Ovington's Bank Read online

  CHAPTER II

  The village of Garthmyle, where Arthur had his home, lay in the lap ofthe border hills more than seven miles from Aldersbury, and night hadveiled the landscape when he rode over the bridge and up the villagestreet. The squat church-tower, firm and enduring as the hopes itembodied, rose four-square above the thatched dwellings, and somehalf-mile away the rider could discern or imagine the blur of treesthat masked Garth, on its sister eminence. But the bounds of thevalley, in the mouth of which the village nestled, were obscured bydarkness; the steep limestone wall which fenced it on one side and themore distant wooded hills that sloped gently to it on the other werealike hidden. It was only when Arthur had passed through the hamlet,where all doors were closed against the chill of a January night, andhe had ridden a few paces down the hillock, that the lights of theCottage broke upon his view. Many a time had they, friendly beacons ofhome and rest, greeted him at that point.

  Not that Arthur saw them as beacons, for at no time was he much givento sentiment. His outlook on life was too direct and vivid for that,and to-day in particular his mind was teeming with more practicalthoughts, with hopes and plans and calculations. But the lights meantthat a dull ride over a rough road was at an end, and so far they gavehim pleasure. He opened the gate and rode round to the stable, gave upthe horse to Pugh, the man-of-all-work, and made his way into thehouse.

  He entered upon a scene as cheerful as any lights shining on wearytraveller could promise. In a fair-sized room a clear grate held acoal fire, the flames of which danced on the red-papered walls. Akettle bubbled on the hob, a tea-tray gleamed on the table, andbetween the two a lady and gentleman sat, eating crumpets; the ladywith much elegance and a napkin spread over her lavender silk dress,the gentleman in a green cutaway coat with basket buttons--a coat thatill concealed the splashed gaiters for which he had more than onceasked pardon.

  But fair as things looked on the surface, all was not perfect even inthis pleasant interior. The lady held herself stiffly, and her eyesrested rather more often than was courteous on the spatter-dashes.Secretly she thought her company not good enough for her, while thegentleman was frankly bored. Neither was finding the other ascongenial as a first glance suggested, and it would have been hard tosay which found Arthur's entrance the more welcome interruption.

  "Hallo, mother!" he said, stooping carelessly to kiss her. "Hallo,Clement."

  "My dear Arthur!" the lady cried, the lappets of her cap shaking asshe embraced him. "How late you are! That horrid bank! I am sure thatsome day you will be robbed and murdered on your way home!"

  "I! No, mother. I don't bring the money, more's the pity! I am late,am I? The worse for Clement, who has to ride home. But I have beendoing your work, my lad, so you mustn't grumble. What did you get?"

  "A brace and a wood-pigeon. Has my father come?"

  "Yes, he has come, and I am afraid has a wigging in store for you.But--a brace and a wood-pigeon? Lord, man," with a little contempt inhis tone, "what do you do with your gun all day? Why, Acherley told methat in that rough between the two fallows above the brook----"

  "Oh, Arthur," Mrs. Bourdillon interposed, "never mind that!" She hadcondescended sufficiently, she thought, and wished to hear no more ofClement Ovington's doings. "I've something more important to tell you,much more important. I've had a shock, a dreadful shock to-day."

  She was a faded lady, rather foolish than wise, and very elegant: onewho made the most of such troubles as she had, and the opening her sonnow heard was one which he had heard often before.

  "What's the matter now, mother?" he asked, stooping to warm his hands.

  "Your uncle has been here."

  "Well, that's no new thing."

  "But he has behaved dreadfully, perfectly dreadfully to me."

  "I don't know that that is new, either."

  "He began again about your refusal to take Orders, and your going intothat dreadful bank instead."

  Arthur shrugged his shoulders. "That's one for you, Clement."

  "Oh, that wasn't the half," the lady continued, unbending. "He said,there was the living, three hundred and fifty a year, and old Mr.Trubshaw seventy-eight. And he'd have to sell it and put in a strangerand have quarrels about tithes. He stood there with his great stick inhis hand and his eyes glaring at me like an angry cat's, and scoldedme till I didn't know whether I stood on my head or my heels. Hewanted to know where you got your low tastes from."

  "There you are again, Clement!"

  "And your wish to go into trade, and I answered him quite sharp thatyou didn't get them from me; as for Mr. Bourdillon's grandfather, whohad the plantations in Jamaica, it wasn't the same at all, aseverybody knows and agrees that nothing is genteeler than the WestIndies with black men to do the work!"

  "You confounded him there, mother, I'm sure. But as we have heardsomething like this before, and Clement is not much interested, ifthat is all----"

  "Oh, but it is not all! Very far from it!" Mrs. Bourdillon's headshook till the lappets swung again. "The worst is to come. He saidthat we had had the Cottage rent-free for four years--and I'm sure Idon't know who has a better right to it--but that that was while hestill hoped that you were going to live like a gentleman, like theGriffins before you--and I am sure the Bourdillons were gentry, or Ishould have been the last to marry your father! But as you seemed tobe set on going your own way and into the bank for good--and I mustsay I told him it wasn't any wish of mine and I'd said all I couldagainst it, as you know, and Mr. Clement knows the same--why, it wasbut right that we should pay rent like other people! And it would bethirty pounds a year from Lady Day!"

  "The d--d old hunks!" Arthur cried. He had listened unmoved to hismother's tirade, but this touched him. "Well, he is a curmudgeon!Thirty pounds a year? Well, I'm d--d! And all because I won't starveas a parson!"

  But his mother rose in arms at that. "Starve as a parson!" she cried."Why, I think you are as bad, one as the other. I'm sure your fathernever starved!"

  "No, I know, mother. He was passing rich on four hundred pounds ayear. But that is not going to do for me."

  "Well, I don't know what you want!"

  "My dear mother, I've told you before what I want." Arthur was fastregaining the good temper that he seldom lost. "If I were a bishop'sson and could look to be a bishop, or if I were an archdeacon's sonwith the prospect of a fat prebend and a rectory or two with it, I'dtake Orders. But with no prospect except the Garthmyle living, andwith tithes falling----"

  "But haven't I told you over and over again that you have only tomake-up to--but there, I haven't told you that Jos was with him, and Iwill say this for her, that she looked as ashamed for him as I am sureI was! I declare I was sorry for the girl and she not daring to put ina word--such an old bear as he is to her!"

  "Poor Jos!" Arthur said. "She has not a very bright life of it. Butthis does not interest Clement, and we're keeping him."

  The young man had indeed made more than one attempt to take leave, butevery time he had moved Mrs. Bourdillon had either ignored him, or bya stately gesture had claimed his silence. He rose now.

  "I dare say you know my cousin?" Arthur said.

  "I've seen her," Clement answered; and his mind went back to the onlyoccasion on which he had remarked Miss Griffin. It had been at thelast Race Ball at Aldersbury that he had noticed her--a gentle,sweet-faced girl, plainly and even dowdily dressed, and so closelyguarded by her proud old dragon of a father that, warned by the fateof others and aware that his name was not likely to find favor withthe Squire, he had shrunk from seeking an introduction. But he hadnoticed that she sat out more than she danced; sat, indeed, in a kindof isolation, fenced in by the old man, and regarded with glances ofhalf-scornful pity by girls more smartly dressed. He had had time towatch her, for he also, though for different reasons, had been alittle without the pale, and he had found her face attractive. He hadimagined how differently she would look were she suitably dressed."Yes," he continued, recalling it, "she was at the
last Race Ball, Ithink."

  "And a mighty poor time she had of it," Arthur answered, halfcarelessly, half contemptuously. "Poor Jos! She hasn't at any timemuch of a life with my beauty of an uncle. Twopence to get and a pennyto spend!"

  Mrs. Bourdillon protested. "I do wish you would not talk of yourcousin like that," she said. "You know that she's your uncle'sheiress, and if you only----"

  Arthur cut her short. "There! There! You don't remember, mother, thatClement has seven miles to ride before his supper. Let him go now!He'll be late enough."

  That was the end, and the two young men went out together. When Arthurreturned, the tea had been removed and his mother was seated at hertambour work. He took his stand before the fire. "Confounded oldscrew!" he fumed. "Thirty pounds a year? And he's three thousand, ifhe's a penny! And more likely four!"

  "Well, it may be yours some day," with a sniff. "I'm sure Jos is readyenough."

  "She'll have to do as he tells her."

  "But Garth must be hers."

  "And still she'll have to do as he tells her. Don't you know yet,mother, that Jos has no more will than a mouse? But never mind,we can afford his thirty pounds. Ovington is giving me a hundred andfifty, and I'm to have another hundred as secretary to this newCompany--that's news for you. With your two hundred and fifty we shallbe able to pay his rent and still be better off than before. I shallbuy a nag--Packham has one to sell--and move to better rooms in town."

  "But you'll still be in that dreadful bank," Mrs. Bourdillon sighed."Really, Arthur, with so much money it seems a pity you should loweryourself to it."

  He had some admirable qualities besides the gaiety, the alertness, thegood looks that charmed all comers; ay, and besides the ratheruncommon head for figures and for business which came, perhaps, of hisHuguenot ancestry, and had commended him to the banker. Of thesequalities patience with his mother was one. So, instead of snubbingher, "Why dreadful?" he asked good-humoredly. "Because all our countyfogies look down on it? Because having nothing but land, and drawingall their importance from land, they're jealous of the money that isshouldering them out and threatening their pride of place? Listen tome, mother. There is a change coming! Whether they see it or not, andI think they do see it, there is a change coming, and stiff as theyhold themselves, they will have to give way to it. Three thousand ayear? Four thousand? Why, if Ovington lives another ten years what doyou think that he will be worth? Not three thousand a year, but ten,fifteen, twenty thousand!"

  "Arthur!"

  "It is true, mother. Ay, twenty, it is possible! And do you think thatwhen he can buy up half a dozen of these thickheaded Squires who canjust add two to two and make four--that he'll not count? Do you thinkthat they'll be able to put him on one side? No! And they know it.They see that the big manufacturers and the big ironmasters and thebig bankers who are putting together hundreds of thousands are goingto push in among them and can't be kept out! And therefore trade, asthey call it, stinks in their nostrils!"

  "Oh, Arthur, how horrid!" Mrs. Bourdillon protested, "you are growingas coarse as your uncle. And I'm sure we don't want a lot of vulgarpurse-proud----"

  "Purse-proud? And what is the Squire? Land-proud! But," growing morecalm, "never mind that. You will take a different view when I tell yousomething that I heard to-day. Ovington let drop a word about apartnership."

  "La, Arthur, but----"

  "A partnership! Nothing definite, nothing to bind, and not yet, but inthe future. It was but a hint. But think of it, mother! It is what Ihave been aiming at all along, but I didn't expect to hear of it yet.Not one or two hundred a year, but say, five hundred to begin with,and three, four, five thousand by and by! Five thousand!" His eyessparkled and he threw back the hair from his forehead with acharacteristic gesture. "Five thousand a year! Think of that and don'ttalk to me of Orders. Take Orders! Be a beggarly parson while I havethat in my power, and in my power while I am still young! For trustme, with Ovington at the helm and the tide at flood we shall move. Weshall move, mother! The money is there, lying there, lying everywhereto be picked up. And we shall pick it up."

  "You take my breath away!" his mother protested, her faded, delicateface unusually flushed. "Five thousand a year! Gracious me! Why, it ismore than your uncle has!" She raised her mittened hands in protest."Oh, it is impossible!" The vision overcame her.

  But "It is perfectly possible," he repeated. "Clement is of no use. Heis for ever wanting to be out of doors--a farmer spoiled. Rodd's amere mechanic. Ovington cannot do it all, and he sees it. He must havesomeone he can trust. And then it is not only that I suit him. I amwhat he is not--a gentleman."

  "If you could have it without going to the bank!" Mrs. Bourdillonsaid. And she sighed, golden as was the vision. But before they partedhis eloquence had almost persuaded her. She had heard such things, hadlistened to such hopes, had been dazzled by such sums that she waswell-nigh reconciled even to that which the old Squire dubbed "thetrade of usury."