“What calamity!” repeated Mr. Crosse, who was rapid in speech and hot in temper. “The failure of the Bank—the Godolphins’ ruin. What else?”
“Oh, that!” slightingly returned Charlotte. “That’s stale news now. Folks are forgetting it. Queen Anne’s dead.”
“What brought it about?” reiterated Mr. Crosse, neither words nor tone pleasing him.
“What does bring such things about?” rejoined Charlotte. “Want of money, I suppose. Or bad management.”
“But there was no want of money; there was no bad management in the Godolphins’ house,” raved Mr. Crosse, becoming excited. “I wish you’d not play upon my feelings, Mrs. Pain.”
“Who is playing upon them?” cried Charlotte. “If it was not want of money, if it was not bad management, I don’t know what else it was.”
“I was told in London, as I came through it, that George Godolphin had been playing up old Rosemary with everything, and that Verrall has helped him,” continued Mr. Crosse.
“Folks will talk,” said bold Charlotte. “I was told—it was the current report in Prior’s Ash—that the stoppage had occurred through Mr. Crosse withdrawing his money from the concern.”
“What an unfounded assertion,” exclaimed that gentleman in choler. “Prior’s Ash ought to have known better.”
“So ought those who tell you rubbish about George Godolphin and Verrall,” coolly affirmed Charlotte.