The Lorimer Line (19 page)

‘During normal hours, certainly.'

‘And you've no plans for leaving Bristol in the near future?'

‘What the devil are you getting at?' David burst out. The past few days, and particularly the last hour, had provided strain enough. To be questioned in such a way by a sergeant of police was an insupportable impertinence.

‘No offence, I hope, sir,' said the sergeant. ‘But we've been through affairs like this before. On a small scale, of course. People don't take kindly to losing their money. They'll be at headquarters to see what can be done about it. They'll lay complaints of theft or embezzlement. Not because they believe it, you understand sir, but because they know we can't interfere unless there's a crime been committed. And maybe even they
do
believe it. Ordinary people don't understand about money being theirs one minute and gone the next. Once there's a complaint, someone has to look into it. It's not a job for the likes of me, Mr Gregson, but you'll need to have your books ready. I'm sure I sympathize with you, sir. We've all heard about the accident down at the yard. A misfortune not of your making. An unfortunate affair altogether, sir, an unfortunate affair. The hand of God.'

He paused to sigh; then resumed more briskly.

‘You'll be putting a notice up on the door, I take it, sir. If you could give me half an hour to get my men together, we'll do what we can to save your windows.'

The sounds of disturbance in the street below drew both men across the room to look out. John Junius Lorimer was coming to the bank as usual. His horses still wore their mourning ribbons, but nothing could camouflage the green and gold splendour of the carriage. The crowd outside recognized him at once as the man who would decide the fate of their deposits. Until they learned his decision there could be no demonstration of anything stronger than anxiety. They murmured and jostled amongst themselves, but John Junius would be safe, David reckoned, at this
moment of arrival. The evening departure might prove rather a different matter.

He hurried the sergeant out of the side door. Then he ordered the massive bolts of the studded wooden door at the front of the building to be drawn so that the chairman could enter with his usual dignity. Four members of the staff were at hand to make sure that no one was able to follow.

Half an hour later the notice which the depositors had feared was posted outside that same door. David, standing in his office, heard the groan of many voices, the rush of feet, the cries of anger and the furious beating of fists upon the door. Then he was forced to move away, feeling sick -not with fear, but with grief and helpless sympathy. It was the bitterest moment of his life.

The sergeant had given him two warnings, but so dark was his mood that at first he heeded only one of them. He looked to the protection of the windows and the safety of the staff and posted watchers to guard against any possibility of arson. Where the accounts were concerned, his own conscience was clear. There were so many other matters needing his attention that he did not immediately recall the doubts which he himself had felt and expressed when he took up his duties as manager.

Only later, when the street was empty again, was he able to consider his own position more carefully. The angry crowd, which during the morning had increased to fill the whole area outside Lorimer's, was by noon pressed back by half a dozen policemen, whirling their rattles as though they were weapons. At last, as evening approached, the depositors dispersed with curses and tears, enabling David to send for a hansom in which the chairman could be conveyed back to Brinsley House. John Junius did not argue. His recognition that the Lorimer livery would be stoned on sight was a mark of his acceptance of defeat.

David sat on in his office long after the heart of the city
had been deserted by all but the policemen left to guard his premises. He left the gas lamp unlit so that no light would attract attention from outside. Then at last he had time to remember the balances he had queried, the changes which had been made during his absence in London. He had accepted from John Junius an explanation which could only be excused by success. Now he realized that those figures would be scrutinized in the harsh light of failure.

There was no need to look again at the books: he knew well enough what they said. The sweat chilled on his forehead as he thought what use could be made of the figures by angry men looking for a culprit. Nothing could alter the fact that he had accepted them – his only defence could be that as manager he had been bound to obey his chairman's instructions. Could he rely on the chairman to agree that such instructions had been given?

At the beginning of the day David had been upset at the fate of the innocent victims of the collapse. As night came he felt the ground fall from beneath his own feet. But John Junius would surely not abandon the man whom his daughter loved. David told himself that such a possibility was inconceivable.

Later that evening, anonymous in a city which now reviled the name of Lorimer, he paced the streets and came to a halt at last on the bank of the floating harbour, the lock-controlled basin which ensured that once a ship had made her hazardous way up the tidal river there was enough water for her to remain in the Bristol Docks. A three-masted barque, with lanterns tied to each mast, was gliding to her mooring place after a voyage to West Africa and back. The wharf was crowded with men who hoped for the work of unloading her cargo and women waiting to greet the crew and relieve them of their wages. She was a twenty-year-old ship with long, low lines – more graceful than the high, wide hulls with which William Lorimer's new steamships faced the Atlantic waves. Within a week or
two, no doubt, if she had suffered no damage on her voyage, she would be off again on some adventure. David allowed his imagination to sail with her.

But he was a city man, not an explorer, and he had no experience of trading. Such primitive parts of the world could offer him nothing but a refuge, and as yet he had not sunk as low as that. The interest with which he watched the barque reflected only an instinct which he had not yet consciously considered - that as soon as possible he must find himself fresh employment, and that he would have to look for it with no kind of recommendation and as far away as possible from Bristol.

The thought led him to consider Margaret. He had kept away from Brinsley House, feeling that it was the duty of her father rather than himself to explain to her the loss of everything which she had taken for granted all her life. It would be a sour moment for the old man, and not one which he would wish to share with someone who was still almost a stranger. He and his daughter would need to comfort each other, although it was difficult to see what comfort either of them could provide, except affection. But it was clear to David that he must call on Margaret as soon as she had absorbed the first shock. He had told her that she could rely on his constancy, and at the time she could not have understood what he meant. Now that she knew, she might forget the reassurance. It must be repeated.

Yet what had he to offer except affection again? A man without employment or prospects was hardly the most welcome knight to swear loyalty to a damsel in distress. He could tell her that he loved her, and it would be true, but how could he support her? Only a fool thought that two people could live on love alone. He could ask her to wait, but could she afford to wait? His head swam with the conflict. He could not bear the thought of losing her; nor could he think how to keep her. That night he lay awake in
the lodgings which once he had thought too mean and which soon might be more than he could afford. He tried to look into the future and saw only blackness and despair.

Actions which betray an emergency speak more loudly than words of reassurance. On the day after Georgiana's funeral Margaret and Ralph were startled to their feet by a sound usually heard only before the family's annual holiday. The servants were bolting the shutters into position across the windows. John Junius must have given the instructions before he left for the bank. Hurrying to look from her bedroom window, Margaret saw that all the outside staff, although pretending to go about their business in the stables or gardens, were obviously on guard. The front door was chained as well as bolted and it was Ransome who, repeating David's earlier instructions that she must keep to the house, at last told her why.

When their father returned that evening they followed him into his study without being invited and stood in silence, waiting for him to speak. He sat at his desk and gave a great sigh of tiredness. Often in the past few months Margaret had thought he looked anxious. Tonight she saw that he was defeated.

‘It was all for you, and for William,' said John Junius. ‘I never wanted more than to give my children an even better life than I had myself. And now I shall see you with nothing. With the failure of the bank, my fortune is lost. Entirely lost.' He looked at each of them in turn. ‘I'm sorry,' he said.

Never before in her whole life had Margaret heard her father apologize for anything. She hurried to embrace him, without giving herself time to consider the implications of
what he said. But he was beyond comfort. He could only speak the words he had prepared.

‘You are to go to your brother's house. I have sent a message that he should expect you. Until our affairs are settled, there may be ill-feeling towards myself. Take a few things and go at once. The carriage can return in an hour for your maid and whatever else of your possessions she has packed for you.'

‘But you will come with us, Papa?'

‘No,' said John Junius. Defeat had not diminished his ability to be definite. Margaret hesitated, but she was already sure that he could not be persuaded.

Half an hour later she and Ralph arrived at The Ivies. They were received by the butler. The master was down at Portishead, they were told, assessing the damage to the
Georgiana,
whilst the mistress had spent the day unwell in bed. It was a cold welcome for a visit for which no one was prepared. Margaret and Ralph did not speak as they were shown to musty rooms which were being hastily aired for them.

When she had changed her dress, Margaret found herself drawn to the door of Sophie's room, but reluctant to intrude. The sound of a groan decided her. She knocked on the door and went in without waiting for an answer.

It was obvious at once what was happening. Sophie's maid, a girl almost as young as Betty, was sitting beside the bed with a frightened expression, wiping her mistress's forehead with a cool cloth, while Sophie herself gasped and writhed with pain. Margaret hurried to the other side of the bed.

‘Is it the baby?' she asked.

‘It's too soon,' said Sophie. The pain passed and she collapsed back into the pillows again, gasping for breath. ‘There are seven weeks before it is due.'

‘But you must know if these are labour pains.'

‘If the baby is born now it will die,' said Sophie. ‘It
cannot be coming. A little indigestion, it can't be more than that. It was so hot yesterday. And the shock of hearing William's news about the
Georgiana.
And then this morning a message arrived to say that my father had been thrown from his horse and taken unconscious to hospital. I allowed myself to become upset. William told me that I should not cry, and I did not heed him. It will pass. Surely it will pass.'

Margaret turned to the maid.

‘Has the doctor been sent for?'

The girl shook her head.

‘Mistress wouldn't let me. She said it was nothing.'

Margaret tugged at the bell rope, then hurried downstairs without waiting for any of the servants to arrive. She found the butler in the hall and gave him quick instructions.

‘Send the footman for Dr Scott. He must be found wherever he may be, and he is to come at once. The midwife as well. Do you know where she lives? Send the victoria for her. Ask Mr Ralph to go at once to find your master. Make it clear to them all that it is a matter of life or death.'

She ran back upstairs and then stood still for a moment inside the doorway of Sophie's room in order to steady her mind and banish any trace of panic from her voice.

‘Tell the cook to have hot water ready,' she told the girl. ‘Bring me clean linen. Find the cradle and scrub it clean, and prepare it for the baby. Where are Matthew and Beatrice?'

‘Mistress sent them to stay with her mother this morning, when she began to feel unwell.'

‘Off you go, then.' Margaret sat down beside Sophie again.

‘If the baby is ready to be born, we cannot stop it,' she said. ‘You will injure your own health if you try.'

‘It's too soon,' moaned Sophie.

‘You have two beautiful children. And you will have
many more. We will all do our best for this one. But the most important thing is to preserve your own health, to be a good mother to Matthew and Beatrice. The doctor is on his way. Lie back and calm yourself.'

It was easy to say, but the next three hours were by no means calm. William was the first to arrive, although he had had the greatest distance to travel. Margaret heard him talking agitatedly in the hall and went out to enquire what was the matter.

‘The midwife was not due to come for five weeks yet,' William told her, passing on a message which had just been delivered to himself. ‘She is in attendance at another confinement and cannot leave. She has given us other addresses. Ralph has promised to go out again at once.'

‘And Dr Scott?'

‘I don't understand why he's taking so long.'

He came at that moment, and the first words he spoke made Margaret look at him in astonishment and horror. He was drunk.

‘Another little Lorimer,' he said in a voice that was thick and slurred. ‘The Lorimers have need of a doctor. They snap their fingers and Dr Scott must come running. I snap my fingers back, sir. I say to myself, let the Lorimers show me the colour of their money. But the Lorimers have no money. And Dr Scott has no money either. His house will be sold over his head and his wife will starve and yet the Lorimers expect that he will run their errands and deliver their babies and be glad that there is one more Lorimer in the world to steal the bread out of the mouths of the poor. Well, I am come, sir, running to the snap of your fingers.'