The Lorimer Line (24 page)

His sister, devoting her days to the care of baby Arthur and her nights to tears for her lost lover, did not appreciate how unusual William's position was. The requirements of mourning demanded that she should avoid all society after her mother's death, so she was exposed neither to the ostracism which might have faced her from unkind acquaintances nor to the facts and rumours of bankruptcies which she would have heard from her remaining friends. She noticed, naturally, that William was not as low in spirits as might have been expected. If she had been more knowledgeable about financial matters she might have connected this with a casual remark of his one day that Lloyd's had been creditably prompt in paying the insurance claim for the loss of the
Georgiana
and that this was no bad time to have a little liquid capital. What she did know was that he spent a good deal of his time with lawyers and accountants, and she was prepared to believe that he had inherited the financial acumen which had deserted John Junius only in the years of his old age. But she was too miserable on her own account to think very much about her brother's affairs. Every night as she went to bed she assured herself that she could never have been happy with a man who regarded her father as a criminal; and every night the hot tears cooled on her cheeks as she fell asleep knowing that she would never be happy with anyone else.

John Junius, all this time, remained alone at Brinsley House. Almost all the servants had been sent away, though a cook and a manservant remained to attend to him. The house became chill and damp, for only in the library was a fire ever lit. All the other rooms, except for his bedroom and the kitchens, were closed and shuttered, waiting for the furniture to be carried away and sold. He spent his time preparing explanations and justifications of the balance sheets which would be presented at his trial, and received no visitors except his solicitor and the members of his family.

The jade collection, and the Indian and Persian screens, were the first to go. Margaret and Ralph arrived at Brinsley House one morning to find a carter waiting outside, while a squad of men filled packing cases with the precious carvings. They were to be sent to London for auction, John Junius told them as he supervised the work. There was no money in Bristol to spare for such luxuries, and the Receiver who was handling the bank's affairs had arranged that they should be sold where the highest prices were likely to be obtained for the creditors. John Junius spoke in his usual brusque manner, as though the silent despair to which the death of his wife and the fall of his bank had reduced him was already a thing of the past, and the future something to be faced with confidence. He even turned on Ralph with an accusing air to demand why he was not at Oxford.

‘There is surely no money to pay the fees,' answered Ralph in surprise.

‘The money will be found. Your college will recognize that our difficulties are purely temporary.'

‘But the fees are only a small part of the expense, Father. In such a place one must be able to live like a gentleman. I have accepted the fact that this way of life is no longer possible for me.'

‘Then what, may I ask, do you propose to do with yourself?'

‘I must look for employment.'

‘With what qualifications? You are of no use to society in your present state.'

‘That's hardly my fault, Father. Perhaps William will employ me as a clerk in his office.'

John Junius turned away, his fists clenched with anger. The door of the library slammed behind him. Margaret looked reproachfully at her younger brother.

‘Oh Ralph, it is unkind of you to remind Papa that he is
no longer able to give you the kind of life he would wish for you.'

‘He has always believed that he has some kind of claim on society, that he must always be well treated,' said Ralph. ‘I make no such claim for myself. I have deserved nothing of anybody. And it seems to me that our family has lived for too long on the sufferings of others. If I am the one who must pay for this, it is a situation I accept.'

They began to walk together back to The Ivies.

‘If William were to offer …' began Margaret; but Ralph shrugged his shoulders.

‘He has not done so, though he knows my circumstances. I don't wish to sponge on him. Although he has not lost his capital, like so many of our friends, he hardly gives the impression of having more income than he needs.'

It was difficult for Margaret to make any comment. William had inherited from his father a dislike of any kind of ostentation. Although Sophie had brought him money, it might all have been invested in the shipping line for the sake of future profits. Margaret had no better idea than Ralph whether it would be easy for their brother to be generous.

‘If you had the choice,' she said. ‘If there were no problem of money, what would you do with your life?'

‘That's something I've thought about over and over again. Before leaving school I discussed my feelings with Dr Percival and was told by him that if I prayed every night I would be guided to learn whether my wishes were in accordance with God's plan. So I have prayed, and now I am sure that it is my duty to atone for my own guilt and that of our family over the centuries. We have never deserved our wealth. It is not enough to do without it now. We should try to recompense in some way those we have wronged.'

Margaret looked at her eighteen-year-old brother with new eyes. After Claudine's announcement of her pregnancy
and hurried departure for France, Ralph had changed with surprising speed from an idle schoolboy interested mainly in cricket to a serious young man dividing his time between his books and his devotions. The change had become most noticeable at the time of their mother's death and the unhappy events which followed, so she had not thought of it as needing any further explanation.

‘Recompense them by earning a fortune and giving it away, do you mean? You are hardly likely to become rich as a clerk of the Lorimer Line.'

Ralph shook his head.

‘You asked me what I would choose if I were free to do so. I would study to be ordained. And then, when I had taken Holy Orders, I would go as a missionary and minister to those poor wretches whose ancestors were transported by ours from their homes.' He shrugged his shoulders. ‘But my choice is not free. Without money I cannot study. At least, not at once. So William is my best hope. If he will employ me for a little, no matter how humbly, I can perhaps work hard enough to earn promotion and begin to save. I shall ask him today.'

The conversation was a reminder to Margaret that she would need to consider her own future. But her thoughts were diverted from this by a letter which had arrived at The Ivies during her brief absence. She had written earlier to her friend Lydia to say where she was staying. Now she was alarmed to see that the letter sent in return was, like her own, sealed with black wax. She opened it hastily.

The news it contained made her cry out in sympathy. Lydia's news was as bad as could be imagined. Her fiancé had been killed in an ambush laid in the Khyber Pass by the Afghan leader, Sher Ali. This fact she stated baldly enough, but then her writing became a scrawl and her message distraught as she expressed desolation at the thought of the life of futility which lay ahead. ‘For you know, my dear Margaret, how high I rated my good
fortune in being chosen by so admirable a man when I had so little to recommend me.'

Margaret guessed what she meant. Even if her grief should abate sufficiently for her to take notice of any other man, Lydia herself knew well enough how lacking she was in outward grace and beauty. And although her parents lived comfortably enough in Bath, she had revealed to Margaret in past exchanges of confidence that her father's whole estate was entailed on his nephew. If she failed to establish a household of her own before her father died, she must look to a future life without independent means.

For a second time Margaret was reminded, even as she hurried to write her condolences, that this was also her own situation. She began to consider the possibilities seriously, but did not speak of them to anyone at first, preferring to wait until the family's affairs had reached a more settled state.

Ralph's position was more quickly improved. He burst into the nursery a few days later. Arthur was receiving his evening feed from the wet-nurse, so that Ralph ought to have retired from the scene at once, but he was still staring at the woman's bare breast when Margaret hurried him from the room. She intended to scold, but did not have the heart when she saw his excitement.

‘I am to go to Oxford after all, Margaret. William has undertaken my support. I may repay him, he says, later in life when I have a stipend to bear the debt. He approves my plan of ordination and feels that it should not be prevented by an accident which comes at such an unfortunate time in my life. I should leave at once, he says, and work hard to make up the time lost.'

Margaret was pleased on his behalf, and called Betty at once to help with his packing. She wondered whether the generous offer came from William's own purse or whether by some miracle the jade collection had proved to be more valuable even than anyone had suspected, raising enough
money at auction to pay off the whole of her father's debt. But William shook his head gloomily when she enquired after the success of the sale. The collection had raised a far smaller amount than expected. It was difficult to tell why. Perhaps the whole country was feeling some of the effects of the trading difficulties which afflicted Bristol and Glasgow with such particular severity. Or perhaps John Junius had exaggerated the value of his own pieces in order that the legacy he had intended to make to the city should seem more generous.

On the heels of the jade sale came the auction of Brinsley House. Margaret, of course, did not attend it, and it was once again from William that she learned how low the bids had been. There was no one in Bristol, he explained, who could afford at this moment to put down a large amount of capital for such a substantial property. The Receiver had been told in advance that this would certainly be the case, and that it would be necessary to place a low reserve on the house if it were to find a buyer at all, but he had refused to believe it. His reserve had been too high, and had not been reached. Now he would have to accept that its value today was only a fraction of what might have been asked for it a year or two earlier. He would have to sell it to anyone who was prepared to take it on, however low the price.

Margaret was disturbed by the news, but William tried to persuade her that it was not important.

‘When all this is finished, Father will have nothing left in any case,' he said. ‘You must make up your mind to that. Whatever the size of the total amount raised by the sale of all his possessions, the advantage can only be to the creditors of the bank. There has never been any possibility that the Receiver's calls could be met with any money to spare.'

It was what David had already told her, and this time she forced herself to believe it. She asked William more
questions and learned that David's other prophecies were also coming true. The Receiver had made a first call on the shareholders for a sum equal to eight times the shareholding which each possessed. Even that would not have been enough to cover the debt, but still it was too much. So many had already been driven into bankruptcy, failing to meet the call in spite of the sale of their houses and businesses, that a second call had gone out to those who remained solvent.

‘How is Dr Scott? Did he survive the first call?' asked Margaret, remembering how grateful he had been when allowed to invest in the bank, and how abusively he had reacted to its collapse.

William shook his head.

‘His worst fears have already been realized. His house is up for sale, like so many others, but it is no longer his own property. The proceeds will go to the Receiver.'

‘So what will he do?'

‘He should be luckier than some, since his profession requires little capital. And he has a son, Charles, who is also a qualified doctor, working in London. He will presumably be able to find work in the capital if he goes to live with Charles. For the time being, I have come to an arrangement with him. If I pay his bills now, the money will go into his pool of assets on which the Receiver may call. I have promised instead to settle the whole account for his attendance on Sophie and Arthur after he has been formally declared bankrupt.'

Margaret had been so upset by the doctor's drunken behaviour on the night of Arthur's birth that she found it hard to be as sympathetic as she ought. Yet she could not help seeing that his provocation had been great - indeed, she was surprised that he was still willing to attend William's family.

Until a short time ago her life had been sheltered, allowing her no experience of the manner in which passion
overcomes reason. By now she had learned the strength of love. What she had not yet experienced, and could not comprehend, was the power of hatred.

To a man of humbled pride, what generosity can exceed a gift made with such discretion that it is impossible to thank the giver? Not long after the auction at which Brinsley House had failed to find a buyer, Margaret was visiting her father when a letter was delivered for him. He read it through twice and then handed it across to her. It came from a firm of lawyers, not his own. They had the honour to inform Mr Lorimer that Brinsley House had recently been purchased by a client who wished for the time being to remain anonymous. Now that the price had been paid to the Receiver, their client wished to assure Mr Lorimer that he would be welcome to remain in the house for as long as he wished.

‘Who can it be?' asked Margaret.

‘I have never doubted that I still have friends,' said her father with some complacency. ‘No doubt they have banded together to support me. Will you come back, Margaret, or do you intend staying with William?'

Margaret recognized the appeal which her father was too proud to put into words, and at once assured him that she would return. It proved a bleak homecoming. The contents of the house were to be auctioned
in situ
- notices of the sale had already appeared in the local newspapers. She arrived at the house with her luggage to find the auctioneer and his clerk busily naming and numbering each lot for the catalogue. They worked without sentiment, only pausing occasionally to debate whether a particular piece of furniture could be ascribed to a particular date or
maker; whether the handsome leather-bound books whose gold tooling glinted behind the mesh which guarded the bookcases should be sold by the volume or by the shelf. Margaret watched as they inspected the portraits of her ancestors. They were unlabelled, because the family had always known who they were. ‘Portrait of an unknown man in seventeenth-century costume,' dictated the auctioneer in a toneless voice, and Margaret turned away from the scene with a heavy heart.