did she present herself to his thoughts, but each article of furniture spoke of her taste; wherever his eye fell he was reminded of her. For many weeks after her departure, he had kept her dressing-room locked, and retained the key in his own possession. This room opened into her boudoir, and there, on her writing-table, long after dust had gathered thick upon its leaves, lay her blotting-book open, as she had left it; on it a note just commenced. He had been requested by Katharine's maid to compare the jewels which she had left behind with the list in his own possession, and he had done so. Then he replaced them all, as they had been when she turned away from all the luxury with which he had surrounded her. Often in the evenings, his dreary task of battling with the rising tide of ruin done, he would visit the forsaken shrine of his idol, and feel the pang of her absence all the more keenly for these mute evidences that it was all real, that she had once been there, where silence and emptiness now dwelt. When the blow fell, and he knew the house and furniture must be sold, his wife's rooms were the last to be dismantled. With his own hands, and alone, he packed up every article of her personal property for safe keeping, wherever he should be. When he entered her dressing-room to commence his task, he caught sight of his own reflection in the looking-glass doors of a large wardrobe, and started to see how worn and pale he looked. Some of her dresses were hanging up in the first wardrobe which he opened, and, obedient to an impulse, he caught hold of one of them and kissed it, and went staggering blindly from the room.
A few days before the time announced for the sale in Portland Place the commercial crisis so long dreaded swooped down upon London. Continental politics, unsettled since '48, had been seething and simmering, and daily the aspect of affairs had become more bellicose. Big German States looked at little German States with longing eyes and watering mouths, and consoled themselves by the reflection that if awkward and powerful neighbours snapped at them and went off with a mouthful, they could revenge themselves on smaller fry. Italy moaned in her sleep, tormented by the old but unfulfilled dream of freedom from the Alps to the Adriatic; and France and Russia were looking on expectant. Things in the City had for some time had what is called "a downward tendency." Consols were at 82, and French Rentes lower than they had been known for years. People shook their heads at Spanish Passives, and Egyptian Scrip was at a discount. One of the great discount houses, the Brotherly Bound--formed out of the old firm of Ready, Rowdy, and Dibbs--had recently failed (partly on account of the old partners having taken all their capital out, partly on account of all the new capital which was brought in having been spent by the managing directors in giving banquets to the aristocracy), and the shareholders in similar concerns were beginning to be seriously alarmed. Under the alarm of shareholders, managers drew in their horns, and talked of limiting their business, refused all questionable paper--in which they had been dealing wholesale--and looked not too well pleased at good bills, such as they had never had before. There was gloom on the Stock Exchange, and Clapham dinner-parties were, if possible, duller than usual. No actual outbreak yet though, and chance of peace, so the papers said. If war could only be averted, the crisis would pass. The crisis! it was on them as they spoke. At that moment the clerks in Lothbury were reading off a telegraphic message, containing the few words spoken by the Emperor to a provincial mayor; and when those words appeared in print, it was known that war was meant, and three of the largest establishments in the City suspended payment that afternoon. Up went the Bank rate of discount, and the panic commenced.
These events happened late in the afternoon of a bright spring day, so immediately before the cessation of business, that they were only known to those actually concerned in the City; and it was not until the next morning that the general public was apprised of all that had happened. The news sprawled over the placards of the newspapers in the biggest typo; the news-boys at the suburban omnibuses and railway stations were "sold out" at once; people rushed to tell their friends what had happened; the panic spread to all stock- and shareholders, and even to the depositors in banks. Then towards noon the City began to be filled with a set of people to whom its ways were strange, and who were unfamiliar with its customs. Elderly maiden ladies and rich widows from prim Peckham paradises; old boys, club bucks and fogies, from Bury Street or St. Alban's Place lodgings, who had little annuities on which they lived; artists and actors hurrying down to see the special stockbrokers in whom they implicitly believed; newspaper reporters on the look-out for matter from which to concoct a sensation article; mooners and loungers of every kind, were blocking up Lombard Street and pouring into Cornhill. The old-established banks never quivered for an instant; wild customers brandishing cheques rushed up to the counter, and felt abashed as they were met by the calmest clerks, who, without a hair of their parting or a fold of their cravat displaced, asked them in the most mellifluous voices "how they would have it?" the copper shovels plunged into the drawers, and came out, as usual, full of sovereigns; the forefinger of the clerks duly moistened counted off rolls of notes with the accustomed precision. "Panic?" they seemed to say; "pooh! it must be something more than panic that can affect us."
But three or four of the smaller houses, which had been battling for months with the exigencies of the times, found it impossible to hold on any longer, and succumbed--amongst them the house of Streightley and Son. No stone had been left unturned, no effort untried; but the state of the money-market was such that it was found impossible to realise the securities which they held; and at length, bowed down with despair, old Mr. Fowler wrote with his own hand the notice, that, "owing to the crisis in the money-market having caused a run on the house, and having failed to procure advances on the securities, or obtain the slightest temporary assistance, we find it necessary to suspend our payments." The notice went on to say that the step had been taken with the view to protect as far as possible the interest of the friends of the firm, whose forbearance was confidently relied on, and added, that the books had been placed in the hands of Messrs. Addison and Tottle, and that the early realisation of a satisfactory dividend was anticipated.
It was not to be expected that such an old-established firm could fail without plenty of comment. They talked over "Streightley's smash" that day at City conferences, on the flags of 'Change, and the Gresham Club; and many and various were the opinions expressed.
"'Protect as far as possible the interest of their friends!'" said an indignant merchant, who, when first starting in commerce, had received the greatest assistance from Robert Streightley's father. "Like their d--d impudence! What do they mean by that?"
"Better have protected their friends' principal, and not minded the interest, eh, Jenkinson?" said the wag of Capel Court.
"I'm afraid that the realisation of the satisfactory dividend is all bunkum," said a third. "Lucky if we get fourpence in seven years, I should say."
"It's a good thing old Streightley can't come out of his grave and see this," said a white-bearded patriarch; "he was of the old school--slow and sure."
"Deuced slow and not very sure," said Ralph Elgood, the Rupert of the Stock Exchange. "Bob Streightley's a thundering good fellow, but has been hitting out wildly of late, and now he feels it."