Ovington's Bank

Whereas-whereas, if the bank failed, he lost everything. And what was it his uncle had said? "A pretty fool you will look!" It was true, it was horribly true. He would be the laughing stock of the county. Men of his own class would say with a sneer that it served him right. And the Squire-what would he say? His life would be a hell!

Still he hesitated, though he told himself that it was not by boggling at trifles that men arrived at great ends-nor by poltroonery. And who would be the loser? No one. It would be all gain. The Squire, if he had common sense, would be the first to wish it done.

Yet, as he felt through the bunch, with fingers that shook a little, for the small key that opened the box, he glanced fearfully over his shoulder. But the door of the room was locked, the windows were shuttered: no one could see him. No one could ever say what he had done in that room. And he was lawfully there, at the Squire's own request, on his errand.

Five minutes later he closed the door, closed the panel. He took up the lamp with a steady hand and left the room. He went into the Squire's bedroom to return the keys, loitered a minute or two at the bureau, then he went to his own room. On the table lay the lease and the counterpart that he had brought from Aldersbury for the old man's signature. He closed and locked the door.

It was some hour and a half later that, having finished dinner-and he had talked more fluently at the meal, and with less restraint than of late-he rose from the table with Miss Peacock and Josina. "I'll come with you," he said. "I shall have my wine upstairs." And then, turning to Miss Peacock, "The Squire will want you to witness his signature," he said. "Will you come? He has to sign some deeds that Welsh's have sent."

Miss Peacock bewailed herself. She was in a flurry at the prospect. "Oh, dear, dear," she said, "I wish he didn't! I am all of a twitter, and then he scolds me. I am sure to put my name in the wrong place, or write his or something."

Josina laughed. "What will you give me to go instead?" she asked. "Come? But, there, I'll go. In fact, he told me before dinner that I was to go." She moved towards the door.

But Arthur did not move. He looked disturbed. "I don't think that that will do," he said slowly. "Considering what it is-I think the Peahen would be the better."

"But if she doesn't like it?" Jos objected. "And I must go, Arthur, for he told me to go. So the sooner the better. We have sat longer than usual, and, though Calamy is with him, he won't like to be kept waiting."

Arthur seemed to consider it. "Oh, very well," he said at last. He followed her from the room.

The Squire was sitting before the fire, at the small round table at which he had eaten his meal. A decanter of port and a couple of glasses stood at his elbow. Two candles in tall silver candlesticks shed a circle of light on the table, and showed up his white head and his hands, but failed to illumine the larger part of the room. The great bed with its drab hangings, the lofty press with its brass handles, the dark Windsor chairs, now lurked in and now sprang from the shadows, as the fire flickered up or sank. On the verge of the circle of light the butler moved mysteriously, now appearing, now disappearing; now coming forward to set an inkstand and goose-quills beside the decanter, now withdrawing to pile unseen plates upon an unseen tray.

The Squire was tapping impatiently on the table when they entered. "Well, you're in no hurry for your wine to-night," he said. "Have you brought the papers? You might have a'most written them in the time you've been."

"Sorry, sir," said Arthur. "They are here. Will you sit here, Jos?"

"Nay, nay, she must be near by," the old man objected. His hearing was still good. "Close up! Close up, girl! I want her eyes. And do you fill your glass. Now have you all ready? Then do you read me the agreement first, that I may see if the lease tallies. And read slowly, lad, slowly. Calamy?"

"I am here, sir," lugubriously. "Where we'll be tomorrow-"

"D-n you, don't whine, man, but snuff the candles. And then get out. Do you hear?"

Calamy mumbled that it would be all the same at the latter end. He went out with his tray, and closed the door behind him.

"Now!" said the Squire, and obediently to the word Arthur began to read. Once or twice his voice failed him, and he had to clear his throat. Josina would have thought that he was nervous, had she ever known him nervous. Fortunately, the document was short, as legal documents go, and some five minutes, during which the Squire sat listening intently, saw it at an end.

"Umph! Sounds all right," he commented. "Sight o' words! But there, they've got to charge. Now do you give the girl the counterpart, and do you read the lease, lad, and read it slowly, so as I may understand. And hark you, Jos, speak up if there is any differ-nail it like a rat, girl, and don't go to sleep over it! Don't you let me be cheated. Welsh is as honest, and I'd as lief trust him, as another, but if aught's amiss it's not he that will suffer, nor the confounded scamp of a clerk that made the mistake. And see you there's no erasures: I'm lawyer enough to know that. Now, slow, lad, slow," he commanded, "so that I can take it in."

Arthur complied, and began to read slowly and carefully. But again he had more than once to stop, his voice failing. He explained it by saying that the light was not good, and he rose to snuff the candles. The lease, too, was longer than the agreement, and was full of verbiage, and it took some time to read, and some patience. But at long last the delivery clause was reached. No discrepancy or erasure had been discovered, and the Squire, whose attention had never faltered-he was an excellent man of affairs-declared himself satisfied.

"Well, there," he said, in a tone of relief, "that's done! Drink up, lad, and wet your throttle." He turned himself squarely to the table. "Give me the pen I used last," he continued. "And do you guide my hand to the right place."

"I am afraid your pen was left to dry," Arthur said, "and the nib has opened. You'll have to use a new one, sir, and try it first. And-the sand? We shall want that. I am afraid it is downstairs. If Josina would not mind running down for it?"

"Pooh! pooh! Never mind the sand! Let 'em dry o' themselves. Less chance of blotting. Where's the pen?" – holding out his hand for it.

"Here, sir. Will you try it on this? If you'll write your name in full, as if you were signing the deeds" – he guided the Squire's hand to the place-"I shall see if it is right-and straight."

"Ay, ay, best be careful," the Squire agreed, squaring himself to his task. "'Twon't do to spoil 'em. Here?"

"Yes-just as you are now."

The old man bent over the table, his white hair shining in the centre of the little circle of light cast by the candles. Slowly and laboriously, in a tense silence, while Arthur, leaning over his shoulder, followed each movement of the pen, and Josina, half in light, half in shadow, watched them both from the farther side of the table, he wrote his name.

It was a perfect signature, though rather bolder and larger than usual, and "Excellent!" Arthur cried in a tone of relief, which betrayed the anxiety he had felt. "Good! It could not be better! Well done, sir!" He removed the paper as he spoke, but in the act looked sharply across at Josina. The girl's eyes were upon him, but her face was in shadow, and he could not read its expression. He hesitated a moment, the paper in his hand, then he laid it on the table beside him-and out of her reach.

"Right!" said the Squire. "Then, now for business. Let's have the lease. My hand's in now."

Arthur laid it before him, and guided his hand to the place. "Is there ink enough in the pen?" the old man asked.

"Quite enough, sir. It won't do to blot it."

"Right, lad, right!" The Squire wrote his name. "Now the counterpart!" he continued briskly, holding the quill suspended.

Arthur put it before him. He signed it, steadily and clearly. "All right?" he asked.

"Quite right. Couldn't be better, sir."

"Then, thank God that's done!" He sank back in his chair, and raised his hand to take off his glasses, then remembered himself. "Pheugh!" he said, "it's a job when you can't see." But it was plain that he was pleased with himself.

Arthur turned to Josina. "Your turn next!" he said; and he gave her the pen. He put the lease before her, and pointed to the place where she was to sign.

She was not as nervous as Miss Peacock, but she was anxious to make no mistake. "Here?" she asked.

"Yes, there. Be careful." Arthur snuffed the candles, and as he did so he glanced over his shoulder, his eyes searching the shadows. Then he leant over her, watching her pen.

She wrote her name, slowly and carefully. "Good!" he said, and he removed the document. He set another before her, and silently showed her with his finger where to write. She wrote her name.

"Now here," he said. "Here! But wait! Is there enough ink in the pen?"

She dipped the pen in the inkpot to make sure, and shook it, that there might be no danger of a blot. Again she wrote her name.

"Capital!" he said. His voice betrayed relief. "That's done, and well done! Couldn't be better. Now it's my turn."

"But" – Jos looked up in doubt, the pen still in her hand-"but I've signed three, Arthur! I thought there were but two."

"Three!" exclaimed the Squire, turning his head, his attention caught. "Damme!" – peevishly-"what mess has the girl made now?" It was part of his creed that in matters of business no woman was to be trusted to do the smallest thing as it should be done.

But Arthur only laughed. "No mess, sir," he said. "Only a goose of herself! She has witnessed your trial signature as well as the others. That's all. I thought I could make her do it, and she did it as solemnly as you like!" He laughed a little loudly. "I shall keep that Jos."

The Squire, pleased with himself, and glad that the business was over, was in a good humor, and he joined in the laugh. "It will teach you not to be too free with your signature, my girl," he said. "When you come some day to have a cheque book, you'll find that that won't do! Won't do, at all! Well, thank God, that's done."

Arthur, who was stooping over the table, adding his own name, completed his task. He stood up. "Yes, sir, that's done. Done!" he repeated in an odd, rising tone. "And now-the lease goes back to Welsh's. Shall I lock up the counterpart-downstairs, sir?"

"No, lad," the Squire announced. "I'll do that myself o' Monday."

"But it's no trouble, sir." He held out his hand for the keys. "And perhaps the sooner it's locked up-the tenant's signed it, and it is complete now-the safer."

But, "No, no, time enough!" the Squire persisted. "I'll put it back on Monday. I am not so helpless now I can't manage that, and I shall be downstairs o' Monday."

For a moment Arthur hesitated. He looked as if something troubled him. But in the end, "Very good, sir. Then that's all?" he said.

"Ay; put the counterpart in the old bureau there. 'Twill be safe there till Monday. How's the wine? Fill my glass and fill your own, lad. You can go, Jos. Tell Calamy to come to me at half-past nine."

CHAPTER XXVIII

The next day, Sunday, was raw and wet. Mist blotted out the hills, and beneath it the vale mourned. The trees dripped sadly, pools gathered about the roots of the beeches, the down-spouts of the eaves gurgled softly in the ears of those who sat near the windows. Miss Peacock alone ventured to church in the afternoon, Arthur walking with her as far as the door, and then going on to the Cottage to have tea with his mother. Josina stayed at home in attendance on her father, but ten minutes after the others had left the house, he dismissed her with a fractious word.

She went down to the dining-room, where she could hear his summons if he tapped the floor. She poked up the smouldering logs, and looked through the windows at the dreary scene-the day was already drawing in-then, settling herself before the fire, she opened a book. But she did not read, indeed she hardly pretended to read, for across the page of the Sunday volume, in black capitals, blotting out the type, forcing itself on her brain, insistent, inexorable, unavoidable, the word "When?" imprinted itself.

Ay, when? When was she going to summon Clement, and give him leave to speak? When was she going to keep her word, to make a clean breast of it to her father and confront the storm, the violence of which her worst fears could not picture or exaggerate?

"When?"

With every day of the past fortnight the question had confronted her with growing insistence. Now, in this idle hour, with the house silent about her, with nothing to distract her thoughts, it rose before her, grim as the outlook. It would not be denied, it came between her and the page, it forced itself upon her, it called for, nay, it insisted upon, an answer. When?

There was no longer any hope that the Squire would regain his sight, no longer any fear for his general health. He was as well as he ever would be, as well able to bear the disclosure. Delay on that ground was a plea which could no longer avail her or deceive her. Then, when? Or rather, why not now? Her conscience told her, as it had told her often of late, that she was playing the coward, proving false to her word, betraying Clement-Clement whom she loved, and whom, craven as she was, she feared to acknowledge.

Then, when? Surely now, or not at all.

Alas, the longer she dwelt on the avowal she must make, the more appalling the ordeal appeared. Her father, indeed, had been more gentle of late; that walk on the hill had brought them closer together, and since then he had shown himself more human. Glimpses of sympathy, even of affection, had peeped through the chinks of his harshness. But how difficult was the position! She must own to stolen meetings, to underhand practices, to things disreputable; she must proclaim, maid as she was, her love. And her love for whom? A stranger, and worse than a stranger-a nobody. Then apart from her father's contempt for the class to which Clement belonged, and with which he was less in sympathy than with the peasants on his lands, his prejudice against the Ovingtons was itself a thing to frighten her! Hardly a day passed that he did not utter some jibe at their expense, or some word that betrayed how sorely Arthur's defection rankled. And then his blindness-that added the last touch of deceit to her conduct, that made worse and more clandestine what had been bad before. As she thought of it, and imagined the avowal and the way in which he would take it, the color left her cheeks and she shivered with fright. She did not know how she could do it, or how she could live through it. He would lose all faith in her. He would pluck from his heart even that affection for her which she had begun to discern under the mask of his sternness-to discern and to cherish.

Yet time pressed, she could no longer palter with her love, she must be true to Clement now or false, she must suffer for him now or play the coward. She had given him her word. Was she to go back on it?

Oh, never! never! she thought, and pressed her hands together. Those spring days when she had walked with him beside the brook, when his coming had been sunshine and her pulses had leapt at the sound of his footsteps, when his eyes had lured the heart from her and the touch of his lips had awakened the woman in her, when she had passed whole days and nights in sweet musings on him-oh, never!

No, he had urged her to be brave, to be true, to be worthy of him; and she must be. She must face all for him. And it would be but for a time. He had said that her father might separate them, and would separate them: but if they were true to one another-

"Miss! Miss Josina!"

She turned, her dream cut short, and saw Molly, the kitchen-maid, standing in the doorway. She was surprised, for the stillness of a Sunday afternoon held the house-it was the servants' hour, and one at which they were seldom to be found, even when wanted. "What is it?" she asked, and stood up, alarmed. "Has my father called?" He might have rapped, and deep in thought she might not have heard him.

"No, miss," Molly answered-and heaven knows if Molly had an inkling of the secret, but certainly her face was bright with mischief. "There is a gentleman asking for you, if you please, miss. He bid me give you this." She held out a three-cornered note.

Josina's face burned. "A gentleman?" she faltered.

"Yes, miss, a young gentleman," Molly answered demurely.

Josina took the note-what else could she do? – and opened it with shaking fingers. For a moment, such was her confusion, she failed to read the few words it contained. Then she collected herself-the words became plain: "Very urgent-forgive me and see me for ten minutes. – C."

Very urgent? It must be urgent indeed, or, after all she had said, he would not come to her unbidden. She hesitated, looking doubtfully and shamefacedly at Molly. But the eyes of young kitchen-maids are sharp, and probably this was not the first glimpse Molly had had of the young mistress's love story, or of the young gentleman. "You can slip out easy, miss," she said, "and not a soul the wiser. They are all off about their business."

"Where is he?"

"He's under the garden wall, miss-down the lane."

Jos took her courage in her hands. She snatched up a shawl from the hall-table, and with hot cheeks she went out through the back regions, Molly accompanying her as far as the yard. "I'll be about the place, miss," the girl said-if no one else was enjoying herself, she was. "I'll rattle the milk-pail if-if you're wanted."

Josina drew the shawl about her head, and went down the yard, passing on her right the old stable, which bore over its door the same date as the table in the hall-1691. A moment, and she saw Clement waiting for her under the eaves of the Dutch summer-house, of which the sustaining wall overhung the lane, and, with the last of the opposing outhouses, formed a sort of entrance to the yard.

She had been red enough under Molly's gaze, resenting the confederacy which she could not avoid. But the color left her face as her eyes met her lover's, and she saw how sad and downcast he looked, and how changed from the Clement of her meetings. He was shabby, too-he who had always been so neat-so that even before he spoke she divined that there was something amiss, and knew at last, too, that there was nothing that she would not do, no risk that she would not run, no anger or storm that she would not face for this man before her. The mother in her awoke, and longed to comfort him and shield him, to give all for him. "Clement!" she cried, and, trembling, she held out her hands to him. "Dear Clement! What is it?"

He took her hands and held them; and if he had taken her in his arms she would have forgiven him and clung to him. But he did not. He seemed even to hold her from him. "Forgive me, dear, for sending for you," he said. "I thought to catch you going into church, but you were not there, and there was nothing for it but this. Jos, I have bad news."

"Bad news?" she exclaimed. "What? Don't keep me waiting, Clement! What bad news?"

"The worst for me," he said. "For we must part. I have come to say good-bye."

"Good-bye?" Oh, it was impossible! It was not, it could not be that! "What do you mean?" she cried, and her eyes pleaded with him to take it back. "Tell me! You cannot mean that we must part."

"I do," he said soberly. "Something has happened, dear-something that must divide us. Be brave, and I will tell you."

"You must," she said.

He told his story-rapidly, in clear short phrases which he had rehearsed many times as he covered the seven miles from Aldersbury on this dreary errand. He told her all, that which no one else must know, that which she must not reveal. They expected a run on the bank. They were sure, indeed, that a run must come, and though the issue was not yet quite certain, though his father still had hope, he had, himself, no hope. Within a week he would be a poor man, little better than a beggar, dependent on his own exertions; with no single claim, no possible pretensions to her hand, no ground on which he could appeal to her father. It must be at an end between them, and he preferred to let her know now rather than to wait until the blow had fallen. He thought himself bound in honor to release her while he still had some footing, some show of equality with her.

She smiled when she had heard him out. She smiled in his face. "But if I will not be released?" she said. And then, before he could answer her, she bade him tell her more. What was this run? What did it mean? She did not understand.

He told her in detail, and, while he told her, they stood, two pathetic figures in the mist and rain that dripped slowly and sadly from the eaves of the Dutch summerhouse. She stood, pressing her hands together, trying to comprehend. And he hid nothing: telling her even of the ten or twelve thousand that, did they possess it, would save them; telling her that which had decided him to bid her farewell-an item of news which had reached the bank on the previous evening, after Arthur had left for Garth. The great house of Poles, with a wide connection among country banks, had closed its doors; and not only that, but Williams's, Ovington's agents, had followed suit within six hours. The tidings had come by special messenger, but would be known in the town in the morning, and would certainly cause a panic and a run on both banks. That news had been the last straw, he said. It had pushed him to a decision. He had felt that he must give her back her word, and without the loss of a day must put it in her power to say that there was nothing between them.

Once and again, as he told his tale, she put in a question, or uttered a pitying exclamation. But for the most part she listened in silence, controlling herself, suppressing the agitation which shook her. When he had done, she put a question, but it was one so irrelevant, so unexpected, so far from the mark, that it acted on him like a douche of cold water. "What have you done to your coat?" she asked. "My coat?"

"Yes." She pointed to his shoulder.

He glanced down at his coat, but he felt the check. Surely the ways of women were strange, their manner of taking things past finding out. He explained, but he could not hide his chagrin. "I wasn't thinking, and took the first that came to hand," he said-"an old one. Does it matter?"

But she continued to stare at it. He was wearing a riding coat, high in the collar, long in the skirts, shaped to the figure. On the light buff of the cloth a stain spread downwards from shoulder to breast. The right arm and cuff, too, were discolored, and it said much for the disorder of his thoughts that he had ridden from town without noticing it. She eyed the stain with distaste, with something like a shudder. "It is blood," she said, "isn't it?"

He shrugged his shoulders, yet himself viewed it askance. "Yes," he said. "I don't know how you knew. I wore it that night, you know. I did not mean to wear it again, but in my hurry-"

"Do you mean the night that my father was hurt?"

"Yes."

"You held him up in the carriage?"

"Yes, but-" squinting at it-"I don't think that it was done then. I believe it was done when I was picking him up in the road, Jos, before Bourdillon came. Indeed, I remember that your father noticed it-before he fainted, you know."

"My father noticed it?"

"Well, oddly enough, he did."

"While you were supporting him?" There was a strange light in her eyes, and the blood had come back to her cheeks. "But where was Thomas-the man-then?"

"Oh, he had gone off, across the fields."

"Before Arthur came up, do you mean?"

"To be sure, some time before. However-"

But, "No, Clement, I want to understand this," she insisted, breaking in on him. Her voice betrayed her excitement, and to hold him to the point she laid her hands on his shoulders, standing before him and close to him. "Tell me again, and clearly. Do you mean that it was you who drove Thomas off? Before Arthur came up?"

He stared. "Well, of course it was," he said. "Didn't you know that? Didn't Arthur tell you?"

She avoided the question, and instead, "Then it was your coat that was spoiled?" she said. "This coat?"