[CHAPTER V.]
CITY INTELLIGENCE.
Robert Streightley's preoccupation and loss of spirits were not without due cause. In the half hour that had lapsed between his parting with his wife and sister, and his rejoining them when in colloquy with the Scotch gardener, he had gone through a phase of mental torture such as he had never before experienced. The Irish gentleman of good birth and vanished fortunes, who comes to London with just sufficient money to pay his entrance-fees to a fashionable club, to keep a garret in St. Alban's Place, and to hire a hack for the season from a livery-stable, and goes in to win the heart, or at all events the hand, of an heiress, gets to work at once, finds his coup manqué ever so many times during one season, and soon begins to look upon his rejection as a mere matter of chance, and falls back on the grand principle of "better luck next time." The starving student, living from hand to mouth by the preparation of badly-paid work from grinding booksellers, eats his ninepenny plate of boiled beef, and hurries back to the reading-room of the British Museum, convinced that the day will come when his talent shall be appreciated and remunerated as it should be. The parish-doctor's assistant sings over his pestle, and slaps his spatula cheerfully on the china plate, confident that the retired Indian nabob, the wealthy widow with the quinsey, the measles-struck child of the countess, his successful care of all or one of whom will insure the pair-horse brougham, the M.D. degree, and the house in Saville Row, are all gradually working up towards him. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast;" and so long as we perceive no symptoms of dry-rot in our dearest aspirations, we are for the most part content to grind away, facing present difficulties manfully, and awaiting the result. But if you were to prove to the Irish gentleman that his fascinating powers were on the wane; to the student that his overtaxed brain was giving way; to the doctor's assistant that he was every where considered a hopeless quack, you would cut away all their hold on life, and they would be whirled into that abyss of despondency in which thousands, similarly unfortunate, yearly perish.
A phase of torture very much allied to these described was being undergone by Robert Streightley. The "transaction" between him and Mr. Guyon, under which Katharine had become his wife, was constantly rising in his mind, and the heart-ache consequent thereon was only allayed by the thought that his possession of wealth enabled her to indulge in the extravagance which seemed to form a part and parcel of her life. He knew thoroughly well that, under her father's influence, he had won her by his riches, that they constituted his sole claim to respect in her eyes, that the fact of her having made "an excellent match," as bruited abroad by Lady Henmarsh and her set, meant that she had married a City man in a large way of business and with a large amount of ready-money at command, which would be at her disposal, and enable her to indulge all the freaks and vagaries of her fancy. It was, after all, a poor shifting foundation, a mere quicksand, on which to base any structure of future happiness; but within the last few weeks, marking the improvement in his wife's spirits, and the increase of kindly feelings towards him, Robert had been content to accept it at all events as an instalment of conjugal bliss, and had flattered himself with the idea that when Katharine found all her thoughts anticipated, all her wishes gratified, she might have some--he did not like to think of it as gratitude, he wanted a feeling with a warmer name--towards him who lived only to do her bidding.
Feeling then against all his hopes and attempts at self-deception that in the money which he was enabled to place at his wife's command, and in the position which she was thereby enabled to obtain, lay his only chance of obtaining favour in the eyes of her, to gratify whose every whim was the only pleasure of his life, it may be imagined with what feelings Robert Streightley read through a letter which came to him by the same post as brought Hester Gould's missive alluded to in the preceding chapter. It was from his confidential clerk, Mr. Foster, and ran thus:
"Dear Sir--Mr. Delley, the City editor of the Bullionist, who, as you know, has for many years supplied the house with reliable information, called in at 2 P.M. to see you; but learning you would not be at business to-day, he sent for me to your private room, and told me he understood that Messrs. Needham, Nick, and Driver were in a very shaky state, owing to the failure of the Dublin branch of their bank, announced in to-day's City Intelligence. Knowing how heavy our account was against them (28,917l. 7s. 9d.), I started off at once to Fenchurch Street, but found the doors closed, the shutters up, and all business suspended. Mr. Delley has been here just now (5:30 P.M.), and talks of a shilling in the pound. Old Mr. Nick's death, and the large sums taken out of the bank by Mr. Needham junior, who was only admitted as a partner two years ago, are said to have led to the wind-up. Please come up at once, if convenient. Your obedient servant, J. Foster."
When Robert Streightley laid down this letter his hand trembled, his mouth was parched, and a film seemed to come over his eyes. It was not the sum lost, though that was very large, but a horrid sensation crossed him that retribution was attacking him in his most vulnerable part, that the joints in his armour had been spied out by the enemy, and that--Good God! if he were to lose that one hold upon his wife's gratitude! if he were compelled to tell her that the mere wretched substance to which she had been sacrificed was a sham and a swindle, that he---- Pshaw! he sank down in his chair as these thoughts rushed through his mind; then he wiped his damp brow with his handkerchief, and shook himself together as it were with one strong effort, and rising, began to pace the room. What a weak, cowardly fool he was, he thought, thus to give way This was a blow undoubtedly,--what some of the Stock-Exchange fellows called a "facer;" but what of that? It could be met; and even if he lost all--if things turned out as badly as Foster predicted--well, thirty thousand pounds would not shake the credit of Streightley and Son. The mere repetition of the name seemed to rouse up innate business instincts which had been slumbering for some months--to call into action all those qualities which had made the man what he was; and he determined to go up to the City at once, and see for himself how the business stood. He waited for a minute or two until Ellen had strayed off into a bye-path in search of some flower, and then he said to his wife:
"I must leave you, Katharine, for a short time--four-and-twenty hours or so--not longer, dear."
His voice dropped, and quivered a little with the natural emotion which he felt. He looked tenderly up at her, and drawing near her, tightly laid his hand on her arm. She was binding together a few flowers as he joined her. She did not cease from her little task; but as she leisurely made the knot, and drew it tight with her teeth, she said, without looking up,
"O, indeed! business, I suppose?"