CHAPTER XVI.
GOING HOME.
THERE are people, we are told, on whom the rapid action of railway travelling acts as a soothing influence; but to the majority of us, when suffering from any loss or grief, a long train journey is simply maddening. The rattling of the windows, the vibration of the carriage, the banging of doors and shouting of porters at the stations, the prolonged and ear-piercing shriek of the whistle, occurring at such moments as to convince the thinking mind that it is not let off with any good intention or to serve any useful purpose, but simply to gratify the torturing instinct of the engine-driver at the expense of the passengers' nerves and tempers—all these only aggravate any trouble which may be part of one's invisible luggage. For all these together are not enough to distract one from the contemplation of one's special skeleton, and each is in itself enough to keep one from contemplating it with any good result. And as for seeing the bright side of one's troubles, that is quite impossible when one is moving at the rate of fifty miles an hour; the only wonder is that more people are not overcome by the peculiarly dismal aspect which one's position assumes under these circumstances, and that we don't hear of more suicides in railway carriages.
The three o'clock Midland express was tearing through the quiet country. A faint mist lay over the fields and hedges,faint, but still thick enough to hold its own against the pale yellow sunbeams that seemed striving to disperse it.
Richard Ferrier, idly gazing at the flying hedges and gates and squalid cottages, did not feel any less sad for the sadness of the outside world through which he was speeding home.
He had spent the previous evening in a vigorous search after Alice—a search which had been unsuccessful, even though he had offered Mrs Fludger the best inducement to frankness. It had needed that golden token to mitigate the wrath with which she had received his first question. She had, indeed, hinted, not darkly, in the first flush of indignation, at worse designs on his part than even Bible-reading; but gold itself, though it had softened her asperity, had been powerless to extort from her any information of the slightest value. Having tried all he knew, and failed, to discover any trace of what he sought, Richard had given up the search. He had met Roland once on the hotel staircase. They had passed each other like strangers.
As the train rushed on, he went over and over again all the circumstances of his quarrel with his brother. A fire of hate burned in him fiercely, a stern and deep indignation surged in his heart, and blinded his eyes to any possible palliation of his brother's conduct. This state of mind was the outcome of months of heart soreness and suppressed bitterness of spirit,—months in which he had vainly tried to disguise from himself that if Clare Stanley did incline to one more than the other, it was Roland who was the favourite. During that month of Roland's unexplained holiday Richard had fancied he made some progress in her good graces, but when his brother came back again she had turned on him just the same smiles and glances that had bewildered Dick. And from that time it had seemed to him that Roland was gradually elbowing him out. Miss Stanley had a taste for poetry, and Roland read poetryextremely well. Miss Stanley called herself a Radical, and Roland had been a shining light on that side in a small debating society at Cambridge. Miss Stanley liked to chatter about Art, and Roland always had a stock of the latest Art prattle at the tip of his tongue. Roland had grown fond of solitary walks, and in these was constantly meeting Miss Stanley 'by accident'—'accident' which Richard could not always bring himself to believe in. It was to be noticed, by the way, that in the walks of both these young men all roads led, not to Rome, but past Aspinshaw. Richard had borne all this, sustaining himself with a hope that Miss Stanley did not really feel interested so much in Roland as in the tastes he affected. He had still hoped that she might come to care for him,—for the man who loved her with such a passionate intensity. It is so hard, so very hard, to believe that the love that is everything to us is absolutely nothing to the beloved. Men have even dreamed that their passion could warm marble to life. How much easier to fancy that it can stir a heart to love.
But the sting in the pain he had suffered while his lady smiled on Roland had been a half unselfish fear that these smiles of hers were being bestowed on a man unworthy of them. Now that he believed this unworthiness to be proved, all the latent doubts, distrusts, suspicions he had kept down 'sprang full statured in an hour,' and with them sprang a hatred of his brother, so fierce as to frighten himself; for however he might seek to deceive himself about it, he knew in his inmost heart that it was less as a heartless profligate than as a possibly successful rival that he had learned to hate him.
But he knew that now this rivalry could not be successful. His great love for her prevented his seeing the realities that underlay the superficial side of her character, so that he actually believed her to be the last woman in the world one could dare to ask to share poverty. He knew that his own chance,such as it had been, was lost; but he knew, too, that his brother's chance was also at an end. This did not make him less determined that the quarrel should beà outrance.
'Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face' is such a wildly irrational act that one would never expect any reasonable being to be guilty of it, and yet hundreds of people do it every day. Dick was doing it now, practically, though he kept reminding himself that this was really the only honourable course open to him, and that he was influenced mainly by irreproachable motives.
It was nearly eight o'clock when his journey ended at Thornsett Edge.
He went straight into the dining-room, where Miss Ferrier sat filling in the groundwork of some canvas slippers, which she hastily pushed out of sight when she saw him. It was one of her habits, kept up since the days when they were children, to make some present for each of the brothers every year, and give it to them at Christmas as a 'surprise.'
'My dear Dick, how ill you look! Why didn't you write? Have you had any dinner?'
'No, auntie,' said he, kissing her. 'Just order up something cold, will you? I want to run up to Gates this evening. I won't wait for anything to be cooked.'
Miss Letitia suppressed her curiosity as to what could be taking Dick to his father's solicitor at this time of night, and hurried off to see about the meal herself. While he was busy with the cold beef and pickles he told her briefly that he had run down on business, which had been rather worrying lately.
'That accounts,' said the good lady, 'for your looking so poorly. I hope you've not been keeping bad hours.'
'Not I!' said Dick, as he drew the cork of a bottle of stout. 'Nor yet bad company, aunt—don't you think it.'
'And how is Roland?' she asked, at last; but at the same minute Dick pushed his chair back, and rose.
'I'm off to Gates now,' he said. 'I shall be back some time to-night. And I say, auntie, have my father's room got ready for me. I should like to sleep there.'
When he had put on hat and great coat, he put his head in again at the room door.
'After all, I think I'll have my own room.'
He found Mr Gates sitting smoking very comfortably in the society of two of his bosom friends, with whom he had that day enjoyed some very good shooting.
'Can I see Mr Richard Ferrier?' he cried, when a servant took him the name. 'I should think I could. Come in, Dick, my boy; you're just in time to help finish the bottle. Stevens is full already—he's missed every bird he's aimed at to-day—and Clark is too sleepy to appreciate good stuff.'
The other men laughed, and all shook hands with Dick, and made room for him in the little circle which they formed round a splendid fire.
'I suppose the Aspinshaw people will soon be down now,' Gates went on; 'in fact, I heard so from Stanley.'
'I came down on business,' said Dick, as the three other men burst out laughing.
'Of course,' said Gates; 'you went to town on business just when they went.'
The duet of less than half-sober laughter with which Mr Gates's guests received this suggestion brought the colour to Richard's cheeks.
'I want to speak to you in private,' he said, 'if your friends will excuse us.'
'Oh, they won't mind,' said Mr Gates, his cheerfulness unabated by the sharp tone in which Richard spoke. 'Come along; let's get the beastly business over.'
Richard followed him into another room. Mr Gates set down on a table the brass candle-stick he had brought in; both men remained standing.
'I have come up to ask you to take immediate steps to stop working the mill. I suppose we must give the men some notice?'
'Have you gone mad, boy? What on earth should you close the mill for?'
'It will be closed under the provisions of my father's will, which, I believe, you drew up, Mr Gates.'
Mr Gates sat down heavily on the nearest chair.
'You don't mean to say you've been quarrelling already?'
Richard made an impatient gesture of assent.
'You're both of you too old and too sensible to let a quarrel like this stand between you and your living,' said Gates seriously. 'What's the trouble?'
'I can't tell you what our quarrel is about. My brother can do so if he likes; but it is impossible—please understand me thoroughly, Mr Gates, it is quite impossible that Roland and I can ever work together again.'
His tone was so decided, his face so firm, that Gates saw plainly that what he said he meant, and that this was no quarrel to be got over by 'being slept upon.'
'May I ask,' he said, when he had risen and taken a turn or two up and down the room, 'how you propose to get your living?'
'I shall have a little, I believe, without the mill, and I am not an absolute fool; and, if the worst comes to the worst, I suppose my hands are of some use,' holding them out, with a laugh.
'And what will Roland do?' said the lawyer, more to gain time than because he expected any answer.
'You forget, sir,' said Richard haughtily—and as he spokethe other noticed how much older he seemed to have grown in the last month—'you forget, sir, that my brother's affairs no longer concern me in the least.'
'Well, I can do nothing till I hear from him. That'll be time enough, God knows.'
'You know best, sir,' said Richard. 'I've done my duty in telling you; I shall write to the trustees to-night.'
'Well,' said Gates, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'what must be must. I can only hope you'll think better of it. Why, it's perfect madness. Do let me try to arrange matters between you.'
'You had better address yourself to Roland. Don't make any mistake, Mr Gates. This is quite as much my brother's quarrel as mine. Only three days ago he told me never to speak again to him on this side of the grave, and swore that the same roof should not continue to cover us both. I must be off now. I'm sorry to have troubled you at such an hour. Good-night.'
Gates let him out. As he closed the front door after watching him down to the gate,—
'How in the world,' he said, 'did such a hard-headed man of business as old Dicky Ferrier ever manage to get two such hare-brained young fools as these boys? Why, it's beastly unnatural,' he added discontentedly. 'But it's the same old tale, I suppose—"All along of Eliza." A good business smashed up, and two young fellows going straight to the dogs, because of that damned girl'—with a backward jerk of his head in the direction of Aspinshaw, as he returned into the cloud of smoke in which his two friends were dozing placidly.
Richard went quickly away under the arching interlaced boughs of the garden trees. When he reached the road he did not turn his face towards Thornsett Edge, but went up the hill that lay at the back of the house. Across the fields, whereno track was visible, but where he could have found his way blindfold, through narrow lanes with stone walls, past more than one farmstead, now settled down into the restfulness of night, always upwards he went, until he reached the little church that crowned the hill and kept watch over the dead that crowded under its shadow.
The young man passed into the graveyard and made his way to a very white stone, that showed strikingly among the dun-coloured monuments about it.
Light fleecy clouds were being blown over the face of the waning moon, and alternations of weird shadows, and still weirder lights, fell on the tombstones and on the grey, weather-beaten little church. Richard rested his hand on his father's gravestone with a caressing touch. A great wave of regret and longing swept over him, and then a sort of relief at the thought that his father could not know how his dying wish would be unfulfilled. The old man's words rang in his ears,—'It has been a long life; I should like to lie quiet at last.'
'Thank God,' said Richard. People who don't believe in God have a way of speaking as though they did in moments of emotion. 'Thank God, he can't be troubled about anything now. Dear old dad—he has that wish, at any rate. He lies quiet and beyond the reach of it all.'
He stooped and kissed the stone, almost as though it had been the face of him who lay beneath it.
CHAPTER XVII.
AN UNEXPECTED ADHERENT.
THE train which brought Count Litvinoff from London was punctual to the minute, but the trap which was to take him to Thornsett Edge was not, and he was lounging discontentedly among his rugs and luggage at the melancholy little station of Firth Vale.
When Roland had left London, some weeks before, he had parted from Litvinoff with the understanding that he was to spend Christmas with him at Thornsett Edge. Young Ferrier had felt that the Count would be a thousand times better company than his own thoughts, and he preferred asking him to inviting any of his college friends, from whom Richard's absence would provoke comment, and to whom it would have to be explained. For Richard had gone away, leaving no address save that of a solicitor in London, and he had written to the trustees, and steps were being taken for closing the mill. Roland would rather have been anywhere than near the property he was so soon to lose, but Gates urged him to stay at Thornsett till the New Year, and with Count Litvinoff as his guest he hoped to keep ghosts of old times at bay as successfully in his old home as he could hope to do anywhere else. And Litvinoff had accepted the invitation with fervour, for the Stanleys were back at Aspinshaw.
The day he had pitched on for his journey was a bitterly cold one in the middle of December, and the waiting-room at Firth Vale had no big fires, soft carpets, and luxurious lounges.It had nothing but a bench, a table, a Bible, a Prayer-book, and a large stone jug of cold water. Litvinoff was got up quite after the English manner, in a light, long travelling ulster with a hood, and a tourist hat of the same stuff; but in spite of his precautions against weather he was very cold, and not a little cross at his prolonged waiting. He was just debating whether it would not be better to walk, and trust his traps to the mercy of chance, when the station shivered and shuddered as the 'local' came slowly and heavily in.
As it stopped, a stout woman, of about forty-five, with the usual number of blue bandboxes, bundles in handkerchiefs, and brown baskets disposed about her person, came hurrying down the stone steps, accompanied by a hard-featured, grizzled man some years older. Litvinoff watched their descent with a smile, but as they reached the bottom step his face grew suddenly serious. He turned sharply, and, passing into the little waiting-room, became deeply absorbed in the 'Scripture roll' which hung opposite the door, until the train had glided out of the station.
He saw without turning his head that only the woman had gone. The man remained on the platform, gazing after the retreating line of carriages till he started and turned round at Litvinoff's voice.
'I beg your pardon, but do you know a place about here called Thornsett Edge?'
'Ah do,' said the man, after a prolonged stare. 'It's a matter o' three miles off.'
'Can I get a trap here?' In reply he learned that there was no trap nearer than the fly at the 'Jolly Sailors,' and that was half a mile the other side of Thornsett.
'Then I suppose I must walk. Can you tell me the way?'
'Ah can show you,' said the man. 'Ah'm going up to the village; Ah live there.'
He spoke shortly; but Litvinoff had a reason for wishing totalk to the man, and so was content to ignore a curtness of manner which at any other time he would have been the first to resent.
In a few minutes the two were walking over the hard road side by side.
'Do you happen to know Mr Ferrier?'
'Ay; Ah work i' their mill.'
'I suppose they are great favourites hereabouts?'
'They're good lads enow,' said the elder man; 'better nor most o' them.'
'Better than most of whom?'
'Most of the masters and gentlefolks and that like,' said the man, rather sullenly.
'You don't seem to like gentlemen, my friend.'
'Ah don't like them well enough to believe either as they're my friends or as Ah'm theirs,' was the answer, given with a haughty resentment of Litvinoff's epithet, which that gentleman found amusing.
'I'm afraid that's true enough in most cases.'
The man looked a little surprised at having his sentiments met by this ready echo from such an unlikely quarter.
'The toad don't love the harrow,' he said slowly; 'but it ain't often as you can get the harrow to see that.'
'Are you quite sure the toad sees it? It seems to bear it quietly enough.'
'What else can we do?' asked the man fiercely.
'That's exactly what I'm giving my life to trying to find out,' said Litvinoff, very quietly.
The workman stopped short, and looked at the gentleman from head to feet. His gaze was calmly returned.
He turned and went on with a half laugh:
'Have you came down here to find that out, and is Mr Roland going to help you?'
'I can't answer for Mr Roland Ferrier, but as for myself—look here, my friend' (with an emphasis on the word), 'in trying to help the "toads," as you call them, I was driven from my own country, and had to fly for my life, with a pack of soldier wolves at my back.'
'Ay? How was that?' The man was interested in spite of himself, and Litvinoff forthwith plunged into an account of the flight across the frontier on that most exciting night of all his life.
His listener had not heard many exciting stories—they are not rife in Firth Vale—and to this story the fact that it was told by the chief actor lent an unusual interest. The Count was a good story-teller, and the way in which he told his tale left room for no doubt of its truth. When the recital was ended the listener drew a long breath.
'Ah'm glad you gave them the slip,' he said; 'the devils! Eh, but you're a lucky man to have had such things in your life, and to have done something. You don't know what it's like to have your life all bearing and no doing. Why, sometimes when you see how things go wi' some poor folks you're most ready to curse the A'mighty as lets such things be.'
The tone of the words, and the words themselves, told Litvinoff that the man's icy distrust of him had melted in the warmth of admiring sympathy.
'Ah! here comes Mr Roland,' he said a minute after, as a tall figure came in sight; 'he'll show you now. My nearest way's over here,' pointing to one of those uncertain erections of loose stones which do duty for walls in that part of the country. 'Ah hope Ah shall see you again. If you have nothing better to do any time I shall be right glad to see you at our place. Any one at Thornsett'll tell you where I live. My name's Hatfield—John Hatfield.'
'As I thought,' said Litvinoff, as he advanced to meet Roland, and to receive his profuse regrets at the sudden casting of a shoe, which had prevented the mare from getting to the station with the dog-cart, which ought to havebeen in attendance. 'But come along,' he said; 'it's a jolly day for a walk, and I'll send down for your things as soon as we get home. That was John Hatfield you were with. He's rather a character.'
'He seems to be one of us,' said Litvinoff, as they walked on together.
'How do you mean?'
'He doesn't appear to be particularly satisfied with the present system.'
'No; and he has good wages too,—nearly two pounds a week.'
'Affluence,' said Litvinoff.
'Ah, well,' said Roland, laughing—'it's very good as things go—but he has some reason for hating his betters.'
'Some reason besides the two pounds a week, do you mean?'
'Yes; his daughter, an awfully pretty, nice girl, made a fool of herself—but I'll tell you about that some other time. Shall we go this way? It is a little longer, but it leads round by Aspinshaw, and I want to call there to ask after Mrs Stanley; she has a cold. Old Stanley will be delighted to see you; he's always talking about you. I don't know how he stands your revolutionary ideas.'
Litvinoff laughed.
'I never air them to him. I never talk revolution unless there is some chance of making a convert; but some things are too impossible, and Mr Stanley as a revolutionist is not to be conceived.'
'Miss Stanley seems to be quite a convert, however, although she always had a leaning that way. But I don't think the conversion is a star in your crown. She lays the credit of it to some man—I forget his name—whom she heard in town. I suppose you know him?'
'Ah, yes; I remember Miss Stanley took me down splendidly one morning by saying thatnowshe understood our views,thanks to this man Petrovitch. And I, who had been vainly flattering myself that I had made them intelligible to her!'
'By George, yes!' said Roland, secretly pleased. 'That was rather a facer. But then she didn't hear you at the Agora. Is this Petrovitch a gentleman?'
'Upon my word, I don't know. It seems he knows me, but somehow or other we never seem to meet. It is not impossible that I may have known him under some other name. I must ask Miss Stanley to describe him to me.'
'Oh, she'll do that with a great deal of pleasure,' said Roland; 'it's her great topic at present. That's Aspinshaw, over there to the right.'
It was a very pretty house, and somehow managed to escape, even at this dreary season, such dreariness as hung over Thornsett Edge, though it was built of the same grey stone, and had the same moorland background. There was a good deal of ivy about it, and the grounds were less regular and more full of evergreens and shrubs than the Ferriers' garden.
As the two young men walked up the private road they heard from the rear of the house a confused barking of dogs, and above the noise a girl's clear voice, raised in vain endeavour to still the joyful tumult.
'La belle Clare,' Litvinoff spoke softly, raising his hat as though he saw her, and quickening his pace a little.
'Shall we go round this way?' said Roland; 'we don't stand on ceremony with each other down here.'
'By all means,' said Litvinoff, and they turned into the stable-yard, passing down by the laurel hedge that alone divided it from the garden.
'By God! what's that?' cried the Count, suddenly stopping; and then both men sprang through the hedge. No time to go round now, for there had been the sharp report of a gun, a woman's shriek, and a heavy fall.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A MIXED ASSEMBLY.
IT was Sunday afternoon. The rather festive look of Petrovitch's room, in which he now sat alone, was not, however, due to any desire to specialise the day. He had simply made his home as cheerful as possible because he was about to entertain guests.
His table was spread with a snowy cloth, and with the preparations for a tea of a distinctly convivial character. There was jam, and more than one kind of cake; and the room was further brightened by bunches of chrysanthemums. Chairs were drawn round the fire in an inviting-looking circle. The least cheerful object in the room was the owner of it, who sat in his usual chair between the fire and the writing-table. He looked pale and weary, for the frosty weather had strongly renewed the pain in a wound in his breast—an old wound, and a wound that had just missed being a deadly one. Contrary to his usual custom, he was neither reading nor writing. The pipe he had been smoking had gone out, and his thoughts were far back in the past, among the memories which had re-awakened with that aching in his breast. His thoughts went further back than the date of that wound,—went back to the days before he had lost friends, home, and country. He saw again in fancy the brilliant gaiety of the winters in St Petersburg, he heard again the exquisite music of the concertsand the opera,—the balls where Majesty itself had deigned to be present, with anxious brow and uneasy, restless eyes. His memory dwelt longest on a certain torchlightfêteon the Neva, when the ice had been a yard thick, and when theélitehad been shut off from the common herd by walls made of blocks of solid ice, between which fir trees were planted; when coloured lamps and Chinese lanterns had thrown indescribable magic over the crowd of bright military uniforms and the exquisite toilettes of lovely women who had never in all their lives been troubled by any thought of what their dresses cost. And even at this distance he could not think without half a pang of a certain fair-faced girl, with golden hair, who, in her sapphire velvet and swansdown, had been the star of thatfêteto his boyish eyes. And she had been kind to him on this the last evening he had spent near her before his new faiths and duties had separated him from her for ever. That was the first loss his creed had cost him. He wondered what would be the last—life itself perhaps. Then he fell to thinking how these beliefs of his had grown up. How the reading of a certain book—an English book—had done for his mind what a successful operation for cataract does for one nearly blind—had shown him the facts of life, no longer half hidden in a mist of falsity, but in all their naked truth and ugliness. How for a time he had closed his eyes again and had tried hard to live on in the life of luxury, beauty, love, and (now he knew) selfishness which had been his by 'right of birth.' He remembered the night when, belated miles from his home, and overtaken by a snowstorm, he had sought refuge in a peasant's hut, how he had talked to his hosts, how one visit had led to many, and how what he had learned from these miserable serfs had forbidden him to forget or to set aside the teaching of the great author whose book had first set him thinking. He remembered that time, perhaps the happiest in his life, when he first began towrite—when the ideas which had so long been seething in his brain had found literary expression. He remembered the joy with which he had corrected his first proof, the pride with which he read his first article in a magazine. So thoroughly back in the old time was he that he had stretched out his hand towards this very magazine, which stood bound on a bookshelf, when a heavy foot sounded on the stairs, and a moment after a knock at the door heralded the entrance of Mr Toomey, whom Petrovitch came forward to greet with an almost courtly welcome.
'But your wife,' he said; 'can she not come? I trust all is well with her?'
'All's well with her, and thanking you for the question; but all's not well with that young woman o' yours.'
'Of mine? I do not happen to possess a young woman, my good Toomey.'
'I suppose you and me and my Mary Jane possesses about equal shares of her, then, for I saved her from keeping company with the dead cats and dogs, and you sent her to our place, and now my missus is let in for looking arter her.'
'Come to the fire. I hope it's nothing serious.'
'I don't rightly know. My missus told me I should be better out of the way, and I sent the doctor in as I came by.'
'I am very sorry,' said Petrovitch, 'but I am sure poor Mrs Litvinoff could not be in better hands than those of your good, kind wife.'
It was noticeable that he never spoke of Alice save as Mrs Litvinoff.
'You've a snug little place up here, sir,' said Toomey, looking round him. 'And do youreallylike reading—those sort of books, I mean,' pointing to Hegel's 'Logic,' which lay open on the table.
'I like doing better than reading, but one must read much to be able to do little in the line of work I am on at present.'
'Your line of work,' said Toomey, glancing admiringly at his host, 'is a thing as I never can get to understand. How it's done, I mean. Now, paving is straightforward. When you've got a paving-stone you know what it is you've got, and how far it'll go, but words is such shifty things, and how you manage to make 'em fit into each other so as to make 'em mean what you mean is what gets over me.'
'Perhaps I don't always make them mean what I mean. Judging by the way people misunderstand what I say—ah! here is Hirsch,' as the door opened, 'and Pewtress too. How are you? Now we're all here but Mr Vernon.'
'He's coming upstairs now,' said Pewtress, the stone-mason with the intellectual forehead, who had been at Mrs Quaid's at the last meeting of the Cleon.
Mr Hirsch seemed to be in more genial mood than he had been in any of those brief conversations which we hitherto had occasion to report. He had shaved himself—he even appeared to have combed his hair—and he shook hands with Toomey quite warmly and cordially.
The host had gone half-way down the stairs to meet his fourth guest—a lame boy, whose crutches made it not easy for him to mount to the height of Petrovitch's nest. He now returned with him on his arm—and after a general introduction of him to the others they all sat down to tea.
Eustace Vernon was a lad of about eighteen, with a pale, highbred-looking face—a rather shy but pleasant manner. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Petrovitch, and since his first acquaintance with the Socialist had made a point of being present at all the meetings on social subjects that he could get to hear of, and could find time to attend. For even the wild enthusiasm of the revolutionary in his teens will not go the length of working a Buddhist miracle and enabling the youthful devotee to be at more than one meeting at the same time.Petrovitch was amused and a little touched by the lad's undisguised homage—and knowing himself to be responsible for the inflammation of the young man's mind, felt bound to keep watch lest he should get into trouble before his newly-kindled fire had had time to burn itself down into steadiness.
As the meal went on it was noticeable that Vernon's love of liberty was not inconsistent with a child-like devotion to strawberry jam.
Petrovitch might have kept a school of instruction for the benefit of those who are always making such desperate efforts to 'annihilate class distinctions'—efforts which usually take place on Saturday afternoons, and are mostly the dismallest of failures. Under his influence his four guests—born in different parts of the world, and drawn from different social grades—talked together with the ease of club acquaintances.
'I had hoped,' said Petrovitch by-and-by, 'to have had a lady here to pour tea out for you, but fate has been unpropitious; Mrs Toomey was not able to come.'
'I regret her,' said Hirsch. 'It always does me much pleasure to meet our good friend's good wife.'
Toomey looked flattered, but a little uncomfortable under this tribute.
'She would have liked to come,' said he, trying to look straight at the other, but only succeeding in fixing one eye on the Austrian, while the other searched the depths of the jam pot with an obstinacy which made Vernon, who had the same in hand, simmer with warm awkwardness. 'She would have liked to come, but the young woman as lodges with us—that Mrs Let-em-off—is ill, and the missus wouldn't leave her.'
'Ah, Mrs Litvinoff, it is you mean. I willed to ask you of her.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Vernon, glad to join in theconversation, as a means of getting away from Toomey's eye. 'Is that any relation of Count Litvinoff? I know him. Splendid fellow, isn't he?'
'I don't think as she's a blessed countess,' said Toomey doubtfully, while Hirsch cast a significant glance of question at his host.
'Oh,' said Petrovitch, 'there are more Litvinoffs than one. It is not an uncommon name. I myself know more than one family of that name.'
'Of course you know the Count,' said Vernon, turning to him. 'What wonderful adventures he has had. He seems to be a man of splendid character. It must have cost him something to give up his social position and go in for the Revolution.'
'So far as I know Michael Litvinoff, he has never done more than his clear duty.'
'What does he do for the Revolution now?' growled Hirsch.
'Well, he does all that any one can do in England. There's not much else to be done besides talking.'
Vernon ended with a sigh, as of one who yearned for the barricades.
'Oh, yes; he'lltalk,' said Hirsch discontentedly, and took a large bite of bread and butter.
'You are quite right, Mr Vernon,' said Petrovitch. 'He talks, and talks well; and, as you say, there is here no other means of helping the cause. And where you have such freedom of speech as in England a man's tongue is his best weapon, and ought, under existing circumstances, to be his only one.'
'The great reforms,' said Hirsch—'have they been carried by the tongue, or by the pike and the musket?'
'In this England enough has been carried by the tongue to leave good hopes for the future,' said Petrovitch.
'I am glad to hear you express those opinions,' said Pewtress,who spoke with some deliberation, and chose his words carefully. 'I have noticed that most of the foreigners I have had the pleasure of meeting do not quite understand the condition of affairs here.'
'Do not misunderstand me,' said Petrovitch, rising from the table. 'I consider force to be the last refuge of the oppressed and the wretched—only to be tried when everything else has failed—but then perfectly legitimate.'
'Hear, hear,' cried Vernon enthusiastically, as they all rose; 'that's more like yourself, Petrovitch! And as for Count Litvinoff, I can't help admiring him, if it's only for what he's gone through.'
'For that,' said Hirsch, who seemed to have grown grumpier and grumpier ever since Litvinoff's name had been introduced, 'you, Petrovitch, have had adventures better to hear about than any of his. Did Mr Vernon ever hear how you escaped from Tieff?'
'If Mr Vernon has, I have not,' said Pewtress, as they gathered round the fire. 'If our kind host will tell us the story, I am sure we shall all follow it with a great deal of interest.'
'I am quite willing to tell you about that little affair, but I fancy I've told it once or twice before,' said Petrovitch, handing round a box of thick, short Russian cigarettes, to which his friends all helped themselves; 'and there is no greater bore than the man who will always be telling of his own deeds and adventures.'
'You, at any rate, never speak of yours,' said Vernon, fixing his large eyes on Petrovitch; 'do tell us, please.'
'I assure you I was not refusing "pour me faire prier," and if we are all comfortable I will tell you with pleasure the little there is to tell. Toomey, you have no light.'
'All right, sir,' said Toomey, picking up a hot coal in his fingers and lighting his cigarette therefrom as his host began.
'During the year or so that I was in the fortress of Petro-Paolovski I never encouraged the slightest hopes of escape, for in the first place I, for a long time, suffered from a bad gunshot wound, and, secondly, because it is known only too well among us that escape from Petro-Paolovski is impossible. When, for some unknown reason, the Government sent me to Tieff, my health was improved, and so were my chances of getting away, and from the moment I entered the prison doors I never lost an opportunity of making and maturing a plan of escape. Escaping from a Russian prison is not quite such a desperate business for one of us as it would be for one of you, for you would be like a blind man in a strange house; but those of us who are judged to be the most likely subjects for arrest make it a rule to have the plan of every prison and fortress at our finger-tips.'
'What a marvellous organisation yours is,' said the stone-mason, more as an excuse for escaping a moment from the martyrdom of the unaccustomed cigarette than by way of saying anything original.
'Yes, the war is fairly well organised on both sides,' Petrovitch replied; 'but at present they have the big battalions.'
'But your plans,' struck in Vernon, impatient of the interruption.
'Yes. Well, my knowledge of Tieff told me that there was one way, and one way only, of leaving it, and that was by the way I had come in—by the front gate, and to get to the front gate one had to cross the courtyard, and between my cell and the courtyard lay obstacles too many to be calculated and dangers too great to be faced.'
'And you at once began to calculate them and to face them,' cried Vernon admiringly.
'Rather to elude them,' Petrovitch went on, ignoring the boy's compliment. 'As I could not meet them in detail I thought it better to surmount them in "the lump," as I think I haveheard you call it in England. Now the thing that had given me most hope when I heard I was coming to Tieff was that I happened to know that the resident doctor of the prison was, not exactly one of us, but one who sympathised with us secretly—there are many such, who are unwilling to take an active part in the struggle, but who, short of that, help us in many ways—for instance, with money, and especially by hiding those of us who happen to be "wanted." We call them the Ukrivatelli—the concealers.'
'I hope there's lots of them sort, sir,' said Toomey, surreptitiously abandoning his cigarette in favour of the more familiar but slightly stronger smelling 'cutty.' 'But don't they get theirselves into trouble?'
'Yes, if they are found out,' answered Petrovitch; 'but they seldom are. They are a very large class, and are often men whose official rank or social position places them beyond suspicion. My wound still needed attention, and I soon managed to convey to the doctor a suggestion that daily exercise in a prison courtyard was a first-rate specific for gunshot wounds. He seemed to think so too, and before the end of the week I was told that I should have to walk every day for an hour in the only place where a walk of a dozen consecutive yards was possible—in the courtyard.'
'It was no use getting into the courtyard unless I had some prospect of getting out of it, and straight into some perfectly safe refuge. This was a matter that took some weeks to arrange, and during that time I never turned my eyes to the gate. The doctor, though he was willing to help me, was not willing to risk his own safety by carrying too many letters, and a whole code of signals had to be arranged. Luck seldom favours the right side; but I think I was certainly lucky, for just when I began to take my daily exercise the right wing of the prison had to be repaired, and consequently the gates ofthe courtyard were open all day for the carts of building materials, etc., which had to come in and out. This must have seemed tolerably safe to the authorities, as I was the only prisoner who "took exercise," and there were two sentries to whom was allotted the pleasing duty of watching me. They had a pretty easy time of it for these three weeks, for I used to crawl up and down the yard in a feeble and dejected sort of way, as though I had hardly the strength to put one foot before the other. I always leaned on a stick, and did my best to appear to be at my last gasp. I was well-nigh tired of waiting, so often my escape seemed almost close at hand, and then something happened, and all our plans had to be made over again. Innumerable ideas were suggested, but abandoned for one reason or another. At last it was definitely settled that at a certain signal I was to make for the gate and rush out—that a carriage was to be waiting just outside, and that one or two of our friends were to be there promiscuously, to give false information in judicious doses, as it might be called for. The gate was almost exactly in the middle of the courtyard, and the beat of sentry No. 1 was from the gate to the end of the yard and back, and that of sentry No. 2 from the other end of the yard to the gate and back—thus the face of one of them was always towards the gate. At length the day came when I might expect the signal—this was to be nothing more dramatic and startling than the smallest piece of paper that could well be seen—stuck on the shaft of one of the builder's carts. Cart after cart went by, my hour was nearly up, and I began to feel pretty sure that either the signal was not to be given that morning, or else that it had been given and I had missed seeing it. This last alternative was becoming a maddening certainty, when yet another cart came crawling in, and on the shaft, luckily on the side to which my walk had now brought me, was lightly stuck a little piece of white paper. Once moreluck was my friend, for the sentry on the same side of the gate as myself was marchingfromthe gate, and between me and the one walkingtowardsthe gate was the cart. Had any one not in the secret been watching me from one of the prison windows at that moment he would certainly have thought that I was the subject of a miraculous cure, for in what seemed to me about half-a-dozen bounds I was at the side of the cart, out of the gate, and in one of two carriages which were passing at the time.'
'And what steps did the authorities take?' asked Pewtress, in the perfectly unexcited and matter-of-fact tone of a School Board inspector.
'Well,' said Petrovitch, laughing a little, 'I was not there at the time, but my friends told me that what followed was well worth seeing. A few seconds after my disappearance the two sentries and the whole of the guard from the guard-room inside the prison came swarming into the street, and there was a most delightful hue-and-cry and clamour. About a hundred yards away to the right a carriage was making off at a mad pace, and after this went the wholeposse; with the lieutenant of the guard at their head. They must have been immensely relieved when they saw it pull up opposite the house of a well-known and irreproachable doctor. When, panting and exultant, they surrounded the carriage, they found inside it a surprised and indignant gentleman, who had driven in hot haste to fetch Dr. Seroff to his sick daughter, who had taken a turn for the worse.'
'And were you under the seat, Mr Peter Hitch?' inquired the interested Toomey.
'Not exactly. I had been driven off in the other carriage, which went at a quiet trot, eminently suited to my delicate state of health.'
'The gentleman who went for the doctor, I presume, was "one of you"?' put in Vernon.
'He was of the Ukrivatelli,' said Petrovitch, 'and I am afraid he had a bad time of it for a day or two. He was promptly taken where I had come from, and I fear the young lady's sick-room was invaded by a corporal's guard, but our friend and his family were so evidently innocent that the authorities had nothing left but to put up with their loss, and to grin and bear it, as you say.'
'But where did the other carriage take you?'
'Into the next street, to the most orthodox house in the town, the residence of a district judge, whence after spending a week I made for the frontier with passport quite in order, a clean chin, a strong French accent, and very black eyebrows. So ends the story, which I am afraid hasn't been a very exciting one.'
'The quite truth of it is its interest,' said Hirsch; 'to Count Litvinoff must you go for pure excitement.'
'You don't seem to like this Count Let-em-off, Mr Hearse,' said Toomey curiously; 'I thought he was a rare good 'un.'
'You're right, Toomey. He's done us good service.' This Petrovitch spoke with a certain emphasis, and with his eyes not on Toomey, but on Hirsch.
'I don't know whether it's indiscreet to ask,' said Vernon, 'but I wish you would tell us how it was you got arrested.'
'Ah! that's a long story,' returned Petrovitch, 'and one which, as it concerns others beside myself, I don't feel justified in telling.' Then as the boy coloured and looked embarrassed, he added kindly, 'There wasn't the slightest indiscretion in the question, and some other time, perhaps, I shall be able to answer it. But, since adventures are the order of the evening, you should get Hirsch to tell you some of his. He has had more than Othello.'
The Austrian was beginning to protest that nothing hadever happened to him, when a rustle of silk on the stairs outside silenced him, and the men all looked at each other inquiringly in the moment that elapsed before the door was opened and disclosed the velvet bonnet and abundant flounces of Mrs Quaid. Mr Quaid was there, too, but he did not take the eye or captivate the attention. That was Mrs Quaid's department.
'MydearMr Petrovitch, how can I apologise enough for our intrusion? The maid gave us noideathat you were entertaining. Ah! here's Mr Pewtress. How do you do? And Mr Vernon, too. How delightful! Why, we're all among friends. And you won't think me quite an old marplot if I stay for a few moments, for I really have something special to say to you.'
'It's very good of you to honour me with a call,' said Petrovitch, wondering intensely what had brought her there.
'We have been to see some friends at Regent's Park, and we are going on to dine with the Pagets—(you know the Pagets, Mr Petrovitch? No! Ah, I must introduce you; they are such sweet people, quite devoted toourside)—and so we thought we would call as we passed to ask you if you will come and dine with us on Tuesday. You'll excuse an informal invitation, I know. I thought if we cameourselvesto ask you we should be more likely to succeed.'
'You are very kind,' said Petrovitch, wondering whether he could find any means of evading an acceptance.
'Ihadhoped to have had your fellow-countryman, Count Litvinoff, there to meet you; but I hear he has just gone to Derbyshire; so unfortunate. I suppose he has gone to stay with the Stanleys. He saved Mr Stanley's life, you know—Mr Stanley—perhaps you remember his daughter, the sweet girl who sat next you at our house.'
It appeared that Petrovitch did remember the lady in question.
The other men had formed a knot at the other side of the fire.
'You know,' said Mrs Quaid, lowering her voice discreetly, as she glanced at them, 'my daughter Cora thinks that there will be a match there before long. I do so hope that dear interesting Count has not lost all his property. From what I hear he is very well off.'
'Gentlemen of your opinions ought not to marry,' said Mr Quaid, striking in, much to his wife's surprise. He did not usually advance independent opinions, being emphatically 'Mrs Quaid's husband,' and nothing more.
'Why?' asked Petrovitch, amused.
'Because your lives are so constantly in danger.'
'There's not much danger in Derbyshire,' broke in Hirsch, in spite of Petrovitch's restraining eye.
'Ah, well,' said Mrs Quaid, 'I do hope, if anythingdoescome of it, that he will settle down quietly in England. There is so much that wants doing here. We want good, brave workers to strive to bridge over the terrible gulf between the classes.'
Toomey, suddenly recalled to a sense of the 'gulf'—which he had quite lost sight of under the influence of Petrovitch's tact—felt a painfully renewed consciousness of his boots, his hands, and his Sunday clothes.
Vernon, who knew Mrs Quaid, and delighted to 'draw' her, would not for the world have missed such an opportunity of amusing himself and his friends. By a skilful question or two he led the lady on to her favourite subject—that of education. She could discuss this question with eloquence, and at any length; but no matter how her discussions began, they always ended by placing her and her hearers in a difficulty. She was quite clear that before we could educate our children we must be educated ourselves, which, on the face of it,seemed reasonable; but, then, who was there to educate us? To that question no answer could ever be found; and in the meantime, what was to become of the rising generation? She had nearly reached this point when her husband, who had been present before when she trotted round this circle of argument, and for whom the repetition of the performance had no charms, brought the conversation back to the world of possibilities by renewing the invitation for Tuesday, which Petrovitch, after a little hesitation, accepted.
When the gros grain silk had swept down the uncarpeted stairs, and Petrovitch had accompanied it to the front door and received the last nod of farewell from the imposing plume in the velvet bonnet, he returned to his room, to find the spirits of his friends visibly higher, except those of Vernon, who felt that he had been done out of the cream of his proposed joke.
The evening slipped by pleasantly enough, but there were no more adventures told, nor was Count Litvinoff mentioned again, until one by one all the guests had departed except Hirsch.
He stayed on, smoking in silence, and his host, equally silent, sat on the opposite side of the fire, regarding it fixedly.
'Well,' said Hirsch, at last turning his eyes towards the other, 'what of this marriage that the large lady speaks of so confidently—this "sweet Clare" who is to be the Countess Litvinoff? That also is to be for the cause? With that also you are satisfied? That also is to be permitted, sanctioned, what you call approved?'
'No,' said Petrovitch slowly. 'No; that is not to be.'
CHAPTER XIX.
AN HONEST MAN AND A BRAVE ONE.
THANK God!' was Count Litvinoff's inward ejaculation, as, followed by Roland, he sprang through the laurel bushes into the gravel path that skirted the lawn. For what he saw was not what he had feared to see. Clare was safe. She was standing on the last of the stone steps that led down from the verandah, her hands clasped over her eyes, as if to shut out some intolerable sight.
On the lawn before her, half-a-dozen yards off, in brown shooting suit and gaiters, lay her father, face downwards, on the grass, his gun beside him, and his two sporting dogs sniffing round the hand that had held it.
The two young men were at his side in an instant, and had half raised him by the time Clare had shaken off the horror that had paralysed her and had sprung towards them. Roland glanced at Mr Stanley's face, and, passing his arm round the old man's neck, drew his head towards him, and bent over it in such a manner as to keep it from her eyes.
'Take her in, Litvinoff,' he said, still bending forward; 'make her go in.'
'Come in, Miss Stanley; you can do no good here,' said Litvinoff, rising and taking the girl by the arm. She shook him off.
'Let me alone,' she cried. 'How dare you interfere? Let me go to my father.'
'Miss Stanley, be reasonable. You can do much more good in the house. Don't you know we must bring your father in?—and your mother must be told.'
But Mrs Stanley needed no telling. From the window she had seen—when the barking of the dogs told of Mr Stanley's near approach—how Clare had run out bareheaded to meet him—how he had stopped in the middle of the lawn, as if expecting her to come to him—how he had taken his gun from his shoulder, and dropped the butt on the ground—how there had been a flash, a report, and how he had fallen. Now she came out.
'Go in,' she said to Clare, 'and send for Doctor Bailey. Thomas can go on Red Robin.'
By this time the servants were gathering from all directions.
'Come,' Litvinoff spoke in a low voice, but a voice of authority, and led her towards the stable-yard. Coming round the corner they met Thomas.
'Oh, Thomas—' she began, when Litvinoff interrupted.
'Saddle Red Robin, and ride for Doctor Bailey—ride fast for your life! Now, Miss Stanley, for Heaven's sake don't give way; keep up. They may want linen for bandages, and brandy.'
She looked at him with wide-open, frightened eyes, but she obeyed him; and when those things were brought she stood looking mutely at him, like a child asking for directions.
'Sit down,' he said; and, pouring out some brandy-and-water, held it to her lips.
'Drink, and then you will be able, perhaps, to be of some use.'
They were in the drawing-room. Litvinoff noticed, even at that moment, the hundred dainty tokens of a cultivated woman's daily presence. As he set down the glass, past the closed doorcame the heavy tread of the men who were bringing the master back to his home.
Then Clare rose up. 'I will go to my father,' she said, turning a white, resolute face towards the door. 'Twenty of you shall not stop me!'
Litvinoff caught her two hands and held them tightly.
'Wait, wait; they are getting him to his bed. You would only be in the way. Trust me, Miss Stanley. I would not keep you from him if you could be of any use to him. You may be of real service by-and-by.'
'Very well,' she said; 'I will do what you tell me. But, oh, tell me all you know; tell me where he's hurt; did you see? Will it be dangerous? For pity's sake tell me what you saw, whether—'
Here the door opened, and Roland came in. Her eyes searched his face for re-assurance, but found there something more terrible than her worst fears, and as he opened his lips to speak she cried in a high-pitched voice, quite unlike her own, as she held out her hands as if to keep off something, 'Don't tell me—don't tell me anything—let me go!'
And as Roland stood aside she rushed from the room. Litvinoff closed the door.
'He's dead,' said Roland.
'I know. I knew that directly I put my hand on him. I have had my hand on a man shot dead before to-day.'
Roland sat down on a low chair. It was the one Clare had occupied half-an-hour before. There on the little table by it lay her work-basket, and some pretty useless bit of sewing, and all the little gilt working implements which she had put down when she went to meet her father. Roland's eye fell on them, and he groaned.
'Good God, Litvinoff, what a terrible thing! What a frightful blow for them!'
'Does Mrs Stanley know?'
'Yes.'
'How soon can the doctor be here?'
'In half-an-hour; but he'll be no good when he does come.'
'Not for him, but Miss Stanley may need him. Her face as she passed out of the door was not reassuring.'
Roland groaned again.
'What a horrible world it is!' he said.
His father dead, his brother estranged, his sweetheart lost to him, and now this new calamity had fallen near him. 'It never rains but it pours.' And it seemed to be raining misfortunes in Firth Vale.
'Itisa horrible world,' said the other; 'but reflecting on that truth will not aid anyone just now. Is there nothing we can do?'
'Not that I know of, but we won't go till the doctor comes.'
'Certainly not; and in the meantime let me suggest that a little of this brandy would not be amiss, if you don't want him to find a patient in you. You look uncommonly shaky.'
Roland accepted the suggestion and the proffered glass.
'Miss Stanley's mother seems to have her wits about her?'
'Yes, Mrs Stanley's a sensible woman—but she's not Miss Stanley's mother. Mr Stanley was married twice.'
'There are no other children?'
'No.'
'Poor woman,' said Litvinoff, sincerely enough, though for a certain reason he was not displeased to hear that Clare was an only child. 'He seems to have been a rich man,' went on Litvinoff, glancing round the room.
'Yes, he had more than he knew what to do with. It seems hard that he should have had to leave it all so suddenly,' said Roland, growing sentimental.
'It is a great pity men have to leave their wealth behind them. If they could only take it with them, there would not be so many young people growing up in vicious idleness.' Then, as it suddenly occurred to him that this might possibly be considered personal, he went on in his most approved didactic manner,—'Since death is inevitable, how lucky we ought to think it that so few people have anything to live for. I believe to a great many people the best thing in life is the certainty that some day or other they'll get out of it.'
Roland did not answer. There are moments when moral reflections are particularly hateful.
The doctor arrived sooner than they had hoped, the man-servant having met him about half-way between Aspinshaw and his own house, but of course he could only confirm what they all knew. The whole contents of the gun had lodged in the lungs, and death must have been instantaneous. He asked the two young men a good many questions as to the manner of the accident, but of course they had not seen it, and were unable to throw any light on the cause of the disaster. He must have been carrying the gun full-cock, and the concussion, when he brought the butt down on the ground, must have started it.
'Mrs Stanley bears up wonderfully well.'
'And his daughter?' put in Litvinoff.
'Well, the poor child's crushed at present, but she'll soon be all right. Young hearts soon throw off their troubles, thank Heaven! I shall have to trouble you two gentlemen at the inquest,' he said, as he got into his gig and was driven off.
Roland Ferrier and Michael Litvinoff walked home almost in silence, consumed a dinner enlivened by Miss Letitia's comments on the events of the day, and, when she had retired intears, passed one of the most melancholy evenings in the recollection of either. Roland did his best to perform the difficult part of genial host to the guest who had been introduced to Thornsett under such inauspicious circumstances; but he was a young man who had not that within him which enables men to resist the influence of the immediately surrounding circumstances, and his attempt was a dead failure. Litvinoff could, perhaps, have succeeded with a desperate effort in raising the cloud of gloom that hung over them both, but it did not seem to him that the game was quite worth the candle, and he let it alone.
Under the circumstances there could be no shooting, and none of such social entertainments as would certainly otherwise have enlivened his visit, and the prospect of his first Christmas in an English country-house looked very bleak.
'I suppose one mustn't smoke here,' he said aloud to himself, when, the long evening over, he reached his bedroom, and sank down into an easy-chair before the brightly-burning fire. 'That antiquated lady is the sort of person who would go mad if she smelt smoke in one of the bedrooms. It is a great bore. I want to think—and how the deuce am I to think if I can't smoke!—and I must think. Yes, it must be done; they must put it down to my foreign ways,' he added, as he drew out his cigar-case and lighted up.
Something in his surroundings reminded him of that night in October when he had saved the life of the man who was now lying dead at Aspinshaw.
'Poor old boy,' he said, 'I didn't renew his lease of life for very long, after all; but I expect he lived long enough to have done almost as much for me as he could have done had he lived longer. Perhaps my "views," as he would have called them, will not stand so much in the way now. My crushed young host told me that she is beginning to share those viewsand to be enthusiastic—thanks to that mysterious entity, Petrovitch. I owe him that; I wonder if I owe him anything else? I do owe many sums to many people. He had me for ten pounds, though, any way. Pardieu! I hope he won't try that again, or I shall have to stay down here permanently. I shall attend a funeral in a few days, I suppose. I wonder when I shall attend a marriage? She was obedient to-day—a good sign. Things will go smoother so.'
He puffed at his cigar in silence a few minutes, then he spoke aloud again, 'And so that was John Hatfield, and he is one of us—or half one of us. By Jove! that makes me feel a cursed traitor—that merits death. Well, I'm not afraid of that, anyhow, nor of anything that may come after. I've got memories enough to make a hell of my own here, and death would be the end ofthem, at any rate, not the beginning. And yet one must live, I suppose, though I don't feel so sure of that to-night. Poor little girl—dear little girl! I wishyouwere the heiress of Aspinshaw. The real heiress is pretty and charming, and a lady,' with a rather bitter laugh, 'and she is beginning to have "views;" but somehow I can't get you out of my head to-night.' He moved his hand to and fro before his eyes, as though to clear away the smoke. Then he rose. 'Curses on conscience—curses on principle!' he said; 'I must see if sleep will do it;' and he went to bed.
During the next few days there was nothing to do except to call at Aspinshaw every day and ask after Mrs and Miss Stanley. This was an obvious duty, but as an occupation it was not engrossing. On the second day, young Ferrier offered to 'show his guest over' the mill, and Litvinoff, always glad of a new experience, joyfully consented. The mill was charmingly situated in a little hollow in the hills, with a big reservoir above it and a little stream below. On one side was a wood, where a good many hollies kept up the impression of greenness,though all the other trees were sere and brown. On the other side was a very steep incline which shot up almost like a high wall, and was bare and rugged and rocky, and from the top some rude steps cut out of the grey rock led down to the mill. While the workings of the machinery were being explained, and the various processes exhibited, it did not escape the Count's observation that the men looked particularly discontented, and that there was none of that deferential submission in their manner to Roland which he had been accustomed to see in the manner of workmen towards their masters.
'What's the matter with the men?' Litvinoff asked, as they walked back to Thornsett. 'They looked uncommonly disagreeable. My friend John Hatfield doesn't appear to be the only one who is dissatisfied with the munificent two pounds a week.'
'John Hatfield! What a memory you have for names. Oh, they're not dissatisfied with the amount of their wages. On the contrary, they only wish they could go on at the same rate. But they soon won't have any at all from me. The mill stops working at the end of the year, and they've somehow got it into their heads that I'm responsible for it, whereas it's just about as much my fault as it is that tree's.'
'Is it any one's fault?'
'You know that it is my brother's. He made the quarrel, and forced it on me, knowing what the results would be.'
'And the results to these men will be—'
'Starvation, I'm afraid, for some of them, poor fellows, and very short commons for them all; but it's rather hard that I should be blamed for it.'
'Oh, beautiful system!' said Litvinoff; 'splendid organisation of industry! Two brothers quarrel about nothing in particular, and a hundred men and their families have to starve in consequence.'
'It's not the fault of the system, but of my father's will and my brother's mad temper; but anyhow it is not my fault.'
'Well, your father's will is distinctly part of the system; but, as you say, you are not to blame. No, Ferrier; you are certainly the most hardly done by. As to these "hands," as you call them,qu'importe? It is you who are to be pitied. It is so much harder to be blamed than to starve.'
'What a cool fellow you are, Litvinoff!' Roland laughed, but was yet a little nettled too, for, like all Englishmen, he hated irony. 'You're always mocking at something or somebody. But perhaps you forget that I shall have hardly anything to live on either—a wretched hundred a year or so.'
'A hundred a year,' said the Count, in the tone of one who is dealing with a difficult arithmetical problem, 'is just about two pounds a week. Now the other day you said that two pounds a week was "not so bad" for a man with a family; and, with all your misfortunes, you are not what you English people call "a family man."'