CHAPTER XVIIIN WHICH NANCY’S BABY IS BORN AND JAGGER LOSESHIS TEMPER
THERE are some men who take an almost scientific interest in compassing the ruin of others. Along certain channels the current of humane and kindly feeling may flow as with other men, but let some particular individual injure them, or stand in the way of their advancement, and their conduct becomes inhuman; and they will watch the sufferings they produce with something of the detached and impersonal interest of the chemist who expects that his mixture of chemicals must ultimately shatter the vessel that contains it, and whose only care is to safeguard himself from injury in the process.
Inman was of this class. It afforded him positive pleasure to see how the coils he wound so cunningly tightened about his unsuspecting victim. The knowledge that he was unsuspected added to his enjoyment; tickled his sense of humour. He believed with all his soul that Baldwin’s motto—“all for my-sen” could not be bettered; it was the view of life held by all healthy animals—by the cross-grained buck-rabbit as much as by the stoat; and the game of stalking the stalker was one that afforded him endless amusement.
It gratified him too to realise that he was succeeding in another direction: that the villagers were looking upon him with a less unfriendly eye as Baldwin’s increasingdemoralisation and coarseness of language cooled their already luke-warm sympathies. It was to the man’s credit, they said, that he should keep his head and his temper, and work industriously and cleverly in his master’s interests, when everybody knew what provocation to wrath the master offered. Inman never manifested ill-temper; never advanced beyond a half-humorous sneer; maybe (they argued) he showed his worst side to the world, as the men of his wild country were said to do. There were others, however, who shook their heads meaningly, and kept firm hold of their distrust.
Meantime Inman’s grip upon his master tightened, and a more domineering note crept into his voice when he addressed him; but only when they were alone; only when evening brought them to the council-room and the bottle.
“I tell you,” said Inman, “Nancy’s gone as far as she will go. If you think you can do better than I’ve done, try her yourself—I’mwilling. I daresay in spite of all your foul language and black looks she loves you as much as she does me.” There was a harder note than usual in his voice, as if his patience was almost exhausted, and his lip took an ugly curve as he spoke of Nancy’s love, for she had been irritable of late, and once or twice hot words had passed between them.
They were sitting at the table in the dimly-lit office, each with a glass in front of him; but Inman was making a mere pretence of drinking.
“You’ve taught her her lesson too well for her to forget it,” he continued as Baldwin merely sent Nancy to an unknown destination.
“She says a man who’s all for himself isn’t to be trusted without security, and what can I say?Youwouldn’t do it if you were in her place.”
Baldwin scowled and said nothing that could be distinguished.
“There’s one way out and only one, that I can see; but I’ve mentioned it till I’m tired.I’lllend you five hundred;—it’s all I can lay my hands on; but five hundred’ll see you out o’ the ditch; five hundred’ll put you on your feet. And what do I ask for it? Five per cent., that’s all; just what you pay Nancy; and you boggle at it!”
“I do naught o’ t’ sort,” flashed Baldwin fiercely. “I’ll pay you ten; I’ll pay you a damned sight more’n you’ll get anywhere else; but I’ll see you blaze before I’ll give you a bill o’ sale; so there you have it!”
Inman turned on his seat with a gesture of restrained impatience.
“You’d sooner sink in the bog than clutch a dirty rope and be saved! It’s damned folly! I don’t like bills o’ sale, who does? But if you think I’m going to lend my money for your creditors to grab if the worst comes to the worst, you’re mistaken. I can save the business yet; but I’m man and not master, and may be sacked at a minute’s notice, same as you sacked Jagger. It’s either a bill o’ sale, or we flounder on for another month or so and then—”
He shrugged his shoulders; but Baldwin was not looking. He had emptied his glass and the bottle and his eyes were on the table. Inman watched him, and a smile, that was nearly as ugly as the frown it replaced, spread over his face.
“What objection is there to it?” he went on with less heat. “I only want it for security; it isn’t same as I was taking aught from you. Has to be registered, you say? Well, you’ll be registered a deal more in another month or two if you don’t do it. And that’ll go against the grain when theHeraldand all the other papers have you listed as bankrupt.”
The other’s face became distorted with passion, but the oaths he poured out left Inman unmoved.
“I’m trying to save you, aren’t I?” he continued;“but you’re same as a man that’s drowning; you kick and struggle till you’d pull a strong swimmer down with you, and I’m not having any. Will five hundred set you on your feet? Are you sober enough to answer me that?”
It was the first time that he had adopted this tone with his victim, but he had measured his distance and knew how far he could go.
“I’m as sober as you,” the other growled thickly. “Five hundred ’ud pull me through; but I tell you I’ll see you hanged before I’ll give you that bill!”
“Very well,” said Inman calmly. “Perhaps before we separate you’ll tell me why, and what you propose to do instead. My money’s right where it is even if it doesn’t bring in five per cent.”
Baldwin said nothing; and Inman regarded him for quite a minute in silence. He then remarked:
“I’ve finished with that suggestion now. Next time it’s mentioned it’ll come from you; but there’s one thing I want to point out. These folk you’ve dealt with all these years aren’t willing to do much for you now ’at you’re down; and you’ve no bank to give you a helping hand. Suppose you had to come to grief in the end what harm would it do you if I was to get the machinery, and leave the other creditors to whistle for their brass? What have they done for you that you’ve to consider them?”
He looked at his watch, and without waiting for an answer rose and went out, turning his steps towards the moors, where there was other game to be snared; and Baldwin sat on, staring moodily at the chair his foreman had vacated.
An hour later Nancy’s baby was born and news spread through the village that the mother’s life was despaired of. The event had not been expected so soon, but there was plenty of competent help available, and it was not the midwife’s inefficiencythat caused the old doctor, who had been summoned by telegraph, to shake his head.
“Where’s the father?” he inquired. “Tell him I want him, sharp.”
Keturah hastened to the workshop, but found only Baldwin whom she could not waken from a drunken sleep. Hannah ran home to ask her brother to seek him.
“He’s not in t’ ‘Packhorse,’ ” she gasped. “Go fetch him, lad. It’s for poor Nancy’s sake!”
“And bridle your tongue and temper!” said Maniwel. “If you’ll take the moor road, I’ll walk down Kirkby way.”
Just beyond Baldwin’s workshop Jack Pearce caught Jagger’s arm.
“Are you after Inman?” he asked; and putting his lips to the other’s ear whispered something that caused Jagger to fling off the detaining hand and clench his fists.
“Are you sure, Jack? As certain as there’s a God in heaven if I catch him at that game I’ll lay him out!”
“I’d like to help you at that job,” said Jack; “but I’m best away. I’m dirt in her eyes. If I caught ’em together there’d be murder done, though he could pay me wi’ one hand.”
“He can’t me!” said Jagger grimly; and he strode away into the darkness.
It was not really dark, for in September day lingers on the uplands to chat with night; but there are gloomy places in the shadows of the great hills which those who love the light are careful to avoid. It was towards one of these that Jagger hurried with a fierce anger at his heart that made him oblivious of everything except his mission, and even that was obscured by the deeper purpose of punishment.
Of punishment—not revenge. Nancy lay dying, perhaps by this time was already dead; and the manwho ought to have been at hand in the emergency: the man whose quick brain might have suggested something, however impossible or futile: the father of the child who was to lose its mother; was indulging in an amour with another woman—a child whose hair until a few months ago was hanging down her back.
Mountain linnets rose from their nests in alarm as his feet crunched the stiff grass. A couple of gulls wheeled over his head. Even in the dim light the moor was rich in colour, and the mantle night had thrown down upon it could not wholly hide the madder-brown of the soil that peeped out in patches from amidst the orange and crimson bushes, the russet-red fronds of dead bracken, and the sober array of grasses, straw-coloured and green. If this riot of subdued colour failed to reach Jagger’s perceptions it was because a warmer tint was before his eyes—he was “seeing red.”
Strangely enough, when he stumbled upon the guilty pair and found that he had been observed, although too late for escape or concealment, he held himself well in hand. Like a voice by telephone his father’s words vibrated on his brain—“Bridle your tongue and temper!” Until that moment he had given them no second thought; reaching him now by that mysterious wireless that baffles explanation they served to bring him to his senses and to push Nancy’s need into the forefront of his thoughts.
Polly had released herself from Inman’s arms and stood by, half-tearful, half-defiant, looking on Jagger whose stern eyes had never once been turned to her face. Inman, with an uneasy sneer upon his lips, had thrust his hands deep into his pockets and was putting on a front of dare-devilry and scorn.
“I’m seeking you, Inman,” Jagger began. He had walked hotly and was a little out of breath, but the words came steadily enough.
“Your baby’s come, and Nancy’s dying—maybedead. Get away down, as straight as you can go, and I’ll see Polly safe.”
The girl gave a startled gasp, and shrunk farther back into the deeper shadows of the rock that overhung them. Inman’s face lost its look of disdain and for once the man found himself at a loss for words.
“Do you hear me?” continued Jagger, speaking in a low passionless voice that ought to have warned the other of danger. “Why don’t you go? Haven’t I told you your wife’s dying? For her sake—at any rate until t’ sod covers her,—I’ll say naught about what I’ve seen. Get you gone!”
“All in good time!” replied Inman in a cold voice as he recovered himself. “You’ve delivered your message, and there’s no need for you to stop any longer. I’ll go down when it suits me, but not at your bidding.”
The look of a madman was in Jagger’s eyes, and a madman’s unreasoning anger was in his heart. His father’s warning slipped into the background, yet his voice remained low as he said:
“So you’ll stop up here, you dirty blackguard with your light o’ love, while the wife you stole lies dying! If I served you as you deserve I’d kick you every step o’ t’ way home; but I’d be doing her a better turn to lay you out here on t’ hillside, and leave t’ crows to pick your stinking bones.”
He paid the penalty of his violence the next moment, and though anger now blazed in Inman’s eyes it was not he, but Polly, who turned the tables upon him. Her white face quivered with passion as she left Inman’s side and confronted Jagger.
“Light o’ love, am I? Then whose light o’ love is Nancy, I’d like to know? Who is it goes kissing and cuddling i’ t’ Cove of a night, Jagger Drake? It’syou’at ’ud better be by her bed-side, if so be ’at she’s dying;you, ’at she’s rued she didn’t wed, and gives her kisses to! T’ pot might well call t’ pan, Jagger Drake!”
“Is this true, Polly?” said Inman, seizing the girl by the shoulders and looking into her face.
“I’ve seen ’em with these eyes and heard ’em with these ears!” she replied. “I wasn’t spying on ’em neither. They were one side o’ t’ wall and me t’other.”
“And you never told me!” he went on, tightening his grasp on her shoulder until the pain made her wince.
“And I never would ha’ done,” she answered doggedly. “It was six o’ one and half-a-dozen o’ t’other”; and she began to sob.
He pushed her away roughly and turned to Jagger, who was standing utterly crestfallen and unhinged, deprived of the power of thought and action by this unexpected development.
“I could be almost glad of this,” said Inman, as he bent forward until his face approached his opponent’s; “but I’ve got to thrash you for it. Strip!”
“Aye, by gen I will!” A fierce joy arose in Jagger’s heart. The sense of discomfiture and humiliation fled like the gloom of night at a clear daybreak. His coat was instantly on the ground and he was rolling up his sleeves. “But there’s one thing I’ll say to you first, chance you don’t live to hear it after, or me to tell it. I never wronged you but wi’ one kiss, and it wasn’t Nancy’s wish. She’s always walked t’ straight road, and barring that one time so have I. Now I’m ready for you!”
The fight had not been in progress a minute before Polly covered her eyes with her hands and ran away screaming. They were both strong and powerful men; and if Jagger had attacked in the heat of his anger it might have gone badly with him, for Inman’s passion never suffered him to lose his self-control. Now, however, the one was no whit cooler than the other, and the result was not long in doubt. No boxer or wrestler on the moor could stand up to JaggerDrake with any hope of success. Every native for miles round knew it; but Inman was not a native, and the fact was unknown to him; at the same time the knowledge would probably have made no difference, for cowardice was not among the number of his vices. He got in a few heavy blows whilst Jagger awaited his opportunity, and the seeming ineffectiveness of his opponent perhaps threw him off his guard, for the first knock he received on the jaw sent him like a log to the ground.
His white face looked ghastly in the darkness as Jagger bent over it. He was unconscious, but Jagger’s practised eye and ear told him there was no danger; and moistening his handkerchief in a near-by runnel he bathed the prostrate man’s brow until the quivering of the eyelids showed that sense was returning.
A little later Inman sat up. “Pass me my coat,” he said; and Jagger handed it to him without a word.
“You’re a better man than me with your fists,” he continued, as he looked up with proud defiance into the other’s set face. “You know how to hit, and where.So do I.I’ll hit where it’ll hurt, you bet; where it’ll hurt till hell ’ud be a picnic. I’m no saint, and I neither forget nor forgive. You needn’t wait, Mr. Drake. I’ll come down at my leisure.”
“Very good!” said Jagger contemptuously. “Get on with your hitting!” and turned away.
“If it was only me,” he said to himself as he walked slowly towards the village, “I daresay he’d find a way to ruin me, for he’s the devil himself; but he can’t hurt father.”
He was thinking of the business; but the business had not been in Inman’s thoughts.