Will You Love Me in September

"But, my dear Clarissa, think how much richer you would have been if you had left the shares in.”

"On paper," I reminded him. "I have really done very well.”

"Thanks to what you thought of as my wickedness in the first place.”

I agreed that this was so. "But," I said firmly, "my money remains where it is.”

"Is that final?" asked Lance pleadingly. He had nothing left with which to gamble himself and was itching to get his hands on my money, I knew.

"Final," I replied with emphasis.

He would take me to the coffeehouses, which were full of people talking of the wonder of the South Sea Company; they discussed their plans for spending their newly acquired wealth.

Even the sellers of spiced gingerbread and watercress talked of the wonders of the times to come when everybody would be rich.

All through the summer the fervor persisted, and always I refused to be drawn into it.

Then, as suddenly as dreams of prosperity had come, they began to disappear. It was a hot August, I remember. We should have been in the country, but Lance could not tear himself away from the excitement of London. Each day he studied the prices and calculated how rich his shares in the South Sea Company had made him.

He came into the drawing room where I was sitting reading and there was a look of intense excitement on his face.

I looked up and asked what had happened.

He threw himself into an armchair and said, "The stock is down to eight hundred and fifty.”

"Eight hundred and fifty!" I repeated. I had taken little interest in the market and had deliberately refused to listen, but I did know that I had sold out at a thousand.

"I can't understand it," went on Lance. "It's all happened in a day. It's because of the spurious companies which have been springing up ... trying to get in on the reputation of the South Sea Company. Some of them have been proved to be false and people are panicking. It'll pass.”

But it did not pass. The next day the shares were down to eight hundred and twenty, and within the next two days to seven hundred.

The mood of the streets had changed. There were gloomy faces in the coffeehouses; the street merchants were looking anxious and the traders chattered in hushed voices.

"It'll pass," said Lance. "It's just a momentary panic. Then they'll shoot up higher than ever. People are beginning to sell. When the shares go up they'll have to pay higher to get them back.”

By mid-September the shares had tumbled to one hundred and fifty. I marveled that what I had sold for a thousand would only bring in one hundred and fifty now. I shuddered to think how quickly fortunes could be made and lost.

Even Lance was uneasy now. On the last day of September the shares had dropped below a hundred. I remember that day so l. I had never seen him so downcast before.

I ran to him in consternation when he came in from the city.

"Why, Lance," I cried, "what has happened?”

He said, "Frank Welling has killed himself.”

I knew Frank Welling. He was one of the first of Lance's friends I had met after my marriage-a wealthy man, with estates in the country and a magnificent town house in St. James' Street. I knew that he had been a gambling friend of Lance's and they often went to clubs together.

"He shot himself," said Lance. "He lost everything.”

"How dreadful for his family.”

"I'm afraid there will be others like him.”

I was so passionately angry. Why could they not resist the desire to gamble! They knew the risk involved. How could they be so foolhardy!

I thought of Frank Welling's wife, and there were three children, I remembered. What tragedy had come to their lives which before had been so comfortable, and all because of an irresistible desire to grow rich quickly and take a gamble on it.

Frank Welling's case was one of many. Those excited people who had thronged the coffeehouses now assembled there to discuss the tragedy which had befallen them. Everyone was talking about what they called the South Sea Bubble.

Very few people had profited from that affair--only such people like Robert Walpole and the Prince of Wales, who had foreseen disaster, and those, like myself, who had no desire to gamble.

I was afraid for Lance, for I knew he must have lost heavily. He had. Fortunately the estate in the country was intact. I had been afraid that he might try to raise money on that. I believe he had been contemplating doing so when he realized how things were going. He still would have the town house, but everything else was reduced to a fraction of what it had been before.

For a few days he was very despondent indeed, but after that his spirits rose. I believed he was assuring himself that he would soon win back his losses. After a few days he was saying that it was all part of the gamble. He had lost this time but would win the next.

"Rather a big gamble and rather a lot to lose," I reminded him.

He conceded that. "You, dear Clarissa, the clever one.”

"If it is clever to know how foolish it is to risk what you have in the hope of getting more, then I am indeed clever.”