The Way We Live Now (50 page)

And there was no way out of it. It did not occur to the man that his offer could be refused. During the whole of that day he went about among his friends in a melancholy fashion, saying little snappish uncivil things at the club, and at last dining by himself with about fifteen newspapers around him. After dinner he did not speak a word to any man, but went early to the office of the newspaper in Trafalgar Square at which he did his nightly work. Here he was lapped in comforts – if the best of chairs, of sofas, of writing tables, and of reading lamps can make a man comfortable who has to read nightly thirty columns of a newspaper, or at any rate to make himself responsible for their contents.

He seated himself to his work like a man, but immediately saw Lady Carbury's letter on the table before him. It was his custom when he did not dine at home to have such documents brought to him at his office as had reached his home during his absence – and here was Lady Carbury's
letter. He knew her writing well, and was aware that here was the confirmation of his fate. It had not been expected, as she had given herself another day for her answer – but here it was beneath his hand. Surely this was almost unfeminine haste. He chucked the letter, unopened, a little from him, and endeavoured to fix his attention on some printed slip that was ready for him. For some ten minutes his eyes went rapidly down the lines, but he found that his mind did not follow what he was reading. He struggled again, but still his thoughts were on the letter. He did not wish to open it, having some vague idea that, till the letter should have been read, there was a chance of escape. The letter would not become due to be read till the next day. It should not have been there now to tempt his thoughts on this night. But he could do nothing while it lay there. ‘It shall be a part of the bargain that I shall never have to see him,' he said to himself, as he opened it. The second line told him that the danger was over.

When he had read so far he stood up with his back to the fireplace, leaving the letter on the table. Then, after all, the woman wasn't in love with him! But that was a reading of the affair which he could hardly bring himself to look upon as correct. The woman had shown her love by a thousand signs. There was no doubt, however, that she now had her triumph. A woman always has a triumph when she rejects a man – and more especially when she does so at a certain time of life. Would she publish her triumph? Mr Broune would not like to have it known about among brother editors, or by the world at large, that he had offered to marry Lady Carbury and that Lady Carbury had refused him. He had escaped; but the sweetness of his present safety was not in proportion to the bitterness of his late fears.

He could not understand why Lady Carbury should have refused him! As he reflected upon it, all memory of her son for the moment passed away from him. Full ten minutes had passed, during which he had still stood upon the rug, before he read the entire letter. ‘“Cut and scotched and lopped!” I suppose she has been,' he said to himself. He had heard much of Sir Patrick, and knew well that the old general had been no lamb. ‘I shouldn't have cut her, or scotched her, or lopped her.' When he had read the whole letter patiently there crept upon him gradually a feeling of admiration for her, greater than he had ever yet felt – and, for a while, he almost thought that he would renew his offer to her. ‘“Showers instead of sunshine; melancholy instead of mirth,”' he repeated to himself. ‘I should have done the best for her, taking the showers and the melancholy if they were necessary.'

He went to his work in a mixed frame of mind, but certainly without that dragging weight which had oppressed him when he entered the room. Gradually, through the night, he realized the conviction that he had escaped, and threw from him altogether the idea of repeating his offer. Before he left he wrote her a line –

‘Be it so. It need not break our friendship.

‘
N. B.
'

This he sent by a special messenger, who returned with a note to his lodgings long before he was up on the following morning.

‘No; – no; certainly not. No word of this will ever pass my mouth.

‘
M. C.
'

Mr Broune thought that he was very well out of the danger, and resolved that Lady Carbury should never want anything that his friendship could do for her.

On Friday, the 21st June, the board of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway sat in its own room behind the Exchange, as was the board's custom every Friday. On this occasion all the members were there, as it had been understood that the chairman was to make a special statement. There was the great chairman as a matter of course. In the midst of his numerous and immense concerns he never threw over the railway, or delegated to other less experienced hands those cares which the commercial world had intrusted to his own. Lord Alfred was there, with Mr Cohenlupe, the Hebrew gentleman, and Paul Montague, and Lord Nidderdale – and even Sir Felix Carbury. Sir Felix had come, being very anxious to buy and sell, and not as yet having had an opportunity of realizing his golden hopes, although he had actually paid a thousand pounds in hard money into Mr Melmotte's hands. The secretary, Mr Miles Grendall, was also present as a matter of course.
The board always met at three, and had generally been dissolved at a quarter past three. Lord Alfred and Mr Cohenlupe sat at the chairman's right and left hand. Paul Montague generally sat immediately below, with Miles Grendall opposite to him – but on this occasion the young lord and the young baronet took the next places. It was a nice little family party, the great chairman with his two aspiring sons-in-law, his two particular friends – the social friend, Lord Alfred, and the commercial friend Mr Cohenlupe – and Miles, who was Lord Alfred's son. It would have been complete in its friendliness, but for Paul Montague, who had lately made himself disagreeable to Mr Melmotte – and most ungratefully so, for certainly no one had been allowed so free a use of the shares as the younger member of the house of Fisker, Montague, and Montague.

It was understood that Mr Melmotte was to make a statement. Lord Nidderdale and Sir Felix had conceived that this was to be done as it were out of the great man's own heart, of his own wish, so that something of the condition of the company might be made known to the directors of the company. But this was not perhaps exactly the truth. Paul Montague had insisted on giving vent to certain doubts at the last meeting but one, and, having made himself very disagreeable indeed, had forced this trouble on the great chairman. On the intermediate Friday the chairman had made himself very unpleasant to Paul, and this had seemed to be an effort on his part to frighten the inimical director out of his opposition, so that the promise of a statement need not be fulfilled. What nuisance can be so great to a man busied with immense affairs, as to have to explain – or to attempt to explain – small details to men incapable of understanding them? But Montague had stood to his guns. He had not intended, he said, to dispute the commercial success of the company. But he felt very strongly, and he thought that his brother directors should feel as strongly, that it was necessary that they should know more than they did know. Lord Alfred had declared that he did not in the least agree with his brother director. ‘If anybody don't understand, it's his own fault,' said Mr Cohenlupe. But Paul would not give way, and it was understood that Mr Melmotte would make a statement.

The ‘boards' were always commenced by the reading of a certain record of the last meeting out of a book. This was always done by Miles Grendall; and the record was supposed to have been written by him. But Montague had discovered that this statement in the book was always prepared and written by a satellite of Melmotte's from Abchurch Lane
who was never present at the meeting. The adverse director had spoken to the secretary – it will be remembered that they were both members of the Beargarden – and Miles had given a somewhat evasive reply. ‘A cussed deal of trouble and all that, you know! He's used to it, and it's what he's meant for. I'm not going to flurry myself about stuff of that kind.' Montague after this had spoken on the subject both to Nidderdale and Felix Carbury. ‘He couldn't do it, if it was ever so,' Nidderdale had said. ‘I don't think I'd bully him if I were you. He gets five hundred pounds a year, and if you knew all he owes, and all he hasn't got, you wouldn't try to rob him of it' With Felix Carbury Montague had as little success. Sir Felix hated the secretary, had detected him cheating at cards, had resolved to expose him – and had then been afraid to do so. He had told Dolly Longestaffe, and the reader will perhaps remember with what effect. He had not mentioned the affair again, and had gradually fallen back into the habit of playing at the club. Loo, however, had given way to whist, and Sir Felix had satisfied himself with the change. He still meditated some dreadful punishment for Miles Grendall, but, in the meantime, felt himself unable to oppose him at the board. Since the day at which the aces had been manipulated at the club he had not spoken to Miles Grendall except in reference to the affairs of the whist-table. The ‘board' was now commenced as usual. Miles read the short record out of the book – stumbling over every other word, and going through the performance so badly that had there been anything to understand no one could have understood it. ‘Gentlemen,' said Mr Melmotte, in his usual hurried way, ‘is it your pleasure that I shall sign the record?' Paul Montague rose to say that it was not his pleasure that the record should be signed. But Melmotte had made his scrawl, and was deep in conversation with Mr Cohenlupe before Paul could get upon his legs.

Melmotte, however, had watched the little struggle. Melmotte, whatever might be his faults, had eyes to see and ears to hear. He perceived that Montague had made a little struggle and had been cowed; and he knew how hard it is for one man to persevere against five or six, and for a young man to persevere against his elders. Nidderdale was filliping bits of paper across the table at Carbury. Miles Grendall was poring over the book which was in his charge. Lord Alfred sat back in his chair, the picture of a model director, with his right hand within his waistcoat. He looked aristocratic, respectable, and almost commercial. In that room he never by any chance opened his mouth, except when called on to say that Mr Melmotte was right, and was considered by the chairman really
to earn his money. Melmotte for a minute or two went on conversing with Cohenlupe, having perceived that Montague for the moment was cowed. Then Paul put both his hands upon the table, intending to rise and ask some perplexing question. Melmotte saw this also and was upon his legs before Montague had risen from his chair. ‘Gentlemen,' said Mr Melmotte, ‘it may perhaps be as well if I take this occasion of saying a few words to you about the affairs of the company.' Then, instead of going on with his statement, he sat down again, and began to turn over sundry voluminous papers very slowly, whispering a word or two every now and then to Mr Cohenlupe. Lord Alfred never changed his posture and never took his hand from his breast. Nidderdale and Carbury filliped their paper pellets backwards and forwards. Montague sat profoundly listening – or ready to listen when anything should be said. As the chairman had risen from his chair to commence his statement, Paul felt that he was bound to be silent. When a speaker is in possession of the floor, he is in possession even though he be somewhat dilatory in looking to his references, and whispering to his neighbour. And, when that speaker is a chairman, of course some additional latitude must be allowed to him. Montague understood this, and sat silent. It seemed that Melmotte had much to say to Cohenlupe, and Cohenlupe much to say to Melmotte. Since Cohenlupe had sat at the board he had never before developed such powers of conversation.

Nidderdale didn't quite understand it. He had been there twenty minutes, was tired of his present amusement, having been unable to hit Carbury on the nose, and suddenly remembered that the Beargarden would now be open. He was no respecter of persons, and had got over any little feeling of awe with which the big table and the solemnity of the room may have first inspired him. ‘I suppose that's about all,' he said, looking up at Melmotte.

‘Well; – perhaps as your lordship is in a hurry, and as my lord here is engaged elsewhere,' – turning round to Lord Alfred who had not uttered a syllable or made a sign since he had been in his seat – ‘we had better adjourn this meeting for another week.'

‘I cannot allow that,' said Paul Montague.

‘I suppose then we must take the sense of the board,' said the chairman.

‘I have been discussing certain circumstances with our friend and chairman,' said Cohenlupe, ‘and I must say that it is not expedient just at present to go into matters too freely.'

‘My Lords and Gentlemen,' said Melmotte. ‘I hope that you trust me.'

Lord Alfred bowed down to the table and muttered something which was intended to convey most absolute confidence. ‘Hear, hear,' said Mr Cohenlupe. ‘All right,' said Lord Nidderdale, ‘go on'; and he fired another pellet with improved success.

‘I trust,' said the chairman, ‘that my young friend, Sir Felix, doubts neither my discretion nor my ability.'

‘Oh dear, no – not at all,' said the baronet, much flattered at being addressed in this kindly tone. He had come there with objects of his own, and was quite prepared to support the chairman on any matter whatever.

‘My Lords and Gentlemen,' continued Melmotte, ‘I am delighted to receive this expression of your confidence. If I know anything in the world I know something of commercial matters. I am able to tell you that we are prospering. I do not know that greater prosperity has ever been achieved in a shorter time by a commercial company. I think our friend here, Mr Montague, should be as feelingly aware of that as any gentleman.'