CHAPTER XVIIN WHICH INMAN SHOWS THE SUBTLETY OF A VERYVENOMOUS SERPENT
DURING these fateful weeks Nancy’s aversion to her husband settled into a milder form of repugnance as she thought she recognised on his part a warmer feeling towards herself. The reason for this increase of amiability she might easily have surmised if she had been acquainted with all the facts, which was far from being the case, for Inman told her just as much as he wished her to know. One might have thought that his affability would have aroused suspicion: that she might have realised that there is no need for the highwayman to waste powder and shot when a smile, which costs nothing, will serve his turn as well. But Nancy was in no mood for analysing motives, and was only too thankful that a protector was at hand to stand between her and the ill-temper which Baldwin expended upon her with a savage coarseness that exceeded anything she had previously experienced. The very sight of her, reminding him as it did of the man who had robbed him, and of her better fortune—for what was a paltry five hundred to one with her means?—goaded him to vulgar reproaches and accusations which Nancy would have found intolerable if it had not been for the knowledge that her husband was only waiting his time. Inman was not always present on these occasions; but when he was he would let his eyes rest on her with a meaning look, andshe knew that he was conveying the message he had spoken in private a hundred times.
“Have patience, lass! It’ll be your turn after a while! I’m booking it all down!”
In reality, of course, she was mistress of the situation, with the key at her girdle, and she was quite aware of it. Baldwin’s resources were almost exhausted and Inman’s savings she guessed were inconsiderable. She was the only capitalist of the three, and if Baldwin had been wise he would have made her his friend, in which case she might not have acquiesced so carelessly in the use of her money for the appropriation of his property. As it was, he alienated her sympathy and made her hostile.
She seldom replied to any of his taunts, and was even silent when her husband encouraged her, contenting herself with a shrug and an expression of weary indifference, and Inman would continue:
“You’re safe enough in my hands. Leave it to me, and don’t worry your head over whys and wherefores. Your interests are mine, and I’ll steer the ship into calm waters, you’ll see; but it won’t be Baldwin Briggs who’ll be master when it gets there.”
He always laughed as he ended, and Nancy sometimes smiled. His strong self-confidence struck a chord in her nature that responded readily. She did not love him; she did not even respect him; sometimes when she happened to touch him as they lay side by side in bed she would shiver and draw back as if he had been some loathsome animal; but he was the only protector she had, and he saved her the trouble of thinking for herself at a time when she found it difficult to think. That is why she acquiesced without question, and with a dull glow of satisfaction at her heart and the beginnings of a sense of triumph, when Inman told her what he had planned regarding the purchase of Baldwin’s property.
“It’ll tide him over for a bit,” he said, “but it’s a plank and not a jolly-boat, and he’s bound to go under.”
His eyes smiled into Nancy’s as he said it; but the rest of his face was passive.
“He doesn’t seem to think so,” said Nancy.
“No,” remarked her husband grimly; “he feels safe because my arm’s round him; but the time will come when——”
He opened his hands and flung his arms wide—a significant completion of the sentence; and seeing his wife’s eyes soften he added with a laugh:
“Then, maybe, we’ll save him and make him galley-slave, the foul-mouthed devil.”
When the report spread round the neighbourhood that Inman was the purchaser that astute individual only stared. Once, when he was directly challenged, he replied that he didn’t discuss business matters except with principals, and added:
“Lies are as thick on the ground as weeds. He’s a fool who wastes his time stubbing ’em up!”
“Doesn’t Baldwin guess?” Nancy asked, when he was relating this encounter.
“All Baldwin does is to curse to all eternity those who’ve bought at half value,” laughed her husband. “There’s no wonder you look worn and withered, Nancy!—he’s blasted you! Let him guess! Let ’em all guess! Priestley’s a safe lawyer, and’ll give naught away.”
This was only one move in the game and a legitimate one; there were others, more devilish, that required a clear head, infinite patience and the unscrupulous use of means which Inman judged it prudent to conceal from Nancy’s eyes. Every evening when the men had gone Baldwin and Inman would return to the office and discuss the situation out of earshot of the women. On one of the earliest of these occasions Inman had produced from a cupboardof which he had been given the key a bottle of whisky and a single tumbler.
“You don’t touch this stuff?” he said. “You were a wise man not to begin it, for it’s a habit ’at isn’t easy dropped. I wish I could do without it; but I’ve always found in my case that a drop of whisky’s a help when I’m hard pushed, and gingers me up a bit. I don’t recommend it, mind you, all the same, to them that aren’t used to it.”
He was mixing himself a glass as he spoke, with a veiled eye on his master who looked as if he was going to forbid the indulgence. Inman, however, took no notice.
“A cup of coffee or a bottle o’ bitters might get you to the same place in time,” he said; “but this lands you there quicker, and time’s money just now. It gives your brain a spurt and comforts your heart,Ifind; but those who haven’t begun it had better keep off it.”
He turned a deaf ear to Baldwin’s mutterings, and from that moment showed himself unusually resourceful. No actor on the stage of a crowded theatre who was drawing the plaudits of his audience that night was playing his part more admirably than Inman to this company of one. He had no great liking for spirits, and he was on ordinary occasions studiously abstemious; but he could drink hard on occasion and be little the worse for it, and he counted on this capability now, when he had an object in view—the object of guiding a pair of unaccustomed feet into the perilous groves of Bacchus.
Midway in the course of their deliberations on that first occasion he had stretched out his hand for the bottle again and had checked himself.
“That won’t do!” he said with a laugh; “—too much is as bad as too little,” and he had risen and returned the bottle and tumbler to the cupboard, putting the key in his pocket—an action which had made the desired impression on Baldwin.
For a time the ingenious and infernal scheme seemed likely to fail; but if his hopes were disappointed Inman continued the same tactics and displayed no hurry. At one time he would leave the bottle untouched until the ineffectiveness of his suggestions led Baldwin to bring down his hand upon the table with a hot recommendation that the condemned stuff should be fetched out and his counsellor should get a move on. At another he would profess physical weariness and depression, and would refuse almost angrily to drink on the ground that a man might go too far in drowning sorrow. On such an occasion Baldwin might storm as he liked and Inman would remain unmoved.
“We’ll leave it over till to-morrow. You wouldn’t have a man do what you’ve too much sense to do yourself?”
The subtle poison worked slowly, but still it worked. One night, when he had been more than usually harassed because the bank at Keepton where he had opened an account had definitely refused an overdraft on the ground that the security he was able to offer was insufficient, and Inman’s ingenuity had been unequal to the task of raising money in any other direction, Baldwin sat in the kitchen, brooding over his misfortunes, long after the others had gone to bed. He was weighted with care and dreaded the sleepless hours that stretched in front of him.
After a while he went out and quietly entered the office. It would not have surprised Inman to know that the duplicate of the key that locked his cupboard was in the master’s bunch; it might not have surprised him, but it would certainly have gratified him, if he could have seen the door unlocked and the whisky bottle produced. Baldwin had only a vague idea of proportions, but he followed his foreman’s example and mixed himself a stiff glass. That night he slept heavily and was untroubled by dreams.Thereafter the two men drank together, not without protest on Inman’s part, and Baldwin soon outdistanced his teacher. Then Inman knew that the game was won.
All the village was aware that Baldwin was drinking heavily before the news reached the ears of Keturah and Nancy.
Although it had been planned with that object Inman professed great annoyance when he found that the confidence he had reposed in Albert (very sympathetic confidence) had been abused; and his frowning silence when the matter was mentioned in his hearing was sufficient confirmation of the truth of the report. It was Hannah who told Nancy. Her kindly heart had been touched by the message Jagger had brought her; and knowing that Nancy’s condition caused her to stand in special need of a friend in whom she could confide and who could be of service to her in a hundred ways she determined that nothing short of actual prohibition by Inman himself should keep her away.
Hannah was a woman of action; a woman for an emergency; and though sharp-spoken, a healer of breaches rather than a maker of them. Inman gave her a keen glance when he found the two together; said “How d’ye do?” in acknowledgement of her nod; and so tacitly recognised the friendship. It was the first real crumb of comfort Nancy had tasted since her marriage.
“You know he’s taken to drink, I suppose?”
“Who? James?” inquired Nancy, not wholly indifferent to what this might portend.
Hannah shook her head. “Nay, I mean Baldwin. It’s all over t’ place ’at he goes to bed drunk night after night.”
It was on Nancy’s lips to deny it; but one or two suspicious circumstances she had observed held back the contradiction.
“James has never said aught,” she remarked hesitatingly.
“Maybe not,” replied Hannah, who was careful not to make mischief between husband and wife. “They say your husband’s done his level best to keep him off it,—locked t’ drink up, and Baldwin broke t’ lock, he was that mad for’t. But I’ve happen done wrong to tell you, for you’ll be safe enough with your husband in t’ house. All t’ same when you’re as you are it’s as well to know.”
“Yes, I’m glad you’ve told me,” Nancy said. “I daresay folks are making a deal out o’ very little; but I’ll keep my eyes open and say naught.”
When Keturah heard of it she was at first tearfully indignant, but it was her nature to believe the worst, and her sense of helplessness led her to patch up a kind of peace with Nancy upon whom she was ready to lean now that the only prop she had known was likely to fail her. Later, when Baldwin was at no pains to conceal his condition, fear dried her tears, and drove her into a mood of despondency that left her limp and unequal to the strain of her ordinary household duties.
The seeds thus sown bore the crop of results Inman had foreseen, and hearing of Baldwin’s moral wreckage, the firms that had continued to give him credit now withheld it, whilst others gambled with the risk by charging higher prices. It was in vain that Inman interviewed and pleaded with them, for he was always forced to admit reluctantly in the end that in their place he would have done the same.
“The business is sound enough,” he would say; “but of course I’m not master and Mr. Briggs is. It’s a sad pity that trouble’s driven him to this; but we’ve to take facts as they are and I can’t blame you, though I wish you could see your way just this once——”
“Would you, if you were in my place?”
Inman hesitated. In conducting these negotiations he gave the impression of a man whose inflexible loyalty was baffled by a strict conscientiousness.
“If I could be absolutely sure that he would allow me to guide him, I would say yes. So far he has done so on most occasions. Once or twice lately—but he wasn’t master of himself then, and I’m hoping he’ll pull himself together.”
“Find somebody to guarantee the account, Mr. Inman, and you shall have the old terms with pleasure. What about your wife?” Everybody knew by this time that Nancy had ample means.
Inman shook his head. “I’ve tried my best, but you know what timid creatures women are; and my wife’s as far in as she cares to be.”
“That’s exactly our position, Mr. Inman.”
This was how it always ended, and Inman would shake hands with a downcast expression on his honest face, and a note of regret in his voice as he assured the principal that he couldn’t blame him.
One man in the village refused to join in the general chorus of condemnation. There is a variation of a familiar proverb that reads: “A friend loveth at all times, and is born as a brother for adversity.” Maniwel Drake was such a friend.
He had been having a hard struggle in his business as we have seen; but so far his shoulders had been broad enough for the burdens they had had to carry, and his heart had always been light. Since Jagger’s “conversion” he had scarcely had a care in the world; for the loss of his little capital had left him unmoved, and it is true to say that the contemplation of Baldwin’s misfortune had given him more sorrow than anything he had experienced since the death of his wife. It afforded him little satisfaction to realise that as Baldwin’s embarrassments increased his own diminished; that the “hurdles” were beingremoved one by one out of his path; and that a moderate prosperity was opening out before him.
It was not until Baldwin took to drink that Maniwel allowed himself to give way to depression, however, and when he found that his son received the news with an indifference that was not far removed from satisfaction his wrath was aroused.
“If there’s rejoicing in the presence o’ the angels of God over a sinner ’at repenteth,” he said, “there’s like to be rejoicing amongst t’other sort over one ’at sinks deeper into t’ mire; but I should grieve for a son o’ mine to join in such a devil-dance! I’m for lending Baldwin a hand if it can be done at all. He’s both ox and ass, is Baldwin; and if he can be got out o’ t’ pit it’s our duty to do it.”
“And have your labour for your pains,” commented Jagger.
“It won’t be t’ first time I’ve worked for naught, and been no worse for’t,” replied Maniwel.
He chose his opportunity when he had seen Inman pass on his way to the station, and early in the afternoon he walked up to Baldwin’s workshop. There was no one downstairs and all was quiet above, but when he reached the next storey he heard a sound in Baldwin’s office and went in, as he had always done—as everybody did—without waiting for an answer to his knock.
There was a bottle on the table and a glass half full of spirits was in Baldwin’s hand. He set it down angrily when he recognised his visitor, and with a curse bade him begone.
“I neither know nor care what brings tha!” he shouted. “Get outside, afore I help tha down!”
“Baldwin!” said Maniwel in a firm but kindly tone; “there never was a time, lad, when tha needed a friend more than tha does now, and I doubt if tha has one i’ t’ world, barring my-sen. I’ve come as a friend——”
“I won’t listen to tha,” shouted the infuriated man, who had already had drink enough to inflame his passion. “I tell tha I’ll do tha an injury if tha doesn’t take thi-sen off! Damn tha! Isn’t it enough ’at tha’s ruined me; thee and thy son——!”
“God help tha, lad!” broke in Maniwel; “tha can’t do me half as big an injury as tha’s doing thi-sen, and I’m flayed them ’at’s advising tha is doing tha no good.”
His eye had fallen on the second glass in the cupboard, and his voice became more pleading. “Don’t thee pin thi faith to Inman, lad. I’d do no man a wrong; but it’s borne in on me ’at that lad’s working for his own ends, and when he’s finished wi’ tha he’ll toss tha on t’ midden same as an old shoe! Cannot tha trust me, lad? Tha’s never known Maniwel Drake go back on his word, and I promise tha I’ll help tha, if I have to suffer for’t.”
Baldwin’s anger had made him impotent, but at these words he drained his glass and then dashed it at Maniwel’s feet where it lay broken in a thousand fragments. Curse followed curse as he refused his old mate’s offer and threatened him with mischief. Maniwel went a step forward and laid his hand on the other’s arm.
“I’ll go, lad. It’s ill trying to reason wi’ a man ’at’s i’ drink; but just try to let this one word get through t’ drink to thi memory. When tha comes to thi-sen and wants a friend, tha’ll find him where he’s always been—at Maniwel Drake’s.”
With these words and without a backward glance, he left the room, and returned home.