A Girl of the Commune, G. A. Henty [great novels to read txt] 📗

usual way, Cuthbert. I am sure that he preferred it so. He shrunk, as he said, from knowing that people he met were aware that his days were numbered, and even with me after our first conversation on the subject, he made no allusion whatever to it. He was as cheery and bright as ever, and when I last met him a week ago, even I who knew the circumstances, could see no difference whatever in his manner. I thought he was wrong, at first, but I came to the conclusion afterwards that his decision was not an unwise one. He spared you three months of unavailing pain; he had no fear of death, and was able to go about as before to meet his friends without his health being a subject of discussion, and in all ways to go on as usual until the call came. His death was evidently painless; he sat down in his easy arm-chair after lunch for his usual half-hour's nap, and evidently expired in his sleep. The servant found him, as he believed, still asleep when he came in to tell him that the carriage was at the door, and it was only on touching him he discovered what had happened. They sent the carriage off at once to fetch Dr. Edwards. He looked in at my office and took me over with him, and I got back in time to write to you."

The shock that the Squire's sudden death caused in Abchester, was, a fortnight later, obliterated by the still greater sensation caused by the news that the bank had put up its shutters. The dismay excited thereby was heightened when it became known that the manager had disappeared, and reports got about that the losses of the bank had been enormous. The first investigation into its affairs more than confirmed the worst rumors. For years it had been engaged in propping up the firm not only of Mildrake and Co., which had failed to meet its[Pg 34] engagements on the day preceding the announcement of the bank's failure, but of three others which had broken down immediately afterwards. In all of these firms Mr. Cumming was found to have had a large interest.

On the day after the announcement of the failure of the bank, Mr. Brander drove up to Fairclose. He looked excited and anxious when he went into the room where Cuthbert was sitting, listlessly, with a book before him.

"I have a piece of very bad news to tell you, Mr. Hartington," he said.

"Indeed?" Cuthbert said, without any very great interest in his voice.

"Yes; I daresay you heard yesterday of the failure of the bank?"

"Dr. Edwards looked in here as he was driving past to tell me of it. Had we any money in it?"

"I wish that was all, it is much worse than that, sir. Your father was a shareholder in the bank."

"He never mentioned it to me," Cuthbert said, his air of indifference still unchanged.

"He only bought shares a comparatively short time ago, I think it was after you were here the last time. There were some vague rumors afloat as to the credit of the bank, and your father, who did not believe them, took a few shares as a proof of his confidence in it, thinking, he said, that the fact that he did so might allay any feeling of uneasiness."

"I wonder that you allowed him to invest in bank shares, Mr. Brander."

"Of course I should not have done so if I had had the slightest idea that the bank was in difficulties, but I was in no way behind the scenes. I transacted their legal business for them in the way of drawing up mortgages, investigating titles, and seeing to the purchase and sales of property here in the county; beyond that I knew nothing of their affairs. I was not consulted at all in the matter. Your father simply said to me, 'I see that the shares in the bank have dropped a little, and I hear there are some foolish reports as to its credit; I think as[Pg 35] a county gentleman I ought to support the County Bank, and I wish you to buy say fifty shares for me.'"

"That was just like my father," Cuthbert said, admiringly, "he always thought a great deal of his county, and I can quite understand his acting as he did. Well, they were ten pound shares, I think, so it is only five hundred gone at the worst."

"I am afraid you don't understand the case," Mr. Brander said, gravely; "each and every shareholder is responsible for the debts of the bank to the full extent of his property, and although I earnestly hope that only the bank's capital has been lost, I can't disguise from you that in the event of there being a heavy deficiency it will mean ruin to several of the shareholders."

"That is bad, indeed," Cuthbert said, thoroughly interested now. "Of course you have no idea at present of what the state of the bank is."

"None whatever, but I hope for the best. I am sorry to say I heard a report this morning that Mr. Hislop, who was, as you know, the chairman of the bank, had shot himself, which, if true, will, of course, intensify the feeling of alarm among the shareholders."

Cuthbert sat silent for some time.

"Well," he said, at last, "this is sudden news, but if things are as bad as possible, and Fairclose and all the estate go, I shall be better off than many people. I shall have that five thousand pounds that came to me by my mother's settlement, I suppose?"

"Yes, no doubt. The shares have not been transferred to my name as your father's executor. I had intended when I came up next week to go through the accounts with you, to recommend you to instruct me to dispose of them at once, which I should have done in my capacity of executor without transferring them in the first place to you. Therefore, any claim there may be will lie against the estate and not against you personally."

"That is satisfactory anyhow," Cuthbert said, calmly. "I don't know how I should get on without it. Of course I shall[Pg 36] be sorry to lose this place, but in some respects the loss will be almost a relief to me. A country life is not my vocation, and I have been wondering for the last fortnight what on earth I should do with myself. As it is, I shall, if it comes to the worst, be obliged to work. I never have worked because I never have been forced to do so, but really I don't know that the prospects are altogether unpleasant, and at any rate I am sure that I would rather be obliged to paint for my living than to pass my life in trying to kill time."

The lawyer looked keenly at his client, but he saw that he was really speaking in earnest, and that his indifference at the risk of the loss of his estates was unaffected.

"Well," he said, after a pause, "I am glad indeed that you take it so easily; of course, I hope most sincerely that things may not be anything like so bad as that, and that, at worst, a call of only a few pounds a share will be sufficient to meet any deficiency that may exist, still I am heartily glad to see that you are prepared to meet the event in such a spirit, for to most men the chance of such a calamity would be crushing."

"Possibly I might have felt it more if it had come upon me two or three years later, just as I had got to be reconciled to the change of life, but you see I have so recently and unexpectedly come into the estate that I have not even begun to appreciate the pleasures of possession or to feel that they weigh in the slightest against the necessity of my being obliged to give up the life I have been leading for years. By the bye," he went on, changing the subject carelessly, "how is your daughter getting on in Germany? I happened to meet her at Newquay three weeks ago, and she told me she was going out there in the course of a week or so. I suppose she has gone."

"Yes, she has gone," Mr. Brander said, irritably. "She is just as bent as you were, if you will permit me to say so, on the carrying out of her own scheme of life. It is a great annoyance to her mother and me, but argument has been thrown away upon her, and as unfortunately the girls have each a couple of thousand, left under their own control by their mother's sister, she was in a position to do as she liked. However, I[Pg 37] hope that a year or two will wean her from the ridiculous ideas he has taken up."

"I should doubt whether her cure will be as prompt as you think, it seemed to me that her ideas were somewhat fixed, and it will need a good deal of failure to disillusionize her."

"She is as obstinate as a little mule," Mr. Brander said shortly. "However, I must be going," he went on, rising from his chair. "I drove over directly I had finished my breakfast and must hurry back again to the office. Well, I hope with all my heart, Mr. Hartington, that this most unfortunate affair will not turn out so badly after all."

Cuthbert did not echo the sentiment, but accompanied his visitor silently to the door, and after seeing him off returned to the room, where he reseated himself in his chair, filled and lighted his pipe, put his legs on to another chair, and proceeded to think the matter out.

It was certainly a wholly unexpected change; but at present he did not feel it to be an unpleasant one, but rather a relief. He had for the last ten days been bemoaning himself. While but an heir apparent he could live his own life and take his pleasure as he liked. As owner of Fairclose he had duties to perform—he had his tenants' welfare to look after, there would be the bailiff to interview every morning and to go into all sorts of petty details as to hedges and ditches, fences and repairs, and things he cared not a jot for, interesting as they were to his dear old father. He supposed he should have to go on the Bench and to sit for hours listening to petty cases of theft and drunkenness, varied only by a poaching affray at long intervals.

There would be county gatherings to attend, and he would naturally be expected to hunt and to shoot. It had all seemed to him inexpressedly dreary. Now all that was, if Brander's fears were realized, at an end, even if it should not turn out to be as bad as that, the sum he would be called upon to pay might be sufficient to cripple the estate and to afford him a good and legitimate excuse for shutting up or letting the house, and going away to retrench until the liabilities were all cleared off.[Pg 38] Of course he would have to work in earnest now, but even the thought of that was not altogether unpleasant.

"I believe it is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me," he said to himself. "I know that I should never have done anything if it hadn't been for this, and though I am not fool enough to suppose I am ever going to turn out anything great, I am sure that after a couple of years' hard work I ought to paint decently, and anyhow to turn out as good things as some of those men. It is just what I have always been wanting, though I did not know it. I am afraid I shall have to cut all those dear old fellows, for I should never be able to give myself up to work among them. I should say it would be best for me to go over to Paris; I can start on a fresh groove there. At my age I should not like to go through any of the schools here. I might have three months with Terrier; that would be just the thing to give me a good start; he is a good fellow but one who never earns more than bread and cheese.

"There isn't a man in our set who really knows as much about it as he does. He has gone through our own schools, was a year at Paris,