CHAPTER VI.

MR. GIBBONS' OPINION ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS.

Furnished by Rigby with his coat and hat, assisted by that personage to put on his knickerbockers, Mr. Rupert Halling stood at the hall door waiting for Madam Bess to be brought round.

He had wished to mount in the stable-yard, but neither Housden nor Rigby would hear of such a thing.

"Well, it is coming down," ejaculated the butler; "Mr. Halling, sir, why don't you send the mare back to her comfortable stall, and stay here for the night."

"I do not mind the weather," answered Rupert, which was fortunate, for the rain was pouring in such torrents that the noise made by the mare's hoofs was inaudible through the rushing tempest, and it was only by help of the ostler's lanthorn that Rupert could tell where Bess stood shivering and cringing, as the drops pelted like hail-stones upon her.

But if the night had been ten times worse than was the case, Rupert would still have persisted in his intention of riding round by Leytonstone. Comfort and assurance he felt he must have, some accurate knowledge of their actual position he was determined to obtain for Dolly, and so he proceeded through the darkness, with the rain sweeping in gusts up from the south-east, and expending the full force of its fury upon horse and horseman wherever an opening in the forest glades exposed both to its violence.

A lonely ride, lonely and dreary, the road now winding through common lands covered with gorse, and broom and heather, now leading through patches of the forest, now skirting gravel and sand pits, and again passing by skeletons of new houses run up hastily and prematurely by speculative builders.

And wherever any other road which could possibly lead back to Homewood crossed that Rupert desired to pursue, a difference of opinion took place between him and Bess, she being quite satisfied that the way they ought to go was the way which led to her stable; Rupert, on the contrary, being quite determined that she should carry him to Leytonstone.

At length the violence of the storm somewhat abated, and as he passed the 'Eagle,' at Snaresbrook, from behind a bank of wild watery-looking clouds the moon rose slowly and as if reluctantly, whilst the wind grew higher and swept over the lonely country lying towards and beyond Barkingside in blasts that almost took away the young man's breath.

On the whole he was not sorry when he reached that great public-house which stands where three roads meet near the pond at Leytonstone. There he dismounted, and giving Bess in charge of a man who knew the mare and her rider well, he walked on past the church, down the little bye-street leading to the picturesque station, across the line, and so to a new road intersecting an estate that had been recently cut up for building, and where already houses were dotting the fields, where two or three years previously there was no sign of human habitation.

One of these houses belonged to Mr. Gibbons; he had bought it for a very low price, and nobly indifferent to the horrible newness of its appearance, to the nakedness of its garden, and that general misery of aspect peculiar to a suburb while in its transition state from country to town, he removed his household goods from Islington, where he had previously resided, and set himself at work to make a home in the wilderness.

He was a man content to wait for trees to grow, and shrubs to mature, and creepers to climb. His was the order of mind which can plant an asparagus bed and believe the three years needful for it to come to perfection will really pass away in regular course. He procured a mulberry-tree and set it, and he would have done the same with a walnut had the size of his garden justified the proceeding.

As it was, he looked forward to eating fruit grown on his own walls and espaliers; he directed the formation and stocking of his garden with great contentment. He built a greenhouse; he ordered in a Virginia creeper and a Wistaria, which he hoped eventually to see cover the front of his house; he put up a run for his fowls; and he talked with unconcealed pride of his "place near the forest," where his children grew so strong and healthy, he declared that the butcher's bills frightened him.

To men of this sort, men who are willing to sow in the spring, and patient enough to wait for the ripening in the autumn, England owes most of her prosperity; but ordinary humanity may well be excused if it shrink from the idea of settling down in a spic-and-span new house in an unfinished neighbourhood.

Rupert's humanity, at all events, accustomed as it was to the wealth of foliage at Homewood, to the stately trees and bushy shrubs, and matured gardens, and lawns covered with soft old turf, recoiled with horror from the naked coldness of Mr. Gibbon's residence, and his teeth chattered as the uncertain moonbeams glanced hither and thither over new brick walls, and stuccoed pillars, and British plate-glass, and all those other items which go to compose a British villa in the nineteenth century.

The wind, sweeping over the Essex marshes and across Wanstead flats, brought with it heavy gusts of showers, and one of these pursued Rupert as he ploughed his way over the loose stones and gravel which had been laid upon the road.

"It is a nice night and a nice hour for a visit," he reflected. "I wonder what Gibbons will say to my intruding on his privacy on the Sabbath-day." And he paused for a moment before applying his hand to the knocker, and listened to the vocal strength of the family, which was employed at the moment in singing psalms in that peculiar style which the clergy assure us is especially pleasing to the Almighty.

They, it is to be presumed, must know something about the matter. Certainly, the performance affords pleasure to no one of God's creatures except to the vocalists themselves. In a lull of the wind Rupert could hear the shrill trebles of the young ladies, the cracked voice of their mother, the gruff growling of the two sons, and the deep bass of Mr. Gibbons himself, all engaged in singing spiritual songs in unison.

"It will be a charity to interrupt that before they bring the ceiling down," said the visitor, and he forthwith gave such a thundering double knock that the music ceased as if a cannon had been fired amongst the vocalists.

Miss Amy's hands dropped powerless from the keyboard of the piano, and Mr. Gibbons, forgetful of the sacred exercises in which he had been engaged, first exclaimed,

"Who the devil can that be?" and then proceeded to ascertain who it was for himself.

"I beg ten thousand pardons for intruding upon you," Rupert was beginning, but Mr. Gibbons would listen to no apology.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "what can have brought you out such a night? Come in and have some supper. We were just going to have supper. The rain came down in such buckets we could not get to church, so the young people were having a little music. ("Music!" thought Rupert.) Come in, there is no one here except ourselves."

"You are very kind," Rupert answered, "but I cannot stop. I am wet, and have had a long, miserable ride. I only want to ask you half-a-dozen questions, and then I must get home. I left my mare at the 'Green Man,' and she is drowned, poor old girl."

"Well, you must take something," said Mr. Gibbons, who in trade insisted upon his pound of flesh if he saw the slightest hope of getting it, but who out of trade was liberal and hospitable to a commendable degree.

"I will take nothing, thank you," Rupert replied decidedly, "except hope, if you are able to give me that. I have been drinking brandy-and-water at the house of my respected brother-in-law that is to be, and I can't stand much of that sort of thing. I wonder how it is prosperous men are able to drink what they do after dinner and never turn a hair, whilst poor wretches who never knew what it was to have a five-pound note between them and beggary are knocked over by a few glasses."

They were standing by this time in a small room covered with oil-cloth, which Mrs. Gibbons, who was a notable manager, used for cutting out her children's garments. She neutralised the cold of the oilcloth by standing on a wool mat; and then, as she remarked to her friends, there was no trouble in sweeping up the clippings, as there would have been had she laid down a carpet.

The apartment did not look cheerful. It was on a piece with the outside of the house; but Rupert had a confidence in Mr. Gibbons which proved more consolatory at the moment than any amount of luxurious furniture could have done.

"What is the matter? What has gone wrong now?" asked Mr. Gibbons, ignoring the young man's irrelevant statement, which, indeed, having a wider experience, he did not in the least believe.

In a few sentences Rupert told him the events of the last two days. There was no person living to whom Rupert Halling could talk so freely as to this sharp, shrewd man of business, whom he did not like, with whom he had not an idea in common, who he knew could, to quote an old proverb, "lie as fast as a dog can trot," but in whose judgment he trusted as if he had been a prophet.

Mr. Gibbons sat beside the table, his arms crossed on it, looking at Rupert, and Rupert sat at a little distance, and spoke right on, never stopping till he had said his say.

When the story was told Mr. Gibbons rose and took a few turns up and down the room.

"If you think of it, Forde has not made a bad move," he remarked at last, stopping in his walk. "He can keep the matter as quiet as he likes, he can tell his directors what he pleases, and if there is any game left to play he can play it without much interference. I did not think he had it in him to devise such a scheme, but perhaps it was not he, only Kleinwort. There is nothing that little thief could not do except be honest."

"Will it make any difference to us?" asked Rupert, impatient of this digression.

"That is just what I have been wondering," answered Mr. Gibbons. "I don't see that it can. I know nothing of Swanland personally (of course, everybody knows his partner, Asherill, the most thoroughfaced old humbug in the City), but in his position he dare not play into Forde's hand. It is impossible for him to make fish of one creditor and fowl of another. Had they chosen a creature of their own for trustee, the case would have been different; but, upon my honour, I think the matter could not stand better than it does. If Forde does not oppose, nobody else will, I should imagine; and all your uncle has to do now is to get well as fast as he can, so as to push business along and pay us all a good dividend."

"Mr. Gibbons," said Rupert slowly, "what is liquidation?"

"That is rather a difficult question to answer," was the reply. "I have understood that its object is to enable a man who really means honestly to repay his creditors to do so. You see, the new Bankruptcy Act has been passed so recently that we have not much knowledge of its working. In the only case of which I have had experience, it seems to go smoothly enough. A pianoforte-maker, who had taken out some new patent got himself into difficulties, and the creditors asked me to look into his affairs, and see what chance there was of their ever being repaid. I did so, and found the estate could never pay sixpence if it was compulsorily realised, but that there was a probability of twenty shillings if the man could be allowed to work on without the fear of writs.

"The fellow seemed honest enough, and the creditors were inclined to be patient--all except one fellow, who wanted to get the business into his own hands. I soon shut his mouth; and we arranged to throw the payment of ten shillings in the pound over three years; the rest was left to his honour. Well, so far as I can see, every creditor will get his money in full, and the debtor is as happy as possible, working away to pay all he owes. He is allowed so much out of the business for his household expenses; and, of course, I do not look him and his books up for nothing, but still when the affair comes to be closed, it will prove better than bankruptcy for every one concerned; and if I had been appointed trustee to your uncle's estate, I have no doubt we might, out of such a business as his, have arranged ten pounds a week for his services, and paid everybody in full, with interest, in four years."

"I wish to God you had been the trustee," said Rupert earnestly.

"I echo the wish. I could have made it easy for your uncle and beneficial to myself; but Forde does not like me. He can't take me in as he takes in other people. However," added Mr. Gibbons, "it is a great matter to have him with you, since, unless you were able to produce good proof of what you have hinted to me, his opposition might be dangerous."

"Do you know," said Rupert, "Mr. Dean really frightened me to-night. He declared my uncle was commercially dead, that he could never hold up his head again in the City, that his estate had been allowed to go to the dogs, and that the dogs had got it, with much more to the same effect."

"Mr. Dean is a pompous old ass," commented Mr. Gibbons.

"Please remember he is going to marry my sister," entreated Rupert.

"In that at all events he shows his sense," returned Mr. Gibbons with ready courtesy, "but what should he know about liquidation? If Mr. Dean thought a poor wretch were shaky, he would serve him with a trading debtors' summons at once, and if the amount were not paid, make him bankrupt before he could know what had happened. That is how Elm Park is maintained. Please heaven," added Mr. Gibbons piously, "a more liberal policy shall supply the more modest requirements of Forest View."

Which was the appropriate name of the spic-and-span new mansion, since not a glimpse of the forest could be obtained even from its attic windows.

"Thank you," said Rupert, rising and holding out his hand to Mr. Gibbons, "you have relieved my mind greatly. I do not know I ever felt more miserable than I have done to-night. Mrs. Mortomley quite unnerved me. She has a fancy that her husband is going to be ruined."

"My dear fellow," was the reply, "when you have lived as long as I have lived, and been married as many years as I have been married you will know women are always having fancies. No better creature than my wife ever breathed, but she has a prophetic feeling about some matter or person every day of her life."

"It is quite a new thing for Dolly to be among the prophets, however," remarked Rupert almost involuntarily.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Gibbons, not understanding.

"Oh! I was speaking of Mrs. Mortomley. We always call her Dolly. Absurd, is it not? but it is better than Dollabella."

The connection of ideas between her name and her fortune did not seem very plain, nevertheless, as if one suggested the other, Mr. Gibbons said,

"I suppose Mrs. Mortomley's money is all right."

"What do you mean," Rupert inquired.

"Settled on herself of course."

"Of course," the young man answered.

"That is well," answered Mr. Gibbons. "I wish you would stay and have some supper. No? Then good night and keep up your spirits, all will turn out for the best, be sure of that."

And so they shook hands and parted. Mr. Gibbons to return to his psalmody, and Rupert to retrace his steps to the 'Green Man,' where he re-mounted Bess and rode back, moonlight accompanying him, drifting rain following his horse's heels to Whip's Cross.