Tomlinson was about to rush distractedly out of the room, when the cashier was summoned into the public department of the establishment.
Five minutes elapsed ere his return—five minutes which appeared five hours to James Tomlinson.
At length the old man came back; and this time he did not carry his snuff-box in his hand.
Without uttering a word, he took the "notice of stoppage" off the table, crushed it in his hand, and threw it into the fire.
"Saved once more," he murmured, as he watched the paper burning to tinder; and when it was completely consumed, he took a long and hearty pinch of snuff.
"Saved!" echoed Tomlinson: "do you mean that we are saved again?"
"Seven thousand four hundred and sixty-seven pounds just paid in to Dobson and Dobbins's account," answered the cashier, coolly and leisurely, as if he himself experienced not the slightest emotion.
In another hour there were fifteen thousand pounds in the safe; and when the bank closed that evening at the usual time, this sum had swollen up to twenty thousand and some hundreds.
This day was a specimen of the life of James Tomlinson, the banker.
Readers, when you pass by the grand commercial and financial establishments of this great metropolis, pause and reflect ere you envy their proprietors! In the parlours and offices of those reputed emporiums of wealth are men whose minds are a prey to the most agonising feelings—the most poignant emotions.
There is no situation so full of responsibility as that of a banker—no trust so sacred as that which is confided to him. When he fails, it is not the ruin of one man which is accomplished: it is the ruin of hundreds—perhaps thousands. The effects of that one failure are ramified through a wide section of society: widows and orphans are reduced to beggary—and those who have been well and tenderly nurtured are driven to the workhouse.
And yet the law punishes not the great banker who fails, and who involves thousands in his ruin. The petty trader who breaks for fifty pounds is thrown into prison, and is placed at the tender mercy of the Insolvents' Court, which perhaps remands him to a debtor's gaol for a year, for having contracted debts without a reasonable chance of paying them. But the great banker, who commenced business with a hundred thousand pounds, and who has dissipated five hundred thousand belonging to others, applies to the Bankruptcy Court, never sees the inside of a prison at all, and in due time receives a certificate, which clears him of all his liabilities, and enables him to begin the world anew. The petty trader passes a weary time in gaol, and is then merely emancipated from his confinement—but not from his debts. His future exertions are clogged by an impending weight of liability. One system or the other is wrong:—decide, O ye legislators who vaunt "the wisdom of your ancestors," which should be retained, and which abolished—or whether both should be modified!
* * * * *
In the course of the evening the Earl of Warrington called upon Mrs. Arlington, with whom he passed a few minutes alone in the drawing-room.
When his lordship had taken his departure, Diana returned to Eliza whom she had left in another apartment, and, placing a quantity of letters, folded, but unsealed, in her hands, said, "These are the means of introduction to some of the first families in Montoni. They are written, I am informed, by an Italian nobleman of great influence, and whose name will act like a talisman in your behalf. They are sent unsealed according to usage; but the earl has earnestly and positively desired that their contents be not examined in this country. He gave this injunction very seriously," added Diana, with a smile, "doubtless because he supposed that he has to deal with two daughters of Eve whose curiosity is invincible. He, however, charged me to deliver this message to you as delicately us possible."
"These letters," answered Eliza, glancing over their superscriptions, "are addressed to strangers and not to me; and although I know that they refer to me, I should not think of penetrating into their contents, either in England or elsewhere. But did you express to the earl all the gratitude that I feel for his numerous and signal deeds of kindness?"
"The earl is well aware of your grateful feelings," replied Mrs. Arlington. "Can you suppose that I would forget to paint all you experience for what he has already done, and what he will still do for you? He will see you for a moment ere your departure to-morrow, to bid you farewell."
"I appreciate that act of condescension on his part," observed Eliza, affected even to tears, "more than all else that he has ever yet done for me!"
* * * * *
On the following day Eliza Sydney, accompanied by the faithful Louisa, and attended by an elderly valet who had been for years in the service of the Earl of Warrington, took her departure from London, on her way to the Grand Duchy of Castelcicala.
CHAPTER LV.
MISERRIMA!!!
WE now come to a sad episode in our history—and yet one in which there is perhaps less romance and more truth than in any scene yet depicted.
We have already warned our reader that he will have to accompany us amidst appalling scenes of vice and wretchedness:—we are now about to introduce him to one of destitution and suffering—of powerful struggle and unavailing toil—whose details are so very sad, that we have been able to find no better heading for our chapter than miserrima, or "very miserable things."
The reader will remember that we have brought our narrative, in preceding chapters, up to the end of 1838:—we must now go back for a period of two years, in order to commence the harrowing details of our present episode.
In one of the low dark rooms of a gloomy house in a court leading out of Golden Lane, St. Luke's, a young girl of seventeen sate at work. It was about nine o'clock in the evening; and a single candle lighted the miserable chamber, which was almost completely denuded of furniture. The cold wind of December whistled through the ill-closed casement and the broken panes, over which thin paper had been pasted to repel the biting chill. A small deal table, two common chairs, and a mattress were all the articles of furniture which this wretched room contained. A door at the end opposite the window opened into another and smaller chamber: and this latter one was furnished with nothing, save an old mattress. There were no blankets—no coverlids in either room. The occupants had no other covering at night than their own clothes;—and those clothes—God knows they were thin, worn, and scanty enough!
Not a spark of fire burned in the grate;—and yet that front room in which the young girl was seated was as cold as the nave of a vast cathedral in the depth of winter.
The reader has perhaps experienced that icy chill which seems to strike to the very marrow of the bones, when entering a huge stone edifice:—the cold which prevailed in that room, and in which the young creature was at work with her needle, was more intense—more penetrating—more bitter—more frost-like than even that icy chill!
Miserable and cheerless was that chamber: the dull light of the candle only served to render its nakedness the more apparent, without relieving it of any of its gloom. And as the cold draught from the wretched casement caused the flame of that candle to flicker and oscillate, the poor girl was compelled to seat herself between the window and the table, to protect her light from the wind. Thus, the chilling December blast blew upon the back of the young sempstress, whose clothing was so thin and scant—so very scant!
The sempstress was, as we have before said, about seventeen years of age. She was very beautiful; and her features, although pale with want, and wan with care and long vigils, were pleasing and agreeable. The cast of her countenance was purely Grecian—the shape of her head eminently classical—and her form was of a perfect and symmetrical mould. Although clothed in the most scanty and wretched manner, she was singularly neat and clean in her appearance; and her air