The Lorimer Line (20 page)

‘And you may run straight back to your own home,' said William, pale with anger. ‘You have no right to enter my house in such a state. Certainly you are not fit to attend my wife.'

‘Man has right to drink's own brandy in ‘s own house, while he has it,' said the doctor, swaying on his feet and
waving his arms in an effort to keep his balance. ‘Man isn't bound to spend every hour of the day waiting the pleasure of Lorimers. Message came. Doctor came. Colour of your money, Mr Lorimer, sir, colour of your money.'

‘Get him back into his gig,' William ordered the footman. ‘Then go to Dr Gregory's house. If you find him out, enquire - ‘

Margaret did not wait to listen as her brother's instructions continued. The messengers would no doubt do the best they could, but Sophie might not be able to wait. She went into her own room, where Betty was unpacking her trunk.

‘Have you ever seen a baby born?' she asked.

‘Not since I was eight years old, Miss.'

‘The midwife may not come in time. Are you willing to help me?'

‘If I can, Miss.' The workmanlike way in which she rolled up her sleeves gave Margaret confidence at once. ‘And the baby comes by itself most times, Miss. It's the part afterwards that I don't know about. Perhaps the midwife will be here for that.'

‘I pray so,' said Margaret. She led the way into Sophie's room and straightened herself to keep her courage up. She had never seen her sister-in-law except when she was dressed for company. To expose her naked limbs, to be forced to stare and to touch - would such an intrusion ever be forgiven? And yet if Dr Scott had been less obviously drunk, he would have been admitted to the bedroom to see and touch whatever parts of his patient's body he liked, and Sophie would not have protested.

Margaret realized that the objections were all in her own mind. No one, since she became a woman, had seen her own naked body: she had never even looked at it herself. But one day, if she married David, she would lie exposed to a doctor and midwife. Even before that David would have the right to share her bedroom. Margaret did
not know much more about marriage than most young women of her age, and her mother's warnings had served to frighten her. She knew that David would want to touch: she suspected that he might also want to look. Somehow she must make herself think of a body, whether Sophie's or her own, as an object which was sometimes in need of care or repair. It was not a cause for shame, she told herself firmly as she fought to control the deep flush which had suffused her face and neck at the thought of David in her bedroom. She forced herself to smile reassuringly as she walked across to Sophie and drew back the sheet.

Much later that night, in the unfamiliar bed, she lay awake for a long time in spite of her exhaustion. The baby was so tiny that the birth, for all Sophie's cries, had not been a difficult one, and a midwife had been found who arrived in time to slap the new arrival into protesting breath and to deal with the after-birth. So small a baby could not be thought of as having a secure place in the world, but for the moment the emergency was over. Margaret had discovered that she could see her own hands covered in blood without either faintness or disgust, and she had felt almost the same sense of achievement as the mother when she supported first the baby's head and then its whole slippery body in her hands.

The feeling which disturbed Margaret and kept her awake was a complicated one. She had been brought up to be useless. She had no training to do anything but live as a mistress of servants, and that life had now been snatched away from her. Although she lacked the skills, the events of the evening had persuaded her that she would not lack the ability to be useful if only she could be properly taught: she had always had the wish to undergo some kind of training. But then she had to remember that she had agreed to marry David, and no husband would allow his wife to be anything but a wife.

No sooner had this thought overthrown the previous one
than it in turn came under challenge. David had wanted to marry the daughter of a wealthy banker who was in a position to advance his career. He might be less enthusiastic about allying himself to a member of a ruined family, taking a bride who lacked a dowry as well as any domestic skills.

Such contradictory feelings fought in her mind to keep her tossing on the bed for half the night. Dawn was already breaking when at last she fell asleep, and it was noon before Betty came to wake her. The first sentence of greeting was enough to banish the doubts of the night.

‘Mr Gregson called while you were asleep,' Betty said. ‘They told him at Brinsley House that you were here. He asked most particular for you to be told that he'd hoped to see you and that he'll call again.'

Margaret hurried from the bed and called for her clothes as quickly as though he could be expected at that moment.

‘And the baby?' she asked. ‘Are he and his mother both well?'

‘Mrs Lorimer is well enough. But not the baby. They found a wet nurse to come this morning, but he's not strong enough to suck. And now they say there's trouble with his breathing. He was christened an hour ago. They think he'll not last the day.'

The news increased Margaret's haste. She gave Betty no time to lace her more than perfunctorily, nor to do more to her hair than brush it and tie it back with a ribbon as though she were still a child in the schoolroom. She emerged from her room just in time to see Dr Scott leaving the house.

‘How could you let that man come back?' she demanded as soon as she found her brother.

William shrugged his shoulders.

‘He was sober this morning. Sober enough to apologize for last night. It was as he said - he had no reason then to expect a call.'

‘But William, he hates us. If he had been sober he might not have spoken as he did, but those would still have been his thoughts.'

‘It makes no difference,' said William. ‘Sophie is well enough, and the nurse will care for her. As for the boy, there is nothing to be done for him. He will die, but that is no fault of the doctor. He was born too soon.'

‘Was it the doctor who said he would die? And do you any longer believe what he tells you?'

‘Look at the child for yourself, Margaret,' said William. He, like everyone else in the house, was tired and strained. With no energy left for argument, he turned away.

She did what he suggested and was shocked to tears by what she saw. When the baby was born his skin had been a beautiful reddish gold. Now all the blood seemed to have drained away, and his lips were blue. Margaret could tell that every breath was a struggle, and that he was too weak to fight for much longer.

‘Doctor says there's some obstruction,' the nurse told her. ‘And his lungs aren't strong enough to overcome it, poor mite.'

Margaret stared down at the tiny face, its eyes screwed up against the light. Then she made up her mind and knelt down beside the cradle, putting her lips to the baby's. When David called an hour later she was forced to send a message that she could not see him.

He came again during the evening of the next day. Margaret, who had been listening all afternoon for the ring of the doorbell, ran to fling herself into his arms as soon as he was shown into the drawing room. The household was too disturbed for anyone to reflect that a chaperone was required, and the events of the past hours had undermined all the formality of manner which had inhibited Margaret herself in the past.

‘I'm so very glad to see you, and so sorry to have wasted your time yesterday. But William told you the reason?'

She became excited again as she described what had happened. She knew the importance of what she had done, for it seemed sure by now that baby Arthur had a good chance of life. The fortunes of her family, and the affairs of the bank, had been completely thrust out of her mind, even when she was describing Dr Scott's extraordinary drunken outburst.

‘Then the next day, though he was sober, he said that the baby could not be saved. Yet as soon as I learned of the difficulty I could see what might at least be tried. Either he was ignorant or else he was lying,
wanting
the baby to die. I think his mind has become unbalanced. Why should such a thing happen so suddenly? And what have the Lorimers done to cause it?'

David took a deep breath and Margaret, suddenly sobered by the gravity of his expression, remembered that there were more things than a doctor's drunkenness to be explained.

‘How much has your father told you of the affairs of the past few days?' he asked.

‘He told me that the bank has failed, had closed its door. Nothing more. He was too upset to speak.'

‘And what do you understand by the failure?'

‘That all his money is lost. It was deposited, I suppose, in his own bank, and will not now be repaid. Although I hardly understand why, if it has been lent out, it should not be called back from those who borrowed it.'

‘Some of the borrowers were businesses which have proved unsound,' David told her. ‘Trading companies whose trade has fallen off in the past few years. They already face bankruptcy themselves. There are other firms, like the Lorimer Line and Crankshaw's dock development company, which will be able to repay their debts in the end, but only over a long period.'

‘Is it true that Dr Scott will also have lost all his money?' asked Margaret. The doctor's outburst had for some reason
made her more puzzled about his situation than about her father's or her own. ‘Even if his deposits are gone, surely he still has his house. He can still practise as a doctor. His patients will continue to pay him for what he does now, even though he may have lost his savings from the past. Why should he say that his wife will starve?'

‘It is not because Dr Scott deposited his money in the bank that he will find himself ruined,' said David. ‘The depositors may be lucky enough to get some of their money back in the end. But Dr Scott was also a shareholder.'

‘What difference does that make?'

‘The bank is owned by its proprietors, the people who hold its shares,' David explained. ‘When there are profits, the shareholders divide these profits between them. When there are losses, these also must be divided.'

‘But Dr Scott is not a rich man. He cannot have invested any very large sum.'

‘Unfortunately that makes no difference,' said David. ‘His liability for the bank's debts is not limited to the amount of his shareholding. It is true that Parliament passed an Act a few years ago to ensure that the liability of shareholders
would
be limited to this amount in future. This was because so much distress was caused by bank failures in 1866. Newly-formed companies, including banks, were required to conform to the provisions of the Act. But existing companies could choose whether or not to change their articles.'

‘And Lorimer's Bank?'

‘Made no change,' said David. ‘There are about fifteen hundred proprietors and they have provided the bank with a capital of half a million pounds. Its debts, represented by its bank notes, the bills drawn upon it, and its receipts to depositors, may amount to five million pounds. If Dr Scott has invested a thousand pounds, he will be called upon to pay ten thousand. And if he cannot pay, his house may indeed, as he fears, be sold to raise the money.'

Margaret had been sitting as close to David as she could on the sofa. Now she drew a little away, examining his expression in the hope that she would find he was exaggerating.

‘But that is unjust!' she exclaimed, when his seriousness forced her to accept what she had heard.

David nodded his agreement.

‘There is worse to come,' he said. ‘Many of the proprietors are far from rich. The whole estate of a widow, or one that is on trust for a child, is often invested in an institution like a bank, because it seems so safe. Let us say that there is a shareholder with fewer assets even than Dr Scott. When he is called to pay ten pounds for every pound he invested, he cannot do it. He goes bankrupt. And then the money which was called unsuccessfully from him is added to the debt and divided amongst those shareholders who still have possessions: on them a second call will be made. Only the very richest men can survive such a system. For the others, bankruptcy is the only end. A man of Dr Scott's age can remember what happened in 1866. He knows what will happen now. He is right to be frightened - although wrong, of course, to vent his anger on an infant.'

Margaret was silent for a moment, but she understood David's explanation well enough to apply it at last to her own situation.

‘And my father is a proprietor,' she said.

‘The largest,' David told her. ‘It is because he owns more than half the shares that he has been able to control the bank's affairs.'

‘So his house too must be sold, and all his fortune taken away?'

‘Unless he has assets about which I know nothing.'

‘There is the jade,' said Margaret. ‘But no, his wealth can hardly amount to five million pounds, and this is the amount which you say he might be called on to pay.'

Again she was silent, until her sympathy for her father desolated her. ‘What can he do?' she asked herself aloud. ‘He is almost eighty. He has been wealthy all his life, and accustomed to comfort and service. Oh, my poor father, what will he do? And I can do nothing for him, because I shall be destitute too.'

The realization came to her suddenly. She thought she had accepted the fact that she would be poor, but this was the first moment when she realized that she had nothing at all. She whispered, as though ashamed to be thinking of herself, ‘What is to happen to me?'

‘You will be my wife,' said David. He took both her hands and held them firmly. ‘We shall be very poor at first, but I shall be all the less concerned about that for knowing that you have not had to leave a life of wealth in order to marry me. I am young and I shall work hard and we shall be together. We must make our own future, but it will be better in the end than living on someone else's past.'