Poppy Part 56

CHAPTER XXIX

Carson left the next day for Johannesburg as he had intended, speaking to no woman after he had parted from that pale, ardent one under the flamboyant tree. Other women, indeed, had ceased to exist for him. With _one_ he knew there must yet be a scene, most painful and bitter, which could not be s.h.i.+rked; the thought of it, _when_ he thought of it, turned his heart cold--but it must be confessed that he did not think of it often. He was too busy in his first weeks of absence to think of any woman much--even the best-beloved. Up to his eyes in affairs, and among a hundred old friends and haunts in the busy, virile life of the Rand, he had scarcely time to turn up the book of his mind for a page he knew was there, illumined with letters of fire and gold. But always he wore a red rose in his heart. Always a star glimmered at the back of his life, colouring the days golden.

Sometimes in the night-hours, or with the dawn, a vision of her face would come to him, so sharp and clear, that it seemed her body must be in the room, as well as her spirit, and almost she would fill the arms he put out for her. In those hours it was made clear to him how Love can wrench the spirit from the body and send it speeding across the miles to the Beloved.

He had not asked her to write, nor did he write himself. Their love was not one which needed to be kept afire by words; already it burned too fiercely for peace. Letters would have been a delight, it is true; but he was artist enough to realise the value of restraint from small joys that a great joy may be more complete, and he knew that their meeting would be the dearer and sweeter for this intervening silence "too full for sound or foam."

Moreover, his affairs were critical. He required all his coolness and judgment for the share market, and the letters he must write if he wrote at all to her, though they would not have disabled him for the fight, must at least have left him less calm and unshaken than he desired to be at this juncture. Fortune is a woman, and a jealous one at that. She must be wooed and wors.h.i.+pped, and all others forgotten for her sake before she will bestow her smiles. Carson approached her in a spirit of ravishment. His desire was for her favours, and he was prepared to drag them from her, if she would not give. He was prepared to buy and sell as never before in all his gay, careless life--feverish for gain.

The glance with which he searched the face of Fortune was neither imperialistic nor altruistic now, but purely personal; he was thinking, plotting, planning for the future; but the details of that same future were too wild and sweet to be thought upon. They sang a song in his veins that would not be silenced.

His first business was to find Charlie Rosser, his broker, the shrewdest, straightest man on 'Change,' and a personal friend at that.

But the slump was affecting people's health. All Johannesburg was laid up, nursing its lungs, its hump, or its pet stocks, and Rosser was amongst the invalids. So Carson's first week was spent at a loose end, for he was too wise a citizen of the world to venture upon the seas of finance, of which he had no great knowledge, without a good man at the helm. Most days, however, found him making his way through the crowded streets to "the Chains" for news of the market. Things were as bad as they could be, and every man had a tale of dolour to pitch, but no one looked dolorous. The high, fine air of Johannesburg is a wonderful thing for making people think they are all muscle and no nerves--and they don't find out their mistake until after they have made their pile, or lost it, when the "finding out" doesn't matter, anyway.

The place was always home to Carson, and "full of friendly faces," and he trod its streets as familiarly as the decks of his own soul.

One morning, just before High Change, he found an extra jostle going on amongst the crowds of brokers and dealers "between the Chains." Everyone was agog. The market had come better from London. In antic.i.p.ation of a demand at High Change, shares were changing hands merrily. Carson was hailed blithely by friend and foe alike, offered everything he didn't want, and alternately elated and depressed by the news that came to him concerning the stocks in which he was interested. But on the whole, the outlook was bright.

"Boom!" was the hilarious word that cleared the horizon of clouds.

"There's going to be a boom!" men shouted, and their eyes were full of the bland joy of piracy. Rumours had come that the "Corner House" was supporting the market for _their_ special stocks, and other houses followed the lead. Johannesburg is the most sensitive market in the world--it responds to outside influence as the violin to Sarasate.

In the midst of the dust and din Carson caught sight among the crowd of a puffy red face, with grim eyes and the sweeping moustache of an Algerian pirate. He was waving frantically at Carson and yelling:

"My office! Come and pow-wow!"

In five minutes Carson had trailed Rosser to his lair, and they were deep in a discussion of prospects. Rosser's tips were no better than any other, but his opinion on the trend of the market was always worth hearing, and usually as nearly right as possible.

"Shall I sell or hold?" demanded Carson, when his affairs had been laid upon the board and swiftly scanned.

"Hold?" screamed Rosser. "Everything is going to the devil. Do you think I take any stock in this good news? Why--_the country is rotten_. The British public is steadily selling. This improvement can't last--it's only a flash in the pan. Sell! This is your chance. Sell all you've got.

Sell calls--sell your s.h.i.+rt--sell _anything_--up to ninety days.

Destruction comes after."

This was Carson's mood also. But he had an anchor now that deterred him from advancing too gaily towards the breakers. He first examined Rosser from top to toe with steely eyes, then advanced the objection that if he had to pay brokerage on the whole amount out of his call-money, he wouldn't make a heap of profit. Rosser began to prophesy, but without sanct.i.ty.

"No calls will be taken up this year. h.e.l.l! I've a good mind to run the biggest bear account you've ever dreamt of, Carson. Take my advice and sell, man. Sell on 'fixed delivery' and 'buyer's option' and 'to arrive'--play bear till all is blue." He suddenly became calm and business-like. "Think it over for a few moments while I read my letters, and then decide."

In old days Carson would have embraced the proposition with the devil-may-care philosophy of the usual Rand man, that if "bearing"

smashed him up he'd be no worse off than a hundred better men who'd done the same thing before him. But now--he was feverish for gain--the thought of loss was unendurable. Rosser suddenly looked up at him with a waiting smile.

"Well?"

"d.a.m.ned if I don't do it, Charlie. You can sell calls on everything I've got, this morning--here's the list, and in the afternoon you can sell everything I haven't got on 'fixed delivery,' or 'to arrive.'"

"Good, man!" cried Rosser.

"And what about my block of South Rands?"

This was Carson's hold-by. The biggest stone in his box. He had bought these fifty shares at a sheriff's sale for twenty pounds each, years before, and though he had often wanted the money, some indefinable superst.i.tion had kept him cheerfully paying up licences and hanging on.

_Now_ rumour went, the Big House wanted them.

"What will you take for them?" asked Rosser, grinning. "Cost?"

"No!" said Carson violently, "nor double, nor quadruple. I'll do or die by those d.a.m.ned things."

Rosser regarded him cynically, but with affection. It had not escaped the grim eyes that Carson here present was not the notoriously careless, indifferent Carson of the past.

"You sound to me like a man who wants to buy a trousseau for himself,"

he remarked, but his gibe brought no blush to the brazen cheek before him, and he did not dream that he had made a bull's-eye.

"But you're quite right, Karri.... You're going to make a big bag out of that little preserve ... only keep cool ... and if Wallerstein asks you about them, say they're not for sale ... I haven't time to tell you any more now." He was looking at his watch. "By Cli! I must get away to 'Change. Where shall we meet afterwards?"

"At the Club," said Carson briefly. "One sharp. My table is third on the left as you go in ... don't be late."

They parted. Rosser for 'Change, and Carson to walk swiftly away down Commissioner Street towards Jeppestown, past the City-and-Suburban-Towns.h.i.+p-blocks, with the fine buildings that look so substantial and impressed every new-comer with the stability and security of life and fortune in the great mining centre. The place was teeming with life and apparent prosperity. But a grim smile hovered on Carson's lips. He knew, as well as Rosser, that things, so far from being secure and stable, were, under the corrupt Boer Government, rotten to the core, and could never be on a sound basis until England intervened. But this was '98, and the time was not yet.

Punctually at one Rosser arrived at the Rand Club. Carson was deep in an _indaba_ with two men he knew well, and the talk was all of shares and money--big business had been done on 'Change. Rosser was cold-eyed and inaccessible until the other men went, then he brightened and told Carson what he had done.

"I've sold everything on time!" he said. "Committed you--roughly--to ten thousand pounds of sales ... sixty days ... buyer's options."

If Carson's spirit groaned, his face gave no sign; but the little broker was as sensitive as the market. He looked at the other keenly.

"Don't do the business if you're afraid; I'm perfectly satisfied to go into it alone. Why! I'm so certain of the coming fall that I advise you to run a bear account up to fifty thousand pounds. h.e.l.l! Carson, what's come to you? I've never known you like this before."

"I've got a touch of fever," said Carson irritably, but he did not specify the peculiar brand he was suffering from. He was ashamed of his funk--but the best of men get attacks of it in certain circ.u.mstances.

"Well, if you'll make up your mind to stick to it for three months you'll make ten thousand pounds at least."

"Three months!" It was Carson's turn to cry "h.e.l.l!" But presently he said firmly: "Go ahead, Rosser, and sell another ten thousand--buyer's options, this afternoon."

"Right!" cried Rosser gaily, and with a heart at peace proceeded to acknowledge his friends at various tables, while Carson turned up the wine-list. They had been eating and drinking steadily through lunch.

"Coffee, 1830 Brandy, and '94 Coronas," was Carson's order, and when the waiter had come and gone, Rosser sadly said, looking at his gla.s.s:

"I wonder how long it will last!"

"What, the market?" Once more the teeth of Carson's soul chattered.

"No--Karri, you're all to bits--the brandy. There can't be much of it left. Now let's get to this South-Rand proposition. Look here--you know I'm a few pounds to the good ... and I'm really smitten with my bear scheme. If you're anxious about it, I'll stand in with you ... share and share. But only on the condition that you give me a share in your South Rand claims."

"Let's hear the proposition," said Carson, beginning to take a more cheerful view of life through his smoke rings.

"You have fifty claims? Wallerstein will give you one hundred pounds each for them; but they are worth five times that if the business is properly engineered. They're a long way from the out-crops, but the reef _must_ be found dipping through them, and the Big House _must_ have them to make up their area. Now what I propose is this: You leave the business to me. Value the claims say at two hundred pounds each, and give me half of what I can get over that."