: Far above rubies (Vol. 3 of 3) by Riddell J H Mrs - Fiction

@FreeBooksFri 01 Sep, 2023

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FAR ABOVE RUBIES.

Whether the moneys, with a memorandum of which the promoter so obligingly furnished him, had ever come into his hands or not, Arthur Dudley still felt a certain sense of having been cheated--of having been made the cat's-paw wherewith Mr. Black's chestnuts were drawn out of the fire. He knew, although to the letter Mr. Black's statements might be correct, still that in the spirit he had deceived him grossly.

He was perfectly well aware the meaning conveyed to him by the Company "paying all," was that he, Arthur Dudley, should never have to meet a single bill, nor be a penny the worse for the money he had advanced to float the Protector.

Bitterly now he remembered Nellie and his stock--the latter sold at a considerable sacrifice. The young bullocks and the fat beeves, the flocks of sheep, and the lambs which ought to have been kept over the winter, appeared again, and formed a sad procession before his mind's eye. Hay parted with before the price rose at the turn of the year; wheat threshed off and sent to market, when the markets were falling instead of rising; straw disposed of at rates which scarcely left a margin of profit, after deducting cartage and expenses--these things recurred to the Squire's memory, and roused fresh anger in his heart against the man who had led him so grievously astray.

Now he recollected Mr. Stewart's prophetic words, and cursed that gentleman's clear-sightedness as he did so. Now he recalled those sentences--"I am prepared to lose, and you are not;" "I can afford to wait; you, perhaps, are differently situated;" and they seemed to make his difficulty clear in a moment. "He was not prepared to lose--he was not able to wait." He had stretched his arm out farther than he could draw it back; to lose, with him meant ruin; to wait, meant anxiety and distress unutterable.

What should he do? Looking back over the events of the previous twelve months, Squire Dudley lamented his own credulity and anathematized Mr. Black. He did not regret joining the Protector, or accepting the secretaryship, or leaving Berrie Down, but he bit his nails and drummed upon the table, and then, rising, kicked his chair over, and walked up and down the room, while he called himself all the names imaginable for having accepted bills and spent money, and bought the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

He had been eager to buy that house the moment Mr. Black said it was in the market. He would scarcely take time to look over the premises before closing with the owner, so fearful was he of another purchaser forestalling him; but he forgot all this now, and worked himself up into the belief that the promoter had given him no rest till the deposit was paid and the deeds were signed.

He had to be at the office for a certain number of hours every day, and to see and discourse with hundreds of "perfect idiots"--shareholders--who, it is only fair to add, went away with the impression that Mr. Dudley was far too fine a gentleman to understand anything of the affairs of the Company to which he was secretary.

Further, the directors expected him to know every circumstance connected directly or indirectly with the Protector, whether that circumstance were in his department or not. Especially, there sat on the board a General Sinclair, C.B., who was the very plague and torment of Arthur Dudley's life; who was always asking for information; eternally wanting the secretary to "refer back," continually reverting to something which had occurred at the very creation of the Company, and of which the present secretary had no cognizance whatever.

A change this from Berrie Down Hollow; from doing what he liked, as he liked, without question asked by any one; a change this from coming and going as he pleased; from refraining from work; from wandering idly and purposelessly round the farm.

He detested the work, but he liked the thousand a year; he could not bear what he called the drudgery of London life, but he delighted in London gaiety, and in that gaiety he had expected to participate without ever having to labour before he enjoyed.

This life which he was leading; this life--and one a hundred times more agreeable, Mr. Black had told him, should be his--for the mere price of Nellie advanced into the Protector, Limited; and now it was no thanks to Mr. Black he was even in London at all; Mr. Stewart had procured him this trashy appointment, which he would have spurned excepting as a stepping-stone to something much better. Everybody had made, and was making, a fortune out of the Company excepting himself, and it was his money which had floated it; his money which had enabled Mr. Black to buy that place at Ealing, and furnish it without a second thought as to the cost!

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