In the Dead of Night: A Novel. Volume 1 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

Lionel had not been many days at Park Newton when he was called upon by Mr. Cope, the banker, with whom came Mr. Culpepper of Pincote.

Mr. Cope was the senior partner in the firm of Sugden and Co., the well-known, bankers of Duxley. The late Mr. St. George had had an account with the firm for twenty years, which account Mr. Cope was desirous of still retaining on his books, with nothing but a simple alteration of the customer’s name.

Squire Culpepper was a friend of Mr. Cope, and had been an intimate friend of Mr. St. George; consequently, it was only natural that he and the banker should drive over to Park Newton together. Lionel gave them a hearty welcome. The banker was successful in the particular object of his visit, and was further gratified by Lionel’s acceptance of an invitation to dine with him, en famille, the following day.

“Pincote ought by rights to have been your first place of call,” said Mr. Culpepper to Lionel as he was bidding him goodbye. “But Cope here has stolen a march on me, as usual. However, I’ll forgive him if you’ll come and see us at Pincote before this day week.”

Lionel laughed and promised.

Mr. Cope was a heavily-built, resolute-looking man of middle age, with a brusque business manner, which had become so confirmed in him by habit that he could not throw it off in private life. He had neither the education nor the manners of a well-bred gentleman, but he inspired respect by the shrewdness of his intellect, and a certain innate force of character which made itself felt by all with whom he came in contact. His father had originally been office-boy to the firm of Sugden and Co., but, in the course of thirty years, had gradually worked his way up to the honourable post of managing clerk. Ultimately, three or four years before his death, he had been elevated to a junior partnership. Already young Horatio Cope, although merely filling the position of an ordinary clerk in the bank, had displayed such natural aptitude as a financier that, when his father died, the vacant post was at once given him, and the firm had never had reason to regret the choice thus made. As time went on, the two oldest members of the Sugden family died within a few months of each other. Two or three years later the youngest of the three brothers was accidentally drowned. Of the original firm there then were left but two young men, of three or four and twenty, cousins, who knew little or nothing about the business, who were rich enough to live without it, and who preferred a life of ease and pleasure to the cares and toils which must devolve on those who would successfully steer a large financial concern through the troubled waters of speculation. In this crisis all that could be done was to fall back on Horatio Cope. He was master of the situation, and he knew it. The result was that he was offered a partnership in the firm on equal terms with the two cousins. They were to supply the capital necessary for the conduct of the business, but the entire management was to devolve on him. All this had happened several years ago; and in Duxley and its neighbourhood few men were better known, or more generally esteemed, than Mr. Cope.

He was a very proud man, this heavy, awkward-looking, middle-aged banker. His secret ambition was to obtain a footing among the county families of Duxley and its neighbourhood, and to be treated by them, if not exactly as an equal, yet with as near an approach to that blissful state of things as might be. But, somehow, notwithstanding all his efforts, the old plebeian taint seemed still to cling to him. The people among whom it was his highest ambition to live and move simply tolerated him, and that was all. He was rich, and, to a certain extent, was still a rising man. He could be made use of in many ways. So he was invited to their state-dinners, and sometimes to their more private balls and parties; but, for all that, he felt that he did not belong to them—that he never could belong to them—that he stood outside a magic circle which to him must be for ever impassable. It was only by slow degrees, and after a long time, that these disagreeable truths were brought fully home to the banker’s mind. But when he did realize them, he bethought himself that he had a son.

Mr. Cope’s stanchest friend and best ally was, undoubtedly, Squire Culpepper, of Pincote. It had been the banker’s good fortune, some thirty odd years ago, to be in a position to do an essential service to Titus Culpepper, at that time an impecunious young man, without a profession, and with no prospects in particular; and the squire, when he afterwards came into his property, was not the man to forget it. At Pincote the banker was ever a welcome guest; and if any one had asked the squire to point out the man whom he believed to be his best friend, that man would undoubtedly have been Horatio Cope.

It was a great step in Mr. Cope’s favour to be so taken in hand by a man like Mr. Culpepper, who, although only moderately rich, and a commoner, was the representative of one of the most ancient and respected families in the county, and could, in fact, show a pedigree older by two centuries and a half than that of the great Duke of Midlandshire himself. Squire Culpepper had only one child, a daughter; and it seemed to Mr. Cope that it would be an excellent thing if a match could be brought about between his son and the young lady in question. By marrying Miss Culpepper, his son would at once secure a position in society such as he himself could never hope to attain; and if, in addition, the young man could be smuggled into parliament, and could succeed in making one tolerably good speech there, why, then he thought that the great ambition of his life would be as near fulfilment as it was ever likely to be in his time. By what occult means Mr. Cope succeeded in inducing the squire to so far overcome the prejudices of caste as to agree to the marriage of his daughter with the grandson of a man who had lighted the fires and swept out the offices of Sugden’s bank, was best known to himself. But certain it is that he did succeed; and the match was arranged, and the pecuniary conditions agreed upon, before either of the two persons most interested so much as knew a word about it.

Squire Culpepper, at this time, was from fifty-five to sixty years old. He was a short, wiry, keen-faced man, with restless, fidgety ways, and a firm belief in his own shrewdness and knowledge of the world. Except when dressed for dinner, his ordinary attire was a homely suit of shepherd’s plaid, with thick shoes and gaiters. His head-gear was a white hat, with a black band, generally much the worse for wear. The squire’s shabby hats were known to everybody. His tongue was sharp, and his temper hasty, but he was as sweet and sound at heart as one of his own Ribstone pippins.