The Way We Live Now (62 page)

On that same day Melmotte received two visits in the City from two of his fellow-directors. At the time he was very busy. Though his electioneering speeches were neither long nor pithy, still he had to think of them beforehand. Members of his committee were always trying to see him. Orders as to the dinner and the preparation of the house could not be given by Lord Alfred without some reference to him. And then those gigantic commercial affairs which were enumerated in the last chapter could not be adjusted without much labour on his part. His hands were not empty, but still he saw each of these young men – for a few minutes. ‘My dear young friend, what can I do for you?' he said to Sir Felix, not sitting down, so that Sir Felix also should remain standing.

‘About that money, Mr Melmotte?'

‘What money, my dear fellow? You see that a good many money matters pass through my hands.'

‘The thousand pounds I gave you for shares. If you don't mind, and as the shares seem to be a bother, I'll take the money back.'

‘It was only the other day you had two hundred pounds,' said Melmotte, showing that he could apply his memory to small transactions when he pleased.

‘Exactly – and you might as well let me have the eight hundred pounds.'

‘I've ordered the shares – gave the order to my broker the other day.'

‘Then I'd better take the shares,' said Sir Felix, feeling that it might very probably be that day fortnight before he could start for New York. ‘Could I get them, Mr Melmotte?'

‘My dear fellow, I really think you hardly calculate the value of my time when you come to me about such an affair as this.'

‘I'd like to have the money or the shares,' said Sir Felix, who was not specially averse to quarrelling with Mr Melmotte now that he had resolved upon taking that gentleman's daughter to New York in direct opposition to his written promise. Their quarrel would be so thoroughly internecine when the departure should be discovered, that any present anger could hardly increase its bitterness. What Felix thought of now was simply his money, and the best means of getting it out of Melmotte's hands.

‘You're a spendthrift,' said Melmotte, apparently relenting, ‘and I'm afraid a gambler. I suppose I must give you two hundred pounds more on account.'

Sir Felix could not resist the touch of ready money, and consented to take the sum offered. As he pocketed the cheque he asked for the name of the brokers who were employed to buy the shares. But here Melmotte demurred. ‘No, my friend,' said Melmotte; ‘you are only entitled to shares for six hundred pounds now. I will see that the thing is put right' So Sir Felix departed with £200 only. Marie had said that she could get £200. Perhaps if he bestirred himself and wrote to some of Miles's big relations he could obtain payment of a part of that gentleman's debt to him.

Sir Felix going down the stairs in Abchurch Lane met Paul Montague coming up. Carbury, on the spur of the moment, thought that he would ‘take a rise', as he called it, out of Montague. ‘What's this I hear about a lady at Islington?' he asked.

‘Who has told you anything about a lady at Islington?'

‘A little bird. There are always little birds about telling of ladies. I'm told that I'm to congratulate you on your coming marriage.'

‘Then you've been told an infernal falsehood,' said Montague passing on. He paused a moment and added, ‘I don't know who can have told you, but if you hear it again, I'll trouble you to contradict it.' As he was waiting in Melmotte's outer room while the duke's nephew went in to see whether it was the great man's pleasure to see him, he remembered whence Carbury must have heard tidings of Mrs Hurtle. Of course the rumour had come through Ruby Ruggles.

Miles Grendall brought out word that the great man would see Mr Montague; but he added a caution. ‘He's awfully full of work just now – you won't forget that – will you?' Montague assured the duke's nephew that he would be concise, and was shown in.

‘I should not have troubled you,' said Paul, ‘only that I understood that I was to see you before the board met.'

‘Exactly – of course. It was quite necessary – only you see I am a little busy. If this d–d dinner were over I shouldn't mind. It's a deal easier to make a treaty with an emperor, than to give him a dinner; I can tell you that. Well – let me see. Oh – I was proposing that you should go out to Pekin?'

‘To Mexico.'

‘Yes, yes; – to Mexico. I've so many things running in my head! Well; – if you'll say when you're ready to start, we'll draw up something of instructions. You'd know better, however, than we can tell you what to do. You'll see Fisker, of course. You and Fisker will manage it. The chief thing will be a cheque for the expenses; eh? We must get that passed at the next board.'

Mr Melmotte had been so quick that Montague had been unable to interrupt him. ‘There need be no trouble about that, Mr Melmotte, as I have made up my mind that it would not be fit that I should go.'

‘Oh, indeed!'

There had been a shade of doubt on Montague's mind, till the tone in which Melmotte had spoken of the embassy grated on his ears. The reference to the expenses disgusted him altogether. ‘No – even did I see my way to do any good in America, my duties here would not be compatible with the undertaking.'

‘I don't see that at all. What duties have you got here? What good are you doing the company? If you do stay, I hope you'll be unanimous; that's all – or perhaps you intend to go out. If that's it, I'll look to your money. I think I told you that before.'

‘That, Mr Melmotte, is what I should prefer.'

‘Very well – very well. I'll arrange it. Sorry to lose you – that's all. Miles, isn't Mr Goldsheiner waiting to see me?'

‘You're a little too quick, Mr Melmotte,' said Paul.

‘A man with my business on his hands is bound to be quick, sir.'

‘But I must be precise. I cannot tell you as a fact that I shall withdraw from the board till I receive the advice of a friend with whom I am consulting. I hardly yet know what my duty may be.'

‘I'll tell you, sir, what can not be your duty. It cannot be your duty to make known out of that board-room any of the affairs of the company which you have learned in that board-room. It cannot be your duty to divulge the circumstances of the company or any differences which may exist between directors of the company, to any gentleman who is a stranger to the company. It cannot be your duty –'

‘Thank you, Mr Melmotte. On matters such as that I think that I can see my own way. I have been in fault in coming in to the board without understanding what duties I should have to perform –'

‘Very much in fault, I should say,' replied Melmotte, whose arrogance in the midst of his inflated glory was overcoming him.

‘But in reference to what I may or may not say to any friend, or how far I should be restricted by the scruples of a gentleman, I do not want advice from you.'

‘Very well; – very well. I can't ask you to stay, because a partner from the house of Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner is waiting to see me, about matters which are rather more important than this of yours.' Montague had said what he had to say and departed.

On the following day, three-quarters of an hour before the meeting of the board of directors, old Mr Longestaffe called in Abchurch Lane. He was received very civilly by Miles Grendall, and asked to sit down. Mr Melmotte quite expected him, and would walk with him over to the offices of the railway, and introduce him to the board. Mr Longestaffe, with some shyness, intimated his desire to have a few moments' conversation with the chairman before the board met. Fearing his son, especially fearing Squercum, he had made up his mind to suggest that the little matter about Pickering Park should be settled. Miles assured him that the opportunity should be given him, but that at the present moment the chief secretary of the Russian Legation was with Mr Melmotte. Either the chief secretary was very tedious with his business, or else other big men must have come in, for Mr Longestaffe was not relieved till he was summoned to walk off to the board five minutes after the hour at which the board should have met. He thought that he could explain his views in the street; but on the stairs they were joined by Mr Cohenlupe, and in three minutes they were in the board-room. Mr
Longestaffe was then presented, and took the chair opposite to Miles Grendall. Montague was not there, but had sent a letter to the secretary explaining that for reasons with which the chairman was acquainted he should absent himself from the present meeting. ‘All right,' said Melmotte. ‘I know all about it. Go on. I'm not sure but that Mr Montague's retirement from among us may be an advantage. He could not be made to understand that unanimity in such an enterprise as this is essential. I am confident that the new director whom I have had the pleasure of introducing to you to-day will not sin in the same direction.' Then Mr Melmotte bowed and smiled very sweetly on Mr Longestaffe.

Mr Longestaffe was astonished to find how soon the business was done, and how very little he had been called on to do. Miles Grendall had read something out of a book which he had been unable to follow. Then the chairman had read some figures. Mr Cohenlupe had declared that their prosperity was unprecedented – and the board was over. When Mr Longestaffe explained to Miles Grendall that he still wished to speak to Mr Melmotte, Miles explained to him that the chairman had been obliged to run off to a meeting of gentlemen connected with the interior of Africa, which was now being held at the Cannon Street Hotel.

Roger Carbury having found Ruby Ruggles, and having ascertained that she was at any rate living in a respectable house with her aunt, returned to Carbury. He had given the girl his advice, and had done so in a manner that was not altogether ineffectual. He had frightened her, and had also frightened Mrs Pipkin. He had taught Mrs Pipkin to believe that the new dispensation was not yet so completely established as to clear her from all responsibility as to her niece's conduct. Having done so much, and feeling that there was no more to be done, he returned home. It was out of the question that he should take Ruby with him. In the first place she would not have gone. And then – had she gone – he would not have known where to bestow her. For it was now understood throughout Bungay – and the news had spread to Beccles – that old
Farmer Ruggles had sworn that his granddaughter should never again be received at Sheep's Acre Farm. The squire on his return home heard all the news from his own housekeeper. John Crumb had been at the farm, and there had been a fierce quarrel between him and the old man. The old man had called Ruby by every name that is most distasteful to a woman, and John had stormed and had sworn that he would have punched the old man's head but for his age. He wouldn't believe any harm of Ruby – or if he did he was ready to forgive that harm. But as for the baronite – the baronite had better look to himself! Old Ruggles had declared that Ruby should never have a shilling of his money – whereupon Crumb had anathematized old Ruggles and his money too, telling him that he was an old hunx,
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and that he had driven the girl away by his cruelty. Roger at once sent over to Bungay for the dealer in meal, who was with him early on the following morning.

‘Did ye find her, squoire?'

‘Oh, yes, Mr Crumb, I found her. She's living with her aunt, Mrs Pipkin, at Islington.'

‘Eh, now; – look at that.'

‘You knew she had an aunt of that name up in London.'

‘Ye-es; I knew'd it, squoire. I a' heard tell of Mrs Pipkin, but I never see'd her.'

‘I wonder it did not occur to you that Ruby would go there.' John Crumb scratched his head, as though acknowledging the shortcoming of his own intellect. ‘Of course, if she was to go to London it was the proper thing for her to do.'

‘I knew she'd do the thing as was right. I said that all along. Darned if I didn't. You ask Mixet, squoire – him as is baker down Bardsey Lane. I allays guv' it her that she'd do the thing as was right. But how about she and the baronite?'

Roger did not wish to speak of the baronet just at present. ‘I suppose the old man down here did ill use her?'

‘Oh, dreadful – there ain't no manner of doubt o' that. Dragged her about awful – as he ought to be took up, only for the rumpus like. D'ye think she's see'd the baronite since she's been in Lon'on, Muster Carbury?'

‘I think she's a good girl, if you mean that.'

‘I'm sure she be. I don't want none to tell me that, squoire. Tho', squoire, it's better to me nor a ten-pun' note to hear you say so. I allays had a leaning to you, squoire; but I'll more nor lean to you, now. I've said all through she was good, and if e'er a man in Bungay said she warn't – ; well, I was there, and ready.'

‘I hope nobody has said so.'

‘You can't stop them women, squoire. There ain't no dropping into them. But, Lord love ‘ee, she shall come and be missus of my house tomorrow, and what'll it matter her then what they say? But, squoire – did ye hear if the baronite had been a hanging about that place?'

‘About Islington, you mean.'

‘He goes a hanging about; he do. He don't come out straight forrard, and tell a girl as he loves her afore all the parish. There ain't one in Bungay, nor yet in Mettingham, nor yet in all the Ilketsals and all the Elmhams, as don't know as I'm set on Ruby Ruggles. Huggery-Muggery
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is pi'son to me, squoire.'

‘We all know that when you've made up your mind, you have made up your mind.'

‘I hove. It's made up ever so as to Ruby. What sort of a one is her aunt now, squoire?'

‘She keeps lodgings; – a very decent sort of a woman I should say.'