It was the evening of Nan’s birthday, and she and her father sat
together by the fire in the companionable silence possible to people
who are good friends. Good friends they were: understanding each other
unusually well for parent and child, and, more unusual still, realising
and being content to take on trust the great deal that could not be
understood. That evening, however, there was a question in the mind of
one concerning the other. Barmister, absorbed though he appeared to be
in his paper, let his eyes wander now and again to Nan, quietly sewing.
He was thinking of her birthday last year, or, rather, of that which
she had asked of him then. It was the one request she had made of him
which he thought foolish, so far as she herself was concerned. He had
thought so at the time, though he granted it; he thought so now. But he
was by no means sure she was yet convinced she had asked for what was
valueless to her; it crossed his mind that it might be he who had made
the mistake in granting it. He rather wished he knew what she really
did think about it.
“Are you satisfied?” he asked suddenly.—“Satisfied with the present you
asked for last year, or are you disappointed?”
She looked up. “No,” she said, “I’m not disappointed at all.”
He returned to his paper, but over it he continued to watch her as she
went on with her needlework.
“You haven’t made much of a job of Michael yet,” he observed at length.
She laughed. “In twelve months? Why, it takes Fate, with all the powers
of circumstance and providence at command, three score years and ten to
do that for most people!”
“H’m!” he said, and frowned thoughtfully. “I understood that was what
you wanted to do; I thought it was.”
“I know you did, though I never said so. I’m not sure that it was
myself. I’m not really sure what making a job of a person would be, or
if anyone could do it; I almost think not.”
“I certainly think not,” he said emphatically, “and I’ve always thought
not. But I thought you were bent on it—making a success of him, getting
him back to the position he slipped from, and all that. He don’t seem
to have got far on the journey.”
“Not very,” she admitted.
Barmister regarded her from under bent brows. “Don’t you want him to
get back?” he asked. “If you don’t, why did you send him off on the
steamship business? And if you do, why did you have him back again?
What do you want?”
“I want him to do what will turn out best,” she answered, ignoring the
influence assigned to her, and which in a way was correct. In a sense,
she had sent Michael, and had recalled him, though not by conscious
exertion of power, only by seeing it wisest and showing him it was so.
“Do you mind him being here again?” she asked, looking up from her
work. “I thought you did not mind. I thought, when we talked about it
before he definitely gave up with the shipping people, you were rather
glad than not to have him come back.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Barmister said, “it suits me well enough.
I’ve nothing against him; he’s useful to me, in fact, he got to be a
deal more useful before he went than I knew or should have believed
if anyone had told me. So far as I’m concerned, it’s all right to
have him back; he’s settled in just as before, no swelled head from
his late flutter. I dare say there wasn’t so much to swell it, if the
truth was known. The thing that beats me is where you come in. If you
are satisfied, I suppose you’ve got something out of it, though it
certainly isn’t the satisfaction of making a job of him, for that’s not
done. What is it you do want? Him to do what’s best, you say—but why?
Where do you personally come in?”
She considered a moment, then she said, “I don’t quite know. I just
want it, that’s all, I think.”
Barmister said “Humph,” and returned to his paper; but he was not
entirely satisfied. Not dissatisfied as to her honesty, he knew she
was speaking the truth; she always did, her words coincided with her
thoughts and opinions as nearly as she could make them, so nearly that
strangers, used to the less accuracy of ordinary speech, sometimes
mistook them. Barmister recognised that she meant what she said,
no more and no less; she really did not know why she wanted this
thing, but, he felt, that need not prevent the existence of a reason,
unrecognised by her, of which he should not approve. He had a high
opinion of her judgment, unusually high in one of the older generation
for one of the younger. But she was a woman, and a young one, and in
one particular the judgment of such is not to be relied on; while the
quiet persistence of this one was a fact on which he, at least, could
rely. In the past, it is true, he had usually allowed her to choose
for herself, and it had usually answered; she had chosen wisely or
else, when very occasionally she had not, had gained as much in wisdom
learnt. But this case was different: if a mistake were made here, it
was one without remedy, and in the deciding there was a personal
influence to remember, another person concerned—a person with brains
but no money, with abilities and, presumably, ambitions, and moods.
An utterly incalculable person to Barmister: one whose actions and
decisions he could not foresee, but against whom he felt there might
be need to guard. And if guard, then at once. Death is an event the
date of which no man can foretell, but the nature of it in his own case
this one could very well. It would be such, his doctor had warned him,
as would give time for no last words or death-bed arrangements; in
ordinary health one minute, the weakened heart slowing down for death
the next.
“Fetch me my pen,” he said, breaking a long silence, “I want to write a
letter. I’ve half a mind to alter my will.”
Nan fetched it, and the letter was written without further remark from
either of them. Afterwards they talked of other things, business and
their usual interests, until Michael came in.
Michael had been to Hurstbury. He would not have chosen to go, seeing
it was Nan’s birthday, but his father had not been well, and he felt
that he ought. Going home was not especially agreeable since his return
from the Clyde, for that return had been a considerable disappointment
to the Annarlys. Since it they had come to definitely accept him as one
of those—to be found here and there in families—concerning whom the
tactful do not inquire; men of some brilliancy and no staying power,
who promise much at the beginning but in the end have to be kept or
frequently propped up by the more solid members. They did not express
these sentiments to Michael, but he was aware of them, and went to
Hurstbury now only when he thought his father was dull, or not well, or
for some reason in need of his company. In all other respects things
were somewhat as they were before he went away. He had less drawing to
do for the patent agents. During his absence the work had been given
to someone else, and could not on his return be immediately given to
him again. On the other hand, he was called on consultations more than
he had been during the barren months of the spring and summer; not
very frequently certainly, and the occasions were neither important
nor lucrative, still they occurred now and again. For the rest he was
Barmister’s man as before.
“—I’m your father’s clerk,” he said to Nan; “a tolerable one by this
time, I hope—it isn’t a waste if I am; as well to do one thing as
another, if one does it well. Really I think I’d as soon do this
as anything—which, perhaps, is a good thing, since there seems no
competition to ask me to do anything else.”
But, as it happened, in the course of time he was asked to do something
else. It was not a great nor specially suitable offer; one which, in
earlier days, no one would have ventured to make to him, and which,
even quite recently, he would hardly have seriously considered. It came
from old Milligen.
Milligen came to London on business for a few days that winter. Coming
to London was an event in his life, and one which, in spite of age
and infirmities, he made the most of: transacting business, buying a
present for his wife, and going to a music-hall in company with George
Foregood with the serious attention of a man who has a good deal to get
through.
Part of Milligen’s business lay with George: that part was transacted
in Miss Janet’s sitting-room—not the best room, there was no fire
there except on state occasions; also, Miss Foregood would not have
admitted George and a business friend, no matter if he had been a
member of the house of Rothschild, to that apartment for commercial
purposes. She let them have what she called the sitting-room and
betook herself to the kitchen, where she was quite happy and very
busy; taking care, however, before she left, to remove the plush
table-cloth from the centre dining-table. This removal did not offend
Mr. Milligen, he preferred the cloth off; less because he felt more at
liberty in dropping ash and setting down a damp glass on the American
cloth under-cover than because he found a comfortable homeliness in it,
as he did in the horsehair arm-chair in which he sat. He was at home
with these things, and much preferred Miss Janet’s house to his hotel.
Some other people might also; it was cleaner, if nothing else. But
he would have preferred it to any hotel: the Carlton, Claridge’s, or
any other. He could almost fancy himself at home as he and George sat
here and smoked, their glasses beside them, their papers before them,
the air hazy with tobacco, and the window tight shut. It was exactly
the atmosphere in which to talk business, slowly, with opportunity
for digressions and wary goings about the subject, and long tales of
past deals, full savouring it as old men, whose business is their
pleasure—love.
George understood the methods; indeed, he really preferred them to any
others. He had some points in common with old Milligen, at all events,
more than he had with any of the other men with whom he had tried to
deal about his invention. If the old man had the money and enterprise
necessary there was a greater chance of George coming to terms with him
than there was with any of the financiers and wealthy directors with
whom he had, from time to time, been in negotiation.
But only a part of Milligen’s business lay directly with George;
another part lay indirectly, and it was that which touched Michael.
George had, in the first instance, introduced Michael to the warp dyer;
it was he now who was requested to bring him to an interview. The
interview took place in the evening, Michael could not get away before,
and in Miss Janet’s sitting-room, by choice of all parties.
Michael, not aware that the lady of the house, in company with Josiah
and a clock he was anxious to take to pieces, had retired to the
kitchen, presented himself at the appointed time. The small room was
by that time sufficiently suffocating, and he chose a seat as near
the window as he could, hoping that, tight shut though it was, enough
draught would creep through to keep him awake. The two elder men, quite
unaffected by the atmosphere, drew up to the fire and filled their
pipes and their glasses, remarking that the night was raw cold.
When these and various courteous preliminaries were over and the pipes
were alight, Milligen observed, as if now opening the business of the
evening, “I’m an old man, Mr. Annarly——”
“Oldish,” corrected George, who was a year older.
“Old,” repeated Milligen decidedly, “and not getting younger. I’m not
what I used to be, Mr. Annarly; this deuced gout plays Old Harry with
a man, and doctor says—and I don’t suppose he’s lying this time—it’s
goin’ to do it more, a deal more, unless I take care. Well, I don’t
mind telling you, takin’ care isn’t in my line; I shouldn’t bother
about it, not me—but there’s the missus to reckon with. You don’t know
my missus?”
Michael said he had not the pleasure. George snorted; not that he had
anything against Mrs. Milligen, whom he only knew slightly, but he held
the whole genus “missus” in a contempt almost equalled by that which he
had for those who talk of pleasure in connection with them.
Milligen paid him no attention. “You’d like her,” he said to Michael;
“she’s the right sort. But that’s neither here nor there; the thing
is, what’s going to be done about me?”
Michael, though he was a little mystified by the question, gave it
consideration; he always gave matters brought to his notice grave,
careful, and painstaking attention, even when to most people they
were manifestly absurd or quite beyond his scope. It is true, when he
found them so himself, which he did occasionally when others would
not, he sometimes dismissed them with a curtness humiliating to those
who presented them. At the present moment he considered Milligen’s
situation as if it had been his own, and as such began mentally to
devise schemes for dealing with it.
The old man interrupted before he had developed one far enough to speak
of it.
“It was all right before Cooper died,” he said, “or, maybe, not so
wrong. He was a sharp lad, though groovy. He was my foreman—he’d been
with me more’n twenty years; you saw him when you came to my place—had
a red beard and a slight cast in one eye. He died this autumn:
pneumonia, taken off all in a pop; he’s a serious loss to me.”
He sucked at his pipe sadly, and George sucked in sympathy;
appreciation of and regret for a foreman was a sentiment he approved.
But he did not expect Michael to appreciate it from the same point of
view; he never made the mistake of ranking him with himself nor yet
with old Milligen. By some deduction of his own he classed him among
the aristocrats (there are other aristocracies besides those of birth
or money), and he knew such did not look at things as he did. Also,
his experience was that they, whether patient or impatient according
to nature and circumstances, did not understand or appreciate long
digressions.
“Get on, old cock,” he admonished his friend, “get it out.”
“I’ll get it out my own way,” Milligen replied shortly, then, turning
to Michael, he continued with increased sadness, “I’ve no son, and my
sons-in-law are pudding heads. I’m not going to put money into the
pockets of any sons-in-law, not much! Have them round my works—not me!
Besides, they don’t know anything about dyeing. But I want someone,
that’s the point. I want a partner. Not a partner in the ordinary
sense of the word, one that puts a deal o’ money in and wants a deal
more out, and fools round and wants all his own new-fangled way. But a
youngish man with guts and gumption; one that’s content to work the old
ways, and at the same time keeps his eye open for the new and puts in
a thing here and a thing there, as means and opportunity allow. That
place is lookin’ up, the bit of work you did for me has made a new man
of it; we’re going to do something yet. But I’m not what I was, and I’m
goin’ to be less, and I can’t do it single-handed.”
His voice dropped over the last, and he turned to his glass for
consolation. George looked sideways at Michael; his face was not less
surly than usual, but his fierce eyes showed a little anxiety. He was
not moved by pathos; there was only one thing he cared for in the
world, that was his invention; an acute observer might have fancied now
Michael was in some way connected with it and its chance of success.
“He’s thinking of taking it on,” he could not refrain from saying,
nodding towards Milligen as he did so; “my invention, you know.”
“I’m thinking of taking on dyeing in the sliver,” Milligen
corroborated. “That is, if we can come to an arrangement. You’ll say
it’s a funny thing for a man that’s got more’n he can manage as it
is to go out and get more, but there it is. I always had a fancy for
breakin’ out that way; it goes as naturally with warp dyeing as bread
with cheese. The chance has come; you’ve helped to put me on my legs
again; George here’s got the dodge that’s wanted, I’m not goin’ to turn
my back on it. Blessed if I am, gout or no gout!”
Michael agreed heartily, and congratulated George on being near to
making satisfactory terms for his invention.
“You know all about it?” Milligen asked. “What d’you think of it? I’ll
want you to give me a report by’n-by, if you will, two guinea job. I’m
not taking a pig in a poke.”
Michael, a little embarrassed by the presence of his first
acquaintance, the inventor, replied that he would, of course, be
pleased to report, if it were agreeable to both. However, as he soon
saw, there was no need for him to feel any embarrassment, both were
quite comfortable about it.
“You’d better hear what we’re thinkin’ of,” old Milligen said; “you’d
best hear the whole. I’m not buying this thing of George; I’ve not
got the money for that, I’m no syndicate—and it isn’t royalties and
all that. The notion is, he should work it with me, the sliver dyeing
to be worked in along with the warp dyeing, profits on the whole to
be shared, proportions not agreed upon yet, but they will be to the
satisfaction of all parties.”
“I see,” Michael said, “Mr. Foregood will be a sort of junior partner,
the man you were looking for?”
He privately thought George was not the man he would himself have
looked for in that situation. Apart from his age, he had many
disqualifications, not least among them his obstinate and difficult
temper, and the distrustful temperament which made him very unfit to
deal with either new ideas or his fellow-men.
Possibly old Milligen shared these sentiments. “No,” he said bluntly,
and somewhat as if the person mentioned had not been present, “he’s
not the man I’m lookin’ for. He’s the man that’s got the apparatus
for dyeing in the sliver, and a good enough apparatus too, if I know
anything about it. And he’s the man that’s goin’ to look after it, if
I branch out that way, as I’m thinkin’ of doin’, and if we can come to
terms; and he’s the man that’s goin’ to take a share of the profits by
way of payment. But he’s not the man I’m lookin’ for to work in under
me, and make something of the old place. You’re that.”
“I!”
Milligen nodded.
“It isn’t your line; I know that, nor yet your class either; but it’s
my idea all the same.” He turned to George for corroboration, and
George assented gruffly.
“I’ve talked it over with George here,” he said, “up and down, for and
against, likelys and unlikelys; and that’s what it comes to, that’s the
notion. Take it or leave it, and no offence either way: an offer never
hurt anyone, whether it was up to their size or not, and a refusal
hurts no one either among friends.”
“It’s awfully good of you,” Michael said. “I’m very flattered you
should think of me that way; I’m afraid, though, it is little use. I
doubt if I should be much good to you. I know nothing whatever about
dyeing; I am an engineer pure and simple; almost any man who had had a
technical education and a little factory experience would be as well
qualified for your purpose; better, if he had studied chemistry, or
spent six months at a dyer’s.”
“Maybe,” Milligen said. “My experience, Mr. Annarly, is that there’s
two kinds of men in this world, the men that can do things and the men
that can’t—what things not particularly mattering, it’s the can that
matters. I rather think I know which is which of those two kinds when
I meet ’em.”
Michael laughed. “You think I can?” he said. “I’m much complimented,
though I’m not so sure myself. And have you ever thought of the
drawbacks of the men who can? They have an abominable way of working
their own way and nobody else’s; they may mean to take orders and
properly fill a subordinate position in a subordinate way, but more
than half the time it doesn’t come off. They’re the devil to drive;
and when they’re doing the driving you find yourself getting to places
you never thought of. They are always going off their own way almost
without knowing it, and unless they have any amount of rope they don’t
seem as if they could do anything worth the having.”
“Size too big,” George said gruffly; “don’t fit the harness. We know
that fast enough. The job’s not up to you, the old man said that,
didn’t he? We know it, but we thought——. Well, we thought perhaps——”
He stopped awkwardly; he had himself in his way been through the odium
of evil report and the downfall consequent upon falling foul, justly or
otherwise, of a large commercial body.
Michael took the words up for him. “You thought,” he suggested, “that
I might not despise such an offer? You are quite right, I never should
have despised it——” He turned to Milligen. “Very far from it, sir,
I much appreciate it; whether I am suitable or unsuitable, it is a
compliment you have paid me. For that reason, if for no other, I must
ask if you really know my present situation, when you make it. If you
know what there is against me.”
“I’ve heard plenty,” Milligen said, “and”—putting his finger on the
side of his nose—“I believe what I do believe. I mayn’t have had what
you call a first-class education, Mr. Annarly, or be precisely a
genius, still I’m not a born fool. I’m not great on recommends and
characters. When I think of the recommends I’ve had, and given, and I
wouldn’t have trusted the chaps, half of ’em, with an old boot! I like
my own judgment best. I don’t care if you have done Galhardy’s—small
blame to you, I dare say I’d have done it myself, if I’d had the
brain—you won’t do me, I know that. I like you, that’s the truth; I did
from the first. It did my heart good to see you handle the engines, not
to speak of anything else. Your spunk about that power station—that
was a spry bit of work—and all the rest. I know my concern’s not your
class, I said that before, and it’s true; and I’m not your class
either, nor’s George. But I’ve a notion we could work together, and a
notion there’s something in that work that’s not beneath you and your
brains. At all events, there it is. There’s the offer.”
The offer required very much more discussion, explanation, and stating
than this. Milligen and his friend were prepared to spend the whole
evening over it. George had told Miss Janet she need not sit up to turn
the gas out when they had finished, as they should be very late. The
evening was young yet, and, with the minuteness of those with time on
their hands, they went into details with Michael: details of the work,
of George’s apparatus, of future prospects and probabilities; questions
of Michael’s possible position, of the capital he could raise—which
was not more than a hundred pounds, the fruits of a year’s work and
careful saving, and which, even if he felt minded to invest in the
little dyeing business, could hardly be expected to purchase a junior
partnership. In the end nothing definite was arrived at; it was not to
be expected there would be, unless it was a definite refusal.
“You think it over, Mr. Annarly,” old Milligen said at parting. “I’ll
be in town a day longer, and if you can’t make up your mind by then,
why, there’s always the post—though not so satisfactory. You think it
over.”
Michael thanked him, and said he would, then took his leave.
George glowered after his departing figure. “Pity you couldn’t nail him
to anything,” he said; “he’ll go back and talk it over with the girl.”
“What girl?” Milligen had a considerable opinion of feminine
intelligence, but no opinion of its being exerted in the sphere of a
man’s business. “His young lady, do you mean? Is she a high-flyer?”
“No,” George said, “and she’s not his young lady either; she’s just Nan
Barmister, where Josiah works, but he’ll talk to her.”
He did. Therein George’s instinct, sharpened by anxiety for the
welfare of his apparatus which he believed to be bound up in Michael’s
decision, was not at fault. But beyond that he could not go; he could
not predict either what Nan would say or how much or little Michael
would be influenced by it.
No one seeing Nan at the time of the telling would have been able to
forecast either. She listened with attention to the account of the
interview and offer: sitting, elbows on the table, chin propped on
hands, listening, and saying almost nothing till Michael had finished.
“Well,” he said when he had done, “shall I take it, or shall I not?”
She sat silent a minute, her eyes cloudy with thought, then—“Yes,” she
said slowly. “I think I would take it.”
“Do you mean that?” He had put his question half jestingly. In spite of
what he had said, it is doubtful how far he himself seriously regarded
the offer yet. That she should do so, and come to an early, but
evidently considered, decision in favour of it astonished him.
“Why do you say that?” he asked. “What’s your reason?”
“I hardly know,” she answered thoughtfully. “I have one, I suppose,
though it won’t put itself into words. It seems somehow as if the time
had come to do something; it has seemed so a little while, now this has
come along. I have a feeling—though it may be wrong, probably it is if
you feel against it—that this may be the thing to do.”
He did not say he felt against it. He looked doubtful—not
sceptical—such reasons and influences had more weight for him than for
many lesser brains; he never scouted them.
“It isn’t a great thing, this offer,” he warned her; “boiled down it
amounts to little more than foreman in a small dyeing works in a small
Midland town among small people.”
“I know,” she agreed: “it doesn’t sound much, it isn’t either; but I’m
not sure that matters—are you?”
“I suppose not,” he said. “No, I don’t think I care much what the kind
of life is really, but the kind of work there wouldn’t be much either.
There would be to see George Foregood’s invention put on a working
basis, and to superintend the warp dyeing, no more than that.”
“I know,” she said again; “still, I almost think it is worth while.”
“I wonder?” he said. “After all, it is a definite place in the world,
a definite piece of work—not that which I was trained for and thought
I was cut out for; I may as well give up the last ghost of any thought
of that—still, something. A couple of old men, one pig-headed, the
other soured and cross-grained, a dilapidated collection of buildings,
plant that is a good deal scrap, no capital to speak of, and a job and
process of which I know little and care less. It doesn’t look much;
yet, I own, in a way, the place attracted me when I first went there.
I dare say it sounds silly—not to you, things don’t to you—but the
ramshackle place and the pottery, shrewd old man did attract me at the
first. I had a sort of feeling one might make something of it.”
She nodded. “That is it,” she said. “I think that’s what I feel.”
Whereupon he naturally swung back to the opposite view and protested
that there could not really be anything made of it. “A small living,”
he said, “in a small way perhaps, and a comfortable end for the old
boy. Though, after all, I suppose, that is something.—Do you know, I
have half a mind to go into it!”
For a little he turned the matter, weighing its pros and cons, speaking
them aloud, but without seeking any answer or comment; really putting
them to himself, not her. In the end the balance was in favour.
“—Though,” so he said, “it is useless to have any delusion about it;
there are no possibilities in the concern.”
“No,” she agreed, “not in the concern; that’s why smallness, or
largeness, or anything else does not really matter. The possibilities
are not in it, they are in you.”