The History of Samuel Titmarsh, and The Great Hoggarty Diamond"The horrible men came at four this morning," said she; "four hours before light."
"What horrible men?" says I.
"Your aunt's men," said she, "to remove the furniture they had it all packed before I came away. And I let them carry all," said she; "I was too sad to look what was ours and what was not. That odious Mr. Wapshot was with them; and I left him seeing the last waggon-load from the door.
I have only brought away your clothes," added she, "and a few of mine; and some of the books you used to like to read; and some--some things I have been getting for the--for the baby. The servants' wages were paid up to Christmas; and I paid them the rest. And see! just as I was going away, the post came, and brought to me my half-year's income--35_l_., dear Sam. Isn't it a blessing?"
"Will you pay my bill, Mr. What-d'ye-call-'im?" here cried Mr. Aminadab, flinging open the door (he had been consulting with Mr. Blatherwick, I suppose). "I want the room for _a gentleman_. I guess it's too dear for the like of you." And here--will you believe it?--the man handed me a bill of three guineas for two days' board and lodging in his odious house.
There was a crowd of idlers round the door as I pa.s.sed out of it, and had I been alone I should have been ashamed of seeing them; but, as it was, I was only thinking of my dear dear wife, who was leaning trustfully on my arm, and smiling like heaven into my face--ay, and _took_ heaven, too, into the Fleet prison with me--or an angel out of heaven. Ah! I had loved her before, and happy it is to love when one is hopeful and young in the midst of smiles and sunshine; but be _un_happy, and then see what it is to be loved by a good woman! I declare before Heaven, that of all the joys and happy moments it has given me, that was the crowning one--that little ride, with my wife's cheek on my shoulder, down Holborn to the prison! Do you think I cared for the bailiff that sat opposite?
No, by the Lord! I kissed her, and hugged her--yes, and cried with her likewise. But before our ride was over her eyes dried up, and she stepped blushing and happy out of the coach at the prison door, as if she were a princess going to the Queen's Drawing-room.
CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH THE HERO'S AUNT'S DIAMOND MAKES ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE HERO'S UNCLE
The failure of the great Diddles.e.x a.s.sociation speedily became the theme of all the newspapers, and every person concerned in it was soon held up to public abhorrence as a rascal and a swindler. It was said that Brough had gone off with a million of money. Even it was hinted that poor I had sent a hundred thousand pounds to America, and only waited to pa.s.s through the court in order to be a rich man for the rest of my days. This opinion had some supporters in the prison; where, strange to say, it procured me consideration--of which, as may be supposed, I was little inclined to avail myself. Mr. Aminadab, however, in his frequent visits to the Fleet, persisted in saying that I was a poor-spirited creature, a mere tool in Brough's hands, and had not saved a shilling. Opinions, however, differed; and I believe it was considered by the turnkeys that I was a fellow of exquisite dissimulation, who had put on the appearance of poverty in order more effectually to mislead the public.
Messrs. Abednego and Son were similarly held up to public odium: and, in fact, what were the exact dealings of these gentlemen with Mr. Brough I have never been able to learn. It was proved by the books that large sums of money had been paid to Mr. Abednego by the Company; but he produced doc.u.ments signed by Mr. Brough, which made the latter and the West Diddles.e.x a.s.sociation his debtors to a still further amount. On the day I went to the Bankruptcy Court to be examined, Mr. Abednego and the two gentlemen from Houndsditch were present to swear to their debts, and made a sad noise, and uttered a vast number of oaths in attestation of their claim. But Messrs. Jackson and Paxton produced against them that very Irish porter who was said to have been the cause of the fire, and, I am told, hinted that they had matter for hanging the Jewish gents if they persisted in their demand. On this they disappeared altogether, and no more was ever heard of their losses. I am inclined to believe that our Director had had money from Abednego--had given him shares as bonus and security--had been suddenly obliged to redeem these shares with ready money; and so had precipitated the ruin of himself and the concern. It is needless to say here in what a multiplicity of companies Brough was engaged. That in which poor Mr. Tidd invested his money did not pay 2_d_. in the pound; and that was the largest dividend paid by any of them.
As for ours--ah! there was a pretty scene as I was brought from the Fleet to the Bankruptcy Court, to give my testimony as late head clerk and accountant of the West Diddles.e.x a.s.sociation.
My poor wife, then very near her time, insisted upon accompanying me to Basinghall Street; and so did my friend Gus Hoskins, that true and honest fellow. If you had seen the crowd that was a.s.sembled, and the hubbub that was made as I was brought up!
"Mr. t.i.tmarsh," says the Commissioner as I came to the table, with a peculiar sarcastic accent on the t.i.t--"Mr. t.i.tmarsh, you were the confidant of Mr. Brough, the princ.i.p.al clerk of Mr. Brough, and a considerable shareholder in the Company?"
"Only a nominal one, sir," said I.
"Of course, only nominal," continued the Commissioner, turning to his colleague with a sneer; "and a great comfort it must be to you, sir, to think that you had a share in all the plun--the profits of the speculation, and now can free yourself from the losses, by saying you are only a nominal shareholder."
"The infernal villain!" shouted out a voice from the crowd. It was that of the furious half-pay captain and late shareholder, Captain Sparr.
"Silence in the court there!" the Commissioner continued: and all this while Mary was anxiously looking in his face, and then in mine, as pale as death; while Gus, on the contrary, was as red as vermilion. "Mr.
t.i.tmarsh, I have had the good fortune to see a list of your debts from the Insolvent Court, and find that you are indebted to Mr. Stiltz, the great tailor, in a handsome sum; to Mr. Polonius, the celebrated jeweller, likewise; to fashionable milliners and dressmakers, moreover;--and all this upon a salary of 200_l_. per annum. For so young a gentleman it must be confessed you have employed your time well."
"Has this anything to do with the question, sir?" says I. "Am I here to give an account of my private debts, or to speak as to what I know regarding the affairs of the Company? As for my share in it, I have a mother, sir, and many sisters--"
"The d-d scoundrel!" shouts the Captain.
"Silence that there fellow!" shouts Gus, as bold as bra.s.s; at which the court burst out laughing, and this gave me courage to proceed.
"My mother, sir, four years since, having a legacy of 400_l_. left to her, advised with her solicitor, Mr. Smithers, how she should dispose of this sum; and as the Independent West Diddles.e.x was just then established, the money was placed in an annuity in that office, where I procured a clerkship. You may suppose me a very hardened criminal, because I have ordered clothes of Mr. Von Stiltz; but you will hardly fancy that I, a lad of nineteen, knew anything of the concerns of the Company into whose service I entered as twentieth clerk, my own mother's money paying, as it were, for my place. Well, sir, the interest offered by the Company was so tempting, that a rich relative of mine was induced to purchase a number of shares."
"Who induced your relative, if I may make so bold as to inquire?"
"I can't help owning, sir," says I, blushing, "that I wrote a letter myself. But consider, my relative was sixty years old, and I was twenty- one. My relative took several months to consider, and had the advice of her lawyers before she acceded to my request. And I made it at the instigation of Mr. Brough, who dictated the letter which I wrote, and who I really thought then was as rich as Mr. Rothschild himself."
"Your friend placed her money in your name; and you, if I mistake not, Mr. t.i.tmarsh, were suddenly placed over the heads of twelve of your fellow-clerks as a reward for your service in obtaining it?"
"It is very true, sir,"--and, as I confessed it, poor Mary began to wipe her eyes, and Gus's ears (I could not see his face) looked like two red- hot m.u.f.fins--"it's quite true, sir; and, as matters have turned out, I am heartily sorry for what I did. But at the time I thought I could serve my aunt as well as myself; and you must remember, then, how high our shares were."
"Well, sir, having procured this sum of money, you were straightway taken into Mr. Brough's confidence. You were received into his house, and from third clerk speedily became head clerk; in which post you were found at the disappearance of your worthy patron!"
"Sir, you have no right to question me, to be sure; but here are a hundred of our shareholders, and I'm not unwilling to make a clean breast of it," said I, pressing Mary's hand. "I certainly was the head clerk.
And why? Because the other gents left the office. I certainly was received into Mr. Brough's house. And why? Because, sir, my aunt _had more money to lay out_. I see it all clearly now, though I could not understand it then; and the proof that Mr. Brough wanted my aunt's money, and not me, is that, when she came to town, our Director carried her by force out of my house to Fulham, and never so much as thought of asking me or my wife thither. Ay, sir, and he would have had her remaining money, had not her lawyer from the country prevented her disposing of it.
Before the concern finally broke, and as soon as she heard there was doubt concerning it, she took back her shares--scrip shares they were, sir, as you know--and has disposed of them as she thought fit. Here, sir, and gents," says I, "you have the whole of the history as far as regards me. In order to get her only son a means of livelihood, my mother placed her little money with the Company--it is lost. My aunt invested larger sums with it, which were to have been mine one day, and they are lost too; and here am I, at the end of four years, a disgraced and ruined man. Is there anyone present, however much he has suffered by the failure of the Company, that has had worse fortune through it than I?"
"Mr. t.i.tmarsh," says Mr. Commissioner, in a much more friendly way, and at the same time casting a glance at a newspaper reporter that was sitting hard by, "your story is not likely to get into the newspapers; for, as you say, it is a private affair, which you had no need to speak of unless you thought proper, and may be considered as a confidential conversation between us and the other gentlemen here. But if it _could_ be made public, it might do some good, and warn people, if they _will_ be warned, against the folly of such enterprises as that in which you have been engaged. It is quite clear from your story, that you have been deceived as grossly as anyone of the persons present. But look you, sir, if you had not been so eager after gain, I think you would not have allowed yourself to be deceived, and would have kept your relative's money, and inherited it, according to your story, one day or other.
Directly people expect to make a large interest, their judgment seems to desert them; and because they wish for profit, they think they are sure of it, and disregard all warnings and all prudence. Besides the hundreds of honest families who have been ruined by merely placing confidence in this a.s.sociation of yours, and who deserve the heartiest pity, there are hundreds more who have embarked in it, like yourself, not for investment, but for speculation; and these, upon my word, deserve the fate they have met with. As long as dividends are paid, no questions are asked; and Mr.
Brough might have taken the money for his shareholders on the high-road, and they would have pocketed it, and not been too curious. But what's the use of talking?" says Mr. Commissioner, in a pa.s.sion: "here is one rogue detected, and a thousand dupes made; and if another swindler starts to-morrow, there will be a thousand more of his victims round this table a year hence; and so, I suppose, to the end. And now let's go to business, gentlemen, and excuse this sermon."
After giving an account of all I knew, which was very little, other gents who were employed in the concern were examined; and I went back to prison, with my poor little wife on my arm. We had to pa.s.s through the crowd in the rooms, and my heart bled as I saw, amongst a score of others, poor Gates, Brough's porter, who had advanced every shilling to his master, and was now, with ten children, houseless and penniless in his old age. Captain Sparr was in this neighbourhood, but by no means so friendly disposed; for while Gates touched his hat, as if I had been a lord, the little Captain came forward threatening with his bamboo-cane and swearing with great oaths that I was an accomplice of Brough. "Curse you for a smooth-faced scoundrel!" says he. "What business have you to ruin an English gentleman, as you have me?" And again he advanced with his stick. But this time, officer as he was, Gus took him by the collar, and shoved him back, and said, "Look at the lady, you brute, and hold your tongue!" And when he looked at my wife's situation, Captain Sparr became redder for shame than he had before been for anger. "I'm sorry she's married to such a good-for-nothing," muttered he, and fell back; and my poor wife and I walked out of the court, and back to our dismal room in the prison.
It was a hard place for a gentle creature like her to be confined in; and I longed to have some of my relatives with her when her time should come.
But her grandmother could not leave the old lieutenant; and my mother had written to say that, as Mrs. Hoggarty was with us, she was quite as well at home with her children. "What a blessing it is for you, under your misfortunes," continued the good soul, "to have the generous purse of your aunt for succour!" Generous purse of my aunt, indeed! Where could Mrs. Hoggarty be? It was evident that she had not written to any of her friends in the country, nor gone thither, as she threatened.
But as my mother had already lost so much money through my unfortunate luck, and as she had enough to do with her little pittance to keep my sisters at home; and as, on hearing of my condition, she would infallibly have sold her last gown to bring me aid, Mary and I agreed that we would not let her know what our real condition was--bad enough! Heaven knows, and sad and cheerless. Old Lieutenant Smith had likewise nothing but his half-pay and his rheumatism; so we were, in fact, quite friendless.
That period of my life, and that horrible prison, seem to me like recollections of some fever. What an awful place!--not for the sadness, strangely enough, as I thought, but for the gaiety of it; for the long prison galleries were, I remember, full of life and a sort of grave bustle. All day and all night doors were clapping to and fro; and you heard loud voices, oaths, footsteps, and laughter. Next door to our room was one where a man sold gin, under the name of _tape_; and here, from morning till night, the people kept up a horrible revelry;--and sang--sad songs some of them: but my dear little girl was, thank G.o.d! unable to understand the most part of their ribaldry. She never used to go out till nightfall; and all day she sat working at a little store of caps and dresses for the expected stranger--and not, she says to this day, unhappy. But the confinement sickened her, who had been used to happy country air, and she grew daily paler and paler.
The Fives Court was opposite our window; and here I used, very unwillingly at first, but afterwards, I do confess, with much eagerness, to take a couple of hours' daily sport. Ah! it was a strange place.
There was an aristocracy there as elsewhere,--amongst other gents, a son of my Lord Deuce-ace; and many of the men in the prison were as eager to walk with him, and talked of his family as knowingly, as if they were Bond Street bucks. Poor Tidd, especially, was one of these. Of all his fortune he had nothing left but a dressing-case and a flowered dressing- gown; and to these possessions he added a fine pair of moustaches, with which the poor creature strutted about; and though cursing his ill fortune, was, I do believe, as happy whenever his friends brought him a guinea, as he had been during his brief career as a gentleman on town. I have seen sauntering dandies in watering-places ogling the women, watching eagerly for steamboats and stage-coaches as if their lives depended upon them, and strutting all day in jackets up and down the public walks. Well, there are such fellows in prison: quite as dandified and foolish, only a little more shabby--dandies with dirty beards and holes at their elbows.
I did not go near what is called the poor side of the prison--I _dared_ not, that was the fact. But our little stock of money was running low; and my heart sickened to think what might be my dear wife's fate, and on what sort of a couch our child might be born. But Heaven spared me that pang,--Heaven, and my dear good friend, Gus Hoskins.
The attorneys to whom Mr. Smithers recommended me, told me that I could get leave to live in the rules of the Fleet, could I procure sureties to the marshal of the prison for the amount of the detainer lodged against me; but though I looked Mr. Blatherwick hard in the face, he never offered to give the bail for me, and I knew no housekeeper in London who would procure it. There was, however, one whom I did not know,--and that was old Mr. Hoskins, the leatherseller of Skinner Street, a kind fat gentleman, who brought his fat wife to see Mrs. t.i.tmarsh; and though the lady gave herself rather patronising airs (her husband being free of the Skinners' Company, and bidding fair to be Alderman, nay, Lord Mayor of the first city in the world), she seemed heartily to sympathise with us; and her husband stirred and bustled about until the requisite leave was obtained, and I was allowed comparative liberty.
As for lodgings, they were soon had. My old landlady, Mrs. Stokes, sent her Jemima to say that her first floor was at our service; and when we had taken possession of it, and I offered at the end of the week to pay her bill, the good soul, with tears in her eyes, told me that she did not want for money now, and that she knew I had enough to do with what I had.
I did not refuse her kindness; for, indeed, I had but five guineas left, and ought not by rights to have thought of such expensive apartments as hers; but my wife's time was very near, and I could not bear to think that she should want for any comfort in her lying-in.
The admirable woman, with whom the Misses Hoskins came every day to keep company--and very nice, kind ladies they are--recovered her health a good deal, now she was out of the odious prison and was enabled to take exercise. How gaily did we pace up and down Bridge Street and Chatham Place, to be sure! and yet, in truth, I was a beggar, and felt sometimes ashamed of being so happy.
With regard to the liabilities of the Company my mind was now made quite easy; for the creditors could only come upon our directors, and these it was rather difficult to find. Mr. Brough was across the water; and I must say, to the credit of that gentleman, that while everybody thought he had run away with hundreds of thousands of pounds, he was in a garret at Boulogne, with scarce a shilling in his pocket, and his fortune to make afresh. Mrs. Brough, like a good brave woman, remained faithful to him, and only left Fulham with the gown on her back; and Miss Belinda, though grumbling and sadly out of temper, was no better off. For the other directors,--when they came to inquire at Edinburgh for Mr. Mull, W.
S., it appeared there _was_ a gentleman of that name, who had practised in Edinburgh with good reputation until 1800, since when he had retired to the Isle of Skye; and on being applied to, knew no more of the West Diddles.e.x a.s.sociation than Queen Anne did. General Sir Dionysius O'Halloran had abruptly quitted Dublin, and returned to the republic of Guatemala. Mr. Shirk went into the _Gazette_. Mr. Macraw, M.P. and King's Counsel, had not a single guinea in the world but what he received for attending our board; and the only man seizable was Mr. Manstraw, a wealthy navy contractor, as we understood, at Chatham. He turned out to be a small dealer in marine stores, and his whole stock in trade was not worth 10_l_. Mr. Abednego was the other director, and we have already seen what became of _him_.
"Why, as there is no danger from the West Diddles.e.x," suggested Mr.
Hoskins, senior, "should you not now endeavour to make an arrangement with your creditors; and who can make a better bargain with them than pretty Mrs. t.i.tmarsh here, whose sweet eyes would soften the hardest-hearted tailor or milliner that ever lived?"
Accordingly my dear girl, one bright day in February, shook me by the hand, and bidding me be of good cheer, set forth with Gus in a coach, to pay a visit to those persons. Little did I think a year before, that the daughter of the gallant Smith should ever be compelled to be a suppliant to tailors and haberdashers; but _she_, Heaven bless her! felt none of the shame which oppressed me--or _said_ she felt none--and went away, nothing doubting, on her errand.
In the evening she came back, and my heart thumped to know the news. I saw it was bad by her face. For some time she did not speak, but looked as pale as death, and wept as she kissed me. "_You_ speak, Mr.
Augustus," at last said she, sobbing; and so Gus told me the circ.u.mstances of that dismal day.