The Way We Live Now (51 page)

‘What do you mean by that, Mr Melmotte?' asked Paul.

‘What do I mean? – Certainly nothing adverse to your character, sir. Your firm in San Francisco, sir, know very well how the affairs of the company are being transacted on this side of the water. No doubt you are in correspondence with Mr Fisker. Ask him. The telegraph wires are open to you, sir. But, my Lords and Gentlemen, I am able to inform you that in affairs of this nature great discretion is necessary. On behalf of the shareholders at large whose interests are in our hands, I think it expedient that any general statement should be postponed for a short time, and I flatter myself that in that opinion I shall carry the majority of this board with me.' Mr Melmotte did not make his speech very fluently; but, being accustomed to the place which he occupied, he did manage to get the words spoken in such a way as to make them intelligible to the company. ‘I now move that this meeting be adjourned to this day week,' he added.

‘I second that motion,' said Lord Alfred, without moving his hand from his breast.

‘I understood that we were to have a statement,' said Montague.

‘You've had a statement,' said Mr Cohenlupe.

‘I will put my motion to the vote,' said the chairman.

‘I shall move an amendment,' said Paul, determined that he would not be altogether silenced.

‘There is nobody to second it,' said Mr Cohenlupe.

‘How do you know till I've made it?' asked the rebel. ‘I shall ask Lord
Nidderdale to second it, and when he has heard it I think that he will not refuse.'

‘Oh, gracious me! why me? No; – don't ask me. I've got to go away. I have indeed.'

‘At any rate I claim the right of saying a few words. I do not say whether every affair of this company should or should not be published to the world.'

‘You'd break up everything if you did,' said Cohenlupe.

‘Perhaps everything ought to be broken up. But I say nothing about that. What I do say is this. That as we sit here as directors and will be held to be responsible as such by the public, we ought to know what is being done. We ought to know where the shares really are. I for one do not even know what scrip has been issued.'

‘You've bought and sold enough to know something about it,' said Melmotte.

Paul Montague became very red in the face. ‘I, at any rate, began,' he said, ‘by putting what was to me a large sum of money into the affair.'

‘That's more than I know,' said Melmotte. ‘Whatever shares you have, were issued at San Francisco, and not here.'

‘I have taken nothing that I haven't paid for,' said Montague. ‘Nor have I yet had allotted to me anything like the number of shares which my capital would represent. But I did not intend to speak of my own concerns.'

‘It looks very like it,' said Cohenlupe.

‘So far from it that I am prepared to risk the not improbable loss of everything I have in the world. I am determined to know what is being done with the shares, or to make it public to the world at large that I, one of the directors of the company, do not in truth know anything about it. I cannot, I suppose, absolve myself from further responsibility; but I can at any rate do what is right from this time forward – and that course I intend to take.'

‘The gentleman had better resign his seat at this board,' said Melmotte. ‘There will be no difficulty about that.'

‘Bound up as I am with Fisker and Montague in California I fear that there will be difficulty.'

‘Not in the least,' continued the chairman. ‘You need only gazette
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your resignation and the thing is done. I had intended, gentlemen, to propose an addition to our number. When I name to you a gentleman, personally known to many of you, and generally esteemed throughout England as a man of business, as a man of probity, and as a man of
fortune, a man standing deservedly high in all British circles, I mean Mr Longestaffe of Caversham –'

‘Young Dolly, or old?' asked Lord Nidderdale.

‘I mean Mr Adolphus Longestaffe, senior, of Caversham. I am sure that you will all be glad to welcome him among you. I had thought to strengthen our number by this addition. But if Mr Montague is determined to leave us – and no one will regret the loss of his services so much as I shall – it will be my pleasing duty to move that Adolphus Longestaffe, senior, Esquire, of Caversham, be requested to take his place. If on reconsideration Mr Montague shall determine to remain with us – and I for one most sincerely hope that such reconsideration may lead to such determination – then I shall move that an additional director be added to our number, and that Mr Longestaffe be requested to take the chair of that additional director.' The latter speech Mr Melmotte got through very glibly, and then immediately left the chair, so as to show that the business of the board was closed for that day without any possibility of re-opening it.

Paul went up to him and took him by the sleeve, signifying that he wished to speak to him before they parted. ‘Certainly,' said the great man bowing. ‘Carbury,' he said, looking round on the young baronet with his blandest smile, ‘if you are not in a hurry, wait a moment for me. I have a word or two to say before you go. Now, Mr Montague, what can I do for you?' Paul began his story, expressing again the opinion which he had already very plainly expressed at the table. But Melmotte stopped him very shortly, and with much less courtesy than he had shown in the speech, which he had made from the chair. ‘The thing is about this way, I take it, Mr Montague – you think you know more of this matter than I do.'

‘Not at all ,Mr Melmotte.'

‘And I think that I know more of it than you do. Either of us may be right. But as I don't intend to give way to you, perhaps the less we speak together about it the better. You can't be in earnest in the threat you made, because you would be making public things communicated to you under the seal of privacy – and no gentleman would do that. But as long as you are hostile to me, I can't help you – and so good afternoon.' Then, without giving Montague the possibility of a reply, he escaped into an inner room which had the word ‘Private' painted on the door, and which was supposed to belong to the chairman individually. He shut the door behind him, and then, after a few moments, put out his head and beckoned to Sir Felix Carbury. Nidderdale was gone. Lord
Alfred with his son was already on the stairs. Cohenlupe was engaged with Melmotte's clerk on the record-book. Paul Montague finding himself without support and alone, slowly made his way out into the court.

Sir Felix had come into the City intending to suggest to the chairman that having paid his thousand pounds he should like to have a few shares to go on with. He was, indeed, at the present moment very nearly penniless, and had negotiated, or lost at cards, all the IOUs which were in any degree serviceable. He still had a pocket-book full of those issued by Miles Grendall; but it was now an understood thing at the Beargarden that no one was to be called upon to take them except Miles Grendall himself – an arrangement which robbed the card-table of much of its delight. Beyond this, also, he had lately been forced to issue a little paper himself – in doing which he had talked largely of his shares in the railway. His case certainly was hard. He had actually paid a thousand pounds down in hard cash, a commercial transaction which, as performed by himself, he regarded as stupendous. It was almost incredible to himself that he should have paid any one a thousand pounds, but he had done it with much difficulty – having carried Dolly junior with him all the way into the City – in the belief that he would thus put himself in the way of making a continual and unfailing income. He understood that as a director he would be always entitled to buy shares at par, and, as a matter of course, always able to sell them at the market price. This he understood to range from ten to fifteen and twenty per cent profit. He would have nothing to do but to buy and sell daily. He was told that Lord Alfred was allowed to do it to a small extent; and that Melmotte was doing it to an enormous extent. But before he could do it he must get something – he hardly knew what – out of Melmotte's hands. Melmotte certainly did not seem disposed to shun him, and therefore there could be no difficulty about the shares. As to danger – who could think of danger in reference to money intrusted to the hands of Augustus Melmotte?

‘I am delighted to see you here,' said Melmotte, shaking him cordially by the hand. ‘You come regularly, and you'll find that it will be worth your while. There's nothing like attending to business. You should be here every Friday.'

‘I will,' said the baronet.

‘And let me see you sometimes up at my place in Abchurch Lane. I can put you more in the way of understanding things there than I can here. This is all a mere formal sort of thing. You can see that.'

‘Oh yes, I see that.'

‘We are obliged to have this kind of thing for men like that fellow Montague. By-the-by, is he a friend of yours?'

‘Not particularly. He is a friend of a cousin of mine; and the women know him at home. He isn't a pal of mine, if you mean that.'

‘If he makes himself disagreeable, he'll have to go to the wall – that's all. But never mind him at present. Was your mother speaking to you of what I said to her?'

‘No, Mr Melmotte,' said Sir Felix, staring with all his eyes.

‘I was talking to her about you, and I thought that perhaps she might have told you. This is all nonsense, you know, about you and Marie.' Sir Felix looked into the man's face. It was not savage, as he had seen it. But there had suddenly come upon his brow that heavy look of a determined purpose which all who knew the man were wont to mark. Sir Felix had observed it a few minutes since in the board-room, when the chairman was putting down the rebellious director. ‘You understand that; don't you?' Sir Felix still looked at him, but made no reply. ‘It's all d– nonsense. You haven't got a brass farthing, you know. You've no income at all; you're just living on your mother, and I'm afraid she's not very well off. How can you suppose that I shall give my girl to you?' Felix still looked at him but did not dare to contradict a single statement made. Yet when the man told him that he had not a brass farthing he thought of his own thousand pounds which were now in the man's pocket ‘You're a baronet, and that's about all, you know,' continued Melmotte. ‘The Carbury property, which is a very small thing, belongs to a distant cousin who may leave it to me if he pleases – and who isn't very much older than you are yourself.'

‘Oh, come, Mr Melmotte; he's a great deal older than me.'

‘It wouldn't matter if he were as old as Adam. The thing is out of the question, and you must drop it.' Then the look on his brow became a little heavier. ‘You hear what I say. She is going to marry Lord Nidderdale. She was engaged to him before you ever saw her. What do you expect to get by it?'

Sir Felix had not the courage to say that he expected to get the girl he loved. But as the man waited for an answer he was obliged to say something. ‘I suppose it's the old story,' he said.

‘Just so – the old story. You want my money, and she wants you, just because she has been told to take somebody else. You want something to live on – that's what you want Come – out with it. Is not that it? When we understand each other I'll put you in the way of making money.'

‘Of course I'm not very well off,' said Felix.

‘About as badly as any young man that I can hear of. You give me
your written promise that you'll drop this affair with Marie, and you shan't want for money.'

‘A written promise!'

‘Yes – a written promise. I give nothing for nothing. I'll put you in the way of doing so well with these shares that you shall be able to marry any other girl you please – or to live without marrying, which you'll find to be better.'

There was something worthy of consideration in Mr Melmotte's proposition. Marriage of itself, simply as a domestic institution, had not specially recommended itself to Sir Felix Carbury. A few horses at Leighton, Ruby Ruggles or any other beauty, and life at the Beargarden were much more to his taste. And then he was quite alive to the fact that it was possible that he might find himself possessed of the wife without the money. Marie, indeed, had a grand plan of her own, with reference to that settled income; but then Marie might be mistaken – or she might be lying. If he were sure of making money in the way Melmotte now suggested, the loss of Marie would not break his heart. But then also Melmotte might be – lying. ‘By-the-by, Mr Melmotte,' said he, ‘could you let me have those shares?'

‘What shares?' And the heavy brow became still heavier.

‘Don't you know? – I gave you a thousand pounds, and I was to have ten shares.'

‘You must come about that on the proper day, to the proper place.'

‘When is the proper day?'

‘It is the twentieth of each month, I think.' Sir Felix looked very blank at hearing this, knowing that this present was the twenty-first of the month. ‘But what does that signify? Do you want a little money?'

‘Well, I do,' said Sir Felix. ‘A lot of fellows owe me money, but it's so hard to get it.'

‘That tells a story of gambling,' said Mr Melmotte. ‘You think I'd give my girl to a gambler?'

‘Nidderdale's in it quite as thick as I am.'

‘Nidderdale has a settled property which neither he nor his father can destroy. But don't you be such a fool as to argue with me. You won't get anything by it. If you'll write that letter here now –'

‘What – to Marie?'

‘No – not to Marie at all; but to me. It need never be shown to her. If you'll do that I'll stick to you and make a man of you. And if you want a couple of hundred pounds I'll give you a cheque for it before you leave the room. Mind, I can tell you this. On my word of honour as a
gentleman, if my daughter were to marry you, she'd never have a single shilling. I should immediately make a will and leave all my property to St George's Hospital. I have quite made up my mind about that.'