Tales of two people

“Yes, most likely. You can get it, you know.”

“And shall I ever get it back?”

“The Prince has given his word.” Mr Byers assumed a doubtful air. “Oh, you’re not as stupid as that; you believe him,” she added almost contemptuously. “Do you mean it’s a speculation? Of course it is. I thought you had courage!”

“So I have,” said Byers. And he added, “I may want it all too.” What he would want it for was in his mind, but he did not tell her.

He thought a great deal about the matter that evening as he sat by the fire opposite to Mrs Byers, who knitted a stocking and said nothing; she never broke in upon his thoughts, believing that a careless interruption might cost a million. Millions were in his mind now, and other things than millions. There was his faith with his associates; they were all waiting his word; when he gave it, rumours would die away, reports be contradicted, the Manifesto pooh-poohed; there would be buyings, the Stock would lift up her head again, confidence would revive; and the first to buy, the first to return to faith in the Stock, would be Mr Byers and his associates; the public would come in afterwards, and when the public came in he and his associates would go out again, richer by vast sums. The money and his good faith – his honour among financiers – bound him; and the triumph of his brains, the beauty of his coup, the admiration of his fellows, the unwilling applause of the hard-hit – all these allured him mightily. On the other side there was nothing except the necessity of disappointing Mrs Rivers, of telling her that the necessary resources were not forthcoming, that the agitation and the Manifesto had served their turn, that the Prince had been made a fool of, that she herself had been made a fool of too. Many such a revelation had he made to defeated opponents, calmly, jestingly perhaps, between the puffs of his cigar, not minding what they thought. Why should he mind what Mrs Rivers thought? She would no longer wish to kiss that lean strong hand of his; she might cry (she had Lady Craigennoch to cry to). He looked across at his wife who was knitting; he would not have minded telling anything to her. But so intensely did he mind telling what he had to tell to Ellen Rivers that the millions, his good faith, the joy of winning, and the beauty of the coup, all hung doubtful in the balance against the look in the eyes of the lady at Prince Julian’s. “What an infernal fool I am!” he groaned. Mrs Byers glanced up for a moment, smiled sympathetically, and went on with her knitting; she supposed that there must be some temporary hitch about the latest million; or perhaps Shum had been troublesome; that was sometimes what was upsetting Mr Byers.

The next morning Mr Shum was troublesome; he thought that the moment for action had come; the poor Stock had been blown upon enough, the process of rehabilitation should begin. Various other gentlemen, weighty with money, dropped in with their hats on the back of their heads and expressed the same views. Byers fenced with them, discussed the question rather inconclusively, took now this side and now that, hesitated, vacillated, shilly-shallied. The men wondered at him; they knew they were right; and, right or wrong, Byers had been wont to know his own mind; their money was at stake; they looked at one another uncomfortably. Then the youngest of them, a fair boy, great at dances and late suppers, but with a brain for figures and a cool boldness which made him already rich and respected in the City, tilted his shining hat still further back and drawled out, “If you’ve lost your nerve, Byers, you’d better let somebody else engineer the thing.”

What her fair fame is to a proud woman the prestige of his nerve was to Mr Byers. The boy had spoken the decisive word, by chance, by the unerring instinct which in any sphere of thought is genius. In half-an-hour all was planned, the Government of the Prince’s country saved, and the agitation at an end. The necessary resources would not be forthcoming; confidence would revive, the millions would be made, the coup brought off, the triumph won.

So in the next fortnight it happened. Prince Julian looked on with vague bewilderment, reading the articles and paragraphs which told him that he had abandoned all thought of action, had resigned himself to wait for a spontaneous recall from his loving subjects (which might be expected to assail his ears on the Greek Kalends), that in fact he would do nothing. Mrs Rivers read the paragraphs too, and waited and waited and waited for the coming of Mr Byers and the necessary resources; she smiled at what she read, for she had confidence in the Cause, or at least in herself and in Mr Byers. But the days went on; slowly the Stock rose; then in went the public with a rush. The paragraphs and the articles dwindled and ceased; there was a commotion somewhere else in Europe; Prince Julian and his Manifesto were forgotten. What did it mean? She wrote a note, asking Mr Byers to call.

It was just at this time also that Mr Henry Shum accepted the invitation of the Conservative Association of the Hatton Garden Division of Holborn Bars to contest the seat at the approaching General Election, and that Lady Craigennoch gave orders for the complete renovation of her town house. Both these actions involved, of course, some expense; how much it is hard to say precisely. The house was rather large, and the seat was very safe.

Prince Julian sat in his library in Palace Gate and Mrs Rivers stood beside him, her hand resting on the arm of his chair. Now and then the Prince glanced up at her face rather timidly. They had agreed that matters showed no progress; then Mrs Rivers had become silent.

“Has Byers thrown us over?” the Prince asked at last.

“Hush, hush,” she answered in a low voice. “Wait till he’s been; he’s coming to-day.” Her voice sank lower still as she whispered, “He can’t have; oh, he can’t!”

There was silence again. A few minutes passed before the Prince broke out fretfully, “I’m sick of the whole thing. I’m very well as I am. If they want me, let them send for me. I can’t force myself on them.”

She looked down for a moment and touched his hair with her hand.

“If this has come to nothing I’ll never try again. I don’t like being made a fool of.”

Her hand rested a moment on his forehead; he looked up, smiling.

“We can be happy together,” he murmured. “Let’s throw up the whole thing and be happy together.” He caught her hand in his. “You’ll stay with me anyhow?”

“You want me still?”

“You’ll do what I ask?” he whispered.

“That would put an end to it, indeed,” she said smiling.

“Thank Heaven for it!” he exclaimed peevishly.

A servant came in and announced that Mr Byers was in the drawing-room.

“Shall I come too?” asked the Prince.

“Oh no,” she answered with a strange little laugh. “What’s the use of bothering you? I’ll see him.”

“Make him say something definite,” urged Prince Julian. “Let’s have an end of it one way or the other.”

“Very well.” She bent down and kissed him, and then went off to talk to Mr Byers.

The fair boy with the business brains might have been seriously of opinion that there was something wrong with Byers’ nerve had he seen him waiting for Mrs Rivers in the drawing-room, waiting to tell her that the necessary resources were not forthcoming; he hoped that he need tell her no more than that; he wished that he had not come, but he could not endure the self-contempt which the thought of running away had brought with it; he must face her; the woman could do no more than abuse him. One other thought he had for a moment entertained – of offering to let her stand in, as Mr Shum had let Lady Craigennoch; there was hardly any sum which he would not have been glad to give her. But long before he reached the house he had decided that she would not stand in. “By God, I should think not,” he said to himself indignantly.

But he had one phrase ready for her. He reminded her of the paragraphs, the rumours, and the Manifesto. “We have by these means felt the pulse of the public,” he said. He paused, she said nothing. “The result is not – er – encouraging,” he went on. “The moment is not propitious.”

“You promised the money if the Prince signed the Manifesto,” she said.

“Promised? Oh, well, I said I’d – ”

“You promised,” said Mrs Rivers. “What’s the difficulty now?”

“The state of public feeling – ” he began.

“I know that. We want the money to change it. She smiled slightly. “If the feeling had been with us already we shouldn’t have wanted the money.” She leant forward and asked, “Haven’t you got the money? You said you had.”

“Yes, I’ve got it – or I could get it.”

“Yes. Well then – ! Why have you changed your mind?”

He made no answer, and for a while she sat looking at him thoughtfully. She did not abuse him, and she did not cry.

“I want to understand,” she said presently. “Did you ever mean to give us the money?”

“Yes, upon my honour I – ”

“Are you sure?” She forced him to look her in the face; he was silent. She rose, took a Japanese fan from a side table, and sat down again; the lower part of her face was now hidden by the fan; Byers saw nothing but her eyes. “What did you mean?” she asked. “You’ve made us all – the Prince, and his friends, and me – look very silly. How did that help you? I don’t see what you could get out of that.”

She was looking at him now as though she thought him mad; she could not see what he had got out of it; it had not yet crossed her mind that there had been money to be got out of it; so ignorant was she, with all her shrewdness, with all her resolution.

“And I understood that you were such a clever far-seeing man,” she went on. “Lady Craigennoch always told me so; she said I could trust you in anything. Do tell me about it, Mr Byers.”

“I can’t explain it to you,” he began. “You – you wouldn’t – ”

“Yes, I should understand it if you told me,” she insisted.

If he told her he was a liar and a thief, she would understand. Probably she would. But he did not think that she would understand the transaction if he used any less plain language about it. And that language was not only hard to use to her, but struck strangely on his own head and his own heart. Surely there must be other terms in which to describe his part in the transaction? There were plenty such in the City; were there none in Palace Gate?

“It’s a matter of business – ” again he began.

She stopped him with an imperious wave of the fan. Her eyes grew animated with a sudden enlightenment; she looked at him for a moment or two, and then asked, “Have you been making money out of it somehow?” He did not answer. “How, please?” she asked.

“What does that matter?” His voice was low.

“I should like to hear, please. You don’t want to tell me? But I want to know. It – it’ll be useful to me to understand things like this.”

It seemed to Mr Byers that he had to tell her, that this was the one thing left that he could do, the one obligation which he could perform. So he began to tell her, and as he told her, naturally (or curiously, since natures are curious) his pride in the great coup revived – his professional pride. He went into it all thoroughly; she followed him very intelligently; he made her understand what an “option” was, what “differences,” what the “put,” and what the “call.” He pointed out how the changes in public affairs might make welcome changes in private pockets, and would have her know that the secret centre of great movements must be sought in the Bourses, not in the Cabinets, of Europe; perhaps he exaggerated here a little, as a man will in praising what he loves. Finally, carried away by enthusiasm, he gave her the means of guessing with fair accuracy the profit that he and his friends had made out of the transaction. Thus ending, he heaved a sigh of relief; she understood, and there had been no need of those uncivil terms which lately had pressed themselves forward to the tip of his tongue so rudely.

“I think I’d better not try to have anything more to do with politics,” she said. “I – I’m too ignorant.” There was a little break in her tones. Byers glanced at her sharply and apprehensively. Now that his story was ended, his enthusiasm died away; he expected abuse now. Well, he would bear it; she was entitled to relieve her mind.