Volume Two—Chapter One.
Aunt Sophia Visits the City.
Mr Fred. Saxby stopped in front of the Royal Exchange one morning to buy a rose, and spent some time in selecting it. Red ones would not do; yellow he despised. He wanted a delicate white rose, with a dash of blush pink upon its petals; and when he had discovered one, he made no scruple about paying the flower-girl sixpence and carrying it off with the greatest care to deposit in a glass upon his desk, for reasons known only to himself.
He had rather a busy morning in his close, cool, dark office, in a court out of Throgmorton Street—an office where the light of day had a struggle every morning to get down between two tall piles of building, and illumine the room, failing dismally seven or eight months out of the twelve, and leaving the stockbroker to the tender mercies of his gas company and the yellow flame that danced within a globe.
Mr Saxby’s room was “as clean as hands could make it,”—the housekeeper’s words—but all the same it did not seem clean. There was a dingy look about everything, excepting the rose he bought every morning, and himself. In one part of the room was a tiny machine, untouched save by electricity, which went on, unwinding, inking its letters and stamping mile after mile of tape-like paper, informing the reader the while that the shares of this railway were up, of that down; that foreign stocks had made this change, consols were at that, and so on, and so on, while the occupant of the office paid not the slightest heed, but divided his attention between the Times and the rose.
Just in the midst of one of his most earnest inspections of the flower, during which he took a long soft inhalation of its odorous breath, a clerk entered with a card. “Miss Raleigh, sir.”
“Bless my heart!” ejaculated the stockbroker, hastily setting down the rose, for the act of smelling it had taken him down to a velvet lawn, sloping to the riverside; and upon that lawn he had seemed to see some one walking, wearing a similar rose; but it was not the lady who now entered, and of whom he had heard nothing since he warned her not to venture in the Cornish mine.
“Good-morning, Miss Raleigh,” he exclaimed, placing a chair. “I hardly expected to see you.”
“Why not?” said Aunt Sophia shortly. “Where did you expect I should go?”
“I hope you are well, ma’am, and—Sir James and Lady Scarlett?”
“No; I’m not well; I’m worried,” said the lady. “Sir James and Lady Scarlett are both ill. Has—But never mind that now. Look here, Mr Saxby; you always give me very bad advice, and you seem determined not to let me get good interest for my money. Now, tell me this, sir. I have been receiving a great many circulars lately about different excellent investments; above all, several about gold mines in the north of India.”
“So I suppose, ma’am,” said Mr Saxby rubbing his hands softly.
“And I suppose you will say that they are not good; but here is one that I received yesterday which cannot fail to be right. I want some shares in that.”
“And you won’t have one, ma’am,” said Mr Saxby, who was far more autocratic in his own office than at a friend’s house.
“What! are they all sold?”
“Sold? Pooh! ma’am, hardly any. There are not many people lunatics enough to throw their money into an Indian gold mine.”
“Saxby, you are the most obstinate, aggravating man I ever did know. Look here; will not these figures convince you?”
“No, ma’am; only make me more obstinate—more aggravating still.”
“Then what do these figures mean?”
“Mean, madam? To trap spinster ladies with small incomes, half-pay officers, poor clergymen with miserable livings—the whole lot of poor genteel people, and those who like to dabble in investments—people who can’t afford to lose, and people who can. Why, my dear madam, use your own judgment. If there were a safe fifteen per cent, there, the shares would be gone in one hour, and at a heavy premium the next.”
“Humph!” said Aunt Sophia. “Of course you do all my nephew’s business?”
“Yes, madam; it all comes here.”
“You know what shares he holds?”
“I think so. Of course, he may have been to other brokers; but he would not have done so without good reason.”
“As far as you can, then,” said Aunt Sophia, “keep an eye upon what are sold, and I should like to be made acquainted with any sales that may take place.”
“Well, really, my dear Miss Raleigh, such a proceeding—”
“Yes, yes, man; I know all about that; but you know to what a state he has been reduced. I love him like a son, and I—Now look here, Saxby; I’m telling you this, because I think you are an honest man.”
“Well, I hope I am, ma’am.”
“Then look here; I will speak out. I won’t mention any names; but I am afraid that designing people are at work to get possession of some of his property, and I want it watched.”
“Rather a serious charge, Miss Raleigh.”
“Stuff and nonsense, man! Not half serious enough. Just look at this prospectus for a moment. There are some good names to it. I’ll talk about those other matters afterwards.”
Aunt Sophia fixed her double glasses upon her nose, and stared through them upon the neat and dapper stockbroker, who stared in return, and frowned, otherwise he would have laughed, for the spring of Aunt Sophia’s pince-nez was very strong, and its effect was to compress the organ upon which it rested, so that the ordinarily thin sharp point of the lady’s nose was turned into a sickly-looking bulb, that was, to say the least, grotesque.
“Halt!” said Mr Saxby, reading quickly: “Society for the Elevation of the Human Race in large and Crowded Towns; patrons, the Right Hon.—hum-ha-hum; his Grace the—hum-ha-hum; the Lord Bishop of—hum-ha-hum; directors—hum-ha-hum; M.P.—hum—Mr—hum,”—Mr Saxby’s voice grew less and less distinct, becoming at last a continuance of the sound expressed in letters by hum, but he finished off sharply with: “Secretary, Mr Arthur Prayle!—Well, ma’am, and what of this?”
“What of it, Saxby? Why, wouldn’t it be a most admirable thing to invest in a Society which will benefit my fellow-creatures and bring in a large percentage as well?”
“Admirable, my dear madam,” said Saxby; “but you don’t quite express the result.”
“What do you mean?”
“Singular, ma’am, not plural, and no percentage.”
“Now, look here, Saxby: I have come here on business, if you please, not to hear you discuss points of grammar. What do you mean by your singular and plural?”
“I mean, my dear madam,” said Saxby, with a chuckle, “that this Society,”—he flipped the prospectus with his finger as he spoke—“would benefit one fellow-creature only, and give no percentage at all. What is more, you would never see your money back.”
“Ho!” ejaculated Aunt Sophia. “And pray, who would be the fellow-creature?”
“Well, ma’am, it is being rather hard upon a gentleman whom I have had the pleasure of meeting, and who is no doubt acting in the best of faith; but the secretary is the only fellow-creature who will get anything out of that affair. He will of course take care that the office expenses are paid, he is an office expense. There will be nothing for a soul beside.”
“Oh, this is prejudice, Mr Saxby.”
“Business prejudice, perhaps, ma’am; but, to my mind, this is only one of many Societies that are constantly springing up like toadstools—that kind that comes up fair and white, looks very much like a good mushroom for a time, and then dissolves into a nasty black inky fluid, and is gone.”
“It is prejudice,” said Aunt Sophia.
“Maybe, ma’am; but there are numbers of silly Societies got up, such as appeal to weak sensitive people; the secretary gets a few letters in the daily papers, and plenty of ladies like yourself subscribe their money, say, for the Suppression of Sunday Labour amongst Cabhorses, the Society for Dieting Destitute Blackbeetles, and the Provident Home for Canaries whose Patrons are out of Town. These, my dear madam, are exaggerations, but only slight ones, of many Societies got up by ingenious secretaries, who turn a bottle of ink, a ream of neatly headed note-paper, and some cleverly monogrammed envelopes, into a comfortable income.”
“That will do,” said Aunt Sophia shortly as she took off her pince-nez and allowed the blood to resume its circulation—“that will do, Mr Saxby.—Then you will not buy the shares for me?”
“No, ma’am, not a share. I should deserve to be kicked out of the Stock Exchange, if I did.”
“Very well, sir—very well, sir,” said the lady, rising and tightening her lips. “That will do.”
“And now, as business is over, my dear madam, may I ask for the latest report concerning our friend Scarlett’s health?”
“Yes, sir, you may,” said Aunt Sophia shortly. “It is very bad. His nerve is completely gone.”
“Ah, but I hope it will return,” said Saxby. “Patience, ma’am, patience. When stocks in a good thing, mind, I say a good thing, are at their lowest, they take a turn, and become often enough better than ever. And—er—may I ask how—how Miss Raleigh junior is?”
“No, sir; you may not,” said Aunt Sophia shortly. “Good-morning!”
“Phe-ew! What an old she-dragon it is!” said Mr Saxby to himself as the door closed upon Aunt Sophia’s angular form.
“I am right!” said Aunt Sophia to herself as she got into the hansom cab that she had waiting. “Here!—hi!” she cried, poking at the little trapdoor in the roof with her parasol. “Waterloo Station.”
Then, as the cab rattled along: “Arthur Prayle is a smooth-looking, smooth-tongued scoundrel; I know he is, and I’ve a good mind to let him have a few hundreds, so as to take off his mask. I won’t mistrust Saxby any more. He’s as honest as the day, and I’m glad I’ve put him on his guard. But he must be snubbed, very hard, and I must speak to Naomi. I do believe the hard, money-grubbing, fog-breathing creature thinks that he is in love!”