<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1><big>HESTER</big><br/> <br/> A STORY OF CONTEMPORARY LIFE<br/> <br/> <small>BY</small><br/> <br/> MRS. OLIPHANT</h1>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"A springy motion in her gait,<br/></div>
<div class="verse">A rising step, did indicate<br/></div>
<div class="verse">Of pride and joy no common rate<br/></div>
<div class="verse i4">That flush'd her spirit:<br/></div>
<div class="verse">I know not by what name beside<br/></div>
<div class="verse">I shall it call: if 'twas not pride,<br/></div>
<div class="verse">It was a joy to that allied<br/></div>
<div class="verse i4">She did inherit.<br/></div>
</div>
<div class="verse indent2" style="letter-spacing:2em">*****<br/></div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">She was trained in Nature's school,<br/></div>
<div class="verse i4">Nature had blest her.<br/></div>
<div class="verse">A waking eye, a prying mind,<br/></div>
<div class="verse">A heart that stirs, is hard to bind:<br/></div>
<div class="verse">A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,<br/></div>
<div class="verse i4">Ye could not Hester."<br/></div>
</div>
<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Charles Lamb.</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center spaced-above">
<i>IN THREE VOLUMES</i><br/>
<big>VOL. I</big></p>
<p class="center spaced-above">
London<br/>
<big>MACMILLAN AND CO.</big><br/>
1883<br/>
<small><i>The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved</i></small></p>
<p class="center spaced-above">
LONDON<br/>
<br/>
<span class="smcap">R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor</span>,<br/>
<br/>
BREAD STREET HILL.<br/></p>
<hr class="chap" />
<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">VERNON'S</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">1</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">MISS CATHERINE</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">19</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">THE VERNONRY</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">34</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">A FIRST MEETING</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">49</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">NEXT MORNING</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">65</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">NEIGHBOURS AND RELATIONS</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">82</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">SETTLING DOWN</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">96</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</SPAN></span></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">NINETEEN</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">114</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">RECOLLECTIONS</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">131</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">A LOVER</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">147</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">MOTHER AND DAUGHTER</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">164</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">AN INDIGNANT SPECTATOR</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">181</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">CATHERINE'S OPINION</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">202</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">HARRY'S VIEW</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">220</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">WHAT EDWARD THOUGHT</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">237</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="center"><SPAN href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">WALKS AND TALKS</td><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">249</td></tr>
</table></div>
<hr class="chap" />
<h1>HESTER.</h1>
<hr class="chap" />
<h1>HESTER.</h1>
<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</SPAN></h2>
<h3>VERNON'S.</h3>
<p>The Banking House of the Vernons was known
through all the Home Counties as only second to
the Bank of England in stability and strength.
That is to say, the people who knew about such
matters, the business people, the professional classes,
and those who considered themselves to be acquainted
with the world, allowed that it ought to
be considered second: but this opinion was not
shared by the greater proportion of its clients, the
shopkeepers in Redborough and the adjacent towns,
the farmers of a wide district, and all the smaller
people whose many united littles make up so much
wealth. To them Vernon's bank was the emblem of
stability, the impersonation of solid and substantial
wealth. It had risen to its height of fame under
John Vernon, the grandfather of the present head of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</SPAN></span>
the firm, though it had existed for two or three
generations before him. But John Vernon was one
of those men in whose hands everything turns to
gold. What the special gift is which determines
this it is difficult to tell, but there can be little
doubt that it is a special gift, just as it is a
particular genius which produces a fine picture or
a fine poem. There were wiser men than he, and
there were men as steady to their work and as
constantly in their place, ready for all the claims of
business, but not one other in whose hands everything
prospered in the same superlative way. His
investments always answered, his ships always came
home, and under his influence the very cellars of the
banking-house, according to the popular imagination,
filled with gold. At one period of his career a panic
seized the entire district, and there was a run upon
the bank, by which it was evident anybody else
must, nay, ought, to have been ruined; but John
Vernon was not ruined. It was understood afterwards
that he himself allowed that he did not
understand how he had escaped, and nobody else
could understand it: but he did escape, and as a
natural consequence became stronger and richer,
and more universally credited than ever. His son
after him had not the same genius for money, but
at least he had the genius for keeping what he had
got, which is next best.</p>
<p>Edward Vernon, however, was not so fortunate in
his family as in his affairs. He had two sons, one of
whom died young, leaving a little daughter to be<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</SPAN></span>
brought up by her grandfather; the other "went
wrong." Oh, never-ending family tragedy, never
ending, still beginning, the darkest anguish that
exists in the world! The younger son went wrong,
and died also in his father's lifetime, leaving a
helpless little family of children, and a poor wife
stupefied with trouble. She did her best, poor soul,
to bring up her boy to ways the very opposite of
those in which his father had stumbled and fallen,
and it was supposed that he would marry his cousin
Catherine Vernon, and thus unite once more all the
money and prestige of the house. He too was John
Vernon, and resembled the golden great-grandfather,
and great things were hoped of him. He entered
the bank in old Mr. Vernon's time, and gave every
promise of being a worthy successor as long as the
senior partner, the head of the house, lived. But
when the old gentleman died and John Vernon
became in his turn the head of the house, there
very soon appeared signs of change. In the first
place the marriage with his cousin never came to
pass; things had seemed to promise fairly so long as
the grandfather with whom she lived was alive. But
after, there was an immediate cooling of sentiment.
Whose fault this was nobody knew. She said
nothing on the subject even to her dearest friends;
nor did he say anything; but he laughed and waved
aside all questions as a man who "could an if he
would"——. His mother, for her part, said a great
deal. She ran between them like an excited hen,
shaking her tail-feathers and cackling violently.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</SPAN></span>
What did they mean by it? What was it for?
She asked her son how he could forget that if
Catherine's money went out of the business it would
make the most extraordinary difference? and she
bade Catherine remember that it would be almost
dishonest to enrich another family with money
which the Vernons had toiled for. Catherine, who
was not by any means an ordinary girl, smiled upon
her, perhaps a little sadly, and entered into no explanations.
But her son, as was natural, scoffed at
his mother. "What should you know about the
business?" he said. Poor Mrs. Vernon thought she
had heard enough of it to understand it, or at least
to understand the intentions of those who understood
it. But what is the use of a mother's remonstrances?
The new generation will please itself and take its
way. She scolded and wept for years after, poor
soul, in vain, and yet could never learn that it was
in vain, but began anew day after day weeping,
entreating, remonstrating, falling into nervous crises
of passion a hundred and a hundred times over.
How much better for her to have held her tongue!
but how could she help it? She was not of that
placid and patient nature which can be wise. And
gradually things began to go badly with John. He
married a young lady belonging to a county family,
but with no money to keep up her pretensions. He
had his stables full of horses and his house full of
company. "What is it all to come to?" cried his
poor, anxious, angry, disappointed, despairing mother,
seeking opportunities to have a few words with him,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</SPAN></span>
to speak to him seriously, to remind him of his duty.
To be sure she did a great deal more harm than
good. She drew many a blow upon herself which
she might have escaped had she been content to
allow that his life had passed far beyond her guidance;
but the poor lady would not be taught. And
it was quite true what John Vernon said. It would
take a long time, he told her, before a few horses
and pleasant company would affect Vernon's bank.
As the head of that establishment he was expected
to be hospitable, and keep almost open house; the
country which trusted in him knew he could afford
it. The Redborough people went further, and liked
to see the confidence with which he spent his money.
What could that do to Vernon's? He had never
lived up to his income yet, he believed. So he told
his mother, who was never satisfied, and went on till
the day of her death always seeking a few words
with him—an opportunity of speaking seriously to
her son. Poor mother! nothing went very well
with her; perhaps she was not clever either at
managing her children or her money. The partisans
of the Vernons said so at least; they said so of all
the wives that were not Vernons, but interlopers,
always working harm. They said so also of Mrs.
John, and there his mother thought they were not
far wrong. But none of her children turned out
very satisfactorily; the girls married badly; Edward,
her younger son, went into the Church, and never
was more than a vicar, and their money matters
would not go right. Certainly she was not a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</SPAN></span>
fortunate woman. But she died, happily for her,
before anything material happened to realise her
alarms in respect to John.</p>
<p>It is astonishing how money grows when it is in
the way of growing—when it has got the genuine
impulse and rolls every kindred atom near it, according
to some occult law of attraction, into itself.
But just as wonderfully as money grows does it melt
away when the other—the contrary process—has
begun. John Vernon was quite right in saying that
the bank justified, nay, almost demanded, a certain
amount of expenditure from its chief partner. And
he was more, much more, than its chief partner.
Catherine, though she was as deeply interested in
it as himself, took no responsibility whatever—how
should she, a girl who knew as much about money
as her pony did? She took less interest, indeed,
than in ordinary circumstances she would have done,
for there was certainly something, whatever it might
be, which had interrupted the natural intercourse
between the two cousins. They were not at ease
with each other like brother and sister, as everything
suggested they ought to have been—not sufficiently
at ease to consider their mutual interests together,
as partners ought to have done. This, one of them
at least thought, would have been ridiculous in any
case. When his lawyers asked what Catherine
thought on this or that subject, he laughed in
their faces.</p>
<p>"What should she think? What should she
know? Of course she leaves all that to me,"<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</SPAN></span>
he said. "How can a girl understand banking
business?"</p>
<p>But this did not satisfy the respectable firm of
solicitors who advised the banker.</p>
<p>"Miss Vernon is not a girl any longer," said Mr.
Pounce, who was its head; upon which John Vernon
laughed, one of those offensive laughs with which a
coarse-minded man waves the banner of his sex
over an unmarried woman.</p>
<p>"No," he said, "Catherine's growing an old maid.
She must look alive if she means to get a husband."</p>
<p>Mr. Pounce was not a sentimentalist, and no doubt
laughed sometimes too at the unfortunate women
who had thus failed in the object of their life; but
he respected Miss Vernon, and he was very doubtful
of her cousin.</p>
<p>"Husband or no husband, I think she ought to be
consulted," he said.</p>
<p>"Oh, I will take Catherine in my own hands,"
was the cousin's reply.</p>
<p>And thus life went on, very gay, fast, amusing,
and expensive on one side; very quiet and uneventful
on the other. John Vernon built himself a grand
new house, in which there were all the latest improvements
and scientific luxuries, which the most
expensive upholsterers filled with the most costly
furniture, and for which the skilfullest gardeners all
but created ready-made trees and shrubberies. He
filled it with fine company—names which the clerks
at the bank felt were a credit to the establishment,
and which the townsfolk looked upon with admiring<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</SPAN></span>
awe: and there was nothing in the county to equal
Mrs. John Vernon's dresses and diamonds. What
is all that to a great bank, gathering money every
hour?—nothing! Even Mr. Pounce acknowledged
this. Personal extravagance, as long as it is merely
hospitality and show, must go a very long way
indeed before it touches the great revenue of such
a business. It was not the diamonds nor the feasts
that they were afraid of. But to be lavish with
money is a dangerous fault with a man who is a
business man. It is a very common sin, but there
is nothing more perilous. In Manchester or Liverpool,
where they turn over a fortune every day,
perhaps this large habit of sowing money about
does not matter. People there are accustomed to
going up and down. Bankruptcy, even, does not
mean the end of the world in these regions. But a
banker in a country town, who has all the money of
a district in his hands, should not get into this
reckless way. His clients are pleased—up to a
certain limit. But when once the first whisper of
suspicion has been roused it flies fast, and the panic
with which rural depositors rush upon a bank which
has awakened the ghost of an apprehension, is even
more cruel and unreflecting than other panics. It
went on a long time, and where it was that the first
suggestion came from, nobody ever knew. Probably
it did not come from any one—it was in the air, it
struck two people, all at once, talking to each other,
and the electricity of the contact found a single
syllable of utterance. When that was done, all was<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</SPAN></span>
done. Everybody had been waiting for this involuntary
signal; and when it came, it flew like lightning
through all Redborough, and out into the roads and
lanes—to distant farmhouses, into the rectories and
vicarages, even to the labourer's cottage. "It's said
as Vernon's bank's a-going to break," the ploughmen
in the fields said to each other. It did not matter
much to them; and perhaps they were not sorry that
the farmer, who grew fat (they thought) on their
toil, should feel that he was also human. The
farmers had something of the same feeling in respect
to their landlords, but could not indulge it for the
furious terror that took possession of themselves.
Vernon's bank! Safer than the Bank of England,
was what they had all said exultingly. Very few of
them had sufficient command of themselves to wait
now and inquire into it and see how far the panic
was well founded. To wait would have been to
leave the chance of salvation to other men.</p>
<p>Mrs. John Vernon was considered very refined and
elegant according to the language of the day, a young
lady with many accomplishments. But it was the
fashion of the time to be unpractical just as it is the
fashion of our time that women should understand
business and be ready for any emergency. To wear
your hair in a high loose knot on the top of your
head, with ringlets straying down your cheek, and
across the always uncovered whiteness of your
shoulders, and to sing the songs of Mr. Haynes
Bayley, "Oh no, we never mention her," or "The
Soldier's Tear"—could anything be more entirely<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</SPAN></span>
inconsistent with business habits? Mrs. John would
have considered it a slight to the delicacy of her
mind to have been supposed to know anything
about the bank; and when the head clerk demanded
an audience at an unseasonable hour one summer
evening she was entirely taken aback.</p>
<p>"Me! do you mean that it is me Mr. Rule
wants to see?" she asked of the servant in consternation.</p>
<p>"He did ask for master, ma'am," said the man,
"but as master's from home he said he must see
my lady. He looks very flustered. I'll say that for
him," he added.</p>
<p>To be sure William had heard the whisper in
the air, and was more or less gratified that Mr.
Rule should be flustered; but as for his lady, she
saw no connection whatever between Mr. Rule's
excitement and herself.</p>
<p>"I do not see what good I can do him, William;
and it's not an hour at which I ever receive people.
I am sure I don't know what he can want with me."</p>
<p>"It's business, I think, ma'am," said the servant,
with a little eagerness. He wanted immensely
himself to know what it was, and it did not occur
to him as possible that his mistress, so much more
interested than he, should be without anxiety or
concern.</p>
<p>"Business!" said Mrs. John, "what do I
know about business? However," she added, "if
he is so desirous, perhaps you had better show him
up. Your master is always pleased when I pay a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</SPAN></span>
little attention to the clerks. He says it does
good."</p>
<p>"Yes, ma'am," said William.</p>
<p>Being a reasonable human creature he was
touched in spite of himself by the extraordinary
sight of this poor, fine lady, sitting in her short
sleeves on the edge of the volcano, and knowing
nothing about it. It was too bad of master, William
thought, if so be—— To leave the poor lady
entirely in the dark so that she did not know no
more than a baby what the clerk could want with
her. William speculated, too, on his own circumstances
as he went down stairs. If so be—— It
was a good place, and he would be sorry to lose it.
But he remembered that somebody had said the
Sandersons were looking out for a butler.</p>
<p>"Mrs. Vernon will see you, sir," he said in the
midst of these thoughts; and Mr. Rule followed him
eagerly up stairs.</p>
<p>But what could Mrs. John do? Her dress was
spotted muslin, as most dresses were in those days;
it was cut rather low on the shoulders, though she
was not dressed for company. She had pretty little
ringlets falling upon her cheeks, and short sleeves,
and a band round her waist with a shining clasp.
She was considered brilliant in conversation, and
sang, "We met, 'twas in a crowd," and the songs
previously mentioned, with so much feeling that
people had been known to weep as they listened.
The clerk had heard of all these accomplishments,
and as he hurried in, his eye was caught by the harp<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</SPAN></span>
in its corner, which was also one of the fashions of
the time. He could not help being a little overawed
by it, notwithstanding his dreadful anxiety.
Poor lady! the thought passed through his mind as
similar thoughts had passed through William's—Would
all this be sold away from her? White
muslin dresses with low necks have the advantage
that they quite seem to separate their wearers from
everyday life. We have no doubt that the dying
out of chivalry, and the way in which women nowadays
insist on doing their own business, and most
likely other people's too, is in great part to be put
down to high dresses and long sleeves. In these
habiliments a lady looks not so very much different
from other people. She feels herself free to go into
common life. But Mrs. John sat there helpless,
ignorant, quite composed and easy in her mind, with
pretty feet in sandalled slippers peeping from under
her dress. Mr. Rule had time for all this distressed,
regretful sympathy before he could stammer out in
a hurry his anxious question—or rather his hope—that
Mr. Vernon would be home to-morrow—early?</p>
<p>"I am sure I don't know," said Mrs. John. "It
would be scarcely worth his while to go away if he
was to be back so soon. He said perhaps to-morrow,
but more likely next week."</p>
<p>"Next week!" cried Mr. Rule; "then he may
just as well stay away altogether; it will then be
too late."</p>
<p>"Dear me!" said Mrs. John, politely, willing to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</SPAN></span>
show an interest; but she did not know what more
to say.</p>
<p>"Perhaps you know where he is, ma'am?" said the
anxious clerk: for this was the time when people
said ma'am. "We might send an express after him.
If he were here, things might still be tided over.
Excuse me, Mrs. Vernon, but if you can give me
any information——"</p>
<p>"Dear me," said Mrs. John, "my husband was
going to London, I think. Is it about business, or
anything I may know?"</p>
<p>"All the world will know to-morrow," cried the
agitated clerk, "unless you can give me some assistance.
I don't like to trouble a lady, but what can I
do? Mrs. Vernon, to-morrow is market day, and
as sure as that day comes if he is not here to make
some provision for it, we shall have a run on the
bank."</p>
<p>"A run on the bank!" said Mrs. John, dismayed.
"What does that mean?"</p>
<p>"It means that we shall have to pay every note
that is presented us in gold: and that everybody
will rush upon us with our notes in their hands: and
all the people who have deposit accounts will withdraw
their money. It means Ruin," said Mr. Rule,
very much flustered indeed, wiping the perspiration
from his brow. He had an account himself, and a
considerable sum to his credit. Oh, the fool he had
been to let it lie there instead of investing it! but
then, he had been waiting for a good investment, and
in the meantime, Vernon's was as safe, safer than<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</SPAN></span>
the Bank of England. He had believed that till
to-day.</p>
<p>Mrs. John sat looking at him with bewildered
eyes.</p>
<p>"I don't understand," she said. "The bank of
course is for that, isn't it? I never understand how
you do it," she added, with a little of the sprightliness
for which she was distinguished. "It has
always been a mystery to me what good it can do
you to take all the trouble of paying people's bills
for them, and locking up their money, and having
all that responsibility; but I cannot deny that it
seems to answer," she concluded with a little
simper.</p>
<p>The harassed clerk looked at her with a pity that
was almost tragic. If she had not been so handsome
and so fine, and surrounded with all these
luxuries, it is very likely he would have been
impatient, and considered her a fool.</p>
<p>He replied gently—</p>
<p>"I dare say, ma'am, it is difficult for you to form
an idea of business; but I am almost forgetting,
sitting talking to you, how dreadfully serious it is.
If I knew where Mr. Vernon was, I would send a
post-chaise directly. We are lost if he is not here.
They will say—God knows what they may not say.
For God's sake, ma'am, tell me how I am to find
him?"</p>
<p>"Indeed, Mr. Rule, I am very, very sorry. If I
had known! but I rather encouraged him to go. He
was looking so poorly. He was going to town, I am<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</SPAN></span>
sure—first: and then perhaps to Bath: or he might
go across to France. He has been talking of that.
France—yes, I suggested it. He has never been on
the Continent. But now I think of it, I don't think
he will go there, for he said he might be home
to-morrow—though more likely next week."</p>
<p>"It seems very vague," said Mr. Rule, looking at
her with a steady look that began to show a gleam of
suspicion; but this was entirely out of place. Mrs.
John answered lightly without any perception even
of what he could mean.</p>
<p>"Oh yes, it was vague! it is so much better not
to be tied down. I told him he ought to take me;
but it was settled in a hurry, he was feeling so
poorly."</p>
<p>"Then he has forsaken us!" cried the clerk in a
terrible voice, which shook even her obtuse perceptions.
She gazed at him with a little glow of
anger.</p>
<p>"Forsaken you! Dear me, surely a little holiday
never can matter. Why, the servants could go on
without me for a time. It would never come into
Mr. Vernon's head that you could not manage by
yourselves even for a single day."</p>
<p>The clerk did not answer; it was all such a terrible
muddle of ignorance and innocence, and perhaps of
deep and deliberate guilt. But anyhow, there was
the result beyond all uncertainty. The bank must
come down. Vernon's, which it had taken the work
of generations to build up; Vernon's, which was
safer than the Bank of England. Mr. Rule had been<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</SPAN></span>
a clerk there, man and boy, for about twenty years.
He had been one of old Mr. Vernon's staff. He had
a pride in the bank as if it had been his own. To
give up Vernon's to destruction seemed more than
giving himself up. But what could the clerks do
without the principal? A lieutenant may fight his
ship if the captain fails, or a subaltern replace his
leader, but what can the clerks do without the head
of the establishment? And he had no authority to
act even if he had known how to act; and every two
or three minutes there would come across him a
poignant recollection of his own deposit. Oh, the
Alnaschar hopes he had built upon that little
fortune, the ways in which it was to serve him!
He tried honestly, however, to put it away from
his mind.</p>
<p>"We could have done well enough on an ordinary
occasion," he said, "and Mr. Vernon generally settles
everything before he goes; but I thought he was
only absent for the day. Mrs. Vernon," he cried,
suddenly, "can't you help us? can't you help us?
It will be ruin for you too."</p>
<p>She stared at him for a moment without speaking,
and then—</p>
<p>"You make me quite wretched. I don't understand.
I have only a little money in the house.
Would that do any good?" she said.</p>
<p>"How much have you?" said the clerk in his
trouble.</p>
<p>She ran to a pretty ornamental desk and opened
it nervously.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I dare say there may be about twenty pounds,"
she said.</p>
<p>He laughed loudly, harshly, a laugh that seemed
to echo through the large, unoccupied room.</p>
<p>"If it were twenty thousand it might do something,"
he said.</p>
<p>"Sir!" said Mrs. John Vernon, standing in a fine
attitude of displeasure by her desk, holding it open
with one hand. She looked like a picture by Sir
Thomas Lawrence, her scarf, for she wore a scarf,
hanging half off her pretty white shoulders, caught
upon one equally white arm, her ringlets waving on
her cheek. His laugh was rude, and then he was
only a clerk. She was all angry scorn from the high
knot of brown hair on the top of her head to the
point of her sandalled shoe.</p>
<p>Poor Mr. Rule was as penitent as man could
be. He was shocked beyond measure by his
own brutality. He had forgotten himself—and
before a lady! He made the most abject
apologies.</p>
<p>"But my interest in the bank will, I hope,
be some excuse. I feel half distracted," he
said; and he added, as he backed out at the
door with painful bows, "Perhaps, ma'am, if you
can think of any means of communicating with
Mr. Vernon, you would let me know; or I will
call later, if we could send an express; nothing
is too much for the chance of having him back
to-morrow."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Well," said the lady, "you are strange managers,
I must say, that cannot get on without my husband
one day."</p>
<p>"It is not that, ma'am; it is not that."</p>
<p>"I don't know what it is. I begin to think it is
only making a fuss," Mrs. John said.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</SPAN></span></p>
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