CHAPTER XII.

THE SAME DAY AT HOMEWOOD.

If the atmosphere of the City had proved trying to more than one person on that especial day when Mr. Forde felt it necessary to wonder what, in the event of Mortomley's failing, was to become of his--Forde's--wife and children, many people at Homewood had not found country air agree with them so well as usual.

The morning broke clear and bright. Mortomley, with haggard face and listless mien, appeared early amongst his men, vibrating between office and works till eight o'clock ringing introduced into the manufactory the usual odours of fish and rank bacon, which were detestable in the nostrils of the owner of Homewood.

Mr. Lang had overnight made up his mind to draw his employer's attention to several matters of paramount importance. Mr. Hankins, stepping up to Homewood in the early morning, had determined, let who else would not, to speak to the governor about "that 'ere----lot of barytes;" but when the silent half-hour arrived, both intentions were unfulfilled. There had been that in Mortomley's face which, like death, stopped criticism as well as comment.

By reason of long wakefulness at night, and unbroken slumber after dawn, Rupert entered the breakfast-room later than usual. He was vexed at this, because he wanted to speak in private to Dolly, who, seeming to understand his wishes by intuition, sidled up to him in the hall and whispered,

"Archie has said nothing to me; nothing at all."

Then the dog-cart was brought round, and the two men drove off to the station, leaving the two women to their own devices.

Miss Halling had a new piece to practise, and a new song to try. Dolly went up to her own room and stayed there for a couple of hours. Then she rang the bell.

"I am at home to-day to no one," she said. "Remember, to no one, not even to Mrs. Werner. Tell Miss Halling this."

After a time she could not, however, endure the solitude any longer; and so stealing downstairs, let herself out into the laurel walk, and paced its length, so one who watched her with pitying eyes said afterwards, hundreds and hundreds of times.

That over, her maid, finding she refused to come in to luncheon, took her out a biscuit and a glass of wine.

"Do try to swallow it, ma'am," she entreated; and Mrs. Mortomley looking at her with almost unseeing eyes complied.

After that the girl told Miss Lenore to run and look for her mamma, and ten minutes after child and mother were sitting hand clasped in hand in a summer-house placed in a retired part of the grounds.

Hour after hour crept by. Lenore had been asleep and was awake again. Dolly's eyes had grown weary of looking at the trees and the grass and the flowers, and her ears were aching by reason of listening for the sound of voices that came not, of footsteps that tarried by the way.

At last a servant hurried to where she sat, saying,

"The master has come back, ma'am." They all knew she was anxious; they were all, perhaps, anxious themselves.

Then, like one weak from long illness, she arose and, walking slowly, retraced her way to the house.

On the lawn Mortomley met her.

"Well, dear?" she asked.

"It is all right, little woman," he answered, with a more cheerful expression than she had seen lighten his face for many a day. "Everything will go on well now."

She did not ask a question; she would not damp his exultation by a word, though she saw Rupert standing in the background with bent brows and lowering visage.

For the time being, her husband was happy. If her own soul misgave her, why should she try to make him unhappy?

A most unsuitable wife for Mortomley those who know most about such matters exclaim, and I dare not venture to say them nay. Only in his joy as in his sorrow she was loyal. She was no Griselda; no senselessly submissive woman; no besotted creature who thought her husband, simply because he chanced to be her husband, could do no wrong; but she was loyal.

If he made mistakes, to others she would uphold them; if he was weak, as sensitive and generous and noble natures usually are in some points, Dolly would not have been Dolly had it been possible for her to side with those who criticized his failings.

There are not many women of Mrs. Mortomley's stamp to be found in the times we now live in--all the better for the world it may be, since an universe of failure is a thing scarcely to be contemplated with equanimity; but in the old days ladies whose names shall for ever live in story, were not ashamed to cling to a fallen cause, and were capable of feeling a respect and devotion for a fugitive prince they never felt for a king on his throne. But fashions change, and she who adopts an obsolete fashion makes a mistake.

"She is as great a simpleton as he," thought Rupert, turning angrily away, for in truth his temper had that day been tried almost beyond endurance.

No one living understood better than Rupert Halling, that first to his father and then to him, Mortomley owed the present complication of his affairs.

There were plenty of people to enlighten him on both points. City folks are no more backward than the rest of the world about uttering disagreeable truths; and Mr. Rupert Halling had only been assisting his uncle for a short period before references to the way in which his father had regarded Mortomley's chattels as his own, inquiries as to whether Homewood was not a nice sort of place to be free of, facetious remarks concerning the advantage it must prove to a young man to have a relation's house in which to hang up his hat for life, with more covert allusions to Mortomley as a good milch cow, and a confiding, easy-going, soft sort of clever simpleton,--showed the young man exactly how the business world, which he cordially detested, regarded the owner of Homewood and his hangers on.

But this and much more Rupert could have borne with equanimity, had he not felt Mortomley's affairs were becoming hopelessly entangled. He had done his best, his poor incompetent best to avert the calamity. He had offered to help his uncle, feeling certain his vigorous youth, his perfect health, his undaunted assurance, could work much more wondrous results on the Cockney mind than Mortomley, with his modest diffidence, his shy, quiet manners, his reserve and his utter absence of self-assertion had ever been able to effect.

And at first results justified his confidence. City people are too apt to judge by appearances and to accept a man's estimate of himself as correct, and there were certainly a sufficient number of persons who for a considerable period really did think Rupert a more desirable representative of Mortomley's business than Mortomley himself.

But when once difficulty came, the new favourite was deposed. Creditors said openly, "Things would not be as they are if Mr. Mortomley was well;" the Thames Street clerks grumbled and remarked amongst themselves, "We never were so bothered when the governor was here;" men Rupert knew in business, meeting him rushing along the streets, sometimes advised him to "cut trade," or, if in a jocular mood, inquired when he expected to make his fortune and retire; people who had known something of Mortomley and of Mortomley's father before him, came to offer advice to the young man, and entreat that, if there were any real fire beneath the smoke enveloping the colour maker's affairs, he would recommend his uncle to face the worst boldly and meet his creditors.

If counsellors could have compassed deliverance, Mortomley had been saved; but it is one thing to give advice and another to follow it. There is all the difference between seeing clearly how your neighbour ought to act and feeling inclined to act boldly yourself.

Further, in this especial case there was a great deal to lose. Bankruptcy did not mean to Mortomley precisely what it does to a vast number of persons who suspend payment.

To be able to preserve his home, his works, his connection, was worth almost any personal sacrifice he could make; and even whilst anathematizing business and business people, and business ways and business drudgery, Rupert felt that if the evil could be averted, he was bound to do all that lay in his power to compass his uncle's emancipation.

But once he found that nothing save severing altogether the ropes which bound Mortomley to the wheels of the General Chemical Company's chariot would or could mend the position of affairs, he was as eager for the crash to come as he had been anxious to avoid it.

Let trade be as good as it might, let money be paid as it would, Mortomley's account with the General Chemical Company steadily swelled in amount.

Expostulation proved of no use. The suggestion of error was scoffed at as an idea too ridiculous to be entertained. Goods were charged for which never entered the gates of Mortomley's factory; when a bill was renewed, the old bill reappeared at some unexpected juncture, and was treated as a separate transaction; when drugs so inferior that nothing could be done with them were returned, no credit was given on the transaction. Receipt notes, when the carmen could obtain such documents, were treated as waste paper or as referring to some other affair from that under consideration. In fact, let who else be wrong, Mr. Forde and the General Chemical Company must be right. That was the manager's solemnly expressed conviction. According to his bewildering creed, if an entry were wrong in the first book, supposing such an impossibility possible, it was made right by being repeated through twenty other books, and finally audited by two incompetent gentlemen, who would thankfully have declared black to be white for a couple of guineas a day.

It may not require any great amount of brains for a man to know his affairs are becoming involved; but it does require a certain order of intellect, at all events, to be able to state the precise cause of his want of success.

In trade, when once one thing begins to go wrong, so many others immediately follow suit, that it is difficult to lay a finger on the real seat of disease; and if this is found almost invariably to be the case, when a man comes to answer questions concerning the reasons for his failure, it can be regarded as only natural that, what with Rupert's utter ignorance of even the rudiments of prudent business management, and Mortomley's natural unsuspiciousness of disposition, matters had come to a pretty pass before it occurred to Mr. Halling that the road to St. Vedast Wharf would, if longer traversed, end in total ruin.

And now Mortomley had, with his "eyes open," as Rupert indignantly remarked when speaking at a later period to Dolly about the managerial interview, "made some ridiculous compact with Mr. Forde, who will lead him the life of the----"

Rupert's comparisons were sometimes strong, but Mrs. Mortomley did not rebuke him for that part of his sentence. She put on her armour to do battle for her husband.

"He is not a child," she answered; "he knows very well what he is about. He is not so conceited as you, but he is much cleverer; and if he, for his own purposes, choose to make a compact as you call it with Mr. Forde, it is not for you to criticize his conduct. You have not managed affairs so admirably yourself that you should feel at liberty to condemn the management of other people."

The young man turned scarlet. If Dolly had given him a blow in the face, he could not have felt more astonished. He would have given anything at that moment to be able to remain cool and hide his annoyance, but the stab came too fast and the pain was too sharp for that to be possible.

"Archie would never have made such a remark," he said in a voice which trembled in spite of his efforts at self-control.

"All the more necessary then that some one should make it for him," she retorted. "Had I thought for an instant, perhaps I would not have made it either," she went on; "but I will not try to unsay or take it back."

"You do not seem to set much store upon keeping your friends, Dolly," he remarked with an uneasy smile.

"If speaking the truth parts any friend from me, he is quite welcome to go," she replied; and in this manner Mrs. Mortomley and Rupert separated for the first time in anger.

"She will repent it some day," he thought. But in this he chanced to be mistaken. Whatever else Dolly repented in the days that were then to come, she never regretted having set down Mr. Rupert Halling, when he began to speak slightingly of the man who had acted so generously, if so foolishly towards his brother's children.