Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

“Ay. You thought that I’d forgotten it. But I’m not that shaken. What about it?”

Now, between the darkness of the night and the confusion, Arthur had not noticed the damage done to Clement’s overcoat. Consequently he could make nothing of the Squire’s words and he tried to pass the matter off. “Oh, it’s all right, sir,” he said. He waited for something to enlighten him.

“Can you wear it?”

“Oh yes.”

“The deuce you can!” The Squire was surprised. “Then all I can say is, you’ve found a d—d good cleaner, lad. If you got that blood off—but as you did, all’s well. I was afeared I’d owe you a new coat, my boy. I’d not forgotten it, but I knew that you’d not be wearing it this weather, and I thought in another week or two I’d be getting this bandage off. Then I’d see how it was, and what we could do with it.”

Arthur understood then, and a thrill of alarm ran through him. What if the Squire began—but no, the danger was over, and as quickly as possible he rid himself of fear. He was not a fool to start at shadows. Things were going so well with him that he had no mind to spare for trifles, and no time to look aside.

CHAPTER XXI

July had passed into August. Who was it who whispered the first word of doubt? Of misgiving? Where was felt the first shiver of distrust? What lips first let drop the fatal syllables, a fall? Who in the secrecy of some bank-parlor or some discounter’s office, sitting at the centre of the spider’s web of credit, felt a single filament, stretched it may be across half a world, shiver, and relax? And, refusing to draw the unwelcome inference, sceptical of danger, felt perhaps a second shock, ever so slight and ever so distant; and then, reading the message aright, began to narrow his commitments, to draw in his resources, to call in his money, to turn into gold his paper wealth? And so from that dark office or parlor in Fenchurch Street or Change Alley, set in motion, obscurely, imperceptibly at first, the mighty impetus that was to reach to such tremendous ends?

Who? Probably no one knew then, and certainly no one can say now. But it is certain that in the late summer of that year, while the Squire sat blinded in his drab-hued room at Garth, and Ovington’s hummed with business, and Arthur rode gaily to and fro between the two, the thing happened. Some one, some bank, perhaps some great speculator with irons in many fires and many lands, took fright and acted on his fears—but silently, stealthily, as is the manner of such. Or it may have been a manufacturer on a great scale who looked abroad and fancied that he saw, though still a long way off, that bugbear of manufacturers, a glut.

At any rate there came a check, unmarked by the vast majority, but of which a whisper began to pass round the inner recesses of Lombard Street—a fall, such as there had been a few months earlier, but which then had been speedily made good. Aldersbury lay far beyond the warning, or if a hint of it reached Ovington, it did not go beyond him. He did not pass it on, even to Arthur, much less did it reach others. Sir Charles, secluded within his park walls, was not in the way of hearing such things, and Acherley and his like were busy with preparations for autumn sport, getting out their guns and seeing that their pink coats were aired and their mahogany tops were brought to the right color. Wolley had his own troubles, and dealt with them after his own reckless fashion, which was to retire one bill by another; he found it all he could do to provide for to-day, without thinking what to-morrow might bring forth, should his woollen goods become unsaleable, or his bills fail to find discounters. And the multitude, Grounds and Purslow and their followers, were happy, secure in their ignorance, foreseeing no evil.