Mammon and Co Part 39

Lady Haslemere rose. She had wanted to have a general financial talk as well about Chaffers and Brownhills and Modder B, but the oracle had spoken about her grand _coup_, which was the main point.

"Yes, she plays divinely, does she not?" she said. "I knew Lady Devereux would be a magnet to draw you here. How busy you must have been lately, Mr. Alington! One has not seen you anywhere."

"Very busy indeed. But I intend to take a holiday after the Carmel deal is over."

"A deal? Do you call it a deal?" she asked. "I always thought a deal meant something rather questionable?"

Mr. Alington paused quite as long as usual before replying.

"Oh no; one uses 'deal' as quite a general term for an operation," he said.

They went back into the other drawing-room, and Mr. Alington, with an elaborate softness, drew a chair up near the piano. Lady Devereux played with exquisite delicacy and sobriety, in the true spirit in which to interpret that sweet, formal music. She did not thunder and thump, she did not cover swift, catchy runs with the loud pedal, but let each note fill its own minute, inevitable place. She did not extemporize a _rallentando_ where pa.s.sages were difficult, and make up for this by hurrying over minims, or give you a general idea of a bar. She played the music exactly as it was written with extreme simplicity. There were some twenty people in the room, some whispering together (for Lady Devereux played so well that n.o.body talked very loud when she was at the piano), some smoking, some playing cards, some pa.s.sing under their breath the most screaming scandals; and the music was like a breath of fresh air let into a stuffy room. And by the piano, with his sleek face reposeful, beatific, and wearing an expression of sensual piety about it, sat the only listener--a man whose soul was steeped in money, whose G.o.d was Mammon, who could roll on like some Juggernaut-car over the bodies of those he had ruined without one thought of pity or remorse.

Yet the melody enchained him; while it lasted he was a child--a child, it is true, with respectable gray whiskers and an expansive baldness on the head, but happy, heedless of anything else in the world except the one exquisite tune, the one delicious moment.

Before long a baccarat table was made up, but he did not move from his place by the piano. Lady Devereux, a pretty, good-natured woman, who got on capitally with everybody except her husband, who, in turn, got on admirably with or without her, was delighted to go on playing to him, for she saw how real and how cultivated his enjoyment of her music was, and though she lost charmingly at baccarat, she really preferred playing even to one appreciative listener. She had an excellent memory, her taste was his, and the two wandered long in the enchanted land of early melody.

At last she rose, and with her Mr. Alington.

"I need not even thank you," he said; "for you know, I believe, what it has been to me. You are going to play? Baccarat for Bach! Dear lady, how shocking! I think I shall go home. I do not want to disturb the exquisite memories. I shall remember this evening."

He stood for a moment with her hand in his. His face looked like the representation of some realistic saint in bad stained gla.s.s.

"Good-night," he said. "And I, too, go and daub myself in actualities.

But at soul I am no realist."

It was a fine summer evening, fresh and caressing to the diner-out, and he walked back from Berkeley Street slowly, with the musician ascendant over the financier.

Of late he had been very much absorbed in business, and had heard hardly any music, and thus this evening had been really an immense treat. After all, there was nothing so essentially delightful to the bones and blood of the man as this: he was still conscious that the pa.s.sion for money-making which was his, was, as he expressed it, with more fervour than it was his wont to throw into his daily conversation, a daubing in actualities; and to-night it was with a sense of distaste, rising almost to repugnance, that he contemplated an hour at his desk. The work, he knew, would bring its own consolations and rewards, but as he started back he wished neither to be consoled nor rewarded. Of late, also, his delight in the polished artifices of money-making had been on the wane; for months now he had entertained, even in his hours of triumphant finance, the idea of retiring altogether from business when once he had brought to its inevitable climax this affair of the Carmel mines.

To-night this desire to concern himself no more in the jostle of the Tokenhouse land was more than usually potent, taking almost the form of resolve. Had an angel or devil, it mattered not which, offered him success such as he antic.i.p.ated in these mines upon the signing of a bond that he would mine and motor no more, he would have signed. What allurements had that peaceful picture! He would sell out (so he figured to himself) his interest in all other businesses, invest his whole fortune in something safe and reliable, perhaps even consols; he would drop the Financial Times and take in the Musical Observer, and lead the life that in sober earnest he at the moment utterly believed himself to prefer. He had long been building a charming and palatially-simple house in Suss.e.x, where in his declining years he proposed to spend the greater part of his time. There, with his prints, his music, and his gardening, he would pa.s.s slow, charming, uneventful days. The "long dark autumn evenings" would wean him from his garden-beds to his priceless portfolios, the turning year entice him to his garden-beds again. He would watch the jostle and the race for money with fatherly, Lucretian unconcern. He was tired, he felt sure he was tired, of the eternal struggle for what he held in sufficiency. How gross a parody of existence was the present for a man of truly artistic tastes and sensibilities! In ten days, if things went even pa.s.sably well, he would have made enough to enable him to gratify these tastes to the full, and, soberly, he wanted no more than that. His beautiful home would be habitable within the year. He would have enough to marry on, for he fully intended to marry, since matrimony was a distinct factor in the social world, and he could say, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years." He was not given to excess of eating, drinking, or merriment--all that was foreign to him--but he would certainly have a string quartette belonging to his very complete establishment.

Mr. Alington had all the coolness in action which ensures success in most human pursuits, from the art of war to the art of making money, and the absence of which postulates a corresponding inefficiency in all practical undertakings. He never lost his head, nor got either frightened or _exalte_ when he was at his work; but the intervals, after he had committed himself to some course of action, and before that action had produced its fruits, were sometimes tense periods to him. He went, no doubt, at forced draught when the great _coups_ were being made, and after he had taken his headlong excursions Nature demanded a readjustment, and his fibres were relaxed. These periods of relaxation he usually tided over by the indulgence of his artistic tastes, which he used as a man of less fine sensibilities might use morphia or alcohol.

But to-night the fugues and preludes so deftly exhibited by Lady Devereux seemed only temporarily efficacious. For a while they moved him, but he had not been home an hour when the effect wore off and left him, financially speaking, staring wide-awake.

Again and again he reviewed the natural effect of what he had done, the normal behaviour of the market towards the events which should be developed next day. Already the prices of Carmel were rising; to-morrow would come the announcement of strong support from Australia, and later in the day the more specific news that Mr. Richard Chava.s.se--that hard-headed operator--had bought to the extent of fifty thousand pounds.

Logically, for the money-market is as subject to logical conclusions as any set of syllogisms, its prices must leap. News of the most satisfactory description would continue to arrive from the mine; in a day or two, in a week at the outside, the shares should stand at not less than four to five--no feverish price, but well warranted, so thought Mr. Alington, by its inherent excellence. There was no doubt there would be some slight fall owing to realizations, but that, so he imagined, would be only a temporary reaction. By settling-day, ten days from now, his twenty-five thousand shares bought in England should be worth more than four times their present value; his fifty thousand pounds invested by Mr. Richard Chava.s.se something over two hundred thousand. After that a firm good-bye to clamorous gold-getting.

He strolled backwards and forwards in his room, now stopping to look for a moment at one of his beloved prints, now lighting a cigarette or sipping a little mild whisky-and-soda. How admirably, he reflected, had his Carmel group hitherto turned out! How alluring had been his board of directors, how convincing to the public mind of the security of a scheme to which hereditary legislators lent their honoured names! Already more than one new board had copied his example, but it had been a great thing to be first in the field; the novelty of the idea was half its success.

But now his n.o.ble colleagues might go hang, for all he cared; they had served their turn and been his bell-wethers to the public. Jack Conybeare, he knew, had followed him in this last Carmel speculation, investing largely; he was a shrewd fellow, so thought Alington, and would have made a good business man had not the onus of hereditary obligations borne him elsewhere; and if he himself had been intending to start new companies, he would not have been sorry to have him again on his board--no mere name this time, but a man likely to be of practical use.

Yes; indeed he had struck a vein! Though he believed that ninety per cent. of success is due to effort and wisdom, he had got, like most speculators, a secret faith in that "tide in the affairs of men." It was impossible not to believe in strokes of luck; if things showed a general tendency to prosper, it was well to put many things in hand at once. The stars or some occult influence happened to be favourable just then; in the remote, conjectured heavens there was a conjunction of planets of notable benignity to you; it was your chance; the line was clear; hurry, hurry, while it lasted! In the same way one had at other times to work with sobbing steps through a mire of ill-luck. Perversity for the moment characterized the universe; inanimate objects were malign; sheathed, hooded presences waited to clutch you. Nothing went right; the images of the G.o.ds were set awry; ominous mutterings were heard (not fancied) from the shrine. Then was the time to venture little, not to ride unmanageable horses, not to use new silk umbrellas, to go gently, neither praising nor complaining, for fear of further provoking the blind forces that strike; above all, not to think to repair ill-luck by wild strokes. In the nature of this world things would come round; a calm, dewy dawn would break on the low-roofed night. Wait!

For a year his good luck had held. People whom he wished to know had been glad to know him; he was already much at home in London. Carmel East and West had behaved with filial piety to their founder, and the greater Carmel seemed likely to turn out a son as dutiful, but more magnificent. His name would almost certainly be included in the list of Birthday honours, for he had made himself most useful to the Conservative party, and was contesting an impossible seat, for which it had been really difficult to find a candidate, and he had given in a princely manner to the party's funds. Recognition, he had reason to believe, was almost certain, and he would be delighted to be a baronet.

Again that discreet rogue Mr. Richard Chava.s.se had played his part admirably in the pleasant _role_ allotted to him. Like a person of sense, he had accepted the soft inevitable, and had preferred to live very comfortably at Melbourne rather than attempt to get away with the large balance which stood to his name. He had not probably realized that it would have been almost impossible for Mr. Alington to bring him to justice, for the exposure of the "strong support in Australia" would have been inevitable. Or perhaps some feeling of grat.i.tude to his benefactor had touched the accomplice of thieves; the criminal cla.s.s had been diminished by one--a pleasant thought. The arrangement, however, had been a scheme of mutual advantage, and the man, at any rate, had been sensible enough to see that. It would almost immediately be necessary to think what must be done with that great operator, for to-morrow's purchase would be his last. Mr. Alington, in a gentle glow of charity, was determined to act most kindly to him; his confession should be destroyed, and perhaps he should have a couple of hundred pounds as well, and certainly some pious exhortations. Indeed, the only eclipse of the lucky star had been the motor business. There were ugly losses in his ledger over that--uglier than he had quite realized; but Carmel should gently heal the sore places with a golden lotion.

Next morning came a very favourable report from the mine, and about mid-day the news of the strong support in Australia. The price had been opened at a little over thirty shillings, the mine was eagerly inquired for, and for a couple of hours it rose steadily, and as it rose seemed to get more and more in demand. Then one of those strange periodical madnesses which sometimes affect that shrewd body the Stock Exchange took possession. Everything else was neglected; it seemed that the whole world contained only one thing worth buying, and that shares in Carmel.

Men bought and sold, and bought and sold again; now for half an hour would come a run of realizations, and the price would sink like a back-drawing wave in a swiftly advancing tide; but in another hour that was forgotten; the tide had risen again, covering the lost ground, and those who had realized were cursing their premature prudence, and bought again. Steady-going, unemotional operators lost their heads and joined in the wild skying of Carmel without a shred of justification, only hoping that they would find everyone else a shade madder than they, and that they would clear out on the top. Men sold at three and a half, bought again at four, sold at four and a half, and were not yet content.

n.o.body quite knew what was happening, except that they feverishly desired shares in Carmel, and that those shares were getting every moment more expensive. Bears who had sold ten minutes before came tumbling over each other to secure their shares before they had gone up out of sight, and having got them, as likely as not turned bulls and bought again, on the chance of Carmel going higher, though half an hour ago they had sold in the hope of its going lower. All day this went on, and about an hour before the closing of the market Alington, reading the tape record at his club, saw that the shares stood at five and a half--higher than he had ever hoped they would go in a week.

For a moment he hesitated. If he chose, there was now within his grasp all that he had been playing for. A hansom to the City; two careful words to his broker, for the unloading must be done very swiftly; then to his music and his baronetcy. In an hour the market would close till Monday, for Sat.u.r.day was a holiday; but before Monday, on the other hand, would come fresh news from the mine. He debated with himself intently for a moment, and as he waited the tape ticked under his hand.

"Carmel," it spelled out, "five and five-eighths, five and three-quarters."

That was enough. For to-day nothing could stop the rise. There would be time to sell on Monday morning.

He called for a hansom; he was going to spend from Friday till Monday in the country, and not having more than enough time to catch the train, drove straight to Waterloo, where his valet would meet him with his luggage.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. ALINGTON LEAVES LONDON

Mr. Alington had never felt more at peace with himself, or in more complete harmony with his environment (a crucial test of happiness), than when he drove off to Waterloo from the doors of the Beaconsfield Club, of which he had lately become a member, after reading the last quotation of Carmel. All his life he had been working towards the consummation which was now practically his. His desire was satisfied, he had enough. A few forms only still remained to be put through, and he would be finally quit of all markets. On Monday morning his broker would sell for him every share he held in Carmel. On Monday morning, too, would that shrewd operator, Mr. Richard Chava.s.se, follow, as if by telepathic sympathy, the workings of Mr. Alington's mind, arriving at the same just conclusions, and a close with the offer made him by the Varalet Company in Paris for all the patents he owned in the motor business _en bloc_--at a considerable sacrifice, it is true--completed his financial career. Keen, active, and full of the most flattering triumphs as had been his progress towards this acme of his fortunes, yet he had never thought of it as anything but a progress, a road leading to a goal. Never had he let the edge of his artistic sensibilities get blunt or rusty from want of use, and he found, now that his more material work was over, that he himself, the vital and essential man, who dwelt in the financier, looked forward, like an eager youth on the threshold of manhood, to the real and full life which he was about to enter.

Humble thankfulness and grateful contentment with the dealings of Providence with him was his also. He had fifty years behind him; pleasant years and wholesome with hard work, during which he had used to great advantage many excellent gifts. The business of his life hitherto had been to make money; in that he had shown himself to be on the large scale. But more essential to him throughout all these years had been his growing artistic perceptions, his increasing love of beauty; that he felt to be the reason and the spring of his happiness. In this regard he had ever cultivated, with the a.s.siduous patience born of love, his natural taste. That keen appreciation of Palestrina and the early melodists was no original birthright of his; it was a cultivated pleasure; a pleasure, no doubt, of which the germ was inborn, but cultivated to a high degree and with effort, because, simply, he believed it to be his duty to make the most of a gift.

In this matter of duty he had often suffered much wrong. The charitable impulse which had led him, one day in the spring, to draw so large a cheque to Mr. Metcalfe, had been an unjust derision in Jack's mouth.

Alington really believed (and the most transcendent honesty cannot get below a genuine belief) that part of that notable cheque should be entered as a business transaction, part on the page devoted to charity.

He may have deceived himself, but he was not aware of it; he acted, as far as he knew, with the most judicial fairness in the part.i.tion of its entry.

But now for weeks past he had looked forward to the day when he should pa.s.s out of the money-making world to a fairer and more melodious one.

He had no insane ambition to make inordinate wealth, nor to add a million to his million; his wealth he had steadily regarded as a means to an end, that end being the power to gratify his artistic tastes to the full. He did not forget to pray at his _prie-dieu_ morning and evening, nor had he forgotten it on the most feverish days of finance, and he was at peace, imperfectly, no doubt, but, as far as his capabilities went, perfectly, with regard to death and what lay beyond.

Meantime this life held for him much that was beautiful, much that was wonderful. He desired to realize its wonder and beauty as completely as possible. All his life he had been a getter of money, or so the world held him. But now no more. On Monday morning all his connection with the market would be severed, the real man should lead his real life.

These thoughts pa.s.sed through his brain in a gentle glow of intimate pleasure, as his hansom went briskly towards Waterloo. He was going to spend this Friday till Monday with Mrs. Murchison, in her charming house on the Winchester downs, where the invigorating unused air would make more temperate this really tropical weather. A terrific heat-wave, from a positively scalding sea, had drowned London these last few days; the city had been a burning fiery furnace, and the consolation of being cast there, of having got there unwillingly, was denied him, for the flames had been of his own self-seeking. He might, indeed, as soon as he had made the _grand coup_, three days ago, have left London, and waited for the inevitable result in cool retirement, but this retreat from the scene of action had been morally impossible to him. Never before, as far as he remembered, had an operation so taken hold of him; never before had the tickings of the tape, or the call-whistle of his telephone, been of so breathless an urgency. Exciting as had often been the satisfaction with which he had watched the climbing of a quotation from twos into threes, or threes into fours, he could not recollect a restlessness so feverish as that with which he had watched the rise of Carmel. For this had been the _comble_ of all: the rise of the price meant to him a perfect freedom from all future rises. To see Carmel quoted above five had been equivalent to his emanc.i.p.ation from all that should hereafter touch the nerves. Yet here was one weak spot. He had seen the quotation of over five and a half ticked out by the tape, yet he had not instantly sold. The old Adam in his case, as in so many others, had inconveniently and inconsistently survived. He had not been able to resist the temptation of wanting to be richer than he truly wanted to be. But in order to cut himself off from any such weakness in the future, he immediately pushed open the trap-door, and told his driver to stop at the nearest telegraph office, and ten minutes after he had taken his final step, wiring both to his broker in London, and in cipher to Mr.

Chava.s.se, at Melbourne, to sell out on Monday morning.

But this weakness was but inconsiderable. He had attained success all down the line; the only wavering had been between completeness and more than completeness. Here, as was natural, the instinct of years stepped in. The habit of making ten pounds in complete safety was more potent than the certainty of making nine. His own large purchase had heralded the rise, the good news from the mine had shouted an endors.e.m.e.nt, the "strong support in Australia," the news of which had reached the market with the infallible result so long foreseen by him, had put the seal on certainty. The deal was beyond doubt.

At last and at last! This crippling of his life was over; he was free from the necessity of money-making, free also, thank G.o.d! from the desire. He no longer wanted more than he certainly had. How much can be said of how few!

His inward happiness seemed reflected in all sorts of small external ways. His horse was fast, his driver nimble at picking an unsuspected way, and the porters at Waterloo, miraculously recovered from the paralysis of the brain induced by Ascot week, not only were in accord as to the platform from which his train would start, but, a thing far more rare and precious, were one and all perfectly correct in their information.

To Mr. Alington, though his nature was far removed from the cynical, this seemed almost too good to be true, till, in his benignant strolls up and down the line of carriages, he met his hostess, Mrs. Murchison.

She was feeling the heat acutely, but was inclined to be talkative.

"So you've come by the early train," she said. "Well, I call that just friendly, and it's the early bird that catches the train, Mr. Alington, and here we are. But the heat is such that if I was wicked and died this moment, I fancy I should send for a thicker mantle, and that's a chestnut. Lady Haslemere comes down by the four something, which slips a carriage at Winchester--or is it five?--which I think perilous. They cast you adrift, the Lord knows where, for I inquired about it, without engine, and if you haven't got an engine, where are you? A straw hat--that's just what we are going to be; a straw-hat party like Lady Conybeare and the tea-gowns, and dinner in the garden."

"That will be delicious," said Mr. Alington after his usual pause.

"Dinner out of door is the only possible way of feeding without the impression of being fed. I always----"

"Well, that's just beautifully put," interrupted Mrs. Murchison. "You get so much all-fresco out of doors. And that's what I missed so much in my last visit to America, where I stopped a fortnight nearly. The set-banquet, with all the ceremonial of the Barmecides, like what Mr.

Murchison rejoices in, and the colour he turns over his dinner, seems to me an utter nihilism of the flow of soul. Why, there's Lady Haslemere!

So she's caught the early bird too."