CHAPTER XIIITHE CRASH
The first to see the blue letters was a milkman driving his wagon into town. At first he thought it some advertisement such as was often posted in conspicuous places, and wondered a little to see it where it was. Then, as he drew near enough to read it, he nearly fell over among his cans, while his hair seemed rising on his head. He was one of those who had taken his money from the National and deposited it in Grey’s Bank, where there were now nearly one hundred and fifty dollars. Not a large sum, but representing a great deal to him—a new range his wife had set her heart upon, and his winter’s coal; a new overcoat for Johnny, and one for himself, and so on. The whole list came up before him as his lips formed the words, “This bank closed,” but gave no sound. Men have lost their thousands and never felt it more keenly than the milkman, who did not notice that his horse had started on, thinking he had been long enough in one place. The first stop was near by, and as the maid came out with her bowl the milkman said to her with long-drawn breaths:
“Grey’s Bank has busted! Got anything in it?”
In a moment the bowl, milk and all, were on the walk, and the girl was staring open-mouthed across the street at the placard on the door.
“Failed! Burst! and my money gone! It can’t be,” and she began to cry, while the milkman drove on, carrying the news with him, until every house on his beat knew it, and half-dressed men, and women, too, were in the street, hurrying towards the bank, as they had done on the morning of the great run.
The cashier, who boarded near by and had just risen, was pounced upon to tell what he knew. He knew nothing, except that funds were rather low, as they had been several times when the bank had righted again.
“Good heavens! I ain’t to blame,” he said to the excited crowd, which looked as if about to lay violent hands on him. “I can’t help it. I didn’t know it,” and he started for the street, putting on his coat as he ran.
By this time there was quite a crowd of people around the bank, reading the notice and giving vent to their feelings as they read.
“Let us in,” some said to the cashier; but he knew better than that, and shook his head.
“I haven’t the key. Wait for the boss,” he said.
“Where is he? Where’s Grey? Call him up. We want to know what he has to say for himself,”was heard on every side, while two or three rushed to a store near by, where there was a telephone, each trying to reach it first.
“Leave it to me,” the cashier said, and the Central was rung up and “Grey at his house” called for, while “Halloo!” soon came in response, in Louie’s voice.
“I want your father,” the cashier screamed in his excitement, and Louie replied:
“He is not here. We don’t know where he is. What is the matter?”
“The bank is closed—failed! Where can he be?” was shouted, but Louie didn’t answer.
She had dropped insensible upon the floor, where the housemaid found her a few minutes later. Her mother had missed her father, and was making inquiries for him when the message came through the ‘phone, bringing alarm and dismay and an insight into some things which had seemed strange of late.
It did not take long to restore Louie to consciousness, and in a few minutes she was on her wheel, speeding away to the bank, where she felt her father was.
On her way she passed the White House, and glanced towards it with a thought of Herbert, and what he would say and do, and with a thought, too, of Fred Lansing on the ocean that summer day, with no suspicion of what was transpiring in Merivale. This she did not know, as she had not heardwhat the judge said to Herbert when he gave him Fred’s letter the day before.
The village was thoroughly roused by this time, and the country, too. No one could tell who carried it, but the news had reached Godfrey Sheldon, as he was washing himself in a tin basin by the well, and thinking what a hot day it was going to be for him to drive to an adjoining town to pay for some oxen and a Jersey cow, the money for which he must get from Grey’s Bank. To say that he swore is putting it mildly, and between his swearing and excitement he emptied the tin basin into the well and finished his ablutions in the pail of water drawn for the house. He called himself a fool for leaving so much in the bank as he ran his horse into town, hoping against hope, and finding that the worst had happened when he saw the notice on the door and the crowd in the street.
“Heavens and earth!” he exclaimed, clutching first one and then another. “How much do you s’pose he’ll pay on the dollar? or be we tee-totally swamped?”
Nobody answered him. Nobody knew. Each was intent upon himself, and Nancy Sharp was the most intent of all. She had heard the news in White’s Row, where as usual on Monday morning she was busy over her washtub. For a moment she seemed paralyzed, and stood with her mouth wide open and a wet towel dangling high in the air anddripping up her arms and down to the floor. Then she started for the scene of action, outrunning every one who joined her. If she was excited at the great run, she was now a howling hyena, threatening to tear out Grey’s heart if she could get at him.
“All my savings in hard, round silver dollars gone, and wasn’t it only Saturday I put in the last, and he took it—the wretch, knowin’ he was busted!” she said, and this was the plaint of three or four more who had hurried to place their money with the man they trusted, and for whom now there were not names bad enough.
Even Louie, the favorite of the town, was greeted with a low hiss from some quarter as she rode into their midst and, dismounting, said:
“Hasn’t father appeared? He must be in the bank. Open the door, somebody.”
She looked helplessly round, while many voices cried:
“Yes, open the door, and bring him out and make him tell us what he has done with our money, or we’ll hang him up on a tree,” one brutal fellow, who had only twenty dollars in the bank, said.
“Easy enough to tell. Spent it in fine carriages, and horses, and diamonds, and pianos, and party gowns,” some one replied.
“And hundred-dollar bicycles!” was added, with a glance at Louie, who was leaning on her wheel, sick at heart as she heard what was said, andthought how soon the loss of money would transform seeming friends into cruel foes.
She had beckoned the cashier to her, and asked for a key. On being told that her father had both, she said:
“I am sure he is here. He is not at home. We must get to him somehow.”
She did not think of suicide, or that he was asleep. He was there, and afraid to come out, and she kept calling to him, “Father, let me in! It is Louie!” while there fell a kind of hush upon the people waiting for the answer, and pressing into the rear yard near the door.
“Oh, keep back, please,” she said, as she heard her father trying to unlock the door.
“Not much back. I’m going to have my silver dollars—seventy-five of ’em! He can’t have spent ’em all since Saturday night,” Nancy Sharp screamed, crowding up to the door, which was opened slowly, disclosing a face before which the crowd recoiled, it was so corpse-like and haggard, with a wild look in the bloodshot eyes, and a tremor about the lips which tried to smile as Mr. Grey said:
“Good-morning, friends. Excuse me for not coming to you before. I must have overslept. Please let my daughter in a moment, and I’ll come out and explain, or Lawyer Blake will do it for me. Isn’t he here?”
He had listened for the muttering of the storm,and when it came and increased in violence and he knew that a crowd was gathering in the street and would soon be clamoring for him, all his courage left him, and as the angry voices grew louder and there were kicks and thumps on the door, with cries for Grey to show himself, he cowered in a corner in abject fear of what awaited him beyond the heavy doors of his bank. Was there no friend outside? No one to stand between him and bodily harm? he was asking himself, when Louie’s voice came to him like a pæan of safety. No one would touch him with her at his side, and summoning all his courage he unlocked the door, greeted the people with his old-time courtesy, and asked for Lawyer Blake, who had just arrived, and with the cashier and Louie entered the room, the door of which was closed.
“Good-morning, Blake,” Mr. Grey said, as if it were an ordinary meeting. “I suppose you have brought that paper. Get at it, please, while I have my wits. That noise outside drives me half crazy.”
The paper was hastily produced, signed by Mr. Grey, and acknowledged before the cashier as notary and delivered to Mr. Blake.
“There, that’s over,” Mr. Grey said, “and now please step into the front room. I must speak to Louie.”
They left him alone with his daughter, who stood gazing at him in horror, he was so changed. Alonewith her he broke down entirely, and covering his face with his hands, sobbed like a child, while she regarded him fixedly and almost sternly.
“Oh, Louie,” he began feebly and in a whisper, “I dreaded you more than any one else—more than your mother. She is my wife and must stand by me and will not feel it as keenly as you, who have thought me so perfect. Oh, Louie, when I kissed you last night, I thought it might be for the last time. Let me sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”
He tottered to the couch, and she came and stood beside him, listening while he told her of his speculations, first with his own money and then with the depositors’; and how, when funds were needed for the house, he had drawn from the bank, when he had none there which lawfully belonged to him.
“And that isn’t the worst,” he said, as if resolved to make a clean breast of it; “it was not always stocks. It was regular gambling at the last. You asked me once if I were a gambler. I told you no. I wasn’t then. I have been since. I had a friend in New York who for a percentage did it for me with money I sent him—sometimes my own but oftener other people’s. Sometimes he won; sometimes he lost, and latterly it was more loss than gain. Everything was loss. I expected a big sum yesterday which would have put me on my feet, and had sworn to be an honest man if it came. I did, Louie, and I prayed in church all the time thatit might come, and I’d begin new. The news came, and it was ruin. Your money is safe. I couldn’t let you lose that, and I took one hundred and fifty dollars from the funds and put away for you.”
There were little spots of red in the eyes which flashed angrily as Louie exclaimed, “I shall not touch it! I shall share with the rest! I can afford to lose far better than many of them!”
To this Mr. Grey made no reply, but continued: “I’ve made Blake my assignee. I saw him yesterday, and I made Nancy Sharp a preferred creditor. It’s a big joke,” and he laughed as he thought of the joke. Then he went on: “Stand by me, Louie. No matter how bad I am, I am your father, and love you so much. Don’t let them send me to prison. They can do it if they want to. And don’t look so at me,” he added, as Louie’s face grew paler and her eyes darker with a look she had never given him before, and from which he shrank. “I thought to end my life last night, and again this morning, but a thought of you restrained me. I have the means—see!” and held up the revolver, while Louie drew back from him a moment.
Then, with a quick movement she took it from him, and said:
“Father, would you kill yourself? Shame on you! Better State’s prison than that. I would rather think of you a felon than a suicide. How many balls are there in it?”
“Three,” he answered, and in rapid succession three reports rang through the room, the balls entering the floor, at which they were aimed.
Outside there was comparative quiet, for Mr. Blake had left the bank by the front door, and was explaining as well as he could, and advising the people to go home. Everything would be settled in time, and matters might not be as bad as they seemed. Mr. Grey would do everything he could for them, and they could do no good hanging round the bank.
“But we want to see Grey, and give him a piece of our mind,” several said.
These were mostly the small depositors who, like the milkman, had lost their all. One woman had laid by thirty dollars for some teeth to be made that week and she wrung her hands in despair over her loss.
Nancy Sharp was worst of all, and tore round like a wild beast, shaking her fists and threatening all sorts of harm if once “she got that Grey in her clutches.” At last she grew so violent and noisy that Mr. Blake whispered to her,
“Be quiet, Nancy! you are the preferred creditor!”
Just what a preferred creditor meant, Nancy did not know, until Mr. Blake explained what it was, and that she would be paid in full. She understood that, and from a tigress, ready to tear Mr. Grey inpieces, she became at once a lamb so far as he was concerned, and ready to do battle with all who were censuring him.
It was at this point that the pistol shots were heard, sending consternation through the crowd, which could not be kept back any longer. The cashier, who had been standing guard at the door outside, opened it, and a few of those nearest to him rushed in, expecting at least to find Mr. Grey dead and possibly his daughter. What they found was Louie with the smoking revolver in her hand, and her father lying upon the couch, white and still as a corpse.
“Go back,” she said, advancing towards them. “No one is hurt. I have made that impossible. See!” and she pointed to the three bullet holes in the floor.
“Yes, go back, you spalpeens, and mind your business,” Nancy Sharp cried, plunging into the crowd, which she shoved right and left until the room was cleared of all but Mr. Blake and the cashier, who had re-entered it.
“You must get your father home. I have telephoned to have the carriage sent. It will soon be here,” the latter said.
Louie scarcely heard him. Her ears were strained to catch a voice she did not hear, and her eyes were looking through the open door for a face she did not see. Where was Herbert in this her hour of trouble, and would he not come to her?
This was a question she had asked herself many times during the terrible ordeal through which she had passed. He must have heard the news. Everybody had, it seemed, and why did he not come to her. Of course all was over between them now that this disgrace had come upon her. Her fatherwasa gambler, and remembering what Herbert had once said to her on that subject, she could not expect him to be loyal to her.
“But he might come and speak to me for the sake of what has been,” she thought, and her lip quivered and she had hard work to keep back her tears.
“’Tother bank is open. Maybe the judge will help out as Mr. Grey helped him,” she heard someone saying.
But she knew better than to expect that. Judge White would not help her father, and could not now if he would. It was too late for that. The crash had come. Failure was declared. The mob was there howling for their money, and she was left alone to battle with the wild storm without a sympathetic face or word to cheer her. If the White Bank was open Herbert was probably there, or would be soon, and then hewillcome, she said to herself over and over again as the minutes passed and still he did not come. Where was he?
Breakfast at the White House was always late, and the family were at the table when the newsreached them, brought by the servant, who, after passing the coffee, said:
“The Grey Bank has burst and the street is full of people.”
“What!” both the Judge and Herbert exclaimed together, the former putting his coffee down so quickly that some of it was spilled on the cloth.
The girl repeated her news with additions and told how she knew it. There could be no mistake, and although he would not like to acknowledge it, the Judge was only conscious of a stir of exultation, such as mean natures feel when misfortune has befallen a rival. He certainly did not seem greatly disturbed as he said:
“Bust at last, has he? I told you so. I knew he couldn’t go on cutting such a swell and kicking up such a dust as he did yesterday. I haven’t got it out of my eyes and throat yet.”
The dust of the Grey carriage was the last grievance, and the Judge dwelt upon it, while Herbert looked at him in surprise.
“Father,” he said, at last, “never mind the dust. Think of the trouble Mr. Grey is in; can’t you help him?”
“Can’t I help him?” the Judge repeated. “Help him—how? Pay his debts? No, sir! He has made his bed and must lie on it!”
“But he helped us,” Herbert continued.
“I know he did,” his father replied, “but playedright into his own pocket. We were honest, and not to blame for the run, while I’ll be hanged if I think he is honest. I wonder how Sheldon feels now. Serves him right, and the rest of ’em. I don’t believe he’ll pay ten cents on a dollar. He can’t, spending as he has—dressing up his wife and that girl. I am sorry for her; but s’posin’ your tomfooling with her had amounted to something, where’d you be now.”
“Just where I’m going,” Herbert said, leaving the room and going for his wheel, on which he rode rapidly to Mr. Grey’s house, expecting to find Louie there.
The maid told him she was at the bank, and that Mrs. Grey was in hysterics, with two physicians attending her.
Herbert started at once for the bank, where he heard a wonderful story.
Louie had stayed there all night with her father, who had tried to kill himself, and would have done so if Louie had not snatched the revolver from him and fired it off, wounding him, it was said. She was with him now, and the lawyer and cashier were with her and no one else was allowed to go in.
Herbert did not believe the first of the story, but was glad of the last, for if no one was allowed in the bank, he would not be expected to go in. He was sorry for Louie, but too cowardly to identify himself very prominently with her in the face ofthis trouble and before the curious world. Fear of his father restrained him, and although he expressed himself strongly as sorry for Mr. Grey, and even asserted his belief that he would pay every indebtedness in time, he made no effort to enter the bank, but hovered near the door, hoping to get a sight of Louie, and hearing her voice once as she said:
“I wish the carriage would come. Will they molest father, do you think, when they see him?”
Then all his manhood rose to the surface. Molest Louie’s father! He guessed not, when he was there, and he waited for the carriage and talked to the crowd, which, in some respects, was different from that on the day of the run. Then there had at first been fierce anger, which had resolved itself into excitement and haste when it was known that the money was forthcoming. Here the anger was more intense because more quiet. The case was probably a hopeless one—they would never get their money—and some of the men had a dangerous look as they spoke together in low tones and watched the entrance to the rear yard to the bank.
When the Grey carriage came up, there was a murmur like the low muttering of distant thunder, and Herbert drew near to the gate, around which some of the most angry men were standing.
But whatever the people felt was kept down by the sight of the man, who had aged ten years since they saw him. All his elasticity and erectness offigure was gone, and he stooped as he walked, with Louie and the cashier on either side of him.
The crowd was very quiet as it watched him with something like pity in their hearts. Then suddenly a stone crashed against the side of the carriage and bounded off upon the walk. Then a second followed, hitting one of the horses and making him rear upon his hind feet. The stones came from the same group of boys who, during the run, had shouted themselves hoarse for Grey, the honest banker, and given three groans for Old Money Bags. Now Grey was down, and Money Bags was up, and the boys were carrying out the brutal instincts of their class.
“It’s a shame!” Herbert said, starting for the boys; but Nancy Sharp was there before him, her brawny arms scattering the boys right and left, and her big hand seizing one by the hair and holding him fast while she shook him vigorously.
The preferred creditor business was bearing fruit and the volubility of her tongue was something wonderful. She was sure of her money—Mr. Blake had said so—and Mr. Grey was a “misfortunate man whom she would not see insulted.”
Something in her attitude shamed Herbert, who went at once to Louie’s side and said to her:
“I cannot tell you how sorry I am. Let me help your father.”
“Oh, Herbert,” Louie cried, “I am so glad youhave come. I wanted you so badly—wanted somebody to help me bear it. No one has said a kind word but Nancy Sharp.”
“I came as soon as I heard of it. I went to your house first,” Herbert said, offering again to help her father.
But she did not relinquish her hold. She only put her hand on Herbert’s arm to steady herself, she felt so faint.
Not until he was in the carriage did Mr. Grey seem conscious of the crowd. Then he lifted his hat and bowed, while a smile broke over his pallid features and his lips moved as if he would speak. Louie saw it and whispered, “Don’t father. Don’t say anything now. It can do no good.”
Then she turned to Herbert, who helped her in and held her hand a moment with a warm pressure which she felt during all the rapid drive home—past stores and shops, and houses, from which curious faces were looking, as if Mr. Grey were some new species of the genus homo which they had never seen before.
Louie had half hoped Herbert would go with her, and for a moment he had thought to do so. But his father had just come up, puffing and blowing with heat and impatience, and glad that the thing was over and Grey going quietly home.
“This must seem kinder nateral to you, seein’ ’tain’t long sence you was in the same boat,”Nancy Sharp said, as she elbowed her way up to him.
The Judge glared at her, but made no reply. He had never forgotten the poor old man whom she pitied, and had raised her rent a dollar a month in consequence of the part she had played in the run. He knew her twenty silver dollars were in Grey’s bank, and did not feel particularly sorry for her. She had lost it, of course, and after he passed her something impelled him to turn and say, “How much are you out?”
“Not a red cent,” she answered. “I’m a preferred creditor, I be. Mr. Grey done the square thing by me, same as he did by you, and here in his trouble you stalk away without a word to these folks thet they’d better go home. I’ve been advisin’ ’em, but they won’t hear me.”
For a moment the judge hesitated. He did not want them standing around in front of his bank. It reminded him too much of a day he would like to forget, and he finally said, “What are you waiting for? You can’t get your money to-day, if you ever do. You’d better go home. There’s no good standing here, gaping at the bank!”
Most of them took his advice, and went home with heavy hearts as they thought of their hard earnings gone through the recklessness of a man they had trusted implicitly, and who was lying in his own house, white and still as the dead, speakingto no one and only answering in monosyllables when spoken to.
He had not seen his wife. The physicians did not think it best, as she was growing quiet when he came, and the sight of him would set her off again with hysterics, which, complicated with heart trouble, might prove serious.
Louie had a double task, caring for her father and mother, and she faced it bravely. She saw Mr. Blake when he came in the afternoon and heard from him how little there was left of the wreck, and asked for a list of the depositors, especially the smaller ones—the working women and men to whom their loss meant more than to Godfrey Sheldon. She called the four servants together—the coachman and cook and laundress and housemaid—and said to them:
“We can pay you up to Saturday night. After that we can’t afford it, and you must go.”
“What will you do?” they asked, and she replied:
“I am young and strong. I can get along somehow.”
The coachman and laundress knew they were not necessary, but the cook and housemaid felt that they were, and said:
“We will stay a few days, and matters may brighten.”
Louie thanked them, but knew that things wouldnot brighten. She had talked with her mother, and made her understand how poor they were, and won her consent to sell everything which belonged to them, and pay the small depositors as far as possible. She was reckoning on paper how much the house and furniture and horses and carriage and diamonds and piano and plate would probably bring, when Herbert was announced. The moment she was alone with him Louie began to cry. Then, repressing her tears, she said, “It was kind in you to come. I knew you would, but you know everything is ended now.”
“What do you mean?” Herbert asked, pretending not to understand her.
“I mean,” she said, with a catch between every breath, “I cannot expect you to think of me as you have done, after what has happened. You asked me once if father was a gambler, and I was very angry. Now, I am too hurt to be angry at anyone. I feel as if every nerve was bruised with a sudden blow. We shall never rise above this disgrace, and you must not share it. You cannot. You are free, except as a friend. I do want you for that. Oh, Herbert!”
She broke down a little, then rallied, and her eyes bright with tears looked at the young man, who was silent a moment; then he said, “You mistake me if you think I wish to be free. I do not, but am so hedged in that I cannot do what I oughtto do—come out openly as your future husband and stand by you. Father is like a raging lion. I must give him time to cool, and then I’ll tell him the truth, but give you up—never!”
He meant what he said, but he seemed depressed, and his visit was on the whole unsatisfactory, as he had no comfort to offer, except that others had failed besides Mr. Grey and come out all right, and that in any event he should love her always. He had not passed a very happy day, but he did not tell her so, or of the wild stories afloat with regard to the failure and its cause. Speculation and gambling were words freely used, and from being the most popular man in town, Mr. Grey was dragged so low that Louie would have shuddered had she heard all that was said of him. Herbert had heard, but what affected him most was his father’s attitude.
“Sorry? Of course I am. I am always sorry for the dog that is under, and Grey is so far under that he’ll never get up again,” he said to some men who were discussing the failure. “I always guessed he wasn’t square, and now I know it. There’s a family come to town, who lived in Denver. Quiet folks, who mind their own business. They didn’t know Grey personally, but they heard of him as a gambler. Yes, sir—a gambler, who kept a room on purpose for it, where young men went and old ones, too. They weren’t going to blab, but they’vetold it now he’s burst. Yes, sir—a gambler, and has kept it up with other folks’ money, I’ll bet you, and see what he’s got by it.”
This was told in the bank, while to Herbert, when alone, he said:
“See what your fooling with that girl would have come to if you had gone on. I haven’t been so blind as you think, and I know you’ve been with her a sight. Nice enough girl, but Tom Grey’s daughter—a man who may go to State’s prison. There’s that in the air, already, headed by Sheldon, who is madder’n a March hare. Serves him right, and Blake don’t give much hope of a dividend. I tell you, if things between you and that girl had amounted to anything, you’d been in a hole; and if you’d stuck to her, by the Lord Harry, I’d cut you off! Yes, sir!”
Had Herbert been Fred Lansing, he would have said to his father: “Louie Grey is my promised wife, and I shall stand by her.”
But he was not Fred Lansing, and he made no reply, although tempted to blurt out the truth. He had no thought of giving Louie up, but he had not the moral courage to face the storm by her side, and she was left to stem the tide alone.