating or liking would not, however, help him to solve the problem of how to get money. ' I will go to my bankers,' he decided ; * they can but say " No," ' and, indeed, there was nothing more sure than that they would say ' No '; but, still, even the shadow of hope that they might answer ' Yes ' seemed such a comfort Mr. Desborne feared to put his fortune to the test and leave himself no alternative save an interview with his uncle.

On the whole, he thought he would rather let any amount of dishonour be heaped on those wretched bills, and leave Mr. Tovey to do his worst ; but he could not exactly forecast what that worst might prove, and felt that if forced to go to his bankers at last, he had better adopt that disagreeable course at first. ' I zsill go to them,' he repeated, with greater emphasis than before, 'this afternoon.' With the afternoon, however, came another excuse for further delay. ' I shall be fresher in the morning,' he thought. ' Having made up my mind as to what I am going to do, perhaps I may sleep better to-night. Yes, I will leave the matter over till to-morrow, and call at the bank on my way to Cloak Lane.' Morning found him no more inclined for the interview he had overnight so firmly determined to seek than the previous afternoon had done. ' I may as well just call in at the office first,' he said to himself, ' and then I can devote myself to the business in hand.' If the business so glibly referred to meant that impending interview, it was destined never to take place.

At Messrs. Desborne and Son's the custom prevailed of leaving all letters for the firm, as well as for Mr. Thomas Desborne, on that gentleman's table, whilst those addressed to his nephew were carried into the room me morable to Aileen as the scene of her first interview. It was not because he expected any im portant communication that the Head of the Firm bent his steps to Cloak Lane and entered his office before going on to his bank. All he wanted was to delay the evil hour, and, in fluenced by this desire, he turned over his letters and proceeded to read them leisurely. He had thus worked his way almost to the end, when he drew from one envelope an enclosure, the contents of which caused the IN FORM A TION WA NTED. 15 hot blood to rush into his face and immediately after fade away, leaving him pale as death.

For a moment the writing grew blurred and indistinct before his eyes ; there sounded a strange humming in his ears ; something seemed to come between him and the light of day ; he felt as though the room were reeling round ; then the sudden faintness passed off, and he knew he was sitting in his accustomed place with a number of letters before him, the cold February sunshine falling across the carpet and regilding the lettering of his law books. Filling a glass with water, he emptied it at a draught, after which he remained for awhile with his elbows resting on the table and his hands supporting his head, trying, as Mr. Tripsdale would have jauntily said, 'to pull himself together.' When he had done this to a certain extent, and glanced over the few remaining letters, he put them all on one side with the exception of that short epistle which had produced such an effect.

This he scanned again before taking it upstairs to his uncle's room. He found Mr. Thomas Desborne very busy with his correspondence, making abstracts, pencilling notes, instructing Mr. Knevitt — so busy, indeed, that he did not look up while answering his nephew's ' Good-morning,' but merely pushed some folios towards him, and said : ' I wish you would give these matters your attention to-day.' ' Certainly,' answered Mr. Desborne, making a desperate effort to ' pull himself more to gether,' and then he laid the paper he carried before his uncle, observing, ' That has just come.' Mr. Thomas Desborne read the memorandum, for it was little more, without the smallest evidence of feeling. It did not affect him in the least ; indeed, there was not the slightest reason why it should have done so. 'Very well,' was his tranquil comment as he pushed the communication back to his nephew. ' Is it worth while placing the amount on deposit ?' ' I think not,' said Mr. Desborne. ' At all events, we may as well leave that over till after I have spoken to him.

You see, he will be passing through London in a few days.' ' True ; things had better remain as they are. Mr. Desborne went downstairs again and shut himself up with the folios, to which he tried to give his best attention. Quite unsuc cessfully, however, for Mr. Tovey's bills played at leap-frog over the text, and scrawled ' Three months after date ' in mighty letters across the clear formal writing, which purported to set forth how, on a certain day in a certain year of grace, John Jones, in consideration of, and all the rest of it, ' undertook for himself, his heirs, and assigns,' etc. ' I must go out and get my brain clear,' thought Mr. Desborne, as ' Value received,' which had nothing in the world to do with John Jones, took a header over ' Accepted payable,' and came down flat on ' To Edward Desborne, Esq., Ashwater, Teddington.' ' This is enough to drive a man mad.' Accordingly he went out, and took a checrvol. in. ful walk about the network of lanes that at one time ran direct from Cannon Street to Thames Street, but were dissected by Queen Victoria Street and the Daylight Route Rail way.

He came in the course of his travels, as people who roam without a purpose any where in London are sm*e to do, upon yards and courts and funny out-of-the-way little nooks, strange and unfamiliar ; he got to the backs of forgotten churches ; he saw small shops crushed into unexpected corners ; he found where beadles lived, and where the in habitants were informed they ought to apply in case of fire. He beheld grimy children and little girls in clean white pinafores, and grew interested and forgot, for the time being, why be was making such a pilgrimage, and the fact that a person of the name of Tovey existed and was very much in evidence. When he got to St. Mary Somerset, of which church he had to ask the name, so ignorant was he of most matters appertaining to the City lying out of his ordinary routine, a dim recollection recurred to him of having when a lad attended service there with his uncle, who afterwards took him along many streets and alleys, in search of lanes which no longer existed, having been swept out of the world and off the maps by the besom of civiliza tion.

He could remember his relative standing at one particular point and saying : ' It was just about here Desborne Lane started running south to Thames Street, and I feel little doubt, though the old histories are silent on the subject, that one of our ancestors lived in a fair house near this. So late as seventeen hundred and ninety Lambert Hill was in habited by private families, but we probably were driven from our home at the time of the Great Fire, when the old churches of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey and St. Michael, Queenhithe, were destroyed, as well as the residences of man}* persons of wealth and consideration.' Across the past came faint but clear the echoes from that long-ago time, on the veiy spot they had stayed, as words breathed into a telephone and sealed up will remain for long till called on to give up their sound to ears that can never hear them as they would have heard them once ; and now Mr. Desborne listened to those strange echoes with a feeling of pain which was well-nigh unendurable.

He had been a boy then and his uncle a com paratively young man, and now — and now if Mr. Thomas Desborne knew of the straits to which the last of his line was reduced, it would break his heart and humble his pride into the dust. 'He must never know — never;' and Mr. Desborne, from out whose breast for a few minutes seven devils had been cast, hurried on with a legion tearing and tormenting him. He took the most direct route back to Cloak Lane, and compelled himself to work for a couple of hours before going out for luncheon, after which he returned to his office, saw a few clients, wrote halts a dozen letters, drew out his cheque-book and looked at it, replaced it in the safe, went upstairs and talked for a little while with his uncle before going home. A day fully employed with the exception of that hour when he strolled through the wilds of Queenhithe, and tried unavailingly to find waters of Lethe in Knightrider Street ; a day so fully employed that he never found time to go to his bankers — never thought of going to them, in fact.

The second day of grace was passed much as the first had been, save that Mr. Desborne did not go wandering, and confined his sole excursion to Chancery Lane, where he had an appointment. At noon he took out his cheque-book, and returned it again to the safe, unused, as he had done on the previous afternoon. After bank hours he again brought it to light, with great care filled in a cheque, which, however, he did not tear from the book till the third day came, when about two o'clock he called Mr. Tripsdale into his office and despatched that young gentleman to get the draft cashed. 'Now,' said the Head of the Firm, when Mr. Tripsdale returned, ' take the numbers of those notes, put them in this envelope, and bring them back to me.' ' What are you doing ?' asked Mr. Puckle curiously, when he saw his fellow - clerk's employment. ' Oh, for Humphrey Dayfeld, Esq., Limmer's Hotel,' he added, laying down the envelope he had taken up. * Let my things alone, confound you !' said Mr. Tripsdale indignantly ; ' there now, I will have to count those notes all again.' He counted them all again, Mr. Puckle kindly keeping tally with him, and put them in their cover, which he took into Mr. Des borne's office. ' Call me a cab, will you ?' requested his employer ; and Mr. Tripsdale, walking very erect as a sort of dignified protest at being asked to perform such an unworthy errand, went on his way, and personally conducted a hansom to the door.

If Mr. Puckle had been sent for a cab, he would have jumped in and let the man drive him back. Not so the younger clerk. ' I am not going to ride as if I were a mes senger,' he soliloquized, and for this reason he stalked along solemnly, to the amazement of ' cabby,' who decided the ' little chap ' was 'a rum un.' It was on that same afternoon Mr. Tovey INFORM A TION WA NTED. 23 saw Mr. Desborne as he returned from taking up those bills. ' I thought he would have required help from me,' said the former to himself, when he found the acceptances were honoured. ' It is a large sum for a man to find, more especially a man who must have been so hard up three months ago. I wonder how he managed to do it ?' Mr. Desborne, as has already been remarked, could have told him, but Mr. Desborne did not.

He did not tell anyone, only stuck to business as he had never in all his life done before. Was it too late, he asked himself, to regain the fine connection formerly possessed by his firm — to recover the splendid prestige which had once hung about its name ? He could not tell, but he meant to try. Spite of the eternal struggle life had become, spite of the weary oppression which weighed him down, he would try. If sticking to business were indeed able to compass security, he meant soon to be out of debt ; but who can fill a pitcher which leaks, unless he first stop the leak ? This was a problem Mr. Desborne had not yet set himself to solve. This was a conundrum still to be answered. ' Edward,' said his uncle one day about a month later, ' how could you be so careless as to give Mr. Dayfeld a cheque, and for such a large amount, payable to bearer without even crossing it ?' 'That is all right,' was the answer; 'cash was wanted, and I drew the money out and paid it over myself.' And took a receipt, I hope ? ' Of course.' ' It is a way of doing business I do not much like.

Why could he not have passed the cheque through his bank '?' ' I really cannot tell you.' Mr. Edward Desborne's tone sounded as though he were a little vexed. Probably he felt he might as well not be Head of the Firm if his uncle wanted such an unreasonable amount of information. CHAPTEX II. MRS. DESBORNE'S OPINIONS. ' I made you "sit up " on Sunday, didn't I, Miss Simpson ?' It was Miss Wilton who asked this auda cious question — Miss Wilton, who had almost caused Miss Simpson's hair to stand on end, and who, looking lovelier than ever, now lay back in an easy-chair, her arms thrown up, and her hands supporting her head, looking the very incarnation of roguish impropriety. By virtue of her office as the guide and director of untrained youth, Miss Simpson would like to have told the girl to sit up in a different sense, pull down her dress, and modestly hide her feet, which were crossed and well in evidence, and, indeed, were too pretty for the owner to care to conceal very sedulously ; but Miss Wilton was not in Miss Simpson's charge, and, if she had been, would most probably only have laughed at the man date and adopted an even more indolent attitude. ' Made me ' repeated the poor lady helplessly.