In the Dead of Night: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

To the Squire’s letter Mr. Bird replied as under:

“My Dear Mr. Culpepper,—Your note of yesterday did not surprise me in the least. I quite expected to hear from you some days ago respecting the fall in Alcazars. Several other shareholders have either written to me or seen me on the same subject. The truth is that the partisans of a rival company (a company, be it said, whose shares have never yet risen to par, and are never likely to do so) have been doing their best to injure us by spreading abroad a report that a sudden irruption of water had put a stop to all our workings for an indefinite length of time. The whole affair is an infamous canard, having no other object than to discredit us in the opinion of the public. Unfortunately it is next to impossible to bring such things home to any particular individual, but I have every reason to believe that one or two who are most deeply implicated in this scandalous affair have been buying heavily for the rise which is sure to take place in a few days from the present time; and I strongly advise you, my dear sir, to follow their example. You cannot possibly do better. So satisfied am I on that point, that within the last few days I have invested every spare shilling of my own in Alcazars.

“In conclusion, I may just state that according to advices from our South American managers up to the latest date, received by me per last night’s mail, the mine was never in so flourishing a condition as at the present moment.

“It is with the utmost confidence that I look forward to the declaration of a dividend and a bonus equivalent in the gross to seventy-five per cent. per annum, at the close of the current half-year.

“I remain, my dear Mr. Culpepper,

“Very truly yours,

“Theodore Bird.”

This letter allayed the Squire’s fears and kept him quiet for several days. Strange to say, however, the Alcazars still kept steadily declining, and at length the old man became seriously alarmed. He wrote again to Mr. Bird, but this time there came no answer. For five days he waited in such a state of mental agony, as he had never known before. He would have gone up to London himself, in order to see Mr. Bird, but by this time the gout had laid hold of him so severely that it was quite impossible for him to venture out of the house. What to do he knew not. No one, not even his daughter, knew how, or in what speculation, he had invested his money, and yet it was evident that he must now take some one into his confidence in the matter, or else be prepared to let the Alcazars go up or down at their own sweet will, and accept the result, whatever it might be, when he should be sufficiently recovered to attend to business himself. But in the face of matters, as they now stood, that was more than he could afford to do—-it was more than he dare do. Where, then, was the person on whose honour, discretion, and good business knowledge he could safely rely to assist him in the dilemma in which he now found himself? He had employed five or six brokers at different times during the last eighteen months to buy stock for him, but he had no particular knowledge of, or confidence in, any of them. In Mr. Bird himself he had always placed the most implicit confidence, but that confidence had been severely shaken of late. Bird had originally been a protégé of his own, and had been placed by him as a junior clerk in Mr. Cope’s bank. There he had remained for years, gradually working his way up, and always very grateful to the Squire for the interest that he had taken in his welfare. Then came an advantageous removal to London, after which the Squire lost sight of him for several years. When he next turned up it was as secretary to the Alcazar Mining Company, and as promoter of several other speculative schemes, with a fine house in the Regent’s Park, a capital cellar of wines, and a pair of steppers in his brougham that a duchess might have been proud of. The Squire went to dine with him. Mr. Bird did not fail delicately to insinuate that to Mr. Culpepper’s generous kindness in giving him such an excellent start in life he attributed all his after success, and that the blessings by which he was now surrounded owed their origin to the Squire alone. Before the day was over, Mr. Culpepper had agreed to invest a very considerable sum in Alcazar stock.

Squire Culpepper’s income, considering his position and influence, was anything but a large one. It amounted in all to very little more than three thousand a year. The estate itself was strictly entailed, all but one corner of it, which had been bought by the present Squire and added to it. It was in this corner that he had proposed to build his new mansion. But unless the Alcazar shares should rise very much again in public favour, there would be no funds forthcoming wherewith to build a new mansion, or even to repair the old one.

Out of this income of three thousand a year the Squire had always contrived to save something; and thus, little by little, he had gradually accumulated some fifteen thousand pounds. This was to be Jane’s dowry when she should marry. It was the hope of being able to turn this fifteen thousand into sixty or seventy thousand that had been his first inducement to speculate; and had he sold out when the Alcazars were at the flood tide of their success, not only would this hope have been realized, but what to many had seemed an idle boast, that before long he would have built for him a new and a more magnificent Pincote, would have become a substantial reality.