He had offered to await the result of his client’s visit to the bank at Fenton’s, but Adam (looking alarmingly like a schoolboy bent on mischief) said that he was not going to return to the hotel until late at night, because he meant to take good care to keep out of his father-in-law’s way, and it was well within the bounds of probability that Mr Chawleigh might call there to make certain that his advice was being followed. “I should be obliged to tell him the truth, and that wouldn’t do at all,” Adam said. “I’ll come to your place of business, and very likely remain there. I shouldn’t think he would call there, would you? He will suppose you to be running all about the City, trying to dispose of my stock. In any event, we will warn your clerk! Is there a cupboard I can slip into, in case of need?”
Jolting over the cobbles in the aged and malodorous hack, Mr Wimmering reflected that with all his faults the Fifth Viscount had never demanded of his man of business a cupboard in which he could hide.
Arrived at his office, he had some time to wait before he heard Adam’s halting step on the dusty stairs. He got up from behind his desk, as Adam was ushered into his room, but he had no need to ask how my lord had fared: the answer was plain to see in his smile. Wimmering had had time to recover his usual composure, and he said, in a tone of mere respectful enquiry: “Your lordship has prospered in your errand?”
Adam nodded. “Yes, of course! Did you think I should not? Fifty thousand — can you buy up to that figure?”
“Fifty thousand?” echoed Wimmering. “Drummond will lend you fifty thousand pounds, my lord?”
“But why not? Consider! I’ve something in the region of twenty thousand invested in the Funds already: I have Fontley, with the demesne lands; and besides that there are the three farms which — ”
“Did he know for what purpose you wanted such a sum, my lord?”
“Certainly! He doesn’t think I’ve run mad! Nor is he shaking like a blancmanger because we may have suffered a reverse. We had a long talk together: he’s a sensible man — really a great gun!” He regarded Wimmering with a decided twinkle, and said reproachfully: “No, no, you are, quite mistaken!”
“My lord?” said Wimmering, startled.
“I told him, at the outset, that I wished to impress upon him most particularly that what I had to propose to him had nothing whatsoever to do with my father-in-law!”
Wimmering opened his mouth, and shut it again. He could well imagine what the effect of this warning must have been. He began to suspect that he had underrated his lordship, but all he said was: “Just so, my lord. Very proper!”
Adam laughed. “Well, he can’t say I didn’t tell him the exact truth, at all events! Now, listen, Wimmering! Mr Chawleigh assured me that you would know how to sell my stock, so I trust you may know how to buy more for me.”
“There will be no difficulty about that, my lord,” replied Wimmering, at his dryest.
“Good! I don’t know how low the price may sink, but I think I ought not to run any risks, so buy now, if you please!”
Mr Wimmering closed his eyes for an anguished moment “Run any risks ...!” he repeated faintly.
“If I delayed, in the hope of buying cheaper still, I might miss my tip. At any moment now we may expect to get news from Headquarters, which will put an end to the panic in the City. Drummond warns me not to look for any startling rise immediately. He considers that it’s unlikely that the price will go beyond what it was when the books were closed, so do the best you can for me, Wimmering! I know you will.”
“I should prefer to say that I shall obey your orders, my lord,” Wimmering replied.
Though he set about his task with extreme reluctance, he performed it to his patron’s entire satisfaction. “As low as that!” Adam exclaimed, still in that mood of alarming elation. “You’re a wizard, Wimmering! how the devil did you contrive to do it? I wish you will try to look a little more cheerful!”
“My lord,” said Wimmering, “had I found it impossible to buy at so low a figure I should feelmore cheerful!”
Adam went off to Brooks’s, where he dined, and spent the evening. There were a large number of members present, and for a time he was kept tolerably well-entertained, talking to friends, and listening with amusement to the ridiculous theories being put forward about the progress of the war; but as the evening wore on he ceased to be amused. He began to be irritated, and several times responded to remarks addressed to him with a shortness which bordered on incivility. He moved away presently, wondering why the pessimists should be so much more numerous and vociferous than the optimists. He was a little surprised to find that absurdities could make him angry; but he thought that those who spread ominous stories, which were invariably vouched for as having emanated from trustworthy sources, deserved to be given a sharp set-down. Only fools placed the slightest credence in reports repeated by prattleboxes who had heard them from a friend to whom they had been told by someone who had met a man just arrived from Belgium, but when everyone must be feeling a considerable degree of anxiety it was really criminal to disseminate rumours that could only serve to encourage despondency. He removed himself out of earshot of the war-group, and sat down to glance through the latest issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine. There was nothing in it of interest; he tried to read one article, but found his mind wandering, perhaps because two elderly gentlemen distracted him by arguing hotly on the respective merits of Turner and Claude. Fragments of other conversations reached his ears: the Panorama in Leicester Fields, somebody’s latest witticism, somebody’s run of luck at macao: it was incredible that people could be absorbed in such fripperies at such a moment! His head had begun to ache; he felt depressed, and realized that he was very tired. That accounted for his inability to concentrate his mind on a dull article. It was time he went to bed. He left the club, and walked up the street to his hotel, telling himself that a good night’s sleep was all that was needed to restore him to that mood of supreme confidence which had possessed him all day.
He had expected to drop asleep immediately, but no sooner had he closed his eyes than his brain became active, thinking of the day’s transactions, speculating on what might have happened across the Channel. He tried to drag it away from the war, and to fix it instead on the schemes he had made for the improvement of his estate, but it was too strong for him. His body ached with fatigue, but whatever position he adopted was uncomfortable within a very few minutes, and the wearier he became the livelier grew his brain. He told himself that his diminishing confidence was a mere reaction from his previous elation, remembering how often, after a hard-won battle, a fit of dejection had succeeded the mood of triumph and rejoicing; but the endless argument in his head went on and on. Doubt shook him; defeat, which had seemed the remotest of possibilities, became probable; far larger in his brain than the memories of Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria loomed the thought that Wellington had never before faced Napoleon himself. He had laughed at the people who had said that to him, but it was true: Massena had been the best of the Marshals sent against Wellington, a good general, but not a Napoleon. It was also true, of course, that Wellington had never lost a battle, but that could be said of any general before his first defeat. Struggling against this creeping conviction of disaster, he thought of all the splendid fellows who had made up the Peninsular Army: drunken rascals, perhaps, but more than a match for three times their number of Frogs, as they had proved again and again. All very well in attack, Johnny Crapaud, but when it came to a dogged stand there were no soldiers in the world that bore comparison with the British.