Carstairs went straight from the works to Dr Jameson's private house.
The Doctor was seriously ill and could not be seen, so he went back
to his diggings in deep thought. "Better go home and see the guv'nor
before I do anything now. Oh, the fearful and wonderful British
law," he thought to himself. He saw the landlady and gave notice.
"Have you got another appointment, Mr Carstairs?" she asked.
"No, I've got the sack," he answered.
"Oh!" she said. "Has Mr Darwen--" she stopped; she wanted to know
all about it, but did not know how to ask.
"Mr Darwen has sacked me, yes," he said; Carstairs was a most
unsatisfactory subject for a woman to tackle, he left so much to the
imagination. "I shall leave about three o'clock on Monday
afternoon," he explained, as a conclusion to the subject. He
produced his drawing board and settled down to do a good afternoon's
work on his slowly evolving patent. As he bent low over the board,
scrutinizing some fine detail work, his eye caught an extra pin-hole
on the edge of the clean white board. He dug the point of his pencil
thoughtfully into it. "That's funny," he said to himself. "I don't
remember to have done that." He looked around at the three other
corners and saw pin-holes in all of them. It was a new board and he
had never had a sheet of paper on it of the size indicated by the
pin-holes. "Some devil has been taking a tracing of this, our
esteemed friend, Darwen, or his agents, no doubt." He leaned back in
his chair in deep thought for a time, then he bent forward and set to
work vigorously again.
He was still busy when the landlady's daughter brought in his tea.
He looked up casually and caught her eye bent on his work with
extreme interest. "Good evening, Miss Hughes," he said.
"Good evening, Mr Carstairs," she answered, and she had summoned up a
defiant sort of air to meet his eye.
Carstairs' face was like the Sphinx. "I'm going up to London
to-morrow. Would you mind letting me have breakfast at half-past
six? I shall come back by the eleven twenty, but I've got a very
important piece of work here I want to finish before I go, so please
don't let me be disturbed for the rest of the evening."
"Certainly, Mr Carstairs. Half-past six, and I'll see no one
disturbs you."
"Thanks very much." Carstairs regarding her steadily with his calm,
inquiring eyes, caught a gleam in hers that she did not want to be
seen; he gave no sign, and she went away quite oblivious of the fact
that he had read her like an open book.
Next day he went off to London and saw his lawyer brother; they
talked over his case against Darwen, and his brother very quickly
decided that he had "no case." So Carstairs returned, and in the
stillness of the wee sma' hours he examined the drawing again, and
found, as he expected, four more pin-holes. He did not smile; when
in company his mirth was seldom excessive, when alone, his features
never for one second relaxed their attitude of calm seriousness. He
replaced the drawing board in its position, leaning against the wall
behind the piano, and went to bed.
The following Monday he called at the office for his month's pay. He
waited at the little shutter that the men were paid at, while the
office boy went to fetch a clerk who fetched another clerk, who
consulted with the first clerk, and called a third clerk and sent the
office boy for a book and a pen, then they all three consulted
together again and reprimanded the office boy before handing the
cheque through the little shutter. Which entire rigmarole was the
outcome of insufficient work, and too sufficient pomposity. While
Carstairs waited, Darwen opened the door of his office.
"Hullo, old chap, come inside. Here, Morris, bring that cheque along
with you." He held out his hand.
Carstairs ignored it. "Thanks, I won't stay, I'm just going off to
Chilcombe."
Darwen laughed. "A Saxon," he said, "is an individual who proceeds
along 'strait' lines. I was going to ask you to come home with me
this evening. The mater would like to see you."
"Thanks very much. I should like to see your mother, but I'm afraid
I can't stop this evening."
The clerk brought out the cheque. Darwen took it and, glancing over
it, handed it on to Carstairs. "There you are, old chap. I'm sorry
it's the last."
Carstairs took it. "Thanks," he said. "Good-bye," and turning on
his heel he went out for the last time.
Darwen watched him through the window as he walked down the street
with his long swinging stride. "The reason, personified, of why
England owns half the earth," he said, to himself. "And equally the
reason that she doesn't own the whole of it," he added, thoughtfully.
He lay back in his chair and gazed far into the future, mental
pictures in many colours shaped themselves in kaleidoscopic
procession across the white expanse of ceiling. For half an hour he
sat thus, then sitting suddenly upright, and drawing in his
outstretched legs, he plunged back into the present among the papers
on his table.
Some six months later, in the dining-room at Chilcombe Vicarage,
there was held a family council of war. The old vicar was there,
Commander Carstairs was there, Phillip and Stanley Carstairs were
there, and they all looked serious. For six months Jack Carstairs
had been applying for each and every one of the multitudinous
appointments advertized in the technical papers, with no results; he
had learned through the same medium that Darwen had been appointed to
one of the London stations at £750 per annum, to start; and that
evening he had returned from making personal application for a very
junior appointment at £1 per week in a neighbouring town. The chief
(of German antecedent), the personification of ignorance and bombast,
had catechized and bullied him, cross-examined and contradicted him,
and finally abruptly refused him the billet.
Jack was speaking, and they all listened attentively. "When a German
ex-gasfitter, with a little elementary arithmetic and less electrical
catalogue information, talks to me as though he were a miniature
Kaiser and I the last-joined recruit of his most unsatisfactory
regiment, and then refuses me a switchboard attendant's job on
technical grounds, then, I admit, my thoughts lightly turn to robbery
with violence as a recreation and means of livelihood. He'd have
liked me to say 'yes, sir,' and 'no, sir,' and 'please, sir,' and
touch my cap and grovel in the dirt. I'd see him in hell first."
"I always said, Hugh, you ought to have put that boy in the Service,"
the sailor interjected, quite seriously.
The others smiled, a wry, sickly sort of smile.
"Can't we--er--don't we know somebody with some influence on these
councils who would use it on Jack's behalf." It was the artist who
spoke.
The young engineer stood up suddenly with unwonted passion. "Damn
it! I'm not a blasted mendicant! I'm a competent engineer! It's no
use talking rot about modesty. I know what I have done and can do
again. I say I'm a competent engineer. I've been getting two
hundred and fifty quid a year, and earning it, saving it for the
people who paid me. And I am willing to take a quid, one blasted
quid a week, and I can't get it. I'm not going to beg for my own
cursed rights. In all those hundreds of jobs I've applied for, I
must have been the best man on my paper form alone. If I can't live
as an engineer in my own cursed country, then, by God! I'll steal."
He turned on his father with blazing eyes. "I say, I'll steal, and
if any blundering idiot or flabby fool tries to stop me, I'll kill
him dead. The first law of life is to live. What do you say to
that? You preach platitudes from the pulpit every Sunday, what have
you to say to the logic of the engine room?"
The old vicar smiled, somewhat sorrowfully. "I might say that you
are possessed of a devil," he said, with quiet humour. "Your
engineering experience ought to tell you that it's no use ramming
your head against a brick wall."
Jack sat down. "That's so," he said, "there's an obstruction
somewhere; the thing to do is to find it out and remove it."
"I tell you, Hugh! the initial mistake was in not putting that boy
into the Service; though there's a maxim there that promotion comes
80 per cent. by chance, 18 per cent. by influence, and 2 per cent. by
merit."
"That's rot, you know, unless you mean to say that 18 per cent. of
the men in the Service are snivelling cheats."
The sailor was thoughtful. "There are some cheats in the Navy, but
not many; as a rule it's not the man's own fault that he is promoted
by influence. At the same time you can't afford to get to loo'ard of
your skipper, much depends on one man's word, but that man is usually
a----"
"Sportsman," Jack interrupted.
"Well! 'an officer and a gentleman' they call him. The Service would
have suited you."
"My dear uncle, I have all respect for the Service, but at the same
time I should not wish to be anything but an engineer, and engineers
in the Service at the present time are somewhat small beer. Anyway,
as a money-making concern, the Service don't pan out anything great.
Bounce told me that the seamen haven't had a rise in pay since
Nelson's time."
The sailor laughed. "That's a good old A.B.'s growl," he said. "I
gather, too, that engineering is not panning out so very great as a
money-making concern just now."
"No! you're right. I'm a bit sick when I think of it, too, it's
rather sickening. I've got a model upstairs of an engine that would
make any man's fortune, and I can't get the fools to take it up. I
think I shall have to break away for the States."
They were all silent for some minutes till the old vicar rose.
"Shall we go to bed?" he said, and they proceeded upstairs, solemnly,
silently, in single file.
The weeks passed away and Jack's uncle went back to sea, and his
brothers returned to London, and another brother came and went. The
winter changed to spring, the days lengthened out and grew brighter,
and still Jack Carstairs could get nothing to do, nor get any one to
take up his patent. Then one morning amongst the two or three
letters awaiting him was one with a penny stamp: the ha'penny ones he
knew were the stereotyped replies of the various municipalities to
the effect that they "regretted" his application had not been
successful; it was a way they had, they sent these things with a sort
of grim humour about a month after he had seen by the papers that
some one else had been appointed; it wasn't very often they went to
the extravagance of a penny stamp for a refusal, so he opened that
first, glancing casually at the city arms emblazoned on the flap of
the envelope; enclosed was a typewritten letter, he was appointed
switchboard attendant at £1 per week.
Carstairs gazed at it sternly with bitter hatred of all the world in
his heart. "A blasted quid," he said, aloud. "Ye gods! a quid a
week! And Darwen, the cheat, is getting £750." He hadn't fully
realized when he was writing his applications for these small
appointments, exactly the extent of his fall; but now, as he had it
in typewritten form before his eyes, and signed, he looked again,
signed by a man who had served his time with him.
Mrs Carstairs was humbly thankful for small mercies, but the old
vicar, whom Jack found alone in his study, looked into his son's eyes
and read the bitterness of soul there. "Do you think it would be
wise to refuse and wait for something better. This is your home you
know. You can work on your patent."
"I thought of all that before I applied," Jack answered. "The
patent! The path of the inventor seems the most difficult and thorny
path of all."
The old man's eyes brightened; he liked the stern definiteness of his
youngest son. "It does seem hard," he said. "I don't understand
these things, but I think you are wise to take this appointment."
"Oh, yes! I have no idea of refusing, but when I think that that
lying cheat, Darwen, is getting £750 a year, it makes me feel pretty
sick."
"I know, Jack; we see these things in the Church the same as
everywhere else; the cheat seems sometimes to prosper. Why it should
be so, I cannot comprehend; the cheat must inevitably cheat himself
as the liar lies to himself, so that they both live in a sort of
fool's paradise; they both unaccountably get hold of the wrong end of
the stick; they imagine that they are successful if they satisfy
others that they have done well, while the only really profitable
results ensue when one satisfies oneself that one has done well; then
and only then, can real intellectual, moral, and physical, progress
follow. It is possible to imagine a being of such a low order of
morality that he could feel a real intellectual pleasure in
outwitting his fellow-men by cheating; such an one, it seems to me,
must be very near the monkey stage of development. As man progresses
intellectually he sets his intellect harder and harder tasks to
perform, else he declines. It is possible that the cheat may
occasionally reap very material and worldly advantages by his
cheating. Some few apparently do, though the number must be
extremely small and the intellectual capacity exceedingly great, for
they are constantly pitted, not against one, but against the whole
intellect of the world, including their brother cheats. The rewards
and the punishments alike, in the great scheme of the Universe, are
spread out unto the third and the fourth generation; the progeny of
the cheat, in my experience, decline in intellect and moral force
till probably the lowest depths of insanity and idiocy are reached.
This great law of punishment for the sins of the fathers is beyond my
mental grasp, but that it is so I cannot doubt; it is in fact, to me,
the greatest proof that there must be something beyond the grave.
You understand, Jack, I'm not in the pulpit, this is worldly wisdom,
but I want to set these things before you as they appear to me. You
must forget Darwen; you reap no profit from his success or failure,
but you expend a large amount of valuable energy in brooding over it.
'Play up, and play the game,' Jack. Don't cheat because others are
cheating, if you do you are bound to become less skilful in the real
game. Think it over, Jack, 'Keep your eyes in the boat,' don't think
about the other crew or the prize, simply 'play the game.' Have you
told your mother you're going?"
"Yes."
"Did you say you wanted to borrow some of my books?"
"No, thanks. I've got all the books I want. You've seen my two
packing cases full."
"Ah, yes! I'd forgotten. So you're going to-morrow. That's rather
soon, isn't it?"
"I told them that if appointed I'd start at once. I'm going to pack
and then whip round and say good-bye to my friends."
"Ah, of course. I'll see you off in the morning; six o'clock, did
you say?"
"Yes, six ten at the station."
So Jack took his hat and stick and strolled round to his few friends
in the village to tell them he was going. The Bevengtons were
furthest away, and he called there last. Bessie had been away in
London and other places, nearly all the time he had been home, when
he called now she was home. He had heard she was coming.
"I've come to say good-bye, Mrs Bevengton. I've got a job, and I'm
going up north again."
They both looked pleased; Mrs Bevengton really liked Jack. "When are
you going?" she asked.
"To-morrow morning."
Bessie's jaw dropped, she was keenly disappointed, and she looked,
Jack thought, in the pink of condition, more so than usual.
"I hope it's a good appointment, Jack," Mrs Bevengton said; she was
disappointed too.
"A quid a week," he answered, bluntly, looking at her steadily.
Her jaw dropped also. "Oh, but I suppose it will lead on to better
things."
"Twenty-five bob at the end of six months," he said, with rather a
cynical little smile. Out of the tail of his eye he regarded Bessie,
she had flushed a deep red at the mention of his microscopical
salary. She seemed more matured, her manner impressed him with a
sense of responsibility, an air of definiteness that appealed to him
immensely; he saw now that her lips closed suddenly. She had made up
her mind to something.
"Come on out for a walk, Jack," she said. "I haven't had a look
round the old place for nearly a year. We shall be back to tea,
mother."
She got her hat and they walked briskly down the pleasant village
street in the glorious spring sunshine; every one they passed greeted
them with civility and respect. Jack regarded them with pleasure; he
told Bessie they were the stiffest, hardest, and most genuinely civil
crowd he had ever encountered. "Perhaps I'm biassed," he said, "but
I like men and these chaps appeal to me more than any others I've met
so far."
They turned across the fields and went more slowly. "I've been
having a good time, Jack, while I've been away."
"So I expect," he answered.
"Well, I've been to a lot of dances and parties and theatres, etc. I
suppose I've enjoyed it--in a way."
"Yes, I should think you would--in most ways."
"Jack!" she was walking very slowly. "Two men--three men, asked me
to marry them."
"Ah! I suppose they were not the right ones." He did not quite know
what to say.
"Well, two of them were not--but one of them--it was Mr Darwen."
"Good Lord!" Jack turned as though he had been shot. "Are you going
to marry him?"
"I don't quite know. I've come home to decide. I don't think I care
for him in quite the right way. Why did he break off his engagement
to Miss Jameson?"
"Ah--er--I--" Carstairs was thinking, thinking, thinking. He
wondered what to do and what to say.
"He told me that he thought he was in love with her till he saw me,
then he knew he wasn't."
"Er--yes."
"He's very nice and very handsome, still I know I don't care for him
as--as I do for some one else."
Carstairs was silent, he was trying to think. The situation was
getting beyond him, he had a fleeting idea of trying to change the
subject, of closing the matter; but he knew that once closed it could
never be re-opened, and he wanted to do the right thing. They were
silent for some minutes.
"Jack?" she asked, and the struggle was painful. "Has my money made
any difference to you?"
"Half a minute!" he said, hastily. "Don't say any more, please. Let
me think"--he paused--"Five years ago I met a girl in Scotland."
"And you love her, Jack?"
"Yes. I thought not at one time, but I know now that I do."
They walked for a long time in silence, then she spoke.
"I'll write to Mr Darwen to-night and tell him that if he likes to
wait a long, long time, I'll marry him," she said.
Carstairs was silent; the great big English heart of him was torn
asunder.
"Why don't you speak, Jack? Mr Darwen's your friend, isn't he? He's
handsome and so kind and attentive, and if he cares for me as--as he
says he does, I think I ought to marry him. I couldn't before, but
now--don't you think I ought?"
"Well, er--it's more a question for the guv'nor. Will you let me
explain the situation to him, and then he'll see you. The guv'nor's
very wise, in these things, and it's his province, you know. I
should like you to talk to him."
"Thanks--thanks. I will."
That night Jack Carstairs sat up very late with his father in his
study. And next morning the train whisked him north, to the dim,
grey north, and the engines, and the steam, and the hard, hard men,
mostly engineers. Jack was very sad and silent in his corner of a
third-class carriage all the way.