PAGE 6
An Unfair Advantage
by
“I have just telephoned to your house, sir,” the clerk said excitedly. “They told me you were driving to Knype and so I was coming after you in a cab.”
“Why, what’s up now?”
“Eardley Brothers have called their creditors together.”
“What?“
“I’ve just had a circular-letter from them, sir.”
Peake stared at Vodrey, and then took two steps forward, stamping his feet.
“The devil!” he exclaimed, with passionate ferocity. “The devil!”
Other men of business, besides James Peake, made similar exclamations that morning; for the collapse of Eardley Brothers, the great earthenware manufacturers, who were chiefly responsible for the ruinous cutting of prices in the American and Colonial markets, was no ordinary trade fiasco. Bursley was staggered, especially when it learnt that the Bank, the inaccessible and autocratic Bank, was an unsecured creditor for twelve thousand pounds.
Peake abandoned the Blackpool customer and drove off to consult his lawyer at Hanbridge; he stood to lose three hundred and fifty pounds, a matter sufficiently disconcerting. Yet, in another part of his mind, he felt strangely serene and happy, for he was sure now of winning his bet of one shilling with Randolph Sneyd. In the first place, the failure of Eardleys would annihilate the organ scheme, and in the second place no one would have the audacity to ask him for a subscription of a hundred pounds when it was known that he would be a heavy sufferer in the Eardley bankruptcy.
Later in the day he happened to meet one of the Eardleys, and at once launched into a stream of that hot invective of which he was a master. And all the while he was conscious of a certain hypocrisy in his attitude of violence; he could not dismiss the notion that the Eardleys had put him under an obligation by failing precisely at this juncture.
IV
On the Saturday evening only Sneyd and Mrs Lovatt came up to Hillport, Enoch Lovatt being away from home. Therefore there were no cards; they talked of the Eardley affair.
“You’ll have to manage with the old organ now,” was one of the first things that Peake said to Mrs Lovatt, after he had recited his own woe. He smiled grimly as he said it.
“I don’t see why,” Sneyd remarked. It was not true; he saw perfectly; but he enjoyed the rousing of Jim Peake into a warm altercation.
“Not at all,” said Mrs Lovatt, proudly. “We shall have the organ, I’m sure. There was an urgency committee meeting last night. Titus Blackhurst has most generously given another hundred; he said it would be a shame if the bankruptcy of professed Methodists was allowed to prejudice the interests of the chapel. And the organ-makers have taken fifty pounds off their price. Now, who do you think has given another fifty? Mr Copinger! He stood up last night, Mr Blackhurst told me this morning, and he said, ‘Friends, I’ve only seventy pounds in the world, but I’ll give fifty pounds towards this organ.’ There! What do you think of that? Isn’t he a grand fellow?”
“He is a grand fellow,” said Peake, with emphasis, reflecting that the total income of the minister could not exceed three hundred a year.
“So you see you’ll have to give your hundred,” Mrs Lovatt continued. “You can’t do otherwise after that.”
There was a pause.
“I won’t give it,” said Peake. “I’ve said I won’t, and I won’t.”
He could think of no argument. To repeat that Eardley’s bankruptcy would cost him dear seemed trivial. Nevertheless, the absence of any plausible argument served only to steel his resolution.
At that moment the servant opened the door.
“Mr Titus Blackhurst, senior, to see you, sir.”
Peake and his wife looked at one another in amazement, and Sneyd laughed quietly.
“He told me he should come up,” Mrs Lovatt explained.
“Show him into the breakfast-room, Clara,” said Mrs Peake to the servant.
Peake frowned angrily as he crossed the hall, but as he opened the breakfast-room door he contrived to straighten out his face into a semblance of urbanity. Though he could have enjoyed accelerating the passage of his visitor into the street, there were excellent commercial reasons why he should adopt a less strenuous means towards the end which he had determined to gain.