We must now tell what the Colonel and Clive had been doing, and what caused two such different opinions respecting their conduct from the two critics just named. The refusal of the London Banking House to accept the bills of the Great Indian Company of course affected very much the credit of that Company in this country. Sedative announcements were issued by the Directors in London; brilliant accounts of the Company’s affairs abroad were published; proof incontrovertible was given that the B. B. C. was never in so flourishing a state as at that time when Hobson Brothers had refused its drafts; there could be no question that the Company had received a severe wound and was deeply if not vitally injured by the conduct of the London firm.
The propensity to sell out became quite epidemic amongst the shareholders. Everybody was anxious to realise. Why, out of the thirty names inscribed on poor Mrs. Clive’s cocoa-nut tree no less than twenty deserters might be mentioned, or at least who would desert could they find an opportunity of doing so with arms and baggage. Wrathfully the good Colonel scratched the names of those faithless ones out of his daughter’s visiting-book: haughtily he met them in the street; to desert the B. B. C. at the hour of peril was, in his idea, like applying for leave of absence on the eve of an action. He would not see that the question was not one of sentiment at all, but of chances and arithmetic; he would not hear with patience of men quitting the ship, as he called it. “They may go, sir,” says he, “but let them never more be officers of mine.” With scorn and indignation he paid off one or two timid friends, who were anxious to fly, and purchased their shares out of his own pocket. But his purse was not long enough for this kind of amusement. What money he had was invested in the Company already, and his name further pledged for meeting the engagements from which their late London bankers had withdrawn.
Those gentlemen, in the meanwhile, spoke of their differences with the Indian Bank as quite natural, and laughed at the absurd charges of personal hostility which poor Thomas Newcome publicly preferred. “Here is a hot-headed old Indian dragoon,” says Sir Barnes, “who knows no more about business than I do about cavalry tactics or Hindostanee; who gets into a partnership along with other dragoons and Indian wiseacres, with some uncommonly wily old native practitioners; and they pay great dividends, and they set up a bank. Of course we will do these people’s business as long as we are covered, but I have always told their manager that we would run no risks whatever, and close the account the very moment it did not suit us to keep it: and so we parted company six weeks ago, since when there has been a panic in the Company, a panic which has been increased by Colonel Newcome’s absurd swagger and folly. He says I am his enemy; enemy indeed! So I am in private life, but what has that to do with business? In business, begad, there are no friends and no enemies at all. I leave all my sentiment on the other side of Temple Bar.”
So Thomas Newcome, and Clive the son of Thomas, had wrath in their hearts against Barnes, their kinsman, and desired to be revenged upon him, and were eager after his undoing, and longed for an opportunity when they might meet him and overcome him, and put him to shame.
When men are in this frame of mind, a certain personage is said always to be at hand to help them and give them occasion for indulging in their pretty little passion. What is sheer hate seems to the individual entertaining the sentiment so like indignant virtue, that he often indulges in the propensity to the full, nay, lauds himself for the exercise of it. I am sure if Thomas Newcome in his present desire for retaliation against Barnes, had known the real nature of his sentiments towards that worthy, his conduct would have been different, and we should have heard of no such active hostilities as ensued.
CHAPTER LXV.
In which Mrs. Clive comes into her Fortune
Speaking of the affairs of B. B. C., Sir Barnes Newcome always took care to maintain his candid surprise relating to the proceedings of that Company. He set about evil reports against it! He endeavour to do it a wrong—absurd! If a friend were to ask him (and it was quite curious what a number did manage to ask him) whether he thought the Company was an advantageous investment, of course he would give an answer. He could not say conscientiously he thought so—never once had said so—in the time of their connexion, which had been formed solely with a view of obliging his amiable uncle. It was a quarrelsome Company; a dragoon Company; a Company of gentlemen accustomed to gunpowder, and fed on mulligatawny. He, forsooth, be hostile to it! There were some Companies that required no enemies at all, and would be pretty sure to go to the deuce their own way.
Thus, and with this amiable candour, spake Barnes, about a commercial speculation, the merits of which he had a right to canvass as well as any other citizen. As for Uncle Hobson, his conduct was characterised by a timidity which one would scarcely have expected from a gentleman of his florid, jolly countenance, active habits, and generally manly demeanour. He kept away from the cocoa-nut feast, as we have seen: he protested privily to the Colonel that his private goodwill continued undiminished but he was deeply grieved at the B. B. C. affair, which took place while he was on the Continent—confound the Continent, my wife would go—and which was entirely without his cognisance. The Colonel received his brother’s excuses, first with awful bows and ceremony, and finally with laughter. “My good Hobson,” said he, with the most insufferable kindness, “of course you intended to be friendly; of course the affair was done without your knowledge. We understand that sort of thing. London bankers have no hearts—for these last fifty years past that I have known you and your brother, and my amiable nephew, the present commanding officer, has there been anything in your conduct that has led me to suppose you had?” and herewith Colonel Newcome burst out into a laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Worthy Hobson took his hat, and walked away, brushing it round and round, and looking very confused. The Colonel strode after him downstairs, and made him an awful bow at the hall door. Never again did Hobson Newcome set foot in that Tyburnian mansion.
During the whole of that season of the testimonial the cocoa-nut figured in an extraordinary number of banquets. The Colonel’s hospitalities were more profuse than ever, and Mrs. Clive’s toilettes more brilliant. Clive, in his confidential conversations with his friends, was very dismal and gloomy. When I asked City news of our well-informed friend F. B., I am sorry to say, his countenance became funereal. The B. B. C. shares, which had been at an immense premium twelve months since, were now slowly falling, falling.
“I wish,” said Mr. Sherrick to me, “the Colonel would realise, even now, like that Mr. Ratray who has just come out of the ship, and brought a hundred thousand pounds with him.”