CHAPTER XIXIN WHICH THE BILL OF SALE IS COMPLETED
THE golden moment passed and did not return. The next morning found Baldwin ill and depressed, with a great craving for the bottle his weak mind had forsworn the night before, and a foreboding that he had made a fool of himself and an enemy of Inman. That crafty individual, however, was in chastened mood and more than ordinarily patient and thoughtful. A full whisky-bottle had replaced the empty one in the office cupboard; but the foreman busied himself in the workshop and never turned his head in that direction the whole day. Once, when a question was asked him relating to some work that could not be completed for some considerable time, he appeared to hesitate and referred the questioner to Mr. Briggs, with the quiet explanation that he might have left before then; a remark that infuriated the master, who called upon the devil to witness that he did not know what Inman was talking about.
During the morning Maniwel, who had tormented himself with reproaches during the night, sent up word that he would like to speak with Baldwin, who dictated the surly reply that he had no time to waste. Repulsed by the master, Maniwel next turned to the man, and waylaid Inman the same evening as he walked home from the hotel, to which he had now transferred his custom.
“I would like a word wi’ you, my lad,” he began with characteristic directness, “about my old mate,Baldwin. It isn’t i’ t’ nature o’ things ’at you should be over friendly wi’ me, I know, but I can’t see a man going down t’ hill as fast as Baldwin’s going without asking if there’s naught can be done to steady him.”
“And what gives me the honour of being picked out for your questions?” Inman inquired with cold sarcasm. “Am I to understand ’at you think I’m responsible, or what?”
“I’ve said naught o’ t’ sort,” Maniwel replied gently. “Most o’ what I’ve heard has been t’other way about, and they say you’ve done your best to check him. I’ve lived long enough to know ’at a man’ll fly to t’ bottle when he’s i’ trouble without help from nob’dy. Nay, it’s because I hear he sets a deal o’ store by you, and’ll let you guide him when he’ll listen to nob’dy else, ’at I thought I’d like to say ’at if there was ought I could do——”
“If you’ll give me a turn, old man,” Inman broke in with an icy passion that told Maniwel there was nothing good to be expected there, “I’ll save you any further waste o’ breath. Sanctimonious sermons are naught i’ my line, and you’d do better to let charity begin at home and get Jagger to hearken. He’ll happen tell you which o’ t’ Ten Commandments he’s been breaking!
“But there’s one thing I will say: if I’d been minded to put the brake on before you spoke, and try to hold Baldwin back, I wouldn’t now—I’d push him forward wi’ both hands sooner than give you pleasure, you canting old humbug. So you can get back home and see what good your damned interference has done your old mate!”
He had advanced his face close to Maniwel’s as he hissed out the closing words, but the action had not the effect he expected.
“Then God forgi’e you, my lad!” said Maniwel sadly, “and save you from having a man’s bloodrequired at your hands. But I won’t believe aught as bad of you; nobbut I’ll say this one thing: the devil’s a master that pays poor wages, and when a man has his feet on t’ slippy road ’at leads to t’ pit it doesn’t take both hands to push him forrad.”
“I’ll keep my feet without your help, old man,” Inman replied sneeringly, “but heark ye! I’ll bring you and your precious Jagger to your knees yet; I’ll——”
“That’s true, lad! and you couldn’t bring us to a better place.” There was a half-humorous sternness in Maniwel’s voice now. “You and Baldwin have brought me to my knees long sin’, and I shall get there again, I warrant. More’n that neither you nor your master can do! But I’m sorry if I’ve done harm where I meant good, and I leave it wi’ you.”
Inman went straight to the office where Baldwin was seated with his glass before him, and helped himself liberally.
“The devil take all hypocrites!” he said.
Baldwin’s brow twisted into a note of sullen interrogation.
“Maniwel Drake wants me to get you to kneel at the penitent form,” he explained. “I’ve just sent him home with a flea in his ear.”
Baldwin’s voice was thick, but he was understood to consign Maniwel and all his house to a place where fleas would lose their power to torment, and he asked no further questions.
October passed and with the garnering of the bracken harvest the last of the summer feathered visitors took their leave of the moors and winter residents arrived daily. A Saint Luke’s summer had brought a succession of warm sunny days, which splashed the bramble leaves with wonderful colourings of crimson and orange, and stained the leaves of Herb Robert with the blood of the dying year.
Nancy, pacing painfully her bedroom floor for a short time each day, looked out upon the hills thatwere scorched to varied tints of copper and gold, and drank in courage from the sight. Every evening a robin came and sang for her before it turned in for the night. Once or twice she had seen a woodcock frolicking in the dim light of early dawn and had known by that sign that autumn had come. She would have given much to be as free; but for her freedom was far behind, a mere dream, a memory. She stretched out her arm and touched the sleeping infant—the only link of the fetter she did not hate to contemplate—and wondered what of solace or misery was wrapped up for her in that little bundle of life. He had his father’s features; there was no mistaking the nose and jaw; yet he was hers, and to bring him into the world she had almost given her life. For his sake, she sometimes told herself, she had paid an even bigger price, for she had fought against death.
Inman hated her. How she knew it she could not have explained, for until the boy came he had been always endurable though he spared her the pretence of affection. The first time her eyes fell upon him after the severity of the crisis was over, she knew that he hated her and that he wished her to know it. Lazily, she had wondered what had happened to effect the change when she had given him a son; but no disappointment mixed with the curiosity, for her feeling towards him was colder and more colourless than hatred, being just elementary indifference and there was no fear, for the indifference extended to her own safety.
It interested her to note that none of the women who visited her spoke ill of her husband, though they referred to Baldwin’s downward course with many a gloomy anticipation of quick disaster. Even Keturah appeared to find him tolerable, and shared the general opinion that it was he who kept the ship afloat, and would save it if salvation was still possible. Nancy smiled and said nothing, waiting the developmentof events with a strange incuriosity that was the result of her slack hold on life.
Since the nurse’s departure Nancy and Keturah had slept together, and except at meal times, whole days passed when husband and wife never saw each other. Occasionally a day would end without the interchange of a spoken word. She was therefore surprised when he entered the parlour one evening in November when the two women were sitting together in the firelight, and with an authoritative movement of the head bade Keturah withdraw.
“I suppose you don’t need to be told,” he said in a hard voice into which he tried to impart sufficient warmth for his purpose, “that Baldwin’s on his last legs?”
“It’s what you’ve led me to expect,” she replied listlessly.
“You take it coolly,” he replied with ill-suppressed irritation.
“Why shouldn’t I?” she answered. “It’s what you’ve been looking for, isn’t it?—what you’ve been working for?”
He uttered an angry exclamation, and sat down beside her, putting his face close to hers and speaking in a low voice. He was obviously holding himself under restraint with some difficulty.
“Listen!” he said. “I’m inclined to save him, if he can be saved. It’ll come to the same thing in the end, but I see no other way of becoming top dog than by giving him a lift for a few months. You wouldn’t understand if I was to explain——”
“Then tell me what you want of me,” she said wearily. “There’s something you want me to do or you wouldn’t have come—I’ve wit enough to understand that. It’s money, I suppose?”
“It’s money,” he admitted sullenly; “but it isn’t moneyyoucan lend. You’re in with him already, and if the business fell to pieces you’d be in no betterposition than any other creditor. They’d try their best to make out ’at you were a partner——”
“Now you’re explaining,” she interrupted with a smile, “and you’ve already told me I shan’t understand.”
He again made a gesture of impatience—and again controlled himself.
“IfIcould lend him the money it ’ud be different,” he went on. “He’d give me what they call a bill of sale, and I should come in before the other creditors when he crashed——”
Nancy smiled, and the frown deepened on Inman’s face as he observed it.
“Now we’re coming to it,” she said. “You want me to giveyoua cheque, I suppose?”
He shook his head. “That wouldn’t do; it ’ud be too patent. Baldwin thinks I’ve five hundred o’ my own—my life’s savings!” he added with a short laugh, looking meaningly into Nancy’s face.
She knew at once what he meant, though she had forgotten all about the hidden store; but she purposely held her peace.
“There’s that five hunderd in the bag,” he whispered. “It ’ud be better out o’ the way. Nobody but us two knows it’s there, and it ’ud be gaol for us both if they did——”
“You want me to let you have it to lend Baldwin?” she asked. “You’re welcome to it for aught I care, and him too.”
It was the answer he had led up to; but the note of unconcern stirred his anger. He knew why she was so listless; it was because Jagger was lost to her, of course, and he added this to the list of memories that he was keeping green for the hour of vengeance.
With a curt acknowledgment he went away and sought his master. He would have taken the money without his wife’s leave if it had seemed to be the better course; but there was a certain satisfactionin making her accessory to the fact—one never knew that it might not prove convenient. Baldwin had swallowed his gruel at last, and the bill of sale had been prepared and was in the safe. All that was necessary now was to produce the money and complete the transaction, and for that purpose a clerk from the lawyer’s office in Airlee was to attend the next day.
“It’ll be in gold,” he said to Baldwin, as he sat down in the spare chair and half filled his glass with whisky and water. “Gold tells no tales and leaves no traces, but it had best be banked sharp.”
Baldwin looked up stupidly.
“Who’re you learning their business?” he asked savagely. “Do you think I was born in a frost?”
“Of course not,” returned Inman humbly, for he was not to be caught off his guard this time; “but it’s a lot o’ money to have lying about in cash, and I should be easier in my mind to know it was banked before I went to Hull.”
Baldwin consigned man and gold to an entirely different port and Inman refrained from further recommendations.
During the night winter got a grip of the moor, and when morning came the ground was hard and there was the promise of snow. A bitter wind was blowing from the north, and Inman listened to its weird piping with feelings of annoyance and apprehension that revealed themselves in an air of thoughtfulness and a puckered brow.
“Confound it all!” he muttered as he turned away from the window and went downstairs.
There was no one in the kitchen and after he had visited the sideboard in the parlour and concealed a bottle beneath his coat, he passed out and entered the shop, the door of which was unlocked, though it was too early for any of the men to have arrived. When he reached the upper floor the sound of stertorous breathing furnished the explanation—the masterhad not been a-bed, and was sleeping off his drunken fit in the office. Inman glanced at the unpleasant picture and then turned away contemptuously.
“You’ve finished the whisky, I see,” he muttered. “ ‘All for my-sen,’ as usual! But I’ll return good for evil—you shall have a change this time. You’ll want a friend before the day’s out.” Whereupon he opened his coat and deposited the new bottle upon the shelf in the cupboard.
Baldwin was far from sober when he awoke, and curtly refused his breakfast; but he consented to drink the cup of coffee Inman brought him, though not until a liberal measure of rum had been mixed with it. After that he brightened, but had more sense than to attempt to leave the office, and he had not moved from his chair when the lawyer’s clerk arrived close on noon.
The transaction was completed in a few minutes; the gold counted by Baldwin and the clerk, and locked up in the safe. Then Inman drew himself erect and threw back his shoulders, but seeing himself observed by his master hid the satisfaction he felt, and said:
“I wish it had been in a cheque; but I’ve had to gather it together from here and there, you see. I want Mr. Briggs to take it over to Keepton to-day and bank it, or else let me go earlier and break my journey.”
He turned his eyes on his master as he spoke and contrived to allow a doubt of Baldwin’s ability to journey anywhere appear in them. Instantly there was a flash.
“I daresay I can manage to mind my own business,” Mr. Briggs snapped. “Some folks is a damned sight too ready to put their fillings in. IfItake it I shall know where it is!”
Mr. Jones laughed and Inman allowed himself to smile.
“If you don’t get it in to-day, Mr. Briggs—though I think you’d do well to take Mr. Inman’s advice—you’dbetter sleep with the safe key under your pillow,” remarked the clerk facetiously.
“I’m much obliged to both of you,” he replied with rising temper as he saw the humour on both faces and interpreted it to his disadvantage. “I can mebbe attend to my own business now ’at I reckon you’ll ha’ finished yours.”
Mr. Jones recognised his mistake and at once resumed his professional air.
“I am sure you can,” he said, as he closed his case and looked round for his hat. “Lawyers think it necessary to caution their clients, but of course, in your case it’s a mere formality. I wish you good-morning, Mr. Briggs.”
“Take him down to t’ pub and give him his dinner before he goes,” said Baldwin, as he let his hand fall into the one the clerk proffered him.
“A cold spot this!” said Mr. Jones as the two walked down the street. “Feels like snow, too; and, by Jove, looks like it!”
Inman grunted assent. The sky was leaden-coloured, and a few light flakes had already fallen, as he knew.
“I hope it holds off. I’ve to travel to Hull through the night,” he said. “We’ve opened a new account there that’ll make us independent of these local fellows who’ve cut up so rough.”
“Why the dickens must you go through the night, this weather? Won’t it run to an hotel bill?” Mr. Jones inquired.
“You’ve hit it exactly,” Inman replied caustically. “Mr. Briggs doesn’t believe in his men wasting either time or money.”
“Will he pull through now?” the clerk asked, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper.
“If he keeps off the drink—yes,” replied Inman. “That’s my only anxiety. It wouldn’t surprise me to find the money still in the safe when I get back.”
“Well, it won’t run away,” laughed the other, and Inman shrugged his shoulders.
“If he wasn’t too fuddled to do it,hemight,” he answered.
They parted at the door of the hotel and Inman returned slowly to the shop with his eyes fixed thoughtfully on the ground. There was no spring in his step, no brighter light in his eye, but rather a look of increased anxiety. With some men the effort to over-reach and cheat their fellows is such an ordinary and natural act that its successful accomplishment affords them no more than an ordinary and unemotional satisfaction, allowing no exhilaration of spirit or relaxation of strain. Inman was of this number, and now that he had reached this advanced point in the ascent of the difficult Hill of Fortune he found his only pleasure in forming his plans for the conquest of the summit and bending his energies to the final struggle.
He entered the office to find Baldwin asleep again, and without saying a word to the men who turned away their heads significantly when he glanced in their direction he went downstairs and sought Keturah.
“Is Nancy about?” he asked.
“Nay, she’s one of her bad girds on, and is lying down,” she replied.
“Mr. Briggs hasn’t been down to his dinner, I suppose?” he inquired more mildly than was his wont.
“What we’re all coming to I don’t know,” she replied, ignoring the direct question; “but I see naught before us but t’ poor-house”; and she threw her apron over her head and gave way to tears.
Inman had never treated her less roughly. “Keturah,” he said, “put your apron down and listen to me. I’m not one to shove my worries on to other folks, and particularly on to women, but I’m in the devil of a hole, and you’re Baldwin’s sister. If I wasn’t going to be away for a day or two I wouldn’ttrouble you; but what am I to do? Now can you follow me?”
The quietness of his voice calmed and yet frightened her, as bullying would never have done; and she turned her worn face to his and bade him proceed.
“You’re right about the poor-house,” he said with an emphasis that struck a chill to the woman’s heart; “and I’m beginning to wonder if I can save you from it. I’ve lent him five hundred pounds of my own savings this morning, which he knows ought to go to the bank this afternoon, and he’s too drunk to take it.”
“Eh, dear! eh, dear!” Keturah sank into a chair and began to sob, but Inman checked her.
“Stop that baby work! If Nancy was able to go about she’d act for me, but as she isn’t there is only you.”
“Aye, more’s the pity!” wailed Keturah. “Nancy’s more in her nor me, and ’ud know what to do.”
“I’m going to tell you what to do,” Inman replied firmly. “You must get him to bed to-night at all costs and keep the drink away from him. There’s no more in the cupboard and no one must fetch him any. If he’s allowed to sleep in his chair again it’s a thousand to one he chokes. I don’t want to alarm you, but it’s a fact that his face was blue when I roused him this morning.”
“The Lord save us!” ejaculated Keturah, “and you going to be away all t’ night!”
“Get him to bed,” continued Inman, “and you’ll be able to talk to him to-morrow morning. Then you must tell him that I left word that he was not to forget the bank. You’ll remember!”
Keturah sighed and clasped her hands helplessly.
“Aye, I’ll think on hard enough, but what am I to do if he won’t come? I can’t lug him in!”
“I’ve thought of that,” Inman replied, and his unaccustomed gentleness gave Keturah the first ray of hope she had had for many a day. “I’ll see himlast thing and try to get him in; but if I fail, and he doesn’t come of his own accord by bedtime, you must get the men to carry him in and lay him down. We mustn’t have him die in the office.”
“The Lord help us!” Keturah wailed again; “to think it’s come to this pass, and him ’at never used to touch t’ stuff. Eh, dear! I’m sure it’s enough to drive a woman off her head!”
Inman said nothing and she saw him no more until he came in for his tea, when his face was still gloomy.
“I’ve done my best,” he said, “but he won’t budge. However, the booze is all done and I’ve put the lamp and matches out of his way. In another hour or two he’ll either be more reasonable or too drunk to know what’s happening, and you can then have him carried in. I’ve mentioned it to Frank and he’ll step round about nine.”
It was after six when he left the house and was driven off to catch the slow train for Airlee, where he would have to spend two or three hours before the mail left for Hull. During the long drive he spoke only once to the stable boy who drove him, when he remarked that it was a wild, black night and would snow before morning.
“Ending up wi’ ‘Damn it!’ ” the youthful Jehu remarked to the equally youthful porter at the station, as the two watched the train bear Inman away. “I’d as soon drive Old Nick his-self as yon!”
Meantime, no sooner had the lights of the trap disappeared round the bend in the road than Keturah made her way to Nancy and reported the position of affairs.
“Run across and ask Hannah to come!” said Nancy.
“Aye, t’ cat’s away, is it?” commented Keturah. “However, I’ve no objection, I’m sure. We can do wi’ somebody i’ t’ house ’at has a headpiece on her shoulders!”