Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

But here they were at the bridge. The cottages of the hamlet showed here and there a spark of light. They turned to the left, and five minutes later—the horse quickening its pace as they approached its stable—they were winding up the sunken drive under the stark limbs of the beeches. The house stood above them, a sombre pile, its chimneys half obscured by the trees.

Heavily Clement let himself down, to find Calamy at his elbow. The man had been waiting for him in the dimly lighted doorway. “Mr. Bourdillon has gone to London,” Clement explained. “I have come instead if I can be of any use.” Then he saw that the butler did not know him, and “I am Mr. Clement Ovington,” he added. “You’d better ask your master if he would like to see me.”

“There’s times when the devil’d be welcome,” the man replied bluntly. “It’s tears and lamentations and woe in the house this night, but God knows what it’s all about, for I don’t. Come in, come in, sir, in heaven’s name, but I’m fearing it’s little good. The devil has us in his tail, and if the master goes through the night—but this way, sir—this way!”

He opened a door on the left of the hall, pushed the astonished Clement into the room, and over his shoulder, “Here’s one from the bank, at any rate,” he proclaimed. “Maybe he’ll do.”

Clement took in the scene as he entered, and drew from it an instant impression of ill. The room was in disorder, lighted only by a pair of candles, the slender flames of which were reflected, islanded in blackness, in the two tall windows that, bald and uncurtained, let in the night. The fire, a pile of wood ashes neglected or forgotten, was almost out, and beside it a cupboard-door gaped widely open. A chair lay overturned on the floor, and in another sat the Squire, gaunt and upright, muttering to himself and gesticulating with his stick, while over him, her curls falling about her neck, her face tragic and tear-stained, hung his daughter, her shadow cast grotesquely on the wall behind her. She had a glass in her hand, and by her on the table, from which the cloth had fallen to the floor, stood water and a medicine bottle.

In their absorption neither of the two had heard Calamy’s words, and for a moment Clement stood in doubt, staring at them and feeling that he had been wrong to come. The trouble, whatever it was, could not be what he had feared. Then, as he moved, half minded to withdraw, Josina heard him, and turned. In her amazement, “Clement!” she cried. “You!”

The Squire turned in his chair. “Who?” he exclaimed.

“Who’s there? Has he come?”

The girl hesitated. The hand that rested on the old man’s shoulder trembled. Then—oh, bravely she took her courage in her hands, and “It is Clement who has come,” she said—acknowledging him so firmly that Clement marvelled to hear her.

“Clement?” The old man repeated the word mechanically, and for a moment he sought in his mind who Clement might be. Then he found the answer, and “One of them, eh?” he muttered—but not in the voice that Clement had anticipated. “So he won’t face me? Coward as well as rogue, is he? And a Griffin! My God, a Griffin! So he’s sent him?”