Ovington's Bank

Clement had never seen anything like it, and he viewed it with awe, his ears deafened by the babel or pierced by the shrill cries of the news-sellers who constantly bawled, "Panic! Great panic in the City! Panic! List of banks closed!" He had heard as he changed at Barnet that fourteen houses in the City had shut their doors, but he had not appreciated the fact. Now he was to see with his own eyes shuttered windows and barred doors with great printed bills affixed to them, and huge crowds at gaze before them, groaning and hooting. Even the shops bore singular and striking witness to the crisis, for in Cheapside every other window exhibited a card stating that they would accept bank-notes to any extent and for goods to any amount-a courageous attempt to restore public confidence which deserved more success than it won; while there, and on all sides, he heard men execrating the Bank of England and loudly proclaiming-though this was not the fact-that it had published a notice that it could no longer pay cash.

Here was panic indeed! Here was an appalling state of things! And very low his heart sank, as the chaise made a few yards, stopped, and advanced again. What chance had Ovington's, what hope of survival had their little venture, when the very credit of the country tottered, and here in the heart of London age-long institutions with vast deposits and forty or fifty branches toppled down on all sides? When merchant princes with tens of thousands in sound but unsaleable securities could do nothing to save themselves, and men of world-wide fame, the giants of finance, went humbly, hat in hand, to ask for time?

Stranded, or moving at a snail's pace, he caught scraps of the talk about him. Smith's in Mansion House Street had closed its doors. Everett and Walker's had followed Pole's into bankruptcy. Wentworth's at York had failed for two hundred thousand pounds. Telford's at Plymouth had been sacked by an angry mob. The strongest bank in Norwich was going or gone. The Bank of England had paid out eight millions in gold within the week-and had no more. They were paying in one-pound notes now, a set found God knows where-in the cellars, it was said. The tellers were so benumbed with terror that they could not separate them or count them.

For the moment he forgot Arthur and Arthur's business, and thought only of his father and of their own plight. "We are gone!" he reflected, his face almost as pale as the faces in the street. "We are ruined! There is no hope. When this reaches Aldersbury we must close!" He could no longer bear the inaction. He could not sit still. He paid off the chaise-with difficulty, owing to the press-and pushed forward on foot. But his mind still ran on Aldersbury, was still busy with the fate of their own bank. He felt an immense pity for his father, and recognized that until this moment, when panic in its most dreadful form stared him in the face, he had not realized the catastrophe, or the sadness, or the finality of it. They must close. They must begin the world again, begin it at the bottom, in competition with a multitude of beggared men, three-fourths of whom had never speculated, never touched a share, never left the safe path of industrious commerce, but were now to pay with all they possessed in the world, their daughters' portions and their sons' fortunes, for the recklessness or the extravagance of others.

For a space there was vouchsafed to him the wider vision, and he saw the thing that was passing in its true light. He saw the wave of ruin spread from these crowded streets ever farther and farther, from city to town and town to country; and where it passed it wrecked homes, it made widows, it swept away the dowries of children, it separated lovers, it overwhelmed the happiness of thousands and tens of thousands. He saw the honest trader, whose father's good name was his glory, broken in heart and fortune through the failure of others, his health shattered, his house sold over his head, his pensioners and dependants flung into the workhouse. He saw deluded parsons doomed to spend the close of their lives in a hopeless wrestle with debt, their sons taken from school, their daughters sent out into a cold and unfeeling world. He saw squires, the little gods of their domain, men once wealthy, doomed to drink themselves into forgetfulness of the barred entail and the lost estate; the great house would be closed, the agent would squeeze the tenants, and they in turn the laborers, until the very village shop would feel the pinch. Thousands upon thousands would lose their hoarded savings, and, too old to begin again, would sink, they and their children and their children's children, into the under-world, there to be lost amid the dregs of the population.

And he and his? Why should they escape? How could they escape? It would be much if they could feel, while they shared the common lot, that they had deserved to escape, that they were not of those whose wild speculations had brought this disaster on their kind.

He had by this time fought his way as far as the end of Cheapside, and here, where the roar was loudest and the contending currents mingled their striving masses, where the voices of the news-boys were shrillest, and the timid stood daunted, while even strong men paused, measuring the human whirlpool into which they must plunge, Clement's eye was caught by a side-scene which was passing in the street hard by the Mansion House. Raised above the crowd on the steps of a large building, a haggard man was making an announcement-but in dumb show, for no word could be heard even by those who stood beside him, and his meaning could be deduced only from his gestures of appeal. The lower windows of the house were shuttered, and the upper exhibited many broken panes; but behind these and the cornice of the roof gleamed here and there a pale frightened face, peering down at the proceedings below. From the crowd collected before the haggard man rose a continuous roar of protest, a forest of menacing hands, shrill cries and curses, and now and again a missile, which, falling absurdly short-for in that press no man could swing his arm-still bore witness to the malice that urged it. Nearer to Clement on the skirts of the throng, where they could see little and were perpetually elbowed by impatient passersby, loitered a few who at a first glance seemed to be uninterested-so apathetic were their attitudes, so absent was their gaze. But a second glance disclosed the truth. They were men whom the tidings of ruin, sudden and unforeseen, had stunned. Spiritless and despairing, seeing only the home they had forfeited and the dear ones they had beggared, they stood in the street, blind and deaf to what was passing about them, and only by the mute agony of their eyes betrayed the truth.

The sight wrung Clement's heart with pity, and he seized a news-lad by the arm. "What is that place?" he shouted in his ear. In that babel no man could make himself heard without shouting.

The man looked at him suspiciously. "Yar! Yer kidding!" he said. "Yer know as well as me!"

Clement shook him in his impatience. "No, I don't," he shouted. "I'm a stranger! What is it, man? A bank?"

"Where d'yer come from?" the lad retorted, as he twisted himself free. "It's Everitt's, that's what it is! They closed an hour ago! Might as well ha' never opened!"

He went off hurriedly, and Clement went too, plunging into the maelstrom that divided him from Cornhill. But as he buffeted his way through the throng, the faces of the ruined men went with him, coming between him and the street, and with a sinking heart he fancied that he read, written on them, the fate of Ovington's.

CHAPTER XXXV

It was to Clement's credit that, had his object been to save his father's bank, instead of to do that which might deprive it of its last hope, he could not have struggled onward through the press more stoutly than he did. But though the offices for which he was bound, situate in one of the courts north of Cornhill, were no more than a third of a mile from the point at which he had dismissed his chaise, the city clocks had long struck twelve before, wresting himself from the human flood, which panic and greed were driving through the streets, he turned into this quiet backwater.

He stood for a moment to take breath and adjust his dress, and even in that brief space he discovered that the calm was but comparative. Many of the windows which looked on the court were raised, as if the pent-up emotions of their occupants craved air and an outlet even on that December day; and from these and from the open doors below issued a dropping fire of sounds, the din of raised voices, of doors recklessly slammed, of feet thundering on bare stairs, of harsh orders. Clerks rushing into the court, hatless and demented, plunged into clerks rushing out equally demented, yet flew on their course without look or word, as if unconscious of the impact. From a lighted window-many were lit up, for the court was small and the day foggy-a hat, even as Clement paused, flew out and bounded on the pavement. But no one heeded it or followed it, and it was a passing clerk who came hurrying out a little less recklessly than his fellows, whom Clement, after a moment's hesitation, seized by the arm. "Mr. Bourdillon here?" he asked imperatively-for he saw that in no other way could he gain attention.

"Mr. Bourdillon!" the man snapped. "Oh, I don't know! Here, Cocky Sands! Attend to this gentleman! Le' me go! Le' me go. D' you hear?"

He tore himself free, and was gone while he spoke, leaving Clement to climb the stairs. On the landing he encountered another clerk, whom he supposed to be "Cocky Sands," and he attacked him. "Mr. Bourdillon? Is he here?" he asked.

But Mr. Sands eluded him, shouted over his shoulder for "Tom!" and clattered down the stairs. "Can't wait!" he flung behind him. "Find some one!"

However, Clement lost nothing by this, for the next moment one of the partners appeared at a door. Clement knew him, and "Is Mr. Bourdillon here?" he cried for the third time, and he seized the broker by the button-hole. He, at any rate, should not escape him.

"Mr. Bourdillon?" The broker stared, unable on the instant to recall his thoughts, and from the way in which he wiped his bald and steaming head with a yellow bandanna, it was plain that he had just got something of moment off his mind. "Pheugh! What times!" he ejaculated, fanning himself and breathing hard. "What a morning! You've heard, I suppose? Everitt's are gone. Gone within the hour, d-n them! Oh, Bourdillon? It was Bourdillon you asked for? To be sure, it's Mr. Ovington, isn't it? I thought so; I never forget a face, but he didn't tell me that you were here. By Jove!" He raised his hands-he was a portly gentleman, wearing a satin under-vest and pins and chains innumerable, all at this moment a little awry. "By Jove, what a find you have there! Slap, bang, and tip to the mark, and no mistake! Hard and sharp as nails! I take off my hat to him! There's not a firm," mopping his heated face anew, "within half a mile of us that wouldn't be glad to have him! I'll take my Davy there are not ten men in country practice could have pushed the deal through, and squeezed eleven thousand in cash out of Snell & Higgins on such a day as this! He's a marvel, Mr. Ovington! You can tell your father I said so, and I don't care who says the contrary."

"But is he here?" Clement cried, dancing with impatience. "Is he here, man?"

"Gone to the India House this-" he looked at his watch-"this half-hour, to complete. He had to drop seven per cent. for cash on the nail-that, of course! But he got six thousand odd in Bank paper, and five thou. in gold, and I'm damned if any one else would have got that to-day, though the stuff he had was as good as the ready in ordinary times. My partner's gone with him to Leadenhall Street to complete-glad to oblige you, for God knows how many clients we shall have left after this-and they've a hackney coach waiting in Bishopsgate and an officer to see them to it. You may catch him at the India House, or he may be gone. He's not one to let the grass grow under his feet. In that case-"

"Send a clerk with me to show me the Office!" Clement cried. "It's urgent, man, urgent! And I don't know my way inside the House. I must catch him."

"Well, with so much money-here, Nicky!" The broker stepped aside to make room for a client who came up the stairs three at a time. "Nicky, go with this gentleman! Show him the way to the India House. Transfer Office-Letter G! Sharp's the word. Don't lose time. – Coming! Coming!" to some one in the office. "My compliments to your father. He's one of the lucky ones, for I suppose this will see you through. It's Boulogne or this-" he made as if he held a pistol to his head-"for more than I care to think of!"

But Clement had not waited to hear the last words. He was half-way down the stairs with his hand on the boy's collar. They plunged into Cornhill, but the lad, a London-bred urchin, did not condescend to the street for more than twenty yards or so. Then he dived into a court on the same side of the way, crossed it, threaded a private passage through some offices, and came out in Bishopsgate Street. Stemming the crowd as best they could they crossed this, and by another alley and more offices the lad convoyed his charge into Leadenhall Street. A last rush saw them landed, panting and with their coats wellnigh torn from their backs, on the pavement on the south side of the street, in front of the pillared entrance, and beneath the colossal Britannia that, far above their heads and flanked by figures of Europe and Asia, presided over the fortunes of the greatest trading company that the world has ever seen. Through the doors of that building-now, alas, no more-had passed all the creators of an oriental empire, statesmen, soldiers, merchant princes, Clive, Lawrence, Warren Hastings, Cornwallis. Yet to-day, the mention of it calls up as often the humble figure of a black-coated white-cravated clerk with spindle legs and a big head, who worked within its walls and whom Clement, had he called a few months earlier, might have met coming from his desk.

Here Clement, had he been without a guide, would have wasted precious minutes. But the place had no mysteries for the boy, even on this day of confusion and alarm. Skilled in every twist and turning, he knew no doubt. "This way," he snapped, hurrying down a long passage which faced the entrance, and appeared to penetrate into the bowels of the building. Then, "No! Not that way, stupid! What are you doing?"

But Clement's eyes, as he followed, had caught sight of a party of three, who, issuing from a corridor on the right at a considerable distance before them, had as quickly disappeared down another corridor on the left. The light was not good, but Clement had recognized one of them, and "There he is!" he cried. "He has gone down there! Where does that lead to?"

"Lime Street entrance!" the lad replied curtly, and galloped after the party, Clement at his heels. "Hurry!" he threw over his shoulder, "or they'll be out, and, by gum, you'll lose him! Once out and we're done, sir!"

They reached the turning the others had taken and ran down it. The distance was but short, but it was long enough to enable Clement to collect his wits, and to wonder, while he prepared himself for the encounter that impended, how Arthur would bear himself at the moment of discovery. Fortunately, the party pursued had paused for an instant in the east vestibule before committing themselves to the street, and that instant was fatal to them. "Bourdillon!" Clement cried, raising his voice. "Hi! Bourdillon!"

Arthur turned as if he had been struck, saw him and stared, his mouth agape. "The devil!" he ejaculated.

But to Clement's surprise his face betrayed neither the guilt nor the fear which he had expected to see, but only amazement that the other should be there-and some annoyance. "You?" he said. "What the devil are you doing here? What joke is this? Did your father think that I could not be trusted to see things through? Or that you were likely to do better?"

"I want a word with you," said Clement. He was in no mood to mince matters.

"But why are you here?" with rising anger. "Why have you come after me? What's up?"

"I'll tell you, if you'll step aside."

"You can tell me on the coach, then, for I have no time to lose now. I mean to catch the three o'clock coach, and-"

"No!" Clement said firmly. "I must speak to you here."

But on that the broker interposed, his watch in his hand, "Anyway, I can stop," he said. "Who is this gentleman?"

"Mr. Ovington, junior," Arthur said, with something of a sneer. "I don't know what he has come up for, but-"

"But, at any rate, he'll see you safe to the coach," the other rejoined. "And I must be off. I give you joy of it, Mr. Bourdillon. Fine work! Fine work, by Jove! And I shall tell Mr. Ovington so when I see him. You're a marvel! My compliments to your father, young gentleman," addressing Clement. "Glad to have met you, but I can't stay now. Fifty things to do, and no time to do 'em in. The world's upside down to-day. Good morning! Good morning!" With a wave of the hand, his watch in the other, he turned on his heel and strode back towards the main entrance.

The two looked at one another and the third, who made up the party, a burly man in a red waistcoat and a curly-brimmed Regency hat, surveyed them both. "Well, I'm hanged," Arthur exclaimed, reverting sourly to his first surprise. "Is everybody mad? Must you all come to town? I should have thought that you'd have had enough to do at the bank without this! But as you must-" then to the officer, who was carrying a small leather valise, the duplicate of one which Arthur held in his hand-"wait a minute, will you? And keep an eye on us. We shall not be a minute. Now," drawing Clement into a corner of the lodge, five or six paces away, where, though a stream of people continually brushed by them, they could talk with some degree of privacy. "What is it, man? What is it? What has bought you up? And how the deuce have you come to be here-by this time?"

"I posted."

"Posted? From Aldersbury? In heaven's name, why? Why, man?"

Clement pointed to the bag. "To take that over," he said.

"This? Take this over?" Arthur turned a deep red. "What-what the devil do you mean, man?"

"You ought to know."

"I?"

"Yes, you," Clement retorted, his temper rising. "It's stolen property, if you will have it." And he braced himself for the fray.

"Stolen property?"

"Just that. And my father has commissioned me to take charge of it, and to restore it to its owner. Now you know."

For one moment the handsome face, looking into his, lost some of its color. But the next, Arthur recovered himself, the blood flowed back to his cheeks, he laughed aloud, laughed in defiance. "Why, you-you fool!" he replied, in bitter contempt, "I don't know what you are talking about. Your father-your father has sent you?"

"It's no good, Bourdillon," Clement answered. "It's all known. I've seen the Squire. He missed the certificates yesterday afternoon-almost as soon as you were gone. He sent for you, I went over, and he knows all."

He thought that that would finish the matter. To his astonishment Arthur only laughed afresh. "Knows all, does he?" he replied. "Well, what of it? And he found out through you, did he? Then a pretty fool you were to put your oar in! To go to him, or see him, or talk to him! Why, man," with bravado, though Clement fancied that his eyes wavered and that the brag began to ring false, "what have I done? Borrowed his money for a month, that's all! Taken a loan of it for a month or two-and for what? Why, to save your father and you and the whole lot of us. Ay, and half Aldersbury from ruin! I did it and I'd do it again! And he knows it, does he? Through your d-d interfering folly, who could not keep your mouth shut, eh! Well, if he does, what then? What can he do, simpleton?"

"That's to be seen."

"Nothing! Nothing, I tell you! He signed the transfer, signed it with his own hand, and he can't deny it. The rest is just his word against mine."

"No, it's Miss Griffin's, too," Clement said, marvelling at the other's attitude and his audacity-if audacity it could be called.

But Arthur, though he had been far from expecting a speedy discovery, had long ago made up his mind as to the risk he ran. And naturally he had considered the line he would take in the event of detection. He was not unprepared, therefore, even for Clement's rejoinder, and, "Miss Griffin?" he retorted, contemptuously, "Do you think that she will give evidence against me? Or he-against a Griffin? Why, you booby, instead of talking and wasting time here, you ought to be down on your knees thanking me-you and your father! Thanking me, by heaven, for saving you and your bank, and taking all the risk myself! It would have been long before you'd have done it, my lad, I'll answer for that!"

"I hope so," Clement replied with biting emphasis. "And you may understand at once that we don't like your way, and are not going to be saved your way. We are not going to have any part or share in robbing your uncle-see! If we are going to be ruined, we are going to be ruined with clean hands! No, it's no good looking at me like that, Bourdillon. I may be a fool in the bank, and you may call me what names you like. But I am your match here, and I am going to take possession of that money."

"Do you think, then," furiously, "that I am going to run away with it?"

"I don't know," Clement rejoined. "I am not going to give you the chance. I am going to take it over and return it to the owner; it will not go near our bank. I have my father's authority for acting as I am acting, and I am going to carry out his directions."

"And he's going to fail? To rob hundreds instead of borrowing from one money that you know will be returned-returned with interest in a month? You fool! You fool!" with savage scorn. "That's your virtue, is it? That's your honesty that you brag so much about? Your clean hands? You'll rob Aldersbury right and left, bring half the town to beggary, strip the widow and the orphan, and put on a smug face! 'All honest and above board, my lord!' when you might save all at no risk by borrowing this money for a month. Why, you make me sick! Sick!" Arthur repeated, with an indignation that went far to prove that this really was his opinion, and that he did honestly see the thing in that light. "But you are not going to do it. You shall not do it," he continued, defiantly. "I'll see you-somewhere else first! You'll not touch a penny of this money until I choose, and that will not be until I have seen your father. If I can't persuade you I think I can persuade him!"

"You'll not have the chance!" Clement retorted. He was very angry by now, for some of the shafts which the other had loosed had found their mark. "You'll hand it over to me, and now!"

"Not a penny!"

"Then you'll take the consequences," was Clement's reply. "For as heaven sees me, I shall give you in charge, and you will go to Bow Street. The officer is here. I shall tell him the facts, and you know best what the result will be. You can choose, Bourdillon, but that is my last word."

Arthur stared. "You are mad!" he cried. "Mad!" But he was taken aback at last. His voice shook, and the color had left his cheeks.

"No, I am not mad. But we will not be your accomplices. That is all. That is the bed-rock of it," Clement continued. "I give you two minutes to make up your mind." He took out his watch.

Rage and alarm do not better a man's looks, and Arthur's handsome face was ugly enough now, had Clement looked at it. Two passions contended in him: rage at the thought that one whom he had often out-manœuvred and always despised should dare to threaten and thwart him; and fear-fear of the gulf that he saw gaping suddenly at his feet. For he could not close his eyes, bold and self-confident as he was, to the danger. He saw that if Clement said the word and made the thing public, his position would be perilous; and if his uncle proved obdurate, it might be desperate. His lips framed words of defiance, and he longed to utter them; but he did not utter them. Had they been alone, it had been another matter! But they were not alone; the Bow Street man, idly inquisitive, was watching him, and a stream of people, immersed each in his own perplexities, and unconscious of the tragedy at his elbow, was continually brushing by them.

To do him justice, Arthur had hitherto seen the thing only by his own lights. He had looked on it as a case of all for fortune and the rest well lost, and he had even pictured himself in the guise of a hero, who took the risks and shared the benefits. If the act were ill, at least, he considered, he did it in a good cause; and where, after all, was the harm in assuming a loan of something which would never be missed, which would be certainly repaid, and which, in his hands, would save a hundred homes from ruin? The argument had sounded convincing at the time.