Success

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SUCCESS SUCCESS BY UNA L. SILBERRAD NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
SUCCESS CHAPTER I Michael Annarly was talking to Lady Sibyl Carson. He had
been dining with the Carsons, and he was staying on after the other guests,
deep in talk with his hostess. He was the last to move, excepting, of
course, those who were staying in the house. These were all men; Carson did
not encourage the idea of women visitors in case they should want to go out
with the guns, and Lady Sibyl had few friends of her own sex for whom she
cared enough to insist on inviting. The men lounged by the fire in the
room, part hall, part billiard-room, to which the company had retired when
the more formal guests departed. Lady Sibyl and Annarly were some distance
from the others, she in a deep-seated chair which toned in colour with the
golden russet of her dress and hair and eyes. Annarly sat beside her in
earnest talk, as he had sat ever since their coming into the hall; since
then neither had conceded even a pretence of recognising the existence of
other people. When the one or two local guests, who had lingered on, came
to take leave of their hostess, she for the moment waked to a recollection
of their existence, made a few remarks in a charming manner, and then
obviously went back in mind to where she was before. Annarly, who in spite
of his thirty years was not really well versed in the ways of the world,
certainly not of this world, did not acquit himself even so well as that.
He remained completely absorbed until a rather pronounced yawn from one of
the group by the fireplace arrested his attention and reminded him of the
lateness of the hour and the way he had outstayed other people. He rose to
say good-bye. Lady Sibyl rose too; her eyes were shining and the whole of
her beautiful face was alive with the excitement and admiration which some
women feel for success. “Good-bye,” she said, and her voice thrilled with a
note of pride as well as sympathy, “good-bye—and thank you! Thank you, for
telling me. I am proud that you should have thought it worth while to tell
me. I need not say that I am proud that you have accomplished it—I always
knew you would! All the same”—she offered him her hand, and her voice
dropped half a tone softer—“I’m glad.” He took the hand, his unusually
sensitive and telepathetic fingers gripping hers closely. She did not
resent it, she was moved out of herself by what he had that evening told
her. “I may come on Saturday and tell you what they say?” he asked. She
nodded. “I shall be very impatient till then. I only hope they will treat
you well, what I call well; I have bigger ideas than you, you know. When
you give me leave to speak, I think I shall see if I cannot influence them.
A woman can help sometimes.” “Sometimes?” Their eyes met, and for the
moment she had the feeling, perhaps he had too, that she had been half the
inspiration of his work, or at least that her sympathy and interest had
helped through the hardest places. Carson broke in here. “You off,
Annarly?” he said, quite unconscious of any thing he might be interrupting,
and went on to speak of the state of the roads and the peculiarities of
Annarly’s car. “Who’s that chap?” Dawling, one of the men by the fire,
asked, when he had gone. “Annarly?” Carson said; “oh, he’s at Galhardy’s.”
Most of those present were that in a sense, or at least had some interest
or nominal connection with the great foundries; one of the great foundries
of Europe which, a town in itself, lay not far distant and was of more
vital interest to the surrounding country than the British Constitution or
any other human institution. Dawling himself had little interest in it,
but, from intimate conversation with those who had, most of the more
important names were familiar to him; Annarly’s he could not place among
them: also, though not very acute, he had a vague consciousness that the
man was not one of themselves. “What is he?” he asked, “I don’t seem to
have heard of him.” “That’s because you’ve been out of England the last
three years,” Brett, a smallish man in the corner, said. “Had you been
here, you’d have known—from his own demonstration, if nothing else—that he
is the greatest genius of modern times. I don’t quite know what one should
call him: engineer, mathematician, electrician, mechanic, or
Jack-of-all-trades, but it’s quite certain he’s a marvel.” The sarcasm of
the tone was so obvious that it was easy to see Brett, secretary to the
board and private secretary to the chairman of directors of Galhardy’s, did
not love this talented acquisition of the great firm. Even the unobservant
Dawling saw that, and Lady Sibyl, who had gone to a bureau at the far end
of the room, caught the intonation though not the words. She closed the
bureau and came to the group by the fire. “Are you talking of Mr. Annarly?”
she said. “He is an extraordinary person, extraordinarily clever; much,
much more able, I think, than any of you yet realise.” She stood looking
down at the blaze a moment, her eyes reflecting the flickering lights, and
a thoughtful smile curving her lips. Her husband grunted; he was not in the
least jealous, it never occurred to him to be jealous of any poet,
musician, scientist, or other man of brains with whom his wife chose to
beguile her otherwise tedious intellectual solitude. It certainly did not
occur to him to be jealous of Annarly. Though he was quite unlike all who
had gone before him in favour, and was also possessed of tangible abilities
which Carson himself could value, if not understand, he was no more one of
themselves than the others were; no more one in ordinary life, the life of
the house and the coverts, and so on. Brett, from beyond his host, moved a
little impatiently. “I am afraid you are too generous, Lady Sibyl,” he
said. “I don’t think you’ll find it wise to accept Annarly entirely on his
own valuation.” “I don’t,” she answered, “I estimate him a great deal
higher than that. Oh”—as she saw Brett’s expression—“I know some people
think him conceited, but he is not. It is true he can do and understand
things few others can, and he knows it; but he does not think highly of
himself on that account—though perhaps rather poorly of those who can’t.
That, with his way of refusing to comply with old ways that he sees no use
for, might make him unpopular. But he does not overestimate his own
ability; I think you will say that yourself soon.” “I may,” Brett conceded,
but his tone did not suggest conviction. “He’s all right,” Carson said
carelessly; “a bit short of the sense of proportion, thinks nothing on
earth matters but his own job, and don’t always see straight about that,
otherwise not bad.” “Isn’t he?” said Brett, with a vindictive flicker of
the eyelids. But he said it quietly, and as Lady Sibyl was then saying good
night, no one paid any particular attention. When she had gone Dawling
observed, “The genius seems to know something about the gentle art of
making enemies.” “Annarly?” Carson said. “He’s all right, a bit big for his
boots, but a clever devil.” “How did he get in?” It was a question of some
interest; to get into Galhardy’s, with any prospect of achieving a position
or income worth the having, was a more than difficult thing unless one were
born to it, or acquired it by great influence, income, or marriage. It was
quite evident from the attitude of all present that Annarly had not done it
in any of these ways. Brett answered now, and his tone was sarcastic. “By
merit,” he said; “he got in by his own merit and singular genius some three
years ago, and by that alone has risen to what he is. And contrived to get
more rope, more power, and more money to fool with than any other man,
though he might be ten years his senior and the nephew of a director. He is
the pet of half the board—a pretty expensive pet, I should be sorry to say
what he and his experiments have cost the firm—and the bane of the other
half, and most other men in authority too.” “H’m,” Dawling said; then
asked, “Who put him in in the first instance?” “It’s reported,” Carson
answered, “that some woman brought him to the notice of one of the
directors, old Joe, in fact, wasn’t it? At all events, he always says now
that he found him himself, was struck of a heap by some invention he
submitted, or something. Anyway, he was found, and found, or thought to be,
the man for the aerial torpedo problem.” “Is that his line?” Dawling asked,
interested. “That’s it. Not but what he’s reported to do plenty else
beside—weaned on ballistics, I believe, and knows all that’s worth knowing
about steel and guns—though he can’t hit a bunny at twenty yards. But it’s
the torpedo business that he depends on; the directors expect him not only
to perfect the means of discharging torpedoes at airships, but also to give
them a suitable torpedo-head too. They’ve been expecting it some time, and
he keeps ’em expecting; he’s a clever chap.” “Krupps also expect it of
him,” Lee-Brendon, an older man who had not heretofore spoken, observed.
“So, I believe, do the other great firms.” “Oh, I didn’t mean there’s
nothing in it,” Carson explained, “he’ll get it all right, not much doubt
about that; our directors don’t make mistakes where their own interests are
concerned. They must have pretty good grounds for their faith in Annarly to
let him have his head as they do. Not the least clever thing about him is
that he’s been able to get it; ’tisn’t every man with no more than brains
to back him, who could: I admire the chap for that, though it has made him,
as I say, a bit big for his boots.” He knocked the ashes out of his pipe as
he spoke, as a signal that he at least was ready for bed. * * * * * And
Michael Annarly? He drove home through the soft darkness of a late
September night, thinking no more of the night than of the car he drove
(and could not really afford). Neither was he, and this was rarer with him,
thinking of the difficulties of his work and the jealousies and obstacles
which met, and must meet and often thwart, a brilliant young outsider in an
old, close preserve. To-night he was not thinking of them or of ways to
deal with, dodge, or surmount them; he was done with that now, clear of
them, free of them and the need to consider them. He was thinking of a
woman whose gown repeated the russet of the bracken-clad hills at this
season of the year, and whose eyes, a tone darker, looked glowingly into
his when she had bade him come again, and said she would be impatient till
his coming. A woman whose voice had quivered with enthusiasm and given the
commendation to be coveted when he had brought her, first of all people,
word of the completion of his achievement. Through all his pulses ran the
thrill of victory; not over her, though perhaps he believed in a tenderness
for himself, but over fate and circumstances. She and her glowing sympathy
were but as a crown set on the other achievement; but one that, for the
first time, made him realise that it was victory. Before it was work—good
work—not perfect to his ideal standard, but good, what he had looked to do
and believed, although he as no other knew the enormous difficulties, that
he would do. But it was no more than that till her kindling eyes and
thrilling voice had shown it as victory. No longer only a sober, if
important achievement of great mechanical skill and mathematical ability;
no longer even an overcoming of obstacles, an outwitting of enemies, and
surmounting of difficulties, but Success, Victory, the rare, heady thing.
That night was a memorable one for Michael Annarly. Some at least are
allowed one such. A night when there is little looking before or after,
little consciousness of any but the moment, no formed consciousness of
that, only a living it in every nerve and every fibre to the very full. The
Zenith, though a man at the time does not know it—knows nothing but he is
he, and the world, all that is not he, is his for the grasping. Divine
delusion which comes near to fulfilling itself by the strength of its
conviction! Divine moment when the long fight is almost won and victory,
showing clear, is upon the threshold, and the Fates, won as women by
success, offer to add other gifts—all other gifts, everything, the whole
world to be had for the asking! Divine arrogance when a man, realising
himself a self-existing unit and feeling his power, approaches to the
Divinity! A moment such as that in which Nebuchadnezzar, struck with the
sudden realisation of his own ability and the greatness to which it had
achieved, cried, “Behold this great Babylon which I have builded!” * * * *
* It was late by the time Michael Annarly reached his rooms; by then he was
thinking quite soberly of the immediate future and of the directors of
Galhardy’s, before whom he should put the final designs for the aerial
torpedo. They knew it was completed, he himself had told them so in answer
to the last of their many inquiries; not set out clear and in the superfine
form presented to boards, but all there, all the real work done. It was a
great admission for him, the first time in all the while he had worked at
the problem, that he owned himself satisfied; the directors, well aware
that his standard would not be below theirs, were dignifiedly excited. They
requested that he would have the final designs ready to put before them at
the next board meeting. He had undertaken to do so, not omitting to mention
that it would be as much as he could do to be ready, although he had all
the notes, statistics, and details of experiments collected and on the way
to be reduced to order. It is possible, had he not himself felt some
youthful impatience to demonstrate what he had done, they might have had to
wait longer for the result. He was young enough to have enjoyed inventing
some fictitious reason for delay, by way of reprisal for what he had
suffered in the past from their impatience and from various of their
methods and those that obtained in the great firm. Other men might think he
enjoyed a most unusual, unwise, and unprecedented liberty of action in
Galhardy’s; he himself held no such opinion. He had rebelled much against
what he considered the lack of it, and against the red-tape which ruled
here only less than in a great Government department. The work had been
done in half the time, so he told Lady Sibyl more than once, had they given
him a definite sum of money, the control of a certain number of men, and
the power to get what he wanted made in other parts of the foundry, and
asked no questions and received no reports till all was finished. They had,
not unnaturally, done no such thing, though by degrees they allowed him
more freedom than had ever been given before. With the result that, with
doubt and hesitation on their part, and fretting against obstacles and
going round them on his, he had worked at a pace never before approached in
Galhardy’s; making many enemies among superiors, many admirers among
inferiors, entirely unconscious of both; turning out the most astonishing
quantity of work, although privately holding that he was terribly wasting
his time. There had been other aerial torpedoes, and other torpedo-heads of
his designing before this last one, which was to combine the excellencies
of all others. Before now the directors would have been satisfied with the
results that he could have put before them. One of the manifestations of
their impatience to which he most objected was that which made them ready
to be satisfied with a good deal less than perfection in their anxiety to
be first in solving the world’s new problem of warfare. They aimed at
making money, as they would by being first; he aimed at perfection of work
and, where work was concerned, was arrogantly contemptuous of their aims;
so far it was he who had carried the day. But all that was over now, the
work was complete. That evening he had told Lady Sibyl about it, and
received her sympathy and applause; shortly it would be formally put before
the directors, and thereafter would come other, more prosaic though
possibly more tangible, applause. He was rather late leaving his rooms the
next morning. Said rooms were situated on the outskirts of the town which,
though it bears another geographical name on the map, might really be
called Galhardy’s. Living in that part of the town was disproportionately
expensive; men of a certain standing, younger sons of good families and
protégés of the directors put into the great firm, had their rooms there;
as they were of one class (often of one family) and that a class which is
expected to pay disproportionately—and not look at the change—prices ranged
high. Annarly was not of that class, and his original instinct, inherited
from respectable, but by no means wealthy, city people, was not to pay
outrageously for what was not worth it, and to look at the change.
Nevertheless, he lived in the approved precincts and paid the demanded
price with the best grace; he reckoned he got something for it—he was
counted in as one of the others. When he left his rooms that morning, the
other men, though not all strikingly punctual, were already gone about what
they were pleased to call their work. It was decidedly late, but he had not
felt inclined to get up; he had hardly slept at all till after other people
were well astir. He often did not at that time; the fury with which he
habitually worked, taken in conjunction with the nervous fret of much of
his present life, was beginning to tell on him. A man cannot work
ceaselessly at advanced brain-work all day and wear himself to pieces all
night rebelling against the impediments in his path and devising ways of
surmounting them, without having to pay for it. The moment of victory and
cessation is liable to be the one when Nature begins to think of sending in
her bill. Not that it mattered Annarly being late; no one concerned with
time-keeping at Galhardy’s would have ventured to comment on the fact at
this stage of his career, whatever might have been the inclination earlier.
With no more than a careless nod to those he chanced to meet, he walked
into his own room. He had his own room now, and had had it some time; he
said he could do double the work if he were secured solitude and freedom
from interruption. It had taken six months’ persistent argument,
application, and persuasion to win the concession; no one of his standing
in the firm had had it before; but in the end it was won—with the ill-will
of several, and he did double the work and was satisfied. To-day, when he
went in, he found several letters and papers waiting for him; there was
only one of interest, a little note from Lady Sibyl; a few words of
rejoicing in the success, rather warmer and more unguarded than those
spoken last night. It had been written almost directly after he had left,
while the glow of enthusiasm was still on her. More than once before, after
they had spent an evening together, he had received such a note from her,
one which, as it were, carried on the talk just a point further, and said
just a little more than she herself ventured to say. Not of matters of
heart; rather those intimacies of soul and mind and the confidences of
sympathy and sentiment which give the fascination to friendship between men
and women, and sometimes land it elsewhere. Annarly had the letters, some
half dozen of them. He meant to destroy them, not that there was anything
incriminating in them, but they seemed to him too delicately private to be
fairly kept. As yet he had not done so; he had the writer’s permission to
keep them till the end of the year, on the condition that all were burnt
then. For a minute or two he looked over some of the past ones, standing by
the fire to do it. He sometimes, as to-day, wasted nearly half an hour
before he began work, and some of his compeers in the great firm knew it.
It is true he usually worked one, two, or three hours after they left off,
frequently forgot the existence of lunch, and always did in a day three
times as much as they could at the best. In a vague way some of them knew
that too, but the half hour in the morning made more impression. At length,
however, he put the letters away; he had the not uncommon habit of keeping
private papers among business ones, though in this case they, in a long
envelope, were put in a drawer by themselves. Or, rather, with no other
company than the pistol he had taken to carrying last winter, when he was
working late and coming home by lonely ways at a time that he had been
threatened by some workmen whose dismissal he had procured for
incompetency. The letters locked up, he set seriously to work. He had not
been at it much more than half an hour, and had not got beyond the stage of
finding it acutely distasteful and being fully persuaded that he was
physically and mentally incapable of doing it, when an interruption
occurred. He looked round impatiently: in spite of his conviction that he
did not want to work, he did not herald the momentary respite with
pleasure. The impatience was considerably mixed with surprise when the boy
who had knocked announced, “Sir James Shannon.” Sir James was one of the
younger directors, a very rich, a very able and, in private life, a
haughtily exclusive man. He was the one of the whole body most inimical to
Annarly; indeed, it was only his clear perception of the importance of
keeping abilities which rival firms were only too ready to buy which
prevented him from open condemnation of the man and all his works. That Sir
James should come thus was unprecedented; he had no social dealings with
him, and, unlike some other of the directors, never asked for unofficial
(and unremunerated) opinions on scientific or technical matters in which he
was interested. Any other reason for his coming was difficult to imagine;
Annarly was at a loss to understand it. The reason why Brett, secretary to
the board, should accompany him was equally difficult to guess. Something
warned him that it was not favourable, and instinctively he received the
visitor with a little less deference and a little more assurance than he
usually kept for this one of the directors. The reception was not without
effect; Sir James, who had ignored the greeting on entering and shown a
very marked and considerable distance of manner, altered a little. “Mr.
Annarly,” he said coldly, but with courtesy, “I regret that a very
unpleasant business brings me here this morning. There are some questions I
am compelled to put to you; I must ask you to answer them fully and
plainly.” “If I can,” Annarly said, and swiftly reviewed the different
matters which, from time to time, he had not communicated to the directors.
And again instinct and Brett’s hardly veiled satisfaction warned him that
the thing was serious. He pushed forward a wide-seated chair and invited
Sir James to be seated, more as if he were receiving a friend at home than
as if he were face to face with a difficult situation. Sir James sat, but
it was his only concession. Brett, ignored, and resenting it, took a small
chair beyond his chief and watched silently. “It has come to the knowledge
of the directors,” Sir James began, “that you have recently entered into
negotiations with certain foreign firms for the sale to them of inventions
worked out here, and consequently the property of this firm.” Annarly
lifted his head quickly. “Seeing that the directors——” he began.
“Precisely,” Sir James interrupted, “seeing that the directors, contrary to
the opinion of at least some, were persuaded to agree to allow you such
powers—the power to sell foreign rights in some one or two of the
inventions worked out by you for which the firm had no use—subject to
certain conditions.” “—The condition that I should have designed a
satisfactory torpedo and torpedo-head for aerial warfare. I have done so.
You know it, everyone knows it. There hasn’t been a full report yet, I
know, but it is done—it is here.” He indicated the desk with a sweep of the
hand. “You all know that. Surely, even if I had been a little previous——”
“A little previous?” Sir James’s tone was scathing. “You consider you have
been that?” “Perhaps—yes,” Annarly admitted. “Ah? I may understand, then,
that you admit to the negotiations?” “I admit that, when an opportunity
occurred, I let certain people know that I might have something to offer
them by and by. It was previous, as I have said; I should not have sought
the opportunity, but, since it offered, I took it, though, strictly
speaking, I suppose I ought not. But I have told them nothing, given them
nothing, and received from them nothing.” “I trust,” Sir James said coldly,
“that may prove to be the case. But even if it does, and I hope for your
sake it may, though you are cleared of the felonious act, you are not, and
cannot, by your own confession, be cleared of the intent.” “The intent?”
“Certainly, the intent. Really, Mr. Annarly, your attitude in the
circumstances is impertinent! You must be perfectly well aware that you
have transgressed, not only the first rule of the firm and all other firms,
but also one of the first rules of honour. You have no right to open these
negotiations now or at any other time; you have not and never will have
anything to dispose of—honestly.” “What do you mean?” Annarly asked
sharply. “I fear I don’t understand you.” Sir James grew impatient. “Have
you forgotten,” he said, “that when these unprecedented and, in my opinion,
highly improper concessions were discussed, Sir Joseph Harte, the chairman,
was not present at the board meeting? And that it was finally agreed to
grant them to you only subject to his concurrence?” “Certainly,” Annarly
answered, “I never forgot that for a moment; in fact, I went to see Sir
Joseph on the subject as soon after the board meeting as he was well enough
to see me. I put the matter before him then and there. I had spoken of it
before to him, as to most of you—and he raised no further objection,
indeed, gave a full consent. Afterwards I had a letter from him confirming
the talk.” He handed a letter to Sir James. “Brett wrote it,” he said, with
a glance which, for the first time, included the secretary in the
conversation—“he could have told you what was in it.” Sir James took the
letter, but did not read it. “Yes,” he said, and the frigidity of his
manner was unmistakable, “Mr. Brett did write it, and, in Sir Joseph’s then
indisposed condition, signed it.” Annarly looked up, a sudden fear flashing
across him—such a letter, so signed, could and might be repudiated. But the
thought found no utterance, it was too gross. “Mr. Brett is here now,” Sir
James said, “and so can tell you, though I should think it hardly
necessary, that he made a very serious mistake in that letter.” “A
mistake?” Annarly’s voice sank just a little and his assurance for the
first time wavered. The feeling began to come upon him that he was
fighting; not answering charges or facing a difficult situation, but
fighting a deadly and unrecognisable enemy, and with tied hands. Brett was
not the enemy exactly, he was an instrument, a manifestation only; a
willing instrument and a venomous manifestation, but insignificant without
the power behind. Shannon was not it exactly; he was coldly antipathetic
and coldly and contemptuously angry; but he was not the enemy, only a part,
perhaps an impersonal part, of a great and relentless power. He drew a slow
breath, and his eyes narrowed as some men’s do when they fight, but he
moistened his lips ever so little; he was afraid. “Well?” he said to Brett
curtly, and without any pretence of politeness. “I made a mistake in that
letter,” Brett answered. “Sir Joseph was not at all well when he dictated
the letters that day; a pretty sharp attack of pain came on before he had
finished; in fact, while he was dictating that one, which was the last. I
had some difficulty in making out quite what he meant once or twice, and I
entirely mistook what he intended to convey in that letter.” “Ah?” Annarly
said quietly, and then, “What did he intend to convey?” “That, on thinking
over his recent conversation with you, he felt he could not give consent to
your request without further consideration and discussion with his
co-directors.” “Ah?” Annarly said again, and again he said it quietly,
though this information and reversion of the chairman’s consent meant, not
only the loss of the concession for which he had fought so hard and
reckoned of such great value, but also some justification for Sir James’s
attitude and charges. He turned to Sir James, ignoring the secretary. “It
is certainly unfortunate, sir,” he said, “that Mr. Brett should make such
mistakes. Still, I can hardly imagine the directors will hold me guilty on
account of Mr. Brett and his mistakes.” Brett flushed. “I rectified it the
next day,” he said. “What!” Annarly’s tone was nearly an insult. “I
rectified it,” Brett maintained, wincing a little. “Sir Joseph asked me
about it the next day, he knows that when he is in pain he does not always
make himself clear; he thought I might have made a mistake in some of the
letters, so he asked me, and when I told him what I had said to you he told
me to write at once and contradict it.” “And you did?” “Yes, I did.” “You
liar!” Brett sprang to his feet, his face very white. Sir James interrupted
quickly. “Mr. Annarly, you forget yourself!” he said. Annarly turned.
“Yes,” he said, with his back to Brett, “I do; I beg your pardon, Sir
James.” Sir James frowned, Annarly’s attitude was not helpful. “You
forget,” he said with hauteur, “that it is Sir Joseph’s word we have for
the mistake and correction. Mr. Brett merely acted upon instructions in the
second letter and misunderstanding in the first.” “I received no second
letter,” Annarly said; but the feeling of the tied hands and the vast
proportions of the unrecognised foe were growing upon him. “That is
unfortunate,” Sir James said coldly. “You don’t believe me?” “I should wish
to be able to do so, but in the circumstances I fear I must suspend
judgment. And in the circumstances, and seeing the very grave nature of the
case, I must, on behalf of the directors, ask for your papers.” “My
papers?” “Yes, your papers; all papers here.” “The notes on the torpedo?
The statistics and tables? Does the board not want them reported upon?”
“The board will not trouble you to report upon them; indeed, it is the
desire of the directors that you will consider you have leave of absence
until the matter is settled. They desire that you will neither come here
nor hold communication with persons coming here, pending that time. Mr.
Brett, kindly collect the papers.” He turned away as he spoke; he had risen
and stood with his shoulder towards Annarly, as if the matter concerned him
no longer. Brett rose too, and went, with hardly concealed alacrity, to the
desk. But Annarly did not move; he understood at last, and the
understanding struck him speechless; he sat staring as one half stunned,
even now hardly able to believe the incredible. The foe was declared now,
and it was the whole board of directors, the whole personnel of Galhardy’s,
the very shareholders, the vested interest, the unaltering custom, the
relentless, omnivorous power of a great firm against which he, in his
arrogance, had pitted his puny strength. The recognition was
overwhelming—none the less so because it came when victory was so nearly
assured, and when nerves and brain and mind, worn to the finest by past
work, were strung to breaking. The shock was stunning; for a little he
could neither feel nor think, but sat motionless, watching with incurious
eyes Brett systematically ransacking the desk. Neatly the papers were
collected: letters, diagrams, notes, long table of figures, all the record
of the now completed work, and other varied and only less splendid work
which had gone before. One by one, as they were taken out, he recognised
them, and the recognition brought a faint, inarticulate pain. They were
very much to him; more, far more, than anyone knew, more than he himself
could have told; they were, as it were, part of him, his very life. As
Brett took them from their familiar places—from his presence altogether—it
was as if part of himself went; something he could never recover. The
directors took more than they knew when they took these; so much that, in
his present state, it came so near to seeming all as to be dangerous. A
drawer-handle jerked sharply, the drawer, securely locked, refused to open.
“The key of this?” Brett said in a businesslike tone. Annarly looked up.
All the drawers and pigeon-holes of the desk were empty now, excepting this
last, which was locked with a separate key. He glanced towards it dully,
trying to remember where the key was, and what the drawer contained. For a
moment he could not; then both recurred to him together: the key was on the
floor where it had fallen just before the interruption occurred, the drawer
contained Lady Sibyl’s letters. Both things seemed curiously remote and far
away, as if they had to do with another person in another life, singularly
trivial. “The key?” Brett spoke impatiently, and held his hand for it.
Annarly roused himself. “There are none but private letters in that
drawer,” he said, without moving. “It does not matter what they are, I must
have them.” Brett spoke authoritatively, perhaps a little intoxicated with
the position. “You?” Annarly inquired contemptuously. Sir James interposed.
“We must have the key, Mr. Annarly,” he said. “Do not make this unpleasant
business more unpleasant by foolish and perfectly useless resistance to
authority. All papers here are the property of the firm, as you know; you
have neither legal nor moral right to withhold them when they are
demanded.” “The papers in that drawer are private letters,” Annarly
repeated. His stunned faculties were beginning to stir a little—he was of
that sort which, in animals, is by far the most dangerous after being left
to all seeming dead. “Nothing there is written on the firm’s paper, or with
the firm’s ink, which, I believe, constitutes the basis of the legal claim;
nor is it about the firm’s concerns, which, I suppose, you would say
constitutes a moral one. They are private letters only; you have no right
to them.” “In that case they will be returned to you so soon as we are
satisfied on the point. Unfasten the drawer, please. Remember, to force it
offers little difficulty; it is merely for your own sake that I ask for the
key.” Annarly hesitated a moment, or seemed to, then he rose, found the
key, and went to the desk. Brett moved back in obedience to a nod from his
chief, who was not quite sure that Annarly would deliver up the letters to
the subordinate. Both, thus, were close together to the left of the desk,
while Annarly, the drawer being in the extreme right, was that side, the
side which was towards the fire. He unlocked the drawer and took out the
letters, shaking them out of the covering envelope, which fell empty to the
floor, so that it was seen they were what he had said. “You see,” he said,
“they are letters”—he told them over counting them, then turned to the
drawer, as if to feel for more—“only letters——” “Yes,” Sir James said
impatiently, “they will be returned to you as soon as we are assured——”
“Oh, no, they won’t,” Annarly said, and his tone was quiet and confident.
“They will never be returned to me by you, for you’ll be dead before you
get them.” He swung round as he spoke, and Sir James found himself looking
down the barrel of a revolver. He stepped back a pace: he was not a coward,
but the thing was unexpected and unpleasantly close. Brett stepped back
too; he was very near his chief, and, owing to the giving back and the
position of the furniture, quite unable to move away. “Don’t be a fool,
Annarly!” Sir James said sharply. “Put that down. You’ll gain nothing by
such folly.” “Nor lose anything, either,” Annarly answered; “I’ve already
done that; I’ve not much more to lose.” And therein, if it were true, lay
the danger, and Sir James knew it. For a second or two he did not move, nor
did Annarly; they looked at one another, seeing not much but the revolver
between. “I don’t want to make a scene,” Sir James said. “I have done what
I can to spare your feelings and avoid publicity, but if you compel me to
it, I shall have to have recourse to personal violence—we are two to one, I
may point out, and there are men within call.” “Call them,” Annarly
answered. “Though it will hardly be necessary, the report should do it. I
shall have time to get in two shots, one for you and one for me, between
the calling and the coming, and before Mr. Brett becomes very violent.”
Brett’s white face reddened faintly; but if he had any thought of
retaliation the big bulk of his chief effectually prevented. Sir James was
no fool; he recognised the seriousness of the situation, and he was not
likely to allow matters to be fatally precipitated by Brett. “You are
hopelessly blackening yourself by this folly,” he warned Annarly. “What is
the object of it?” Annarly looked grim. “Is there any blackening left for
me to do?” he asked. “The object? The letters. They are private letters, I
have said it, in no way concerning the firm; I’ll burn them, if you like
you can see them burnt, but I will not give them up.” For an almost
imperceptible second Sir James hesitated, then he said, “Do you swear that
those are private letters and nothing but private letters, in no way
concerned with the foreign negotiations, or anything connected with them?
On your honour, you swear it?” “On my honour.” “Burn them.” They were
thrown in the fire. But though Annarly had magnanimously forborne to put
the interrogative stress the situation warranted on promising on his
honour, he did not magnanimously lower the revolver. He might trust Sir
James, but he did not trust Brett; so while the flames caught the papers no
one of the three moved. Indeed, it is doubtful if any one of them watched
the burning of Lady Sibyl’s sympathetic and emotional words, in themselves
a matter of curiously little real moment to all. It was only by the
increasing and dwindling of the light that the destruction was observed.
When the flames had died down, Annarly’s arm dropped; he turned away as if
vitality had suddenly gone out of him. Sir James moved towards the door;
Brett, carrying the confiscated papers, followed, eyeing the pistol. “It’s
not loaded,” Annarly roused himself to say, and threw it on the empty desk.
For half a second Sir James paused, a flush coming under his skin; then he
went out, and Brett went with him. Annarly was left alone. CHAPTER II Nan
Barmister lived in Soho; a part of Soho which is now pulled down, though,
from a point of view of beauty, the warehouses which have taken the place
of the sombre eighteenth-century houses are scarcely an improvement. When
Nan lived there, there were no real warehouses in the quiet street which
led to nowhere. It was quite a short street, with a blank wall at the end,
and a piece more wall, enclosing a timber-yard, on the right-hand side. The
rest of the right side was taken up with a couple of the old houses; one
unoccupied, the other—to judge by the number of plates on the door and
railings—very much occupied, and by people who were also much occupied, a
surprising number of professions being set forth—machine kilting, feather
curling, and agencies for all manner of things. On the left-hand side Nan
lived. The houses on that side had an even more sombre look: two were shut
up, the charwomen of the neighbourhood said on account of some lawsuit; the
other two were the property of Robert Barmister, Nan’s father. By the
door-lintel of one was a rubbed brass plate, bearing his name in faint
letters, and on the wire blind of the window nearest the door the same name
appeared in still fainter letters. There was nothing to say what he did,
nor why he was to be found there; but in daylight, if one looked up at the
higher windows, one could see through the dusty panes the corners of
wonderful cabinets and the graceful backs of chairs made when the making of
chairs was a fine art. Robert Barmister used his two houses as warehouses,
and people in the second-hand furniture trade knew it without his
advertising the fact. They and others, whether interested in buying or
selling, knew that one of the finest judges of the antique, and one of the
truest connoisseurs and shrewdest dealers and matchers of old with old or
new, was to be found in the room behind the wire blind. It was a good-sized
room, with a painted ceiling, mellowed past recognition by years of smoke,
and a chimney-piece, ornamented with dolphins in relief, for which a
considerable sum had been offered. In this room, on a gloomy first of
October, Nan sat, rather inadequately filling Robert Barmister’s
desk-chair. She looked younger than her five-and-twenty years; her slight
figure and earnest eyes gave an impression almost of childishness. But in
some respects, at least, she was not childish; the Jew dealers, who came
there to buy and sell, knew that, and any one of them would have dealt with
her as with her father—with a bias in favour of extra honesty for her. And
any one of them would have taken her opinion against most others on an
article of virtu, for she had not only inherited her father’s judgment and
grown up under his tuition, but also had unerring instincts of her own. It
was on some such business she had been fetched to the office that
afternoon: she was seldom to be found there unless fetched. Barmister did
not care to actually associate her with himself in his trade, though he
valued her opinion. Josiah Foregood, clerk, foreman, and general factotum,
valued it still more. It was he who fetched her that afternoon, for
Barmister was out, and a man had called with a chest to sell. The man, a
voluble, weakly individual, was in the office now, expatiating on the
beauties of the chest and, seeing he had a woman to deal with, the
hardships of his own situation. Josiah, at his desk behind a partition,
heard all that he said, and knew that it was wasted breath. He could, by
leaning forward, see Nan’s face, and he knew that, whether she was really
listening or not—and there was some doubt about that—she would form her own
judgment of man and article entirely apart from anything she heard. She
rose at length, and came to look at the chest. It was small, and of metal,
with a wonderful complication of locks in the lid: inside it was divided
into several compartments, and outside ornamented with fine wrought work
and some curious little paintings on the panels in between. “It is an
Armada treasure-chest,” the vendor announced; “it has been in my family for
generations. I’m a Cornishman.” “Ah?” Nan examined the box: she examined
with her hands, which were rather large, and as sensitive as a blind
person’s. “It is of Dutch workmanship,” she said at length, and somewhat as
if the man had not spoken, “made under the Spanish influence probably fifty
years after the Armada, I cannot be sure of the exact date. I should say it
was made for a burgomaster: one who had trade with India. The shape and
size of it, and of the compartments inside, suggest it was meant more for
the reception of unset jewels than for papers or any other form of
treasure. If it has been in the possession of your family for generations,
your family should be of Dutch extraction.” The man stared; he was of the
constitutionally inefficient, and such are easily upset by the efficient,
even when the latter have no thought of doing so. “Do you think I did not
come by it honestly?” he demanded, between bluster and affront. Nan looked
up in surprise. “Why should I?” she said, and clearly no such idea had
occurred to her. “I should rather like to know how you did come by it,
though,” she said, “only out of curiosity; these things do not very often
come to England.” “It belonged to a lodger me and my wife had,” the vendor
admitted rather sulkily; “he was a Dutchman, an oldish man, and he died
while he was with us. We didn’t know anything about his people, and we
haven’t been able to hear anything; and as he died a bit in our debt, and
didn’t leave much, we thought we might as well take what there was: I don’t
know who’s a better right to it than us.” “No,” Nan agreed, whereupon he
went on to explain again the badness of times. She listened, or appeared
to: at the end she said, “The chest is not really worth much, that is, you
could not anywhere get much for it. Such things are of no actual use now,
and not much ornament; they are little more than curiosities, and they do
not happen to be the fashion. It would be almost impossible to sell it to a
collector, or amateur, at any price, consequently, a dealer would not be
likely to give you anything worth having for it. Were my father here, I
think it is very doubtful if he would buy it; but personally I like it,
and, as you say you are in need of money, I will give you three pounds for
it, if you care to sell it for that.” He did not—if he could get any
more—though he was satisfied with it when he was convinced more was not to
be got. It took a little while to convince him; which was, perhaps, not
surprising, seeing that it took other, and more experienced, people a
little while to realise that Nan’s first price was her last one, both in
buying and selling, and that in such matters, as well as others, she simply
said what she meant and no more. But after a time he did realise it, took
the money, and departed, leaving the chest behind. When he was gone, Josiah
came from behind his partition to look at the purchase. He had worked with
Robert Barmister from the early days and the small beginnings, and he loved
the work with the whole-hearted completeness that Barmister did, and
Barmister himself, as that shrewd dealer loved no one, and Nan, better
still. He came now to look at the newly made purchase, and to shake his
head over it. “He won’t be pleased,” he said. Nan was obliged to agree. “If
he does not approve, I can pay for it myself,” she said. At that moment
Barmister came in, and almost instantly his eye fell on the chest. “What is
that?” he asked. “I have just bought it,” Nan answered. “For how much?” She
told him. “What!” he said, and his tone conveyed his opinion. But she stood
her ground: she ventured to do far more on her own authority than ever
Josiah did, perhaps because she did not act unless she was sure; and when
she was sure, she was sure indeed. She was sure now that the price she had
paid for the chest was a fair one. “If it is not sold well and reasonably
soon,” she said, “I can buy it in myself. Or you can give it me on my
birthday, if you like; my birthday is at the beginning of next month, you
know, and you always give me what I choose then; you can give me this.” Her
father grunted. “I can give it to the dustman and it would not break me,”
he said, “nor yet alter the fact that you’ve bought like a fool, which is a
thing I didn’t expect of you.” She said she was sorry she had annoyed him,
and then slipped away, leaving him arranging affairs with Josiah, previous
to starting on a business journey which would take him away until
to-morrow. She went by a door in the far corner of the room; it was a
narrow door set in the panelling, so that one hardly noticed it: her own
movements were so quiet and light that one hardly noticed her coming and
going either. The old house was curiously quiet, in spite of being in the
heart of London: quiet and brown; in a way, one found her quiet and brown,
too, fitted to the surroundings—or the surroundings fitted to her—as a
mouse to its hole in the wainscot. She had not, since she could remember,
lived in any other place than this, with her father and the work. They had
come there when her mother died, which was when she was very young, and had
been there ever since. There were people who said that the necessity to
combine office, and dwelling-house, and warehouse under one roof was as far
from Barmister now as were the pinched early days when he and his wife had
apartments in Bayswater. These people said he could have afforded to take a
house at Blackheath, or Surbiton, or some other suburb, and come to and fro
to his work like other men. They also said, among themselves, not to him,
that he ought to do it for the sake of his daughter, if for nothing else.
But he did not; so Nan had no chance of associating with girls of her own
age, or spending a pleasant, leisurely youth cultivating a taste for
literature, and dancing and playing, with the probability of finally
marrying a nice, wholesome young man with a satisfactory position in the
City, and in her turn founding a family of useful, wholesome people to do
the same all over again. She had no chance of this, and, possibly through
ignorance of what she missed, no regrets about it. That day, when she had
left the office, and her condemned purchase, she went back to her usual
avocations: a few household duties in the roomy basement, where reigned
Mrs. Bidden, who had grown grey in the same service; later to the
sitting-room upstairs to needlework and books—books on rather unusual
subjects which sometimes sent their reader, with her slow-moving, but
curiously accurate, mind, to odd places to verify facts. They sent her no
further that day than to one of the warehouse rooms, there to search out on
a pear-wood pix for some detail of carving which would fix the date when a
certain form of lance was used in Flanders. She could trust herself as to
the date of the Flemish pix, but, without guarantee, she could not trust
the author who made statements lightly and unsupported about the lances
used in Flanders. So she went in search of assurance to one of the
long-windowed rooms which, from childhood, had been her favourite haunt.
She could not remember the time when she had not been familiar with the
smell of wood and the dust which distils from old tapestry, nor when there
had not been for her a fascination in the big rooms with their dust-dimmed,
painted tables, their inlaid cabinets, and mirrors filmy in the London air.
Almost her clearest early recollection was in connection with one of these
rooms. To herself she called it “the beginning of seeing things,” and to
this day she remembered it and its thrill of revelation, as a few people
remember the moment when they first found they were able to read or do some
one of the few things which open the doors of the world. It was many years
ago, she must have been very small at the time, for the cabinets had
towered so tall to her, when, in an October dusk, she had come suddenly
upon a little tulip-wood secretaire. Whether it had not been there when she
last came, or whether she had passed it by unheeded, she did not know: only
knew that now she saw it, and saw it perfect. Not that her ignorance called
it so, or really realised its beauty; yet it filled her suddenly with a
strange sense of completeness and utter satisfaction: a curious, almost
physical, feeling, mixed with the subconscious mental one. She never forgot
the sensation, though she never attempted to explain it: she thought for
many years that it was a common experience, and came to everyone at some
time; it was, to this day, a bewildering puzzle to her how any could fail
to feel perfection when it was there. The tulip-wood secretaire was in her
own room now; her father had given it to her. He had come upon her that
day, years ago, while she still stood before it, and, though not a
sympathetic man, had divined what was waking in her, as possibly another
would not. When later, in answer to his question as to what he should give
her on her birthday, she, ignorant of its value, had asked for the
secretaire, he immediately gave it. It stood in the corner of her room now,
and she looked at it thoughtfully when, later that afternoon, she went to
get her hat, recalling the occasion of its giving, and debating whether
this year she should ask for the iron chest. Her father never refused her
birthday request; he would not now though, if it were for the chest, he
would not approve it. But, as it happened, she did not ask for it,
something occurred that afternoon which supplied her with quite another
request. She went that afternoon to see Miss Janet Foregood, the one member
of her own sex with whom she was at all intimate. A client had sent a
present of a hamper of pears, and she, remembering Miss Janet’s liking for
them, took a basketful to her. The Foregoods lived in Bayswater, not far
from where Robert Barmister and his young wife had lodged in the early
days. The house was very small, and rather grimy and dull-looking outside;
inside such things were impossible where Miss Janet lived. A little brisk
woman she was, some years younger, many sizes smaller and much quicker than
her brother Josiah. She was busy upholstering the seats of her best-room
chairs when Nan arrived, having bought some odd pieces of material for the
purpose. “Travellers’ samples,” she explained. “I picked them out from
several dozen; no two alike, and some regular trash.” The ones she had
bought were not trash; she was a better judge of fabrics in the dark than
many women in the daylight; but they certainly were not alike, she had been
more particular to secure quality than any near approach to uniformity of
pattern. Nan admired the texture, as she truthfully could, and said nothing
about the design; then she presented the pears, which were duly
appreciated. “I shall bake those big ones,” Miss Janet said; “though I say
it myself, I can bake a pear with anyone.” She could cook anything with
anyone, and she knew it. “Your poor dear mother loved a baked pear, though
she had no more idea how to do one than to fly! She was as sweet a soul as
ever lived, but as ignorant as a baby of how to do most things. I remember
the first time I saw her she was trying to cook a bit of a chop for herself
on the sitting-room fire in the rooms she and your father used to have just
round the corner from here. Dear! I never saw anything so unhandy!”
“Perhaps she had never been taught,” Nan suggested. Miss Janet was
contemptuous of such an explanation. “You can’t teach some people to cook,”
she said, “and real cooking can’t be taught anybody; your true cook’s born,
not made, same as your true anything else.” She filled her mouth with
little nails here, and proceeded to take them out one by one to use. “The
funny thing is,” she said, when nearly all were used, “no one knows why
they’re born so; there’s a great deal of talk made about heredity, I know:
all I say is—h’m!” Nan suggested there was something besides immediate
ancestry to be reckoned with. “There had need be,” Miss Janet retorted,
“and even then you can’t account for it, not for real, natural ability,
what I call ability, not mere handiness; it’s just an accident, a Divine
accident. Take your cousin, Michael Annarly, for instance—how do you
account for him?” Nan did not attempt to; indeed, she knew little of him
personally. “If all that is said of Michael Annarly is true,” Miss Janet
said, arranging a piece of trimming round her chair. “I don’t suppose it is
myself, seeing it’s said by a relation who thinks she glorifies herself
that way. Still, if half or a quarter is true, there’s enough to show he
must be a very remarkable person, such a one as doesn’t occur many times in
a generation. You’re not going to account for that by parents and
grandparents. His father—tea trade, with a hobby for tools and messing
about with machinery and gas-fitting in his young days, plumbing you might
call it, but I suppose you’d better say engineering. His mother—your
mother’s sister, and not at all unlike her, poor dear, only prettier. I
only saw her once, but I saw the resemblance straight away—dreamy,
imaginative, sensitive; big eyes like pools of water full of reflections,
delicate hands alive to the last inch of skin; married young, younger than
your mother, because she was prettier; died young, quite strong physically,
but too fine for this world: that’s what Michael Annarly’s parents were.”
Nan did not contradict, Miss Janet was probably correct in her statements,
she generally was. On this matter at least she knew more than Nan, whose
sole source of information was the little lady herself, and who saw a great
deal less of the Annarlys than Miss Foregood did of Mrs. Barker, a
connection of theirs, distant certainly, but proud of the relationship. “To
hear her talk,” Miss Foregood said, “one would think she was responsible
for Michael Annarly, instead of a second cousin of his father’s and a poor
one at that. He’s done well, I grant it to her, but I don’t see what that’s
to do with her, any more than his brains, which do seem to be worth talking
about. Just hold up that end of the trimming, my dear, I want to see if
there’s enough.” Nan did so, and there was found to be exactly enough,
which might have been foretold, seeing that Miss Janet herself had measured
it. Being satisfied, she resumed her hammering and talking. “No,” she said
emphatically, “you can’t account for that kind of ability. It is like old
Moss’s cat. Moss was an old man down in the country where I lived when I
was a little girl; he had a white cat with a yellow tail. That cat was what
you might call a Divine accident; you might breed hundreds and thousands of
cats and not get another. The chances of getting one would be greater if
you bred from a yellow father and a white mother, but the chances of
getting the yellow and the white mixed just that way aren’t worth
reckoning; it was, as I say without disrespect, a Divine accident. And
that’s the way with real born ability; you can’t account for it, it’s an
accident.” She knocked in her last nail as she spoke, and then rose to
inspect her handiwork. “I think it looks very well,” she said; she seldom
scrupled to say what she really thought about her own doings, or other
people’s. “It looks very well indeed,” Nan agreed. She rose too, and said
she must go. Miss Janet came with her to the front door, stopping on the
way to put the finished chair in its place. “It is safer there than in the
kitchen,” she said, though it was difficult to think of any harm that could
befall it in that spotless room. Nan went home by train, only a few
minutes’ journey, getting out at Tottenham Court Road Station, from whence
she had not far to walk. By the time she alighted twilight was falling, and
a fine rain with it; there had been some rain earlier in the day, and a
good deal during the night; the roads were in a bad state, and the air damp
and raw. Just as she was about to leave the station she caught sight of a
figure in the distance, one she recognised. For a second she hardly thought
she had seen aright, rather that her own thoughts had become visualised,
which was almost as probable as that Michael Annarly should be here in the
flesh. Next moment she knew him real, and drew back to the station doorway,
with a sensitive plain woman’s instinct not to court recognition. It was
easy to avoid it, it is always easy for insignificant women, it is one of
the few compensations allowed them that they can usually see so much
quicker than they are seen. She had recognised Michael Annarly at some
distance, and without really seeing his face; he would not recognise her
until he was close upon her. She knew the sort of recognition, the
momentary blank ignorance of identity, to be perceived by quick faculties
under automatic courtesy, the swiftly following but entirely vague
remembrance of someone seen somewhere, and then, when she had almost
passed, a recollection of her, and sometimes perhaps, when she had quite
passed, a momentary regret that recognition had not been quicker and
fuller. She knew the sort of thing, and a mixture of sensitive vanity and
shyness prompted her to avoid it; so she stood within the station doorway,
screened by a stout old gentleman, until Michael should have passed. Just
as he was level with her he turned a little, and for the first time she saw
his face fully. Owing to some shifting of the passers-by she saw the whole
of him—sodden, muddied boots, the boots of one who has been walking long in
bad weather; creased, splashed clothes, the clothes of one who has worn
them many hours; grey, drawn face, white about the pinched nostrils, dark
about the eyes, which looked forth without seeing, which had seen one thing
and could see nothing else. Not Michael Annarly the successful, and so
remote, kinsman she had sometimes met; but a man on the edge of some abyss.
She slipped from behind the old gentleman, and went swiftly down the street
after him. CHAPTER III The directors of Galhardy’s were important men. Some
of them lived comparatively near to the great foundries, within eight or
twenty-eight miles of them; but all had other places of residence and other
interests. A person who was bent on seeing any of them was liable to have
to cover much ground, and, unless he had an appointment, waste much time
too. More especially was this the case with the chairman, Sir Joseph Harte,
a busy man with many schemes, and one who never felt compelled to keep an
engagement which second thoughts showed likely to prove inconvenient or
embarrassing. It was very unlikely that the man who was seeking him that
gloomy first of October would have found him had not Fate and a desperate
patience helped. Three times that day he had been to Sir Joseph’s town
house, having in the previous two days been to each of his far-separated
country houses in consequence of information first that he was at one and
then at the other of these. On each of his three visits to the town house
he had found Sir Joseph out or engaged. On each of the first two he had
said he would wait, on the first with the ready acquiescence of the
servant, on the second in the face of advice to the contrary and some
suspicion, and on both without result. On the third application he was
frankly refused admission, and told Sir Joseph could not see him that day,
and the door shut before he had turned to go. He went down the steps again;
he had no alternative. But he did not go away. For forty-eight hours in
fact or in thought—when trains did not fit or arrived in the useless small
hours compelling delay—he had sought an interview with Sir Joseph; he would
not let this last chance slip, he would wait outside if he could not in.
Rain was beginning to fall, but he did not notice it; rain had fallen a
good deal at intervals during the past two days, but he had hardly known
it; he had no consciousness of such things, he had temporarily lost touch
with them. In a way he had lost realisation of time itself, more than once
only coming to a consciousness of its passing or of the lateness of the
hour by the impossibility of getting a train, or the darkness of a sleeping
place he had approached. A by-street joined the main one beside Sir
Joseph’s house; he went a few yards down it and waited. Before very long a
powerful car came past from some garage at the back; it turned into the
main street and drew up before the house. He followed, and stood at the
corner: in a few minutes the house door was opened and the chairman of
Galhardy’s, in a travelling-coat, came out. “Sir Joseph! I must speak to
you.” Sir Joseph started. “Mr. Annarly?” he said, and drew back a little.
“This is very——” He may have meant to say “extraordinary,” or perhaps
“unwarrantable.” But Annarly did not wait to hear. “I have been trying to
see you all day,” he said, “and the day before——” “Indeed?” Sir Joseph
spoke more pleasantly; he seldom spoke other than suavely. “That is
unfortunate, more especially as it is impossible for you to see me now. I
have only just time to catch my train at St. Pancras.” “I can drive with
you.” Sir Joseph hesitated; then made a virtue of necessity and they both
got into the waiting car which went swiftly away. “It is about that
cancelling letter, sir,” Annarly began; “I never received it.” He spoke
without preamble and without the diffidence of inferior to superior; he had
forgotten that with the rest in the one idea that filled his horizon, and
had filled it to the exclusion of everything else for something over fifty
hours. Sir Joseph’s horizon held many other ideas and many other schemes,
and he had not forgotten the relationship, but he spoke patiently: “I am
given to understand that is the line of defence you propose to take up,” he
said. “Don’t you believe it?” Sir Joseph showed surprise. “Really,” he
said, “your question, your behaviour altogether is extraordinary, and I
must say unwarrantable. How can I possibly answer such a query when I have
not yet thoroughly sifted the matter? A matter of such very grave
importance that the fullest and closest inquiry is absolutely necessary.
There is to be a board meeting to-morrow; I am leaving town now on purpose
to be present at it, the discussion of this very regrettable situation will
take place then; before that I cannot possibly go into the case with you.”
“Afterwards it will be of no use,” Annarly said grimly. “What do you mean
by that?” Annarly stood his ground, he was too desperate to be politic. “If
it is not true that I am condemned beforehand,” he asked, “why am I not
heard in my own defence? Why does the board ‘not desire my presence at the
meeting,’ or at any time during the meeting? Why am I not required at the
Foundries, and, so far as it can be prevented, am not to hold communication
with anyone who does go there? Why are all the directors, including
yourself, so difficult to be seen these three days?” “I should think,” Sir
Joseph said tartly, “because their servants thought your manner too
peculiar to warrant them in admitting you, if you talked to them as you are
talking to me.” Annarly with an effort controlled himself. “I am sorry,
sir,” he said. “I am afraid I am forgetting myself; of course it was
accident merely that you could not see me before, I know that; your time is
very fully occupied I know, and—and——. You have always been very good to
me. It is partly because of that, because I cannot stand that you should
think your belief misplaced, that I have come to you. I did not receive
that cancelling letter, on my soul, I did not!” He spoke with a desperate
earnestness. The elder man stroked his heavy white moustache thoughtfully.
“That is a very extraordinary thing,” he said, “a very extraordinary thing.
Letters do not often miscarry; indeed, they very, very seldom do.” “I am
not sure that this one did. I have a suspicion that it was never sent.”
“What!” Sir Joseph turned sharply. “Explain yourself, please!” “I am
convinced that Brett lied about it,” Annarly said. “I saw it in his eyes
when he spoke; the fellow’s a coward; he flinched when it came to the lie
direct—like the cur he is, he’d rather do something meaner.” He spoke with
the bitterness of undisguised contempt and dislike; but it was a mistake
and he realised it. “I am forgetting to be moderate again,” he said, “I
know, but it’s hard to remember when one speaks of—that. But I’ll try. Of
course Brett would have told you the letter was sent, if you asked him
about it. I don’t know if it was actually dictated and signed by you, or
only written to your order, but that would have made no difference; he
could have suppressed it either way.” “Indeed!” The word snapped
incredulous. “Is that the line of defence you think of taking? It is? You
surprise me!” In the dim interior of the car the chairman’s face was not
very plain to see, but there was no mistaking the hostility of his tone.
“If you are advised by me,” he said, “you will think twice before you take
it. It is unworthy of you, unworthy and cowardly, and crassly idiotic too,
discreditable alike to your intelligence and to your honour to attempt to
clear yourself by bringing such a charge against any person. Are you aware
of what you are accusing Mr. Brett, of what gross breach of trust? It is an
unheard-of thing—a blatantly foolish thing too, when there is no
motive—what motive can be ascribed, even if he were capable, as I have
every reason to know he is not, of such a dishonourable action?” Annarly’s
hand went to his collar; the sensation of the overwhelming, all-pervading
force arrayed against him, which had pressed down on him in his room at
Galhardy’s, was coming again. It was all dark, all obscure: he could see
nothing clearly, think of nothing coherently; even his own case refused to
hold together, and his brain, with its faultless logic and keen
perceptions, refused to work. “Brett hates me,” he said weakly. “Hates
you?” Sir Joseph repeated. “Nonsense! You are talking nonsense, and you
know it. You may have had differences of opinion with him; you very likely
did; you did with a good many people; your methods were not always either
popular or conciliatory—we condoned a good deal in you; I fear, I begin to
fear, too much.” “Do you mean you think me guilty?” Annarly said, clinging
to the one idea. “I have already told you I do not feel justified in giving
an opinion at present,” Sir Joseph answered. “But I will advise you”—he
spoke more kindly—“I can, and do, advise you—not as the chairman of
Galhardy’s, but as one who has always wished you well and taken an interest
in you—my advice is that you offer no such unworthy and unwise defence as
the one you gave to me: you will do best to offer none at all; you will
leave yourself in the hands of the directors.” Annarly nodded: the sense of
the end, of the drawn net, the ultimate blackness and extinction of the
last glimmer of hope, was closing upon him. “The others will believe me
guilty, if you do,” he said wearily. “Do you believe me guilty?” Sir Joseph
signed to the chauffeur to stop. “I have already said all I have to say on
the subject,” he said. The car stopped, and Annarly got automatically to
his feet. A last protest stirred in the overwhelming darkness and defeat.
“My papers?” he said. “My invention?” “I fear I can do nothing for you in
that matter. Good afternoon. You must make up time, Rumbolt, we are late.”
Annarly stumbled out, the door was shut, and the car glided quickly away.
He was left on the muddy pavement. He began to walk: it was automatic, like
much else; he did not know he walked; he did not know where he went, nor
whom he passed; he did not know if people looked at him or if they did not.
Likely they did not: after all, a grey, drawn face is no unprecedented
thing; and there is not one person in a thousand who, looking through the
eyes, gets a glimpse of the soul behind. The rain was falling faster now,
but he did not turn up the collar of his coat, he was not aware of it; not
really aware of the jostle of the foot-passengers and the noise of the
traffic, though both, subconsciously, pressed painfully on his nerves. His
lips moved once to repeat some words—“My inventions,” and “I fear I can do
nothing for you in that matter”—his mind, oblivious of all else, labouring
round in one restricted circle. Someone touched him. He stopped dead, like
a vibrating balance arrested by a sudden hand. A girl was at his elbow; a
girl who looked up with shy, comprehending eyes. “Michael,” she said.
“Cousin Michael, won’t you come home and have tea with me?” He heard her,
and by an effort brought his mind to focus so that he compelled himself to
understand the drift of the words. “I am afraid,” he said politely, with an
odd patient politeness, “I cannot—I’m so busy.” She nodded, but—“It’s not
far,” she said reassuringly, and rather as if he had consented. She had
touched his arm when she first spoke to him, and she had not let go; now,
in the obscurity where they stood, some distance from a light, she slipped
her hand down till it touched his ungloved one. Hers was ungloved too, and
her fingers closed on his with a compelling touch. “It is not far,” she
said, and led the way to a side street, narrower and quieter than the main
one. He came. It was automatic almost, as his former actions had been,
though with a difference; he had this much consciousness, he was aware that
the streets were quieter and less lighted, and there was relief in it. She
knew the neighbourhood well, leading the way by by-streets, and he accepted
her and her leading. They came to a short street where there were tall old
houses, but little lighted, and no foot-passengers about; a momentary
feeling passed over him as of an animal that has escaped noisy pursuers,
and is at the entrance of its hole. She opened a door in one of the dark
houses, and led the way in: across a dusky hall, into a large, dim room,
where a shaded light burned, and a shadow moved above a desk screened from
view. There was the sound of faint scratching, pen on paper, nothing else,
and no one looked out as they entered. She crossed the room, and at the far
side opened a small door set in the panelling. Beyond, was a narrow
staircase, lighted only by a candle, set in an angle where stairs went up.
She lifted it down, and the door fell to behind. “This way,” she said, and
led up the stairs. At the top, another door, masked as the first, in the
woodwork, gave on to the room above. This room, lighted only by firelight,
was also large and dim, and pervaded with an almost tangible sense of
quiet; the falling to of the door behind them seemed to shut out the world.
The girl crossed the room to the fireplace, where a kettle, ready to boil,
stood on the old-fashioned hob. “I’ll make the tea in a moment,” she said.
“Sit down.” He sat, and she made tea. It is uncertain when he had had his
last meal; when he had it it was only a sandwich in a refreshment-room, or
lunch on a train, not a human meal, with human companionship. No relation
to this tea with the girl, who spoke and was silent by turns harmoniously,
making no demand on him, yet allowing no obvious silence to call for
explanation or speech. After a time, food and quiet and the curious
influence there was present had so far restored balance, that he was
consciously aware that his hostess was Nan Barmister, a cousin with whom he
had been so little intimate in the past that his coming to her home, to
which he had never been before, must seem odd. It crossed his mind, as he
turned from the table, that his acceptance of the invitation, his presence
at all in town, needed explaining to her. The wounded animal’s instinct to
hide, one of the first of the natural instincts to reassert itself,
inclined him to explain as it inclined him to conceal his sodden and
muddied boots. But even as he pushed his feet into the greater darkness
under his chair, he felt her eye on them. “One might think I had been on
the tramp,” he apologised, with a flickering effort to recover his ordinary
manner. “No,” she said; then added, “I don’t think that: I think the bottom
of the world has blown out.” He looked at her, but hardly with surprise.
When the horizon holds one thing only, it is not surprising for others to
know it; and, in spite of some feeble stirrings of pride towards
concealment, it does not seem to matter much, amidst the general ruin, that
they should. She had knelt to rearrange the fire; she did not get up, but
sat back on her feet on the hearthrug, her face towards the blaze. “I
think,” she said, without looking round, “when that happens one does not
notice things; they aren’t really there; there is nothing there but the one
thing—I think that is Chaos.” “How do you know?” he put the question
faintly curious. She moved her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said, and she
did not. She did not know that the great knowledge—the knowledge that
matters—is divined, not known, of inspiration rather than experience. “I
suppose,” she said, still looking into the fire, and speaking slowly—“I
suppose when that happens—Chaos, I mean—after a great while one touches
solid again, something takes shape——” “There is nothing.” “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” he repeated. His hands hung on either side of his chair, there
was a slackness, a relaxing about his whole figure. It was as if the
collapse, which had approached before and had been staved off by will, by a
despairing flicker of hope and the frenzied chase of it, and later by the
automatic capacity in man to go on a while even after the final stroke—as
if it had come at last. Strength, even the strength to resent or conceal,
was gone. “They have taken everything,” he said apathetically, “my
reputation, my good name, my daily work and daily bread, and”—his voice
quivered a little—“my invention.” She nodded; she was not looking at him
now; she looked away just before his voice quivered for the invention. She
knelt, staring at the fire again a long time without speaking. At last she
said, though more as if addressing herself, “Don’t you think sometimes,
after a long time, something takes shape where nothing, less than nothing,
has been left?” “You do not understand,” he said wearily; “you do not know
what I am up against.” “No,” she admitted, “that is true. But”—she turned
earnest eyes on him—“surely there is something?” “No.” He spoke
indifferently, with the indifference of a brain beyond feeling or caring,
one to which nothing matters. Nevertheless, in a while he began to talk
fitfully, induced thereto one does not know by what, possibly by something
in the girl who crouched dark and inconspicuous by the fire and watched him
covertly. He did not rehearse facts straightly, or speak at all as to one
who knew little of his life and nothing of what had happened; he forgot his
listener was in that case, he forgot her actual physical personality
altogether. It was no narrative of the catastrophe he made, nor of what, so
far as he knew, had led up to it; it was not even a plain statement of his
losses; certainly no clear account of the last two days. Much that had
occurred in them, much altogether was temporarily, at least, blotted from
the shaken brain. Yet what he did say, with its omissions and reiterations,
its harping on unessential detail and curious, and seemingly reasonless,
digressions gave the kernel of the matter. Gave it, perhaps more
completely, and presented a truer and clearer picture of the real soul of
the thing to this listener than any mere statement of facts. At half-past
eight someone opened the door at the far end of the room. It was a heavy
door of old mahogany, and gave on to the landing and beautiful main
staircase of the house. An old woman in a large white apron and black cap
pushed it open now and came in, exclaiming about the darkness. The room was
still only lighted by the fire; the windows had long been a dim blur,
beyond the old woman the landing and staircase, poorly lit though they
were, showed brightly illuminated by contrast. “Why, you haven’t got a
light!” she said, setting a tray on the corner of the table. “No,” Nan
answered, “we didn’t want one.” The old woman said something about spoiling
the eyesight, and proceeded to light candles in curiously wrought silver
candlesticks. Then she quickly collected the tea-things—she must have been
out all the evening, or they would have been collected before—and set a
simple supper in their place. It was a very simple meal, cold meat and
cheese, the remains of a tart, little more. It was set for one only, but
Nan took it as a matter of course that Michael would remain and share it
with her. He hesitated, then accepted, and soon they sat down together. “My
father is out,” she explained; “he won’t be back to-night. He had to go out
of town to see a customer who has a very precious chair she wants matched.
She would not send it here to be looked at, so he had to go to see it. When
he has to go any distance he usually travels one way by night; it saves
time.” Michael said “Yes,” and recollected that he himself must spend the
night somewhere. She appeared to remember it too. “Are you going to
Hurstbury?” she asked. A vision of Hurstbury, the substantial suburban
villa there, and of his father and stepmother and the family flashed up
into his mind. “No,” he said, “they don’t know I’m in town.” There was much
else they did not know; some they would have to know sooner or later, the
realisation came with a jar; some they would never, could never know, that
realisation would come later with a grim bitterness of perception. For the
present one thing was enough, they knew nothing of what had overwhelmed
him, and in his present state he could not face their ignorance or their
inquiries. “I shall go to an hotel,” he said. Nan acquiesced, as if it were
the best thing. “Unless you stayed here?” she suggested tentatively. “I
suppose you would not stay? I would be rather glad if you did; a little
Italian casket has come to-day; it is small and very valuable, and it is
known that my father has bought it. There is no one in the house but Mrs.
Bidden and me, few but old caretakers in any house in the street.” It did
not occur to him to question if this ostensive reason were the real one for
the invitation; he did not think about it. He was easily persuaded to stay,
utter exhaustion gave him curiously little inclination to resist any
proposal she made, even while it almost instantly effaced impressions not
connected with the one great matter on his mind. He forgot about the casket
almost so soon as he heard of it; though, by some chance, he recalled it,
or that there was something he ought to do, about bedtime. “That thing you
spoke of,” he said vaguely, “shall I take it with me?” “The casket? No, it
is as well where it is.” “I’ll take it, if you like, I am not in the least
likely to sleep. It really hardly seems worth going to bed.” Nevertheless,
he did sleep; gradually exhaustion overcame him and stupefaction stole upon
his brain. The endless, hopeless thinking and planning, asking questions of
the past, contriving wild plans for the future, grew dimmer. Dimmer the
scene at Galhardy’s which he had reacted again and again, so that, without
volition but with an indescribable plainness, he had lived it in railway
trains, on station platforms, in London streets, a hundred times and then a
hundred more. It grew dim and blurred; from being beyond control it grew
beyond distinctness, it merged in the brown twilight of a quiet room; it
grew dark. Darkness spread over the brain, the blank darkness of utter
exhaustion, but repose. CHAPTER IV Robert Barmister was in one of the large
upper rooms examining chairs. To him, busy with a beautiful specimen of
eighteenth-century craftsmanship, came Nan. He looked round as she entered,
and asked her if it was the only one of that particular pattern they had at
present. She nodded, and then inquired if he had been asked to make
yesterday’s journey merely to see and match such a chair. “No,” he
answered, “I also saw a fool—a fool with a 1760 chair, patched by a
mid-Victorian hand, and who must have another precisely like it, patch and
all. She is sure there must have been more than one originally made to the
design. So’m I; but I’m not so sure the Victorian nincompoop had the
mauling of more than one, and I’m very sure there is no human chance of
coming on it if he did. But since she does not admit the patching—persists
in thinking it part of the original design—she doesn’t admit that
difficulty either.” Nan laughed. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Patch her one, to be sure.” “Patch such a chair!” “No, stupid, have one
made patched, of course; what do you suppose?” One supposes, since the
master craftsman responsible for the original chair had been dead these
many years, some modern was to copy his design (with the mid-Victorian
addition), and Robert Barmister was to receive the price a rich amateur
must expect to pay for a rare antique which has needed much finding. Nan
knew this, having lived with the trade. She accepted the first part as
entirely justifiable; to alter a perfect article, or to patch a master’s
design to anyone’s orders, seemed to her a sacrilege most unjustifiable.
Personally, she would not have sold the copy as anything but a copy, and at
a good copy’s price; but then money and money-making had small attraction
for her: she did not think of calling her father into judgment for it, if
they had for him. She began to speak of the matter which had really brought
her to him that morning. “Michael Annarly is here,” she said; “did Josiah
tell you?” He had not, he had something else to do, Barmister said; then
asked what Annarly was doing, and why he was there. “I met him yesterday,”
Nan answered, “when I was coming back from Miss Janet’s, and I asked him to
come.” Barmister frowned. “What for?” he said. “The Annarlys don’t put
themselves out of the way to be civil to you; you don’t go there twice a
year, and you don’t like it when you do: why should you ask one of them
here?” “I don’t exactly know why I did it,” she said doubtfully; “it just
came to me that I would when I saw him yesterday, so I did.” Her father
grunted. “And it just came to him, I suppose, that he would come to see
what sort of a place it was.” “I don’t think that was the reason why he
came.” “Well, I don’t see what else it was,” Barmister said; “the whole
family think they do a considerable kindness if they step out of the way to
come here and see you; at least, they would if they did it, which they
don’t—thank goodness! He must feel very patronising, I should think, since
he’s their best piece. By the way, I thought he was away somewhere usually,
in the North or the Midlands making a name and a fortune. What’s he in town
for?” “I believe he came to see people on business; he is in some sort of
trouble, I think.” “Under a cloud?” Barmister asked, though without the
slight instinctive withdrawing of the majority of men from one so labelled.
“Is it that, hey?” “I should not say so,” Nan answered. She would not; the
words were so totally, so almost grotesquely, inadequate. “Should you mind
if he stayed here a day or two?” Barmister turned round at that, his keen
eyes on her: the discussed guest was a man, a young one, who might,
perhaps, show attractions for an utterly inexperienced girl, without
himself so much as giving a condescending thought to her. “Are you going to
fall in love with him?” he demanded. “In love!” The idea was ludicrous,
almost pathetically ludicrous. “No,” Nan said, “not that; it isn’t that way
I’d think of him. All the same, I’d like him to stop a few days, if you
don’t mind.” “H’m,” her father said doubtfully, but afterwards consented.
If Nan wanted to have the man for a day or two, let her; there was no
reason why she should not, she was not a fool; and if he wanted to stop for
a day or two, why, let him. Of course, he must have some reason; one which
did not appear on the surface, but which could be found out, Barmister had
no doubt of himself there; and no doubt but that he would send the guest
packing if he did not approve the reason. But he did not find it out,
although he was soon persuaded that his first suspicion was correct:
Michael was in a difficulty of some kind. Its nature he did not discover;
but he guessed it to take its rise from ambition rather than any of the
more venial (and to him less forgivable) sins of youth, and with that he
was content. Of the extent, he had no idea; after a night’s rest Michael
was sufficiently controlled to appear normal to one who knew nothing of
him, more especially when there was Nan, who understood, to come between.
On the first day, the day when the directors of Galhardy’s were to meet,
Nan suggested he should draw up a memorial of all that had happened: the
accusation and defence, his real offence, and what justification he had to
offer for it. “What is the use?” he said apathetically. “They will decide
to-day before ever they can get it.” “But they could redecide after, I
suppose?” she urged. “And even if they did not, if it made no difference,
it surely would be worth doing: if they decide in your favour they would be
glad to be able to see plainly that they were right, and if they decide
otherwise—it is certainly as well to raise a protest.” “I don’t think it is
worth while,” he said. “I did all I could in the last two days, trying to
get at various of the directors, and it came to nothing. When I saw Harte
yesterday I could see it had come to nothing.” Nevertheless, when she again
urged it, he consented; to begin to write were a less effort than to
withstand her. “I will copy it when it is done,” she said; “there is an old
typewriter downstairs which is seldom wanted, I will bring it up. I don’t
do it very well, but I can manage if I go slowly.” She fetched the machine,
and early perceived that it would be necessary to make several drafts
before the final copy, for he was one of those who reconstruct and
rearrange every argument a dozen times before passing it on paper; and to
whom every written word, and the placing of every one, are important.
Characteristics which overwork, and the ample assistance he had been
granted in clerical matters, had increased of late. Before long, the habit
asserted itself, and he was writing and rewriting, constructing and
reconstructing, elaborating arguments, cutting down phrases, and explaining
facts with an extraordinary regard for detail and accuracy of expression
which not only brought self-conviction by its logic, but also temporarily
diverted the mind from its one idea and the stupor following upon it. It
also used much paper—sheets begun and cast aside, sheets on which side
issues were worked out, or solitary notes or paragraphs to be reduced to
single sentences jotted down; a scatter of very indecipherable papers all
about. There are minds to whom papers are as clothes, and as the very
expression of themselves almost; their thoughts cannot become articulate,
or even concrete, without paper, they must be written down (or expressed in
curves or diagrams) before they are really thoughts. Take such visible
expressions of himself; such visualised thoughts—notably when they are of
abstruse and very-well loved matters—from a man, and you have taken much.
Strip them all away, when from overwork and nervous strain he is least fit
for the shock, and you leave him an inarticulate, shivering thing, naked,
dumb, and confounded. Michael had been bereft of every visible expression
of himself: all his papers, diagrams, and notes on everything that really
mattered to him were in the hands of the directors. He had not so much as a
pencilling in a pocketbook left when Nan induced him to begin a statement
of what had happened, and to express outside himself that which had ground
round and round in his head these last days. The greater part of the day
they worked at the memorial; she, in the copying and recopying, becoming
much more fully acquainted with the facts. Towards dusk they were more or
less finished; that is, copies of the statement in the last and most
satisfactory form were completed and posted separately to the directors.
Michael was not really contented with it; he never had been for long with
anything he had written, nor with anything he had decided, always, sooner
or later, seeing some possibility beyond: but the exigencies of posting had
compelled the passing of this at last. For a little after it was done he
went over what had been written, discovering where it might have been
improved, and debating whether the small variations of phrasing which had
been made in each copy were the ones best suited to each recipient;
entirely forgetting that he had said, and thought the whole useless. But
after a while he seemed to remember that, and with a collapse of interest
collected the loose sheets and came to the fire in silence. Nan was silent
too; but she was thinking of the matter itself, not the statement of it. At
length she spoke, and she did not attempt to speak of anything else: there
are times when to attempt what is called “diverting the mind” is an
imbecility bordering on an insult. “They absolutely promised you these
foreign rights?” she asked. “I mean the rights in these inventions of yours
which they were not going to use?” He told her “yes” briefly, and lapsed
into silence again. But in a little while something roused him to speak of
the matter and the struggle which had gone before. “I had a fight for
them,” he said. “I have been months getting the concession, but I did get
it in the end—subject to the consent of Sir Joseph Harte. Afterwards—almost
immediately afterwards—I got that, verbally first and very fully, later a
letter confirming it.” “But not the second letter cancelling it?” “That
letter was never sent.” He spoke with unshakable conviction, though he had
no evidence—there can be little of a negative. Nan saw that plainly, though
she did not say so; she turned it in her mind a while, but when she did
speak it was to ask another question. “What is it that they actually bring
against you? Is it that they say you acted on this permission, and began to
negotiate about the rights before you ought?” He nodded, and she asked,
“Did you?” Again he nodded, and again after a pause was moved to speak.
“Yes, I did, but there was no harm in it; I committed myself to nothing and
told nothing. Technically, of course, I was wrong; I had no business to
answer the inquiries made by the French people, as I did; but actually it
was the natural way to do it. Anyone would have done the same, half of them
gone much further if they had had the chance.” “I suppose,” she said, “it
would not have mattered, if the permission had not been withdrawn?” “No,
though I should still, technically, have exceeded my powers.” “As it is?”
He shrugged his shoulders, as one beyond caring. “Is it actionable?” she
inquired, after a while. “I mean, if you had had the cancelling letter and
they could prove it, would they be able to prosecute you?” “I suppose so. I
don’t see that it matters. Certainly the fact that I did not have the
letter, and that they can’t prove it, does not; if they want a case against
me, I dare say they can get that or make it—they can make a good many
things at Galhardy’s. I don’t much care if they do; they may as well do one
thing as another, at least I should have an opportunity of speaking then.
Not that that would really be worth anything either; they’re too big.” Nan
said nothing; she knew it did matter. She had the woman’s eye for the
driftwood after the wreck, and for the fragments that remain; and she saw
that prosecution, though it might give an opportunity to use the fragments
as missiles, must inevitably scatter them past recovery, and leave the
scatterer bare. She did not urge this, however, but sat a little looking
into the blaze, thinking. “Tell me,” she said at length, “why did you want
these foreign rights? Were they really worth so much to you?” “They should
have been worth somewhere about fifty thousand pounds,” he answered. The
estimate may have been incorrect, though he certainly believed in it
himself; she saw that, but was not greatly impressed by the magnitude of
the loss. Money as money did not appeal to her. Nor perhaps entirely to him
either: at all events he went on to advance another reason for his efforts,
and in a tone which suggested how much it weighed with him. “I had a claim
to them,” he said; “the things were mine, and they were useless to
Galhardy’s. Why shouldn’t I have had them? Of course, it was argued that no
one had been granted such rights before, but then no one before had done
quite what I had for the firm. Already I had saved them a great deal; in a
year or two my inventions will bring in eight or ten thousand a year to
them. And what did I get? A wretched seven hundred, rising perhaps to eight
hundred.” It sounded a good deal to her, though, of course, small in
proportion to the greater sum. To him it was nothing. “It was hardly enough
to live on,” he said. “Everyone there has a private income. I was the only
one in anything approaching that position without. It was impossible to
make both ends meet. I had to do what the others did.” Nan’s ignorance of
the world was such that she knew nothing for or against this, but
intuitively she did know that there is a wonderful mixture of the small and
the great in most men: in this one perhaps the contrast was rather more
crude than in most. “Would they really have given you no more?” she asked.
“Surely they would——” “They always advised me to ‘leave myself in the hands
of the directors’; that is the stereotyped advice when one says anything
about recognition. Usually men do leave themselves in the directors’ hands,
having no choice—and stop there. There are plenty of instances of it in
most firms, big and little.” He began to speak of them, for a while
forgetting his own affairs in citing the hard cases of others. But soon the
one central thought returned, overwhelming others. “I don’t mean that the
directors of Galhardy’s would have treated me so badly as that; they
wouldn’t—one thing, I doubt if they could, and, anyhow, they wouldn’t. But
I should not have got anything worth having out of the aerial torpedo, or
the new steel I perfected for them either. I did not try much for the
steel; I let it pass without much protest, and put everything on the
torpedo; but the way they behaved over the one showed what was to be
expected in the other case, if it was left in their hands. It is true, of
course, that what one does while one is with a firm is the property of the
firm, that is understood and reasonable enough. But when one does a thing
of any size, a thing that is going to be worth a fortune to them, and which
they have not been able to get elsewhere, one might expect something: I
mean something considerable. I dare say, though I don’t know, I might have
got something small, but not in any way commensurate.” Nan nodded, and sat
thinking a little. “I wonder,” she said, “why they promised those rights
you wanted? They were not actually bound to give anything, you say, and it
is not their custom to give much? What they promised amounted to a great
deal, and was a most unprecedented thing. Why did they do it?” “Because
they came to the conclusion they would not get the aerial torpedo, the real
perfect thing, without,” he answered, and for a moment the flickering,
fighting smile, which had been gone from him these days, lurked in his
eyes. It died almost as it came, but it suggested that considerable skill,
as well as other less admirable qualities, must have been needed in the
late handling of Galhardy’s genius. “Have they got all they want now?” Nan
asked, and the cloud descended almost visibly upon him. “Everything,” he
answered. “They have my papers.” There was a level hopelessness in the
voice which told of utter loss. “It is all there; it was all ready to be
drafted out. They knew, I told them I had all the work completed, and all
the data collected ready to draw up the report, before they made the swoop.
They waited for that.” “The report was not made? What they have is only in
notes and drawings, and so on? Isn’t there a chance they won’t be able to
make it out and find what they want?” There was not in his opinion. “They
can’t help it,” he said. “I tell you, it’s all there; the veriest fool who
knew even the alphabet of the subject could not fail. Besides, the thing’s
been made, different parts of it and the filling for the heads too. Oh, not
all by one man—by different men and at different times. I was not going to
have anyone able to report on it before I was ready. But they could find
all out, if they tried, and put it together for themselves practically, if
there were any need; but there won’t be, for they have it on paper almost
plain enough for a child to understand. No, they have all: the torpedo and
the torpedo-head, everything, as completely as they have the steel I
reported on months ago. They have all; there is nothing left.” His voice
dropped, and his whole body seemed to sink. Nan said nothing; there seemed
nothing to say. She sat in the low firelight, very quiet. The next day the
directors’ decision would be known; not till late in the evening, however,
for, though she had telegraphed Michael’s present address to his rooms, a
letter forwarded from there would not be delivered in Soho till the last
post. She was busy during part of the day making drawings of chair backs
and other details for her father. She asked Michael, who was a clever
draughtsman, to help her; but though he tried, he failed. He seemed utterly
unable to keep his attention fixed on the unfamiliar work; he took up and
put down pencils and india-rubber, set down lines and rubbed them out
without any perception of what he did. But when, led thereto by some
question or suggestion of hers, he tried to make drawings of aerial
propellers and kindred things he succeeded even worse, for, added to
inability to fix attention, there was vague fear—the fear of a man who
feels slipping the sheet-anchor of loved work which has never failed him
before. Nan saw that for that day of waiting there was nothing to be done;
so she attempted nothing, only stayed in all day. A quiet, inconspicuous
presence, physically almost as easy to overlook as the shadows in the old
house, but spiritually perhaps otherwise. In the afternoon she wrote some
letters; as she began the first, she glanced up at the date. “Let me see,”
she said; “it’s the third, isn’t it? Saturday?” “Saturday?” Michael
repeated the word as one recollecting. “Yes. Had you an appointment?” “No,”
he answered, “at least, yes. But it does not matter. I was to have gone to
the Carsons’ this afternoon, to tell Lady Sibyl how the aerial torpedo was
received at the board meeting.” He had forgotten it till this moment.
Strange how completely he had forgotten it; Lady Sibyl and all that she
stood for—and she had stood for much—had been utterly blotted from his
mind. He had saved her letters in the general crash, but neither then nor
after did he know why. It was, incomprehensible as it may seem, in a way an
automatic act, one without reasoned volition. The woman herself had no
place in the crisis; she had none in the days which had ensued. He had
forgotten her as completely as he had forgotten all other outside things.
But now he remembered. In a wave, with a sensation which was almost like an
audible _swish_, recollection flowed back. He would have been at the
Carsons’ now, in the small drawing-room. She would have been there, in the
deep chair half turned from the light. He could see her in his mind’s eye,
the glow that lurked in her hair and the gown she would wear. He could see
her white hands, tapering and pink-tipped, could feel their softness as
they touched his in greeting, or in some accident of service as handing
cups and placing cushions. He saw all, saw the kindling in her eyes as he
spoke, heard the thrill in her low voice as she answered—as one sees a
lighted room when standing without in the dark. “Ought you to have written
to say you could not come?” Nan’s voice recalled him abruptly. “No,” he
answered. “It’s of no consequence.” He spoke indifferently, with a hardness
in the indifference. “She will have heard before this, and if she hasn’t,
she will soon enough. It doesn’t matter. I shall never see her again.” Nan
returned to her writing. Among the medley of half-told and retold facts
which had been given to her there had once been mention of some private
papers burned, instead of delivered to the directors. There had been no
account of how they were saved from the fate of the rest, nor why; neither
had borne on the one matter of moment, so both had been passed over. But
now she guessed that the papers saved and personally destroyed concerned
Lady Sibyl. And “it didn’t matter,” for he would “never see her again!”
Pity crept up in her heart; he had lost this too, this woman, whatever she
was to him, in addition to all the rest. In the evening came the letter.
Barmister, who since the closing of his office had been out all the
afternoon on such business as was possible to be done on a Saturday, was
home now and sitting with them. Nan fetched the letters herself; there were
three for her father, one, the expected one, for Michael. She gave them
out, then sat down again to her needlework, watching neither. Barmister
read his through and grunted over them; they were business ones, and one of
them annoyed him. Michael read his, and, slowly refolding it, put it into a
pocket. She had a glimpse of his face, though she avoided looking at it. It
was grave and quiet, but expressed nothing. The mental crisis was past; he
could take the good or the bad now without disorder or outward expression.
Barmister crushed the typewritten sheets of one of his letters together,
and with a muttered malediction on the folly of his correspondent got to
his feet. He asked Nan about some book of reference. It was downstairs in
the office, and she offered to fetch it. “No,” he said, “I’ll go myself. I
want to look up something in the day-book too.” He went, and she continued
stitching. “Well,” Michael said at last, and as the sound of feet descended
the little stair—“they have settled it.” She looked up. “Dismissal?” she
said, though she guessed already. He nodded, and handed her the letter.
GALHARDY & COMPANY, LIMITED. _Secretary’s Department._ _Sir,_ _I am
instructed to inform you that the Board of Directors have considered the
information concerning you which has been duly laid before them._ _This
information shows that very grave irregularities have been going on for
some considerable period. I am therefore directed to inform you that the
Board have decided to terminate your appointment at once._ _The character
of the information is such that the Board are giving their very earnest
consideration as to what course it is their duty, in the interests of the
firm, to adopt: in any case, I am directed to remind you that, under your
original contract, the divulgence of anything of a confidential nature, at
any time, will render you liable to prosecution for breach of the said
contract._ _I am, Sir,_ _Your obedient servant,_ _CECIL BRETT, Secretary._
So Nan read and then read again. Not that in her own mind she did not
understand; she did, the whole case, with a curious plainness. She
understood that much which at first glance appeared important was really
not so, merely detail—the unreceived letter, the antagonistic secretary who
might or might not be responsible, the difficulty of securing a hearing,
even the justice or injustice of the whole proceeding—none complicated the
case or truly influenced judgment on it. It was perfectly simple and
inevitable really, turning on the old and quite natural law of might is
right. Briefly it amounted to this—there was one who had what the great
firm of Galhardy’s wanted, and had a species of right to, and he would not
part with it at their standard price: it had been taken from him without
price, that was all. How, did not matter; it had simply been done, as
inevitably it must have been. That dismissal should be a part of it was his
own fault and the consequence of what their past experience of him had
taught them: his probable future use to them was more than outweighed by
the certain irritation of his future proceedings. The firm naturally
discarded the thing which hampered or annoyed when the reason of its
existence (so far as they were concerned) had been achieved. The cost and
consequence to the thing, equally naturally, did not come into
consideration; it did not exist for a firm, which of necessity labours
under the notorious disabilities of a corporation; that which is without
soul to be saved, or body to be kicked, can take cognisance of no such
trifles. Nan dimly realised it, but she did not put it into words; she
returned the letter with other comments than that. Soon after, Barmister
came back with the book he had been for, and orders that she should find
something for him. She found it, and the short remainder of the evening was
spent without any reference to the directors’ decision. But as they parted
for the night, Michael said, “I must go home to-morrow, and tell my
father.” She nodded: that was inevitable now, and a thing so difficult that
comment was superfluous, even banal. “Yes,” she said, “you must go,” and
she gave him a hand-grasp for good night. CHAPTER V The Annarlys lived at
Hurstbury, a suburb some little way from London. They had lived there a
long while, and occupied the comfortable position that the well-to-do with
handsome daughters come to occupy in the course of time in the older and
more distant suburbs. There were three daughters: Constance, the eldest;
Rosalind second, not long engaged to be married; and Mabel, only recently
free of the schoolroom. There were two brothers younger than Mabel, but
neither was at home just now: Giles was back at school after the summer
holidays, and Jack, a year or two his senior, had remained in France for
some final studies when the family came through on their way home from
Switzerland. They had not been home long by the first Sunday in October,
but they had already settled to their usual ways and occupations. Rosalind,
as her custom was, spent the afternoon in company with her fiancé, Dick
Wharton, in the small room at the back of the house. In the drawing-room
Mrs. Annarly, a slender and still young-looking woman, wrote letters. She
wrote at a small table, protesting mildly at the inconvenience, but doing
nothing else to oust Mabel, who, at her mother’s escritoire, wrote hockey
notices with her mother’s favourite pen on her mother’s paper. Mabel at
that time was much addicted to hockey; later in the year she added dancing
and skating to her enthusiasms. She was a healthy young animal, with a
young animal’s unconsciousness of its body and, sometimes, other people’s
bodies too. Constance, the eldest sister, was really the most like her
mother: one saw a strong facial resemblance as she sat now reading; and
there was some resemblance in character, too, though she was more definite
and cleverer, or, perhaps, better educated and more highly developed than
was customary for girls in her mother’s day. What was customary, and the
nice, right, and proper thing to do, was what Constance would intuitively
do in all the circumstances of life, almost without knowing there was an
alternative—there was no alternative to her. To the mother and daughters
there entered that Sunday afternoon Michael, just come from Soho. They were
surprised to see him, for he did not often come home; and, usually, when he
did, remembered to telegraph first. Still, that he should appear thus was
not unprecedented, and Mabel merely looked up from her notices as he
entered and nodded an informal welcome, while Constance smiled a pleasant
greeting. “My dear boy!” Mrs. Annarly exclaimed, “why didn’t you let us
know you were coming?” “He didn’t know himself, I expect, mother,”
Constance said; “busy people never do seem to forecast their movements long
in advance; indeed, nobody does now, do they?” Michael said he supposed
not, and when Mrs. Annarly said she hoped he was going to stay some few
days, answered that he expected so. Both answers were, perhaps, a little
automatic, though no one noticed: conversation never really lagged where
Constance and Mrs. Annarly were, because the one had a well-bred way of
filling pauses, and the other frequently asked a second question before her
first had been answered, so providing the person addressed with a choice of
two to answer. She did this when she inquired about Michael’s journey. “Did
you travel all the way to-day?” she asked, and then went on to speak of the
inconvenience of Sunday travelling, and to inquire if he had not found the
trains very slow. He answered some part of the composite question, and then
inquired for his father. Mr. Annarly was in the dining-room taking a nap,
but it was near his time for waking. He usually woke some half hour before
tea-time, and either walked round the garden, or went to his long-disused
workshop, according to the weather and time of year. Michael would go to
him. He was not gainsaid. He seldom was at home in these days, though it
had not always been so. Far from it; he was essentially not one of them,
and all had been aware of the fact, and let him be aware of it in the past.
The present privileges and indulgences dated from the time of his success,
and were owing to the fact that shortcomings are excusable in a brilliant
and overtired brainworker, which are not in an unimportant and struggling
engineer. He left the drawing-room now, and went to look for his father, a
full ten minutes earlier than anyone else would have been allowed to do it.
For a little after he left, the mother and eldest daughter made a few
desultory remarks about his return and about the probable length of his
stay; then Constance returned to her book and Mrs. Annarly to her letter.
When she had finished it she began another; but she did not finish that.
Before long she put down her pen, and went to see if the servants had
Michael’s room ready. Constance did not approve of going to see if the
servants had done things; in her household it would never have been
necessary. But she did not say so, she seldom said unpleasant things; she
merely glanced up as her mother left the room. Mabel, who had finished her
last notice, saw the look, and smiled a little. “Poor old mater,” she said,
“she’s always on the fidget.” Constance did not reply; her habit of not
saying unpleasant things was continued behind people’s backs as well as
before their faces. The younger sister, meeting with no response, yawned,
stretched herself, and sauntered down the room to the further window, which
looked out towards the back. For a minute she stood without speaking, then
suddenly she leaned forward with interest. “Hulloah!” she exclaimed. “What
can be the matter with the governor?” Constance glanced up. “What?” she
said. “He’s standing outside the workshop,” Mabel reported, “talking hard,
and with no hat on! He must be excited about something! I suppose Michael’s
there, though I can’t see him. There—now he’s going in; father, I mean. I
wish he’d turn; I can’t see his face to see if it’s good or bad business. I
wonder what’s up?” “Perhaps nothing,” Constance suggested in her unruffled
way, and returned to her book. But a little later, when the gong brought
the father and son, as well as the lovers, to tea, she was obliged to admit
that Mabel might be right; something, apparently, had occurred, something
unpleasant. Michael himself betrayed nothing in look or manner (all that
was past for him; he was down at the bottom now, on the level, and he had
got his bearings, to a certain extent). He behaved much as usual; perhaps a
little more courteously, quicker to see others’ wants, less ready to take
service as a matter of course, and showing some patient interest in the
remarks Dick ventured on subjects which he, good fellow, believed most
deserving of the attention of his brother-in-law elect. After tea, Dick had
to go home: some relation of weight was spending the week-end with his
family, and it was thought politic that he should devote Sunday evening to
his company. So, after a rather lingering farewell, he departed. Rosalind
saw him off, and did not hasten his departure; she thought it very dull
that he should go. When he was gone she came back to the drawing-room. The
housemaid had just taken away the tea-things, leaving Constance and Mabel
alone. “Well, what did I tell you?” Mabel was saying as Rosalind entered.
“There is something up; father’s in a regular taking.” “What a nuisance,”
Rosalind said. “I hope he’ll get over it soon; I want a cheque for my
trousseau, and a big one.” She went to the glass over the mantelpiece and
arranged her necklet, debating, one might fancy from her expression, the
comparative becomingness of green and blue, or some kindred subject
interesting to a fair beauty. But Constance’s voice made her look over her
shoulder. “Yes, I am afraid you are right,” the eldest sister said; “it
does look as if something has happened to upset father: I am afraid Michael
must have told him some bad news.” “Michael?” Rosalind exclaimed. “What a
shame! He has no business to come here and upset the poor old boy,
especially just now when I want him to be in an extra good temper for my
trousseau cheque.” “I do wonder what it is,” Mabel speculated, frankly
consumed with curiosity: “I guess mother’s hearing about it now. She’s sure
to tell us as soon as she comes back; I wish she’d hurry up.” She had not
long to wait. Before a great while Mrs. Annarly came in, and, as her
daughters had foreseen, immediately told all she knew. She invariably did
tell them all she knew, heard, or thought, quite without realising that
sometimes it was a breach of confidence to do so. What she had to tell now
was not confidential; nor was it very clear either. She had but a vague
idea herself of what had really occurred to Michael: what she told her
daughters was mixed and obscure and hardly enough to justify the sense of
disaster in her tone and manner. “Is that all?” Mabel said. “Michael has
just got himself into a bother with the Galhardy people; nothing more than
that?” “All!” Mrs. Annarly said. “I don’t know how much more you want! I am
sure it is bad enough: they have dismissed him, discharged him, whatever
you call it.” “I dare say it won’t turn out to be so bad as it sounds,”
Rosalind looked up from a fashion paper to say comfortably. “I dare say it
will soon blow over. Sit down and tell us all about it, mother dear. Mab,
pull that chair up for her.” Mrs. Annarly sat down, though not much
encouraged by the reassuring words. Rosalind’s reassuring words did not
always carry weight, she rather taking after the people in the Bible who
found solace for their momentary discomfort at a disturbing sight in
saying, “Be ye clothed and fed,” whether or no there was much chance of the
agreeable consummation taking place. “I really don’t understand about it,”
Mrs. Annarly said. “I saw the letter from the Galhardy people, and it
seemed final: but perhaps you are right; perhaps they mean to reconsider it
later on.” (She had done similar things herself in domestic difficulties.)
“But even if they do, I don’t see how Michael is to be any real use to
Giles.” Giles, it had been recently decided, was to follow his
stepbrother’s profession—for which he had little taste—largely on account
of the influence that brother should have been able to exert on his behalf.
The recent affair at Galhardy’s would make a considerable difference; in
all probability make the idea of Giles entering the engineering profession
unwise, if not out of the question altogether. “Your father has definitely
refused Giles,” Mrs. Annarly complained, now referring, not to her son, but
to her bachelor brother, that son’s godfather, who, before the recent plan,
had been looked to place his nephew advantageously in the City. “I suppose
he can get back?” Mabel suggested. “The governor, I mean; he can get back
with Uncle G., if he wants to?” “I don’t know,” Mrs. Annarly said. “It was
about the time of the Budget: he was so angry that he declared he would
never speak to him again. So was Giles. I am sure I don’t know what is to
be done.” She was a little obscure, but very distressed. She dabbed her
eyes once or twice before she went on. “Your father seems to think very
seriously of what Michael has done. I am quite certain he does not for a
moment think he will ever be able to go back; neither does Michael himself.
Your father says he may think himself lucky to get off without
prosecution——” “Prosecution?” All three sisters sat up startled. It was
something which had not occurred to them, and which struck sharply.
Prosecution, trial, reports in the newspapers; friends and acquaintances
reading, recognising the name, looking or expressing sympathy; servants
even talking about it, and other people—the people one did not
know—chattering and possibly enjoying the scandal! “How awful!” Constance
exclaimed. “It won’t, it surely won’t come to that!” “Just when we are
beginning to think about my wedding,” Rosalind cried. “What would the
Whartons say!” “Michael would have to emigrate afterwards,” Mabel said
decidedly; “there’d be nothing else for it, and it would be bad enough then
in all conscience.” They spent a very distressing evening together, talking
over the affair and all likely and unlikely contingencies arising
therefrom. Each in turn suggested fresh possibilities and followed them and
their consequences into depressing ramifications, as remote as the question
whether Mary, the parlour-maid, would stop, if Michael came to live at
home, and so made one more in family; and the unpleasantness of explaining
his return to the select, and slightly curious, bridge club which Constance
had recently joined. They did not, however, say anything of this to Michael
when they met him at the supper-table. The Annarlys dined in the middle of
the day on Sundays, and had cold supper at eight; a rather depressing meal
usually, partly because the one servant remaining in, having spent the
evening in repose, had not sufficiently woke up to set the table properly;
and partly because the family, having had too little to do and too much of
each other’s society, were rather poor company by that time. This
particular Sunday supper was worse than usual. It is true no one mentioned
the matter in everyone’s mind, but spoke, when they did speak, of
indifferent topics, as if strangers had been present. But there was a
feeling of gloom, which, while being general, somehow seemed to centre
round Michael and point him out as being the cause of it. No one was sorry
when the meal was over, no one was sorry when it was bedtime; they went to
bed rather earlier than usual, Rosalind went almost directly after supper.
* * * * * Hurstbury was one of those places where, during the waking hours
of five and a half days of the week, practically no men are to be seen. The
doctor, the clergyman, and the policeman were occasionally to be met with
in pursuit of their several avocations, but one regards them more as local
institutions than mere men: tradesmen, coachmen, and gardeners might also
be discovered, if sought for in their proper places, but they, again, seem
rather fixtures or accessories. Men proper, that is, belonging to the women
who lived in the houses fronting the well-kept roads, were invisible for
those hours of the five and a half days. They were not to be seen issuing
from the houses to go to the shops, even the tobacconist’s or newspaper
shop; they were not to be met on the roads, or even on the nearest golf
course. Except for a week or two in holiday time, when schoolboys and
college boys came home, the visible male population of the place consisted
in the daytime of infants, invalids, and the aged; the rest having all gone
to the City. An able-bodied man, unless a corner loafer, who was at large
in Hurstbury during the hours of the working day, seemed almost misplaced,
and quite as much an object of observation as one who has strayed into a
baby-linen shop. There are houses, there were in Hurstbury, where something
the same feeling reigns; where a man, between the ages of, say, twenty and
sixty, seems a little out of place in the daytime, excepting, of course,
holidays. The Annarlys’ house was like that. Directly after breakfast, Mr.
Annarly left for the City, and Mrs. Annarly went to superintend the
management of her household. Constance went to her desk to write letters,
cast up accounts, and give attention to the affairs of the various
societies, charitable and otherwise, in which she was interested. Mabel
arranged the flowers and took the dogs for a run, and Rosalind, having
walked to the station with her father, if the day was fine, retired to
manicure her nails or practise, if she was in the mood to sing. There was
no place for a man in any of these occupations, and nothing for him to do.
Later, Mrs. Annarly might turn out a cupboard, or mend a stocking;
Constance might go to the shops or on some errand, social or charitable;
Rosalind might go to the dressmaker’s, and Mabel might spend an hour
pottering in the conservatory or gossiping with a girl friend. Again there
was no room for a man, and nothing for him to do. In the afternoon the
mother and daughters visited or were visited, played hockey or bridge, read
or did fancy work, according to age and tastes. One way and another time
was fully occupied until Mr. Annarly, with the other able-bodied male
inhabitants of the place, came back from the City. It was to Hurstbury, and
to this house there, that Michael came home that October. Not but what he
was made welcome; he was, or, at least, not unwelcome. The mother and
daughters were really very nice to him considering how his downfall
necessarily touched them; how the collapse of his future entailed the
collapse of that planned for Giles; how his loss of income lessened the
amount his father felt able to spend on them; and how their position and
prestige were slightly, and might be seriously, affected by what had
deprived him of his. They were, in spite of all, quite nice, saying little
about the situation, and behaving, so far as possible, as if nothing had
happened; but they naturally could not make ordinary days holidays, or
alter the whole routine and tenor of already full lives on his account. And
as it was likely he might be at home some time, they naturally expected him
to conform to the ways of the household; to be punctual at meals, not to
smoke in the house before lunch, to use only such sitting-rooms as were
customarily used, and to discreetly disappear if friends, social
engagements, or other of their affairs occupied the rooms. They did not
mention any of these things; they took it as a matter of course that he
would do them. And he did them. On the whole, as Mrs. Annarly said, they
really got through the first month better than she expected. CHAPTER VI On
the last Thursday in October, Nan Barmister came to Hurstbury. The Annarlys
usually asked her to lunch about that time; they might have done so this
year, though possibly not as the invaluable Mary had given notice, and
Michael was at home. Michael had never mentioned his brief sojourn in Soho;
there had been no necessity, and somehow it had not occurred to him to do
it, so the family concluded Nan knew nothing of his being home, when she
proposed to come and see them. They had often told her to write and propose
coming when she was able, but she had never done it before; to tell the
truth, they were not very pleased that she did now; they felt it to be an
ill-chosen time. However, they decided that it would not be kind to refuse
her, although all three sisters had engagements of some sort for the
afternoon. “Michael can entertain her,” Mabel said; “he and mother can look
after her for the afternoon. We shall all be in to lunch, and some of us to
tea, if she stops till then. After all, she is his relation really, not
ours.” Constance hesitated. “Wouldn’t it be too tiresome for him?” she
said. Rosalind was of opinion it would. “It really isn’t fair to ask him,”
she said; “he’d simply be bored to death. She’ll be all right with mother,
and mother doesn’t mind; she will be able to tell her all about Mary’s
delinquencies. They really get on awfully well alone together, better than
if we are there. I am sure Nan likes it better.” It is a great help towards
comfort and well-being to be able to be sure that what you wish is so by
the mere fact of saying it; quite a number of people have this creative
faculty—where the tastes of others are concerned. Rosalind had largely; her
sisters may not have entirely believed in it, but they did not contradict
her now. The question of who was to entertain Nan was left unsettled, but
she herself was informed they would be pleased to see her on the suggested
Thursday. And on that day she came. The Annarlys’ drawing-room was a
nice-sized room, with a thick pale green carpet and rosewood cabinets,
where Worcester china and Venetian glass stood in well-kept array. There
were polished tables with books and photographs and magazines on them,
quantities of fresh flowers everywhere, and many brocade upholstered
chairs—mostly looking too large and stuffed for Nan. The whole room looked,
if not that, in some way incongruous with her. Even the recently lit fire,
lit thus early on her account, seemed to emphasise the fact that she was
out of place. And Constance, the only member of the family ready to receive
her when she arrived, did not dispel the feeling. At least, she did not for
Nan, though she was unaware of it herself, and was as agreeable as she
always was, talking pleasantly till the others came in just as lunch was
announced. The dining-room was a nice-sized room too; it, like the
drawing-room and the three good-looking, well-dressed sisters, looked its
largest and best kept when Nan was there. She had a way of slipping quietly
into a place, of keeping so still when she was there, and, whether she
talked or was silent, of being so inconspicuous that everything in the
Annarlys’ house stood out in contrast with her; one found oneself wondering
how much it cost at Warings’ or Shoolbreds’, and how many years ago it was
bought. Mrs. Annarly said afterwards that Nan was not so shy that day as
she sometimes was. There is a degree in shyness, as there is in fear, which
gets beyond itself and produces something which, in its outward results, is
akin to courage. Some such thing, aroused on behalf of another, had helped
Nan to invite herself to the house of these overwhelming connections—whose
house, persons, and invitations she avoided and looked upon with dread as a
rule—and helped her through with the much worse ordeal of being there. It
did not prevent her from perceiving, as other of their friends and
relatives would not, that they rather wondered why she had come, and rather
looked upon her coming as a nuisance; but then nothing could have prevented
that; like many of the shy, she had abnormal powers of perception. It did,
however, help her to behave as though she did not perceive it, and to talk
and answer questions with a greater fluency and readiness than she had ever
before developed in their company. There was not a great deal of
opportunity given her; the sisters, and Mrs. Annarly too, found it easier
to talk about their affairs than hers, and to each other than her. A few
kind questions about her father and her health exhausted what there was to
ask her. A few cultivated comments on pictures now on view, which as a
dweller in town she might have, though had not, seen, and on concerts
recently given which similarly she might have, though had not, heard,
exhausted what there was of general interest to say to her. After that they
spoke of their own concerns—to her principally, though with divergencies to
each other. They told her of lectures on Renaissance art now being given
locally; and she did not tell them that the man who gave them had also
written a book in which he made mistakes about the date of Flemish weapons.
They told her of a Spode dessert-service promised to Rosalind for a
wedding-present; and she did not tell them that, if their description was
correct, the designation was not. She did not think of mentioning those
things, so they naturally could not know that she knew them, and knew with
an accuracy with which they knew nothing. Rosalind spoke a good deal about
her trousseau, she did on most occasions just now, and Nan listened with
interest; when Rosalind said she must promise to come to the wedding, she
answered that she hoped she should, probably with less sincerity than
Rosalind said what she did. Rosalind always meant pleasant things at the
moment she said them; Nan did not, unless she also meant them before and
afterwards too. Michael had small share in the conversation at lunch. In
Hurstbury it was essentially the woman’s meal on weekdays, a man had little
part in what was discussed, he was there—as a permanent adjunct—rather by
courtesy only. Nan, a listener, and, occasionally, answerer of questions,
did nothing to alter the usual conditions. But after lunch Michael did not
attempt a retreat, as the sisters half expected he would—as they would have
wished had the guest been one of their own choosing. He followed them into
the drawing-room, and so saved Mabel the trouble, she certainly would
otherwise have taken, of going to fetch him to do his share in entertaining
his cousin when she and the others left for their different engagements.
She glanced behind her at the clock; she was standing on the sheepskin rug
before the fire, her large well-shaped feet planted far apart. “I shall
have to be off in a minute,” she said. “We are playing away to-day. You
don’t play hockey, do you, Nan? You should; rippin’ game. It’d be awfully
good for you, take you out a bit. You must have rather a mouldy time, I
should think.” She looked round at the clock again. “I must go; only twelve
minutes for the train. Don’t bother about tea for me, mother; I’ll get a
drink somewhere. Good-bye, Nan, I’m afraid I shan’t see you when I get
back. Take my tip about the hockey; I dare say I could get you into some
club that plays near town.” And she swung across the room and went out,
rather noisily. “What energy!” Rosalind said. “Isn’t it wonderful? And it’s
really quite warm to-day, you know.” “Yes,” Nan answered, she was sitting
by the back window, “it is a nice day. May I go into the garden?” Michael
rose, though neither Constance nor Rosalind thought he was the person
addressed; they knew of no other methods of address than speech, or the
direct and obvious glance. “Oh, yes, of course, if you care to,” Constance
said. “I am afraid it’s rather damp.” She moved towards the window as she
spoke. “There are some quite nice chrysanthemums left; you must have some
to take home.” She led the way to the garden door, as if she were going out
too; but if that was her intention the sight of the wet grass, or the
voluntary presence of Michael, remitted her sense of duty; she contented
herself with telling him which were the best chrysanthemums. Having done
that and having stood a minute on the top of the steps to say a few words,
she went in, feeling free to attend her committee meeting without any
discourtesy to the guest, undue taxing of her mother, or asking a favour of
Michael. Things often befell thus with her, and she usually deserved it. So
she went to her engagement and Rosalind to hers, and Mrs. Annarly dropped
asleep over a book, until the coming of a visitor aroused her and also put
Nan out of her head. But in spite of Constance’s thoughtful orders, Nan did
not get many chrysanthemums. Michael began cutting at the first group of
plants, while his half-sister still stood on the steps. “I didn’t know you
were coming,” he said. “I had no idea you were here till lunch time.” “No,”
Nan answered, “I know.” “There are some better ones lower down,” Constance
called; “those have been frost-bitten.” Michael moved obediently. “It’s
awfully decent of you to come,” he said. “You must hate it so.” “Be sure he
cuts you nice ones,” Constance’s pleasant voice cried, “and plenty; as many
as ever you can carry.” “Yes,” Nan answered, “yes; thank you.” The face she
turned in the direction of the speaker, who could not see her now by reason
of screening shrubs, was grateful. “It’s kind of her,” she said to Michael,
as if explaining. “Is it?” he answered harshly; though afterwards he said,
“I suppose that is what she is; what they all are—kind.” Nan ignored the
words, and turned to the subject which was really uppermost. “Did you write
to Sir Joseph Harte?” she asked. “About that statement we sent to the
directors from town? Yes, I wrote and asked him if he had received it.”
“What did he say?” Michael felt in his pockets, and found a letter which he
handed to her. It was in the crabbed handwriting of Sir Joseph himself, and
it was marked _confidential_. DEAR MR. ANNARLY (it ran), _I have carefully
considered your letters of the 2nd and 20th, and the statement enclosed in
the former. I find nothing in them to alter the conclusion I had come to in
this deplorable matter; nor do I find anything which would warrant me in
asking my co-directors to reopen, or reconsider, your case. I am, however,
able to tell you that we have now decided to take no further steps. Out of
consideration for the work you did while with us, and the temptations to
which you appear to have been subjected, the other members of the Board
have consented to abandon any idea of prosecution._ _Speaking personally, I
much regret the unhappy termination of your connection with Galhardy’s—a
connection which promised to be useful to us and brilliant for you. But I
still hope that, warned by this lesson, and saved by the generosity of the
directors from the full penalty of publicity, you may yet use your gifts to
do valuable work in some other branch of your profession._ _I am,_ _Yours
sincerely,_ _JOSEPH P. HARTE._ So she read, Michael mechanically cutting
chrysanthemums the while. “I suppose it is as much as one could expect,” he
said when she had finished; “at least, he writes himself, and he writes
kindly, one could hardly look for more if he believes the tale—as he
certainly does.” “Yes,” Nan said, although she did not herself quite like
the letter; she did not know why, unless, perhaps, it was that she had a
feeling it did not ring true. But it was only a feeling, and possibly
groundless; certainly not a thing to mention to Michael, whose present
attitude of spiritless acquiescence was the best in the circumstances.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he answered
indifferently. They moved on slowly, stopping by a few of the
chrysanthemums as they went. Nan noticed how tired and ill he looked, and
with what patient inattention he cut the flowers, obeying Constance’s
orders, but automatically, and without observing what he did. “I don’t want
any more,” she said, and led the way down a damp path away from the plants.
“I suppose,” she said, “since the directors have decided not to prosecute,
you will be able to get some similar work in time?” He shook his head. “As
easily get back to Galhardy’s as get into any similar work. There are only
a few of those firms in existence, and they’re a close ring in some
respects: the word has gone round about me long before this; not one of
them would have me at any price.” “But surely it would be to their interest
to do so?” she protested. “They would never act against their own interests
to please Galhardy’s? They must know that you can do work which no one else
can, and which they want.” “And,” he said, “when it was done, have
Galhardy’s claim it, and say it was what I had already done for them, or
based on it, or near enough to be reckoned the same!” “But it would not be;
you surely have not done for them all there is to do?” “All?” he laughed.
“No! nor a tithe, nor a hundredth! But that would not make any difference.
If it was worth having, Galhardy’s would claim it, and the other people
would have to fight them for it, and there’s few who could afford to fight
Galhardy’s like that.” “What an iniquitous thing!” “There’s plenty of it in
the world,” he said indifferently. “There are some big firms that have a
fund on purpose for that sort of thing and for fighting patents—not
defending their own patents, but defending themselves when they are had up
for infringing other people’s. Galhardy’s can knock most others out, if it
comes to law, they are so rich; no one could afford to fight them—or to
employ me to any purpose.” They had come to the end of the path now, and
reached the old workshop. The door stood ajar, so that one saw the
neglected interior and a single garden-chair drawn up to the burnt-out
stove; Nan half stopped. “Will you come in?” Michael asked. “It’s rather
damp inside, I’m afraid, though drier than out.” They went in. The place
smelt mouldy and smoky too, and struck chilly with the chill of disuse.
There were a lathe and a certain number of tools in racks and on shelves,
but most damaged or obsolete, and all red with rust. A few odd bits of
metal work and turning lay about, of amateur workmanship and no meaning or
use now that even the long-forgotten design of their making was gone. The
place spoke aloud of a dead hobby, a pastime that was outlived. To one who
was an engineer, in the first and last meaning of the elastic word, and who
was used to working on abstruse problems and seeing his theories put into
practice by the best appliances that could be evolved, it might speak with
a grimly pathetic voice. Nan crossed the little untidy place to the cold
stove. “May I light a fire?” she asked. “I’ll light it,” Michael said;
“it’s a brute of a stove; half the time it won’t light, and if there’s any
wind it smokes furiously.” There was no wind that day, and the stove lit
comparatively easily; Nan lighted it, Michael bringing coke from the
stokehole. “I don’t often have it,” he explained; “it hasn’t been very cold
yet. When it is, I expect I shall still do without. After all, the fire
isn’t much loss as a rule, and there would be trouble about the coke if I
had it often.” Nan looked up with inquiry, and he explained. “The coke for
the hot-water boiler and the conservatory stove is allowanced; a load is
reckoned to last so many weeks; if I take it, it won’t.” At Galhardy’s the
directors had been induced to supply a private room with an open grate for
their genius, because a steam-heated atmosphere tried his head. If Michael
remembered this, he did not compare it with the present situation. He
accepted that as he accepted all the other things just now. Nan drew up to
the stove when she had the fire alight. “What are you going to do?” she
asked again. “You had better say, ‘What can I do?’” he answered. “Oh, yes,
there are other branches of engineering, I know that, and know something
about some of them. It was only by chance I stumbled into this one. I was
not trained to it specially.” He spoke as if the astonishing ability, which
showed rare proficiency and original genius in several widely different
branches of one of the widest sciences, were an ordinary and not remarkable
thing. It was not remarkable to him, it was a matter-of-course fact of
existence, and one which he supposed, if he ever thought about it, he
shared with others—only, perhaps, most of those he had come across were too
idle or too stupid to use the powers which they, no doubt, possessed in
common with himself. That would have been his view had he ever evolved one.
But the fact, so far as it concerned himself, was of no particular value
now. “I have got no reputation in any but the one line,” he said;
“naturally, with the choice of applicants for any job there is, the
preference is given to a man with a reputation on that subject. That
militates against me for a post of any size in any but the now closed
branch; and for a small one, the circumstances that I have had a good thing
in one line, and am now offering for a small one in another, tells quite as
much. Not to mention that I have been at Galhardy’s, and left for no
explained reason, which would pretty well prevent me getting anything
anywhere.” “Have you tried?” He had, his experience, though small, had been
bitter. “It is true I have only been home three weeks,” he said, “and so
you may say have not had the chance of making many attempts. But one can
learn a good deal in a short time, especially of that sort of thing.” They
had taken much, these directors of Galhardy’s. They may have been entitled
to it, Nan did not know, and she did not concern herself to think or
concern herself to condone or to justify either them or the sufferer; the
bare facts were enough. And the facts, as they stood now, were that they
had the man’s invention and the results of some years of his best work; and
in taking them they had, incidentally, also taken his reputation and his
nerve, and, at one time it seemed, possibly his balance of mind too. The
last danger was past, but another loss was made plainer than it had been
before—they had, also no doubt incidentally, taken his chance of earning a
living in any other way. They certainly had much and had left little.
“Surely,” she protested aloud, “surely there is something!” “What?” “I
don’t know,” she was obliged to answer, and again sat staring into the
little open doorway of the stove. There must be something! He was in
collapse now: nerve gone, energy gone, ability in eclipse, the whole
immaterial man shattered; but there was still something there; she felt it.
She knew nothing of technical facts, little by practical experience of him;
but she knew, with the unerring knowledge of women (some women), that there
was still something there, and believed it with that faith which not merely
removes mountains, but sometimes makes men. So long as there was something
in him there was still something which could be done, though it might take
long to find out what it was, and how to do it. “They have not taken your
brains,” she ventured at last. “My brains are not much use,” he answered.
But he spoke gently, his brains were at a discount now, their existence as
an asset and a marketable commodity was even in some doubt; he was grateful
for the assumption of them and their value. “They are not really of much
value,” he told her. “Even if I could still deal with problems—we’ll say I
could, if you like, though I am not at all sure of it myself, I don’t think
I shall ever do anything again. If I could, what better off am I, if no one
wants their problems dealt with by me? One can’t set up as a consulting
engineer without capital or reputation. My reputation would blast the best
capitalised concern, and my capital would not float the best reputation,
for it is non-existent.” “Have you no money at all?” she asked. “None. No
doubt I ought to have saved, but I didn’t; it cost me a good lot to live,
and I didn’t bother; also, no doubt, I was a fool. I have managed to clear
up what was owing, but that is all, and I should not have been able to do
that, if I hadn’t had an offer for my car just before—just before this all
happened. At present, I have a five-pound note and”—he put his hand in his
pocket and took out some coins—“about enough to pay my fare to town third
class another six times. Those are my assets, and my prospects—_nil_. I
have hardly enough to buy a plumber’s outfit or the wherewithal to start
the hawking of tools in the Whitechapel Road.” The position did not show
hopefully, Nan saw that; nevertheless, she led him to talk of the work and
chances of consulting engineers, and other freelances of the profession.
But what he said did not show the prospect any brighter. For success in
such ways business ability of the highest order was the first and last
requisite: that and the capacity to live on little and wait, and,
incidentally, the little to live on while waiting. For a man to work out
his own inventions and profitably dispose of them much more was needed:
much capital, much space, much plant, and, if he was to make even the
barest margin of profit, the rare fortune to light upon a moderate
proportion of honest men. “Unless one has enough money not to need to make
more, one can hardly make it by working out inventions or any of the
problems which want working out,” so he said. Yet, either because of her
silent attention, or because the thing was so strong in him, in a little he
began to talk of some of the problems. They were always floating about at
the back of his mind, complex and simple, of practical importance and
theoretical interest, equally dear to him, and ready under normal
conditions to come to the forefront of consideration at the provocation of
a word. Of late, they, like everything else, had been in abeyance; it was
only for a minute or two the old passion reasserted itself now; in a little
the interest was gone. “What I have to consider,” he said “is, not what
might be worked out, but how to get a living, and there doesn’t seem much
prospect of my being able to do that, for I can’t do anything but this one
sort of thing.” “You can draw,” Nan suggested; “can’t you do something with
that?” “Be a draughtsman?” The idea of following that branch of his
profession had no more occurred to him than the idea of being a plumber;
his tone showed it, but after a second he said quietly, “Yes, I suppose I
could do that; I could draw out other people’s designs, and work out things
for contractors—if I could get the work.” “Would you do it? Would you, if
you could get it?” He considered a moment, and the pause more than words
showed the gulf for him between the past and the present. “Yes,” he said
slowly, “I think so; I think I would. After all, one thing is much the same
as another now. I could do that, I suppose I should, if I could get it. I
dare say it might come to it that I should be thankful to get it.” “Could
you?” “I should say not.” “Why?” “Because after what has happened no one
would trust me to work out his design, for fear I should steal the idea.
Oh, I don’t mean that would be said exactly, or that anything definite will
ever be reported against me, nothing so clearly to be met as that; but
there will be a feeling, a sort of doubt, and that is enough, more than
enough. Why should confidential work be given to a man with a doubt about
him, when there are plenty without able to do it?” Nan realised the
difficulty. “And the other work you spoke of?” she said. “The contractors;
you said draughtsmen did things for them. Would the doubt tell there?”
“Probably not; the work they want is not confidential; it is merely
drawings to meet technical difficulties in putting up plant on a large
scale. But most contractors have their own draughtsman, or the one to whom
they always go; it is difficult for an outsider to get the work.” “Still,
possible, I suppose?” “Oh, yes, in time, quite possible.” “And some, once
got, would lead to more?” “It might—probably would.” “Would that eventually
lead to the other kind—the better kind? I suppose in that sort of work, as
in everything else, there are degrees of proficiency, and the man who can
do the best in the best way is rare. So rare that once found he must be
employed in spite of his drawbacks?” Michael admitted it was so; he had had
enough experience in employing draughtsmen to know it true. It did not
occur to him to deny that he could do work of such quality; he could do it,
it was the quality of all his work. He did not himself think of it exactly
as such; he had no standard of best or worst in work; one did what one
wanted, or what was wanted; there was nothing less, nothing more. Some men,
of course, did not do what was wanted; again it was not a question of best
or worst, it was not anything; if it was not done, it was nothing. One did
not criticise it, one mentally called them wasters, and took the work away
and did it oneself. (It is possible to see that such an attitude of mind
might make more enemies than any realisation of superior personal ability
or human conceit about it.) The afternoon was gloomy and overcast, the
gleam of sunshine which had brightened the garden when Nan first proposed
going out had long vanished. By mid-afternoon it was grey without and
greyer still in the small shed; the discarded tools and scraps of metal
which littered it, became mere lumps, with here and there one standing out
with the unnatural distinctness things assume in half lights. Nan noticed
them; she had an eye for such details even when preoccupied. Michael did
not, perhaps, because all, actual and spiritual, was, as it were, of a
piece to him. They drew up closer to the stove, talking fitfully now of the
possibilities of draughtsman’s work and its difficulties and drawbacks. And
though they spoke of the obvious drawback, that it was out of the question
for one without a connection to expect to make even pocket-money out of it
for some time, they did not speak of the utter distastefulness of such work
to a man of Michael’s calibre. Nor yet did they speak of the bitterness for
such a one having to solicit as a favour work inferior to the crudest of
that which he used to delegate to subordinates. Such things were too
personal to be spoken of and too obvious. Besides, the other drawback was
enough: the fact that it was impossible to expect to make a living at it
for long. “My father is not a rich man,” Michael said, towards the end of
the afternoon. “He had losses last year, and he pretty well lives up to his
income, I believe; he naturally looks to provide for his daughters too, so
far as he can; I can expect nothing from him. Theoretically, I imagine, I
am at liberty to live here until I get something to do——” “But practically
you can’t do it,” she concluded for him. “You can’t do it for long. No, I
know.” Unconsciously, as she spoke, she glanced over her shoulder to where,
through the smeary little window, one could see the house, the curtained
drawing-room window and the corner of the conservatory. The tea-gong
sounded as she looked. She rose instantly, the idea of not obeying a
summons to meals here, or venturing to keep anyone waiting, never occurred
to her. It apparently did not occur to Michael either; he rose too, and
they went into the drawing-room. A second visitor had taken the place of
the first, her presence, and the recent return of Constance, and later
return of Rosalind, prevented any comment on their long absence; indeed,
probably no one had noticed it at the time or thought of it now. Tea, with
sweet cakes and talk, filled the short time before Nan left; and if she
herself contributed little to the conversation, little was expected of her,
and nothing of Michael, except to hand cups and plates. Almost directly
after tea Nan left. Michael walked to the station with her; so did
Constance, who said they seemed to have seen so little of her this time.
During the walk the small bunch of chrysanthemums, which were fetched in at
the last minute, was criticised; Constance told Michael he should have cut
more, and Nan that she should have helped herself, if he was too lazy. She
also said kindly that Nan must come again soon, some day when they were all
at home. Nan answered rather shyly, Constance made her shyer than any of
the Annarlys, and more aware of her own deficiencies in comparison with so
many social gifts. Michael also said little; he really knew nothing of the
topics discoursed upon, but apparently he was not expected to; he was there
for form’s sake merely, and to put Nan into the train. CHAPTER VII On the
day before her birthday, Nan reminded her father of that anniversary. “It’s
to-morrow,” she said; “have you forgotten?” “No,” he answered, “nor have
you. What do you want? Since you have not spoken before, I suppose it is
nothing I have to buy: something in the house, is it?” She shook her head,
and he seemed pleased. “That’s as well; I’d been ashamed of your taste if
you had asked for that iron chest.” And he would too, though he would have
given it, if she had asked for it. As it was, he was so pleased she had not
chosen it that he was ready to grant a large demand, should she make one.
For a moment she hesitated. She had never come to him with any such request
as she had to make this year, and she did not know how to sum it in one
word. “I want you to give me Michael Annarly,” she said at length. “What!”
he exclaimed. “What on earth do you mean?” “I’ll try to explain. You know I
told you he had got into difficulties with the people he worked with?” He
did: he probably knew quite as much about that as his brother-in-law at
Hurstbury; possibly more, for Nan had told him, and she knew better how to
convey things to her father than Michael did to his. He nodded now. “What’s
that got to do with it?” he asked. “I’ll tell you. It’s like this, Michael
cannot get any sort of post at present——” “Naturally not; shouldn’t think
he’d ever get one in his own line again, not one worth having, and I don’t
suppose he’s much good for anything else. Go on.” “That is where the
present comes in,” Nan explained. “He can make drawings. I suppose it is
mostly machine-drawings and things like that which he has done heretofore,
but he could do details of furniture to scale and all that extremely well.
I don’t mean he would be worth anything much to you on that account; but he
could do it, and he could write letters and do some of what Josiah now
does, and so leave him freer for other things, as you have often said
lately you wished. What I want, is that you will let Michael have this
work, and that you will let him live here to do it. That is what I want you
to give me this birthday.” “Oh?” said Barmister. “Oh, indeed, is it?” It
was an unexpected request, as unexpected as the one which had inaugurated
the birthday custom, the desire of a child for a perfect specimen of old
French cabinet work. He received it in much the same way that he had
received the one of long ago, principally by looking sharply at the maker
to gauge, if possible, what, consciously and unconsciously, prompted the
asking. For a moment he sat thoughtful: not refusing, as a good business
man should; nor conceding, as an indulgent father might. Now, as long ago,
he paid his daughter the compliment of doing neither hastily; not regarding
her choice as a passing whim. If he gave, or if he refused, he would do it
with reason, or, at least, because he saw she had what she deemed reason
for her request. “Is this your idea, or his?” he asked at length. “Mine; he
knows nothing about it. I do not even know if he will agree to it.” “H’m.”
Barmister bit his finger thoughtfully. “Where does it lead to, and what is
it for?” he asked. “It will give him an opportunity of getting and doing
other work after a time,” she said: “draughtsman’s work, the only thing
allied to his original profession, there is a chance of his getting at
present. He couldn’t get enough of that to live on for some while; but he
could get some and do it out of work-hours if he had something to do to
keep going on meanwhile. From that, other things would arise and develop in
time.” “I see,” Barmister said, and sat thoughtful again. After a time he
looked up. “Where do you come in?” he asked abruptly. “I want it,” she
answered: “I want that—what I have indicated—to happen.” “Why? It’s no
concern of yours.” She was obliged to admit that, though it seemed a new
idea to her. “I suppose it isn’t,” she said slowly; “but it somehow seems
as if it were. You see, I happened to be the person there at the moment,
that rainy afternoon when I first brought him here. I happened to be there
when someone was wanted, as one might happen to be the person at hand in an
accident. When that occurs, it seems as if the job were one’s own, don’t
you think? It really is, too. Anyhow, I feel as if this were mine, and I
were concerned in it.” “H’m,” he said again, and no more. For some time he
sat considering, turning the matter in his mind. At length he spoke. “You
can have it, if you like. Mind you, that’s not saying I think it sensible,
or that what you’ve asked for is going to get you what you want, if that’s
the reinstating of Michael Annarly. I have my doubts if anything would do
that, after what has happened. I should say he has about done for his
career. He’s been a fool, and if there’s one thing Nature abhors more than
a vacuum, it’s a fool: Nature and Fate and everything else have a deal more
use for knaves than fools, and let them off a deal cheaper. It’ll take a
better man than you, or me, or him either to get over that business. Still,
that’s neither here nor there: you aren’t asking me to make a job of
Michael Annarly for a birthday present, and you aren’t asking me to think
what you have asked for worth the having.” “No,” Nan agreed, “I’m asking
you to let Michael come here to work for a while, and to live with us while
he does it.” “You shall have it. On the understanding that I can take it
back again if I want to, and when I want to, if I think it’s interfering
with business—that’s to be understood.” She said it was, and thanked him,
and he dismissed her, saying he would to-morrow give her a letter to
Michael offering him such a situation as she had described—unless he saw
reason to change his mind during the night. He did not change his mind. The
next morning at breakfast she found the letter lying on her plate. It was a
brief, businesslike letter, offering the specified employment on the
condition that the recipient lived in the house so as to be there to do
extra work at extra times when necessary. The terms were fair, but not
liberal; and the method of expression formal. The offer was business, not
philanthropy. But Nan was satisfied when she read it; it was what she
wanted. During the morning she wrote to Michael, and enclosed the letter
with her own. He might refuse or accept without damage to his self-respect,
and without having to consider any damage to hers or her feelings. She was
merely the medium in the matter. He could judge of the offer on its own
merits, and see it fairly, and without any personal bias or glossing. Seen
so it must have shown extraordinarily bare to one who had done some of the
finest work on one of the most complex subjects known to man; one who had
been a recognised authority to be consulted and respected by persons of
position and intelligence; one who, in spite of many jars and difficulties,
had been considered and courted, as are few of his age, by important men,
and still more by their subordinates. One, too, who, though always
convinced of poverty, had come to look upon many luxuries as necessaries,
and as such had them; and who, though not quite at one with it, had mixed
as equal and as welcome guest in a well-bred society that accepted him as
it found him. The offer was only to be inferior clerk and handy-man to a
dealer in second-hand furniture; with the ultimate hope, by using all spare
time, and, if Fate proved kind, of becoming a draughtsman, and doing the
worst drudgery of the profession in which former pre-eminence had been won.
The pay was small, the work was worth no more, and the society was _nil_:
there was none in the old house in Soho. All these things must have been
plain to Michael: he must have seen what was offered quite as it was. Yet
he accepted it. The Monday after Nan’s twenty-sixth birthday found him in
Soho. Robert Barmister was not the easiest man to work for; he cared for
nothing but work, and he dealt much with Jews, who also exalted it to the
same place: his standards and demands on others, consequently, were high
and exacting. Theoretically, he expected little of Michael, seeing the
circumstances in which he employed him: practically, though he was not
aware of it himself, he expected a great deal more than most would have
expected of other and more qualified persons. He was a man of few words; he
spared little speech to make his instructions clear; he had that impatience
of ignorance which will not waste time explaining, and so demands unusual
intelligence when comprehension is desirable. This did not matter with
Josiah who had worked with him so long and so closely as to be almost a
second, and gentler, self. But it did not make things easy for Michael,
although, it must be owned, he himself used to evince some of the same
unconscious intolerance in dealing with others. At Galhardy’s it had been
to a good many people’s interest to understand what Michael Annarly meant,
and to carry out his lightly indicated instructions—or to get someone more
initiated to interpret them without disturbing him for explanation. Here
the positions were reversed, and, in spite of the help of Josiah and Nan,
he was often humiliatingly at sea until such time as native intelligence
enabled him to understand the trivial but unfamiliar details. In the main
the work he had to do was trivial and mechanical; so narrow in
circumstance, and so totally unsuited to him as might seem a lamentable
waste of time and ability. He did not think of it that way: he did not
think of it at all; he simply did what was before him without looking
before or after. At least, it was much better than doing nothing at
Hurstbury; and he could do it, which was something—there were moments when
he doubted if he could do anything else, if he could ever do anything at
all again. So he plodded with the unfamiliar tasks, giving exact attention
to the careful drawing of chair-backs and kindred things, and learning what
Robert Barmister’s brief orders and instructions meant in the course of the
monotonous days. Once or twice he went to museums to make drawings of some
specimen of furniture or detail of ornament which was to be reproduced.
Once or twice he went to the warehouse of a fat Jew dealer for some similar
purpose. The last was unpleasant: he was not used to being treated as an
inferior by men of the Jew’s stamp, and every nerve in his body resented
it; even while he was forced to admit himself inferior, not only in present
position, but also in the special knowledge which alone was valued here. In
the main, however, he had nothing acutely distasteful to do; there was
nothing acute in any way. Only once was he told to do that from which he
shrank as impossible. It was on a Saturday afternoon. Nan had gone with him
to one of the warehouse rooms to help him look for a Florentine mirror,
concerning which her father had given instructions too slight for him to
recognise it. She found the mirror, and observed, just below it, the iron
chest she had bought the day she met him. “It’s not sold yet, I see,” she
said. “What is not?” he asked. She pointed it out to him; he had not seen
it before. “Why!” he exclaimed, “it’s like one the Carsons have.” He had
spoken before he was aware: had he been aware he would hardly have said it;
he had a distaste for even so much as in any way referring to the past in
these days. But the sight of the chest unexpectedly recalled the facsimile
in the hall at Redstoke. He moved a little nearer as if to examine it, but
really to recover himself. He was much more plainly seeing the other chest
and the room; half hall, half billiard-room, where it stood—where he had
told Lady Sibyl of his achievement that last night. “They thought theirs
the only one in England,” he said for the sake of saying something, and to
cover, even from himself, how much the memory hurt. “They wanted another,
but they have never been able to get one.” “Who wants?” Barmister’s voice
asked quickly. He was at the far end of the room, and had not been noticed
by the other two; had hardly noticed them either until Michael’s words
touched the mainspring of his interest. “Who is it wants a chest? Write and
tell ’em I’ve got one. Write to-night to them, whoever they are.” He moved
away without waiting for an answer, which was perhaps as well, as Michael
did not speak. The thing was impossible: he could not write to Lady Sibyl!
“I will write that letter,” Nan said quietly. For a moment he felt
relieved; next minute, however, he said, “Why should you? It’s good of you
to bother, but it doesn’t matter; I am what I am, I should do the work of
it. It is of no consequence really that it should happen to be these
people, I have done with them—with all that. I shall never come across them
again.” “It matters in that it would make it more difficult for them to
deal about the chest,” Nan answered. “Many people find it difficult to buy
or sell when a friend or acquaintance is concerned in it. I bought the
chest; I would like it sold well, and I think that is more probable if the
writing of the letter was not recognised. Make a drawing, and I will write
the letter.” And she did, though whether her motive was the business one
she alleged is open to doubt: this, at least, is certain, a service is
often doubled by not seeming to be one. So the letter was written; and, as
a consequence, the chest was eventually dispatched to Redstoke. And Nan
wrote the address-label for the packing-case, and the letter of advice of
its dispatch, and everything else in connection with it. And in spite of
what he had said, it did matter to Michael; for days after the chance
recall of Lady Sibyl and the past there was an additional greyness in the
world, an additional bitterness in failure and in Fate. But he lived it
down; gradually it died again to apathy and patient acquiescence; but he
avoided all mention of the Carsons’ name, all reference to the chest, and
the price (a high one) for which it was sold. The price for which Barmister
sold things was always high; his profits may not have been quick, but they
were usually large; he seldom made a mistake in what he bought, and never
in what he sold. He was clearsighted and careful; in some respects careful
to meanness; he never used a penny stamp where a halfpenny would do, or a
whole sheet of paper where a half would serve. He had a way of trimming off
the edges, a hole-and-corner manner of conducting his business very much at
variance with the polished mahogany and plate-glass methods which obtained
in all with which Michael had been concerned heretofore. In curious
contrast too with the large, almost daring quality which characterised his
dealing in some other ways. Probably, like his choice of living over his
work, it was a survival from older times, when merchants wrote out their
own bills, saved wax and firing, and ventured their thousands in hazards
which would make their descendants tremble. In several respects the life in
the old house was related to that past time; dinner was at two there on
Saturdays and Sundays, at half-past one, the nearest the exigencies of
modern working hours would allow, on other days. There was cold supper late
in the evening, often set at one end of a table—of great beauty—so as not
to interrupt what might be doing at the other end. There was usually
something doing, the polite art of doing nothing was unknown to the father
and daughter, and they had practically no visitors to help them to it.
Sometimes Barmister was busy with books or papers, or examining recently
purchased treasures; sometimes he was at work downstairs in the room with
the dolphin mantelpiece. Usually Nan sewed of an evening, not fancy work
with clicking of pins or twitchings of silks and examining stitches, but
plain sewing; a continuous, complete sort of occupation which yet allowed
of talk when talk was pleasing, very tranquil. Once only in the time before
Christmas did an interruption occur to the daily order of things, and that
was not unexpected, for it was a yearly happening. Every year on the 5th
December, the anniversary of the day that Josiah first entered the
business, the father and daughter went to spend the evening at the
Foregoods. The custom had been begun long ago, in the time of the young
wife, when the means of all were so straitened that a supper out was a real
economy to the guests, and the getting of anything adequate to their
hospitable instincts a real problem to the host and hostess. This year
Michael was invited to be of the party, and he accepted, though he did not
want to. The last time he had been out by invitation was when he dined at
Redstoke. If no recollection of that had occurred to incline him against
this he would still have had a distaste for it; he shrank from meeting his
fellow-creatures in any but business relations. He felt at first that he
could not go. But he did, for Josiah asked him personally, and so
tentatively that he did not know how to refuse without hurting. So he
accepted, and Josiah’s simple and evident satisfaction made him feel a
little ashamed. “My brother, George, will be with us,” Josiah told him.
“He’s a clever man, my brother, but I’m afraid you won’t quite like him.”
“Why not?” Michael asked. “I expect I shall.” “I don’t think you will. He’s
raspy, that is what he is; he has had a lot of trouble, and it has soured
him. I dare say it would have soured me, if I had had it, I expect it
would, it certainly has him.” “Yes?” Michael said. He did not feel
particularly interested to hear of what sort the trouble was till Josiah
said, “He’s a failure, you see.” At that his attention was caught. “I dare
say I should have been a failure too,” Josiah went on. “I am sure I should
if it had not been for Mr. Barmister; the males in our family are that
kind, they haven’t much gumption, Janet says, and I think she’s right. I
haven’t much, I know; and I don’t think George can have, though he has
grit, plenty of grit, but he’s cantankerous with it. That is how the
trouble began years ago; he fell out with his employers.” “What was he by
profession?” Michael asked. “He was at some dye works originally,” his
brother answered; “he was foreman-mechanic—he’s clever in a way—very
clever. We both of us had rather a taste for machinery when we were boys:
mine was nothing, only an interest in wheels and so on; it all went off in
clocks.” His eyes wandered to the works of an old French clock which lay
near him; clocks were his hobby. What he did not know of horology, ancient
and modern, was little worth knowing; he fingered the French clock tenderly
now. “George was not like me,” he said; “much cleverer. He had, I believe
he still has, real ability. He invented an apparatus for ‘dyeing in the
sliver,’ I think they call it, which was a very good thing; a lot of money
has been made out of it.” “Not by him, I suppose,” Michael said. “No, that
is what he quarrelled with his employers over. They gave him a five-pound
note for his invention. Of course, they weren’t bound to give him anything,
since he was their man, and the thing was done in their time, but it was
likely to be worth a great deal to them, so he naturally expected
something. Five pounds wasn’t much, certainly; still, I think myself George
did the wrong thing about it. He tore it in half and threw it in the senior
partner’s face, telling him what he thought of him. George uses rather
strong language sometimes.” “That must have been a surprise for the senior
partner,” Michael observed. “What did he do?” “Dismissed George on the
spot,” Josiah answered, and probably would have gone on to give some
further details of the inventor’s history had not an interruption occurred
here. On the 5th December, Michael had the opportunity of seeing the man
himself. On that evening he and Nan and her father went to Bayswater. Nan
wore her Sunday dress, a dark-coloured stuff dress, inconspicuous as
usual—one never noticed what she wore or thought about her appearance at
all. It was as well, perhaps, that her clothes were not fragile on this
occasion, for it rained when they left the station, and Barmister did not
take a cab. He never thought of indulging in such luxuries, and Nan
accepted the doing without as a matter of course, nothing else had ever
come her way. The Foregoods’ house was very small, and always seemed
smaller on these annual occasions, because the hall was so narrow that when
Nan and her father were both in it there was little room for Josiah, who
opened the door and had to squeeze himself behind it. This evening,
Michael, being an extra person, had to stand on the doorstep until Nan had
gone part of the way upstairs in answer to Miss Janet’s beckoning. Miss
Janet wore a dark green _moiré_ dress, which had graced many similar
occasions, and was brought up to the requirements of a figure bigger than
the one from whom it was inherited by inlets, in unexpected places, of a
younger silk of a different shade. Not that anyone of taste would have
quarrelled with the costume, it was so essentially suited to the wearer.
Certainly, no one would have quarrelled with her as a hostess; she had the
hospitality which is the prerogative of the good housewife, proudly giving
of her best, and conscious that of its kind it is excellent. Excellent it
certainly was: a simple supper, but in its way perfect, each article
personally selected by one who thoroughly understood the subject and
personally prepared with the same understanding. Miss Janet was frankly
proud of it, although, as she herself was aware, the present company were
not gourmets enough to appreciate it at its true worth. “I don’t suppose
you can tell me what we had this time last year,” she said; “not Mr.
Barmister, nor Nan, nor Josiah, any more than Mr. Annarly and George, who
weren’t here—though they wouldn’t know any better if they had been.” Nobody
could tell her, and Michael said, “I’m afraid I should only have remembered
that it was very good; when things are that one does not recollect anything
else, unless one is the maker and has been through the details and
difficulties of manufacture—outsiders only enjoy and forget, which seems
unfair.” “If there wasn’t anything unfairer than that in the world, there
wouldn’t be much to complain of,” George said gruffly, and without raising
his fierce eyes. They were fierce eyes, and distrustful too; those of one
foredoomed by Nature to fight on the losing side, but a person most would
not seek to fight or contradict unnecessarily. Miss Janet had no such
scruples: the man was yet to be found concerning whom she did have them, if
she thought the occasion demanded contradiction or correction. “Don’t be
grumpy, George,” she said. “It isn’t unfairness people complain of
principally; that’s not at the bottom of most people’s grumbling, though
they may think it is, it’s their own temper and stupidity generally. Half
the time when one’s food disagrees with one, it’s because one brings a sour
stomach and a grievance to table.” Having announced which, she returned to
her original subject, and recalled other celebrations of the anniversary;
not omitting the first of all, at which Nan, being too small, had not been
present. “I was left at home in charge of the landlady’s daughter,” Nan
explained to Michael. “I remember she put me to bed, and I think she must
have put me wrong, for I woke up after a little while and was frightened
because I thought I heard someone scream downstairs. I screamed then in
good earnest, and she had to leave her friend, the policeman, to come up
and comfort me.” “Serve her right,” was Miss Janet’s comment. “I have no
doubt it was her giggling and squealing with him that woke you, poor
child.” “Maybe,” Nan said, “but I don’t think she wasted much time; I can
remember being down in the kitchen after that, so I suppose she took me
there. I wonder if I was much in the way of the courtship?” “Not a bit,”
said Miss Janet decidedly; “why, you wouldn’t be in the way now! In a very
little you’d find them going on just as if you weren’t there.” This may
have been true, though perhaps not altogether flattering. Nan did not
contradict it, and conversation went other ways, only returning to the
subject of the anniversary when supper was over and a bottle of choice wine
was put on the table. It was the annual custom to drink to the success of
the business in the best that Josiah’s resources could afford; better than
he could afford without deprivation in the early days. This year it was a
port worth mention, and the toast was drunk with a very real meaning on the
part of most. Afterwards, George Foregood, who had made no pretence of
sharing the sentiment, proposed an addition. “Better drink success to me
too,” he said, “and damnation to Blackwell and Blackwell.” Josiah lowered
the glass he had raised. “Success, if you like,” he said, “not damnation.”
“Same thing,” his brother returned; “their damnation is my success: there
isn’t another I care for.” Josiah shook his head. “Pity,” he said. “It’s a
pity. There isn’t much good trying to get even with people; it’s ‘spending
your substance for nought, and your money for that which profiteth not.’
Besides, you never succeed in doing it really.” “Depends on who you are,”
George said shortly, and Nan pondered the subject. “Perhaps a little on how
much you are prepared to pay?” she suggested. “It might be like Samson and
the Philistines: he pulled the house down on them, certainly, but on
himself too. I suppose it was worth while to him?” Josiah looked doubtful.
“Perhaps so,” he said, “perhaps so. You always do have to pull down to get
even with people; them down and often yourself down to the same level of
dirty tricks, or injustice, or bad feeling, or something: it hardly seems
worth it. You vindicate yourself that way, certainly, or you may—but it
doesn’t seem much—just be able to stick out your chest and say, ‘You see,
I’m right after all.’” George did not agree, and said so emphatically.
Barmister, who had been talking to Miss Janet, turned to give his curt, and
a trifle contemptuous, opinion of those who ever allowed a score to
accumulate to need avenging. Miss Janet and Nan left him doing so when they
retired to the other room, where the re-covered chairs stood in a row, and
the clocks of Josiah’s collecting ticked softly from brackets and shelves.
Nothing more was heard of George’s enterprise that night, though it was
obvious, from what he had said, that he had an ambition set before himself
which he hoped soon to accomplish. Michael rather wondered what it was: for
the first time since the happenings at Galhardy’s he felt some small
interest in a fellow-creature. On the next day, a Sunday, when he was out
with Nan, he asked her about the man. “George Foregood?” she said. “He
hopes to ruin or, at all events, seriously damage the trade of his old
employers. He has invented another apparatus, or else much improved the one
he invented before, and it is so much better than the first that he
believes the dyers who have it will easily get all the trade of those using
the first. He has been years perfecting it. All the spare money he had has
gone that way, and some of Josiah’s too, and what little he got with his
wife. She is dead now, which is perhaps as well. I believe she was an
unsatisfactory wife, and I’m sure he must have been a still more
unsatisfactory husband.” It was easy to believe this, Michael said; then
asked, “Has he really perfected his invention now?” “He thinks so,” Nan
answered; “and done it with his own time and own money, so there can be no
dispute about ownership. Now he is looking out for someone who will float
it for him. He wants to make money out of it; but he is set, above all
things, on his old employers suffering through it.” “One can understand
that,” Michael said. Nan agreed, but added: “I’m not sure it’s wise. I
don’t believe it’s really the best thing: rather grasping the shadow, don’t
you think?” She stopped by a stile as she spoke, and turned to him, though
she was questioning herself more than him. They had taken the train a
little way out of London, and were spending the short day in walking out
into the country. They sometimes made such excursions on a Sunday. Rather
bare excursions, perhaps; they had never enough money for any but
third-class travelling, and never lunch at country inns, only sandwiches
provided from home, and eaten under a southern hedge, or among trees; any
shelter from the weather which could be found. But there was something in
the expeditions: something akin to the quiet brown land and low sky, in a
way tranquil and apart from ordinary life. The landscape that day was
soft-toned. Nan, leaning against the stile, looked out across bare fields,
green and brown with a film of mist on them. Even the sun was meek, only a
white shining in the higher haze. “I wonder,” she speculated, her eyes on a
little copse, where some belated leaves still lingered—“I wonder if George
will find it worth while?” “To wipe off his score with those people?”
Michael said. “I suppose so.” “He will have given a good deal for it,” she
said: “all his life; not only work, and time, and money, but most other
things too. I doubt if it is worth it.” “Nothing is,” Michael said wearily.
“I sometimes doubt if anything is worth while.” He offered a hand to help
her over the stile as he spoke, and they went on together in silence. It
was one of her distinctive characteristics, her capacity for companionable
silence: Michael came to value it a good deal on those Sunday excursions.
There was usually an excursion on a Sunday. When, as sometimes, they could
not afford the railway to the country, they went somewhere in town. Nan
knew the City and its purlieus as few Londoners did, and they wandered down
the deserted streets and into old forgotten corners, finding places little
known and beauties not often recognised. Attending quiet City churches: old
churches with their glories half obscured in the dim light of leaded
windows and overshadowing buildings. Places where worshippers were few, and
that few half lost in high, dark pews; and the clergy and sweet-voiced
choir held the service, as of old, more for the glory of God than the
edification of man. Strange, peaceful places, where a man may seek and,
perhaps, find for himself something of the Mystery which lies behind the
Universe. CHAPTER VIII Every profession and most trades, except perhaps a
few humble female ones, such as that of washerwoman, have their societies:
some have only trade unions, but many have more or less social and
club-like ones as well. So vast and wide a profession as engineering,
stretching from the construction of the Assouan Dam to the nice adjustment
of a waste-pipe, naturally has many societies in connection with it.
Michael Annarly was a member of several; also of several others of a more
generally scientific or quasi-scientific nature. It cannot be said that he
had very often attended the meetings of any, or found them of great
interest when he did; he was essentially of the unco-operative sort, in his
work independent of ordinary methods, indifferent to accepted opinions, and
a little impatient of them and of the people dealing in them. Still, partly
from policy, and partly from a rather pathetic effort to be in union with
his kind, he had occasionally attended various meetings. The opportunities
naturally had not been numerous during the time he was at Galhardy’s, but
he had taken them when they came. He had occasionally read a paper or
contributed to a discussion: always to the advancement of knowledge, both
of the subject and his hearers; though not always to the advancement of the
self-esteem of former reputed authorities, of which he had not always
thought to be tender. Such a thing is not forgotten, notably by the
sufferer; indeed, it is very liable to be remembered, especially when the
man who committed the offence has come to grief. There are some, then, who
see in his downfall the consequence of his dangerously unconstitutional
mind and methods, and some who perceive a just retribution on one who has
caught them (the authorities) tripping, and frankly said so. Such things
would be remembered against Michael now; and those who had no personal
reasons against him would look upon him with curiosity or perhaps pity, or
the shrugged shoulders of superior wisdom. In the circumstances, it is not
surprising that he had no inclination to attend the meetings of any society
that autumn and winter, although doing so was his sole chance of meeting
men of kindred tastes. “You don’t know what they are,” he told Nan once;
“you would not have thought I and my affairs could interest them or matter
to them, but I can tell you they do, a deal more than any of the subjects
they are supposed to care for. I have seen a deal more eagerness and
enthusiasm over the question of who is going to get the chair of
engineering at Muddleborough-cum-Pudley than over a discussion on the
effect of torque on the structure of metals. That was the subject, by the
way, on which old B—— got so angry with me. He was wrong, and he didn’t
forgive me for showing it. My observations have since received practical
application, when, I understand, he fathered the theories he condemned when
they were mine; but he has not forgiven me any the more for that. Nor has
he forgiven me Galhardy’s; he had a nephew there, rather a waster, a junior
and always will be, but the old man was awfully proud of it. He did not
like my situation there. He will like my present situation; and, owing to
the nephew, and other circumstances, he and all his friends, following and
satellites, will have known all there is to know about it, and a good deal
more besides, almost as soon as you did.” “That is one of the reasons why
you should go to meetings where you will see him and his friends,” Nan
said. “They cannot know the truth, no one knows that wholly, and if you are
never seen they will think you are ashamed to show yourself because the
worst they imagine is true.” “I don’t care what they think.” “Then go,” she
urged. “If they and their opinion don’t matter, why mind going among them?”
“Because they are a lot of rule-of-thumb, time-serving place-hunters, and
their ceaseless talk about nothing wearies me.” “They can’t all be that,”
she protested; “there must be some who are worth meeting.” He admitted
there were. “There are some men worth going a long way to meet,” he
admitted; “they are not the ones who talk much, or who are there often;
still, usually one happens on one of them.” “Then for their sake it is
worth going.” “Why? I don’t want to hear about the work that is worth
while; I don’t want to hear what other men are doing, or what there is to
be done. I have nothing to do with it now; I have done with it, or, rather,
it with me.” “Perhaps so,” she agreed, and then began to ask about the
chances of picking up draughtsman’s work at the meetings of any of the
societies. He said it might happen, more likely at the technical, though
possibly even at the purely learned or academic ones. She did not in so
many words urge him to go on that account, but he saw the connection. “You
want me to take up this work, if I can get it?” he said. He did not want it
himself; how little he wanted no one knew. It had always seemed to him the
veriest threads and remnants of his profession, a dreary monotony that led
nowhere, more utterly distasteful even than the drawing of chair-backs and
writing Robert Barmister’s letters. But Nan wished it; she, in her
ignorance, seemed to think something of it, and she had been good to him—so
good that he had not the heart to disappoint her by telling her how poor
and meagre it really was. “Very well,” he said, “I’ll go to-night. Perhaps
I shall be able to pick up a job.” And he went. And though he did not pick
up a job, Nan was satisfied, for when he came back he told her of a
discussion there had been in which it was clear he had taken a part,
forgetting, in his anxiety to establish a point, his own equivocal
position. No doubt he had remembered it before and afterwards; no doubt
some present had helped him to do so; and no doubt the position had been
trying enough (in spite of his declaration of indifference) to one of his
acutely perceptive temperament and overstrained nerves. But the stirring of
former interests, and the response to the appeal of familiar terms, were
equally real. The next time Nan suggested he should go to a meeting, he
went with less urging. That time it happened he met Johnson, a member of
the firm of patent agents employed by Galhardy’s. He had come across him a
good deal during the latter part of the time he was at the great foundries,
having more than once given advice, unofficially, on technical subjects in
connection with patents. Possibly Johnson remembered this now; possibly,
also, he knew enough of the methods of the firm to suspend judgment on
Michael’s affairs. At all events he showed no inclination to avoid his
company. “What are you doing now?” he asked casually in the course of talk.
“For a living? Making drawings of chair-backs for a relative.” The tone was
careless, and Johnson thought it a jest; but Michael assured him to the
contrary. “Fact,” he said, still speaking lightly. “Don’t you believe I can
do it? I can; I draw rather well.” “Yes,” Johnson said—he had suddenly seen
the speaker’s eyes, and saw that in them at utter variance with the light
tone and manner. “Why chair-backs?” he asked. “Why not something more in
line with your previous work?” “Because they offered first,” Michael
answered truthfully, but still so carelessly as to almost leave a doubt
about the truth. “I’m not particular, anything that offers will do for me.
I’d do chair-legs, if they were wanted, or geometrical patterns for
linoleum, or machine drawings, anything.” “Is that a fact?” Johnson said,
and then added, with just a trace of hesitancy, “would you do our
drawings?” For half a second Michael shrank; the instinct to decline, to
turn from this contact with the work of the past, still more from the
proffered help of a man from it, was tremendous. But swiftly came the
thought of Nan, who expected him to get it, who expected something to come
of it. “Certainly, if you’ll give me any,” he said, and was grateful that
the other kindly refrained from apologising for the nature of the work, and
the poverty of the pay. In that way Michael received his first
draughtsman’s work. It was poorly paid, but, as a compensation, there was a
good deal of it, and always likely to be. The Patent Office requires that
all drawings of machinery and processes for which a patent is applied for
should be of a certain size and fineness, and on a particular kind of
paper. It is the patent agents’ business to get such made from the original
drawings of the patentee, naturally employing whom they think fit to do it,
and paying him a much smaller sum than their client pays them. Such drawing
is very monotonous, and in a sense mechanical; demanding the nicest
accuracy and attention to detail, without allowing any scope for
individuality. It was particularly distasteful to one of Michael’s nature.
Nevertheless, he did it when he could get it. If he saw little chance of
arriving at anything better that way, it might at least ultimately be a
method of earning a living. The principal difficulty he found in connection
with it, was to refrain from pointing out to the patentee the technical
flaws which he sometimes perceived in the invention thus brought to his
notice. Nan once asked him why he did not point them out. “It wouldn’t be
fair to Johnson,” he said. “The clients might resent their drawings being
sent to a man who was able to find out the faults, and, consequently, they
would judge, able to annex valuable ideas if he had a mind to—especially a
man with a reputation like mine. Besides, what does it matter? It doesn’t
matter to me if they are wrong.” “No,” Nan said, but she thought that it
did; that underneath there would always be something in him to which error
of that sort mattered, and problems appealed. And probably she was right;
at all events, in a little he glanced up from the drawing he was at work
upon. It was one for an invention which would be rendered valueless by such
a flaw—the result, most likely, of the inventor’s ignorance of a small and
obscure law. “I tell you what I might do here,” he said; “I might write out
that law, put it so that anyone could apply it for himself to this
invention, and send a copy of it to the patentee anonymously. If he is any
good, he will at once see what he has done, and set it right before it is
too late. I think I’ll do that.” He did: but since it was done anonymously
he naturally did not hear the result; and, his interest having suddenly
burnt out, he never troubled to inquire if the specification was altered,
or the application for the patent withdrawn. This was in February. He had
been more than three months in Soho then, and seemed, so far as one could
judge, likely to be many more; working for Barmister in the day and drawing
out other men’s inventions at night. Almost, it seemed, as if he had sunk
into obscurity never to reappear; certainly to be as far as ever from any
return to his old life and work. Towards the end of the month, it is true,
he came into something like momentary touch with it. It was when he met
Blake, of Blake and Kingswell. Blake and Kingswell were the people who
supplied oil to Galhardy’s: Michael had seen a certain amount of the junior
partner during the last part of his time with the firm. The new steel
process he had worked out was for an oil-hardened metal, and as a
consequence he had had several interviews with Blake; when, besides
discussing qualities of oil and kindred business details, they had talked
of enough other things to form a favourable opinion of each other. But when
he caught sight of the man in the City, where he had gone on some business
for Barmister, his instinct was to avoid him. However, as it chanced, he
was recognised before he more than thought of doing it. “Hullo!” Blake
said. “You in town? What are you doing?” “I live in town,” Michael
answered—he had no inclination to speak of the chair-backs. “Consulting
work?” Blake asked. “Very wise; much better worth your while than anything
else. I always thought you were rather wasted at Galhardy’s.” Michael said
nothing. There were draughtsmen who called themselves consulting engineers,
and he had a sudden distaste to owning himself a complete failure to this
man who still thought him otherwise. They walked on together for a while,
speaking of various technicalities in connection with Blake’s business,
notably some trouble there was with the filter presses in the oil works. As
Michael listened, the old instinct stirred. At first he only listened, but
soon it was more; the familiar names and turns of thought called up the old
attention. Without being aware of it, he was making inquiries and
suggestions with the absorbed attention and keen insight he always had for
such things. At the corner of the street Blake said, “Couldn’t you manage
to come down and have a look at the presses? Our works aren’t very far from
town. We must have an expert opinion. I’d sooner have yours than any man’s
I know. Can you do it?” Again, as when Johnson offered him the
draughtsman’s work, Michael hesitated. He could not himself have told why:
not from any doubt of his ability to do what was required, or any dislike
of it, nor yet from any uncertainty as to payment. He had none of these.
Yet for the second he drew back from the idea; from embarking on anything,
taking any step, however sure and desirable, out of the humble, present
way. The sensation was mastered almost as quickly as it arose; he said he
should be glad to give an opinion, and fixed a time for the visit of
inspection when his absence was least likely to inconvenience Barmister. It
was a small matter really, this visit to the oil works; little more than an
hour spent in the familiar atmosphere of machines, with the smell of oil
and the sound of wheels, the semi-living company of force housed and
harnessed in iron. But to Michael it was not only like the smell of the sea
to the sailor, and the sound of guns to the old campaigner, but something
more. It is something to be back again with what you can do supremely well;
with instant and complete mastery to grip a problem and solve a difficulty,
even if it is a small one; when for months your meat and drink has been,
and you have lain down and risen up with one thought only—failure, complete
failure, and a sense of your own utter inadequacy. Such a thing is
something. The visit to the oil works stood out for Michael a peak in the
grey level of that time; and though he said nothing of it to Nan—such
things do not express themselves readily, even when one is fully conscious
of them—it is possible she understood. Though they said nothing, they
celebrated the occasion together, spending part of the fee he obtained in
going far enough into the country to see the first stirrings of spring
under the dun skin of winter. It sometimes happens that one man’s
difficulty satisfactorily dealt with leads to other men offering others for
solution. It may have been the case with Michael; at all events, after a
time a second piece of consulting work was offered to him. It was merely to
give an opinion on a machine for heating houses by a process, and with
substances hitherto undreamed of—and entirely impracticable for that
purpose. He went into the matter carefully and exhaustively. He did not see
a thing as ridiculous or fraudulent nearly so quickly as many less
well-informed: there were such infinite possibilities in his universe that
he always began by regarding as possible what was seriously brought before
him, even if it at first sight transgressed laws as he knew them. This time
it took him some time to discover that the whole process and machine for
carrying it out were utterly ridiculous and impracticable. When he did come
to this conclusion, and proved it beyond doubt, he wrote a report in
accordance—for which he received nothing at all. It is impossible to raise
money or float a company on the report of an expert who condemns the whole
scheme as unsound; in such circumstances, if he is of no very high
standing, or not in the position to receive (a much smaller) fee
beforehand, he can hardly be surprised if payment is a part of the affair
overlooked. The next consultation on which Michael was called was also
unremunerative. It was a “friendly” one. That is, he spent a Saturday
afternoon discussing technicalities and details with a man whom he had met
once before, and who suddenly revived, or discovered, a friendship for him.
The man in question learnt what he wanted to know, and was able afterwards
to put it into practice, at the slight cost of a whisky and soda and a
cigarette or two. Being naturally satisfied with such a result, and feeling
very friendly towards Michael, the active factor in it, he shortly
afterwards introduced another man. The second also was “friendly”; but, as
Michael was not inclined to give away another Saturday afternoon, the
second spent no more than ten minutes or so in his company, and gained only
one piece of information worth having for nothing. Towards the end of
March, Michael received another application for information, but of a
different sort. This time it was a letter from a General Wallaby (retired)
requesting him to give an opinion on an automatic brake for high-speed
motor engines. The General did not mention how he had come to hear of him,
and Michael never knew whether it was from some former acquaintance, or
from one of the very few who had employed him, or by some chance talk
overheard. He rather inclined to the latter view, for the letter, written
in the third person, was couched in terms rather suggestive of a
communication to a firm of house-decorators about the heating apparatus, or
a summons to a good mechanic to come and overhaul the car. But, as Nan
pointed out, the writer “concluded the fee would be the usual one of £2 2s.
0d. (two guineas),” and that, at least, was something to the point. “After
all,” she said, “two guineas is two guineas; indeed, rather more than less,
these times.” Michael did not agree; he disliked the idea of the guineas
more than the work. “I don’t mind overhauling the old fellow’s car,” he
said, “and putting his automatic brake idea in going order—if that’s
possible, which I rather expect it’s not. I have done that sort of thing
for different people lots of times when I was at Galhardy’s, but I can’t
exactly take a fee for it.” “Why not?” He did not seem able to quite say.
“It’s rather like when one has set the bathroom taps right for somebody, if
he offered one eightpence an hour, or whatever it is plumbers get.” “I
suppose it is,” Nan admitted. “Still, if the person thought you a plumber,
and would not have asked you to set the taps right otherwise? It would be
rather embarrassing for him if you didn’t take the eightpence, and so
showed he’d made that sort of mistake.” “People have no business to make
that sort of mistake,” Michael said, “they would not, if they gave
themselves the trouble to think. Why should this General Wallaby think me a
mechanic, in the first instance, or go on thinking me one in the second?”
Nan could not tell him. “It never seems to me to much matter what people
think,” she owned. “I suppose it comes of being the kind of person no one
notices or really thinks about, anyway; but, to me, it never seems
important what one is thought, it does not alter what one really is. Of
course, for anyone to apply to you to give an opinion on motor brakes and
such is a little like sending for a great surgeon to tie up a cut finger,
an egregious waste. Though on the whole, perhaps, hardly so much of a
waste, so far as you are concerned, as copying machine drawings for patent
agents, if for no other reason than that it is better paid.” Michael
laughed a little. “I wonder,” he said, “whether you judge very much truer,
or very much less true than most people? Certainly, you don’t judge like
them.” But he took her advice and went to see General Wallaby and the
brakes, which had been made to his design. He found them as impractical as
he had expected, and quite beyond any improving into usefulness. However,
he was able to do something for his money, for there were other
home-invented adjuncts affixed to the car; the General spent his retirement
and the surplus of a comfortable income on such things. Michael was able to
make suggestions and alterations by which some of the earlier ones might be
rendered serviceable. Gibbs, the chauffeur—no mean mechanic, it was
necessary for the safety of the General that he should be highly
competent—looked on, at first with distrust, for he immediately perceived
that the stranger was not of the fraternity, afterwards with puzzled
interest, and finally with awed admiration. General Wallaby also looked on
and offered remarks and explanations from time to time, all of which were
received with respectful attention and interest. “Seemed to understand his
business,” the General remarked to Gibbs afterwards. “Yes, sir,” said
Gibbs, saluting. “Quite an intelligent person; not so abominably conceited
as most of these engineers; able to take another man’s idea and allow
there’s something in it. He was quite struck with that last one of mine.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gibbs. “He might well be that, sir.” The General walked
round his car radiating approval. He stopped to handle his last but one
improvement. The recently departed expert had done the same, and the
General recalled his hands—wonderful, sensitive hands with broad palms and
curiously slim, alive fingers, very well kept. “Gibbs,” the General said,
he sometimes unbent to Gibbs, who was a very superior man as well as a good
mechanic—“Gibbs, what class do those sort of people belong to?” “Couldn’t
say, sir. You see, there isn’t many of them, sir, they’d hardly be a class,
they’re so very, very few.” There are not few who call themselves
consulting engineers, there are a good many of them. But there are few men
of great ability and inborn comprehension in that or any other profession:
genius is rare, and not always to be classed when met. Still one—certainly
not the General—need not conclude that was what Gibbs meant. Though, it
must be admitted, when he let the expert out by the back gate, which was
the nearest way to the station, he did say with some eagerness, “Sir, if
you ever want a mechanic, if you ever want one for anything, will you think
of me? I’d be proud to work under you in any capacity!” And it is possible
that Michael, travelling back to town, thought more of those words than of
the two guineas which, enclosed in an envelope, General Wallaby had put
into his hand. After General Wallaby no one asked his services for
anything, not even for a “friendly” conference. It seemed as if he were
back again where he was before the chance meeting with Blake, no more than
Barmister’s not very efficient clerk and handy-man, and, in his spare time,
occasional draughtsman to patent agents, and curiously patient, almost
apathetic, at being so. But in the middle of April there came a touch from
what had been lost. He received a letter from an important steamship
company who, like others, were very interested in the problem of the
application of internal combustion engines to large ships. They had, it
appeared, a design for such an engine under consideration now; but, for
some reason, they had begun to doubt its real practicability. They wrote
asking Michael if he would examine and advise upon it, and, possibly,
undertake its perfecting. It was a difficult subject, involving problems
which one would hardly expect to take to a man whose best work was done on
aerial torpedoes and steel. Michael guessed how it was that it had come to
him. “Blake’s father-in-law is one of the directors of the company,” he
said. “I remember his mentioning it one day at Galhardy’s; we had been
talking about internal combustion engines for big ships, a subject that
always interested me.” Nan by this time knew something of the subjects that
interested him. Their name was legion, and any and every one introduced to
his notice was able to exclusively occupy his attention and give rise to
whole trains of new, and, to the initiated, illuminating ideas. “I
suppose,” she suggested, “those steamship people would not find it easy to
get a man to do what it is they want done?” Michael admitted that
possibility. “The ones best qualified are a bit too big,” he said. “You
see, it would probably entail six months’ or so close work in the works. It
wouldn’t be worth a big man’s while to take it up, or worth the company’s
while to pay the exorbitant price they would have to, if one could be
persuaded to do it.” Nan nodded; it seemed that this time the
circumstances, which heretofore had told against him, now told in his
favour; inasmuch as they made him, a man in the first rank of ability, glad
to accept work beyond the attainments of most of those whose attention it
was not beneath. “Will it take six months?” she asked. “Very likely. Of
course, one might not make a success of it in that time, but it should be
possible to find out, if one could. If one could, it might mean a pretty
good thing, very likely fifteen hundred pounds a year ultimately. I think
one should manage to get that, and with that——” The old lights flickered in
his eyes for a minute; in mind he saw again a possibility of something akin
to the old position, of a return to work with scope in it, and,
consequently, liberty, power, and all that which, for him, it entailed. “I
should have that man of Wallaby’s, if I ever did get in,” he said. “I don’t
suppose he knows anything about marine engines, but that doesn’t matter,
he’s a good man; I don’t think much of specialised knowledge _per se_;
after all, it’s less what a man knows that matters in real problems, than
how he sets about dealing with what he doesn’t know.” Nan agreed and said
nothing about air-castles and the previousness of arranging the staff of
them before the first brick is laid; she knew that that childish faculty
sometimes goes with the constructive mathematical mind. But the enthusiasm
did not remain with the builder now. “I don’t know that we need spend time
talking of what I’ll do if I do make a success of it,” he said, “quite
likely I shan’t make anything of the kind.” But she did not believe that;
nor did he really, although at times he insisted on it, speaking of the
enormous difficulties of the hitherto unsolved problem presented by the big
engines. That same day he wrote to the steamship company, saying he was
willing to undertake their work, suggesting terms and other arrangements.
He did not mention the matter to Barmister; although he and Nan thought a
great deal about it, neither mentioned it to her father, there would be
time enough for that when all was settled. And as it happened events
justified this reticence. Two days later there came another letter from the
company. Michael’s reply had been received, but after further
consideration, the board had decided not to proceed on the lines originally
indicated. Their own engineers hoped to be equal to doing all that was
necessary, so they would not trouble him further in the matter. “Are they
equal to it?” Nan asked. “How can they be now if they weren’t four days
ago?” Michael shrugged his shoulders. “They may have hit on something,” he
said, “though I hardly think so.” “Nor do I,” she said significantly. He
took the blow, and blow it certainly was, very quietly. “After all,” he
said, “it’s not really surprising; it’s only what we might have expected.
The wonder is, not that they have backed out now, but that they appealed to
me in the first instance. Most of the directors of this are in two or three
kindred companies and thoroughly mixed in that lot; if they don’t
absolutely know any of Galhardy’s directors personally they do indirectly;
they must have known something about that affair.” “Of course,” Nan said,
“they would hardly have applied to you if they had not; it’s only because
of that that you are free and willing to do what they wanted, and they know
it; besides, if, as you say, it was through Mr. Blake they did apply to
you, he would probably have said something about it to them, very likely
not to your discredit.” “Blake’s a good sort,” Michael said; “he’d have
made the best tale he could; he believes the best, I think; he was awfully
decent to me.” His face brightened for a moment, as he recalled the
afternoon with the oil presses. “What has caused this change, then?” Nan
asked. “Why have they altered their minds now?” Michael did not know.
“Possibly,” he suggested, “one director, more nervous or more suspicious or
more punctilious than the rest, who was not there at the first discussion,
came along afterwards and upset the others. Or perhaps some one of them has
heard a fresh yarn about me. Or it might even be that someone in
Galhardy’s, hearing there was a chance of me getting in there, has taken
the trouble to talk to them. I don’t know how much interest Galhardy’s take
in me and my proceedings, I should hardly have thought so much as that,
still they may; they had a rather exalted opinion of the work I might do
for other people, and the consequent damage to them. Anyway, I don’t see
that it matters how it happened; it has happened, as it was likely to, and
there’s an end.” Nan nodded: there was an end, there was nothing to be
gained by speculating on the reason or the manner of it. “And after all,”
he said, “perhaps it’s just as well. I dare say I shouldn’t have done any
good with the thing, if I had had the chance; it’s a subject on which I
have worked very little; probably I should have made a muddle of it. And
working for people like that again—working that way——” He did not finish
the sentence, but it was plain that he shrank from the idea as he had
before welcomed it, doubting his own ability and everything else. CHAPTER
IX Rosalind Annarly was to be married just after Easter: the wedding, which
was to have taken place in the winter, was postponed until then on account
of a death in the Wharton family—not in the immediate family circle, but
since the deceased was the only daughter of the weighty relative from whom
Dick had expectations, it was thought advisable to pay proper respect.
“Besides,” so Rosalind said, “I hate a wedding with one family in mourning
or half mourning. And, after all, April is a much better time to get frocks
than the winter, and a new house, and curtains, and everything look nicer
then.” So she supported the postponement with equanimity. She was very
comfortable at home; her father’s favourite, and an acknowledged beauty,
which, in connection with her satisfactory engagement, gave her some
prestige and even more liberty to have what she liked than would otherwise
have fallen to her share. If Dick was more impatient for a change of
condition, and had no sartorial consolations to pass the time, he could at
least reflect that the postponement was his doing, or rather his
relatives’, and dictated by wisdom if not by feeling. But in the spring
there was a period put to the time of waiting; the date for the wedding was
fixed, and the business of preparation went forward with enthusiasm.
Michael, naturally, was expected to be home for the wedding. He had been
home very little during the winter and spring; he had really no time for
it. The family at Hurstbury were sorry, of course; but, since he had never
been there much, they cannot be said to have missed him. For the wedding,
however, they expected him: there is a definite part allotted to the
bride’s brothers on such occasions; Michael would come and fill it.
Constance wrote and told him so. “What a pity he isn’t as good-looking as
Jack,” Rosalind said. Jack was home now, and a really satisfactory brother
the sisters found: tall, good-looking, and sociable—a masculine edition of
themselves. “Michael is nothing like Jack,” Rosalind said, thinking of her
bridal procession; “it’s rather a pity.” “I don’t think that matters,”
Mabel said. “The sort of thing I should have thought a pity would have been
if he had not been able to keep Mr. Barmister away.” “Mabel!” Constance
protested. “How can you say such a thing? I am sure he had nothing to do
with Mr. Barmister stopping away.” But Mabel thought he had. “The
Barmisters would expect him to look after them,” she said. “They wouldn’t
know anyone else here, and they’d stick to him. I guess he felt two of them
would be too much for him, and so persuaded Nan to accept without her
father.” Constance did not think so. “At all events,” she said, “I am glad
Nan is coming; she is a good little thing and must have a dull time. I
should have been pleased if her father had come with her.” Mabel was
sceptical. “He might have been all right,” she said; “on the other hand, he
might have worn a three-foot gold watch-chain and five diamond rings, and
gone round valuing the wedding presents in the hearing of the givers.”
“Mabel!” Constance said, shocked; but Rosalind laughed, though she reminded
her sister that Barmister was not a pawnbroker. “No,” Mabel agreed, “he
might have given you something good from among the pledges, if he were.”
Rosalind laughed again, and the subject was dropped in favour of the more
interesting one of wedding presents—who had given them; who was yet to
give; who had shown themselves more generous than was to be expected, and
who less; not omitting the irritating question of duplicates, and what was
to be done with them. “Three half-dozens of afternoon tea-knives!” Rosalind
said with a little grimace. “You’ll have to exchange some,” was Mabel’s
opinion; “though you won’t get much for them: they are as thin as paper,
and really no use to anyone—except to give away. Shall you keep all the
salt-cellars?” Rosalind could not make up her mind, and Constance said she
was rather surprised Uncle Giles chose those articles for his present. “He
ought to have sent a cheque, and a big one,” Mabel said, more outspokenly.
“I dare say he would if he and father had not fallen out over the Budget.”
Rosalind observed pathetically that she had nothing to do with the Budget,
and did not see why, since she knew nothing about it, Uncle Giles should
have been mean to her. After that she was called away to speak to her
sisters-in-law-elect, and left Constance and Mabel to finish setting out
the wedding presents without her. “There certainly are rather many
tea-knives,” Constance regretted, as she arranged the cases on the
dining-room table. “Even more teaspoons,” Mabel said; “though I should
think we might reckon them all in by now: there can’t be much more to come,
so late as this.” The wedding itself was to-morrow. The house by this time
was in something of a flutter. For days past there had been a growing
excitement and tendency to disruption of ordinary life; now, almost all
pretence of routine had gone. People ran up and down stairs constantly,
friends and acquaintances looked in at all manner of times, the dressmaker
was interviewed in the drawing-room, meals were unpunctual, the servants
could be sent to the post at any hour, and anyone could have a cup of tea
whenever she wanted it. A wedding, like spring-cleaning, brings maids and
mistresses to the level of mere women, and deranges the whole domestic
organisation. Jack went to see friends a good deal at that time, bestowing,
however, a certain amount of patronising interest on the presents between
whiles. Mr. Annarly retired as much as possible to the little room at the
back. It had of late been much littered with paper, and string, and
milliners’ boxes, and parcels of things sent on approval, or ready to
return for alterations to shops and dressmakers. But they were gone now.
Constance, an orderly spirit, comparatively little affected by the general
excitement, had seen to that. It was she who had arranged that the boxes
and parcels should all find their way there, so keeping the house clear,
and things where they could be found, as long as possible. It was she who
saw that they were removed this morning, so as to be ready for the
furniture from the drawing-room, which was to be put there. The
drawing-room was cleared of all superfluous chairs and small tables;
everything which could increase the difficulty of getting three times as
many people into it as it would naturally be expected to hold. Mrs. Annarly
went round the denuded room, while Rosalind, assisted by her
sisters-in-law-elect, was arranging flowers on a table, belonging somewhere
else, placed temporarily in the centre. Everyone in Hurstbury had some
flowers in bloom at this time, and everyone acquainted with the Annarlys
seemed to have sent some for the occasion: it looked as if it would be
impossible for the girls to deal with all the choice ones, let alone the
masses of daffodils, and primroses, and violets that were piled about them.
Fortunately, the recalcitrant Mary, who had returned for a day or two to
oblige her former mistress at the interesting time, was clever with
flowers—as she was with most other things. She took the work over when the
girls grew tired of it. “I think things are nicely forward,” Mrs. Annarly
said with self-congratulation when later she sat down to tea at the
stranger-table, now cleared of flowers by the efficient Mary; “though I
can’t help rather wishing your dress were coming to-night, Rosalind. I know
it’s not customary, and of course we can depend on Madame Elaine; but I do
wish it were coming to-night, and that Michael was. Supposing he is late
to-morrow, or tries to come by some other train than we told him? How
awkward!” Her daughters assured her there was no need for uneasiness on
either account, and as it was Constance who said it, giving excellent
reasons, she settled into satisfaction again. Everything really was
satisfactory, and every minute of time too fully occupied to admit of
unnecessary troubling over trifles; what with the arrival of belated
presents, notes to be written, and orders to be given, the remainder of the
day was more than taken up. The next morning was fine, which, besides being
pleasing to the bride, was fortunate for Mr. Annarly, and, later on, for
the wearers of light dresses and thin shoes. Had it not been fine it is
difficult to see quite what Mr. Annarly would have done with himself for
the long morning; that is, after he had superintended the placing of the
champagne in the refreshment tent. As it was, he went into the garden and
devoted himself to tying up hyacinth flowers. He put a small mat on the
path, and knelt on it before the flowers—stooping did not suit his
figure—and tied them to neat new sticks; giving himself to the work
absorbedly, and as if the general success of the wedding would be
considerably marred if the hyacinth blooms were not all standing in a
military row. It is possible that he did, subconsciously, hold this opinion
while he was engaged in his task; at all events, he resented it as a waste
of time when the caterers’ men required his presence and opinion on some
matter in connection with the tent on the lawn. Jack, of course, was at
home that day, and enjoyed it much more than his father. For one reason,
going to the City had not been a custom so long established with him as to
make him feel being at home on a weekday, which was not a bank holiday,
somewhat like finding oneself at the breakfast-table in pyjamas. For
another, he was not yet sufficiently used to being the object of
consideration to the womenkind when at home to miss that attention now that
they were otherwise engaged and themselves the centre of everything. He
enjoyed himself thoroughly; he had quite got over the slight masculine
superiority he had thought proper to show toward the bustle of the last few
days, and was here, there, and everywhere with almost as much enthusiasm as
any of the servants. He hurried down to the telephone-office to inquire
about the bouquets; he went once to the church to see that the awning was
being fixed; and he carried a perfectly unimportant message to Dick
Wharton, and brought him back to answer it in person at a great pace. Dick
was still answering it in person to Rosalind when the dressmaker and the
dress arrived, and, though it wanted two hours and more before the
ceremony, Rosalind retired from the eye of man for the rite of dressing.
The women of the household, from Mrs. Annarly to the cook, and the brusque
Mabel to the romantic young housemaid, appreciated the occasion thoroughly.
They did not, as the father and son did, resent the unpunctual breakfast,
they hardly noticed that it was unpunctual; they preferred a light lunch on
trays in their bedrooms, and had it: Mr. Annarly did not, and was provided
with a more proper meal in the little room at the back, where a space was
found by the invaluable Mary for him and the lunch. The same capable young
woman arranged a substantial meal for Jack in the pantry—and enlivened it
for him with her company, looking to the buttons of Mr. Annarly’s gloves
the while. She looked to the fastenings of everyone’s gloves, and found
everything which was mislaid; she really was a treasure, as Mrs. Annarly
said. She dressed Mrs. Annarly that day; while the parlourmaid, who had
taken her place, dressed the bridesmaid sisters, and the dressmaker
attended on the bride and saw that the creation of her art was put on as it
should be—which must be almost as much satisfaction to a dressmaker as it
is to a poet to recite his own verses. The wedding-dress was exquisite,
everyone (every woman who saw it) agreed about that. The trimming alone had
cost more than Rosalind had ever spent on a whole dress before—or would be
able to again, unless Dick came most unexpectedly and largely into money.
There was a full Court-train which Rosalind managed as if to the manner
born, and which well became her beauty and her height. It is true Uncle
Giles said, “Why not have given her a bead petticoat and a nose-ring while
you’re about it? She’s quite as likely to go to the Pacific Islands and
want that suit as to Court and want the other.” But then, he was annoyed
with the whole family just then, and as he did not make the remark to
Rosalind, it did not matter. She was entirely happy in the possession of a
dress which fulfilled her ideal and fully set off her beauty, the central
figure of the occasion, the chosen of the man she had chosen, and about to
be united to him. Everything went precisely as it ought, nobody was late,
nothing was forgotten; when the Annarlys did things they usually did them
rather well, all their friends and acquaintances agreed about that. The
wedding was a case in point, and in every way satisfactory. There were a
great many people there; it was wonderful how many managed to get into the
house afterwards. Not all in one room at once, that would have been
impossible, but divided and with the overflow in the garden, it was quite
comfortable. They did not all know each other, but most of them did, for
they were mostly local people. The few strangers present were relatives of
the two families, unknown to each other and the rest of the company. Nan
was in this position; she knew hardly anyone, and the few she did know by
sight, from chance meetings on her occasional visits to Hurstbury, did not
remember her. She made little impression on them then, and was entirely
inconspicuous now in spite of her expensive dress. It was an expensive
dress and an unbecoming. Her father had told her to get herself something
fine for the occasion, as good as or better than anything the Annarlys
would have, he had said, and given her ample money to get it. She had
obeyed him, though the sense of rivalry with them, which at times gleamed
jealously in him, was entirely left out of her. The result of the purchase
was not very satisfactory; she really knew nothing of the fashions, and
was, moreover, a person for whom even a talented costumier could not have
done much. The fashionable dress and Paris hat she had been persuaded to
buy by expert saleswomen were not suited to her; her sense of fitness, the
single things approaching a dress instinct which she possessed, rebelled at
them even when she put them on. But after a time they caught the attention
and raised the admiration of an unimportant spinster relative of the
Whartons. At least, one concludes it was the impression caused by the dress
rather than the wearer, which made her speak so diffidently. She wanted a
piece of the cake which was on the plate at Nan’s elbow, and asked her for
it with a bashful timidity new in Nan’s experience of the addresses of her
fellow-creatures. Nan passed the plate, and afterwards they talked a
little, Miss Wharton making the correct series of remarks on the delights
of the weather, the beauty of the bride, the charmingness of Mrs. Annarly,
the prettiness of the bridesmaids, and the general attraction and worth of
the bridegroom. Nan listened; she had spoken to too few people that day to
have heard all these before, and she really did quite agree with them; it
did all seem to her much what Miss Wharton said: a pretty wedding, very
nice, so suitable, exactly what one would wish. The last, of course, must
be interpreted—“wish to look at”—so far as Nan was concerned; considered
from any other points of view it did not even enter her judgment. Had it
done so, it would have given rise to quite another opinion to the one with
which she concurred. The fingers of wedding-cake being finished, she and
Miss Wharton went to look at the wedding presents together. Nan had seen
them already, but Miss Wharton had not, and being, it seemed, incurably
shy, entreated Nan to come with her. “It looks so odd going about alone and
speaking to no one,” she said naively, “do come with me, if you don’t mind.
I quite thought my old friend, Jenny Matthews, would be here; she told me
she was coming, and somebody told me she was here, but I haven’t seen her
yet.” As it happened, however, she met Miss Matthews in the dining-room,
and, after greeting her, entered into a duet of admiration of the presents
in which Nan was not asked to bear much share. “What lovely spoons!” said
one. “Such an uncommon pattern!” the other. “Oh, here are some more!”
exclaimed the first. “The same, aren’t they?” “No, not quite the same, even
prettier——” “Yes, really prettier.” And so on, Nan behind them listening
attentively till someone accosted her. It was Michael. “What time are you
going?” he asked in the brief way of one who, for a moment, speaks to an
intimate. She answered in the same way, mentioning a train. “Rosalind will
be gone by that,” she said. “But you won’t be able to leave then; they will
expect you to stop to dinner perhaps.” “I think not,” he said. “I hardly
think I need to do that.” But she did. “It’s no use doing this sort of
thing unless one does it well,” she urged; “one isn’t doing it really,
unless one does it whole, and seems to like doing it.” He gave way. “I
suppose so,” he said, and turned away, two girls and their mother claiming
his attention. As he turned, an automatic courtesy slipped over him as
completely as a domino. For the moment when he had spoken to Nan it had not
been there; for that moment, when they stood close together and thought of
the same thing, there had been a curious passing resemblance between them.
They were not alike, but they had something in common, both faces were
thinner than those around, the eyes of both more earnest and watchful; in
expression they were, for the moment when they spoke together, curiously
unlike other people and curiously like each other. “What’s your name?” The
question was put abruptly to Nan by an elderly gentleman wearing a short
coat and a red tie. Mr. Giles Cordover, Mrs. Annarly’s only brother, was an
advanced Liberal in his political opinions and some part of the creed, as
he held it, would seem to have required him to attend his niece’s wedding
with these articles of attire, though he would not have dreamed of going
either to church or to the City so dressed. Nan looked up. “Nan Barmister,”
she answered. She had no idea who her interlocutor was, but she did not
resent the abrupt inquiry. “Barmister,” he repeated, and his eyes, which
had gone from Michael to her before he spoke, followed Michael now. “You’re
related, aren’t you?” he said, nodding in the direction. “Cousins,” she
said. “He’s with you now, with your father or something? He took him on
when he was returned empty?” She nodded. “Though that’s not why they
returned him,” she said, smiling a little. “Oh? That your notion? Do you
still hold to the family fancy that he’s a genius?” “Is that a fancy of the
Annarlys?” Nan asked. “I didn’t know they still held to it.” Mr. Cordover’s
face relaxed a little. “Well, no, perhaps they don’t,” he admitted;
“they’ve changed their tune of late, I will say that for them. But you
would seem to still hold to it—he’s going to set the Thames on fire and
make a fortune and all the rest?” “I hardly think I should say that,” Nan
said slowly. She had a habit of speaking rather slowly; it came of her way
of thinking before she spoke, and meaning literally what she said, really
giving her considered judgment in small matters as well as great. The
result was unsatisfactory in ordinary social intercourse, where it was
naturally misunderstood; but to some people it gave a weight to her words
which made them worth answering: Mr. Cordover, apparently, was of these.
“You don’t think he’s going to make his fortune?” he said. “Only a
second-class genius after all?” “I didn’t say that,” Nan reminded him.
“What then?” “That I think it very likely he won’t make a fortune. I said
that, and I think it, though of course he may. But as to a genius—he is,
you know.” Mr. Cordover did not know, but Nan spoke as if she did; not as
if she were giving an opinion, rather stating a simple fact. Mr. Cordover
did not contradict her; not because he was not contradictory, he was, very;
nor because he did not disagree with her, for he did. Perhaps because he
vaguely felt that though she would have given his opinion courteous
attention, it would have made no difference to her. It does make no
difference if, when you know that a Rembrandt is a Rembrandt, someone, who
has had no opportunity of studying the subject, says in casual conversation
that it is a Phil May. Mr. Cordover may not have grasped this rather
arrogant attitude, which Nan unconsciously held towards the few subjects
she understood, but he did not contradict her. He glanced across at the
person under discussion, who was now at the other side of the table,
listening with polite interest to what the mother was telling him, while
her two daughters stood behind, examining turquoise hat-pins and silver
butter-dishes. Miss Wharton and her friend were just beyond Nan, and having
been absorbed in their chat had not noticed that anyone else had spoken to
her; now, recollecting her, they turned to her in enthusiastic admiration
of everything. “Isn’t it an exquisite sideboard!” Miss Wharton exclaimed,
standing before a small modern copy of a Sheraton model, for which space
had, with difficulty, been made at the end of the room. “What a handsome
present! I do think they are lucky young people, don’t you? Don’t you think
it’s a sweet design?” “Yes,” Nan answered; “I like it very much.” “H’m!”
Mr. Cordover said gruffly. “Gimcrack!” “Not altogether, do you think?” she
asked. “It’s a good copy and well made on the whole; the drawers are not
air-tight, certainly, but perhaps one would hardly expect that.” She spoke
again with the unconscious assurance of one who knows; Mr. Cordover
observed it, and was a little surprised. “Sort of notion of a sideboard a
girl like Rosalind would have!” he said. “Perhaps so,” she agreed, “if she
had a notion apart from the fashion. Do you think she would have?” She put
the question speculatively. “Of course, there are some designs she could
never choose. I don’t suppose she would ever choose a massive one—solid
Honduras mahogany, almost purple, with drawers that slide noiselessly and
fruit carved over the top, beautiful pears you can put your finger under,
and a pineapple in the centre.” Mr. Cordover snorted. “So,” he said, “my
nieces have been making game of me and my things, have they!” “Of you?” Nan
asked. “Of course not. I am sure they wouldn’t do anything of the kind.
They have not mentioned you to me that I know of. I’m afraid I must say I
don’t know who you are. If you think they or someone told me that you have
a sideboard like that, no one has; though I naturally know you would be
likely to have, if you could have afforded it when you were furnishing, and
were uninfluenced by other people at the time.” Mr. Cordover stared at her
half sceptically. “How do you know?” he asked. “I’m not sure,” she
answered, “unless it is because my father deals in furniture and talks to
me about it. I sometimes see people he deals with, and get to know the sort
of things which belong to different sorts of persons. One gets to know that
way.” “H’m!” Mr. Cordover said. At that moment Constance, who had brought
some solitary relative and tactfully introduced her to Miss Wharton,
approached her uncle with a pleasant remark. Mr. Cordover answered gruffly,
and Nan withdrew a pace, instantly reduced to speechless shyness by the
presence of Constance. “Oh, there you are!” Constance said, when she became
aware of her. “I was wondering where you had hidden yourself. I’m afraid
we’ve neglected you dreadfully, but we’re trusting to you to look after
yourself. Do go and have an ice; I’ve heard Mabel say they’re very good.”
Nan answered shyly, “Thank you,” and looked round, as if preparing to
obediently go or otherwise make her escape. But Mr. Cordover’s bulky figure
was in the way. “If she wants an ice,” he said, “I’ll see she has one; you
need not give yourself any further trouble about her.” “That young lady has
about as much reality as a daddy-long-legs has inside,” he announced, when
Constance, rather curtly dismissed, had gone on to other social duties.
“She’s all shell, that’s what she is; and her words are shells with nothing
in them. She couldn’t even get decently angry about anything—it’d take her
hair out of curl.” “Her hair curls naturally,” Nan protested, shy no
longer. “I admire it and her; she is always kind and pleasant.” “You didn’t
seem to have much to say to her,” Mr. Cordover retorted, “though you don’t
appear to mind setting me to rights.” “I’m sorry,” Nan said, flushing, and
then explained, “I don’t see people very often, I mean socially, and I
always feel, though they are kind, they can’t really want to talk to me. I
don’t know anything about the things that interest them or that they talk
about.” “Oh?” Mr. Cordover said gruffly. “As I said before, that didn’t
make you bashful in giving your opinion to me.” “It was about things I
understand,” she pleaded. “Oh?” he said again. “Michael Annarly and
furniture, that’s what you understand, is it?” “Yes,” she said, laughing,
“I think I do a little.” “Well, I don’t pretend to understand either,” Mr.
Cordover said, “but I do understand I’m to get you an ice to satisfy my
niece’s sense of duty.” “And my wish for one,” she told him, and they went
to the refreshment tent where he personally selected an ice of enormous
size. She was still eating it when those guests, desirous of the best view
of the departure of the bride, began to move towards the front of the
house. Rosalind left early. The Annarlys did not make the mistake of unduly
retarding her departure, tiring their guests of each other’s company, and
wearing out their interest in the chief person and the occasion. In good
time the carriage, which was to take the pair to the station, came round.
The Annarlys privately thought it would have been appropriate if Uncle
Giles had offered to lend his car for that purpose; it could easily have
taken them to the station and been back before he was ready to leave. But
Uncle Giles did not offer it; he did not think Dick Wharton justified in
giving such a tip as he would feel adequate to the occasion. And, so he
said tartly to his sister, “he did not see much sense in a girl starting
off in a sort of party dress and somebody else’s motor, when she was coming
back to live in a forty pound a year house, and clean her own silver, or,
at all events ought to clean it, if she didn’t.” In consequence of these
opinions, it was only a hired brougham, though a very nice one, with white
horses and a coachman in livery, which came to the door. Some time before
it came most of the guests were assembled in the hall, the front garden,
and about the steps. There was scarcely room for them all, some of the
younger ones were obliged to go almost to the roadway, where the nursemaids
and school children stood. Rosalind looked radiantly happy when she came
down, and very pretty in a gigantic hat and a dress which Mary, who had
helped put it on, described as “very chic and just the thing for
garden-parties afterwards.” She kissed her mother at the foot of the
stairs, the hat getting somewhat in the way; embraced her father by the
steps, squeezing him a little when she saw a tear trickling down the side
of his nose. “Dear old dad!” she said. “Don’t do that! You ought to be glad
I’m so happy.” “I am, I am,” he said unsteadily, and squeezed back, her
left hand, leaving some crackling bank-notes in it. Then Constance, who
gracefully played the second part, picked up the ends of the feather scarf,
which had fallen from her sister’s neck, and followed her towards the
carriage. All the friends and relatives followed so far as they could,
closing round. There were kissing and handshaking, handfuls of confetti and
rose petals, laughing faces, good wishes, a struggle to get through to the
carriage. They were away at last, the last good wishes shouted, the last
flutter of the scarf Rosalind waved from the window gone. The best man, who
had been busy to the last with travelling-coats and orders, suddenly
remembered that he was standing hatless in the middle of the road in broad
daylight; he pulled down his waistcoat, and wondered whether it was his own
hat or the bridegroom’s which he had crammed into the hat-box among the
luggage. The bridesmaids who had collected, a laughing group, for the
departure, turned about, putting into inconspicuous places in breast or
belt the drooping pieces of the bride’s bouquet, for which they had gaily
struggled a little while back. The guests, shaking the confetti and rose
leaves from their clothing, with one accord made for Mrs. Annarly, all at
once aware that they were staid English people, and, for that or some other
reason, anxious to hasten away from the scene of their late momentary
abandonment. “Good-bye, good-bye,” was heard on every side. “Such a
charming wedding——” “She looked perfectly sweet——” “Heartiest
congratulations——” and so on. Constance, standing by her mother, helped her
to answer the complimentary remarks, and always remembered to say she was
glad the maker had been able to come, or sorry some relative had not, with
appropriateness. Which, like all graciousness, is worth something, in spite
of what Uncle Giles and similar people say to the contrary. Mabel was in
the front garden, she and Jack chattering with Muriel and Godfrey Wharton
and a few others about plans for the evening. They paid little attention to
the departing guests, merely responding when definitely taken leave of by
some persistent person. Nan did not interrupt them for that purpose,
although she was by; Uncle Giles, however, was less considerate. “Good-bye,
niece and nephew,” he called in his rather grim way. “Good-bye,” Mabel
returned carelessly. He was a disagreeable person, who had behaved
disagreeably to them all for a year past, and she, not only was not going
to put herself out for him, but she was rather pleased with the opportunity
of showing her indifference. Jack made half a step forward. “Good-bye,
sir,” he said, a trifle embarrassed. “Shall I call your—shall I see if
your——” “No, thank you,” his uncle replied, “I can do my own seeing.” And
he went away, carrying Nan with him. “I have to pass the end of Tottenham
Court Road,” he said to her. “I can drop you there; it will be quicker for
you than going by train.” And he settled it without waiting for her
acceptance or refusal, putting her into the car almost as he spoke of it.
Michael saw her start, though the rest of the family, having no interest in
her, did not. He was near the doorway, giving attention to the discovery of
mislaid wraps, and escorting elderly ladies to their carriages. He passed
near his father once or twice and noticed the round wet mark on his white
waistcoat, where a tear had fallen. Mr. Annarly was shaking hands with the
departing guests; he did not know above half of them even by sight, and it
was easy to perceive it now. He looked rather bewildered and melancholy;
there were two long lines running vertically down his full face, giving it
an almost comically depressed expression. He shook hands warmly with the
people he did know, and pressed the one or two of his old friends who were
there to stay a little and come and have a whisky and soda with him. He
glanced in the direction of the little room at the back as he said it, as
if he thought, rather wistfully as well as hospitably, of its
furniture-crowded seclusion. But no one accepted his invitation, the old
friends were carried away by their wives or daughters—the last of them
went. Constance began taking off her long gloves; Mrs. Annarly thought of
the caterers’ men and orders to be given; Mr. Annarly stood looking down
the confetti-strewn path, the vertical lines deeper on his face, his white
waistcoat creased by the droop of his figure. Michael touched his arm.
“Can’t we get a whisky and soda, sir?” he said. “I haven’t had time to get
anything to eat since breakfast, and I expect you haven’t had much either.”
CHAPTER X The Carsons rebuilt the east wing of Redstoke that winter. It had
been destroyed by fire in the last owner’s time, and only patched up, the
house being really large enough without it. But to rebuild it to the
original design had always been a fancy of Lady Sibyl’s; and that year she
was able to indulge it, owing to the fact that she rather unexpectedly
inherited money. The actual building went on while she was wintering in
Egypt; but it was done by the time she was back in the early spring, and
ready for her to devote herself to the considerations of decorations and
the choice of furniture. To choose these satisfactorily was not very easy:
the old plans had been followed accurately, with the result that some of
the rooms, by their shape, style, and lighting, demanded furniture and
fittings of a date and sort not easy to get. But Lady Sibyl, who had the
advantage not possessed by many of knowing what she wanted, and also being
able to pay for it, fortunately found the right person to help her. In the
autumn someone, on behalf of a Robert Barmister, had written offering to
sell her an iron chest of Dutch workmanship. And when the purchase had been
arranged, and the chest, a rather finer specimen than the one at Redstoke,
had been approved, the same person (by order of Robert Barmister) had
offered, if at any time she wanted a special piece of furniture or similar
article matched, found, or procured, to undertake the work. She recalled
this when she began to go into the decorating and furnishing of the east
wing. Being in town, she wrote and requested Robert Barmister to call upon
her, at the same time giving him an indication of the nature of her
requirements. He replied that he would wait upon her when and where she
wished, but suggested she might possibly find it more satisfactory to come
to him, as there was a likelihood he could at once show her some of the
things she wanted. She came and spent an interesting hour seeing rare and
beautiful things in an environment which appealed to her sense of fitness,
exhibited under Barmister’s orders by one (Josiah Foregood) not unsuited to
the work and surroundings—so well suited, that she felt it would have
sorted even better with the long, old rooms and his gentle, dignified
courtesy had he been dressed in snuff-coloured coat and knee-breeches. She
appreciated him much, and talked to him a good deal, though the business of
the interview was carried on by his master: each in a different way pleased
her. She would like to have had several things she saw that day, the
dolphin mantelpiece and the dim, painted ceiling of the office among them.
Neither of these two was obtainable; the one because it was not for sale,
the other because it would not move. But other things that she admired
were; and she selected several, and gave orders for others to be obtained,
and for drawings of yet others, discussed and described, to be made and
submitted to her. She was a customer after Robert Barmister’s heart: a
person of means and taste, able to really appreciate the best of what was
good, and ready to pay for it without cavilling about the price. One to
please Josiah too. He felt things would have a good home with her, and be
suitably placed as background to a grace and elegance which was worthy of
them. Among the articles discussed was a certain oak panelling. The one
room in the old wing at Redstoke which had not been entirely burnt was
panelled in oak. The woodwork had been much damaged by fire: some entirely
destroyed, and the remainder a good deal injured; but what remained was of
such fine workmanship, and so uncommon a design that Lady Sibyl was anxious
to have it repaired and fitted to the new room, if it were possible to
replace the missing panels with anything which at all matched. Barmister
assured her this should be quite possible, and undertook to go into the
matter. Accordingly, the old panelling, which had been carefully removed at
the time of the building, was sent to him for repair, with exact
measurements of the new room, so that he might know what more would be
required; and after examination, he had the work put in hand. Michael had a
certain amount of drawing to do in connection with the work. Nan also was
called into council. Her father wanted her opinion as to how far it was
desirable to supplement the Redstoke panelling with other somewhat
dissimilar, though of the same date, and how closely the new, when any was
necessary, should copy the old. They both spent some time planning and
piecing out this chief ornament for Lady Sibyl’s new boudoir. They did not
speak of her; they never did, they had hardly really mentioned her name,
even when she came to Soho—when neither saw her. They did not speak of her
now; only of the work. If one of them mentally saw her in the panelled room
when it should be done, with the low light of a wood fire flickering over
her and the background, he said nothing about it. He would never see it
really. It would be for another that the fire would bring the beauty of her
colouring from the shadows; for another that her voice would thrill with
the remembered note of sympathy as she talked intimately in the twilight.
In the face of such things there is nothing to be said. And Nan, whatever
she thought, said nothing. Merciful people who say nothing. But when the
supplementary panelling was complete, and the whole ready to put in place,
she was obliged to say something. This was in April, about the time of
Rosalind Annarly’s wedding. It had been arranged that Josiah should go to
Redstoke to see the woodwork put up; not to do anything himself—he was no
practical carpenter or cabinet-maker—but to superintend those who did, and
see that they did not damage or remove any of the precious carving. But the
day before he should have gone he was taken ill with influenza. Really ill,
with a bad attack; no mild one would have kept him from work. Nan knew that
when she left home to go to the wedding. She was obliged to leave Soho
before one o’clock so as to reach Hurstbury in time. Michael had left even
earlier, and would return later. She determined to go to Bayswater as soon
as she got back and hear how Josiah was, and what were the chances of his
being able to travel to Redstoke to-morrow. Owing to Mr. Cordover’s
bringing her to town in his car she was able to do this both more quickly
and more comfortably than she expected, and to return home in fair time.
Michael was already back when she came in. The Annarlys had not insisted on
his staying to dine; the Whartons and one or two others were coming, and
the party was complete without him. No doubt they would have been pleased
if he had stayed, but they had not expected or said anything about it. So
he had come back, and was at work on the patent drawings when Nan came in
with news of Josiah. “I’m afraid he’s rather bad,” she said, unpinning her
hat. Michael said he was sorry, and inquired details. She gave what she had
learned in a brief interview with Miss Janet; then went to the window,
ruffling her hair, pressed down by the weighty millinery. “He won’t be able
to go to-morrow,” she said, expressing what they were both thinking. “No,”
Michael said, without glancing up from his drawing, “I suppose not.” She
stood looking out a minute, back to him. Someone must go to see the
panelling put up to-morrow; in the absence of Josiah, it should naturally
devolve on Michael. Barmister knew of no reason against it, and would not
easily admit one: none had ever been specifically spoken of between them
either. “I can do it, if you like,” she offered, rather as if the subject
had been discussed aloud, instead of thought of in silence. “As Josiah
can’t, if you were not here, I probably should; and as it is, I can induce
father to send me in preference to you. I can go, if you like—but,” she
turned half round, “I think almost it would be better not.” Michael’s
pencil ceased a moment. “No,” he agreed, “of course not,” and the pencil
went on as before. She watched him a moment. She knew he was not really
drawing, only imperceptibly touching lines already made; and she knew also
that, though he had agreed with her as if it were some unimportant thing,
it was really otherwise. Yet she did not withdraw her words; she had a
feeling it were better he should go. Not because she could not do what was
wanted, and would not have infinitely preferred doing it to sending him,
nor yet because her father could not be induced by her to quite approve of
her doing so; she could not have given her reason, only she felt in herself
that it were better—better for him to go. “Will you?” she said. “Of
course,” he answered; “there’s nothing else to be done.” The next day he
went to Redstoke. It was seven months since the evening when he dined
there; seven months since he had come into personal touch with any of the
people, or the interests of that life. Above all things, he hoped not to
come into personal touch with them now. Not that he was ashamed of his
present work and situation; he would as soon have met Carson while among
Barmister’s workmen as any other way; but infinitely sooner not have met
him at all. He did not want to meet anyone belonging to that time, neither
friend nor foe. He had done with that life: he could never go back to it;
even if such an impossibility happened as that he was reinstated at
Galhardy’s, with all cleared up, and everything on the best of footings;
still he could not truly go back. Something had gone from him in the past
months—or come to him—it could never be the same again; he realised it when
he went to Redstoke. Lady Sibyl was in London. There was only a housekeeper
to be consulted with, should consultation be necessary, which was unlikely.
She was a person Michael had never seen in the old days. The butler, who
had been there when he used to come to and fro, had gone; his place was
filled by another. The gardeners at work among the flower-beds no doubt
were the same, but they probably did not know him by sight then, and
certainly did not recognise him now. No one recognised him; no one inquired
his name. He was merely the furniture people’s man come to see to the
putting up of the panelling; a person who came with the workmen, and
disappeared again when they did. Things went smoothly on the first day;
there was no interruption of any sort. The workmen did well: there were
several of them, experienced men who understood their work; they would be
finished probably by to-morrow evening. There had been one mistake made: it
was remediable, but, since it might entail delay, it was annoying. The
panel which fitted over the chimney-piece had not been sent. It was part of
the original woodwork, but had been so badly damaged that little beyond the
centre coat of arms remained intact. Its repairing and restoration to
something like the former condition was the work of an artist in the trade,
who had taken his time over it, and, apparently, neglected to send it back
by the stipulated date. At all events, it had not come to Redstoke with the
rest. When, late in the afternoon, Michael discovered the fact, he
telegraphed to Barmister to have it sent by messenger. It could not arrive
until the mid-day train to-morrow; it might not till late in the afternoon,
according as to whether or no the artist was ready to let it go. Still,
even if it did not come until the late train, there would be time to
complete the work. It could be put up last of all; the rest finished, or
nearly, before it came. Michael stayed at the small inn not far from
Redstoke; he chose it as much because he had never entered it before as
because it was near to the house. He avoided speaking more than was
necessary to anyone there; he shrank from any sort of mental contact with
people, as raw flesh shrinks from touch. One could not speak, hardly look,
in this neighbourhood without coming into some contact, near or remote,
with Galhardy’s, where everyone worked, or their relations worked; from
whence arose the daily bread, the daily occupation, almost in some form or
other the common interests and topics of conversation of two-thirds of the
population. It was from some director of Galhardy’s that the young hounds
in the stables came; it was for the workmen of Galhardy’s that the line of
a new tram ran through an aggrieved suburb; it was through them really that
political changes were felt as affecting the demand for guns and munitions
of war, taxing coal, or helping or hindering foreign rivalry. One could not
get away from sight and sound of the great firm here, except by shutting
the door and thinking of something else. Michael shut the door, and thought
of the joiners and carpenters, and once, rather late, of how curiously
outside this once-familiar world he seemed. A full, stirring
world-in-itself, whose cross currents and by-plays mattered much,
everything, to those who lived there—as they once had to him, but mattered
nothing now. A thought, this, producing a feeling as of one dead, who,
disembodied, revisits the earth to play no part there. The disembodied must
feel cold revisiting the earth without their earth-clothes of flesh, and
lonely without any share in the matters of the world. It and its interests
may seem remote; yet they, while perhaps wanting no part, must feel lonely
without it, and long to be away again to the land of shades. Michael longed
to be back in the old house in Soho. He longed more the second day than the
first. He felt then more acutely that he did not belong here; he shrank
even more from any chance of contact with those who did. As the day wore on
he found himself waiting and listening for such: for a familiar face or a
familiar step, in a way which was morbidly ridiculous perhaps, but almost
unendurable. The panel did not come by the mid-day train. It was not really
surprising that it should not. Yesterday Michael was prepared for such a
contingency; but to-day, though he assured himself and the workmen that he
hardly expected it, its non-arrival worried him. He arranged and rearranged
the scheme of work in his own mind—he had the wisdom to keep it there, and
not to speak of it to the men. He kept his nerves entirely to himself, with
shame recognising them as nerves, but not getting the better of them on
that account. As the time of the afternoon train approached he made plans
as to what should be done if the panel did not come. Of course, it would
come; Barmister would have telegraphed if, for any reason, he had been
unable to send it, unless he were hoping up to the last minute to get it
from the repairer. Such men, the real artists at their work, were difficult
to deal with; often addicted to drink, or temper, or other failings which
interfered with their carrying out contracts, even when they were inclined
to do so. If the panel did not come, the work could not be finished that
day: it could not, anyhow, be finished in time for him to return to London
to-night; though, if the missing part arrived to-day, it should be possible
to finish late and return first thing to-morrow morning without coming
again to Redstoke. Michael made up his mind to return then. Panel or no
panel, he would leave the house to-night, and come back no more; the head
joiner could wait, if waiting there must be, and fix it without him. He
would not stay longer than this evening—it seemed too long to wait for
that, although the afternoon was far advanced. He looked at his watch: he
had looked at it several times in the last few minutes, for the messenger,
had one come by the later train, was due now—rather overdue, in fact;
either the train was late, or he was not coming. The door opened quietly,
and Nan, carrying a heavy parcel, came into the room. “Father has caught
influenza from Josiah,” she explained. “He is not bad, but he cannot see
after things, so, as I knew no one to send, I fetched the parcel and
brought it myself.” Michael took the parcel, for a moment too relieved for
speech, though not really surprised. It was not surprising that Nan should
come; indeed, now she was here it seemed so much the one thing likely to
happen—and the one satisfactory thing—that he thought no more about it or
any of his previous feelings. He uncovered the panel, and superintended its
placing without any haste, or anxiety, or recollection of his desire to be
finished and gone. Nan stayed some time, making a few comments and
suggestions, and examining the work critically. She left when it was nearly
done to go and make arrangements for staying at the inn, as it was
impossible for her to return to town that evening. There was really no need
she should, Mrs. Bidden was well able to look after her father; she and
Michael would go back together first thing to-morrow morning. She left him
now to see the last of the work done, and then to follow her to the inn.
But as it happened he did not follow. Just before he was ready to go a car
stopped before the house. He hardly noticed it, he was absorbed in the work
in hand, and, since Nan’s coming, had lost the sense of watch for someone
which had grown on him during the day. He heard the noise of the engine,
the car stop, turn and go away again, but only vaguely, and without
thinking of them in connection with himself. He certainly did not think of
them in connection with the Carsons; he did not think of them at all until,
looking round at some new sound, he saw Carson himself standing in the
doorway. “Hullo!” Carson exclaimed in surprise. “You here! Where on earth
have you dropped from?” He spoke much as he had spoken when Michael last
saw him seven months ago, except, perhaps, that there was something of
greater geniality in the tone; more of the camaraderie he had for men of
his own sort, and never had quite had for Galhardy’s genius. “I came to see
the panelling put up,” Michael answered. “It’s my uncle’s affair; I mean,
he’s the man that supplied the pieces that were missing, and all that.”
“Did he, by Jove?” Carson said, coming into the room and looking
interestedly round. “He must be a bit of a conjurer! I told Sibyl I didn’t
believe she’d ever get the old tinder put together. Looks jolly well,
doesn’t it?” Michael said he thought it was satisfactory on the whole, then
went round the room with Carson, answering any questions he asked. “What an
extraordinary fellow you are!” Carson exclaimed. “I had no idea you knew
anything about this sort of thing.” “I don’t,” Michael answered, “I’m
merely here as a kind of foreman on behalf of the man who supplied it; I
really know nothing about it.” Carson laughed. “Oh, I know what it means
when you know nothing of a subject,” he said. “I was once let in for
holding forth on one in the innocent belief that you wouldn’t be able to
catch me tripping. Never again, not on panels nor piston-rods either. By
the way, have you deserted them for this, chucked engineering for good and
all?” “Not altogether,” Michael answered, “I occasionally do a little
consulting work, nothing to speak of; usually I am at the furniture place,
clerk and that sort of thing.” He spoke casually, as if there were nothing
in the admission. Carson made no remark upon it—no doubt partly from
delicacy, though it is also possible that, to one entirely without personal
acquaintance with work in any of its grades, the contrast did not stand out
in all its crudity. “Sibyl did not tell me you were in that furniture
concern,” he said; “she might have let me know you were coming here.” “Lady
Sibyl did not know herself,” Michael said. “She does not know I have
anything to do with this; I did not see her when she came to my uncle’s
about the furniture and panelling; she knows nothing about me.” “No,”
Carson said, “now you come to mention it, I don’t know how she should. Nor
how anyone should either; you didn’t bother to leave an address when you
departed in fire and brimstone last autumn. I believe Sibyl was a good deal
affronted at the time; she said you had made some arrangement to come and
see her, and neither turned up nor wrote; and when she wrote to you she got
no answer, only, after a time, her letter returned through the post
office.” “I’m sorry,” Michael said. “I did not think she would expect me; I
thought she would understand. Of course, she did understand, I know that.
It’s very good of you——” “Oh, bosh!” Carson said. “That’s rot! Where are
you staying? At the pub? What on earth for? It’s a beastly little hole;
I’ll send for your belongings.” But Michael declined. He keenly appreciated
the suggestion and Carson’s whole attitude. He understood, as only could
one who knew the inner workings of the great corporation, how rare it must
be to find one in any way connected with Galhardy’s, who either could or
would so treat him. Carson might be a man who would allow no one to dictate
to him as to friends, acquaintances, or proceedings; but he was also one
who, by the very class peculiarities which gave that quality, was liable to
have little sympathy with Michael and an enormous contempt for that of
which he was accused. Michael realised enough of this to much appreciate
the invitation, but he refused it none the less; to do anything else would
have been an effort beyond him, he felt he could not face it. “Well, stay
and dine,” Carson urged, “you might do that, anyway. You’ll have to, you
won’t be able to dine there. Why, it killed one of the pups last year,
nothing but the feed down there.” Michael stayed to dine; but it was not
the thought of the dinner which induced him, it was steel. Some chance
words Carson spoke caught his attention; only a few words, spoken
inadvertently, not finished and only not recalled because they could not
be, but enough for Michael. The old watchful observation by which in the
time at Galhardy’s he had come to divine what most men meant by what they
did not say, sprang to life again and helped him here. It was his steel
that Carson had referred to thus by accident, the new steel he had worked
out for the great firm some time ago, and which he thought he had left
ready for manufacture on a large scale seven months back. More than once he
had wondered if they were manufacturing, and, when careful inquiries in
likely places tended to show that they were not, why they were not. But
they were now he knew, not from Carson’s words, rather in spite of them, as
women know things when they love, a subtle instinct hardly possible except
to love. Galhardy’s were making his steel, and there was something curious
about it, or about their not having done so earlier. He stayed to dine with
Carson. For love a man will do harder things than dine where he would much
rather not, though perhaps it is not every man who can love a new process
for making oil-cooled steel, the child of his brain. * * * * * One of the
carpenters brought a message to Nan at the inn. It was written on a scrap
of paper, and ran, “_Am dining with Carson; don’t wait._” Nan accordingly
had supper alone, and afterwards read by the fire, until she fell asleep.
She was aroused by Michael’s return. Directly he entered she saw that
something was the matter, but she did not remark on it, and he came to the
fire, saying something about the night having turned colder. She agreed,
though she fancied the cold must be in himself and the lowered vitality
which comes to some in utter depression, for the night was warm with a
strong south wind blowing. “I did not know Mr. Carson was expected back,”
she said casually. “He was not,” Michael answered, “he turned up
unexpectedly, soon after you left.” He stirred the fire and sat staring
into it for a while. “Carson’s a good sort,” he said at length, the gloom
in his eyes lightening for a moment. “There’s not another man connected
with Galhardy’s, from Sir Joseph to the least of the greasers, who would
have behaved to me as he did to-day.” “I’m glad!” Nan said. There were not
very many people who had gone out of their way to be pleasant to him. “You
always liked him, didn’t you?” “I hardly knew him really; I knew Lady Sibyl
better. She was not there this evening, he was alone.” Nan nodded. Lady
Sibyl, she perceived, was not the cause of the depression, he spoke her
name too carelessly, hardly aware of it; the trouble must be in connection
with work and the loved invention. “Are Galhardy’s making your torpedo?”
she asked. “I don’t know, I have not heard. Of course, they must be; the
thing was all worked out when I left, all on paper, anyway; they could not
fail to get it. They would not have kicked me out till they were sure; I
told you that before.” He had, over and over again. “Still,” she suggested,
“they don’t seem to be making it; surely if they were some news of it would
have leaked out and reached you? Even if there were no little paragraphs in
the papers, saying that Messrs. Galhardy had successfully overcome the
great difficulty of modern warfare and that sort of thing, you would have
heard something of it somewhere.” “I don’t know, I might; though quite
likely not. How should I unless by chance at some society’s meeting? I
don’t have much to do with those sort of people and things now. I have
given up scientific work, or, rather, it has given me up, I think we may
take it, for good and all.” She did not reply; she did not believe it was
for good and all, though she could not deny that it almost began to look
like it. “I wonder,” she speculated, “why they are not making the torpedo,
if they are really not making it?” “Perhaps they cannot agree as to who’s
to have the honour of ‘inventing’ it,” he said. “Inventing it?” she asked.
But he did not explain, and she pressed for no information, coming to sit
on the hearthrug in silence. For a little neither spoke; at length he said
abruptly, “You know my steel?” She nodded; but he did not go on, the
mention of the steel had recalled the process to the momentary exclusion of
other thoughts. “It was a process for oil-hardened steel,” he said,
forgetting he had told her this before. “A good thing; the elongation was
extraordinary for so high a tensile strength. I imagined when I left
Galhardy’s they would apply it on a large scale almost at once.” “Didn’t
they?” “No—I don’t know why. The first big lot is being made now; in fact,
they are going to quench some thirty tons to-night.” “Are they? How I
should like to see it!” “There’s not much to see; it is only lowering a hot
ingot of steel into a big tank of oil, and leaving it there till it is
cold, the ordinary oil-hardened process. The improvement I made is before
that, in the steel itself, not the hardening.” “Will they call it after
you?” He said not. “Processes are numbered, not named, in a firm like
Galhardy’s, nothing else is practical.” “Still,” she said, “I imagine they
all know it’s yours? It’ll be good for them to think of that and to
remember what you could do when they get stuck with other things.” A
curious expression came over his face. “The steel is not mine; it is
Brett’s,” he said. “What!” “Brett’s. Yes, that is it; he has taken it.”
“But how could he? How could he! They all know it’s yours, all the
directors, some of the workmen even must know it. How could it ever pass
for his?” “He will have made some slight alteration in my process; he would
have had the going over of my papers, and so could have done so; something
small, enough to give appearance to his claim, but not enough to spoil the
process. I hope to Heaven it is small! There is no room for messing about
in that! A little might be done without spoiling to any great extent, but
not much; if he has done anything much he will have ruined it. I’ve half a
mind to write and tell him the only change they can make without detriment
to the result.” He rose as he spoke, the passion for the perfection of
work, and the fear that it should be spoiled, eclipsing for the moment
everything else. But he did not write, Nan advised him against it; though
afterwards, when she realised, as he never did, what sentiments such a
letter would arouse in the recipient, she was almost sorry she did. The
argument she used was consideration for Carson who, no doubt, ought not to
have given the information. Michael was obliged to admit this. “Though,” he
explained, “he didn’t exactly give it, I found it out. I don’t suppose he
knows how much he did let me know.” “Does he know this is your steel?” “He
knows it was: it is Brett’s now. The man who makes the last alteration has
the final claim; he has made it; no one can say anything against that.” “It
is stealing!” “It is not illegal; if the alteration were a real
improvement, not a thing of straw, it would be fair.” “But it is not!” she
protested. “You know it is not, they know it is not. Why are they doing it?
Why is Brett doing it? He must know no one will really think it his. It
can’t be for the credit of invention.” Michael shrugged his shoulders. “I
gather he is to have a commission on the steel turned out.” “Is he?” Nan
said, and sat thinking. So the directors of Galhardy’s, or at least some of
them, were paying Brett? That was what it amounted to; the “improvement” to
the process was no blind to them, they would know all about that; but the
improver was to be given commission none the less. And since it was not
Galhardy’s way to give anything for nothing, it was given for something
which was not steel. Hush money? Nan wondered about it, and wondered what
Brett had done to oblige in the affair of last September; and what some
other bigger man had done that he thought it advisable to pay for. She
glanced across at Michael; he had risen and was standing by the table
absently fingering the lamp. He roused himself, and suggested going to bed.
She acquiesced, and watched while, as he lowered the light, the last glow
momentarily lit his face. He was thinking of his steel again, she knew, and
again fearing lest it should have been spoiled to make some cover of
decency for the theft. A sudden wave of anger swept over her, anger and
pity too. They might have left him that! They had taken so much and he, now
at least, asked so little! He would have ignored the theft, he would not
have given the lie to any who said in his presence that the process was
another’s, could he have been sure that way, or any other, of keeping it
unspoiled. She could have wept for the injustice of it all. “Oh!” she said
suddenly. “I hope they will fail! I hope they will fail horribly!” He
turned at the words; she was kneeling upright on the rug now, her face
towards the dying fire, her eyes gleaming in the glow. “I would like them
to fail when they try to make the steel!” she said. “I would like their
oil-tank to fire. It would be the justice of God!” She stretched clenched
hands out suddenly. “I would like it to fire to-night!” On the words,
almost as they were spoken, there came a light. No spurt from the dying
embers, no chance rekindling of the extinguished lamp, but a great light;
bright almost as a suddenly come dawn, but redder, a fierce orange glow
which revealed everything in the room with a terrible plainness and the
faces of the two to one another grimly. Michael jerked the curtain back
from the window, and Nan, rising swiftly, came to look out. Away eastward a
sheet of flame lit the heavens, a tongue full a hundred and fifty feet high
which leapt skywards, turning the night to a new and terrifying day; a
great orange-red flame which lit luridly the whole dark landscape and the
volume of smoke that, even here, could be seen to roll about it. For a
second they stood looking, then their eyes met. “Galhardy’s,” he said. “The
oil-tank.” She nodded, her breath coming a little short. “Yes,” she said,
“the justice of God.” CHAPTER XI The fire at Galhardy’s made a good deal of
talk; even the London papers mentioned it, and in the immediate
neighbourhood of the foundries it was naturally the sole subject of
conversation. It was the largest fire they had had there for a very long
time, and, though nothing approaching the whole of the works was destroyed,
the damage was estimated at something like ten thousand pounds. As
Galhardy’s took their own insurance, the directors felt it. The immediate
cause was the firing of the oil-tank, a great receptacle, containing at the
time at least eight thousand gallons of oil. Such an accident may happen
when an ingot of steel is being lowered to be quenched, for the question of
temperature then is a nice one: let it be too low, the steel is spoiled;
let it be too high, ignition is a serious danger. But as to precisely how
it occurred on this occasion, there was a little uncertainty. Brett, now
recognised as the perfecter of the new process, and personally interested
in the steel, was standing on the crane at the time of the accident. He had
been in the works for some little while previous. An ingot of steel has no
idea of schedule time and anyone’s convenience; it is ready when it is
ready, and can neither be hastened nor hindered. This one was late, so
Brett had to wait some little while in the works, closed—so far as they
ever were closed—for the night. The firing of an oil-tank is a startling
sight to a man who has never seen it before, even if it begins modestly
with the springing up of little, licking flames along the surface of the
liquid as the ingot first touches it. Whether they arise from the contact
of overheated metal or from another more obscure cause, the effect is the
same to the man who knows there are eight thousand gallons of oil below the
lighting surface, and that he is standing just above it. Once, when such a
thing happened at Galhardy’s, a man standing watching had the ingot lowered
steadily and swiftly to the tank, in spite of the wind which drove the
smoke and flames right into the crane, and the lid on, and the fire choked
for want of air before it was fairly under way. The man’s name was reputed
to have been Michael Annarly, but no one really knew anything about it, for
he was not on the spot in an official capacity, merely looking on. There
were only a couple of workmen there at the time, and as there was no
disaster there was no talk. Certainly, the man’s name was not Cecil Brett.
The proceeding would not have struck Brett as very safe, had he thought of
it. It is true his proceeding might not have struck the other as very safe
either; but it was not unnatural. To seize the cranesman’s arm at the first
alarming manifestation may be called foolish; but it was natural. Who was
to foresee that so doing would make him lose his grip and release the lever
so that the thirty-five-ton ingot plunged all at once, and uncontrolled,
into the tank? And even then, who is to say that it was that which made the
firing of the oil so swift, so complete, and so disastrous? No one did say
it, for no one knew much about it. Brett himself certainly did not
dogmatise on the subject; he was sure the completeness and swiftness of the
firing would have been the same in any circumstances. Of course, the rush
of the plunge accounted for the terrible up-spurt of burning oil that,
leaping out of the tank as the ingot splashed in, fell right and left on
sheds and buildings, setting them in a blaze. But they would probably have
kindled anyhow. There was a strong wind blowing at the time, and the flames
from such a fire were of so tremendous a size, and so beyond control, that
they must have carried destruction far; indeed, it was very generally
believed to have been carried that way. The wind, which was not toward the
crane this time, saved Brett and the cranesman. They had time to escape,
and did so. No lives were lost in the fire, owing to the wind, and the
hour, and situation of the outbreak. Although it assumed considerable size
before it was got under control, no one was seriously hurt. And, what
perhaps was a more curious chance, few men were long thrown out of work as
a consequence. In many respects it might have been called a directors’
fire, so singularly was the resulting loss restricted in its effects. It
might almost have been the work of an enemy. There were some who perceived
this, Brett among them. He perceived it all the more plainly when he heard
from someone, who happened to recognise Michael Annarly at the station on
the morning following, that he had been in the neighbourhood at the time of
the fire. “Odd thing Annarly happened to be in the district then,” he
observed to several. Among others, he observed it to Carson, who was one of
the very few who were aware of it before. “Think so?” Carson said
carelessly. “It didn’t strike me. He was dining with me that evening.”
“Dining with you?” Sir James Shannon, who was present at the time, repeated
the words with an intonation which roused in Carson those sentiments
Englishmen feel when they consider their divine right to do what they
please, and know whom they please, is being questioned. “Yes,” he answered,
“he was here all the afternoon, too” (he did not say for what purpose).
“Queer chap, extraordinarily clever, always worth talking to.” Sir James
acquiesced coldly. “I believe his ability was never called into question,”
he said. It must be remembered that there was the incident of the revolver
which was not loaded, behind Sir James, and that Brett, who was now
present, had been a listener as well as a participator in it. It would not,
of course, have made a man so honourable condemn one whom he believed not
guilty; but it would not help him to give the benefit of the doubt, or to
find extenuating circumstances for weaknesses which he naturally abhorred
in one whom he had never approved. He dropped the subject of Michael
Annarly now with the conclusiveness of extreme dislike. The others did not
pursue it in his presence. But later they did, for Brett wanted to know
several things. What time Michael left Carson, how it tallied with the hour
of the outbreak of fire, and one or two other particulars. He did not
exactly suspect him of complicity, he had neither seen nor heard anything
on which to found such a suspicion during his wait in the works. He also
knew the great difficulties in the way; it would have been wellnigh
impossible for anyone, no matter how well acquainted with the foundry and
with the work itself, to have got in, or to have brought about just such a
fire when in. On the face of it the thing was scarcely possible.
Nevertheless, there were one or two who paid Michael the compliment of, for
a time at least, harbouring a suspicion of him—which suggests an
instructively high estimate both of his ability and his malignity towards
themselves. But Carson was able to set at rest any question of that sort.
“That’s all rot, you know,” he said, when he perceived the trend of Brett’s
inquiries. “Annarly was here till a quarter to eleven, and from here he
went to the pub down the road, where he stayed till he left for town the
next morning. He had a woman of some sort there; I saw her standing with
him at a window when I went by in the car to the fire, and she went up to
town with him next morning, so I suppose she could prove his alibi. I don’t
know who she was; he didn’t mention her to me, but I dare say you could
find out and collect her evidence. Though, how on earth he, or anyone else,
is to have got from here to the works between a quarter to eleven and the
time of the firing of the tank, not to mention got that complicated job
under way in that time, or any other, I don’t see. The thing’s not possible
for sheer hourage, if for nothing else.” “No,” Brett said. “No, of course
not; I never really thought it. There’s no need to be annoyed about it; I
am not for a moment suspecting you were entertaining an incendiary awares
or unawares, or anything of that sort. But you must confess Annarly’s being
here at the time is a curious coincidence. I should hardly be doing my duty
to the directors, if I did not inquire into it.” “Rats!” Carson retorted
flippantly, and added something ribald about Brett’s duty. When men have
known each other more or less all their lives, and their fathers before
them, the mildly official tone is apt to produce that effect. Brett dropped
it. “Anyhow, seeing what we have against him——” he excused himself.
“Haven’t seen,” Carson said; “you great men of the board kept it to
yourselves.” “I had to,” Brett answered with a slight return to the
official. “Annarly, of course, is in a different position. I suppose he
justified himself when he dined with you?” “Justified his grandmother!”
Carson retorted. “Why should you expect him to squeal any more than anyone
else?” Brett did not say. “I didn’t know,” he said, perhaps just a trifle
relieved. “I suppose he would not say anything, now one comes to think of
it.” “Of course not,” Carson said contemptuously, and not perceiving the
relief. “I tell you what it is,” he observed. “I don’t know what the fellow
did or didn’t do, but I wouldn’t mind betting it wasn’t half so dirty as is
done at Galhardy’s every day in the week. And, dirty or clean, I’ve a
notion old Joe and the rest of them made a bit of a mistake when they
chucked him out; he’s the only man of first-class brains they’ve ever lit
on between them.” “I don’t agree with you,” Brett said stiffly. Carson
laughed. “That’s quite likely,” he said. “And the fact itself don’t agree
with old Joe either; just try the words ‘aerial torpedo’ on Sir Joseph
Harte, J.P., M.S.A., etc., with a few kind inquiries as to when that
problem of modern warfare is to be solved, if you want to see an old
gentleman upset in his inside. Bretty, my son, it suggests itself to the
common or garden man, not a director or secretary, just the ordinary
blockhead—that Galhardy’s were a little too previous that time—they aren’t
often, but it looks as if they were then. They kicked their genius out a
little too soon. They’ve got his torpedo no doubt, but it rather looks as
if without him they can’t get the beastly thing to torp. Awful bore for
them, Bretty.” Brett declined to discuss the subject, which was no more
than his duty. Instead he set himself to find out what Michael was doing at
the present time. Had he asked plainly he would, no doubt, have heard at
once whatever Carson knew. But he was not aware of that and so cleverly
tried more indirectly for information, with the result that he carried away
nothing but a vague and rather exalted idea of Michael’s work and position,
far from correct. Almost the only definite piece of information he gained
was that his informant was inclined to put some work in Michael’s way
himself. “I wonder if he’d be able to do anything with Jeffersons’?” Carson
speculated. “They haven’t paid a dividend worth the name for no end of a
time; in justice to the shareholders something ought to be done. I think
I’ll write him about it. Spinning machinery isn’t much in his line, I
suppose—or wasn’t—but he’s the kind of clever devil that can do most things
he tries. I think I’ll write him and ask if he’d be willing to look into
the matter, if I arranged it.” Jeffersons’ was a firm of cotton-spinners in
which Carson had considerable interest—in name and monetarily, that is; in
fact, he knew nothing about the business. From time to time he had reports,
which he did not read or did not trouble to understand, if he did. From
time to time he met some better-informed among the directors, and, between
discussion of the shooting prospects and the weight of salmon taken, heard
something of mechanical difficulties, financial difficulties, and disputes
with operatives. On the most recent of these occasions he had heard so much
of the oft-repeated tale of increasing expenses and falling profits that
the vague impression he had had of late that something ought to be done was
a good deal strengthened. It occurred to him now, when he thought of
Michael Annarly, that a man with an original way of overhauling machinery
or utilising power or doing something, might help them. This man might not
have done any work on spinning machinery, probably had not; but that did
not matter; if an ordinary expert on the subject could have helped
Jeffersons’ he would have been engaged there doing it before this. It was
evidently not a case for such a one, rather for the sort of man who can do
things, just things. Carson had rather the idea of Michael and his ability
that the mayor and corporation of Hamelin had of the Pied Piper—one put him
in and the rats, or other troubles, came out. “I dare say he’d take the job
on,” he said. He had no very clear idea of Michael’s present position and
occupation, beyond that he had said he was with his uncle, the furniture
man, but he did not fancy it was very prosperous. “I’ll go along with him
myself,” he decided, with a burst of business energy; “there’s pretty good
trout fishing; I always promised Winder I’d have a day or so with him.” He
wrote to Winder, another and more energetic director of Jeffersons’, who
dwelt more upon the spot. He also wrote to Michael, making the proposal to
him: a business proposal, but with the suggestion of a day or two at
Redstoke on the way there or back, and a few days—as long as he wanted to
look at things—with Winder; time to be divided between the fish and the
mill. Lady Sibyl wrote at the same time. She was home again now and had
heard all that had happened, Michael’s coming and going, the fire at
Galhardy’s and other matters. She was deeply interested in all, but more
especially the rediscovery of Michael in the unlikely circumstances. She
had been very sorry to lose sight of him as she had done, it had troubled
her a good deal; one does lose sight of people, of course, it is bound to
happen by a natural process of dropping out or by their going to the
further ends of the earth; but she had never before lost sight of anyone
abruptly and completely like this, while interest was still keen and
feeling warm. The interest may have been a little overlaid by fresh ones
arising in the months which had elapsed since he went without a word of
good-bye or explanation, but it revived again now. She had never believed
the charges she had heard made or hinted against him; she had contradicted
them, when she had nothing whatever to go on but her own conviction. She
looked forward now to seeing him again and hearing him explain the whole to
her, as in the past he used to explain his work and difficulties and
ambitions. She would then be able to contradict emphatically; perhaps to
help him a little towards vindication. She wrote warmly, saying how glad
she was to have heard of him again, and seconding the invitation to come to
Redstoke. “If he does not come on the way, bring him with you when you come
back,” she said to her husband, and he said he would. Michael did not come
on the way there, he could not get away in time; Carson met him somewhere
on the journey, and they went straight to Winder’s together. The fishing
was very good that year, Carson had some excellent luck. He felt it a pity
not to be able to give more time to it; still, as he had come on business,
he did it. He did quite a lot, standing in the whir of machinery, and
sitting in offices listening to accounts and statements, when outside there
were soft skies and brown streams with the spotted fish lying in hollows
under tree-roots. Michael did not fish; Winder thought it rather odd, so
did Carson, though he remembered that Michael did not do anything. “You
haven’t reformed, then?” he said, “Pity; better for you if you did.” Winder
suggested that he must find it a little slow, and time a little heavy on
his hands. Carson laughed. “’Ware that subject!” he said. “Annarly always
wanted to get a syndicate, Father Time as partner, to buy up the hours that
fellows like you and I waste—then, with that addition to his own life, he’d
be able to ‘get a little decent work done.’ That’s the expression, isn’t
it?” “I dare say it used to be,” Michael admitted. “I don’t remember, it’s
a long time ago.” (It was nine months, but time is not hours only.) “But
you know,” he said, “there really is no time to spare now if I’m to go into
the matter of your spinning-mill, and report on it in the few days I can be
here.” “All right,” Carson said, “all right; you shall go into it up to the
neck, and stop there all day, if you like. Winder and I’ll take a plunge
with you now and then, and retire to get our breath and watch your exploits
from a distance between whiles.” On some such principle the inspection was
made, Michael devoting himself to it with the intense application and
energy that were well remembered at Galhardy’s: mastering every detail,
inquiring into every corner, and observing all things accurately and
minutely. The other two accompanied him at times, and when they did not,
managers and other gentlemanly and not very well-informed persons attended
on him alone—completely perplexed by his methods and a little bewildered by
the pace, reduced though it was by the dead weight of their own leisurely
amiability. Mrs. Winder liked the visitor. He took more trouble to be
agreeable to her than did most of the men of her acquaintance, interesting
himself in her subjects, instead of expecting her to take interest in his;
paying her the compliment of assuming her knowledge on any technical or
intellectual matter touched on to equal, if not excel his own. It did not
occur to her that there may have been in this something of that which makes
a foreigner, who is a good linguist, sometimes speak a language more
accurately and perfectly than a native—it is foreign, and he has learnt it,
not been born to it, and is taking pains with it. That certainly did not
occur to any of them any more than it occurred to them that this might be
the first time Michael had worn dress-clothes since he left Galhardy’s; the
first time since then he had spent leisurely evenings with cards, and
music, and idle talk that tended nowhere. “Clever chap,” Carson summed him
up; “always was a bit odd, and a regular devil for work. He’ll make some of
them skip if he takes over the job of working up this show.” “I hope he may
do it,” Winder said, though it is probable he did not at all realise what
it was he expressed a hope for. On the sixth day Michael was ready with his
report. Winder was out at the time he produced it, but he seemed to prefer
giving it to Carson alone. “Why?” Carson asked. “Winder’ll be back this
evening, it can wait till then, can’t it?” “It can wait,” Michael said,
“but there’s no object in its doing so; there’s nothing to discuss, there’s
nothing to be done.” “Nothing?” Carson was rather taken aback; but next
minute he had recovered his hopefulness. “Oh,” he said, “that’s just your
way of putting it; they always said at Galhardy’s you thought the world was
coming to an end when you first found one of your screws working loose—and
saw a way of turning it into a propeller or something worth a hundred
thousand to the firm before anyone else had discovered what it was you were
knocked over about.” Michael laughed. “I dare say I was ass enough,” he
said. “But I am afraid this is not such a case: it is the plain truth;
there is nothing here that I can do. Your machinery is up to date—of
course, there is a thing or two which might be altered or improved; a
little adjustment here and there which, with a small outlay, might save a
certain amount. I’ll give you a detailed account of that by and by—but it
is nothing.” “Not your work? I thought that was the sort of thing you
did—saw after those affairs for people?” “I could, of course,” Michael
said, “but it would be sheer waste to pay me to do it; your own people can
do it for you, if they’re told. Besides, as I say, it amounts to really
nothing; there’s no real leakage there.” “Where then?” Michael hesitated.
“I came to look at the machinery,” he said. “I really don’t understand
anything else; I’m merely an engineer.” “Get out!” Carson said derisively.
“If you were that you’d be at Galhardy’s now—if you’d ever got there on
such slight qualifications. You came here to find out what was the matter,
and, if we could come to terms, take over the job of setting it right. What
is the matter? You know fast enough.” “Yes, I do,” Michael admitted. “Good!
What’ll you take to set it right?” “I can’t do it.” “Bosh again. Why not?”
“None of the directors would allow it.” Carson laughed. “Why, man,” he
said, “we’re prepared to pay rather handsomely for it! Is it beneath your
dignity?” Michael thought of General Wallaby’s motor, and the
machine-drawings done in the room over Robert Barmister’s office, and the
small wage paid to him at Nan’s request for inefficiently done clerk’s
work. “No,” he said quietly. “All right then. What is the objection? Do you
reckon it impossible?” Michael considered a moment. “No,” he said slowly.
“I should say it could be done. I believe in two years Jeffersons’ might be
made to pay, at all events, nearly as well as it used, if a man were given
a free hand—and did not come to a sudden end first.” Carson looked up
quickly. “What do you mean?” he asked. Michael did not answer. “Have you
ever been over a Government concern,” he inquired, “a big old one—factory,
or works, or something of that sort? Of course, they mayn’t all be alike;
but the ones I have come across are. Has it ever struck you how they are
overstaffed, especially in the managerial department? They swarm with
well-bred, pleasant, gentlemanly persons who, knowing nothing really of the
job, depend on the foremen for everything, make the neatest and most
voluminous reports to head-quarters—and the most astounding mistakes. Does
it occur to you what such an overstaffing means in waste? Not in salaries
only—that’s the smallest item—but in men’s time, in reporting and waiting
about, getting orders, giving orders, regiving them, misunderstanding them,
restating mistaken ones—in all-round inefficiency, in fact.” “H’m,” Carson
said. “That’s how Jeffersons’ strikes you, is it?” “Well——” Michael halted
rather awkwardly, “I don’t mean it is as bad as all that. Of course, it
isn’t like some government concerns—no private one could be and live,
unless it were enormously wealthy. But old firms, where the control has
been pretty much among families of position, the same families for a long
time, and where the profits have been considerable, have rather a tendency
to that sort of thing.” “I see,” Carson said, and sat thoughtful. “What is
it you advise?” he asked at length. “Nothing,” Michael answered. “I told
you it was not within my scope.” “You said that, given that a man had a
free hand, you believed Jeffersons’ could be made to pay. What’s the man
with a free hand to do?” “Insure that everyone earns his wages,” Michael
said; “see they all did, from highest to lowest—or went. As, at least, half
of those there with salaries above two hundred and fifty a year neither
would nor could really earn it, the wage-bill would be somewhat reduced;
also the amount of time at present spent in telling them what they don’t
understand, and hearing from them what must be restated before it can be
carried out, at what time they shall chance to look in at the mill.” “H’m,”
Carson said again, and sucked at his pipe in silence. “Of course, one might
pension some of them off,” Michael suggested, warming to the work of
construction as he always did, whether laying out plans for the heating
apparatus of a linen cupboard or the complicated mechanism for some dream
invention. “It would be cheaper for the firm to pay some of them a hundred
a year not to come than two hundred and fifty to come. But the real way to
do it would be to make the position impossible—it soon would be when the
thing was running as it ought. A certain number of foremen and operatives
would go too. Men who’ve worked under a slack system don’t all of them take
kindly to working under an efficient; but most would stop, and the others
could be replaced. There wouldn’t be much trouble with the men.” “H’m,”
said Carson for the third time, and he looked long and rather curiously at
Michael. “Let’s have more details.” He had them: they spent some time going
into the matter fairly thoroughly; at the end of the time he had a much
clearer idea of the ways and workings of a spinning-mill than he had had
before, and a very fair idea of the conditions that obtained at
Jeffersons’. He sat awhile in thought, turning things in his mind; at
length he said: “Supposing the directors were convinced that what you say
is correct, and were to consent to give you the free hand, would you
undertake this reorganisation? I don’t say they would do it, but if they
would, would you undertake it?” “No.” “Why not? Afraid of the vengeance of
offended parties?” Michael was not; he had made enemies before. “Then why?
I take it you do not doubt your own ability, it’s pretty obvious that you
both could do it and know you could. Do you doubt the free hand? For the
sake of argument let’s call that granted. What’s the objection? I think you
owe it to me to say.” “I suppose so,” Michael said. “Yes, I know I do;
you’ve been very good to me. Well, then, it’s my position. After that
affair at Galhardy’s, which is not cleared up and never will be cleared up,
I believe, I’m a speckled bird, marked if not absolutely branded. A man to
do such a thing as we have been discussing has got to be above suspicion.
He can’t do it properly otherwise; there must be plenty of people, who, in
the nature of things, must distrust him, suspect him of playing his own
game and the rest. It would be extremely difficult for anyone to come in
and do this work, even with a spotless reputation and friends at court;
without them about impossible. For a rank outsider, with a scarred
reputation, it is not to be thought of. The directors themselves could not
help going back on such a one after a time, no matter how they started; it
isn’t in reason that they should be unimpressed by all that would be
brought up against him by men they knew and liked when he had really set to
work and was making enemies with both hands. There obviously would be
chances for a man to feather his own nest and play his own game in the
unique position they had put him in. They could not help realising it, and
after a bit, they would not like it in the light of Galhardy’s; and, what’s
more, they would not go on with it, no matter how they started, their faith
would not be robust enough. Your own would not be.” “Oh?” Carson said. “You
think that? Though I did not think you a blackguard at the time of the
Galhardy business, I should when the racket began? I didn’t myself know I
was in the habit of changing my mind so easily.” “No,” Michael protested,
“it isn’t that! I don’t think you would change your mind, or ever go back
on me about that. I know that and——. Well, I don’t suppose you know quite
what it’s worth to me. It’s not that which would make the difference to
you, though it would to others; but it would, through others and the
general talk and publicity and row there would be, make the need for more
faith in me than—than it is reasonable to expect you to have.” “Look
here”—he leaned forward and spoke earnestly—“I’m not one of you, not
really, and I never have been and never will be, whatever I may have
pretended or persuaded myself or played at. I don’t belong, and, inside,
vaguely you know it; I have different standards, I do some things you
wouldn’t, probably won’t do some things you do—have not just your code; and
when I was in that position you could not help remembering it. You would be
justified, for it would come into play and worry you. You see, in that
position I should be your man; in a very little while they would be all
against me and the whole thing; you, who first introduced me, would be the
only one for me, and you would have to be for me in no common manner to
make the position workable. And you couldn’t be; however honest you might
think me in the main, you could not forget about the other things, the
different standpoint and code, and so on. It is not possible.” “Only
possible to let Jeffersons’ peter out to respectable bankruptcy, paying
twenty shillings in the pound?” “It won’t do that. You can do something
yourself: see no more of these wasters get in, pension a few of them off on
some excuse, and make the improvements in machinery, I spoke of. That’s
quite possible; but the other——” “You won’t undertake it?” “No.” Carson’s
eyes had narrowed a little, they were rather small eyes, but set far apart
and very honest. “You aren’t right,” he began obstinately, then he got up.
“Oh, damn it all!” he said; he knew that he was right. * * * * * “There’s
one thing I can’t stand about Annarly,” he said afterwards to Lady Sibyl,
“that is his infernal logic and clearsightedness! It isn’t decent to see so
far into a thing. He’s not content with knowing why he does what he does
himself, which is bad enough; but he knows why other fellows do a sight
more clearly than they do themselves—till he tells them, which is beastly.”
“Why didn’t he come back with you?” Lady Sibyl asked. “Got to be in town.”
“On Saturday?” “Well, he said so; I suppose he works on Sunday, I don’t
know; anyhow, he wouldn’t come, though, when we first got to Winder’s, he
said he would. I don’t know why he changed his mind, but he did.” “We must
ask him again later on,” Lady Sibyl said. “He won’t come,” her husband told
her. “Bet you what you like, he won’t.” Lady Sibyl looked surprised. “Why
not?” she asked. “Don’t know.” Carson did not know why he did things, or
why other people did, and could not have expressed it if he had. “Something
to do with his view of himself and us, perhaps. Awfully queer. But I
believe he was right in a way. I believe I would have come to think like
that of him. Fact I do now, I believe. Give you my word, Sib, I never felt
such a sweep in my life, but he was right, and he was right not to take
that job.” CHAPTER XII Nan sat by the window of the brown upper room; from
it she commanded a view of little beyond the quiet street into which people
seldom entered. Few people did that afternoon, although it was a fine
Saturday; after a time, however, she saw someone, Michael carrying his bag,
on his way home after the visit of inspection to the cotton-mill. He looked
up as he reached the house, and she smiled to him, trying to learn from his
face if any good had resulted from the visit. She did not succeed, she must
wait till he came in. Till after he had been in some time very likely, for
she seldom asked questions, it seemed to her intrusive to do so, usually
waiting till information should be volunteered. To-day it happened that she
did not have to wait long; soon Michael joined her at the window and began
almost at once to speak of the events of the last few days and the work at
Jeffersons’. “I am not going to take it up,” he said. “Not? Did not Mr.
Carson want you to?” “I suppose I might have had it, but it wouldn’t have
answered.” She asked what it would have been worth; he did not know, but he
guessed a liberal salary. She guessed so too, and also that it would have
entailed something like the possibility of a return to a life and position
not dissimilar from the one he had lost. Yet he had said it would not
answer for him to take it. “You see,” he explained, “it was not the
machinery which was wrong; there were other things.” He went on to tell her
about them in the intermittent way in which he used, going into some things
with unnecessary minuteness, forgetting others altogether, misstating and
twisting some, conveying to most people a very inaccurate idea of facts,
but to Nan a most accurate one of the way in which he personally saw them,
and the mental and spiritual process which underlay it. “So I told Carson I
wouldn’t do it,” he concluded, “and here I am again, where I was last
October.” “Not quite where you were,” she corrected; “that time the thing,
work and position and all the rest, was taken from you; this time you have
declined it.” “I had no choice.” She held that he had. “But even supposing
you had not, there is still a great difference between then and now. There
seem to me to be three ways of taking it when a thing is forced upon you—to
resist, to submit doggedly, or to accept and forward the end yourself. And
the last—to will what the gods will—always seems to give one the strong
place, to make one no longer the victim, but almost the equal and
fellow-worker with them.” Such an idea had not occurred to Michael, it
interested him a good deal on the theoretical side though—— “Practically,”
he said, “it doesn’t apply in this case. I’m not a victim; in fact, it was
Carson who felt bad about the decision, not I.” Nan forbore to point out
that his own words might be thought a confirmation of her theory. She
pursued the subject no further, but mentioned instead more mundane matters.
“Miss Foregood and George are coming to tea,” she said. “Father and Josiah
have gone to look at a lot of furniture which is for sale at a big house in
Warwickshire, so Miss Janet is coming to tea with me to hear about
Rosalind’s wedding. What with Josiah being ill and then father we have not
had a chance of talking about it before. George wants to speak to you about
some warp-winding machinery, so, when I heard you would be home to-day, I
said he had better come too.” Soon after the visitors arrived; the one
shabbier and rather more gloomy than when Michael had last seen him, but
not less dogged by reason of six months more failure; the other, Miss
Janet, as cheerful as ever. It required more than the illness of herself
and Josiah—she had been through both lately—or even the undiluted company
of George to reduce Miss Janet. “He is a damper,” she owned at tea—in his
presence—“but damp things don’t bother me. I hang ’em to the fire and let
’em steam; if they don’t do much good drying, why, they don’t; I’ve
something else to do than to mind that. Now tell me about the wedding. You
needn’t listen, George, if it’s too cheerful and trivial for you. He went
out when Mrs. Barker came to talk about it. Not that I blame him for that,
if ever there was a stupid woman on this earth! She was simply full of how
much a yard they paid for the trimming of Rosalind’s dress, and how many
dozen teaspoons she had, as proud as a peacock. I’ve no patience with her;
one’d think, to hear her talk that day, she’d made the Annarlys, not God
Almighty and the dressmaker.” Nan and Michael both laughed, and, tea being
finished, Nan proposed Miss Janet should come to her room to see the dress
which she had had for the wedding. “Mrs. Barker was very nice to me that
day,” she said, as she led the way. “So she told me,” Miss Foregood
answered. “She was nice to Michael too, I understand; she prides herself on
not giving the cold shoulder to those in misfortune. To do her justice, she
doesn’t either, though she hasn’t much gumption in her way of not doing it.
It was a good thing for her it was Michael and not George she ‘was going
out of her way to be nice to because he was down on his luck’—that’s what
she calls it. George would have helped her into the way again with a flea
in the ear. Is this the dress?” Nan said it was, and Miss Janet examined it
critically and without entire approval: the breadths were too scanty, and
the material too unsubstantial to justify the price, in her opinion. After
the examination they talked of the wedding, remaining in the bedroom to do
it, so that George’s conversation on warp-winding might be undisturbed. Nan
did not add much to what her visitor had already heard, although she
described from rather a different point of view. There was, however, one
fact she mentioned which Mrs. Barker had not—for the good reason that she
was not aware of it—her own acquaintance with Mr. Giles Cordover. “He
brought me back in his car,” she said; “that’s how it was I got to your
house so soon after the wedding. I didn’t tell you, did I?” “No, you
didn’t—you didn’t tell me anything then, and I didn’t ask either, there was
something else to think about. So Mr. Cordover brought you back in his
motor-car, did he?” “Yes, and he said he would come and fetch me some fine
Saturday and take me to his house.” “What for?” “I don’t quite know”—Nan
had evidently considered the question herself—“unless, perhaps, it is for
me to see his furniture—we talked about that, you know—and possibly, just a
little, to annoy the Annarlys. He is out of humour with them I fancy just
now, and he may think it would annoy them if he took me in the car to his
house, though, of course, it wouldn’t really.” Miss Janet rubbed her nose
with the end of her pince-nez, a habit she had when considering. “I don’t
know so much about that,” she said. “Anyhow, you’d better go, if he does
come, which he very likely won’t.” “I think he will,” Nan said, “and if he
does, I shall go, if I can—not because of annoying the Annarlys, I’m sure
it wouldn’t do that—but because I rather liked him. I think oldish men are
easier to get on with than most other kinds of people, don’t you? One
understands quicker what they mean, and what they like.” “They aren’t often
backward in telling you, if you don’t,” Miss Janet said; “at all events in
telling you what they don’t like; certainly George isn’t. By the way,
talking of George, you’d better be careful about Michael’s going into
anything with any friends of his, for it won’t pay him. Everyone George
knows is either a thief or a victim, or both, none of ’em good folk to deal
with. According to him all the world’s the same—which is stuff and
nonsense, just like saying all butchers are liars because some of them
cheat over the weights, if you don’t keep an eye on them. What I say is, if
you go to a thieving neighbourhood, you must expect to be cheated; but if
you don’t, you needn’t. And as for always expecting to be cheated, that’s
ridiculous, and very effectively prevents you from getting on with
anything. Why, George has not managed to do anything with his invention
yet, and principally, I believe, because he’s so suspicious that he can’t
deal with anyone.” Nan suggested that Miss Janet was showing herself a
little suspicious too, at all events, of George’s friends. “That’s because
I know the sort,” Miss Janet answered; “there’s nothing to be made out of
any of them, you’d better tell Michael so.” Nan said she would; and, in
pursuance of the promise, inquired about George and what he had been saying
when the brother and sister had gone. “It was about a man he knows who
wants an alteration made to some winding gear,” Michael said; “a small
thing, but rather interesting.” Nan, remembering Miss Janet’s warning,
inquired, “Is there any money in it?” Michael thought not. “The man’s a
warp dyer,” he said; “that’s a trade which is very seriously cut now, and
he appears to be a poor member of it.” “Shall you do what he wants?” “I
can’t without going to see the machines. I don’t know that I could then; it
is a pretty complicated bit of machinery.” “You can go if you want to.” “I
can’t. How can I? I have just been away a week. This certainly would be
only a matter of a day or two, Friday night to Sunday night would do it,
but I can’t expect your father to let me go again.” “You can,” Nan said.
“It was part of the bargain you were to go when necessary; you have been
less than he expected.” “Yes,” Michael said doubtfully. “Whose bargain?
Yours. I know perfectly well it is a favour you ask and obtain for me, what
I receive from your father, all of it is.” “There is no favour,” Nan said;
“the bargain was made at the outset, and father would not only expect but
want to abide by it. And I don’t fancy he feels cheated over it; you know
him by this time, do you take him for a man who would make a bad bargain
and be content with it? I don’t.” Michael saw there was some truth in that,
and, if not entirely convinced, was partly satisfied. Nan did not think it
necessary to mention the birthday-present incident: she did not consider
that in the light of a favour; nor did her father, she was right there. It
was settled between them that Michael should go to the warp dyer if he
could come to any satisfactory arrangement with him. Nan had a private
conviction that he would go even if the arrangement were not very
profitable, the problem put to him by George had caught his attention. And
she was right: the arrangement when made was not very satisfactory, quite
likely would work out to be little more than his expenses; still, he
agreed. With Barmister’s consent he undertook to go to the dyeing works the
first Friday evening that he could get away. Among the many industries
which at the present time are not flourishing, the one, little known except
in the circle of allied trades, of warp dyeing ranks high in misfortune. No
doubt there are warp dyers who do well, and there were in the days when
George Foregood knew Milligen and Freegarten; but Milligen and Freegarten
were not among them now. There had been a time when they, shrewd,
hard-dealing workmen who had risen, had made good profits; when they had
saved some money and spent more, and their families had blossomed forth as
a consequence. But that was past: the profits were gone and the families
too largely; perhaps the latter had blossomed too quickly to make strong
roots. Freegarten was dead; his interest in the concern was represented by
a widow suffering from asthma and a conviction that she did not get what
she ought—both complaints chronic. Milligen still lived, an old man rather
wedded to old ways, but too doggedly devoted to his business to let it die
if a new one would save it—provided the new one could be applied as a
patch, not as regeneration and reconstruction. The works were situated in
one of the small Midland towns, on the edge which was least prosperous, and
from which richer works and factories had migrated. There were several
sites and buildings to let in the immediate neighbourhood, possibly owing
to the fact that a certain amount of coal had been taken out in the last
century, and the shallow, disused pits were thought to make the erection of
heavy factories in their vicinity unwise. The only prosperous-looking
building near the dye works was the town council’s power station. That
abutted on to Milligen’s, and, by its size and general appearance of
opulence and conformity to all the latest regulations, made the dyeing
works look older and shabbier than ever. Inside the place was such as
Michael had never come across: many of the arrangements make-shift and
almost amateurish; the plant largely such as could have been collected from
Galhardy’s scrap heap and put up by a working foreman and a couple of
fitters. Old Milligen himself was responsible for some of the work and much
of the patching; he stopped once on his way through with Michael to calk an
especially big leak in one of the tanks. Michael did not mind that; indeed,
he himself stopped to tighten a steam joint. He could not help it; he could
no more comfortably pass a leaky tap which did not concern him than omit to
work out a problem in ballistics which was not his affair, if either
happened to attract his attention. Possibly it was as a consequence of this
characteristic that he did not think much about the poverty of the works or
the inadequacy of the materials at hand; he was too interested in the
problems there presented. It is true he offered advice in passing on ways
to reduce work in pumping and any other small matter he observed, much as
he would on the faulty draught in a kitchen-stove, otherwise he did not
notice. Without knowing it, he won old Milligen’s respect as a first-class
workman; this before he entered into the matter he had come to consider.
The matter was to alter the winding machinery so as to enable longer warps
to be dealt with than heretofore; a thing which, if it could be done, might
enable the dyer to hold on and just work at a profit, which was not
possible now. It sounded a small problem, simpler a good deal than it
really was, at least, to the uninitiated; but Michael was aware there might
be considerable difficulties in the way, at all events, of effecting any
great improvement without an outlay beyond Milligen’s inclination and
means. He spent all Saturday in the works, mastering present methods and
working out various ideas for improvement as they came to him. After
mid-day he had the place very much to himself, which really suited him
better. Old Milligen had to go to a neighbouring town to a funeral, a
solemn social ceremony such as are still sometimes to be met with in the
Midlands, and which, with the return journey, would occupy him till far
into the evening. The workmen had left at the half day, all except one, a
little misshapen handy man called Billy, who followed Michael about, found
bits of scrap when he wanted them, and made rough contrivances to his
direction. In the days at Galhardy’s some of the finest workmen in that
half of England carried out the designs or variations of designs that the
directors’ genius was pleased to suggest, with the finest materials, and in
the shortest time. No recollection of that occurred to Michael now, he was
too absorbed in the present work to have thoughts for anything else; the
which, perhaps, is one of the most unqualifiedly happy attributes of
genius. But Billy, the handy man, thought of other things; he thought of
tea among them. “I’d better knock off a minute and see after tea, mister,”
he said, when six was more than past. And Michael assenting, he disappeared
for a little while. When he returned, it was in a rather breathless state.
Michael had a way of inspiring people who worked with him with a feeling
that there was not a minute to spare. “It’s a step to the Co-op,” Billy
said, as he deposited crusty bread and stringy ham on an improvised table.
“I reckon I’ve done it three minutes quicker this time ’n it’s been done
yet, there and back.” He rummaged in a cupboard and brought out a black
teapot and a still blacker saucepan and set about boiling water for tea.
“—It’s down beyond the power station,” he explained with some pride. “The
power station?” Michael asked, then inquired casually, “Why did they put
the station out here? I should have thought the other side of the town
would have answered better, and saved something in wiring.” “Cheaper here,”
Billy told him; “got the land for next to nothing. They put the value down
themselves by all their talk of old pits when someone else was thinkin’ of
takin’ over that bit. Not that they’re so sure to make so much savin’ on it
after all; their chimbley’s saggin’ and may cost ’em a bit to shore it up
yet.” Michael had noticed that the chimney was out of the straight. “Rather
seriously too,” he said. “I should have thought it was hardly safe.” “So’d
the council, if it didn’t happen to be their’n,” Billy answered, grinning;
“but they aren’t condemmin’ theirselves, not much—what d’ye take ’em for?”
“Fools,” Michael said, “if they let it come down; they will find that a
deal more expensive than repairing, or rebuilding either.” Billy agreed,
but from politeness not conviction: in his opinion buildings and other
things were condemned, not because they were unsafe, but because they did
not conform to the council’s by-laws: could those be avoided the buildings
might be expected to stand; when the council itself was concerned they
would naturally be in abeyance. “That chimbley ain’t comin’ down,” he said,
peering into the teapot. “Why should it?” “Because it is about seven or
eight degrees out of the perpendicular,” Michael answered. Billy did not
appreciate that as sound reason, but forbore to say so, merely admitting
that Brassey, the head engineer, had his doubts. “He’s in a bit of a takin’
about it,” he said. “It’s sottled some more lately on the hither side they
do say, and he’s fetched the manager back from the seaside to have a look
at it; a chap as works there was tellin’ me yesterday. He was comin’ for a
pow-wow to-day, Brassey would have him though it is Saturday. But what’s
the good o’ that, I’m askin’? It ’on’t do nothin’; it’s them old pits as
does it, and who’s going to account for them?” “Why build on an old pit?”
Michael asked. “It seems a little idiotic to attempt to save money that
way.” “They didn’t go to do it,” Billy told him. “They suspicioned there
was pits hereabouts, but they didn’t reckon to hit one for their chimbley.”
“Surely they have a map of the district?” Billy shook his head. “Old pits
ain’t mapped, not the very old ’uns. They hadn’t no councils those days,
all the better for them! Parties howked out the coal where they found it,
and shut down when there warn’t no more worth gettin’, with no by your
leave and notifyin’ the town surveyor or dustman or anybody else. You never
know when you’re over a pit some parts—till you’re in it, and not often
then. I mean, the chances are you won’t get in, if you’re on one; it’s just
bad luck if you do, and the damn settlin’ of the ground which happens now
and then, the Lord knows why, and no ’un can allow for.” He gave the teapot
a final shake as he explained these points of local interest, and then
announced that tea was ready. It was very black indeed, almost as black as
the teapot and saucepan, and it was drunk with tinned milk and brown sugar,
and the bread and stringy ham was eaten with pocket-knives; there was
nothing else. But Michael did not notice, he was absorbed again in the
work, and thinking of that only. He had speedily forgotten the difficulties
of the council’s head engineer, the state of their chimney, and the
opinions of Billy on pits and by-laws; none of them had really interested
him. He was occupied solely with devising a means to enable Milligen’s
winding machines to wind long lengths of warp instead of short. Through the
slow-closing spring evening he gave himself up to the problem. The patient
Billy attending, puzzled and half fascinated by this new phenomenon among
masters and workmen; this courteous person who always spoke politely,
almost diffidently; who looked at things doubtfully, as if he hardly
understood them, and touched them tentatively, as if he were afraid of
breaking them. And, by some magic unexplained, brought forth more ideas of
worth and simple yet perfect devices in these hours than all others had
brought forth in all the years of the little man’s experience. Darkness
closed in, and the neighbouring power station supplied light to the works
and all the town. No one, not even the two in the warp dyer’s, gave a
thought to the supply, or to the anxious engineer even now waiting,
grim-faced, for his manager. Michael was standing by the largest winding
machine, a big tank of blue dye below and the warp threads, to be passed
through it on Monday, in great balls beside. From a more distant part of
the building came the sound of hammering on metal, Billy busy with some
fitting of his own contrivance or Michael’s. Nearer at hand there was only
the regular but muffled noise of the engines in the power station beyond
the party wall. Michael had just leaned across the corner of the dye-tank
to place, in imagination, some modification on the machine when there was a
terrific crash. A deafening noise, as if the whole structure were coming
about his ears, a shock that shook the building to its foundations; then a
roar as of a cascade of falling masonry, a very chaos of sound, and then
darkness. Dye sprang from the tanks and fell again like rain, with bricks
and dust and broken timbers; the air was choked with refuse and vibrant
with the noise of displaced machinery; this for a minute, then the whole
pandemonium was swallowed in one tremendous roar. “Boilers!” The thought
leapt up in Michael’s mind, and he fled. Through the darkness, stumbling
among bricks and broken roofing, avoiding by a miracle the still falling
masonry; making by instinct, more than knowledge, for the nearest way out
and the power station. There is a workman who still tells how a dyed man
came to the power station that night. Through choking dust and smoke and
steam he came: out of darkness, now beginning to be lit with fire-gleams,
and chaos and deafening turmoil. He came straight and swift, halting for
nothing, seeing nothing it seemed, speeding for the centre of the
catastrophe as others sped from it. He went past the bedazed man without
even seeing him, running at top speed to the dynamo-room. There was a range
of six dynamos down the centre of the building, the switch-board at one
end. Across that end, right across the switch-board, cutting all connection
and destroying all control, the sagging chimney had fallen. Tons of
brickwork lay there: under them, somewhere under, buried in the ruin, was
the head engineer and with him the manager he had insisted on calling to
council, neither the one nor the other ever to give counsel again. Others
may have been buried in the overthrow; if so, they had never a chance, for,
to add to the general confusion, fire was breaking out at the spot. Michael
did not stop for that, he went by as a man who has one idea only. He had
one, to shut off steam from the dynamos. He knew that they must be shut
off; he knew it to the exclusion of everything else; it was the one
essential. Because it was, and because he knew it, and knew it even when
the first roar of the bursting boilers shook the air, he took control. He
saw no one to help him, he thought of no one, he only thought of the
dynamos and the one thing to be done. Swiftly he seized the wheel by the
first, screwing it down hard and shutting off steam—then the next, and the
next. It was not to be done in a moment: done as quickly as might be, in an
incredibly short time as time really is, it was not possible to shut off
all. The end ones were bound to fuse before he was through with the others,
even if their proximity to the fire, now beginning to get a hold, had not
by then prevented any approach to them. With the shutting off of the first
dynamo the deafening sound of escaping steam was added to the other
confusion. By the time three were done the uproar was such that nothing
could have been heard above it; when one would have the attention of
another he must touch him. One did touch Michael, a dazed workman, with
blood running down his face. Michael did not notice the blood, he merely
saw an assistant. He gave him an order, somehow conveyed it by dumb show or
force of will. It was to draw the fires. The fires were drawn, and though
it seemed impossible to add more smoke and fume to the already nearly
unbreathable air, it grew yet thicker in consequence. By this time the fire
at the end of the building was the most pressing danger: the last of the
dynamos, probably by this time fused as well as beyond reach, was left, and
all attention given to getting the fire under control. It was useless to
think of the fire brigade, there was no way left of communicating with them
except by foot-messenger; and even were a message got to them, they, but
too surely, would be more wanted elsewhere. There must be more fires than
this in the town by now, many fuses would have gone when the accident
happened with disastrous results somewhere; the sudden darkness, which had
fallen when the chimney fell, would by now be lit by as many fires as the
brigade could deal with. Michael had out the hydrants belonging to the
station and organised what men were at hand. By this time there were more
to obey orders; not the full night-shift: one or two had run for their
lives, one or two, no doubt, were killed, blown to pieces by the bursting
boilers, or crushed under masonry and wreckage. But enough were left to
carry out orders, and they carried them out, never asking who it was that
gave them. Mr. William Heath, clerk of the council, did not ask either; it
did not occur to him at first, and afterwards it was too late. He was the
first person from outside who appeared on the scene. Those who at this hour
were near enough to have come sooner, had not. There were not many of them,
and they were not of the sort to come; they had made off in the opposite
direction as hard as they could, feeling, no doubt, that the accident was
no affair of theirs and the safety of their lives, for which they had not
unreasonable fears, was. But Mr. Heath came. He came in a borrowed car when
he realised that it was from the power station had arisen the accident
which had plunged the town in darkness, stayed the trams in progress, held
up cranes late loading by the river, stopped alike the electric theatre and
the doctors’ work, turning the busy Saturday night town into a nightmare of
arrested life. It had taken time to realise this, such a reversal of all
ordinary experience arrests more than the actual physical thing it
controls, mental processes are arrested too. On the whole, Mr. Heath felt,
he recovered himself and recognised the seat of trouble in a creditably
short time. When he realised it, and when afterwards he perceived by
obvious demonstration, that it was a trouble which was not going to
immediately right itself, he set off for the power station. Someone in
authority should be there, he felt, and there at once. Others were making
for the station besides himself by this time, the wives of those employed
among them, for the news of the catastrophe was abroad by now. Through
these people, at rather reckless pace, the borrowed car went, outdistancing
them and reaching the scene first. Mr. Heath meant well; indeed, he had
done well; the council afterwards congratulated him on the promptness,
decision, and courage he had shown in the emergency. That he did not take
command when he arrived on the scene was not his fault; he would have done
so had it been possible; he was, no doubt, prepared to do so. But there was
another man already there: a slight, youngish man, with nothing conspicuous
or individual about him, except, perhaps, a greater share of dirt and grime
than anyone else. Mr. Heath had no idea who he was; he had never seen him
before, and, as has been said, it did not occur to him to ask when he first
saw him giving orders and dealing with the situation. Afterwards when it
did occur to him it was too late. It occurred when the man gave him orders.
This he did when Mr. Heath came in his way. Mr. Heath, stumbling over
pipes, and hydrants, and fallen brickwork, much distressed for the woeful
destruction of council property, hastened here and there on the outskirts
of the fire. He was shrill with excitement: asking what was being done, who
was doing it, and where was the engineer, whom he held responsible. “What
has become of Brassey?” he demanded. “Why is he not here?” “He’s dead,” one
of the men answered briefly. “—No, we haven’t got him out yet, but he’s
dead sure enough, the chimney’s on him.” He shook himself free, Mr. Heath
had grasped him by the arm to pour out incoherent questions, and went on
with his work. “Dead!” Mr. Heath said, grasping his handkerchief and gazing
about in horror. “This is awful—awful!” He made an effort and mastered
himself. “Something must be done,” he said energetically. “The work of
rescue must be undertaken!” He hurried to another point, and tripped over a
hydrant, jerking it from the grasp of the man who held it—to his own
detriment and the confusion of several. “I must have volunteers!” he said
authoritatively. “We must turn our attention to saving life.” He took hold
of the nearest man. “Where are the fire brigade?” he asked. “They should be
doing this, you are wanted elsewhere. Why were they not called in? Why is
this in the hands of amateurs?” He chanced to turn to Michael himself now.
“The council——” “Do you represent the council? Go and see about having the
road up.” Mr. Heath stared. “Have it up just outside here,” Michael said,
unaware even of his astonishment, “and waste no time about it. We must take
up the electric mains, and we can’t do it from inside; the pit where they
are will be full of water—even if it weren’t impossible to get at it for
the fire. We must get at them from the outside. Have the road up where they
come in. As quick as possible, please; I can’t spare any men to do it, but
there are plenty outside by this time, set them on it, and tell them to
work like the devil!” Mr. Heath swallowed something; but he went.
Afterwards he took some pains to explain to himself and others how it
happened in the confusion and stress of circumstances that he did go.
Though, had he only known it, he need not have been ashamed; it was the one
really wise thing he did that night. They had the road up, working by
hastily procured flares and the light of the now lessening fire; men
vigorously plying picks, most of them hardly knowing for what purpose
except vaguely that they were looking for electric mains for someone.
Inside, Michael left others to finish dealing with the fire. It was under
control now, and there were things elsewhere demanding his attention; the
steam mains to be looked to and a temporary switch-board to be made and put
up if the place were to be got going again. Nothing but getting it going
occurred to him as possible, seeing the complete paralysis of life
otherwise entailed. He set men, as soon as any could be spared from the
fire, to repair the steam mains or to cut off the parts damaged beyond
repair by the bursting of the group of boilers attached to the fallen
chimney. He himself attended to the switch-board. There were materials at
hand, and he went to work at once to make an efficient, if rather rough,
substitute for the one which had been destroyed. A junior electrician stood
by to help him and carry out orders. To them thus occupied came Mr. Heath,
insistent on the subject of rescue, somewhat incensed and very important.
“It is a positive disgrace!” he said. “Nothing being done for any of the
poor fellows! Precious lives may be lost by this delay. I insist on the
work being undertaken at once; I insist on my orders being obeyed!” Michael
glanced round. “Mind the wire,” he warned. Mr. Heath minded in so far as to
become entangled. “I insist!” he repeated, extricating himself. “These poor
fellows, pinned down by masonry——” Michael gave an order to the man at his
elbow, who stood watchful for a word from him, stolidly indifferent to
anything else. “Pick up those wires,” he said, and the man did. Together
they executed some deft piece of manipulation with them. “Have you got any
ambulances and things outside?” he inquired of Mr. Heath without looking
round. “No? Go and see about getting them then; I’ll have some pieces
collected for you by the time they are here.” “Sir?” Mr. Heath could say no
more; this was the most unseemly jest and the most ill-timed impertinence
he had ever heard of. It did not occur to him, nor could it ever have been
realised by him, that it was neither jest nor impertinence; merely a simple
statement of a simple fact by a man who was simply dealing with things as
they were in a great emergency. And Michael never knew Mr. Heath’s view
either—how should he? He was making a switch-board in the great emergency:
a man has only a given amount of brain-energy to expend at one time. In a
little while the ambulances came and the pieces were collected. As Michael
had foreseen, there was, and could be, nothing more to put in them: the men
in charge of the burst boilers were blown to atoms at the first explosion;
the two who had stood at the base of the chimney were crushed out of
recognition. There was no work of rescue to do, only recovery, and recovery
of that which could only be identified by those who knew what to look for.
Heart-broken women were admitted for the purpose, and Michael left the
switch-board to help them through the painful work, and gently lead them
away afterwards. Mr. Heath did not see that, or if he did, did not observe.
At any rate, it did not erase the earlier impression nor yet the later one
of Michael returning quickly to work and suggesting politely but firmly
that he, clerk to the council, and all other outsiders were better and
safer off the premises and out of the way. Mr. Heath went; he realised that
he had something to do outside. With the concurrence of others of the
council, he telephoned for someone to come and take charge of the power
station in place of the engineer who was dead. The reason why this had not
been done before was, firstly, that up till now no one had thought of it;
and, secondly, when they did think they could not immediately agree as to
whose nephew to send for. When that matter was settled, he was summoned by
telephone. And in the station, through the remaining hours of the night,
Michael worked, getting the place into going order again. The switch-board
was made, the electric mains outside found and connected up with the leads
from the extemporised board. Afterwards the sound dynamos were switched in;
one after another they were connected, and the fires relighted. Once more
the impressive noise of them began to be heard in the long building; at
first a little jerkily as the first great engine got to work, afterwards
deepening to the strong, steady hum which was their usual voice. By degrees
things began to come alive again, beyond the station as well as inside it;
soon after dawn trams and engines, cranes and lights, most of that which
had been paralysed through the night, began to feel the power. Soon after
dawn, too, came the new engineer. It must be remembered that Mr. Heath had
telephoned for him, impressing upon him urgency and the need for speedy
coming; not omitting to mention, among other reasons, that an impertinent
person, unknown, was at the station giving orders and taking none. To the
dynamo-room came the new engineer, and found the person at work on the last
sound dynamo. To him he announced himself, his name, occupation, and reason
for being there. “Ah?” Michael said without ceasing from what he was doing,
which was at a critical point. “Hand me that spanner.” This to the man
close under the dynamo. It was handed, and for a moment he worked
concentratedly. The new-comer watched, casting a critical glance at the
work, and also at the pools of blackened water, charred framework, twisted
pipes, tangled wires, and general confusion and destruction all round. He
himself, naturally, presented a contrast; he looked very clean beside the
grimy men here, more especially beside the one in command. In the cold
morning light that one showed a haggard, unkempt person, dye-stained,
oil-stained, torn and smoke-blackened, disreputable, and unimpressive.
Careless, too—the new-comer noticed a loose bolt when the work was
apparently regarded as done. He pointed it out to one of the workmen. The
man looked at it stolidly. He had been many hours on duty, and no ordinary
duty, and his enthusiasm for bolts and casual words of casual comers was at
a low ebb. “You might tighten that down,” Michael said, and he obeyed. The
new-comer stiffened just a little. Michael turned to go. The other looked
him over. “Are you an electrician?” he said. “No,” Michael answered, “only
the man who dealt with the situation.” CHAPTER XIII On Saturday afternoon
Mr. Giles Cordover came to fetch Nan. As Michael was away she was rather
busy; by this time he had become more useful than he himself realised, and,
in his absence, she tried to make up to her father for the temporary loss.
On this occasion, however, Barmister would not let her stay; she could
finish the work when she got back, or on Sunday, he said, or any time. So
she accepted the invitation, and within ten minutes of Mr. Cordover’s
coming went away with him. Mr. Cordover lived some way out of town, in an
old-fashioned suburb not much built over as yet, and served by so bad a
train service that its chances of becoming popular were not great. The
house itself was a substantial red-brick one; the original structure some
hundred and fifty years old, the bay windows and other additions much more
modern and agreeing no better with the rest than did the elaborate
conservatory and weather-vane. But Nan, who could have told to a year the
date of the original building, thought them quite suitable; they fitted
with Mr. Cordover, if not with the house, and, after all, a man—a real
man—is more than a house. Inside, everything fitted with Mr. Cordover—the
sideboard with the carving of fruit, the solid chairs ranged in a straight
row and polished to perfection, the pier glasses in the drawing-room, the
curtains of green silk damask, so green and such silk that they had defied
sun and time and were as green as ever. Everything was as Nan had expected,
even the servants—they were not permitted to wear caps or address their
master as “sir” on account of his political views of equality—but they were
of the kind, lineal descendants of the old retainers, who no more thought
of leaving, except for death or marriage, than a man’s own hands do.
“Well,” Mr. Cordover said, when he had shown the house and its inmates,
“there it is, the whole of it, sideboard and all; solid stuff as you said,
make fun of it, if you like.” Nan looked up. “I know too much about the
workmanship for that,” she said, “also——” “Also what?” he demanded, as she
paused. “Isn’t it quite what you thought?” “I hadn’t thought about some of
it before,” she confessed. Her eyes went to an old setter lying on a
cushion in the sunny window. He was very old, paralysed in his
hind-quarters, only able to move with trailing limbs: an ugly thing, but
free of pain, quite happy, more especially when able to show slobbering
love to his master. Near by stood a chair, one of the beautifully kept
chairs polished like the others, but with the leather torn and scarred by
the claws of a one-eyed cat, rescued from tormenting boys (they were
prosecuted for cruelty at the police court), and incurable as all the
feline tribe with regard to the destruction of chair-seats. A parrot hung
in a cage, an irascible parrot that bit itself when it had no one else to
bite, the property formerly of an old clerk, now dead. Night and morning
the master, gloved for the purpose, took the bird from its cage, talked to
it, and let it walk round the room for exercise, as the former owner had
done. Nan’s eyes went to these creatures, and at the same time her ears
caught the sound of a crutch, the crutch of a little lame old lady to whom
she had already been introduced: a distant cousin of Mr. Cordover’s,
nominally presiding over the house. A frail little thing of timid ways and
aristocratic prejudices, who knew little of Mr. Cordover’s politics and
less of his angles—they never showed to her—but who lived like a delicate
plant in this sheltered nook provided by his bounty. There was another
woman upstairs, Nan had been introduced to her too, she was still frailer
than this one, though younger; not to be much longer for this world, Nan
had judged, when she looked into the dreamy eyes from which the mind was
half fled, and to which peace had nearly come. A widow she was, with a name
unfamiliar to the girl and a tragic story of loss and suffering; that Nan
had heard, but she did not hear the other story of generous love
unrequited, but living on to give asylum at the last. There was no need to
speak of that; it softened Mr. Cordover’s face as he stooped to the frail
creature whom he had brought home to die, and kindled his eyes to pathetic
pride as he saw a beauty long gone for all others. Nan, having seen these
people and these things, as well as the house and furniture, hesitated when
Mr. Cordover asked her if all was not as she had expected. “All that I had
thought about is,” she said, “the body is, but the soul”—her voice grew
soft and shy—“I had not before thought about the soul.” “Oh, the soul,” Mr.
Cordover said. “Do you take stock in souls?” He turned abruptly. “Come and
see the polyanthuses, they’re the finest you’ve ever seen.” She went,
slipping her hand in his arm as she did so; he kept it there, squeezing it
a little. Nan enjoyed every minute of her visit, the house and garden, the
little lame old lady who presided at a tea as dainty as herself, and as
pleasing as the mid-Victorian china in which it was served. Nan and the old
lady became good friends. “My dear,” she said at parting, “I hope you will
come and see us again; it will be a great pleasure to me if you will. You
remind me of the girls of my own young days, if I may say it; you don’t
mind me saying it? You are so much quieter—you fill the room so much less
than the girls of to-day. You will forgive me for making the personal
remark?” Nan assured her that she would, and said she would be very pleased
to come again, if she might. Mr. Cordover sent her back to town in the car,
with strict injunctions not to tip the chauffeur. “I pay my servants half
as much again as other people,” he said, “on the understanding that they
take tips from nobody. They’d get the sack if they did, so they don’t, and
it’s just as well to know that beforehand, for if it’s something to be
ashamed of to give a tip which is taken—as it seems to be, seeing the way
most men do it—it’s twenty times worse when it’s not taken.” Nan said she
would remember, and held out her hand for good-bye. Mr. Cordover tucked the
rug round her, “I’ll fetch you again some day soon,” he said. “Will you
come?” “If I may.” “All right, that’s a bargain.” He gave a final tuck.
“You and I’ll be friends before we’ve done, I foresee,” he said. She
thanked him with smiling eyes; she had not many friends; and the car went
away. She looked back once at the square house, and the thought of the
inmates made the smile in her eyes misty. She looked back again when they
slowed near the top of a steep rise further along the road. An old house
stood on the left of the way here, a long, low house deep bowered in trees.
The hill was so steep that the pace had slackened considerably; she was
able to see it well, to observe the sense of peace and space that seemed to
cling about it in the evening light, even to read the board by the wall,
which notified that it was to let. “I should like to live there,” she
thought. And when she reached home, so much was the fancy in her mind that
she told her father she had seen the house she wanted to live in. “Oh?” he
said. “Maybe you will one day—if you really want to. It’s my experience
that one pretty much gets what one wants, if one does really want it—and’s
prepared to pay.” Nan suggested that it was not the usual opinion. “I dare
say not,” he answered dryly, “plenty of people can neither really want nor
are really willing to pay, though they wouldn’t believe it if you told them
so. Folks make about as many mistakes in estimating their powers that way
as they do in valuing their antiques. Show me a man who wants a thing all
the time, and keeps on wanting it and is prepared to sacrifice to get it,
and I’ll show you one that’s going to get it.” “I don’t know if I want my
house all that,” Nan said, “perhaps I don’t; perhaps I’m one of those who
can’t really want.” “Then you aren’t my daughter,” her father retorted. “I
know what I want and always have. I want to live and die here in this place
and at this work, and I shall be very surprised if I don’t do it. Now go
and get your hat off; are you too tired to do a bit of work to-night?” She
was not, and came quickly and spent the rest of the evening at work. And
not being finished then, went to it again on Sunday morning. By the
afternoon she had done, and when Michael, having travelled by a tediously
slow Sunday train, returned she was sitting alone reading. Barmister was
downstairs in the room with the dolphin mantelpiece; he usually spent
Sunday afternoons there, more often in looking at past records of work than
actually at work, enjoying the companionship of its near presence, much as
a book-lover imbibes joy from the presence of his books and the mere sight
and smell of them. Nan and Michael had an undisturbed hour upstairs, and in
it Nan heard about the warp-winding machinery and the accident at the power
station. It was characteristic of Michael that he told her of the winding
machinery first; it had been in his mind since the other, and was to him
the more interesting of the two. “I believe I have solved that problem,” he
said. And when she asked if he had found it as difficult as he had
expected, he answered: “In a way, yes. The real difficulty was the poverty
of the land; the principal problem was to get a satisfactory improvement
which would not cost too much.” “Have you done that?” “I think so: I got at
something more or less satisfactory on Saturday evening. I was half
inclined to let it go at that, though I knew there must be something
better, if I could hit on it. In the small hours this morning I did hit on
it. Funny how things come to you sometimes! I hadn’t been thinking of the
winding machines at all—couldn’t, my hands were too full then: all of a
sudden they came back to me, when I was busy with the dynamos, and I saw
right away at once what it was I wanted and had really been trying to get
at all the time. The extraordinary thing is that I didn’t see before; it’s
so perfectly obvious.” Nan, by this time, knew something about this kind of
obviousness and its liability to show extremely abstruse to the lay mind.
She asked about the idea now, and he explained with notes and diagrams made
on pieces of paper in the train. “I worked it out on the way down,” he
said; “it’s a bit indistinct in places, I got sleepy before I was through.
I slept most of the rest of the way. There was a fool of a commercial
traveller in the carriage, a chatty chap who would talk about screws and
bolts and boiler-joints. I told him they didn’t interest me, I didn’t know
one end of a screw from another, except by sitting on it, and then I went
to sleep.” Nan laughed. “Dull for him,” she said. “He got somebody else to
talk to pretty soon. At all events, there was somebody else in the carriage
when I woke, and they were talking away like anything. I roused just as we
were running through Enfield, or some such place, and heard them at it.
They were talking about a reversible turbine, a thing that’s badly wanted,
but about as likely to be accomplished as thought transference by Act of
Parliament; theirs, the turbine they were speaking of, I mean, was the
purest bunkum.” “Did you tell them so?” Nan asked. “Not in so many words; I
asked them about it, and afterwards we talked about turbines in general.”
“Did they mind?” “Oh, no, they were quite pleased; in fact, rather
grateful—seemed to look upon me as a mine of useful information at the end.
One of them gave me his card.” He pulled it out, but the name was quite
indecipherable. “Oh, those are some notes I made in the Tube on an
automatic switch for alternating currents. I don’t know if anything could
be done in that way. It would be a good thing if it could; it might have
been a help in such a smash as last night’s.” And from that he went on to
speak of the accident at the power station, and to tell her about it. She
listened with the greatest interest and a certain thrill of satisfaction,
asking questions now and then. Among them was one which he had not asked
himself. “What will they give you for this?” “I don’t know; I hadn’t
thought of that.” “You saved them a great deal in money, perhaps in life
too.” “Maybe. Yes, I suppose so; but if it hadn’t been me it would have
been someone else; I just happened to be there at the moment.” She said
“Yes,” though she may not have entirely agreed. “I suppose you rather put
their backs up,” she remarked. He had told her of Mr. Heath and his own
answer to the inquiry of the new engineer, and various other incidents;
also she knew something of his fatal gift for making enemies. “Still, even
if you did do that, even if you made them feel very foolish, the fact
remains, you saved them. They must make some recognition of it.” “What? A
column in the local newspaper saying that, as a consequence of the council
neglecting to repair their chimney, which any decent bricklayer would have
condemned, there had been a disaster; scope and size of which were
minimised by the action of an interfering stranger, name unknown. No one
but Milligen knew who I was, and he was out of the way. That would be
recognition, wouldn’t it?” “I didn’t mean that sort, you know I didn’t. I
never see that fame, even real fame, is worth much, though it might be a
little helpful to you now; that sort of thing, of course, is nothing at
all. I was thinking of money, rather; they must give you something, I
should think.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Overtime pay?” he suggested.
“They might, but there is no must about it that I see; a certain amount of
doubt, rather.” And it seemed almost as if Michael were right, for, as time
went on, nothing was heard of the council one way or the other. There was,
no doubt, some report of the affair in the local newspapers, but he did not
see them; and in them the part he played, reported on by the incoming
engineer, whose business it was to please the council and not emphasise the
extent of the disaster, was hardly likely to be made too glowing. The
matter slipped from his mind and Nan’s too, and life went on much as
before. The usual routine of daily work, the drawings for the patent agent,
the occasional times of quiet companionship, and the occasional
times—growing rarer—of fretting against the monotony of it all. So through
the summer, with little or no change except that sometimes, more often than
he used, he went to Hurstbury to see his father. “I believe the poor old
chap begins to feel a little left,” he once explained to Nan. “It never
struck me before, but after that wedding it did; he seems somehow to be
rather out of it, to be getting old. I don’t suppose it’s any particular
pleasure to him to see me, I don’t see how it can be, considering what a
mess I have made of things, and that we haven’t a point in common; but I
think I’ll go. He’s on the shady side now—so am I, another way. It gives
one a sort of fellow feeling; there may be some comfort in that.” So he
went when he could spare the time, though going meant sacrificing a scanty
leisure, and when he was there he was able to do little besides sit and
smoke with his father and rather laboriously make conversation. How
laborious it was the father never knew; he thought the son enjoyed the
talks, and looked forward to the visits—as he himself did, saving up little
bits of information and little pieces of work over against Michael’s coming
and for his delectation. One Sunday afternoon they overhauled the garden
water-supply system; Mr. Annarly used to be fond of doing such things. That
afternoon they made several alterations, Michael standing by handing the
tools. Another Sunday, when the servants were all out, they examined a
defective flue in the kitchener, and Michael, working under his father’s
directions, made it worse than it was before. A third they spent in the old
workshop, Mr. Annarly explaining various of his former contrivances to his
son. At parting, he pressed some of the remaining tools on him, with an
entirely erroneous idea of their value. “You take them, my boy,” he said
with the awkwardness of a man giving a considerable present. “Take
them—here, take this too—I don’t suppose I shall ever use them again, I
haven’t the fancy for things that I had. It’s a pity they should lie here;
they’ll be useful to you.” Michael took them: he carried them back to town
with him in an unwieldy parcel, and put them carefully away. He never spoke
of them to anyone, but he would not have parted with them for a good deal.
Towards the end of July it happened that he was able to tell his father a
piece of news which gave the elder man great satisfaction. He hesitated
some time before telling it on account of that very satisfaction; he knew
that, say what he would, his father would estimate it very differently from
what he himself did, and far above what he knew it to be really worth.
However, at length he told it; he must, if for no other reason than that it
would prevent his visits home, since it would take him away from London. It
was a definite offer of engineering work definitely accepted at a salary of
five hundred pounds a year. The offer was made by the same great steamship
company who had approached him in the spring and afterwards had
withdrawn—he very well knew why. He knew why they approached him again now.
The question of internal combustion engines for use on big ships was as
important as ever to them, more important rather than less. And the
difficulty of finding any man equal to such work as they wanted in
connection with it, and also willing to undertake it, was as great. It was
something more than a difficulty, it was very like an impossibility; men of
that experience and with brains of such calibre are not to be hired like
journeymen. Michael was to be hired. Michael, it was pretty generally
suspected in some well-informed quarters, had the required brains. He had
also a damaged reputation and a very ugly suspicion against him—if he had
not, he would not have been for hire. The one thing weighed with the other:
no doubt the directors weighed them very carefully; and, having spent much,
and advanced no whit with the engine problem, they came to the conclusion
that the lesser evil was to employ a man who could help them, even at the
risk of having valuable processes and inventions stolen. At all events, the
secretary wrote to Michael, saying the directors were again considering the
matter of internal combustion engines, and would be glad, if he were of the
same mind as earlier, if he would call at the offices of the company.
Michael called. He did not want to; he and Nan talked it over some time
first. He realised the situation perfectly, the reasons which lay behind
this letter as well as those which lay behind the others; and human nature,
mere ordinary pride, prompted a curt refusal. But common sense and wisdom
prompted otherwise; here, surely, was the chance of retrieving something of
his name, and establishing his reputation. To refuse curtly because of a
former, not unexpected, slight were mere childish vanity, even though
accepting would entail unpleasant things, besides pocketing pride. He saw
this last as plainly as the first; so did Nan, but she reminded him that he
was in a position to make some sort of terms. He called at the offices as
requested, and once again found himself in the palatial quarters of a great
firm: a place of polished mahogany and many well-dressed clerks; of
complicated inter-telephone system and quiet, luxurious private rooms,
where keen-eyed men with suave manners complimented those received with a
few minutes’ exclusive attention, and afterwards dismissed them as cabinet
ministers might. Michael received very undivided attention, and more of it
than fell to the lot of some people. The coming to terms took time, for if
he laboured under a disadvantage, so did the company, the disadvantage of
finding it very difficult to get anyone else: and he knew their situation
fully as well as they did his; and at the game of steadfastly keeping such
things in mind whilst diplomatically omitting them in speech and dealing
accordingly, he was bad to beat. Nevertheless, he came away from the
interview depressed. The familiarity of the atmosphere affected him, in
part with a morbid shrinking, as a burnt animal from the fire; in part with
a sort of homesick sense of what was lost. He came away with a feeling of
weariness and age, and a renewed recognition of the great gap set between
himself and not only his former place but his former self too. “I have
agreed to go,” he said to Nan when he got back. “Oh, yes, I couldn’t do
anything else; it would have been sheer folly to refuse, I know that, I
never seriously thought of it, but I don’t know how it will work out. I’m
to have five hundred a year, more when I make a success—that last is only a
verbal promise, and they may slip out of it, or try to, though I shall do
what I can to safeguard myself——” The old gleam shot up for a moment here,
and the old fighting set, which had made so much difficulty for Galhardy’s,
came about his jaw. Nan saw it, and saw it go again. “That is not bad,” she
said. “No,” he answered. “It’s less, of course, than it’s worth, but more a
good deal than they need have paid me. But I am not at all sure how the
arrangement will answer; they won’t give me anything like a free hand. I
could not nail them down to anything: they would only say they should wish
for very full reports; that one of the directors, Mr. McFarline, had the
keenest interest in the subject, and would look forward to following my
work with great attention.” “That means?” “It means they won’t trust me an
inch—I suppose one can hardly blame them—and will want everything reported,
and signed, and countersigned; and every scrap of work done under
somebody’s eye and recorded in somebody’s notes. I am not at all sure it
will be possible to work that way.” “Perhaps not. Still you can try, and if
you can’t, you can’t. At the worst, you can always come back here.” “No, I
can’t. If I go, I can’t come creeping back to you and your father.” “You
can always come,” she said. “You must always come. Promise me you will. But
you need not, I know you will without that; there is always the mouse-hole
here and me, the mouse, inside it. You must always come when you want to.”
Michael said “no,” and meant it; nevertheless, they were good words to
carry with him when he went to the Clyde on a doubtful venture. CHAPTER XIV
Old Milligen had the gout: not suppressed gout, or gouty indigestion, or
any of the forms which are fashionable to-day, but the old original
complaint, such as Chatham and the great men of his time knew. Like them
Milligen had it, and like theirs his temper suffered; also his wife—he had
no family at home to suffer, his daughters being married and his sons dead.
The gout, while it was at its acutest, prevented him from attending to
anything much besides itself; when it lessened a little he attended, so far
as he was able, to his own business. Later he attended to that of the town
council. He was still more or less of a prisoner to the house; indeed, he
had only got so far as his own works once or twice, and with great
difficulty, much bad language, and, the doctor said, some risk.
Consequently, even when he turned his attention to the council, he was not
able to go personally to the offices, nor yet to the private residences or
business premises of any of the members. He was consequently driven to
writing to the body, although pen and ink were not the medium in which he
felt at home. His letter, which began “_Dear Misters_,” and concluded “_and
may the devil take the lot of you for scabs.—Yours obedtly, James
Milligen_,” contained matter which, in some parts of England, would have
been considered more than grounds for a libel action. In this town such a
remedy occurred to no one; town councillors, and old Milligen too, were not
far enough removed from the time when such differences were settled with
coats off in the yard—a simpler, and, on the whole, pleasanter as well as
cheaper remedy. One cannot, of course, settle it in that way with a man
suffering from gout; nor can one with credit do it if one is a town
councillor. Those concerned laboured under this disadvantage, also they
were rather too old and too well-to-do; they merely replied in kind, abused
Milligen roundly to all who would carry word back to him, and,
unofficially, to himself too, and officially wrote and advised him, in
polite language, to mind his own business. “My business!” he roared when he
read it. He did not mind the abuse at all, but he did object to the
official advice, also his foot gave him a sudden twinge at the moment.
“I’ll see to the business, my lads! I’ll make your ears tingle for as mean
a set of scrogs as ever built shoddy and winked at it! Maria! Maria, woman!
D’ye hear! Fetch me that paper!” Maria fetched it, a newspaper of large
local circulation: an issue now some weeks old, which contained a report of
the affair at the council power station. Old Milligen had been taken ill
the day the account appeared, and so had not read it till some time after,
and had not been well enough to take any steps in the matter for some time
after that; and when he had written the council had not been in any hurry
to acknowledge his letter. What with one thing and another the matter was
already a thing of the past in local interest. Not so in Milligen’s. He
read the report all over again, flushing as he did so, and rolling a
sentence on his tongue now and again—“An unforeseen accident,”
“providentially, the damage was comparatively small, the matter never
assuming alarming proportions,” “the council’s employees, ably directed by
Mr. William Heath, rose splendidly to the occasion: the thanks of the
community are due to them and to a gentleman from a neighbouring factory,
who, with considerable presence of mind, turned off the dynamos.” “‘Due to
’em!’ Due to Willy Heath! Yes, and there’s something else due to you,
Willy, and that’s a piece of my mind, and you’ll have it, my lad, when I’m
about again! ‘A gentleman from a neighbouring factory’! Maria, tell Turner
to look in this evening, I’d like another chat with Turner; he’ll be
pleased with these ——’s letter.” “Yes,” Maria said, although she knew
another chat with Turner would further excite the gout and her irascible
lord. But she never attempted to interfere with him in what she deemed
men’s matters; and he never thought of interfering in what was reckoned
women’s. When their interests were mutual and clashed, as had sometimes
happened when the children were at home, they settled it in a verbal bout
slightly reminiscent of the backyard days. Turner came that evening and
read the council’s letter, and told again, as he had told before, what had
happened at the power station on the night the chimney fell. As he was
himself employed there: indeed, was almost the first man to recover his
presence of mind on that eventful night, he was in a position to do so, and
to give a further and fuller account of Michael’s share than the paper did.
It is true he repeated on this occasion, as on others when he talked to old
Milligen, that no use was to be made of what he said; it was all in
confidence, and he could not afford to lose his job. But that did not
matter; there were too many men in the station that night, most of them
more or less acquainted with Milligen, for information to be traced to one
particularly; besides, plenty of others outside possessed it in some form
now; the thing was not done in a hole and corner, as Milligen said to
Turner. And said again when later he called at the council offices. When he
did call there the members of the council expressed themselves glad to see
him about again. They were too, he was a fellow-townsman with mutual
interests, one of themselves, as it were; they thought no more of his
letter than they would of an explosion of abuse from one of their own body
in the heat of passing argument. He did not either; he might have called
them names, all the same they were his very good friends, always were, and
always would be, even though he had come about the original subject now.
“About that business up at the station,” he began. “Ah, yes, Mr. Milligen,”
the chairman said, “The question of compensation, of course——”
“Compensation be damned,” Milligen said benevolently. “What’s that between
friends? We can settle that any time to the satisfaction of all parties. I
see your fellers have already put me up a tidy little bit o’ wall.” (They
had, a wall eighteen inches thick of the best blue acid-proof bricks, at
the town’s expense, Milligen saw to that.) “It’s ‘the gentleman from the
neighbouring factory’ I’ve come to talk about. What about compensating
him?” “Did he lose anything?” inquired Mr. Heath. “Did you, Willy?”
Milligen asked. “What, not the toe o’ your boot when you tripped over the
hydrant?” The council laughed here, and afterwards called themselves to
order and suggested that Mr. Milligen should state his business.
Accordingly he did: it was to give the name and address of the gentleman
from the neighbouring factory, so that the council should be able to
forward him some suitable reward and recognition of his invaluable services
on the disastrous night. So Milligen said in quite a fine speech, obviously
prepared beforehand, though concluded with a sentence which was not. “He
saved the whole blamed thing from going to kingdom come, and you from being
hauled up before the Local Government Board, if not the beaks—and you know
it. Now, what’re you going to do?” “Are you acting for him?” inquired Mr.
Heath. “No, I ain’t,” the other retorted; “he was acting for me that night,
looking at my winding gear. And he did it to rights too! I’ve got something
now that’ll wipe the eye of some folks before we’re much older. Lord! But
it was a treat to see him touch a machine or handle a tool! He touched ’em
as if he loved ’em, his fingers, the very skin of his fingers, was all
alive to ’em! My old engines knew him for all the world like horses, they
behaved sweetly!” Mr. Heath cleared his throat and said it was interesting.
He personally had seen this magician at work, and though he knew nothing of
machinery, could have certified him capable—also disrespectful, and
entirely unwilling to take orders. He did not say so, however; he glanced
from the subject rather quickly, and brought forward another for
consideration. He said, since Mr. Milligen was now here, it was a good
opportunity to discuss with him, in a friendly way, a complaint which had
been recently brought against him, or rather against the drainage of his
dyeing works. “Our men, when putting up the wall,” he said, “complained a
good deal of smells; it might perhaps be in the interest of public health
if our inspector were to come——” “And put his head in one o’ my dye-vats?”
Milligen interrupted. “Now, look you here, Willy, my drains are as right as
yours any day. If there’s a stink up at my place, there’s a stink. Who’s
having dye without it? It’s none of the council’s business. You aren’t the
father and mother of every evil in this town, and I’ve told you so before.
You let them alone that don’t concern you. I don’t know as I should be in a
hurry to adopt every orphan ill about, if I was you, seeing the hefty
little family of your own you have, with a factory chimney for a fine
upstanding eldest daughter—at least, she didn’t stand up, she sat down on a
man or so.” “Come, come, Mr. Milligen,” the chairman said pacifically,
“don’t let’s be unneighbourly, on your first coming down town again too.
Let’s come to business in a friendly spirit.” They came, for they really
understood one another on the whole, and the chairman and a few members of
the council already shared Milligen’s opinion, in a more moderate form,
that there should be some recognition of the man who had rendered them such
great service. These were in the minority certainly, and they were not very
strong in their views, and since the man had not come forward or in any way
obtruded himself upon public notice, they had not troubled in the matter.
The financial condition of the council in the face of the costly disaster
was not such as to induce them to spend money unnecessarily. Also, since
all were concerned in minimising the seriousness of the affair, none were
concerned in emphasising the magnitude of the service rendered. But
Milligen’s coming put rather a different complexion on things; he stood out
for a reward, and he stood obstinately, showing every sign of making a
considerable talk not only to the council itself. In the end most of the
councillors came to be of his way of thinking; at all events, the
discussion, which had begun rather acrimoniously, ended in a friendly talk
as to what form the recognition should take. It was finally agreed, after
much debate then and later, that a medal and a cheque for fifty pounds
should be forwarded. Milligen wanted an illuminated address of thanks as
well, but there was no support for that idea, so he expressed himself
content without. However, it befell that Michael did not after all receive
quite what was decided upon. It happened one day that Mr. Heath mentioned
the proposed reward to his nephew, the present head engineer at the power
station; he also by chance mentioned the name of the man who was to receive
it, and which the head engineer had not heard before. He looked up now
quickly. “Michael Annarly?” he said. “Is that who it is?” “Why, do you know
him?” the uncle inquired. “I know of him.” “What? What do you know? Old
Milligen talked a deal of his doings; he’s worked him out something or
other that’s going to put the old man on his legs again he believes.” “Very
likely,” the words were spoken dryly, “he’s said—by some—to be about the
first engineer in England at the present time, and one of the best all
round ones.” Mr. Heath stared; his nephew was not habitually lavish in his
praise of other men’s abilities or achievements, and though his tone was
peculiar now it did not suggest sarcasm. “What was he doing at old
Milligen’s shanty?” he asked. “That’s just it,” the other answered; “what
was he?” A large stretch of land and a complicated railway journey lay
between the town and the great Galhardy foundries, which were not even in
the same county: the head engineer’s home, which was situated between the
two, was not either. But it was near enough for him to know some of the
talk of Galhardy’s: every engineering centre in the country knew some of
the talk of it, for all sent students and apprentices there, and most men
of any standing in the profession, and many of none, knew of the talk that
clung about the name of Michael Annarly, his striking ability, his early
brilliant success, and his sudden dropping out. Mr. Heath’s nephew did not
know much; but he knew some, and he readily undertook to find out more. He
would have done so, apart from obliging his uncle, for he was not
unnaturally curious himself. The consequence of what he found and passed on
to the council was that that respectable body came to the conclusion fifty
pounds and a medal were an unsuitable reward, much beyond the requirements
of the case. It is true the man had served them well, but he had done it on
his own initiative and to please himself; he expected nothing, for he had
not even left his name with the engineer. He had good reason not to do so,
and not to be proud of it, or anxious for it to get into the papers, even
in a creditable connection. They felt it was not for them, as honest
traders and works owners or managers, to countenance in any way one who had
transgressed the first principle of the code of such institutions. They
argued the matter a good deal, wrangled over it considerably, for there
were some who still felt he ought to have something, and there was Milligen
who thought he ought to have a good deal, and who, as he said, did not care
a damn for Galhardy’s or any of the other aristocrats of commerce. The
subject of the reward was a standing dish at the council meetings all the
summer, and a favourite topic of discussion when members of the council and
intimates came together at Masonic meetings and other friendly occasions.
At last, in September, the matter was settled, probably a little for the
same reason that the Unjust Judge settled the matter of the widow who cried
continually before him—old Milligen playing the part of the widow. In full
meeting it was voted that a cheque for twenty-five pounds should be sent to
Mr. Michael Annarly in recognition of useful service rendered to the
council on the 26th May last. And in due course the clerk of the council
forwarded the cheque, requesting a receipt in the course of post. The
letter, addressed to Michael in London, was sent on by Nan to him, at work
now for the steamship company on the Clyde. With it there came another
letter, enclosing in a large envelope a printed card. The card had, at the
first glance, some resemblance to a memorial card of the old-fashioned
type; indeed, it was of the sort which are designed for that purpose, and
which can be ordered blank through the undertaker and filled in with name,
date, and text to suit the case. It is the cheapest way of getting an
effective commemorative card, the reason, no doubt, why old Milligen
selected it, though he probably considered it suitable too; the mourning
figures embossed upon the surface might be regarded as lamenting the
meanness of the town council, and the urn upon which they leaned as
containing the ashes of the portion of the power station and employees
destroyed. Upon the card was printed: _To Michael Annarly, Esq., Engineer_
~In Memoriam~ (these were the Gothic letters of the original lithography)
_of May 26th and an act of signal courage and Common Sense_ “_Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might._” Michael did not laugh when
he read it through, his lips twitched, and the corners of his eyes crinkled
a little; there was another feeling mixed with the amusement, and one
stronger than it, the card touched him curiously. After all, it was
recognition of sorts, the best sort that the old man could compass; a
rather fine sort in his estimation, no doubt; he would be quite proud of it
and very serious about it—one reckons motives in estimating values—at
least, one does when one is no longer very young. Michael was not young; he
had travelled a long way from the man who thought a handsome income and a
seat on the advisory board of Galhardy’s small recognition to ask for
unique work done. He looked long at the card now, and put it away
carefully, rather glad to have it. When he wrote to acknowledge it to
Milligen he pleased him by asking him to send another. Nan might like one,
she would understand as he did, and the old man evidently hoped he would
ask for another. _I have had two or three taken off_, he wrote in the
letter which accompanied the card, _so, besides one which I am keeping
myself, I can let you have another or so for any lady friend you might
fancy to forward it to. My own is framed and hung up, so that any of those
Scrogs of the Council who happen to look in for a pipe and a glass can’t
fail to see it. If it don’t make them feel ashamed, it ought._ _I am
pleased to say the work you did for me is better than you promised; I can
now deal with endless yarns, as no other man in the trade can. I am proud
to have met you, and now conclude by saying that if there is anything in
the small way I can do for you at any time, please command_ _Yours
obediently,_ JAMES MILLIGEN. “At least, I have satisfied one man,” Michael
thought as he put the letter down, and he was glad of it. The more glad,
perhaps, because the piece of work, unimportant though it was, was a good
piece of work—a neat and complicated adjustment, very perfectly conceived,
which satisfied his own critical faculty too. He turned to the other letter
and was astonished to find, after Milligen’s slighting reference to the
council, the cheque it contained. He did not feel himself insulted by it,
nor did any question of inadequacy trouble him; it would see him through at
least the preliminary stages of patenting his automatic switch for
alternating currents; that mattered so much more than anything else to him
now that he never gave anything else a thought. The working out and
perfecting the automatic switch invention had been the one tolerable thing
since he had been on the Clyde. It had been done in spare hours, and was
almost purely theoretical, to work at it practically had been extremely
difficult. Still, the mere fact of being again among machines, in
well-appointed shops and great engine-rooms, was very stimulating to him.
His mind, long fallow, responded eagerly to the stimulant, and many
possibilities and ideas were generating and evolving besides the one of the
switch which was already near perfection. Possibly the company for which he
worked, had they been consulted, would have said he had no business to
develop any ideas but theirs and those connected with their work. But it
would have been quite useless for either he or they to try and limit thus;
placed in such circumstances and surroundings the conception and evolution
of ideas were as inevitable with him as the inhaling and exhaling of breath
in the air. And after all, the company had little to complain of; they had
bought him very considerably: bought him body and soul, it seemed to him,
and every bit of liberty too. The position was all he had foreseen and
worse, though less, perhaps, because it was different from what he had
anticipated than because he had not quite realised what it would be in the
working out. He said little about it; he had no one at hand to say anything
to, for he lived an absolutely isolated life, associating with no one and
working ceaselessly, in season and out of season, in the old insatiable
way—with an additional touch of that desperation which tradition ascribes
to the damned, who strive so to keep the devils at bay. He wrote to Nan
occasionally: always about the work, the mechanical and constructive
difficulties, the ideas in connection with them, and other ideas which came
to him. Principally he wrote of the last, it was the realm of faerie to
him, the dream-world wherein the artist-souled, even mathematical and
machine artists, comfort themselves for the hardness of the way. And when
he wrote of these his letters, quite impersonal, sometimes mere engineering
treatises, were happy. But in spite of these and in spite of the tone of
his other letters and all that was left out of them, Nan had more than an
idea of the situation and the almost unendurable fret of it. She did not
refer to it in her replies, she never touched on what he did not tell her;
but she did her best to infuse into her letters some little of the patience
and courage which might make the position tenable. And in a measure she
succeeded; he told her so when in September he came to London on business
for the firm. It was only a flying visit, with no more than an hour or two
in Soho, but during the time the truth was out. It was bound to be; Nan
would have divined it, if he had said nothing; and, for the life of him, he
could not have helped saying something. “It doesn’t matter talking to you,”
he said; “it doesn’t seem like whining. I suppose I ought not to whine; I
suppose I knew what was coming, but—sometimes I think I can’t stand it!”
Nan nodded. “Does Mr. McFarline take the interest in the work that was
threatened?” she asked. “McFarline? Oh, yes. He’s a small part though; he
and his interest were a mere figure of speech. He does take an interest,
intelligent on the whole; he’s a man of sense and ability, though Scotch of
the Scotch. You know what that is to work with—or, perhaps, you don’t; it’s
the devil if you are a Southerner and the work is such as calls for a
margin to handle efficiently. But McFarline’s nothing, little more than the
name they put on the whole system.” “And that is——?” “Report, report,
report. Suspected, watched at every turn. Oh, not obviously; they are
decent about it on the whole, all the bosses pretend there is no
suspecting; they are quite gentlemen; all the underlings, having less
manners and nothing to gain by me being there, make it perfectly obvious.
Why, sometimes I doubt if a greaser would trust me with his pocket-knife!”
Nan could guess how he felt, how such morbid imaginings must arise. “Isn’t
that last just a little unfair to the men?” she suggested. “I suppose it
is,” he answered. “Of course it is really. But the whole thing gets on my
nerves when I sit alone and stew and stew over it; I don’t see it fairly. I
am a silly ass, I know that. But it is pretty awful.” She knew that it must
be, and led him to talk of it. “It doesn’t sound much reduced to words,” he
told her, “you can’t tell from that quite how it works out; the whole
atmosphere and feeling is no mean part of it. Of course, it is frightfully
hampering—and humiliating too—to have to supply duplicate copies of all
notes, drawings, designs, and everything else to the chief draughtsman. I
have to do that; and he has to, or thinks he has to, go into them all and
try and understand the why and the wherefore. He can’t, and he gets huffy
about it, and I get so exasperated that I feel I shall murder him one day.
Then, all orders for plant have to be put through the superintendent of
shops, with detailed drawings of every one. That, you know, is hopeless. If
you give a man any sort of position you ought not to expect that; still, I
must own the superintendent is pretty decent. I couldn’t have gone on at
all, if he hadn’t been. But perhaps the thing I most mind, over and above
the general feeling, is the weekly report. I have to supply a full report
of everything done, thought of, about to be done or thought of, and the
rest to the secretary every week. And he——. Well, he’s not a supercilious
sneak like Brett certainly, but he’s a fish—a sort of machine that
registers things by ticks, observes the omission of a comma, and must have
everything foursquare, reduced to set terms, and pigeon-holed for
reference. Think of it when it’s ideas, when it’s inventions,
possibilities, nebulous things that may never become facts! Think of
subtracting last week’s work from this, dividing the result by the week
before, and giving the answer in pounds sterling!” Nan could think of it,
but could think of little to say to mitigate it. “You see,” he admitted
later on, “I was used to having a freer hand than many people; I know now
that I had it at Galhardy’s, though I used to go on about their red-tape. I
don’t seem as if I could work without freedom. After all, if one does work
that others don’t, if one is expected to turn out higher-class work and
more than the average, one ought not to be tied down to average conditions.
That is what I used to think—what I still think. But now I haven’t even
average conditions, or anything approaching them.” Again Nan could only
sympathise, and afterwards induce him to talk of the inventions and ideas
which were his consolation. He responded to the sympathy, and told her
about them so long as time held: explained how he had taken out a
provisional patent for the automatic switch, and what must be done next,
and might be done eventually. It was not till just as he was going that
they referred again to his present situation; then Nan put the question
plainly: “Shall you stop?” “I mayn’t have the chance,” he answered. “Brett
is staying with McFarline now; I didn’t know till lately that he knew the
little beast. I don’t think he does know him well, or see him often.” “Will
it make a difference?” “May. He’ll clear me out, if he can. One thing, I
don’t much care if he does. It would settle the question of whether or not
I could go on with it, wouldn’t it? I shouldn’t care if it were not for——”
He broke off, he was standing on the doorstep when he spoke, and he glanced
up at the old house. She followed the direction of his thought. “If it were
not for coming back here?” she said. “You remember what I said about that?
There is always a place for you here; you must always come. Besides, I
believe my father would be glad. I think he misses you.” He looked at her a
little incredulously. “It’s good of you to say it,” he said. “I would not,
if I did not think it true,” she answered. And he knew it, and found it
rather comforting. He found it comforting in the time which followed, when,
it must be owned, he stood in some need of comfort. If the situation was
difficult before, it became a hundred times worse now. He wrote of it
fairly frankly to her, after their talk it was only natural, also it was
some relief, though he did not tell her all or nearly all of the fresh
troubles and humiliations which beset him. Brett, though he had not
convinced all the directors that they were better without the services of
Michael Annarly, had succeeded in inducing so great a degree of uneasiness
and suspicion on their part that the position was almost untenable. What
little Michael’s personality may have done to mitigate former suspicions,
and what beneficial influence the already obvious value of his work may
have had, were a great deal more than done away with by the warnings given
(and very likely at least partly believed) by Brett during his Scotch
visit. The opinion held after that was such that, had it been held earlier,
Michael would as soon have been offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer
as employment with the company. As it was though, in the face of what he
clearly could do for them, some were in favour of a continuation, others
were for a termination of his services on any terms, and all were for a
policy of such care that the conditions were about unendurable, and with
most men would have had the same result as dismissal. Still Michael
remained, doggedly remained, only telling Nan a part of the bitterness of
his soul. And she, by inference and deduction as much as anything, divined
the rest, and hesitated whether to advise him to hold on or to give up. At
last she wrote, “_Why not come back? I do not believe you will be able to
work out anything worth having under the present conditions. Perhaps by and
by you may be able to do the engine for these people or some others, but
now it seems as if it were impossible, only a waste of time to try. Come
back here._” CHAPTER XV It was the evening of Nan’s birthday, and she and
her father sat together by the fire in the companionable silence possible
to people who are good friends. Good friends they were: understanding each
other unusually well for parent and child, and, more unusual still,
realising and being content to take on trust the great deal that could not
be understood. That evening, however, there was a question in the mind of
one concerning the other. Barmister, absorbed though he appeared to be in
his paper, let his eyes wander now and again to Nan, quietly sewing. He was
thinking of her birthday last year, or, rather, of that which she had asked
of him then. It was the one request she had made of him which he thought
foolish, so far as she herself was concerned. He had thought so at the
time, though he granted it; he thought so now. But he was by no means sure
she was yet convinced she had asked for what was valueless to her; it
crossed his mind that it might be he who had made the mistake in granting
it. He rather wished he knew what she really did think about it. “Are you
satisfied?” he asked suddenly.—“Satisfied with the present you asked for
last year, or are you disappointed?” She looked up. “No,” she said, “I’m
not disappointed at all.” He returned to his paper, but over it he
continued to watch her as she went on with her needlework. “You haven’t
made much of a job of Michael yet,” he observed at length. She laughed. “In
twelve months? Why, it takes Fate, with all the powers of circumstance and
providence at command, three score years and ten to do that for most
people!” “H’m!” he said, and frowned thoughtfully. “I understood that was
what you wanted to do; I thought it was.” “I know you did, though I never
said so. I’m not sure that it was myself. I’m not really sure what making a
job of a person would be, or if anyone could do it; I almost think not.” “I
certainly think not,” he said emphatically, “and I’ve always thought not.
But I thought you were bent on it—making a success of him, getting him back
to the position he slipped from, and all that. He don’t seem to have got
far on the journey.” “Not very,” she admitted. Barmister regarded her from
under bent brows. “Don’t you want him to get back?” he asked. “If you
don’t, why did you send him off on the steamship business? And if you do,
why did you have him back again? What do you want?” “I want him to do what
will turn out best,” she answered, ignoring the influence assigned to her,
and which in a way was correct. In a sense, she had sent Michael, and had
recalled him, though not by conscious exertion of power, only by seeing it
wisest and showing him it was so. “Do you mind him being here again?” she
asked, looking up from her work. “I thought you did not mind. I thought,
when we talked about it before he definitely gave up with the shipping
people, you were rather glad than not to have him come back.” “Oh, that’s
all right,” Barmister said, “it suits me well enough. I’ve nothing against
him; he’s useful to me, in fact, he got to be a deal more useful before he
went than I knew or should have believed if anyone had told me. So far as
I’m concerned, it’s all right to have him back; he’s settled in just as
before, no swelled head from his late flutter. I dare say there wasn’t so
much to swell it, if the truth was known. The thing that beats me is where
you come in. If you are satisfied, I suppose you’ve got something out of
it, though it certainly isn’t the satisfaction of making a job of him, for
that’s not done. What is it you do want? Him to do what’s best, you say—but
why? Where do you personally come in?” She considered a moment, then she
said, “I don’t quite know. I just want it, that’s all, I think.” Barmister
said “Humph,” and returned to his paper; but he was not entirely satisfied.
Not dissatisfied as to her honesty, he knew she was speaking the truth; she
always did, her words coincided with her thoughts and opinions as nearly as
she could make them, so nearly that strangers, used to the less accuracy of
ordinary speech, sometimes mistook them. Barmister recognised that she
meant what she said, no more and no less; she really did not know why she
wanted this thing, but, he felt, that need not prevent the existence of a
reason, unrecognised by her, of which he should not approve. He had a high
opinion of her judgment, unusually high in one of the older generation for
one of the younger. But she was a woman, and a young one, and in one
particular the judgment of such is not to be relied on; while the quiet
persistence of this one was a fact on which he, at least, could rely. In
the past, it is true, he had usually allowed her to choose for herself, and
it had usually answered; she had chosen wisely or else, when very
occasionally she had not, had gained as much in wisdom learnt. But this
case was different: if a mistake were made here, it was one without remedy,
and in the deciding there was a personal influence to remember, another
person concerned—a person with brains but no money, with abilities and,
presumably, ambitions, and moods. An utterly incalculable person to
Barmister: one whose actions and decisions he could not foresee, but
against whom he felt there might be need to guard. And if guard, then at
once. Death is an event the date of which no man can foretell, but the
nature of it in his own case this one could very well. It would be such,
his doctor had warned him, as would give time for no last words or
death-bed arrangements; in ordinary health one minute, the weakened heart
slowing down for death the next. “Fetch me my pen,” he said, breaking a
long silence, “I want to write a letter. I’ve half a mind to alter my
will.” Nan fetched it, and the letter was written without further remark
from either of them. Afterwards they talked of other things, business and
their usual interests, until Michael came in. Michael had been to
Hurstbury. He would not have chosen to go, seeing it was Nan’s birthday,
but his father had not been well, and he felt that he ought. Going home was
not especially agreeable since his return from the Clyde, for that return
had been a considerable disappointment to the Annarlys. Since it they had
come to definitely accept him as one of those—to be found here and there in
families—concerning whom the tactful do not inquire; men of some brilliancy
and no staying power, who promise much at the beginning but in the end have
to be kept or frequently propped up by the more solid members. They did not
express these sentiments to Michael, but he was aware of them, and went to
Hurstbury now only when he thought his father was dull, or not well, or for
some reason in need of his company. In all other respects things were
somewhat as they were before he went away. He had less drawing to do for
the patent agents. During his absence the work had been given to someone
else, and could not on his return be immediately given to him again. On the
other hand, he was called on consultations more than he had been during the
barren months of the spring and summer; not very frequently certainly, and
the occasions were neither important nor lucrative, still they occurred now
and again. For the rest he was Barmister’s man as before. “—I’m your
father’s clerk,” he said to Nan; “a tolerable one by this time, I hope—it
isn’t a waste if I am; as well to do one thing as another, if one does it
well. Really I think I’d as soon do this as anything—which, perhaps, is a
good thing, since there seems no competition to ask me to do anything
else.” But, as it happened, in the course of time he was asked to do
something else. It was not a great nor specially suitable offer; one which,
in earlier days, no one would have ventured to make to him, and which, even
quite recently, he would hardly have seriously considered. It came from old
Milligen. Milligen came to London on business for a few days that winter.
Coming to London was an event in his life, and one which, in spite of age
and infirmities, he made the most of: transacting business, buying a
present for his wife, and going to a music-hall in company with George
Foregood with the serious attention of a man who has a good deal to get
through. Part of Milligen’s business lay with George: that part was
transacted in Miss Janet’s sitting-room—not the best room, there was no
fire there except on state occasions; also, Miss Foregood would not have
admitted George and a business friend, no matter if he had been a member of
the house of Rothschild, to that apartment for commercial purposes. She let
them have what she called the sitting-room and betook herself to the
kitchen, where she was quite happy and very busy; taking care, however,
before she left, to remove the plush table-cloth from the centre
dining-table. This removal did not offend Mr. Milligen, he preferred the
cloth off; less because he felt more at liberty in dropping ash and setting
down a damp glass on the American cloth under-cover than because he found a
comfortable homeliness in it, as he did in the horsehair arm-chair in which
he sat. He was at home with these things, and much preferred Miss Janet’s
house to his hotel. Some other people might also; it was cleaner, if
nothing else. But he would have preferred it to any hotel: the Carlton,
Claridge’s, or any other. He could almost fancy himself at home as he and
George sat here and smoked, their glasses beside them, their papers before
them, the air hazy with tobacco, and the window tight shut. It was exactly
the atmosphere in which to talk business, slowly, with opportunity for
digressions and wary goings about the subject, and long tales of past
deals, full savouring it as old men, whose business is their pleasure—love.
George understood the methods; indeed, he really preferred them to any
others. He had some points in common with old Milligen, at all events, more
than he had with any of the other men with whom he had tried to deal about
his invention. If the old man had the money and enterprise necessary there
was a greater chance of George coming to terms with him than there was with
any of the financiers and wealthy directors with whom he had, from time to
time, been in negotiation. But only a part of Milligen’s business lay
directly with George; another part lay indirectly, and it was that which
touched Michael. George had, in the first instance, introduced Michael to
the warp dyer; it was he now who was requested to bring him to an
interview. The interview took place in the evening, Michael could not get
away before, and in Miss Janet’s sitting-room, by choice of all parties.
Michael, not aware that the lady of the house, in company with Josiah and a
clock he was anxious to take to pieces, had retired to the kitchen,
presented himself at the appointed time. The small room was by that time
sufficiently suffocating, and he chose a seat as near the window as he
could, hoping that, tight shut though it was, enough draught would creep
through to keep him awake. The two elder men, quite unaffected by the
atmosphere, drew up to the fire and filled their pipes and their glasses,
remarking that the night was raw cold. When these and various courteous
preliminaries were over and the pipes were alight, Milligen observed, as if
now opening the business of the evening, “I’m an old man, Mr. Annarly——”
“Oldish,” corrected George, who was a year older. “Old,” repeated Milligen
decidedly, “and not getting younger. I’m not what I used to be, Mr.
Annarly; this deuced gout plays Old Harry with a man, and doctor says—and I
don’t suppose he’s lying this time—it’s goin’ to do it more, a deal more,
unless I take care. Well, I don’t mind telling you, takin’ care isn’t in my
line; I shouldn’t bother about it, not me—but there’s the missus to reckon
with. You don’t know my missus?” Michael said he had not the pleasure.
George snorted; not that he had anything against Mrs. Milligen, whom he
only knew slightly, but he held the whole genus “missus” in a contempt
almost equalled by that which he had for those who talk of pleasure in
connection with them. Milligen paid him no attention. “You’d like her,” he
said to Michael; “she’s the right sort. But that’s neither here nor there;
the thing is, what’s going to be done about me?” Michael, though he was a
little mystified by the question, gave it consideration; he always gave
matters brought to his notice grave, careful, and painstaking attention,
even when to most people they were manifestly absurd or quite beyond his
scope. It is true, when he found them so himself, which he did occasionally
when others would not, he sometimes dismissed them with a curtness
humiliating to those who presented them. At the present moment he
considered Milligen’s situation as if it had been his own, and as such
began mentally to devise schemes for dealing with it. The old man
interrupted before he had developed one far enough to speak of it. “It was
all right before Cooper died,” he said, “or, maybe, not so wrong. He was a
sharp lad, though groovy. He was my foreman—he’d been with me more’n twenty
years; you saw him when you came to my place—had a red beard and a slight
cast in one eye. He died this autumn: pneumonia, taken off all in a pop;
he’s a serious loss to me.” He sucked at his pipe sadly, and George sucked
in sympathy; appreciation of and regret for a foreman was a sentiment he
approved. But he did not expect Michael to appreciate it from the same
point of view; he never made the mistake of ranking him with himself nor
yet with old Milligen. By some deduction of his own he classed him among
the aristocrats (there are other aristocracies besides those of birth or
money), and he knew such did not look at things as he did. Also, his
experience was that they, whether patient or impatient according to nature
and circumstances, did not understand or appreciate long digressions. “Get
on, old cock,” he admonished his friend, “get it out.” “I’ll get it out my
own way,” Milligen replied shortly, then, turning to Michael, he continued
with increased sadness, “I’ve no son, and my sons-in-law are pudding heads.
I’m not going to put money into the pockets of any sons-in-law, not much!
Have them round my works—not me! Besides, they don’t know anything about
dyeing. But I want someone, that’s the point. I want a partner. Not a
partner in the ordinary sense of the word, one that puts a deal o’ money in
and wants a deal more out, and fools round and wants all his own
new-fangled way. But a youngish man with guts and gumption; one that’s
content to work the old ways, and at the same time keeps his eye open for
the new and puts in a thing here and a thing there, as means and
opportunity allow. That place is lookin’ up, the bit of work you did for me
has made a new man of it; we’re going to do something yet. But I’m not what
I was, and I’m goin’ to be less, and I can’t do it single-handed.” His
voice dropped over the last, and he turned to his glass for consolation.
George looked sideways at Michael; his face was not less surly than usual,
but his fierce eyes showed a little anxiety. He was not moved by pathos;
there was only one thing he cared for in the world, that was his invention;
an acute observer might have fancied now Michael was in some way connected
with it and its chance of success. “He’s thinking of taking it on,” he
could not refrain from saying, nodding towards Milligen as he did so; “my
invention, you know.” “I’m thinking of taking on dyeing in the sliver,”
Milligen corroborated. “That is, if we can come to an arrangement. You’ll
say it’s a funny thing for a man that’s got more’n he can manage as it is
to go out and get more, but there it is. I always had a fancy for breakin’
out that way; it goes as naturally with warp dyeing as bread with cheese.
The chance has come; you’ve helped to put me on my legs again; George
here’s got the dodge that’s wanted, I’m not goin’ to turn my back on it.
Blessed if I am, gout or no gout!” Michael agreed heartily, and
congratulated George on being near to making satisfactory terms for his
invention. “You know all about it?” Milligen asked. “What d’you think of
it? I’ll want you to give me a report by’n-by, if you will, two guinea job.
I’m not taking a pig in a poke.” Michael, a little embarrassed by the
presence of his first acquaintance, the inventor, replied that he would, of
course, be pleased to report, if it were agreeable to both. However, as he
soon saw, there was no need for him to feel any embarrassment, both were
quite comfortable about it. “You’d better hear what we’re thinkin’ of,” old
Milligen said; “you’d best hear the whole. I’m not buying this thing of
George; I’ve not got the money for that, I’m no syndicate—and it isn’t
royalties and all that. The notion is, he should work it with me, the
sliver dyeing to be worked in along with the warp dyeing, profits on the
whole to be shared, proportions not agreed upon yet, but they will be to
the satisfaction of all parties.” “I see,” Michael said, “Mr. Foregood will
be a sort of junior partner, the man you were looking for?” He privately
thought George was not the man he would himself have looked for in that
situation. Apart from his age, he had many disqualifications, not least
among them his obstinate and difficult temper, and the distrustful
temperament which made him very unfit to deal with either new ideas or his
fellow-men. Possibly old Milligen shared these sentiments. “No,” he said
bluntly, and somewhat as if the person mentioned had not been present,
“he’s not the man I’m lookin’ for. He’s the man that’s got the apparatus
for dyeing in the sliver, and a good enough apparatus too, if I know
anything about it. And he’s the man that’s goin’ to look after it, if I
branch out that way, as I’m thinkin’ of doin’, and if we can come to terms;
and he’s the man that’s goin’ to take a share of the profits by way of
payment. But he’s not the man I’m lookin’ for to work in under me, and make
something of the old place. You’re that.” “I!” Milligen nodded. “It isn’t
your line; I know that, nor yet your class either; but it’s my idea all the
same.” He turned to George for corroboration, and George assented gruffly.
“I’ve talked it over with George here,” he said, “up and down, for and
against, likelys and unlikelys; and that’s what it comes to, that’s the
notion. Take it or leave it, and no offence either way: an offer never hurt
anyone, whether it was up to their size or not, and a refusal hurts no one
either among friends.” “It’s awfully good of you,” Michael said. “I’m very
flattered you should think of me that way; I’m afraid, though, it is little
use. I doubt if I should be much good to you. I know nothing whatever about
dyeing; I am an engineer pure and simple; almost any man who had had a
technical education and a little factory experience would be as well
qualified for your purpose; better, if he had studied chemistry, or spent
six months at a dyer’s.” “Maybe,” Milligen said. “My experience, Mr.
Annarly, is that there’s two kinds of men in this world, the men that can
do things and the men that can’t—what things not particularly mattering,
it’s the can that matters. I rather think I know which is which of those
two kinds when I meet ’em.” Michael laughed. “You think I can?” he said.
“I’m much complimented, though I’m not so sure myself. And have you ever
thought of the drawbacks of the men who can? They have an abominable way of
working their own way and nobody else’s; they may mean to take orders and
properly fill a subordinate position in a subordinate way, but more than
half the time it doesn’t come off. They’re the devil to drive; and when
they’re doing the driving you find yourself getting to places you never
thought of. They are always going off their own way almost without knowing
it, and unless they have any amount of rope they don’t seem as if they
could do anything worth the having.” “Size too big,” George said gruffly;
“don’t fit the harness. We know that fast enough. The job’s not up to you,
the old man said that, didn’t he? We know it, but we thought——. Well, we
thought perhaps——” He stopped awkwardly; he had himself in his way been
through the odium of evil report and the downfall consequent upon falling
foul, justly or otherwise, of a large commercial body. Michael took the
words up for him. “You thought,” he suggested, “that I might not despise
such an offer? You are quite right, I never should have despised it——” He
turned to Milligen. “Very far from it, sir, I much appreciate it; whether I
am suitable or unsuitable, it is a compliment you have paid me. For that
reason, if for no other, I must ask if you really know my present
situation, when you make it. If you know what there is against me.” “I’ve
heard plenty,” Milligen said, “and”—putting his finger on the side of his
nose—“I believe what I do believe. I mayn’t have had what you call a
first-class education, Mr. Annarly, or be precisely a genius, still I’m not
a born fool. I’m not great on recommends and characters. When I think of
the recommends I’ve had, and given, and I wouldn’t have trusted the chaps,
half of ’em, with an old boot! I like my own judgment best. I don’t care if
you have done Galhardy’s—small blame to you, I dare say I’d have done it
myself, if I’d had the brain—you won’t do me, I know that. I like you,
that’s the truth; I did from the first. It did my heart good to see you
handle the engines, not to speak of anything else. Your spunk about that
power station—that was a spry bit of work—and all the rest. I know my
concern’s not your class, I said that before, and it’s true; and I’m not
your class either, nor’s George. But I’ve a notion we could work together,
and a notion there’s something in that work that’s not beneath you and your
brains. At all events, there it is. There’s the offer.” The offer required
very much more discussion, explanation, and stating than this. Milligen and
his friend were prepared to spend the whole evening over it. George had
told Miss Janet she need not sit up to turn the gas out when they had
finished, as they should be very late. The evening was young yet, and, with
the minuteness of those with time on their hands, they went into details
with Michael: details of the work, of George’s apparatus, of future
prospects and probabilities; questions of Michael’s possible position, of
the capital he could raise—which was not more than a hundred pounds, the
fruits of a year’s work and careful saving, and which, even if he felt
minded to invest in the little dyeing business, could hardly be expected to
purchase a junior partnership. In the end nothing definite was arrived at;
it was not to be expected there would be, unless it was a definite refusal.
“You think it over, Mr. Annarly,” old Milligen said at parting. “I’ll be in
town a day longer, and if you can’t make up your mind by then, why, there’s
always the post—though not so satisfactory. You think it over.” Michael
thanked him, and said he would, then took his leave. George glowered after
his departing figure. “Pity you couldn’t nail him to anything,” he said;
“he’ll go back and talk it over with the girl.” “What girl?” Milligen had a
considerable opinion of feminine intelligence, but no opinion of its being
exerted in the sphere of a man’s business. “His young lady, do you mean? Is
she a high-flyer?” “No,” George said, “and she’s not his young lady either;
she’s just Nan Barmister, where Josiah works, but he’ll talk to her.” He
did. Therein George’s instinct, sharpened by anxiety for the welfare of his
apparatus which he believed to be bound up in Michael’s decision, was not
at fault. But beyond that he could not go; he could not predict either what
Nan would say or how much or little Michael would be influenced by it. No
one seeing Nan at the time of the telling would have been able to forecast
either. She listened with attention to the account of the interview and
offer: sitting, elbows on the table, chin propped on hands, listening, and
saying almost nothing till Michael had finished. “Well,” he said when he
had done, “shall I take it, or shall I not?” She sat silent a minute, her
eyes cloudy with thought, then—“Yes,” she said slowly. “I think I would
take it.” “Do you mean that?” He had put his question half jestingly. In
spite of what he had said, it is doubtful how far he himself seriously
regarded the offer yet. That she should do so, and come to an early, but
evidently considered, decision in favour of it astonished him. “Why do you
say that?” he asked. “What’s your reason?” “I hardly know,” she answered
thoughtfully. “I have one, I suppose, though it won’t put itself into
words. It seems somehow as if the time had come to do something; it has
seemed so a little while, now this has come along. I have a feeling—though
it may be wrong, probably it is if you feel against it—that this may be the
thing to do.” He did not say he felt against it. He looked doubtful—not
sceptical—such reasons and influences had more weight for him than for many
lesser brains; he never scouted them. “It isn’t a great thing, this offer,”
he warned her; “boiled down it amounts to little more than foreman in a
small dyeing works in a small Midland town among small people.” “I know,”
she agreed: “it doesn’t sound much, it isn’t either; but I’m not sure that
matters—are you?” “I suppose not,” he said. “No, I don’t think I care much
what the kind of life is really, but the kind of work there wouldn’t be
much either. There would be to see George Foregood’s invention put on a
working basis, and to superintend the warp dyeing, no more than that.” “I
know,” she said again; “still, I almost think it is worth while.” “I
wonder?” he said. “After all, it is a definite place in the world, a
definite piece of work—not that which I was trained for and thought I was
cut out for; I may as well give up the last ghost of any thought of
that—still, something. A couple of old men, one pig-headed, the other
soured and cross-grained, a dilapidated collection of buildings, plant that
is a good deal scrap, no capital to speak of, and a job and process of
which I know little and care less. It doesn’t look much; yet, I own, in a
way, the place attracted me when I first went there. I dare say it sounds
silly—not to you, things don’t to you—but the ramshackle place and the
pottery, shrewd old man did attract me at the first. I had a sort of
feeling one might make something of it.” She nodded. “That is it,” she
said. “I think that’s what I feel.” Whereupon he naturally swung back to
the opposite view and protested that there could not really be anything
made of it. “A small living,” he said, “in a small way perhaps, and a
comfortable end for the old boy. Though, after all, I suppose, that is
something.—Do you know, I have half a mind to go into it!” For a little he
turned the matter, weighing its pros and cons, speaking them aloud, but
without seeking any answer or comment; really putting them to himself, not
her. In the end the balance was in favour. “—Though,” so he said, “it is
useless to have any delusion about it; there are no possibilities in the
concern.” “No,” she agreed, “not in the concern; that’s why smallness, or
largeness, or anything else does not really matter. The possibilities are
not in it, they are in you.” CHAPTER XVI Certain of the directors of
Galhardy’s were met in Sir Joseph Harte’s library. It was only an informal
assembly after dinner, but, as there were none but directors present, the
affairs of the firm were naturally the topic of conversation. The more so
since at this time there were affairs of some importance and anxiety to be
discussed. There was word abroad of an aerial torpedo perfected in Germany.
The news was well about now, most of the halfpenny papers had had leading
articles on it, and some of the smaller scientific journals had given
suggestions, if not statements, of its form, mechanism, and the filling of
the heads. By this time its existence was known to the man in the street
and to all the other people whom it did not concern. The directors of
Galhardy’s, whom it did concern, had naturally known of it some while ago;
by now they possessed considerably more knowledge, and possessed it with
some certainty. “It is similar, but by no means identical, with ours,”
Casterman, the scientific member of the board, said. “With Annarly’s?”
somebody inquired, and Casterman nodded. Theirs was Annarly’s; that is, it
was the one he had finally worked out for them and left, when he left, in a
state which admitted of no mistake in the production. At least so he had
thought; but as he had left more than a year, and as yet they had produced
no aerial torpedo, it would seem they had found it otherwise. One of the
directors suggested, rather sarcastically, that it was a pity they had not
been so rapid and successful in mastering the details of their own torpedo
as they had been in learning those of the German one which had forestalled
them. “I don’t see that is a point of importance now,” Sir James Shannon
said. “The important question, to my mind, is to decide how far Annarly is
concerned in this German one.” “How does it help us, if we do?” the
objector asked. “It won’t give us priority, nor any very great benefit that
I see, even if we can and do prosecute Annarly.” “Prosecution, I always
held, ought to have taken place before,” Shannon said. “Seeing what has now
occurred others will probably agree with me now.” He spoke with severity;
but it was no more than he felt, a man of rigorous code and unimpeachable
integrity, he had always held that honour, as well as justice, demanded the
pushing home of the charge against Michael Annarly. He believed him guilty
of a grave offence—the directors to this day were divided as to the gravity
and extent of the offence. Shannon believed the worst, and had always
considered that, in justice to the shareholders and the trust reposed in
the directors, the full legal penalties should have been exacted. Sir
Joseph Harte, who, perhaps better than any, knew the ins and outs of the
case, had inclined to a milder course; he spoke now with his usual suavity.
“We have no proof that Annarly is concerned in this German torpedo,” he
said; “indeed, everything goes to show the contrary. As you know, I have
had the most exhaustive inquiries made, and there is nothing whatever to
connect him with it, nothing of any sort against him. You have seen the
earlier reports of our agents; I have the final one here: it is the same,
they find no trace of suspicion against him in the matter.” He selected a
paper from those before him, and handed it to Shannon, who read it and
passed it on. It told what previous reports, read at board meetings and
discussed there or in private afterwards, had told—that the able detectives
employed had discovered nothing to connect Michael Annarly with the German
torpedo; nothing whatever of a suspicious nature about him or any of his
doings. It was a very full report, a full and minute record of Michael’s
doings, comings and goings since he left Galhardy’s; neither time, trouble,
nor expense had been spared, and more had been discovered about his daily
life, even the most trivial details of it, than he himself would have
believed possible. The record read humble enough: an uneventful, lower,
middle-class life, a harmless, monotonous existence at the furniture
warehouse in Soho, punctuated very occasionally by attendance at some
scientific society’s meeting, or, more occasionally still, by a rare
journey on some consulting work, or on business for the furniture man.
There were no friends, suspicious or otherwise, to chronicle; no social
engagements, unless one could so call periodic visits to Hurstbury. Even
during the short time spent on the Clyde, a time very closely inquired
into, there were none. Indeed, the single incident of any interest in the
time under investigation was the accident at the power station, and that
was so only as being characteristic of the man as Galhardy’s knew him, not
because there was anything suspicious in it. Annarly had chanced to be
there when the accident happened, and had dealt with the situation, that
was all. He had lately gone back again to the same district, but to work
with a small warp dyer, an even more unimportant person than himself, in no
way connected with big ventures, not even an engineer at all. If ever a man
had dropped out, Michael Annarly, by the showing of really able detectives,
was that one. Everything about him was merely negative: he had no friends,
no letters to speak of, no communication with the outside world except one
or two purely business or family ones, and those such as could be fully
investigated, and were demonstrated perfectly harmless and commonplace. He
would even seem to have no intimates among his own people, unless a cousin,
Nan Barmister, listed among the inmates of the Soho house, could be
regarded as such. “Who and what is she?” someone queried, perhaps with a
hazy recollection of _cherchez la femme_. “Nothing,” Sir Joseph answered,
“that has been looked into. I have a report here, but it is hardly worth
your reading; she is entirely unimportant; she need not be considered in
the matter.” He was a wise man, a very wise, some said a very wily; he had
lived a long time and seen a great deal, and he fully realised the part
women play in the affairs of men, even sometimes those that do not touch
them. But he made the mistake of overlooking—as may be safely overlooked
nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of every thousand—the insignificant
woman. The women men love or sin for, whom they hate or serve or worship,
who are beautiful or brilliant or clever or detestable—something at least
that for a moment impresses, are reckoned with by an old and able man, even
when he feels none of the glamour himself. But the insignificant and plain
woman, the mere mouse who slips by, filling her allotted place, doing her
allotted work, noticed by no one, hardly seen and never remembered—even the
wisest man reckons her of no account and may usually safely so reckon. If
Sir Joseph made a mistake in his reckoning now one cannot blame him, this
woman’s importance was so indirect, so difficult to realise or appreciate,
that it was impossible to guard against, impossible for him to be really
aware of even in the end. This evening her name was dismissed without
further comment, the report of her uneventful life, so far as it had been
learned by the detectives, hardly glanced at by the men who turned again to
that of Michael. “Doesn’t sound like Annarly,” someone remarked. “That’s
precisely what it does to me,” Casterman said. “He’s so damned clever.”
“You don’t believe it?” “I believe it so far as it goes. I also believe
that no one will go any farther. But as for there being no farther to go,
that hardly strikes me as likely.” This opinion was held by some others;
they could not reconcile the report with the man they had known, nor accept
it as a complete account of his present life. They had no real idea of his
unimportance apart from his great mental ability, no idea of the wreck,
almost annihilation, they had themselves produced for him. Realising his
ability, surmising his resentment, they suspected him of being a dangerous
person, and they found it hard to believe that this record of an entirely
unimportant humble life was the full, true, and whole account of his
doings. As to whether or no he had a share in the German aerial torpedo was
another matter; there was no proof of it, nothing suspicious even that
anyone could hear of, and there should have been something if he had played
any part. Also, of course, they were not quite sure of the construction and
constitution of the torpedo and its resemblance to their own; information
on such matters, obtained the way theirs had to be, is not always reliable.
In the end they inclined to exonerate Annarly from suspicion; it seemed
really impossible, whatever his inclinations, that he should have been able
to enter into any negotiations unknown to them or their agents. Convinced
of this they dropped the subject and fell to discussing one more important
at the present time, the coming trial of their own torpedo. This, the first
great trial, was timed to take place within a few days. After months of
patient work, wading through papers, going over notes and diagrams, and
reconstructing experiments, they had, they believed, mastered the details
of the design left them. The original intention had been to produce the
perfected torpedo in the spring, but the unexpected appearance of the
German one altered their plans. The German torpedo was a considerable blow
to them; priority was a thing they had aimed at, and, in spite of this
year’s delay, expected to have. To be forestalled by a few months was
extremely bitter. But so it was, and nothing could alter it; there was
nothing for them to do but push on the work with all speed and produce
their torpedo as little after the rival nation as might be. With such
success had this been done that the first trial of the finished and
perfected thing was arranged to take place on the following Wednesday
morning. And on its successful issue much depended, not only money, but
reputation too, and, incidentally, though this was a small thing beside
such important issues, justification of the summary dismissal of Michael
Annarly. * * * * * Late on Wednesday afternoon some of the directors met in
Sir Joseph’s private room at the foundries. One or two showed traces of
some disorder, Casterman’s hair was badly singed, and the smell of smoke
clung about several of them although visible traces had been washed away.
The faces of all were very grave. Brett, sitting inconspicuously at a desk
in the corner, looked pinched and white: he was not a man who could
identify himself with large interests in which he was not concerned; he was
not personally concerned in the events of that day, but he was subdued and
shocked; he had been rather badly frightened, for a minute or two at least
he had been too close to sudden death, in an ugly noisy form, to quickly
recover from it. The long-promised aerial torpedo had failed, and failed
signally. It, after behaving on the whole satisfactorily in preliminary and
flight trials, had, on this first great and complete test, failed signally.
And in doing so, had blown half a dozen men to unrecognisable fragments and
caused destruction unparalleled in the history of torpedoes. It is one
thing to make trial of new torpedoes in the water, where the dangerous
consequences of failure and accident are to a large extent nullified by the
medium in which they are made. It is quite another to hold trials in the
air: a lack of control, a fault in the sighting, a miscalculation in the
curve of projection, or a determination on the part of the projectile to
take the earth at once and drop vertically regardless of where, is liable
to be attended with great disaster. The Galhardy torpedo had thus
disastrously failed. The reason why had already been discussed plentifully;
all the experts in the works had talked of it, and were talking of it, all
the workmen too. The directors and important persons had touched on it as
they travelled back from the open country where the trial had been made.
The Home Office officials, no doubt, would discuss it, probably _ad
nauseam_, when they came to hold an inquiry—as, no doubt, they would since
one cannot kill six workmen with a new explosive and a new arm without
someone wanting to know how and why. Now, in Sir Joseph’s room, those
assembled were not discussing the reason of the failure, though the
knowledge that others did and would no doubt lent additional gravity to
their already grave looks. It was of the situation they spoke, and they
spoke freely. “It seems to me the time has come for us to face matters, and
own we have made a mistake.” It was John Duncan who spoke, the oldest of
the directors; a little frail old man, too old and frail and occupied to
take much part in their deliberations usually, but whose voice, rarely
heard, carried weight and stood for a spirit perhaps not otherwise present
among them. He had been silent a long time now, listening to what others
said with as much attention as Brett, and with a more open mind. Now, when
he spoke, the others turned to him. “—The mistake,” he said, “of trying to
make the torpedo without the man who designed it.” “We had all the
designs,” someone objected. “We never perfectly comprehended them,”
Casterman reminded them. “I think that is generally, if not publicly,
recognised now.” Duncan did not know that, but it did not alter his
contention. “I am not sure that it would have made a great difference if we
had,” he said. “We had all the particulars of his steel process, I
understood; but the steel turned out since he left has not been the same.
No doubt Mr. Brett did his best”—Brett moved uneasily here—“and interpreted
the work to the best of his ability, but the steel is not quite the earlier
steel. The torpedo is a very much greater matter still. I do not suggest
that Mr. Annarly took the secret with him, I am sure he did not; if you
will permit me an expression which may sound superstitious, I would say
rather he took the spirit.” No one contradicted. One cannot contradict a
man of such age and standing, even if he says strange things. “You surely
don’t think it a mistake to have dismissed Annarly?” Sir James Shannon
objected. “I never had all the evidence before me,” the other answered. “I
was, unfortunately, ill at the time, and for long after, so ill that I fear
I did not trouble much with the affairs of this world. My good friend
here”—he looked towards Sir Joseph—“has since said he would let me have the
papers, if I cared to go into them; but somehow or other it has not
occurred. We are old, and we are busy, and I fear we—at least, I—hardly
give the attention I ought to things. I feel I have been remiss in the
matter, and it is rather late now.” Sir Joseph assured him he had not been
remiss; it was the last accusation anyone would think of bringing against
him. The question of Annarly and his dismissal was a trifle with which they
had no business to allow him to be troubled; the directors, who had
thoroughly gone into the matter at the time, were satisfied that they had
followed the mildest possible—in fact, the only—course: he must not blame
himself about it. Sir Joseph spoke in his usual pleasant way, touched with
an even greater courtesy; John Duncan’s personality inspired courtesy, and
his position a desire with most men to stand well with him. He acquiesced
now to the decision more than a year old. “No doubt, no doubt,” he said;
“you would have decided justly, in the only possible way. The mistake, I
think, we have made is in trying to keep the man’s torpedo when we had been
obliged to send him away. Surely we should have done better, instead of
taking up his design and trying to make it our own, to have gone further
back in our work? Oh, technically his is ours, I know it, I don’t deny
it—but the spirit of the thing? At least, it has turned out a failure.” The
directors could not go with him here; they submitted to the words out of
deference to his age, but as men of the world and men of business they
could not agree. A little later, however, Casterman made a suggestion
equally, if not more, startling. “It occurred to me some time ago,” he
said, “that we might do worse than have Annarly back.” “Annarly back!”
There was a general exclamation. Brett, at the desk, looked up quickly and
observed, or thought he did, that Sir Joseph looked down. “Yes,” Casterman
said, “he’s out and away the best man we ever had, the best man in England
I, personally, should say. We want him, and we want him pretty badly, there
can be no two opinions about that; and considering what has gone before, we
ought to be able to get him on fairly satisfactory terms.” “No terms would
be satisfactory,” Sir James Shannon pronounced. “I, for one, would never
give my consent to such a thing.” Sir Joseph’s opinion wavered, but rather
tended the same way. He expressed himself far more mildly, almost
deprecatingly; he allowed now, as earlier, many extenuating circumstances
to the transgressor, but he could not honestly recommend his reinstating.
But Casterman stood his ground. “Let’s state the case,” he said, “briefly
as you like, but without varnish; we can, we are unofficial. In plain
terms, what did Annarly do? Opened negotiations with sundry people for the
sale of sundry processes which he had worked out for us, and for which we
had no use. Well, of course, it was wrong, illegal, if you like. But,
observe, no absolute harm was done. He had not divulged anything or
received any money when caught; he had not actively opened negotiations
himself, merely replied to those who approached him, unwisely replied, if
you like, but not feloniously. The offence, when we got wind of it, though
serious, can hardly be regarded as having arrived at the heinous stage,
more especially in his peculiar circumstances. You will remember, you no
doubt do remember, the fight he made to induce us to concede the right of
disposing of these processes. By Jove, what a fighter he was! His
persistence was astounding!—He was difficult to work with, but what work!
Still, that’s neither here nor there now; what I’m getting at is the
question of his excuse—if there was one. His defence, you remember—he never
made it in person to the full board, we never had him before us, I don’t
now remember why. But you all know his defence was that he understood we
had conceded the right; and, though he was aware he had a little
forestalled official permission, he believed he had done nothing worse, and
not transgressed our intention. It was a mistake which might have occurred,
seeing how we argued over the subject; I think there were several of us who
did not know what was or was not agreed to in the end.” “Annarly knew; he
had Sir Joseph’s letter cancelling any former concession,” Shannon said. “I
know,” Casterman agreed. “The real case against him largely turned on that
letter, the second one, in which Sir Joseph corrected the first; wherein,
by a regrettable but quite understandable mistake, permission had actually
been given. That second letter, you remember, Annarly always swore he had
not received.” “I wish it were possible to trace that letter,” John Duncan
said. “I know comparatively little of the case, I am afraid, but the point
of the letter always troubled me. I have always felt I should much like to
be able to trace that missing letter.” Sir Joseph sympathised with the
wish; it was his own, he said so now, though he feared there was little
chance of its ever being fulfilled. Casterman agreed. “I am afraid we shall
never know more than that you dictated it, and that Brett wrote and posted
it. There is nothing to show that Annarly did or did not receive it.
But”—he turned to them generally—“even supposing he did receive it, and
suppressed it, and acted in defiance of it. Well, it was wrong, of course,
unscrupulous, dishonest, what you will; but—hang it all! Let’s look at the
thing squarely—there was temptation, and to spare! He was young, poor,
ambitious; he was dead set on that concession, he believed he had a moral
right to it—that weighed with him, mind; he had some weird ideas, one must
not forget that. He also thought he had won his point—most of us had at one
time agreed to it, and he had had it confirmed once. To get a letter
cancelling it at the last minute might well make him furious and
determined, being a young fool, to have it in spite of us.” “It is quite
easy to understand how it happened,” Sir Joseph said; “I have always felt
sorry for Annarly, he was in a position to which he was not really suited,
somewhat beyond his strength. The temptations were too great for one of his
experience.” “He has had some more experience since then,” Casterman urged;
“he’ll have learnt a thing or two by now. It would be safe enough to have
him back, I believe, even if the worst alleged against him were true—and we
have no conclusive proof that it is. Why not give him another chance? It
would pay us; we want him badly enough.” The suggestion thus seriously made
was surprising to most of them; but, unexpected though it was, it was
discussed for a while. The position was something too grave for the
directors to be able to afford to dismiss, without consideration, anything
which might help to improve it. The torpedo accident that day had brought
home to them, as nothing else could, the loss Galhardy’s had sustained when
Michael Annarly was dismissed; they did not fail to realise that his return
might be of great value now. So, in spite of the unexpected nature of
Casterman’s suggestion and its distastefulness to some of them, they
discussed it for a considerable time. But in the end they decided against
it; more were opposed to it than approved it, and they were a section which
could not be won over. Shannon never swerved from his strong objection;
even the influence of Duncan, who was in favour of it, did not alter him.
He maintained that they had proved Annarly to be a man capable of great
unscrupulousness when driven into a corner; he himself held him one not to
be trusted, in any sense of the word. It was not fair, he said, to
themselves, to other employees, even to the man himself, to reinstate him
unless he could be fully cleared—as he never could be. There were others
who held this opinion, though less strongly; and others who thought with
Casterman that the uncleared, but unproved, charge against him did not
matter, or at least that they would be well advised to risk the
consequences of his return. Sir Joseph swayed now one way now the other,
anxious to do what was benevolent to the man, but having the welfare of
Galhardy’s much at heart; that welfare, it finally seemed to him, would be
best served if the genius were not reinstated. “If he could be really
cleared,” he said reluctantly, as the others were going, “if only that were
possible.” “It’s impossible,” Casterman said; “if we wait for that we’ll
never have him.” “If only we could trace that letter,” John Duncan said;
“that letter troubles me, so much hangs on it.” “It does, it does,” Sir
Joseph agreed, and shook him by the hand. He went to the door with him, an
honour he paid no one else, inquiring for his health, and thanking him for
coming. Brett, by the desk, watched. Watched him close the door after the
last of the directors and come back towards his desk. “That letter seems to
trouble Mr. Duncan, sir,” he observed. “Yes,” Sir Joseph answered. “A fine
old man, a wonderful man still. Always a dreamer and an enthusiast.” Brett
looked down at the papers before him. “He does not seem satisfied with my
steel,” he said. “Nor”—he raised his eyes a second, and the look in them if
nervous was disagreeable—“nor am I.” “Nor are you?” Sir Joseph repeated
pleasantly. “I am sorry to hear that. What’s the matter? But perhaps you
had better reserve it for another time; it is already late; we have a good
deal to get through.” Brett did not begin work. “I understood that I was to
have commission on that steel,” he said, with another flicker of the
eyelids. “Did you?” Sir Joseph spoke affably, but absently. “Yes—and I have
received none yet.” “Dear me. How remiss; the matter must be looked to—if
you really were to receive it. I have no clear remembrance of any such
arrangement; no doubt the other directors will recollect the board meeting
at which it was discussed.” “It was not discussed at a board meeting; the
arrangement was privately made between you and me only; but other people
know about it, some people not on the board.” “That is indiscreet,” Sir
Joseph reproved. “I am surprised that you should have talked of affairs of
the firm outside. I always thought your discretion could be relied on.” “I
know you did,” Brett retorted with spite, though afterwards he coloured
nervously. “I mean—I believe I am usually discreet. I do not consider I
have been indiscreet now. I have said nothing that matters, only mentioned
to Carson and a few friends like him that I had worked up Annarly’s steel
and was to receive commission on it.” “Ah, I see.” Sir Joseph still spoke
pleasantly, but there was a look in his eyes which Brett, who knew better
than most what his suave manner was worth, understood. “Do you know,” he
said, and Brett was not surprised to hear him say it, “I have no
recollection at all of any such arrangement being definitely made? And I
hardly think my directors would quite approve it. You heard some of them
to-day express an opinion that you had not improved on Annarly’s work. I
doubt if they would think you were entitled to the considerable sum which
we may hope the commission should amount to.” “Oh?” Brett said. He drove
his pencil into the paper before him rather unsteadily, but he kept to his
point; the eyes, which he was afraid to raise, were very venomous in
expression now. “I half thought you might have forgotten, sir,” he said,
“although, I think, if you look you will find it has been put on record.
What made me think you might not recollect, is that I don’t recollect your
dictating that letter to Annarly, that second letter.” He raised his eyes
now, and met the other’s fully. For an almost imperceptible fraction of
time they looked at one another, then: “That’s unfortunate, though hardly
important,” Sir Joseph said, “since, at the time the matter came up for
discussion, you gave me and others the hour at which you both wrote and
posted the letter.” “I know I did,” Brett answered; “if I remember rightly,
you yourself suggested—I mean ‘reminded’ me of the exact hour.” “Did I? It
is unlike you to need reminding of such things; usually your memory is
good.” “Yours, if I may say so, sir, is not.” Sir Joseph ignored the words;
he may not have heard them, they were not very audible; he dismissed the
subject curtly, as done with, saying there was nothing to be gained by
discussing it further, and that work must be attended to now. Brett took up
his pen; his hands were twitching a little; he realised that he had done a
dangerous thing and that he might be thankful to have come off as well as
he had. But he was not thankful, he was bitterly angry and humiliated too.
It had been a great effort to him, and the result had been far other than
he had anticipated; he would not give in without another struggle, he would
not be treated thus contemptuously, as not worth answering; he was
dangerous, and Sir Joseph should at least know it. “There are two things of
which I should like to remind you, sir,” he said; “one is that on the
afternoon you dictated the first letter to Annarly, you saw Mrs.
Carr-Harris and also dictated a long report; the one before Annarly’s
letter, the other after, and at neither time was there any symptom of pain
or uncertainty as to your words—such as is alleged to have given rise to
the mistake in that letter to Annarly. Indeed, I never remember to have
heard you speak more clearly and definitely than when you instructed me to
write and confirm the consent you had verbally given him.” “Is that so?
Then I can only recommend you to be careful to whom you mention it, as it
is not to your credit; in the face of exceptional clearness, such a mistake
as you made in an important letter is very remiss.” “Mistake!” “Certainly.
Your next point? You said there were two things of which you wished to
remind me; please to be quick. I am willing to bear with you so far as
possible, but my patience is becoming exhausted.” Brett swallowed; for the
moment he found it a little hard to speak. Sir Joseph’s methods were
something of a revelation to him, and although he had worked with him some
years and knew him pretty well, they were a shock too. To his sense of
rectitude as well as other things; some men’s sense of rectitude can be
shocked by such revelations when they affect themselves, even though they
do not realise them when they affect others. “The other point,” he said,
feeling it of small avail, “was the coming of Sir James Shannon. He came
one evening after that first letter was written, and told you what
representatives of those French people had said casually to him and others
about their firm being very interested in Annarly, and expecting to get
something good from him. He had taken fright at it, and came to you to put
a stop to the whole business. There was no talk of the second letter until
after that. I don’t know if you told Sir James you had already refused your
consent to Annarly, you did not tell me until after he had gone.” “Did I
not?” Sir Joseph’s voice was quiet, but ominous. “I should like you to be
quite sure on that point, for, so you said at the time of the inquiry, the
second letter had already been dictated and posted then. Either you were
not speaking the truth then, or you are not now.” Brett flushed faintly,
and shifted under the other’s eyes, “Supposing I made a mistake then?” he
muttered. “Supposing I remembered now that I had been wrong about that
date, and felt it my duty to—to tell people?” “Ah? Supposing you did, if
you felt it your duty. By the way, whom should you think suitable to tell?”
“There’s Annarly.” “Annarly? Yes, just so. Have you his address? I believe
he is foreman in some small works in the Midlands. Curious how he has sunk;
I suppose back to his original level. Of course, your communication might
interest him, though I should hardly imagine so; he would not regard it as
important. I do not regard him as important either——” “Not where he is,
possibly,” Brett suggested, “but perhaps elsewhere?” “Perhaps,” Sir Joseph
agreed, “though I hardly think so. I can hardly imagine him a person of any
importance anywhere again.” And Brett felt it to be true; this suave,
cool-headed old man would take care the man he had been driven by
circumstances to wrong should never achieve to a position dangerous to
himself. It was useless to think of Annarly as of value; useless really to
think of anyone, he knew it, and knew now that he himself was valueless,
merely a cat’s-paw; still, he made one last effort. “Mr. Duncan was always
troubled about that second letter,” he said; “he might think it important
that I had made a mistake about the date, about having written it at all.”
“No doubt,” Sir Joseph answered. “I think it rather important myself, or at
least regrettable, very regrettable, indeed; temporary loss of memory in a
man of your age is to be regretted. I suppose we must ascribe it to that?
There is no other explanation, unless it is that I made a mistake, and”—he
put a wrinkled finger on the other’s arm—“I never make mistakes.
Understand, I never make mistakes.” He had made no mistake in Brett. There
was really no need for him to say, as he did when they parted that evening,
“There are two essential qualities in a secretary, the one is memory, and
the other discretion. In both you have shown yourself lamentably deficient
to-day; don’t let it occur again. I believe it is the first time; it must
be the last, else”—he glanced with meaning towards the door—“there is no
alternative.” CHAPTER XVII On the last Saturday in March Nan went to see
Mr. Cordover. He had not himself been to the City that day, but sent the
car for her in good time in the morning with the promise that she should be
back by dark. As her father often worked all Saturday afternoons and did
not really want her until the evening, she thought she might as well go.
Accordingly she went, and much enjoyed the drive out through the bare
country; and, as usual, very much enjoyed her visit when she got there. She
was a welcome and familiar guest by now in Mr. Cordover’s house; the little
lame old lady, the old setter, the one-eyed cat, and all the other inmates
of the house looked upon her as a friend, and one they were pleased to see.
They seemed to regard her as something young and bright, a sort of glimmer
of gentle sunshine, and in their company she developed something of the
quality, and for that reason, or perhaps by contrast with them, seemed
younger here than anywhere else. Mr. Cordover himself was her chief friend,
they were on excellent terms; she made fun of him sometimes and
contradicted him sometimes, and though he retorted on her gruffly, he
really liked it. He made a point of grumbling to her about everything,
largely, one suspected, for the satisfaction of having her disagree. He
grumbled to her that Saturday as he hunted about for dead flowers in the
spotlessly kept conservatory. The cause of complaint was the negligence of
gardeners, and, as it was obviously and entirely without foundation, Nan
sympathised gravely and then concluded by saying: “They ought to leave you
something to do, it’s too bad of them; I would if I were your gardener, I’d
leave a lot of dead flowers for you to cut off.” “You’d get the sack, if
you did,” he told her. She laughed, she knew better. “You don’t believe
anything I say,” he complained, “but it’s true all the same; I’d give you
notice to quit fast enough. Talking of that, has your father been able to
fix up anything about his notice to quit?” He had not; Nan said so with a
clouded face, for the subject was one much on her mind just now. More still
on her father’s, for he was attached to the two houses in Soho with an
attachment that is rare; and it had been decided by the County Council, or
the Local Government Board, or some other body concerned with the
improvement of London, that they must come down. They were safe and they
were sanitary, but, either to widen the street, or to bring it into
uniformity with others, or to make way for some improvement, they were
condemned. It was useless to appeal or protest, he had done that to the
last limit; but it was of no avail. He might be compensated; he might, very
likely would, have new and more commodious warehouses rebuilt on the spot;
but the old houses where he had lived and worked so long must go, and he
felt it with an acuteness few besides Nan could realise. One would have
expected Mr. Cordover to have regarded the attitude as ridiculous; with his
reforming principles he was likely to have held that a new warehouse was
infinitely preferable to an eighteenth-century house built for another
purpose. Very likely he did think so; but then he also held that for any
council, board, or body to compel a man to vacate or pull down a house at
their orders was tyranny and bureaucracy in its worst form. This opinion
modified the other, and, probably assisted by personal bias, made him as
warm a sympathiser as Nan could wish. He sympathised afresh this day,
abusing the authorities whole-heartedly; finally telling Nan that, if
nothing could be done, and tyranny had its way, she had better make her
father come and live somewhere in this neighbourhood, where he would
guarantee there should be no nonsense with councils or anybody else. “Your
house is not let,” he said; “you had better make him take that.” They had
come to call the long house embowered in trees Nan’s. It was still empty,
as it had been on the day of her first visit when she had seen and admired
it. She had often looked at the outside, and once at the in. “The garden’s
gone to rack and ruin,” Mr. Cordover said, “and the trees shut out every
bit of daylight now; still, a couple of men with axes and scythes could do
something towards putting that to rights.” “Or wrong—” Nan said. “We’re not
going to cut down the trees about my house. Though,” she added, “I don’t
know that we need arrange that, as it’s never likely to be mine; I am sure
father could not afford such a big house, not nearly so big, I should
think. Besides, he would not be happy so far from his work.” “Bosh!” Mr.
Cordover said. “A man’s better away from his work.” “Not all men,” Nan
said; “he wouldn’t be. He always wanted to live and die with it; he thought
he would too—in that house.” “We most of us don’t do what we think we
will—and all the better for us.” “It wouldn’t be the better for him,” Nan
persisted; “his plans have nearly always been fulfilled, I think.” “Then
he’s luckier than most—or more moderate in what he sets out to get. Other
folks aren’t so successful. Look at the Annarlys, for instance—do their
plans ever come off?” “Some,” said Nan; “at least, I should think so.”
“H’m, some!” Mr. Cordover said contemptuously. “Not half, nor a quarter!
And a good thing too! Fool plans and fool planning; and no work, no beef,
or sticking to it put into bringing them off either. Look at them. They
were going to make an engineer of Master Giles (might as well have set out
to make a ballet-dancer), and all they did was to think how useful his
step-brother would be. Then, before he had learnt the hind end of an engine
from the fore, they had changed all that and were going to make a
Rothschild of him. And all they did towards that was to remind me I was his
uncle; and before he had learnt to add two and two and on which side his
bread was buttered, that idea was done with. As for Michael, I don’t know
what he wasn’t going to do, according to their plans—set the Thames on
fire, and receive a baronetcy from a grateful country for having found out
a more effective—and expensive—way of annihilating other nations than
anyone before him—and what’s that all come to?” “You can’t blame them
because Michael has not done what they expected,” Nan protested. Mr.
Cordover could blame them for expecting the impossible. “And what’s more,”
he said, “I can blame them for being ashamed of him and what he’s doing
now.” “I don’t think they are ashamed,” Nan said; “they are bitterly
disappointed; they think him such a failure.” “Well, he’s earning an honest
living, anyway,” Mr. Cordover said, “and that’s something, even if he is a
foreman or works manager of one dye-vat, one man and a boy. He’s just as
much use to the community dyeing wool as inventing new arms, more—I
disapprove of all this rivalry of armaments.” Nan knew that, and did not
enter upon the political question; instead, she said, “I don’t think
Michael a failure myself.” Mr. Cordover turned on her at that. “Not a
failure? How do you make that out? Oh, I see, you still think he’s going to
pick up, make a name and secure general recognition, and all the rest of it
some day?” “I’m not at all sure,” she said. “I’m not sure, either, that it
really matters.” “What does then? If that doesn’t constitute success and
doesn’t matter, I should like to know what does.” “I don’t know,” she said
slowly, “I can’t exactly explain, but to me it seems the important thing is
the being able to do things, not the having it known that you have done
them.” “H’m.” Mr. Cordover was rather sceptical. “To me it seems reputation
is a somewhat important thing likewise. Pray, do you think it unimportant
whether or not that scandal about Michael at Galhardy’s is cleared up?” “I
used to want that it should be,” Nan admitted, “but I think more from a
sense of its injustice than anything else. I don’t much fancy it ever will
be, anyhow, not for a long time, and if it ever is, I doubt if it will make
much difference; after a time things don’t, do they? One has got used to
them, or found out how to do without them, or bear them, as the case may
be. Do you know, I don’t believe it is a thing itself, however evil, that
really matters, it’s the way one takes it; if one has found out that and
found out how to stand the strain of it, it does not really much matter if,
after a long while, it is taken away. It makes very little difference; one
hardly notices, for one could keep on standing it for ever.” “Oh?” Mr.
Cordover said. “That’s your opinion, is it? Well, it’s mine that a man’s
reputation counts a good deal, and his loss of his good name makes a
considerable difference.” “In his work, yes,” Nan admitted—“until a new
name is made; after that one would not mind about the old; in other things
I’m not sure that one would mind at all.” “You’re a bit of a girl who knows
nothing of the world,” Mr. Cordover told her, “and a dreamer into the
bargain.” “Am I?” she said. “Then I believe Michael’s a dreamer too.”
“Stuff!” Mr. Cordover retorted. “He’s got brains, and he had a career, and
he knows it, and knows it’s done for.” “I suppose it is, in a way,” she
said. “But somehow a career, that sort of career, doesn’t seem to be
everything. It always seems to me to be a bit like ornament, I mean
ornament as applied to cabinet work, furniture, the only thing I
understand. Sometimes you see a piece of furniture in which the symmetry of
the design has been sacrificed to the ornament—a wonderful ornament,
exquisite, the work of an artist, but which has so possessed the man that
he has lost the true proportion of the whole in developing it. The really
great artist, having the whole design in mind, sacrifices beautiful parts
of the beautiful ornament, so as to bring the whole into perfect
proportion.” “H’m,” Mr. Cordover said. “We don’t get much perfection in
this world, I’m hanged if we do; and if we are to buy it at the price of
the sort of cropper your friend Michael came there won’t be a rush of
customers for it.” Nan laughed. “Oh, one is not a voluntary customer,” she
said, “one doesn’t choose such things, they are forced upon one; but
sometimes, after a while, one may begin to a little understand how they
work out, don’t you think?” “Depends who one is,” Mr. Cordover said. “I
suppose if one is Nan one does—or thinks so—and if one is Michael——” He
recalled the curious momentary resemblance he had seen between the two on
the day when he first met Nan—a resemblance of expression rather than
features, the look of persons who have some mutual experience or attitude
in common. He glanced sharply at her, the thought coming into his mind
which had crossed Robert Barmister’s some months earlier—Would she marry
Michael? And he disapproved it as Barmister had. “Too much alike,” was his
opinion, “and not enough wholesome flesh and blood in the business.” Aloud
he said, “Come along in and get a cup of tea before you start; you’ve none
too much time, if you want to get home by dark.” They went in, and soon
afterwards Nan left. Even then, and even by going at a considerable pace,
the car did not reach Soho before dusk. The streets were already lighted as
it came through, though the old houses in the cul-de-sac were not as yet.
Nan noticed the dark windows as she said good evening to the chauffeur;
Mrs. Bidden was probably out, she often was at that hour on a Saturday, and
Barmister was probably finishing some work by the lingering daylight in the
upper room where the light lasted longest. She fitted her key into the lock
and let herself in. The wide hall was dim, but she knew it so well, and
knew all the obstacles of old and recent importation, that that was no
trouble to her, even when she had shut the outer door, and so shut out what
light there was in the street. The house was very quiet; the steady but
indistinct noise of London was not close enough to be more than an
accompaniment, and one to which she was so used that it did not break the
sense of silence. She went up the broad, uncarpeted stairs, her footfall
hardly breaking the silence either. On the landing there was more light,
the grey twilight of March, lingering on some point of carving above the
door-frames and falling on some spot on the floor, where the dust lay thick
and undisturbed. She crossed the landing, and opened the door of the
living-room. There was no one there: orderliness, silence, and the curious
feeling of a just-departed presence, as of the vanishing skirts of the
ghost-people, that one surprises on quietly opening some old rooms at
twilight. “Father must be downstairs, after all,” she thought, “unless he
is out.” There was a feeling about the house as if it were empty; she
realised it now, and decided that her second thought must be the correct
one: her father must have gone out to see some friend. She took off her hat
and jacket, and went to get a light. She went by the little masked stair by
which she had first brought Michael, meaning to go to the kitchen for
matches. As she opened the door, she was struck afresh with the silence and
the feeling of the emptiness of the house—a feeling less unfriendly than
remote, and in no way concerned with things human. Instinctively she moved
more quietly and sought the most shadowed side of the stair, as if
unconsciously seeking to identify herself with it and lose herself in the
dusk which was in possession here. The staircase led straight into the
dolphin room. Here the light was dimmer than above, only the dolphins on
the mantelpiece started out starkly from an unseen background, and across a
stretch of boards that gleamed pale in the dusk the two desks loomed dark
and indistinct. For a moment she paused in the stair-doorway; then her
eyes, more used to the gloom, descried to her surprise a figure by one of
the desks. “Father!” she said in astonishment. He did not answer nor turn.
He was sitting in his desk-chair, a little bent forward, papers spread
before him. “Father——” she said again; and then no more, for suddenly she
knew. It was not that he did not answer, or that he sat so still, or that
the house was quiet with that all-pervading quiet emptiness of something
gone. It was all of these, and more than these. She knew it suddenly; she
knew before she crossed the room or touched him—he was dead. He had died
there alone in the quiet old house, swiftly, painlessly, from some sudden
heart attack—as he had always hoped to die, sitting at his desk in the
dolphin room, busy to the last with the work he loved. One breath, an
absorbed, active man with all his faculties; the next, gone elsewhere, with
no one by to tell the moment or make trouble at the passing. For a long
minute Nan stood looking at him, her comprehension of the end and its
perfection such that for the moment she had no other feeling. He had gone
as he would have chosen, from where he would have chosen, and no one had
seen him go. He had laid down his pen, and the twilight had fallen—the
long, grey, twilight of spring. * * * * * Mrs. Bidden had been out that
evening. There was no reason why she should not; she felt no guiltiness
about it, nor any need to excuse herself when she met Nan on the doorstep.
Nan had a telegram-form in her hand. “Will you take this to the post office
for me?” she said. She spoke so quietly that the old servant felt no alarm;
it was only when at the post office a young clerk required her to read the
message that she began to be uneasy. The telegram was to Josiah requesting
him to come at once, and was signed by Nan, not by her father—as it would
have been in the unusual contingency of Mr. Foregood being wanted for
business reasons on a Saturday evening. Mrs. Bidden puzzled over the fact
uneasily as she hurried back again. “Is anything the matter?” she asked,
before she was fairly in the house. “Yes,” Nan said. “Come in, and shut the
door.” After that the quietness, the solitary dignity was broken; other
things crowded in, other feelings rose up, other realisations. No human
incident or emotion is single celled; no matter how great or complete or
overwhelming it is after the first the components of it, or the components
which go to make complex humanity, will begin to separate out and give rise
to separate things. In the silent, shadowy house there was now the sound of
grief and surprise; the loud weeping of an old and faithful servant for a
lost master and for a left mistress. One grieved for death, Nan remembered,
one was left alone by him who had thus gone without farewell. Soon a doctor
came, fetched in nervous haste; some conventional thing, a child of
civilisation, required feverishly to be told, in spite of unerring instinct
handed down through the ages, that life was really extinct. Then the dead
man was moved from his favourite place in his favourite room. The dead lie
upstairs on beds. How heavy they are. What a good thing the old stairs were
so shallow and wide, since it was necessary to move him! There were other
necessities: lighting candles and dissipating the company of shadows,
putting away the papers on the desk—they might be private, or important;
they would certainly be blown away in the cross-draughts from the open
doors. Josiah came as soon as it was possible to do so, and with him Miss
Janet. “I’m coming,” she announced, when she read the telegram; “there is
something the matter, I know it. If there isn’t, I can go back.” So she
came, and immediately and at once took the situation under her charge. From
the moment that she was admitted by Mrs. Bidden, swollen-faced and
tear-stained, she assumed command, to the advantage of everyone, and to the
relief of the doctor. Not that she had it all her own way; for instance,
she decided that Nan had better come back with her to Bayswater, and Josiah
remain here for the night. But Nan decided otherwise, and carried her
point; Miss Janet had not directed as long as she had without learning when
she must give way. “Very well, dear,” she said, “just as you like; I’ll
stay with you here. Josiah can do for himself to-morrow morning. It’ll do
him good.” Nan said she hoped Miss Janet would not stay, if it was
inconvenient, adding an assurance that she did not mind being alone. Miss
Foregood put that aside emphatically. “It will do him good to get his own
breakfast,” she said. “No, Josiah”—this to her brother, who had a vague
feeling that he was the more suitable person to stay with his old master
and Nan—“you must go back; the cat’s shut in the house, and the kitchen
fire’s not raked out. You go back, there’s nothing more for you to do here
now; you can come in good time to-morrow morning.” She followed him to the
door and gave him directions in a lower voice about sundry articles to be
brought for herself. “My black alpaca,” was the end of the list; “the
second peg from the window in the cupboard in my room. Don’t fold it worse
than you can help. I don’t know why I came away in this blue gown; but
there, we didn’t stop for anything.” Josiah made an entry of the alpaca in
his notebook, and then went away, still half feeling that he should have
been the one to stay. The old master dead upstairs, the old house with the
long rooms and the stored treasures that the dead man had loved, and little
Nan, still little Nan to him—he would like to have stayed with them. But
Janet decreed otherwise and Janet knew; no doubt Nan was better with one of
her own sex, and Janet was a capable, comfortable person, who could do
things, who always did do them. So he went away, and Nan and Miss Foregood
spent the rest of the evening together, the latter in writing several
letters. Nan had not thought of them; she had few thoughts of the outside
world. But Miss Janet, with a perception of the proper thing, proceeded to
write to Mr. Annarly and to some little-known relations on the Barmister
side. Nan did not see that they were more concerned with her father dead
than they had been with him living, but to notify them of the event seemed
customary, at least Miss Janet said so, and it was done. “What about
Michael?” she asked suddenly. “Have you telegraphed to him?” “No,” Nan
answered, then said, “I’ll write; I think it would be better. I can
explain, and tell him to come, if he can and when it is convenient.” Miss
Janet did not quite approve, not yet did she quite understand the point of
view; convenience was scarcely a thing to be considered on an occasion of
this sort. Still, she did not say so, and Nan wrote her letter, which was
posted with the others. Soon afterwards she went to bed faintly surprised
to find that by the clock it was still early, although the afternoon seemed
so incredibly long ago. Early the next morning, Josiah came again, bringing
the alpaca, very badly folded. He stayed all day. It was a curiously long
day though, unlike the last, long in passing rather than in retrospect. Out
of doors it was fine, a bright pale sunlight, which cast sharp shadows and
was hot by contrast with the cutting wind which lurked at corners. The sun
came but shadedly to the darkened house, and the noises of the district
came but indistinctly too, never drawing very near. Few people on Sunday
entered even the beginning of the street which led nowhere, unless they
wanted to settle an argument or keep an assignation, and then they soon
went away again. It was not exactly an unhappy day, though strange. The
Foregoods talked a good deal of the past early struggling times, the
long-dead young mother, the business of then and of to-day. Nan listened,
and asked them questions now and then, feeling, as they talked, her father
curiously close, and yet at the same time curiously removed. Towards
evening a restlessness came upon her. The bells of a neighbouring church
beginning to ring for evening service suggested to her to go to church.
Miss Janet did not at first quite approve in her heart, though she raised
no audible objection; afterwards she thought better of it, and took herself
to task. “After all,” as she said to Josiah, “why not go to church, if she
wants to? Why stick fast within doors because custom says you should—in a
neighbourhood where you are totally unknown—or any other neighbourhood
either?” So Nan went to church, and went alone since she wished it. Not to
the one the bells of which she had heard, but to one further in the City to
which she had before been with Michael. A church with a very small
congregation, and light so obscured by stained glass and encircling
buildings that nothing within was plain: carving and gilding and stonework
all indistinct as the purpose and meaning of life—though perhaps not less
beautiful for that. Monday was another long day. Josiah again arrived early
and stayed late. Other people came during the day: Mr. Annarly came to
offer condolences and his services, if they were required. He brought kind
messages from the family and a little note from Mrs. Annarly asking if
there was anything they could do. He delivered these to Nan, and then was
at a loss as to what to say to her. He was very solemn and a little
awkward, anxious to say the right thing in the sad circumstances of
bereavement, but rather embarrassed as to what it was. He made the same
inquiries two or three times over, and found his chief relief in talking
across Nan of her and her loss to Miss Foregood, in a voice lowered, as if
in the presence of serious illness. He did not stay long, and his going was
almost as much relief to Nan as it was to him. No one else inquired for her
during the day; the Barmister relations did not live in London, so they did
not come; one or two trade friends did and the dead man’s lawyer. They saw
Josiah and merely asked after her, if they knew her. She spent a quiet time
indoors. Miss Janet was there all day, except when she went out to buy
mourning; she was a good and economical buyer, and the purchases she made
were not extensive. She carried some of them back with her, and she and Nan
spent a long, undisturbed time altering the ready-made clothes to fit more
or less. Towards twilight Nan wearied of the work; she did not say so,
however, but kept on quietly stitching as regularly as ever. After a time
Miss Janet sent her to her room to fetch an old skirt. She went at once and
meant to come back at once. She found the skirt in the cupboard where it
hung, and, unhooking it, threw it over her arm. But as she turned to fasten
the door her eye fell on her tulip-wood secretaire—her father’s first
birthday present to her, the beginning of that unspoken, undemonstrative,
yet curiously close understanding there had been between them. She and her
father together through so many years in the old house, in the dim rooms
among the dusty treasures, in quiet companionship. And he was gone, and she
was alone! For a moment she stood quite still, the skirt slipping unheeded
from her arm; then she turned and fled. She ran up the dusty stairs to the
long warehouse-room where her father had surprised her before the
secretaire long ago. There she crouched down among the cabinets and chairs,
and, pressing her head back against some one of them, sat so, with hands
clasped hard and wide dry eyes. * * * * * There was a sound without, a step
on the stairs. She did not hear it, she had heard nothing for a long time;
she was not aware of any approach until someone came between her and what
light there was. Then she looked up. “Michael!” she exclaimed, and without
warning broke down into tears. He put an arm about her. “Nan,” he said, and
held her comfortingly. For a little neither said more, there was no need;
she sobbed unrestrainedly, and he did not attempt to stop her, only let her
feel his sympathy by the touch of his hand. But in a while she recovered
herself. “I am so sorry,” she said unsteadily; “I don’t know why I gave way
like that, I haven’t done it before. I didn’t mean to bother you; and
there’s nothing to cry about—it’s all as he would have wished it, as he
would have chosen.” “As he would, perhaps,” Michael said, “but what about
you? May one not think of you?” Her breath caught a little. “I’m all
right,” she said; “I don’t know why I cried. It’s—it’s only the twilight, I
think—the long, haunting twilight—and being lonely.” “You’re not lonely now
I have come.” “No,” she said, and the arm he had put about her tightened
almost as if he were protecting her from something. For a little they sat
so, they two alone, among the shadows in the darkening, dusty room. “Nan,”
he said at last, “what are we going to do? I have nothing much, and you
have nothing either, I suppose—but there’s only you and I. Neither of us
has anyone else in the world who counts, and we seem to need each other
pretty badly. Dare you risk it? Will you, Nan?” She drew a long breath, a
hesitating breath, while one might count twenty; and while she felt anew
the warmth of his protecting arm—“Yes,” she said softly, “I think so.”
CHAPTER XVIII Nan lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling above her. She
had been in bed two hours and more, but still she was awake, broad awake.
That evening she had promised to marry Michael, and now she lay thinking
about it. A clock away outside had struck one long ago, it struck two now;
but she did not hear it, any more than did her father lying dead in the
room across the landing. No thoughts of that father occurred to her now; it
certainly did not occur to her as disloyalty or disrespect to him that she
had planned a future with Michael before he was buried. It was not. There
was no disloyalty or disrespect in her feelings for him; there could be
none in her actions. Her thoughts centred round what she had that evening
undertaken. Had she done well to say she would marry Michael? Was it really
the thing to do? It was the simplest thing, certainly, and, at the first
glance, the one which appeared to offer the nearest to a continuance of
life as it had been—which is what human nature, especially when suffering
from shock, instinctively inclines towards. They could be married easily:
asking no one, telling no one; it was their concern solely. They could go
to one of those City churches which she loved, where they were nothing and
no one, chance comers borne in for a minute on the tide of life. A little
minute in the dim place, a little pause with just themselves and God; and
then out again into the streets with their passing and repassing life, and
then home to the old house. Without thinking, she found herself picturing
the going back to the old house, the old ways, the day’s work, and the
day’s burden, and the evening’s rest; it seemed part of the inevitable
scheme of things. But in fact it was not so; she remembered that. The old
house was coming down, the old life was at an end; the work would pass to
strangers. She did not know a great deal about her father’s monetary
affairs, nothing really; but she did not expect there would be much for
her. The business, she imagined, would be sold for what it would fetch,
along with the treasures in the upper rooms. She felt a pang for both, she
had lived so long and so closely with them; but she concluded they would
have to go so that affairs might be wound up and liabilities met, and even
then she expected to be but scantily provided for. Michael, she knew,
expected there to be even less for her; she had perceived that in the talk
of the evening. In his scheme, the marriage was somewhat as it was in hers,
a matter that concerned none but themselves; a momentary stepping aside to
make the contract, and then a going on again much as before, only they were
to go on in the small Midland town where he had lived for the last four
months. And, of course, he was right; Nan knew it as she lay watching the
alternating light and darkness as the moon passed in and out of clouds.
That was what it would be. Were Michael some other kind of man they might
perhaps have made shift to carry on her father’s business between them, and
made a small living out of it. Being the kind he was it was impossible; he
was made for other things, and he must do them whether he would or no. He
had got to work out his life another way; she realised that, and it no more
occurred to her to seek to change it than to change the seasons of the
year. But it did occur to her to ask whether the marriage was really the
best thing. Her knowledge of love and lovers, even in fiction, was very
limited, she knew almost nothing of the subject; but she knew that she and
Michael were not lovers. He had in some fashion loved Lady Sibyl Carson;
she knew that, though it had never been spoken of between them. It had not
been, perhaps, the strongest passion, not the sort that had figured in the
few novels she had read. She more than suspected his passion, whatever it
was, had been submerged in the wreck which had broken his career; the lost
love taking a second place to the lost work, the memory of it surviving
only with other tide wrack. But such as it was, it was love; and she
instinctively knew it to be something quite different from his feeling for
herself. She was friend and sister to him, the quiet, comprehending
companion, the one who understood even better than he did himself; but the
bond between them was not love; he did not love her as men love women when
they eagerly seek them in marriage. And she herself? She considered the
question fairly, her rather slow, but unusually accurate, mind weighing it
almost as if it concerned another. Not quite perhaps, even thus to herself
alone there were points at which the spirit shrank from the mind’s
clear-sighted probe; yet in the main fairly and very searchingly, seeking,
with a truth few women practise with themselves, not only what Michael was
to her, but also what in her inmost soul she held of those unknowns—love
and life. Suddenly she sat up in bed. “No!” she said almost aloud. “It is
not that! He is not that to me. He is not the man—if there ever could be
one!” She put back her hair and looked out at the cloudy sky where the moon
was going down behind chimney stacks. She realised that, whatever was or
was not cloudy in her mind, one thing at least was clear, neither she nor
Michael were really thinking of marriage at all. “It is not to be married
we want,” she thought, “but to go on with life as it was. We could do that
better without, I believe, whether we were separate or together all the
time. Marriage would not help; there would be something wrong with it.” But
she did not say anything of her thoughts the next day, she was not yet
quite sure enough of her own conclusions. The coming of day brought rather
a revulsion of feeling and a perception afresh of the easiness, at all
events, in the initial stages, of abiding by the decision of yesterday.
Still, though she said nothing of her doubts to Michael, she arranged with
him that no mention should be made to the Foregoods of any understanding
between them. Possibly the brother and sister had some suspicions; the long
absence in the warehouse-room might have justified such in people who
rather hopefully looked for it. “It would be the best thing possible,” Miss
Janet observed in private. “It’s very likely to come sooner or later, and
the sooner the better, I say; I see no reason to wait about. We’re not the
Annarlys to be obliged to inconvenience ourselves and everyone else by
delaying to speak for fear the neighbours should think it odd.” And Josiah
agreed. “Yes,” he said, “yes, if she wants to, if he’ll make her happy.”
“Make her happy!” Miss Janet said scornfully. “Of course he will. He takes
half as much looking after as a baby, and that’s what most women want. What
she’ll be happy to do till she gets a real baby, when he’ll have to look
after himself and her too, and they’ll both be as proud as they are
surprised to find he can do it. They’ll think when they’ve found it out,
and got to the common-sense place of commonplace happiness, that they’re
the only ones who’ve ever got there, and have made the greatest discovery
of the age. And so they will have too. God bless the nonsense!” and she
wiped her eyes unashamed. But the same evening that she said it—it was the
evening before the funeral—Nan gave the first warning of doubt to Michael.
They had been talking of his work and some of the difficulties of it, and
the circumstances she would be called upon to share. “Things are better
than they were,” he said. “I don’t mean they are magnificent, or ever will
be; the place will never be more than a little one-horse affair, a dyer’s
on the smallest scale. But I have a liking for it, and I think you will
have, although I don’t suppose I shall ever make money of it, certainly
never make engineering shops—that isn’t everything, is it? George is rather
a nuisance, I must own; he and Milligen are about as easy to move as a
couple of pigs, but as they usually pull opposite ways, I sometimes come
in. You’ll understand when you come to live near them.” “—If I do,” she
said. “If you do? You will when we are married.” “Yes—” she hesitated. “I’m
not quite sure about that marriage, not perfectly certain—are you?” “Of
course,” he answered; then, struck by her manner, asked, “Are not you? You
were. Have you changed your mind?” “I don’t know it’s that exactly,” she
said. “I’m not sure I knew my mind. Are you sure? I don’t mean were you
that evening, but are you quite sure now that it would be best for us to be
married?” “Why, certainly! If it was best then, it is now—nothing has
happened to alter it.” “No,” she agreed, “that’s so; but we may have made a
mistake then? We have had more time to think about it, and, after thinking,
I am not sure that to be married is what we really want; indeed, I am
nearly sure it is not. You think about it.” “You had better tell me what
you think,” he said. She would much rather he had arrived at his own
conclusions by himself, but she did her best, trying to speak as
impersonally as possible, to state the matter in the unbiassed way they
talked of most things. On the whole she succeeded wonderfully well, seeing
the nature of the subject, curiously well; so well that in itself it was
something of an argument of the truth of what she said. People who could so
logically investigate feeling and impersonally weigh situations were hardly
in the normal condition of those contemplating the marriage of choice. But
if Michael began to suspect that he did not say so then, Miss Janet came in
before Nan had much more than stated her views, and before he had had a
chance to refute or consider them. But that was no disadvantage in Nan’s
eyes; she would rather he thought over what she had said alone. “You think
about it,” she said later. “We must each think about it; we must each be
quite sure, and I’m not—or, rather, I’m nearly sure it had better not be.”
The next day was the funeral, and so no opportunity during the earlier part
of the day for any private talk. Mr. Annarly came to the funeral; also one
of the Barmister relations, and two of the business friends, the others
were Jews and so debarred by religion. To Mr. Annarly’s surprise his
brother-in-law, Mr. Giles Cordover, was present. He remembered to have
heard his wife or daughters remark that Uncle Giles had taken Nan Barmister
for a motor ride; beyond that nothing had ever been said, or known, of any
acquaintance between them. It was odd Giles should be at the funeral, Mr.
Annarly thought, though, when one came to think of it, perhaps not odder
than plenty of other things he did. Mr. Annarly did not get any speech with
him; he did not come with the funeral party, nor did he leave with them; he
said a few words to Nan at the graveside, squeezed her hand hard, and went
about his business. It is quite possible Mr. Annarly would like to have
gone about his too; he was rather busy just now; also not at all at ease in
scenes of family emotion: weddings, funerals, or similar times when the
tenor of ordinary life and feeling is broken. But he did not go; Nan was
his dead wife’s niece and a lonely girl, so far as relatives were
concerned; he must return to the house with her, he was too kind-hearted to
think of anything else. So he went with the Foregoods and Michael. Robert
Barmister’s will was read to this small party in the brown upper room. It
was commendably brief, and contained little or no indication of the amount,
small or otherwise, of property to be disposed of; but it rather surprised
Mr. Annarly. He had always heard the women of his household speak, kindly
but condescendingly, of Nan as a person of very modest attainments, and by
this will Robert Barmister, a shrewd man, bequeathed to her the management
of his beloved business! Josiah Foregood was to have a third share, she to
have the other two-thirds and the control, also everything else of which
the testator stood possessed, with a very free hand in the management of
it. There was, however, a condition attached; or, rather, as the lawyer
explained, it was an expressed wish, not a legal restraint, for it was
contained in a private letter to Nan and not in the will itself, and so not
legally binding upon her. “My late client,” the lawyer said, “wished to
include this private condition in the will, embodying it in a codicil while
keeping its nature private. But, as I pointed out to him, it was impossible
to make it legally binding without publishing its nature; on that he
decided to leave the will as it originally stood, expressing his wishes
respecting the condition to the inheritrix, and leaving her to carry them
out as her conscience should direct.” “Most extraordinary,” Mr. Annarly
said, “most extraordinary!” He meant the disposal of the business quite as
much as the unknown condition. “Of course, it’s not like a City concern,
anything big; it’s only trade certainly, and smallish at that, but it’s one
that wants technical knowledge, I should have thought, and proper
handling.” The lawyer, to whom these remarks were addressed in a decorously
lowered voice, bowed, but answered in the same. “I believe Miss Barmister
is considered, by those who know, a finer expert in this particular
business and a truer virtuoso than her father.” “You don’t say so?” Mr.
Annarly said, and looked in some bewilderment towards Nan, who now rose
from where she sat at the far end of the room and came towards them. “Have
you the letter for me?” she asked the lawyer. He produced it. “You will
perceive,” he said, “that it was your father’s wish you should open and
read it when you were alone.” She glanced at the sealed envelope and saw
that instruction written upon it. “He knew it would be easiest for me,” she
said. “I think so slowly and never at all properly, if there are people
talking; I could not really make up my mind, if I were not quiet and
alone.” “I hope,” the lawyer spoke impressively, “you will not do anything
rashly or hastily. Since it was your father’s desire, I took charge of the
letter, and told you his original instructions in the matter, but it was
under protest; I could not personally approve an effort—as this was—to give
a private and personal expression the force of law. No doubt you will wish
to carry out your father’s instructions, no doubt they are such as can with
ease and propriety be carried out; but it is my duty to tell you, as I told
him, that you are not legally compelled to do so. You inherit in any case.”
“Thank you,” Nan said. “Yes, I understand. I don’t think father would have
wanted me to do what he thought wrong or impossible. And I expect he knew
that I would not do it, if I thought it so, no matter what depended on it.
We were very good friends, you know, we understood——” Her eyes filled with
tears as she spoke. Mr. Annarly’s grew misty too; he patted her arm kindly.
“You must come down to Hurstbury,” he said, “the girls will be pleased to
have you; you must come and stay a long time.” She thanked him, and then
slipped away to read her letter. “A good girl,” he said to the lawyer, “an
affectionate daughter. I suppose there won’t be much for her, poor thing,
when all’s said and done?” The lawyer looked surprised. “She inherits a
two-thirds interest in the business, and all that her father had saved,” he
said. “Yes, yes, so I understood—but what’s that? Not much I’m afraid.
Enough to live on in a small way, if they manage the business properly, and
with Foregood, who knows it through and through, interested one may reckon
on that. There will be enough to keep her from want, I suppose, but not
much more—though that’s more than I anticipated. Fact, I was prepared to
have to do something for her myself. She was my dead wife’s niece, you
know; I shouldn’t like her to want.” The lawyer applauded such generous
intentions, but said there was no need to anticipate any necessity for
them. “I cannot,” he said, “speak with perfect accuracy on the subject, but
I believe I may safely say that Miss Barmister’s income will be very much
nearer two thousand a year than one.” “What!” Mr. Annarly exclaimed. “You
don’t mean it! You can’t mean it!” He looked round the room and, very
incorrectly, appraised the things in it. “I should never have thought it!”
he said. “I had no notion. Why, he didn’t live at the rate of three hundred
a year!” He repeated it once or twice to himself; he could not get used to
the idea at all. He spoke of it to Michael, to whom it was as much news as
it was to him; also to Josiah Foregood, who was not very surprised. “Yes,”
the latter said in his gentle way, “he made a good deal of late years; he
was a clever man, a very shrewd man. It’s wonderful he should have left me
a share in the business; a great honour, I feel it, a responsibility too. I
hope I’ll prove worthy.” He accompanied Mr. Annarly and the lawyer to the
door, and then went to the dolphin room to look rather wistfully at the
dead man’s desk, and try to realise his own new position. Miss Janet, in
the meantime, went to superintend domestic affairs. The fact that Nan had
inherited more than anyone anticipated did not make any difference to her,
or prevent her from going to see that the wine and cake were properly
disposed of. Michael was left alone when he had said good-bye to his
father. He hesitated a moment in the hall, then went slowly upstairs. The
fact of Nan’s inheritance did make some difference to him. Nan with two
thousand a year and her father’s business to manage was a different person
from Nan penniless and homeless, crying alone in the twilight; at least,
different in so far that he would not have proposed marriage to her. Of
course, Nan was Nan, whatever she had or whatever she was; and she would
always be Nan, a thing apart, one to come back to, less a person than a
comfort and a sense of rest, from which one drew support and found the best
of oneself and things. But it was not for that reason he had proposed
marriage to her, marriage had nothing to do with that, nor that with
marriage. He had proposed it to her because she was crying alone in the
twilight. She had divined it quicker than he had, and divined too that the
other, that which they really were to each other, did not depend on it,
would exist without it, possibly better without it. She had doubted
yesterday whether they were right to marry; he doubted now that he knew she
was to have two thousand a year and her father’s business. Nan was standing
by the window in the upper room when he came in. She held her father’s
letter open in her hand, and though she turned as he entered, he could not
tell from her face how the contents had affected her. “Do you know you will
be a comparatively rich woman?” he said, suddenly remembering that she was
the only person with whom the amount of the inheritance had not been
discussed. “Shall I?” she said. “I rather fancied from the letter there
must be more than we thought, a good deal more.” “It is a good deal,” he
said, and told her. “As much as that?” she asked, but without excitement.
She took the letter from its envelope. “I want you to read it,” she said.
“Are you sure?” he hesitated. “Is it what he wished?” “I am sure it is what
I do,” she answered, “and in this case I am the best judge; he generally
trusted me to decide what concerned me. Read it; it touches you as well as
me.” He unfolded it and read: DEAR NAN, _I am told that I cannot legally
limit my bequests to you by any conditions not made public. As I do not
choose to have your affairs and my actions talked over by those not
concerned, to the possible bringing about of what I want to avoid, I do not
make this condition public, but I expect you to act as if it were legally
binding, none the less._ _The condition on which I leave you practically
all I have—and you will find it a good deal more than you expect—is that
you do not marry Michael Annarly. Should you do so, I wish everything to go
to Josiah Foregood._ _Your affectionate father,_ ROBERT BARMISTER. So
Barmister had foreseen the position and determined to decide it for them;
at least, so it seemed to Michael as he read the letter. Not very
flattering to him himself, perhaps, but none the less a wise decision, the
one they must inevitably have come to. He felt it, and felt it so
completely fitted in with the thoughts which had occupied him as he came
upstairs that he found himself saying, “That settles it,” as if he had
already discussed them aloud. “Settles what?” Nan asked. “The question of
our marrying or not.” “Does it?” “Certainly. I could not marry you in the
face of that.” “You could.” “I couldn’t. I couldn’t very well, seeing I am
practically a penniless failure, if you had the money; how much less since
you are to lose if I do.” “It would not make any difference if we cared,”
she said. “If you cared—like that—you would hardly know whether I had money
or had not; it would not hurt your pride that I should have it, or your
generosity that I should lose it. And the same with me—it would not
embarrass me to have when you had not, or trouble me to lose on account of
you; nothing in the world would matter so long as we had each other—if we
cared—that way.” “I think it would,” he said. But she persisted. “No,” she
said, “I am sure of it. If we loved, nothing else would matter; we should
hardly know anything else.” “I rather fancy we should,” he said, “and
anyhow—I can’t take this sacrifice of you. Before ever I read the letter I
felt that. Why should you give up this life and work for mine—as you would
have to if we married—even if you could keep the money?” “It would be
nothing if one loved,” she said. “Why, if one loved a tinker one would put
down one’s coronet or career—whichever one had—and go out joyfully and
tramp to the world’s end after him! And if one loved a duke one would
gladly learn the ways and conventions of his class, though it would be a
lot harder, and thankfully share them with him. There isn’t any giving up
to love or any forgiving or giving either, it’s—just love.” She spoke with
absolute certainty, and though Michael would not agree, she held to it.
“You should know,” she said, “for you love your work; you do not sacrifice
to that, for there is no sacrifice in giving everything to it. There is
never any choice to you whether you shall or shan’t; what it needs it must
have, without counting the cost—there is no cost. That is love.” “How do
you know?” “I’m not sure, but I do know. It has never come my way, perhaps
never will, but I know it; and knowing—I am not going to marry on less.”
CHAPTER XIX Five years after Michael Annarly left the great firm of
Galhardy’s, the designs for an aerial torpedo were offered to the British
Government. A good many designs had been put forward during those years; a
good many torpedoes, to meet the demand of the altered conditions of
warfare, had been invented, manufactured, modified, improved, discarded in
favour of others. It was no new thing for governments to be offered one;
but this was a new thing; it was not merely a torpedo, it was _the_
torpedo—that for which all the civilised nations had been looking, the
perfect thing. As was that of Galhardy’s disaster to that originally
designed for them by Michael Annarly, so was this to Michael Annarly’s
design. There was no doubt about it, no room for two opinions, it was
perfect. Not closely related to any which had been produced before,
probably worked out from first principles by one who had not kept in touch
with the course of development in this branch of arms. But none the worse
for that; better perhaps, since it was the design of a master unhampered by
the convention of other men’s ideas—one who, by rare insight, much work and
the knowledge and application of obscure and complicated laws, had arrived
at a result simple in its completeness, however complex in its origin—and
fulfilling all requirements. This torpedo, protected by a provisional
patent, was offered to the British Government; that is to say, the English
rights were offered to them, the inventor reserving to himself the liberty
to sell the foreign rights elsewhere, if he chose. The offer was considered
by the War Office, no doubt carefully considered, since some time elapsed
before an answer was returned. Indeed, the time of protection allowed a
patentee under a provisional patent was almost expired before the reply was
given. When it was, it was to the effect that the Government could not
entertain the inventor’s suggestion that they should buy the English rights
only. They would give him one thousand pounds for all rights, English and
foreign, they could not consider any other terms. The proportion of the sum
to the magnitude of the invention was rather interesting—to those who think
the sciences lucrative professions and governments good paymasters. It did
not interest the inventor, he had no such delusions, nor yet much surprise
him. He declined the offer, withdrew his design, and for a little was heard
of no more. When the time arrived to file a complete patent for the torpedo
and the heads for it he filed one; or, rather, a very comprehensive and
expressive series of patents, in which, as law required, every detail of
the invention and manufacture was fully described and made plain. Then he
approached the Government again, this time with another suggestion—that he
should give them the right to use his invention; license them to
manufacture in England and the Colonies, subject to no royalty to him, no
fees or restrictions whatever; he himself retaining, as he naturally would
retain until he agreed to part with it, the right to sell or give licences
elsewhere, at home and abroad. The offer was perhaps a little bald; it
might have been kinder to the dignity of a Government department if he had
asked a nominal hundred or two for the invaluable concession. But he did
not think of that, he made his offer simply and baldly. And after a decent
interval, as short as decency allowed, it was accepted. Polite things were
said about generous patriotism, and nothing whatever about the copy of the
specification of the complete patent, giving the details of manufacture,
which lay in the official desk at the time. There was no need to talk of
that, the inventor knew it might be expected to be there; he had had some
experience of the world, and also knew that governments, being tender of
the taxpayers’ money, naturally take what they can get free, the brains of
inventors among other things. And the official knew that he knew—else he
would not have given what, though nominally protected from them as from
others, they could have taken free and unmolested, except by an action
which he could not have afforded to bring, and would not have won if he
had. Nothing was said of that, the relative positions, though perfectly
understood, were decently handled, courteous things were said, and the
matter settled; the Government received free licence to manufacture the
matchless torpedo, and the inventor received nothing and was satisfied.
Next, he turned his attention to foreign patents and foreign rights, a
costly and tedious business. He borrowed the money from Nan Barmister for
it, and devoted as much time and energy to the work as he could spare.
After a while, he got it settled; and, after a greater while, began to get
some returns, enough to feel satisfied that he would be able to repay the
money within a reasonable time. Beyond that he did nothing; there was
really nothing to do. It did not occur to him to read a paper on aerial
torpedoes, or to speak of them to anyone, or in any way to lay claim to
having solved that problem of modern warfare. He did not desire a paragraph
in the papers, nor yet, even if it were attainable and the war party in the
ascendant, knighthood or an honorary degree; he wanted to make the torpedo,
to finish the work he had begun long ago. He had always wanted to do it,
the problem had fascinated him long before that day five years ago when he
told Lady Sibyl Carson he had solved it. He believed then that he had. He
had learnt a good deal since of obscure laws and abstruse physical things,
also something of psychical values too. He had only solved the problem up
to a point then, by no means produced the perfect torpedo, though no one
since had produced a better. He had long ago recognised the limit to which
he had then attained, and at the back of his mind there had always been a
something which worked upon the problem in season and out of season, a
species of mental discomfort which would never quite rest until it was
done. It was done now: that was all. The life of a creator is in creating,
not in making a fortune or securing a peerage; those are by-products that
occur to few and extinguish some who, dazzled, lose their way there. Thus
it happened that the great invention was produced without noise or acclaim;
the newspapers did not hear of it, the Government made no talk about it,
there was no object in their doing so, and the inventor made none either.
Certain people, of course, got to know about it, people whose business it
was. Some of them got to know the name of the inventor, for it appeared on
his patent, and there were those who mastered every detail of the patent
very thoroughly—and those who infringed it where they dared. The remedy for
infringing a patent is an action at law, a costly proceeding, also not one
to be embarked upon until it is possible to show that the infringer has
made profit by his use of the patentee’s invention. Profit is not made from
the manufacture of aerial torpedoes in a month; it takes time to make the
plant, and time to make the torpedoes, even when both are done with speed
and effrontery, and an open, if quiet, disregard for the patents protecting
them. Further, it takes much money to prosecute firms rich enough to do
such things. Michael had not the money. Also, he was deeply interested in
the problem, one which had fascinated him for long, of large scale internal
combustion engines, and he had not enough leisure of body or mind to divide
between two interests. He lived quietly in the small Midland town,
superintending the warp dyeing works for old Milligen. For four years and
more he had done that, first working under the old man, then with him and
George Foregood; later they had worked with him, finally under him, though
none of the three quite realised that. George was dead now, old Milligen
hopelessly crippled with gout, Michael was more obviously in command. The
dyeing works, under his control, were not; perhaps, quite like any others
in the country, but they were on the whole profitable. George’s invention
had not ruined his old employers, they had one nearly as good evolved out
of his earlier apparatus—the fact, when he came to realise it, was a blow
he never got over. Still, the apparatus set up at Milligen’s was a good
one, really the best, and it and Michael’s improvements and general
management, aided by the start given by the handsome compensation received
from the council for the power station accident, made the old place more
prosperous than it had been for long. It was still a warp dyer’s; Michael,
with the vein of conservative solidity inherited from his City forebears,
never thought of making it into anything else, even if old Milligen had
been willing. In some respects it was much as it had always been; the
buildings still looked in serious need of repair—except the
over-magnificent new ones put up by the council. Dyeing was still
considered to be the sole industry, and if in the course of time Michael
had accumulated machines strange and unexpected at a small dyer’s (he
generally borrowed money from Nan to get them), he honestly believed of
each one as he imported it that it was in some way connected with the work.
Milligen believed it too, and George when he was alive; they had wonderful
flights of fancy occasionally, both of them, though few of their ideas were
practicable, and none of them were ever put into practice. Michael’s ideas
were different, they were all practicable, though few were put to
profitable practice—only those that were expressed in advice or comment to
men who showed him new machines or old processes, and profited by what he
said. The rest were seldom spoken of; occasionally to Milligen, more often
to Nan, always to Nan when he happened to see her. Thus, one understands,
the fame of the torpedo designer did not spread, and the man himself
troubled no whit about it. But after two years something happened. It was
in September, two full years after His Majesty’s Government had accepted
the free licence to manufacture the perfect torpedo. It befell on a certain
Sunday, late in the month. Michael usually spent Sunday evenings with Mr.
and Mrs. Milligen; he had grown to be something like a son to them, more to
them, perhaps, than any son of their own could have been, for he had
quicker perceptions and a gentler tolerance and patience, begotten maybe of
the years. He spent that Sunday evening with them, having tea and supper,
and hearing the tale of the week’s doings—difficulties, work, and jests,
and after supper listening to the prayers the old man insisted on reading,
though he could hardly see now. That evening he chose to read, as the
lesson before the prayer, the part of the book of Daniel which describes
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its fulfilment. Michael listened intermittently,
his own thoughts coming here and there between the words and obscuring
sentences and passages: “I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and,
behold, a Watcher and an holy one came down from heaven; he cried aloud,
and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his
leaves, and scatter his fruit ... nevertheless leave the stump of his roots
in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of
the field.... Let seven times pass over him.... To the intent that the
living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.” A strange
old story, Michael found himself thinking—“Seven times?” What were the
seven times that passed over the dethroned king before he came again to his
kingdom, and the knowledge of Who ruleth in the kingdom of men? Seven
years, perhaps? It was just seven years since he himself left Galhardy’s.
The thought recurred to him for a moment as it seldom did now; but it
passed quickly again, it never troubled, and he thought of Nebuchadnezzar
until the reading was finished. When prayers were over he went to the
sideboard to mix whisky and water for himself and his host. While they
drank it, Mr. Milligen spoke of local matters and the question of a new
sewer; it was a question he felt strongly upon, as he did on all local
matters. Michael, on his way home, thought about it, though principally
about the here approved method of trapping, which he considered more costly
and less efficient than it need be. He tried to think out an improvement as
he walked along, stopping once to make a note on the subject. Arrived at
his rooms—he lodged, as he had done ever since leaving town, at the house
of a respectable foreman not very far from the works—there he found a
letter waiting for him. There was no Sunday delivery in the town, but, by
applying at the post office, it was possible to obtain letters which would
otherwise be delivered on Monday morning. The foreman, it would seem, had
applied on his own behalf, and also thought to ask on his lodger’s too. The
letter, Michael saw, was from Nan, and he guessed its contents before
opening it. It could tell of nothing but the death of Mr. Cordover; he had
been ill some while, and Nan’s last letter spoke of the approaching end.
Michael was sorry; he knew she would miss the old man, almost her closest
friend, as well as her nearest neighbour—she lived with Miss Janet and
Josiah in the long house embowered in trees. The letter proved to be as he
thought. Nan wrote to say Mr. Cordover was dead after so painful an illness
that she could hardly wish it otherwise. But she also gave another piece of
news, a very surprising one. “_The day before he died,_” she wrote, “_he
sent for me and told me he had left me nothing but the sideboard with the
fruit carved on it because he thought I had enough money for a woman. I
have, too much, I said so, I said I did not want money or anything.
Whereupon he told me to stop talking and listen, he was going to do what he
liked with his own, in just the old way, so I took his hand and told him to
go on. Then he said, ‘I have left nothing to you, but I have left something
for you—a chance of having Michael Annarly’s name cleared. In spite of all
the rubbish you’ve talked about it’s not mattering, I don’t believe but
what you really wanted it all the time, and you shall have it if it can be
got. I’ve left Michael ten thousand pounds to spend on clearing himself,
reinstating himself, making his name somehow. It’s down in my will, but you
tell him about it too, and see he does it.’_” So Michael read, and sat
staring. Ten thousand pounds to be spent on clearing his name, reinstating
himself somehow! Reinstating himself after seven years? To be again what he
had been. To have the same situation, the same hopes and ambitions. To go
back seven years in time, unmake the torpedo, which was the accomplishment
of the hopes and ambitions; unlearn what he had learnt of the relative
values and importance of things; be once more Galhardy’s insatiable genius
demanding all the kingdoms of the earth and the empiry of sense, and
believing himself equal to dealing with them and but inadequately rewarded
by attaining them! Buy back the reputation of being the great firm’s
promising and trusted engineer for the man who might have had—had he
thought it worth the taking—the reputation of the inventor of the perfect
torpedo! One wonders if Nebuchadnezzar, when he came back to his palace,
found the walls a little narrow and the roof a little low after the
stretching earth and the canopy of stars that housed him what time he was
wet with the dew of Heaven. But the ten thousand pounds had to be spent,
and on a given object; as much was indicated in Mr. Cordover’s will, though
not in detail. That was supplied by Nan, and she and Michael held
consultations over it, in some considerable difficulty as to how to spend
the money so as to accomplish the testator’s wish. “I might bring an action
against Galhardy’s for infringing my torpedo patent,” Michael suggested
doubtfully. “I am not at all sure that would do the business, but it might,
I can’t think of anything better.” “Have you a case against them?” Nan
asked. “Oh, yes, they infringed that patent almost from the first; they are
manufacturing from it pretty largely and quite deliberately now. They know
it’s mine, and that I couldn’t afford to fight them, even if I wanted to;
there’s case enough. Of course, I might not win; though with ten thousand
pounds to spend I might, especially as the Government, having a free
licence of their own, would not back Galhardy’s up. That possible advantage
occurred to me at the time I gave the licence, though I didn’t suppose it
would ever really come to it. There’s good enough ground for an action;
though, whether by bringing one I should be fulfilling the terms of the
will, is another matter.” “You would be establishing your reputation, in a
way,” Nan said. “I mean your reputation for ability, since everyone would
then know you had invented the torpedo.” “That’s so,” he admitted; “and I
dare say one could arrange to drag in the old affair if one wanted to, and
have it more or less thrashed out in court—if it is possible to thrash it,
which I rather doubt, after all this time.” “Perhaps Galhardy’s would drag
it in themselves,” Nan suggested, “to discredit you and prove you an
untrustworthy person, and your invention likely to be really theirs. Don’t
you think there’s a chance of their laying some sort of claim to your
torpedo?” “They can’t. I had left them five years before I put it forward;
they have no claim whatever after five years. Moreover, it is perfectly
obvious to everyone that my torpedo is a different one and on different
lines from any they had, either before or since I left them. That will be
all right; still, of course, they may drag in the old affair for some
purpose. It’s to be hoped they will, else there is hardly justification for
spending the money this way—though I can’t think of another that would
better meet the requirements, can you?” Nan could not; indeed, this way
commended itself to her, it seemed suitable and fitting. “I think it is the
best we shall devise,” she said. “I believe we had better decide on it.” So
they decided. It was in this way that there arose one of the most famous
patent infringement cases in modern times. Famous not so much on the
technical and legal side or on account of great scientific complications,
as on account of the popular interest felt in the comparatively new arm,
and in the hitherto unknown man who had perfected it. Also on account of
the wealth and importance of the firm attacked by an insignificant
individual, labouring under the further disadvantage of being a dismissed
employee of theirs. That fact, by the way, was one he seemed quite as
anxious to bring to notice as ever they were. Several rather surprising
things were brought to notice before judgment was given, after a
comparatively short hearing. Seeing that the actual case was decided as
quickly as it was the expenses of both sides were heavy; the prosecution
must have spent the better part of ten thousand pounds, the defence very
much more. Indeed, that side must have drawn heavily on the reserve fund
the firm kept to meet such contingencies. And to no purpose, for judgment
was given against them, with heavy damages for the prosecution and some
rather scathing remarks from the judge. * * * * * “Well, what do you think
of it?” Carson nodded towards the morning’s sheet of _The Times_, where a
report of the case and judgment was given. Lee-Brendon, he who had been at
Redstoke the night long ago when Michael Annarly had dined there, folded
his glasses slowly. “It’s rather hard to know what to think,” he said. In
that corner of England and that company it was difficult to regard
Galhardy’s quite as one would anything else; it was too much part of the
general life to be judged dispassionately on abstract moral grounds. But
one man present had less connection with it than the rest, a man, Dawling,
who had also been there that night seven and a half years ago. He spoke
more frankly now. “They’ve come out of it pretty rottenly,” he said,
“hanged if they haven’t! Annarly must be a queer chap to have held his
tongue all this time, I wouldn’t! Though I suppose it’d have done no good
to speak. What brains and what persistence too! Seven years and more. A bit
uncanny—what?” “He was always rather queer,” Lee-Brendon recalled. “Queer?”
Carson said. “That’s your estimate? Mine is that he’s a different size to
the rest of us, and some of us tried to measure him up in our little pint
pots, and got rather badly left in the process.” He glanced towards the
door which Casterman, the scientific member of Galhardy’s board of
directors, was holding open for Lady Sibyl. “Not that he’s to blame for
what happened,” he added in an undertone, nodding towards the director; “he
always stood to it they ought to have kept Annarly at any price. He’s the
only man in this part of the country who had any real understanding of what
they’d got.” Casterman came back towards the fire; he had not heard what
was said, but his face was thoughtful. He was the only one present who had
not been there that night seven and a half years ago, when Annarly had been
discussed after dining there. There was one absent who had then been
present: that one was Brett. The little party now gathered studiously
avoided speaking of Brett; his part in the long-past transaction had not
been made quite plain, certainly not in the newspaper reports; still, they
instinctively avoided speaking of him; they would always have to; it did
not seem quite decent. “This business will kill Sir Joseph,” Lee-Brendon
observed—Sir Joseph’s part had been made plain—“he is an old man for such a
thing; I doubt if he will get over it.” “That’ll be satisfaction for
Annarly, anyway,” Carson said. “What will?” Casterman asked. “That Sir
Joseph won’t get over this affair? He won’t, that’s true. I saw his face
after the judgment yesterday; I don’t give him a month. But that won’t be
any satisfaction to Annarly—or any dissatisfaction either, it’s”—he laughed
rather grimly—“a by-product.” “A by-product?” He nodded. “Do you think it
was any satisfaction to Darwin that the Mosaic Cosmography fell to pieces
when he proved the theory of evolution? I don’t think it was, nor yet any
dissatisfaction either; he was possibly sorry to flutter the theological
dove-cotes, but it didn’t concern him, it was a by-result, an accident
which might happen to anyone out looking for truth in a world where things
aren’t all based on truth. Annarly was out for truth, or, rather, out to
establish a few things; certainly not for vengeance or to get Sir Joseph.
Good Lord! he was probably the man in court with the highest opinion of the
old gentleman when he started! It’s no satisfaction to him that Sir Joseph
came down, possibly he’s a little sorry, but it’s no concern of his—a
by-product of the proving business, that’s all.” Dawling looked sceptical.
“He must be a good deal more indifferent than most of us, that’s all I can
say.” “He has a different standard of what’s important,” Casterman said.
“Also, he remembers different things and forgets different. Reece spoke to
him in court yesterday—you know Reece, one of the steamship Reeces, Annarly
was with them on the Clyde for a short time after he left Galhardy’s. I
don’t know what Reece said to him, something congratulatory about winning
the case and clearing himself, possibly something graceful about their own
treatment of him—it wasn’t first-class, I believe. Annarly looked at him as
if he had never seen him before, and had no idea what he was talking about.
Then suddenly something must have tied the man up with steamships in his
mind. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘I remember, you were interested in internal
combustion engines for big liners. I have done a certain amount of work on
that problem during the last two years; I think I have solved it.’ He spoke
much as if he were saying he had tried a certain brand of cigarettes. Reece
simply collapsed; I nearly laughed outright.” Dawling looked puzzled. “Brag
or bravado?” he asked. “Neither,” Casterman answered, “simply the one fact
that occurred to him in connection with the man. I have very little doubt
but what it is a fact too; in all probability he has worked out that
gigantic problem, if he says he has; though whether or not he’ll do
anything with it is another matter.” “Of course he will,” Dawling said.
“Why not? He can’t muck things now, if he tried. I wish I’d half his
chance! He’ll fairly race ahead, he can’t help it, with the start he’s
got.” “He may,” Casterman said, “but I’m not sure. You don’t understand—we
none of us understood when he was here, that that’s not what he really
cares for; it’s doing the thing he cares about, not what comes next; the
importance of a thing should be stated for him in terms of interest and
difficulty, not money value and what we call success. Oh, yes, I know he
made a fight for reward and recognition those years ago when he was here;
but I believe it was more from some queer sense of justice than ordinary
ambition, a youthful exuberance long gone. Even then, had we understood, I
believe we could have dealt with it; we both overrated and underrated him
in those days.” Carson nodded. “I believe you are right,” he said. “I
believe you are. Where is he now?” Casterman did not know. “I never got to
speak to him while the case was on,” he said, “though I tried several
times; he always disappeared at lunchtime. Somebody told me he was seen
once or twice with an insignificant-looking woman. There’s a story that he
and she used to get food somewhere and then wander away to one or other of
the City churches. I don’t know if it’s true, but when the court rose
yesterday and he had got through with congratulations and all that, I did
see some such person with him. They passed close to me, and I heard her
say, ‘Are you satisfied with the judgment?’ And he answered, ‘Yes,’ and
then, ‘It, the whole business, rather makes one think of that fellow
Nebuchadnezzar and his finding out that all the inhabitants of the earth
are as nothing; things are a bit small, aren’t they?—including oneself.’
Next minute he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘I believe it
should be possible to make a reversible turbine,’ he said. ‘It’s always
bothered me, but I believe I saw a way to do it in court to-day. To think I
was ever such an ass as to say it couldn’t be done!’” WILLIAM BRENDON AND
SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH