A Rich Man's Relatives Volume II Part 13

That year both Herkimer and Jordan removed their families to St.

Euphrase quite early in the spring, instead of waiting for the summer heats. It was a demonstration of the importance they attached to the mining operations, and their desire to be on the spot.

Directly, it was whispered among their acquaintance that fresh discoveries were being made, and cultured persons, who combined science with money-making, hastened to bespeak a summer residence in the favoured village, whence they might scour the neighbourhood on holidays, hammer in hand, rummaging for minerals, and picking up information about the remarkable find already made at La Hache. Every house, and even every shanty, to be let, was secured for the hot months, and some impatient prospectors, unwilling to wait so long, arrived at once, and established themselves with the Pere Podevin, whose house had never been so full before, and who, feeling that his fortune was as good as made, began to prepare his family to adorn the great position they were about to fill, withdrew his eldest daughter from the kitchen, where she had been wont to a.s.sist, and sent her off to the celebrated convent of St. Cecilia, at Quebec, that she might learn to play the piano, and be turned into a lady.

The influx of city men had scarcely become apparent--it was the middle of May now--when a new phenomenon met the explorer's eye. A board fence was of a sudden run up around the property of the mining company, and watchers were stationed at intervals to see that no inquisitive stranger should scale the barrier. Excitement among the speculators grew intense. It was immediately inferred that silver, or perhaps even gold, had been found, else why this jealousy? and the crowds who came from town to scour the adjacent lands were so great that the Pere Podevin had to use his stable and poultry house as sleeping quarters, and sold permission to two gentlemen to sleep on the floor under his billiard table on the same terms as he had been wont to charge for an entire chamber.

There was constant hurry in the offices in the Rue des Borgnes, by gaslight as well as by day. The jaded clerks seemed always at work, save when they crept home at night to sum up the endless figure columns over again in their sleep, and hurry back to business next morning. The president seemed as hardly driven as his servants. The street--where hitherto he had been a prominent figure, notebook in hand, making bargains, picking up information, and distributing it in pa.s.sing, because it could be done so much more quickly than on 'Change, where some contrive to make a little business go so far in the way of talk and time-killing--the street knew him no more, and he was beset by people all day long, in his office, on every imaginable errand.

Hitherto he had been so cool, and so quick, and so strong--a very steam engine for doing business--so confident and so clear, perceiving all the bearings of a question at once--deciding on his course and completing an agreement in a few incisive sentences, while another man would still be figuring up with pencil and paper the preliminary calculations. Now there were signs of fatigue in the robust figure, a stoop of the shoulders, a flush about the temples. His temper, too--in time past he had had no temper, or at least it had been impossible to ruffle it, except where anger was made to serve a business end--his temper had grown irritable, as the luckless clerks too frequently found out, and he suffered from sensations of faintness which led to his withdrawing momentarily into his dressing-room, where there now stood a decanter of sherry, a thing which theretofore he would have scorned to permit on his premises. His habit till then had been to drink a couple of gla.s.ses of sherry at the club by way of luncheon, but the idea of keeping a "pick-me-up" at his elbow, to be referred to at uncertain intervals, had never occurred to him, because, till then, he had found his own strength sufficient for the day's work.

That may have been because things had gone well always, and there is no tonic in the pharmacop[oe]ia like a habit of succeeding; but now there were so many things, mines of copper, plumbago, phosphate, a railway, a suburb, and a bank, besides--besides everything else; for Ralph's greed grew with his success, the more he secured the more he still desired, and he could not see an opportunity go by without wis.h.i.+ng to have a fling at it. A few months before, when money was flowing in for copper shares, there had seemed to be an opportunity in railways on New York market, and Ralph went in. It fretted him to see money lie idle when work could be found for it. He went in, but the unforeseen had happened, as it always will some time, and h found he could not come out again without loss, such as was not to be thought of, and therefore he must go in deeper still.

His own railway, too, the St. Lawrence, Gattineau, and Hudson's Bay had been suffering a check in the shape of a swamp it had to cross, in which it went on burying itself as fast as it could be built above the mora.s.s. A contractor had already failed. No other would undertake the work. The company was compelled to do it itself, under pain of being cut in two, with sections built to the south and north, and this gap in the middle, which made both ends useless. Ralph was largely interested in the road, which indeed he had both projected and promoted, to connect his plumbago mines and his phosphate lands with "the front," _i.e_., with civilization and a market.

The plumbago mines were at work, gangs of men digging into the ground and dragging out riches which were barrelled up to await transport; but, until that swamp could be bridged over, of no more present value to the owners than so many tons of gravel. The workmen could not eat it, and would not accept it in payment of their wages; and to haul it to market over distances of corduroy road was to end by disposing of it for something less than it had cost to bring it there.

The public were aware of the trouble, and the shares would not sell.

The bank, of course, could be brought to the rescue up to a certain point, but that, he began to realize, was nearly reached. There were signs of failing confidence at the board meetings, whisperings, and averted glances betokening incipient opposition, though mistrustful as yet of strength to declare itself, which in time past, when he could defy it, he would easily have browbeaten into submission; but now he dared not attempt to browbeat, the consequences of unsuccess would have been too serious. He tried to conciliate and persuade, where he had been wont to command, and when the master tries to conciliate the pupil, it is a sign the whip has gone from him, and the subject divines that he has a master no longer than he cares to accept one.

Again, the success of St. Hypolite Suburb was hanging fire. The suburb had been a tract of waste ground some years before, when Ralph picked it up on easy terms, as being unfit for agriculture and useless for anything else, and his scheme was to build on it a new and improved quarter of the town. He had sunk great sums in draining, levelling, and filling up. He had laid out a park, with a fountain, overlooked by semi-detached villas, and approached by residence streets of a superior kind. A few houses had become tenanted the year before, and a great sale of houses in June of the current year had been written up in a series of ingenious paragraphs in the local newspapers; when, on the arrival of warm weather, a visitation of ague and typhoid fever fell upon the pioneer settlers in the district, and frightened the public out of all the interest which it had cost so much money and pains to instil into its mind. The sale came off as advertised, but the half-dozen dwellings first offered--"replete with every modern improvement and convenience"--fetching barely enough to pay the advances of the Proletarian Loan and Mortgage Company, the rest were withdrawn for the present.

In a house of cards, though one card may be in doubtful equilibrium, if those other cards it leans against are moderately steady, it may stand. Nay, it may even contribute a measure of support to its supporters; but if all are shakey at the same time, it is a task of infinite dexterity to balance the several weaknesses each upon each.

Even then the balance is but temporary; a flutter in the surrounding air will disturb the equipoise, and, when that befalls, the structure holding together only by weaknesses which balance each other will tumble to the ground a heap of ruin. And this was the fate Ralph saw impending. He was in so many ventures, and up to his full strength in each. If only one of them had weakened he could have propped it with the others in such wise as he had done before, but when everything grew shakey at the same time, it seemed as if the pillars of the universe itself were giving way; and worse, he felt the giving way within himself, a nodding to that frightful fall which was approaching, a yielding such as he had never known before. Hitherto each difficulty had called out latent strength to overcome it, but now there seemed a torpor in himself which would not be thrown off. His mind would, not, as. .h.i.therto, answer to his call with new expedients to circ.u.mvent each new check; he felt benumbed, and sought to that decanter--in his dressing-room for the strength, ingenuity, and courage he had theretofore found within himself.

It was a morning in the beginning of July--Ralph had remained in town overnight, not so much for the sake of doing anything as merely to be beside his business. In time past, when his affairs flourished, he had rather prided himself on the determination with which he could dismiss "shop" from his mind at five minutes past four, when he walked out of his office, and his prompt.i.tude in resuming it, exactly where he had left off, at a quarter before ten next morning. But now, when it would have been a relief to his jaded mind to lay cares by for a time, they clung to him all the while, disturbing sleep, even, with confused and hara.s.sing visions. To be away from business aggravated his anxiety--filled him with doubts as to what might occur in his absence, and he found his mind easier in the office than anywhere else. Even so the mother of a sick child will sit by the bed for hours, though the child be in sleep the most undisturbed, and she can do nothing more.

There is a.s.surance in being present, if she were away she would imagine things were happening, and be miserable.

After the hot night in town, with its unrefres.h.i.+ng sleep, and the untasted breakfast which followed, Ralph sat in his office listless and limp, with nothing to brace him but that hateful sherry in the dressing-room. It was ten o'clock. The train from St. Euphrase must have arrived, but his son had not yet appeared, when Jordan hurried in, closing the door behind him, and fastening it.

"You were not on the train this morning, Herkimer. Were you trying to give a man the slip?--and unload before any one else knew?"

"Unload? Slip? I remained in town last night. What do you mean? Is anything wrong?"

"Podevin tells me he heard some of the men, who were drinking in his bar, talking. They were telling each other that our lode was no true vein, that every bit of metal would be out in three months' time, and they would all be thrown idle. They were the only people in the place at the time; Podevin took them in hand, and made them promise to hold their tongues; but it's all coming out, can only be a question of a day or two. He came to me in a d--l of a funk--says he will be ruined, as everything he has is in it. To tell you the truth, I shall be hard hit myself--have never sold a share, and I have been buying. I do think you might have given me a hint."

"My dear sir, I am a heavier holder than you and Podevin both put together. The price has been going up so steadily I did not care to sell; it might have injured the property for the rest of you; and this is the first I have heard of a threatening collapse. We must sell at once, that is all."

"Too late, I fear, though I am now on my way to my broker. You will be selling, too? Wish I had known enough to hold my tongue till after I had unloaded," he added with a nervous pretence of hilarity. "Well!

I'm off."

"Don't be a fool, Jordan. Of course I don't blame you for wis.h.i.+ng to save yourself, I do the same; but perhaps it is just as well you came in and told me first. I mean those shares to go higher yet before I sell. I have all along known there was a possibility of what you tell me coming to pa.s.s, though I had hoped to get shut of the thing before it took place, and I would have preferred to slip out quietly. There will be a row, now, perhaps; but what of that? If it must be, we can weather it, so long as we save our money. It was to provide against such a contingency that I had that fence built round the operations, to keep prying fools on the outside; and you know how well that has answered. I see by the _Journal_ they have been finding indications of silver; if we inclose another hundred acres it will be taken to indicate gold and diamonds. But no, that would be too slow, and some one would blab in the meantime. I must telegraph the superintendent to work over-time, and contrive that the men do not go into the village.

I shall telegraph to the directors, too, and hold a board meeting. It is handy having men so easily within call, and yet so innocent of business. You had better be present as solicitor, and convince yourself that we are not stealing a march. _And then_----"

"You wish me, then, not to offer my stock to-day?" said Jordan dubiously. The saw tells us there is honour among thieves, and perhaps there sometimes is, but there is seldom confidence among the over-sharp.

"As to that," cried Ralph scornfully, "you can please yourself. Go to your brokers, by all means, if you think well. Or, if you would like to save brokerage, you can just speak to Stinson as you go out. Tell him what you want to sell, and I shall buy at yesterday's quotation;"

and he lay back in his chair with a cheerful smile, and twiddled his gold chain exactly like the prosperous millionaire his neighbours thought him.

Jordan looked and hesitated, and bit his nails, and then his brow cleared, and he drew a long sigh of supreme relief. "Well!" he said, smiling effusively, "you know more about it than I do. I'll trust your advice, and hold on till to-morrow."

"I gave you no advice whatever, sir. Please to remember that;" and he sat up in his chair with a suggestion of dignified offence on his features which made Jordan feel contrite and ashamed, and thoroughly satisfied that he had better not disturb his shares for the next twenty-four hours at any rate. "You can tell Stinson about your shares if you have a mind to; but whatever you do, I must beg that you will not only not circulate, but that you will put down any foolish report such as that you have just mentioned."

"You may depend on me for that, old fellow," cried Jordan, nodding adieu, and walking out with a sense of disburdenment from the cares he had been carrying, which made his middle-aged gait positively elastic.

Ralph rose, and watched through a convenient c.h.i.n.k his retreating figure off the premises, and then he drew a breath, and stretched himself with a sardonic twitch of the eyebrows. "There's nothing like bluff after all! Yet where should I have been if he had concluded to take my offer? A fine rumpus those white-livered directors next door would have raised over the cheque. However, _that's_ weathered. Now for the mines," and he sat down and wrote his telegrams. He felt better and stronger than he had done for weeks. There was something to do now, action, work, combat with circ.u.mstances. He was a man once more with a fund of strength within, which needed only to be drawn on to come forth. The sherry decanter diffused its topaz radiance in vain all that day, for never once came Ralph within sight of the seductive l.u.s.tre. He had something to do and think of, and in doing he found the best tonic for his system. It is waiting and looking forward to uncertain evil, distant as yet, and impossible to be struggled with, which racks the nerves to pieces with its strain, and drives the victim to artificial supports, which they from whose coa.r.s.er construction a nervous system seems to have been omitted, and who cannot comprehend such needs, brand as intemperance and dissipation.

CHAPTER XII.

A BOARD MEETING.

It was not yet eight o'clock on a summer morning at the little railway station of St. Euphrase. The sweetness from the dew on the ripening hay fields still hung on the drowsy breezes which came laggingly athwart the dusty platform, growing fainter each moment in the waxing heat.

Farmer Belmore was the earliest intending pa.s.senger to appear on the platform. The ticket office was not yet open, and he flopped about impatiently in his clean linen coat, mopping his brow with a vast handkerchief drawn from the crown of his broad-leafed Panama hat. His grand-daughter had arranged a poppy and a branch of southern-wood in his b.u.t.ton-hole by way of embellishment, his cravat was of the fiercest blue, fastened with a gold horse-shoe of the largest size. He felt himself, as director in a great company, to be a man of mark, appropriately and becomingly arrayed on the present occasion, and it disappointed him that none of the general public should be there to see him.

Joe Webb appeared ere long; compact, well knit, athletic; an example of the very satisfactory result to be looked for by-and-by, when the Teutonic and Gallic stocks shall have joined and blended to form the specialized type of a new nationality; swarthy and black-eyed, with the nose short, but prominent and aquiline, marking affinity to the high-spirited and vivacious French, while the level eyebrows and forward balancing of the head showed equal kins.h.i.+p with the reflective Saxon.

"Ha!" cried both men simultaneously. "For town? Board meeting?"

Simultaneously, too, they answered, as if there could be any doubt.

"Yes. Thought I might as well go this morning as another, and be present at the meeting. And draw my five dollars," added Belmore.

"This special meeting will be just so much pure gain, if we do not do too much business, as I hope we shall not, and make the next regular meeting unnecessary. But to be sure the monthly meetings are obliged to be held, according to the bye-laws, or the charter, or something--so Mr. Stinson tells me--therefore, this is quite an extry five dollars to the good, and better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. You think so, too, squire, I guess."

The distant whistle of the approaching train was now heard, and the opening of the ticket office with a bang. There were only three or four other intending pa.s.sengers, and all had soon bought their tickets, and stood awaiting the train.

"What can have come to old Podevin?" said Webb. "If he waits for the train at 9.30 he may miss the meeting altogether, and his fee. He will have been watching to see the president go by before starting himself for the station, and the president stayed in Montreal last night. I happen to know that. Podevin will miss his train."

"So much the better for us. There will be the more for you and me. I'd love to finger a dollar that should have been coming to Podevin more'n fifty of my own. He's that near, it's like drawing teeth to get a _sou_ out of him. He hain't paid me yet for the cord-wood that kept him warm last winter, and now he wants me to take out the price in white Yankee beans. 'No, sir,' says I; but I let him show me the truck, and, squire, if you'll believe me, the weevils were that thick, you could see them quarrelling together who was to get the next sound bean, and they were that big you could see them looking out of their holes at the buyer, and warning him like, against the trade."

The brother directors, however, were mistaken in supposing Podevin was minded to forego or endanger the emoluments of his directors.h.i.+p. He was in waiting, though they did not see him, behind a convenient cattle-car on the siding, anxious only to avoid speech with them till all were in presence of the president, that his own misgivings might be resolved without prejudice; for he dreaded that his _confreres_ might elicit something from him before he had learned the right way to view or state it himself, and so his undigested words might get abroad and do him harm. Wherefore he waited till he saw the couple step on the train, and then clambered quietly into the carriage behind, avoiding the platform and the ticket office, and paying his fare to the conductor on the train, who charged him ten cents extra, wringing his heart with the thought that two per cent of his director's fee was thereby lost to himself and his heirs for ever.

The board of directors of the Mining a.s.sociation of St. Euphrase a.s.sembled at the appointed place and time. The president was in the chair, and Jordan, the company's solicitor, sat by his side. Podevin sat beside Stinson, whispering anxiously, and striving to draw support and encouragement from the involuntary exclamations of the man he was alarming with his tales and forebodings, while Belmore and Webb awaited the opening of the proceedings in the placid tranquillity of perfect ignorance. Nothing disturbing had as yet come into their knowledge, or even their dreams, and they sat by the leather-covered table contemplating the minute book and the inkstand, and wondering how long it would be before they should sign their names, draw their fee, and take their departure.

The president tapped the table with his ruler. Stinson read the minutes of the previous meeting, and the board was in session and ready to proceed to business. The president stated that he had been made the recipient of singular information affecting the value and prospects of their property only the day before, and he had lost no time in calling them together, that the matter might be inquired into.

"And our worthy solicitor, Mr. Jordan, will now kindly repeat to the board the statements he has already made to me in private."

"I know nothing, gentlemen," said Jordan, "but what was mentioned to me by one of your own number, here present. He is now, I doubt not, ready to repeat his statements at length for your united consideration. I allude to my respected friend, Mr. Podevin."

The Pere Podevin coughed behind his hand, looking disgust from under his eyelids for a solicitor who could thus betray a confidential conversation. "Was the man a fool or a rogue?" he asked himself. If he had not actually paid him a fee on addressing him, had he not given information worth thousands, if properly used?--given it freely for the sake of consulting him--and Jordan had promised advice in the morning--the morning now come--and here, instead of a friendly hint how he might save himself, the treacherous adviser, having already had twenty-four hours' exclusive use of the news, was calling on him to divulge everything before the whole board, giving an equal start to the others with himself in the race to save something, or rather letting himself be ruined with the rest. However, all eyes were on him now, and there was no escape.

"It was on yesterday," he said, "zat I hear of ze men to say, ver _secretement_ to ze ozers, as they have dig out all ze _cuivre_ of ze mine. I five zose men to drink in retirement from ze rest, and I ask, and zey confirm zat of ze _cuivre_ is no more. _Mon Dieu!_ Misterre Herkimair--to tink of ze moneys to nourish my _vieillesse_, and ze _dots_ of my daughtairs _innocentes!_ All sunk in ze mines----"

"Well?" asked Ralph a little testily; "and pray who did it? Who sunk your money? You are of lawful age, Mr. Podevin, and believed to be of sound mind. You are privileged to act for yourself, and you must bear the consequences of your own acts. If your shares had risen to double the price you paid for them, you would have taken the profit as the reward of your own smartness; if it turns out the other way, why should you come grumbling to me? _I_ did not make you risk your money or throw it away."

"You say, Misterre Herkimair, zere were fortunes in ze rocks of La Hache svamp, and I believe ze _riche_ Misterre Herkimair, and I give ze little _bourse_ made up _sou_ by _sou_ in all zese year vit so much of care----"

"Yes, and thought to make your fortune, Mr. Podevin? and now you think you are going to lose it--the chance every man is liable to who speculates or plays poker. You throw a sprat expecting to catch a herring, and at times the herring is _not_ caught, and the sprat is thrown away. You must accept the chances of the game, or else you should not play. Look at me! Think of the thousands I stand to lose if our enterprise miscarries! What are your few hundreds compared to that? Yet I make no lament."