XVIII
THE AMALGAMATED BRICK CO.
The offices of the Amalgamated Brick Co. were situated within a stone's-throw of the Mansion House. London throbbed and roared around them; on every side spread an intricate confusion of narrow and ancient streets, inhabited by a host of nomadic men, who camped in them for a few hours each day, filled them with clamour, and fled at nightfall. The invasion began with the earliest light; then might be seen the scouts of the advancing army, mere boys, whose fresh faces had not yet acquired the London pallor or lost the mischievous vivacity of boyhood; youths immaculately dressed in well-brushed common clothes; narrow-shouldered men in shabby overcoats; oldish men, who walked with eyes fixed upon the pavement, as if bowed with some unforgetable humiliation, and, here and there, women, some mere girls, treading briskly, others shawled and shapeless figures with battered bonnets, charwomen, office scrubbers, and the like, all passing in an endless stream, and swallowed up at last in these dim byways of the city. Later on came another class of men, wearing better clothes, but whose eyes were anxious; then well-fleshed and confident persons, who walked upright with an air of authority; last of all, the magnates, fur-coated and wearing diamond pins and studs, smoking cigars or cigarettes, arriving in cabs or carriages, who were received in these crowded offices with the silence which awaits the passage of kings. With their advent began the real business of the day. At their glance every pulse beat faster, every brain grew more alert, and the great wheel of business revolved with electric speed, humming, throbbing, tumultuous, till the very walls shook with its reverberations, and the whole city became clamorous as a cave into which a fierce sea thunders. By noon the tide was at its height; at four o'clock the ebb began; with the earliest stars the invading host began the process of dispersal till, by the time midnight had arrived, Tadmor in the wilderness was not more silent or more solitary than this deserted city.
For centuries this daily invasion had gone on, and who shall say what uncounted multitudes had fallen on the field of battle! For centuries more it would go on, and always with the same history. Here was achieved a perpetual immolation of mankind, a hopeless and unatoning sacrifice. To this battlefield youth brought its energy, manhood its virtue and its strength, womanhood its humble patience. To what delusive trumpet-music had they marched, beneath what visionary banners, with what far-off thrilling glimpses of golden heights which they would never scale! To these thronged recruits in the regiments of Mammon, experience brought no caution, age no wisdom. For the story was always the same, the issue unvarying: first the baseless hope of youth, then the long unfruitful patience of laborious manhood, lastly the miserable despair of age. Happy those who fell early in the struggle; they had the consolation of a might-have-been whose absurdity was not detected, and they were spared the worst. Most miserable those who lived on, until hope failed, each year became a new disability, and at last they found themselves superseded, thrust out by a new generation, discarded, and left alone with the spectres of want, sickness, and the workhouse. A few survived, of course, and their histories, passed from lip to lip, became the stimulus for fresh hosts of foredoomed toilers. By luck, by fraud, by adroit use of opportunity, by unscrupulous ability, by cruel and ruthless stratagem, these few rose, climbed upon a holocaust of victims into power, and became the battle lords of this inglorious field. None saw in them a warning, multitudes offered them adulation; and they thus became new lures for ignorant ambition. And so the endless martyrdom went on; ever fresh hosts clamouring to sacrifice flesh and brain upon these ignoble altars, with a fervour of fanaticism never equalled in the most sacred causes of freedom or religion. Ah! not upon the snows of Russia, the plain of Waterloo, or the heights of Gettysburg are found the most dreadful battlefields of earth! The bloodiest of all battlefields are in the heart of cities.
Archibold Masterman was one of those who had risen, especially since the successful launching of the Amalgamated Brick Co. He had become a personage sought for at civic dinners, known at clubs, and surrounded by a clamour of more or less sincere flattery. From the windows of his office he could see the gray roof of the Mansion House, and he never looked that way without elation. Why should he not reign there? What was there to prevent him moving at the height of civic glory? The kingdoms of the world—his world—were spread before him, and the glory of them, and he was eager to inherit them. Lord Mayor of London, Member of Parliament for the city, knighthood, baronetcy—so ran his dream, and he knew that it was not a foolish dream. Men less able than himself had won these prizes. And he meant to have them in good time. The truly great period of his life was just beginning. He had got the world beneath his feet at last, and he meant to keep it there.
Extreme prosperity had had a softening influence upon the man; a harsh critic might have called it a disintegrating influence. The mental force was not abated, the alertness of his eye was not dimmed; but he went with a looser rein. He rose later, sat longer at the table, and had learned to rely upon subordinates. His suspicion, that sixth sense of the man of business, was relaxed. The strong opiate of self-sufficiency had begun to work in his veins. He was the conscious conqueror, walking with uplifted head, and no longer closely watchful of the way he trod.
With him Elisha Scales had risen too. The clerk, with his mean face and crafty eyes, had proved himself indispensable. Masterman's dislike for him remained, but use and contiguity had worn down much of his original prejudice. He could not but admit his ability. Beyond that, however, he did not care to go. He knew him to be adroit, patient, obsequious, daring; but the inner springs of his character remained inscrutable.
It was Scales who had really engineered the Brick Trust. The purchase of the Leatham brick-yard had been but the first of a great number of similar transactions. No sooner was the Amalgamated floated than it achieved a miraculous success. There was a fortnight of frantic buying by the public; gold poured into the treasury; the financial papers, duly subsidised by copious advertisement, pushed the boom; and at the end of three months the name of Masterman was enrolled among the great magnates of modern commerce. His portrait appeared in the journals. The story of his early struggles was adorned with legendary marvel. Due stress was laid upon his piety: was he not the deacon of a church, a man of strict morals, a man who might be safely trusted, a man of solid character? And of all the baits that drew the public, perhaps this was the most successful. The small investor rallied to him. Humble folk in remote religious communities learned his name, discussed his doings, and struggled for the chance to lay their savings at his feet. If any word of warning reached them, it was disregarded. Six per cent. is so much more attractive than four, that, when it is guaranteed by the piety and genius of a Masterman, the voice of prudence speaks in vain.
A few months of secret campaigning, a month of deafening publicity, and behold the result—Scales flourishing in a house of new and expensive furniture, the possessor of a carriage; Masterman enthroned in spacious offices, from whose windows he beholds all the vanities of earth—sheriffship, mayoralty, knighthood, and the like—moving steadily towards him in a golden pageant.
Has the reader ever seen a balloon of paper, with a tiny light burning in its centre, soar into the evening air? It is a pretty spectacle. One wonders how so frail a thing can hold so perilous a force as flame. We watch with astonishment its little lamp borne aloft, carried hither and thither like a starry feather on the delicate tides of air, yet always moving higher. Watch it long enough, and you will see something else. Sooner or later there comes a flash of fire, a dim red spark, visible for an instant, and where is the balloon? Its very fragments are undiscoverable, and it is seen no more.
Masterman's balloon soared bravely in those first six months. Then something happened which no sagacity could predict—a wind of war arose suddenly, and the lamp showed dangerous flickerings.
When war happens to a nation it at once becomes the supreme interest. And this was no common war. From insignificant beginnings, at which the nation smiled in proud contempt, it grew into a devastating struggle. Troops were poured to the front, until the martial resources of the nation were exhausted. There was a cry for volunteers; and city offices and warehouses were depleted by whole battalions of heroic youth. All business was arrested, and sank into narrow channels. The daily crash of bankruptcy filled the air. And, since the last thing men do at such a time is to extend their premises and build houses, it came to pass that there was no demand for bricks. The Brick Trust ruled the market; but, when there is no market, this appears a hollow boast. And yet there were dividends that must be paid, for they were guaranteed; there was an appearance of prosperity which must be maintained at all costs. There came at last a day when a chill apprehension began to spread through the offices of the Trust. It was at first but a tiny cold wave, but it crept higher, for a whole sea lay behind it. Masterman, sitting in his office, heard the lapping of the rising tide, and saw it carrying away the broken gauds of the pageant of which he had dreamed.
"The war will end in a month!" he cried. But it did not end. "It will end in three months," he prophesied; "and then will come a marvellous prosperity." But the prophecy proved false. On lonely veldt and behind unassailable kopjes a daring and sullen foe held on. "It looks as if it will go on for ever!" he exclaimed at last, in the bitterness of his heart. And the day when he said that brought with it something the strong man had never known before—a sudden loosening of the bonds of all his vigour. For weeks he had slept little; he had grown gaunt and nervous; and now there came this thrill of weakness, this collapse of force. In the gray winter dawn he rose and dressed as usual, but his strong hands trembled, and his head swam. A newsboy, racing past his house, shouted, "Another British defeat!" That was the last stroke. He sank helpless to the ground. When he woke he was in bed.
"I must go to the city!" he cried.
"You cannot!" said the voice of Dr. Leet. "If you don't obey my orders now, you will never go to the city again."
"A million of money is at stake!" he groaned.
"So is your life," said the doctor.
He lay quiet a long time after that. It was a new and terrible thought, and he found it hard to adjust his mind to it. "His life"—he had always assumed that that at least was his own unforfeitable possession. He had never known the moment when eager nerve and artery and brain-cell had not leapt to obey his will. And now it seemed his whole house of life was in revolt. His will, that iron captain-general of all these servile forces, was deposed. Well, he simply would not die. If he must obey the doctor, he must. And, after all, to a man tired in brain and body this restfulness of soft pillows, this utter quietness and shaded light, was sweet. Anything was better than that horrible thrill of weakness, that loosening of each intimate joint and muscle—anything!
He turned his face from the light, and fell asleep.
Toward evening he was told that Scales insisted on seeing him. He would have seen him; but the doctor was present, and interposed his fiat. The most that the doctor would allow was that Scales should send him a written message.
The message came: "What are we to do?"
It was accompanied by no explanation, but the words were ominous. He made an effort to grasp their meaning, but it escaped him.
"Do what you will," he wrote.
Then the blind wave of stupor overwhelmed him again. Why should he trouble? It was all right—everything was all right. It was a hard thing that a man who had worked all his life couldn't get one day's rest. He wasn't going to worry. Let Scales do the worrying; that was what he was paid for. Everything was all right—it must be all right ... and Scales was no fool. So he fell asleep again, and the black night settled on the city, and he heard no more the voices wailing in the darkness, "Another British defeat!"
If his eyes could have followed the clerk, he would have seen a face paler than his own, with puckered, blinking eyes, and jaw set in grim determination. As Scales drew nearer to his own house, it was as though he smoothed out his face by some magic of dissimulation. Perhaps it was the mere spectacle of the house that turned the scale of destiny for him that night. How could he give up that house? It was the outward symbol of his social apotheosis. He had bought it but a year ago. And since then how much had he spent on it! What delighted chafferings he had had with decorators and upholsterers! There was the dining-room, all panelled in oak, with beautiful red walls, and a Turkey carpet; and the little library, with its bookcases—all mahogany; and the drawing-room, with its white stucco decorations, and its white wooden partitions, which every one admired; and the billiard-room, with its French windows opening on the little lawn; why, even the servants' bedrooms were done in white and gold! There was never a completer house—every one had said so. He had never grown tired of explaining its unique conveniences to his less fortunate friends; and on Thursday afternoons, when Mrs. Scales "received," she had usually closed the function by taking her more intimate acquaintances all over her house, never even omitting the kitchens. And he was to give this up? He was to sink back again into a "semi-detached," with iron railings and a strip of garden, and rooms with cheap wall-papers? And he was to sell his horse, which he had bought from an alderman, and get rid of that adorable victoria, in which he aired his greatness on Saturday afternoons before envious suburban eyes—and perhaps come back again to the indignity of cheap trams and 'buses? Well, not if he knew it! He knew a trick worth two of that. Masterman had told him to do as he liked; and an evil spirit whispered at his ear as he went up the steps of the house, and told him quite distinctly what it was that he must do.
Mrs. Scales met him in the hall, plump, smiling, robed in yellow satin; and somehow that yellow satin angered him like an insult. He regarded it with distinct aversion. He felt a rising wave of disgust against his wife, merely because she looked so cheerful and proud, while he endured secret tortures—she could wear yellow satin, while his mind wore crape. That was like women—they had nothing to do but eat and drink and dress, while their men-folk were on the rack. Talk about the fine discernment of women! Why, they hadn't any! You might live with a woman for years, and she would never guess what you, endured and suffered. So he let his ill temper against his wife smoulder; for it is a habit common with persons of the Scales variety to treat a wife as a kind of lightning-rod, which conveniently receives the discharge of their superfluous wrath.
This wrath accumulated violence in the course of an uncomfortable dinner. The poor woman had but one theme of perennial interest—her house and her servants.
"I've thought of a new improvement," she began joyously. "What do you think of it? I'm going to have a little conservatory opening from the library window. The builders' men were here this afternoon, and they say it can be done quite easily, and won't cost more than about two hundred pounds."
"Ah! that's like you!" he retorted, with a vicious snarl. "Always planning and plotting to spend my money, aren't you? Do you think I'm made of money? Do you think I've nothing to do but pay for your whims? I'd have you know I'm master in this house! And I'll have no builders' men coming here when I'm out!"
"But Elisha, I thought you'd be pleased——"
"Then you'd no business to think? I won't have you doing things without consulting me! No, I don't want any more dinner! I've other things to think of besides conservatories!"
And he flung off from the table in a rage, leaving behind him tears and consternation.
"What's the matter with father?" asked young Benjamin.
"I'm sure I don't know," she replied.
"He's getting mighty ill tempered."
But at that the instinctive woman's loyalty flew to his defence.
"I expect he's worried. Your father has so much to think of. Sometimes I think we were happier before we had all this money."
"I don't," grinned the son. "That's all nonsense, mother. Money is about the only thing I know that's worth having in this world."
With which admirable sentiment he took himself off to the billiard-room, where he remained till bed-time, smoking innumerable cigarettes, and playing a sullen game of pool. He also helped himself somewhat plentifully to whiskey, for what was the use of money if you couldn't get all the drink you wanted with it? The creed that money was the one thing in the world best worth having had not found a conspicuous justification in Benjamin Scales. He was not an amiable youth, as we have already seen; under no circumstances could he have achieved manly virtues; but, whereas poverty might have kept him in a straight course by the mere pressure of deprivation, money had set wide for him the gateway of easy vices and destructive pleasures.
The dark night sped on; and, in the little library with the mahogany bookshelves, Scales devised his scheme. It was by no means novel; it had often been achieved before, and sometimes with success; it was simply the last throw of the commercial gambler. Dividends must be paid; and, when the entire credit of a great concern depends upon their instant payment, why not pay them out of capital? It was a risk, of course—the kind of risk which a hundred petty thieves run every day when they back horses with money stolen from their master's till, in the firm belief that they can pay it back before suspicion is aroused. Scales was not constitutionally a brave man; he would have fled from physical peril promptly and without the least sense of shame; but one form of courage he had, the courage of the rat that fights desperately when it is at bay. He saw with terrifying vividness what stood at the end of the road he proposed to travel—a judge in a red gown, with a face of inimitable sternness, warders in blue coats with brass buttons, and the doors of a prison. Nevertheless, he resolved to take the risk. Masterman had taken the same risk years before in that matter of the bogus cheque. And he was proud of the transaction; he had boasted of it many times; it had been the beginning of all his greatness. Providence had removed Masterman from the area of the present crisis; and perhaps it was as well, for since his rise into notoriety he had shown himself more and more eager to obey the safe traditions of society. But, in the mind of the clerk, that early and successful piece of trickery was not forgotten, and he used it now for his own justification. Masterman, at all events, would have no right to grumble at the repetition of his own trick, but upon a far wider scale and for a greater prize.
And, besides, the risk was more apparent than real. This long run of ill luck to the British army in South Africa was something that went beyond the natural chances of the game. It must end; and, when it ended, it would be suddenly. A single sweeping victory, and the tide of prosperity would roll back. Hadn't some pious person said that it was always darkest before the dawn? If that were true, the dawn was close at hand—it was more than probable, it was inevitable. And what a fool he would be if, after holding on to the Amalgamated through all these weeks of darkness, he let it sink just when the first gleam of gold was in the sky!
So Scales argued with himself through that long night in the solitary library. In such arguments it is inclination that supplies the final bias. When a man argues with himself upon a question of right and wrong, it is never right that wins.
And during that same long night Masterman slept peacefully, ignorant of the Tragic Angel that stooped above his pillow. If the Angel could have spoken, he would have told the story thus. "Years ago a man did wrong, and was not punished for it. He was elated by his immunity, and boasted of it. He succeeded in life, as men count success. He climbed to a place of honour, from which he saw a new world opening at his feet. Then he would have been glad to forget that early deed of wrong. He did forget it, as far as he could. But there is a general memory in the world which forgets nothing. It goes about with a searchlight, raking over the gutters of the past, and making discoveries. This sleepless memory found the thing which he was now anxious to forget; gave it to another, who turned it round and round like a precious talisman; and, last of all, this other used the talisman both for the ruin of himself and of the man who had shown him how to use it. And this other man did not know that the talisman had lost its magic. Still less did he suspect that it was a fatal and malignant gift. Who are we to suppose that we can divorce the present from the past? Words live, deeds live—they live eternally. We cannot lose them at will. They are seeds which are carried far away upon the wind, but they always find some soil in which they spring up. They are dead, we say. Thou fool, nothing is dead which man has ever said, thought, or done. It only waits its hour, and it always springs up at last."
A month later the financial journals remarked with ardent approbation that in spite of the wide depression of trade, produced by this calamitous war, the Brick Trust had paid its full dividends. Such a circumstance reflected great credit upon the management of the Trust, especially on its president, Mr. Masterman, whose financial genius had thus received an extraordinary vindication. If the investor had ever had the least doubt of the stability of this great commercial venture, his doubts should be set at rest for ever by this remarkable achievement. They regretted to add that Mr. Masterman had been seriously ill, as the result of his indefatigable labours on behalf of the Trust. He was now, however, quite himself again, and those who had recently seen him reported him in the best of health.
This announcement created a new boom in the stock of the Trust. At the same time news came of what appeared to be the first wave of final triumph in South Africa. Bells were rung, rockets soared, and shouting multitudes filled every street. Masterman, from his rooms at Brighton, saw the passing of the shouting crowd, and the tumult went to his head like wine.
"We are past the worst!" he cried. "I feel years younger. To-morrow I will wire for Scales, and get into harness again."
And, as he spoke, the face kindled with its old fire of vigour, his eyes flashed, and his form had its old erectness.
He also believed himself to have won another battle, and the pageant of his ambitions once more moved steadfastly before him.